Deep Thoughts...by Benzie

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson


Vlad does me bad. Who would have thought that it would have been almost a whole handle of the cheapest booze money will buy to do what I did. I guess I have been on a collision course with the serious breakdown that I was working toward. I am officially in a very interesting place in my life with a couple of intersections that seem to be difficult to walk to either path. The paths are not difficult to walk down, as a matter of fact they are all great directions to take with my life and I think that is the problem, they are all that great I can't make the decision. I think I will start with talking about the easier things then work my way down to the more difficult questions I have needed to answer.

Well I have had this sitting here in front of me for a few days, and the decisions don't seem to have any variation in difficulty anymore. They all suck ass. So I am going to try to talk about all the choices I am looking at currently.

Lets start with the realm of academia. I honestly don't know where I am going with this anymore. I have this desire to teach, but then again I feel as if the things I want to teach would be something that I don't know if I am going to be able to do that for the next however many years I am around in the working world. Recently I have been looking in the realm of ethics, I am not sure why but this seems to be a career that I could do for an extended period of time. I think this makes my desire to go to Georgetown for Bioethics seem to make more and more sense. I think this would be something that would not be monotonous and would keep me passionate about the work everyday. I am only going to go into these two jobs right now because I don't think I have the brain power right now to even look at the other obvious choice I have on my plate with law school because that is such an interesting thing for me...but enough of that. The ethics field would leave me I think with a feeling of emptiness of the ability to study the philosophy that I have essentially fallen in love with recently. But the teaching may keep me complacent from teaching the same thing every semester. I guess I want to have my cake and eat it too, I understand that I am unable to have all these things, maybe someday I will be able to have them at the same time and I hope that day will be here, but for some reason I am unable to see this happening so I am having myself a very difficult time dealing with this whole future thing.

The next topic is a little more difficult for me to talk about here but I am going to do my best. Everything that I have been doing in my life, I feel is driving me closer and closer to an eventual life of solitary. Don't get me wrong, I will always have my friends and they mean the world to me and I wouldn't be where I am today without the inspiration they have given me to get my life to where it is, I am talking about my family that I want down the line. I am not sure what I want, but this is an issue that has become unique because I feel as if I am able to engross myself into my work in philosophy whatever that may be from the above paragraph and be perfectly fine. Then there are days that I sit and know that I need someone to go home to. I can't help it, I am a social person who needs that personal connection that I feel I will never find because of how I seem to bury myself in my work. I don't feel I have that ability to make the kind of connection necessary for the kind of relationship I desire. Maybe I just haven't found the person who "gets me" and I hope that is the case but up to this point I have been unable to have anything develop in that manner.

I guess I really have one more thing that has been on my mind that has been puzzling me, and that is the topic of religion. I don't really know what is going on with this so I really don't have much to talk about. I am a proclaimed Catholic, but I have been having trouble with the ideas the church have, causing me to question the faith as a whole. I don't know what will become of this all, so I think I am just going to leave it at this.

I guess I am done for now, this blog has taken me a long, long time to form because of how difficult the ideas are for me to even look at, much less to answer, although I have not answered any of them here in my honest opinion. Maybe I will come back soon to read this over and comment on it myself in the near future.

Until we meet again
-Benz

ME:Total self-Introspection...what did I find?

“The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.”

-William Godwin

Good Evening...as the title and quote may suggest, tonight is my look inward to see if I can find anything of any use. I have been told by many people that I have done "amazing things" or that I myself am "amazing" but I have never liked the notion that I am that way unless joking. I find myself the best person that I can possibly be, but I have never found that to be anything outside of the ordinary that would put in the category of "amazing." What I do find are things that I see are ordinary and commonplace amongst all people, I may excel at some things, but that is just that I may maximize my abilities. I see a great amount of flaws within myself as well, which take away from my ability to be what people call me. I have a terrible work ethic as well as tend to run my mouth far too much causing many problems with people. I understand that we as humans error, as well as the concept that self is the greatest critic of all, but I find that these things truly take away from my ability to become who I am thought to be. I have been working on them, as well as other things I see that need fixed in my life. I guess I have to realize that because I am my hardest critic and that I don't see how other people perceive me from their point of view, maybe I am special in my own weird way. I think that this is enough looking inward for one night. We will see what else I come up with very soon.

Until we meet Again...
-The Benz

Been missing for a while, new thoughts

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? -Abraham Lincoln

Long time since I have thrown some of my thoughts down here and for some reason I feel compelled to write down some recent things I have come across, mostly how I feel I am perceived by others.

I have been at this life game for quite some time, and have "played" it well thus far. I have made many friends along the way despite my mistakes and faults, and have for reasons unknown to me not really made enemies. I have put some serious thought into this and for some reason I have nobody that dislikes me. I have had people who may have it out for me for a small period of time, but for some reason they seem to be able to let it go and things go back to normal. I feel as if I am unable to hold onto grudges as well, making for a very blessed situation I am in. I don't feel as if I have done anything special or unusual to deserve this, but I feel as if something is different with me. I suppose I shouldn't think about it too much and just realize I live a charmed life and leave it at that. Maybe I have been living the quote I put up there and that is all there is to it. Just recently I did the Myers-Briggs personality test and it assessed me as an ENTP. The description I was given was like a book on my life, especially the part about being well liked and being able to read people. I think this gives me the ability to make friends quickly either because people are drawn to me, or I am able to read their personality and draw them through that information.

I guess it doesn't matter how I do it, but that I have the ability to do it. For some reason I don't feel that I have anything else worth talking about at the moment, although I am sure I will sooner than I did the last time I took a break from writing.

Until we meet again:
The Benz

59-0 Good...34-32 AMAZING

WE ARE...PENN STATE!!!-Everyone who has gone through the best university in the world

Wow, who thought I would be sitting here burnt so bad I look like a cherry, and still have a smile on my face? After a whole weekend of absolute fun it is time to reflect on what I have done. First I will start with the whole class thing since that is what I am there to do. I honestly love every class I am taking, or at least the material I will be learning. I might see some issue with the Physics professor and the Relgion professor, but I think I will be able to get around that. But once again, college is only 1/4 classes, 3/4 learning about life, and once again I got an advanced lesson in too much fun makes for a tired and sore person. This weekend was a blast, and it started with the football game, which went great as you can see with the 59 to 0 win in the title here. This route of FIU wasn't even the best part, hearing that Michigan lost to a Division I-AA school. I was absolutly excited, to the point of screaming and jumping around, because Michigan is the Stifler of the Big Ten, sure they might be sorta cool in their own way, but they are hands down the biggest douche bags. This past Saturday just gave me faith that I am going to see big things in the future of Penn State football.

Then we started the real fun that evening, we played some Pong, and then the hippies were playing some bongo drums outside. They were absolutely amazing, and I actually met someone from Iowa, it was probably the coolest part of the night cause he knew where I was talking about. We had some fun, probably too much fun, but I am a college student, without this fun, I honestly think the experience would be lost. But now I am sitting here burnt physically, and burnt out mentally, but I don't think I would trade in what I went through to get to this place.

I for some reason have just once again had a strong sense of incompleteness, and I am not sure where it is coming from, but there might be another one of these quick if I pin-point this feeling.

Until we meet again
-The Benz

First Week Back

Mistakes, obviously, show us what needs improving. Without mistakes, how would we know what we had to work on? -Peter McWilliams

I have spent alot of time working toward fixing my mistakes as of late, mistakes I have made with my educational career, mistakes I have made with my family and friends, mistakes I have made understanding myself. I am not sure that my recent journey has shown me what I need to work on, but what I need to work towards, and that is happiness. Without happiness what are we as humans? I suppose I would even venture to say that our eternal drive toward happiness is what makes us human. Most people spend their whole lives trying to find happiness, through personal gain with assets, family, a search for the "eternal truths, I think I am blessed to have found what most of us consider happiness early in life. When I left high school, I honestly thought I had happiness, I might have had glimpses of happiness, but nothing compared to what I have found as of late. When I started this whole college experience, I thought I knew what I wanted, to be one of the premier minds in the science field, and for a while I was 100% sure that is where I wanted to be and was in fact headed. But whatever it was be it divine intervention, or my sheer laziness, I was pushed away from all of that. At the end of that year I still had glimpses of happiness, through my new friends at college, and a new found respect for what my parents had been saying to me when I was in high school, but I began to notice something was wrong, I wasn't as happy as I thought I was. I looked at myself when in those science classes and felt that it was wrong, or at least not right. The only thing I found to be fulfilling at all was my Philosophy 010 class. The material seemed to seep into my mind and remain restless, constantly moving, which was invigorating. Then sophomore year rolled around and I was intent on maintaining what I had found the previous year, while searching for more happiness. I had a feeling that this philosophy I had taken in the spring was something I wanted to explore, but was unsure where it would take me, so I made an attempt at business, even though it was a half-hearted one. Many aspects of my life during that fall improved, including my social life, and even my understanding where my parents were coming from, but I still felt restless with my academics. Then over Christmas of this past year, I bought into the philosophy, and jumped into it head first. Once I did this, everything began to improve, my outlook on things in life, my other subjects of study, and most of all I finally bought into the idea that I need to find something I love to do every day to be truly happy.

These failures in my academics gave me a proper view of what I needed to work on, and that was finding what I need to be happy, I just wish that the good that has come out of this outweighed the sadness that has come out of my falling behind. All the people that I have come to love and see as my family have all moved on from me and I am not that far behind, but it is still hard to deal with the day to day grind without their support. I understand they are all a phone call away and most would drop everything if something big happened and I needed one of them, but the little things, just being able to have that five minute chat is what I need, I can handle the big things, it is the little social interactions that I need. Perhaps I am just attempting to hold onto the perfect happiness I found toward the end of the spring semester. I understand that we will be together again very shortly, but it will never be the same as it was, and maybe that is why I am longing for what I once had.

Not all change is bad, but I suppose it isn't the change that I am having difficulty with, it is the inevitable adjustment that scares me, but I think I will make it. I just have to see that light at the end of the tunnel, and a restoration of the true happiness I have experienced.

Until we meet again
-The Benz