Usefulness

Today I have to admit that many of my blog posts aren't useful. Instead of providing information to help others deal with serious, personal issues ... and rather than giving some level of relief or insight, I've bantered about notions and ideas that don't encourage or support people in these difficult times.

The Paurian Cafe started out as a sounding board, but as time passes, and as I supposedly mature, it becomes more apparent that personal sounding boards and web journals generally don't help the public who have an actual and realized need.

What do people need? What do they want? Where are we heading from this point?

Irresponsible people in government have an idealistically optimist outlook. They have for years. A politically influential man told me in June 2008 that we had eight more years before our nation would collapse. That in eight years, we would no longer be "America". He didn't say we wouldn't be "America as we know it," but that we would no longer be American soil. I wish I had started investing in gold then. I thought of doing it last spring, but decided to put that money towards refinancing our house to lower the monthly payments. We're living in times where every decision we make is invariably a bad one depending on who you listen to.

Paurian Elevator Pitch

Great ideas come scribbled on paper cafe napkins. That's when our souls aren't stiff with starch or choked with a tie. That's when we relax with our friends and a cocktail drink. That's when we don't care how stupid the idea seems. There's magic when the logic is gone.

This spot on the web is my paper napkin in hopes to find that great idea; at least in hope to discover myself. This journey will help to define partly who I am, and in that there is hope to glimpse the meaning of life and what lies beyond.

Music, code, love, food, philosophy, paranoia, responsibility, passion, art, faith, desire, fear: they pull my life into every which way, often times at conflict with each other. It's a bumpy napkin and rips are bound to happen.


Million Dollar Napkin Idea

The Looking Glass Zoo

During my time in high school doodles were constantly being drawn on the side margins of the class notes. This wasn't unusual; many people doodled on their notes. However, a teacher saw the doodles and felt disturbed enough by them to call in a meeting with my parents. The doodles eventually stopped.

They weren't doodles of any teachers, but rather of myself. More often than not the images resembled Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Why it's considered art on a canvas and a psychological concern on notepaper is beyond me, but there you have it.

A few years later, at the university, these drawings started popping up again. This time I would cut them out of my notes and paste them or tape them in my diaries, which I kept for nearly ten years, and labeled them "The Looking Glass Zoo".

Ignore the words in those years of entries. There might be a tidbit of wisdom here and there, but most of the words in the diaries aren't really worth repeating. That's a part of my past better left buried, only to be exhumed after my death when people can then discover how much of a jerk I was before I matured.

Since I've been getting back into art and drawing, I've gained an interest in looking back through these drawings and sketches - particularly for some raw ideas that never developed back then. I hope to document these images over time and improve upon them. The journaling is more reserved and in this digital form (the blog), which helps to keep me from writing some of the more libel thoughts and gives me a chance to edit the few I do post. I miss the handwriting, though. That's something lacking on the web - too much type and too little personal handwriting.

Will Blog For Food

I love it when people blog and use the photography I post up on flickr. This has got to be one of the best uses of flickr around, and as long as people aren't posting my silly mug up on posterboards or commercials without my consent I have practically no concern on the matter. Some of my photos have even been on pages supporting political groups that I don't, but it was clear from the article that the photo was used to set a visual tone rather than to say that the photographer promoted the material.

The latest blog to use one of my photos is Alan Morantz's Leading Thoughts. In this article he discusses how art can be used to develop leadership skills! Cool! That's actually one of the reasons for the many photographs up on flickr and blogposts lately. I'm trying hard to learn a certain level of diligence that will hopefully lead to better leadership and organizational skills. I'm also trying to put something creative out there that can be used to enrich the world and bring happiness to others. I'm not good enough to make blogging or photography a full-time business, but someday I might learn some great hidden nugget of wisdom and become a world-renown motivational speaker to twelve-year-olds that will allow me to indulge in supplimenting the task with photography and blogs. Then again, reality tells me I should get back to work - lunch break is over!