Cake with Paper Lions, September 25th 2008

My sister and I.

Paper Lions

Cake

The trumpet dude from Cake.

Cake again!

Today I discovered that I can probably pee harder than these new water efficient shower heads.

As lame as it may sound, "The Secret" may actually have a point...

I get the sense sometimes that my life is on a train track. There's twists and turns and different settings and people but in the end it's all preplanned, on a defined course. We're so worried about so much stuff and in the end we already know what happens: we die. I'm not trying to be morbid but it's just the reality of it. I just get the sense that whatever happens it'll all be fine and it doesn't really matter because I'm just chugging away on these "rails" and I'll end up at the same destination.

Man, I think I've been watching too much Six Feet Under.

I really don't understand what happened. It seemed like I had a pretty good idea of what usually is going on around me and was able to manage it pretty good, but I find myself more and more into these really confusing situations. I'm starting to think that I'm putting myself in these, that it is all of my own doing. We all like to think that we are pretty smart and usually make smart decisions but recently it seemed like I'm like King Midas except everything I touch turns to shit. I can't seem to convey or act in a manner that I feel really represents, well, me. I seem to have emotions that are reactive instead of smart. Everything kind of happens so fast and it all just spirals out of control. My strongest resolve just pretty much turns to dust in a manner of minutes and everything I've worked to accomplish just goes to shit.

I was thinking today about how everything always seems to work out in the end, and I was pondering the validity of that statement. Does everything really work out or is it just some motivational crap we tell ourselves to make all of the pain and suffering somehow worth it? Isn't life really a roller coaster where our good times are defined by our bad times? Or do things really work out for the best? I guess it goes back to my many theories about happiness and attaining it.

It's funny how it always seems to go back to that for me. I mean, I get it... We should stop focusing on what we don't have, we should just let go and enjoy what we do have. Yes, we all want to do that. I don't think I'm someone who doesn't want to be happy so I'm not. I really do think that I can achieve happiness, it just seems that whatever way I try to, it doesn't work. That also means that I'm not giving up on finding that happiness. Maybe I'm trying to be happier. I could do a whole laundry list of why I should be happy, but then I could do a whole laundry list of how I could be happier. Does this mean I don't appreciate what I have? Probably at times to some extent I don't appreciate, but then again if we get complacent with what we have, doesn't that deny us to possibility of gaining more? Or is it really jealousy, where we see that star, we want it now and we don't care how?

I'm realistic in the fact that I know that even if I had everything I wanted right now, it wouldn't be perfect. Would I be happier? Probably, but then again for how long? Does it matter? It's not like we can stay status quo. Even if we know in the future we won't be satisfied, we still do what we need to for the immediate fix. I wonder how many kids were born because of that train of thought.

I'm just fucking frustrated right now. I just want to be able to regain some kind of control in my life, but it seems that the more I try, the more I fuck up. I don't expect everything to happen overnight but it seems that every step I take forward, I do something to fuck it up and take two steps back.

Johnny Fontane: Oh, Godfather, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.
Don Corleone: [shouts] You can act like a man!
[he slaps Johnny]
Don Corleone: What's the matter with you. Is this how you turned out? A Hollywood finocchio that cries like a woman.
[Don Corleone imitates him sobbing]
Don Corleone: "What can I do?"
[cut to Tom who is laughing]
Don Corleone: "What can I do?" What is that nonsense. Ridiculous.

- The Godfather, 1972

I think it's time that I listen to the Godfather.

False hope or unreasonable expectations?