A blustery, white winter day to cleanse all.

I love waking up and walking through the woods on a Thursday morning. Solitude can be so beautiful.

I find it depressing that in the shearest essence of existence, I really want nothing more than a long isolation from society. Nearly all that I read focuses on the same themes, reflecting my dreams. Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche is my favorite book. Nietzsche's protagonist, Zarathustra, is a disambiguated prophet of the Zoroastrian faith used as a vessel for Nietzsche's ideologies. Zarathustra's thoughts were obtained through ten years of solitude spent as a mute atop a mountain. I adore Thoreau's approach on the abandonment of social and personal materials. I find Jack Kerouac and Christopher McCandless (of Into the Wild) theme to be some breed of modern pioneer, and what are they? Glorified hobos, more or less. Even my favorite album: For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver. For Emma is an anthology of songs written in a winter-engulfed cabin in northwestern Wisconsin (if that isn't desolate, I don't know what is) about the cruel memories associated with former social ties, whether they were relationships, or friends, or modern "gods."

I want to feel my toes dangle nimbly over the edge of a cliff without the fear of being pushed to a death. It is not the death I fear, it is a lack of fulfillment. I want to achieve something with life, and I feel like I cannot grasp the image until I can be in solitude. I want to stand on that cliff with toes dangling nimbly as I watch a colossal beehive below my feet. Cars driving back and forth, and back, then forth, with their own slight intentions that, from a mountain, are nothing more than a pattern of movement. "To love others, you must first love your self" is a phrase I have heard many times. But in society there are too many others too love and hate to focus on the self. When alone, I feel it possible to break down my soul to molecular sizes: to fully understand each fragment of a personality. And when I miss people, I could see their true beauty. I think I could enlighten myself, and it would be possible to reflect and create brilliance.

But,
it may not work like that at all.

I would rather try than drift in apathy, though.

The beautiful drive of procrastination pushes me here.
I've been enjoying Big Sur by Jack Kerouac recently.
There's just something in it, you know, about the way someone can just continue on their stream of thoughts and still make it interesting― I can't ever seem to really do that without repeating myself or making a statement that just seems incredibly bland yet he can talk on and on for miles like a dirt road through a cornfield, just stretching, stretching, and all the while you're wondering well where the hell is this road going to? i dont even like corn that much but you just keep driving for curiosity, not corn and when you get to the end JACK KEROUAC actually has something to say and a message! he makes stream of consciousness make sense as opposed to most that just seem to obliterate all logic [see: this post]
Fleet Foxes self-titled album has also been keeping me company. It's a lovely record.

In retrospect, 2008 was a year spent as J. Alfred Prufrock.


by glowing embers
I have illuminated
all the shut doors

2009

The Death of the last year provides opportunity for a new one to waltz into it's perfectly choreographed position on the calendar. Though 2008 was a year of awakening, a year of exploration, I step into a new January in hopes of fulfilling 2009's potential.
In a stride to fulfill my aspirations of the new year, I have decided to document daily life and meek musings through two of my passions: writing and photography. Since I wish to write for a living (in some manner [a manner not yet discovered]), I think this should serve to help hone my skills. (Note: This journal is not here for scrutiny, but observation and improvement.)

It seems safe to say that, despite the vignetted nostalgia to come, 2008 left America full of tarnished souls. Our economy was broken and the white noise of two wars droned on— and people suffered. Not just financially, but socially, even spiritually; The funeral dirges of lost dreams always seemed to have a humming eminence when deep in conversation. Yet we are moving forward, running lumber downstream, slowly and systematically rebuilding charred cities. We implemented a hope, a surviving dream, to lead us in recovery.
Now we see if dreams can come true.