Years later, memory.

"Have you ever been passionate about something you weren't good at?" For a second I didn't know how to respond. So I thought. "No," I said. "I get passionate about things I'm good at, or at least the things I try to improve at." It seems silly--impossible, even--to be passionate about something and at the same time be satisfied with being bad at it. "That's a good point," he said. "That makes sense."

It was such a strange idea. I can't imagine why anyone would be satisfied with being mediocre at anything. I can't stand being bad at the things I do.

Maybe that's why I don't do much.

Comments

Cam said…

Nice. Too bad our "maturation of blogosphere friendship" hasn't really happened, because you didn't link me. Tear, tear, tear....

February 26, 2009 at 7:08 PM

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur...

I'm a geologist, not an alcoholic.

I thought I had seen people drink before. Hell, I thought that I had drank before. But, clearly, I thought wrong on both of those counts. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reason to justify all of the drinking that transpired down there last week. There was no rhyme or reason to it, it just was. Field work just makes a man thirsty. Taking this class was easily one of the best things I've ever done. We worked hard every day out in the field. Wake up at 7, leave the beach house by 8, hit the water by 9. My first three field days were in service on the R/V Acadiana , a 58 foot vessel that towed the CHIRP fish , the air gun, and the streamer to measure all the seismic data--looking at the subsurface of the seafloor we drove over. My second ship was the R/V Itasca using the multibeam , sidescan , and grab sampler --getting seafloor surface bathymetry. They were long, exhausting days and we returned to the docks around 6 or 7 every evening. And then, drinking. So much ...

What the fuck am I looking at.

Today, I went to the gym and found something new. I found a room with pads on the floor and walls. A room with a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. It was like walking into a dream come true. It was exactly what I had been looking for for months. For years , even. And I attacked that bag. I'll be spending a lot of time there, I think. I have been in such an inexplicably good mood these last few days. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe it's because I've been eating so many bananas. It's probably because things are going pretty well and I'm just feeling good. Doing nice things, feeling confident. Good things. And most importantly, I'm feeling less tired. Maybe it was a diet change. Maybe it's all the exercise. I will probably never know, but that doesn't bother me.

everything is fine

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