It is a quick scene in recollection-
Nonna’s powdery perfume hangs thick in the summer air. Her warm hands are smooth, yet feel like papier-mache on the palms, as she envelopes one of my small ones in both of hers.
We are standing on the front porch. It is near evening and the humidity is subsiding. The local sparrows titter in the nearby pine trees, settling in for the night. My free hand grasps the rusty railing tightly.
A recent event burdens my young shoulders.
Posted in Family, Good Days, Introspection, Practical Advice, Proverbs & Quotes, The Meaning of it All
Tagged Advice, Grandmother, introspection, Memory, Nonna, perfectionist, stress, Teeth
WebcamMax.com has a nifty free trial software program that works with webcams to input cool effects. It did seem to cause a bit of lag, but it’s worthwhile, especially if you’re using a PC. The program also works with a variety of video messaging programs like Skype, AIM, and livestreaming sites.
There was a great quote from The Quotable Optimus Prime that falls in line with this past St. Valentine’s Day weekend:
From Prime says,
“We must have courage, Huffer. We can’t ignore the danger. We must conquer it.”
Episode: More Than Meets the Eye Part 2
Valentine’s Day is a crock. Most of us know this – the implications behind a holiday dedicated solely to material displays of affection and love are horrific. It seems only appropriate, though, that this post spends some time on the topic of love. A good friend of mine was recently ‘heartbroken.’ He sent a forlorn message asking, “Why do we do this to ourselves? What is the point of love?”
Humans have certain needs, not only for the physical intimacies that are included in any romantic relationship, but also for the emotional connection that “being in love” offers – the companionship, the laughter, and the memories that make living a bit more worthwhile, justifiable, and enjoyable. The majority of us suffer through the hardships and failed relationships in a stumbling attempt to find kindred spirits, but there will always be pain along the way. Even those who are in committed relationships have to continuously work at maintaining the strength and closeness with their loved ones.
The game of love is never won or lost, but remains constantly in play. Think about someone in your life who had made you happy, even if for a brief instant. Consider any of your friends, a family member, a confidante, even an acquaintance – someone who thanked you one day, gave you a smile, even. Wouldn’t it be worse to sit on the sidelines and referee the other players rather than to give it a try, to even move one piece on the board? We are social beings. Despite the pain and sorrow that can only come from interaction with others at times, to shy from forming a connection with a human being out of fear is needless avoidance, chosen loneliness, and in extreme cases, agoraphobic bitterness or despair.
Granted, an individual should feel comfortable with him or herself enough to be at peace alone. Yet, true strength is not found in avoiding the things that can cause us immeasurable joy and an equal amount of sadness – it is in confronting those challenges head on to experience the most we can out of life while we still have time to live it.
I guess this wasn’t a Valentine’s Day post after all. Do not take a created holiday too seriously. Instead of investing in frilly laced cards, gourmet chocolate, or near-wilting flowers, just use the time it would have taken to run to that store and swipe that credit card, and look at a person who you value. Get out that pen, paper, and stamped envelope. Ready your cellphone with their telephone number, your finger hovering over ‘send.’ Good. Now, tell them how much they mean to you not just on this day, but every day. And mean everything you say.
Posted in Proverbs & Quotes, Technology, The Meaning of it All
Tagged optimus prime, video blogging, vlogging
One of the many passages that held interest for me -
‘Then those people are right who say that Heaven and Hell are only states of mind?’
‘Hush,’ he said sternly. ‘Do not blaspheme. Hell is a state of mind – ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind- is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly. For all that can be shaken will be shaken and only the unshakable remains.’
‘But there is a real choice after death? My Roman Catholic friends would be surprised, for to them souls in Purgatory are already saved. And my Protestant friends would like it no better, for they’d say that the tree lies as it falls.’
‘They’re both right, maybe. do not fash yourself with such questions. Ye cannot fully understand the relations of choice and Time till you are beyond both. And ye were not brought here to study such curiosities. What concerns you is the nature of the choice itself: and that ye can watch them making.’
A state of mind does become one’s imprisonment or one’s paradise. I am one of the only ‘believers’ left in my school’s philosophy major – I am surrounded by a sea of atheistic and agnostic existentialists who forget that even Nietzsche laments the lack of a need for God, and overlooks the necessity of faith or admittance of the unknown for any major thinker. Arguments can be built and doctrines can be followed, but what really exists beyond all of our conjecture is not perceptible or fully understandable to us – it never will be and I do not think that its inability to be discerned was ever an accident, given the assumption that an underlying purpose does exist.
I am satisfied in what C.S. Lewis said through his Scottish Ghost character – I am satisfied with watching others make the choice and perhaps that interest is what draws me into psychology. I like to fiddle with statistical relevance every now and then – I like to see numerical trends, but a bit of the mystery is still there, a few spaces left for margins of error, for bits of the uncertain and present anomolies that defy the results. I am interested in human fallacy, ultimately, and its effects on the individual and group, the universe.
I am left to wonder, then – Do we have the power to impact the universe or does the universe hold the greatest authority (with whatever else controlling it) and impact us?
Posted in Intersessions, Philosophy, Proverbs & Quotes, Religion, The Meaning of it All, Writing/Language
Tagged C.S. Lewis, Great Divorce, religion
it’s something i haven’t had. i haven’t had the time to put together the interview video yet. i haven’t had patience to write this 10-12 page essay that i have due on fri. and have to complete by tonight (before/after my campus’s music night). i haven’t been able to do anything in class, but write and write and write lines of poetry. poetry. something i’m supposed to be focusing on for my philosophy essay. it fails to escape me now. my notes are lined with little one-liners that pop into my head. i’m working on a lab rat poem inspired by half-listening in my cognitive science class. my mind is consumed with worry and fraught with thoughts that refuse to be suppressed. suppression. if this is any insight into what ADD feels like, then i feel even more for people who have it. this is horrible.
i woke up early to go to the library. i’ve been here for two hours and have nothing really to show for it. i did get to schedule my classes for next year though. i checked my e-mail three times. i logged into social networking sites. i dabbled in more poetry. i edited and completed it. checked my e-mail again and sent the new poem to myself for reassurance. i also went through my old e-mails that were archived away and deleted some of them. i feel like my mind needs spring cleaning, but it isn’t really even autumn weather outside. it’s already the end of October. they’ll be re-defining the seasons any day now. it always surprises me how we try to categorize the world based on patterns. things change. and shift. and grow. but that will be another post. maybe right after i publish this one.
rumors are swirling. and i don’t know what to believe.
i’ve had two potential weeks to work on this paper and all i have is the introduction. my premise is that Heidegger categorizes building as an elemental reaction to Being, to dwelling, but his work in the origin of the work of art also maintains art and poetry in ways that surpass the every day concept of language as a means of communication. i want to bridge the gap between building and art. i want to argue that art is a characteristic of dwelling, not merely a transcendence of language. i don’t think Heidegger disagrees with me. I think that the two (or three) essays have to be interconnected rather than dispersed within one front and back cover in separate works. i read a quote yesterday that said something about living and thinking too much. something along the lines of all it takes to live is to have a measure of luck, be physically fit, and having little imagination.
ooh. i found it. here it is:
Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination. -Christopher Isherwood
the problem is that i have an overabundance of imagination. i can’t squash these thoughts. I almost said ‘squell’, which isn’t even a word. but it fits. language is so restrictive sometimes. squell. the opposite of ‘well’. like a ‘squall’. a torrent of feeling. i can’t push down this ‘squell’. there. it’s a new word now because it’s defined. i give you permission to use it.
as a side, i’m glad that Carlos from RBJ is okay. I heard that his family was temporarily evacuated due to the insane wildfires taking place in California. i’m still amazed at how large, yet entirely small the world becomes. it shrinks even more when you utilize the Internet.
motivate me to get this done.
the cafeteria was packed today. sat down in the table we used to use. all the time. sat in my seat. put my messenger bag down on his. put my cereal bowl down. didn’t eat. stared at the empty expanse of space where we used to hold hands. where i used to feel insecure at times and was filled up in laughter during others. tried to remember everything, but it was a stream of consciousness, a myriad of images and memories twisting into one distortion after another. tried to just eat because there was class in five. Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah” used to have the power to bring me sobbing into my pillow, while shopping, driving, any time, anywhere it was played. I’m listening to it now. And I feel that same void within me, the same distance of space that etched itself across the nearly bare table today, and i’m trying to let it absorb within me rather than push it out because this emptiness is feeling and feeling is good. never shut out emotions. did it for too long when i was younger. love this album. it’s great. i feel like he’s talking to me through the songs half of the time, and other times i can focus on the beats and play along without flinching. sometimes i analyze the lyrics. sometimes i sing along.
“Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.”
so between supporting myself financially, relationship troubles, roommates moving, job woes, and the recent death of my great-grandma…i’m looking forward to a night out to a play. i want to live in the ontic. i want the distraction. i do not want to think about deeper meanings. i want to drown in the instant gratification of false truth, where everything is filled with sensory stimuli and life is the steady flow of neurons firing, dopamine brain-tingles, where everything is certain and sure. where nothing is left up to the imagination and philosophical thought. not tonight. i want to forget about real existence and go on autopilot for awhile. a mental vacation. everybody needs one every now and then; hell, some people stay in that state for their entire lives. one night of immersing myself won’t kill me. perhaps living in the now and physical is all that life is meant to be (of course, that’s not true, but even the word ‘truth’ has suffered from verbicide to the point of no return).
it amazes me how all of my classes manage to fit into one another like a complete jigsaw puzzle. “homocide and verbicide are equivalent.”
someone asked me recently whether i ever find myself thinking. about myself. about life. about the meaning of it all. i don’t remember exactly how i responded. i like to think that i gave some witty, eloquent response, but i’m pretty sure i stood there in taken aback, shocked silence. i think this person thought he was freaking me out or something. not true. i wanted to scream out for being in that connective moment that is so rare to have with others in conversation. this was a perfect example of true Socratic dialogue. of questioning, extracting, of the only being worth living, the self-examined life. I wanted to yell, “ALL THE FUCKING TIME!” and there’s no way to stop it. you’re part of this now, finally a real presence to yourself. Embrace it. Be who you are. Keep being who you are because there aren’t that many people who will take the time out to get to know themselves. Who will stop to really get to know others. We’re a world of strangers, even to ourselves. I am so excited writing this right now that I am even using capitalized I’s. that’s breaking a cardinal rule on this blog.
the play is only 6 hours away. let it come soon. next vlog – answering your questions and Joyceline’s interview – feel free to keep sending questions in! i’m loving what we have so far and i would gladly repeat the gesture by interviewing someone else. video responses are optional, of course, but encouraged. blog responses are great too.
of kindness is something that could change the course of someone’s life. When taken to the extremes, a smile, holding the door open for someone, wishing them a good day can be the light that pierces through layers of dust and darkness, and rejuvenates the weary and the hopeless. When taken to realistic measures, such a gesture gives a person something to momentarily smile and be happy about. A complete stranger walking up to you and handing you a piece of candy or chocolate that reads: “Have a good day!” can give that individual nutrients that penetrate the core beyond empty sweet calories ingested from the actual offering. To think – someone who does not even know you personally, sincerely wishing you a good day? Making such an open gesture of walking up to you, not entirely sure of what your response may be, but still offering you something for absolutely nothing? There is no monetary gain, but that glimpse of happiness and that smile glimmers with the hope that a seed of simple kindness can delve itself into the inner-depths of a person, sprout, and flourish. A person can be brought into a good mood because of it, and perform a random act of kindness for someone else. That person can be changed and repeat the notion toward another stranger, friend, family member, or lover. In this perspective, a Snickers bar, Starburst, or Willy Wonka Nerds box begins to look more powerful when the potential of such a gesture is measured, rather than the physical presence of the candy being there at all. It’s not about giving away or receiving free candy. That’s the obvious message. The latent message is that somebody else was thinking about you, the recipient, even if only for that brief moment when he or she chose to walk up to you and hand you that Babe Ruth. You mattered to someone enough that they stepped outside of social expectations, walked up to you, introduced themselves, their purpose, handed you something, and wished you a good day before leaving you to eat your candy, hopefully with a smile on your face, to also brighten someone else’s day.
The important aspect of this gesture is not to have pride in accomplishing this feat. Do not be proud that you have made another person smile. Be satisfied in knowing that someone else may be having a better day because of it. Be satisfied that the benefactor of your random act may in turn, benefit someone else, and cause a positive chain connection. You are doing Good Work. You are manipulating the present and having an effect on the future, even if that gesture only betters that individual’s life for that point in time. One piece of candy at a time. One smile at a time. One “Hello!”, one “Good Morning!”, one “Do you need help carrying that?” at a time can make all the difference in the world.
“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”
-Aesop
“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”
-Mother Teresa
“In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars and famine, kindness may too easily be dismissed as a “soft issue,” or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas — kindness toward the environment, toward other nations, toward the needs of people who are suffering. Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile. Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace, and care properly for this planet we all share.”
-Bo Lozoff
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”
-The Dalai Lama
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