"It's This Brain of Mine; It's Got a Mind of It's Own."

I tried going for a barefoot run the other morning, but the ground has become so cold that it just turned into an exercise in pain. Tonight, I tried going for a barefoot walk; This didn't work out either. The end of the summer was so chilly that it still hasn't really clicked in my brain that it's a different season now: that the days are shorter, the nights are longer and the air crisper. I keep expecting to walk out into pure unadulterated sunshine.

Of course I don't think I'm fat. I went out for a walk tonight because I've been pent up for the last little while, and I just needed something with cathartic potential. And exercise.

I'm an 18 year old male. Eight teen. Male. Last year I was 17 year old male.

My entire life I've existed as a male who falls grossly short of male stereotypes: when my brother was having epic war games, I was busy preparing a tragic backstory for the ammunition boy; when kids in my class were discussing skateboarding and cars, I was reading Tolkien; when all my friends were getting their licenses, I was too busy being introspective about things I can't even remember.

To the left of me is roughly $800 dollars or more worth of musical equipment. I can't play one song. I've read more novels then I can count, but the furthest I've been able to get in writing one is a chapter and a half. I have a sketchbook filled with monsters and abstraction because I can't take the time to learn proper proportioning. I've written more lyrics than I remember, but the only two songs I've performed live were covers. One was a cover of a cover.

I was contemplating all this, and I think the best way to describe how I feel is lopsided. Or rather, how I know I should feel. I'm currently straddling the line between knowledge of something and knowing it.

Growing up, teachers said that I had the potential to do very well, but I just didn't do it.

I never believed them. I thought that was the line they fed everyone, always trying to pull out the best in people by telling them it was just out of their reach. A very close friend of mine started a blog recently (http://seasonalcaleb.wordpress.com/), and in his inaugural post he talks about things the type of thing that I would be hesitant sharing with the people closest to me, and he just throws it up for the world to see. I'm constantly amazed when people's actions are so different from mine that I can't understand them at all.

This all ties in because I understand that I'm different. I get that the sum of my existence is a number different from anyone else's; I just won't accept it. I don't argue it, but I don't accept it. Growing up I always wanted to have some sort of instant intrinsic value. I think everyone does.

But I could never believe the teachers when they said I had potential that others didn't.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I can be good at something without being the best.

Being at 18 year old male I have desires: I want to move, I don't want to be couped up, I want to create, I want to have and to hold.

This is just existential rambling at best, with trace amounts of connectivity.

I hate my cell phone. There's so much potential within it: it's a hallway to a hundred rooms, and behind each room is a unique and interesting person. But having meaningful conversation in this hallway is so hard. face to face interaction is where it's at, but I'm usually to distracted for it to turn out the way I'd like.

I'm ending this here, otherwise this would just spiral even further away from whatever the topic is supposed to be.