I fall in love with every girl I meet so that my wife and I will have an amazing story.

I want to get a signet ring, so then when cashiers ask me to sign receipts I can stamp it with my royal seal.

My self-esteem has been down lately; but don't worry, I have a plan.  I am going to get some dogs and name them Zeus, Ares, and Athena.  Then I'll be telling gods what to do, and they'll obey like their lives depend on it.  "Sit Zeus, sit!"  "Ares, stay!  NO, BAD GREEK GOD. BAD!  That's right.  Wallow. You are terrible.  Oh you look pathetic, come here."

Then, take them to the park, find some pretty girls, and from there I will show them my unprecedented power.

Sometimes I like to ring people's doorbells, and then when they come outside they see a sign on their porch that says 'The witch is dead'.

With that he typed "LOL" onto the screen, then stormed off in a fit of rage and tears.

An unmarried woman with the last name of Ter would be called Miss Ter.

Whenever you think of the word farcical, just think of a fart musical.

The guys and I meet each week in our living room where there is a large couch facing the door.  Because of this I think we should start staging interventions for the person who arrives last.  And since they're the last one there, the intervention should probably be about how they need to give up being late.  "Chris, we are only saying this because we care about you.  But you're late again.  The first step is admitting you have a problem."  "Uh . . this is the first time I've been late."  "And you'll never get rid of it with that kind of attitude.  We need to nip this in the bud.  So seriously, it needs to end.  You can beat this.  We'll help you in whatever way you need."

Someday if I'm watching a movie with a group of people, and someone gets up to go to the bathroom at the beginning, I think we should skip the DVD ahead to the end.  Then when they come back the credits will be rolling, and everyone will be up and stretching.  "What a great movie," people say as they start heading out.  "Where were you, man? You missed an epic flick.  Maybe go before next time?"   "What's going on, the movie just started."  "Dude, maybe it didn't seem like it, but you were in there for two hours. Yeah.  We were all pretty surprised too."

What a wonderful day it's shaping up to be.  Emperor's New Groove party in the evening, and some hanging out with my little bro Paul and dad on the putt putt range.  

They just got back from the Grand Canyon.  In the words of Paul, "There were countless stars that you couldn't count." 

Everybody have a fun day!

Would we have good wills? 

What dwells within our spirits?

I've been really frustrated by the abrupt endings to conversations with Megan. It's a bad idea to talk to her right now. 

I think that tattoos distract from what it means to love something.  To love something is to pour your life into it, because it is worth spending all your time on.  Your body will pass away; what you did with your life stands forever.  Our words fill the air; we mark up the canvas of life.

Life is more about becoming than being.  We have character arcs.  We ought not mark up our bodies when we change so easily.  If we are apt to change, to stain our flesh pins us to one specific place and time in our life.  But we move, we meet new people, we become new people. 

What will you do with what matters in life?  Your words, your actions, your time?

Tattoos don't fit anywhere in there.

What am I going to do in life?  I feel the tension.  There are battles in my head all day long.  Sometimes I care to admit it to myself.  What do I do in response.

The only thing there is to do is to live as honestly as possible.  That is all that can be expected. An honest life.

I am really feeling it tonight.  Like wow.  What am I going to do with my life?  What am I actually going to do?  This isn't a fake question.  It's a real one, the realest one possible, and means a lot and I will answer it.

What is life?

We're not juggling fake seconds as we walk around, it's not a farce.  It is everything, and nothing at the same time; it smashes our intellects down to a point.  We tremble in fear.  I shiver; that must be you.  Your presence is near.

Where is the curtain?  Am I being deluded by the first way I was taught to see?

What of other humans? What of my relations to them? I must do something with them, I must tie them off, make some better, make new ones.  What shall their natures be?  What will I feel, what will I think, how will it be?  What will it mean in their life?  Could I ever know?

This life is new for every human.  It seems like we're all marching in line.  But we can step out of the line and sit on a stump, watching the prisoners marching in sync, humming a tune of glee, headed towards a mass grave.  How should I converse with the prisoners next to me? 

But I can't sit for too long.  Pretty soon the line captain knocks me down and forces me to get back in line.

This life is so heavy.

We'll make it to heaven; it's not a place, but there's somewhere I can feel, somewhere that's home.  I want to make it there.  Caring in life is the only way that's worth it.  The other way there are no disappointments, but there is nothing to embrace either.  We live on hope. 

Father, keep my spirit wrapped up in yours. 

There had been a meaningless silence between the two gentlemen for nearly half an hour.  They looked out the window from their table in the small coffee shop, mindlessly viewing the pedestrian traffic as though it were a montage of robots.
"I know it's been awhile since the Civil War," Tim began suddenly with a tone of confident skepticism, "but I still don't trust them to not try it again."
Josh met Tim with a blank stare.  Tim in the meantime took a voracious bite of his bagel.
"If I ever meet someone who eats bagels with a knife and fork, I will marry that person," Tim declared while chewing.  "You know why?"  He swallowed with a huge gulp. "Because I always keep my promises, and I just proimised that."
Several people sauntered past them toward the exit. Tim waited until they had passed, then continued.
"Like the time a man asked me to watch his baby in his baby carriage for him while he was gone.  I watched that baby carriage. Watched it good and hard, as two men in shady clothing came up and took that baby carriage away."
Josh furrowed his brow.  He turned behind him to see if anyone else was listening.
"Promises are important," Tim went on.  "That's why I only fall in love with girls I don't talk to."  Tim became glassy-eyed as he painted his thoughts onto the scene of scurrying pedestrians.  "If you talk to them, it's like promising them something.  Besides, talking to them always ruins it anyway.  So breaking if off before then is really what's best for them.  And since I really care for them, that's what tends to happen."
Josh stared straight ahead, saying nothing. He thought back to an hour before when he had met Tim while standing in line.

"Don't get me wrong, falling in love is great," Tim emphatically clarified. "It just never works when it's mutual."
A full minute passed as the two men reflected on this thought.
"Sometimes I think that my friends are the only people I can trust to not care about me, and even they let me down sometimes," Tim sighed.  "That's what people do.  You become friends with them thinking they have a toaster, but they end up having a toaster-oven instead.  It's just so hard to tell if people have sane beliefs about kitchen appliances from just a handshake.  Did the extra bob on that one mean this guy has a handheld blender?  So you take risks."
Tim's eyes were full of crystals; he found it hard to fancy he was drinking coffee.   
"And relationships are basically all about food anyway.  We know we need society in order to not live off crap.  So we fake friendships until we get in their kitchen where we can finally start shooting them evil looks while our chins run with marinara sauce."
"Dude," Josh said abruptly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Thank you!" Tim beamed. "So many people recognize I'm smart, without realizing that the important thing is that I'm right. So I appreciate that."
Josh looked down, concluding that it would have been better to have remained silent. Tim smiled as he looked out the window, finally satisfied that they had gotten somewhere.

Philosophy is not an interest of mine, for to say that would imply that it is something separate from me.  From my view it is already in everything; it is stitched into the very fabric of everything I see.  It is the excitement as a living body that moves and thinks, the kind of joy and anxiety a dog has as it tries to decide what to do.

For a million questions press down on us every moment, and every second of living reveals a little more of what will wind up being our total answer to all of them.  Having philosophy in one's soul is to have a hankering for truth at all times, while eating, while sitting on the steps looking at the receding glow of the sunset, while in conversation at a party.  It's a life that carries tension as a suitcase, for one is always wondering; what is it I am supposed to be doing?  What are we supposed to be talking about?  Is there something more important than what I'm doing right now that deserves my attention?  What should I say next?  How should I be?  What should I focus on in my head?  How should I view people as I talk to them? 

These are not interesting theoretical questions, reserved for dry reflection by masters of prose who wish to inspire us.  They are every moment questions, ones that fill us up until we don't know what to do.  We are in the world having been given a head flooded with thoughts—what are we to do?

For our control over the world is quite limited.  You cannot stop any moment from happening.  Think about time directly for just a few moments and this truth will slap one in the face; the world is rushing onward, and we are deciding how to spend our time, and who we are going to be.  It is unavoidable: the responsibility of being a living creature is one that has been given to you.  This reality fills every second, as we continue to move and think and breathe, even now, our words possibly invading reality once someone asks us a question in the very next moment. 

And that is the control that we do have.  For all the mechanics of the world that we may merely observe, and the onward march of time that heeds no man's complaints, we stand at the center of a life of thought, and the course that it takes is the thing that we control.  We control it by choosing what is worth saying, how we ought to say it, which lines of thought we ought to pursue, and what things in the world are worth latching onto and seeking out and drinking up.  In the end we will become a certain kind of person, and it is totally up to us what that person is like.

And it is incredible the complexity that is involved in this task for each individual person.  Events stain our lives with certain meanings, literature makes us see ourselves as certain characters, our relationships with other individuals take on very unique natures; each person is their own entire universe, a whole world of music and thoughts and feelings, and they are the only one who has direct access to that world.  And it all seems so very real.  Just as the universe exploded into being, so the universe of each individual explodes into being as more and more things, people, and places assume a meaning in their life.  So it seems there is no difference between the two; if the first universe is real, why not the second?  Our way of thinking and the fact of the meaning of things to us seems so indelible; is its expansion, all noticed by us as the central agent observing it all, all done only to collapse on itself and vanish once over?

That seems like such a mysterious concept; it is the idea that thinking is like a dance, where having a new thought is like switching dance partners in the garish ballroom of our minds, but the fact is that we are dancing with zombies, not real people.  The whole world of thought is a myth, despite its strong appearance to the contrary.  Other people, the world of good and evil, the beauty of wildlife and stars, all were a mere fantasy, dreamt up elaborately for years and years, until the curtain finally closed on the inexplicable farce dancing before our eyes.  Could that really be how things are?

On the other hand, to think that we are actually in the world, and that it does mean something, would be completely unbelievable as well.  That all our thoughts really are a part of the grand history of the universe, and are what is important, would be to place us as agents partaking in a prodigious story that has real possibilities controlled by us as the agents at the heart of it.  For history records merely public events that everyone has access to; but think of how much more in history has happened that we are not capable of inferring: the thought life of past individuals, the realness of their subjective contemplation as they mulled over the options before them that would make for public history.  If the world is real, what goes on in your mind during a conversation with a friend is as much a part of the history of the world as what Caesar was thinking as he crossed the Rubicon.  That is what is at stake in asking whether world is a real place, where our thoughts inhabit an extremely important realm capable of being shaped by us into something that is truly good.

Bursting with excitement while living makes us nervous that it might all be a sham.  And yet, when we head toward the conclusion that our thoughts matter, we find just around the corner demands that we don't like.  Our thoughts are important, but in need of extreme improvement.  We need to forgive, we need to give up foolish desires, we need to think more highly of other people and less of ourselves.  None of this seems what we signed up for; and so we are caught in a paradox of desires.   The world is real, but to be really alive we have to die; the coffin open behind me, I rub my hands profusely and stamp my feet angrily, frustrated at this clause of the deal.  Like a pathetic dignitary who refuses to give up his teddy bear, I hold on dearly to that which I couldn't keep even if I wanted to.

That seems to be the amazing world we have been put into it.  These truths are large, and they are drowned out much of the time.  But to really live, to believe this is true, would be magnificent.  But the paradox is paralyzing, and light pollution from the apathy of other agents often obscures the stars.  We get sleepy, and lose our way.  That is why it is a life that carries tension in a suitcase, for we are still in the story, the decision a live one, part of it unfolding each second, and so we tremble at the realization that it is really up to us what to do.

A bad day is one that ends with words inside that you couldn't get out.

Only believe someone's art if it's accidental; spontaneity reveals our true dispositions.

Wanderlust leads to exploring the world, being lost in wonder leads to exploring the mind.

Show me what is good about me and I will be your friend until death; show me what my faults are and I will be your friend forever.

It is quite sad that we don't understand one another, but the ultimate disappointment would be if we were all the same. Thus, though the distance between us brings melancholy, none of us would have it any other way.  To be different is to be at all.

And he found it sad to discover that the only meaningful way to get to know someone is if they never attempt to explain themself directly.

I always wake up hoping that whoever I was yesterday took care of everything I needed to do. 

We find proof for that of which we are suspicious.

Similarities make for boring friendships.

I don't feel comfortable about moving in my sleep.  Who exactly is authorizing these decisions? 

Catching lightning bugs is very a romanticized activity, when really it happens right before they are about to mate.  Imagine the roof opening up and being stolen out of your bedroom right after some really good foreplay. Still such a wonderful thing to do? Hmm?

People who think I'm judgmental are stupid, because I'm not judgmental at all.

I was standing at a street corner when I noticed an electronic sign across the street waiting for a high five.  Not wanting to leave him hanging, I darted through traffic and high fived it.  The sign then became a walking man, indicating he could now walk away happy.  Turning around, I noticed that all the cars were going to wait this time; my theory is that once they saw it was for a high five, they softened up a bit.

I think it would be quite intimidating if I asked someone, “What is your favorite color?” and they responded, “What makes you think I like color?”

Sometimes people say, "But the real question is . . ." and then they go on to say some question.  But supposing there are real questions, I guess that must mean there are fake questions too.  Which leads to the real question, how can there be fake questions?

"Have some propriety," the peasant said after the king had spit in his face. "A rebel is the highest office there is." 

I wish there was a food that made you laugh at random times while eating it.  While it would make for some very awkward moments during heart wrenching stories of lost love and tragedy, it would make up for it by making other people feel very good about their jokes. 

I seem quite averse to a good night's sleep.  Maybe it's because a good night always means one without sleep.  And with that I wish you a good morning. 

My days are nightmares so I daydream all night long.

I feel like I woke up blindfolded and I haven't figured it out yet, or like I just now realized that stars are actually cardboard cutouts.  In fact, seeming like unreality is one of the most distinctive and indelible properties of reality.

For we all have beliefs we don't actually have.  We think there are stars, but we don't believe it until we're crushed by the enormity of the heavens at night, the sight of an infinite wilderness filled with myriad lanterns of lonely yet hopeful wanderers.  To truly believe the universe is real is to shrink while staring up at its breadth and grandeur; the rest of the time we live in a fog. 

The mind, like the sky, is a prodigious canvas speckled with sparkling thoughts spread all across it, an entire complex reality of beauty and meaning.  But, like the universe, we believe other minds exist, but we don't really.  We see their bodies, we hear their words, but we don't know their realness, what it would mean to be the lone astronomer gazing up at the night sky of their imaginings, noticing the explosive birth of new thoughts and the tragic deaths of others.  We say we believe it, and we think we believe it, but we don't really believe it.

And yet other people are just as real as the stars at night; though only rumors circulate in our mental tabloids concerning the possibility of the existence of other people—and theirs being as real as our own—their thoughts fill up reality. You just can't see it.

This becomes a miserable fact to comprehend once we realize that we use the same words to describe conflicts between people's bodies as we do between their minds.  "He hurt me"  "I felt attacked"  "We got into a fight"  "My scars haven't healed yet"  "I am always on the defense with her" 

Being a soul is like having a spiritual body that people can damage or ameliorate.  But souls are invisible, and so it is very easy to get away with being insensitive, because you can't point to being hurt like you can point to a bloody gash in a body.  If a person doesn't tell you, you might never know you hurt them.  And even if they did tell you—would you believe it?  Believe it like being crushed by the stars at night?

It's a very hard thing to be able to stargaze in someone else's mind; in this life, maybe once.

I'm not really thinking any of that though.  A chill swept through the forests and the stars all blacked out, and I just want to think it's wrong to hurt other people.  Never make a person feel expendable.  To throw a person out is to destroy a universe.  I'd go to sleep if I thought I was awake, but it seems so hard to think that any of this is real.  And that's why I daydream through the night.