03/31/19

One man wants to camp across the country
One man wants to be a husband
One man wants to travel the world
One man wants to live alone
One man wants to bar crawl with friends
One man wants to move in
One man wants to practice yoga daily
One man wants to garden the Earth
One man wants to stay in and vibe
One man wants to educate youth
One man wants to make enough money
One man wants to make you laugh
One man wants to make you think
One man wants to play guitar
One man wants to believe
One man wants to read every book
One man wants to be a father
One man wants to dance at weddings
One man wants to be alone
One man wants to ski
One man wants to dig roots in a place
One man wants to be known
One man wants to cut his hair
One man wants to let it grow
One man wants to take some space
One man wants to share everything
One man wants to drink PBR
One man wants to find a tongue for liquor
One man wants to study art
One man wants to craft with his hands
All of these men

One man

duality or rather Multi-ality

In the words of Rabbi Solomon Schechter,

"You cannot be anything if you want to be everything."

A man's youth is a time of self exploration, taste, growth, and knowing. A time to educate, to taste and develop deeper the things that inspire and to avoid those that do not. A period to discover a craft. Closing and opening doors. The selecting of a cast in which to pour the mold of life.

What sort of product does a man have who spends his days spilling his time a little bit into each mold? What sort of life does he have to show for it? the arm of one cast, the leg of another, none of them complete.

Envious of the sort of man who can select his cast at a young age fully pour into it for years and years allowing life to cure and at the end of such an investment breaking away the cast to reveal a life of decisiveness and mastery. A life of self knowing.

Afraid of pouring into the wrong life the potential will remain in it's foundry ladle, there it cools and takes the shape of a life of nothing.

Envious of decisiveness

I think back to my days in the church, an army of people following a book.
Instructions on a step by step mold.
Qualities to be, qualities to seek.
A truly enticing path.
But constrained to such a cast...how are people able to stay on the same path when everything on this planet is in such a constant state of change?

The planet, the universe, growing, shifting, revolving, churning, eroding, dying, planting, advancing, and evolving.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
-Robert Frost

Life goes on whether anyone is ready for it or not it is moving. Whether we hate or love the state we are in it will not stop.

I reached out to a counseling place this week.

Hozier - Almost (Sweet Music)

03/10/19

I have finally paid off my student loans for my teaching license.

Some stats,

Starting Debt: $30,829.35
Total Debt Paid: $32,475.87
Interest Paid: $1,646.31
Months Paid: 26

This time has really flown by.

I graduated undergrad in 2010 and paid that off in 2011. I went back to school four years later. Now it's been four years since I went back to school.

But from 2011 to 2015 it felt like so much time had past. So much of my life had changed in those four years. From 2015 to 2019 It seemed to go so quickly.

High school was a long four years the same goes for college and the four years post college. But now...years are slipping past me and I'm not sure what I or anyone can do about this.

It feels like I was just in the Yosemite Valley waking up to its beauty and yet here I am two and a half years past those mornings.

Even Tem and I seem to have a difficult time realizing we started hanging out in Fall of 2017 not 2018 because these years are beginning to blur.

I want to stamp them. I want life events, experiences, and adventures to mark these years in the hope of somehow attempting to combat this forward motion of time. Yosemite in 2016 Colorado in 2017 Seattle in 2018, NYC in 2019. Even adding Iceland, Peru, Asheville, San Diego, and Highway 89 it still seems to be slipping through my fingers.

Now my mind can't stop thinking about the next steps in my life.

If I buy a car that's around the same debt I just climbed my ass out of so that's another 24 months or so. By then my ass will be in my mid 30s just starting to collect money for a down payment on a house which if I wanted 20 percent of a 200,000 place that would be 40k which if I continued at the rate I paid off my loans that would take an additional 3 years putting my ass at age 36 or 37 nearly 40. Then get my self tied up in a 30 year mortgage I'll be 70 by the time I own that property outright.

How the hell did these baby boomers have muscle cars in high school, no student loans after college, a house, a spouse, and a few kids all before 30?!

haha let me get out of my own damn head here.

Let's celebrate the fact that most people around my age will be paying student loans for the rest of their life.

according to Forbes:
"The average student in the Class of 2016 has $37,172 in student loan debt"

In order for that loan to be paid off the minimum payment would have to be $154.89 a month (at 5% interest) and it would take 202 years to pay off totaling $337,325.27

however, student loans usually have minimum monthly payments around $50 meaning they will never escape from that debt.

It makes me feel better knowing if someone paid $154.89 every month from 22 to 82 they would spend $111,520.80 on a loan that was originally $37,172 and still have 142 years of payments left for their children.