Wow, another month has gone by and the blog has slightly gotten away from me. As I look back through my blog and read through some of the entries, it's hard not to notice how fast time goes by. Many of these entries I can remember where I was as I wrote them and what the situation was that caused me to write that entry. It's amazing how the days add. And I find it interesting the ratio I spend between thinking and doing during those days as they build upon one another.

My past behavior has shown that I tend to be a fan of attempting to cram as much activity and 'doing' into the time I have. I get antsy without a project. I find that 90% of the time I'm sitting around drumming on my thigh, stomach, steering wheel, pillow, keyboard, or sink; drumming along to some song stuck in my head. Lately, I've had a John Mayer song playing to the beats of my relentless drumming. The song is called "Say" and is quite simple. Repeated continually throughout the song is the line

say what you need to say

It took me nearly an entire day of unconscious drumming before I began thinking upon the lyrics. What was it that I needed to say. Sometimes my focus on 'doing' distracts me to the point that I forget to 'think' about the doing.

Perhaps habit allows my activity to continue. Luckily one of my habits is music, and the lyrics behind them. I find that memorable moments and thoughts often arise due to hiccups among the habit. Music is always something happening as I think and do, but every now and then a song comes along which breaks my typical behavior because it contains some sort of hiccup. The song "Say" happened to be another one of those songs.

So I started thinking about what it was that I needed to say. Both to myself and others. So I started by going to youtube and began playing the song on repeat. After about the 50th time (ask Sauder, I played it a lot), the phrase "Jump with whole" began playing over and over in my head. To be honest, I didn't really know what it meant at first. But then it began to get clearer.

There's a lot currently going on in Spud World. With college graduation quickly approaching this december and the thought of deciding the next step, idea after idea seems to fly around within my head. Some sticking, others gone before I can remember them. And as I dwell over all the possibilities, I am reminded that regardless of the path chosen, the important first step is to jump with whole. A whole heart, a whole dream, and a whole focus.

On top of this, I have been doing a lot of thinking about friendships. From old friends to newer friends, from friends within projects to friends within family, from friends who you wish to spend every minute with to friends you are struggling to find the connecting thread. That's how my engineering brain began to work, splitting up groups of people to be classified within different 'friend groups.' And different people have different needs. The problem however is that I slowly began creating different ways of handling friendships among the different groups. Then 'jump with whole' started floating into every thought. Perhaps rather than spending the time analyzing the various befriending techniques per group, we should just jump with whole.

When I really think about it, I know what I should be doing with those connected to Spud World. Unfortunately, it tends to be extremely hard to just say what we need to say.

you better know that in the end
it's better to say too much
than to never say what you need to say again

even if your hands are shaken
and your faith is broken
even as the eyes are closin
do it with a heart wide open

This then reminds me of one other phrase which has been pasted to a wall beside my desk for the past few years. 'Love. Life is too short.'