[Skoolya]

It’s hard to know about me, without first knowing how I think. I think therefore I am. Descartes might have been wrong…Thinking != Being. My active mind challenges everything, and the results of those challenges are also challenged. I have come to realize that this is no way to live, but rather not live. I search for simplification. I have made my life complex, I have strived for accomplishment and validation. In 28 years, I have accomplished everything I ever wanted, and now that I have done this, I find myself asking the question, what next? You begin to realize that success and money do not equal happiness, we hear this, but until you experience it, you don’t believe it.

I now ask, who am I? What makes Chris, Chris? Am I the person I want to be? If I’m not, then how do I become that person? And what will be the basis for becoming that person?

I have been fortunate to travel this world and see the many different types of people that live in it. I see people, brainwashed, without them knowing it. Religion, Culture, and Environment have made people who they are. I ask, if you remove those things, what is left? I struggled with this for many months. I realized that no matter what I believe the truth that I am left with…are my senses. Taste, Touch, Sight, Smell and Sound. This is truth. Most people have all of these items, but there are people that can’t see, those that can’t hear (and I’m sure they get things better than I do). I am not one of those people, although, my ears really suck from all the loud stereos I have built. The meaning of those sensors, comes from what I have been told they should mean, and this has come from my religion, my culture and my environment.

So, what should I base my future being on? And how can I detach from my past and transcend from the meaning I have put on things over 28 years and start anew in the now? I don’t have this answer, but I am looking for it. Lately, I tend to fall back on “patience” and “going with the flow”, letting the world around me, push and pull me to where it wants to send me. Again, I don’t know if this is the right answer, but it seems like the one that will work the best right now…even if it leads to getting hurt as it has seemed to have driven me too lately.

There are other things that guide me everyday…I see the universe as a sphere, and when looking at that sphere of everything and nothing, I know I know very little about that sphere. I know I don’t know lots about it, and then there is everything I don’t know I don’t know about it. I strive to focus on those things that I don’t know I don’t know. This way of thinking, has helped me to move away from the meanings I have built around my 28 years on this planet, but damn, it’s a hard place to stay in.

I use to hide my emotions, I’m a man…we aren’t suppose to have those right? But as I have met and experienced various people in my life, they have helped me to express and understand them. Suppressing my emotions wasn’t the answer, as I realized very recently, it just hides and buries them where they will surely manifest later. Accepting the emotion, even sadness as something unique, where it very rarely happens is something my mind would not like me to do, but I have intently practiced observing the emotion rather than letting it become my identity.

Where do I get all this stuff? Drugs? No, never done them (well half a pill of estacy once), don’t have plans to do any any time soon, as a matter of fact, I have even removed drinking to help me focus on figuring out who I want to become (damn...New Orleans with crazy Marines is not the time to quit drinking!). Recently, drinking and suppressed feelings took something away from me. And very quickly, happiness turned to sadness. Pain took over because I didn’t want to accept the fact that the plan my mind laid out, didn’t happen. I planned the perfect future, and let the past inhibit and eliminate that perfect future. I realize now, that there is nothing that I should think about other than right now! I could die on this plane as I write this, in a fiery crash, and a quick death. What would I be thinking as that plane went down? Would I smile? Would I laugh? Would I be scared out of my wits, letting my life flash through my eyes? I would like to think that I would have a big smile on my face, tears in my eyes for have been fortunate to have had the life I have (and of course, the faces of the people closest to me right now).

To answer the question…”where I get all this stuff”, I ask questions. I inquire of my elders, I explore with my friends (those that are capable of exploring with me without drugs), and my curiosity of life given my lack of religious affiliation today. I encourage you to do the same…maybe you’ll figure something out I haven’t.

Back to the about me…Who Am I? Haven’t figured that out yet. Who do I want to be? Haven’t figured that out yet either. Let me ask this…Do you know who you are, who you want to be?

What I do know is that I am a person that searches for truth, enlightenment if you will, of myself and the world around me. If you explore like this, and want to share ideas, then you should send me a message, I have already realized, I can’t live this life on my own…have you?