People are selfish. Everybody is and no matter how you try to argue it, it is just the way it is. Obviously there are the givers, people who do things for other people with no personal "benefit". The thing is there is a personal benefit, they feel better about themselves. It feels good to help people. That is the best case scenario too, because then you go on youtube and see these videos of people trying to show off that they helped someone - almost as if they are seeking the recognition and approval of society.
I found myself being called out quite a bit this week for not being sympathetic enough, for being unreasonably selfish about situations. Now, I would like to think I am an altruistic person but the way view life is that I will do these things for people I care about if they show they are thankful or help me in return. I know that's a twisted thing - to expect a return for it, but if people are taking the things I do for them for granted, and expect me to shower them with good things then I stop.
The biggest problem I see within my friends and myself is that we live for the storytelling, which really isn't an issue - in moderation. We are approaching life with a method where we want to do all these great things but is it for us or is it to say we did it and show off pictures of it? It's a flawed method because everyone is trying to be the most interesting, but, they are sacrificing the actual interest of the experience by concerning themselves with just getting it done to add to another book of things accomplished. Storytelling is a beautiful thing, let's not take away it's beauty.
-Umar
Monday, October 5, 2015
Monday, September 14, 2015
On Growing Up
Life is such a strange thing. Existence is random, and that's all there is to it. Yet, somehow we, as simple beings, feel such powerful things that give us this perspective of being locked into the present state. As if everything happening RIGHT now matters. There is no way I would have ever been able to predict the way I live now if you were to ask me a year ago.
In high school I had two close friends, Trevor and Kody. Trevor I talk to maybe once a week about vaping or something else that isn't really significant. Kody and I don't talk more than once a month, if that. During the time we were all very close I would've sworn to anyone that we would always be around for each other. It is sad to see how far we have drifted, because of how different all of our paths became after high school. We moved on. The sad thing about this isn't even that it happened, because it's normal and everyone tells you it is going to happen - but something about the individual mindset is that things will be different; it is that it sneaks by. It's been about a year and a half since I was seeing them each day and to think that it has been that long just leaves me amazed. Growing up is something we all do, something we want to do before it happens, and something we don't want to do when it finally comes down to it.
I've put a lot of thought into my past lately, for better or for worse. My character and the person I am is attributed to the people I saw every day for 7 years, people that I haven't talked to in months. It doesn't have to be the sad and melancholy thing though; if I were to start listing the people I surrounded myself with they are all doing amazing things. I just traveled across the entire country this summer to see friends, family, and for work experiences. I was on the east coast, west coast, border of Canada, and many places between. Someone who had a large impact on my life is moving to Atlanta new to pursue a new future, and it is going to be wonderful for him. Another is in school and living with some friends of his, still with a girl he fell for right before we all parted ways. Another is going to school in southern California, and despite the falling out we had - I know they are having an excellent time there. One got married this year and has a child, and the pictures of that family never fail to bring a smile to my face. My point is that everyone moves on, and they create these visions they always wanted. But, when they make these stories it's not about the people they were growing with - we aren't in school and doing these things to mature to be around each other forever. We were all taking steps together to get to where we are reaching now, and the reason it feels sad is because it worked. We are doing amazing things that we had been wanting our whole lives, and we are always riding with each other because we were pushing each other to excel for our entire lives. The reason it feels sad is because no one tells you what comes next, what is after all of the growing up and the hard work. I miss all of you, and you all need to keep doing what you're doing - because it's incredible being here to see how all of us end up.
In high school I had two close friends, Trevor and Kody. Trevor I talk to maybe once a week about vaping or something else that isn't really significant. Kody and I don't talk more than once a month, if that. During the time we were all very close I would've sworn to anyone that we would always be around for each other. It is sad to see how far we have drifted, because of how different all of our paths became after high school. We moved on. The sad thing about this isn't even that it happened, because it's normal and everyone tells you it is going to happen - but something about the individual mindset is that things will be different; it is that it sneaks by. It's been about a year and a half since I was seeing them each day and to think that it has been that long just leaves me amazed. Growing up is something we all do, something we want to do before it happens, and something we don't want to do when it finally comes down to it.
I've put a lot of thought into my past lately, for better or for worse. My character and the person I am is attributed to the people I saw every day for 7 years, people that I haven't talked to in months. It doesn't have to be the sad and melancholy thing though; if I were to start listing the people I surrounded myself with they are all doing amazing things. I just traveled across the entire country this summer to see friends, family, and for work experiences. I was on the east coast, west coast, border of Canada, and many places between. Someone who had a large impact on my life is moving to Atlanta new to pursue a new future, and it is going to be wonderful for him. Another is in school and living with some friends of his, still with a girl he fell for right before we all parted ways. Another is going to school in southern California, and despite the falling out we had - I know they are having an excellent time there. One got married this year and has a child, and the pictures of that family never fail to bring a smile to my face. My point is that everyone moves on, and they create these visions they always wanted. But, when they make these stories it's not about the people they were growing with - we aren't in school and doing these things to mature to be around each other forever. We were all taking steps together to get to where we are reaching now, and the reason it feels sad is because it worked. We are doing amazing things that we had been wanting our whole lives, and we are always riding with each other because we were pushing each other to excel for our entire lives. The reason it feels sad is because no one tells you what comes next, what is after all of the growing up and the hard work. I miss all of you, and you all need to keep doing what you're doing - because it's incredible being here to see how all of us end up.
- Umar
Monday, August 31, 2015
Since I've Been Gone
Hello friends! I have so much news to update all of you on. Let us begin our adventure.
So not long ago I left Washington DC and went back to Colorado Springs for a while. In my duration there I spent a lot of time with my sister, Ayah, and my friend Trevor. Trevor had been really helpful with getting me immersed into the vape culture, which is probably my most prevalent hobby now. Colorado was fun, as it always is - but I quickly grew bored and was ready to go continue my college adventure in Montana.
Soon enough I left Colorado and drove back to Montana, I was driving solo this time and took the trek on all in one go - stopping for gasoline only twice. Once I arrived back to Bozeman I moved everything I owned into the house my friends had been living at all summer, and I would be living at for the upcoming years. It looked great. We had been given a tour by the previous owners who were quite the party animals and left us with quite a bit of work to do regarding the functionality of the house so I had some concerns about it's state upon my arrival. Luckily my friends had been hard at work all summer and taken care of all the major issues that existed. I felt I had really struck gold when I found out my room window had roof access and I was able to go hang out up there whenever I felt like it, it was definitely nice to be back.
My second roommate, Wes, had helped secure me a job at a car rental company located at the airport in the next town over and after two days of being back I started working there. The job is super great because I get to choose my own hours and hang out with people all day. We vacuum and spray the insides of cars then drive them through a drive through car wash, then repeat. Now I know this sounds a bit tedious and boring but keep in mind we get to drive these brand new cars and listen to whatever music we want to in them all day - not to mention you are able to team up with co-workers; Wes and I team up every shift we have together.
Classes started just over a week ago and I have decided to take on 18 credits for this semester, which is..... a good amount. They've been excellent so far, my first professor has a very "high school teacher" vibe and I don't really like it - she had assigned seats when we walked into the classroom the first day. My second professor is really cool, he is also from Colorado Springs and is just very good at keeping me engaged with the curriculum he is teaching. The third professor I see during the day is hard to really break down at this point for me, simply because we have around 200 students in that class. The fourth is one I had learned from last semester and she is great, and talking to her is very easy since we already know each other. The fifth professor just moved to Bozeman, although she has been all over Montana - she is pretty cool but I'm struggling to find ways to relate with her. Regardless, staying on top of the work load thus far hasn't been to bad.
Alright and obligatory song I have been listening to here:
So not long ago I left Washington DC and went back to Colorado Springs for a while. In my duration there I spent a lot of time with my sister, Ayah, and my friend Trevor. Trevor had been really helpful with getting me immersed into the vape culture, which is probably my most prevalent hobby now. Colorado was fun, as it always is - but I quickly grew bored and was ready to go continue my college adventure in Montana.
Soon enough I left Colorado and drove back to Montana, I was driving solo this time and took the trek on all in one go - stopping for gasoline only twice. Once I arrived back to Bozeman I moved everything I owned into the house my friends had been living at all summer, and I would be living at for the upcoming years. It looked great. We had been given a tour by the previous owners who were quite the party animals and left us with quite a bit of work to do regarding the functionality of the house so I had some concerns about it's state upon my arrival. Luckily my friends had been hard at work all summer and taken care of all the major issues that existed. I felt I had really struck gold when I found out my room window had roof access and I was able to go hang out up there whenever I felt like it, it was definitely nice to be back.
My second roommate, Wes, had helped secure me a job at a car rental company located at the airport in the next town over and after two days of being back I started working there. The job is super great because I get to choose my own hours and hang out with people all day. We vacuum and spray the insides of cars then drive them through a drive through car wash, then repeat. Now I know this sounds a bit tedious and boring but keep in mind we get to drive these brand new cars and listen to whatever music we want to in them all day - not to mention you are able to team up with co-workers; Wes and I team up every shift we have together.
Classes started just over a week ago and I have decided to take on 18 credits for this semester, which is..... a good amount. They've been excellent so far, my first professor has a very "high school teacher" vibe and I don't really like it - she had assigned seats when we walked into the classroom the first day. My second professor is really cool, he is also from Colorado Springs and is just very good at keeping me engaged with the curriculum he is teaching. The third professor I see during the day is hard to really break down at this point for me, simply because we have around 200 students in that class. The fourth is one I had learned from last semester and she is great, and talking to her is very easy since we already know each other. The fifth professor just moved to Bozeman, although she has been all over Montana - she is pretty cool but I'm struggling to find ways to relate with her. Regardless, staying on top of the work load thus far hasn't been to bad.
Alright and obligatory song I have been listening to here:
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Phases
I've always had a very strange tendency to categorize past periods of times in my life by color. I think I have explained this in a post here before but it requires too much effort to go filter through the old content to find out. In short, I have almost a feeling or sense of color affiliated with each year or time period of my life. The memories have this tint or shade to them, without actually having it. I don't know. It's very odd. I don't think it's a normal habit.
Anyways, the "vibes" for each time period operate in a fashion similar to the siren of a fire truck. The most strong feelings are from memories that are very recent or were a very long time ago. The least impactful vibes are from memories in between, and eventually at a middle point they just aren't really there - to an extent. They still have an obvious color and such but I don't feel the emotional trigger in the same way I normally do. This leads me to believe that my person at the present time is most heavily influenced by recent events and earlier years of life. Perhaps this has all been stated by someone who is trained in understanding these concepts of life, but I'll just pretend like I'm the first to think that. This also brings up the sad fact that at some point, the present will be insignificant - as it does not qualify as an early year of my life and one day won't be recent.
Time is a strange thing to think about. They say that everything has all happened at once and time is just the method our brain uses to comprehend everything. It is but another dimension. This means that in a sense your 2 year old grandma is existing as the same time as your 75 year old daughter. The sheer concept of that - of all those people converging into one exact point - gives me goosebumps. It really provides a new perspective on how little we are, and how simple things are for us.
I had much more to write but the hour is getting late and I have to be up relatively early tomorrow. I will add more to this at a later date. Thanks for reading.
-Umar
Anyways, the "vibes" for each time period operate in a fashion similar to the siren of a fire truck. The most strong feelings are from memories that are very recent or were a very long time ago. The least impactful vibes are from memories in between, and eventually at a middle point they just aren't really there - to an extent. They still have an obvious color and such but I don't feel the emotional trigger in the same way I normally do. This leads me to believe that my person at the present time is most heavily influenced by recent events and earlier years of life. Perhaps this has all been stated by someone who is trained in understanding these concepts of life, but I'll just pretend like I'm the first to think that. This also brings up the sad fact that at some point, the present will be insignificant - as it does not qualify as an early year of my life and one day won't be recent.
Time is a strange thing to think about. They say that everything has all happened at once and time is just the method our brain uses to comprehend everything. It is but another dimension. This means that in a sense your 2 year old grandma is existing as the same time as your 75 year old daughter. The sheer concept of that - of all those people converging into one exact point - gives me goosebumps. It really provides a new perspective on how little we are, and how simple things are for us.
I had much more to write but the hour is getting late and I have to be up relatively early tomorrow. I will add more to this at a later date. Thanks for reading.
-Umar
Monday, July 20, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Colorado to California
(Previous part of my journey)
I spent a few weeks in Colorado hanging out with friends and lifeguarding, it was great to see everyone again and to be home. After about three weeks of being in Colorado I was going to be driving to California for my sister's high school graduation. My mom and my sister's friend, and ex-boyfriend Caleb were going to be taking this trek with me.
We left the morning of June 5th and stopped to pick up some Dutch Bros coffee on the way, I always get the cinnamon tea with soymilk and honey. The first part of the drive was pretty cool, nothing new to me - it was the rockies in Colorado, I'd grown up seeing these mountains so it wasn't too spectacular. Something about that area will always give me a sense of nostalgia though. We eventually crossed the border into Utah and things started to become a bit different from what I was used to. Giant rock formations were coming up from the flat land, heavy concentrations of iron were there and leaving it's recognizable reddish color all over the formations. One place in Utah in particular was absolutely amazing, we did stop at a lookout to get some pictures of it - Black Dragon Canyon. The rest of the time in Utah was pretty boring compared to Black Dragon Canyon, just empty desert.
After Utah, we reached southern Nevada. We stopped in Vegas for dinner and walked around the strip for a couple hours, it really struck me just how many people exist. I mean I know there are 7 billion people on earth, and all that normal stuff; but saying how many people there are and actually being in a place populated enough to believe it are very different things. It's almost upsetting how much less "different" you are from anyone else out there, there are so many people that sticking out takes an awful lot of work. Anyways Vegas was pretty cool, it was also very warm despite us being there in the later hours of the day. We ended up not getting any food in the actual city because everywhere was so busy, so we drove about an hour past it and stopped somewhere else for some subway. Pretty much right after the town we stopped at for food and gas was the border into southern California.
California was cool.... I think. It was really late in the night when it happened and I was the only one awake for it since I was driving. I drove right by a nuclear power plant, I couldn't believe how big the facilities for it were. I also remember the radio stations pretty much not existing until Bakersfield. Once we got into Bakersfield my mom took over the driving and I got to catch some sleep, a few hours later I was woken up on a dirt road leading up to a farm. The farm we would be staying at for the next week. Most families get a hotel for these kinds of trips - not mine. My mom rented out an entire farm for the week, there was a rooster walking around to greet us when we arrived. This farm had goats, chickens, turkeys, fish, cows... pretty much anything you could think of for a farm and it was there. We were able to eat eggs that the chickens laid every morning, right after we were woken up by the roosters.
But I digress - the graduation was fun too. My brother and grandmother had flown in from Colorado two days after we reached the farm so we went to pick them up. I also was able to see the girl I was dating at the time, she worked at a camp in the mountains nearby, so that was also pretty nice. The day of the actual graduation I was surprised because they called the students and had them going two at a time. My graduation took much longer because it was only done by having one student walk across the stage at a time. The week went by quickly, it was awesome to see my family there and to share it with my family from Colorado as well. I'm very proud of my sister for powering through to succeed in graduating and I hope she is able to find her path and reach more goals. My brother, grandmother, mother, and Caleb all left back for Colorado while I stayed in California. I was going to be staying for an extra day because I would be flying from California to Washington DC within the coming hours - but that's for another post.
-Umar
I spent a few weeks in Colorado hanging out with friends and lifeguarding, it was great to see everyone again and to be home. After about three weeks of being in Colorado I was going to be driving to California for my sister's high school graduation. My mom and my sister's friend, and ex-boyfriend Caleb were going to be taking this trek with me.
We left the morning of June 5th and stopped to pick up some Dutch Bros coffee on the way, I always get the cinnamon tea with soymilk and honey. The first part of the drive was pretty cool, nothing new to me - it was the rockies in Colorado, I'd grown up seeing these mountains so it wasn't too spectacular. Something about that area will always give me a sense of nostalgia though. We eventually crossed the border into Utah and things started to become a bit different from what I was used to. Giant rock formations were coming up from the flat land, heavy concentrations of iron were there and leaving it's recognizable reddish color all over the formations. One place in Utah in particular was absolutely amazing, we did stop at a lookout to get some pictures of it - Black Dragon Canyon. The rest of the time in Utah was pretty boring compared to Black Dragon Canyon, just empty desert.
Black Dragon Canyon
Night time in Vegas
California was cool.... I think. It was really late in the night when it happened and I was the only one awake for it since I was driving. I drove right by a nuclear power plant, I couldn't believe how big the facilities for it were. I also remember the radio stations pretty much not existing until Bakersfield. Once we got into Bakersfield my mom took over the driving and I got to catch some sleep, a few hours later I was woken up on a dirt road leading up to a farm. The farm we would be staying at for the next week. Most families get a hotel for these kinds of trips - not mine. My mom rented out an entire farm for the week, there was a rooster walking around to greet us when we arrived. This farm had goats, chickens, turkeys, fish, cows... pretty much anything you could think of for a farm and it was there. We were able to eat eggs that the chickens laid every morning, right after we were woken up by the roosters.
I was able to feed the goats whenever I wanted.
But I digress - the graduation was fun too. My brother and grandmother had flown in from Colorado two days after we reached the farm so we went to pick them up. I also was able to see the girl I was dating at the time, she worked at a camp in the mountains nearby, so that was also pretty nice. The day of the actual graduation I was surprised because they called the students and had them going two at a time. My graduation took much longer because it was only done by having one student walk across the stage at a time. The week went by quickly, it was awesome to see my family there and to share it with my family from Colorado as well. I'm very proud of my sister for powering through to succeed in graduating and I hope she is able to find her path and reach more goals. My brother, grandmother, mother, and Caleb all left back for Colorado while I stayed in California. I was going to be staying for an extra day because I would be flying from California to Washington DC within the coming hours - but that's for another post.
Shaver Lake in California feat. Mom
-Umar
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Update
Hey all! So I have just added year 18 to my life story here: http://usedtobesadeeiq.blogspot.com/2014/01/reader-request-my-complete-life-story.html
I know I'm overdue for writing about the next part of my journey this summer, I will try to do that very soon. I've been very busy with stuff that you can hear all about if you read my updated life story!
-Umar
I know I'm overdue for writing about the next part of my journey this summer, I will try to do that very soon. I've been very busy with stuff that you can hear all about if you read my updated life story!
-Umar
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