A lot of people seem to feel the same as you, about achieving goals earlier then you expected, then what? At least you have lots of company (and time maybe to think of new ones? Or to just simply enjoy your old ones?)

I think that's why I'm trying to go to grad school. Figure some of that shit out, maybe do some educational good while I'm at it.

I also wanted to just mention that I love your blog. Awesome.

thank you for your words, revista. i appreciate them a lot.

i want too, to dedicate myself to further instruction. maybe sculpture, tho i love it already. maybe it will deepen my love. maybe go back to the dojang. or even the dojo for the first time. i want to live forever sometimes, because there is a world to meet. and of course, sometimes...

I once thought having enough money to goto the grocery store and buy what you wanted was my goal. And maybe it still is? To do well and do good requires a lot of work and it is stressful.. And I see that you have had some hard working jobs. And then it is strange, at least to me, when you reach those goals and maybe it was to quick or too succesful. While money was never something we were taught to desire, I unknownly make in month or less what it took my mom a year to earn either pressing clothes or standing all day at a cash register.

And I balance that with tomorrow I will attend an administrative hearing, traveling 100 miles round-trip,so I can help a person receive her disability check, because her employer doesn't want to pay her for her injury. I do this a lot now, because in these type of cases I get a contingent fee and the client doesn't have to pay any money out of pocket. But I think how much simpler it was 14 years ago when the lady, who baby sat my little sister, would pay me in home-made buritos to fill out her application for citizenship.

well yes. eating is always a goal. with all others. can't do much without that one!

i've had a lot of hardworking jobs. and of course, there are many ways to work hard. but i've had a lot yes. my mother still makes more than me. she started as a nurse...now she's director of public health.

in reality, it was not "too quick" for me. after all i spent years doing labor and without much idea of what i was doing...and i could easily say i wasted time. but i dont see it that way. i've learned a lot. for me, "too quick" only means that when i was younger i thought my entire lifespan would be needed to reach some of the fantastic goals i had. when i say "fantastic" i mean "rooted in apparent fantasy." like when i was a cashier and would be writing up stories when i was supposed to be counting inventory. or when i was a cab driver and would be drawing comics on my break. or digging a ditch at fifteen and in my mind composing a novel. i wasnt' sure i'd ever really write a book or have my art published...

art has always been my only real goal...aside from eating! and i often forget to do that, when i'm working hard. food sustains my body...art sustains my soul.

i sure dont think i mean to say i've been "too successful." if i was, i wouldn't be having my cable shut off for nonpayment etc...

i've never been paid in burritos. but i have paid my rent with paintings to the landlord.

i stumbled upon your website and am very thankful that i did. you offer incredible insight that touch, move and inspire me. you have a lot to offer brother and this world is lucky to have you...keep fighting, keep loving, keep cying, keep questioning and keep being fearless....thank you.

thank you so much, fridadee. i sure am glad you found me.

If you go into sculpture, don't forget to use copper! That way it will last and last and last, long beyond we humans. ;)

Smallish dreams and empty bellies... I so hear you. I love all the many stories of the world I've heard, and I know they are a fraction of the stories that exist in the world, and I feel so, so small.

I want a truth so deep it can transform the world, but I want the transformation to be a good one for everyone, and I don't know if there is a truth deep enough for that.

This may be a tangent, but here it is anyway.

But can I help anyone escape the trap seemingly closing around la gente now? And I mean toda la gente. At least the bottom 99% or so.

I think the idea that toda la gente are under siege is profound, and the reason I think that is because when I look at the face of the oppressor, I see me. I see you. I see all of us. We oppress each other. We do it because we've always done it and because it is human nature. I'm sure there's a more complex, rational way to express that statement, but that is the 10-cent answer. We are all oppressors and we are all oppressed. Certainly Britney Spears is wealthy, but she also has a life I would never want, and everyone knows she is unhappy. Some people make a lot of money from her public unhappiness.

I think the urge to oppress is a part of our nature that we can work to minimize through compromise, understanding, empathy, and law. (I have to say "law" because I'm a lawyer.) But the first thing to remember is that there is no "us and them," there is only "us."

that is very true. that is exactly why i quoted the mother in Fearless. and that is why i said i still think escaping my own traps is some of the best work i can do.

and yet...it is also important to remember, sometimes there is a "them," to go totally non-philosophical for a moment. pragmatic. i did not erect hutto, tho i may be attached to the system that benefits. the latter idea is important to remember, as you point out, so that i do not become complacent and shirk off responsibility. and yet the former idea is important, so i know whom to engage at those times i want to fight very real injustices that are harming people.

wow, deoridhe. you sure put it beautifully.

Point taken, Nez. There is too much injustice in our world to mentally process, much less begin to address, but we have to try. And fighting what we believe is wrong will necessarily entail confronting others. I'm not saying we need to shirk the fight. And part of my point was as you pointed out: as U.S. citizens or even citizens of many government, by paying taxes, voting, and otherwise participating in daily life, we are in a sense complicit in the decisions taken on our behalf by the government, and we benefit in a very real way from some of the things our government does, even those that we may not agree with.

But I was alluding to something more than that. I've been working as an immigration attorney for a year and a half now, and my job involves persuasion and advocacy, but also sometimes confrontation. Sometimes I find myself in situations that are not very pleasant and that I would honestly rather avoid. I have never really thought of myself as a confrontational person. But this can be part of the job. Also, I really jumped into some online fights for awhile on LatinaLista with some of the trolls there. That is not a way to keep your blood pressure down.

Lately I've been thinking about how I've reacted to so much ignorance and injustice and what the results of my efforts have been. And I'm starting to reassess some things. It started a couple years ago when I found myself in danger of losing a long-held friendship over political differences and had to pull back to salvage the relationship. I grew up mainly in Utah, and consequently, many people in my family and some of my close friends are quite conservative. As I've gotten older and lived elsewhere for several years (and left the LDS church), my views have quite drastically diverged from those of some of my family and friends. Here's the thing, though: I don't agree with them, but I still see where they're coming from. And I think that there are certain universalities of group dynamics that transcend particular groups: perceptions of danger from people outside the group, distrust of outsiders, attribution of undesirable characteristics to outside groups, love and commitment for people inside the group. This is nothing revolutionary, and any competent sociologist could probably clarify and expound on what I've touched on here.

So my point is, when I am fighting with a District Adjudications Officer about a green card case and I feel the person is being utterly unreasonable and even hateful, it helps me and it helps my client to take a mental step back and realize that the officer sees herself as a defender of her community, as someone who works hard for not much pay and is trying to "do the right thing." I have to acknowledge to myself that there are legitimate fraud concerns that, over time, have caused many officers to turn into unreasonable people at their daily 9 to 5. But they don't think they are being unreasonable.

That's not to say they are being objectively reasonable--they certainly are not. And the system is utterly fucked--I see it every day and it rips me up inside. But hardening the battle lines between "me and them" is not going to ultimately be good for my immediate goals or my sanity. Really, I think that blurring those lines between groups in some important way is what has to happen in order to try to unfuck the fucked up world we live in. And it has happened before: look at the United States--I think it is very unlikely that we will again see citizens of Kentucky organizing themselves to kill and be killed by citizens of Massachusetts. Nor will we see French killing Germans (and vice-versa), while just 50 years ago, no one imagined that it could ever be otherwise.

This is a longwinded way of trying to explain my shorter comment above. I'm not saying we should shirk the fight. I am saying that our long-term goal should be to make the fight unnecessary. Maybe I'm tilting at windmills, but I don't know of any other way for us to survive.

longwinded and eloquent. thank you for that. you might like my "Let's Have Nexus" series.

"Yet...the more comfortable I get...the more confusing things can feel."

Made me think of this story I read today. It's pretty interesting.

First couple paragraphs:

Owning too much stuff drives us into a spiral of sadness, says a new book. Or is the real problem "misery-creep", where everyday unhappiness is being rebranded as depression?
We all know the old saying: "Riches won't make you happy." But is it possible that riches - or even aspiring to be rich and wanting to live a Footballers' Wife-style life of luxury - might make us mentally ill?
Clinical psychologist Oliver James claims in his new book The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza, that "selfish capitalism" (the kind of capitalism we have in Britain) is making us sick. Literally.

in my case its not really the owning of stuff per se...my goods iz not superfluous..mostly tools for music, film or art...i love it and take good care of it, and each piece has been acquired carefully and usually with sweat.

its more like the fact that i become more aware of things like workers suffering in third world countries to put my circuit board together. along those lines. as i said, the harm i help doing to others with my comfort.

eh. somewhere along the line it seems i got a monastic type of aesthetic imprinted on me. altho as my buddhist friend says...monks are hardly monastic in actuality, jeje. go figure. maybe i think that guilt is the coin one pays for luxury to make it all right.

yabe..If you ever had to read The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, we are living through another one of those times. Just remember to have a two calendar system one Aztec and another Mayan. And the Immigration Examiners..well so them are just pain in the ass.

I hear ya Nez. I think you are articulating a struggle so many of us have. At least I feel it too.

A couple of days ago I read a diary where the author talked about Anne Frank. She was just a young girl holed up in an attic while the world was crumbling around her with hate and violence. And she chose to write. Never knowing (at least not in this world) that words like this would travel the world:

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come out right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be. How much you can love. What you can accomplish. And what your potential is.