Too Much Coffee: Keeping An Open Dialogue, Is Tonight Gonna Be A Good Night, and A Series of Questions

The results of too much early morning coffee and fingers typing furiously on an iPhone, please see the firsts of this series below!

Keeping An Open Dialogue 

10/11/18 

I feel like I have a high tolerance for people with strong opinions... even if I disagree. It’s not to say that I will not bring up my own counterpoints, to do so I feel would be both dangerous and disingenuous. I think as a friend/family member we hold a certain responsibility to share our thoughts when we disagree, to play devil’s advocate and challenge our companions, rather than blindly nod our head in absolute consent.

You can think of any person historically in power who has done things objectively terrible/inhumane... I’m sure they had “Yes-men/women” enabling their rise to power and blindly feeding their ego. I don’t want to ever get there.

With all this said, I think it is monumentally important to keep an open dialogue - to speak up yes, but to also question and listen with level of open-mindedness/ a child-like willingness to learn. Shutting down this type of equal give-and-take conversation simply because you disagree with the other participant(s) is counterproductive as it further polarizes the divide between you and the other person on the issue being discussed and prevents learning.

I enjoy being challenged and challenging. I enjoy being loud and opinionated as well as feeding off of the thoughts of others. Take me into your world. Help me understand. I may not agree... but I’m willing, and might I say INVIGORATED, to dive in and take a journey into your mind...

Is Tonight Gonna Be A Goodnight? 

10/12/18 

"I’ve Got A Feeling That Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night". Throwback music blasting in my headphones early this Friday morning as I begin my commute of hell on the self-destructive monster we call the LIRR. The question IS - do I in fact have a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night? Would not such a mostly baseless feeling set me up for disappointment?

Maybe it is NOT ENTIRELY baseless, as I actually do have a rough outline of what my night will look like and, perhaps more importantly, NOT look like... but who’s to know for sure what this Friday evening will hold for me?

In this currently volatile political climate, there could be a nuclear holocaust that wipes half of my friends and family off the earth. And I may have to spend the night lost and alone, breathing in toxic fumes and searching the rubble that was once my home in hopes of salvaging my most prized possessions. Or.... another possibility, my desk at work could spontaneously erupt in flames, and I may have to spend the evening at the ER. Or, on my way home, the LIRR may shutdown once again (actually the most likely scenario of the bunch) and I may be stranded in Penn Station, joining a mob of angry commuters in suits, drunk imbeciles in hockey jerseys, and confused tourists fumbling their way through the crowd.

Needless to say, if any of these scenarios, unlikely as they may seem to be, were to occur, I can confidently state that tonight would in fact NOT be a good night.

So scratch any feeling that tonight is gonna be a good night. At the moment, I’d rather expect nothing with the possibility of receiving something positive than expect the best and be thoroughly and utterly disappointed. Call me pessimistic... I call it being a realist...

So about tonight - I will be hopeful... but that is all. Please, Fate, do not crush my spirits.

A Series of Questions

10/15/18 

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, or so they say. But what about when it doesn’t?

What about when what doesn’t kill you, leaves you broken, battered, and beaten - a mess in need of repair? Is this not a possibility?

Why must we perpetuate a myth that conflict and destruction inevitably breed self-growth? And that we MUST ruin ourselves in order to rebuild ourselves and grow into something “bigger” and “better”? Why must we always strive to be more than we are? Are we not ENOUGH?