A Life Unsatisfied

Too often our days pass not yet lived. A pile of To Do lists are heaped atop of us; there is no overarching goal, there is just..stuff. Our minds are not focused on the why. We just accept the duty. We are silently content with checkmarking off the activity with no value as to how it drives us to our goal. It may not even be our checkmark. Like a good puppy, we wag our tails from a pat atop our heads.

Why aren't we the principal player in our story? Maybe we are. If our narrative is food, that's about as far as our story takes us. But what if we yearn for something higher, not to get that golf clap from others who secretly disdain our success, but in expanding our horizons of consciousness, we push to become better, to be more, then what would our days look like? Would they be as forgettable? Or, would each single day be a chapter to the scaffolding of our adventure?

This is not about personal wealth. Wealth is a funny thing: it strips us of our hunger, doesn't it? Some might find the shallow pursuit of wealth to be an end unto itself, but what if our lives don't have the accumulation of things as its end? Who and what might we become? Who and what would change around us? How might the world change? If we're not focused on others' successes and failures and turn inward to achieve greatness, how might we create collectively a better world? If we all woke up at 3-something AM in the morning to ignite our drive toward greatness by the power of our own will, what would our neighborhood look like?

Or, do we just survive to the next vacation...to the next TV season...to the next Taco Bell?

Something I Wrote

One of my final posts on Facebook was a picture of my 2012 TEFL certificate with my name prominently featured with Comic Sans as the rest of the doc was a Times-based font. I made the following comment:

With unmitigated scorn, I cannot contain my deeply-rooted, reckless contempt for the abomination that is Comic Sans. There is no place I can run, nowhere I can hide from this disfigurement of all that is holy. Comic Sans terrifies me like a clown standing outside my window. Comic Sans slithers into my room at night and spies in the shadows. Who will deliver me from this body text of death? Thanks be to ITC Benguiat!

Regaling in Past Expeditions...

In the same manner as yesterday, I'm pulling an armload of tunes out of the mothballs, a special playlist, the catalyst to the seed of what I'm doing TODAY in 2023. The 13th was from a VERY AWESOME year of my life! While the world burned, I torched fat, trained daily from 4-6 AM and laid out in the sun at noon. Coming straight out of June-July 2020 is The 13th Expedition: Of Yachts & Speedboats.

Songs of the Day

Yesterday, I found the first 4 songs on this album to elevate space:

Twelve Titans Music - Satellite

Something I Read

7 Simple Steps That Will Help You Plan An Epic Adventure

1. Figure out where in the world you want to do
2. Decide whether you intend to travel long term
3. Choose the right travel insurance for your situation
4. ...

—whoa, lemme stop you right there, Frodo. I was sorta following you, though an epic adventure starts from an upspringing from within. But...insurance? We talkin' about insurance. Not an adventure. We talkin' about insurance. I mean, where does that exactly slide into the structure of a monomyth, the hero's journey?

Geez, why don't you pull up in a tour bus and go on a cruise there, Indiana Jones? Hey, Jack Sparrow is in a hellava congo line with Katniss Everdeen! We talkin' about insurance. What's the movie featured aboard, Seven Years in Target?

Where's the soul? The passion? The change within?

Maybe an adventure resembles this...

YouTube Link

There's something inside you
It's hard to explain
They're talking about you, boy
But you're still the same

-Kavinsky, Nightcall

Regaling in Past Expeditions

While the original Spotify playlist has long been absorbed by the digital ether, I was able to resurrect a favorite playlist from September 2018: The 4th Expedition: Into the Night. At the time, I wanted to encapsulate all the loved retrowave/synthwave tracks I stumbled into as it set the mood for driving into the night for those 3AMs.

"'Cause She's a Brick House..."

The inspections for our home purchase is tomorrow—bank appraiser, home inspector, pool inspector, termite guy, flux capacitor tech (oreillyauto.com)—my thoughts:

JOE: Kevin, this woman is the most adorable creature I have ever come in contact with. If she turns out to be even as good-looking as a mailbox, I will be crazy not to turn my life upside down and marry her.

KEVIN: She could be a real dog.

-You've Got Mail