i apologize to my friends that i have not spoken to recently. to those with whom i have not shared a moment of my thoughts. i have become much more connected to the things in my immediate surroundings. when you are away, you are not on my mind, for the most part at least. i will always keep my best wishes with those that i befriend.

this centeredness captivates me. without focusing on the here and now, i am doing no good. i try exude compassion where i can, but i cannot as readily with those away.

i am disheartened over friendships fouled or forgotten; their melancholy glow reaves at my soul. i wish you well on your journey, i hope your bliss will lead you home.

something that tends to depress me from time to time is the fact that most things never get resolved. when i think back on my life, i find countless things that i wanted to progress in some way or another, that instead just faded out of the limelight.

lost romances, unfulfilled goals, chances at things i will never get again. it's not to say that these things are regrets; i have come to accept them as they are and how they affected my life. it just worries me that i was able to lose any passion for these things that i felt so strongly at some time or another.

my mind then turns to the things i am passionate about now. how many of them will fade away from my memory? is there anything i can do to prevent this from happening, or is it just part of "how things go"?

i suppose i try to pre-empt all of this by trying to remain stoically calm and emotionally uninvested.

and so i worry that what i think i love in my life is simply mislabeled as such. maybe love is inherently transient; but that doesn't sound like it would be an accurate description for something that's supposed to be so noble.

i have high hopes for the future, that some day, i'll be able to exist as i feel i should be able to. people will speak their minds, with tact, yet hold nothing back. everything around me will be done in a clean and efficient manner. poetic beauty will abound in everything.

as things are right now, however, i feel like this is impossible. my only option is to change myself and become comfortable within the system that surrounds me, rather than finding some way to change this system to allow my ideals to exist comfortably and realistically.

i want nothing to do with money, but i cannot escape its bindings without sacrificing a certain quality of life. i want people to be open and communicative, rather than relying on subtexts and restrained emotions. i want everyone to treat everyone else kindly, while still maintaining their unique personalities that can bring about disagreements.

whenever i watch movies or read books, the characters effect a yearning in me to live in their fantastic and confined world. where progress can be achieved in a montage. where one can fall in love between chapters. where every struggle is meticulously plotted to bring about a productive change.

i feel like i'm living my own backstory.

tonight i have been thinking about assumptions.

i have often told people to not jump to conclusions. doing so often results in disappointment, over-anticipation or other further complications.

assuming that others are experiencing the same sort of thrownness as oneself leads to misjudging of character or, at times, a tragedy of sorts that ones sole sympathizer is simply supplying tactfulness.

assuming that situations are of a certain breed is an often-dangerous affair. this is conducive to misinterpretations or general discomfort.

assuming that one's mind is of a particular state can lead to mental breakdowns and repressed emotions.

assuming that assumptions made by people have a general weight and nature, depending on the situation, can lead to paranoia and wrongful sense of nobility.

assuming that the truth, whatever that is determined to be, is infallible and definite begets ignorance and herd-mindedness. this is the most hazardous as it can contain you in a sphere of control and compliance and does not permit ventures in the the realm of independent thought.

these are the five rings that i have broken through on this night.

i was originally going to make a post tonight about dreams and aspirations. i felt like my life was one full of unfulfilled dreams. but instead, i would like to talk about answers.

in everything that i'm doing, it seems like i'm searching for answers. i often look at others' lives to see what they do to find meaning in their life and emulate their actions. i've turned to many different outlets to find answers.

the only problem is that i don't know the question.

i feel a need for something. something that will put everything into perspective and allow me to live comfortably. i feel discontent for my current situation, but i am unsure as to why. i'm trying to escape from something, but i don't know what.

do any of us really know the questions we're asking when we seek answers?

i'm finding it quite difficult to throw anything away. everything from old pictures i drew in grade school to attachments to societal norms and my place as an unemployed, sub-par student living in the same town that i have been for 20 years.

i'm trying to distance myself from the concept that the things i own and the things i do define me as a person. but it's extremely difficult to throw away all the shirts i've owned for years as well as the delusions that i've generated for myself for comfort simply on the basis that i want to begin life anew on the other side of the country.

even when writing something, i am weary to revise anything as it might obscure the point i was trying to make.

maybe i don't have to get rid of anything to be happy. but then what am i giving up? is it fear of losing one's identity that causes us to latch onto the status quo, no matter how uncomfortable it is?

i'm feeling rather prolific tonight, so i'm posting again on another topic.

i mentioned in my last post my desire to become ein übermensch. for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, i would recommend reading the wikipedia article on it, as any explanation i can give will not properly do it justice.

i am coming to realize more and more the crutches i utilize to make it relatively comfortably through my life. movies, music and games; these are my vices.

they act as distractions to keep me from thinking too much and losing myself in my thoughts. these hinder my growth as a person as instead of dealing with my problems or experiencing things outside of the comfort of my room, i retreat to a place where i can associate with charismatic characters dealing with extraordinary difficulties that make my own pale in comparison.

i am more compelled now to leave behind whatever life i have created for myself in my hometown. by staying here, i am not thinking for myself. i am just part of the herd.

i am jack's existential crisis.

there is a common question posed to people trying to figure out what they want in life: "what would you do if you had a million dollars?"

many people may answer with a path presented in a comedy film. "i'd do two chicks at the same time," or simply with "nothing."

while both of these options are fairly favorable in my book, i am instead wondering on the deeper roots of this dilemma. what job would i do if i didn't have to worry about money? what makes me happy? i can't seem to come up with a definitive answer to any of these questions.

perhaps i can't think of my dream job because i have no real desire to have a job. do we feel compelled to have a job in order to provide for ourselves and our families, driving us deeper and deeper into the corporate-run world simply because we keep needing more?

or maybe people want to feel as though they are making positive contributions to society.

i say, fuck the man. why should we want to contribute to this blatantly flawed paradigm that society has constructed? it only generates debt and control. if you are not in the upper echelons of wealth, then you are only going to get poorer. suffering for a large part of the world is the only result from this recipe.

please excuse my dystopian view of society as it is probably only a side-effect of my desire to join the ranks of die übermenschen.

but my point still stands: money is not going to solve any problems other than the problems that were created from the use of money.

i have been living quite sometime with a condition called delayed sleep-phase syndrome (dsps). it causes my sleep and wake times occur at inappropriate times of day. at least in the sense of happening in a manner conducive to a relatively normal life.

this causes a great deal of stress, as i have great difficulty waking in time for school/work/et cetera. similarly, i am unwillingly exempted from social endeavors. the only people i consistently associate with are people that are likewise nocturnal by nature.

i have grown to appreciate the night time: following moon phases and searching for constellations while admiring the expanses of the local arboretum after hours.

however, i am still left with an inordinate amount of time during which i am left solely to my own devices.

my days no longer make sense; every day is a struggle to fulfill my currently unidentified role in society without needing to sleep in the middle of it. time itself seems to be melting into a pool of which i know not the depth.

i can feel myself getting older as the days pass on. i look upon the youth and remember how i used to enjoy many of the same activities that now captivate them.

i am, by no means, old. at 20 years, i still may have less than a quarter of my life completed. but still i can feel the effects of time, weighing down upon me: my joints don't move like they once did and i no longer have the energy to run around all the time. the rules and responsibilities that my authoritative figures presented to me throughout my life make more and more sense.

are the rules perfect? absolutely not. but they are necessary to protect the young-minded from themselves.

the other aspect that is more apparent in my more recent years is that of time running out. deadlines.

as i become increasingly integrated into the whole of society (i.e., the "real world"), i notice that most everyone is on a schedule. these schedules often conflict with one another and nobody can seem to realize why other people can't just do one extra thing to conform to their schedule. not everyone can afford to alter plans to keep from inconveniencing others.

and so, i've decided to not worry about it so much. someone's schedule is going to be upset; what difference does it make to me whose it is?

i feel like i should say something, but i don't know the words.

i am no longer a teenager. i celebrated my 20th birthday a couple of days ago.

i've thought a lot on the subject of communication. at larger social gatherings, i tend to shy away to a smaller group of friends or to myself. there is great difficulty in maintaining a conversation for me.

i don't speak often, but when i do, i try to make it count for something.

it's quite interesting to me to view others' lives and note how they prioritize things differently from one another and more interestingly, myself.

communication is very useful in transferring knowledge or simply as a means of entertaining others. i rarely utilize it for the latter.

i have never been completely nor mostly content to stay inside by myself all the time like many other introverts, but instead became fascinated with people. i enjoy most of the interaction i take part in, but it does not come naturally.

i lately have been wondering how many people realize how dynamic a person can be. every day we have countless experiences that mold our personalities bit by bit.

i am not the same person that i was a year ago.

i have looked back on things that i have done or said in the past and i don't understand why i did them. i can't apologize for who i was back then, but only reassure that i am now different.

here i am, awake just a couple hours before i have to be up for a long drive and an even longer day. it seems that i always have too much on my mind when i lay down in bed at night. my brain apparently can't just relax.

lately i've been thinking a lot about people. people that i miss. it's easy to miss anybody when separated from everybody.

right now it feels like my life has come to a halt. i'm back home for another five months, where i won't have anything to really do except get a job. the people i know are moving on through their lives and the people i meet, i won't be near them for very long.

there's a certain anxiety that comes with knowing that everything is on hold for a while. but hopefully, by next autumn, i'll be on my way to a new school in a new city far away from what has become all too familiar. maybe then my life will start to change for the better.

lately i've been thinking about what it would be like to get away. to drop everything i'm doing and just move to the other side of the country.

this has become a very real possibility for me. i feel as though i don't really have anything tying me to michigan, the place where i was born and lived for nearly two decades. none of my friendships are very close, none of my romantic encounters seem to go anywhere and i'm not making any progress in my hobbies.

would a 'fresh' start help at all? would i be any less jaded by having a whole new group of people around me? it seems that people are the same no matter where you go and that problems will still be problems.

this last week will be the final testing ground to see if i will be allowed to stay tucked away in my dorm room, not quite into the 'real' world. to be honest, i don't think there's much of a chance for me staying. maybe i've already given up.

goodbye kalamazoo, it's been a blast.

the perceived notion of honesty is a difficult thing for me. not to say that i am a pathological liar; no, quite the contrary. i strive to give the the most accurate responses as possible (perhaps stemming from my being a mathematics major).

since i am always attempting for the greatest clarity, i end up not saying anything until i am absolutely sure of it. this causes a fair amount of difficulty when dealing with people. it seems to me that people don't want accuracy, they just want certainty.

assertiveness and confidence seem to go hand-in-hand but for me, they are polar opposites. asserting oneself is going for something that is desired, even if there is some uncertainty as to whether or not it is the 'right' thing to do. conversely, confidence roots itself in certainty. certainty that can certainly only be obtained with rigorous evaluation.

hello everyone. my name is alex kane and i am currently a second-year student at western michigan university studying general mathematics with a minor in anthropology.

i had been fooling around with various blog formats for a while but it wasn't until recently that i actually cracked down and finished my code to get it to look like i wanted.

this is my first 'real blog' or at least that's what i have intended it to be.

as i have run out of things to say, i shall now leave you. hopefully you will all enjoy my postings as much as (or hopefully more than) i enjoy creating them.