Nature

Ahhhh yes..... nature............... the mysterious being that intrigues us... causing great wonder and amusement... The mother of all life....

I spent my nature time at first in balboa park. I sat down for a good deal, just watching and listening to everything that was going on around me.... I was pretty calm and peaceful... Some people stared at me kind of funny, but i just kept gazing at my surroundings, wondering why i can't stop thinking about random stuff. I was not there for that long, as about 10 minutes into my nature thang, i was asked to join a soccer game by some people i have never met before in my entire life. But, I enjoy soccer, so i agreed. This of course interrupted the supposed nature experience. However i don't think it really did. I may have been interacting with people, but i still believe it is nature. It is in human nature that we interact. All creatures prefer the company of others of the company of none. Although these were complete strangers to me, I did not even question the offer, and enjoyed myself. I felt even more at peace while playing soccer with these guys than when i was just sitting staring at things. I felt a little uneasy just watching the grass blow in the wind, it seemed odd to me and something i would never do.... the playing soccer also focused my mind allowed my mind to not wonder and just be in tune with one single act/goal (get it goal? its a pun!)... i suppose if i kept doing it for longer, i might have adapted and been able to not think.... But i have never been able to simply not think.... even when i'm going to sleep at night, it takes me a while to fall asleep (even if i'm really tired) because i just can't stop thinking about things... just random thoughts and tangents that go off these thoughts then i lose the game, then i think about more stuff and spend about 40 minutes just lying in bed thinking until i fall asleep. Anyway.... the interaction with others is completely natural.... it seems more natural than nature, because it is nature... observing nature does not even compare to living it. While the soccer match may not have even been really close to what most people think of nature (trees, forests, berries, squirrels that lot) it was... i can't really explain it, but it was amazing. One of those living in the moment things i keep talking about... pure bliss through interaction with people.... People need others to survive, both physically, and mentally... it is one of life's essentials... one of nature's laws

Self Reliance

"Traveling is a fool's paradise"

What this basically means, is that trying to escape your problems is stupid. Running away from your issues, and troubles, does not make them go away. If anything, it makes them get worse.... the problems don't just solve them self, and they grow and grow and grow.... Relating this to traveling, when we go out on vacations aka "traveling", we drop everything we were doing at the time, and simply leave. We go out to see the world, or whatever it is people would do. We enjoy the temporary relief, the sudden joy that relieves the stress of all your troubles. Of course this is always great, forgetting what is going wrong in your life, and just living in the moment ( i enjoy it myself) but it really does not help at all. It provides a temporary comfort that will most likely just make the very same problem we were escaping grow and grow. This escape even sounds foolish, in search of relief from our problems you run away from them, allowing them to get even worse so that when you come back shortly, you are faced with even larger problems.... so you didn't just waste time, you screwed yourself over even more.... seems pretty foolish to me.... Traveling seems to be more of a problem than the problems...So if we know this problem (traveling) exists, why don't we try to fix it? Because we are avoiding it as well.... we travel to avoid the problem at hand (which is traveling) it seems we've reached an impasse... This conundrum is a tough one, and as it seems, will never be solved.... because we as human beings are obsessed with the now..... we think, act, and live in the now... because now is what we care about. Now is what we feel. Now is .... now. Life is simply a series of nows.... of moments.... each moment allows either pleasure or pain, and we try to maxamize this pleasure of the now.... this is what traveling does, created a momemt of bliss that people value immensly

Gifts

Gift giving! Tis the season!!! ................ Emerson would probably be completely disgusted as to how we give gifts today. What we give is pretty much a material item that doesn't show who we are, I partially agree with Emerson's ideas on gift giving and gifts them self, however i disagree with it too. I can definitely see what he is getting at, and how it is important and relevant today, with how obsessed with items people are today. The only problem is, i am too. I don't think there is a single person on this planet that would honestly and truthfully prefer me to make, say a song, (since i play sax it represents me... weeeee) and give that as a gift instead of me giving them say a bunch of money. Btw speaking of money ( I love going on tangents i do it all the time sorry...), i find money to be the laziest gift someone can give a person.... It means they basically have no idea what to get for you because they don't know anything about you or what you would like, or they just are to lazy to bother finding out/going out and buying you a gift (or making one........... there you go Emerson!) Gift cards are just focused laziness. More refined.... And buying cards... i hate cards... Majority of people don't even write in them which is pretty lazy and stupid in my opinion... its like hey here's these words that someone else wrote that you can enjoy or maybe laugh at a little, i for one could not think of anything to really say to you on this occasion...... once again i digress.... back to gifts. Me personally, i prefer gifts regarding things i enjoy doing (duh) and gifts that i can use for a while or that are just pure awesomness..... A "thoughtful" gift is always nice, but if its a piece of junk, i won't really like it. Thats the partial disagreeing of Emerson.... The part i do agree with is the fact that this.... all of what i/many many others think about gifts... is really messed up. As a society we all care about some random gift and judge people based on what gift they give us. Whoever has the most money to spend / chooses to spend the most will win most of the gift competitions...... Gifts really should simply represent who you are/what you are/what you do... rather than be some thoughtless item you think the person would enjoy, because they surely enjoy the gifts more than you.... Our obsession with material goods is bad, and i sure am a hypocrite when it comes to this matter (i hate being a hypocrite, but atleast i'm honest :D) because i am opposed to what i do, and do it anyway....

Friendship

Friendship is something i can't really explain. I can try, but i don't think anyone can truly say what it is. It is the bond between people, that keeps them around each other. You may like them or not, but there can still be a friendship. I have hated a good deal of people that i consider friends anyway. I as well as pretty much everyone i know, prefer the company of someone regardless of who they are/how they act, over being alone. Of course everyone needs some alone time, but that can't last... we can't do anything forever, balance is the key... but i digress. To me someone who has a sense of humor and can take constant sarcasm and insults regardless of their intensity is a person I'd befriend. Someone who is not radically supportive in anything is a aspect i admire and enjoy. I hate having to censor myself in front of people because they can't take something that "offends" them/their beliefs. Trust isn't a huge deal for me. I find that kind of odd that i think like that heh..... I can pretty much forgive a friend for anything (up to a certain point.... there is always an exception to everything say)... I don't really open up to friends, even my best friends, because they are smart enough to notice the real me. I don't bother burdening them with any secrets I have, because with friends i enjoy escaping from problems, not creating them. It may be foolish, and Emerson disagrees with escaping reality, but to me that is what friends are for.... thats my version of them "picking me up when i'm down" just living in the momemt.... all life is is a series of moments, live in them....

As for the friendship experiment, i did it outside of school friends, as they would simply go "oh your doing the experiment ok" and would pretty much make it pointless..... I found it pretty pointless and didn't accomplish anything, because my friends just laughed off every "true" thing i pointed out. Perhaps the fact that me and my buds always screw around and make jokes about pretty much anything; each other, random people, animals, tv, you name it we've made fun of it.... so whatever we say to eachother is shrugged off.... we can take virtually anything we say to eachother... (example) one of my friends got expelled near the end of last year, and we poked fun at him about it for a good deal, yet he is still our friend and we hang out a lot.
Also, i don't think anyone can truly compare to the Emersonian friend. It seems imposible to me, especially if we are trying to immitate it. Also its hypocritcal that we are deceiving our friends trying to be an Emersonian friend instead of the friend and person we truly are...