Location

If one were to compare where they lived to women I would say Minnesota is the hot girl you see at the bar that turns out to be a complete bitch.

Seriously, this place looks amazing but it treats you like shit. It's way too cold and it snows way too much, but it sure is pretty to look at. It's great for a one night stand but I wouldn't want to make a life here. When you can't scrape your windshield off without your privates shrinking to the size of a stack of pennies worth ten cents you need to move along to someplace warmer. It may look nice, but it isn't worth the trouble long term...global warming my ass, it's COLD!

Creation

I remember hearing a sermon from a well respected pastor who made the comment along the lines of "do you think it's an accident that god made the year exactly 365 days and the day exactly 24 hours long?" to which I reply, "no, because those are false statements". The solar calendar AND the lunar calendar are not perfect. The number of days it takes to revolve around the sun is not a perfect number and so we have to use a leap year and a bunch of other crazy calculations to keep our calendar in synch with the seasons otherwise eventually our summer will be winter. So, what's the reason behind that, biblically? Why the imperfection, what does that symbolize? I feel it points to yet another thing Christians will chalk up to "you can't understand God, he is unfathomable" and this will go unanswered. I, on the other hand, think it points to how imperfect our earth really is. Maybe there isn't a master planner behind all of this, maybe we just "are" and all we have is "now".

I love that speech, if you haven't heard it you should listen sometime, for now I'll quote it.

"Spirituality is a particular term which actually means dealing with intuition.In the theistic tradition there is a notion of clinging into a word.A certain act is regarded as displeasing to a divine principles. A certain act is regarded as pleasing for the divine … whatever.In the tradition of non-theoism, however, it is very direct — that the case history are not particularly important. What is actually important is here and now. Now is definitely now. We try to experience what is available there, on the spot. There is no point in thinking that a past did exist that we could have now. This is now. This very moment. Nothing mystical, just now, very simple, straight forward. And from that nowness, however, arises a sense of intelligence always that you are constantly interacting with reality one by one. Spot by spot. Constantly. We actually experience fantastic precision, always.But we are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future. Paying attention to the materials that exist in our life — such rich life that we lead — all these choices takes place all the time, but none of them regarded as bad or good per say — everything we experience are unconditional experience. They don’t come along with a label saying ‘this is regarded as bad’, ‘this is good’. But we experience them but we don’t actually pay heed to them properly. We don’t actually regard that we are going somewhere. We regard that as a hassle. Waiting to be dead.That is a problem. That is not trusting the nowness properly that what is the actual experience now possesses a lot of powerful things. It is so powerful that we can’t face it. Therefore, we have to borrow from the past and invite the future all the time.Maybe that’s why we seek religion. Maybe that’s why we march in the street. Maybe that’s why we complain to society. Maybe that’s why we vote for the presidents.It is quite ironic. Very funny indeed." - Chögyam Trungpa

Sometime I'll break this down and really explain what I like about this speech/quote, mainly the stuff I have highlighted.

The big step

I did it. As I post this I am sitting in a room in a house in Superior, Wisconsin. It's a small town just on the other side of Lake Superior from Duluth, Minnesota. I start a new job tomorrow. Once I get entrenched with this new company I will make the second move to Chicago which I will be calling home for a while, maybe permanently while working from home remotely.

It was time to spread my wings, no I'm not going to get a tattoo of wings on my back to symbolize the start of this new journey...well, at least not yet. I am interested to see where this takes me though. The new people, the new places, the new opportunities. Cheers!