Time Capsules

I used to - (g'damn west texas! I guess I should try harder)

I ONCE wrote broad diary entries while in high school and college. I called them "Time Capsules" and crammed in my thoughts and activities into them, for later edification. Some of them are pretty boring- this one is no exception but my mindset at the time seems pretty appropriate for today, as I job hunt sans a college degree because of my youthful distaste for the hoops of careerism.

Nothing ever seems to change for me. I wrote this 16 years ago and it might have been just yesterday. Is that pathetic or as it should be? I can't seem to make up my mind which...

TIME CAPSULE- April 23,1992

I have had, as always several unique experiences since the last time I wrote one of these journal entries. This entry in itself is unique since I am typing it using PC write, a word processing package, that is saved onto the hard drive of my Tandy 4016 DX (386). I shall begin with the sad statement that it has been almost (well, EXACTLY) sixteen days since I have been intimate with a female. O' the suffering. Anyway, I broke everything off with Angel on a sort of a lark. I just could not stand her immature posturing any longer. Plus, I kind of knew that it just wouldn't last anyhow. She took it quite well, I believe. At first she didn't believe me and then she just went off, after another boytoy. Oh well.

I haven't been partyin with Shawn lately. Erin and his new job seem to keep him occupied. He cannot do anything without telling her, and she is constantly around him. She doesn't like him to go anywhere, but when I ask him to do something on the weekend in front of her she makes a big production of how she doesn't mind and that she doesn't care, how she is not trying to stifle his life with his friends. And later I catch her bitching at him to 'go ahead and get arrested and drunk go right ahead. Just don't call me tomorrow.' And half the time we don't do anything totally uncalled for. We just sit around, play guitar, drink a couple and go visit friends and such, Hanging out at Kevin's watching him and Sunny play duets, going to Dusty's and getting a little wild on occasion, Nothing seriously outrageous. I save all the really wild ideas for special occasions. I think it comes down to a lack of trust on both their parts. Erin thinks Shawn is so hot that girls are just dying for him all over town, and Shawn thinks that I, of all people, am still messing with Erin. I wish I had never let him meet the bitch, cause that is what she is turning out to be. For godsake's we're only 19!!!! She's only 17! Neither of them know what the fuck, both are too insecure for a real relationship. They need to chill out and have fun. Shawn just wants to stay home and stay high all the time and Erin just wants to be around Shawn to keep him from going out when she's not around. They are really burning out fast on each other and that is only going to end up one way - in them breaking up. But you can't give advice to a girl who thinks she is the most mature teenager in existence and you can't help a friend who lies all the time about everything. So, forgive me, I give up for the time being. Let shit happen on itself and stop interfering.

Back to my life- Nothing happening. I haven't been to class in about 3 weeks. Mentally, I'm burnt out on Cobol and the like. I find myself further and further adrift on a sea of apathy. I no longer care about a Bachelor's degree in Computer science. At DeVry, I have found, not a delight in knowledge and learning new programming, but a doctorate in greed. Everyone is after the almighty dollar and The business computer programs are full of the same tedious language as the corporations and their money grubbing masters. I guess it makes a lot of sense that they would be now, on a look back. Excuse me if I thought the computer languages themselves would avoid the overwritten overcliched passages, not unlike some uncertain politician trying to bullshit his way over something he has no knowledge whatsoever of. It is all trite and above that it is so stiflingly boring that it is driving me completely insane! I should have looked further into the program before enrolling. Alas, I was eighteen and had nothing particularly better to do, so in trademark spontaneous Kirk fashion, I was down here like a shot.

And there is nothing that can replace the experience of being on my own and all that I have seen, felt, and learned in the 'big city'. Suzanna, Poon, Greg,Cracky, Richard, Doug, Imre, Mike Latanovich, Mike Brumley, Mark, Kevin,James, Arkansas Dave, Ed, Gary, all the friends I have met and known and learned something from. It's all been an experience that helped me grow up and helped me understand the world and myself better and I wouldn't change any of that. But, the school is not what I was expecting, the programming isn't the kind that I wanted. I wanted graphics and software creation and such – not programs that run payroll accounts and the like. It is all good, and steady, money making work. But my life is not run on how many $ I make. I never have worried about being rich. I worry about whether or not I will ever make true sense of my existence and how I could contribute any of my stories, poems, or pictures to the art the world already knows. I worry about whether or not some young child will ever read something that I wrote and gain an understanding about something that they did not fully comprehend beforehand. I worry about being happy with myself and having others see me as I want to be: a kind helpful person who would do anything to help someone and expect a little kindness in return... I worry about doing something in my life that really matters, giving to the world instead of just taking and getting every little bit out of everyone around me. I worry about love and I worry about finding it. I can only follow my heart, and no matter how much trouble it eventually gets me into, that is the only path for me.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
George Bernard Shaw

"Man seeks knowledge, like the lemming seeks the ocean,
instinct provoking self destruction."
-who else? Kirk



Me and Shawn back in the day. I wonder where the hell he is now?