the sanest insanity

This happens sometimes. Often, actually. I get so caught up in trying to figure out the best place to start that I never actually get started. I think about what I should or need to do so much that I never actually do anything. It's quite unproductive actually. Counter, even. So is the case with this blog, I've thought several times that I should catch up a bit on here, but then can't think of what would be the most relevant thing to share.
I kind of feel like I just woke up from one of those dreams where I was running around in my underwear and everyone just accepted it, there was something close to pitty on their faces. Come to find out, I am usually the last person to realize these types of things, or atleast, admit them. I am completely insane. There, I said it. If I wanted to be a little more gentle I could say that my thinking and my behavior has been completely insane. My behavior has improved dramatically but I still think way too much for my own good. I suffer my thinking. I do, it's exhausting. It's making me suffer right now a bit, so I'm going to do something different.

tickle of grass
helps me to be
moving too fast
it gets hard to see

vibrant peddles
bloom and they flower
and I still meddle
hour by hour

the sad truth
I see in my youth
they will fulfill their purpose
more completely than anything more complex

and I still try in vain
to play God
to control with my brain
as you nod
yep, he's insane.

Maybe that was, helpful, maybe not. I was too lazy to indent, which probably would have taken less time than writing this sentence. Probably. At this point though, it is highly likely that it would have taken less time. See, at first I made a feeble attempt to indent, and the little blinking bar that has another name that I can't think of right now jumped right back to the middle. It was in the middle before because I was writing that poem thing. That was a pretty humble attempt at poetry. I used the word humble because I already used the word "feeble" a sentence or too ago. Seemed tacky, or excessive, or both. Anyway, sorry I didn't indent, I don't know if that threw you off or anything. I hope you still like me. What is it that I can do that would make you like me again?

Okay, that last paragraph illustrates pretty accurately how insane I am. I spend way more energy worrying about the percieved problem or task than it would take to actually solve the problem. The fear is way more painful than the actually reality of any of it. The thinking, more exhausting than the doing. So why over-think? Why procrastinate? Why fear? I don't know. That's why it is insane.

Heart Sweat

Notes. Hm. I like this. I like it here. I think I'll stay a minute. I don't know if I will make any sense, or if I am supposed to. I don't know if I will be profound, or what that is. If this is a think piece than I am Einstein. But it's not, and I'm not. But it might be. Anyways. I'm thinkin' about people. Thinkin' about you guys again. Why do people shed me with love at a level higher than I (at least, often) deserve? Is it a sense of duty? Is it because they think someone might be watching? Why do I love people when they sometimes don't love me back, at least, not in the way that I want them to? Is it because I am trying to impress someone? Maybe sometimes. Definately sometimes. I think thats okay too. My font just changed. Not for effect though. It was an accident. It was bothering me. What is that invisible line that connects me and you. I'm not being corny. I'm being serious. If cornyness were a word, and that word were some by product of saying something sincere then what a splendid stigma indeed. If that is even what that would be. I only pretend to be smart. And I usually don't even do that much.

I really don't know much. I do know that a life without love is not much of a life at all. It is all that matters to me. Relationships. I could care less how much money I have if I didn't have anyone to spend it with. I am you and we are each other. This isn't some hippy B.S., or maybe it is, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Any religion I have ever studied has pointed to this same truth. That truth is that we are here to love and to experience love. And that love is not a feeling. The most joyous, lasting feelings we can have are side effects of love. So what is then? An action? Is it a pelvic thrust? That is disgusting. It is definately not. That is just another joyous side effect. Side effects. That's it. My focus has been all wrong. I have been focusing on the side effect. Trying to duplicate the feeling of sacrifice with a cheap thrill or by creating a false sense of being by trying to duplicate a side effect of love. Which is adrenaline. It's a rush.

I don't need a girl to love. I can't have a girl until I learn to love. I try so hard to love. I try. I glorify and fantasize the trying. I want to love everyone else and I want everyone to love me. I just don't want to love myself. This creates problems. I wanna go through the roof without hitting the ceiling. I have tried to condense the side effects of love, then water them down, for good measure of course, and eat em. Doesn't work. I promise. It really doesn't. You'll go to sleep loving smoke, or cig, or show, or carpet or numbness or freaking lamp and you wake up alone loving nothing and no one. Especially not yourself. Myself.

Ahhh but good news. There is such good news. Such wonderfully exquisite news that it makes me want to give you a hug and never let go. I don't even care who you are. At all. The good news is that it is not too late for me to love myself. Not too late at all. If you try to love everyone else, often times at your own expense, by imitating the side effects of love through instant gratification and then telling people what you think they would like to hear, then that is not love at all. That is just trickery. but that doesn't matter any more.

I am not wondering why you love ME any more. I am wondering why I don't love myself. I am wondering why you don't love me more. I think it's cause I'm lazy. but either way. I love myself right now. i love myself for writing this. I love myself for having the awareness to say that I need to love myself more. I love myself for having a faint idea of what love is. At least what it is to me. To me, love is a decision. It is a decision that every other decision you make stems from. It is integrity. It is sacrifice. It is doing something for someone to make them feel good not to make you look good. It is secret. It is quite. It is riviting and it will shake you to the very core. It is that gentle pat on the back and it is that cold hard reality. It is whatever it needs to be. It is anything that is good and it is all that matters.

I pretend to know so much about love but where is the evidence? I don't think you can rate the amount of love you have with the amount of girls you have had physical or emotional encounters with. I am not a pimp. I'm not a player. I'm not a gangster. I'm not a stud. I'm not smooth. I'm alone because I don't love myself as much as I love anyone who I want to be with. So they can't love me. It's gotta be the most painful thing in the world.

This isn't a depressing note. This is an honest note. And where there is honesty, there can be closure. I am Taylor Spainhower and I love myself. I even love that I am so worried about not being the best person that I can that I completely shut down for a long time. Because I am still here. And I still know where and Who to turn to help me love myself. It is the only way for me. And I love that. I set it up that way. He is love. And I am going to start letting Him in. Thanks for reading that sparatic banter.

I LOVE YOU. AND I LOVE ME TOO.

positive vibrations.

Catching up? What is the purpose? All those things are gone. The good and the bad. The beauty and the Hell. It is what it is and as of this moment, it is all relevant. It is relevant because it is the journey that led me here. Here and now. Right now I am Taylor Spainhower. I have a wonderful life. I am growing and learning everyday and I am walking the path that is innevitably leading to enlightenment, or, the end of suffering. I will still experience pain. I will still hurt. My perspective on pain and hurt is the one change. It is the only thing that matters. What I percieve is what I am. I am a very lucky person. I am a beautiful person. I love people, and people love me. I am a budding flower that is only made more beautiful by the rain, snow, sleet and Hell that I endure. I love my job, and I am great at what I do. My passion in life is relationships and creating them and honoring them. People can sense my genuine desire to help which is why I am one of the five best salesmen in the country. I am one of the five best salesmen in the Country. I have so much to learn and I am extremely grateful for my flaws because they give me the abbility to forget myself. I am Taylor Spainhower because I am not thinking of Taylor Spainhower. I am thinking of you and how I can help you. I am helping myself by helping others. All the problems I have are illusions. Illusions of lack. My life is plentiful. It is abundant in every single way because I make it that way, every day. I am not my addictions. I have no addictions. I am happy and healthy. I can and will and am doing and accomplishing everything I want. All negativity is irrelevant. It is non existent. I am the most positive person in the most positive circumstances. I am a beautiful, selfless, giving person. I always will be.

That being said, I still wonder. I choose not to give focus to my ego, which is the source of my problems. So as of now, thats all I can report. It's simply that life is too beautiful and short, not to recognize that and seize every moment.

I. Was bound to be back

Donner Party

I probably sound like the most broke record that ever got broken. Once again, I have compelled God to compel me to be humble. I gotta stop doing that. I feel like the ball in brick breaker. Every once in a while I will hit a brick, but usually I miss. The closer I get to beating the level the longer I have to wait to hit the top and then come slowly, back down to the bottom so I can try again.
In this game, though, I never run out of bricks to hit and the more times I miss the harder it is to even get motivated bounce off the bouncer and head upward.
Back on the wagon as they say. My fellow pioneers are getting more and more skeptical that I will ever reach the promised land. I myself, am skeptical.
The great news is, is that my oxen (Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ) are extremely stubborn about not giving up on me. I can't shake the fact that there is so much more. That I have a divine purpose. And it is not to be the funny drunk kid at the party.
It sounds so simple, and it really is. It really is.
Well I am back on the wagon. Two weeks clean and sober. That doesn't sound like a lot but when your used to getting high or intoxicated every day two weeks is quite a long time. I think I will start writing on here again.
I just got a job today at Mcdonald's. I am actually quite proud of myself for that. I believe it is saying something about my willingness to do what I gotta do. I am a pretty prideful person and I need all of the humbling experiences that I can get. Whether I think I am better than what I really am or worse, It is all pride. They both keep me from being able to recieve the help and guidance that I need.
I am feeling better already (facebook). It's crazy how a conversation with someone that you know genuinely cares, can lift you up and literally put positive energy into your life. Well, It's late and I'm super duper tired so I'm gunna go to bed. Love you all....

Optimistic Floundering

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72xVqMl32HA

For added effect, copy that link in a new window and push play while you read. Maybe?

Okay, so I'm floundering. No, scratch that. I am floundering. Period. But I think there is something to be said of floundering. To flounder denotes a certain level of struggle. To struggle is to use, at least, a semblance of effort. When people say that their cousin is struggling, what they really mean is that they are floundering. At best.

I suppose I might be being a little hard on myself. I changed my mind, I'm struggling. Seriously, I am getting sick of my life. I am pretty dang sure that I am about sick enough of it to change it. It's gotta be getting close. To give myself a little credit, I have been doing better. I have been thinking about how easy it is to change compared to the rewards at the end.
Okay, this one could be a tangent.
One of my misconceptions about the Gospel, is that I have to completely make amends for everything I have done before I can forgive myself or begin to feel peace. That is really what it is all about, forgive yourself. When I am judged, it is not God that I am mostly afraid of, It's myself. I know that the only way to forgive myself is through Him. I am not really in a place to bear my testimony and I wouldn't want to do that right now because, if I do decide to live the way I have been living the last little while, it wouldn't help me in the end. Quite the contrary I think.
I was thinking about relationships. I was thinking about how much I love people and my relationships with them. It made me sad because I know how much more I could really love them if I was living the way I should. I can only love someone as much as I love myself and right now that isn't very much. That sounded emo. It wasn't, I'm okay, just overly self aware. I was thinking about my parents and my family and how they love me so much, that they won't be content or at peace until I am. I am sure, that it is so easy for them to tell if I am living in the way that I know I should be living. When I am with my friends I am doing whatever I can to distract myself from that.
I have started writing again, and I think it is fueling this mustard seed of willingness that I have been feeling lately. I don't know, I enjoy writing things that people can see sometimes, but I kinda feel hypocritical just talking about changing my life. I don't want it to be like the days where I went to church so that people could see me there. I am lucky enough, however, to have experienced going to church for the right reasons. And it was amazing. The answer seems so simple, and it really is.
I don't know, if you don't mind, whoever the three or four people who are that read this, which, by the way, I wanted to thank you for, wait, one more comma, there. Okay start over. I think I might just write on this thing because any support is good support. And I need all the support I can get, if I am going to do this. Which I am. I have to. And I really do appreciate your support in caring enough to read this.
Tomorrow I am not going to wake up and be cured. I am just barely getting to the point where the pain of the problem is becoming more than the pain of the solution. The solution, for me, is painful. Of course it is, I have done some horrible things after I was given some wonderful gifts.
It's time though. I'm freaking 22 years old. I have a mustache. It's sketchy but it has taken me 22 years to grow. It is my only accomplishment. Ha ha jk. That was so drab. I can't believe I just said drab. As you can see it is hard for me to stay focused.
I am not intoxicated. My mind just goes all the time and doesn't like to stick in one spot for too long. Maybe I trained it because so many of those spots are uncomfortable for me right now? Okay that was deep. Maybe too deep. What is this? A one man therapy session? With some possible observers?
Maybe I should just keep it to the random tangent, or observation and stop trying to be philisophical or introspective or self-aware or brutally honest or spiritual. I don't know. Whatever, I've got nothing to hide. It's going to be shouted from the rooftops unless I take care of it anyways. Honesty. At least I have that.
I'll check in again soon and hopefully have some wonderful things to say that I can feel a little more worthy of saying. Love.

Boils down to this.

Life is really just a series of cycles. I would like to think that it was more just a slanting line that went straight to the top. I would like to think that we are all good people with good hearts and good intentions and that God will be able to see our hearts and over look all the other stuff. Then again, I don't know about you but I pretty much do what I want. Not necessarily what I want deep down but I can almost always be counted on to do whatever I want to do, at that moment. Usually it is whatever is easiest and filled with the most instant gratification. Usually I want to do what I am not supposed to. Sure, I could probably argue that I still love people, and in my heart I would love for everyone to just get along and I would love to just do what I was supposed to all of the time.
I have spent a good portion of my life trying to convince myself to believe in something other than what I know to be true. Sometimes, as I jot down this almost exclusively useless philosiphical banter, something sort of profound will emerge. So far, that last sentence really hit me. I truly have spend the majority of my time trying to apply the principles I was willing to, and then making excuses not to follow the rest. I recently had a conversation with a 20 year old kid that went on a mission only to be sent home a few months later. Like the spineless chameleon I am, I transform into I green lizard man and tell him what I know he wants to hear from me. Anyways, we came to the conclusion that we would go to church and be active if only the church would "let" us smoke pot.
No, really, that is where I am at right now. I don't study the gospel, I study youtube video's for new information on proposition 19 in California, which is an initiative to make smoking marajuana legal. That is the best thing I have going for me right now, the possibility of weed becoming legal. If you get enough misguided, misinformed, rebellious youth together, they just reinforce destructive lies. I am one of them. I am a reinforcer for sure.
I need to have voices of reason in my life. Right now, at best the voices that I listen to are misinformed. I'm not saying that all of them are malignant, evil people who are just trying to leave me astray. I think that most of my friends truly do believe that their way of life is really better than all of these uptight mormons.
It's strange to think that I am only 22 and I have been about as far as you can go on both sides of the fence. It scares me. It makes me think, I really tried for 2 years, I mean, really tried to be good. I did more than try, I did. I acted instead of talked. Instead of sitting in someone's car parked in their drive way smoking pot, I walked to whatever uplifting situation I could. I think that lot's of this stems from black and white thinking, which is a topic I might touch on because it is such a huge and relevant issue especially here in Utah County. This is the thinking that gets kids to commit suicide.
This is the thinking that tells you, or told you, that that man smoking a cigerette out there is a bad person. It says that your either on a mission or your a drug addict. It would have you think that because you made a mistake you might as well make as much as possible because your already screwed. It tells me that I have to be like my sister and if not, then I am like my brother. This radical thinking has never done me any good.
Is there a happy medium? Is that what I need to find? Or are my suspicions correct? Is there no middle road for me? Am I too aware of God's plan for me to be content with a life where I have settled for anything short of spreading the love that has been so mercifully showered upon my head? Probably. Either way, I am taking people with me, whether I know about it or not. They probably both know that. I have let satan take my life for a joy ride and he doesn't want to give up the wheel. Everything I so or say is tainted influence