Anonymous Rants: The Art Of Seeing

So, I got this gift certificate and I bought this book called "The Art of Seeing" with it, which turned out to be a total waste of money. I mean, even though it wasn't really "my" money that got wasted, it was still a gift certificate that was wasted, you know?

What kind of pissed me off was heading to the book store later in the week and noticing all these cool books that I'd bought which were now selling in the discount bin. And here I thought that books didn't really go on sale. But I guess I'm wrong. Everything goes on sale eventually. It's really about having the wherewithall to just wait it out.

Turning over a new leaf and trying to spend less has been...interesting.

I'd read "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach awhile back and a lot of the stuff made sense...though, I'd already been doing that stuff, anyway --- i.e. automating your savings, by having the bank move everything for you once a month. You can't spend what you don't see, yadda yadda yadda.

You know what else helps? Realizing that one day, you're going to die and all of this stuff? You can't take it with you. They're just...things.

Of course, some people like having tons of things 'cause it fills up their lives and makes it feel less empty somehow.

Spending less (and I'm not taking into account the stuff you have to pay for i.e. rent, utilities, transportation, etc.) means becoming a little more creative with finding things to do. Of course, it helps when you decide you're not going to have much of a social life anymore. Some people just don't get why I'm choosing this.

See, the thing is...on the last episode of "Desperate Housewives" this past season, where Lynette thinks her husband's cheating on her and then, when he explains himself, she goes, "You don't understand, I'd already written you off", I really understood that.

It gets easier to write people off when you realize your true friends can be counted up on one hand. Sometimes, it means you've only got one person you can really count on. And no, I'm not talking about your spouse. Making your spouse your "best friend" is cheating. A friend is someone who's not related to you and not bound to you by any vow. A friend is someone you've chosen to be in your life and there's really nothing tying the two of you together besides choice. But I've been over that all before.

Yeah, so there've been quite a few people that I've sort of written off because I realized that sometimes, we hang out with certain people to escape our own loneliness. It's hard being alone, but it's probably the only time I've really started finding out more about me.

Yeah...maybe it's a bad quality in me. I write people off. Maybe it's a defense mechanism, you know? But I think it's something I'd want to teach my kids...don't depend on anybody else. You don't need anybody to complete you. You have to be self-sufficient. You have to be able to stand on your own two feet.

Blah blah blah, you know?

Digressing seems to be a big thing with me.

I mentioned "The Art of Seeing" because I was out with my camera on Wednesday --- the start of summer and it was smoggy as hell.