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Soil for the Trees

Lots of little changes since my last update. I followed through so far and got some dogwood trees. When they grow up, it might be a good idea to pass them down and sell them. They were cheap to start, just four bucks each. I had my dad pick them up, so I am still relying on them for a lot, but I am reckoning with that truth for now. The main goal is to start the foundations for the plants.
I thought I would start an LLC so I pay less taxes but some video on the internet scared me into that possibility. What matters more is that if I want to start a nursery, I just need to pay an annual fee, then I can sell them after inspection. They make it easy. I was worried about the legal, but that’s the least of my worries.
My mom is telling me of all the plants I could sell clippings of. Oh yeah, it was also Mother’s day. I have to listen to her more. It’s not that I have to take all her advice, but some of her advice is good enough that I don’t need the internet for any other. Her word could take me far. I am hoping one day my partner is as inspirational.
For now, I watch the foundations being set in my friend’s life and I am happy for him. His thing is in the studio and in entertainment. Honestly, the jokes on stage brough me to tears. Something about a crazy uber driver was part of what I needed. We never know what we need, so it may come as a surprise to us, because it won’t be if we really want it.
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Smarts, Feels, and Feeling Smartly

Smarts come in all sorts of sizes. You have street smarts, pet smarts, and mart smarts. Everything there is to know about has a higher level we deem “smart” to know.
Feelings wear all sorts of disguises. We have feelings from our hands, head, and gut. All sorts of feelings we may never be able to explain, as they are better off experienced. Thoughts may cloud our feelings, as much as a bad day can spoil the scenery, or pain can diminish pleasure.
What then is made of the smarts for the feels? Some say it is emotional intelligence, but what is the difference between emotional smarts and emotional stupidities? The answer lies in how it makes others feel, rather than the universal constants of truth. Someone’s entire perspective is a truth, and it often lives in their feelings. It is the gate that denies exit or entry from the brain. Nothing gets through our ego without being observed first.
The smartest smarts of all the smarts is survival, yet survival is not how we want to feel. Our survival instincts drive us down narrow paths. We wouldn’t need to pigeon-hole ourselves if we wanted to feel good. We would hope that the good pulls us to it (and the bad is repelled from us like a bad odor.)
We want to feel good at the end of the day, at the start, and the middle. We always want to feel good, so of course it is somewhere around waiting for us behind survival. Why else would we press on?
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Jumps

While I have done a lot of pondering in this blog, there’s also been some actual life changing events in my life. I have been managing a break-up, figuring out what I want to do for a career, etc. Even this blog itself was a step. Now I must take more than a couple steps– I need to jump off the moving train.
I actually know what I want to do with my life now, at least as my lifelong passion project. I want to remain within the world of birds, my sanctuary, and nurse trees that produce the fruits for them. I want to start out with some dogwoods, because it could attract bluebirds and cedar waxwings. I have yet to see the former, and the latter is my favorite bird. I actually like plants a lot too, and I believe they hold a lot of significance. Only thing is, I never had a nursery, my own business, or maintained several plants at all! This is surely going to be a big jump from what I am used to.
I am learning how to love again. I had a lot of trouble with keeping things stable, but now I am seeking someone who seeks stability too. Comfort alone is as nice as a mattress on the floor. I want a nice frame and house, the windows should be clear, and the air should smell nice. A home isn’t just a home, it’s who you share it with. Now I just have to start opening up the can of worms, pandora’s box; I need to take another jump.
I used to do track and field. Ironically, I did not like the running part because I wanted to be a jumper. I may not have always gotten what I wanted and had to run in a couple disappointing races, but at least it reminded me who I was. I look to overcome absurd objectives. I could keep running in circles if I wanted, but that won’t make the path shorter or the bar lower. I want them to keep raising the bar so that each jump above it is more and more surprising. Sure, it might feel like I have to let go of everything, but in that air suspended, I know someone or something will break my fall.
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Loosey Goosey

Some of us can keep a tight lip on secrets, and I am not one of those people. If something dramatic happens in my life, I always want a second opinion on it. It doesn’t feel good to gossip, but it feels needed sometimes. When the cat is out of the bag, things get curious.
It’s hard to tell someone they have an ego without someone calling you out for it. Their egotistical actions plus your complaining equal being an egoist yourself? It doesn’t make too much sense to me logically, but you can feel the tension and stress from mentioning another person’s name behind their back. It’s like they are going to hear you and attack you at times for it, or that the world is going to crumble under your feet. Plus, you literally have someone else’s name in your mouth ready to say something bad and you know what they say: “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anthing at all.”
Sometimes we gotta defend our honor. You make excuses or reasons for why whatever they said about you wasn’t true, but then from their POV they could pass a lie detector. You call someone out and then they cross-complain with their own gripes. Someone points out an error in your procedure, and then you double-down on it and ignore any criticism. Trust that I have seen it all before, but don’t because I don’t want to be held accountable for what I don’t know. The egotistical arrogance for just wanting to be right all the time.
If you admit you’re wrong, is that enough?
If I was hurt by their actions, can I talk down on their reputation?
If I just don’t like them for some reason or another, is it okay to tarnish their mood because they ruin mine daily?
These are the kinds of questions you ask a clergyman in confession or something, but just remember that justifying yourself doesn’t make you right. We don’t determine what is right and wrong, but we can choose to follow one path or the other. We can’t always predict who is going to get hurt from what we do, but we can do something important.
We can empathize and at least see their POV. We are lucky if they provide it to us honestly, securely, and calmly. Sometimes they leave us with silence and we have to garner all that ourselves. Sometimes we hurt somebody in physically/mentally in a way that scars them for life. It can even be an accident, but sometimes we know we wanted to hurt them. It is usually because they hurt you. Some of us are weak and get hurt easily, but we should recognize that and be honest about it. Some of us should be honest and say they are too numb to feel things, so they need to be told and reminded in a logical way. We can’t blast the light on a show so that everyone is as bright as the sun, but we can shine a spotlight. The way we see the light is up to our eyes to see, our body to take us there, and our mind to make it make sense. If you are missing the point of view, find how to get there. If you are blinded by the light, don’t look directly at it or get burnt. If you are unsure what you are seeing, think if you have seen anything like it before. If all else fails, close your eyes and take a step forward.
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Calling Cards of the Players

Hate to intellectualize some sex tropes, but maybe I will even romanticize them. Womanizers are the man’s version of a maneater. Post over. Just kidding, I haven’t beat the point to a pulp yet. I’d like to imagine there is something serene about these tropes we are missing, like something to admire about them, because oftentimes we fill a trope we don’t know the nuances to.
The womanizer is a type of man who is able to pursue multiple feminine sources and come out on top. They are better off in the matchmaking world than most of the other tropes, but the genuine, authentic types don’t take kindly to flattery. Those gentlemen who compliment a good woman are wasted in the bars and brothels. A good man is no womanizer, but that doesn’t stop men from the endless chase. The womanizer symbolizes the persistence of the man towards the woman.
A maneater is like an unstoppable force and it carries more weight than the modern girlboss. She wants to have men wrapped around her finger, and these kinds of women can be loyal too. The only problem is that they are always loyal to themselves first, as they should be. See, they develop a lot of social value around their traits and charisma. She knows what she wants and she knows ways to get it. When a man doesn’t play her game, she gets bored and finds new players. It really is those players that get caught.
So what can be learned in modern society and whether these tropes fit morally, effectively, and replicably? Well, there is something to be said about the effects they have on the rest of us. These tropes get down and dirty while most of us stay high and dry. Sometimes it takes a little elbow grease, and these two get things done, or at least get someone to do it for them. They win in efficacy, albeit it seems like the victims just get caught in a web they could have easily escaped from if the web didn’t look so tempting. And in terms of repeating their mistakes, should we? I leave that up to you to decide.
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Starting Over

Perhaps it is the wisdom from age speaking, but I think starting over your life with all that you know now is such a good way to express who you are. If we took away all the scaffolding, cleaned up the paintjob, and really made it sparkle it could be worth anything. When you passed a fancy house and said “wow,” or “this is for rich people,” you are only proving that hard work pays off.
When it comes to good books, movies, games, etc., it is like we wouldn’t mind refreshing our memory to start over once again. Imagine how nice it would feel to experience a smooth texture for the first time. I would be obsessed, personally.
I wonder why we don’t have greek engraved marble pillars anymore. I wonder why the streets aren’t paved with cobblestone. I see houses being built and they look compact instead of large and flourishing. Well, our whole society changed and apparently these are the features we can produce these days. It’s not like everything is a downgrade, because it could have nice plumbing, beautiful interiors, etc., but we might get turned off from the color light bulb they use. Can’t judge a book by its cover, and definitely shouldn’t just assume every house made in 2025 is doodoo garbage.
Quite frankly, it is childish to think we couldn’t do it all over again. Where would the fear come from, a lack of resources, network, etc.? I could see it if it was like you started making music at age 7 and your mom passed when you were 12, but you got things going before she passed in a way that couldn’t be replicated after. Makes sense, but does that mean the person who produced the music at age 7 just disappeared? Where was the curiosity, and did it just vanish because you had nobody to force you to do it, or no fear of failing?
I think we all had those dreams where it showed us our vulnerability. We are allowed that, and apparently our brain does want to feel those fearful emotions. I even enact chase scenes where I am scared to death, but I still wake up and escape. Well, that’s our escape from death in life. It is being one step ahead. It is seeing the traps before they’re sprung. Take it easy on yourself when starting new projects and let yourself feel the dread of dropping a new single or the fear of rejection from a career or person. Starting all over is like how the lettuce plant became broccoli or something, and that’s what evolution is all about.
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Birds

I feel like night owls in humanity meet other night owls and do fine, but early birds and night owls can not mix without sleep disruptions. Who knows if it could be more survivable?
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Entry 12.241
People who love to be right will force the situation around them being right more than framing the rightness about the situation. Then they blame you for calling them out as if it wasn’t a part of their plan. Their plan was to never be wrong. They failed. To acknowledge it is to let it exist, and they can be right in their Boolean logic so long as they remove the “false” from the false records.
People who want to be in control will force their ruling orders, even when there is nothing to govern. You can tell when they defend something adamantly, that it is something they feel a sphere of influence within. The controllers don’t want to share what they profit from, and often their life is involved in secrecy. They become hoarders of everything and nothing at all.
People who revolt may revolt beyond their means and ends. They will tear themselves apart in order to tear down what they despise most. It takes a certain kind of vengeance within these people to act, but once they do they lose their self-control. Revolution is more than a protest, it is the claim over the future, and oftentimes it becomes tyrannical- a hasty cheat in the system in order to “benefit” their delusions.
It’s in all people to just exist and be. Are we the harbingers of ideologies and people? I can only define my claim of such to be what is rightfully mine. If I were to have kids, I have some claim, but not all. The universe gave me the child, and so to the universe I would be most thankful and owe gratitude. It turns out that life’s blessing is that we may never have to endure the pain that brought us into this world unless we decide to- no, that is just not true.
It would be so nice and kind should life work out perfectly for all of us, but the truth is in the details. What suffering we create in our heads has none to compare with the true suffering: the counter copy of true euphoria. If we all got to choose our circumstances, we may not all choose the paths we have lived, and instead opt for the routes we manifested in our heads.
We believe that there was a possible chance we could have acted differently. That perhaps, we did have free will to think and behave. We have but the present to claim and nothing else. We owe nothing to our memories, only those that are worth remembering today. We don’t always choose what matters to us each day, because what matters changes quicker than the days can pass.
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Trade-offs

Passing the Relay Baton I think the greatest amount of insecurity in my life comes from the transition periods. When I was turning into an adolescent between the phase of clinging to my parents’ legs and the listening to whatever my sister said, I started to become even more naive than before. The knowledge I kept wasn’t always the knowledge I needed. People bullied me back then and I couldn’t see the fairness in it. I was such a little runt all things considered. Always pulling pranks and being disobedient. Trusting the wrong people only got easier.
Then, when I started getting a little older between the ages of too young to drink and just old enough to (kind of) think, I felt like I was set up for success with all my gifts and such. You learn to get more appreciative at this age because things you once had don’t show up anymore or at least not as often. Nostalgia becomes a valuable tool in reminding you who you are, or at least reminding you of who you were. We like to acknowledge what went right, but our cringiest moments are just as solidified so don’t get cocky.
When you mature into a young adult, you don’t really mature at all. See, I learned that adults are way bigger f-ups than children. If children could have infinite money and power, yes they would destroy the world. I bet if you gave all the adults that same power, they would find a way to destroy it faster. I don’t trust adults, but I trust older kids at least with themselves. I didn’t trust myself enough when I was coming of age. I always thought I was on the wrong route when I was just navigating uncharted territories.
I always wanted to lead the path instead of following it, but little did I knew few would follow behind. In high school, my friend group and relationships were much more small than my peers. I started to realize that being a leader of nothing was like being the follower of everything. I never really matured past that part, so these days I feel like an adult who feels the need to stay relevant as much as a teenager who uses their phone to replace socializing or maturing. Like I told my friend, a phone isn’t a toy but there are toys on your phone. Being an adult is really about having a bigger toy box that you don’t get to play with anymore. Hot wheels cars that once symbolized what we wanted from our adulthood became the centerpiece of our childhood.
What we really trade off for maturity is not naivety or childishness, but just the time we would have spent doing something else. We don’t have to wait for someone to tell us what to do to have fun, we mever did. We bring that energy everywhere and call it our comfort zone. We trade away the things we need sometimes to just feel comfortable where we were. What we really need to trade to succeed is the energy we saved for the results we need now. No point waiting for the results to come to you.
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Just Better

There’s gotta be something inherently wrong with thinking you’re better than someone. That’s what they tell you, but then why do we hold competitions at all? We can still be friendly while trying to overpower each other. As long as everyone agrees to it, how could it be wrong? I think what I have a problem with isn’t when someone is more proficient or consistent, it’s when they challenge me to prove myself when they have not proved their own willpower.
You can be the best at something at people wouldn’t know it. Everytime you walk into a crowd of people, one of you is the tallest, shortest, dumbest, smartest, healthiest, sickest, oldest, youngest (are those words?) and that’s just a fact of the matter. That doesn’t mean the tallest always gets the girl or the cutest gets the guy. People are willing to change the rules of the game to be more inclusive, but if not then good luck.
See, this is why we each have standards. We know what we excel in and what holds us back. What we did yesterday may not cut it today. The novice needs to hone the fundamentals and an expert must stay practiced. To deny that is to refuse the identity that is awarded to you by others when you meet the requirements to a certain image. You might think you are beautiful, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You could keep looking at your reflection in the water, or you could watch the fish. One thing is for certain, is that the fish see you differently than you see you.
So how do we get better? Does it mean we must chase the shadow of another to take their thunder? That we must extinguish others’ flames to shine brighter? Do we even have to shine at all? No, no, and yes. If we were to judge ourself on a metric, let’s say artistic ability, and we were to draw a circle, that circle should look like a representation of our ability. If we were to judge ourselves on our ability to draw a perfect circle, it wouldn’t be much more different. The difference is like squares and rectangles, you may be able to draw a perfect circle, but you could be a poor caricature artist. The point is what are we going to define ourselves *with* rather than a real measure of who we are. Facts mean nothing without opinions, that’s why I hate it when people showboat without thw facts to prove it. Toxic masculinity or something, but anyways, who are you better than, and at what?
