(Source: optimus-primer, via caveman-kwm)

Love him,” said Jacques, with sudden vehemence, “love him, and let him love you! Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last? since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, hélas! in the dark.

From “Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin

(Source: ejallston, via fuckyeahsantacruz)

(via opalwaves)

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

3x5 | John Mayer

I got gas today at a gas station brandishing the name, “Chevron with Techron.” So what the fuck is Techron anyway?

It’s so indivisibly part of that phrase, but it doesn’t mean anything. Like, why is Chevron always offered with Techron? Has anyone ever walked in to pay at the cash register and been like “Hi, I’d like my Chevron without Techron, thank you.”

I have never seen Techron with my own two eyes. My first thought is that it’s some secret formula, some chemical they put in the gas to make it extra-effective. So saying “Chevron with Techron” is like labelling a food item, like, “Orange Juice with Vitamin C” or “Brownies with Pot”. I’m pretty sure that’s what I passively believed Techron to be when I was a kid. But that doesn’t make much sense. So then I thought, maybe Techron is a mascot. Like Tony the Tiger. There are, after all, a lot of drawings of animated cars in Chevron propaganda. Maybe one of them is Techron, so when you get gas there it’s like, “Get Chevron with Techron! [TECHRON smiles and winks a windshield wiper at the camera. Cut to black.]“

I think that idea is my personal favorite for Techron, even though there are other possibilities (insurance policy? special automated pumping system?). If I ever get a dog I might name it Techron, so that I can bring him in the car and say I’m going to get Chevron with Techron.

Well… maybe it would be too dorky to say. But I’ll think it.

Techron would be a good name for a dog, actually. You could call him Tech for short, which I think has a nice ring to it. It sounds like one of those douchey 50s names, like Skip and Rush and… I dunno, Mitt. (Why do Republicans always have douchey names?)

The gas was so that I could drive to Santa Cruz and tie up a few loose ends with the registrar and my rock climbing membership and so forth before I leave for the Amazon in two days. I know that where I’m going is a place of sweltering tropical languor and heat, but for me driving over the summit of Highway 17 is driving into endless summer. It was a clear day in Santa Cruz; the green was starting to creep back into the meadows; the sun was crisp and bright; and from the linguistics offices in Stevenson I could see down the green sweep of the town all the way over the blue, blue waters of the Monterey Bay to the land on the other side. The Moss Landing smokestacks 40 or 50 miles away, usually a hazy silhouette of a thing, were in sharp relief. I don’t know when I last saw such a clear day. And it was… well, I’m going to miss it. I went to Bry and Annaïs’ place in the Porter apartments and they were there along with a bunch more of my friends, and we had salad with blueberries and pot stickers for lunch, and hung out. Everything was all clean and bright from people having moved out and then moved back in. And… I’m just going to miss it a lot. Going to miss them  a lot.

On my way back I was listening to a mix CD I just made. Now, before I tell the rest of this slightly embarrassing story, I need to say that songs almost never make me cry. Maybe I’ll be listening to a sad song for a specific reason which is making me cry, but for a song to emotionally create something out of nothing? It doesn’t happen to me. Maybe this wasn’t “something out of nothing” because it had to do with the trip I’m about to take, but the song “3x5” by John Mayer came on, and to my own bewilderment I started to tear up. I have to stress that I’m honestly not mentioning the I-never-cry thing to be all macho, it’s just that the first reaction I felt was “Wha–?!?! whoa.” When you think about it, 2 minutes really should not be time enough for you to build up enough emotion to cry. It’s weird and abrupt. That’s how it felt: abrupt.

But anyway. This song, this song is so perfect, and something about it caught me by surprise. Part of the reason I’m so excited to go to Peru is because lately I’m feeling dizzied by the crush of technology and staying connected, and the pace of life when some important news about my 992 friends on Facebook breaks every twenty minutes. Five different passwords. Three different e-mail accounts. Keep in touch via Skype with your friends from this class, and that class, and that summer…. I just want to get off the map and really live. And this song, the title is after a common print size for photographs – 3×5 – and it goes, “Didn’t have a camera by my side this time/ Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes.”

Yeah, I’m bringing a camera to Peru, but the camera isn’t the point. Some combination of the experience I’m looking for and what I know I have in Santa Cruz – friends that are always there to share food with you when you show up at their door; something that can’t be photographed or quantified in Facebook posts – really hit me. The friends that are really worth something have a connection with you deeper than what you can share and describe. Just as I know that my time in the jungle will mean more to me than any blog or photo could ever share or describe. The magic is in realizing that, and not trying too hard to share and describe it anyway. As the song goes, “You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes/ it brought me back to life…” The idea that stopping to really see something, even something ordinary, can save you. I heard it as if for the first time. And I… well… sort of…. um. cried.

Yup, that was embarrassing. I’ll be going into hiding in Peru now. Be back in 2 months.

(Source: damncigarette)

Did you know

that apparently every animal, including humans, has a psychology based on the same 4 basic instincts?

I don’t have a bibliography or a source for this. My dad told it to me; he said he read it in the book Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin, which he picked up after seeing the movie “Temple Grandin.” Temple Grandin was an autistic woman who felt an instinctive emotional connection with animals and so made a niche for herself in the world revolutionizing the farm industry. It’s a pretty cool story.

Anyway, I found this to be a massively interesting anecdote and so here I am, sharing it with you people.

Apparently all emotions felt by all animals are based on a mix of the following 4 instincts: FEAR, CURIOSITY, SEXUALITY and PURSUIT OF PREY.

I think you can include humans in that.

FEAR: Self-explanatory. I imagine we feel fear much the same way animals do.

CURIOSITY: This was the one my dad brought up, because he was commenting on my insane thirst for travel – you know, the burning passion of the young. It makes a lot of sense then, why young people have such weird and consistent desires. Wanderlust. The desire to see the world. Experimentation. The desire to know what’s beyond the horizon, turns out, is a basic evolutionary need.

SEXUALITY: I kind of like thinking of this one when I’m incredibly horny or sexually frustrated or whatever, to put things in perspective. Society tends to look down on people who let their sex drives get the best of them. Feeling obsessed with your sexual pursuits is a little less embarrassing when you think of it as simply one of four, a thirst as basic and pressing as curiosity, fear, and ambition.

PURSUIT OF PREY: Which brings me to this last one. At first it gave me trouble, because humans certainly don’t pursue prey anymore; economics has done away with that. We just show up at In’n’Out or whatever, and the prey comes to us. Not much predator cred to be had there, even if you did order it animal style. But think about what basic part of psychology is missing from the other three, and the answer sort of writes itself. Ambition. Competition. Any sort of will to achieve is, I think, a human manifestation of the pursuit-of-prey instinct. Nowadays our prey is money and acclaim, but we’re still fighting for it, much as we’d like to pretend we’re not. And in fact money is what we used to feed ourselves, so no surprise that the predator instinct translates over.

The whole thing makes me dream about an incredibly simple, straightforward perspective on living life. I think I’m going to try to live my life with the four instincts perfectly in balance. Have adventures, stay safe, get laid and be successful. But never let one compromise the other three. They’re all there for a reason.

(except for sexuality. in my case. cause i’m gay. I went there.)

(via justifythemargins)

(Source: wolfenguy)

(Source: coolstorybro-gan, via kevtmitch)

“What did bring you to Casablanca?” “My health. I came to take the waters.” “What waters? We’re in a desert!” “I was misinformed.” This might be the most quotable movie of all time. man. that screenplay SMOKES.

“What did bring you to Casablanca?”

“My health. I came to take the waters.”

“What waters? We’re in a desert!”

“I was misinformed.”

This might be the most quotable movie of all time. man. that screenplay SMOKES.

(Source: salamanduh)

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