Is this thing on?

Who cares if flowers are one of the most cliche photo subjects?

Missing me again.

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?” –Ayn Rand (from Galt’s Speech, The New Intellectual)

Guilty. I know I think. I know I use my brain *sometimes*. But am I turning it on just long enough for basic necessities and then shutting it back off?

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement.” Patricia, Joe Versus the Volcano

I spent some time looking at what my blog was like 8 years ago to the month. I loved blogging back then. I wrote about the most trivial things– whatever was on my mind. Posted a random photo if there wasn’t one to go with the subject of the post. Posted pics of food gratuitously. And I suppose what helped keep it going was the small but devoted community of people– family and friends– who read and commented and conversed. Most of them blogged, too. You spoke your mind and there were people who actually gave a damn, no matter how trivial.

Tangent to the original subject, but I don’t think I’ve ever placed enough value on friendship, come to think of it. Friends who helped keep me awake, helped keep my brain on, and perhaps even my heart beating.

I look at today and why don’t I write the mundane amusing experiences and details of life anymore? What has changed? Has everything been documented? Is life that repetitive that there’s nothing left to write? Nah… as mundane as life can be, as repetitive as it can be, the beauty is in the details. The brief moments. The conversations. The laughter. The heartache. And everything in between.

Could be that my “falling asleep” coincides with becoming more and more withdrawn from life in general. Or maybe they’re the same thing.

For life cannot always be made of grand experiences and massive break-throughs. But then, in a way, those aren’t terribly interesting anyways, are they?

And so I task myself with turning my brain back on. With waking up. With seeing beauty in the details. With striving to live in that state of constant, total amazement. With putting off intellectual laziness of all kinds. Not 100% sure how this is done… but life will be better if I do. Taking time is going to mean blogging. For me, anyways. Takes more work than a quick post to instagram or a status update on Facebook. Let’s make this something I can enjoy reflecting on in 8 years.

Speaking of change… I need to actually spend some time and make my own wordpress theme. I’m not feeling this particular theme right now other than the built in picture frames.