Declaration of Independence

I just sent the following email to our President. I had just unsubscribed from his the email list for his campaign, and was prompted to explain why I was doing so. After writing a paragraph or two, I discovered that I had more to say than I originally expected.

I'm unsubscribing from your emails today, Mr. President. There are many reasons for this, from the simple to the philosophical.

The impetus for my taking this action was simple: I was fed up with all of the commerce-based, post-Thanksgiving, Black Friday-infused email you've sent me in the past few days. You're here to represent us. You're not here to be a store, so stop acting like one; stop sending emails about sales, coffee mugs, and free shipping. This is about governance, not selling cheap, branded gifts and baby clothes to raise money.

But now that I'm here, and you've asked me to tell you why I'm unsubscribing, I find that I have a lot more to say.

I’ve thought and believed for many years that you’re a good person, Mr. President. I’m going to state that up front. I like how you think and how you feel, and I do find myself agreeing with your viewpoints frequently.

But you need to show that you're listening to us, Mr. President. Show that you're not just running for re-election like all of the other career politicians in the country. You've put together petitions on whitehouse.gov, but they seem more of a way for you to gather email addresses and send out your existing message than a channel for listening to the People. And, yes, I capitalize "People" very deliberately.

There's a lot going on right now. There are protests in the streets, violent police crackdowns, people calling for getting the money out of politics, and for getting morality back into business. We want transparency. We want change. We want accountability. We want that morality. We don't want just another reelection campaign. You haven't addressed what is happening in communities throughout the country, and all we ever hear about is fundraising and the differences between “us” and “them”. You tell a version of the same story, but you tell it through the filter of someone simply running for elected office.

This is unacceptable. You and I know what these protests - the Occupy Movement and the even The Tea Party before it - are really about, even if we're all collectively told they have "no clear message". The moral compass of our country - of our government and of our commerce - is adrift, and the People know it even if they can't put it into words.

Now is the time for change. Now is the time to start fixing this. You've always said “it won't be easy”; I agree, but we need your help. Be our champion, and we'll be your People. Stop running for reelection. Start running to change this country, and show us you're doing it. Rise above the insipid tossing and turning of Congress. Speak to us. Speak for us.

I was proud to vote for you in Illinois when you were running for Senate, and I was proud to vote for you when you were running to become President. I'm not feeling so proud right now, and I'm not seeing the change we were promised. You have done many good things in the past few years, and I'll be the first one standing to defend you on that front; but it's not change. It's all still stuck in the same partisan mire.

You are a good man - I firmly believe that - but we need you to be a great one now.

So here's my small statement - I'm gone. I’m declaring myself Independent. I’m not buying the party line. I believe party lines are hurting this country and driving it into factions. I believe we should govern from the center. I believe we should govern from the needs of real people.

If it takes stepping away to show you that, then so be it. It's up to you to get me back again, and all the others like me. I hope you can, but you need to step up and do it.


-David Joy
29, Entrepreneur, Small Business Employee, Fully-Employed Supporter of Occupy Wall Street, Centrist, and now Independent
Somerville, MA (formerly of Carbondale, IL)

Do something worth loving.

It's probably safe to say that I think about love and relationships a great deal.  Either for myself, or on behalf of close friends, or in the abstract; it's on my mind a lot.

"You and everybody else, kid," I hear.

Well, I'm not so sure about that.

See, some people get obsessed about their job.  Some about music.  Or hockey.  Or dogs.  Or stocks.  Or entrepreneurship.  Or food.  Or knitting.  Or even cat lady and her cats.  Or any number of other, worthwhile, wonderful things (though the cats are arguable in that respect).  This is generally caused by some deep seated need for a person to be that way, and an illogical level of obsession is how people excel at understanding something.  It's safe to say that CEOs, professional musicians, actors, and Nobel Prize winners are all obsessed with something.  Whether or not we qualify their obsession as "healthy" depends on how high functioning they are.  (See cat lady for the "unhealthy" poster child.)  One way or another, though, it's there.

Maybe it's obvious to the people who know me well, or maybe it's not.  I'm not sure, but I'm obsessed with all of you.  I'm obsessed with my relationship to you.  This is not out of some clinical interest in what makes people tick.  If it were that, then I'd be a psychologist instead of a developer, entrepreneurial first mate on the good ship Venture Capital, and aspiring, yet private, musician.

Rather, it's because I worry.  Anxiety, such as it is in my life, is bound up into what you think of me.  There's no way around it; that's how I tick, though as I get wiser I learn how to manage it better and understand when it's happening.  I don't want everyone to love me - that's not where this goes.  I just want to know where I stand, and I want that relationship to be conflict free.  It's simple; if you blatantly fuck with me, we won't be hanging out anymore.  I have nearly no tolerance for irrational, anti-social, selfish behavior.  If you're a reasonable, intelligent, kind person, or I see those qualities buried in you, I'll want to be around you.  If you've got the above shit together, and seem to enjoy my company on top of that, I'll be happy to be your best friend.

This system is far from perfect, and I certainly err on the side of wanting positive, pleasant relationships rather than shitty ones.  I've made my share of mistakes in this regard.

Point being, I spend a great deal of time worrying over you and I, whoever you are.  Some relationships are certainly simpler, and those are the ones I really enjoy because I know where things stand.  I'm very high functioning about it, though there are cracks in the mask.  If you ever want to ruin my week and make me useless at work and at home (and I definitely mean week, perhaps plural, depending on how devious you are), get pissed at me over something that happened that I don't quite understand and can't fix easily.  (Except please don't.  I love you too much, and depending on how petty it is, I may just decide to get pissed at you too; I don't suffer fools lightly.)

So where am I going with this?  Well, I've been thinking about love.  I think for a proper relationship, both parties have to challenge each other in meaningful ways.  This is my problem with online dating - we're all basically there because we're feeling like homebodies and aren't out doing things.  Everyone claims they're too busy for dating, but that really means they don't have any fulfilling group activities that they feel are bringing them in contact with quality people they'd want to date.  I'm certainly guilty of this myself.  I suppose there are other reasons for doing it, but I'm not seeing them clearly at the moment.

So I'm attracted to people who challenge me, and make me feel like I need to improve myself.  Sometimes I forget that that needs to go the other way as well, and for that to happen, I have to be out doing shit.  I need to have strong goals.  I need to have opinions.

Why do women date assholes?  Because the assholes have an opinionated way of living.  It may not be a good way of living, but it doesn't lack for confidence and direction.  An asshole who just sits at home and loafs about doesn't get many dates.

Why do men chase after aloof, cold women?  Because they see the women out doing things that challenge them to be better, or something more, or even something different than they are.  And that makes them think, and thinking makes us happy even if the topic doesn't make sense.

Why do opposites attract?  Because they challenge each other to be better, and more than they are.  Similar people attract too if they're driven - they reinforce their similarities.

Why do musicians and poets talk about muses, and why are such muses usually attractive, interesting, opinionated people who conform to some strange, unapproachable ideal?  Because having someone like that around makes you think, act, and create to keep their interest.  It makes you look at yourself and use your time more efficiently to real effect.

Why do "nice" people keep getting dumped?  Because nice is not the same as challenging.  Challenging implies expectations and a will against things perceived as incorrect, lazy, or immoral.  Challenging lights a spark in our brains.  Nice is comfortable, but ends up feeling cold.

I, for one, am guilty of being nice without being challenging.  Challenging is very difficult for me, because it implies feeding a bit of conflict into my relationships to see how it plays out.  This sort of conflict is a problem because of the anxiousness I mentioned earlier.

So like I said, I've been thinking about relationships a lot, and because of my obsessions, I'm fairly certain I'm not terribly wrong about this.  Do something worth loving.  Do something that challenges those around you in a respectful way.  Be strong.  Have beliefs and opinions.  Be open-minded and adventurous.  Find others who are the same way.

None of this makes finding the right person any easier, but it does give you a frame of reference for how to go about interpreting the relationships you do find, and which you may already have.

I've had this post kicking around for a while - not sure that's a complete thought up there, but I figure it'll do more good out than stuck in draft form.

Easy.

So I came to this conclusion this morning.  It may have been in the shower, or perhaps while I was riding into work.  I'm not really sure which.  But I've noticed that I have a lot of confusing frustration around social networks and such these days.  Facebook is frustrating to me.  Google+ is... slightly less frustrating because there's simply less there.  Tumblr blogs, Twitter, OkCupid (there I said it!  Hah!), all these things are just... ringing hollow for me.

I started thinking about people I admire; or about how I wanted my life to be.  And I realized that in both cases, most of the above networks didn't figure prominently in the picture.  If anything, they became primarily an outlet for the dissemination of my own information, or a way to schedule something with friends.

I thought about it a bit, and asked myself this question: Ideally, would you rather check out what your friends are doing on Facebook, or go hang out with them once a week?  Would you rather write a letter of substance to your distant cousins and friends every so often, or see their name occasionally with a contextless message about their latest activity?

I kept trying to figure out how I could turn these networks - for myself - into a more efficient vehicle for interacting with people in meaningful ways, rather than this constant stream of small, generally unimportant information.  I want to take each of my friends and sit and have a conversation with them, learn what they're up to, and both be better for it.  Maybe decide to get lunch, or go see a movie, or play a game together some night.  I can't really see how that would work.  Seems like it'd be more direct to just give someone a call.

As I was saying, if I envision how I want my life to be, all these networks just don't really figure into the equation.  I think that's the thing about social networks - for the most part, they're by no means a substitute for doing things in life with people.  There's a vast difference between enjoying something with your friends and family and talking with them about what they did on their own, or with someone else.

The problem is that they're easy.  The thing to keep in mind is that easy to participate in is often not the same as best to participate in.  This is to say nothing of the commercialization of the platforms; that's a whole different discussion.

So I don't know.  Am I going to quit these social networks?  I don't know.  Maybe.  But probably not; strangely, the alternative is kinda daunting.  That strikes me as a sad thing to say, but it's telling of how these networks have affected my social interactions.  Rather, I think I want to start treating them as more of a vehicle for arranging real interactions.  I want to improve the static-to-noise ratio of my interactions with my friends.  I don't want to know what you're doing every single day.  I want to have a conversation with you and find out how you've been since the last time I saw you.  I want to arrange a time to meet up and go to dinner, or get a drink, or have a bike ride.

Wednesday night run. Zoom!

You know the drill.  Same route, different day.  This time, however, I felt fast, which I can't say for my previous few experiences.  It was awesome.  I felt like I really had some energy to put into it, and pushed myself to keep up the pace.

Whew.  Looking forward to tonight's!

Tuesday evening run.

Had another lovely run Tuesday evening.  Same route as the previous two.  I've decided I'm going to see if I can't just keep that route up for a while, and then start adding loops to it as I get back into a groove.  Currently a few miles feels like... plenty.  Bummer, but that's alright.  The act o' doing it feels more important than distance.

So, yeah, there's another few miles on the shoes.  Woooo.  I won't even bother with the map - it hasn't changed.

Wednesday evening run.

Oh boy, that's two in a row boys and girls.

Second run same as the first (another 2.2 miles or so - this time I ran home), except this time I timed myself.  Not spectacular, but I shouldn't expect more from myself after taking quite the break from running.  I was running maybe an 8:30 mile or so, optimistically.  Conservatively, 8:45.  Eh!  I'm still glad I went.  It was a warm evening, fairly humid.

Tuesday evening run.

It was kinda warm out, but I was feeling lazy and decided to get the hell out of here.  Actually, it was warm, but there's a pleasant breeze that I liked the sound of.

Anyway, nothing crazy.  I ran down to Porter and back home for a stunning 2.1 miles.  I picked up the pace in the second mile, which was nice, but I'm (unfortunately) a bit out of shape for this sorta thing.  Here's the route:

Wednesday Ocean Grove Run!

So I went for a run along the beach at Ocean Grove.  It turned out to be a bit farther than I expected.  I think, in total, I ran about 2.5 miles (that link out and back) with a bit of a walk in the middle up near the north end.  It was wicked hot out, so the parts of the run that were a bit further away from the water were pretty blazingly warm.

Here's a map.

And then he went for a Sunday afternoon run.

Dear Diary,

It's been a while since I had a run to write about in you.  I apologize, but it is what it is.  It's a beautiful, gorgeous, splendid, Sunday afternoon.  I was sitting around the apartment around noon and decided I'd just had enough and needed to go out, out, out.  Donning my thangs, I set out from the apartment for a quick, 2.2 mile jaunt.  Then I walked home, for a total of 4.6 miles.  Here's the route:

I stopped running at the footbridge, right over the "2" there.  Then I walked across, stood in the shade and enjoyed the breeze for a bit, and then went back.  Tons of people out - it was quite pleasant!

Warm weather morning run

I woke up this morning to discover that it was approximately 55 degrees outside, and decided that made it too nice of a day not to head out for a run.  I find the barrier to entry in a morning run is much lower if I don't have to bundle up in four million layers before I do it.

Anyway, not the longest run in the world, as I'm out of practice, but I went down out of Porter on Mass Ave., looped around Cambridge Common (the park, not the bar), and back up through the neighborhood.  It totaled about 2.6 miles.  Here's the map:

Notes

I found several old to-do lists and notes to myself tonight.  I'm happy to report that I've made significant advances beyond the worries I had then.

Thank goodness - life really does progress and we really do grow.

New England Conservatory

I went out to dinner at Christopher's with my housemate Matt today.  Before our food arrived, I got a call from my advisor (Dave Z.) at the Conservatory.  I was going to call him back later, but Matt encouraged me to walk outside and take the call; I didn't argue too much because I'd been trying to get ahold of Dave for a few days now.

I walked outside into the hail (did you notice that was happening?  Ugh.) and called Dave back.  I'm not exactly sure how long we talked, maybe ten minutes or so, but we hammered a lot of stuff out.  It was great.

We decided that I'd take lessons with him this semester, and that I should join an ensemble.  I'm going to take Jazz Theory I and Ear Training I for non-credit this semester to get myself back into the groove (I've taken them already for credit).  I may (may) do some stuff in summer - maybe I'll work.  But in fall I'm going to take a full load.

Basically... I'm in.  I did it.  I'm going to spend the next four months taking jazz guitar lessons, playing in a small group ensemble, and learning theory and ear training.  And playing with Jason, Kat, and Mark at our usual basement-band-jam-session.

And I'm not going to be working full time.  So... this will be my focus.

And if I have my way, I'll do the same thing for the entire next school year.

I got out, I really did it.  I have this strange, lovely, semi-euphoric feeling.  Surprisingly, right now I'm not nervous, which I've been every single time I started something at the Conservatory.  This time I know I have the time and energy to do it.

Watch out, Nels Cline.

Monday morning run.

Went for a run this morning for the first time in a while.  It was cold, I was in new shoes, and I'm out of practice, so I went easy on myself.  I went from Porter down to the corner of JFK Park at JFK and Memorial, and then walked myself home.  In total, that's 1.9 miles of runnin', and a total of 3.8 miles of actual movement.

It wasn't so bad out, all told.  My thermometer told me it was mid twenties out.  I didn't bother to bring gloves and just kept my hands in my base layer's pleasantly long sleeves until I warmed up.  All in all, not bad.  I'd prefer to keep it up, though I'm not sure about these new shoes.  Can't decide if they bug me, or if I'm just out of practice.

Here's the map:

A below average day.

I'm feeling very unproductive today, and indeed, am being very unproductive today.

Yesterday was a weird mix of good talks with Redstar and removing a significant portion of the side of my thumb with a god damn vegetable peeler.  I can't play guitar without putting too much pressure on the stupid thumb. I'm feeling a little flustered and annoyed, and admittedly I've done nothing today save play video games and eat a bagel.  It's concerning to me right now that I don't have anything to do until Sunday afternoon.

I'm having a moment of not really being that sure of myself, or what I'm supposed to be doing right now.  Is it reasonable to say that I shouldn't just go get a full time job?  Do I want something with stability after all?  Do I want to get really involved in a startup?  Do I want to try to not get overly involved in a startup?  Should I just say fuck it for a month and leave town?  Where would I go?

I've made this decision not to work right now.  I'm still, maybe, not quite sure that I'm using this time effectively.  There's a point, I'm sure, when taking time off becomes less about recuperation and finding direction and becomes more about being lazy and not wanting to work.  I'm not really sure if I've hit that.  I'm certainly taking it easier, and giving myself more down time than I'd be able to if I worked full time.  Is it reasonable to get used to that, and to treat it like the norm?  Is this how people are supposed to live, if they could only find a way?

Maybe this is one of those times when you're supposed to call your mom.

It's a fine time for a revolution.

Had a lovely day today to round out 2010.

I spent a few hours in Dado reading a fantasy novel (Belgarath the Sorcerer), and then followed it up with a really wonderful, productive hour or two writing lyrics. Not just poems, but composing words that feel more like lyrics and less like the stream of my consciousness floating by.

I'm starting to figure out how to write music, and I'm also figuring out what I want my music to sound like. I'm figuring out what I want to share. This sort of progress is how I want to remember this year - as the year, more than any other thus far, when I really started figuring my life out.

I successfully left full time software development, at least temporarily, a few months back. Doing that - which I have yet to seriously regret for a second - has been very helpful, and has given me the space to really think about what I want and what I care about. I've learned a lot about myself and being me. About what makes me tick, about what my faults are. I'm glad to have a greater understanding of my idiosyncracies, and I'm glad to know they're there.

I'm starting to understand, really, what I want to convey to the world. To shape it into something I can present to you with love, hope, and nary a shred of embarrassment.

I'm learning to have real confidence in what I bring to the table when I need to interact with others (and you thought I thought highly of myself before), and I'm learning to know when to step aside.

In past years around this season, I've often felt like the year went by and nothing really changed. Not this year.

I don't know where I'll be this time next year. I can't even begin to take a guess. All that lack of determinism is scary, but also incredibly exciting. I know that it'll never really be as different as I might guess, and that it'll also be foreign in completely unpredictable ways.

So cheers, Future Us. I think we're all looking forward to meeting you. Happy New Year!