"...but I'm trying, Ringo."

"It's not that I'm afraid of it, I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward, and then go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say ok...I'll be part of this world."
--No Country for Old Men

A lot of the things I say in this forum overlap, perhaps even to the point of being repetitive. But that's because I decided to keep this record of my thoughts more out of selfishness than anything else. I wanted to be able to look back on it all at some unidentified point in the future. Call it a mental timeline, maybe even a growth chart if I'm lucky.
When all is said and done, I want basically what everyone else does. I want to live a life that's worth bringing others into. But if you're gonna do something like that, you have to do it right.
That means you have to choose very wisely who you bring in. Especially inasmuch as having a family is concerned. I talk a lot about women because I need one for this plan to work. But present times find a lot of substance left to desire. Potential, frozen and wasted. I'm trying not to be such myself, because that's not what I want for my family.
A while back a friend of mine asked me how it is that I, being one of the lazier people I know, find the motivation to go to the gym with any sort of regularity. I told him, that aside from it being good for the health and all of that, I find motivation in that if and when I ever find a woman to settle down with, I'm surely going to encourage that she keep herself in respectable physical condition, so the very least I can do is satisfy my own standards, or at least attempt to so not to be a total hypocrite. The books I read, some of the movies and television I watch, voluntarily subjecting myself to law school, this was not done for my health. Much of that is done with an eye towards preparedness. I read books that I feel like I can learn something from, not just for myself, but because if I have it my way, I will have a family one day, and kids ask a lot of questions. I won't be able to respond to all of them, but I at least have to be able to point them to the answer.
I jam on girls cause I'm sick of this shit. It's bedlam out there. People are walking around talking crazy and acting reckless, thinking of nothing that can't be used for pleasure, hedonism. Acting as if life is a dress rehearsal to a play, and the curtains haven't drawn yet, so in the meantime take whatever role you like. This is wrong. A few weeks ago I met this girl through a friend, also a law student. She spoke of the dearth of suitable young men available these days. I told her that I can imagine her plight. She went on to detail more what she meant by suitable. "Yea, I mean he has to be smart, and have himself together and have an education and a career, and all of that." She paused for a brief return to her Newport 100 cigarette, "...but if the dick ain't all there, neither am I." I nodded and excused myself to the kitchen where I had left a bottle of scotch that suddenly didn't look like it could help me anymore. I worry that I just don't understand, that time waits for no man, and it's snaking, and winding past me. I fear we're putting our souls at hazard.

I do, say, and most certainly think quite a bit about what many people may term 'weird shit'. But I do it all for a reason, or most of it anyway. I try to keep my eyes forward so I can see what's coming. Sometimes my eyes reach far enough to see problems coming, giving me time to swerve out of the way. But some problems are big, bigger than the whole horizon, and you just know that sooner than you think it's gonna be all you can see. That's when the ol' thinker starts kicking in, trying to come up with ways around it, or through it, or if you can't do that, ways to mitigate the damage. The point is, eventually life is gonna become real. A lot more real than it is now, and my actions, the things I do and say and think will stop affecting only me. They will affect those that depend on me. So I simply have to be ready.
So in a nutshell, that's what my aim is, in most of the things I do. I like to think other people are on the same page. But from where I'm standing it's mighty hard to see.