If there's a single thing that I can say about life definitively: it's unpredictable. Like, very much so. You could go back to any of the moments where I was sitting and writing my 7+ years of blog, and be like, "So, what's going to happen?" And then, I'd probably come pretty close in a macro-sense, but the stuff that really comes into play on a series-of-moments basis, no none of that.

I can still look at life and living and the relationships and friendships you have and see it as very statistically based. I don't really believe in any "one person for everyone" thing at all.  I'm sure out of the billions of people out there, loads of them are pretty cool.  I guess something like 1 billion know English, so you can count the rest out, but still, good stuff. 

But then, wait a minute, when I think about it, the majority of people in the world I probably wouldn't like. So maybe it is good when good stuff happens to you.  Still probably statistically validatable, but maybe lucky nonetheless.

The MacGyver theme song just came on my iTunes randomly.  I used to have this "What Would MacGyver Do?" shirt.  I had some sets of the DVD but I think I sold it when I was in my, "Holy shit, I need money to pay for stuff in college" phase.  I was selling stuff left and right.  Books, sunglasses, random stuff you find. 

If I ever had to audition for a movie or TV show, I'd have to do Roy Batty's dying scene.  In fact, maybe I'll do it everyday just to practice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzA_xesrL8

Anyway, a couple of my alltime favorite quotes comes from The Office (UK) Christmas Special.  This whole monologue just hits me hard. It's simply brilliant.  Says it all better than I ever could:

The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. You know, you don't know them, it wasn't your choice, and yet you spend more time with them then you do your friends or your family. But probably all you've got in common is the fact that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for 8 hours a day. And so, obviously, when someone comes in who you... you have a connection with... yeah. And Dawn was a ray of sunshine in my life and it meant a lot. But, if I'm really being honest I never really thought it would have a happy ending. I don't know what a happy ending is. Life isn't about endings, is it? It's a series of moments. And umm... it's not if, you know, if you turn the camera off it's not an ending, is it. I'm still here, my life's not over. Come back, come back here in 10 years, see how I'm doing then. Cause I could be married with kids, you don't know. Life just goes on.

Check this out, I even figured out how to link to it! I'm so good at the internet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLcTKCRfryg&t=3m19s
Spoiler alert, it's like the culmination of the series (which is only 14 episodes total so easy to burn through and doesn't jump the shark ever like other versions of The Office I know).

All in all and I'm loving every rise and fall. I'm too much of a dreamer an all around imagineer to think that everything is just circumstance. And I've seen/heard of too much weird stuff. Perhaps we are all just here as the necessary .00000000001% chance of variables lining up PERFECTLY. Because that's what it takes. Temperature, pressure, chemical composition, time, gravity, chance, CHANCE, CHANCE.

The fact that you yourself made it to exist is honestly a miracle, in any definition, logically, statistically, philosophically, religiously, or otherwise. So you got that going for you, which is nice.

Rain pinged off of his metallic shell, falling to the dirt with a sizzle.  He traced slowly through the mud, his wheels barely holding traction as he lurched forward. In his left hand, clutched between his three long, silver fingers was a bundle of flowers.

On the top of the cemetery gate, set against the dark cloudy backdrop, stood a single crow. His wings were mangled with an off-green glow, but he seemed content and unaffected by the robot's presence. The robot stopped near the entrance, staring ahead at the black, metal bars forming a fence around the graves. He could remember the last time he had come here, decades before. He remembered trees, grass, the buzzing of insects. He remembered the sun, and the simple thrill of breathing. His eyes looked forward, flashed a bright yellow, and he rolled towards the gate.

A red light pierced the darkness. A buzz. Beeps began to echo through the cavern. He was awake, activated.  Gears whirled as his arms lifted him off the ground. His wheels caught traction on the dirt as he began to spin into place. Suddenly, he stopped and started forward toward the cave entrance, his arms swinging back and forth at his side, and his light dancing along the wall.

A few seconds later, he emerged from the cave, the sun glinting off of his metallic skin. His face was frozen, self-assured. Two large glowing yellow lights as eyes. His mouth, a yellow grid, as ripped directly from a mid 21st century speaker. His arms dangled off of his bucket-like frame, a drill on the end of one arm, and 3 long, pronged slender fingers on the other.

Two single rods were welded off of the bottom of his body, with sturdy, rubber tires on the end of both. He seemed nimble enough despite his design, rolling back and forth across the desert ground. Slight clinks and clanks rang out as he surged over rocks and hills. Birds, mutated from years of radioactive exposure, stared on from a distance, likely shocked from what they saw.  This man of metal, cruising his way across the land. And there, on the top of his robotic head, the most startling thing of all: sitting surrounded by a dome of clear glass was a large, fleshy, pink brain.

He continued zooming across the dirt, sending a plume of dust up around his wheels, as he made his way toward the sun. Where he was going, was anyone's guess.
 

I was going to go on a really long dissertation on this. I had it all planned out on the elliptical. Trust me, it would have been AWESOME! Lives changing, cars crashing into eachother, nuclear war buttons simultaneously pressed. But instead, The short of it because I have stuff to do.

Okay, bodies. We all have them. Our brains are part of our bodies too. They are full of chemicals and neurons that go POW! BAM! KAPOW! even at certain times. Problem here: it's all physical. What makes you think you can trust it? Answer: nothing.

I'm of the belief that the emotion of fear has misevolved over the years. Originally, it was to protect you from danger, and death. For example, "I shouldn't die, because that's not good for my species." But somehow, someway, it was changed. Like, people are scared of being embarrassed. What's the harm in that really? Embarrassment is a dead-end emotion for the most part. It might help you fit into social norms (e.g. not running around naked), but in many ways, you don't NEED it to survive.

How it got like that, I don't know. I know fear or anxiety is often tied to "this won't better my life, so I'm anxious about it", but too many times it's just fear for the sake of fear. I can't help that, you can't help it. It's a part of your chemical makeup.

But, you can FIGHT IT. That one lesson has been the most important to me in my whole life. Look at the logic behind it, why do I feel fear of doing this? For the sake of being embarrassed or maybe it not working out? Well, will it not work out TERRIBLY (like I'll get put in a Shanghai prison), or will it just make me feel bad for a bit?

If it's the latter, then fuck it, do it. Be fearless. Go after what's out there. Your emotions will oftentimes try to protect this. I guess the body doesn't want to feel the sadness attached to a situation gone wrong? Understandable, but not acceptable. Do the math, and fight yourself when you can. It gets easier.

That's the secret to my (relative) success.

Modest Mouse has probably my favorite lyrics ever. I can equate loads of them to my life.
BUT ALSO... they have plenty of songs where the titles would be unbelievable as titles of autobiographies. Some include, but are not limited to:

The Good Times Are Killing Me
The World At Large
Bury Me With It
Float On
Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset
3rd Planet
Gravity Rides Everything
Dark Center of The Universe
Life Like Weeds
Exit Does Not Exist
Edit The Sad Parts
Out Of Gas
Neverending Math Equation
History Sticks To Your Feet

And probably more!

But I'd probably paraphrase one of their album titles and call my biography "This Is A Long Life For Someone With Nothing To Think About".

Because I do have a lot to think about. That's the satire built in.

I've been taking pleasure in other peoples' happiness lately. I cannot explain why. Happiness that isn't tied to personal gain AT ALL? How does that even make sense?

Like, take this excellent example.  I met this girl through THIS BLOG a handful of years ago. We had a little ill-fated romance thrown in. But she had a friend, and I met her 5+ years ago. Then one things leads to another, an organism evolves to something CHICKEN-LIKE, and lays an egg and we eventually define it as a chicken egg, and then this friend meets my friend. Sparks fly, scenes are censored, and they are pregnant with twins.

He's a twin so somehow that adds to the concoction. But yesterday they find out it's twin GIRLS so it all of a sudden becomes very real. And I'm all like, I'm (in)directly responsible for two lives? With my blog? HUMAN BEINGS are being created as an offshoot of my actions??? It was emotional. In a brilliant way.

So cheers to that and to the happiness of the universe as a whole. Because, why not?

P.S. - I just noticed that BOTH THE FUTURE PARENTS commented on the fore-hyperlinked blog post. Is that likely their first ever interaction? And when their twins have families and lives in the year 2070 it can be tied back to a post showing my dirty hotel room that I lived in for 6 months? My brain is doing it's own big bang right now.

I turned 26 today. That is a very powerful birthday. If I had been in 2nd grade and you told me I'd live to 26, I'd say "No Fucking Way, You Cunt!"  Because that was even older than my teachers at the time. But it's fine, I guess. I'm still living the hedonistic lifestyle which is good for now.
I'm trying to have an impact on the universe (or my part) as much as I can. I know that the sun will explode in 5 billion years which is a problem.  And I know that there were some badass dinosaurs who probably thought, "This is awesome. I'm the best dinosaur hunter ever. People will sing stories about me for generations to come!" But then the dinosaur died and no one remembered him and he probably didn't even fossilize properly. But, maybe, he had an effect on future birds somehow? And then the bird shit all over my car and I got an 8 dollar carwash and it didn't even cure it, so I was mad then I killed something, so you know, in the end that dinosaur has an effect. And with robotics, I'm sure I can be a brain in a jar connected to a droid in a few years, so why fret? Ya know?
I have a new birthday tradition for this quarter century! Me and my "friend" (hilariouser that way) will hang out and talk about our lives so far? It seems like fun so why not.
Did you know that Back To The Future is 26 as well? The odds of that are super slim. Like 1 in a 4 billion.

One of my favorite moments in film comes in Fistful of Dollars. In one scene, Clint Eastwood, as "The Man With No Name", is helping out a woman and her son. The woman asks him, "Why are you doing this for us?" and he says, "Because I knew someone like you once and there was no one there to help."

Pretty powerful in and of itself, but then when you put this together with the fact that this statement serves as pretty much ALL YOU EVER GET of this guy's backstory in 3 movies (where he walks the tightrope between good guy and bad guy), it's pretty tremendous.

And that's sort of the general methodology of life I try to shoot for.  Keep the aire of mystery and intrigue but damn it, do what you can.

It's probably even more important when you get older. Time waits for no one.

50% is always a big deal. Like during a race, you think "I'm 50% done." Then the rest is (figuratively and occasionall literally) downhill. That's why everything that happened before 1998 now kinda freaks me out. Because it's all in the FIRST HALF of my life. Like Beavis and Butt-Head was off the air by then. Although, their ramifications were felt for years thereafter. I don't know if anything from the 00's has hit as hard to me as the stuff in the 90's.

Partly that's because your formative years are just that (formative). But there is a positive these days of being able to "binge". Binge shows, binge movies, binge books. Hell, binge www.dinosaurcomics.com.  I know I am.

I loaded all my OLDDD MP3s into my iTunes finally and it's like a time machine but worse because it's just memories? The moral: nostalgia hits you like a brick. Not regret, though. Never regret: that's like in the top 5 life rules. Digest, process, spit out. Get better.

As an absurdist, that's the meaning I've given to my own life. Grow, learn, progress. All of those blended.  And if you can help others do the same (or even just try), then that's a massive bonus.

There is an alternate timeline where my family never moved from Poland to the USA. IN FACT, this fact is probably true in 95% of the parallel universes. This is because like 95% of my Polish family didn't move to America. Ipso, facto.

Let's see. So I'd be 25.99 years old there. Would probably think in POLISH which is weird because it's not nearly as funny or expressive as English. I might have learned English by then. I'd probably be all like, "I wanna move to America or England ughhh, Poland sucks."

I wouldn't know any awesome indie bands like I do now. I'd probably be all into Christina Aguilera. Just singing "Genie in a bottle" over and over again in my head.

There is also a super high probability I'd be married with a kid by that point, due to the differences in culture, and the fact that America has driven me mental and implanted a "never satisfied" personality.

I would probably have a weird lame job with not a lot of pay, and my wife would be good at cooking and I'd come home and say stuff like, "So, what's for dinner? MMM goulash!." Then I'd play with the kid, read the newspaper, think stuff like, "This crossword is too easy." It would be weird indeed.

Alternate timelines are the best.

Please see attached. Be sure to shuffle. Let the fates decide.