Why aren’t I out there fighting? Why aren’t I raising hell and forcing people to open their eyes? Where is the Dave so many people met all those years ago?

The answer is, quite simply, I don’t have a cohesive philosophy anymore. I used to define who I was with what I did, then with who I surrounded myself with, then I centered my life around someone. With that gone nothing major enough has stepped up to take the role so, FSM forbid, I’m going to have to decide consciously. I’ve been trying and I’ve been failing.

My day consists of being torn between a half-dozen conflicting directions and I’m no closer to picking one or two than I was months ago. If there were a way of getting a transcription of my thoughts for just this morning’s drive up to Peace River alone I could probably point to a dozen changes in direction. I’m finding this to be paralyzing.

I don’t know where I want to end up, do I want to stay a downtown dweller and live a lifestyle I dreamed of for so many years and be the proto-geek with the close social circle that manages to hack on some really cool projects? Or do I run with the idea of fucking off to the sticks, eschewing society and risking being labeled “one of those crazy tinfoil-hat wearing survivalists”, working towards a goal of self-sufficiency (which has great tie-ins with anti-globalisation, the green movement, as well the insane lifestyle hack required to run such an acreage)? Is my desire to leave the modern society due to the city I live in? Do I just need to get the fuck out of dodge? Go find somewhere less self-destructive to live the downtown proto-geek dream? Perhaps, but there are a number of shackles I’d need to cast off before I can leave, and having done that I don’t know where I’d go. I waffle between living it up now, enjoying what’s left of my twenties and really seizing what moments I can, and being as responsible and buttoned down as possible, to become financially stable and prepped to buy a house somewhere. Obviously I need to find some sort of middle ground, this isn’t an either-or problem here.

It’s pathetic, I know, but it’s easier for me to take a huge, stupid plunge when I’m doing it for someone instead of myself. That’s not to say I’m looking for someone to do something stupid for. I’m hoping living the next year on my own will help me settle on a direction. Perhaps I can find the compromise of all of the above and in doing so will arrive at my unified philosophy.

I know I already answered the question above, but with all that in mind the real answer to the question, why aren’t I fighting the good fight out there? Because I’m too broken upstairs to fight anything but myself right now. And until I’ve got that licked, until I’ve got my shit settled, who the hell am I to tell anyone else what to do?

I know this is disjointed, I started writing it last night, thought about it on the drive this morning, have and edited and deleted and inserted off and on all evening. I know I said this would take a long while to explain, it’s taken quite some time to get just the above written down. I don’t even know that this does the thought process justice, but I’m going to post anyways. I get the feeling I’m not going to get to sleep anytime soon anyways, perhaps I can get a start on part 2.

I’m to be a downtown dweller, I’ve secured a place to call my own starting Aug 1st. August is looking to be a crazy month between moving, being arm candy for a wedding, tripping to Calgary, the PurePwnage theater release, people visiting from out of province, and in theory actual work at work.

I’m basically at a point where I just get to hurry up and wait for Friday to get here so I can do the walk through and take possession.  The stress that was getting to me earlier in the month is gone, it’s been replaced by the financial tightness that is paying for rent at two places plus damage deposit and the soon to be incurred moving costs.  For some reason that’s just not affecting my ability to sleep the way not knowing where I was going to live did.

Setting up the new apartment is going to be a challenge, I’ve taken a place with considerably less space than my previous living arrangements in an attempt to force myself to purge the excess.  I’m of the opinion that I should be able to live comfortably in 500sq ft, if I can learn to change my pack-rat ways.  I’ve got a rough floor plan in mind for how I’ll arrange things. I’m pretty sure I’m going to use the “living area” for my bed and TV and such, and put the computer desk in the “sleeping area” that’s sectioned off by a pony wall as well as the book-cases and such things.  I’m not sure where the papasan chair will fit, most likely down by the TV. Not much cabling to run either, just some cat5e to the HTPC from my desk.  I think I’m going to try my desk without the monitor cubby thing which’ll keep it feeling more open and I’ll be able to look straight over my bed out the east-facing window from my desk.  In my mind that just seems it’ll work well.

Decision on the cat is going to be no, for now.  Until the condo association in this place is up and running the current property management company is saying no pets, not a huge problem.  Existing owners already have pets so once the CA is setup more than likely they’ll be in favour of pet ownership.  By the time happens I may be ready to get a four-footed apartment despot.

Lucid dream where I get left all over again, but this time having it laid out very plainly that it’s due to everything I’m insecure about.

After having a couple weekends I can be proud of I decided it would be a good idea to get around to posting. I’ll probably bang out a few tonight, this will be the general-life rollup.

I’ve started the housing search again, hoping to find a 1 bedroom apartment for a decent price for August 1st. I’m hoping to find something that feels like I could make it my home for a year or two while I build up toward buying a house. I desperately need a place to make my own, my kitchen, my bed, my lack of furniture in the living area.  That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed my time living with Nicole, I’m quite lucky and very greatful to have her as a friend, but I need a place that I can call home and this hasn’t really been it.

I’ve been debating getting a cat after I move but I haven’t sold myself 100% on the idea yet.  I’d need to have someone lined up to look after it (I respect it’s privacy) for when I get called away for work. Pete’s gf is alergic and wouldn’t be able to come over to visit. As amazing a cat as Earl is, sometimes I’m just not in a cat mood and don’t know that it’d be fair to do that to a cat that I’m solely responsible for. And people try to convince me I should have kids!

Work has been picking up and I feel like I’ve been doing some work I can be proud of lately. I suppose it would be prudent to blog about specific things later.

I’ve been frequenting both the EDC forums and the Zombie Squad forums the last couple months. I was really hoping to go camping this month but I’m going to have other things to do first. I’ve been building a Bug Out Bag in case the shit hits the fan, and I’m looking forward to building up a food stockpile at the new place as a dry-run for when I get my house in the sticks.

Life is marching on towards my 25th birthday.  If things continue I should be in a good headspace for that day.

I made it to the gym this morning for the first time in way too long.  My car was broken into a week and a half ago and, among other things, the fucking savages took my ipod and my gym bag.  So I put together a new gym bag last week and picked up a 2GB iPod shuffle.  Seems to work well enough, but I’m going to have to work on the music selection.

I weighed in this morning at 159lbs.  That puts me, officially, down 30 pounds on the year. I am very, very happy about this.  I haven’t felt this comfortable in my own skin in a while.  I didn’t spend much time at the gym this morning, mainly due to the fact I didn’t get my ass out of bed early enough to do anything more than a half hour on a bike, but that’s ok.  I sweat my balls off for that half hour and the shower afterwards felt fantastic.

To make the experience all that much more enjoyable, it had rained while I was in the gym so the walk to my car was smelled incredibly sweet.  And on my way to the office I saw some jackass with a Porsche boxster who’d left his top down in that rain, so smiles all around today.