Why is it that human relationships are such a jumble? Is it that there's just some humongous obstacle between each of us? I have to say, my set of relationships haven't been that bad, at least when I've been lucky enough to find rational people to have relationships/friendships with. Why can't people just follow that golden rule?
Do unto others, as you'd have them do unto you.
That pretty well sums up the entire scope of a perfect utopian existence. Why's it so hard to follow that simple rule? Why can't everyone simply just stop and say, 'Wait a minute, if I act this way then I'm giving this person to act that way towards me.' It seems like such a simple act, like a logical progression to relating to anyone else on this planet. Yet, every day we are faced with the same set of bullshit from the other people in our lives where this simple axiom isn't follwed.
Sure, each of us, likely don't follow the rule to the letter either. But, we know we should. Or do we?
Would it be such a trial to live our daily lives in reciprocation for the kindnesses which were enacted upon us, as well as the evils? After all, the inverse of the axiom is true.
You are free to do unto others, as they have done unto you.
It has to be, the original rule, while the spirit of it likely communicates to us that we should be just and kind to others still grants the opposite within it.
I guess, if you take the golden rule and the laws of karmic retribution together as a belief system, then you're likely to do okay in this world.
Do unto others, as they do unto you, but beware. Your actions will come back to you tenfold.
Said another way, If you make an ass out of your neighbor, it's likely you'll be the one eating hay for the rest of your life.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Time, Time, Time
Why am I not sleeping?
Lately, the days haven't been composed of enough time. 2005 has been like a vapor. It hardly seems to have begun and now we are at the end of it. Perhaps time is accelerating, or my perception of it is growing, or maybe it's decreasing.
Is it that as we age our ability to sense time changes?
Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
everything is made from dreams
time is made from honey slow and sweet
only the fools know what it means
temptation, temptation, temptation
Lately, the days haven't been composed of enough time. 2005 has been like a vapor. It hardly seems to have begun and now we are at the end of it. Perhaps time is accelerating, or my perception of it is growing, or maybe it's decreasing.
Is it that as we age our ability to sense time changes?
Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
everything is made from dreams
time is made from honey slow and sweet
only the fools know what it means
temptation, temptation, temptation
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Jokes stored in jars
The funny things in life are best hinted at. At times, they are painfully obvious and it takes a great strength of will to avoid pointing them out to a potential victim. At others, depending on the situation it's perfectly fine to plunge that razor witticism directly into an unsuspecting neck. Those situations are myriad and they depend upon the involved parties. You have to admit though, it does take a strength of will to pass on one of those instances and put it away for the future. To simply bide your time until the proper moment comes along to spring it once more. By then, you've evolved the perfect delivery and point of entry to deliver it in the harshest way. Or, you'll choose to laugh about it to yourself for a while and treasure that little snippet for yourself. You sort of just put it up on a shelf, in a little jar in your mind. Sometimes taking it down and opening up the jar, smelling it to see if it's still fresh, then recapping it, and placing it back on the shelf.
A few cryptic words of advice for anyone thinking about it, acting acting like it, considering it, desiring it, planning it, scheming on it, or plotting to get married.
First, what's the big hurry?
Second, if you're going to do it don't go about telling your former spouses. Just do it, why do they really need to know, or why do they even care?
Third, don't go about telling your former spouses after you've told them once before and it didn't happen.
So, let's recap.
If you have the opportunity to say something hurtful to someone, sometimes you should do it, other times you shouldn't.
After someone divorces you, they probably did it for a good reason and don't really care if you are getting married again. The fact is, they are probably hoping you will so that you'll have better things to do than take all your angst out on them. Further, you should learn your lesson after the first time you tell them that you are about to marry someone and it doesn't happen. If you don't learn that lesson, you're bound to be the butt of countless jokes stored in jars on shelves for many years.
You might not get laughed at to your face, but there will likely be a lot of laughter and pity behind your back.
A few cryptic words of advice for anyone thinking about it, acting acting like it, considering it, desiring it, planning it, scheming on it, or plotting to get married.
First, what's the big hurry?
Second, if you're going to do it don't go about telling your former spouses. Just do it, why do they really need to know, or why do they even care?
Third, don't go about telling your former spouses after you've told them once before and it didn't happen.
So, let's recap.
If you have the opportunity to say something hurtful to someone, sometimes you should do it, other times you shouldn't.
After someone divorces you, they probably did it for a good reason and don't really care if you are getting married again. The fact is, they are probably hoping you will so that you'll have better things to do than take all your angst out on them. Further, you should learn your lesson after the first time you tell them that you are about to marry someone and it doesn't happen. If you don't learn that lesson, you're bound to be the butt of countless jokes stored in jars on shelves for many years.
You might not get laughed at to your face, but there will likely be a lot of laughter and pity behind your back.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Nation of Idiots
We are a nation of slathering masses salivating at the moment when the delicacies of capitalism are revealed to us. We lose simple coordination if we don't get the products we need, soiling our clothing and our floors.
Advertisers paint the people in commercials to be stumbling and bumbling dolts. Consider the current commercial for the return of the McRib sandwich. The commercial is centered in a dry cleaner where a long line of customers are continuing to arrive with shirts and blouses stained with McRib sauce. The commercial cautions us to leave our good shirts at home. Are we really this moronic and incapable of having a meal without spilling or dripping foodstuffs upon our clothing? McDonald's marketing would like us to think that we are. I wonder, of you out there, how many fit into this psychographic niche. These fast food diners who can't seem to avoid staining their clothing.
Another good example is the campaign from Hardee's(Carl's Famous Star in the west.
Their campaign claims, 'Without us, some guys would starve.' Now, I've eaten at Hardee's on several occasions, but I don't feel like I would starve without them. I'm a guy and I'm perfectly capable of seeing to my needs for sustenance without the need of driving to their restaurant. A prime example of their target audience is depicted in the commercial that features an early morning thirtysomething who has foolishly allowed his coffeemaker to run over into the floor. The voiceover is painting a picture of his ability(and other of these guys who would perish) get a promotion, juggle three girlfriends, etc, but this 'breakfast' it's mystical and there's no way that one of these guys can actually manage to feed himself in the morning.
Are we really this nation of idiots?
And where is our portion control gene?
Advertisers paint the people in commercials to be stumbling and bumbling dolts. Consider the current commercial for the return of the McRib sandwich. The commercial is centered in a dry cleaner where a long line of customers are continuing to arrive with shirts and blouses stained with McRib sauce. The commercial cautions us to leave our good shirts at home. Are we really this moronic and incapable of having a meal without spilling or dripping foodstuffs upon our clothing? McDonald's marketing would like us to think that we are. I wonder, of you out there, how many fit into this psychographic niche. These fast food diners who can't seem to avoid staining their clothing.
Another good example is the campaign from Hardee's(Carl's Famous Star in the west.
Their campaign claims, 'Without us, some guys would starve.' Now, I've eaten at Hardee's on several occasions, but I don't feel like I would starve without them. I'm a guy and I'm perfectly capable of seeing to my needs for sustenance without the need of driving to their restaurant. A prime example of their target audience is depicted in the commercial that features an early morning thirtysomething who has foolishly allowed his coffeemaker to run over into the floor. The voiceover is painting a picture of his ability(and other of these guys who would perish) get a promotion, juggle three girlfriends, etc, but this 'breakfast' it's mystical and there's no way that one of these guys can actually manage to feed himself in the morning.
Are we really this nation of idiots?
And where is our portion control gene?
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Perception
When we peel back the thin gossamer of our perceptions, what is it that we see there staring back at us? What is truth? Is the truth what we can see? Is it what we can touch, smell, or hear? Is it just that the truth, the reality is what is happening between our ears, inside the synaptic junctions flashing at light speed in our brains as we struggle to understand.
I think that I've hit bottom sometimes, and I feel that I can't string a few words together to describe a feeling or a thought. I write something most every day, whether it's a scribble in a notebook, a post in a blog, or something for my courses. But the words which I can attach to things, they seem to be coming slower lately, more labored, and perhaps with more difficulty. Perhaps it's the onset of old age at 33, or maybe it's an excessive imbibe of alcohol from time to time, who knows...it could be some bad hamburger, the ozone, the cleaners, or any environmental, physical, psychosomatic factor. All I know is that there are spaces, where the efforts to describe a thought, or a feeling, are growing more difficult. My perceptions of life, perhaps, are changing.
I think that at times, I try to stop thinking, to dwell in an empty-ignorant haze, just so I don't have to deal with some events which surround me. Maybe it's time to come back and pour all of that crap out. Maybe I should pull back the thick layer of gauze that I've covered over my perceptions of late, step back out of the shadows, and let the sun warm my face again.
I think that I've hit bottom sometimes, and I feel that I can't string a few words together to describe a feeling or a thought. I write something most every day, whether it's a scribble in a notebook, a post in a blog, or something for my courses. But the words which I can attach to things, they seem to be coming slower lately, more labored, and perhaps with more difficulty. Perhaps it's the onset of old age at 33, or maybe it's an excessive imbibe of alcohol from time to time, who knows...it could be some bad hamburger, the ozone, the cleaners, or any environmental, physical, psychosomatic factor. All I know is that there are spaces, where the efforts to describe a thought, or a feeling, are growing more difficult. My perceptions of life, perhaps, are changing.
I think that at times, I try to stop thinking, to dwell in an empty-ignorant haze, just so I don't have to deal with some events which surround me. Maybe it's time to come back and pour all of that crap out. Maybe I should pull back the thick layer of gauze that I've covered over my perceptions of late, step back out of the shadows, and let the sun warm my face again.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Right Brain
Happiness is the qualification of your efforts by the right side of your brain.
Maybe I've been thinking about the dual nature of humanity lately. There's a creative side and an analytical side, so why wouldn't our greatest moments of happiness come from those moments when both sides of our brain are in complete agreement?
Maybe I've been thinking about the dual nature of humanity lately. There's a creative side and an analytical side, so why wouldn't our greatest moments of happiness come from those moments when both sides of our brain are in complete agreement?
Left Brain
Where the heck does the day go? There you are working away on something, totally absorbed in it, and then suddenly it's 10 pm. Isn't the conscious mind a remarkable thing? How our perceptions fool us with linear time; making one moment of dread last forever as bliss passes in a wink.
I guess that's what is meant by, ignorance is bliss. Whether it's the ignorance that comes from being absorbed in the moment, or the ignorance born from unknowing. When the trappings of our analytical mind are prevented from intrusion upon coloring our realities we are left to our creative interpretations of what we see before us. How the sun sets in the evening, how the daisies grow in summer, and how the birds fly south in the winter. The mundane becomes remarkable without the harshness of reason.
The absence of creative spark, of inspiration, and joy leaves us longing. Inside of everyone there is a piece of the universe that is connected on some level to a world which is much larger than we can ever know. Those gossamer threads that run between hearts, connecting the far away together, and the close even closer; find purchase in words. Those threads are woven into tapestries, invisible, only to the unseeking. Those who never seek, shall never find, their anylitical minds forever dominating their view with shades of black and white.
I guess that's what is meant by, ignorance is bliss. Whether it's the ignorance that comes from being absorbed in the moment, or the ignorance born from unknowing. When the trappings of our analytical mind are prevented from intrusion upon coloring our realities we are left to our creative interpretations of what we see before us. How the sun sets in the evening, how the daisies grow in summer, and how the birds fly south in the winter. The mundane becomes remarkable without the harshness of reason.
The absence of creative spark, of inspiration, and joy leaves us longing. Inside of everyone there is a piece of the universe that is connected on some level to a world which is much larger than we can ever know. Those gossamer threads that run between hearts, connecting the far away together, and the close even closer; find purchase in words. Those threads are woven into tapestries, invisible, only to the unseeking. Those who never seek, shall never find, their anylitical minds forever dominating their view with shades of black and white.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Spiders on a Screen
I wonder what it's like sometimes to be a spider perched on the screen of a porch and suddenly you're brutally flipped away from an unknown force into a somewhat familiar environment of grass. It must be a sudden shock for that moment of time, though to the spider who likely doesn't have the same concept of time it must be an eternity to be falling toward the ground and to suddely be buffeted by blades of grass. I suppose that those same things happen to us in our own lives. We fall into our own complacency with how our lives are, the routines of our daily lives and then from nowhere a force comes into our perceptions and hurls us headlong into a new perception. At that moment we're given the choice to seek out new paths, new routes to success, new modes of being, and new horizons...or we can simply die there in the grass.
Yes, I've changed the perceptions of a few spiders in my time. It's a hobby of mine. When I see them on my screen porch, like a mischevious child I decide that I'm going to flip them off the screen. It's the closest that I come to affecting the lives of any other beings on this planet in the short term at least. I suppose you can make a correlation between the parent/child role also. Will you be a parent who supports the child like the blades of grass, or that which flips your child maliciously from the screen which they've climbed for so long to reach a perch upon? But, deeper still...there are other correlations which can be made. God, The Universe, The Prime Mover, Shiva, Allah, Buddah, or whatever you call the Supreme Being is essentially that same sort of mindset which I've expressed here.
We climb all our lives to reach a zenith, a precipice where we can look over into the abyss and see what we've been striving for our entire lives. When, at the moment of our greatest revery, after we've stalked our prey for so long, in a moment...everything changes and we're forced to start anew. It could be a death, the destruction of our homes, a divorce, a marriage, or some other major change in our own specific paradigms. Regardless, it happens to everyone, shall we just give up and die there in the grass...or seek out other screens, other points of superiority, and other vistas for our dreaming?
Yes, I've changed the perceptions of a few spiders in my time. It's a hobby of mine. When I see them on my screen porch, like a mischevious child I decide that I'm going to flip them off the screen. It's the closest that I come to affecting the lives of any other beings on this planet in the short term at least. I suppose you can make a correlation between the parent/child role also. Will you be a parent who supports the child like the blades of grass, or that which flips your child maliciously from the screen which they've climbed for so long to reach a perch upon? But, deeper still...there are other correlations which can be made. God, The Universe, The Prime Mover, Shiva, Allah, Buddah, or whatever you call the Supreme Being is essentially that same sort of mindset which I've expressed here.
We climb all our lives to reach a zenith, a precipice where we can look over into the abyss and see what we've been striving for our entire lives. When, at the moment of our greatest revery, after we've stalked our prey for so long, in a moment...everything changes and we're forced to start anew. It could be a death, the destruction of our homes, a divorce, a marriage, or some other major change in our own specific paradigms. Regardless, it happens to everyone, shall we just give up and die there in the grass...or seek out other screens, other points of superiority, and other vistas for our dreaming?
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
One more thing
We the people, in order to form a more perfect union have deemed it necessary to place unexperienced people in the highest positions of government. Sure, it's old news, but it's still irritating. Why is it that there seems to be a scourge loose where you don't need to know anything, but you do need to know someone?
Harriet Miers and Mike Brown spring to mind, they seem to embody that old phrase. Whatever happened to having hard work recognized and earning a position? Isn't that what it's about?
There are scary things happening in the world, but they're going to happen and we're powerless to stop them. Powerless that is, unless we choose to take steps to stop them.
I could go on about this, but I've got a country to run, I just got promoted.
Harriet Miers and Mike Brown spring to mind, they seem to embody that old phrase. Whatever happened to having hard work recognized and earning a position? Isn't that what it's about?
There are scary things happening in the world, but they're going to happen and we're powerless to stop them. Powerless that is, unless we choose to take steps to stop them.
I could go on about this, but I've got a country to run, I just got promoted.
My next _______ will be a _________
This whole game of life, sometimes it really kicks you square in the teeth. Somedays your up on the top of the game, and then next there you are stuck in the proverbial Monopoly jail with the bloody thimble. I guess that everything has it's purpose in our lives. Each of these silly incidents that happen to us are supposed to teach us a lesson, give some guidance, direct our path a bit through the maelstrom that our lives gradually degrade into, but c'mon. After you've already learned the lesson, when is the teacher going to step outside for a smoke break?
I'm not going to get into the particulars of what the lesson that I've learned is, or which one I'm studying another chapter of, but needless to say it's not a pretty lesson to learn. I shut down sometimes, I guess everyone does. You just get to a point where you've got all these things plugged into the wall, you're running full power, the blender is slinging crap all over the place, the television is blaring, the radio is playing some terrible ballad from the 80's, and in the middle of it all the washing machine is bouncing all over the living room.
What I'm getting at is, marriages sometimes end, and the obviously end for a myriad of reasons. But you would think that two people could find some way of getting along afterward, some uneasy silences that reach a peaceful settling of the dust. Although, there are instances, perhaps many of them where it's an impossibility for the people to get along. Such is life, such is the game, stalemate.
It's difficult to vent and not just spell out the reasons for why or what is at the root of the problem, but it's cathartic to approach it from another vantage point. One where you're describing it to yourself, but where anyone else looking into your life would be puzzled and wonder, what the heck?
Anyway, it's been a while since I've posted anything here. Hell, it's been a while since I've written much of anything that wasn't related to schoolwork. I started all of this blithering so I'd sit down and write in a forum that was new, something to jog the writing juices, give myself a forum for free-writing, but lately..I feel those introspective tugs. I think I've really been avoiding confronting some things, just because they irritate me so much. But, things aren't going away are they? They'll remain there, festering until you grab them out and shake them up in the light of day.
Again, I'm wishing that I was somewhere else. Far away from this point in life, in another part of the globe, in another time all together. Eventually, it's going to happen where I'm happy in the moment again. It only takes a moment for our rhythms to be upset and we're plunged headlong into madness, off kilter, spinning out of control, but it takes time for us to find that comforting pattern of routine to embrace us and silence the living that swirls around us all.
I'm not going to get into the particulars of what the lesson that I've learned is, or which one I'm studying another chapter of, but needless to say it's not a pretty lesson to learn. I shut down sometimes, I guess everyone does. You just get to a point where you've got all these things plugged into the wall, you're running full power, the blender is slinging crap all over the place, the television is blaring, the radio is playing some terrible ballad from the 80's, and in the middle of it all the washing machine is bouncing all over the living room.
What I'm getting at is, marriages sometimes end, and the obviously end for a myriad of reasons. But you would think that two people could find some way of getting along afterward, some uneasy silences that reach a peaceful settling of the dust. Although, there are instances, perhaps many of them where it's an impossibility for the people to get along. Such is life, such is the game, stalemate.
It's difficult to vent and not just spell out the reasons for why or what is at the root of the problem, but it's cathartic to approach it from another vantage point. One where you're describing it to yourself, but where anyone else looking into your life would be puzzled and wonder, what the heck?
Anyway, it's been a while since I've posted anything here. Hell, it's been a while since I've written much of anything that wasn't related to schoolwork. I started all of this blithering so I'd sit down and write in a forum that was new, something to jog the writing juices, give myself a forum for free-writing, but lately..I feel those introspective tugs. I think I've really been avoiding confronting some things, just because they irritate me so much. But, things aren't going away are they? They'll remain there, festering until you grab them out and shake them up in the light of day.
Again, I'm wishing that I was somewhere else. Far away from this point in life, in another part of the globe, in another time all together. Eventually, it's going to happen where I'm happy in the moment again. It only takes a moment for our rhythms to be upset and we're plunged headlong into madness, off kilter, spinning out of control, but it takes time for us to find that comforting pattern of routine to embrace us and silence the living that swirls around us all.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Wake Up From This
How do we know which are the right answers to our questions? What are the crossroads when each of our descisions are myriad? I've had so many things swirlling around me for so long, I just don't know what the right answer is for me anymore. Life, in all it's splendor is pretty damned confusing at times. I guess it's really up to each of us to determine which is our best path. That's the only answer that I've really been able to come up with for myself. I've picked and chosen which are my best paths, what course of action is the best for me to pursure, and which choice will lead to better choices. I've shirked the dead ends which are presented, worried incessantly about the possibilities, and become overly concerned about the future of current descisions. But, it's really all good. I mean, I'm still alive, I still have the memories I've managed to salvage from the last large life change which I endured, and I'm not neck deep in toxic sludge like a million of our neighbors.
Again, let me take a few minutes to contemplate the scope of what's happened in New Orleans. I went to New Orleans once. I went there alone and had an unfavorable experience. It's a tough city, the people are rude as hell. It's not a family environment, at least for outsiders or tourists. But, the people there have a reputation for warmth and joy. Who knows, perhaps it was me. But, there is a smell when you went to the city. It's a smell of piss. A smell of desperation.
Aside from any personal feelings that any of us have about the city and it's aura. It's horrific that the people of New Orleans would be cast into the mold which they've been given. Uprooted from their homes and cast out into America. The open arms of their fellow citizens waiting for them with offers of comfort and future. Yet, there's a great sadness which follows them, which will follow them always. They've lost their homes, their belongings, every last scrap of what they've experienced. Every Tangible Scrap.
The people of New Orleans, no longer have the first movie stub they collected when they had their first kiss at the movie theatre. They don't have the photos of their children when they lost their first tooth. They don't have anything which we take for granted every day when we wake up in our comfortable dry beds each morning.
Just take a moment to consider, losing everything. Everything which you own personally, everything that you have in your bedroom or your house, all of the useless bits of flotsam and jetsam which you've held onto for all your years. All of it suddenly and permanently GONE.
Perhaps all of us should take away a lesson here. It's not a new lesson, it's something which has been said time and time again. Live simply, so that others may simply live. We've all got a wealth of junk in our lives which we don't need. Some homes have 3 televisions, how many times a day do you watch each of those three televisions? A lot of us have clothes that we don't wear, are you ever going to wear them? Many of us receive gifts which we'll never use and we hold on to them, why?
I guess it's time that each of us should wake up and do something for our fellow man. Our government has left us to our own devices in this country. We're no longer a nation 'by the governed'. This nation is run as a business. We are the employees of USA, Inc. The board of directors meet in their boardroom and we hear the minutes of the meeting, but our input is relagated to a suggestion box which has little effect on the outcome. It's well past time that we take back this country and our rights as citizens.
No longer does the rest of the world look at us and see beauty, now the rest of the world looks at us and they see sadness they see an enslaved mass, servants to tyrants in red, white, and blue.
Again, let me take a few minutes to contemplate the scope of what's happened in New Orleans. I went to New Orleans once. I went there alone and had an unfavorable experience. It's a tough city, the people are rude as hell. It's not a family environment, at least for outsiders or tourists. But, the people there have a reputation for warmth and joy. Who knows, perhaps it was me. But, there is a smell when you went to the city. It's a smell of piss. A smell of desperation.
Aside from any personal feelings that any of us have about the city and it's aura. It's horrific that the people of New Orleans would be cast into the mold which they've been given. Uprooted from their homes and cast out into America. The open arms of their fellow citizens waiting for them with offers of comfort and future. Yet, there's a great sadness which follows them, which will follow them always. They've lost their homes, their belongings, every last scrap of what they've experienced. Every Tangible Scrap.
The people of New Orleans, no longer have the first movie stub they collected when they had their first kiss at the movie theatre. They don't have the photos of their children when they lost their first tooth. They don't have anything which we take for granted every day when we wake up in our comfortable dry beds each morning.
Just take a moment to consider, losing everything. Everything which you own personally, everything that you have in your bedroom or your house, all of the useless bits of flotsam and jetsam which you've held onto for all your years. All of it suddenly and permanently GONE.
Perhaps all of us should take away a lesson here. It's not a new lesson, it's something which has been said time and time again. Live simply, so that others may simply live. We've all got a wealth of junk in our lives which we don't need. Some homes have 3 televisions, how many times a day do you watch each of those three televisions? A lot of us have clothes that we don't wear, are you ever going to wear them? Many of us receive gifts which we'll never use and we hold on to them, why?
I guess it's time that each of us should wake up and do something for our fellow man. Our government has left us to our own devices in this country. We're no longer a nation 'by the governed'. This nation is run as a business. We are the employees of USA, Inc. The board of directors meet in their boardroom and we hear the minutes of the meeting, but our input is relagated to a suggestion box which has little effect on the outcome. It's well past time that we take back this country and our rights as citizens.
No longer does the rest of the world look at us and see beauty, now the rest of the world looks at us and they see sadness they see an enslaved mass, servants to tyrants in red, white, and blue.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Doesn't Remind Me
You could if you wanted to.
There's so much power in those words. They mean many things, depending on when and where they are said. We can do anything if we set our minds to it, though....the spirit is willing, the flesh may be weak. We can if we want to...make ourselves better people, be more tolerant to each other, love more, laugh more, look to the stars more, and dream more. We can do many things if we want to. When those 'wants' become perceived needs, that's when we'll act.
We want so many things that our wants have lead many of us to bankruptcy, debt management, and worse. Yet, where will it end? Where will we take responsibilty for our 'want's and rein them in?
Sure, there are things that I want...it's a normal response. When we see something shiny, no matter if it's inside of a gourd, we want to grab it and never let it go.
This post doesn't remind me of what I want.
There's so much power in those words. They mean many things, depending on when and where they are said. We can do anything if we set our minds to it, though....the spirit is willing, the flesh may be weak. We can if we want to...make ourselves better people, be more tolerant to each other, love more, laugh more, look to the stars more, and dream more. We can do many things if we want to. When those 'wants' become perceived needs, that's when we'll act.
We want so many things that our wants have lead many of us to bankruptcy, debt management, and worse. Yet, where will it end? Where will we take responsibilty for our 'want's and rein them in?
Sure, there are things that I want...it's a normal response. When we see something shiny, no matter if it's inside of a gourd, we want to grab it and never let it go.
This post doesn't remind me of what I want.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Sweeten this bitter taste
Sometimes, I wonder. What's all the good in this thing? Why bother with all of it, what's the use? You know the questions. We all ask them from time to time, mostly when we've been confronted with some aspect of consciousness which just throws our little world a bit off kilter. But, after a few moments of despair, most of the time we all come back to our reality in our cushy little dreamworlds and plop back down on our thrones of apathy. Maybe we should ask more often, why we're here. Maybe we need to be upset more. Maybe I'm just being negative.
Anyway, it's not a bad life. We cling to our visions of what we feel our life should be, no matter what anyone tells us. We make our own paths, brick by brick with every good or bad choice. Those bricks can carry us away, or wall us in.
It's in the magic of the moment where memories meld into history. We'll remember all those passages, where we knelt to pick ourselves up one day, each forlorn breath of despair when we felt lost.
Someday, as we close our histories, the memories will return to haunt us. Will they be pleasantly welcomed....or sadly reflected? Shall all our losses return, our winnings grow cynical, and our triumphs merely failings? Or, shall the smallest of our joys grow into our greatest happinesses, enduring through all our years, fulfilling our days and nights bringing peace from our miseries.
Each brick has a price, we buy them with our choices. They are cast in the kiln of our hearts set in place with the grit within us...
Anyway, it's not a bad life. We cling to our visions of what we feel our life should be, no matter what anyone tells us. We make our own paths, brick by brick with every good or bad choice. Those bricks can carry us away, or wall us in.
It's in the magic of the moment where memories meld into history. We'll remember all those passages, where we knelt to pick ourselves up one day, each forlorn breath of despair when we felt lost.
Someday, as we close our histories, the memories will return to haunt us. Will they be pleasantly welcomed....or sadly reflected? Shall all our losses return, our winnings grow cynical, and our triumphs merely failings? Or, shall the smallest of our joys grow into our greatest happinesses, enduring through all our years, fulfilling our days and nights bringing peace from our miseries.
Each brick has a price, we buy them with our choices. They are cast in the kiln of our hearts set in place with the grit within us...
Friday, August 19, 2005
Mysteries
They always say, 'When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." Well, really they say a lot of things, but for right now this particular axiom is in my mind. I'd just like to say that I've been given a lot of very sour lemons, but through time and perserverance I've been able to make some very sweet lemonade.
I think that it's one of the key things which we should be able to learn from our lives, no matter what life throws at us, there is a purpose behind all of it. Whether we can't, or won't, see it in the moment. Somewhere down the line, there is a rhyme, a reason, and definitely a rhythm which life bestows upon us through the sour times.
It's funny, since I started this blog, I've become a much more reserved writer. More intent on communicating a message than an emotion, and more cautious of my reader, that's you whomever you happen to be at this moment. But, all in all, I've not changed my mode of relating to the world. I've determined over many years of trial and error that it's best to go with the flow and take what life gives you. Staying with the current and remaining rooted in the rocky undertow, has resulted in the best of outcomes for me through these years.
Who knows where I'll go, what I'll see, who I'll meet, what I'll learn....right now it's a mystery. But, Thank God for that.
We all need mystery in our lives. It gives us a reason to go on, a purpose by which to measure our existence, and a cause to die for. Without our own little mysteries, we wouldn't be much more than snails occasionally exiting our shells to leave a slimy trace behind us of where we've been.
I think that it's one of the key things which we should be able to learn from our lives, no matter what life throws at us, there is a purpose behind all of it. Whether we can't, or won't, see it in the moment. Somewhere down the line, there is a rhyme, a reason, and definitely a rhythm which life bestows upon us through the sour times.
It's funny, since I started this blog, I've become a much more reserved writer. More intent on communicating a message than an emotion, and more cautious of my reader, that's you whomever you happen to be at this moment. But, all in all, I've not changed my mode of relating to the world. I've determined over many years of trial and error that it's best to go with the flow and take what life gives you. Staying with the current and remaining rooted in the rocky undertow, has resulted in the best of outcomes for me through these years.
Who knows where I'll go, what I'll see, who I'll meet, what I'll learn....right now it's a mystery. But, Thank God for that.
We all need mystery in our lives. It gives us a reason to go on, a purpose by which to measure our existence, and a cause to die for. Without our own little mysteries, we wouldn't be much more than snails occasionally exiting our shells to leave a slimy trace behind us of where we've been.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Consumer Revoloution
Lately, I've been getting very fed up with the hit that my wallet is taking every time I decide to turn the ignition on my car.
No amount of trying to save gas by getting out of the car, or walking, or riding my bike is going ot change the fact that
we are living in a society where Big Business is lining it's pockets with the hungry stomachs of children, the tattered clothes of parents,
and the empty wallets of you and me. It's about time that we, as an oppressed population raise up and send a message to
the corporations, legislators, and tyrants which are in control of the prices of gasoline, milk, clothing, food etc. etc. etc.
Sure, people are pissed off about the prices of gas. I'd wager that everyone hears it at least once a day. A collegue or a friend mentions that they just filled up their car and it cost them so much money, they're mad about it, they feel cheated, and they feel like they're supporting someone else other than themselves. The truth of the matter is, we're captive as consumers, how can we get to our jobs, take our kids to school, or get to the grocery store to feed ourselves and our kids without purchasing gas to put in our cars? They've got us by the throat, but we just seem to be apathetic enough to just smile as they tighten the leash a bit more.
It's well past time that we do something as consumers. Over the last 10 years, we've taken massive hits to our wallets, to our jobs, and to our national image. Through wars, escalating trade deficits, and improprieties of corporations the cost of living in the US has increased dramatically. I know that the current administration in this country is responsible for a great deal of the situation which we are in, think about it, we've sat by and witnessed this administration, just recently, pass a huge energy bill that offers Big Business so many tax breaks, while they continue to reap huge profits from you and me.
Is this really a nation for the governed, or has it become a nation for the governing? We've allowed more and more taxes to be levied upon us, sat by and watched prices escalate, and escalate at a phenomenal rate, and as a populace, we've done nothing but sit idly by and allow it to happen.
How much longer is this to go on? Isn't it about time that we do something? Organize as consumers?
Where's our spirit as a nation of free men and women?
No amount of trying to save gas by getting out of the car, or walking, or riding my bike is going ot change the fact that
we are living in a society where Big Business is lining it's pockets with the hungry stomachs of children, the tattered clothes of parents,
and the empty wallets of you and me. It's about time that we, as an oppressed population raise up and send a message to
the corporations, legislators, and tyrants which are in control of the prices of gasoline, milk, clothing, food etc. etc. etc.
Sure, people are pissed off about the prices of gas. I'd wager that everyone hears it at least once a day. A collegue or a friend mentions that they just filled up their car and it cost them so much money, they're mad about it, they feel cheated, and they feel like they're supporting someone else other than themselves. The truth of the matter is, we're captive as consumers, how can we get to our jobs, take our kids to school, or get to the grocery store to feed ourselves and our kids without purchasing gas to put in our cars? They've got us by the throat, but we just seem to be apathetic enough to just smile as they tighten the leash a bit more.
It's well past time that we do something as consumers. Over the last 10 years, we've taken massive hits to our wallets, to our jobs, and to our national image. Through wars, escalating trade deficits, and improprieties of corporations the cost of living in the US has increased dramatically. I know that the current administration in this country is responsible for a great deal of the situation which we are in, think about it, we've sat by and witnessed this administration, just recently, pass a huge energy bill that offers Big Business so many tax breaks, while they continue to reap huge profits from you and me.
Is this really a nation for the governed, or has it become a nation for the governing? We've allowed more and more taxes to be levied upon us, sat by and watched prices escalate, and escalate at a phenomenal rate, and as a populace, we've done nothing but sit idly by and allow it to happen.
How much longer is this to go on? Isn't it about time that we do something? Organize as consumers?
Where's our spirit as a nation of free men and women?
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Outside Sales
Sales is a tough cookie to crumble. For a person who's never done outside sales before, there is a lot of information to remember and to disseminate. I'm quickly finding that confidence is one of the most valuable tools for a salesperson to possess. Which, I have to admit, I thought I had a lot of it, but the past couple of days the confidence that I do have has truly been shaken.
I'm working with someone who's truly a salesperson. And, an honest salesperson which I've also found from dealing with salespeople in the past is truly a commodity in short supply. He's a very knowledgeable person, lots of experience, not just sales experience, but true life experience. Which, I think is one of the most important things that we can bring to anything that we really do that we wish to do well.
I've not had a job before which has challenged me as much as outside sales has. But, it's exactly what I need to grow beyond this point where I'm at in my personal life. It is challenging yes, but it's not beyond what I can accomplish. Not at all.
It is the exact challenge which I need to rouse me up to be a better communicator. I've always felt that I was a very good at written communications, but verbally, I think that I've allowed some of my confidence level to intrude into my abilities there. I am enjoying this challenge, and I do feel that it's forcing me to grow beyond my bounds.
Today I've learned a few valuable lessons. One of them being that I'm not as direct or assertive as I should be. I had that pointed out to me, and it was a bit of a wake up call for me. It's funny that I know how to write in the active voice, but I'm passive in my speaking voice. So, this new immeditate challenge to me is to learn to speak in the same voice that I write with. I know how to write the active voice. I'm going to call you. I'm going to do this. I'm calling to confirm our appointment. But, in my speaking voice it's always been. Do you mind if I call you? Do you mind if I do this? I was wondering if you were still available for our appointment?
Yes, it's really time that I took charge of this thing.
I'm working with someone who's truly a salesperson. And, an honest salesperson which I've also found from dealing with salespeople in the past is truly a commodity in short supply. He's a very knowledgeable person, lots of experience, not just sales experience, but true life experience. Which, I think is one of the most important things that we can bring to anything that we really do that we wish to do well.
I've not had a job before which has challenged me as much as outside sales has. But, it's exactly what I need to grow beyond this point where I'm at in my personal life. It is challenging yes, but it's not beyond what I can accomplish. Not at all.
It is the exact challenge which I need to rouse me up to be a better communicator. I've always felt that I was a very good at written communications, but verbally, I think that I've allowed some of my confidence level to intrude into my abilities there. I am enjoying this challenge, and I do feel that it's forcing me to grow beyond my bounds.
Today I've learned a few valuable lessons. One of them being that I'm not as direct or assertive as I should be. I had that pointed out to me, and it was a bit of a wake up call for me. It's funny that I know how to write in the active voice, but I'm passive in my speaking voice. So, this new immeditate challenge to me is to learn to speak in the same voice that I write with. I know how to write the active voice. I'm going to call you. I'm going to do this. I'm calling to confirm our appointment. But, in my speaking voice it's always been. Do you mind if I call you? Do you mind if I do this? I was wondering if you were still available for our appointment?
Yes, it's really time that I took charge of this thing.
Monday, July 11, 2005
Magic Carpets & Muddy Fields
Sometimes we find that the rug we walk upon becomes slippery, almost as if it is to fly. We coast upon the ground beneath our feet, lighter than air, greeting the difficulties in life in passing.
While other times, we are face down in a muck of despair, struggling to escape the turmoil that life has seen fit to hoist upon us. Yet, the duality of living is inescapable, find the middle ground to walk upon, It's certainty and solidity will keep you upon the path.
Don't stray too far into the air, or too deep into the muck.
While other times, we are face down in a muck of despair, struggling to escape the turmoil that life has seen fit to hoist upon us. Yet, the duality of living is inescapable, find the middle ground to walk upon, It's certainty and solidity will keep you upon the path.
Don't stray too far into the air, or too deep into the muck.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Garden of Consciousness
There are visions I have of places from time to time. Natural places which for reasons unknown I've recorded in my mind. Just flashes which I visit in my mind sometimes. I'm not sure why they are there, or even if I've actually been to them, it may be a side road I've driven down or a trail I've hiked, a ditch I've seen as I've sped along the highway, or a hillside that my mind's eye has imprinted into memory. I find them calming, peaceful, and serene, though I when I have these moments of recall I also have an uncertainty about these places. Did I see them as a child? Or are they places that I've yet to see? Perhaps they are just memories of places which I've been. You see, I lost some of my memory from childhood as a result of choking. I went into a period of unconsciousness for about a week. I was on the precipice of needing to relearn the basic functioning such as walking and the alphabet, and much of what we take for granted as rudimentary existence. So, I'm left to wonder sometimes if these places which I recall are from childhood memories which are stored deep within my memories, locked in some box, which hold a key to some part of my soul.
I think that within each of us, we are all trying to solve a part of a puzzle. We are the parts of a cosmic equation which the Creator has placed a part of this puzzle within. Who knows...perhaps these moments of bliss which I visit in my memory are my own parts of the cosmic puzzle for which I'm working out the solutions. Perhaps they are past memory, or perhaps they are future memory. My own ephemera of the mental landscape, the flashes which I have which mean something to me for only a moment of passing, will....until the next time remain relagated to the depths of my consciousness.
I think that within each of us, we are all trying to solve a part of a puzzle. We are the parts of a cosmic equation which the Creator has placed a part of this puzzle within. Who knows...perhaps these moments of bliss which I visit in my memory are my own parts of the cosmic puzzle for which I'm working out the solutions. Perhaps they are past memory, or perhaps they are future memory. My own ephemera of the mental landscape, the flashes which I have which mean something to me for only a moment of passing, will....until the next time remain relagated to the depths of my consciousness.
Patience and Contemplation
Time is made from honey, slow and sweet. And, only the fools know what it means...
We're a very impatient lot, on the whole. The human animal, always rushing from point A to point B, never allowing a modicum of time for quiet contemplation. Well, most people at least. But, I've found that patience and contemplation, yield their own rewards.
Patience in friendships, leads to life long friends who you'll be able to depend upon.
Contemplation, gives you an inner strength to cope with all of the tribulation to which life subjects the spirt.
Now, both of these are intertwined. It takes a lot of patience to contemplate anything, most problems in living don't have simple clear cut answers at which we can arrive at simply by filling a box with a lead pencil. Much of the splendor of living is making the errors and learning from those errors, seeing where our failings were, growing, and moving along to the next crisis, similar to a constant state of rebirth.....
"each passing moment, is another opportunity to turn it all around."
With patience and contemplation, we can find our places in the world, reach our truest potentials, and evolve our selves beyond our immaturity of living to gain wisdoms for our future error.
We should have patience with ourselves, and even moreso with our fellows while on this Earth. I feel that if we seek patient contemplation of our own life, than we should more easily find it in others and for others.
We're a very impatient lot, on the whole. The human animal, always rushing from point A to point B, never allowing a modicum of time for quiet contemplation. Well, most people at least. But, I've found that patience and contemplation, yield their own rewards.
Patience in friendships, leads to life long friends who you'll be able to depend upon.
Contemplation, gives you an inner strength to cope with all of the tribulation to which life subjects the spirt.
Now, both of these are intertwined. It takes a lot of patience to contemplate anything, most problems in living don't have simple clear cut answers at which we can arrive at simply by filling a box with a lead pencil. Much of the splendor of living is making the errors and learning from those errors, seeing where our failings were, growing, and moving along to the next crisis, similar to a constant state of rebirth.....
"each passing moment, is another opportunity to turn it all around."
With patience and contemplation, we can find our places in the world, reach our truest potentials, and evolve our selves beyond our immaturity of living to gain wisdoms for our future error.
We should have patience with ourselves, and even moreso with our fellows while on this Earth. I feel that if we seek patient contemplation of our own life, than we should more easily find it in others and for others.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Wave
I wonder sometimes. Can you feel me thinking of you in tender moments of solitude?
I wonder sometimes, if you know the depths beneath this surface.
If the connections across the great divide are functioning
If the thoughts sent travel at the speed of spirit?
I wonder sometimes about the world and the distances between points
I ponder thoughts of packing, travel, jumping trains, boats, planes
and car rides alongside you.
I wonder if the madness in my spirit will overtake me,
and those tender moments of solitude will turn to tender moments shared.
I wonder sometimes, if you know the depths beneath this surface.
If the connections across the great divide are functioning
If the thoughts sent travel at the speed of spirit?
I wonder sometimes about the world and the distances between points
I ponder thoughts of packing, travel, jumping trains, boats, planes
and car rides alongside you.
I wonder if the madness in my spirit will overtake me,
and those tender moments of solitude will turn to tender moments shared.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
The life unlived
A life unlived, the dream is released. I let it go, and move along to brighter horizons. Mystics and soothsayers have divined these passings with the throwing of bones, tossing of cards, and the readings of the stars. Simply put, some things in our conscious existence just aren't to be. We follow a part of our paths down until they reach a cul de sac, then we are left with the questions of settling in the dead end, or turning our pale tiny canoe around and rowing against the stream until we see a brighter horizon. It's the beauty of living that makes us go on most of the time, while we err, sometimes on the side of hope, we still realize that our path in life is the one that matters. Finding our way through this maelstrom that is our consciousness perception of reality is our lot in life, which ever compass we choose, be it religion, intuition, or reason will typically guide us to where we feel we should be, at least for a time until the upset of living jostles our tiny canoe and the ripples force us to reconsider.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Cracking the shell..
I'm stepping outside my comfort zone. It's the only way to grow beyond these bounds, the constraints that I've allowed to be placed upon me for far too long. I think that it's necessary for us all to find a way to get out of our comfort zones occasionally. A couple years back, I'd read an excerpt of something that was rumoured to have been written by Kurt Vonnegut, but then it was revealed to have been some sort of hoax; regardless the piece called....'Wear Sunscreen' is chocked full of hit and run wisdom. One of the things that's stuck with me from it was:
Do one thing every day that scares you.
I think that we all get very complacent with our living, and just do the things that we know we're expert at, or that we find we've a special affinity for excellence in, but those things don't make us grow. They just show what we're capable of, but not what we can reach.
Are we all just happy to live within the shell of our own makings and not to explode that shell and explore the world around us, cracking open the chrysalis, spreading our wings and floating off on the warm winds blowing?
I have to say that I feel that I'm in a period of growth right now. I'm being forced to learn some new skills, as well as choosing to learn some new ones on my own. I have a very strong sense of freedom and growth, and confidence. I may fail, I may succeed, but I think I'll be richer for the journey.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
I think that we all get very complacent with our living, and just do the things that we know we're expert at, or that we find we've a special affinity for excellence in, but those things don't make us grow. They just show what we're capable of, but not what we can reach.
Are we all just happy to live within the shell of our own makings and not to explode that shell and explore the world around us, cracking open the chrysalis, spreading our wings and floating off on the warm winds blowing?
I have to say that I feel that I'm in a period of growth right now. I'm being forced to learn some new skills, as well as choosing to learn some new ones on my own. I have a very strong sense of freedom and growth, and confidence. I may fail, I may succeed, but I think I'll be richer for the journey.
Destiny
It's essential in life that we set goals for ourselves. Having something to look forward to, a milestone to pass, or an accomplishment that we want to make gives us the purpose that we need everyday. I've spent a lot of my life not planning, letting my dice fall where they may, sometimes picking them up and casting them again, while others being tossed about by the whims of fortune. There is something to be said of a fatalistic method such as that, it can lead you to your ultimate state of being eventually, but upon getting closer to that state...it's time to take the reins and begin to drive that wild horse of destiny to the place that you want to go.
Destiny is no slave to be mastered,
she is a vicious, trying horse
and you..
but a rider.
Destiny is no slave to be mastered,
she is a vicious, trying horse
and you..
but a rider.
How's it going to end?
The other side of the universe yields it's mysteries in moments of the closest connections.
Shared moments of laughter, expose the swirling arm of far away galaxies.
A sigh hints of the collapse of a star.
Sometimes to categorize feelings, it's very difficult. Putting the mixture of emotions that we're capable of in any given moment into a succint twist of phrase, is at times an impossibility. The conflicts we have with our inner voices, the faiths in living we embrace, the knowledge of the coming day and it's events, all swirlling in our minds trying to find a grasp on the formation of that turn of phrase to describe our inner struggle. Yet, somehow...we manage to filter out the conflicting emotions, constrain our faiths to reality, and curtail our conveyance of our own knowledge enough so that they all work in tandem to create this dialogue with the rest of the world. Whether those feelings are of love, nervousness, fear, excitement, or despondency...somehow the spirit is able to distill them into a few phrases to pass along those feelings to the rest of the world.
I think that I'm in a sort of a swirl right now. I've always felt that I've been in a state of 'static change' or a state where there is a constant change going on in life. Perhaps all of us are in a static change, well....I will refute that immediately because I know people who never change, who resist change and neglect to ever allow themselves to change. Let me rephrase it, Perhaps some of us are in a static change where we're constantly opening ourselves up to the universe extending our spirits and allowing them to be affected by the world around; always seeking knowledge and understanding; and just trying our best to comprehend why we're here. Perhaps that makes for a life that is difficult to live, but doesn't the saying go that the 'unexamined life is a life not worth living."
(I'm really happy.)
Shared moments of laughter, expose the swirling arm of far away galaxies.
A sigh hints of the collapse of a star.
Sometimes to categorize feelings, it's very difficult. Putting the mixture of emotions that we're capable of in any given moment into a succint twist of phrase, is at times an impossibility. The conflicts we have with our inner voices, the faiths in living we embrace, the knowledge of the coming day and it's events, all swirlling in our minds trying to find a grasp on the formation of that turn of phrase to describe our inner struggle. Yet, somehow...we manage to filter out the conflicting emotions, constrain our faiths to reality, and curtail our conveyance of our own knowledge enough so that they all work in tandem to create this dialogue with the rest of the world. Whether those feelings are of love, nervousness, fear, excitement, or despondency...somehow the spirit is able to distill them into a few phrases to pass along those feelings to the rest of the world.
I think that I'm in a sort of a swirl right now. I've always felt that I've been in a state of 'static change' or a state where there is a constant change going on in life. Perhaps all of us are in a static change, well....I will refute that immediately because I know people who never change, who resist change and neglect to ever allow themselves to change. Let me rephrase it, Perhaps some of us are in a static change where we're constantly opening ourselves up to the universe extending our spirits and allowing them to be affected by the world around; always seeking knowledge and understanding; and just trying our best to comprehend why we're here. Perhaps that makes for a life that is difficult to live, but doesn't the saying go that the 'unexamined life is a life not worth living."
(I'm really happy.)
Friday, July 01, 2005
A pause
Well it's finally the end of the day. I'm at that moment of my last bit of introspective thought of the day. When I was writing madly...I would take a few moments with pen and paper just before I hit the light to doze off to sleep and write some free verse. Lately, I've gotten my self back into the habit marginally, and some of the things that have come out of those writings have been good...some...er not so good.
Anyway, things are starting to look up.
Anyway, things are starting to look up.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
What luxury?
The soft solemnity of life's gracious host, occasionally grants us moments of the purest elations. In those moments, we find our hopes, our happiness, and our journey's filled with the bright patches of a sunlit grove of fragrant trees in bloom. I'm finding my way through those shadows of my grove, and allowing the sun to warm my face.
Someone once asked me, 'What luxury would I take from life?' That question and that conversation has stayed with me, and has grown inside me for a long time. From the bloom of friendship, sometimes 'magic happens' and we grow beyond our grove, move beyond our comfort zone and pledge our selves to break forth from the soils where we've rooted our lives inside of, sprouting above, and extending our branches toward the star-filled heavens.
What luxury would I take from life. The luxury of knowing that out there, across the gulf, there is a good friend to share a few moments with.
What luxury would you take from life?
Someone once asked me, 'What luxury would I take from life?' That question and that conversation has stayed with me, and has grown inside me for a long time. From the bloom of friendship, sometimes 'magic happens' and we grow beyond our grove, move beyond our comfort zone and pledge our selves to break forth from the soils where we've rooted our lives inside of, sprouting above, and extending our branches toward the star-filled heavens.
What luxury would I take from life. The luxury of knowing that out there, across the gulf, there is a good friend to share a few moments with.
What luxury would you take from life?
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Reaching the top
Across great distances, over hills, valleys and oceans there are invisible strands binding us together.
Threads, reaching out, connections made, broken, remade, and broken again...but ever present...
I know that someone has to do it, why not me. Why should I be the guy who sells advertising on the back of cash register tape? I'm sure that I could make a lot of money at it...someone has to do it...why not me?
I think that each of us set limits for ourselves. Perhaps the measure of ourself is how intimate we are with those boundaries we set. If we set no limits for ourself, then there is nothing to measure up to, no apex to reach and surpass, no plateau to come to rest upon. Having never been one to set limits on myself, perhaps it's time that I reevaluate that thought, to say to myself...this is what I'm capable of, and this is how I'm going to surpass that capability.
To scale the mountian, we must start at the bottom, slowly working our way up to the top, then upon finally reaching the top...we are free to see where we've been.
Threads, reaching out, connections made, broken, remade, and broken again...but ever present...
I know that someone has to do it, why not me. Why should I be the guy who sells advertising on the back of cash register tape? I'm sure that I could make a lot of money at it...someone has to do it...why not me?
I think that each of us set limits for ourselves. Perhaps the measure of ourself is how intimate we are with those boundaries we set. If we set no limits for ourself, then there is nothing to measure up to, no apex to reach and surpass, no plateau to come to rest upon. Having never been one to set limits on myself, perhaps it's time that I reevaluate that thought, to say to myself...this is what I'm capable of, and this is how I'm going to surpass that capability.
To scale the mountian, we must start at the bottom, slowly working our way up to the top, then upon finally reaching the top...we are free to see where we've been.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Hitting Bottom
To avoid revealing the intracacies of living and dying, we wrap pretty papers around our lives. Tying ribbons around our problems, sugar coating them as we impale them on sticks. Because, everyone has their own mini-series reality program that they are living, no one seems to care that their neighbor is in their own feature length film drama. Yet, somehow each of us manage to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep going, on until the commercial break at least.
It's funny sometimes that life throws so many things at us at once, one thing or another and suddenly we are running to the ends of the earth to find something most dear to us, when in reality, all of those things we need are so close. While, a heartbeat seems close, the touch of a cheek is much closer. The electronic world leaves little possibility of the soft touch of finger to cheek, so we are compelled by forces beyond us, larger than us, and outside of our spheres to dream, to desire, and to hope for better worlds elsewhere.
In each of our mini-series, we have the heroes and heroines, the villians, the struggle, the climax, and a denoument. Along the way of our telling, there will likely be a wedding, a birth, probably a few deaths, some heartache, some love, fear, hatred, mistrust, sleep, food, and the rest of the everyday mundaniety the our lifes are subject to througout the living.
Yet, at each of those junctures in our life we face those conflicts, some of us give up with suicides, homocides, withdrawal into our own little caves, or starting over completely from scratch. That's pretty much where I am at at this point in life.
My mini-series has been going on for too long, too much drama in it, and far too little enjoyment. The last time I had Chinese food, the fortune that I got was..
To be a man, means constant revision.
So, that is what has been going on for the last several years of this ongoing drama which has worked out to be the non-fictional tale of some guy, who happens to be me. I've been in constant re-write since October 2004, and my novel is at a dark chapter right now. I'm asking myself, what will the main character do now? How in the world will he get out of this mess that he's allowed himself to get into? But, somehow, things will work out...the show must go on!
It's funny sometimes that life throws so many things at us at once, one thing or another and suddenly we are running to the ends of the earth to find something most dear to us, when in reality, all of those things we need are so close. While, a heartbeat seems close, the touch of a cheek is much closer. The electronic world leaves little possibility of the soft touch of finger to cheek, so we are compelled by forces beyond us, larger than us, and outside of our spheres to dream, to desire, and to hope for better worlds elsewhere.
In each of our mini-series, we have the heroes and heroines, the villians, the struggle, the climax, and a denoument. Along the way of our telling, there will likely be a wedding, a birth, probably a few deaths, some heartache, some love, fear, hatred, mistrust, sleep, food, and the rest of the everyday mundaniety the our lifes are subject to througout the living.
Yet, at each of those junctures in our life we face those conflicts, some of us give up with suicides, homocides, withdrawal into our own little caves, or starting over completely from scratch. That's pretty much where I am at at this point in life.
My mini-series has been going on for too long, too much drama in it, and far too little enjoyment. The last time I had Chinese food, the fortune that I got was..
To be a man, means constant revision.
So, that is what has been going on for the last several years of this ongoing drama which has worked out to be the non-fictional tale of some guy, who happens to be me. I've been in constant re-write since October 2004, and my novel is at a dark chapter right now. I'm asking myself, what will the main character do now? How in the world will he get out of this mess that he's allowed himself to get into? But, somehow, things will work out...the show must go on!
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Tolerance
I've never understood why tolerance is such a difficult thing for people to have for other people. It's not like a belief, a religion, a skin color, or a sexual preference is simply going to go away. People are always going to have their little idiosyncracies that make them different, what I want to know is what's the point in another group of people creating trouble simply because they don't agree with how other's are? They can't change them, so they are wasting their time.
It's not just a one way thing either, both sides of the coin need to develop their own tolerances for each other.
It's not just a one way thing either, both sides of the coin need to develop their own tolerances for each other.
Friday, June 10, 2005
The welcome mat
I've spent time when I felt lost. With little or no direction, filled with listlessness and restlessness at the same time. It's frustrating sometimes to live in this mortal flesh, like an ant in a maze, waiting to get sqashed by some terrible force.
Yet, opportunity knocks. We don't always have the wherewithal to answer it when it does. We may sit and listen to the knocking, lulling us into a sense of secure complacency, until suddenly, the opportunity leaves our front doorstep, and goes down the street to stand on someone else's welcome mat. It's then that we think to ourselves....
"Why didn't I do that. I could've been there, right now, doing all that..." Whatever it may have been that we find to connect with a 'what if' that resulted from our inactions when opportunities came to visit and our own self-defeating behaviors turned us away from it.
Awareness is a slow and long road, some of us never start the journey, while others remain queued with our own inadequacies of forethought, of embellishment, and consequence.
Is it in our nature to struggle endlessly?
Yet, opportunity knocks. We don't always have the wherewithal to answer it when it does. We may sit and listen to the knocking, lulling us into a sense of secure complacency, until suddenly, the opportunity leaves our front doorstep, and goes down the street to stand on someone else's welcome mat. It's then that we think to ourselves....
"Why didn't I do that. I could've been there, right now, doing all that..." Whatever it may have been that we find to connect with a 'what if' that resulted from our inactions when opportunities came to visit and our own self-defeating behaviors turned us away from it.
Awareness is a slow and long road, some of us never start the journey, while others remain queued with our own inadequacies of forethought, of embellishment, and consequence.
Is it in our nature to struggle endlessly?
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
There is more than this.
Sometimes in life, we realize that things just aren't going so well for us. We're faced with trials of living because of many things, some major and some minor. But, in those moments we have to make choices that could have repercussions on us for long periods of time. I've made a couple of those choices in my lifetime, and I'm sure that I'm going to make many more of them throughout the remainder of my days. You have to examine things in the grander scheme, what is this really worth? Don't you think that sometimes, in the face of our greatest tribulations that we have to stop and ask ourselves, "Isn't there more to existence than this?"
That was my mantra once, and it got me through a truly rotten stage in my life. While I knew that the moment was going to pass, I held on to the knowledge that there was more to life that followed the mess I was in at the time.
"There's got to me more than this."
"This isn't going to last."
That was my mantra once, and it got me through a truly rotten stage in my life. While I knew that the moment was going to pass, I held on to the knowledge that there was more to life that followed the mess I was in at the time.
"There's got to me more than this."
"This isn't going to last."
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Drifting
Where do we finally draw the line within ourselves? Is there a portal that we cross and we realize that we can no longer go back to what once was? I've seen many of these milestones in my brief life of 33 years. And I'm longing for earlier times when living was much simpler. If I could go back and do all the things that I know I've done wrong again, I would. I'm sure that many people would, given the chance. But, conversely, we must come to know that where we are in our lives is of our own making. It's not some cosmic dice game which we are the subject of, we make our own choices and we are faced to live with them after we make them.
Whether it's a bankruptcy, a divorce, a birth, a death, or a new job...the choices which we make they carry their repercussions throughout our existence. We'd all like to go back to Senior prom and ask that beautiful girl to dance, or long for that moment of indescision where opportunity passed us on in the moment, or maybe to place a bet on something at the time we knew was a sure thing, but for some reason or other we didn't do any of those things in that moment. The cause seemed true enough, yet there was something gnawing at our spirts which gave us just enough pause to miss out on a tributary which the river of our life never allowed to be carved out of our canyons.
We can make our promises to ourselves, say that we're going to do things differently in the moment when it comes again, but will we? Will we have the wherewithal to give those moments the concert in our senses which they truly need? Can we be powerful enough to take the oars in our hands, pilot our tiny canoe down the raging river, and go against the current? Or will we simply choose to let life wash us down the river, taking us with it where it may?
Whether it's a bankruptcy, a divorce, a birth, a death, or a new job...the choices which we make they carry their repercussions throughout our existence. We'd all like to go back to Senior prom and ask that beautiful girl to dance, or long for that moment of indescision where opportunity passed us on in the moment, or maybe to place a bet on something at the time we knew was a sure thing, but for some reason or other we didn't do any of those things in that moment. The cause seemed true enough, yet there was something gnawing at our spirts which gave us just enough pause to miss out on a tributary which the river of our life never allowed to be carved out of our canyons.
We can make our promises to ourselves, say that we're going to do things differently in the moment when it comes again, but will we? Will we have the wherewithal to give those moments the concert in our senses which they truly need? Can we be powerful enough to take the oars in our hands, pilot our tiny canoe down the raging river, and go against the current? Or will we simply choose to let life wash us down the river, taking us with it where it may?
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Spotless
The waves which wash over us in solitude, after a movie, a book, a song we've heard that touch us in ways we only feel when we are alone. Those times, when we feel our greatest potential for loving.
Love is only a word to scratch the surface of describing the greatest of human potentials, it's in those moments where we are closest to the divine in each of us. Those moments when we clear out the cobwebs from our mind and see ourselves as we truly are, when we cling to memory, to moment, to that tiny spark of love which we've known in our life.
Across distances over mountians to the top of the world, someone is there, someone who someday I'll share a coffee with at a tiny cafe and laugh together with.
Love is only a word to scratch the surface of describing the greatest of human potentials, it's in those moments where we are closest to the divine in each of us. Those moments when we clear out the cobwebs from our mind and see ourselves as we truly are, when we cling to memory, to moment, to that tiny spark of love which we've known in our life.
Across distances over mountians to the top of the world, someone is there, someone who someday I'll share a coffee with at a tiny cafe and laugh together with.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Snapshot
Alone in the sun as the rivers roiling waters churn,
seagulls circling over white caps breaking the surface
on the pier some fish for sport
here in the car I sit, listening to the radio and having my lunch.
seagulls circling over white caps breaking the surface
on the pier some fish for sport
here in the car I sit, listening to the radio and having my lunch.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
A moment's glance backward
We all wonder what life would be like if. Those two little overlooked letters, separate meaning little, but when placed adjacent to each other, pose such grand questions. "If I'd only".."If she did this"...."If he did that"...."If I would have.." We spend hours, unconscious of their passage in pondering the possibles of our alternate untaken actions. To what end? What is it about our lives which lure us to these unforeseen unknowable, yet cognitive outcomes, which barring the invention of time travel will have merit in our conscious lives? Where do these points of introspection lead us to in our daily lives, are they merely escape from our moments of weakeness? Do they carry us to the next moment of defining choice, the grandeur we seek to attain through our ultimate choice of mundane action?
It is in our moments of post-thought that we begin to know ourselves better, when we examine ourselves 'through a glass darkly' that we remove "I" from our very own equation and see the moment of our own personal errors. In each of those moments, we've stripped ourselves bare. Bare of any shred of haughtiness, boldness, overbearing attitude, and inhumanity, that we find that spark in each of us of the divine. Our minds have found the mechanism to know the alternate reality of which we are the unordained master of, that of forethought, of pre-action and wonder, which we only visit after our error, and after each of our own solitary denoument. The stories which we write in each of our lives find their climaxes in the real world, yet we are the greatest author of fiction in hindsight.
It is in our moments of post-thought that we begin to know ourselves better, when we examine ourselves 'through a glass darkly' that we remove "I" from our very own equation and see the moment of our own personal errors. In each of those moments, we've stripped ourselves bare. Bare of any shred of haughtiness, boldness, overbearing attitude, and inhumanity, that we find that spark in each of us of the divine. Our minds have found the mechanism to know the alternate reality of which we are the unordained master of, that of forethought, of pre-action and wonder, which we only visit after our error, and after each of our own solitary denoument. The stories which we write in each of our lives find their climaxes in the real world, yet we are the greatest author of fiction in hindsight.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
When we get done..
Things get in the way of ourselves. Life has a way of interrupting our dreams and hopes, sometimes it's a redlight other times it's a death, a failed relationship, or some other consequence of our existence. We can't control these menial things, we don't ask for them, nor do we seek them, they are given to us. A saint once said that these are what rounds off the hard edges of our character, these trials, these longings, they bring us closer to Godliness. Why would someone say that?
Perhaps the wisdom in those words is not for us, perhaps it is for God to understand, for God to know that we have found a chink in His armor of understanding. Maybe the trials of life do make us appreciate the afterlife more, maybe the difficulties that we face here will make us long for some idealized version of reality that exists for us after this one, who is to say? The Saints? God, Him/Herself?
I've travelled millions of miles in my lifetime. Most of those journeys have been backwards in time repeatedly, to earlier times in my life where I wished I could change something, a point in time on a continuum where I just want to go back and color a different blank in on our Grand Multiple Choice test that each of us are taking, but Alas, it's all been futile. I arrive at the same point that each of you get back to after these moments of introspection. After you've examined your choices and the outcomes, you realize that if you wouldn't have made the choices that you did then you wouldn't be where you are now. So, verity reigns, and you determine that where you are now isn't so bad. Right? Well, what if where you were supposed to be as a result of those 'ill-concieved notions' that you decided made perfect sense at the time were to lead to the ultimate Nirvana? That ultimate joy which your human brain cannot concieve of at this state of development? Who's really to say that you are more than the sum of your choices?
At the end of Life, what will each of us see? Will it be some quick flash of light...a long tunnel filled with darkness that has a bright light that contains every moment in our lives at the end of it, given to us in a million years worth of transmission? Or is there more? Is the last few seconds of life that our brains hold on to, all there really is of our Heaven/Hell? Those last moments where the brain is clinging to what we call perception, is that what there is of our Heaven, of our Hell?
You must realize that dreams sometimes seem to take days, and they are only within the space of minutes...are our brains such horrible time keepers, so poor a perceptor of time to be unconscious of it's passage?
What is there after this life?
Perhaps the wisdom in those words is not for us, perhaps it is for God to understand, for God to know that we have found a chink in His armor of understanding. Maybe the trials of life do make us appreciate the afterlife more, maybe the difficulties that we face here will make us long for some idealized version of reality that exists for us after this one, who is to say? The Saints? God, Him/Herself?
I've travelled millions of miles in my lifetime. Most of those journeys have been backwards in time repeatedly, to earlier times in my life where I wished I could change something, a point in time on a continuum where I just want to go back and color a different blank in on our Grand Multiple Choice test that each of us are taking, but Alas, it's all been futile. I arrive at the same point that each of you get back to after these moments of introspection. After you've examined your choices and the outcomes, you realize that if you wouldn't have made the choices that you did then you wouldn't be where you are now. So, verity reigns, and you determine that where you are now isn't so bad. Right? Well, what if where you were supposed to be as a result of those 'ill-concieved notions' that you decided made perfect sense at the time were to lead to the ultimate Nirvana? That ultimate joy which your human brain cannot concieve of at this state of development? Who's really to say that you are more than the sum of your choices?
At the end of Life, what will each of us see? Will it be some quick flash of light...a long tunnel filled with darkness that has a bright light that contains every moment in our lives at the end of it, given to us in a million years worth of transmission? Or is there more? Is the last few seconds of life that our brains hold on to, all there really is of our Heaven/Hell? Those last moments where the brain is clinging to what we call perception, is that what there is of our Heaven, of our Hell?
You must realize that dreams sometimes seem to take days, and they are only within the space of minutes...are our brains such horrible time keepers, so poor a perceptor of time to be unconscious of it's passage?
What is there after this life?
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
These Distance
I look into your eyes
Thousands of miles close to you
Across these philosophical connections
waves, energies, electrons, balance, and wires
The entropic wonder at this disintegration of physical distance
leading to some energy
leading to some joining
Closing the distances between my eyes and yours illuminated on the screen
Pictured in the happiest of moments, behind beautiful scenery
a snapshot of just one moment, preserved in a matrix...
Broadcasted to anywhere electrical wires can travel
Thousands of miles close to you
Across these philosophical connections
waves, energies, electrons, balance, and wires
The entropic wonder at this disintegration of physical distance
leading to some energy
leading to some joining
Closing the distances between my eyes and yours illuminated on the screen
Pictured in the happiest of moments, behind beautiful scenery
a snapshot of just one moment, preserved in a matrix...
Broadcasted to anywhere electrical wires can travel
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Summers last songbird
The lilting last phrases of the summer songbirds, are only an echo now in the depth of winter's graceless embrace. These cold nights, spent shivering in bed dreaming of the summer sun serve as the prelude to the eager blossoms of spring.
The buds bursting forth from the grey twigs, long held by the frigid hands of winter in her icy grasp. Sheltering here, amid these blankets....I know that there are places where the summer never ends, places of eternal springtime, and lands where winter never comes with her shadows and iceflows. I long for those places, with verdant fields full of mist in the early morning that the Sun will burn off by mid-morning, places with jewelled flowers in the early morning and vibrant yellows by midday.
If I pause, just for a moment, the echo of the songbird returns to my mind...that last robin bedding down for the winter.
The buds bursting forth from the grey twigs, long held by the frigid hands of winter in her icy grasp. Sheltering here, amid these blankets....I know that there are places where the summer never ends, places of eternal springtime, and lands where winter never comes with her shadows and iceflows. I long for those places, with verdant fields full of mist in the early morning that the Sun will burn off by mid-morning, places with jewelled flowers in the early morning and vibrant yellows by midday.
If I pause, just for a moment, the echo of the songbird returns to my mind...that last robin bedding down for the winter.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
The interior life.
Thoughts occupy so much of our lives. Whether they are of someone or something, we spend so much time on the interior life. What will we do about ______? I hope I didn't offend _______. Why did _______ say that to me? I hope that ________ really means what they are saying.
This dialogue with our inner selves is very important to us. It grounds us, it helps us make up our minds, it keeps us sane, and lends wisdom to our most menial of confrontations that we face in our living.
I've been in a real mess lately with my outer life, the interior life is good, but all of the events which surround that interior, well.....they've not been the best lately. But, everything in life has it's purpose. We may not see it, but each of us are part of some greater whole, each of us are connected to the 'Great Switchboard' for lack of a better description of it. Everyone on this planet is connected to the people who come into our lives by invisible threads. We may move through reality(the physical world) but those invisible threads are always there, whether they be mere thoughts or some high form of energy, they connect us to the people who matter in our lives every moment of our interior lives.
This dialogue with our inner selves is very important to us. It grounds us, it helps us make up our minds, it keeps us sane, and lends wisdom to our most menial of confrontations that we face in our living.
I've been in a real mess lately with my outer life, the interior life is good, but all of the events which surround that interior, well.....they've not been the best lately. But, everything in life has it's purpose. We may not see it, but each of us are part of some greater whole, each of us are connected to the 'Great Switchboard' for lack of a better description of it. Everyone on this planet is connected to the people who come into our lives by invisible threads. We may move through reality(the physical world) but those invisible threads are always there, whether they be mere thoughts or some high form of energy, they connect us to the people who matter in our lives every moment of our interior lives.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
The generalized life
The human experience is at times a hard road. We face trials in our lives which make the rest of it worth the living, I guess it's true what they say that the 'sweet just ain't as sweet without the bitter,' something courtesy of Vanilla Sky. And, even though there's some grain of truth to that, it's still a hard row to hoe sometimes. We struggle with material, situations, and our own petty fears and desires. There has to be more beyond this veil, our consciousness has to be capable of transcending the day to day. But how? Are we supposed to work and reach our 'enlightened states' in our 'off hours'? Surely there's more to this humdrum existence then, find a career, find a mate, settle down, reproduce, have a few years of 'how was your day, mine was okay, how was yours?'
I'm a happy fella, but yeah..just like everyone else...I do get in those blue moods. Stifled creativity, boredom, stagnation...something needs to be shook up, and I think it's me.
I'm a happy fella, but yeah..just like everyone else...I do get in those blue moods. Stifled creativity, boredom, stagnation...something needs to be shook up, and I think it's me.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
The Growing
Another days passage has faded to memory
These sullen moments find us....wanting more of living...more of the hours of joyousness....and triumphs life offers...but we end only in solitary sleep...
I spent much of the day with my son. Whether I was watching him in his first basketball game and observing his wild unfocused energy, or I was taking him into the woods with me to see his destructiveness of appreciation for nature....I find that the waking life has it's merits most when it's shared. The solitary world is nice, for the comforts it offers you, the hours spent reading, listening to music, writing, walking....whatever it may be which moves you. But, the moments of shared experience is what we crave as humankind. The human animal is a social animal. Perhaps, not so much as some animals...but there is a high degree of socialization which we require for our survival in this life.
In witnessing early attempts at socialization..in some ways it's on it most basic levels...baser communication, brutality, affection, and mutual identification. I watched my son today with his teammates, and I find him to be unfocused. Perhaps it is the age (he's only 5) or perhaps it is another element which is lacking from his world. The unity of a home where mother and father are united in daily communication, presenting a solid foundational form of interpretation for the world around him, scripts from which to act out his desires from, and the discipline for response to stimulus. The other children, some of them flowed with grace through the play, seemingly more knowledgeable then my own child, seeming to see more the outcome of their actions, and the necessity for what they should do. While, my son was ever-present, though unfocused.
Where does this 'focus' in our lives come from? It follows us throughout living, and we find it in different areas of our living. Some of us are focused on ideas, while others are focused on objects, acts, or some other esoteric concepts.
These sullen moments find us....wanting more of living...more of the hours of joyousness....and triumphs life offers...but we end only in solitary sleep...
I spent much of the day with my son. Whether I was watching him in his first basketball game and observing his wild unfocused energy, or I was taking him into the woods with me to see his destructiveness of appreciation for nature....I find that the waking life has it's merits most when it's shared. The solitary world is nice, for the comforts it offers you, the hours spent reading, listening to music, writing, walking....whatever it may be which moves you. But, the moments of shared experience is what we crave as humankind. The human animal is a social animal. Perhaps, not so much as some animals...but there is a high degree of socialization which we require for our survival in this life.
In witnessing early attempts at socialization..in some ways it's on it most basic levels...baser communication, brutality, affection, and mutual identification. I watched my son today with his teammates, and I find him to be unfocused. Perhaps it is the age (he's only 5) or perhaps it is another element which is lacking from his world. The unity of a home where mother and father are united in daily communication, presenting a solid foundational form of interpretation for the world around him, scripts from which to act out his desires from, and the discipline for response to stimulus. The other children, some of them flowed with grace through the play, seemingly more knowledgeable then my own child, seeming to see more the outcome of their actions, and the necessity for what they should do. While, my son was ever-present, though unfocused.
Where does this 'focus' in our lives come from? It follows us throughout living, and we find it in different areas of our living. Some of us are focused on ideas, while others are focused on objects, acts, or some other esoteric concepts.
Patterns
I took this today on another visit to the John Muir Trail which runs alongside the Hiwassee River here in Tennessee. The main reason it jumped out at me was the pattern which seems to exist in it. I've been in a constant search for understanding of the whats, whys, and hows of the natural world for many years. I'm not anywhere near the understanding of it, but its always a joy to see some glimmer of something which makes some sense. I dont think it's a perfect pattern by any means, but there's definitely some pattern at work here, it's not just in plantlife which there's pattern...but the most basic blocks of life have pattern in them.
Everything seems to have reason, everything seems to have rhyme.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
I'm guilty too
Dreaming again of those far away places shrouded in mists, high above the treeline where there's nothing but the wind and rocks of the mountain tops.
It's a vision that I've had for a long time, just to escape into the wilderness and live like a wildman. Closer to the earth and the elements, not depending on anyone but myself for sustenance, only taking that from the earth that I had to to survive. But, it's pretty much just one of those dreams we toy with in this era. Something we escape to for a few days or maybe a weeks worth of hiking, but to live that way now? You'll be branded as a nutjob, or a psycho! Why do you want to give up all this modern convenience? Why do you want to eschew television, Big Macs, Craft-Matic Adjustable beds, Cheetos, Saltine Crackers, and sliced bread to go live in a tent and eat berries and fish?
The modern world is nice, but it's soulless. Sure, there's a lot of caring people in the world who love each other and reach out to one another, but how far below the surface does all that go? Last night I watched a program on Nightline about the aid that is pledged in the wake of a natural disaster as well as the coverage that those disasters receive. I was a bit saddened to hear that some of the aid which is 'pledged' to be sent by nations and leaders, doesn't actually make it after all. It's just a superficial thing, for the newsmedia by some of the world leaders. The same with the coverage of disasters by the media, after so much of it the public becomes desensitized to it. They turn the channels and tune out any further mention of human suffering in the world, until the next time. I think that if people could just live closer to the earth, develop more of a harmony with the world around them then all of the superficiality which is a result of the ball and chain of television in our day to day lives would vanish.
It's a vision that I've had for a long time, just to escape into the wilderness and live like a wildman. Closer to the earth and the elements, not depending on anyone but myself for sustenance, only taking that from the earth that I had to to survive. But, it's pretty much just one of those dreams we toy with in this era. Something we escape to for a few days or maybe a weeks worth of hiking, but to live that way now? You'll be branded as a nutjob, or a psycho! Why do you want to give up all this modern convenience? Why do you want to eschew television, Big Macs, Craft-Matic Adjustable beds, Cheetos, Saltine Crackers, and sliced bread to go live in a tent and eat berries and fish?
The modern world is nice, but it's soulless. Sure, there's a lot of caring people in the world who love each other and reach out to one another, but how far below the surface does all that go? Last night I watched a program on Nightline about the aid that is pledged in the wake of a natural disaster as well as the coverage that those disasters receive. I was a bit saddened to hear that some of the aid which is 'pledged' to be sent by nations and leaders, doesn't actually make it after all. It's just a superficial thing, for the newsmedia by some of the world leaders. The same with the coverage of disasters by the media, after so much of it the public becomes desensitized to it. They turn the channels and tune out any further mention of human suffering in the world, until the next time. I think that if people could just live closer to the earth, develop more of a harmony with the world around them then all of the superficiality which is a result of the ball and chain of television in our day to day lives would vanish.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
So many times in life...
It's so often that we think to ourselves...I wish I were somewhere else. We've created bumperstickers to commemorate this idea....'I'd rather be fishing, hiking, reading, having sex...etc etc etc ad infinitum. But what are we really saying to ourselves and the world around us when we say, I'd rather be somewhere else?
Is the present moment such a burden that we want to leave it to be somewhere else? Is the state of our lives such a hassle that we dream of these other places? Life's a journey, we have to get through the present to get to the future. So, there's really no point in wishing you were anywhere other then where you are right now, the future will take you where you are supposed to go......whether you like it or not.
I've spent a lot of time wishing that I were in other places...whether it was above or below the equator. Whether it was 20 years earlier or 20 year into the future. We can wish for many things....but it's all for naught when you really get down to brass tacks. You live in the present moment, you'll die in the present moment, you might as well enjoy that moment. So just try your best to be happy in that moment...it's really all I have to say for now.
Is the present moment such a burden that we want to leave it to be somewhere else? Is the state of our lives such a hassle that we dream of these other places? Life's a journey, we have to get through the present to get to the future. So, there's really no point in wishing you were anywhere other then where you are right now, the future will take you where you are supposed to go......whether you like it or not.
I've spent a lot of time wishing that I were in other places...whether it was above or below the equator. Whether it was 20 years earlier or 20 year into the future. We can wish for many things....but it's all for naught when you really get down to brass tacks. You live in the present moment, you'll die in the present moment, you might as well enjoy that moment. So just try your best to be happy in that moment...it's really all I have to say for now.
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