Serenity

I recently found serenity while taking an hour long run through the woods. I saw only two other people while I was running on these trails (and I was out there for an hour). For me, exercising by myself for an extended period of time (hour to hours) or three cups of coffee at 3AM while pulling an all-nighter studying for comprehensive exams during undergrad brings this type of clarity and singleness of mind. Well, there are other ways, but they invlove vows of silence and poverty and can only be undertaken in the heights of Nepal. But, for those of us that are still bound to reality, this is the next best thing to what Zen masters call a breakthroug in reality. It is when you see everything around you differently, like a brick wall just crumbled and left behind an unaltered view of the landscape. This isn't just limited to landscape, it includes people, relationships, thoughts, emotions. Truly, an existential and "religious" experience. Not religious like I worship the experience, although that would be an interesting philosphy of religion. (BOB, what do you think about that?)

For those of you that haven't had an experience like this, I urge you to ascertain it some how, some way. Drunking will not lead you there. Neither will illicit substances, believe me, I've tried. Well, unless you are a Turkish muslim, who is a practicing mystic and believes that getting drunk and turning in circles gets you closer to God, but that is a different discussion.

Where am I going with this post? Not really sure... Just making conversation about enlightenment though exercising (running, cycling) or whatever other means people use to come to this kind of clarity.

The aspect that I treasure the most (about the clarity and serenity) is being able to analyze matters w/o emotional attachment to them. It is almost like an out-of-body experience when it comes to introspection. I only have three emotions anyways, depression (not clinical depression, but more of a melancholy), hate, and indifference. I know that indifference isn't really an emotion, but I think it fits. Its a one way continuum. There is very little room for elation and positive excitement. As depressing as that might sound, it is oddly comforting to me.

Playlist: Indian(dots not feathers) chants and techno. (Very trance inducing)

Homeward Bound

Oh, the obligatory trip home to spend time with the parents for the holidays... Time spent by passing the hours shopping for food, revisting the places you used to hang out, and listening to stories about people you used to be close to. It always seems like parents have the knack to talk about people you haven't thought of in years... what they are up to, who they are dating, where they live, what jobs they have. If you actually cared about these people, you would call them to find out the information yourself. Parents seem to be a wealth of knowledge about the most random facts relating to aquaintances.

Being home, or where you used to call home(it is now just your parent's house), seems like a combination trip to the distant aunt or uncle's house and bad trip back into time. You see people you haven't seen in a while that haven't left. You also see new buildings and new people in the old buildings. This is what we like to call progression of time without you. Depressing and odd, yet familiar and comforting at the same time. It is an amazing mesh of new and old, like a painting that has been touched up. There are lines that are so familiar and inviting laced with little touches of new paint over a full canvas.

Lastly, there is the inevitable spotting of someone you are trying to avoid or don't really care to see- the ex. There is that random spotting of the ex where you least expect them to be, at Target for instance. A rush of feelings all at once. That passion you once felt and the feelings of breaking up all mixed together. Almost as bad as an awkward conversation with Dr. Flynn Medicine Woman over her alleged needle sticks that precipitated her couple of treatments for Syphilis. Needle stick, sure it was. Needless to say, the situation is fairly awkward to hear about your professor's IM injections of Benzathine Penicillin for a sexually transmitted infection.

Anyways, I know that not everyone feels the same way that I do. Some people enjoy going home and visting parents and family. Some people enjoy it so much they would do it every weekend if they could. Not me. I love my parents, just not the other factors of going "home."

Runner girls

Point A: Runner girls are hot.
The Division I NCAA national Cross Country Championships are in Terre Haute this week. It is a constant rubberneck for me. Not that I'm obsessed, but I am just attracted to girls that run. See point A. The Colorado team just walked into the coffee shop where I normally study. Holy Cow. (DLMWS- I'm moving out there for sure. Save a place on your floor for me over any break that I have.) Good thing I wasn't stretching huh Galaxy565? Galaxy565

Anyways, I really am in a good mood now, despite the recent slew of lies that has been thrown my way, and the bunk party last night. Sorry B-foot, but the party never materialized. At least I got to see your place and say hi.

Still playing hate music, but it is putting me in a better mood.

lies, deceit, trickery

I really don't appreciate it when people lie to me. Its not something that I treasure in the least. I feel that its a betrayal of trust, not to mention an insult to my intelligence that I will not figure out the lie. It is the lowest blow, other than a physical shot to the junk. Especially when friends lie. It flies in the face of the friendship and negates any clout that has been built up. In the face of truth, people show their true colors and let their inadequacies shine through. Lying is something that is the ultimate antithesis of everything that I hold true. Lying comes to fruition when you get that feeling of betrayal in your being. It is a visceral response to the lies. Your stomach drops. The sweat starts rolling. Your face gets red. You hear nothing else but the lie(s) repeating in your head. It is almost as if lying is a virus that attacks you when you discover that you have it. A virus that leaves scarring wounds that don't heal. Wounds that can open up at any moment when the liar speaks, is seen, or thought about. Once a person lies to me, they are seen as a liar, no matter what other potentially redeeming qualities they might think they have.

This post is toned down from what I really wanted to say, which invloved several words that should not be said or written in front of people under the age of 18.

Playlist: hate music

darkness...

Sliding further into the abyss. Every passing day has become a darker shade of gray, ever creeping to black. Efforts at cathartic reconciliation have failed. An emptyness as vast as the concept of nothingness consumes everything it touches. It envelopes any and every thought and feeling. Life has become shadows and wisps of reality, ever stabbing into consciousness. Thoughts are formed that verge on obsession of escape and renewal. Thoughts desire rebirth as a phoenix rising from the ashes of a mythical funeral pyre.

"Burn yourself and leave nothing behind." -Bodhisattva

Playlist: Elliott Smith on repeat

Dog Chase

Today, as part of my week long plan to lose the fat that I have accumulated over the last week and a half, I went for a ride with one of my friends. We rode out into the country on roads that sometimes had names, but many had just numbers. It was a beautiful day, except for the occasional headwind. We had just gotten out of town about a mile or so when a dog, a Doberman, spotted us from his yard and started chasing us. This dog must have come from a line of champion Greyhounds, because he kept up with us for about half to three quarters of a mile, and we were doing about 23 MPH. Okay, fair enough dogs like to chase people on bikes, and in the country people don't leash their dogs. Don't even think about an electric fence. So we continue on our ride, laughing about the dog. We get about 10 miles or so out and another dog, who comes out of nowhere, starts chasing us. This one, luckily, was not as fast as the Dobie. He only kept up with us for maybe 15 or 20 seconds. Not too bad for a Retriever. We thought that was enough to talk about for a ride.

Little did we know that we would come upon the 1st wonder of the Midwest. Apparently, some architectural fanatic decided to build what, in his opinion must be breathtakingly wonderful, appeared to be a replica of Stonehenge. (Yet another THM) I wish that I were kidding. These stones were seriously twice my height and monstrous. Here we are in the middle of Clay County or Vigo County Indiana (we weren't really sure which county we were in at the time) and we happen upon the Stonehenge of the Midwest. Whoever had built this architect's wet dream had apparently had enough money and connections to locate the stones, transport them out to BFE, and then hire someone to come out and place them in formation. Only in Terre Haute.

Monon Bell

Today the Wabash Little Giants played in a great game with the Depauw Tigers and came out victorious. Final score Wabash 17 Depauw 14. The game was a sobering reality that I am graduated from college and are no longer allowed to get ridiculous on a weekly basis. It was strange for me to see the undergrads going crazy, and I had no desire to join them in insanity. Its strange when you realize that you have grown up and moved on to the next step. Not that I don't like to party, but it just wasn't the same as before. I was pumped that Wabash won, but still...

That was Sunday. Lets rewind a little: I did partake on Saturday, a little too much, as my drunk dials will attest. Got a chance to visit the bar in Crawfordsville. The only one into which Wabash students are welcomed. We drank too much and somehow I ended up getting a hot dog, cheeseburger, and fries at 3AM. I seriously felt pain in my liver on Saturday night. Not a chronic pain, but an acute stab once or twice. Saw another one of my friend's wives at the game. Weird. Another person under the age of 25 married.

Although, one of my friends recently brought up an interesting point: If I had had a child in high school, the child would be 6 or 7 years old right now. Scary. Everyone has those people that they went to high school with that got pregnant. What ever happens to those people? You seem to lose touch with them immediately after high school. In fact, I'm not sure that I would recognize those people if I saw them. Nor do I remember their names. I don't even remember the names of people that I casually hung out with, not to mention the acquaintences that I had.
Off the subject, of which there is none.

Mission for this week: work off the fat that has accumulated in my liver over the past week and a half.

Ebb and Flow

Life: a constant dance, a continually moving and changing tide, a cyclical, repeating, endless flow. Life is Tao. Hindu tradition teaches of the world as a continual dance of the god Shiva. It always seems that when you least expect things they seem to happen to you. Opportunities arise when you aren't looking for them specifically. Many opportunities relating to relationship possiblites also arise unexpectedly and seem to smack you in the face when you are least expecting it. Why is it that exes and single people seem to find you and call you when you are with someone? What is the norm? Is it a relationship with someone or is it the cycle of people calling and situations presenting themselves? I argue that the cycle is the norm. It is ups and downs. People flowing in and out. An influx of emotions and feelings. This norm is a type of environmental bipolar disease. It is simply periods of manic phases followed directly by severe depression. If the norm is this manic/depression cycle, then relationships are a steady state of insanity, the abnormal.

Relationships... not the direct subject of this blog, per se.
Back to the cycle. It seems that people pop up into your life just after you forget about them or stop talking to them. They don't just pop up again. They inflitrate your daily life. They claw their way back into your being. Feelings that have been forgotten, emotions that have subsided...
This is not solely limited to people that have been a part of your life previously, but is open to anyone, any person, any contact that you have had at any time. This tangential chance meeting becomes a focus. It seems that the status quo is a fickle relationship switching. It is incredibly hard to have an equal focus for every relationship, impossible I argue. This relationship switching prohibits an equality among relationships. Equality... the ultimate goal among people right? Impossible when it comes to personal realtionships. There will always be a tiered system when it comes to the levels of realtionships that people maintain in their daily lives.

As I write this blog, I realize my nature of writing in sound bytes. Little thoughts that are tangentially related. Even this paragraph is a tangent.

This normal cycle of fluctuation that is interrupted by relationships is life. As disheartening as it sounds and depressing as the outlook could be finding someone with which to have a relationship is an up-side. The path to this abnormal state of being: cycle and influx of new people. If life was static, the outlook would be even more grim. The prospect of a meaningful relationship with someone compatible would be welcomed, but unlikely with a latent nature of life. -Be thankful for the ebb and flow of life. The alternative is diasterous.

Honesty

Honesty is the best policy. In every (seriously every) relationship honesty should be the basis. It should be the common ground on which everyone treads. If you don't have honesty in your relationships, nasty words like deceit, lying, and fallacy start creeping in. Without honesty you get jealousy, questioning, and possibly hatred. I'm talking blunt truth honesty. Emotions, feelings, attitudes, reactions, everything. I don't know that I can emphasize that enough.

Honesty can also change your whole perspective when it smacks you upside the head. This is the type of honesty that makes you nervous just to think about. It gives you nausea just to think about hearing the honesty or speaking this honesty. This honesty is toxic honesty. It is the kind of honesty that can destroy your entire life. It is like the news of a non-operable small cell lung cancer that has spread to your brain, it sucks.

It is in situations that toxic honesty presents itself in which people's true nature shows through. How people respond to toxic honesty will give you a good idea of how they will respond to just about any other situation. This honesty is absolutely necessary, refer to the first sentence, but it sucks. Life is determined by traumatic events. Its just how you respond to them that makes you a hero or a coward. Everyone gets a shitty hand once in a while. It takes a truly brave person to play out a shitty hand and wait for new cards. I applaud people that have encountered devastation and continue to live their lives and flourish. These people go through crap and come out shining. I just hope that I can come out alive when a disaster hits.

Money orgy

One thing about the medical profession is that there is a constant influx of money: Drug companies, equipment companies, the AMA. The flow of money into the system and the amount of money can make some people sick. Medical students, on the other hand, we no longer have a concept of money. We live on a constant supply of money for which we don't have to work, at least that's how we perceive it. I get my loan money at the beginning of each semester and that's how I live. I have 44,000 dollars in loans for just this fiscal year. That's really not a lot of money, if you are a small business. For the average American, who has one mortgage, that is a third or so of their house. And that's for one year. Enough about loans.

The flow of money that pays for medically related conferences or dinners or promotional items is amazing. Truly amazing. Last night I attended a dinner that was geared towards AMA recruitment. Benign enough, the AMA national or state, some unseen entity, had simply provided a credit card for a dinner of 20 people at a decent restaurant. There was a limit on how much each person was to spend, but a couple people didn't show up, so... more for the rest of us. It was truly amazing that someone, some thing, some entity had provided money for us to eat. "Okay, here's 400 dollars. Go have dinner. Enjoy." Now, this wasn't an unfounded dinner. The AMA is actively recruiting medical students and physicians to be active members in a national organization designed to protect physicians and patients alike. The dinner was supposed to be a recruitment dinner, but in this case was a dinner to congratulate everyone for joining the AMA.

This is similar to every other organization, drug company, etc. They all want people to represent them or buy from them. Although in recent years there have been limitations on how much and what drug companies can buy for physicians. In the past years drug companies have bought plane tickets so physicians could vacation. They took physicians out golfing at the most expensive golf courses. They gave, and still give, bags, coffee mugs, clocks, and the ubiquitous drug pen. I have probably 2 or 3 dozen pens from different companies or from the same company, but for different drugs. Now they are more limited to providing meals, gifts, perks, etc. to people that would directly prescribe their drug. Its the old adage, "It takes money to make money." It all comes down how much money the company will make off the drug they are trying to sell to the physician. The physician isn't taking the drug, but simply telling other people to buy the drug. Interesting system isn't it? The average drug takes approximately 7 years to develop and move to market. (A drug patent is 14 years.) Companies can spend up to 750 million dollars in development of a drug with the hope that they will make billions. So spending millions on marketing the drug to physicians through perks seems less impressive.

So, if you are fortunate enough to benefit from this massive money orgy, take advantage. This is the attitude of many medical students, not all, but many. You feel like you are cheating the system by eating on the ticket of a company. In reality you are still being influenced in your attitudes toward a drug or a drug company or drug companies in general. This system, although flawed, seems to work. The patients get the drugs that are the best for the specific condition in most cases.