a new carbon footprint

confession: i'm one of those wierdies who goes grocery shopping once every week.

what can i say? i like my fruit and milk fresh. so sue me.

i usually go on a set day (monday or wednesday) and i normally get the same list of things. the folks at buehlers probably think i'm a little off. and that's always what i'm thinking that they're thinking as i'm unloading those same few items onto the conveyor every week.

one particular week, the particular high school guy bagging my particularly random food items remarked at the hip, enviro-friendly cloth grocery bags i had just so recently purchased. he asked if i got them for the environment. "yea," i said, "just trying to do my part, ya know." he gave me some props and i went on my merry way.

well, as it turns out, i wasn't done with this kid yet since he was also the grocery-loading-guy outside as well (it was right before closing time). so as he was setting down a case of water bottles in my backseat, he asked if i recycled them too. "absolutely," i answered, "i drive by that disgusting landfill everyday and i can't imagine not at least attempting to limit the amount of crap i personally contribute to it's stench". "yea, me too," he replied, "it's weird though, because my parents don't even care. their generation just doesn't seem to get it." hmm, i had never thought about that before. i began to drive away and then suddenly realized that i had just talked about environmental responsibility with a high schooler.

a high schooler.

wow, so apparently this generation really is different. i'm still evaluating whether i am actually included in the same generation as that kid. but he was right, our parents really don't seem to get it. and the unfortunate truth is, we are going to pay for their mistakes, just as they paid for their parent's mistakes, and their parents before them. right now we are dealing with the consequences of the decisions our parents' and grandparents' generations have made. decisions that are ultimately harming this planet. and now we will be accountable to our children--and even to God, i believe--for how we will live while we we've been given this short span of time here on earth.

alright, well that's not even the main point of this post, lest you think i am careening into tree-hugging territory. maybe another day. this whole business of our carbon footprint, though, got me thinking in another direction. see, when you make an actual footprint in the dirt, you are displacing the earth around you. the ground moves out of the way until it has successfully equalled your weight (or density, i suppose) and pushes back. it's like buoyancy, if something floats it's because the water has put enough force on the object it's surrounding that it essentially allows that object to "carve out it's space" within it. if something sinks, it's because the water doesn't have a significant enough reciprocating force to even out the object's weight. follow?

since we humans are "carbon-based" (18.5% carbon, to be exact), i began to think about how each one of us has the ability to leave impressions in those around us (to complete my little analogy). some are positive, some negative. which made me realize, it's not just an ability. it's actually a responsibility.

and so, this is where i probably need to make another confession: lately i've felt like i've been a fairly significant non-force on those people around me. it started a few years ago, i suppose. i had this nice little string of setbacks that i felt like God could have handled a little better. i mean, c'mon God, get with the program, right? so, layer by layer, i started to remove myself from responsibility. i was burnt out and needed a break, and i didn't feel that worthy to be displacing any part of myself into other people anyways. i felt like i didn't have any significant forces lifting me up, so how could i reciprocate that in someone else?

all the while, the years kept ticking off and that significant force still hadn't made itself known. i kept praying that i would come back around like i always tended to do. or that God would himself lift me from the depths my little stone of a life sunk to. i kept waiting. and kept sinking.

then i remembered there's this other property to buoyancy. see, water has a tendency of making heavy objects feel lighter. even if a rock sinks, that rock has become lighter just by the simple fact that it's immersed in water. so while i don't feel all fancy free and floating above life's troubles all the time, i do feel lighter. each new day, i discover a little more of God's grace and as a result i discover a little bit more that i can impress onto another person.

it was then i realized that i was going to have to be the one to take that first step. i had to make that initial push before there could be reciprocation. the dirt can only push up against the sole of the shoe after the shoe has pushed into it. after that, it's just nature. it's just physics and dirt. it works itself out.

to live unto yourself is to not really live at all. so then, what are we doing if we're not displacing ourselves on those who surround us everyday? if we're not impressing our very souls on a new and coming generation, then we're not really changing anything. but if we do our part, the rest will take care of itself. we don't have to change the world, after all. we just have to change our own.

sometimes i wonder if recycling my plastic bottles and using my new little grocery bags really makes that much of a difference in such a big, big world. but then i think about that high school kid.

and then i think about footprints.

p.s. - this was my "hurry-and-get-a-post-in-before-the-end-of-the-month" entry, in case you were wondering.

leaving/staying

sometimes you just need to go where nobody knows your name.

recently for me, that place was southern california.

california, that lovely land where the humidity stays thin but the dreams are thick enough you can cut them with a knife. it's an enchanting place. like a siren on the beach, drawing you in closer and closer only to leave you dashed across her shores.

los angeles is a maddening city. this is my fourth trip to so-cal and the only time i've rented a car. if the cost of living didn't keep me away from LA, the traffic definitely would. my main reason for braving the insanity this time was to visit my good friend joe who is trying to have a go of this whole "making it big" thing in hollywood. we both agreed that if you weren't pursuing a dream in this crazy city, you'd be right mad to only subsist here.

so, in the interest of being true to our country-boy roots, we absconded and headed north up the coast in search of inner reflection and a few worthy tales to tell. we straddled the PCH for several hundred miles and touched down in malibu, ventura, san luis obispo and a few other exotic locales (to us, anyways). it was refreshing and dare i say, enlightening. i think the pacific coast has a way of engendering such notions in we common, landlocked folk.

before i left, i started reading donald miller's through painted deserts. at one point he talks about the need to leave what is familiar before you can truly see your situation in life for what it is.

It's interesting how you somtimes have to leave home before you can ask difficult questions, how the questions never come up in the room you grew up in, in the town in which you were born. It's funny how you can't ask difficult questions in a familiar place, how you have to stand back a few feet and see things in a new way before you realize nothing that is happening to you is normal.

i've found that i need these little retrospectives now and again. it reestablishes my place in life. it re-formats my mind and resets my defaults back to zero. back to where they no doubt should be. life is too big and too fast for us to let it slip by without absorption.

i think we could all use a good trip up the coast when we start to feel ourselves losing grip on things. just a simple excursion where you don't give a thought to where you're going or when you get there. a chance to just appreciate the journey for what it is and let the destination figure itself out.

just don't get any funny ideas about actually staying there.

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pictures from my aformentioned california adventure are available for viewing here.

i'm a mac.

i've officially converted.

last week i became the proud owner of a 24" iMac. this screen is larger than life, friends. i don't even know how i'll begin to find things to fill up it's 2,304,000 pixels of glorious color.

i've got a few ideas, though.

i know i'm several years behind in the mac fad. i've historically lagged behind the trends. i got a super nintendo when nintendo 64 came out, for instance. i didn't get an ipod until 2006 (yes, that is in the current century). and i still don't have an iphone. get with the program, eh? well, my contract is up next year.

one apple at a time, folks, one at a time.

i'm 27 years old...and i am now a mac.

in addendum

in the interest of promoting beatiful music, i'm going to spread the reach of my previous post a little wider. instead of just friends, i'm including a few loose aquaintances as well:

• perhapsy - i just started listening to this today and am a big fan already. relation: i spent a few weeks on the road with derek while he was with the winston jazz routine and i with state bird.
• aaron roche - i'm amazed at the honest and gentle music aaron continues to make. he's a rare find. relation: i once spent the night at his house in nashville while on tour. he and his wife were most hospitable.
• brian militana/fell trees - spellbinding. breathtaking. this album continues to haunt me. relation: played on the same bill at a show in nashville. that night, derek nailed it when he asked: "is this what it [felt] like to see Johnny Cash for the first time?"
• the non - i have pimped these guys non-stop (heh!) ever since i first heard them. relation: played a show together with them in their hometown of oklahoma city.

in response to this cascade of inspiration, i began digging out my recording gear from it's winter hibernation this past weekend. one of the main reasons for getting my own place was so that i could dedicate more time to writing and recording. i'm 1/6th of the way through 2009 and i have nothing to show for it so far. this is not good progress. i hope to make up for it in the month of march.

i'm even thinking about cancelling my cable. now, that's dedication.

creation/sedation

a few days ago, i just so happened to stumble across an old blog of mine. it always makes for an entertaining read whenever i remember that demonstrations of my past inner ramblings are still publicly viewable. i started it in the winter of '03 when i was just a spry and naive 21 years old. xanga was really taking off in those days and was pretty much the hub of all my pre-myspace and facebook online activity (side note: it's funny how the internet goes through different "movements", isn't it?). i dutifully continued my blogging from then until sometime in the early summer of '06 which, thankfully, was a summer i'm particularly glad i didn't recount.

i still cringe at my utter and complete nerdiness during that era of my life. but looking back now, that blog serves as a great reminder, as well as a timeline, of days that would prove to be key in shaping who i am. for that, i guess i'm not so ashamed of my geeky postings as i am proud that i was so faithful in writing on it so often. obviously, i'm having a problem with consistency these days (re: the time between postings on this page).

i think that's because writing, in it's essence, is creating. and creating is just, flat-out hard work.

it takes time. and writing on a computer takes purposed time in front of a computer. i spend nearly my entire work day in front of an lcd monitor. so, the last thing my eyeballs enjoy doing every evening is cooking even longer in a soup of gajillions of red, green and blue pixels. writing for me has always come fairly easily but for some reason finding the time and desire to do so hasn't been quite as achievable.

i also think there's a misnomer out there that creating is this free-flowing rush of inspiration and ideas. a frenzy of non-stop imaginative motion. i think a person could get to that place in time, but it takes that initial push and shove to get going. which is pretty much like any other endeavor in life, i suppose. it takes initiative and the passion to push us through when life's many distractions and temptations move us away from our first loves.

oh, and it also helps if you don't have a job. i've been lucky to have a good job but it's one that slowly saps my optimal mental energy during the best hours of the day. when i get home, i have vast stores of physical energy saved up from a day of being pent up in a fabric-covered corner office dwelling. and i feel primed and ready to conquer these great ideas i have in my head. but when it comes time to convert that potential energy into positive, forward motion, my brain taps out.

and then i wake up.

and i'm sitting in front of my tv. or that ever-engrossing entity known as facebook. and the day is gone. and 2-1/2 years are gone. and i don't know what i did of worth in that period of time. nor do i have a record to verify that i was even alive and thinking during that time.

i guess the one thing that keeps these wild-eyed ideas alive in me--the thing that keeps me going--is the glut of creative people i've been surrounded with over the years. this kind of energy has a way of rubbing off and serving as inspiration itself. most of them i consider friends; some i've just rubbed shoulders with for a short amount of time. whether they be writers/thinkers/norm-challengers like dave, aaron, jess (& jim), colleen; musicians/melody-makers/sonic-soundscape-shapers like coby, caleb, nathan, chris; or artists/experience-designers/technicolor-visionaries like joe, craig, seth, mallory; they've inspired me simply by who they are.

whether they know it or not, they have within themselves the God-granted ability of converting an otherwise Indefinable Beauty into a much more tangible glory. it's no less wonderful, it's just a glory that the human soul can more easily comprehend.

and make no mistake, that ability is within us all. for we are created in His image. and our God is a magnificent creator.

i pray that this will serve as a reminder of that God-given ability in you. and in me. however it takes form in your life.

and may this be the start of many more reminders to come.