A list of 43 items

A list of 43 items was written out on a page, describing her faceless lover, as if it were peace of meat passing an inspection, grade A, B or C. She passed up any and everyone who came along her path in life , and with a laugh as empty as her skull, she chastised her days away. As the years passed by it started to seem as if her list of impeccable qualities laughed right back at her, as she slowly came to several grim conclusions and piece by piece lost her sanity. Yes in her vanity of what a man fitting for her would uncompromisingly have to be, she found none other than her reflection and her own identity. The quantitative grew teeth, with an insatiable appetite for the soul, as she stayed true to her list, and the list slowly ate her whole.

The Next Chapter

The latest Brand New album "The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me" is killer, get it, especially if you really like cathartic lyrics. It reminds me a lot of Thursday's "Waiting." One of the best feelings in the world is climbing a mountain. It's like a microcosm of life. A first kiss comes once, forgiveness twice, anymore and you're a fool. Never become a martyr of your decisions, be willing to change.

Schopenhauer, Voltaire

-Life is given us not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome -to be got over -Schopenhauer

-Happiness is but a dream and sorrow is real -Voltaire


Men of kindred thoughts...Solitude really is the route of happiness -a state unreachable- a dream. I'm thinking I was wrong concerning community. Community is wasted wind.

The Andes

I want to go hike through the Andes starting in Bolivia south of Lake Titicaca, working my way southward into Chile and through the Patagonian Andes. I figure it'll be fun to be popsicle in South America

Bill Swerski's Superfans w/ HIS AIRNESS

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The Barry Gibb Talk Show

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SOCRATES AT HIS FINEST, if you don't read it, then you're missing out big time!

"It appears there is a narrow path which brings us safely to our journey's end, with reason as our guide. As long as we have a body, and this evil can mingle with our soul, we shall never completely attain what we desire, namely truth.For the body is forever wasting away our time with its demands. Whenever it is ill it hinders us in our pursuit of real being. It fills us with passions, desires, fears and all kinds of imaginings and foolishness. It is always preventing us from thinking properly. The body alone, and its desires, cause wars, social divisiveness, and battles: for the origin of all war is the desire for wealth, and we are forced to pursue wealth because we are enslaved by the wishes of the body. On account of all this, we have no leisure for philosophy. Even if we manage to free ourselves from the body for a while , and try to examine some matter, it hinders us at every step of our inquiry, causing confusion and trouble and panic, so that we cannot see the truth for it. Truly we have learned that if we are to have any pure knowledge at all we must be freed from the body. The soul by itself can see things as they truly are. Only after we are dead, it seems, can we gain the wisdom that we desire and for which we claim to have a passion. But this cannot happen while we are alive, as my argument shows. For if it is impossible to have pure knowledge while we have a body, one of two things must be true: either we can never gain any true knowledge, or we can only gain it after we are dead. For then, and only then, will the soul exist by itself, separate from the body. While we live we come closest to true knowledge if we have no use for or communion with the body beyond what is absolutely necessary, and if we are not defiled by its nature. We must live pure of the body until God releases us. When we are thus pure and released from follies of the body we shall dwell, I imagine, with others who are pure like ourselves, and we shall of ourselves know all that is pure."

-Socrates talking from Phaedo by Plato

Insomnia

It's presently 4:17a.m. I kayaked 3 miles, loathed the fact that Florida has no waves for 4hrs, played 9 holes of golf, dodged lightning bolts, ran 3.5miles, and I'm still not tired at all! I've been up since 9am and haven't slept since then. I feel frustrated right now because this has been going on and off for about week and a half. I'm sick of taking sleeping pills; I can only take so much artificial additives into my daily diet, or should i say nightly? The good news is that I'm listening to some good music (explosions in the sky), and I got my snowboard in the mail yesterday, so I'm stoked about that, but I'm getting rather irate with my body doing weird things, I've definitely had my fair share lately. I think my parents are stressing me out more than usual because my sister has been gone for about a week now. I just need to get out of the house for a while. UHH...going to pool in zombie-like fashion...

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband--I see the treacherous seducer
of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
hid--I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny--I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these--All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look
out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

-WALT effing WHITMAN

Truth

Is the only truth that there is no truth? really!?!? If you believe this , then it is a paradox -a truth that wears a self-contradictory mask, if you don't believe this statement, then is it a self-contradicting statement. Socrates said "It is Truth you cannot contradict." So there is left in the equation, the human element of decision -to affirm whether or not this statement is true. To me, that Decision is the core of what makes humans what we are...At this point I'll say "I know nothing," as a badass philosopher said, but nothing is something.

A Few Goals

1.Read The World as Will and Representation again
2.Play Vivaldi's 4 seasons on viola
3.Surf Raglans in New Zealand
4.Go backcountry snowboarding
5.Skate Vert
6.Learn Spanish FLUENTLY
7.Summit Parinacota Volcano
8.Run for an hour
9.Kayak to the ocean from my house
10.Backpack the Scottish Highlands

somethinng to think about

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

-Sir Walter Scott

Kona's 30th Anniversary

Today was Kona's 30th anniversary, the park was packed full of little grommits swarming around and two old dogs named John and Mark. The pictures pretty much tell the story. One of the most epic days in Kona history!

The Crew

The Mob

The Scene

Tony Hawk

Sergie Ventura

THE POOL

Sergie Ventura

The inventor of the McTwist

The Tale of Two Kayaks

Last Friday Lewis and I decided we would go on a small adventure by kayaking from my house to the ocean, which is just over 20 miles, and my fellow bros and sheilas let me tell you, it was an experience I'll never forget, for a few good reasons and several extremely bad ones.

To begin our journey, a nice rain cloud poured down for about the first mile and a half. After paddling around 6 miles we reached Goat island, which has actual wild goats just roaming around with nothing else but palm trees and cactus. They were pretty shy little devils so Lewis and I used our extensive herding skills to get them all at the tip of the island in an attempt at wrestling one to the ground, but all to no avail. Lets just say they're really illusive creatures. After we got tired of trying to catch one, we paddled about 8 miles, now to the east, into a mouth drying, bicep burning 8knot head wind. This wayward weather feature slowed our pace down considerably and it seemed we were paddling just to stay in the same place. Finally after 3 and a half hours of more monotonous paddling (but truly beautiful scenery), we reached Calypso island, where we planned to camp.

Since Ft. Caroline was right next to us we decided to camp right next to the fort. The park had already closed so we had the whole place to ourselves, including the original fort founded in 1564 by the Huguenots!!! That evening after setting up the hammocks and gathering firewood, we decided to go find some food in town, so we started walking out to the main road. We had no idea where a convenience store was so we asked a runner we passed on our way who told us where to go. After 3 miles of walking, we found a Macdonald's and ran into the same guy who gave us the directions, except this time he had already taken a shower and was just getting some beer with his girlfriend, so he offered us a ride back to the fort! We were set, we had hot food, a ride back to Fort Caroline, and the gratification aching away in our arms from 13.5 miles of paddling. The Sun started to set, as we ate dinner on the battlements of the fort overlooking the river, and we knew right then without saying anything that this was one of the most kick-ass adventures we had ever gone on!!!

After the sun finished it's westerly dive, we started a fire to fend off the blood thirsty insects which our great state is so famous (or should I say infamous?) for. We gazed into the gleaming fires of Mordor, and had a really funny conversation going, but I don't know what it was about (thats another story). We started getting tired so we put out the fire and tried going to sleep. The bugs started getting really bad for both of us, despite the fact that Lewis was using my hammock with a mosquito net and I was covered in two extremely humid towels. The blitzkrieg began on both fronts -that is, through our hammocks and on top through my towels. Their ravenous blood-sucking appendages knew no boundaries! It got to the point where I remember sitting up in my hammock and thinking to myself "Shit, I'm either gonna die, or I'm gonna have to keep a fire going all night." Naturally, I decided to go through with the latter of my two options and Lewis quickly joined me. So their we were sitting on a makeshift bench we put together, curling up to a smoking fire that we fed the rest of the night (about 6hrs more). In retrospect, it doesn't seem as dire as when the actual event happened, but if you use your imagination to embellish the actual event I think you could come pretty close to what it felt like in the HEAT (hahaha) of the moment. At 5:15 a.m. we went to the shore to get our kayaks and pack up camp, the only problem was that there was only one kayak left! We stumbled over the boulder-lined coast for 15 minutes or so hoping that it would show up, but all to no avail. So with one kayak in hand, we carried it up over the battlement and to our camp. As we packed up I remember talking to my self in low somber tones with about every other word tinged with some form of "f@*k!" So While it was still dark we carried the one kayak we had left up to the main road. I called my dad around six and told him that we had a bad night and that he needed to come and pick us up. When he arrived and found out about what had happened he wasn't happy but he thankfully didn't lose his cool. When I got home I called up the coast guard, marine patrol and police to tell them about my missing kayak. I then promptly collapsed on my bed and remembered that it was my birthday today(June 30th). It all seemed to horrible to be true, so I retreated to my dreams. When I awoke, my mom told me that they had found the kayak pretty close to where it must have drifted away! I was relieved to hear that I wasn't still out 1,300 skins, but my terminal sunburn from the previous day seemed to completely diminish this extremely good news.

Looking back at the experience, I realize that sometimes bad things happen, and if you never use what you have, in my case kayaks, then you will never have the experiences that make life exciting and worth living to the next day for! It's times like these that bring color to life and rid you of the bleakness of the hypnotic routines we all must face at some level. Thanks for reading this far and if you liked what I had to say or not, let me know with a comment! I need to know I'm not talking to a brick wall! I really hope you have a great day and that you and I have an awesome adventure together sometime. cheers -MW

England, Scotland and Wales

Fresh air in the Scottish highlands

Edinburgh Castle (temp 40)where I walked through the same gates as William Wallace

The summit of Arthur's Seat overlooking Edinburgh and The North Sea!

Hadrian's Wall built c.120 A.D.

The Tower of London built by one of the only badass Frenchman in history, William The Conqueror

The final resting place of King Arthur
Glastonbury Abbey

Caernafron Castle in Wales (my idiom)

Atop a mighty mountain in the Scottish Highlands

Off the face, back again, and the tangible

Over the past year I've lived life in reclusion, partially because I chose to, like Thoreau who wrote: "I wished to live deliberately", and partially because I had no choice. From this experience ,or lack there of, I have realized how people need people! Said another way, I've grudgingly come to the conclusion that people need community, we need people to tell our story too, we need an intimate audience, people to help us through the awful bloody struggles we face from just living through a day, people we can Trust. To sum it all up I'll say this: "Life is a battle for the tangible." So here I am fulfilling that which I now perceive to be the right way of living -living in the tangible and making myself accessible once again. I hope you get something out of my blog, and that I don't just waste your time. Enjoy