And the world is made of energy, and the world is electricity, and there's a lot inside a'you, and there's a lot inside a'me...

I'm a complete sucker for commemorative slideshows. Even when accompanied by Greenday. There are a few things that make me strangely emotional: giving blood, babies in peril (as portrayed on the screen - I don't think I've seen such a thing in real life, but boy howdy if I did ...), and slideshows. I hesitate to admit that one of the hardest cries of my life was after the slideshow my freshman year. They just make me so sad. Mostly, I think, because they stand for opportunities wasted.

I'm in a good place, socially. A fantastic place, actually - I can't say that it's ever been better. Why can't I be satisfied? It's not that I'm dissatisfied with my friends - just myself, or the way I handle things.

I want desperately to be brave. I was trying to tell Yellow a month or so ago that sometimes I just crave the guts to do something truly stupid. He didn't understand that craving, and I suspect that's a healthy thing. I want to sweat confidence, to be less softspoken in a crowd, to be liked by all, to be a social catalyst around which things happen, to have the best stories, to have dances that make people say, "Do that one dance you do! I love that dance!" (I have one of those, actually, that I stole from my dentist's son). Yes, these are entirely ego-based. It's strange, because I know that there have been one or two people for whom I am some of these things, but I don't see it in myself (it's all relative, isn't it? Is it that Catch-22 situation again - is satisfaction just not possible?), and I fear the day when they'll stop looking at me through rose-colored glasses.

You know how when you're hanging out with somebody, you're either the ringleader or the sidekick? You can't do crazy things when you're alone. You need somebody else to laugh, to cheer you on, to follow - the sidekick. You've probably tried on both roles at different times. I'm usually a sidekick. But there are a few times during which I'm the ringleader, and I both crave that and am repulsed by it. There are even a few humans with whom I'm an equal. That's lovely. We can both show off for each other and be as crazy as we please. But that's rare.

Remember that Simpsons, the one where Homer tries to teach Flanders how to live? "A slice of white bread, with a glass of water on the side for dippin'?"* - that one. I would like to take one absolutely insane, mad-for-life person and spend one week under their tutelage, doing things (within legal and ethical bounds, of course) so far out of my comfort zone that my soul gets stretch marks. I want to expand, I want to meet every rad human, I want to feel every thing. I get so suffocated by being one person sometimes.

And I wonder where these feelings come from. Are they of God or of Satan, are they good or are they bad? I think both are kind of mixed in there together, and it's our job to dig out the balancing point. I just recently found a page I wrote about something Genuine and I did last year. The two of us slept on couches outside, and it really pleased me. The end of my entry reads, "I kind of have that Big Fish life in my own watered-down, Provo sort of way. Sometimes I like to sleep outside. I'm not afraid. I just know there are more important things. I think I learned a lesson - it's not okay to live a life of seeking pleasure, but it's fantastic to find pleasure in everything in your life."

... stupid ward slideshow.

* While searching for the exact wording of this quote, I found this at http://www.snpp.com/episodes/AABF06:

Dale G. Abersold: When I heard Ned mention that he likes plain white bread
"with a glass of water on the side for dippin'," I was struck with the
thought I had heard something like that before...but where? Not until
today at work did it strike me. Ezra Taft Benson!

Who is Ezra Taft Benson, you ask? Well, he was Secretary of Agriculture
during all eight years of the Eisenhower presidency, but he is probably
better known as the leader of the Mormon Church from 1985 to 1994 (when he
died). [Coincidentally, he was a second cousin of mine. Also, he attended
Utah State University, which is mine and [fellow a.t.s.'er] Solon Boomer-
Jenks' alma mater.] Anyway, the reason I bring him up is, whenever he was
asked what his favorite food or indulgence was, he responded "a bowl of
bread and milk." What most of us would dismiss as the blandest of meals,
he regarded as ambrosia. Weird.

Like Ned Flanders, Ezra's resisting of all the major urges didn't hurt him
in the aging department: he lived 95 years.

That last sentence pretty much negates everything I just wrote.