A long time ago, in a michael far, far away

I was going to do a charecter sketch of Michael Cook, a friend of mine, many months ago. I asked permission and everything. Well, now I'm doing it.

Michael Cook is one of the people I turn to when I want to feel bad about myself.

I turn to him, internally, and think about him, who he is, what he has accomplished and is accomplishing, and then feel very, very bad about how little I've done and am in comparison.

Phyisicaly and in demeanor, he is unassuming. Brown curly hair, usually short, thin, average hight, soft spoken and humble.

He's also one of the funniest people I've ever met. Genuinely funny, not forced. Maybe it just matches my sense of humor, but something about his demeanor, mixed with his creative mind makes me laugh as much as anyone I've ever met.

I only know this from hearsay, not being a part of the program called Destination Imagination, which is a kind of competitive problem solving contest, mostly for highschoolers I think, but apparently Michael was awe inspiring to watch at work. Of course this is from his girlfriend, now wife, who also did DI, so it's a little biased but it's easy to believe, interacting with him. She knows how to speak and write elven, is extremely smart and sweet and as cool as you would expect someone who knows elven to be.

The impression I have of Michael is someone who is always doing something new, creative, exciting and well done. He's got so much danm enthusiasim in all that he's doing. He's so excited about it, so passionate. He's working for a city repair group, bringing community back to the fractured and isolated suburbia and city-scapes. He's single handedly invigorating the program, creating his own projects and pushing the already existent projects further than they were.

Last I heard, he's doing this all for no pay, using his ingenuity and the goodwill he genrates in people to live. That's tough. Hell, all of what he's doing sounds tough. Tough and amazing. I already told you, he's who I turn to when I want to beat myself up. Because he's doing so much good. As far as I'm concerned he's living the dream. Not nessisarily an easy dream, but an adventursome dream, a meaningful dream, a life that he can be happy to have lived.

Passion. Mike has passion. He has this bright shining enthusiasm for life that makes you feel confident whatever he decides to do, he's going to do very well. And he is dynamic. He doesn't sit around and talk and think about what to do without moving forward. Mike is always dynamic, doing something. Working on his delightful, whismical illistrations, designing and creating videogames, improving, gardening, learning, community making, street running...

I wanted to do this charecter sketch, incompleate and vauge as it is, to illustrate part of a point I want to make.

The point runns something like this: "I really wish I was more like _____" where the blank is the charecter traits I'm trying to describe in this wonderful Michael person. He is a real person, I assure you. So being like that is possible. I'm not sure his reaction to to this, probubly embaressment. He is a human to, of course, he's not a plastic perfection. But that enthusiasm and dynamic action, that willingness pursue his passion, that bravery to pursue his dream...

Those are great qualities, qualites I wish dearly that I had, and that I constenly try to figure out how to get.

That's what I'm trying to figure out right now. Well, a part of that, anyways. I'm serching for my passion. I'm searching for passion in general.

This is one of those phrases, like "self love" that, when I sit down to think about, I realize I actualy have no idea what that phrase is reffering to. Sure I could give you a dictionary definition, like anyone else, or even a pretty philisophical explenation, which would satisfy those looking for something more complex. But I fundementaly do not have a connection between an experience that lives within me and the phrase, "live with passion." And so it is meaningless. Just as the phrase, "self love" is just meaningless sound until I find the living exprience that correlates with what I am looking for in that phrase.

To get to either of these, we need to go behond the catch-phrase and get to the operational meaning. What does the phrase, "self love" mean, in the senes you are using it? Insead of "self love" we can just say "X", which is as good a name, for now. So, what I am looking for, in that case, is a way of being where I feel the appreciation, intimacy, and confidence that I get when I feel really loved by someone. "X" is when I have that feeling in some fundemental way, all the time, without reliance on changing circumstances/apperences.

"live with passion" refferes to a way of being that is highly internaly motivated to action in a positive way. That is, motivated by strong positive emotioins. Really enjoying doing something, or doing it for a reason that feels very meaninful or worthwile. Or both. Also, it should be the most effective form of motivation, creating results that are far more powerful, than any other form of motivation, because this method of motivation generates more engergy, rather than takig away energy or keeping it the same, and generates the greatest focus, becuse what is being focused on is inherently very enjoyable, or very meaninful and applicable to some goal that is very importaint to you.

I have on occasioin lived this way. The main block I see to living this way is my extream discomfort at not achieving my goals. When I am passionate about something, and it doesnt' happen, I am crushed.

If you want to do something you love but can't get yourself to:

I've finally started hanging out with one of the members of my primitive skills apprenticeship. It is great fun and I am finally doing all the stuff I was picturing myself doing out here, but haven't actually been doing, the last few months.

This is the absolute diamond key: friends.

or community. whatever you want to call it. Someone else, who also likes doing what you like doing, and getting together. Some of the time we are doing cools stuff, some of the time we are talking and laughing, usually both. But that is a huge, huge lesson I have just learned.

What I was trying to do was: I was trying to find a way to get myself to do it, alone. But the doesn't fucking work. Not at all.

But this different approach, this works like magic, this works in a very familiar way. And yes, it means I'm dependent on someone, not necessarily in specific, but with some specifications, that is, they like the same things I do.

I think this is/was a case of trying to run before you learn to crawl. I was trying to be independently motivated before even learning how to be dependently motivated. Doing what you love at school is the easiest step, but then, once your not paying someone for it, the next step is doing something you love, with a friend.

LISTEN TO ME HERE PEOPLE. YOU WHO HAVE TROUBLE MOTIVATING YOURSELF TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO, THIS INFORMATION IS FOR YOU.

It certainly is for me. I suppose I'll have to test it, to see if it continues to work, but as far as I can tell, it will continue to work as long as we continue to meet. Fuck all the self-help books trying to teach you how to be proactive. I tried them and they gave mediocre results at best. Find a friend to share your passion, and meet and do it. That actually works. Also, I suppose, having a good teacher is really nice and useful for moving forward with whatever your doing. But for the times when you don't have a teacher, have a friend.

We've done more stuff in the last two weekends than I've probably done in the whole of the rest of my time here, in terms of working on primitive skills outside of class. This weekend, we went out and harvested coltsfoot and baked it with asparagus and squash and made pasta with nettle tomato sauce. I finished making my own hand forged --and painstakingly sharpened from dime thickness. believe me, this takes a loooooooong time-- knife.

I fletched an arrow, I learned a new form of reverse wrap, I learned new plants and tracking (because my friend is quite a bit more experienced than me) and I'm going to be starting a garden out back. I finished my bow string, I finished my probably twenty meters of cordage, I learned how to carve a notch for hand-drill with a rock, rather than a knife.

And I joked and laughed and forgot for a short time how damn much I miss home.

There's more, but it's hard to talk about. Little and big wonders of nature we saw in our hikes and expeditions.