Brad answered the door so he got to go first. The guy was asking him the basic questions, and then he asked Brad what race he was. Brad kind of gave him an incredulous look and said “white”, which is quite obvious if you look at him, but I know he has to ask this question every single time because he doesn’t actually know Brad and he could have answered in any number of ways.

So he gets to me and asks me my race and I answer “human”. He kind of chuckled and said he had to write it down because that’s what I answered. I didn’t make any effort to correct my answer.

I almost felt guilty for giving this guy an answer he clearly wasn’t looking for, but I think in the grand scheme of things I’d rather be marked down as “human” than “white”.

I can’t say I did absolutely nothing. I played some Freelancer. I played some Starlancer on my dreamcast. I watched a half hour of Southland Tales before I had to turn it off. I kind of cleaned up my office in an attempt to find a phantom smell. I kind of organized my closet when I was looking for the video cable to my dreamcast. The sum of all this, though, is basically zero.

I’ve got two more four day weekends coming up. Hopefully they’ll be better spent. This one was basically a waste.

Buddhism is almost as fractured and diverse as Christianity. I don’t believe in mysticism so that eliminated a lot of Buddhist schools. From what I could tell this left Zen. I’ve read a lot about Zen. Zen fits a lot. In fact I’m a pretty Zen person, I can take a lot of emotional and mental punishment before I start to crack. There’s not a lot of people who can handle bad news or anger like I can.

My problem with Zen is practice. I can’t sit my way to enlightenment. Sitting is supposed to be a period of inflection and inward looking and where you can relax and sort out the mind’s problems. My problem is that I can’t sit and do nothing. It feels like I’m wasting time, like I could be inflecting and sorting out my problems while I work. I don’t feel like sitting and expanding my mind is getting me any closer to peace of mind.

That’s all I want, really. I don’t need the mysteries of the universe explained to me. I don’t need some supreme deity pointing out what’s right and wrong, I can figure that out myself. I don’t need to be threatened with damnation to be a good person. I don’t need karma balancing out the good and the bad, it’ll never equal out.

I believe in actions. My own actions. The world is full of people trying to point the finger and blame someone else. I’m trying to reduce my own amount of blame. And I’ll work my way to enlightenment. Or maybe I’ll play video games to enlightenment. And I’ll suffer my way to enlightenment. I firmly believe there’s a price to be paid for every thing you do and I won’t skimp on the bill by pointing the finger and I won’t try to drown my problems in alcohol or drugs. I’ll suffer through every agonizing second of this existence and if it gets me nowhere, oh well. I’ll still be dead and nothing’s changing that. Everyone dies.