Month: May 2009

The Random Musings of My Last Few Weeks, in no particular order…

I feel like today’s technology is allowing our self conscious self to prevail. It allows us to hide in a world of news bites, fast txts, and never really stray from the people who bump into us in life that are not in front of us. You would think technology would open you up to the world, but in turn it just closes us down into a smaller path and region.

I had recently signed up for a dating site and there was a character limit of 1000. You would think, MORE than enough to answer a question, but for me I saw it as if a teacher just told me I had to write a paper that was 100 words and it seemed impossible, but obviously I saw it impossible in the opposite idea that 1000 was too little.

I guess when someone asks you a question like how did you get your job, you should have a formulaic way to say it. But the mystery of my thought is I never really say the same thing twice. I always respected comedians because they can go up and spout jokes without interaction. For me I would need to walk into a room, talk to the people for a little, then get on stage and have an open comedic routine where there was interaction to even make it past 5 minutes.

I rant, I joke, and I am sarcastic but I need the inspiration behind it to really feel passionate about it.

People often question my intentions when I write, or why I do it. I have yet to be able to answer this one, but I do know it helps me, not them, to remember what I was thinking at a certain time. Maybe little cookie crumbs for my depreciating mind.

I will write into my writing moments where it is not cryptic and I want the reader to get it but I go in and out of foreign language often. Perhaps it is easy to understand the words, but only I get the colored painting of it.

Everyone of my last relationships has ended because “love” was enough for them. “Love” is the beginning of opening up the rest of your life. It lifts the weight of trying to find the unattainable life goal so you can do other things magical with the love, the person you have found, and your life in general. It is not the end. I mean if you became rich you wouldn’t think of it as the end you would think of it as the beginning of a lot of new cool shit.

But how does one expect to love if they shrug off someone’s explanation of their day as a daily routine and never interact. You cannot JUST BE and FEEL, because eventually there is nothing to FEEL or BE.

Why can’t people adapt the European culture for its good parts and be able to actually BE with someone, to actually INTERACT, not shit useless info at each other hoping it sticks, but not caring if it doesn’t. I mean even the personal space boundaries there are different than here. Someone will sit right next to you past your personal space buffer and listen to you speak and speak within that bubble as well. And no one thinks twice. Relationships have more room to grow when you take down the amount of room you need to be comfortable. It is natural to want all the answers and know about another person. But we hold a grudge if someone tries too soon. Why must there be a time limit on it.

Where there is love there is risk, and where there is risk there is selflessness, and where there is selflessness there is wisdom. I was told that I would eventually turn sour if I kept giving everything I had to people who were not right for me. Sure it may wear on me, but goddammmit I refuse to believe I have to be different in order to keep my self preservation alive, which is already in place, just in a different place than some people around me.

To me that is the most important thing to find in a significant other. Someone who understands the risks of telling all, yet they do it anyway, because risk can kiss their ass.

I believe knowing someone’s strengths is an insight to their weakness, and while we only have our own experiences to help guide people past them, we cannot expect what worked with us to work on anyone else. It is important to adapt your own experiences into guidance, otherwise you become the father and I become the rebelling child, wondering why you are so damn oldschool.

I remember when phones were cool because they were PHONES, not txt boxes to hide behind the idea of busy. When in reality if we want it, we make time. But instead, we put as little effort forward as possible and just take what comes to us and call it being patient.

But we all know we only give time for those things important to us. And in the end, BUSY only means what we want it to mean. Sure there is REAL busy, but there are ways to overcome it to still give some of yourself. I guess we can only hope that it is reciprocated as much, because sometimes it takes everything we have to give it.

I heard this the other day: “people suck, guys are pigs, girls are objects,” Why is it that when someone puts themselves out there and it doesn’t work, they then think.. hmmm let me post things that obviously are ridiculous statement because I am hurt… Why not just go in with the idea that hey this could work, and when it doesn’t you go hmmm, it didn’t work.. then BAM move to the next candidate. We hold too much of a grudge against ourselves for relationships. It is soooo important to give it your all every time. Would you NOT give it your all to become famous if you had the chance, or to win a million dollars? Why should love be any different? We wouldn’t say it is stupid to be rich if we didn’t get rich… We wouldn’t say it is stupid to be famous if we didn’t get famous… Break our own shells of self consciousness and enjoy the shit the world throws at us.

Then we have the idea that guys are making girls stupid:
Guys feed into girls being slutty bitches
and so girls go
“ooo guys like this”
and then guys goo
“oo girls like when im an asshole”
and then girls go
“wait I don’t like assholes”
then guys go
“wtf you said you wanted an asshole”
and then girl continues to be a slut but leaves guy a and so guy a looks for girl b to be an asshole to
until the cycle repeats
thus dumbing down the population

Then I have noticed, the people who seem to know themselves soo well, through self exploration and development, who tell you immediately, WHO THEY ARE, usually are the furthest thing from that in reality. Is it because it is so easy to be this bit of information on the internet we assume we are what we are blogged as? So we forget in reality perhaps we need want and are something different.

I am not happy with this one but am posting it anyway because I am “enter” happy.

P.S. I love singing to myself in the shower. The echo keeps me calm… I dunno it is my thing… Oh and I love baths.

I have always dreamed of different lives. I often wonder which ones I will experience in my time. And perhaps if the world is a constant thing, where your energy is re-used later on even after death, will I experience it at a later date or have I already experienced hence my yearn to feel those lives. This is not to say, my life is boring or I am not enjoying it, it is just the idea that other aspects of all sorts of ways of passing time in life intrigue me. From the simplest to the most complex.

My first dream is to live a life of simple needs. A life where money isn’t more than a way to buy groceries and gas. A life where your relationships and the people around you move you from day to day. Where you live a mile from your mother until she leaves you, you by her side. A place where you find love in love itself. Where the person you are with is just with you and you with them. Because there is nothing else but love and living. Where you wake up early because you can, and you don’t feel time other than when you are called to dinner. Perhaps this is on a farm with nothing but your crops, or perhaps it is the life of an artist just making ends meat in New Orleans, never making it to Hollywood, but going to local jazz clubs and coffee shops, just having what you and your friends say to live by. Sitting and talking, quitting job after job, putting on the name tag, until you leave to go home to your small one room flat to lay in the heat with the one you love. Wearing tattered hand me downs, sipping homemade lemonade to fight off the humid heat. Just think of what New Orleans means to you, or Oklahoma. The basic meaning of these words. This is what I mean.

Perhaps an alteration of that is living the life of someone trying so hard to become what you want to, but stopping yourself because you are so used to this life. Where you push soo hard to become something and the person you are with leaves you when they see you are wasting life away on comforts. Yet in the end, you realize, it wasn’t each others dreams you loved, but the situations this caused, and you find each other for the rest of your lives. Selling cereal. (movie reference)

The second life is that where war overrides the daily cultures, social aspects, and meanings of life. Your course is preplanned and you fight toward a common goal. A place where you hold your best friends hand covered in blood, not thinking about the diseases that can be transmitted but about what you are going to tell his/her significant other. Not a place where you need to keep up with the latest technologies or when the next txt message will come in to tell you what to do that night, but you eat pre-heated food and the meaningless pleasure of a bath is like being a king. You smoke cigarettes without the fear of cancer because you can enjoy everything in life as it is handed to you. For all you know tomorrow will be your time. This looming idea of destruction and death makes you live life a way you never knew possible. Even in war though, would I be content just following orders or would I end up pushing to further my place in that hierarchy as well.

The third is a life of glamour. Living each day without a monetary care in the world, but the pressures of the “scene” on your shoulders constantly. Having the ability to be in the bleeding edge of life, because every door opens freely. Battling the fake and reals of life. Unable to leave your house without others wanting to see what you are doing, flashes blinding all moments in your life. But you must sacrifice being with your old friends and family. You must go where you are needed, not by those who brought you into the world, but the new family called your fans. But how do you balance this life and the life you miss. When can you say, I have done enough, I am content, when do you turn down the next script.
The fourth is that of comfort. Finding that thing you are good at, but not being able to push it to the limits or finding that break to be “popular”. Perhapsyou become the self loathing teacher of your passion, the one who never made it. Or perhaps a drone in a cubicle, doing your work at top notch because it all makes sense, and you are always ahead of the curve.

The fifth is the life where you forget yourself. And you live in this life because it brings you the comforts of money, relaxation, stress, and keeping up with the Benjamins next door. You go through the motions of life because your job allows you to.

Or perhaps the last would be just trying ever one of your passions out until you have exhausted all options not really being content or upset. But in a constant motion.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to find someone in my life, who can share these pieces of all lives together. Where you are able to live your dreams, but after you feel content you can settle down in love. You can have a mattress on the floor of an empty house. You can paint the walls together, playfully splashing it over your loved one, turning into a heated passionate moment on that mattress, the one piece of the house that won’t change. Growing together eventually raising a child to grow in your lives with you. I think most importantly is the idea of the photographer living with the model/makeup artist. The lives of those who love each other should feel like a flowing river. Mixing the dirt and sand from the coast, but always ending up in that river. Eventually leading into a circular lake, where the world now begins to fall behind and fills your bed of water without you having to put the efforts of say a first date. Like the idea of my Grandmother using the internet. When it finally got to her, she didn’t need to master it, but it was cool. Living with someone who you look forward to looking at their splashes of paint on the wall, or their work spread all over the bedroom. For me, the artistic approach to life. I want someone who loves the arts equally. All aspects. Better than me in some kinds and me them. This wouldn’t cause friction but pride for their abilities. I have always dreamed of someone who was good at the “Hollywood flat or Soho” feel of life, and it reflected their record player and style. Edgy but with the want and yearn for living life calmer than those who have to go and DO just to feel alive. The appreciation for the quick city as well as the class of the 50’s.

Being able to grow together like this, being able to live your passions and have that other person see you grow and you them, as you both make your lives what you want. Or perhaps you fail or she fails, but either way you have experienced and tried, and have each other to love, and have the painted walls, which your hands bled over as the groundwork for your lives forever.

I know this is not the most articulate piece of writing I have ever written, but I want to get the thoughts out. Just some raw ideas. Perhaps I will revisit this at a later date and pretty it up.

I wonder if one day I will meet that person with smooth pale skin, eyes as blue as 20 steps deeper than man can journey down into the sea. (This is just an example for those red heads out there that think I am creepy, the movie I just saw had someone in it that reminded me of this look which has always had a place in my heart.) I wonder if regardless of what stages in life we are at, if eventually we will meet in the middle. Like the life of Benjamin Button.(as contrived as that movie was, event eh notebook held more water) The man who lived his life from old to young, and met his soul mate when she was in the middle of her life, and for that moment, regardless of the direction both lives are going, that fleeting moment will be perfect, and it will line up. And from that point on, as she grows older and he gets younger, they are destined to live in each other’s lives, no matter what the circumstances. He will always be there for her and she will hold his hand as he forgets to walk. And those fleeting moments they will know they had love.

When that other person in my life passes away or I pass away, I want to know that I have loved, that she was my soulmate and I will never yearn for anything else. My friends will not push me out to meet someone else because they know I only needed that time with her. And now that part of my life, that chapter in my life, is complete. When I see a movie where someone has found true love and they are a young age when one dies, it is hard for me to fathom how they could ever have someone else. If you find perfection, how can you top an already impossible feat. Perfection does not exist, only times in peoples lives lining up.

So you are having a bad day and mine was great, we are on a different time line in life for the moment. My day flew by, yours at a crawl. I hope there will be strength enough to be able to sprint to catch up to each other, or perhaps take a moment to smell the day, and wait for the other. The place where people are in their lives is always scary, because when you live in such a fast paced world where you want to be a part of a big city or fast moving industry, it can be a matter of seconds to lose that chance to see what could have been.

I guess what I am trying to say is there is something intriguing about living like a gypsy, but not unless you have someone with you who you love already, because lets be honest, in real life, gypsies don’t have dental insurance and Hollywood makeup artists. 🙂

(btw if ur tagged it is because I enjoy your feedback, but don’t feel obligated.)

(also normal disclaimer: I just feel the need to get thoughts written out sometimes, most the time these are not MEANT for direct reading by other people, or with that intention, they are written for me to go back to later when I wonder why. I mean it is very true that we all see our stories and lives differently than someone not in our head to see the images that go with the words.)

(comments from facebook)

Mo Hoffman

dude I like reading your essays, a lot of the stuff you write resonates with me as well, exceot you do find a way to put it into words.

May 18, 2009 at 1:44pm ·

Tristan G Pope

Wanna go on a date 🙂 Thanks man hehe

May 18, 2009 at 1:46pm ·

Rosemary Pope-Wallin

again, my romantic son…..so like his Mom.

May 18, 2009 at 1:57pm ·

Jun Falkenstein

You will find that person. It will happen. I didn’t think it would for me, ever. Then I turned 40, and met him, finally. And we both knew it. And so it will, for you, when the time is right. The hard part is the waiting.

May 18, 2009 at 2:33pm ·

Tristan G Pope

Yeah I was just discussing the fine balance of waiting, putting forth effort and not being lazy with relations. Ahh life is funny

May 18, 2009 at 2:36pm ·

Rosemary Pope-Wallin

You WILL find someone…..be patient…it is hard. But the way you find someone is when you are not looking for her. And she may not be blond and blue-eyed. Usually everything we think we are looking for changes when we find that someone!

May 18, 2009 at 5:16pm ·

Tristan G Pope

Who wants a specific type of person? Who even knows. It happens whether you like it or not, but to say it will JUST come is to say you will JUST be able to AFFORD food, by JUST sitting. Some effort can go a long way, but too much effort will get the guy next to you to kneecap ya and take yoru spot for the gold for the figure skating champion impressionistic lion king. THE CIRRCLLLE OF LIFFFEEE.

May 18, 2009 at 5:29pm ·

Jun Falkenstein

Well, there’s effort and then there’s EFFORT. Like being happy in your own self and being open to what the universe brings you, vs. desperately scouring the personal ads 😛

May 18, 2009 at 5:31pm ·

Tristan G Pope

I find if you read too much into what I say, my writing can be my own fall. My writing is just a moment of thought, a breath if you may. Throughout the day you breath all the time, but sometimes you realize you are breathing and it feels weird. So I write about it. I am not in desperate need for a person in my life, I just enjoy the thought that backs up the idea of it. But thanks MOM lol. I have shared too much, I must now pretend you suck! EWWW MOM!!! *rebels*

May 18, 2009 at 5:32pm ·

Tristan G Pope

Yeah Jun, I agree and disagree. I agree in terms of creepy person. I disagree in that your statement is often taken too much word for word and that is what forms cat and mouse and forces someone to confuse passion for OMG you are creepy because you are showing me emotions in the beginning! I have to be reserved ahhhhhhhh!!!!! European culture seems… See More to reflect the idea of pursuit being ok. Because there is no shun on the idea of “Should I call today or 3 days from now” It is, I am interested, are you interested? Ok lets sit down for coffee, oo this feels nice, or yeah i think we should go separate ways.

May 18, 2009 at 5:36pm ·

Jun Falkenstein

I know you don’t know me all that well but trust me when I say I know what you are talking about.

May 18, 2009 at 5:37pm ·

Rosemary Pope-Wallin

Um….I think I am supposed to feel insulted right about now? What prompted a response like that, may I asK???

May 18, 2009 at 5:57pm ·

Tristan G Pope

Insulted? Now I am confused. I am not looking for a specific type is what i was saying, as you said “blond and blue-eyed”. I also have been discussing the idea of patience. So i was explaining… however you are the mom you should always feel insulted, it comes with the territory 🙂

May 18, 2009 at 5:59pm ·

Rosemary Pope-Wallin

♠well, when someone says “I must now pretend you suck. EWWW MOM”…it sounds sort of insulting to me. I KNEW what you were discussing in your thesis!

May 18, 2009 at 6:43pm ·

Tristan G Pope

Lost in txtlation.

May 18, 2009 at 6:51pm ·

Tristan G Pope

plus I would say that is a healthy mother son relationship 😛

May 18, 2009 at 6:55pm ·

Holly Taylor

Jun Falkenstein’s 8:31pm post above rings very true. Working on the self, while being open to others and opportunity….very important.

I think the most important feature for someone to fall in love with is the other persons face. I don’t say this because of beauty, but because of the way her smile makes you smile, the way her eyes sparkle just for you. That special sparkle that lets you into, them, as a person. Or even as simple as the way their nose crinkles or the lines in their jaw.

In a world where love is defined as a multitude of cultural differences, choices in life, eating habits, and stress levels, the face never changes. The face never lies.

In 100 years if you can picture staring at that person next to you and seeing their beauty through your eyes, you have found love.

Of course, the challenge is finding that beauty you need with a person you are compatible with. But life will change us every day. I am not the same person I was when I was young, nor am I the same person I was yesterday, and while some may consider a marriage in which every ten years you re-evaluate if you fit, I see a mixture.

Someone’s appearance isn’t everything. You can gain and lose weight as quickly as the blink of an eye. Your can cut or grow your hair. Your style fits you when you need it. However, there is an essence in the face, that shows the way a person is. You can see the core of someone’s morals through their face. I have recently draw upon the idea that some of the most successful relationships I have ever seen were when the couple had similar physical traits, mostly in their faces or expressions.

It is kind of like an owner and their dog, just not in a weird beastial way 😛

Perhaps it is the idea that behind all of our self doubt and self consciousness, we are beautiful to ourselves. If we didn’t have some semblance of this, doubts and all, I don’t think we would make it from day to day. So perhaps in a very basic sort of way, we see that one thing we have no control over; the beauty in ourselves through our own eyes and we find that in our perfect match. And perhaps that same thing that controls that part of our subconscious is a part of what makes our minds run the way they do and hard codes us with the choices we will make, and the paths we decide to travel. If we go after those who grab us not for the makeup and eyeliner, but the pure, simplistic, animalistic, unabated beauty, we may find love for the rest of our lives.

It is hard to say beauty is within, when our first impressions are usually without. So why not go with that first gut reaction, because if you make sacrifices to your own feelings, you may end up in love with the idea of love itself and not the person next to you.

Who knows, maybe the simple way you can stare into their eyes, is actually a mental pheromone which shows you a similar path you are both going to journey down, a compatibility unseen until you jump in. That simple sparkle may act as a light to guide the way, for both of you.