H. Crow

Category: Life Changes

These blogposts talk about an interaction between life and experience. It’s not always life changing in the moment, but it matters in the long run.

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Spring

    Oh, I love Spring. The trees start blooming into beautiful colors. Animals and plants get busy doing what they do after hibernation. Only downside to watch out for is pollen surges. Did you know that pollen surges and a subsequent rise in allergies over the last several years was induced by the introduction of MALE trees for decoration instead of a proper balanced mix of the sexes. That’s why there’s so much pollen, as my sibling would call it, it is tree sperm!

    Enough horrifying imagery. Spring is when we have the saying “Spring Cleaning”. Personally, I don’t engage in this Spring activity too frequently, usually just once or twice I will clean my room more thoroughly. It does feel better to have a clean house though, and I feel like it’s the high production outside that leads to production inside.

    On my nightly walks, pink little petals litter the ground and it looks so nice. There’s a lot of cherry blossoms in my area. It is an introduced species however, and I know ecologists are not a fan because it can disrupt the ecosystem. I get it, and I feel similarly about house sparrows, but they are so cute! Nonetheless, beauty is everywhere you look, up or down in Spring. I heard a lot of parties going on during my walk and that was at 3 AM. Gotta love central Americans and their relentless fiestas.

    Spring is also the time for migrating bird species to reach my parks. You got the warblers, grackles, parulas, etc. who can’t wait to sing. Imagine riding on the back of a bird during that journey. I wonder what goes through their heads to tell them where to go, or is it communicated to them by their kin? My nightly walks lead to a dead-end and it makes me wonder if that barrier wasn’t there between the street and the park, would I keep going?

    Spring into action this spring. Gotta visit those parks and hiking trails. Play some sports with homies. Go outside to read, even if it is just on your phone. Get a little sweaty, donate some moisture to the clouds above. Also, get ready for the burning sun to come. It goes from a blanket of sunshine to searing rays quite quick. Anything beats the cold for me. Cold or heat, which would you choose?

  • Sleep v. Rest

    I need to get more sleep, or at least it needs to feel more fulfilling. Some nights like the last, I will have a bedtime around 5 to 6 AM. Other days I can manage at 4 AM. If only my mom didn’t make do much noise at 5 AM, but to be fair it’s all on me because I could just sleep at 12 AM if I let my body.

    It is a drag to have to wake up for a deadline or work when it would spike your performance with just “five more minutes!” Those five minutes are usually why I am fifteen minutes late to work.

    I can’t get why I wake up in random positions. We can record ourselves sleep via audio these days, but few people actually record a video of our sleep. It would be convenient to have the camera crew in my bedroom just to watch me sleep. I would probably be more inclined to finally go to bed on time, like “the camera crew comes in at 11 PM so I need to shower and look good by 10:40 PM,” you know, stuff like that.

    These days, it always feels like there is something to think about that feels better avoided. Like what we plan to do with our lives or whether that relationship is going to pan out. Thinking in 2025 is a scam. It was good like 10 years ago, but the diminishing returns are ruthless. It feels so much better to watch and listen to the little birds outside my window. I don’t think I need thought to enjoy that.

    -H. Crow

  • Days

    Yesterday, the blog did not go live. Turns out that it is just a bit more work until it is ready. Like the introduction of TeamSpeak (a popular voice chat program between the ages of Skype and Discord), it probably is confusing to use at first but then it just becomes a groove to fit into. Life is kinda like that too, because we can’t plan out each day with nearly as much certainty as we want per year. If we want to go skydiving before the next year, it feels pretty easy. Worse comes to worst, it will just be a birthday celebration. Planning to skydive right now or even just today is not so simple. Some things need to be planned ahead, even if it seems like it needs to be done immediately. Not to say that we should all procrastinate on everything.

    Anyways, I need to finish this blog, or at least the starting steps. Currently struggling with a good domain. Also, I do not know how WordPress really works. I don’t know what Bluehost does and I spent a couple hundred for it to stick around 3 years. [Editor’s note: I kinda like it given this is my first time with a site-builder, and I caught on within the first two days as a complete beginner.] Either way, gotta plan stuff out just like I plan for this whole blog to stick around at LEAST 3 years. Pretty daunting task; it sounds like over 1000 days of blogging. I see some channels struggle to stay consistent for 100 days or even 30 days. Guess I have a lot on my plate.

    If I take it day by day, it’s like choosing what food to eat daily. I choose what to write each day like a meal. The cravings might dictate how I feel and what I want, like what kind of genre or category I’d want to write. Maybe it is a lament, rant, poem, or who knows. We won’t know and I definitely don’t know, but what I do know is that I know that I know a lot. Because I know what I know, I know that what I know is no no-no, just no nonsense, and who knows better than you, you know?

    [Mini rant: plus they make it so hard to start this website stuff. You pay for services and they scare you with a free domain. I don’t know if I even confirmed the right domain or not because they gave me a temporary one and I tried switching to the one I wanted but then I deleted it because it was not working. There is no SSL certification and I don’t even know what it all means and I am like… ugh, tomorrow or something.]

    [H. Crow figured it out later that day, sorta.]

    -H. Crow

  • Birth of a Blog

    H. Crow American Crow picture.

    At the dawn of time, much happened. For some, it was the beginning of all. For me, it was when I was born. Either way, today marks the birth of a blog and today, April 9th, 2025 is its birthday. In all honesty, the blog part I haven’t started yet, but this writing was done in the morning like I said I would [to myself]. I plan to make a story or post every morning and another at night if necessary. Why a blog of all things? Well, it is no random event. I am what they call a ‘yapper’. It means I can’t shut up. Whether I would be going a mile a minute in my head or on a keyboard, it was never a choice at all. After all, I just woke up.

    Sure, I might even plug in my friends as little advertisements and also any other people who want a little more reach. I might put a song for one or each of the notes that reflects how I felt writing it. I may even get a little technical with the webpage. Truthfully, I just hope people enjoy the content. When I think of successful webpages, I think Neopets, Newgrounds, Homestuck, and even Tumblr. To think ANYONE clicked on this post and got this far is insane to me, and I wouldn’t believe it is true. Well, I hope you enjoy it because I hope I enjoy the process for the rest of this little show’s shelf life. I hope you enjoy my grammar and punctuation too, and don’t be afraid to point out inconsistencies. I am sure I can make minor adjustments for better readability. Nonetheless, it is today that I do all the hard work to follow guides and tutorials on how to start my first webpage so wish the person in between this post and the next some luck, cause he probably needs it.

    -H. Crow