but its very nice (its very very nice)

Of sadness

There is no light in sadness. Sometime, bad things happen. They are not beautiful, or poetic, or romantic, and they do not lend themselves to any great revelation. When bad things happen, sometimes it is our fault, sometimes it is others fault, and sometimes it is no ones fault and fate just seems to work against you. But in the end, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Because the bad things do not care. They will happen anyways. Your friends will move away, your lives will die away, and your life will pass you by.

And there is no hope, or romance, or drama in that. There is no great revelation. There is only sadness and emptiness.

Hey Mickey, your so fine

In Point Land: Me me me me me me me! Me is so clever me is the best me me me me me me

In Line Land: I am king! respect me you servants!

In Flat Land: We must listen to a king, for we are unworthy.

In Three-Dimensional Land: We are omnipotent.

Dance With Me, Loves!

The future is what you make it. It does no matter if you chose to live in once city or another, in one life or another. It only matters if you chose to live with happiness. If you can find success no matter where you go.

People who say that names don’t matter are lying in the most basic sense. Names do matter. They matter in the most basic sense, in that no matter what path you take in life there will always be people that seek to be impressed and people that we seek to impress ourselves. And, names matter because without one, we must push ourselves to work so much harder. We must be the best, no, not just the best, we must be better than our peers at institutions with better names than ours. In a way, those who come from unknown institutions must work harder than those from the Big Names. They must do so much more than academics in order to stand out from the crowd, in order to be the best.

It is strange, how one finds themself in similar forks in roads along their life. Even though the path may be a different color, may be made out of sand instead of brick, may be covered in leaves instead of cacti, the fork looks the same. One spot, two roads diverging. One life, two paths, thousands of options.

History does not repeat itself—our lives do.

This is interesting, because now, now we find we are older and hopefully wiser. Now we find we have this thing called Experience tucked in the soles of our feet. We know how one path lead. And because of that, we became different. Or perhaps, we did not become so different, we simply became a more saturated version of who we were before. We became more of ourselves, and less of others. We now are educated, I believe, because we know what we love and why we love it. We understand why we chose to live our lives they way we do. We know what is happiness and what is sadness, and perhaps we feel like we are older than our age and our faces show.

Perhaps this is a fallacy, that our age of soul is only an illusion, and tomorrow we will wake and find how young we truly are now.

Perhaps we will wake tomorrow, and find a path that lets us feel young again.

And perhaps, most frighteningly, we will not wake tomorrow, and not find a path, and only lay in our beds, surrounded by soft pillows and someone who loves us dearly but does not know what love is (for you cannot know until you have lost it).

You would expect one to have some insight, having already visited the same fork previously. However, it is strange to find that one has absolutely no insight on which path to take. Brick or Ivy, Mortar or Glitter, they all are different, all are new, all are just as hard to decide between.

But, I must admit, I have been facetious with an audience that does not read, or know (does that make this attempt a foray into schizophrenia?).

We do have insight.

We know now, that no matter which path we take from this fork in the road, everything will work out in the end.

We know now, that it always does.

You can’t always get what you want, oh no you can’t always get what you want, but if you try some times you just might find, you get what you need

Don’t it always seem to be true, that you don’t know what you have till it’s gone?

Of Unknowns

Recently, one finds themselves more and more frequently delving into the philosophies behind What Is Success. And the more one considers the concept, the more one finds that Success is does not always come from what one thought. A person’s ideas of a successful life are nearly always drastically different than another persons, and this is a good thing. For, as we meet more and more people in our lives, and we open ourselves to more and more stories, we, hopefully, become more open to differing ideas. Eventually, we begin to reevaluate our own once staunch beliefs, and begin to question the things we thought we knew.

But more importantly, as we meet more and more people, each with their vastly different beliefs and values, or not as the case may be, we become able to evaluate their beliefs as well, and see truly what is Truth, and what is BS. We are able to look at someone’s differing politics, and evaluate the rightness and wrongness of their values not because we know what values we hold, but because life and learning has educated us upon ourselves and our world. Evaluating others’ beliefs and points of view is not an act that is indicative of bigotry, but rather one that is reflective of deep thought and consideration.

Of course, there are those that evaluate others’ beliefs with only their own as backing; however, those that chose to indulge in their own ignorance tend to yield poor conversations and thus lend themselves obsolete in the pursuit of Truth.

Sometimes though, we happen upon someone who enjoys discussing, and not debating, and seeks to find the Truthful path instead of the path that caters to their vanity. And in these people, we find ourselves in beautiful, deep conversations that end not with a winner or a loser, but with enlightenment.

Of Mountains and their Tops

Anyone can hike up a mountain. There is one trail, and no matter how fast or how slow you go, you will always reach the top if you just continue.

Regardless of if you run, or walk, or carry a child up, or sing, or sweat, or dance, or talk obnoxiously on your cellular phone (how do you even have reception up here?), you will reach the top. The runner and the walker will both see the same view in the end.

But there is a big difference between the one that runs up that mountain and the one that walk up the mountain.

The first will sweat, and breath with difficulty, and down giant bottles of water. As they go up, the mountain will become more and more difficult. At some points, they will want to give up, collapse. For the runner, the mountain is not the monster to be conquered; the body is. The mountain, for the runner, is simply a harmless object that is working towards the same goal they are: to rule the body, to control the breathing and the perspiration, to mentally and physically do what they could not do yesterday. When the runner reaches the top, they will sit with their head in their knees for a bit, as they collapse to the challenge for a little while. The runner, at first, does not see the view. They see first the ground and the rest. Then, after catching their breath, the runner looks up and sees the view. The view, for them, is equivalent to the breeze on top: a nice side effect. For the runner, the real prize is the end. And they run back down quickly, without so much as a photograph.

The walker, however, looks at the mountain differently. For the walker, the mountain is a thing to be conquered, a means of attaining a goal. The walker will go up, and as he travels up the mountain, he will stop often, and look around, and catch his breath, and drink water in the lazy way that people who do not need water drink. As the walker goes up the mountain, it will become easier for him. For the walker, the beginning is always the most difficult, and the end the easiest. Motivation pushes the walker on, but more than motivation, the walker continues because he knows just how good and sweet the view from the top is. The walker conquers the mountain because he wants to feel the air, feel like King of the World. For the walker, the view is unparalleled. but more than that, the walker feels the top. He feels the peace and calm that comes from tiredness and satisfaction. And, no matter how many time the walker gets to the top of the mountain, it will never be enough. The walker’s eyes lust for the world beneath them. When the walker reaches the top, he first looks out into the horizon, and stands, but does not sit, until his thirst for beauty is satisfied.

The walker, sometimes, will look at the runner. Why does he kill himself so? The walker wonders. After all, the walker received the same end as the runner, perhaps in more time, but the reward was the same. There is no need to work so hard, if you can achieve the same with greater happiness, he wants to say to the runner, but does not for the sake of peace.

The runner looks at the walker. He too is out of breath, the runner thinks. He too is tan, and sweating. Does it matter that the runner is sweating more, drinking more, breathing more? The man who walked up the mountain worked hard, too. Perhaps I am not superior, the runner thinks. Why shouldn’t I walk slowly and breath lightly?

But then, the runner looks up. He sees a view. Stronger, he feels his heart beating. He touches his warm arms, inhaled air into his burning lungs. And he knows, in that moment, that he could never be happy walking up the mountain. He lives for this feeling, this euphoric pain that comes with being The Best. He looks at the view with different eyes, with eyes that are passionate and motivated, eyes that do not lust for beauty but rather appreciate it. He has worked for his reward, and now it is given to him in a much different way. He feels the mountain in his blood, he feels the sun in his eyes. He regards the mountain as a friend, as an equal. It is only his body that is the enemy, and yet, he loves it too for it presents a challenge.

The walker looks at the runner put on a baseball hat and begin his decent down the mountain. The walker looks up at the sky. In his heart, he feels whole. He looks at the mountain. I am your equal, I have conquered you, and I have loved your view from the top. The walker knows the mountain is working with him, challenging him every time to conquer the top. As the walker turns around, his heart aches with longing. The way down is not nearly so sweet as the fight up.

At the bottom, the mountain beckons all. “Climb Me!” it says to the people at the bottom. “Climb me, and see what you find!”

And the walker and the runner know that there is so much more than just a view at the top.

Of Fame and What it Did Not Bring Us

Everyone has a story. Some stories are just more interesting than others.

Some people carry their stories on their sleeves. They have stories that everyone knows, stories that are become Who They Are. Stories that are different, and sad, and profound.

But some people, some people have stories that are locked up in small boxes without keys. On their sleeves, they wear polite indifference. They wear silence, usually. Sometimes, they wear no sleeves at all, but rather let their bare arms tan in the sun. And they keep their stories shut inside until someone else with bare arms comes and looks at them and asks, honestly, how are you? And sometimes, they share stories, and sometimes they don’t.

But it is these people that are the most dangerous, for they have stories that no one understands and thoughts that no one believes. And their unheard tales sit and collect dust, and warp, and they forget the Truth and start fitting their stories to mold into what they Need. Untold, stories do not decay. They simply take on different forms. They fight to be thought of. They twist and change and then, then, when no one has thought about them for a long, long time, they start becoming what their owners wished they would be at the beginning. The stories shut their wide mouths, and adopt small teeth. Their tongues stick to the top of the roof. They start, slowly and quietly, becoming quieter and quieter, until they are forgotten.

And that is when existence truly ends, when no one remembers the stories anymore. They slip into oblivion.

And their owners do not rejoice for their leaving, and do not cry for their happiness gone, and do not seek their truth long gone, for the memory disappears along with the words.

And that is what peace feels like.

Who Do You Want To Be?

For that is the question that we must ask ourselves. And the answer?

The answer is… well, it is simple, is it not? Should we not all know who we want to be? Should we all not know where we want to be? If you do not know, fear not. Colleges will tell you!

Perhaps the problem is that we do not know who we are, truly. We exist, that is without doubt. But is our existence one that matters? Can any of us really answer, who we are? And can any of us, with honesty, answer who we want to be?

Maybe people do not know what they want to be. Maybe they only know what brings them happiness. And, in pursuing the things that bring them joy, they slowly become someone, slowly form their shapeless existence into a title-worthy story.