Well, I've been reading everyones blog tonight and I've come to the conclusion that the cast majority of the team is either introverted to the point of extroversion, or just damned insecure. Andrew interestingly enough thinks I'm a cold hearted jerk, but thinks I'm normal. Oddly he treats me rather friendly, after all he's taking lessons from me for free, and rendering a DVD of my bands last gig for relatively cheap. Tonight Adam asked if I liked my job, and when I attempted to give him a full answer he gave up on listening because the words "yes" or "no" weren't immediately appearant. It seems to me that Adam just wants someone who's not going to move passed him, to stay on the same mental level with him, to linger in the same state of thought and not deviate.

Joshua Chadwhick is extremely intruiguing - he wants Jon's job. Thats far more ambition for The Chad than I'd have ever thought of. I wonder if perhaps my talk with him a while ago about the principle of ultimate consiquence had something to do with it - but I wouldn't credit myself for that in whole. Everyone's live provides them with the knowledge and experiance they need I believe - its just up to the person to recognize it and take advantage of it. But Mr. Chadwhick had some relatively solid goals which I found very impressive. What impressed me more was that in such little time he was able to narrow down the scope of his interest and filter out identifable attainable goals. It took me 5 years to figure out what I wanted.


Mathew, though not a blogger man himself, and extremely introverted has had his head burried in his psychology book for the last few days making steady progress. The things he finds interesting are a bit submediant to the things I gravitate towards, but it's interesting to see him declare anything - theres always a subtle shade of doubt in his voice with a bit of hesitance in his expression, as if he himself wasn't sure or not if he was certain what he were saying was true, or if what he said was what he belived. He truly was a gazelle in another life - one flighty kid to say the least.

Nathan Colby is a whole different kind of creature, more like me in some ways, but not quite - the differences are many - far more than the similarities. Nathan has on many occasions said that he likes the major events, that the details weren't as important, if at all. Oddly enough he pays a considerable amount of attention to details, not only at work, but in his recreational life as well - take the kid on in a kendo match and you'll see what I mean. I'm confident in my swordsmanship but I'll admit that kid has a number or two on me - but he's yet to see my full range of tactics - and I think thats for the best; some of my advanced moves that result in a "kill" can't be practiced with a shinai too well, and even if they could it'd be absolutely stupid of me to do so - especially to Nathan, who would I spare with if I broke his arm or leg or rib cage?

Still though he pays excellent attention to the data at work, understands how the mind works and has what I would deem to be a very clear preception of the world around him - he's a sharp kid, even if he says the moderation, the wide view, the broader scope - etc. It's funny to watch him controdict himself at times. I'm not perfect by any means, but it's uniqe to see someone who try's to stay detatched even offer an opinion. When he's on the phone with people I've noticed if they give him any trouble he'll become very cold and very authoritarian about dealing with them. Oddly enough he's a teddy bear to anyone I piss off.

He's had his issues in the past with chemical abused, homelessness, all sorts of things, but he's very focused now. I wonder what kind of person he'll be in ten years.

Jealously. Frusteration. Anger.

I think when I narrow it down, these are my major flaws. When is see someone who's better than myself at something in my view, I get jealous very quickly, and most of the time with out reason, or atleast a good reason for it. This in turn causes me to get frusterated about it, in most cases it's because they're the same age as myself - they've had the same amount of time or opportunity to practice or not practice, understand or not understand, as I have - and somehow managed to get through that same amount of time further ahead than myself. This in turn makes me angry, not only at them for being better than me, and even more so if their a nice person who recognizes the difference between us and offers benevolently to help me understand, but angry at myself as well, for not having been able to do it on my own.

My pride often times disallows me from accepting this gracious offer of help, insisting that I need to learn it on my own with out help, and it just slams the breaks on me even more making loose end in my life flare up and trip me up, which normally causes me to fall face first into the hardest objects in the world. I know the answer is to change, but I don't have enough patience to discipline myself to the degree I want. Most people I've seen so far do as little as possible to get by and it works for them, they've always got what they want it seems.

Nathan's a good example, he's better than me in a lot of ways. I'd go so far as to say he's more book smart, wiser, stronger, - just better all the way around - and yet he's made so many obvious mistakes with his life, things I was always smart enough - or so I thought - to avoid. Things like being homeless for extended periods of time, drinking binges, smoking, nearly od'ing on drugs - it just boggles my mind that he can be so on top of his game.

Here I've been the Assistant Team Leader for some months now and finally got a week of responsibility all on my own and nothing bad happened, but none of these guys respect my authority. I'd attribute this partly to Jon's lack of discipline for the team. There are a number of things that Jon should do in my view that he doesn't - but he's a hippy, I can't expect much if anything from him.

I look at all these different things I've learned from Buddhism, from Kung fu, from Daoism, from my own experiance, and then I compare it to someone like Nathan and I think "Good christ I'm wearing blinders, what is it that I'm missing." - The answer it seems is obviously myself. My belief that the problem is external seems to be a flowed notion at best, I do the same things as those in leadership, yet I am not a leader. Why?

Any number of things could be the cause but their all problems I think I've created for myself, partly based on my circumstances as a child. But I'm reminded of Randall lectuing Dante at the end of Clerks, and then again after they fight. It just makes me want to drop everything and pick one thing and one thing only and become completely detatched from everything but that and just *do* it - what ever it is.

But what do i choose, and why?

Kendo? Guitar? Work? Love? Edjucation?

It's not so simple a choice, and any one of these choices will have profound consiquences which will alter my life completely and totally. Sadly, not making a choice, living life in stand by... makes things worse day by day.

I have to find the answer, and I have to do it by the time summer hits, and then, reguardless of the consiquences, i've gotta take what comes, and I have to win that trial. This is gonna be hard.