I had the weirdest, most random dream last night.  For some reason, I had a dream that Dr. Dre and Ice Cube met with the AIDS stricken Eazy-E on his death bed to say good bye and make their peace with him since they were enemies post NWA.  In my dream, I got to watch them say good bye and in my dream, and perhaps in real life, I cried and really hard.  I’m not sure what inspired me to dream about these folks interacting and saying hello for the first time in so many years and good bye for the last time, but it happened and I’m not sure what to think about it.

Of course, this isn’t as weird as the falling in an avalanche while someone yelled random things at me over an intercom dreams I had when I was a kid, but it’s still notable for a number of reasons.  For one, I don’t ever remember my dreams and two, who the hell dreams about rappers dying of AIDS?

So many people in SF that I meet are so liberal and concerned about the well being of others, their meat being humane, their coffee being Fair Trade, their clothes not being produced ethically.  At the same time, they aren’t concerned about how their electronics are made and by whom.  Apple is one of the worst companies when it comes to ethically created consumer electronics, yet people in SF are so anti Microsoft, so enamored of being absolutely different that they’re willing to throw away their ethics for the sake of consumerism.  It’s a somewhat hypocritical issue in this city that beguiles me.

Do what you love, pursue your passion and happiness will follow.  What if my passion and what I love is trying to find out what I love?  What if my real passion is just exploring different worlds and understanding new concepts?  Is there money in just exploring and thinking?  It doesn’t seem like it.

How do you view a relationship? I debate relationship concepts with my roommate constantly.  He is firmly in the camp that believes that all relationships should be like a stock investment: put your money and time into something with long term return on investment that will last as long as possible.  And while I agree that the stock investment relationship is ultimately the goal, I think there is room for relationships that are like a meal: something to savor, enjoy but with the understanding that it’s akin to a meal that will go away and doesn’t last forever. 

We will never agree on this subject and the rationale for our perspective is, to me, very clear: he is scared of approaching and talking to girls and they don’t approach him.  I on the other hand am generally less scared, can usually hold a conversation with just about anyone and I do get approached from time to time (though I still haven’t asked out Melanie).  He has less chances for meeting girls so he holds those few moments and rare connections to be more dear where as I have more chances and can therefore take more risks, make more bets and for the most part, adventure more into the wide world of human interaction.  There’s no right or wrong answer in this, of course, since it all boils down to personal philosophy which is always a subjective concept, but I would venture a guess that if he worked through his fear and overcame it, there’s a chance that his philosophy might just change.  Then again, in time, there’s always the chance I may come full circle and adopt his philosophy on the stock investment versus the meal.

I never really knew how bad my last relationship was until I was out of it. Typically, I go through the standard mourning period where I lament the loss of the relationship, but instead, I felt a general sigh of relief and I’m ultimately a happier person.  Bad, bad fit.

Now to work up the courage to ask out Melanie and not be embarrassed if she turns me down so I can show up to Beretta again.

I think this caption might be slightly off.

After I returned from Burning Man, I had issues acclimating to work and all it’s endless, stress inducing demands.  What I did know is that I had an amazing time partying with friends and I didn’t want it to stop, so at times, I contemplated quitting my job, getting something that paid enough to get by and basically trying to live the fun, festive party lifestyle.

Tonight, I visited my friend Margarita at her place with the plan of fixing her Mac so she could get online with the dream of finding her a new job.  Now, I love Margarita to death and I consider us loyal friends, but when I saw her today, it looked to me like she had a crazy night of partying and looked totally beat, like she hadn’t slept in a few days.  She had last night off, so my guess was that she and some friends decided to party it up since it’s what they do - they are living the party lifestyle as much as they possibly can.  But seeing her looking so tore up, it brought me back into “reality”.  I know I still want to party with friends, have a good time with friends and be happy, but there’s no way I want to push it that hard and live that life style 24/7.  At the same time, I don’t want to slip back into that lifestyle where I work all the time and search for happiness via consumption (you know - buying useless shit that gives me a few days of happiness).

When pair bonding, we’re not looking for perfection, we’re looking for someone who has imperfections we can tolerate and even appreciate.

So really, here’s the problem: working is really a ton of stress and not necessarily a “fun” thing to do and we’re all fighting hard to get our brain reward system firing usually by consuming, be it food, sex or acquisition of items (clothes, electronics, etc.) to give us short term happiness.  But according to a great study I’ve recently read, what really gives us long term happiness is creating new memories and experiences by doing things such as travelling and essentially creating new experiences and lasting memories.

Last week, I went to Burning Man for a few days and while it had it’s downs, it also had a ton of positive aspects and experiences I won’t ever forget.  And to me, there were so many new memories created, so many crazy experiences that were so positive, that I’m actually feeling somewhat depressed and find myself in crave of another rush of fun.  So basically, I am having trouble readjusting to being back in the real world, as it were.  And while I could easily slip back into an unfortunate consumer lifestyle in search of my brain reward system firing off like crazy, I am resisting and planning my next crazy experience.

I miss you already, Burning Man.  Until next year!