The land of thought stretches far and wide, with many paths of thought leading to far off locations, some weird and eerie, some thick and difficult, some full of nonsense and silliness.  The main metropolis is where most people usually are, wondering where they put their keys, what to have for lunch, how cold it is outside today, and all the practical thoughts which are bound to prompt our attention each day. 

But the mainland gets busy and crowded, and young souls get bored and start going for a walk away from the city, skipping along, restless for something else.  There are so many paths to take, as each thought we have is a turn down a more and more improbable path, until sometimes you end up in such an odd place you wonder, "Has anyone even been here before?"

Some thinkers have founded entire regions that you can visit by reading their works.  And I certainly am glad that when I think about things other philosophers have, I am not lonely in exploring the terrain, but rather I have a friend who is well acquainted with the area there with me.  They show me around the place—they are always the most hospitable hosts—though afterwards I often wonder what gave them the idea of settling down in such a place, and I will move on.

Many philosophy students today spend their time in philosophy doing this very thing, charting lands that philosophers have already explored, traveling back and forth between different ones, trying to explain the political relationship between the two regions.  But I don't find that very interesting—exploring is what I like to do.

Unless, of course, the land is not even real.  Then it is very hard to think of it on your own.  That is why we must let Tolkien, Lewis, Carroll and others lead the way to where they have settled, and we have much fun together indeed.  Seeing where any author takes us, the world they have invented, is a most enjoyable adventure; they have spent much time decorating the place just the way they like it in eager anticipation of entertaining guests, and now they invite us in one at a time to show us their world. 

But the best thing, I think, is when someone has lived a whole life that expresses one way to be, and you don't have to be lonely feeling that way yourself sometimes.  When someone else has expressed something in their art, their works, their life, you don't have to feel illegitimate, for once they die and we have an idea of who they were, they stay in the place we imagine them.  Hopeless romantics visit Petrarch, those full of wonder visit Pascal, the devout visit à Kempis, the adventurous visit London, and those marveling at life visit Dickinson.  And how amazing it is to stand before a shelf of classics and stretch your arms out wide before it, exclaiming, "Oh all the places I could go!"

And that is why you must never feel too timid to settle new lands yourself, because you never know if someone else will thank you later, for when they wound up sojourning there themselves they were glad to have some company.

A few days ago something very sad happened.  I could not remember a word that I wanted to look up.  And judging from the way I saw it used, I thought I probably was going to like this word a lot, and might start using it on a frequent basis.  But now it is gone.  Perhaps I will stumble across it again someday, but until then I will have to sadly fire sentences into the battlefield of conversation without it standing ready in my arsenal.

Which is too bad, because when there is a concept that you do not know the word for, you tend to ignore that concept.  It is a subconscious phenomenon: words make ideas pinpointable, like names of cities on a map.  In this way, the realm of ideas really is like a world of its own, and words are the way we map that terrain.  Concepts which do not have words, then, is like unchartered territory.  And when a place isn't named on a map, it is exceedingly difficult to try to tell someone how to get there.  "Go by that place where there's that big thing that's kind of, um, grey, I think. I mean, I guess you could call it grey.  Like how pretty much anything could be called grey.  But yeah, and then it's a little past that." 

What a vague and subfusc world it is to walk along life's variegated terrain without the lanterns of language to guide you along. 

The more words we know, the more we can define exactly where we are in the conceptual world.  And the more defined we are, the more we can know ourselves, and the more other people can know us.  Unfortunately, sometimes there are no words which when said can recreate the exact mental states we experience in the minds of others.  And that is why there is art. 

Some people seem to think the fast lane on the highway is really the "slightly faster" lane.  They will be going a centimeter an hour faster than the car next to them, thus justifying their presence in the fast lane.

It's times like those when I wish I could shoot them with a red shell and their car would spin out of the way, and they'd lose a few coins.

Semi-trucks, in that case, would be like koopas, where the cockpit is the koopa and the trailer is the shell of the koopa. 

"Falling Rock"??  What kind of sign is that??  And why does it specify that there is only *one* rock?  Shouldn't they not know how many rocks might fall?  Unless, of course, the falling rock is PLANNED.  This gets more like Mario by the minute.

A blue sign with nothing on it?  Tantalization seems to be the goal here.  "Finally!! A rest area!! Wait..what? It doesn't say anything!"

"Buckle Up - Next Million Miles."  Ha.  State authorities in Pennsylvania have a sense of humor.  At least they will until I bring them to court claiming that I already have the necessary million.  "Yes, that's right officer, my spedometer is in light years." 

Sneezing on the highway is extremely dangerous.  Those ten miliseconds could end up being VERY important.  And you can't keep your eyes open when you sneeze or they will pop out.  At least I read that somewhere, and, heck, I'm not going to be the one to check if it's true.

I have read somewhere that we sneeze at 100 mph.  If I am driving 80 mph then, logically, my car should be propelled backwards every time I sneeze.  That's just physics.  But it didn't happen, and thus nature's laws were violated.  Divine intervention is the only explanation. 

So I am driving towards the sunset at 80 mph but the earth is spinning me the other way at 1200 mph.  If only I could drive 1200 mph I could watch the sunset forever.  And I'd never age a day.  But as it is, we cannot drive fast enough to live forever. 

So very sleepy.  Time to snuggle wuggle and go to sweepy time...mm yumm mm ... look at all these semi-trucks..I'll bet they all have ultra-deluxe mattresses and blankets inside them.  Yayy..

Note to self: if sleepy and you want to die, play Sufjan Stevens. If sleepy and you want to live, play David Crowder. 

Walking in the hallway I heard Viva La Vida playing and thought "Some people say they don't like this Coldplay CD because it is like the whole album is the same song."  I like it that way, because then it's all the same mood and if I want to be in that mood I play that CD.  And since the songs are at least slightly different, there is variation within that mood to still make it a dynamic experience.  It is like life with Jesus—all one contantly present theme and mood throughout life since we know Jesus, though the song changes as life goes along.  And we ought to understand that some other Christians might be at a different song in life than we are.

At the debate tournament I started wondering in the large awards room of people about the idea of interacting with people at just one point in their life.  Every person's life is a long evolution of their mind as they go through different experiences and phases in life.  So in any given social situation, I am really interacting with just a sliver of someone's total life?  How weird!  In a room full of people, we are all colliding at the present, though our lives will continue on in many different directions.  It's like everyone's life is them watching the movie of their life, and you end up in just this scene, and they do likewise for you.  How many movies I've been a part of, and in the end many people have been a part of mine.  But in the end I'm the only one who was there for my whole life, to see every single scene, and to know how it all connects. 

And because of this, what we say and what we do in certain scenes is what people must use to figure out who we are.  While my life constantly continues and I am there for all of it, a friend comes in and out intermittently, and thus their graph of me has many very large gaps.  But using the parts of the graph they have, they figure out my "equation" and that is how people know what to expect from you.  And since we must decide who people are so we know how to act toward them, I think people decide almost indelibly who you are based on knowing you for the first few months of your relationship, and it is very hard to change their perception of you after that. 

"Hello, Dan! How is it going?" I said smiling.
"Alright, alright, things have been going pretty well," he responded, grinning along with me.
"How are your thoughts as of late?  Good-natured? Focused on the grace of God? Yeah?"
His face dropped.  When he spoke, his voice was now flat and spiteful.
"How do you know about that?"
Confused, and now lessening my cheerfulness, I responded, "What? Know about what?"
"My THOUGHTS, man! How do you know about my THOUGHTS?"
"So I was right, then?  They have been good-natured lately?" I said slowly and incredulously. 
"NO! Come with me," he said as he grabbed my arm and pulled me from the main room into a side room.  Once inside he slammed the door and started talking to me very closely to my face as I stood against a wall.  "Tell me what you know."
"Uh...well, your name is Dan.  You go to school here, just like I do.  We're friends...I think..." I nervously uttered, wondering if he was going to hurt me.
"If that's all you know," Dan said in a quiet, frustrated voice, "then why do you know about my THOUGHTS?" 
"What do you mean 'know about your thoughts'?"
"You asked how my thoughts were.  How do you know I have thoughts?"
"Everyone has thoughts," I stuttered in unbelief.
"Oh yeah?  And how do you know THAT?" 
"Well, I, uh..."
"EXACTLY.  So why don't you just 'fess up, and tell me how exactly you got inside my HEAD and figured out I have THOUGHTS! GAH!" With that he grabbed a chair and threw it into the corner of the room where it busted apart.
"I just, uh, assumed it, I guess," I said.
"DAMNIT, JIMMY," he yelled motioning with his hands towards my neck in a clenching motion.  I merely stared, wide-eyed and speechless as his wild antics indicating his inward desire for violence continued.  "Alright," he continued, "You can go.  Just don't tell anyone else."
"That you...think?" I asked, still trying to get it straight.
"AHHHH," his anger released again, this time making him pound both his fists on the wall.  "What is wrong with you?  You sick, sick freak!  Get out of my life!  Only I'M supposed to know about that! Ya got it?  Me, and me alone!  I don't KNOW how you figured it out. Alright?  I don't know.  Just," he became tearful as he spoke, and slumped down against the wall, talking into his hands, "just get out of here, okay? Just leave."
As he cried into his arms and hands I hurried out of the room.    

On Saturday I sped home from Cincinnati to try to get to a play on time, but I still arrived late to the play.  Apparently, however, you only have to pay to see the first twenty minutes of the play.  The rest of the play, as I found out, is free. 

Sunday I was late for a mock trial scrimmage, but once I got there, I realized I didn't know where 'there' was.  I looked all over but couldn't find it.  I ran into a church in one of the buildings I was searching in, so I went to church instead.  God is clearly telling me to rearrange my priorities: free coffee and bagels is much more important than mock trial.

Debate team met Sunday afternoon and the coach asked me if I wanted to do a speaking event.  I asked if I could do the speaking event called impromptu.  He asked if I had ever done it before, or if I knew the rules.  I said no to both, but I could just show up and wing it.  That way it would be doubly impromptu.

We met again Monday night to discuss the weekend tournament.  One of the team members has a mansion near the tournament, so we're all staying there, but with all the people he said showers might be a problem.  No problem, I said to everyone, just take an extra long shower on Friday morning.  Longer showers cover more days.

Tuesday afternoon I picked up my little brother from school.  "Where are we going?" he asks.  "To kroger, to pick up things for tea today." "Oh, we're going to your tea party so-called...Mom told me what so-called means...it means when you call something a word, but it isn't really that word." 

Later I stared out the window as a squirrel furiously buried an acorn for about five minutes.  Squirrels must think themselves super-heroes, I think.  Always climbing up trees, dashing into the bushes, freezing when they've been spotted—all while trying to accomplish their eternal mission of gathering acorns for their families.  I'll bet while they hop robotically around the place they have theme songs playing in their heads.

Then we had the "so-called" tea party.  I had already been drinking tea all day, and all in all had no less than twelve cups of tea.  My teeth are probably going to turn very yellow, but that's alright because everyone in England drinks lots of tea and they have yellow teeth and they all have accents, so at least now I will get a really cool accent.  And I have an extremely scientific mind, so I definitely wouldn't have gone for it if England hadn't been there as proof.

Tuesday night while walking to debate club I thought, it's getting cold I will need to get a hat sometime soon.  Then directly on my path to debate club there is a swell hat lying right there on the ground.  To be honest, I don't really know what that has to do with logic.  Maybe if I would have thought when I found it, "Sweet, completely free!  Now I can sell this to buy a hat." 

Last night four of us guys watched three rats and a hamster run around their cage, enormously entertained by how stupid they are.  It was quite an ironic situation.  Eventually I say, "When I am old and rich and decadent, I am going to get a bunch of rats and one of those Nazi lugers, and then shoot the rats from my king-size bed." "Who will clean them up?" Kevin asks.  "My maid. Who is also my wife," I say in line with my invented character. "Won't you have multiple wives?" asks Kevin.  "Kevin," I say seriously with my brow furrowed, "polygamy is wrong."

Oh, how much my love for life and logic. 

Destruction is easier than construction.  It is a far simpler task to point to a few of the millions of flaws in another person than to begin the long, laborious task of correcting all your own.  It is infinitely easier to show where someone who tried to do something failed, than to try and and succeed in doing something yourself.  It is easier to knock down a building than to construct one.  It is easier to kill a man than to help one live.

And that is why I do not like critics.

But under the present system of the world the critic is the one who always wins.  The negative sportscaster, the sardonic journalist, the booing audience member—they are the ones who seem to always have the upperhand, for they need only point to the faults in another's effort, while doing nothing themselves, to seem the winner.  It is not that the critic compares his target to himself, and thinks himself better—rather he compares his target to perfection, and because his target falls short assumes himself the victor.

According to the assumption of critics, nothing in the world is perfect, so once we are done applying their method to the world evertything is in ruins.  So the question we must then ask to the constant critic is, well if not all these ways, then how ought it be done?  Who does live the good life?  For it seems the critic's method says, "No, this is not the right way," all while remaining without answers themself.  But process of elimination is surely not the way to find how to live.  Rather, the critic tears down everything, and nothing is left standing.  It does not reveal the answer.

Rather, the individual ought to ignore the faults in others, of which there are millions, and turn to the faults in himself.  Once the critic turns his attention inwardly, he is amazed at the sheer volume of errors he harbors inside himself.  But neither he nor any one else ever knew of them, because he had always turned the attention to the faults of others. 

That is why, upon being asked to write an essay on what is wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton quickly scribbled down and returned to the editors who asked him to write the essay:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely yours,

G.K. Chesterton

Paradoxically, however, to actually agree with Chesterton, you must disagree with Chesterton.  For upon reading his answer we must train ourselves to think, "No he's not, I am!" 

          "Mr. Jones," the man called across the floor, breaking through the slow jazz music filling the air of the pub, "you look weary from your efforts in life.  Why not leave it to chance to decide your happiness for awhile?"
          Mr. Jones froze in his tracks and glanced sidelong to his left.  There before him laid the scene of his beckoning friend and a few other pub regulars gathered leisurely around a table of cards.  A moment of consideration later he began walking towards the table, conceding, "You always have a way."
          "There we are, Mr. Jones," the dealer said as Jones sat down, "No one wants to be alive, might as well be either miserable or happy, and not have to try a cent to achieve either."
          The dealer shuffled the cards, his nimble finger work on display, as Jones acknowledged the other gentlemen around the table.  "Some might think reward without effort to be a bit meaningless," Jones remarked, after which he accepted the cigarette offered him by the dealer.
          "No, it is reward with effort that is meaningless," the dealer explained with his deep, commanding voice as he dealt out the cards, "Because reward is all men ever wanted in the first place."
          "You really think that?" Jones queried as he eyed his cards.
          "Yes, that is why I gamble, Mr. Jones," the dealer responded gruffly, "Are you in?  Good man.  What—why do you gamble, Mr. Jones?"
          "No reason, it's just something to do," Jones replied casually, smoking his cigarette, "It's not for the money, if that's what you mean."
          "Wrong answer."
          "Oh yeah?" Jones laughed in his surprise.
          "Yes—you gamble because you want to be happy," the dealer declared matter-of-factly, "That is why all men gamble.  That is why all men live.  Four-hundred."
          "Call," Jones echoed as he twirled his chips into the pot, in line with several others.  The fast movement of cards and chips continued on the table.  "So you gamble because you don't want to work?" Jones continued on, "I never knew that about you.  The laziness of that kind of life doesn't bother you at all?"
          "Bother me?" blurted the dealer, "That is all anyone wants, Mr. Jones.  No one wants to work." 
          "I rather enjoy the fact that I don't simply win my money," Jones riposted confidently.
          "Tell me Mr. Jones," the dealer started from a different angle, "—what do you work for?  What does it all amount to?  Day after day after day, and what?  What for it?"
          "Everything takes money," Jones generalized as a response, drooping and lifting his eyelids to indicate the common sense in his reply.
          "That's right—so for the goods things in life?" the dealer clarified.
          "Yes," Jones agreed moderately while putting his cigarette to his mouth.
          "And that's what all men want, Mr. Jones—life. A good life, one they enjoy thoroughly," the dealer went on didactically to a nonplussed Jones, "But to live men need to work, so they work, and thus do not live.  The very thing they need to do to keep life, takes it from them.  I have raised the pot another five-hundred, Mr. Jones."
          "What are you trying to say?" Jones asked with a searching face, unsure of how to react to what the dealer was saying.  The other men folded as the two talking men continued the hand.
          "We should either enjoy life entirely or not at all, but men stay in the middle instead of going for total happiness now because they are afraid of losing.  They would like to be happy, but don't want to risk being miserable, so they stay in a pathetic medium between the two," the dealer summarized as he lit a cigarette, "But that raises the question—if you are not happy, what is it you really have to lose in the first place?"
          "The chance to control your own fate," responded Jones as his thoughts naturally suggested.
          "Wrong again, Mr. Jones!  My, you are off today," the dealer gibed, "Everyone's life is a gamble anyways—however someone chooses to live is their eternal gamble on what will make them happy."  The surrounding people and the distantly murmuring bar sank away into the oblivion of irrelevance as the two men continued on, their faces set aglow by the conversation between them.  The blaze grew higher and higher, each man alternating turns stoking it with his comments; Jones sat completely entranced by the simply spoken words of the shrewd man across the table.
          "And you never married," Jones prompted.
          "Precisely," the dealer remarked, "Relationships, more work for a reward in the end—but I'm not an investor.  Too much of a risk."
          "That's not very prudent of you."
          "On the contrary," the dealer corrected as he blew away his smoke, "I'm the only one who's prudent.  I gamble and find out if I win immediately. Every one else must wait—their lives a pair of dice tumbling down the craps table in slow motion, while the crowd and the thrower widen their eyes in eternal anticipation of the dice's final result, and after all the wait their number will either come up or it won't.  You will either win or lose in the end—so what is the point in waiting to find out?" the dealer finished with another puff of smoke before resolutely concluding, "And that is why I gamble."
          "To find out if you will be happy now instead of waiting until later?" inquired Jones, staring at the table trying to figure it all in his head.
          "Exactly."
          "And money is what makes you happy?"
          "At the very least it makes it possible."
          Jones looked up grinning and raised his eyebrows as he retorted, "But what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?"
          "The world is simply one large casino, Mr. Jones.  Everyone bets their lives on their assumptions in life," the dealer emphasized harshly, "So what do you do Mr. Jones?" he said nodding down at the table, where he had raised the pot a thousand more.  Jones switched his thoughts to the matter of cards and looked up at the dealer's sizzling eyes, his sardonic grin, and reviewed the colorful melange of chips that had accumulated in the middle of the table.  After hesitating for a moment in thought, he matched the call. 
          "You see?" the dealer said in a hushed tone, "I put everything in to see if I would win—but you called my bluff.  Congratulations, Mr. Jones, you win the pot." The dealer's eyes remained fixed squarely on Jones as he then inquired,"Now what will your eternal gamble be?"

I can't really tell twins apart, which isn't fair to people like me, and I'm big into social justice, so I think the government should pass legislation that requires all twins to wear nametags.  Either that or I guess I'll just have keep calling everyone I know by their last names.

Speaking of which, I have done a lot of research on politics recently, and from this research I have concluded that there is *definitely* an election going on right now.

For the next presidential election I think someone should run with the last name 'Bumper' and their running mate should have the last name 'Sticker.'  They would be Bumper/Sticker '12.

It's always great to read statistics that prove things I already knew.  "Driving blindfolded increases car accidents, study finds."  I always think, "Twelve million dollars to find that out—I could have told you that.   Which of my other thoughts would the government pay $12 million to know?"

I gave up desserts so I would live longer.  But then I couldn't eat desserts, so I killed myself.

I have decided to become a vegetarian in-between meals.

There is very little difference between checking movies out of a library and renting them from a movie rental place when you have a bad memory.

Judging from the languages on that caution sign, apparently only people who read English and/or Spanish have a tendency to slip on wet floors.  Either that, or you only deserve to live if you can read English or Spanish.

I contradict myself.  Which means I am definitely right.