Extraordinary Nut Snack

okay so yeah

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:37:20 -0600

I didn't do a very good job of maintaining that music vox, did I?
It's okay though. I've built an entirely new site from scratch, and I've ported all the old music posts from this blog as well as the djfstop vox over to it, complete with download links for the music, and new entries too. You should really go check it out.

www.fstopdj.com

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New music over at the DJ blog

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:47:52 -0500

http://djfstop.vox.com/library/post/more-pretty-lights.html

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I started a music blog

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:00:05 -0500

http://djfstop.vox.com

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Smoke from the grill

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:59:24 -0500

2009-05-31 17.52.37.jpg

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I'm still alive

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:54:45 -0500

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Ok you guys, I'm about to go from zero to MAD DEEP SHIT and back

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:45:45 -0500

I'm e-mailing back and forth with an old childhood friend that I've just reconnected with, and somehow we've immediately plunged into a super-deep philosophical discussion. He asked me about my take on religion, and this is what I somehow was able to articulate.

My take on organized religion is pretty jaded. I think it's attended by a vast majority of sheep whose hearts are in the right place but who just have some human need for something to lean on, to depend on, to believe in, something beyond our empirical existence. Religion sets peoples' minds at ease about the huge question in life, which is, "What is there outside of the life we know?" Maybe a more accurate way to say it is that it sets peoples' minds at ease about the huge fear in life - that there IS nothing outside of the life we know. That death really is a final end. So I think religion is largely the successful operation of a few leaders to actively and knowingly exploit that question/fear, and a whole lot of people below them who for their own reasons, choose to genuinely believe.

Now of course, there are some caveats. Was Jesus a real dude? I think absolutely so. Did he preach everything the Bible says he did? He probably did. Did he believe it? Who knows. Did he die all dramatically? Probably so. But I don't think that necessarily justifies Christianity as a whole. I think people got ahold of the excitement around the dude and exploded his teachings out into a whole framework and made it into a religion in order to further their own agendas, whether those were power, or a genuine feeling that pressing their morality onto others was beneficial, or whatever.

There are other caveats too. I do still believe there is *something* outside of the life we know. Life and the universe as we know it are in some measure finite. Our little human brains can only comprehend the finite, not the infinite. To most people this means that the universe had to have started at some point in time. To me, this means that there is simply a dimension of conception, of understanding, that is beyond what we as humans are capable of grasping, and that if we could, it would blur or remove the lines between the finite and the inifnite, and that question wouldn't matter any more. Regardless, either way of looking at the universe implies that there is *something* going on that is beyond our comprehension. As a matter of fact, I think it's arrogant of humanity to dream up religion and attempt to claim that we have even a sparkle of understanding what is beyond, let alone a full and complete explanation.

But there's gotta be something. We came from somewhere. I just choose to believe that out of the incomprehensibly infinite number of possible explanations, it's not super likely that any of the 20 or so ideas humanity has dreamed up are actually right.

Unless of course a loving, caring God sensed the loneliness and desperation of a humanity that felt so alone, and chose to send a messenger to explain it all to us, and set our minds at ease. *shrug* I guess that's just as likely as any other possibility.

Which makes it not really all that likely at all.

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I'm so proud

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:45:02 -0600

Proud to say that this guy is my friend.

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inauguration complications

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:12:11 -0600

Turns out the place we secured to stay for the inauguration has cats. I'm extremely allergic to cats.

I need a place to stay on the super cheap (free) in DC from Jan 17th-20th. Me and possibly one other person, possibly not. I'd be sneaking in at night to sleep, waking up and showering in the morning and sneaking out, being gone all day and as out of the way as possible.

If you have a lead, let me know. thanks.

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my requisite annual self-examination

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:57:28 -0600

(not of the testicular variety)

I was born in Wisconsin, but my family moved to Kansas when I was two years old. I don't remember anything about Wisconsin.

When I was about eight years old, roughly 1984, a man showed up unannounced at our front door. My father, after greeting and hugging him, explained that he was an old friend from Wisconsin who was in town on business, and wanted to take us to dinner. I was in the third grade and my best friend Adam and I had been friends for a couple years. At that age, I'd never experienced growing apart from someone, never experienced no longer being friends with someone you once had a friendship with. So when my father tried to explain that he and this man weren't quite as close as they had been when we lived in Wisconsin, it was tough for me to grasp. "Why don't you just write letters?", I remember asking. I'm sure his answer sounded something like "it's just not that simple, kiddo."

Then and there, I vowed I was never going to let any friends get away like that. My friends would ALWAYS be my friends, and we would never needlessly grow apart or lose touch. If only the world worked that way, right? What do you want, I was eight.

Fast forward to me being 19 years old. It was 1995. I had switched schools a couple times, but I eventually came full circle back to the public school system I started out in. Adam and I had drifted closer and further apart but had never lost touch, and we became pretty close again through high school. So far I had done a pretty good job of keeping my good friends close and staying in touch. But that year, Adam went away to college, and I didn't. Naturally we were both very busy and quickly grew very far apart. We would see each other occasionally, over holidays and such. We hadn't lost touch, but it was headed that way quickly. We were living very different lives and as time passed, we had less and less in common. This was my first real experience with this and I have to be honest, I had a really hard time with it. I could see that in just another year or two, we would likely grow apart and lose touch completely, just as had happened with some of my less close friends from middle school and childhood. This was Adam though. This was a guy I had now been friends with for 13 years, and this was the very guy I had in mind when I made myself the promise not to lose touch with my friends.

But distance makes it hard, and diverging interests make it even harder. It was fortuitous that the next year was when the Internet came along and really started to become mainstream. The Internet saved that friendship. The ability to easily e-mail, and later chat (when that technology matured), allowed us to easily keep in touch across the distance. I was saved! The Internet was going to enable me to continue keeping that promise to myself never to lose friends unnecessarily.

Yes, even at the age of 20, I still had not really learned about how life works with regard to that. I went to school and church with mostly the same set of kids from the time I started going up until about that age, 18 or so, and had managed to keep in touch with most of the ones I cared about over those next couple years. It has been the years since then that have showed me just how fluid life is, and how easily and frequently your group of friends can change. Since graduating high school I've averaged a new chapter in my life about every two years or so, and with each new chapter comes a whole new group of people. I've been able to keep in touch with most of the ones that I care about, but the sheer number of people from my past who I've friended on MySpace or FaceBook who I've had absolutely nothing to say to beyond the initial "hey, I remember you" conversation is a pretty stark indication that no matter how badly I wished to the contrary as a child, my dad was right. It just ain't that simple, kiddo. People really do fade out of your life. People change, they grow apart, they move on. It's a part of life.

And having a late wife who passed from cancer a couple years ago I feel qualifies me fairly well to speak on the subject of people moving out of your life, sometimes no matter how tightly you try to hold them close.

I guess I just wanted to share my personal story of how I learned the lesson to enjoy the people you love while they are near. You never know when it might be the last time you're all together. It doesn't have to be tragic, it's just the way life works, so enjoy it. Don't overthink it (like I'm totally doing right now). Just cherish it. People will go, others will come to fill those spaces in your lives, but enjoy the times you get to have, and don't forget those people. Not very many people in your life will be with you over the course of many years, through thick and thin, through geographical, professional, and personal changes. Cherish those people most of all, but love your friends too while you've got 'em. I do. And yes, although not frequently, Adam and I do still talk, and still see each other once in a while, which is pretty cool.

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Merry Christmas you guys :-)

nobody@vox.com(Josh to the D) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:44:39 -0600

Candlelight Service

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