My Birthday

Overall, a very fun time.

We started out by going to Hula Hut. That's a Tex-Mex place here in Austin. We hung out there for a little bit, ate dinner, had some drinks, and then went to the bowling alley. Yes... the bowling alley... that was fun too... I am not good at bowling... but still it was fun.

After bowling, Jesse, Tearson, Mauricio, and I went downtown to Fado on 4th st. That was some heavy fast drinking. Ooofah... I hung out for about an hour and then

Stephanie came to pick me up to bring me back to my place. I was pretty toasted by then, but I love hanging out with that girl. She is pretty awesome for coming all the way downtown to get me... but then again... she is pretty awesome in general.

Honestly, I have to say... and I was talking to Mauricio about this on the way downtown... that she is the first girl that I have met here in Austin that I actually want to do things for. I care when she talks. I want to hear everything that she has to say and it is very easy be around her. I haven't felt any pressure at all. I find myself thinking about nice things to do for her... and the best part, like I said before... is that I'm not even trying.

So basically, the deal is.. I don't know. That's pretty much it. I don't know. I really like her. I see potential for something really good, but I suppose there might be an issue of timing (isn't there always?). I suppose I just need to see what happens and keep it in the back of my mind that what I would like to happen might or might not come into reality. Sigh...

No more deep thoughts today... I am tired...

I am about to go to the store to get some food to cook for the week.

A quickie...

Here's an example of my cynicalness. Although I feel that I am changing my outlook on life and stuff, I think this is one area that I really need to improve in. Take a look:

[09:29] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: so people at shore are evacuating to ure town
[09:29] bgoldstein24: yup
[09:29] bgoldstein24: from houston and galveston
[09:30] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: ah
[09:31] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: u should take some hot chick in as showing ure a good citizen
[09:31] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: lol say u can stay at my place .... ill shelter u
[09:32] bgoldstein24: = )
[09:32] bgoldstein24: i think i have better odds of being stuck by lightening
[09:34] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: lol
[09:36] bgoldstein24: hot girls don't want to be my friend anymore
[09:37] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: = ( why u say that
[09:38] bgoldstein24: b/c i don't have the capacity to make hot girl friends
[09:38] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: alchohol man!
[09:38] bgoldstein24: hehe
[09:38] bgoldstein24: nah
[09:39] [NYIT] BIGG CHRISSS!!!!: grrrr

So there it is. Another friend frustrated at my retarded take on myself.

Silly boy...

Oh Bryan... you are a fool. What are you doing? Why did you let yourself get even a little attached? Jackass...

Remember... feelings, emotions are temporary. A conjur of the mind which distracts from true nature. Don't be fooled be feelings or emotions.

Duh...

So we were laying there last night talking and I was pretty content.

Then her phone rang.

As soon as it did, I blew out the candle and laughed because I knew what was about to happen. She was going to get off the phone and tell me that she was leaving.

She came back into the room and told me she was leaving. Big suprise. Was I mad? No. This however, is a perfect case in point, in clear example of how attachment, want, and desire can trigger events in the body to make an person feel sadness.

After she got her stuff together, she asked me if I was mad a few times (to which I replied "No", because I was not). Then she was gone.

I went back in my room, relit my candle and sat Zazen for about 10 minutes trying to release the feelings that were coming up. I felt a little anger, not much, some sadness, but overall... just plain silly. I reminded myself of a few things. One of the most important of those things being that these feelings and emotions only affect Bryan, the person, the human, the bag of flesh... not me. I am just playing Bryan for a little while. We are all just playing parts for a while until we return to what we all really are.

In the end I laughed about it because after, nothing really matters. The tinge of pain that I felt, my lonliess, my sadness, my feelings of worthlessness... they don't matter. They are all fleeting as well as artificial. They are only real because I make a concious decision to make them real.

My feelings and emotions are just creations of my mind. They are temporary, they go away. So now, it becomes a question of learning to let go of them or letting them sit and cause unecessary stress. I have accetped the fact that I have no control what happens for this particular situation.

I want to be free...

Yes, that's right. I want to be free... "from what?", you ask? I want to be free from my desires, from my wants, from my emotions, and from my mind. Simply put, I do not want to want anything anymore - which is a want in an of itself, so you can see that although it's a simple statement to "not want", the want to "not want" is complicated.

I have spent a lot of time with someone this past weekend and it was pretty awesome. Despite how much I enjoy this person's company, something became very apparent last night as we were talking. Out of respect, I will not divulge this person's personal life. However, this person is somewhat integral in my realization that I need to be free of wanting. We can just say that whether or not anything else will progress along a certain path with this person is entirely out of my control and I have accepted that. I do not expect anything. Not everyone gets what they want all the time.

Sometimes timing is horribly wrong for two people that are very right. Thats how it goes, I suppose...deal with it.. or don't and continue to suffer.

That is not to say that I do not know what I would like to happen. What I would like to happen and what will eventually happen may or may not be one in the same and I have prepared myself for the highly likely occurance that what I would like does not become a reality.

Back to the point at hand. I am not sure of how I am going to go about this, but I would really love to lose my mind. I would love to forget everything that I know about life and about myself. I would love to not have any attachement to anyone or anything. Let's not get confused. This is not to say that I cannot love. I love my family. I love my cat. I just do not want attachment. Attachement is what leads to unhappiness. This is because when your attachment is ripped from you, and it inevitably will be, all you can feel is a longing for what you were once attached to - a void in your being.

So here's what I am going to try. I am going to let my feelings go... release them like the shadows of reality that they are.Release? What on earth do you mean? When I am happy, I will let it go. When I am sad, I will let it go. When I realize that I want something, I will let it go. When I realize that I desire something, I will let it go. When I realize that I lust after something, I will let it go. I think we get the picture...

I am not sure where that will take me, but I am starting to see that all of my sadness up until this point has been related to me wanting certain things and not getting them. I am really taking life too serioulsy and I need to stop it.

Thursday

Finally, I am home… but not for long. I have about 15 minutes until I have to leave to go to T’ai Chi tonight. Well… meditation class is first and fucking god damnit do I need it.

Yesterday, after work, we went to Sherlock’s as per our normal Wednesday after work ritual. I think there was something in the beer. I got home around 745 or so, called my family and basically passed out. I had 2 beers. I woke up around 1030, brushed my teeth and went back to sleep until 8am. Funny… the people that were there last night also passed out… hmm…

I am starting to look for a new job. I am having a hard time continuing to want to work with pretentious, annoying people. Why are people so unreasonable? I can’t say who I work for, but it’s a pretty big IT company. I do application development support so all day long we get people that have design and code problems. I give them a solution; they want something else… what the fuck? Why do people have to be so god damn difficult?

Anyway… I need to work on my resume. It needs some updating/massaging since I applied to where I am now. We will see what I can come up with.

In other news, I have class tonight until 830, then I am going with Stephanie to her friend’s birthday dinner at some Mexican place. For all of you reading… yes… Stephanie, who is NOT my girlfriend. = )

And now… a picture of me playing video games.