Musings

[Don't tell me that I'm emo]

“I honestly think this may be the end of the world.”
And just like that, the world explodes. Australia is flung towards Neptune, while Africa coincidentally breaks apart into the shapes of its countries and drifts into the center of our solar system. The earth’s water vaporizes and freezes back into ice as it enters deep space. All plants and animals cease to exist. Nothing is left alive. Our conscience is the only thing that remains.

“I think therefore I am.”

I know exactly who I am. I am the shadow of my human form. I am water. I am the essence of life. I am alive.

I drift through space without direction, without a destination, and without a guide. I move laterally, diagonally, then in curves. I move forward in time, and then retrace my steps. What is a day if you have no sun? What is a second if you have no heart? What is now if nothing ever changes?

I know exactly who I am. I am eternal. And I know exactly who I am not. I am not here.

“Is this home?”

You are outside of the milk way. Careening through space. Careening through time. Careening through nothing. This is home.

Can you see that? No. Can you hear that? No. Can you smell that? No. But can you feel that? Yes. Approaching you is a star that’s five hundred times bigger than the sun. Its energy radiates and explodes, giving light and heat to everything around it. Giving warmth and life to everything it touches. But this star too explodes. It no longer lives. It’s gone. And in its place is nothing.

I know exactly what I am not. I’m not a star.

How do you end consciousness? Through sleep? Nay. Through death? Never. You can’t quiet a spirit that doesn’t depend on any material thing to survive. You can’t mute the siren that we know as life. How far is the east from the west? It’s as far as the beginning is from the end. And you my friend, are right in the middle.

Everything As It Is

I’ve received two titles this year: coordinator and project manager. Then I realized something about myself, I’m not a good leader – for the same reason that I can’t draw or design. This will make sense in a moment, but remember this – process.

A few years ago I was with a friend at Starbucks. We had a few hours to kill so we pulled out a few pens and started scribbling on napkins and scrap paper. He started drawing stick men on a sheet of paper. A bunker here, a rifle here. Small explosions. The image grew into a battle between two opposing sides. Two sides with rifles and grenades and exploding body parts. What fascinated me was that the scene seemed to come out of the fog. The details were there, you just didn’t know what they were till he connected the dots.

I remember watching a video of Jim Lee, a comic book artist icon. After looking through some of his work I became obsessed with him. I loved the way he added detail that filled the entire page. Most comic book artist would draw the main character with a vague background so not to distract the reader from the story. Jim Lee went against the grain and drew out landscapes and individual muscles. He knew that comic books were about the images and he fleshed out every single character as best he could.

In the video I saw of Jim Lee he demonstrated how he drew him characters. He’d look at the page and draw a line here and another there. Nothing really connected until he started refining the image, then the image would come out. His technique was the same as my friend’s: he saw the whole image in his head. He saw the body proportions, he saw the details of the exploding grenade, and he traced the invisible lines.

When I draw an arm, I first draw the bicep, then I draw the elbow, then I draw the forearm. If everything looked proportional, I’d draw a hand. Everything goes in logical order. You start from point A then go to point B. Like connect-the-dots. This is the way I think, in steps. I can’t imagine an invisible image and trace the invisible lines. I can’t see what a yearbook divider is supposed to look like as a finished product. I can’t tell you what a website is supposed to look like without having it in front of me. Just like this blog/note I started with an idea, sat down and wrote. I don’t know how I’m going to conclude this and I don’t care. Each sentence is its own step and I’m taking these steps with a flashlight that only shines two feet ahead of me.

Thus I panic when I’m faced with leadership tasks. Leadership requires you to have foresight and direction. Leaders don’t look down to find the next step, they always have their heads up. I’ve been having problems with tracing invisible lines because I can’t see point C. I have to start at point A which leads to point B which then leads to point C. I can’t conduct an orchestra because my process is to conduct the first violins first, then the second violins second. I can’t imagine controlling everything at once. I can’t control a fellowship all at once. I can’t make a website in one swift stroke. And like I said earlier – I don’t know how I’m going to end this.

I’m not writing this as an excuse. Leadership requires a lots of experiences and lots of failure. What I hope to accomplish is . . . to start blogging more.