New Blog Started

It has happened. I've created a new blog. Not a rant blog. Not a place where I attempt to change lives.

Not the lives of others, anyway.

What I've created is a progress log about my efforts to lose weight and train for MMA. It is aptly titled From Fat Kid to Fighter.

I'll be keeping track of things like weight loss and skill gains as well as sharing my finds on diet, exercise, and training. It's gonna be a good thing, so be sure to check it out and keep going back since I'll be updating at least once a week.

So yeah. Check it out.

One More For the Road?

I've come to hate the internet. More accurately, I've come to hate what it represents: convenience.

For those of you who've tracked with me, I haven't updated my blog in several months. With the exception of a recent update to notify friends that I have my airfare for a trip to Florida next month, I haven't updated my Facebook status in about as long. I don't think I've even loaded Twitter this year.

Why is this? Why have I become an internet recluse? Convenience. Because it's more convenient for me to keep to myself than to share with others? Nah. Believe it or not, it's required a great deal of willpower to break the habit of updating a couple times a day.

The convenience I talk about is the ease with which others can see what I've got to say. Not a problem in concept since that's the purpose of Facebook and such. However, it became clear to me that Facebook was becoming a convenient substitute for personal interaction.

A rant I have for much of today's society among us young adult types. We all stand around and text even when we're with other friends. We're a generation of convenience. It's stupid. I digress, getting back to my main point.

Whether or not it was wholly true, there is strong reason to believe that people think that checking my random Facebook updates is a valid substitution for actually talking with me. As if reading a sentence (most likely a song reference at that) is actually capable of carrying significant meaning.

Oh wait. There is a sentence that carries significant meaning: I quit.

Society has made talk cheap, and it seems that relationships have become just as cheap. Convenience is the name of the game. Well guess what. I want no part in it. Jerk move though it may be, I'm not gonna play part in convenience friendships. This is why I've gone silent on the internet and why I don't have a cell phone. I have no interest in being a friend if friendship is limited by convenience. I have too much self worth to be valued so little.

I'm not expecting people to line up to put effort into friendship with me if I'm gonna put no effort into them, so I do put effort into friendships. However, I've not been particularly enthused with the results. I've gone so far as to personally write several letters to various friends, yet only one person has found it worthwhile to respond in kind. That's a bit disappointing to put it kindly.

In light of all of this, do I find "convenient friendships" to be completely null? No. But I'm not gonna give the illusion that I'm alright with it. You want a convenient friendship, that's all you get. Unless if I have reason to believe you actually value me, don't expect me to care beyond what is convenient.

In related news, this is the last of my "Mind of Kenny" blog posts. You wanna know what's going on with me personally, you can get that information from me personally; I'm very open, but I deal in direct channels.

Until then, adieu.

A New Blog

No. I don't mean "a new post." Though, I do suppose this is a new post.

I'm starting a new blog. So far, it's nothing too crazy. It's just one of those "it makes too much sense not to" sorta things.

So what it is?

The Budget Gamer's Guide

Basically, I'll be writing tips on how to get the most bang for the buck in the land of gaming. I'll be pointing out crazy deals on new games when they happen, but I'll mostly be focusing on the games that can now be purchased for under ten bucks. Let's face it, some of us like our money at least as much as we like our games, and it's ideal to be able to have both.

So, I'll be doing my part to see to it that we can have both. Right now, I'm just going over basics on how to shop and so on, but I'll be getting into reviews and features that recommend the best of games now available on the cheap, giving special focus to games that could have been overlooked when they first came out.

So head on over there, bookmark it, whatever. I'll post up something here again when I have something meaningful to say.

Much love.

Regarding Love

I'm defining two words/expressions for the sake of this post. They may not be the definitions you're used to, but they're the ones I'm going to use here, so it's probably a good idea that we're on the same page.

1. Love - love is an action wherein you pour yourself out for the benefit of another with no regard for personal gain
2. In love - being in love is a conscious/emotional state of being

You can love someone without being in love with that person. Likewise, being in love with someone does not require loving that person. Sadly, it seems all too often in my listening to others that people get caught up in a desire to be in love such that it is a self-serving pursuit of an emotional high.

But I'm going to write a personally revealing post rather than a social criticism for once, so I'm not gonna go down that path today. Instead, I will say this:

I am designed, and perhaps even need, to love. I can speak highly of myself all day long, I can honestly like myself a great deal, but I ultimately need to have people around me that I can pour myself into for their gain with no regards for my own. I don't mean to imply that all people are in need of me, not in the least, but it's in my very nature to love. Though I speak of relationships in general here, it is especially true of romantic relationships.

Conversely, I have quite the capacity for being in love, and you'll find few guys (my age, in this era, anyhow) who seem to have more romantic creativity than me, but I'm not constantly longing for that emotional state. It's pleasant enough, but I can ultimately live without it.

I think that this could be why I'm presently single. I seek (and promise) a deep, meaningful relationship that revolves around love rather than throwing around my potential for being in love. I would most prefer love and being in love, but I'd rather set up a foundation of love before falling in love than fall in love and hope that a life of love follows.

Do I think this is the way it should be for everyone? Perhaps. I do think adopting such a perspective would result in far less heartbreak. Then again, my approach hasn't won many ladies over. Unfortunate, that. Numerous guys ask me for advice about their relationships (or girls of interest), and my advice works quite well for them. I just prefer not to woo ladies before having a chance to develop a little relational substance.

But then, once that substance develops, I'm too far into the friendzone for anything to change. Go figure.

I would say that I'm digressing from my main points, but this was never intended to be an essay. Think of it more as an introspective. For some strange reason, I felt compelled to speak frankly on a personal matter. It's not the most common thing, but it seems like a good thing every now and then.

Non-Partisanism

Background: I just finished reading Orson Scott Card's Empire, and it reinforced some thoughts that I've had for a while.

Particularly, thoughts about the fact that the great political divide we call "the party line" causes a lot of trouble. In the words of Card's afterword, "We are fully polarized -- if you accept one idea that sounds like it belongs to either the blue or the red, you are assumed -- nay, required -- to espouse the entire rest of the package, even though there is no reason" that this must be true.

The reality of politics today far too often makes things about Republicans and Democrats. "The liberal media this," "the conservative wackjobs that." We hear it all the time. Instead of acknowledging the common ground (if we even have any left beyond our humanity and citizenship due to the extreme polarization of today, though that should still be amply sufficient common ground) with respect and understanding, working together for good of the American people, we make power plays, work on pet projects, and contend with emotional appeals for votes when solid reason is needed to diagnose problems and properly solve them.

The problem is that that requires setting aside pride, personal gains, and a whole lot of cashflow for a lot of people. If inter-partisan wars were to cease, the hype machines would fall. That would hurt a lot of pocketbooks: the media, the interest groups, and, of course, the politicians.

Ironic, I suppose, that the continuation of this ongoing war comes at the cost of the Everyman; the individuals and communities the participants involved in the warring all claim to be looking out for.

Am I going somewhere with this, or is it just one more of my ramblings? Perhaps a little of both, but I do have a challenge for you.

On second thought, make that two challenges.

The first is that you read Card's afterword from Empire with an open mind. Many of the thoughts that have been rolling around in my mind are stated there, but he isn't fighting for concision in the way that I am here.

The second challenge is that you join me in setting aside party predispositions. Be you conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, it's time to set down alignment and party pride. I sincerely hope that you've never been of the mentality that says "I always support the Democrat/Republican candidate," believing that your party of choice is always right (if you're an optimist, anyway; or that it will do less harm if you're a pessimist). I would hope that that's something you would all avoid without my challenge.

However, the snare that is much easier to get caught in is one of thinking that you (or your party) is right, so everyone else must necessarily be wrong. Best case scenario, that's arrogant as all get out. Likely scenario, you're acting in ignorance. Worst case scenario, you're throwing out the valid points made by "the other guy," hurting your ability to actually pursue the best possible solution to any given issue.

We walk an ugly path so long as we support the inter-partisan wars.* We don't need to throw out partisan ties entirely, but partisan zealotry must be done away with. In its place, we need to pursue civilized discussions across party lines, doing our best to objectively weigh the merits and shortcomings of ideas presented by both sides (being especially alert to our natural predispositions), for the sake of making our nation the best possible nation for her people. All the while, we must maintain respect and understanding for others, along with an open mind to the ideas and reasons they have, even if we do not share their conclusions. If we cannot do this, then we are unworthy of respect, and we perpetuate the problem.

It's true that it will take more than just a few common citizens to change the way things are, but if we don't start the change, how can we expect it to come? America is fueled by dreams and the initiative to bring them about. Let's bring the dream of a government that serves the people efficiently by focusing on the benefit of the people first, leaving the benefit of the politicians and parties for last, back from the threat of becoming little more than a fantasy of the past.

-Kenny Yeager


*Make no mistake. Political apathy, in refusing to fight an evil, helps that evil continue. In the words of the great philosopher Geddy Lee, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Dear Attitude

Dear Attitude, please die in a fire. Immediately. You pretty much suck, and I've had it with your crap.

Love,
Kenny

You ever have one of those days when you realize your attitude is simply crap? I'm having one of those months. It's a crazy thing to give up what you have come to love very deeply to return to something you rather dislike on account of some unshakable conviction that it's what you have to do.

That's been me since I realized that I need to be here in the PacNW instead of the land I love that is the South. It's easy to hold such an attitude when you feel robbed of something good and given something bad.

But then, there's the part where I have to come to terms with the fact that I'm the one who has made the decision to be here. I could have resisted, at least in theory, but a sense of duty led me back, so I came back. Still, I have been railing against the the fact that I am here as if it were something I was forced to do. Now, trying to be reasonable, it seemed to me that my attitude about being here was profiting no one and only harming myself.

So it seems to me that my attitude needs to shift to match my decision. I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean I have to love the PacNW, but it probably means that I need to stop my complaining and make the most of what I have before me.

And I seem to have much before me. The fun part is simply getting the heart to follow the head so that the inverse does not become true.


In other news, it turns out I'm a lot better with hard rock/metal guitar than I remembered. This is exciting. Also, my enterprising mind is finding new ways to acquire the funds I need to pay off loans and survive.