Thursday, December 18, 2008

Mirror, mirror, on the wall

I wonder sometimes if there is a cure. I wonder if I'll ever feel like I did when I was yonger, before I ever waited for a cure.

I guess it doesn't make any sense at all, whoever invented mirrors.

No one really wants to see herself, I figure. We're all hiding, hoping with our fingers crossed that somehow we'll make it out of the day better off than we were the day before. But no one's really out there exposing herself - her heart, passions, ambitions, everything. Instead everyone has a story to tell and a soul to protect. We've all got something to hide. All keeping secrets we never want to tell. We're all frail and breaking inside, hoping that we won't break anymore.

Personally, I'm best at hiding my hard days from the sun. Better than, say, hiding a frown from those around me, better than fighting back tears, et cetera. I'm best at taking my regrets to the sky, searching the constellations for forgiveness because I won't forgive myself. I won't forgive anybody else.

Occasionally I wake up in places that I don't remember falling asleep. I'm not talking about figurative imagery, and I'm not talking about forgetful debauchery. I mean, I actually think there is something terribly wrong with me, medically.

The unusual thing (beyond the fact that this happens to begin with) is that I wake up in these unusual places and decide that I enjoy being at those locations more than I liked being wherever it was where I'd been before. I like being able to disappear into a new location, and leave everyone around behind.

Sometimes I think that I may finally understand the wonder in my eyes when I look in a mirror. The wonder I see in the reflection staring back. I believe sometimes that I might finally understand the complex person that lies inside of that plane mirror and this body.

There is something wonderful about my friend, JP. About the way he sees things so clearly and he doesn't ever seem to have much to say. I mean I really would love it if he'd talk a bit more because when he does talk he's always saying something meaningful and thought-provoking. He's always giving everyone around him a real reason to listen.

Last night our paths crossed, and it'd been a while. It was a marvelous suprise.

After leaving, I did some thinking and realized that all this time I've blamed my heavy mind and heart on other people. Dismal friends having me down, apathy at home, work, et cetera. But, I realize that in all actuality it's just me being an idiot.

A selfish idiot.

And as the new year is quickly approaching, I think I am going to spend another year alone. In the most emotional sense of the word.

I should have no complaints. I am fortunate to have wonderful Lucas in my life, a decent family - what's left of it, and friends that are easy to count on.

Yet I'm always carrying so much fucking weight on my mind, and my reflection is perfectly weightless, as it is with the science of collimated beams of light.

I guess mirrors just happen to be the means of illustrating all of this, it isn't that mirrors are awful, it's just that forsaken realization that human beings are never going to reach the carefree weightlessness that lies in their reflections, in constellations, in the cruel world which encompasses them.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Sleep

A person doesn't necessarily need to be in love to make love; to understand life to live life, et cetera. I instead, would say that a life understood is a life lived and therefore, a successful life. Alas, it seems that too many people live with this belief that because 'then' happens that 'now' doesn't (perhaps this is why Tolle's The Power of Now is all over every bookstore?). But why now live in the present with the chance to see how exciting the consciousness of life is? There are things in this life, such as matter, that are tests; eyesight, then, being a test for our eyes to see beyond it and so creates imagination, dreams, ambitions, and an entire realm of new possibilities.

Only five days remain until I am back on my way to Seattle with nothing more than my checking account and Lucas. Without any real sort of structured plan, any other acquaintances, and without any real knowledge of what Seattle will have to offer. I am, by all means, just 'winging' it with the hope that I'll survive.

I haven't seen much of my friends, my house or anything else lately and I wonder sometimes about the outcome. I'm quite tempted to just keep going, heading west for now, but who knows after that, and who really cares? I could just leave all of this shit behind and still feel nothing more than alone.

Earlier today, I melted down all my burnt-t0-the-bottom candles and re-formed them into use able light sources, I guess that I make metaphors out of too much, but a lot of times I can't really understand even my own life if it's left the way it's lived. It's like I'm literally burnt out of the same ol' same ol' and I haven't left the country in over a year. I really need to get away - to accomplish something more than travel on these concrete streets.

I worry that I am only leaving for Seattle to recollect my thoughts and restructure my life. I worry that my motives for this aren't in the right place, and it breaks my heart to think this way.

But this i going to be a good experience, I'm convincing myself more every day, and it isn't a matter of whether or not I love Lucas nor whether or not he loves me. I simply need to know Lucas; I need to allow him to know me. We are deeper than the ocean and it seems that we have been focusing our attention in the wrong direction. We've been studying the skies lately, gazing into the surprisingly clear autumn skies of Northern Michigan's beautiful and rural countryside. We've been spending our time together watching the sun sink below the depths of the horizon and leaving when the rays return in rise in the early morning. I suppose that we ought to be looking not toward the sky nor toward the ground, but within ourselves and within each other.

There is a lot that I'm afraid of; I've come to realize as I'm continuously growing up. Most of my fears aren't external as I once thought. Instead, they come from within. I guess the worst of it is that all the simple aspects of my personality which I dislike most combine and transform me into one rather secluded human being.

Ultimately, I don't mind spending time isolated, because although there may not be any other people around, I have the same level of human contact I would have anywhere else, and even with an isolated physical state, I am usually engaged in the consciousness that surrounds me.

When I speak to people, in even casual dialogues, there is a seemingly heavy undertone. It is not intentional, it just is. My thoughts are
embedded deeply inside of me, and are not, generally, to be taken frivolously. I'm learning to get past this, to focus less on philosophy and art and to relate, to the best of my ability, with people more casually. Perhaps this is what D. H. Lawrence tried to convey with the imagery of two people meeting on a road where instead of just a physical meeting (or a casual "hello") they recognized the confrontation of their souls. I don't see these things enough in people - strangers and friends alike. I think our society is lacking these kind of human moments.

People are quick to lose touch with reality. The trick then is to combine the consciousness that a person is, with the surreal state which she aspires - and so is what it means to become lucid. Herein lies the eulogy of cinema (and worse, photography - because it is constrained by time): Rather than with literature, or even when telling a joke, instead of saying a man meets a woman in a coffee shop, on film, the camera follows a specific man and a specific woman in a particular coffee house. What's lost is the essence of imagination.

I am not in a position to tell anyone how to live his life, rather I admit to doing my best to encourage the people around me to exercise their minds, knowing that it is only an exercise. And to dream with their hands and minds alike.

I am leaving in five days, perhaps I will wake up in Seattle.



Thursday, May 29, 2008

Driving

The roads here are winding, full of hills, and surrounded by the subtle warmth of newly green deciduous trees. It's beautiful, I could say, but I don't.

One day, I think, I'll grow up and I'll be a beautiful woman, but for today, I am just a curious child. I don't really enjoy driving much because I lose sight of the scenery, musical ambiance of my stereo, and anything else that I would normally divert my attention to. Instead, I think far in-depth about myself and the situations which surround me.

It seems that I have been seeing more and more vexation in the lives of my friends, or perhaps it is simply that they have been sharing this with me more frequently. I try to keep myself behind others, to help them get their minds above worry and aggravation, but what I've decided is that humanism and cleverness of mind are two seperate and irrelevant concepts. I look at those same trees as I drive past them what seems to be daily, and I wish, quite frankly, that I were living as they do; in harmony.

You look at the forest or a single tree and you see them as you see a human being, shaped by matter. Like transcendentalists, larger than yourself. They have the most artistic and intricate root system of any other rooted plant, but it is hidden from the eye, below the depths to let their otter light shine and perhaps return their inner light. the trees do not seperate themselves from the universe. With this thinking, you could dissolve all consciousness of yourself and live as the universe.

But, alas, we are human. We spend our time in an endless search for intellect and resolve of issues which were never physically placed in our hands. When we fail we think of how we might have succeeded. We're trying constantly to bring love into stern eyes, softness into sardonic faces, and wine silent conquests without weapons; we're humans trying to accomplish things beyond our capabilities and wrongly labeling it 'ambition.' I am guilty of this more than most, I assume. I am constantly trying to settle the quandaries that I find myself and those close to me surrounded with.

One day, I think, I'll grow up and I'll save my breath for the sails.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Help

Over the past few weeks, I have had more people pull me aside, stop by my house or call me up, asking me to help them sort out the complications in their lives; particularly with their intimate relationships. Although, I don't consider myself to be experienced enough to offer my friends the best advice or maybe even an opinion based on simple know-how, I do my best to illustrate that their complications can be easily simplified with the right mindset. I've learned that many people go into a relationship with a preconceived idea of the "perfect" mate - someone who possesses a particular interest or meets the physical description criteria, for example. Unfortunately, those people are incomplete. I have many friends like this, that go into a relationship sixty percent, searching to find her other forty percent; looking for another human being to complete her and account for anything she may be missing in her own life, and herein lies the greater dilemma. If that same person would instead go into a relationship one hundred percent satisfied with herself, this quandary would most likely not exist. Instead of searching for someone who possesses the rarities that she lacks, she would seek someone one hundred percent committed to himself and they could be complete together.

The truth is that I feel awkward when people consult me, even my closest friends. I never know what they want me to say. I don't have the most experiences and I definitely don't have the best experiences regarding most situations; especially relationships, but I do have my own experiences, opinions, and I am sincere when I do find something to say.

I'm not sure of the direction I originally intended to take with this rant, other than to say that I am content right now; I have found someone (or he found me) that is as confortable with himself as I am with myself (perhaps even more comfortable), and I think my satisfaction with this is something that my friends recognize. Maybe this is the reason they have been coming to me for advice recently.

I see a lot of unhappy people when I'm out with my friends lately and it makes me upset to see them so dispondent. It's beginning to make going out less and less interesting; it's beginning to make me consistently more anti-social. I wish that I could help them to work out all the problems they see in themselves, but I guess the only thing I can really do to help is to let them help themselves.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Wisdom

A wise person has perspective. She can see the big picture without losing sight of the small. She can see the part without losing sight of the whole. She understands the partnerships of day and night, good and bad, the known and the unknown. She has observed how it all fits together, including her own limitations and immense ignorance - and that realization makes her humble, insightful and flexible. She is free to creatively see and respond to what's actually around her.

"Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." This famous 'Serenity Prayer' arises out of, and nurtures, wisdom.

As individuals, we are inherently more limited than a community. Although we can consult books and friends and critics, in the end, we are limited to our own single perspective. We are, alas, only one person, looking at the world from one place, one history, one pattern of knowing.

However, as we all know, it is not easy to do something creative with diverse opinions and experiences. It's much easier to settle for lowest-common-denominator agreements, press for (or give into) one-sided decisions, or enforce thoughtless compliance. But a wise person knows that such approaches inevitably overlook important factors and result in poor decisions. An individual jumping to conslusions is comparable to a public rush to judgment. In the long run, it only makes things worse.

Those dysfunctional approaches arise from a false dichotomy between teh individual and the group. In fact, individuality and community are two facets of the same thing - our alive humanity. Indiviudals and communities can only be whole and healthy when they nurture each other.

Just as a healthy body contains a deep wisdom that enables it to heal itself and to go about its daily business with energy and intelligence, so does a friendship, town, company, or nation. The creative, healing wisdom of the body politic.

Monday, February 25, 2008

A destructive temptress

I wonder sometimes if temptation can kill your soul before the biological breakdown of the rest of your body and mind that happens at the moment of your death, and if so, I think one of my very best friends has already died. I spent a few nights in Alexandria. I searched the sky every night for a constellation that offered enough depth to consider it a friend, but the lights of the concrete jungle and the clouds of winter steal the stars from Mother Earth and give back ways to tempt ourselves and therefore hurt those who love us most. So, I didn't sleep and around 3:00 AM, I checked my phone because I thought that maybe it hadn't rang because it'd been on silent, but it was set to ring; it just didn't. And now I'm strung out and running on no sleep, thinking about the soul and teasing my mind with perscription pills, but I'm not making anymore phone calls. That much is certain.