
Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Thursday, May 14, 2009
A Drop in the Bucket of My Appreciation

I still call you 'Mr. DeVore' out of the respect I have for you as a teacher. I'm not going to refer to you as "De-vo" or "Devore" because I've grown to appreciate teachers who actually teach students something. And feel that if no other sect of people in the world deserves a pre-fix, good teachers do.
I hope you don't read this email as you would a student's paper, but rather as you would a birthday card from a four year old. I don't want you to critique my grammar or spelling (I will be using spell check), nor do I want you to analyze the motive. I just want you to read the text and take them for the words that they represent.
I've wanted to write you for almost a year now--after my freshman English class ended. For my whole first year in college I went through what I thought the normal freshman experience. And I hated every minute of it. I wasted so much time doing what I thought everyone wanted me to do and so little of what I cared about. TO THIS DAY I am confused about who I really want to become, or if I want to become anything more than I already am... But that is off the wall stuff.
I remember one of the last days of school, in your class my senior year. It was when all our assignments were graded and there wasn't anything else for you to do; you had dished out everything that you had planned and we (students) were still seated in the same places where we had began (your class). I think about this day on a weekly basis now--when I'm confused about what I want to do, where I see myself, how I want to live, what I value--you gave a little motivational speech. I don't know if you were angry with how irresponsible we all were, or if is something that you do at the end of every year. All I know is that in that minute and thirty seconds something more valuable than any combination of words ever assigned to me.
You talked about passion, how it is really the only thing that drives people (or something of the sort).
You said, "No matter what happens in life, chase your passion and you will make the world a better place... Running to your passion will make you and everyone around you a better person."
I've searched my whole college life for my passion because for so many years (all the way through high school) I was told what my passion should be. Sometimes I feel like your routine "end of the year" speech is all that I have to remind me that there is something in this world that can make me happy, and that I can use to make the world happier.
I guess this letter is just a dragged out 'thank you card' but that is what I want to say to you Travis DeVore.
I thank you for inspiring me to search for me, and I hope that you understand the affect it has had on my life.
Please share with everyone around you the 'passion' that you shared with me.
You alone change the world for me.
Mtn. Home High School could (have) really suck(ed).
-Zachary.
p.s. I'm pretty sure that it is close to that time again.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Then What is This?

I read a book today. A book that simply told me everything that I already know, something that we (everyone) already knows. I have had this idea in my head for so long that it is somewhat comical that I read a book about it today. This idea, or way of life, ideology if you will is the message that I want people to get from the person that I am. And this is where 'my' idea makes me into a hypocrite. This book is called This is Water by David Foster Wallace. The book is very small but so applicable to everyone that it's significance is simply ignored--the idea of the book is like a contact, a clear contact. In a world where everyone needs contacts but not everyone chooses to wear them. After a while, we users of contacts forget the very thing that allows us to be able to see past the reach of our own noses. The only time we acknowledge the fact that we need these things (contacts) in order to see is when we go through the extraordinarily monotonous task of putting them in when we wake up and taking them out before we sleep. The contacts don't really matter. I'm just trying to explain what I am thinking about this thought... What I'm trying to say is: The contacts represent this thought--from the book. The eyeballs that the contacts sit on are like an odd representation of us--people. Anyway, half way through this book I realized that this single idea is something that can link all of us together because it is so basic--the only thing that separates us from realization is the liquidie crap that lubricates the whole ordeal. The idea puts all of us on the same page, regardless of whatever each of us believes in. This idea is what everyone goes through but doesn't have to. It is easy for me to say what I feel and consider what I want
Where I find trouble, and I'm beginning to discover that I'm not the only one, is in considering other people. Not golden rule like, or b attitudes here. Just considering other peoples reasoning and perspective. I'm not wrong for feeling selfish, because that is what most of us really are. We each worship our own thing and if others don't, we (I) dismiss what ever it may be. I've come to the conclusion that life is all perspective. For starters, my opinion is just that. I can't tell anyone what is right and wrong for them. I do feel that there should be a WORLD WIDE understanding, but that is just my feeling again. My aspirations for this world and the world of my own are just that. If I can learn to wade through the deluded joys of the world to true understanding I feel that I will be happy and make the world the best that I could have. In an essay I can't recall the title to--nor do I feel like looking it up--a man said, "it is through good intention that hell is proverbially paved." Why i bring that up here is because seeing the idea of life through a section of deluded liquidie crap paints a picture that is far from realistic. And face it, if we don't meet our own standard of life then it doesn't matter what we think of after-life and reincarnation. Our very own personal hells will be made available to us very quickly right here on earth. "Hell on earth." Who ever said that knew a little something about what a bad perspective can do. So this book, it is good. I feel like Siddhartha when he found out the meaning of life... I just read a book though, and these are really just a days worth of thoughts. I've been thinking about it for most of the day. Especially when I was waiting to fast forward through the commercials while I was watching the draft. And by the way, I don't see the talent in most of these dudes. I feel like I'm a much better 6th round snag. I kind of want everyone to understand this truth so I'm going to either rewrite this a few times, or just keep writing in the same spirits--which is somewhat what I think I've been doing--I just have some professional inspiration now. David Foster Wallace Died in 2008 too, not like I knew the guy or anything, and it is kind of disrespectful for me to talk about him when I read about his death on his book cover, but I guess that is why they put it there--so people would read it and feel bad. Anyway, I feel like he knew something about me. I feel like he and I have a similar understanding of the world. Granted, mine is far more unrefined and raw than his, but I hope that I can one day refine my eyes in the same magnitude that he did.
-Zachary Alexander Hale
Monday, March 30, 2009
Little Fuddcicle

Shout out to Obama: You are in my prayers and I know that you will eventually be seen for the great man that you are--people have a knack for late recognition. I have complete faith that God will guide you through Mr. Obama.
So, I'm dealing with some self inflicted turmoil and I'm not sure how to flip my path over the "x-axis". I've been so wrapped up in my head for the past few weeks that I have nearly suffocated myself trying to think... I mean, I've been thinking so much about nothing so very often, and I've had a hard time focusing on my school and things that actually hold significance in my life--or things that should be significant to me. I think I might be feeling so alone that I'm even starting to sound stupid to myself (...). I have no release valve in my life right now; no toilet handle, and I have massive amounts of guacamole-colored pooh to deal with. For so long I've been stacking the garbage of my mind at the back door, unwilling to go outside and find a NEW means by which I can rid myself of the unbeneficial toxins of myself. 'I' defiantly ranks high on the word count list today, but that is the only reference I have. My life is nothing more than an example, as everyone is. Every day, I make mistakes, and this is totally off base with what I've been talking about, but I have just been 'talking' this whole time. I don't really know what it all means, or where I was going with it, but that is my joy. I like to just write with no guidelines, and no perimeter. I can go where ever I want to go on paper/screen regardless of what anyone says later, I'm free at the moment. I can truly say that I am happy right now:) which is a feeling that I've missed so, so much. Pseudo-happiness finds its way into my life on the daily, I know right from wrong. I easily slip from the path of true happiness for something that is so irrelevant, so false, and something that isn't me at all. I fall into traps like Elmore Fud, and never learn from my mistakes--I'm starting to learn though--thank God. There is so much that I assume when I don't know the true depth. I know that I've been all over the place, breaking off into language and situations: 1)I don't feel extremely confident in my writing right now, 2)I'm tired and want to feel sorry for myself, 3)right now I have hundreds of things in my head that need to be cut out (temptation being one of them).
I hope that God will bless whoever reads any of this, not through/for me, but just for them. I want so much to be a major part of the Lord's plan.
God please help me.
-Alexander Hale.

