Salesman Pete

I've come across this video that's pretty entertaining. So here it is:

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.

Driving and Relationships

Having begun my job in Orange County, I've done one thing a lot and that is drive from point A to point B. It's pretty fun, I must admit. I've learned a lot though when driving. It's that you're given this sense of trust to have a vehicle by your family, your community, and ultimately the government. If you go out and do something stupid, it's your fault and you will have to pay for it through trust and, of course, money. At the same time, you give other people on the road your trust that they won't do something crazy that may cause you or anyone else any harm. However, you do look out and make sure that they aren't doing anything crazy. I think that's similar to the way that I see my friends and family.

I'm given this amount of trust that I do treasure and I hope that it never grows sour. I trust them and want to be a part of their lives. At the same time, if they are doing something strange, I'll be there to see what's going on. Hopefully, it will be help that is welcomed.

On Art and Critics

I recently read a great article about a critic - Greil Marcus - that wrote books about musicians and their songs. His style of writing is a little different from what you'd expect. He tries to get into the songs and feel them. His article was truly fascinating.

On his style of writing, Greil Marcus says, "To trace anybody's work, what they produce, what they put into the world, what you or I respond to, to somebody's life, their biography, is utterly reductionist. It's simply a way of protecting ourselves from the imagination, from the threat of the imagination."

A great quote that I found was this: "John Irving, the novelist, once said to me, "You know why that is? It's because people who don't have an imagination are terrified of people who do." I don't know if that's true, but we live in culture of the memoir, where we're not supposed to believe anything unless it's documented that it actually happened. Never mind that most memoirs are more fictional than novels. We want that imprimatur: "This really happened. This is really true." You can respond to it. You can feel "okay" about being moved by it. Whereas with art, whether music, movies, novels, painting, ultimately, to be moved by art, by something somebody has made up, is, from a certain perspective, to be tricked. To be fooled. You made me cry, and you just did it like you hypnotized me. I love that. Not everybody does"

If you have time, you should definitely check it out. Van Morrison's Moments of Disbelief

Being Offended

Over the past few weeks, I've struggled a lot with some stuff - two words, actually - that's been said to me. It wasn't anything that was said out of hatred or with malicious intent. It was just another comment - a comment in passing - that caught me off guard and, to some extent, offended me. I didn't explode or anything. Knowing me, it's pretty hard to offend me. It's just been something that I've held onto for a while. It's taught me something.

For me, when I get offended by something, usually that whatever it is means a lot to me. I never realized that it meant so much to me until now - after thinking about it for a good month. Whenever I do get offended, I hope that I become more introspective and see why a certain chord was struck - not just shrugging it aside as I used to. There's nothing to gain by just shrugging it off.

Sometimes, however, it may be wise to shrug certain comments that people make off - especially if it's not exactly constructive... At the same time, it's good to learn to see things from other people's perspective and see why they said certain things they did. When the comment that I mentioned earlier offended me, I realized that I was offended because I identified with those people. I called myself one of them. However, in the process, I've also learned that maybe there are issues with this group. What started as a comment in passing has become a learning experience for me.

Standards and Potential

There is always a standard in everything that we take part in. When I’m cooking something, for example, I expect things to be pretty good; you know, not inedible, but not like Emeril style. In some things, however, I expect perfection from myself – which I admit is a lot of pressure. In other things, however, I just take anything I get – in other words, I don’t expect myself to do too well and accept failure. I’m sure each and every one of us has preconceived notions of how we should do given a certain situation.

Thus, it’s clear that in everything I do, I have this idealized version of myself that I try to live up to or beyond. However, I feel like this is almost a depressing exercise. A lot of times, my opinion of myself is better than I actually am. So I walk away from whatever the task may be tired and defeated. It’s tough being the Ben that lives in my head [you know, tight abs, man boobs, the works… Haha… not really]. Often, it’s rather damaging to myself when this does happen.

Lately, talking with some people has opened my eyes to this. By comparing myself to this general standard of people, I will have achieved nothing. I will probably just let myself down, and not allow myself to perform as well as I could. However, the key to this is to compare myself to my potential. This is something I hope to teach myself over the next few months. It’s not about what others can do, but rather about my personal ability to do this. Similarly, I shouldn’t measure the ability of people against this same standardized measure of ability; to do so would just lead to disappointment in both parties. Rather, I should try to measure the ability of people against their own potential and praise them for achieving it. I think by doing this, the people I work with and myself will be edified.

So some questions I’m going to ask myself are: What is my potential? Have I reached my potential? What’re the potentials of people around me? Is it reflected in the way I deal with them?

We’ll see how it goes…

On Dreams

Speaking of dreams...

Generations

Each and every generation works differently. Our parents' generation was a generation that had to work hard to get anything that they wanted. As a child, if they wanted to go play baseball or something, they had to get on their feet and get a group together. However, they were used to working hard. Similarly, in college, many of our parents had to hold a job on the side to simply stay in college. There wasn't an option.

Our generation, however, is a generation that gets what they want. As a child, I grew up playing soccer and baseball and whatnot. My parents drove me to soccer practice and picked me up afterwards. There wasn't much effort on my behalf. All I had to do was be awake, put some clothes on, and walk out of the house and sit down in the car. In college, it's not really a necessity that I have a job, rather it's something that I'd like to hold onto to have that extra spending money. I know it's not necessarily the same for everyone, but as a general statement, I think it's true that we have it better off than our parents.

As a result, this influences the way we think. Yes, we may be hard-working - just like our parents. We may be just as ambitious, but one thing I lack is patience. I'm someone that wants to see tangible results. Immediate results that come as fruit from our labor. Thus, when I start a big project, it's just so easy for me to give up when things get difficult. I will have this giant dream to drastically change the world, but when troubles come my way, it's difficult for me to carry on. It's something that I believe is a shortcoming in me. I'm a dreamer, an idealist that dreams of utopia and saving the world. Unfortunately, all these dreams are too short-lived to be anything meaningful. Hopefully, however, I can dream long enough to make some of them come to life.