Change is the only thing in this world and beyond that is a “constant”. The world a hundred years ago was very different from the world we know today, and it will change again. In all of that time the meaning of “freedom” has changed based on the needs of the people, and each time there is such a change we learn something new.
There is one thing that I try to look for when I think about what freedom can mean, not just for myself but for others as well. The bigger picture.
Freedom, to me, means to be able to live unimpeded. To live in ways that we each can be happy and healthy, without being hurt or dominated by others, and vice versa. Idealistic? Sure, but it’s as simple as all that, even if it is a pipe dream under our current world circumstances.
I don’t want this to turn into a pointless argument or cause anyone to feel attacked in such a way they need to “come at me” to defend themselves, but people need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Politicians, as a whole, are the most public figures in the Unite States of America right now, doesn’t matter which side you’re on. Who do I disagree with most? To be fair, all of them! Again, let me repeat myself, I don’t care which side you’re on for this, because COLLECTIVELY they are all responsible. That’s why we elect them!
Yet, we have a big problem right now. They can’t AGREE with one another. They can’t work together because they’re constantly involved in these bullshit petty arguments and are unable to hold themselves and each other accountable in a manner that is fair FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Too many competing conflicts of interests that taint priorities. Money changing hands to unduly influence decisions (if you have doubts about this, you can check out OpenSecrets to see where money the money is coming and going.) Too much pride, ego, and selfishness for themselves and no concern for the rest of us. WE elect THEM to REPRESENT US and yet I feel like they have failed. I cannot agree with any of them on their tactics or view points when they refuse to collaborate like decent human beings who see and respect the bigger picture that they represent something more than themselves.
I don’t think I’ve ever truly had one. I have, more or less, just kind of fallen into whatever I stumble into or the odd opportunities that have come to me.
Unless I’m mistaken, most colleges offer some kind of career counseling where they help you, you know, PLAN and even maybe track down opportunities related to your degree path. My particular experience with that was very disappointing and underwhelming. Prior to graduating I met with a “career counselor” at most twice before they started to cancel meetings with students. Post graduation, the only support these folks gave was a weekly email of job listings in a table format with related degrees listed next to each item. That was several months after graduation, and I was immediately suspicious because I had no further contact with them prior, so I dug in a bit. Looking at the jobs listed in the email, I compared the list to the local news employee ad section. Sure enough, it was the same. So much for that job hunting assistance and career planning.
Outside of that terrible experience, I didn’t look particularly hard. I just needed to get my foot in the door somewhere and then I could (hopefully) start working my way up and deciding an actual plan. I would occasionally check that email because it served as a reminder to look, then I’d also look on Indeed.
So, beyond all of that, I never really had a “career plan” and really still don’t. That’s part of why I’ve stayed in my current job for the last eight years or so.
Maybe I could consider the writing/authorship desire to be a “plan” but I don’t have a solid timeline for trying to achieve any major goals. I’ll just get there when I get there.
In the past I’ve never been big on going to concerts. Probably because I don’t like being surrounded by thousands of strangers (which is also likely why I don’t go out of my way to go to conventions.)
That being said, I will go if I’m not going alone. The number of live performances I have been to can be counted with just my two hands, and the last one was in 2019.
TwitchCon ’19 was the first major convention I had ever been to (that I can recall, though I may have been to one as a real little kid back in Denver) and on the second night of the three days they had an after party. Twitch rented out the entire baseball stadium, Petco Park, which was a convenient walk from the convention center. They had all the beer and food vendors open on the lower level, and you had the choice of sitting in the stands or being down on the field (with the ability to go back and forth as you wanted) during the performance.
Originally, Lil Nas X was supposed to headline the event with Blink-182, but he backed out last minute. Instead, we got an awesome last minute surprise headliner of rapper Logic. It was my first and so far only time getting to see any of them live, so I can at least scratch that off my non-existent concert bucket list.
It was a great show, overall, even with the overpriced stadium food, but I haven’t been to any of the following TwitchCon events since. COVID-19 kind of ruined that for everyone.
Truth be told, I don’t do a whole lot to be involved in my community at any level. I’m very introverted by nature, so I don’t go out. I don’t typically participate in activities outside the home. I go to work, I go to the grocery store and sometimes the gas station, and I come home. Regardless of how long any of that takes, I show people kindness and respect as much as possible so that I’m at least putting good out into the world even if I’m not being an active participant in the community.
There are rare occasions that I do go somewhere outside of the norm. Lately, it has been to my nephew’s soccer games. Where ever they are, I try to go, and in those cases I interact more with strangers, but we’re all there for the same reason, we cheer on the kids and support them in doing something they enjoy, so we’re not focused explicitly on actively interacting with one another since our focus is on the fields where the kids are playing.
That’s about it lately. I should maybe get out a bit more.
What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?
There are way too many jobs to choose from for this question…
I think I’ll settle for being the president of a AAA video game studio. Not on one of their easiest or average days, but one of their busiest or more challenging days just to see what they need to be prepared to do. What kinds of choices they have to make, the pressure they have to deal with, and so on.
When we’re talking about brands it really depends on the category of product. More often than not, I don’t particularly care about specific brands. Generic products are usually just as good as their brand name counterpart. The only time I truly care about a brand pick is when you don’t have many choices, like with gaming.
Gaming hardware is an area that is limited to just a few companies in the home console market, and computer components are kind of in a similar situation. Looking at consoles, my favorite brand has pretty much always been Nintendo. They don’t aim for the latest and greatest or most cutting edge technology when designing their consoles, preferring to go with well developed and tested modern components that they can try to stretch the limitations of (if you’ve played The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, you understand.)
For the computer gaming side of things it really depends on a component level to understand the wider landscape of brands. Graphics cards are limited to just a couple of primary designers/manufacturers (AMD, Nvidia, and more recently Intel) with many subsidiary brands that help with the manufacturing (such as Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, Zotac, etc.) while CPU’s are limited to just AMD and Intel. You could get really down in the weeds when looking into building a PC and trying to select components from various brands. As for a favorite brand in this area, I would most likely pick AMD and EVGA. AMD specifically for their increased product development strategies of the last decade because they were fighting to catch up with Intel in the CPU/GPU markets (and finally getting to a very competitive position against Intel, who kind of stagnated their own hardware development by being complacent in their dominant position.) EVGA has had exceptional quality customer service (in my limited experience) when it comes to their GPU’s and PSU’s, so I’ve stuck with them for that reason.
We’ll leave things here for now, though, because I could probably go on for ages about the many different brands I like and why.
I don’t feel like writing an answer for today’s writing prompt, and some of you may have noticed that some of my posts throughout the week have been shorter. That’s because I’ve been traveling for the last seven days.
My travel partners (Dad and sister) and I made a trip to Colorado to visit family, and along the way we stopped at a few places and also took a lot of pictures.
One of the first places we took a teensy detour for was The Klown Museum. My Dad was not excited about that, because it’s honestly got that creepy vibe to it (sorry, Klown Museum.) He was hoping to avoid it, but he opened his mouth and just stream of thought mentioned it, which reminded my sister who got SO excited she began giggling and clapping her hands. She knew it made my Dad a little uncomfortable and since she was driving she got to make the call to drive by to get pics. We also stopped to look at this old barn with some crows or ravens on top.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming was incredible. So much history in those old buildings, and so many antelope! The place is practically a nature preserve for them. We also saw some pelicans on these little (I assume) artificial lakes/ponds. Naturally I tried to get some pictures. There was a coffee shop on base that my Dad and sister liked to go to, and unfortunately I was working remote this whole week so I didn’t go with them, but my sister sent me a pic of their specials board (I got the Heart Container, and it was pretty damn good!)
We stayed in Wrangler Bunkhouse for the weekend, and I made sure to get some pics of the inside.
After our brief stay on base (with a couple trips into Cheyenne proper for dinner/lunch and small necessities) we moved on to Colorado for a week with my step grandfather and his little zoo of domestic and wild animals. His dog, Chester is such a sweet boy and loved playing fetch with his tennis balls. His roommate’s cat, Baby didn’t like new people and hid from me all week (until maybe 30 minutes ago from writing this post when she warmed up to me and wanted my attention for some food.) The wild animals are a couple of outdoors cats that the neighborhood kind of collectively takes care of, as well as a squirrel that was a bit too brave and almost made it into the house a couple times (we learned that the roommate had been feeding it some mixed nuts, so of course it was comfortable with people.)
Anyways, here are a bunch of the pictures I took along the way. Happy Saturday everyone!
I’m not using my blog as a political soapbox. I’m not going to be openly choosing sides or trying to influence anyone to do the same. The only thing I want to encourage people to do is simply vote. I do my best to never miss an election that I’m eligible to vote in. Local, State, Federal, whatever.
Don’t let anyone tell you that your vote doesn’t matter. Don’t let yourself be swayed in any way so as not to exercise your right to vote.
If you’re among those that are already convinced that “my one vote won’t matter” then let me point something out. If you do think this thought, imagine how many thousands upon thousands of other people who think and act the same. You are not just another “drop in the bucket” if all of you vote instead of abstaining.
But if you still choose not to vote, then don’t complain about the results.
To me, knowing your life’s direction means understanding what drives you to action and fulfills you. Having a sense of fulfillment usually leads to some amount of happiness. Unfortunately, I just kind of go with the flow most of the time, no major drive to act, so I never really get a solid sense of fulfillment to know that I’m going the right way with my life.
If I’m in the right place and time, and someone needs help in a way I can help them, then I provide people with my time and effort to make sure they get that help. If I can’t directly help them but know who can then I point them that way and make sure that they connect.
Outside of all of that, I don’t actively seek out opportunities to help.
In retrospect, as I’m writing this post out, I’d say my lack of drive is probably because I’ve never made a connection with helping people in ways that I know I can do continuously. Like some authors who write books and know that their stories have helped readers around the world, which would help drive them to keep writing. The ways I’ve helped are always relatively brief. (Does this make sense?)
Maybe this is part of why I’m pushing through with writing every day.
The Dragon's Grove 