Let’s be perfectly clear. This chapter won’t all be sunshine and roses. There will be adversity, heartache, introspection, late nights and early mornings, tears shed, new friends, grand sky scrapes and placid oceans.

This page begins the chapter in my career where I take action for what’s right for me. I push my boundaries and dive deeper into a handful of things, mastering my craft again, like I did for so many years with ActionScript. Now I have new brushes: node.js, MongoDB, jQuery, and a network of peers that believe in my skills and vision for creating something worthwhile ahead. [Thank you!]

This chapter will also see a stronger commitment to those I love. Gone are the back to back to back 100 hour weeks where my fingers caressed a keyboard infinitely more than the nape of my bride’s neck. Balance will be sought and hopefully found. Fresh vibrant air will be consumed more than recirculated beige office air. Cards will be played and food will gain its rightful place at my life’s table again … this time involving the preparation again, not just the consumption.

This chapter will be introspective. I’m looking forward to discovering things about myself that I have glossed over in the past few years of just running. Intentionally pausing and spending time in deep reflection will ensure my core stays lit up such that I can continue spreading light.

I can’t promise this will be a page turner, but I can say that I’m diving deeper and fostering a more unified world of truth and respect thanks to the way the last chapter was penned.

Someone has been tagging grates lately with small bits of advice, uplifting statements, etc. This one was out in front of the Seattle Art Museum. I’ll keep documenting them as they show up in the coming weeks. In the mean time continue seeking wisdom folks.

I’ve often wondered where the body ends and the soul begins. How is it contained within our flesh? Where do our thoughts come from? How do we have personality, show emotion, love, feel the presence of others, believe in a higher power, have context of the past/present/future, and dream? Are we shackled by this skin? If we were free of it would we find boundless knowledge? Do we need it in order to keep us grounded and sane? Do our senses actually provide the information our souls need in order to stay active and healthy? Would our souls grow wary of not having a counterpoint? Is the physical realm necessary to enjoy the spiritual?

I searched for some poetry and found A Dialogue Between The Soul and Body by Andrew Marvell. I think it somewhat matches the age of the image. The bars in front of the wheat paste graffiti of the child sitting in the chair, reinforce the prisoner nature of ourselves, dressed up in finery out for the world to decipher their own meaning of themselves and the clothes that guard them.

On to the poem:

Soul
O Who shall, from this Dungeon, raise
A Soul inslav’d so many wayes?
With bolts of Bones, that fetter’d stands
In Feet ; and manacled in Hands.
Here blinded with an Eye ; and there
Deaf with the drumming of an Ear.
A Soul hung up, as ’twere, in Chains
Of Nerves, and Arteries, and Veins.
Tortur’d, besides each other part,1
In a vain Head, and double Heart.

Body
O who shall me deliver whole,
From bonds of this Tyrannic Soul?
Which, stretcht upright, impales me so,
That mine own Precipice I go;
And warms and moves this needless Frame:
(A Fever could but do the same.)
And, wanting where its spight to try,
Has made me live to let me dye.
A Body that could never rest,
Since this ill Spirit it possest.

Soul
What Magic could me thus confine
Within anothers Grief to pine?
Where whatsoever it complain,
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain.
And all my Care its self employes,
That to preserve, which me destroys:
Constrain’d not only to indure
Diseases, but, whats worse, the Cure:
And ready oft the Port to gain,
Am Shipwrackt into Health again.

Body
But Physick yet could never reach
The Maladies Thou me dost teach;
Whom first the Cramp of Hope does Tear:
And then the Palsie Shakes of Fear.
The Pestilence of Love does heat :
Or Hatred’s hidden Ulcer eat.
Joy’s chearful Madness does perplex:
Or Sorrow’s other Madness vex.
Which Knowledge forces me to know;
And Memory will not foregoe.
What but a Soul could have the wit
To build me up for Sin so fit?
So Architects do square and hew,
Green Trees that in the Forest grew.

Life moves fast. So fast that sometimes we move on impulse instead of pausing to listen to the stillness our hearts.

I am my father’s son. A hard worker with a crazy amount of drive to do everything. Sometimes doing doesn’t actually accomplish what needs to be done. Resting with loved ones can be infinitely more rewarding.

Graffiti by Tnglr on 2nd and Blanchard in Belltown.

It’s amazing how much you can grow when you just take things inch by inch, day by day. Before you know it, you’re climbing higher than you could have imagined, seeing new sights, venturing into bold new territory with a firm foundation behind you. Man, I feel like this should be one of those motivational posters now. Feel free to chime in with your own motivational text.

The tall grass can reach higher than the trees, when viewed from the right perspective.

For months now I’ve had the grass’s perspective at my office. Today, I have the opportunity to enjoy a cup of coffee with our CEO in hopes of coming to a better understanding of what his view looks like from the biggest tree in the park.

For all intents and purposes, this should be a rant right now. It is, however, somewhat of a reflection on what I love to do and how that sometimes works out poorly.

Last night, around 10pm I started upgrading to iOS 5.0 Beta. I knew that I should have been climbing into bed momentarily, but the temptation for shininess was too great. I had to get it onto my iPhone 4 and iPad. Four hours later, I was crawling into bed with a bricked iPhone and an iPad that was still going through a restoration process. The main culprit, from what I could gather, was not the installation process of the new iOS. It was, instead our internet dropping out RIGHT at a critical moment when iTunes and xCode needed to talk with some Apple server and couldn’t. Thus a communication meltdown led to a late night and early morning breakdown that rivaled … well the last time I tried to do the exact same thing for my iPhone 3Gs.

So it’s my own damn fault that I stayed up late and am exhausted today. No mistake about that one. Spun and I now have a rule that no major technological endeavors will begin after 10pm. This love, hate relationship I have with staying on the cusp of Apple technology is good to a point. However, there comes a time when I need to break free from the chains that tether me to this aging love-affair and do things that are actually important … like snuggle with my wife and sleep a full eight hours. Thankfully, iOS 5 is one step ahead of me by making updates wireless to the cloud. Perhaps we can work a clause into the new rule for unless working from a pillowtop mattress on iCloud tasks. I’m sure she’ll go for it.

As an aside, yes, this photo was one that was somewhat similar ages ago, which was intentional. My phone was in a weird limbo zone where it hadn’t fully been restored as I was walking in. It was half alive, half dead still. As a result, I figured a photo of a former life for the iPhone would be fitting. Also, this is the corner where I laid into a canvasser yesterday for running towards me as I was running up the hill with my skateboard. Cancel, cancel. Love, love.