April 1999

April 4, 1999
Wow, don't know where to start.
This is going to be one of those unpleasant entries, so I'm apologizing in advance.
I had some good coffee and a good smoke the other night with an old friend. We talked for hours, until I thought the restaurant we were at would run us out. We talked about our faith, our educations ( He is a college student as well ), just anything that came up.
We finally began discussing a sort of mutual friend. The conversation soon centered on the troubles this friend of ours seemed to be having. Typically I think of this person as someone that I merely know, an aquaintance, and not really a friend exactly. But as my coffee-drinking partner related the things our friend had been going through, things our friend had told him, I began to realize that our friend was in a great deal of pain. It's pain that I can't help but feel partially responsible for. It's pain that I feel I induced, in a way. It's pain that I think I can directly relate to. The difference is this: I have a way out, and I don't believe our friend does.
I would like nothing more then to be able to sit and speak to our friend, to try to gently push them in the right direction, so that they may feel and experience the healing that I have. But it isn't possible, and so for right now, I can really only watch.
April 9, 1999
Only about 3 weeks left until finals, then it's home for the summer to work. I'm not sure which I'd like to do the least amount..homework or farmwork. Oh well. : )
I'm mostly writing just to keep this semi-current (I've been doing a pure job of this lately ).
Let's see.. I took up smoking a pipe about a week ago. Still haven't decided whether I really like it or not. It was worth buying a ten dollar pipe to find out, I guess.
This is the weekend, btw. For which I have no plans. I've been cordially invited ( actually, someone demanded that I go ) to a sorority party out at some ranch. That's the problem, it's at some ranch, and it's a western theme, so I doubt I'm gonna go. I'm a decidedly un-country sort of person.
I've been studying Romans lately, and I feel like I've learned a lot. I am thinking about writing my own commentary on it and posting it here. This would take much, much time though, so I don't know if I will. Especially considering that no one ever reads this page anyway. : )
April 16, 1999
Friday night.
Friday nights are little different then any other night. I wonder sometimes how people find the time that they do to go out and drink and have sex. I have too much work to get done. To say that I work constantly would be a complete lie. In fact, I just came in from enjoying a smoke of the pipe. Which is what I intend to write about.
A pipe. It's a nice thing in a way. You pack tobacco into the bowl, then strike a match. You hold the match ( flame end, obviously ) over the bowl, and inhale until the flame is coaxed by your breath down into the bowl, where it lights the tobacco. Then you smoke it. Breath in small breaths of the stuff. It's warm and cool at the same time, and quite relaxing.
Which is why I was quite concerned when earlier I realized that my pipe and mouth and lungs ( diaphragm also ) are in fact a chemical process system. The bowl is a combustion reactor, the filter a seperator, the diaphragm and lungs serve as a sort of dynamic pump and seperator. It's very scientific if you think about it. Pipe tobacco is burned in air. A portion of the products ( and a little of the reactants ) remain in the bowl, and a portion leave out the top. Most of exit stream runs through the pipe stem to the filter, where the bad stuff collects ( and a little of the water vapor ). The remainder enters your mouth and lungs.
Enough is really enough.
April 17, 1999
Impressive, aye? I've written two days in a row.

"Robin Hood and Little John walking through the forest,
laughin' back and forth at what the other one has to say.
Reminiscin' this and that and havin' such a good time,
Oo-de-lolly, Oo-de-lolly, golly what a day.

Never ever thinkin' there was danger in the water,
they were drinkin' they just guzzled it down.
Never dreamin' that a schemin' sheriff and his possy
was a watchin' them and gatherin' around..
Robin Hood and Little John running through the forest
Jumpin' fences, dodgin' trees and tryin' to get away,
comtemplatin' nothing but esccaping, finally making it,
Oo-de-lolly, Oo-de-lolly, golly what a day.

Robin Hood and Little John are law breakers. Robbing the rich to give to the poor. That was their single objective. Or so they would say. In truth, they likely enjoy running from the authorities, and if some philantropic ideal lends itself to this end, then so much the better. The point is, they seem to be living for the moment. I wonder if they think about what will eventually happen. Of course, the story goes that King Richard returns from the Crusades and apprehends the baddies. But suppose he hadn't. Then Robin Hood and his band would have to go on stealing. How long do you suppose that could work? He would eventually get caught, and if not get caught, then get injured or killed, or perhaps even carry on so long that he became aged and no longer physically capable of working out these fantastic escapades.
Plan ahead, Robin Hood. That's what I want to say. And I think I would be wrongfully saying it. I think that this is one of those times when ignorance truly is bliss. Considering the future is rarely easy, and even more rarely fun.
And this is why I stop to revel in the Bible. For though I have plans for my future ( I am in college ) it is really all up to Him. I am specially aleviated from worrying.
April 23, 1999
Been thinking of a Five Iron Frenzy song. Get your riot gear. The chorus goes something like, "You want riots? Get your riot gear.. You want violence? Shoot some tear gas in the air."
A good portion of this life is about equipment. Without the right equipment, you plane out and go in circles, or you spiral downard. Speaking from personal experience, spiraling downward is a lot more exciting, but it's a lot more heart-wrenching as well. Planing out is another story.
When you plane out and go in cirlces, you don't get anywhere ( obviously ) so you feel kinda stuck. But at the same time, because you aren't going down, you feel like you're doing okay. This feeling is deceitful ( just like..well..pretty much all feeling in one way or another ) so you just hang with it until you actually DO begin to spiral downward. The wise person recognises the circle of apathy when it begins and shuts it down before the first revolution is made. Unfortunatly, many of the circles are so small that they've begun and ended in an instant..you wind around them ten or even a hundred times in a day w/o even thinking about it.
The equipment though..It's the equipment that pops you out of downward or planar spirals. And not just any old equipment you have lying around..it takes special equipment. it's the old rusty equipment that got you there to start with.
The strange thing about the really useful equipment, the equipment that can permanantly keep you from apathy and destruction ( as opposed to the equipment that temporarily does the job ) is that it is free and very easy to use. We just don't seem to be smart enough to ever try it out. Even those of us who've seen it work dozens of times will sometimes only go to it as a complete last resort. Call me Christian.
(second part of April 23) I will regard myself with sobriety and reason.
Critique: If I were to die today, I would like everyone that I have ever known to be given a black permanant marker. Then they should be told to write on my grave stone a few words about what they think I stood for. I would like to know what would be written if everyone was completely honest.

Adam the Selfish
Adam the Liar
Adam the hypocrite
Adam the Arrogant
Adam the Condescending
Adam the Unstable
Adam the Inconsistent

I suppose it wouldn't be all bad. A few of my friends who know me and can see both the good and the bad ( and so I trust them more to make value judgements ) might say things like:

Adam the Occasionally Wise
Adam the Once Every Now and Then Charitable

I think though that all in all, the person who wrote this would be the most correct:

Adam the Mediocre
Here lies Adam Stephens the Mediocre. One who played at knowing right but that ignored it's heedings. One who sought strife for amusement, one who stamped out love offered to him, and never loved any in return. Though he tried, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Like I said earlier, it's all about equipment. Using the right equipment in the right way significantly lowers the number of negatives on one's grave marker.
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Contact me: adam.stephens@ttu.edu