Ranting, Raving.

Ranting

So, I've been doing quite a bit of ranting today.

The first one I remember was about the genius behind Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." Then there was an even longer rant about Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and his career of staggeringly brilliant black comedy/science fiction novelettes.

Then there was an extensively detailed rant about my passionate belief in many old-fashioned American values: like the Native American ways of life and their spirituality; like the spirit of revolution, independence, and classical liberalism that spawned our nation and our constitution; like the Wild West spirit and values; like unionism and early American socialism; like hippies in communes, and immigrants, and white trash. And this led to another rant about my admiration for the American Bikers, such as the Hell's Angels and Banditos, who live every day connected to many of those same old fashioned values systems and ways of life.

Then I took a break and visited a Muay Thai Kickboxing gym, chatting with the Thai trainers about training systems, sport, buddhism, and having them pepper me with questions about my tattoos. On the way back to the guest house, I also found this incredible shirt with a picture of Bin Laden on it, right next to a picture of George Bush. They're both depicted like rockstars, with their exploding towers, their airplanes and jets, their aircraft carriers and missile launchers: all arranged in this epic display of might and glory and coolness that I found to be exquisitely sarcastic.

I returned to my room and talked for a while to my roommate Kirra. Then, she tells me, I went into the longest rant of my life about training others in health, sport, and fitness, and about being an artist and creator. These are really the two largest passions that have gripped me in my life, and I am a very passionate person.


Raving

I have always valued teaching, and I have always enjoyed the experience of mentorship. Even at a very young age, I gained immense satisfaction out of helping a friend learn to read, teaching a new skill, or caring for youngsters. As I grew older, I dabbled in volunteer work, child care, respite care, and mentorship. In college, I carried on my love of helping others cheat while also helping them become more proficient with the material--a love of a certain kind of coaching that I'd developed as early as the 3rd grade. I became passionate about films and reveled in teaching others about--or having long discussions about--what I'd learned. Then, as I became deeply interested in health and fitness, I became impassioned about teaching, training, and sharing with others the things I had learned, practiced, or invented. And that's when I really started to fly: when I was creating experience and evidence and carrying out research into something new, and then spreading it to others in a practical way--through lifelong-learning experiences. Physical fitness teaching is the best kind of teaching (in my opinion), because it involves instilling an awareness of minute changes in the body and mind, creating self-confidence, and improving form, function, and ability throughout the human organism. Through the process of training others in their diet, habits, methodolgy, experience, practice, inventiveness, reasoning and internalization, coaches and trainers can create stronger and smarter individuals. And I feel that this is the most noble of goals: to dedicate yourself to empowering others and to spreading this altruistic passion like wildfire.

In art, I have always wanted to share with others the things that I have learned and seen, and to express to them the worlds I've envisioned in my mind or the lessons, conclusions, and philosophies that I have reasoned-out from the evidence and experiences I've encountered in my life. As a boy, this was mostly accomplished through drawings and stories, and through the invention of games, codes, or group activities. A nerdy middle-schooler with a chip on his shoulder, I invented role-playing games while also making strides in creative insulting as a bully. As I aged, I began to express myself politically and through clothing and music. Beyond merely ascribing to a lifestyle or mode of thought, I was a culture creator: writing, designing, and distributing pamphlets and political literature, laying-out and scripting a punk rock zine as part-journalist/part-collage artist, and inventing or reviving taste in fashions or musical groups. I also spent much of my time sculpting and painting in miniature and creating detailed hobbyist tanks and scenery. I began to work with photographs, developing a taste for both edited digital stills and the purist's black-and-white film photos, I also began to develop my own individual styles in each of these media. I became a filmmaker, and for many years all my works were either of a documentary nature or burdensomely abstract. I studied art, throughout history and from around the world: beginning to develop my knowledge and artistic philosophies while also widening my range of media and techniques. I began writing on a daily basis and became passionate about cooking: beginning to really enjoy the habitual process of invention, experimention, and editing. This is also the time when I got a fever for free-form jamming on a drumset or hand-drums, especially with accompaniment. I started creating better scripts, experimental films, digital art and new media, while also advancing my acting experience. Then I began editing extensively, directing narrative short films, and cooking with elaborate (or sometimes simple) recipes of my own invention. I re-discovered photography and journal writing and work with miniatures. I did even more cooking and in more settings and for larger groups. And now I have this blog: writing about my experiences and my thoughts, while also sharing pictures of the things my eyes have seen but others' haven't, expressed in scenic, portrait, and abstract forms. I still endeavor to share, express, and philosophize through all of this creativity.

I'm not sure what the future will hold for me, but I know that somehow it will have to include both of these elements of my life in massive proportions. I've spent the last couple of years learning about the ways people make their dreams into reality: educating myself in entrepreneurship, while also exploring the many thriving subcultures of life-passion we have in the U.S. I've expressed my worldview and practiced my craft through aiding in or orchestrating the creation of many small, start-up business--all of them focused in some way on opening up economically-viable and sustainable spaces for creativity. The dream is that, somehowand someway, I will discover or devise a way to make the pursuit of each of my strongest passions a life-consuming, rent-paying activity. I'm not sure how this will all come together, but when it does it will be brilliant.

Alright. I'm going to stop rambling now. Enjoy the pictures of my totally sweet t-shirt. Peace.

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