I am feeling lonely today. Not too sure why, but I am.

Thirty. I am thirty. I think that for the next year, I am going to expand my music collection, lose some weight, and feel better about who I am...right after this beer. Happy Birthday to Fred Rogers, Hal Linden, Spike Lee, Holly Hunter, Bobby Orr, and, strangely, Henrik Ibsen. Of course Mr. Rogers and Henrik Ibsen are no longer with us, but I think even though people pass on, their birthday's will live on.

Also, happy birthday to all those who are being born this day...and to everyone who I have forgotten.

Today, I was thinking about leadership less people who find themselves in situations where they have a hint of power. Now, this power could simply be setting up a schedule for fellow workers to having a promotion at work where they are in charge of a few hundred people. Or, worse yet, the leader of a country. Now, I am not trying to make any kinds of political statements in this blogger of my daily life, but I am trying to think something through.

In my experience, I have see many times where people thrust into these sorts of positions do amazingly well and teach themselves to learn from their peers. If they learn from their peers and their leaders, generally speaking, they have the potential to become leaders as well. But, what about those who are not capable or are not ready to lead? What do they do? There is always a transition where they first think that by leading it means to boss people around. They find that punishing people is the best solution to get them to do what they want. It sounds much like a teenage popularity contest, but that is what it really comes down to.

I think there are too many people out there that believe that situation drives the world, not leadership. They are in a situation to become the leader, doesn't mean that they are. We need more people to be able to lead in this world and not just push people around.

Anyway, enough on that since it is late....off to push around my pillow.

Can a man be an island? Can a woman be an island? Can we all survive on our own with a minimal amount of contact with other human beings? You might sit there and say: Of course not! How could that ever work?

Well, I don't think it can at all. I have meet a few people in my short time whom belie they can survive "on their own" without any help from anyone. They tell me that they are known "independent" people. Let us all say that together, shall we? In-dee-pend-ant. First, I find that a lot of them turn out to be selfish people that care a little about others but only so much until it makes their lives difficult or uncomfortable. I suppose there are a lot of those types out there in the world, but I think it is a sad statement that a bunch of the population of young Canadians are selfish buggers.

Which brings me to another point. Today is Ash Wednesday. It is a day where people are supposed to take a look at themselves and to think about the next forty days and nights as a time to evaluate themselves and their lives. It is a time to take everything out of one's closet, both physical and mental, and decide whether or not to discard it. I would discard my selfish attitudes. I am sure I have a lot of them. As a matter of fact, I know I have a lot of them. Just like anyone, I suppose.

There are times when you should just think of yourself! It is okay! Think of yourself once in a while.

Granted, there are times when thinking of one's self is a good thing but I think there are a lot of people who decide those moments are many and close between. I see it happen and I am sure that I do it too, but I think it happens all too often these days. I read this stilly reader book in grade school called "How It Is Nowadays". I remember that title because it struck me as funny and I learned to accept, simply because of that title, that there are times when one realizes that many things in the world are meant to develop as they go. How they develop is how it will unfold and there isn't a whole lot anyone can do about it.

I think those thoughts are wrong. I know that there are things people can do. Times where attitudes can change. It is just a question of commitment and realizing where people can develop their efforts. So, in all seriousness, over the next few weeks why don't we all go out and see just what it is that we can do as a people in those damaged communities out there and really reach out and do something to help another. Even if it is just one person. Seek them out and help them to grow, even if it is just giving someone you know a hug.

Anyway, on that note, I have some hugging to do...I suppose my theme this week is joining people together for a mutual benefit. So, stop listening to that inner voice telling you that you are an island of faith or power or whatever. Help others, won't you?

Again, another uneventful day. I am working on a poem but also reading The Two Towers. I haven't read the whole thing since I was ten or eleven, but it is just as good as it was then. I might try my hand at a few passages of fantasy. It would be cool to write and create a fantasy world like no other. I can't hope that anything I write will be completely original, but I don't think that was the point of Tolkien's ideal. He wanted to create some place that was real. Where riding a horse across a continent was real. It was...long, hard and filled with little adventures here and there.

Someone told me that all the Lord of the Rings is about is a bunch of guys walking along, fighting, walking some more and then fighting some more. Well, I hate to break it to all of your, but that isn't it at all. What you need to take out of the story is that it can be real. It can be like we live in this day. Sure, maybe Gandalf would have hopped into a broken down VW Beetle, but it contains a reality. A reality that we need to express. Reality comes in many forms. Your brain is not able to tell between reality and what your fantasy world is. Your mind accepts it all as real and processes it in the same way. Ah, it is hard trying to convince people that reading is just for reading's sake. It isn't. It is more. It is reading into one's self and how one sees themselves in that world.

And if you think that riding around on a horse and fighting the essence of evil is boring, try looking at your life some time. Anyway, take that as you will. I read to live, not read to read...

I remember reading somewhere that cleaning the apartment was a good thing. They were plain wrong. I hope that I someday get a droid that will run around and clean everything that I assign it to. How else will I get my sleeping into the grand schedule that I have each and every day.

Ah, well...

Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime

Afternoons will be measured out
Measured out, measured with
Coffeespoons and T.S. Eliot