Sunday, July 19, 2009

Done

I was sitting and thinking, I do that a lot these days.
I think about lots of things.
Life, death, the future, suicide, God, philosophy, theology, geometry, computers, what I want, what I crave, who I love.
I was thinking about my future and what I wanted to do with my life.
Right now, I stand a crossroad faced with conflict with friends and family, the pain that's been escalating for ten years and inevitable truth I'm going to hurt someone I care about very soon.
And then there's the tragedy called Career, where am I going, what am I going to do?
Will I become a developer of software and make plenty and more than enough, or will I continue to play hacker and study on my own about software and electronic technology and follow my dream, thus making little money at all or do I become a soldier or perhaps a minister of the eastern faith that is Christianity.
Do I give up on what gives me solid "perfect" future or do I take a chance at what I want and fall in love with a life I wont know until it's finished.
I'm done with everything I had set as my goals, I want more than that now.
I don't want to tie myself down, I wont do that. I want to be able to exist and follow the path I need to follow at that time.
I wont let the people who say they need me when they don't stop anymore, even if it hurts them at the time, because if I keep living a lie, I'll hurt them more in the long run.
I wont let my plans vanquish my dreams and even if I can't make more than a living, I'll keep trying, because I'll keep living.
Søren Kierkegaard, a danish philosopher once said that a saint is the person who will the one thing.
I know the one thing, so I'm going to chase it with the flexibility to be distracted by the dreams and the crossroads that appear.
You may not understand, but that's okay, you don't need to.

May God Bless, Do Good Work and I Love You.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Where Ever You Go, There You Are

I was starting a new Chapter in a story I'm writing and I opened my Merriam-Webster Thesaurus and out of the first few pages pops out a postcard. But, it's not just any postcard, it's a photograph of Main Street United Methodist Church, a beautiful church located on North Main in Suffolk, Virginia.
And this is kind of symbolic for me because that was essentially one of my Home Churches and I hadn't gone there in about six or seven months because I had moved.
When I moved I had to leave pretty much everything I knew as a part of my then present life.
My friends, the friends I still call my "True Family", the ocean, average sized cities, Downtown Suffolk, eighty-one Acres, my cat.
And since I had moved a lot had changed.
I started going to another United Methodist Church, where the Youth Group welcomed me with open arms almost.
My Mother-Unit, Barbara, began to live again, but as different person than I remembered from a year ago.
I had started working on getting my G.E.D.
I've seen more rain than I had ever seen in Virginia in a period of seven months.
I had recently decided that there were somethings in my life that needed desperately to change, so I'm trying.
Even my outlook on God had drastically changed.

So after all that and more that had happened, I'm starting a new chapter in a long story that I'm writing and there lies in my lap this photograph of church that was once my home, but now seems so far away, just seven months ago and it is a part of a completly different chapter in my life.

It's ironic how life can change so drastically in short periods of time.
I used to spend time thinking about the past, basically living in a time when my life was simple and easy.
But my life will never change back to what it was, not even what it was, say, five weeks ago.

My father used to say that there would come a time when he wasn't around me to talk to or to hug, that time came and it can never go back.

And I can't live in the future, because you never what's going to happen.

I want become a pastor, a philosopher, but also want learn more about the growing technology, the opensource comunity that's striving to put technology back into the hands of the average Joe Blow. But, half way through college I could decide I want to join the Airforce or the Army and drop everything to follow that calling.

I might end up back in Virginia, but then go to New York or Missouri or even Germany. or maybe Israel.

Or I could die. Die from Cancer in a few years or months, have an alergic reaction, get food poisoning, or I could get hit by a car tomorrow.

The point is I want to Live now, I want to live the life God has for me on this day in this second. I hate sitting still, unless I need to think.

As far as music goes I'm currently listening to some opensource Nerdcore.
A group called Pronobozo, who I discovered through the Revision3.com show Hak.5, do a sort of rap meets techno type music that they've put under the Creative Commons License so that others can use, remix or/and redistribute their music freely is the group currently in my sights with the songs:

0. Song - Album
1. Time Frame - Zero = One = Everything
2. Sniper - Zero = One = Everything
3. Reinvent - Zero = One = Everything

Following up with a Nu Metal group called Deftones that's been around since 1988 that produce these songs that I like:

4. Mein - Saturday Night Wrists
5. Xerces - Saturday Night Wrists

Still listening to some David Vandervelde as well, the songs on the list this week are:

6. Wisdom from a Tree - The Moonstation House Band
7. Heaven Weeps

The last three songs on my list are "officially" done by a Fictional Indie Metal Band, if there could be such a thing, called Deathmøle. Created in my second favourite webcomic called Questionable Content by characters Marten and Amir, the creator of QC, Jeph Jaques, has been making Deathmøle MP3 tracks with his own guitar and audio programs for a while, making entire albums which he has for download at his site for free.

8. Test (Crashed) - Amps
9. Useless Proverb - Trial Period
10. Bones

As always thank you for read, do good work and may God bless,

-Brent Lillard

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Fear

I have Arachnophobia, Acrophobia, Algophobia, Decidophobia and Aviophobia.
Now, for those who don't know (or possibly live in a cave), Phobia is a word that is derived from phóbos, a Greek word meaning morbid fear.
The difference between a fear and a phobia is that most phobias are nonsensical.
For example I used to by fine with bugs and insects pretty walking or setting on my hands and arms, but in the past five years I've had a terrible fear of spiders that makes tense up and freeze up something fierce.
And one of my friends a fear of doctors that as hard I try I just can't make them shake since they have this imprinted image in their minds of some evil being that's going to poke them to death.
On of the ways I live is that whenever possible to force myself to face my illogical fears and phobias.
Like Acrophobia, the fear of heights. I've always been afraid of high places but I've always fought that tried climbing on top of the highest point I can get to.
I love going to high places and love that feeling of vertigo you get when you look down from the roof of ten to a hundred-two story building or that feeling of accomplishment you get once you make it to the top of that small mountain of cliff. Yet, I am scared to death of heights and I guess maybe that's why I like it.
Sometimes I've got a paradox like, I fear pain, like physical, but I much prefer the sting of physical pain to the fester and burn of emotional pain, which is unavoidable.
I also have a few social phobias too. Like the fear of rejection, but as broken as our society is I suppose that's normal among most of us at this point.

Decidophobia is the fear of making decisions and is completely illogical but at the same time it makes sense.
Because some of us, even as bad as the situation may be in one area of our current life, find something so good and great in the now that we don't want that to change, even when it's inevitably going to change whether we make that decision or not.
Or maybe it's the risk that scares us, the fear that if we make that decision we could get something so great or if we fail we could end up with nothing or less than we started.
It could be that way on both paths of the decision too.
But even that's illogical since there is always a way to pick yourself back up and start over, at least in this world.
Either way, I have decidophobia and for whatever reason sometimes if not most of the time I hate making decisions.
Even indirect decisions like, "What's your favourite Music, Colour, Poet" or "Who's your Best(est) Friend (Since I got more than one BFF)"
I mean my taste in music is something that changes almost weekly and I have three favourite Colours (Crimson/Red, Navy/Blue, Onyx/Black).
I don't want to say that any one person is my favourite or best(est) friend because A) I can't really pick, I love most all my friends. B) I don't want to hurt or disappoint any of my friends (That's kind of what I don't like about MySpace)
But since I'm supposed to live a life where I face the things I fears and enjoy the things I shouldn't then I'm supposed to make the decision where I'm afraid and where I see fit.

In fact recently something told me or asked me, "Where are you going? What are you going to do?"
I'm seventeen, trying to get my G.E.D. and I'm starting over. So now would be a time to think and decide "where am I going?".
So I've decided what I know I want to do.
It's something that I've thought about before and something that appeals to me in a way nothing else has before.
I mean I can go that direction and still go into Technology and Programming and Hacking at the same time.



So speaking my favourite music here is my Favourite songs at the moment:

1. Jacket By David Vandervelde and the Moonstation House Band.
2. Heaven Weeps by David Vandervelde, a Nashville resident from Michigan.
3. Call by Fireflight, , Christian Post-Grunge group straight out of Florida.
4. Over the Pond by The Album Leaf, a solo project by James LaValle who played Guitar with Tristeza.
5. Star of the Show by Fireflight.
6. Voices by Disturbed, a Chicago born heavy metal band.
7. 疾走 (Shissou) by ラスト・アライアンス (Last Alliance), a Japanese Rock Band from Tokyo.
8. Eifersucht (Meaning: Jealousy) by Rammstein, a Berlin born Transmetall Group.
9. This Picture by Placebo, one of my favourite emo Alternative Rock bands straight out of Gravesend England.
10. Dramamine by Modest Mouse, an Indie Band from a suburb in Seattle.

Thank you For reading, may God bless, do good work,
-Brent Lillard

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Πνευμα (Pneuma)

I hold a lot of words in high regard, because in my search for understanding certain words take on a bigger meaning in my mind and out look.
One of these words is a Greek word Pneuma meaning Wind or Spirit.
I wont bore you with the reason why or how I discovered this word, but it's just one of those words like Love, Raya, Agape, Peace, Euangelion, God, Family, the list goes on.

I don't usually like to make my religion and philosophy a big deal in public, it usually "brings out the best in People" (That's Irony)
So i tend to avoid talking about it online, but occasionally I feel the need.

In my recent practice of my religion a particular speaker struck a chord with me.
I heard him first from the Nooma videos that my youth group would play from time to time.
Nooma being derived from the phonetic spelling of the word Pneuma, needless to say the title struck me by surprise while sparking some interest.
Robert Holmes Bell Jr. is the story teller and teacher in the series.
He is also the founding Pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan.
Upon further investigation of the Nooma(s) I found both the musical artists that commonly created music for the videos and some literature about the speaker, Rob Bell.
So now I'm looking for more literature BY Rob Bell; because the message I've gotten from him so far isn't the conservative Christian crap I've heard so many times before.
From what I've read and heard his message takes a look at Christianity and tears it apart, which is something I thoroughly enjoy.

"This is not just the same old message with new methods. We're rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don't deliver a way of life." - Bell

Upon finding the music artists who make the music for some of the videos I was quite pleased.
David Vandervelde
The Album Leaf
Brie Stoner
Aphex Twin

All four of which are awesome artists!

Well, it appears I've run out things to type...
So thank you for reading, do good work, May God Bless,
Seeya!

-Brent