"...whatever most excites you to this"

It is not so essential to think much as to love much; therefore practice whatever most excites you to this.- St. Teresa of Avila
I read this on Ali’s blog tonight. I tried to think of what I could do with my life that excited me to love... the only answer I could come up with was music. When I play music, it brings out the good things inside of me, and it helps to alleviate the bad things by letting me open myself up enough to shed some light on the bad things, without them having to be fully exposed to the world. It is in this quote that I continue to move towards becoming a music major, and find that music might be the thing that I’m truly good at, it is the thing that excites me in a way that nothing else does, and it engages my mind in every way that I find so hard to find. It excites me to love.

All it takes..

All it takes is one night of sleep deprivation and a horrible test to put me on the edge of horrendous emotion destruction (by that I just mean I get really emotional when I am like this). Its bad sometimes.

Ranting about Spanish

I've always told myself I could do anything if I put my mind to it, and that I only didn't know certain things because I've never tried. I've always told myself that any one is capable of learning anything, and that the mind is entirely moldable if you only put the time into it. Maybe that's true, and maybe if I just put more effort into Spanish I would get better grades and learn more, and become better at it, but there's just not enough time in the world to learn a language at the rate they want you to learn it. Its just frustrating to stay up nights on end pouring over flash cards and barely scratch the surface of the depth that they my teachers want us to be at. Like, this is Spanish 102 that I am, and its just insane to be teaching us the complexities of what past and present tense is, while at the same time trying to teach you basic things like Holidays, and grammar for food. Language has always been something that I have imitated, I think most people do it that way, but they want us to learn all the language theory, and all the terms, but never give us enough time to put it into practice, you know? Like, you learn language by being around it, and yet they want us to learn it off a piece of paper, and the little bit that they show us in class... its kinda ridiculous.

This has been a rant.
peace.

Fear of music

So I saw this really amazing show tonight. The artist was Cameron McGill and his set just kicked sooo much ass. However, he is not the reason I am writing. I am writing because of the bands before him. These bands were both relatively talented, doin' what they do best (rocking), but they lacked any sort of emotion, and were just came across because it..... they seemed like they were doing it for the sake of doing it, not because they loved it and as I was sitting there I was just... well, bored, and kind of judged them on their form, or their style, or how old they were (both bands were over 40 and still trying to sound and act like they weren't) and suddenly I realized why I am so afraid of playing in front of people... because I don't want to be judged like I judge other people. I fear my own criticism. I have gotten the point where I am beginning to be really proud of the songs that I write, but I still feel a certain amount of anxiety just because I know how harsh music lovers are (because I am) and I don't want to be one of those bands that opens up for people, and "does the music thing for a while" and I don't want to be 40 still trying to "live the dream" pretending that I don't have responsibilities.

So in light of trying to be more serious about my music (new year's resolution), here is the link to my virb.com site, check it out, and let me know what you think.

Remember

So ever since I left Nashville I have found myself purposefully trying to forget everything that I have been... well, kind of in my entire life. I guess its part of the development of any human being to want to try out different... yous, but for me, its mostly consisted of becoming apathetic and aimless, which, I don't know if you know me well enough to know, but I know for me, I love to have goals, and direction (notice the title of this blog). So, over the course of the last semester and change I have proceeded to try to shift myself into... well, oblivion basically, just to test my limits and figure out who I am more by being rid of all those things that have mattered to me, or rather, what I thought wasn't me. I.E. church.
I have been frustrated with church for a very long time now, and what I have come to realize is that all that frustration I have with church, and the people that participate in it, is entirely frustrations I have inside myself: I find church goers to be hypocritical, because they say they believe in this God and are supposed to worship this God, and enact the ideology that God lays out for the people, but rarely is this true... or rather, I believed that it wasn't. Instead I recognize that my problems with the "average church goer" is actually the problem I have with myself... I am hypocritical, I don't act on what I believe God is, I don't "live out my faith"... so on and so forth.
This is just one example of the realization I have come to.
Anyway, what I really want to talk about right now, more than anything is my quest to my map out my life, chronologically. So often I have all these great memories that shape me, and suddenly they all seem to disappear and I forget about where I have been, and what I have done, or haven't done. So have set up an impossible task, writing out my entire life, on paper, as a means of documenting and reminding myself of everything that has ever been Jeffrey Peter Martin, so that I do/can not forget.

The first three are:
1986, June 3rd, The day I was born.
1989, December 17th, Stephanie is born.
1991, November 11th, Lindsay is born.

I hope this post finds you well.
Peace.