KenKnight 0 #26 June 2, 2003 Whatever women you're seeing will be happy to tell you what you want. I'm almost 40 and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up._______________ D28695 PoPs #9237 "Mix ignorance with arrogance at low altitude and the results are almost guaranteed to be spectacular" — Bruce Landsberg Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skybytch 259 #27 June 2, 2003 QuotePretty freaking deep for a vagabond, irresponsible skybum (and with an appropriate intellectual quote to boot!). See, that's what this summer is really all about for me... an attempt at answering those deep philosophical questions for myself through travel, solitude, study and reflection. And you thought I just wanted to jump and party my ass off for three months. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
moodyskydiver 0 #28 June 2, 2003 QuoteLose something or someone that's important too you......it's amazing how clear you can think when that happens VERY true. Then you have to decide if it/they are worth fighting for or giving up on. Sadly, too many people choose the latter. "...just an earthbound misfit, I." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lurch 0 #29 June 2, 2003 I like the somewhat zen answer to that question. Desire causes unhappiness. Using that, I try to want nothing instead. YUCK. If you want nothing, refuse all desire, go for the zen ideal and succeed, you'll wind up a contented nobody, doing nothing, achieving nothing, going nowhere, with nothing. I could accomplish all that in a box 6 feet under ground. Desire is the emotional voltage differential that can be used as the power source to create change and growth. The stronger your desire the more power you have. Let desire guide you, and when it takes off, grab ahold and hang on for the ride and see where it takes you....if the desire was a real one and a good one, the place it takes you will probably be better than where you are now. There's a reason zen philosophy never really took off...none of them wanted to do anything or go anywhere with it. Strikes me as a good mental state to avoid, personally. I want more life. I mean to have it.Live and learn... or die, and teach by example. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Clownburner 0 #30 June 2, 2003 ..And probably close to 800 more jumps, since that sounds like the way some people live on a DZ. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Clownburner 0 #31 June 2, 2003 QuoteSee, that's what this summer is really all about for me... an attempt at answering those deep philosophical questions for myself through travel, solitude, study and reflection. And you thought I just wanted to jump and party my ass off for three months. Wow, using that logic I can almost justify taking a little philosophical sabbatical myself! Thanks, SB! Now I just have to convince my partners to let me leave... Normally I take a week off and they're waiting for me with shackles, torches and pitchforks. 7CP#1 | BTR#2 | Payaso en fuego Rodriguez "I want hot chicks in my boobies!"- McBeth Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skymama 35 #32 June 2, 2003 QuoteAnd you thought I just wanted to jump and party my ass off for three months. Good lord, I'm not going to have to actually think while I'm drinking beer with you, am I?She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man, because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sarge 0 #33 June 2, 2003 I gotta side w/Quade on one part, that is: Goal attainment. Setting and (hopefully) accomplishing infinite goals in whatever time we have allotted as the journey moves us though the seasons of life. Happiness is optional however... All that you want, I want, anybody wants is rather simple. Listening for the answer and paying attention to what your heart is telling you is the tough part... LISTEN UP!! You already 'know' what you "want" you just haven't reconciled with 'how' to get it!-- I'm done with the personally meaningful and philosophical sigs!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 1,625 #34 June 2, 2003 Quote how would you go about in finding what you really want in life? Easy. Lot of people chase lies, things other people told them they want. Reminds me of end of high school, everyone else taking SAT, experiencing angst about getting accepted to a college like beggars hoping for alms. Pick me! pick me! I'd already given up by then, ditched the program, started writing my own. Everyone else at that school struck me as sort of domesticated...following programs written for them by someone else...parents, guidance counsellors etc. Being good little seniors. I dropped out end of junior year, left the school, took plane ticket home started working, living, bottom of economic ladder, poverty. Stupidity. Was a very unhappy man. Learned a lot about hard work, pride, tech stuff. Biggest lesson from then: I learn what I want by watching what I do. I wanted interesting, I got it. Became an adventurer of sorts, widened the scope, then took a tandem. I'd always wanted to try that someday. Looked like the way out of a dreary endlessly repetitive existence, at least for a moment.... It was a taste of things beyond and things to come...if I wanted them bad enough to focus everything toward getting them. Took me another 6 or so years to make it real. It's been about a year now since AFF. I've been a happy man ever since. It taught me how to really USE things like absolute iron determination, strength of will. How bad do you -really- want it? Bad enough to face and hurl yourself headfirst into the fear every AFF student knows? Happiness in life is having just had a huge buffet of adventure learning and living, and when thats done, having an even bigger plate full of life awaiting you, and discovering the first one just whetted your appetite for more. I'm at 118 jumps and just put in for a C license. The trip isn't over, it's just begun. The mindblowing adventures of the past year have been only a prelude, the introduction. My bigger plate still to come includes night jumps, a D license, a riggers ticket, lots of freeflying, (finally getting a good sit/stand!!! I can't WAIT till I'm ready to go head-down, so much more to come...) And becoming a tandem master so I can travel around dz to dz and be paid to do what I love beyond all else....fly. Life these days is dangerous, bright and incredibly fast. The big one on the list is Birdman. I've dreamed it ten thousand times, I know EXACTLY what it will feel like except my imagination is much lower resolution than the experience WILL be. I think I'll be so happy my head will explode, you just can't contain that kind of happy. You all should have seen me a week or two ago getting my first rock solid sit with invaluable help from a friend. After landing I was bouncing off the walls, howling raving ecstatic doing the victory dance while looking up at where that just happened. Once upon a time I thought skydiving would make me happy. You know, I was right. Which means I'm even righter about the birdsuit, righter about spending my life doing this, righter about human flight. I know what I want, I HAVE it. And more of it is coming, and I already know its worth it, worth any price. Used to be scared I'd miss the boat, you know? become like so many friends, settle down into mindless endless deadend job and weekends spent at a bar somewhere, eternal mediocrity, wake up one day and realize I just wasted 30 years never got my shit together and now its far too late..... But I didn't miss the boat, and the pleasures to be found on the ride on that boat are worth dying for. If its worth dying for, its worth LIVING for, and I do. My plate is full. I'm still ravenous. Bring on the next course please, ah, there it is....DOOR! Maybe if you hadn't dropped out you would know how to break your writing into paragraphs. Then it would be far easier for the rest of us to read.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
robskydiv 0 #35 June 3, 2003 Take a guess, set some goals. Work like crazy to achieve them. If you find out later that it wasn't for you, you've learned alot about yourself in the process. On the other hand, having a child makes alot of those fulfillment questions go away. It did for me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Schroeder 0 #36 June 3, 2003 Lurch, I think you either are mis-informed of the strategy behind zen philosophy, or you're not quite getting it. The lack of desire is not what makes one empty, but what allows one to become whole. The change and growth that you mention are attainable through the zen method. In it, everything changes, everything grows and nothing is permanent. In accepting and embracing this, you're truly able to experience the raw nature of life. QuoteI want more life. I mean to have it. You're as alive right now as you're ever going to be. Don't confuse the life you have with the sensations it affords you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
marcandalysse 0 #37 June 3, 2003 zen philosophy...well, we westerners have turned it into something it probably isn't....zen is just one way to focus on life. It is NOT ignoring or avoiding life. For me, dropping 120mph and playing in space with a few friends, getting as much as you can out of 60 seconds, senses wide awake, is as zen as it gets... Marc "The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly." --GK Chesterton Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zenister 0 #38 June 3, 2003 there is some confusion here about zen, zen budduism and tao. they are related but not the same.. of the 3 i find tao the most helpful for questions such as this.. simply pick a path and 'slide' with no intention but to experience every moment, one can never tell when it will be the last..____________________________________ Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stacy 0 #39 June 3, 2003 QuoteSee, that's what this summer is really all about for me... an attempt at answering those deep philosophical questions for myself through travel, solitude, study and reflection. yeah, one skydive with me will give you plenty to think about. the only reflecting that you are going to do on our night out on the town is looking at your reflection inside a beer mug! WAHOOOOO!!!!! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jtval 0 #40 June 3, 2003 Quotehow would you go about in finding what you really want in life? what the hell are you talking about? I can sum this up with one word. I mean its simple its obvious! EVERYTHING! try it all. cutaway that which sucks!My photos My Videos Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Schroeder 0 #41 June 3, 2003 I also agree, I'm more partial to daoism myself. In fact it was the first subject I ever studied that, to me, explained everything so articulately. the dao de ching (Tao te ching). That's some gooood stuff. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nathaniel 0 #42 June 3, 2003 wherever you go in life, always remember one thing.My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #43 June 3, 2003 QuoteI like the somewhat zen answer to that question. Desire causes unhappiness. Using that, I try to want nothing instead. YUCK. If you want nothing, refuse all desire, go for the zen ideal and succeed, you'll wind up a contented nobody, doing nothing, achieving nothing, going nowhere, with nothin You just describe my ex to a 't'! Actually, I believe that we are programmed very early in life to want to achieve. We are born....we learn to crawl....Success!! We crawl....we learn to walk....Success!! (Mom and Dad applaud)! We enter 1st grade, we pass...Success....we advance to 2nd grade....etc....(you understand the concept). We are all so happy with pursuit and achievement that when we reach the top of the ladder in our profession, we get unhappy now. We -thought- that this achievement would bring us happiness...and it does for a short season. And then we start looking for something else. We aren't happy anymore. Growth + Achievement = Happiness. We're just wire that way from the start. ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tonto 1 #44 June 3, 2003 I don't know. I have all I need. tIt's the year of the Pig. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wingnut 0 #45 June 3, 2003 QuoteI like the somewhat zen answer to that question. Desire causes unhappiness. Using that, I try to want nothing instead. i like that but it doesn't work for me... and as i thing it's in a cheryl crow song... "it's not having what you want but wanting what you have"... i like that thinking... ______________________________________ "i have no reader's digest version" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
linuxguy 0 #46 June 3, 2003 Okay since you wanna get philosophical ... When you go looking for what you want in life, you loose what you already had and therefore you loose yourself because you are what you have ( ideal's knowledge and believe). If you do wnat to get something new or change, the change has to come from within ! Or something like thatI say just Skydive and let life sort itself out Having said that ... ( I don't mean just chill and let life pass u by, but don't stress to much or try and change what can not / will not be changed) P.L.U.R (Peace Love Unity Respect) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumpy 0 #47 June 3, 2003 Aim to be happy! Cos when you really think about it there's no point in doing something that doesn't make you happy (unless it helps you to get something that will make you happy) As far as I can tell its the point to life And on that note I'm off to do my Physics homework so that someday i can be a pilot and be happy lol Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JeffGordon 0 #48 June 3, 2003 QuoteGood lord, I'm not going to have to actually think while I'm drinking beer with you, am I? You really need to be careful with that. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
