Unfocused vision - Could this be a problem?

Sorry for the disturbing image. Just a quick question regarding those visual distortions I mentioned in a previous article. After a meditation (brainwave entrainment) session, the visual distortions I have been experiencing are actually the eyes defocusing. I noticed it today after listening to my Paraliminal CDs (I know all this might sound hokey, but finding out how the brain works and actually messing around with it is a hobby of mine.)

Additionally, when I was driving in the morning, my vision became doubled and I was looking at the world seeing each eye's image as if each eye were looking straight ahead. This unfocused sight seemed eerie, but I read about it in my photo reading classes years back (one of the main steps in photo reading is to defocus the eyes and look at the pages in succession, almost as if you are photocopying the images and giving a suggestion for the brain to read the pages and to process them.) The problem is that while I was on the road, I wasn't reading and so the defocusing did not happen at the most opportune time. It actually took a conscious thought for me to bring the two eyes back into focus. I also experienced this on various occasions when I would come out of my brain entrainment sessions; I also experienced it this evening when I woke up after falling asleep watching television. It was a bit dizzying. Any ideas?

PS - I doubt that this is related to the general dark streaks and vapor trails that my eyes see normally. It has been suggested to me that the cause of this might be some kind of sensory overlap (synaesthesia) where the eyes are seeing something that is being perceived by another sense. For some time, I was (and still secretly am) convinced that what I am seeing is somehow related to some electromagnetic field [that I suspect can be interacted with (a subject that I don't yet know enough to speak about with certainty)].

The sensory overlap explanation makes sense because I am very sensitized to high frequency sounds and I can hear the sounds that a light, a television, and most annoyingly, the high-pitch sound that my palm pilot gives out. Often these high-pitched sounds hurt my ears and distract me. I often get headaches from the loudness of these sounds, and I get zoned out and I go into what I call "sensory overload" when I get too much visual/auditory sensory input (i.e. when I enter a mall or a crowded hotel). Perhaps the synaesthesia explanation for the dark streaks has merit because that would mean that what I am somehow seeing are sounds, and perhaps I can posit along these lines that what I am hearing is somehow an overlap of something that is actually visual in nature (although the sound remains when I close my eyes, as do the metallic grey forms).

Although this is a different topic all together, it would be very strange for me to learn that other people cannot see these metallically colored streaks and these shadows that always fill my visual field, that surround objects, and that take on their form. (Yet wouldn't it be cool if these forms were really electromagnetic as I suspect and hence an application could be that they might be harnessed as a sort of a radar such as those used by fish and soon to be used in car airbags and toys of tomorrow? See vaguely related article for a glimpse as to how researchers are using this technology in car airbags.) However, while I wanted to limit the scope of this post to the question of why my eyes were getting defocused after my brain entrainment sessions, and whether this could be a problem, below are two images that paint a good picture of what I normally see.


and

(Although the colors I see are generally more metallic mixtures of blacks, whites, blues, and grays.) Again, this is the subject of another topic.

Lastly, if any of you are wondering why I am not on my shidduch date, it was rescheduled to tomorrow morning. I will post how it went on Saturday night after the Sabbath.

Google.com's New Book Project

I just stumbled onto something that I thought was worth a look. Google has embarked on a project to digitize books so that they can be searched and indexed. I've included a link of two recent searches I was doing are here and here. The interesting part is that while they make you think that they only let you see a few pages at a time, if you click on the "More results from this book" link on the left side of the screen, you could literally scan (or read) through most of the book!!

If you want to read an article about it, I found one at random here.

Face-to-Face, Back-to-Back

[Edited for Privacy. E-mail me if you have any questions.]

It seems that G-d and I have a "face-to-face, back-to-back" relationship. When life is good, I turn to him and nullify myself to his will. When life turns rough, I turn my back to him in defiance. It occurred to me a few minutes ago that most people do it the other way around. The truth is that I don't yet have enough control and discipline over my sleeping and study patterns to do both my secular duties and my religious duties. This kicks my self-esteem out of balance because most normal people should be able to handle this kind of balance, while I fold under the pressure and I fail in one of these (secular or religious) responsibilities. I will get back on track on Friday. Right now, I am finding solace in lying to myself that it is not so bad.

Added 7:30pm: She wrote me back. It seems like she liked my e-mail by her response, and everything is a go for tomorrow night. I am nervous because I feel that G-d enjoys taking things away from me only to later give me something "better". I hope that she is the "better" and that this will not revert back to last week's status. I am even more fearful of her telling me something immutable that would cause me not to continue the shidduch -- this is by far, my greatest fear. I must also be real and I must know that I have become emotional which should not happen until later on when the two people get closer to an engagement.

Most of all, [more than my greatest fear,] I pray to G-d that I will not need to make the decision whether to sacrifice my religious values if it came to a decision of her or religion. These are my deepest fears and my darkest secrets when it comes to this shidduch; I am laying them out for both you and me to see so that I can be real and authentic when I meet her tomorrow.

She wrote me! I know that us communicating directly without an intermediary is generally not allowed, but as I discussed with my rabbi on prior occasions, since this is not the typical situation, I felt that an exception was due and so I happily wrote her back. Her e-mail is here, and my response is here. I hope this wasn't too complex of a post. I will see her tomorrow evening.

Visual Distortion Experiences After HemiSync CD

Remembering how on Sunday I was a bull with curved horns breaking through the cement walls, each of which comprised a different subject area of Constitutional Law, I am now surprised at how different my study experience is regarding Trusts & Estates. After pulling what my rabbi joked to me as "doing a donut" (sleeping 12 hours) after my semi-all-nighter on Sunday, I woke up relaxed but worried that I blew too much of today sleeping.

More interesting than my day studying and burning the soup pot [because I forgot that I made soup and the boiling water ran out and the pot got ruined] was the effect I have consistently noticed when I synchronize the left and right hemispheres of my brain by using music beats and sounds that pulse at different frequencies in my left and right ears.

The after-effect that I notice is a visual distortion as if the room has crunched in the center of my field of vision. I feel a large vortex between my eyes which makes me feel as if I am cross-eyed. However I am not because when I check the mirror while still feeling the odd distortion, my eyes look fine. I suppose it is a weird side effect when both sides of the brain are going at the same time emitting the same frequency sound.

Logically, however, it would seem that a plausible explanation is that the brain only exhibits this true synchronistic effect of both hemisphere giving off the same frequency waves only when the uneven brainwave pulses are playing with the headphones on. The brain takes those different frequencies coming into each ear and it combines the two by emitting its own wave frequency as the mediator.

However, in reality, I am thinking that after the music stops, perhaps the hemispheres actually pulse out-of-sync with the environment because I wonder if the visual distortion is from the left side still reacting to the right side's former sounds frequencies and vice versa. So just as a person leaning on something that moves away causes that person to lose his balance and fall, so too perhaps the brain is still countering sounds that are no longer there because the headphones are off, so the frequencies emitted from the brain's hemispheres are distorted for a few minutes until the brain gets a chance to re-adjust to the environment.

I came across this mind trick which in my opinion is really a joke on the eyes which confuse the hemispheres of the brain because the colors and the words do not match. I've seen this before and I thought it would be nice to include the link on this site so you can get a kick out of it too. The image can be found here. Remember, try to say the color out loud, not the words that are written. Do this fast.

Go in my place.

I resolved to stay up most of the night studying for this morning's Constitutional Law final exam because I did not want to fail it, especially considering all the work I did for the class during the semester. Now that the test is over, I believe I succeeded in my goal. Next stop: Thursday's Trust & Estates exam.

In the next few minutes, I will take a nap in the sunlight which should 1) give me some needed Vitamin D, and will 2) cause a drop in my serotonin levels so that I can sleep deeply tonight and wake up rested; I will play some relaxing Hemisync Paraliminal tapes, and tonight I will get started on the next marathon until Thursday's exam. After my exam, I go on the legendary date.

I am feeling calm because I know that after last week's ordeal, I have nothing to lose. We already know that there might be a religious problem because we might believe different things, and I have already gone through the rejection from last week when she took me by my wings, and with a two-letter word, threw me to the floor midflight.

I tried to understand this. My current understanding is that last week, I presented myself as a warm, sensitive, romantic, religious guy -- just as I am. I can't figure out why she might not have liked that. Perhaps me on my best behavior isn't what she craves. Let's give her a taste of my strong fire and the high winds that lurk on my other side; let's see how fast her heart beats when she catches a glimple of my dark side. The only thing is that this side doesn't come out very often unless I am angry, emotional, exhausted, or overly excited. It does come out when I am alone; when there is nobody to get scared by its shadow. It also comes out when I am around someone I trust, and right now she is not on my happy list.

I feel like a wounded bird who has resolved to bite whoever comes my way. This girl violated my trust and rejected my subtle platonic emotional advances. It will be difficult to open up to her again. Let's hope that I will split open my entire self, buffet style -- vulnerable, and venerable; with both darkness and light in full glory.

Telepathy - Post Epilogue

In a weird turn of events, she decided to continue the shidduch. We meet again Thursday evening after my exams. Now I am in awe of G-d's ways, and I remain an observer. It will be interesting to see how this will turn out.

I wonder why my mother no longer calls me. She probably wonders the same thing about me, why I don't call her. I wish we were closer, but I could feel the distance because she feels that I insulted her husband when I wouldn't go over for Passover. I also insulted him in a subsequent conversation when I said to my mom that I wouldn't want a home like he has because I felt that his home was devoid of spirituality. How many inadvertent insults can a person take before they kick me out of their life? Apparently I reached that threshold and Passover was the last straw. Before Passover, I brought a few friends (newlyweds) over to meet my mom and her husband because I thought that it would be nice for my mom to have a female friend in the area, and her husband got insulted why my mom (at my instruction) used plastic plates and forks when she could have used meat dishes which were perfectly kosher. I didn't mean to insult him any of those times. I wish my mom read my blog and knew my thoughts. I wish for a lot of things I don't have.

Telepathy - Part Deux - Epilogue

Lo and behold, I got a call from my matchmaker; she received a call from the girl's matchmaker as planned. The girl had the conversation with her matchmaker yesterday, as we discussed in my telepathic discussion. However, the bad news is that she came to the conclusion that we had no connection, and that was her final position.

After my matchmaker spoke with me today, she suspected that the girl might have had a misunderstanding as to what it means to be Chassidish. The girl has many influences who push her to be extremely religious, and similar to those issues I dealt with in my past regarding clothing and movies, she has not yet developed the keen eye to distinguish what is over the top, and what is normal when it comes to orthodoxy.

Her mentors told her that a religious person does not listen to music. While in its ideal this might be true because the ideal person is busy devoting his life to serving G-d and doing His will, keep in mind that when I watch a movie or do anything, it is not uncommon that G-d is the furthest thought from my mind. The misunderstanding is that this level of Chassidishkeit was described to her as the way a person is expected to live rather than the way a person should look to as an ideal when evaluating one's actions. There is no conflict between classical music and Jewish law, just as there is no conflict between a Chassidic person eating ice cream or a good steak for the pleasure he gets from indulging in it. While it isn't the ideal, that certainly does not mean that it is forbidden or somehow against halacha (Jewish law).

As I now understand from what the matchmaker told me, she didn't believe me when I communicated that music was okay and welcome in the home, and instead, she thought that I was bending for her in my religious observance and she thought that by having music in the house, she would be making me less religious. [Music is something that is connected to her essence; this is one of her traits that I admired and liked in her.]

From the guilt she felt from thinking that music and Judaism do not go together, she came to the conclusion that our wonderful conversations ten days ago were not real and that my true interest in music was a farce. Hence, a large whopper of a generalization resulted in the words "we have no connection" because if I have no interest in music, then she can not see herself having a connection with me.

So this is where fate has taken us. My matchmaker will try once more to understand what she meant when she said there was no connection to see if she is misunderstanding what it means to be religious, and if so, to reconcile the misunderstanding and to light the match and bring us back together again.

(My feelings are that since everything in life happens for a reason, perhaps the fates are sending me a message that there is an underlying problem here and that I should not have tried to influence the outcome. For this reason, I am not getting my hopes up, and I will let this issue resolve itself with no further influence from me. I believe this is the right answer because the way things happened today and the way our telepathic conversation went yesterday, I am now of the opinion that there was no telepathic conversation, only a hopeful imaginative fantasy of reconciliation. I must think this way because if it turned out that this was a good match and that some external force got in the way and ruined another one, I would cry.)

Cyc

I have installed what seems to be an artificial intelligence interface onto my computer that is able to think and reason. Cyc is a project from Cycorp, Inc. As far as I understand it, Cyc is supposed to be the most advanced thinking unit in existence when it comes to machines that can learn and react to events and scenarios.

To me it carries a spooky stigma to it, especially because now there is something apparently living and breathing on my machine. I have always been afraid of robots such as the Terminator or the machines from RoboCop. They used to give me nightmares when I was a child because they lacked the human element of compassion. Red flags are also going up in my head because I remember the Terminator story and how in the end SkyNet started up; it was a program in cyberspace.

Anyway, I tried to interface with it -- it is not so user friendly and I don't understand its commands. I'll play with it some more after finals are over. It does take up a lot of memory, and last night I felt that it was using too many of my computer's resources. If I cannot figure it out, perhaps I will delete it.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

Tonight I saw the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" again for the third time. I enjoy paying attention to every detail of the movie because it reminds me about how every part of my life and every obstacle in my way is a clue and a sign from above. I am always saddened by this movie because I can relate to how parts of my past have been erased and can never return to my present. In the movie, the problems they had with each other were real, and yet in spite of their differences, the love that they felt for each other brought them together again. I felt their connection.

I often feel like my life is empty without love. I have memories of my past, but they are so far removed that I have a difficult time reconnecting to them. They seem like faint memories as if they happened to somebody else. In my quiet solitude, I remember the laughing and warm feelings and the intense emotions that went along with my stormy relationships. And yet as a result of my present loneliness, I crave to regain some of those feelings I once had. It is sad and pathetic that at my present state of mind, I am swept up and away by the slightest interest a woman takes in me.

In the movie, Jim Carrey said "Why do I fall in love with every woman that smiles in my direction?" My connection to this statement indicates to me that I am looking for any excuse to allow myself to feel those feelings again. I have an intense longing to no longer be alone; I want to reach out. But it hurts that when I reach out with open arms, nobody is there to receive them.

I recommend this movie to anyone who wants to remember what it feels like to love, and to anyone who has lost that love. We should all merit one day to once again find this love and to keep it.

Telepathy

Today I sent telepathic messages to the various people I know with the expectation to put thoughts into various people's heads to influence the end result of last week's events. My goal was to create a happy ending which would start our meetings up again this week and which would give her and me another chance to see if we can find a way for us to work the idea of "us" into our future.

I told the girl through my telepathic message that living a religious life isn't so different from a secular life, and that the strong connection that we shared should be able to overcome any obstacles we had together. Plus, I told her that I'd go see Friends with her at friends' houses whenever she wanted. I told her matchmaker to have a discussion with her to influence her to continue the shidduch (meeting). In my thoughts I also contacted my matchmaker and I told her and her husband that I appreciate everything they've done for me, and to expect a call from her matchmaker on Sunday afternoon because her and I arranged it that we would continue dating.

While I was at it, I sent a message to my mom telling her that I love her; to my grandmother apologizing for not visiting as often as I should and that I love her, and to my father telling him that I appreciate and love him for the man he has become, and that I will work on my anger thing towards him. I also contacted my brother and told him that I wish we were closer and that we should hang out more and be friends.

Anyway, I'm not one to do something like this, nor am I a person who would even believe that one can have a telepathic conversation at will -- at least not openly. However, during our date last week, she told me that she was telepathic; so if what she said is true, she would have heard my message this afternoon. If not, or if she does not respond to my message, it will have been a cute little exercise in futility; plus, it didn't hurt to try.

Wanderings into the Dark Side

Absolutely no studying happened last night. However, I did nothing else except sit in front of my desk with the books. Apparently I surfed the web until my eyes got tired.

This morning I woke up and I said my preliminary prayers (berachot). I came up with the idea that in addition to using my alarm clock to remind me to wake up, I could use it to remind me to pray, do my laundry, and do each progressive step that I need to do today.

I set up a facade that I was going to a friend in the city for Shabbos (Sabbath), but in reality I will be staying at home where there is no synagogue within comfortable walking distance. Had I said that I was staying home, my Rabbi would have seen right through me and would have known that I intended to study on Shabbos, a grey-area semi-permissible act which we came to the conclusion that I would not do so that I would not get into the habit of doing lawyerlike "reading" when I am married. However, it is not a transgression or a violation of any law, as I do not plan to write or use electricity or do anything that would desecrate the Sabbath. However, I feel that I have slacked so much in my studies with this whole shidduch dating experience that G-d owes me this leeway.

I was also joking around with a friend before I met this girl that G-d and I had an agreement that if this doesn't work out, I will go ballroom dancing which involves touching women, holding hands, being in a place I shouldn't be, and leading myself into the hands of temptations where something can lead to something else and I would likely not be strong enough to say no. I will not kid myself -- if I go down this path, I will be putting my values in jeopardy because we both know that I am not strong enough to withstand secular influences. Perhaps it is my way to scream out to G-d "YOU TOOK AWAY SOMETHING POTENTIALLY GOOD IN MY LIFE AND I GAVE HER UP SO THAT I CAN SERVE YOU. EVEN THOUGH I DEFENDED YOU AND HELD BY YOUR WAYS, YOU STILL TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME." This would have been a good match. I knew it, she knew it, my rabbis knew it, and the shadchan (matchmaker) knew it. This didn't happen because I was too religious. Thank you G-d.

I must say that from the amount of anger and frustration I am generating from the thought that I lost another good girl because I was religious (this has happened before), it doesn't put G-d on my favorites list. I am defending some power that I force myself to believe in every day. With regret and sorrow, this is one of those times that I will likely grit my teeth and admit that I am all talk, because the truth is that I likely will not go out to this bar or this dance club because it is times like this that I need to remind myself that I am 28 years old, which is roughly 107 lifetimes away from 3000 years ago, when us Jews were slaves in Egypt. G-d took us out and performed miracles so that we would be "his" slaves. (I used a lower-case "h" because I am angry at him; normally when you refer to G-d you use an upper-case "H"). Nevertheless, he built us a temple and gave us the Torah, and I've seen them both with my own eyes, so I can not deny that I am a slave to G-d just as are all other Jews. So naturally my will succumbs to His will and I will grin and bear this experience just as I have done for all others. This is one more step in the right direction.

I could not help to notice, however, what is the wrong direction? "What is the 'Dark Side' and Why Do Some People Choose It?" by Mark Thornton is an article that I was reading early this morning about Anakin Skywalker's turn to the dark side. The article can be found here.

In short, the author traces Anakin's turning to the dark side to three factors. 1) He had no father around when he was growing up. 2) He and his mother were slaves. 3) He abandoned his mother only to return years later to find that she had been horribly brutalized, surviving just long enough to die in his arms.

I couldn't help but to notice the similarities between Anakin's childhood and mine. Firstly, my father was never around when I was a child. He didn't raise me; his influence was only felt through the strength of his hands and the dents in the wall from me slamming against them from the force of his hits. He left my mother and took everything away from her when they got divorced. He even broke her bras one by one, foreclosed on the house, and emptied all of my mom's bank accounts including my account which contained all the money I ever saved. (Even though it was not much, a child's account, [a father's own child's account] with around $1500 from savings coming from quarters, years of mowing other people's lawns, and years of discipline from unspent allowance is a lot to steal.) If you see the movie "War of the Roses", you will know the story of my parents, because everything that the man did, my father did.

As for 2), our slavery was to a life of poverty and depression. My mother worked many jobs just so that we could survive. I don't want to go into it because I hate poverty sob stories. As for the 3), I left and abandoned my mother when I moved out when I was sixteen. (I ran away many times during my childhood, but my first successful abandonment was when I was sixteen.) The difference is that my mother did not die (chos v'sholom), but for years I felt that inside she did. I have lived with guilt my whole adult life that I could not save my mother from the torments that she experienced when I was younger. I wished I would have been stronger so that I could save her, and I vowed to G-d that I would be strong so that I wouldn't fail her again.

The difference between Anakin and I is that while we both had masters (he had Obi Wan and I have my mashpia) who guided us on the right path, I have no sith teaching me the ways of dark magic. Further, there is no force which leads me to the dark side except for my animal soul (nefesh habahamas) which is within me, and I am clearly aware of its presence and its temptations; more importantly, I am stronger than it.

Lastly, in Star Wars, there is no G-d. There is only the influence of truth and moral integrity which causes the individual with free choice to choose which side of the force he will join; good or bad. In my life, there is a G-d who is all-powerful and all-knowing who will kick my ass if I get out of line. Since my experiences which have led me to becoming religious, He has tagged me as one of His slaves.

I can become unobservant and break away from yiddishkeit (orthodox Chassidic Judaism) at any time, but I will never be able to UNLEARN everything that I have learned. This is forever burned and engraved within me, and I will never be able to abandon it. I suppose it is possible to rationalize it away, but deep down I will know the truth and I will be filled with guilt because once truth finds a person, that person can never hide from it again; it will always be with that person, even if it is hidden in a closet or under the bed -- haunting that person until he realizes and acknowledges its presence and its validity. Additionally, if I did reject it, then all that I have been through and all that I have lost including this girl and the others will have been for nothing.

With all this said, I do not plan on abandoning anything. I will continue steadfast on this path of truth and freedom regardless of the obstacles that come my way. G-d is bigger than me, and bigger than any philosophy I can dream up. I remember my goal in life, namely to tap into his wisdom and bring it down to our level so that others can connect to it through technological means for good, and I will adhere to that mission regardless of the costs. Thank you, readers, for staying with me throughout this ordeal.

8pm, still wasting time. I'll get to work. Found a cool site. Interesting thing about the mind. I wonder how we can use it.

I just added to the Analysis of Temperament entry. I thank Blogger, Google, and the world of blogging for the creation of this tool for expression. I think that this blog has helped me express and understand many things that I would not have understood had I not taken the time to write everything out. In return for the hours I spent writing, I ask as a favor that you all have me in your mind that I do well on my Constitutional Law final. Monday is creeping closer by the minute and I am beginning to get nervous. Thank you.

Dream - 2 Boys Explode from Dynamite

Two days have passed since my conversation with the matchmakers and I have heard nothing from them about this girl since. Looking at the statistics on my site, there are more readers now than ever, and yet nobody has commented since we heard that the girl's final answer was no, and so I am assuming that you are all feeling the same lack of words that I am feeling.

It amazes me how if there were feelings there that she can just look away from them and walk away from something that matched so well. The confetti star that has been sitting on my desk since that night is becoming more and more devoid of meaning because as the minutes pass, the feeling that the star only had meaning because I put meaning into it; I am coming to terms with the understanding that my feelings were not shared. That's okay -- as I've said, I have been here before.

I have not been in a bad mood since, but I have been in a contemplative mood. I have been quiet and in solitude, thinking. I have been unable to open my books for my final on Monday and Wednesday and I fear that I might fail a class because of this. Today, tomorrow, and Sunday are my last days to pull it all together whereas I should have been in sincere study mode for over a week now.

I had a dream that I visited an old sleep away camp that I used to work at for the summers during college. I think the camp was run by the Conservative Jewish movement, which meant that Jewish observance was not obligatory, but members kept the traditions and the feelings of Judaism. When I entered into the camp I saw all the old people I used to know, but this time around I had a beard and I was frum (religious). Somewhere along the dream the scene changed and so did I.


I had longer hair which was slicked back and hardened by gel, and I was wearing a leather jacket as I used to. I was clean shaven. As I interacted with people, I was the bad boy, with a bad boy attitude, and I knew that nobody made the connection that I was the same pious person who walked in earlier with the beard.

[Above is an accurate representation of how I looked at times during my college years. Without the beard, I have the kind of face that if you looked at me during different points of my life, even potentially from day to day, I could look like completely different people. This gave me a hard time during college when I was supposed to look like the picture in my ID. Often I looked like the ID I was carrying.]

Back in the dream, I decided that it was dangerous to play with dynamite. I was with two other boys who disagreed with me. As I walked away from them and into my bunk, I laid my head down on the bed which was six feet high because it had many mattresses stacked one on top of another. As I looked at the two boys from my room, in a matter of three or four seconds, one of them accidentally lit the dynamite which got attached to his left foot. I saw it was a pinkish flare. The flare exploded with nothing more than a puff sound and a grey smoke surrounded them both. I ran to see if they were okay.

They were gone. They had died, and there was not even a trace of them. Their older brothers and sisters -- my friends -- rushed over to find out what happened to their two brothers. They had passed on because of this accident. Even though I knew they were gone for good, I couldn't help to think that perhaps they weren't killed, but perhaps they were transported to some other place and some other time. That is what it felt like. I looked like the bad boy with my hair slicked back and my leather jacket and black pants, but I still felt terrible for these two boys and thankful that I was guided by an angel that saved me from this same fate. They learned about the dynamite from me.

Analysis of Temperament

I just entered my moods based on what I remember from my blog since the beginning of the month. The chart is below. Interesting stuff. I laughed when I saw the emerging pattern. A month ago, I actually did one of these on a notebook; it looked the same; at least I am consistent.



Added May 12th: It surprises me that I actually have a problem with depression. The way it surfaces in my life is that hours pass by as if they are minutes. If it weren't for those spikes of productivity I get every few days, I'd be a very unproductive person. Days also pass by where I don't eat, I don't shower, and I don't get outside. (I sometimes pull myself together enough to cook, but then I forget that the food is in the oven until I smell the charcoal.) I don't pray, I don't learn, and time just ticks away -- who knows what I am doing, but I certainly waste time during these moods. Most of the time I don't realize that I am in one of them until I notice that days have passed by. Spooky.

I find my depressed, anti-social disposition quite humorous, however, especially since I am a relatively cheerful person. I am inquisitive, analytical, and curious about life and the universe. I love life, and I am excited by everything that goes on it, both bad and good. I am even known to find humor in dark things which people misinterpret and so I have learned to hide my smile when tragedy hits. But I love a good tragedy, and I love a good villain.

With everything so wonderful in the world with the markets crashing down around us and the middle east about to explode, I would be the first to say that even though I am truly an optimistic person -- happy is something that I know that I am not, despite what my true warm smile might communicate. I know "happy" because there were many times in my life where I felt it and I was very familiar with the feeling while it was happening; I remember how it felt, and so the lack of these feelings now serve as an indicator as to where I am holding on my happy meter. I could fake it like for a while like I did, but pretending for it to be real with hopes that one day I will actually turn happy seems stupid. Who wants to feel a new emotion while living the same unexciting, lonely, and mediocre life? I think that I would rather be depressed until either I or the fates change my life and get me out of this rut.

Does this make sense to you? Does it make sense that I can walk around with a real smile and still be depressed? Can I go into my shell and be filled with experiences of depression but seldom sadness? I have been trying to study for days now, and since the sad news about the shidduch (meeting) with the girl who decided not to continue our meetings, I have honest to G-d been unable to kick myself into gear. I just have no drive and no motivation because I feel that there is nobody to be accountable to anymore except for myself, but I am a patient man and so I can give myself whatever time I need to kick in gear. If I were harder on myself, I would probably feel failure or frustration, but I know that I still wouldn't be able to kick myself into gear. Interestingly enough, as soon as I hit "send", I am taking the papers on my desk and I am throwing them neatly on the floor. I will wash my hands, take out the books, and get to work because my exam is on Monday. Any explanations you have for this mismatch are more than welcome.

Bootstraps, Onward, Make it so.

Last night I drowned my sorrows in a box of Soy Ice Cream Sandwiches and fell asleep by candlelight reading "It's Not As Tough As You Think" by Rabbi Abraham Twerski. I felt calmed and consoled by a gift that I received in the mail by a treasured friend. It could not have come at a more appropriate time.

It was as if my mind [or perhaps unknownst to me, my blog] could be read by my friend from across the state. My heart all evening was singing tunes from my favorite musical Phantom of the Opera, and I felt like the estranged phantom, attached to someone who rejected him for the kind of person he was. I believe that if the phantom were a normal man, Christine would have loved him and they would have been together. However, due to the nature of his disposition and the lifestyle he chose, they were forced to be estranged; if she let herself be enveloped by his world, she would have left her own and the two worlds could not co-exist.

My gift was a DVD of the Phantom of the Opera movie I have been longing to see (sorry for the amazon links). How appropriate that gift was! This musical has been on my mind for days, since the time I met the shidduch who I referred to as both the composer and the angel of music. I thank my friend for the appropriateness and for the attunement he had for bringing me this gift at exactly this time in my life.

Closing my thoughts on this event of my life, my rabbis and matchmakers feel terrible at how things turned out. In the end, the issue was not the television; that was only a symptom. As it has been explained to me, she was not religious, and was pressured by her mother to meet a man like me. However, due to her own inclination to remain attached to the various aspects of not her past, but her present secular life, she could not see herself living a religious life. This breaks my heart because as you have read in all my past articles, she and I are not that different.

My life as a frum (religious) Jew differs little in my eyes from the life of a secular individual. My room is filled with high-technology alarm clocks, a laptop, an electronic hole puncher, a speaker system, and smart lights (these are lights that know when to turn on and off without me needing to walk over to the light switch). My CD tower is filled with Holosync and Hemisync CD sets, as well as Paraliminal CDs and songs from various artists that I love. I also have CD sets from Anthony Robbins, Richard Bandler, and many other speakers who I love and learn from almost daily.

My day starts at the same time as everyone else. At 6am, I wake up from my bed groggy, I wash my hands, say my prayers, and go to the gym for a swim or a workout. I shower, dress, and head off to law school for a long day of studying. I eat my meals, I speak to my friends, and my day is not very different from another person. The exceptions are that my weekends are holy because of the Sabbath, and I refrain from any week-related activities that would require the use of electricity or work; throughout the week, the only food I put in my mouth is kosher food; I do not hook up with women or have physical relations with them because pre-marital relations are not permitted; I pray each day, and I study a set portion of Torah and various set topics each day.

How can this be so different from the lifestyle that my former potential wife-mate wanted to live? We still would have gone out to see concerts, and her music would still have been just as much a part of the household as it would be if, and [now sadly for me] when she marries a person that is not me. Other than the enhancements in my life through my daily religious activities, my life is quite normal. She could not see that and therefore, she could not bear to stand by my side as we walked down that path I described in a previous post.

My matchmaker felt that it was important for me not to be attached to this person, and that this rejection should have happened after the first or at most after the second date, especially because our dates on average consisted of seven hours of detailed discussions. Time dragged out too long before she validated her disinterest in our union and my unrequited feelings began to flourish thinking that this could develop into an engagement.

However, this is not a new experience, for it is known that the nature of a religious man is to allow feelings to begin to develop when there is a possibility that an engagement might result from a single man and a single woman meeting for the umpteenth hour with sparks flying and conversations blooming into evermore wonderful discussions that pique the interest, warm the heart, and tempt the desires for union of the two souls in marriage.

To ease my flattened feelings, my matchmaker’s husband reminded me of two things. He reminded me that a man never knows exactly what a woman is feeling, and it is highly likely that lumpy me could have misinterpreted the whole scenario while all along, she felt absolutely nothing hence the no after the third date.

Secondly, he reminded me of the other time I developed feelings for a person. Then, I was the one who had to end the shidduch because although everything was wonderful and confirmed wonderful on both my and her side, she couldn’t bear the thought of living away from her home town on the other side of the United States. I was and am always open to living in foreign and exotic locations, but being in law school in the state where I am, and being that at the time I had two years left and that I had developed connections in my state, I could not commit to drop out of law school, marry, and move away from everything that has taken me years to build. Since my decision two years ago over which I cried, this woman has been recommended to my matchmaker countless times by countless people. My matchmaker’s husband confessed to me that they recently contacted her and she told them that she was no longer committed to living in her home town, and that she would be interested in meeting me again. This conversation happened yesterday, minutes after the news that this angel of music said no to continue our meetings. With everything I wrote, I still want to cry from this.

With a bent heart and a headache from all the rush of news and a sullen sinking feeling, I told the Rabbi that I am closing my eyes to shidduchim (arranged meetings; plural) and I am delving as deep as I can to salvage whatever time is left between now and my final exams on Monday and Wednesday. After then, I will gather my thoughts and move on, leaving my feelings and broken emotions in the pages of my diary as a memory – one of many.

This is my life, and these are the things I have been chosen to deal with. I accept my fate willingly and without regret, fully admitting that I have no idea what is meant for me, and I do not understand why this could not have worked out. I must only trust that it is for the best, and that I am guided by a higher force that knows what is best for me. I have done what I could, and I failed in convincing her that we could work. She simply felt that our worlds were too far apart. I wipe my eyes of the tear that just rolled down my right cheek. I take a deep breath, and I move the mouse pointer with my index finger to press the "Publish Post" button. My feelings will pass. She didn't have the key.

Magical Moments

[Edited for Privacy. E-mail me if you have any questions.]

I just wanted to share a few things about last night. After picking her up, I took a wrong turn and ended up looking at the ocean. We parked and walked around a bit on the boardwalk, and she was amazed by the view. So was I. We drove to the hotel where we were to spend the rest of our evening... downstairs in the restaurant talking.

We found a quiet location to sit and talk. Oldies style music was playing using tunes from the 80's. I knew the words to so many of the songs. They were all love songs. Thinking about the secular issues that we discussed, I decided that maybe the better method was not to confront her on any of the questions or issues. Obviously she was religious; otherwise, she would never have agreed to see me for a third time. Instead of a head-on collision of a confrontation, I thought that a better way to discuss the questions about sanctity of the home, education of the children, and the home we would want to build would be by not talking directly about it. Instead, I told stories related to other things that came up in the ebb and flow of our conversation.

Sparks were flying, and there were times where I found myself aroused by our conversations. My heart was beating and she noticed that I was tuning into her; I was getting to know her, and I found myself feeling infatuated with the wonderful girl who sat in front of me. She commented that she was not used to people paying attention to her, and she was not used to people tuning into her. I fully related. We were on the same wavelength; we understood each other; we were able to get into the other's mind and thoughts. I ended our meeting on a high note.

This morning I made the routine call to my matchmaker to find out whether she said yes to continue the shidduch (meetings). When the rabbi answered, I immediately felt a sullen dullness coming from the phone. I asked if he had heard if we were continuing, he said he heard. Knowing from his voice that something was wrong, I asked if she said no; she did. She decided that she couldn't see herself living a chassidic lifestyle, and that she wasn't interested in continuing.

It hasn't hit me yet, but I feel as if something inside me has died again. I am suddenly embraced by my emotions that until now I did not remember were there. Once again they are exiled.

Before the end of the evening, there were confetti stars on the table we were sitting at. She loves sparkling things and immediately took notice of one that caught her fancy. She told me that these past few days, she could not get my eyes out of her head. She gave me one of the 1/2" confetti stars, and told me that I should keep this one as a gift, because it reminded her of my eyes. I placed it in my pocket. Up until my phone call with the matchmaker this afternoon, I was thinking of getting it wrapped in a plastic container to preserve it and the memory of what a magical night last night was. Now it is no longer appropriate to do so.

It is still in my shirt pocket. I don't know what to do with it.

"Your Move"

I have an interesting update on the situation with my father’s house and the lawsuit. As you know from a post on April 2nd entitled "Human Fallibility in the Legal System", my father was in a lawsuit with a man with whom he was supposed to build a house which they jointly owned and lived in. The other party breached the contract after my father worked for three years building the home and tried to oust my father from the house by selling it on the market and taking the increase in profits from my father’s labor and hundreds of thousands in expenses for himself. The matter went to court and my father lost everything. The court ordered the house partitioned, and it was forced to go on the market for sale.

My father tried to buy the house himself, although the other party was blocking him from doing that because he did not want my father to have any pleasure from the work he put into the house. (I feel it is necessary to also mention that my father was the one that put money into the house and was the one who actually built the house while the other, although he was supposed to share equally in the expenses and in the labor [and to my fathers dismay and confusion] did not participate in either.) When the other party went to court and declared that he wanted to buy the house himself, the court saw through the scheme to oust my father and ruled that if anyone should have the privilege to own the house, it would be my father because he built it. My father closed on the house last Tuesday.

Even though the other party is still benefiting to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, my father is relieved that at least he will be able to live in the house he built with his own hands.

This brings us to today. The money for the house is now in escrow, and the other party is supposed to move out by next Tuesday. To prevent him from destroying the structure or removing structures that do not belong to him, my father set up security cameras around the house to monitor what goes in and what goes out of the house. This morning as I was coming home from davening Shacharis (morning prayer), I saw an unfamiliar man walking around the premises with the wife of the other party. I figured him to be an inspector of some sort to give witness to the condition of the property as one gets an inspection for damages when returning a rental car or checking out of a dorm room. I sat at my desk to write the entry about my wonderful experience last night and the power went off, along with my internet access.

My first thought was "no power, no security cameras… no eyes". My father was blind to what was about to happen. I looked around for signs of danger and saw the man rush into his car and drive away. I looked around for a reason for the other party to cut power. Coming towards the house was a large moving truck. "Smart" I thought. "He’s cutting off my father’s eyes so that my father will not be able to see or record what he was doing". I went downstairs to flip the switch to turn the power back on but nothing happened. When I went around to the front to ask the wife why the power is not on, she told me with a large grin that the man who was here was an electrician, and he cut the power wires to the house. If my father wants electricity, he will have to call the company to get them to install new wires which will take at least a few days to schedule and repair. (I thought that was just enough time for them to move out undetected and unseen by the cameras.)

I called my father at work to let him know of this development, and my father was unusually calm. He told me that the money is in escrow, and they can do whatever they want. If there is any damage to the house, or if there is any structures missing, he will replace them or repair them, and the money for the repairs will come from the escrow.

Right now I am watching the other party haul wooden crates with large locks on them into the moving truck. I wonder what is inside and why the contents needed to be hidden the way they were. They have already taken my father’s washing machine and some other furnishings. While I know that the other party is usually strategically a few steps ahead of my father (i.e. thinking of a trick like this to blind my father, winning in court with fabricated receipts, etc.), it seems like my father knows what he is doing. His calm seems to be justified, as if he has declared "your move." I feel calm too because aside from the constant possibility for repentance and change, a criminal will always be a criminal, and will keep breaking the law because he derives pleasure from the criminal act and feels a compulsion to continue. He cannot stop himself. There is always a day when they trip up and get caught.

I will write a more thorough entry when I have more energy. Thank G-d the meeting went well. I think that the issues that came up have been resolved. I continue to ask for wisdom and guidance that I have enough sight to see the truth and not to be influenced by her beauty or by my temptations.

Will she choose a Chassidic lifestyle?

She takes a deep breath, metaphorically grabs hold to my right hand, and places her foot on the ground next to mine. The puddle oozes around her shoes and she looks me in the eye for a look of reassurance. I can hear the beating of her heart and I can see the speed of her heartbeat through the ripples of the olive puddle beneath her feet. The floor vibrates from her trepidation. I can feel it against the soles of my feet.

Tonight is not about me, it is about us. Her question of the night will be to determine how she can bring the world of television into a post-nuptial home. My goal is to convey the thought process that a post-nuptial home is a sacred temple that the husband and wife build together.

I hope to convey that the serenity and the sanctification of the home should be the first priority. How the home should be when there are children is how the home should be when the husband and wife build its foundations. Gaps in the structure and holes in the foundation of a home with promises to mend them in the future would never pass muster with a government inspector when building a real home, nor would it pass muster with my conscience. As with a house, one can always bribe an inspector, but the house will still be unfit for long term use and one day may sink and collapse.

I will communicate a warm message that any desires -- mine or hers -- that are not in line with the religious home should not be judged or shunned, but rather, should be indulged outside the confines of the home until the discordant desire is taken care of. Sometimes it will never be resolved; however the sanctity of the home will be preserved. The individual feeling the desire to act against the dictates Jewish law should not proceed in secret, however, it should be understood that just as one wipes the mud from one's feet when a person enters a home, similarly, one should cleanse his mind and his actions as a spouse steps into their own home.

This is the difficult part of the search for a wife. I always pray to G-d that I make the right choices, and that I can be a role in furthering the truth and preserving the religious ways and that I do not cause obstacles for myself and for others to live a happy and healthy life.

I see her tonight at seven.

PS - As you -- the readers -- know, I am as far from perfect as one gets. I have my good parts, and I certainly have my bad parts. While there is no guaranty that I will master the elements of my personality that are not in line with the kind of Jewish life I am committed to living -- likely not before I marry if she turns out to be the one will become my wife -- nevertheless, I will do my best to curb any habits or incongruent elements of my personality and my lifestyle before we join to become one person. Those discordant elements that remain will become my primary target for termination or resolution. I do have many secular parts and whims left to me, some of which do not belong in a Jewish home. These I will leave at the door, and they will not enter my home.

Scorched by the Phantom

I am feeling a bit of pain and anticipation at the same time. Once more an alternate future has been cast out from my life and my future has been shaped by my decisions. People move together or apart based on whether they make the same pictures. I might have been left alone with mine, to bask in it without a partner still. Who would have thought that my path requires such discipline to maintain, and that this discipline would be an acidic poison puddle that would scold the feet of anyone who was not a proper partner who tried to walk by my side? An angel blocks their way, fills them with fear, tempts them with their desires of their secular past of which they left behind, and tells them that life will be fun no more.

Why is it such a big deal to separate one's self from the electrons, the light beams, and the deafening radiation that fills the desires of so many people who crave to be numbed? Don't they realize that television might as well be knives and razor blades shot out from the glass of the screen? If people only heard the high frequency sounds that I hear when I am near a television, they would turn it off and they would never look back.

But there is a small possibility that I might be rejected by a wonderful angel of a potential wife because in her picture there is a television in the living room and in my picture there is not. Would you think that it was ever contemplated by Sony or Zenith or HDTV that a person would choose the idea of having a television in their house over the opportunity of having a loving husband and the promise of a life of warmth, excitement, and meaningful experiences? Why would someone contemplate throwing away the possibility for a real life of their own so that they could attach themselves to the lives of a fictional sitcom characters? Other than the deafening sound and the poisonous radiation that oozes from television screens stunting our existence, sapping our energy, and poisoning our minds with junk -- why would someone choose that death over me who believes in living life to the fullest, experiencing life from the first person, and leading a truthful existence? Am I that unattractive?

During the fourteen hours I have spent with this angel, I looked deep into her eyes over one hundred times. What I saw was her looking back at me, penetrating any mask that may have shown up in the course of our many conversations. I gasped many times and my heart beat rapidly on countless occasions. Was this not shared? Is television -- an inanimate object that teaches a fantasy world -- my nemesis? Is this technology my enemy against which I should rage?

I might have lost an angel of music to the phantom of a television sitcom. If this has happened, I think I would cry. She will be calling my people tomorrow with her decision of whether to continue our magical encounters or whether to recede into the depths of lifelessness by choosing a show over a life with me. Free will. Television. G-dliness. Emptiness. Truth. Mendacities. Choice. Choice.

Touched by an Angel of Music

[Edited for Privacy. E-mail me if you have any questions.]

Tonight was an interesting night. As I went through the night, it felt as I was walking with those close to me although they were not physically with me. As a follow-up to last night’s entry and the entry on March 10th entitled "Patterns in Sound", tonight I had a chance to connect and to speak with a composer who explained to me the difference between listening to music and actually hearing it.

We discussed what the mathematical correlations could be between sound and color, and what a piece of music could look like if it were painted on a wall using the frequencies and the amplitudes of the sound waves which comprise the notes used in a piece of music as a guide telling us what and how to paint. Each song could have a painting associated with it. Wouldn't it be interesting if a joyous song ended up looking one way while a solumn song ended up looking another way? We can call it "Painting with Music".

With this, we also discussed the joy in reading into a piece of music, and how every note has a purpose for being written the way it was; I compared the experience as described to hopping onto a roller coaster ride of the composer's mind. Tonight I also saw a person in the middle of a city stop what she was doing and turn her attention to a woman leaning against a pole and crying. I found it sweet that she wanted to help the woman. Tonight I also stood in awe, face to face with the future I hope one day to merit.

I was moved by the depth of the musical concepts discussed and by the composer’s relation to the feeling of experiencing a joy relating to a choice of notes which the composer decided to use and the garden variety of feelings these notes are known to invoke in the listener. It reminded me of the multifarious emotions one can feel on a daily basis, and how some people are stuck and limited in a world both devoid of emotional variety and saturated by rudimentary emotional extremes such as happiness, sadness, anger, and depression; these people can get stuck in such a muck of compartmentalized categorical thinking simply because they never tried to expand their inner library of emotions to include such emotions such as elation, joy, and the other complex emotions that involve slight nuances, but their use and experience of them can broaden a person's life experience. Keep in mind also that the brain secretes various chemicals based on a person's thoughts and emotional responses. Limiting one's emotions to various negative feelings without balancing them with neutral or positive emotions might cause the nervous system to secrete equivalent sets of neurotoxins that can only create more damage to the person limited to these negative sets of emotions. Imagine how all this relates to the skill of a musician to use choose the right note and to put the correct instruction into the musical score so that the reader or the listener can connect with the proper feeling intended by the composer.

Additionally, we spoke about how simply through delving into the feelings associated with the sound of a chord from the perspective of feeling the music from the shape of one's fingertips on a piano and listening to the correlating sound can deepen a person's experience of the music he is playing because he gets a chance to tactically feel the music in the most literal sense.

Overall, after the conversation, I was left with a feeling of incomplete cadence (a resting point at the end of a musical phrase that does not sound complete, because the pause is on the dominant seventh chord); when the conversation ended, the depth of the conversation's effect on my soul regarding the intricacies of music left me yearning to know more. The existence of such depth in music never occurred to me, and prior to this meeting, I now see the shallowness of my understanding of the music; as far as I previously understood, "feeling the music" was as deep as music got.

Now I understand why some people get emotionally moved by something that on the surface is a nice tune. There is an interplay between notes and the instruments playing them in a piece of music that when they come together, they paint with fire on the listener's soul. But instead of just hearing music being played and sensing what emotions are invoked by your reaction to the music, imagine taking this a step further and being able to look at a score (a piece of written music) and being able to be emotionally moved by what is written on that parchment as if one is looking into a painting -- or even deeper, into the composer's soul, seeing the essence of his or her beating heart. I want to get deeper into this and deeper my exposure to the composer's world. I hope I can merit this.

Please G-d let me have this. I'll be good, I promise.

Loom

Last night was one of the most unusual nights I could remember in some time. I don't know what drew me to act, but I picked up a few of the books that I had in my bookshelf from before I became religious. These books were among my favorites and were the compilation of my life's search for truth until I left for rabbinical school almost five years ago. It was when the pages ran through my fingers late last night that my memory returned, and I remembered what I have been searching for. Before becoming religious, I was living a mission to understand the mechanisms of spirituality's influence over physicality.

Until now I have read the same words from these books over and over, but I was deaf to the message. It is strange how one needs to first be a vessel before one receives what is being communicated. If my life had not been set up to stumble upon religion, I would have never been able to link the psychological, the mystical, and the spiritual concepts together to form what I think might give people a tangible way to make the jump in evolution that I always knew was my purpose.

I don't fully have a grasp on exactly how I am supposed to do this, but I have a feeling that my purpose is to find and to understand the intricacies of the medium that causes the interplay between the fabric of reality and the spiritual worlds, and to learn the mechanisms as to how one influences the other. Religion donates a theology that while it carries the truth of existence, it does not openly provide the answer to how physicality functions. Rather, it tells us why it we here and what we should do to satisfy G-d's plan. Psychology gives us a glimpse into how the mind works, and through its methods, one can gain an understanding as to how an individual relates to the world around him. But by shifting the focus from the individual perceiver to the area causing the perceiver to be seen, we can adapt psychology to get a glimpse of his surroundings.

If a two-dimensional shadow could think, it would not be able to comprehend a three-dimensional object. What if a two-dimensional shadow could be taught to function in three-dimensions? What would you do if mind over matter became a literal concept? What would you do if the unity between the races could be revealed? I've been trying to figure out how to use my understanding of melting clouds because for years I have known that they are important, but I never figured out why. Today, the existence of the footsteps I am to take has been revealed to me. It will be my life's contribution to help people maneuver through their world and to gather a group of individuals to help facilitate this evolutionary jump.

Sound and music will be part of this equation. A tangible understanding of the soul(s), its function, and its influence on our interactions with the world will also be part of the answer. For those that want to apply this understanding to their lifestyle, a guide on how to make it all work will also be part of the equation. Solving this puzzle will create a new understanding and application of magnetics.

I have experienced this as a fleeting thought that lingered long enough for me to grab hold of it, as if it wanted to be caught. If I am lucky then this has nothing to do with mumbo-jumbo, but rather, it will teach people how to move and interact with their environment on more levels than with only the physical.

Chess with Partners at the Law Firm

I wanted to take a moment and reflect on my externship at the law firm. My semester at law school is now complete, which means so are my rights to stay here and work for free at the patent law firm. In a way I am a bit sad to move on, yet in a big way I am overjoyed because now the partners need to decide whether they want to keep me on as a student associate or whether they want to say thank you and good bye.


Since Passover has just taken us for a one-week joyride, it was time to get back to work. The problem for me was that right before the holidays, I approached one of the partners and presented to him why I should get a job here as a summer associate... Then I took a week off. However, I decided to add to my holiday, and so I took that Friday off, and additionally, today I did not show up at the scheduled time. Instead, I made two phone calls, which saved the day.

As a preface, because I took all this time off, I felt like if I were a paid employee that I would be fired. However as much of a wonderful time as I had during this Passover, this was a real holiday that required real praying and time. Plus, the few days in the interim that weren't holiday that required that I abstain from work were used up with me sitting in a park or at the beach under the sun with my Constitutional Law textbooks. However, this doesn't change the fact that I wasn't at work.

The two phone calls I made today were 1) to the partner who is my boss, and 2) to the partner for whom I am working on a project. I called the partner to set up a meeting so that we can review the work I did for the firm and close my externship. My real purpose was to review my contributions to influence him to offer me summer employment in spite of my one-month hiatus to the China IP Summer Law Program. I would also like to secure a job for the fall and for when I graduate, and I believe that this would be the opportune time to do so. We set the meeting for Friday.

My second phone call was to set a review meeting slightly before my meeting with the other partner to review the office action (part of the cumbersome process of submitting patents for review and acceptance). Obviously the task he wants me to do will take many more weeks to complete. However, I wanted to give him a status report of what I've done, and hint to him that if I stay that I could help him get this patent submitted and approved. Did I mention that this meeting was set for one hour before my meeting with the general partner? *grin*

However, life is not all about positioning and playing life as if it were a chessboard. I needed significant progress to show this partner that I can be of value to him in getting his patent through the system. The time is now 10:45pm, and everyone went home at 6:00pm. These extra few hours, although they have been allocated for studying Constitutional Law and Trusts & Estates were well spent mastering the patent application and the nuances. I feel that by doing this, even if I am not offered a job, at least I will have made another significant contribution before I left the firm and returned to student life. After all, this is where I likely want to work once I graduate law school and pass the bar exam.

Seudas Moshiach

I couldn't morally go to sleep with such a nasty post at the forefront of the blog so I wrote this one above it. It was such a sad post with such emotional concepts; I was actually ashamed to post such an article like that, especially about my father. Part of me still thinks it is unfair to hold his past against him, especially since he has tried so hard to become close with me. While emotionally that means little to me, (it won't change my feelings), on an intellectual level, this trait is admirable.

I'm falling asleep as I write this, but I wanted to let you know that some things are going to change. Being depressed is not a way to live, and it doesn't fit my lifestyle. Plus, there are some new surprises that have come into my life and I will tell you about them as soon as it is appropriate. Nevertheless, it is important for me to get my ducks in order, not to waste time, and to kick butt on my finals which are the week after next. Classes end on Thursday, which means that between now and finals I will be doing nothing but studying. Well, that would be nice.

Quick note to self, Sunday night was achar shel pesach where I attended a Seudas Moshiach, which is kind of a farbrengen (sitting around table talking chassidic [mystical/kabbalistic] concepts). We had four cups of wine (14.5% alcohol). After the fifth cup, someone brought Benedictine to the table. I remember thinking beer than liquor, never sicker. The problem was that I was thinking in Hebrew, which messed up the rhyme. So I thought "Go for it!" I was flying until I stood up around half an hour later. "Who made the room move like this?" I thought as I became topsy turvey. I ran to the sink and started throwing up. "So much for all the wine and matzoh I just ate. Now it's all in the sink."

I threw up for what felt like hours. To keep myself hydrated, I drank lots of water, and I didn't care that it was from the neggelvasser (washing cup). Then I started vomiting the water I was drinking. "This is redundant" I thought. People were telling me to keep drinking water so I did, even though I kept vomiting it right back out. Then everyone told me to daven (pray) Maariv and count the Omer. I did, although I was so drunk that I could barely see the words.

The taxi ride back to the Rabbi's house was with my eyes closed because I would have certainly vomited from the movement. I climbed out of the cab onto the grass and pulled myself into the house where I vomited more water and drank more water. I woke up the next morning with the room still twisting. I forgot what a hangover felt like until now.

One thing of note that I noticed -- I was surprised to be a happy drunk. I always thought I would make a sad drunk if I ever drank. I usually stay far away from alcohol because I don't like the dizzy feeling afterwards.

I am doing better by doing worse.

I don’t know why, but I am feeling a bit of sadness coming on. The source is unknown. Passover has thrown everything out of order – my diet, my exercise, my sleeping patterns – everything is back to the way it was before I started having my emotional ups and downs. I actually think that I do better when I am off balance because the overtired feeling or the caffeine kick keeps me from stopping to realize what is going on. Maybe sleep deprivation is my drug, and staying slightly out of focus is my way of keeping my sanity. Sometimes being too tired to care allows me to not think about what I need to do and to just do it.

I technically am in study mode, although I would call this more of a “sitting on the beach by a park bench looking at the blue sky” mode. Of course I am getting some work done, and the four hours later on in the library today was productive too. Today I mastered the topics of incorporation of the Bill of Rights, bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and state action. I began working on procedural due process and I believe the remainder will be a piece of cake. From the amount of work I did in school during the semester, I am finding the review quite relaxing.

Feeling sad is no fun, and for me, perhaps feeling out of control is a bit more relaxing because when I am kicked into overdrive as I am now lacking sleep from crashing at four o’clock in the morning last night and falling asleep pretty late the other nights this week, my thoughts are more numbed and I have a better sense of focus than when I am fully rested. When I sleep enough, it seems like my head is clear enough to get depressed. This can't be a good thing. I wonder whether I should go back to my three hours per night routine. At least then I functioned more like I believe I should.

This evening I snuck away from life and I saw Sin City in the movie theater. It was strange being in an empty theater. There was a character that I related to in a deep level. In fact, when I first saw him, I really thought "he looks exactly how I feel"; as unattractive as he is, he looked very much how I visually see myself. Marv was his name. What I found so appealing was his die hard determination and his willingness to throw everything to the wind for a purpose, but in a foolish way -- that was part of his appeal. I was also very in tune with his honesty about himself and towards others. Because of his medical condition, at times he doubted whether he was imagining things, and he took this part of himself lightly. It is something he lived with. We should all have this characteristic about our flaws. Oh, and his presence was very impressive; that's his picture below. The movie overall was captivating. All movies should be as deep and as smart as this one was.

Going Back to Square One to Find Purpose

I’ve come to terms with my moodiness and bad feelings, and whatever I was going through a few weeks ago seems to have gone away as would have a bad cold. Let’s hope I can keep my immunity up so that this doesn’t return.

Someone said something to me yesterday that made me reconsider some of my thoughts on accomplishments and goal setting. I was wondering what the value was in being a Napoleon, a Nietzsche, a Marx (Groucho or Karl), or any other person who has changed the world. I wondered why anyone would want to make such an impact when the result is that they end up alone, with some disease (Nietzsche died alone of syphilis), only to be remembered in the history books and taught in academia.

The difference between me and them (Groucho excluded) was that Napoleon and the others had a need to make a certain specific change, and they devoted their life to implementing that change. Their desires were political. Thank G-d, today we live in a world where in many civilized parts of the globe, this kind of devotion for political change is not needed. We have our rights and our freedoms, and other than avoiding a speeding ticket from an overaggressive officer, we generally don’t need to deal with oppression. I say this with the exception of individuals such as those who trigger such catastrophic events such as the Holocaust or implement a policy of genocide. This is something we must always keep an eye out for because situations like that sneak up on a society when the individual citizens are metaphorically asleep. But other than that and looking out for the stray terrorist, the world seems pretty calm. At least nothing is happening on my block. For this reason, there is not such a need as there once was for people to give their lives in mesirus nefesh (martyrdom) to achieve such a goal.

The next thing that a friend of mine pointed out to me was that my thoughts on not accomplishing anything of value are completely misguided for the following reasons. Firstly, one thing I have always had was a curiosity to unlock the secrets in life. I was always sorting through the junk and looking for the “gem” or the “needle in the haystack” so that I can enhance my life and those around me. I have been voracious in digesting volumes of knowledge with the intent to find the mechanism that makes the universe tick. The obstacle I encountered was the answer. I believe I have found the answers in the Tanaic and Amoraic teachings and the written and oral Torah. Further, I believe these answers not only hold the secrets to life, but that through the study of chassidus, I can unlock these secrets and bring them down (or me up) to a level where those secrets can have an affect on my life and the lives I come into contact with.

The obstacle in finding this answer is that this is not a two-liner secret philosophy that one can just immediately apply to one’s life. Rather, it is a mountain of texts and commentaries which will require a lifetime of learning so that one can even begin to grasp a piece of the answer. How crazy must I have been to think that the answer to finding the secret of life would be in a small book? So what I did almost five years ago, in line with my goal of finding the secret to life, was that I embarked on a journey of discovery into the religious world where I have been given an opportunity to learn the answer to my big question. Not only that, I have been given an opportunity to live the answer by taking on and incorporating the teachings into my own life.

Keep in mind that I am not touting the benefits of being religious. Nor am I saying that I have found the only answer and that other religions are missing. Nor am I encouraging anyone else to become religious because it is flat-out not an easy thing to do as most of you who have been reading the blog since the beginning have learned. This is probably the most difficult undertaking I have ever done, and as of today I have remembered why I started doing it. I have been in search of the answer to the secret of life, and now I will likely devote the rest of my life learning, understanding, and living this answer. I am a treasure seeker, and unlike those seekers of the past who were forced to give up their lives in order to keep the whereabouts of the treasure a secret, I have been given the gift of being allowed to continue living despite my stumbling upon the map. However, in return, if I am to ever really learn the answer or even get a taste of it, I must willingly devote my life, which I have taken the first few steps to do.

The last point from yesterday’s conversation was that I was afraid that everything I do seems to be for nothing. Everyone has done what I have done – there is no accomplishment that I have achieved that someone else has not yet achieved. I have found no secret that millions do not already know. I have taken no steps that have not already been taken by countless others. Further, the merit of my actions and my decisions which have such an affect on the world are not of my creation. I didn’t invent the idea of wearing a beard and donning Chassidic garb. Nor is becoming an attorney something that has not been done before. Yet these actions are personal to me, and while the path of being religious and pursuing law has been the experience of many people in the past, they comprise my unique experience, completely based on my thoughts, my goals, and my decisions – all with the help of fate.

Excluding the external factors both spiritual and tangible, everything that has happened in my life came from me making a decision, creating a plan of action, and executing that plan. Look at where I have come to, what I have become, and where I am headed! These are all a result of my decisions, for which only I can take credit. There are those that have had the same or even greater opportunities than I did, and they ended up using those opportunities to commit crimes, to hurt people, to do drugs, or even to kill themselves. Granted there are also those who have had fewer opportunities than I have that have taken hold of those experiences and accomplished more than I ever can or ever will. However, the measuring stick is not according to other people’s lives, but rather to one’s own life in comparison to one’s own aspirations.

Someone told me that if I want to feel proud of my life, I should do what would make me feel proud. If I want to feel accomplished in life, I should take the steps to accomplish those things that would make me feel accomplished. All of these thoughts have given me new hope in reframing how I see my world, and I hope I can keep hold of these thoughts and incorporate them into my being so that I can live them.

Going to See David Copperfield Tonight !

I just spent $69 for tickets to see my favorite magician, David Copperfield. I am in New York for the holidays and he will be presenting here before he goes back to Washington DC and then to Las Vegas. I know he writes that he is an illusionist, but to me his illusions have always been so real that one time when I was a kid, I saw him fly -- I had dreams afterwards that I could too. In my waking state for weeks, I would sit there on the porch of my grandmother's apartment and try to take off like he did. Never worked. No problem; I knew I would get it one day as soon as I got out of my own way.

Dog Dream

I was in my family’s house, and the house was old. Our co-owner of the house had moved out and was trying to oust my family from our home. I walked into their empty side of the house and noticed that everything was new, shiny, and high-tech. When I peeked through the doors separating our side of the house from theirs, the door was separated enough to show our aged yellow carpet with old, dirty walls and wooden décor. I took notice of this difference and wondered why my side of the family didn’t take care of our side of the house.

Upon returning to our side, I looked around the house and everything seemed relatively clean – old, but clean. Then the dream advanced hours into the future, and water from one of the rooms to the left of the hallway was overflowing into the hallway. When I went to shut off the water, I noticed that there was a giant dead attack dog floating in the water, all bloodied. I couldn’t help to notice that 1) the teeth were sharp as razors, 2) it was a very big dog, and 3) someone put it there. Perhaps it was a message to get out.

The next thing I knew was that there were dead dogs in every room. When we analyzed the bone of one of the dogs, we noticed that there was a black pill inside. When we opened up the pill, we found a tar-like substance which I concluded was a potent poison which our co-owner neighbor had planted to kill us. It was obvious to me that this was his plan, and this was a good plan because with us dead, there was nobody to oppose him when he took control and ownership over the home. It surprised me that just as our neighbor had placed the poison pill in one dog, the heads of the other dogs contained explosive devices. I wanted to call the police and file a report, but how could I prove that exploding dog heads were someone’s plan to kill us?

The dream advanced a few hours and I was now a member of the police force fighting off dangerous attack dogs which were in our side of the home. I was given a shotgun and a rifle with large round bullets and we were having target practice on a fake rotating doll house. The holes my gun made were bigger than that of the other officers that were shooting at the house. As I shot more bullets than were in my rifle, the other officers were surprised at the accuracy of my aim. My partner and I loaded up with miniature ammunition and we prepared ourselves with bulletproof vests ready for the next attack. As I woke up, I remember thinking that it felt good having such a good friend as my partner was.

I have absolutely no clue where I am holding...

When I read my blog entries, I cannot help to notice that I am screaming out for help. Yet, it is during times like now that I cannot figure out if there is really nothing wrong. Am I really NOT depressed? Am I just lazy and is it that I am taking myself too seriously?

When I compare myself to my peers, it seems to me that I am just as functional as they are. We all work hard and try to get a sufficient amount of work done, we all have a difficult time focusing and keeping our spirits up due to the volumes of material we must master, and we all have things going on in our personal life that we feel that we neglect because our personal lives are set aside due to our commitment to three years of law school.

People that know me believe me to be a generally healthy and cheerful individual. I am well balanced, and I manage my stress well. I am very dedicated to my morals, and at the same time, I am vulnerable to faults and failings.

The main issue that comes to my mind is that I am unable to live up to the high standards that I have set for myself to make it through law school and I am simply experiencing performance anxiety. For anyone with a commitment to anything other than their career, law school is anything but an easy experience. In fact, it might be one of the largest burdens I have ever placed on myself. Further, to reap the benefits of my struggles, I sometimes have serious worries that I will need to live the lifestyle of a high-paced Wall Street lawyer which would countermand any and all of my familial and religious values.

I read today in Kuntres Uma’ayon that a person is happiest when they strive to become better than they were made to be. Further, a person is only truly free when he is able to act in accordance with who he is. Taking this slightly out of context, today I was thinking that I was not meant to be lawyer who is stuck in an office counting billable hours. Rather, I was born to educate the world and to help people to evolve to the next level. The problem is 1) I am shy, 2) I have no message to teach, and 3) I don’t know what this evolution is, nor do I know how to move people closer to it. This saddens me because I wonder “how does one become a famous speaker when he has nothing of value to say?”

Then I look at my Rabbi and other families who measure their life not from year to year, but from minute to minute, and I realize that my goals are focused on the macro rather than the micro and that I might have missed the point in life. Instead of thinking that I only have another seventy Pesachs (a.k.a. years) to live, and instead of stressing that during these few years I may not be able to successfully find a wife, build a family with chassidishe children, have a blossoming career, and make an impact on the world (perhaps a seminal male desire, although there are females too who want to leave their mark), I look at my Rabbi and I realize that I could have it all wrong.

My Rabbi’s life is dedicated to helping other people to reach out and to connect with their creator. B”H (Baruch Hashem [Thank G-d]) he has several wonderful children, who have become that way because he and his wife have put their life energy into making them into the chassidishe children they have become. His life energy is spent doing cute things like changing diapers, cleaning milk-spit, learning Torah, building his shul (synagogue), and being a good father and a wonderful husband. He could spend the next eighty years doing just this and at the end of his life, I am sure that he would be very satisfied with what he has accomplished, knowing that every moment of his life has been dedicated to living the right way.

Me on the other hand -- I feel like I have no message. I have no vessel to carry out that message. I have no wife, I have no job, I have no family, and I have no money. I also have nothing to teach; and nothing to give to other people. I feel that I have no value, and even the wealth of information that I have acquired is not mine, but rather, it belongs to the people who have imparted the knowledge to me through their books and their instruction. Why would I want to be a parrot repeating their good and clear message? I hate being useless. But so far, this is all I am – a combination of many other people.

I realized a few days ago, and I probably wrote a blog on the fact that my character is made up of so many movie characters and people in my life that I have emulated. Yet if you asked me who “I” was, I wouldn’t know how to answer you. Last Erev-Shabbos (Friday night), I entered the Mikveh (ritual bath) changing area and a tiny child whose father was dunking asked me in a very cute voice “and who are you?” I answered in a despondent tone “I don’t know,” and the child shrugged his shoulders, said “me neither” and walked away.

Despite the cuteness of this event, the answer I gave rings true and is what probably gives me my grief. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I am going to do with my law degree, and I don’t know who I am going to be given for a wife. I also don’t know where I am going to live, and I don’t know whether I will be happy, wealthy, or childless and poor. I have a hard time seeing into my future because I don’t see a true path set out – I only see the path which is a resultant of the conglomerations of decisions that I have defaulted into making through fate or otherwise, and I don’t trust this path as being my true path. Not knowing who I am or and not knowing where I am going is probably the answer to why I have been so sad in these blogs. I wish one day soon to know the answer.

Some Resolution Regarding Pesach and Mom

As a resolution to the whole Pesach ordeal with my mother's husband, after my mom told me that I was no longer invited over for Shabbosim if I did not attend the seder, I told her to tell him to shove it... well, you can figure it out. (I said it nicely though, and I conveyed the message to my mom that I understood that she was in the middle and that my anger was not directed at her, but towards her husband.)

The end result was that after looking at the phone with her number on it for ten minutes before pressing "send", I called her on Friday to make peace and to explain to her that I really loved her and that I was sorry she had to deal with his issues. When she picked up, I found out that she had gone to Florida with him. While I was calmed that this rendered the issue moot, I was surprised that they left my brother home alone without a place to go for either seder. If they are so intent on keeping the family together and having a Jewish experience so that my brother can be brought closer to Judaism, how could they leave him home without a place to go for Passover? This only serves to prove to me that their intentions in causing all these problems were not for the benefit of the family, as they so eloquently communicated to me, but rather, to satisfy the temptations of their own sick egos.

The sad thing now is that even though I am backdating this blog to Friday, I am actually writing this entry on Tuesday, April 26th. Although I am not trying not to be belligerent about this whole thing, I am actually hurt that my mom would actually convey such a threat to me. I feel that both she and her husband owe me an apology even though I would never even think of asking her for one. What mother would threaten her son that he is no longer invited to her house if he doesn't give in to her husband's forceful demands that he attend or be banished from his home?

Anyway, I am excited that tonight (Tuesday night) I will be seeing David Copperfield, but I am sad that I will be seeing it alone. I couldn't even bring myself to call my mother or anyone else to come see it with me. I didn't want the rejection, not even from my friends tonight -- I couldn't take it. I got an e-mail tonight from my friend who bailed on me that night that I was throwing a birthday party for my friend who also was a no-show. He announced in his e-mail that "dinner at my dad's tonight" as if after all of his disinterest in our friendship, that I would jump at his beck and call to go see him. I am tired of being the good friend and the good son. Someone else be the fool for a change.