Dusty Treasures...

I had an interesting day today. I saw a slew of different people from all corners of my life. It was very strange needless to say. I felt as an observer of people and emotions. Firstly, this morning I met with a man who has utterly changed my life for the better and is still helping me through a lot of issues. Secondly, for some reason, and not to say I didn’t want to, but the thought popped into my head to call a good friend of mine who recently has gotten married. We played some legit street ball and reminisced about the good ol’ days. We talked like how we used to talk when we were best friends from years past. Then, I briefly skated with my current best friend and went to BOP where I saw John, the owner of Board of Provo who I haven’t seen for what seems as though a year. Then, upon deciding to head home, I had the great idea to stop at Macey’s and grab a Jones. I still haven’t decided if doing this thing is a good or bad idea for my psyche, but I continue to do it regardless. But, there is, on any given day I decide to grab a Jones, a pleasant acquaintance waiting at the end of the checkout counter bagging my groceries. A girl whose name I have long forgotten, but remember from my Provo High seminary class. Every time it seems she is there and over the years it has become somewhat of an unspoken, unofficial tradition to do nothing more or less than to casually wave and smile at each other as I pass her by with Jones in hand. I however did not see her there this time, so I checked myself out and walked out whilst waving at no one. But, on the way to my car I nearly had a panic attack as I scrambled to open my locked car door. I do say that I am not spending any more time in Provo, or even at Macey’s than I ever have, but I am oddly bumping into and seeing a dramatic increase in past acquaintances, and I just don’t know how to take that or what to do about it. Should I lessen my visits to Provo? Should I get over my issues? I don’t know, is it irrational of me to scramble into my car when confronted with a memory? Maybe it is, but don’t judge me according to that until you get to know me better… then you can judge me all you want… Then, as I was making my way into Orem something happened. I don’t know how to describe it. Have you ever seen your life flash before your eyes? Literally, flash before your eyes in an instant…driving in a car going the opposite direction? I say that it happens on more occasions than just the one before you are about to die. Whether it was a figment of my imagination (which it very well could have been) or an actual reality, the physical nature of that quick scene that flashed before my eyes was enough to provoke memories that have seemingly been lost within hallways that have long been abandoned. Our minds are made up of nothing other than hallways, ruts, and crevasses, hallways of thoughts, ideas, and memories; deep carved ruts of persistent action called addictions; and crevasses due to trauma that have either scarred over or have been infected with a sickness. I do say that when all of these things combine for the perfect storm within the head it causes one to act and react in less than “normal” or healthy ways, which inevitably causes adverse consequences, which only make the situation worse than it ever was in the first place.

But what of the life that flashed before my eyes? It was odd the conflicting feelings, I didn’t feel any intolerable pain, but rather, I felt a sorrow that couldn’t escape me, nonetheless I also at moments felt genuinely happy when the sorrow wasn’t surfacely present, because when all of the people were scrambling and rushing out of those now abandoned hallways, in their rush to leave many of them dropped and left behind treasures upon those dusty floors that I found as I walked them all alone at this time whilst I drove home. The sorrow came from the immediate scene, but it was the old, dusty treasures that caused me to genuinely smile.   

An Analytical Approach 2...

I want to make it clear that I have never used or abused drugs, or have ever ingested anything alcoholic. I am just writing my experiences from my understanding and view point.

There is a feeling that creeps up in me often that causes me to start to panic. It is this feeling that has crippled me from attaining any sense of consistent reliability within my work and school, and relationships. When I start to feel this way I run down to my room, pull out my laptop and write, and I read the things I have written previously. This eases my panic state greatly and it’s like I can breathe again and I become calm. The truth is, I imagine this is how a drug addict feels when he needs his fix. But I ask the question, what is it that anybody does, addict or not, when they start to feel not very good? They naturally reach out for, desire and yearn for the things they “love” and want. I ask another question. I don’t claim to know much about the brain other then what I know about my own brain and how it affects me. I ask what is the difference between anything that we really like or like to do, and the straight up physical sensations of chemical substances, just on an extreme end of the scale? Everything we do alters and changes our brain, it’s just that drugs do them on a greater more direct scale. I use the example, but it is only one example and can be related to nearly anything I think on largely different scales, but I use the example of people who skydive. People who are attracted to doing this thing consistently are attracted to it because it is an extreme rush and it elates the mind and senses. I think that this is the case for nearly anything that anybody does on utterly less extreme scales. What is grief other than a symptom of withdrawal from loved ones?

I, upon learning about the damage to my brain have pondered and wondered greatly as to why this is. I now have physical evidence of this trauma to my brain, but have known for quite awhile that there was something wrong. The truth is I know when the physical damage occurred because I felt with all of the agony and long term suffering that came with it portions of my brain suffocating and dying when it did, but finding evidence that supports my claim is nearly impossible. This is why no one knows my path. I do not raise myself up above others but I say that I know what it means to grieve, and I have been to the depths of its extreme end and experienced things that I know not many others have within that process. I do not admit to saying that loved ones are comparable to elicit drugs, but I believe that the withdrawal symptoms can be very similar to the experiences of extreme, tremendous, and sickening grief, from not only separation from loved ones but deprivation of those you dearly love, and also being, at least within the mind of the sick at the time shunned by those very loved ones, as if the air is saying coldly, “don’t breathe me.” I haven’t searched in depth upon the effects of substance withdrawal as relating to what I am trying to say yet, but I have briefly looked around online for info. I have read several bits of information about the affects of cold turkey withdrawal online from various sources. One thing I read stated concerning certain types of substances states:  These drugs gradually alter your brain chemistry, which is why it takes several weeks for them to really start "working." By stopping cold turkey, you're basically slamming your brain from its altered state. Basically, it's like blunt force trauma to the brain. As a result, this sends the brain into chaos and of course, this affects our neurotransmitters and central nervous system.

I want to make it clear that I have never abused drugs or ever drank anything alcoholic, but I know what it feels to be drunk and high, but not because of any physical choice upon my part, and I suppose if I were to say that to someone they would be turned off by it because I stated that I knew what it was like to be high, but I say why would anybody be turned off or turn away anyone who needs help. I do and have needed help for years. I have been crippled and have felt crippled for years when it comes to being able to function properly and normally in life. It was so bad that I thought that God had damned me because I couldn’t do simple things in life, but it is my brain. Nothing will ever change anything that has already happened, even though at my very worst within my desperate halls of delusions I have utterly believe that I will find myself one day opening my eyes and being sixteen again. One can’t imagine the things that my mind has succumbed to believing because of the utter shock in which it found itself. The parts of it that were suffocating away led me to believe the most ridiculous, sad, and pathetic things one could ever imagine. I didn’t believe reality and I couldn’t tell what was real. I didn’t believe that I was real when I was eternally and desperately struggling with trying not to hate people I’d loved from my years of childhood to adulthood…to be continued…

Beautiful

No extravagant verses or intricate words, or any complex rhymes or lyrics, or any amount of fancy terminology can ever say what the simple word “beautiful” means when applied to the night sky. It is beautiful and it is nothing more complicated than that. I love it, I love the stars and I love the heavens, they mean everything to me because they were there for me, and they will always have my childlike wonder and awe and appreciation. As cliché as it sounds I really do see myself in that ocean of stars, they mirror my heart with their grand expanse from horizon to horizon while simultaneously expressing their divine innocence. If you’d like to know a secret of the ages, go outside at night and look up into the sky and ask it a question that has been weighing upon your mind. A question about anything, and as you think of your question as you would think of it within a prayer, you will see the right answer within the stars more clearly than you’ve ever seen anything before in your entire life. The night sky is a giant reflecting pool of grandeur, beauty, innocence, and love. It is a pure testimony of the most divine principles of goodness and truth and it will share nothing other than its truth with those who wonder to look up at night. It is the night sky, and it is beautiful.  

An Analytical Approach...

An Analytical Approach To The State Of The Human Psyche As Observed And Described By Yours Truly, Me.

I wrote this paper over the course of a week or two. The first part is a paper I wrote at an instance when I was illustrating an emotional way that I felt, the second part I try my best to analyze why it is that I felt that way with an unbiased eye.  

I can make you weep; cause you to ball your eyes out for hours. But I can also make you happier than you’ve ever been; cause you to be ecstatic if you get to know me. But I say that not many know me, and not one knows my path. Not one knows the hours I’ve spent searching the night sky for answers through wet eyes, for answers I’ll not ever receive before the questions themselves fade away from my dimming mind. For those of you who do know me though I apologize, I am not an easy person to know, for my acquaintance comes hand and hand with a burden, and to know me is to share a portion of that burden. This is my world witnessed through a glistening fall of tears…but my eyes see clearer when they are wet.

All of these things and feelings only cause me, the sole owner, observer and experiencer of these emotions to question their very meaning and or even worth. How is it that earlier today I was feeling so incredible and great about life, but now I am filled with pain and feelings that tear at my very depths which cause me to struggle with everyday living? If this thing that is me can be “cured” with a pill, then what are these words worth at all? If I were cured then perhaps I would never write such words as these, so that only causes me to question the very purpose in my emotions, are they purposeless, and everything I feel means nothing? Or are these words, which are driven by my emotions’ only purpose to be evaluated and to be critiqued in order to study the psychological reasoning’s of an unwell mind, and the passions and original intents of my ideas don’t mean a thing?

If that is true then how can we ever be inspired by people’s words that have throughout history been utterly much more passion filled, emotional and obsessive then mine? Can anyone be inspired by my words even though they are only written in the first place because of how unbalanced-ingly emotional they are? If so then how can they justify curing me? Do I write of things of great psychological interest? Or do I write of things that are purposeless? If everyone who ever had a psychological, emotional, or obsessive issue were cured in their problem then we would have far less great works in general, but alas I suppose we also would have far less great tragedies as well.

I know that I am not well. In my prayers I ask God what on earth is wrong with me? My words are cast into the infinite void of words of the world, but mine are as words of a ghost, shinning forth from the heart of a specter who wanders the halls in search of something he’ll never find. An opinion from my systematical approach and personal interest outside of the way I feel is that maybe these specters whom as I often times feel as one, search in vain are only damned because they search for the wrong things which ultimately can never come to them. But how can one ever part with an idea that has ultimately caused one to be the very person one has become? It is like an eternal enigma that cannot be solved or fixed, and the only thing one can do about it is to become themselves a mystery that cannot be solved.

Let us delve for a moment into the human psyche. I have been told to “just let it go” quite often in my life concerning great matters, and also of matters of little eternal significance, but I say that I am not usually trying to grind a topic into the ground, it’s just that when everyone else has come to their own conclusions on a matter I am still desiring to see all of the rest of the aspects of the matter that have not even gotten close to being covered with the brief surface discussion. I am not trying to be over analytical but it’s just others move on with the topic so fast and before I’ve even started to think about it.

Also, “just let it go” this is interesting to me because how can one let go of who they are? When a person is brought to the edge of darkness, the boundary of death itself and one realizes the infinite depths of the soul and starts to understand and see the never ceasing scales of heaven and hell, one yearns, and prays and begs for something to show them some sort of light or truth, because at that point there is, out of all the frivolous and trivial things within this life that continually surround our bodies, nothing else other than darkness on one side and truth on the other, and one realizes that these two things are the only things of any eternal concern or significance. What happens when one reaches this point in the depths of the mind though? I say that whether it be a mad hallucination of the desperate mind, or an actual divine vision given from God’s very angels one sees something, and that something is often times without a doubt remarkable. And regardless of from where it came, this thing that is seen inevitably, irrevocably, eternally and completely becomes the very mind, body and soul of the person. And this thing alone will do one of two things I am truly learning: it will either drive one mad, or it will send one through the very gates of Heaven, and the bearer of it is the only one who can choose which direction to go and no one else. I say that the bearer of it can choose, not signifying that we do not all have our choices, but what I mean is that the bearer has the power given him to choose madness regardless of any others intentions to “cure” him, or the bearer will choose to save himself despite others intentions or even un-intentions to damn him. The bearer has the power of his own mortal life within his hands and eternal as well. Nonetheless, the choice is very difficult either way to accomplish, just in different forms of the meaning of difficult.

Regardless of this thing, whatever it might have been, it will, even in the life after be a part of him because of the depths of which it was conceived originally, the depths which transcend this life. One major question I have is, to what end does this thing become when this thing symbolizes a thing that has already eternally become something else. Though continuing time fades the image from daily remembrances, it will surely pass through the conscience even a hundred years later when one is on his deathbed. The impact of it will not and cannot ever mean anything less then what it meant the very first time it was given even though the times of which it is remembered become further and further apart. Maybe its significance regardless of what the visual interpretation of it was, simply becomes a staple of the meaning of unfaltering truth in times of inescapable despair.

I usually write papers such as these in one given time frame in one sitting, but I have written this paper over the course of a few weeks. I did so to try to catch more of an understanding of this emotional and psychological roller coaster I ride through time. One given instance does not pass through the barrier of the walls of changing feeling or emotion. I try, as I have always naturally desired to try to gain an understanding of what it is that is true regardless of external experiences and despite the ways I feel about things in any given situation. I inescapably, as we all are, am influenced to one degree or another by the way that I feel in the things that I do, say, and write. I try to evaluate my own stance with my thoughts and words from an outside perspective from myself. I do my best to separate my own personal thoughts of what I believe others projections toward me are, and the straight analytical perspective of how I am perceived with the things that I do and say. The difference between the two: one is my bias of what I think other persons thinks of me which alters my own way of acting to try and compensate for something I only have a hunch about the way I am perceived. For example, I might have this idea that someone might think I am a loser because I struggle in school which makes me feel like a loser so I inevitably change the way that I act around that person for better or for most of the time worse, because I am overcompensating for my original thought about how that person perceives me whether it be true or not. My analytical study of myself in regards to how I am perceived is quite different though. This is my systematical breakdown of my own emotional state at any given time and the way it affects those around me… to be continued…

Excerpt from part 2:

One thing I know above all other things that I profess to know at this time about myself and others is that it is not time that heals a broken body, heart, mind or soul, it is the Atonement of Christ that heals, and only upon the ripples of time does it fulfill its purpose. Time however is the thing along with the divine principle of eternal growth and understanding which causes us to learn from our previous ideas of what we thought were true. I believe the things I say are true in any given instance that I say or write them, but time, time and time again has proven to illustrate that not everything that we think we know to be correct at any given moment will continue to be, at least within our own moral and psychological conscience be correct at any given future date, and it is the peculiarity of a true intelligent being to see their own misconstrued previous ideas and grow and move on from them when it becomes apparent that they are no longer correct regardless of emotional attachment to even the smallest of ideas. I say “peculiarity” over words such as characteristic, trait, or quality, because the word “peculiar” does not connote to me a negative aura to its meaning, and it also implies a rarity within a trait, wherein traits themselves everyone possess. Peculiarity is a thing that is often times regarded as “off” or unwelcome to the world, however is itself the very trait needed to not only understand our previous discrepancies in truth but to also apply that knowledge in our lives to continue to refine and tune our ever increasing knowledge and actions upon our knowledge of this thing I call Eternal, Unchanging, Divine Truth.               

My Year to Salvation

Upon finding myself in a never ending cycle of gloom and depression, I have decided to take a stand. Come May 1^st I am going to embark upon what I am calling a life experiment. This experiment will test my resolve and dedication to something I, though have as of late been lacking in, utterly believe in and love. This is the idea of God’s promise to all who will stand up out of the murky depths and choose to be freed from their chains. I know that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to, but I am horrendously lacking in any sense of consistency and perseverance. This is why my experiment will last one year, and I am calling it, My Year to Salvation. The idea behind this is that I have to completely understand that the past is the past, and to not let others projections toward me lessen my resolve in what it is that I want to accomplish.

I have found myself in a great pattern of dwindling away, and I cannot dwindle any longer. I have a schedule that I am going to rigorously stick to, and I have a series of goals and things that I want to accomplish within this one year mark, they include completely honoring and magnifying my callings in the church, getting back to the temple, finding a job that I love, completing a semester of college with good grades, getting my health, physically, mentally and spiritually back on track, overcoming my depression, and lastly within my major goal list finding and becoming a part of a healthy, and meaningful relationship. This is my resolve letter to those who read: I will write everyday in my Blog illustrating my progress starting with Day 1, May 1^st, and I will, with the help of others arise out of my sleep and touch my potential in this life. I am going to do what it is that I was meant to do, I am determined, I am able, I can overcome my trials and hardships. This is it, I will change my life into something beautiful, and become freed from my sorrows and gloom. I pray for help, I pray that Heavenly Father will see my desire and send angels to help me. I love the Gospel, I love my life, and I will live both of these things to the very best of my ability. Thank you everyone who has helped me this far, I am eternally grateful for your support and help. Thank you, and until May 1^st, goodbye.

Happiness...

For one who considers himself “Prone to despair,” I believe I have a unique outlook on life and those who believe they are where they want to be. For my next Book Club Review, I am reading, Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl. I am going to write a thorough review upon his book when I finish within the next few days, but I can’t help but write a little about it right now for my main Blog.

The truth is, I don’t really consider myself prone to despair, but rather I feel as if I am prone to wondering what it is that will cause me to ultimately be happy, and that makes me depressed. In the preface to the book, Frankl writes, “Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

Wow, what a statement. I wonder how many of us, and I use “us” frankly because I am the main being within the word “us” when I use it and am not intentionally forcing my projections solely upon everyone else, so, yes, I wonder how many of us actually do what our conscience commands us to do in any given difficult moment as opposed to doing what it is that will be the most immediate thing to relieve our surface discomfort.

But where I say does one draw the line between doing what their conscience commands, and being able to live a relatively happy life by doing what will bring them a consistent happiness from moment to moment. I have done a lot of things that I feel my conscience has commanded me to do, and many of those things in and of themselves have broken my heart because of the outcomes, nevertheless, in those moments of doing those things I felt as if I had to do them because they were the right things to do.

There is a deeper sense of “conscience” decisions, (not conscious decisions) then the moment to moment choices we face every day, and those are the decisions that will lead us through the gates of eternity. For instance, my conscience has been commanding me to do something I greatly need to do. And that is to change my life patterns. I have goals and things I want to accomplish, but a great deterrent in accomplishing those things I’ve found for myself is that even though those things will be good for me, I’ve realized that they will not bring my happiness. For example, I want to get my book published, but that truthfully will not make me happy, so I get caught in this rut of thinking “why do it if it won’t make me happy?” I want to explain this thing called happiness the way that I see it, then evaluate my happiness. I’ve noticed in my life and many other’s lives whom I associate with that they say that they are happy, but the very things that “are causing them to be happy” are things that they look at with their beautiful eyes tilted down and to the left. I say with all of the conviction in my soul that the habits of one’s eyes clearly mirror their unspoken, true feelings. They are the windows of the soul so they naturally give, albeit subtle clues to one’s desires. This strange thing is where I live, because though I am still within the midst of great confusion and uncertainty at this point in my life, I am an advocate of truth. And one’s eyes tilting down and to the left signify preoccupation with possibly what their conscience is commanding them to do, for their own true benefit and ultimate happiness.

Now, I say why will not getting my book published cause me to be happy. Well, truthfully I suppose it would to some degree, but when one has experienced as much true happiness as I have at times in my life, getting my book published is easily one of those things of which my eyes tilt down and to the left whilst a smile crosses my face. Why would I be preoccupied? Because maybe getting my book published is not ultimately what I am searching for and should only be in and of itself a stepping block to true success.

I will step up the scenario here. One day I wish to be married in the Temple. This however is an issue of great concern for me, because I cannot enter into a vow with a daughter of God unless I know my eyes will always and forever look straight forward into hers and never tilt to one side or the other. The truth is that the act alone of being married will not bring me happiness either. So, what on earth is it that will cause a person to be happy? As far as I have read, Francl has said, “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.”

I say that marriage might force one to dedicate their life to another, which supposedly will, in Francl’s words eventually cause happiness. But, as true and profound as I believe that statement is I easily saw that there is more to this than the original intent or meaning of what he said. Do not misinterpret my words, what he said is true, but I say that far too often people “pursue” and I’ll use the example of marriage as a means to gain their happiness, when in reality the act alone of getting married does not bring happiness. Then after the act of it, if one pursued marriage as a means of happiness, instead of finding eventual peace and happiness in their decision to be married as a natural next step in the process of life, one is forced by the binding powers of marriage to dedicate their lives to the person they chose to marry even though they only did so originally to be happy. What is wrong though with what I just said? It is the word “force.” When one is forced to dedicate one’s life, the very essence of the meaning of dedication is skewed and ultimately unfulfilling.

Please know that I am not degrading or downplaying the importance of marriage. I believe that we all should be married. But I am only emphasizing the importance of pursing it for the right reasons. One should not get married to become happy, and I believe that that is the reason for far too many marriages. We should not stop getting married but rather we should start understanding that marriage in and of itself will not make you happy.

I say the reason we are married in the first place, is to ultimately attain Godhood. Why is it that we need to be married to attain Godhood? Well, the answer is simple, because God cannot be God without His wife. Why is that though? Because, what would God have to dedicate Himself to unless he were not bound freely to another? Ah, but it is God’s purpose to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, so that is what he can dedicate himself to. But I say that without his wife there would be no man.

It is true that we must be married, and even those who find that marriage is not the very epitome of becoming happy, they can find their happiness within their children, because there is no coercion in loving a baby child, because there is nothing but beauty in their eyes. And that type of love stirs a desire for dedication that cannot be described with words and there is no looking down and to the left when looking into the eyes of your very own baby child. But alas it is this type of desire that should be felt in the very first reasoning’s of becoming married, and I just think that that doesn’t happen enough, which really just breaks my heart.           

For anyone...

For anyone who has ever suffered from severe depression, and I don’t mean just feeling really bad and horrible sometimes, I mean consistent feelings that are literally crippling, and devastating to the mind, heart and soul. For anyone who experiences these types of feelings on any regular basis just know that I know how you feel. They are horrible and I would not wish these things on anyone. I know the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness all too well, and I know how hard it is when loved ones just don’t understand and take it personally that you’re struggling. I do say that there is nothing much more painful to bear when judgment befalls you and you simply need nothing other than love, help and understanding. Just know that, even though you don’t feel like it you are stronger than those feelings that come over you, and they are there for you to overcome. This life is yours to master and to perfect in your way, and to have anything your heart desires. This is your life, and you are blest beyond all else.

I know the feelings like you have nowhere to go and there is nothing for you, and the very instances of having those feelings in the first place is only magnified when you see that those that you really do care about and love start to push you away because they think you are choosing to do things that make a person depressed. It is a horrible and a devastating place to be, because all you need is love, but you get criticism, and others don’t see that, they only see a person that is unhappy and no good for anyone else’s benefit. It is remarkable, if not tragic that there is a point when it clicks in a person’s head that they feel the only way they’re going to get what they desperately need is when their very life is at stake. Why it ever even has to come to this point in the first place I’ll never know. But I do know intimately that there often times is no full recovery for a person who’s been in that situation. One can try to mark it up as a learning experience, and yes indeed there are many lessons to be learned from such a trial, but often the sheer trauma of such an event is more horrendously crippling for the beautiful soul that the event encounters. And it is only known to that soul the pain of the situation, because no one else who has not gotten to the point where they think that taking their own life is the only way to get what they desperately need can possible fathom the eternal racking of mind, spirit, and body.       

I am Jacob, and I am here to be tested and proven. My namesake is strong, my ideas are strong, my passion is strong. I know there is a God, I know that I have great power, and though my mind is hurt, and my body is hurt, and my heart is hurt, and my soul is hurt, I know that there is a God and I know that I can be healed, I know that I will be healed.

D&C Section 42; 48And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath ^afaith in me to be ^bhealed, and is not ^cappointed unto death, shall be ^dhealed.

 49He who hath faith to see shall see.

 50He who hath faith to hear shall hear.

 51The lame who hath faith to leap shall leap.

In regards to the welfare of our being...

Notwithstanding certain exceptions, I’m sure that shortly after one’s soul exit’s this coarse world and enters into the next life hereafter, one will realize that, in regards to the welfare of his or her’s own being that it truly is not a matter of religion so much as it is simply an understanding of what it is that is true.

My game...

O, it is a new day! I am filled with excitement this beautiful Sabbath morn. Due to extreme moments of withering away into nothingness, I have taken a stand and have chosen to take my life back from those ravaging pits of despair. I am up early today(I didn’t stay up all night) and have implemented the beginning of a daily routine that I’ve spent the last several days carefully and thoughtfully putting together, it is very similar to the one I had on my mission. Call it an intervention for myself. I needed a complete life change in order for me to get things together.

O, the beauty of Excel! What a wonderful little tool to help with spreadsheets, schedules, and much, much more. Since I’ve had little success with other planners (literally, I have a drawer full of planners, all of which I fully intended to use but never have,) I designed my own daily planner, complete with a slot for every hour of the day, to do lists, and a daily checklist. This is what I needed greatly, because I have all these ideas, thoughts, and plans, but unless I have a meticulously structured way of accomplishing all those things I never get a single thing done, which that in itself leads flawlessly into the wasting away process.

Long story short, I am legitimately getting on my game, and let’s be honest, This is my game, and when I’m on my game they ain’t no stoppin’ me!

We need to remember...

It’s difficult to be unbiased of the present, but the present will be the past soon enough. Take a deep breath, close your eyes and time travel for a moment. Play back in your mind the events that have happened in your life. What are the moments that stick out to you, and then ponder why it is that they do stick out. What we humans naturally do is something that makes karma happen. Right now, in this point in time we live our lives doing the things that we want to do everyday whatever those things might be. But when you look back, what is it that you remember? These events that we remember in our lives stick out beyond those things we do every day. Something I believe is that these moments are the things that meant the very most to us, the very most to our most intimate and personal sides. Those are the moments that we love, or if it is this way, the moments that we wish we could forget because they were horrible. I hope the sweetest moments come to mind first though.

Now, we can’t help but live in the present, and that's what we should do. We should live in the present, but we should look forward to the future while remembering and honoring the past. How do we do all of those things at the same time? Well, I don’t know, I haven’t figured it out yet but I know that’s what we need to do.

One thing though, not to be negative, but I think that for the most part we as people forget too easily. I’m not saying we should get stuck on past events, which I’m not saying I haven’t done, but I ask, what is the purpose in emotion? Is it its purpose to just fizzle out with no reason for it ever being felt in the first place? No, it is there for a grand purpose, it is what causes us to learn and press forward in our lives, but sadly it can also destroy us. It can cause us to fly, or it can make us sick. We need to remember, as we remember every Sunday the Atonement of Christ. Why are we to remember? We remember because it is the single most passionate event that has ever taken place. We remember because it is the greatest ends of emotion that has ever been felt. But do we get hung up on it and get horribly depressed because of how painful it was for our Savior? No, we feel how we interpret that great event in our hearts every Sunday when we remember, and we cry, but we progress, we progress toward bettering ourselves and becoming more Christ like, and toward Eternal life.

We all have our moments of great emotional distress or happiness, but what are we to do with those moments after they have passed? We are to remember them, and love them for what they were, because those are the moments that define us and they are the moments that cause us to grow and to find out what it means to truly love. Truly love because that is the ends of all emotion, because that is what made the Atonement possible in the first place, it was love that did it, true love. But alas, to the greatest ends on the positive side of the spectrum that comes from these great emotional events in our lives, often times we as imperfect human beings slip and go the opposite direction with our emotions. This is not what it means to love, these negative feelings can be overwhelmingly powerful over our consciousness and drag us down to the pits of despair, and the darkest abyss. I have to say that I’ve greatly struggled with this place and still do often, but even though I struggle I know what is true, and that is why I write of truth. I know that I can write of my heart’s desire even if my mind is plagued with shadows, ghosts, and demons that bind me to that darkness. I know what is true despite my weaknesses, and I know that if I write of it than I will, one day receive it, whether it be here in this life or the next.

I say that we need to remember those amazing moments in our lives and never forget them, and never abuse those memories, for they are sacred. To end, I say that that is the only way we can truly progress.       

I climbed Mt. Everest

I want to talk about dreams right now. I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately, even when I nap I’ve been remembering vivid dreams from those short periods of sleep. They are so interesting, what are they supposed to signify and why do we dream about the things we do? Is there any credence to our dreams? I believe they are memories from our subconscious playing out in our minds, depicting to us truths in the form of symbols that we attach feelings to, and the only time we have time to think about them, or at least realize that we are thinking about them is when we sleep.

But why do we think about them in the first place, and why do they represent themselves so strangely sometimes, in fact most of the time? Dreams can be really strange, for example, I dreamt a couple of nights ago that I was trying to get into my home, and there was a giant griffin flying around outside. There was a fire truck in the drive way and the firemen were asking me questions about the griffin. Now, what on earth are those things supposed to mean if anything? I suppose that dreams are so sporadic, strange, confusing, and often times just plain weird that we just have them and think to ourselves that we can’t possibly understand them or that they can’t possibly mean anything, and maybe sometimes they don’t mean anything and are just random firings of electrical patterns just shooting around in our head because we watched Harry Potter the night before. (I haven’t watch Harry Potter recently, that was just an example) But, and I say but what of dreams that you think are significant, and what of dreams that aren’t confusing and very straight forward in how you interpret them? Can you learn things from your dreams? Ah, there is the question. I want to talk about this in a specific way, but it is difficult because of so many other things that one reading this might suggest I have missed in my thought process. I fully incorporate the idea of Heavenly inspiration when it comes to what we can learn from our dreams, but just follow me on this way of thinking for the time being and then I will address other aspects of this thing. The question I asked was, how can you possibly learn things from your dreams if your dreams are already coming out of your brain? How can you teach yourself something? It’s almost like our brains already, inherently have rooms filled with the very secrets of the universe, but it’s not until we wonder and ask and have passionate feelings for them that the keys are given us to unlock those doors of understanding. It’s just that I think for the most past unless physical things of such great degree happen upon our bodies we never really reach for those depths of understanding. When we dream, I think it is a possibility that our brains are trying to show us things. It is so funny to me to think about this because how is it possible for us, you and I, the thing that is you, the observer of the outside world show yourself something that you don’t already know. Now follow me on this for a bit. You know how to write and speak English because you learned it when you were growing up, but what does English mean to our brains? We only speak it to each other so as to communicate one with another here and now about physical matters that surround us all day long. But there is a language beyond the language we speak with our mouths. There is the language of the universe. The letters and words you use to describe something for someone else are only symbols. Understand this, everything, I mean everything we see is a symbol literally, a tree, the stars, a telephone, a window, a car, those things are all letters that make up something of significance to our psyche, and I think that this is the language our brain speaks, and when we dream this is how it communicates to us. I think we get caught up in trying to interpret or translate our dreams into our native language when in reality doing that is like downgrading the original meaning of the symbols that we have powerful feelings already attached to. I mean by that, that reading the words “I climbed Mt. Everest” symbolizes what to you? Reading that tells you that whoever wrote those words probably climbed Mt. Everest but other than knowing that, what does that mean to you? It doesn’t mean anything other than those letters and words that make up the statement. But to someone who has actually climbed Mt. Everest, seeing those words brings up feelings, passions, and emotions in that person that cannot possibly be described or portrayed or felt with words, because those words didn’t conjure up those incredible feelings in you as it did the person who actually climbed the mountain. We can try to attach words to match what those feelings feel like but truly they will never match the meaning of the feelings themselves. You can write the word “love” but truly the word itself can never give the same feeling or idea of what that means to everyone equally, because everyone’s experiences are not equal.

But still what is this thing? How can we learn from nothing other than what is us already? It is a paradox I say and I stand by that, that the greatest thing that we can learn is that we haven’t learned anything, which is something, which only continues to go on into the eternities. It is infinite, as the depths of our souls are infinite and continue always and forever never ceasing to exist. We learn from other people, we learn from experience, but how can I learn something from a person who’s learned something from another person. Who learned it first? Before the world was did I know that fire was hot? Did I even have an understanding that there was a thing called fire? Now we can go into God and how we are inspired by heavenly beings but God was once as we were, so how on earth did he become a God? He is God because He has intelligence, and the infinite depths of his being is filled with that intelligence to the ends of eternity. Our depths are no less infinite than His are, we are simply at a place where we are trying to fill those depths with true intelligence. Who taught God to be God? Where did it begin? The beginning of anything that ever was, was when? There was not a beginning to existence because that means there had to have been a time when there wasn’t an existence, when nothing, no intelligence, no light, no darkness, no goodness, no matter ever was. Everything has always been, just simply in different states of existence, even us. Now I’m getting a little strange here but just hear me out and maybe this is just my odd brain thinking but the only way that makes sense to me about how to think about this concept is that everything is infinite, what does that mean? That means that life is a paradox, everything we learn is a paradox that comes back to its self in time. It means that we never really learn anything other than what we already know, and it is not so much the things we know, but rather what we do with what we do know. That is what intelligence is, intelligence is not simply knowing things, but it is obedience to the things that we do know. when we are obedient to something we know is true they say knew truths are given us to abide by, but what if they are not just given us, what if we already had those truths but the veil over our mind becomes less prevalent so we can grasp onto what was already there more easily. This life and the veil is the only way that we could learn how to be obedient. We do learn, but not the truths of the universe because we already have them, but rather we learn how to be obedient through our choices, and based upon our choices with the understanding that is allowed to us at this time we can either become less intelligent or more intelligent, because of our obedience to what we remember is true.

The scriptures are full of this funny paradox, the last shall be first, the weakest shall be the greatest, and God is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. How is it possible to be the beginning and the end if there is no beginning or end? I wrote a whole bunch of pages on this thing awhile ago which I titled The Penrose Steps of the Gospel. And the Gospel is the only true Paradox there is and everything else is nothing other than an illusion that only tries to get us to believe it will bring us to salvation. A good simile of this is the accounts of the plagues of Egypt. The true power was given to Moses and Aaron, but Pharaoh’s sorcerers mimicked some of the plagues with illusions that when you follow them you eventually fall off the end of the steps, (or get your whole army wiped out by water) that you thought were connected because it only looked like they were. But if you follow Moses’ true power then you don’t fall off the end of the steps but rather you continue to walk in an eternal staircase of progression yet it is one eternal round but it progresses forward. The gospel is the only true paradox there is, everything else is an illusion. It is so difficult to describe the way that I see this in words but it is clear to me how I see it whether it be true or not but it think it is for now.

Goodbye for now friends, oh, yeah, what does a griffin, trying to get into your home, a fire truck, and the firemen asking you about the griffin symbolize to you? You could have had the exact same dream but interpreted what you saw in the dream completely different then how I did. Like the griffin might have been a large eagle instead of a griffin, or the fire truck was actually a red school bus, or any other thing like that.

          Well, friends, goodnight and goodbye. It is time for sleep.

Old New Blog Transfer

Since the incorporation of jakeisalive, the hub of all of my other blogs, this blog too will now turn a new page in its life. So this post is the dividing point between its old life and new life. Everything below this post is the old blog and everything above it is new. This will still be my regular blog, poetry, pics for the most part, and reviews will go to my other blogs. This is for my long rants about things that  are sometimes crazy and hair brained and other times really intriguing and truly uplifting. So enjoy.


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jakeisalive.blogspot.com

This is my trial...

Alright, here we go, a little bit more serious a post this time. I try to get over all of the things I’ve done to dig myself in pits and take a fresh perspective at my life. I ask what am I really worth? I try to look at myself as if I was looking at another person in my position. That is when I can see that I am worth so much, because I know the worth of other people regardless of their downfalls, but left to myself within my own head I lose that perspective quickly and I think that I am pretty useless. The fact of the matter is, I love life and living, and there are so many opportunities and great things to do and accomplish here, but when the world is revolving in a way that you can’t stick to what am I supposed to do? Are there any opportunities for me? Is there anything I can do? is there anyone for me? I am not afraid of dying, but I don’t want to die sad without any glimmer of hope in my eyes. I can overcome this trial. This issue of things plaguing me physically is not difficult at all, I will survive that is a fact, but what might kill me is trying to figure out how to live normally in this life, how to keep a consistent job or do well in school. If I can’t do those things than I can never progress toward my ultimate goal and that breaks my heart. I think people think I am lazy, and that makes me think that I really am lazy and of no use, but I am not lazy, I am simply burdened with a heavy load which is where my energy is spent in trying to carry it, but to others it is invisible, and I lack in what is not invisible to others, so they think I am slacking and of little use and leave me begging for water on the wayside. What can I do? I don’t know. I just don’t know right now. At least I am understanding more of the underlying problem I have, but what am I to do in the mean time while they continue to figure me out? This is my trial and like I’ve always said, I don’t know what yet, but I’ll figure something out, you can count on it.    

These are my trials..

Well, I’m back in the good ol’ Lehi, and I’ve got some answers but also some more questions. I went out to California because my mom knew a doctor out there who does this thing called a SCEPT scan of people’s brains. It differs from an MRI or CAT scan in ways I don’t care to go into detail about right now. The prognosis is, is that I’ve got brain damage consistent with one who’s been abusing drugs for years or one who’s had a severe head trauma… The odd thing about this is that I’ve never done either one of those things.

Do you like puzzles, my brain is one the doctor said. I have a really interesting printout of the scan they did of the activity in my brain and he said that he’s done thousands upon thousands of scans and has seen less than a handful of scans even remotely resembling mine. There is all too much to talk about so I’ll be as simple as possible. Not even talking about the damaged part of my brain, I have activity that is consistent with someone who has ADD, but it is even stranger than that. I don’t really understand all this stuff but I’ll explain it as best as I can using this example. Imagine a big empty room split down the middle.(this is the brain, left and right side.) place boxes in the back of the room equally on both sides that have written on them “normal activity.” That is where the boxes should be, but now shove all those boxes to the front of the room equally on both sides, so now the boxes are in the front of the room equally on both sides, but now rewrite on them ADD. This is what is common in an attention deficit disorder brain, but now take away the boxes on the right side and leave the rest of the room empty with only the ADD boxes on the left side of the room. That is my brain and the doctor is baffled as to why that is. So basically the left side of my brain is overloaded with ADD while the right side of my brain is dead empty.

Let’s take a trip back in time to about 2006 when I was on my mission. I’ve talked about before how I had a strange rash that the doctors out there never diagnosed and it started to cover my whole body. I eventually took an ice bath everyday for about a month which to my knowledge got rid of my rash. But, let’s just say that that rash was given to me by a tic which are extremely common in South Carolina which carried Lyme disease. If this indeed was a Lyme Disease rash than taking an ice bath everyday would have only suppressed it and caused it to lie dormant in my body and not have cured it. The medical community has nick named Lyme disease, the great imitator because it presents itself as a slew of other medical issues such as degenerative arthritis, which if you don’t know I was diagnosed with shortly after coming home after my mission. The doctor told me to pray because I had degenerative arthritis and there wasn’t much that could be done to reverse it. Well, long story short I didn’t believe the doctor when he said that I had arthritis and low and behold come four years later I don’t. but I showed more than all of the symptoms when they tested me and it even showed up in a blood test. Also it causes if not treated properly neurological symptoms that might be confused with schizophrenia which symptoms I’ve been experiencing lately. This infection which might have been continually in my system over the years may have entered my brain and has been causing this brain damage since the original rash even though the surface symptoms went away.

Well, another long story short I’ve got another mountain to climb when it comes to my health. I am going to get some blood samples taken in a few days by a clinic here to try and get some answers. I am continually going to work with and talk with my doctor out in Fairfield, California over the phone and email so he can walk me through this process.

The only thing that is frustrating is that I’ve always had health problems but they’ve always been elusive when it comes to doctors being able to figure out what’s wrong with me. That is what is so hard because it makes me think that there must not be anything wrong with me and I am just weak when it comes to living normally and am making all these issues up in my head. But the fact of the matter is, is there really is something if not a slew of things wrong with me which is why I’ve struggled so much with school, jobs, and relationships, but it’s just I’ve tried to live with these problems without any real diagnoses because they’ve never been able to give me anything solid. This is what makes me upset because I wonder about the things I could have had if I even had a knowledge of how to handle these issues. If I even just knew what they were so I could explain to others about them and get real help and understanding from those  people I care about.

I really just don’t know what to do right now other than wait and pray for answers. It really is to the point where I would have preferred for them to say out right that I had a brain tumor because then I would know what the issue was, but no, I’ve got to have some random disease that mimics twenty other disease and makes you think that you’re going crazy even though you are not… which I don’t understand how that makes any sense at all, but whatever. I’m going to sleep and I don’t want to wake up for a month until I am cured and can live a life that I can actually accomplish things in. this is my life though and I think I knew what I was getting into when I came down here. These are my trials, and one way or another I’ll figure out how to find peace in this life, and if not here I’ll have it in the next that much I know.     

Get Low

O my goodness, well, it is official. At about three o’clock last night something really awesome happened. I fell in love… with an amazing movie. Get Low had no trouble entering my heart as a beautiful movie that is truly remarkable. Robert Duvall as Felix Bush portrays perfectly a self isolated hermit who has come out of the woods to throw a Funeral Party for himself while he is still alive! Sissy Spacek plays Mattie Darrow, the only person in town who knew Felix from years before, and Bill Murray plays the funeral director who puts on Felix’s Funeral Party.

It will make you laugh, it will break your heart, it will cause you to love and see the goodness in people. I think the movie is beautiful and I love it very much so. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has been yearning for a half decent movie to watch lately. I think I should be a movie critic. I think I am a movie critic. I know what movies are good. I know what makes a good movie. I know what movies are not worth a thought in the head, which are in my opinion more than half of the movies that make it to theaters, but through the infinite, frivolous trivialities of movies that are made there are a few that really get it right, and Get Low is one of them. I think I need a top ten movie list now… sigh…   

Episode 1, Top 5 With Jake: Movies

Episode 1 of, Top 5 with Jake

Movies

Aladdin is the all time best movie ever made. I think when it gets right down to it there is a Disney character that everyone can personally relate to. Aladdin is mine. Let’s just say, if I grew up on the streets of Agrabah I would be the one hopping roof tops, dodging royal guards, and saving the princess. Though like all Disney sequels, the animation, story, and all around quality of Return of Jafar was lacking, and the quality from the Return to The King of Thieves was even more disappointing, the concept of Aladdin and even the sequels are far better than any other Disney reincarnations. I mean really, Pocahontas 2, Journey to a New World… please…

Quotes:

Genie: [as Jack Nicholson] All right, sparky, here's the deal. If you wanna court the little lady, ya gotta be a straight shooter. Do ya got it?
Aladdin: What?
Genie: [pointing to each word on a blackboard] Tell... her... the *truth*!

Batman The Dark Knight ranks up there in my top five because it is just put simply, an incredible movie. Truthfully I was not a fan of Batman Begins but the Dark Knight more than did it for me. It is passionate, it is heartbreaking, it is beautiful, it is psychotic, it is dark, it is intense, to put it simply once again and there is nothing much more to say other than it embodies perfectly what I think a lot of movies try to do but few ever accomplish. It is art. That is it.

Quotes:

Harvey ‘Two Face’ Dent – “Have you ever had to talk to the person you love most? To tell them it’s going to be alright, when you know that it’s not?”

Inception is a more recent development for me. I usually don’t like to put a movie on my top movie list until a few years have gone by since the first time I saw it, because it gives me time to understand if I was just infatuated with the movie right off the bat and it ultimately really didn’t mean that much to me. This movie however, I believe is the exception. Call it an obsession, call it psychosis, call it mental insecurity, but I have often felt as Cobb did in this movie, the silently tortured soul who knows the importance of doing the right thing regardless of how painful it might be, whilst still holding on to that hope of goodness that you’re not even sure is a possibility anymore but nonetheless you can’t help but to still hope. I know that a lot of people don’t like Leonardo DiCaprio, and I understand why they don’t but I actually appreciate his talent and enjoy his films. Despite what others say about his acting skills I think he really is a good actor, and I think he did an exceptional job of solidifying that fact in this movie.

Maybe I relate because I feel as though I’ve swam the shores of my subconscious and have wondered if I really am just lost in a dream that I can’t escape from. Maybe I need a totem… wait a minute, I have a totem I just realized, but if this is indeed a dream right now than my totem is inevitably skewed by my own dreaming subconscious in its ability to tell me the difference between the waking world and the dream world… what to do, what to do… I just don’t know.

Quotes:

Cobb: I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time.

Newsies, ah Newsies, I love you, that is it. You make me feel young again, and also like grabbing the ceiling fan and spinning and spinning and spinning until my head pops off while a group of kids dance and sing throughout the restaurant I am trying to eat in. The old New York style setting run by gangs of poor Newsies inspires me to…I’m not sure, but it definitely inspires me, especially when I think about Crutchy. I love you Crutchy.

Quotes:

Crutchy: It's this brain of mine, it's always makin' mistakes... it's got a mind of its own.

Enemy Mine is one that is an odd oldie that I’m not sure how many people even know exists. I think it is one of those epic nerd movies like, but much more obscure and unknown than 2001 A Space Odyssey, War of the Worlds, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost in Space. Not a fan of Dennis Quad at all but I like the movie, what can I say. I don’t know if it is an easy movie to appreciate or even watch because it is similar in some ways to Cast Away with Tom Hanks in the fact that there are a lot of long, no dialog scenes of survival. Basically a Human and a Drax, two enemies, crash land on a desolate planet, find each other and learn to overcome their differences in order to survive on the planet.  It gets a little weird when Willis finds out that his new friend “Jerry” is pregnant… but the premise of the movie is great and you just have to accept those strange things… I realize it takes a certain type to appreciate a movie like this but I do appreciate it for its albeit cliché moral values in overcoming differences and coming to the knowledge of goodness in others one might even consider an enemy.

Quotes:

Davidge: "If one receives evil from another, let one not do evil in return. Rather, let him extend love to the enemy, that love might unite them." I’ve heard all this before... in the human Taalmaan.

Jerry: Of course you have. Truth is truth.

It's time to talk...

Well, I suppose it’s time to talk about something I’ve alluded to for some time now, but have never gone into detail about. The truth is, I have been severely troubled in my life. I frighten myself sometimes and it makes me cry. I just want to be healthy in body and in mind, and in spirit. At the same time I have all of these feelings, I am optimistic of the future. I really just need some good help to get my mind stabilized in a consistent pattern of healthy thinking. I just want to be happy, that is really all I want. I think that there is going to be a time when I’m going to look back and say to myself something like, “Wow, that was an incredible time and I am so glad I can understand the purpose in it.”

 Can someone as troubled as I’ve been really make their life into something wonderful? That’s what I want to do with all of my heart. That’s what I desire. I think that I scare people sometimes and that makes me really sad, because I don’t want to scare people at all. I really just want to be so happy with my life, and that doesn’t mean I have to have a specific job or be with a specific person. It simply means that I want to be free from the troubles that my mind causes me. I feel hindered by barriers in my mind that I can’t figure out how to get passed.  I do have desires and things that I wish I had, but I think if I was completely healthy in mind I wouldn’t get so stuck on emotional events that obviously will take place in the course of a life time.

I am leaving this Sunday to Fairfield, California for a complete mental health check and overview, courtesy of my mother. Mental health issues are pretty rampant in my family we’ve learned the hard way through plenty of experience, and my mom wants me to get as much early help as possible so I can live a legitimately healthy and well balanced life. I haven’t really told anyone this because of what it might mean. It means they might find out that I’m schizophrenic, or that I might have a brain tumor, or any number of devastating things like that. Truthfully, I am not afraid of dying because I know that I can be powerful in my thoughts and actions through that process, but I am afraid of this whole mental health thing because these types of problems change the way you think and make you act different than who you want to be. That makes me cry, because I want my mind to be clear so I can be happy and cause those around me to be happy. I just want to love and laugh and live a great life with those I do love. Sometimes I am afraid of this thing so much, but other times I think that it will really be alright no matter what. I think of my sister Elaine, she did some pretty awful things, and my family was completely taken back, shocked, and devastated when she did those things. It was after certain events I’ll not mention that she was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia. Because of those things she did she will now, never be able to live a normal life, but if we had known more about mental illnesses then, all of those things could have been prevented and she could have more or less been able to live normally at this time.

I will continue to write though regardless of any outcome. There are moments when everything is so perfectly clear and I can see the world in such an amazing light, but other times it’s like everything is dark and that is when I’m afraid.

A Brief History of Jake...





I am sorry for the incredible lack of paragraphs in this little thing...




I always did Jake hands



Hi, my name is Jacob Duane leTaverner Winterfeldt. I was born in Clinton, Iowa. My family moved to Clio, South Carolina when I was three. This is my young childhood. I remember cutting go-kart track courses into the thick brush on our property with my dad and then he would time my fastest laps. I would do it over and over and over again to try and continually best my previous time. Also, I had a huge field of mud where I created cities and worlds for my countless action figures, ranging from Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joes, Power Rangers, Transformers, and many others.

 I had and helped build four tree houses on my property out there in that country, one of which I secretly made inside of a huge magnolia tree with my best friend at the time Mat Gaines. No one other than us two knew that that tree house existed because the outside of the tree was filled with leaves and flowers from bottom to top and the inside was mostly hollow. We had a pulley system that we made to lift tools and other supplies up and down that we made from a box of gears and rope I was given by my dad. This place was where I had the two best dogs any kid could have ever asked for, Baby and Chewy, two goof ball Rottweiler’s that on more than one occasion saved me from the nasty stray dogs from across the field. Tell me, have you ever seen two Rottweiler’s tear into a pack of stray mutts? I have and it is insane! It was from my view on a number of occasions like watching a tornado of claws and teeth tearing and ripping through another tornado of opposing claws and teeth. They never lost a battle to say the least even when they were outnumbered. It was the best childhood any boy could have asked for. But sadly one day when I was about ten I found out that I was going to be moving to a place called Clearfield Utah. This was devastating for me. How could I leave my dogs, my tree houses, my go kart, and my fields of mud? I did not have a choice.

Baby and Chewy

 After watching Homeward Bound I was certain for years after I had moved that Baby was on his way across the country to find me. Chewy at this time had gone the way of all the good ol’ country dogs and disappeared one day never to be seen again. But I finally one day, and who knows how long it took me to realize it, but I realized that Baby wasn’t ever going to show up. As heartbreaking as that was I finally did manage to move on and make new friends in this strange new land. I became friends with the kid across the street, Chris Pion, the first kid I ever legitimately threw a punch at. He was much bigger and stronger than me, but I saw the fear in his eyes when he pushed a few too many of my buttons one day and I let him have it. I’m a scraper like my dad, so don’t mess with me for reals! Anyway, this new place I found myself in was where I found an affinity toward a number of new things, including the Utah Jazz, neighborhood night games, Pokemon, and skateboarding.

Clearfield is where I had my very first girlfriend ever, Lindsay Harrison. I didn’t ever say one word to her other than asking her if she would be my girlfriend. I didn’t want to do it but my other good friend Mika Groat forced me to. Long story short we did not have a very long relationship, but I still found it fascinating that girls liked to write silly messages in chalk on the sidewalk in front of my house, saying things like “You’re cute,” and “We like you,” surrounded by hearts and other funny, girly things that I can’t even think of right now, eventually though my family moved once again to an even stranger place called Provo.

This place, completely unknown to me at this young time in my life was destined to hold events that I would compare to the greatest stories of all time. This is where I made the friends I’m going to have for the rest of my life. This was the place where I learned what it meant to live, and I learned what it meant to die. I learned what it meant to love and I learned what it meant to lose everything. This is the place, where always I will call home and never forget no matter where I end up. Provo is my city.

Provo, bow before me!

I moved to a little cul-de-sac from where my destiny bumped me into my best friend that I currently have right now, Joe Slinker. At this time I was in my early years of skateboarding from my ghetto life in Clearfield,(Chris sold me my first skateboard for five dollars, the board was spray painted black to look like grip tape but there was no grip whatsoever) and what did I find in Provo? I found a group of kids that skated right there in that neighborhood who also went to church and scouts. That group did indeed include Joe Slinker, Taylor Thomas, Alek Soulberg, Mike Muirhead, Danny Johnson and some other kid whose name escapes me at this time but was the lone star kid in the group who disappeared early on and is surrounded by young mystery and childlike lore, you know what I mean… anyway, We all became really good friends in many different ways. Joe was the kid who strove to be the popular one through his goofball antics. He found that he was kind of goofy early on so he used it to his advantage. Taylor was the kid who never washed his hair and slowly developed his grungy, emo like personality, he liked screaming bands… Alek was by far, at least at the time the kid that enveloped the essence of what it meant to be cool. His skating style was second to none in his lazy like, don’t even care that I just tre flip a six attitude. He was the coolest one by far. The last I heard of him though, he got his head run over by a car and has slight brain damage now:/hmm… anyway, Mike, along with Danny were the trouble makers, both of them have long rap sheets, including but not limited to, fights, high speed police pursuits, alcohol use, drug use, petty theft, and even armed robbery. I’ll not say much more than that, I think you get the picture… And then there was me, I was the homeschooled kid.

 There is not much more to say than that. I was the one that everyone knew at Provo High but no one had classes with and didn’t understand why. I was even in the year book one year. Despite being homeschooled, I was pretty popular and I’m not sure why. Maybe it had to do with Joe. One of my fondest memories of growing up together is him coming over to my house at like six in the morning and throwing heavy metal objects at my lifeless lump of a body underneath my mounds of blankets and pillows. He often times made me get up and go to school with him, and I would go to all of his classes with him and follow him around wherever he went. I pretty much did go to Provo High even though I was homeschooled. I love the man with all my heart, however if Joe was just slightly more aggressive in his demeanor I would have sat his butt out on the dirt more times than once that is for sure. I just can’t assault a kid as sensitive as Joe. He is very sensitive despite his persona of being care free. I love him and always will, but it’s very difficult for me to want to be around him all the time. We have quite a past that I’ll not go into very much detail, but at the same time it is that colorful past that I think has bound us together as best friends forever. I’ll always be there for him and I know he will me, because our friendship hasn’t just been tested once, but it has been through the fire many times actually, and that is the very reason he will always be my best friend no matter where either of us end up. We recently had a much needed conversation, you know, the one that happens with your best friend maybe once every two years or so. Yeah, it happened recently and I apologized for the fact that the only two girlfriends I’ve ever had, (not including Lindsay) were his girlfriends first. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal since I think he only dated Katie for like a week, and he’s had like fifty girlfriends…

But anyway, this elusive figure Katie… What to say about this era of my life is very difficult to understand, and very trying, in how I need to write about it. I fell in love with Katie whose last name I’ll not mention for certain reasons… when I was fifteen. We fell in love with each other, I became an integral part of her family. I had brothers for the first time, since my immediate family only had girls. I was like a son to JoAnne and Mitch. I particularly know that JoAnne was very fond of me and I really considered her my second mother. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years old and we were never separated and just loved each other so much. We combined our money and bought an Australian Sheppard as a week old puppy we named Sydney, but I just called him pooch. This dog didn’t replace Baby by any means but I love pooch very much.

Poochy poochy poochy poochy!

I had an amazing girl, a great family, an awesome dog and I had never been happier in my life. I went on my mission which just so happened to be my home town of South Carolina too! I was in awe when I found that out, and so excited.(Katie guessed it…) I left the love of my life in May 2006 to go and serve my fellow brothers and sisters in the Columbia South Carolina mission. It was really amazing, at first… I did everything I could for as long as I could, and even though I consider my mission one of the most incredible experiences of my life, truthfully, and with no sugar added, it was like hell I will not lie. It pushed me to the point of breaking in so many ways, and I'm not even talking about the time I was hit by a car and thrown into traffic, or even the time I came down with a mysterious disease that the doctors couldn't fix, or even the time I almost lost my pinky finger!

...blood...

No, those things were easy. I still remember vividly that day when I opened the door to my apartment, funny looking, goofball companion behind me, Elder Lewis, and pressing the messages button on our phone. We had two messages; one was from my Mission President, Pre. Brailsford, and the other was from my mom. The next day I was in the mission office, the day after that I was home. Right now I’ll not go into all the events that happened that caused me to have to go home, that is for a different day, but through all of the drama and tears of that incident, yes, Katie was still there, just as beautiful, and loving, and understanding as she’s ever been. It was May 2007. Exactly, almost to the day of the month I served one year of my mission, nonetheless though we were still very much in love and I knew that she wanted to get married. I however, even with her there by my side comforting me and loving me, I fell into a deep depression from coming home early. Long story short I fell away from the church and I knew it broke her heart but I just didn’t have the desire or passion I once had, or love for life as I used to. She stayed by my side though trying as she ever did to spark that fire in me again to go back to church but I just didn’t. Every Sunday I would see that subtle, yet heartbroken look in her eyes when she asked me how church was while I told her in reply that I had not gone once again. A year went by and still I declined in my personal standings, but not did I ever think I would ever lose my love and my family until one vivid day in yes, May of 2008. This day would spark a series of what I consider remarkable events even though they were horrible. I woke up on this fateful day in May vividly as from a nightmare and a thought that had never once entered my head before blanketed my consciousness. I knew in that instant of awakening that I was going to lose Katie and her family, and I knew it was going to happen very soon. I won’t tell you of why or how I knew because even though this kick started the darkest period of my life, I consider the events that followed incredibly sacred. To this day I believe that God showed me this thing before it was to happen so I could understand and find in retrospect, though little, some meaning to it. I think He knew that if I did not have some type of understanding of it before hand, I truly would have died from grief. So what did I do even though I had this underlying knowledge that I was going to lose her? I kicked it into high gear and went back to church and tried everything I could to stop that dream from happening. But I found out in an unreal, surreal, unbelievable way that it couldn’t be stopped no matter what I did. It’s just like how the movies depict this type of things, and I experienced it in real life. May 2008, June, July, August, September, October, November went be and we were still with each other and we were still telling each other that we loved each other, however, on the 26^th of December, 2008, one day after her birthday I got word that Katie had gone on a date with someone else, and right then and there I started to literally see every minute detail of my dream start to come to fruition. It was unbelievable to say the least. Another, grueling and long story short, February of 2009 she was engaged, and yes once again, that May she was married… in less than six months I watched the only girl I had ever loved and my entire family dissipate before my eyes. And in just about a year from the time I knew I was going to lose her, the same time frame even in the month of May that I had served one year of my mission. I fell into a state beyond depression; I fell into a state of incalculable grief. I didn’t know it was possible for a soul to hurt as much as mine did. My heart wasn’t just broken, but my mind was broken. I didn’t understand and it simply did not register in my head how people I’d loved for nearly seven years of my young, growing life could simply say goodbye to me in such a short period of time. That darkness that overwhelms the soul plants seeds of death in the mind when this type of thing happens and makes it tremendously sick. I experienced things I think most can’t comprehend. The only peace there was to be had I found within the Temple.

This picture taken by me on the Eagle Rock trail above the Y
 symbolizes to me what the Temple means. It is titled
Passion and Purity,
 the two most important parts of love

I however, at this time was not worthy to enter the Temple so I went back to church and Became worthy. I embraced the church with all of my heart as if it were the very thing that held my spirit to my body, and I went to the Temple everyday for months. Sometimes I would be driving away from the Temple and turn around and go back because that darkness didn’t hesitate once I was in the world and not in a Holy place. This is the only thing that I found any peace in, and then one day, as if an angel whispered in my ear, I was inspired to write. So I bought a laptop and I wrote, and that is all I did all the days long while I curled up in my blanket outside on my swing staring up into the stars searching for that peace I once had. I spent whole nights out on that swing, finding not sleep, but just words that came out from my depths that needed to be written. There is so much more that happened in this time frame but simply cannot be written in this brief recollection of my life. This is when I found my underlying, undeniable, undying faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No matter what, the church is true no matter how many storm clouds gather, and that is my poor, yet powerful testimony of it, and I will never deny it no matter my incredible shortcomings, because I simply know it is. I became irrevocably changed and in some ways paralyzed in every aspect of life since this event, and it has been unbelievably hard trying to learn how to function in real life since. There were times when sleep was so elusive I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or if things were real. I hallucinated night after night seeing sometimes amazing things, and other times horrible things. Things you can’t imagine and I can’t describe. I took sleeping pills just to get a wink of rest but they caused me to experience night terrors on a daily basis, and sleep paralysis other times,( that is when your eyes are open but you are asleep and you can’t move, but you are conscious of the  waking world, and my dreams crept into that waking world as I was unable to move and they haunted me and tormented me while I tried to scream for help but was unable to.

Though I truly felt as though I had died on more than one occasion I found that I continued to exist regardless, even though I felt as a ghost and still do often because of that experience. That is how ghosts feel, they are searching for wholeness because they are not whole, they are empty and void of life, and that’s what I was, utterly empty but still existing and nothing more even though I grasped tightly to the church. The church became my life, literally my life it was for that period in time of needed rescue. There was one night, it was particularly bad and the first night that I had actually considered taking my life. I wrote a horrible letter to Katie’s mom Friday night, drove to my singles ward parking lot and let my tormented and darkened mind take over my thoughts as I sat all night in that car. I didn’t know what I was going to do and I don’t know why I went to that church parking lot, but when the sun started to rise, my phone inevitably started to ring. JoAnne called, my mom called, nearly all of my sisters called, Katie called, but I didn’t answer any of them. I sat there and listened to all of their terrified and concerned messages pleading for me to call them back. I didn’t. I just continued to sit blankly staring at the back of the passenger seat head rest. After so much longer I noticed people walking in and out of the church building. I hadn’t even noticed that other cars had come and parked. I got out of my car and walked into the building not knowing at all what I was going to do, say, or find, but as God as my witness I found the elders quorum president of that singles ward, Adam Walburg. I must have literally looked like hell and he asked if I was alright. I don’t really know what I said but he eventually he took me aside into a side classroom and talked with me for about an hour. He ended by giving me a blessing, and truthfully I don’t think it helped my state of being at all because I was just that messed up at the time. And this is when I started to work really closely with Adam in the Church. After meeting with and getting so much help from Bishop Bunnel I was shortly called to be first counselor in the Elders quorum presidency of the Lehi 31^st  singles ward. Adam is one of the select people whom I considered helped save my life. Over this short period of time before he turned 31 and had to leave the singles ward we became very close and he shared with me some very sacred experience that he had, and I shared with him as well. I’ve not seen or heard from him since he left but he is an eternal friend of mine because of what he did for me.

One day though during this time period before Adam had left, Joe, my best friend called me up one day and said, “Dude, you want to go to Disney Land?” I said, “Yeah.” And this trip to Disney Land ushered in a new era of my life which I might write about and post some day in the future, but for now you will have to settle for those three words that I have, by the power vested in me by me united together for time and all eternity and officially designated and declared them as one…one word that is. And that word is  …tobecontinued… until next time my friends. I’m sure this experience will only be a speck of dust in comparison to what is a head of me for the rest of my life here on Earth, and in the eternal life hereafter that will inevitably come.

Here are some other pics that I didn't incorporate into my story above that I like.

 

yeah skateboarding! and epic hair!



Sister Brailsford, President Brailsford, Elder Winterfeldt



Who the heck's idea was this...?

Me staring off...into the Future!