Part One

Where should I start? My life just seems to be moving so fast, so there’s always so many new things to talk about. I’ll start with the easy stuff. About a week ago I moved back into my house after staying at my aunt’s place for a few months while my grandma was staying at my house. I feels great to be back home. I put my music studio back up in my room and already started two new tracks. But don’t expect to see them up on my myspace music anytime soon, since I make about 30 tracks I never finish for everyone I do. In addition to producing tracks I also started singing on a regular basis, which is my greater musical passion.

I finished my textbook: “The Making of the West” today. It sure was great studying European History again. It was a whole different experience from reading “A History of Western Society” during my sophomore year of high school (that was the year the terrorist hit the Twin Towers). I loved studying this stuff the first time around, but it seems to have had much more meaning for me this second time around. This last time around I knew that the end of the road was not the AP test. So I viewed the information I was taking in and contemplating as part of a much greater project. And speaking of this greater project, now that I’m done with the textbook I am off to reading the books that are part of my independent study project. Next will be George Cotkin’s “Existential America” followed by Robert K. Merton’s “Social Theory and Social Structure,” Peter Gay’s two volume “The Enlightenment: An Interpretation,” Henry F. May’s “The Enlightenment in America,” Rob Riemen’s “Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal,” and Susan Neiman’s “Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists.” Originally I had described this project as a study of the history of Enlightenment ideals in the United States. I still want to stick to that as the core, however, due to time constraints I decided not to read the several thousands of pages of Page Smith’s histories since independence and Arthur Schlesinger’s three volume “The Age of Roosevelt.” Besides, I’d rather save those readings for later and focus more on the age of Enlightenment and the status of those ideals in contemporary society, which is what Riemen and Neiman’s books are about.

Okay, now I’m realizing that I’m not going to get to everything I planned on writing about. What I’ll instead is tell y’all about last night and then try to leave some hints to the next half. So last night I went to panel discussion advertised as “SNAPSHOTS: Changing Perspectives in the San Diego Art Scene.” It was in an art studio and it was a full house. It’s hard for me to tell how many people showed up, but I’d estimate about 50. I don’t want to go into the details of what was said, although y’all probably would like to know. What I’ll say is that I thought the event was great and that I hope they organize another like it sometime in the not too far future. I’ll also mention that there were some big players at that forum (both in the panel and in the audience) and it was very interesting to hear their opinions, especially since this is a world I know very little about.

Going to the forum re-emphasized to me what is possible to do in a community. I met some cool people that night and had the opportunity to meet many others with the power to really make things happen. This led me to reflect on what I’ve been investing my time on these past several years and I now realize that I’m now at the point where I can start putting all of that knowledge I’ve acquired into action. The books I’ve read, the issues and ideas I’ve intricately pondered, the hundreds of organizations I’ve looked into and meticulously organized in my bookmarks, the networking skills I’ve slowly and fearfully acquired… It’s about time I start putting all this to use.

To be continued…