Adam G. Van Kirk.com

I just woke from a dream in which there was this grand hall. I recall flying through it as though riding in a tiny helicopter or as though I were floating about. This hall was attached to an old, Victorian style house full of mysterious rooms which were in turn full of mysterious things. Attached to the back of the house was the Grand Hall. It was definitely “older” than the house to which it was attached. There was an open roof at the very top of the hall the size of what I will call the dance floor, and the whole hall was covered inside and out with ivy and moss after decades of apparent neglect. It was two stories and there were old stone pillars holding up the second floor and the partial roof. Statuary littered the hall, and in fact the statue in the very center of the hall may look familiar to some of you:

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Want an honest and long lasting relationship? Make sure you and your partner can recite these five statements.

• I can live without you, no problem
• My love for you will definitely change
• You’re not everything I need
• I won’t always hold you close
• You and I aren’t one

There really isn’t much more I can add to this, so go check it out!

Threats of the war are
Knocking at our door
It’s the coming horror picture
of heroes on the floor
The taller monster of hate
To smother our hope or love here
But I have faith because
I know that you believe

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On my way home from work tonight, I watched as countless snow drifts floated by and snow devils swept around. I got to thinking about how quiet it is around here. This of course is ironic considering I live in a noisy apartment building on the bustling campus of Purdue. When I say quiet, I mean the kind of quiet that comes with feeling a yearning for community. Again, I find it ironic that I live in an ever changing city of 30 or 40 thousand students (during school sessions, of course) and yet it feels like nobody really knows anyone else. I think of all the people going to class, walking by each-other and not saying hello. Heck, I live in a building with 12 apartments and I couldn’t tell you the first name of anyone but the student manager.

It seems to be a societal thing, this voluntary solitude. With the proliferation of the internet and nearly instantaneous communication with nearly any corner of the globe (I can IM my buddy in Iraq as though he’s across the street from my cell-phone) it’s as though people have forgotten the need to nurture their local communities. I can’t say I’m not guilty, of course, but I wonder where it will all end? Will we get to a point where everyone’s minds are linked in some massive neural network and nobody needs to actually talk anymore? It seems like the only people we really communicate with are those we encounter on a daily basis anyway (coworkers, fellow students, church and club members, etc.) and the art of striking up a conversation with a total stranger is lost.

I feel like I should be going out to the coffee shop and making some new friends, but I’d probably just weird people out because I’m a stranger trying to strike up a conversation with them. That and the internet’s more entertaining; and have you seen the price of coffee these days?

I was going to bitch about all the diamond and jewelry commercials that happen this year until I stumbled upon this little gem. I don’t agree with everything said here, but I do think the outcome is worth reading the whole article. You’ll have to look past the seemingly overwhelming nefative tone of the article to catch the good stuff. Essentially it says that we aren’t happy because technology is enabling us, perhaps even forcing us, to be unhappy. I’m going to be re-reading this one for awhile to catch what I missed by skimming over it the first time.

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable