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Description
=JackSilver showed me this photo he edited of Me (left) and ~eikcaj29 about two hours ago.

The adventure of our trio throughout the hills of Western Massachusetts made me realized what a unique civilization I exist in. I am quite an open-minded individual. So much so, that I find myself puzzled at an individual's disbelief in a lifestyle situation. I think both individuals were set back by the suggestion that someone could actually be in the background of this frame...

It got me thinking...

(...here goes my brain on a ramble again...)
people live their lives in different ways. There are wealthy people, and those less fortunate. There are socialites, and there are hermits. There are weak and strong. There are those who maintain hope, and those who have lost all semblance of the concept.

-On a side note-
I like being surprised by people. I think what draws me so much to the mentally ill population as a clinician is the number of surprises their minds contain. Uniquely sporadic or cyclic in so many ways...I have met many individuals who present valuable fresh perspectives to any given situation (analysis of song lyrics for example.) People who are a danger to themselves or others tend to view life from a seemingly skewed perspective. It is amazing to present and be presented with differing views...almost like a merry-go-round...

-and back to the topic-
Where I come from is a place where all types of people live. Wealthy individuals have purchased my friend's parent's in their entirety after all my friends have moved on. I remember being shocked when there was a couple who saved and worked all their lives, to buy a beautiful farm home and run a package store in the middle of the woods.
Take this house for instance...
brand new window panes..the paint is peeling off the siding, No trespassing signs clearly marked in the entrance way, the lawn is freshly mowed, an old news paper rots on the porch, the driveway has not seen pressure from an automobile to flatten the weeds that consume it...etc.
...but I'd give it a 70% chance of having a full-time resident.

Slightly down the street from me today, a bluegrass band played on the town common. A crowd of about 50 residents came to view this! The train goes by my house atleast 10 times a day, and oh-so-slightly vibrates our floorboards. Half the time we do not hear it. But it is summertime, so our windows are open more. One of the biggest businesses, except for the liquor store is a snow mobile retailer. How else do people go hunting for their food in the winter...hehe...well...maybe it is not that far away from civilization. There is a war battlefield 15 minutes from my home, arlo guthrie grew up a few towns over...
But where I grew up holds so much more culture than I ever received going to college at a school that had a 70% foreign population. Here I learned about patience and hardship, how to gain when little (or all) is lost, how to grow to overcome the tallest of the trees, how to build community, how to help those in need, how to teach, how to listen to gain empathy, and how one must drive to each end of these never-ending hills to be reminded that there is still a horizon wherever I go. There may not be as much cultural diversity (well...a greasy Chinese restaurant IS forty minutes away) but there is much economic diversity. Differences in economic status breed perceptual variations. (this is another rant for another day...)But this...is where I learned to be open-minded, observant, and above all curious. I like to study people. I like to learn about how people do things to make their lives the way they are.
Why am I the way I am?
Is WHAT am more important than WHY I am?
I think the general perception of this is usually the first.

--

In this photo, Jackie and I are truly powerful beings. We could have potentially been sitting and standing respectfully on the steps of someone who was waiting anxiously for us to leave....someone who was terribly agoraphobic...or...just some hunter in his lodge with a shot gun . Jackie and I are powerful, because we can leave. We may not have seen what was behind those doors...but we did leave behind the chance at a beautiful encounter with reality. (whatever that could have been) We left behind a chance to learn.

Life exists in many forms behind all doors.

The best thing we can do is hum a little tune to keep our vibrations existing in the footprints we create.

Even if the objects we touch or the sounds we create are the only difference we create in this world...then those disturbed molecules will pass on the reminder of our existence.

---

Does it matter more WHAT a person is...or WHY a person is?

---

I think it was as much a beautiful photo opportunity...as a chance to explore those WHY possibilities....and to disrupt the oh-so-repetitive hum of the above molecules with a moment of beautiful observation and appreciation for their existence.

Thank you to those who made it this far through my imagination's ramble.

Photo by the =JackSilver

Description
=JackSilver showed me this photo he edited of Me (left) and ~eikcaj29 about two hours ago.

The adventure of our trio throughout the hills of Western Massachusetts made me realized what a unique civilization I exist in. I am quite an open-minded individual. So much so, that I find myself puzzled at an individual's disbelief in a lifestyle situation. I think both individuals were set back by the suggestion that someone could actually be in the background of this frame...

It got me thinking...

(...here goes my brain on a ramble again...)
people live their lives in different ways. There are wealthy people, and those less fortunate. There are socialites, and there are hermits. There are weak and strong. There are those who maintain hope, and those who have lost all semblance of the concept.

-On a side note-
I like being surprised by people. I think what draws me so much to the mentally ill population as a clinician is the number of surprises their minds contain. Uniquely sporadic or cyclic in so many ways...I have met many individuals who present valuable fresh perspectives to any given situation (analysis of song lyrics for example.) People who are a danger to themselves or others tend to view life from a seemingly skewed perspective. It is amazing to present and be presented with differing views...almost like a merry-go-round...

-and back to the topic-
Where I come from is a place where all types of people live. Wealthy individuals have purchased my friend's parent's in their entirety after all my friends have moved on. I remember being shocked when there was a couple who saved and worked all their lives, to buy a beautiful farm home and run a package store in the middle of the woods.
Take this house for instance...
brand new window panes..the paint is peeling off the siding, No trespassing signs clearly marked in the entrance way, the lawn is freshly mowed, an old news paper rots on the porch, the driveway has not seen pressure from an automobile to flatten the weeds that consume it...etc.
...but I'd give it a 70% chance of having a full-time resident.

Slightly down the street from me today, a bluegrass band played on the town common. A crowd of about 50 residents came to view this! The train goes by my house atleast 10 times a day, and oh-so-slightly vibrates our floorboards. Half the time we do not hear it. But it is summertime, so our windows are open more. One of the biggest businesses, except for the liquor store is a snow mobile retailer. How else do people go hunting for their food in the winter...hehe...well...maybe it is not that far away from civilization. There is a war battlefield 15 minutes from my home, arlo guthrie grew up a few towns over...
But where I grew up holds so much more culture than I ever received going to college at a school that had a 70% foreign population. Here I learned about patience and hardship, how to gain when little (or all) is lost, how to grow to overcome the tallest of the trees, how to build community, how to help those in need, how to teach, how to listen to gain empathy, and how one must drive to each end of these never-ending hills to be reminded that there is still a horizon wherever I go. There may not be as much cultural diversity (well...a greasy Chinese restaurant IS forty minutes away) but there is much economic diversity. Differences in economic status breed perceptual variations. (this is another rant for another day...)But this...is where I learned to be open-minded, observant, and above all curious. I like to study people. I like to learn about how people do things to make their lives the way they are.
Why am I the way I am?
Is WHAT am more important than WHY I am?
I think the general perception of this is usually the first.

--

In this photo, Jackie and I are truly powerful beings. We could have potentially been sitting and standing respectfully on the steps of someone who was waiting anxiously for us to leave....someone who was terribly agoraphobic...or...just some hunter in his lodge with a shot gun . Jackie and I are powerful, because we can leave. We may not have seen what was behind those doors...but we did leave behind the chance at a beautiful encounter with reality. (whatever that could have been) We left behind a chance to learn.

Life exists in many forms behind all doors.

The best thing we can do is hum a little tune to keep our vibrations existing in the footprints we create.

Even if the objects we touch or the sounds we create are the only difference we create in this world...then those disturbed molecules will pass on the reminder of our existence.

---

Does it matter more WHAT a person is...or WHY a person is?

---

I think it was as much a beautiful photo opportunity...as a chance to explore those WHY possibilities....and to disrupt the oh-so-repetitive hum of the above molecules with a moment of beautiful observation and appreciation for their existence.

Thank you to those who made it this far through my imagination's ramble.

Photo by the =JackSilver