Call me out, from this inner swirl of madness...

I find myself here, alone... in front of my keyboard I am with nothing but a feeling in my heart, trying to speak to my head which can make my fingers write the things that will finally let my Soul find its peace. I am no longer innocent... My lack of ignorance shatters any hope of settling contently into this world that I see, at this moment. I must change it, or I must change me.

Love inspiring... more love. When do we stop the things that take away, and learn to give again... expecting nothing in return? When do we find the peace within ourselves? I suppose the more important question is how. In fact, I have no hope for us... I can only be responsible for finding my own peace.

I learn so much about the people I love as I prepare to leave them. The pain cannot blind me to the beauty shining behind it. I love you my family. I love you my friends. I love you my Amy.

I will push myself on to see what it is that I have come to this world for... I come to discover, and I will have no rest until I do. Please dear Soul, give me the strength to live my life undreamed of...

Tell the People You Love That You Love Them

And do it every chance you get.

Loss is brutal...

Open up your heart to people... Don't live a part of your life only to look back and realize that you never really knew the people you were with... and they never really knew you.

Each moment only comes once... love it while it is there, soon it will be gone.

Good advice given by one looking back on the pain of recent and passed. Lift your life up. There is really no use living on the bottom.

Learning to love yourself is one of the hardest things to do... do it.

Realize the power of concentrated thought and hope and faith... prayer. There is a hidden energy. Know it is there, and use it.

And always,

Tell the People You Love That You Love Them

Unnatural Nature, The Human Kind

It is way too late for me to be writing... 3AM, what am I doing with my life. I have a torrent of emotions running through me right now, and I cannot make sense of them. Usually they all mix together to form some sort of anxiety, but there is so much more to it.

I don't know where I am going to live next year... Inconsequential in the long run I suppose. It's a shame we don't live in the long run, everything would be so much easier then. I make my situation worse right now by insisting on separating myself from everything... I feel a strong pull to redefine myself, but I have no idea how. Sometimes I consider completely removing myself from everyone I know. I will live alone or with people I don't even know, and then I can reinvent what I want to be. The thing is that I know who I am, I don't want to reinvent anything, I just want to come into myself and be.

Life hurts in the short run. It's ironic now, how I can look back to the most painful, most difficult parts of my life and feel a happiness about it. I can almost say that if I had it back to do all over again, I would not change a thing. Love is stressful, and I feel a large pain looming in the coming days. These feelings simply do not make sense with what I am about to undertake.

Don't get me wrong, I am extremely excited about living abroad. I am just a little scared, I'll admit it. I am scared of hurting the ones I love. I am scared of losing others. In a way, these feelings are inconsequential. I will leave, and I will be gone... But they are so very important, because I know they will have a bearing on how I live while I am gone. Of course, this trip is about me... but deeply involved in this is who I will be for others. I am no good for anyone if I cannot hold up my own person... and I want to be more than good.

Pain in Loss

This is a post I question writing. I want to say so much with it, but I am scared... I'm scared of disrespecting and dishonoring those to who it may matter the most. Let this be my humble tribute to Brutus Kuczkowski.

Grandpa "Kooch" is the closest man I have held as a Grandfather figure. I met the man, and instantly I loved him. I saw him only a few times subsequent to my first introduction. I am grateful for each encounter.

To the Kuczkowski family, I love you all to the depths of my soul. You all have made an impact on me that I will carry through my whole life.

To you Brutus, thank you for the inviting kindess with which you always treated me. I never got the chance to express to you the impact you had on me. Instead, your memory will stay with me, and I will keep you in my heart.

I am leaving soon, and I promise to live with the passion to which I have been witness... You will never truly know what you all mean to me, just as I will never truly understand your pain in your loss.

Thank you for letting me be witness to the beauty that is your family.

Anger in the Confusion

Too many times... too many times. When will be the last time? It seems I repeat past mistakes time and again... and to what avail? I suppose the purpose of making mistakes is to realize what you did wrong and then act to make it better. What makes this process hard at times, is that the mistake being made is not always apparent.

There is no going back in life, that one thing I know for sure. Good times are good while they last, but you cannot recreate the past. One of my biggest difficulties in my life is letting go. I always go back to the what ifs. What if it could have been different? What if it really wasn't supposed to end? What if we need to keep going just a little longer? What if I could just hang on for this little while longer and then let go?

There is a fine line between knowing when you have something to fight to keep, and knowing that you need to simply let go. I have not found that line. I think my problem is that I am looking for answers that do not even exist at this moment. I cannot force the future to be what I want it to be. I cannot force the answers that are not ready. I grab the strings and I run.

I am watching a big change approaching me. It may not seem that big to those on the outside, but my departure to France is slowly redefining me, before I even get to the country. It's demanding that I let go of my life here, at least for a while, maybe forever. There is no going back.

I feel so confused... and really, that is just fine. The dangerous thing for me, is when I let that confusion turn to anger. Anger is the worst communicator for anything other than itself; for anything more refined, it is simply no good. Confusion is ok... it's ok for a moment. But I cannot sit with it for long. To me, confusion is an indication that an epiphany is not far away. I sure hope one comes soon.

Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

Sorry about the lack of creativity with the Schwarzeneger quote. It's just an attentions pique, don't hold it against me.

Here I go, a little bit of info about who I am and what I do... I'll talk about my daddy too a little bit. First, about my daddy. His name is Dennis Richard Parins, and I share two names with him. In case you were wondering, the rlpparins is my name in total: Richard Lynn Pinkerton Parins. "Richard Lynn" is my first name, "Pinkerton" is my middle name, and "Parins" is my family name. I did not discover this fact until the age of 18. Imagine that. Well, that's my name. It's long yes I know, and yes I go by Lynn. I hold my parents completely responsible for the complexity and confusion this namehas created for me in my life... and I welcome it all without reservation.

Anyway, more about my dad. He's a Green Bay boy who married a Texas girl who was born in Oklahoma in California. More complex stuff, weird. They brought me and my little sis, Celeste Faye Pinkerton Parins (same kind of nomenclature), to Green Bay when I was two and my sis about six weeks. I never knew my mom's parents, and my dad's father died when I was about 4 I think, so the only grandparent I've really known is my grandmother Agnes. I've never truly been able to tell her how much I love her and respect her, and how thankful I am to know her. I will before I leave.

I was born on the second day in February in the year 1985. I'm an aquarius. Although I've never been that superstitious I have noticed very interesting coincidences associated with my Zodiac sign. The name I go by, Lynn, means "man by running water" in Welsh. Every city that I have lived in for an extended period of time has been right on, or near, a body of water. In fact I have no real desire to ever live in a city landlocked. Weird, huh?

Now, let me describe myself. I am in the last quarter of my 20th year approaching the legal drinking age, which means very little to me as I will be legal to drink alcohol in 19 days. Actually, the more days that pass, the less I desire the drink at all. Enough about that. I am in my third year at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I study whatever I feel like really. For a while that was business until I realized my violent aversion to being cultivated into the corporate, then political science but I have no real desire to get involved in domestic politics, and then I studied psychology which led me to disect my inner workings which only encouraged my depression... so that was no good. Finally, I decided to do International Studies with a focus on Political Economy, which allows me to study pretty much anything I want.

I detail all of this to give you a vague idea of the kind of direction, or lack thereof, I feel in my life. I want to change the world, and I'm slowly figuring out how. I reject most preconceived notions about how to go about doing this, instead prefering to conceive my own. In this way, I am an extreme individualist. I welcome new experiences and at this point I live in a state of awkwardness about who I am and who I am becoming. I love who I am, I am just not exactly sure who that is.

I am very existentialist about my decisions, but I believe that there is a God, but not in any traditional sense. I believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, although I am disappointed often, which is probably due to the phase of cynicism that I am pulling myself out of. I am happy to be alive, and I am happy to be where I am.

I am leaving for France in 19 days. I will be studying at l'Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France, until about June. After my studies I plan to go to Northern Africa, Tunisia or Algeria, on a traineeship through AIESEC. I am hoping all these experiences will help me figure out how I am going to change the world.

If I had more time I would elaborate on everything I have said. In due time I will. For now I must go, mes etudes m'appelle (my studies are calling me). It's also incredibly to write while my hands are shaking, my hangovers do not mix well with caffeine.

I look forward to adding to my blog. I like to think with the written word, and I hope some are able to enjoy my constant musings. Before I go, I want to say a few things. I love my family with all of my soul, they enflame my passion and are my source of love. I thank you Amy for reminding me of my passion, and pushing me to grow. To all my boys at Sigma Phi Epsilon, I love you all, you are what makes this campus home to me.

Goodbye for now, I continue my Search for the Soul.

First blog... Ha, that's a funny word

I always thought "blogs" were kind of funny. First of all, I think the word itself is kind of ridiculous. Secondly, they seem like a journal, only online, in front of anyone, all the time. I keep a journal anyway, wy would I want to keep one online? Well, I guess now that I started one, I will keep my rules relatively the same. I lay it all out in my personal journals, so that's what I'm going to do here. I don't talk about dramatics... I talk dramatically about my not-so-teenage-anymore emotions. I don't make sense when I talk to myself. I rarely make sense when I talk to someone else.

It's funny now, I feel like I'm writing for an audience. The truth is I guess, very few people will actually spend any amout of time reading this. And why would they? Well, before I begin to sound incredibly cynical and taint my entire blog experience before I even get it started, I'll change the subject. The real reason I started this blog is because I'm going to France in 20 days and counting. This will be my record of my excursions. Well, actually my NomadLife account will be, so if you are actually interested in what I will be doing, and who I am and what not, I'll let you know what my site is there soon enough.

I was going to go to bed early tonight. Then I started thinking... hey, what about my life? Huh.... What a thought. Well here it begins. So strap yourself in, or cut yourself loose, here is my life about to start from the inside out.