100 People: Deep Blog Entry in Progress...

This entire entry probably won't come out the way I originally planned it to... I have been toying with this entry in my mind since April on the Pacific Sky when I was in SouthEast Asia. I thought about it during one of my meditation moments (dont picture me droning hums sitting cross-legged with incense burning. My meditation moments are usually any moments where I get a chance to breathe during the day). You will really have to go with me on this one, as it may not really make any sense, but in any case its something worth trying whenever you have a spare moment or two:

Grab a piece of paper and a pen. Sit somewhere that you won't be bothered, much like that of a meditation area. Take a few minutes to breathe, maybe toss on a tune or two, and begin to write down the names of 100 people you know. Randomly, just quick people off the top of your head, list 100 people you have known during your entire life. Friends, enemies, lovers, employers, friends of friends, mailmen, teachers, it doesnt matter. If you have met them and know them well enough, throw them onto the list. Everyone technically knows thousands of people in their lifetimes so it really isnt that hard when you think of it, you just have to be without prejudice (if a name comes up, throw it on regardless of why)....

now, take a look at it.

Repeat this somewhere down the road, be it a week, a month, a year, or even just a different state of mind....

Did new people get onto the 2nd list? Why?
Did people from the 1st list get removed? Why?

It sounds kinda lame maybe at first, but really... as random as your list may be, there are reasons as to why everyone is on there... and the same person that added people onto the first list, has forgotten them on the second... Oh sure, when you get to 75 people I am sure there actually is a fight as to think of who goes on the list... but what if someone in the top half of the first list didnt even make it to the top OR bottom of the 2nd?

Try it twice in one week.... notice the changes if any... now imagine 2 lists one year apart. Two years apart. Ten Years apart. I bet over 60% of the list will remain the same forever, while the other 40% is fizzled away with people that are in our lives one day, and out of our minds the next.

....

I brought this up now because I have noticed something. A photographer here quit 2 days ago, one more is leaving in 6 days, one more is leaving to another ship probably in 6 days as well... we're dropping like flies, all for unrelated reasons mind you... People come and go in our lives, its a fact of life. I have met so many new friends at this job. We have laughed, cried, shared so many of our intimate and darkest secrets. But time goes on. Friends do drift further away, maybe not all the way, but sometimes it does happen. Its nice when we get the ones that stay in the top half. Likewise, the ones that leave the list have at one point touched our hearts in some way... but... (and this is going even deeper now).... would the list be any different than it is now if we didnt ever know them? Even though they are now no longer on it?

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Anyways, that was my deep topic for the day. Nothing really ship related, but I am well, happy, and content otherwise. Things are good here :)

See you all in the next cartoon!

-M-