I just finished writing something to someone that will have an impact. Thinking is one thing, writing is another, acting is supernatural. Really though, what is it that compels us to act on our thoughts. Things are planted in our minds as something worth championing, whether it be music, law, medicine, homelessness, education, whatever it may be, we are called into action.

Has inaction ever felt good? Honestly, I'd rather call it quits than be an inactive part of society because by being inactive, I am inherently removing myself from society anyway so save me the trouble and forget it.

In the spirit of action, I suggest we get heavily involved in championing the cause of welcoming our troops back as they serve abroad and here at home. Their gift is quite remarkable in that they continue giving. The sacrifice they make is continually in motion, making it more necessary for our nation to get behind this impending issue. I believe wholeheartedly that if any generation can handle such a daunting task, it should be ours.

www.ncire.org - www.va.gov - www.warriorcare.mil - www.welcomebackveterans

There are four great chances to get involved. Lets go.

SL

Credit Give, Credit Live

Hear me out:


I don't think we (I) ever give Him enough credit for how He works and the magnitude of work He is able to accomplish. It's much like a pastry chef or maybe the equipment manager for a professional baseball team or maybe mom or dad, or the musician who spends one hour on stage but months and months and years and years of work to create a project he can call "his" and give to you, wholeheartedly as something you can call "yours".


Always give credit where credit is due but guess what, you'll NEVER correctly allocate credit, even if He is the one whom all credit is due.


Happy Sunday ya'll. Find me a church, or help me find one, or if anyone knows a group of people who meet in Philadelphia, let me know. May God bless you all more than you'll ever know.



Love, the Hendrix brand, as always,

SL

New Format

So the other night I was reading through some Henry David Thoreau (Walden) namely "Baker Farm" and "Economy" and I remembered fondly, of being forced to read the very passage I chose to free-read on a Sunday night for the pure joy of those beautiful words. As I'm reading, I am constantly racking and re-racking my brain so I may better understand what he's getting at. He chronicles his life at Walden Pond while he questioning western progress of the mid 19th century. He amazingly weaves the struggles of fishing on a sometimes barren pond seamlessly into a discussion of the American "way" we still struggle with to this day. Thoreau asks how one can understand the Mexican American War and how funding such a war, based on mandatory taxation, should be considered unjust, especially when the fight is founded on questionable motivations (sound familiar?).

All this for what? I realized that in the spirit of modern press and media and bloggernation, that Thoreau was merely one of the worlds first "bloggers", just a bit delayed. I have similar power in that right. You have similar agency simply by reading these words. So with that, and during a year already filled with struggles and tough decisions, I figured I should take a different approach and truly try and capture my year on this here blog. Not once a day, not once an hour, not once a Tweet. Maybe once a week. It might be deep, it might be shallow, it will be funny (to me at least) and it will more than likely address something bigger than myself. Anything short of this, and I will fail in my attempt to talk life. In my attempt to connect with you. In my attempt to write my hand off to clear my stupid head, or to let someone else speak through my head.

Thanks for reading. Sorry for slacking. I'm back in tow, lets roll.

SL

It Might Get Loud

As an introduction, i'm not used to writing in crowded coffee shops with the prospect of people seeing over my shoulder, so it might not be completely transparent. Ah screw it, i'll let it fly.

The night is spiritual, as is the morning, as is the overcast day. Granted, I can see the prototypical Southern California day in my mind and without any reservation, God is there, I know he is, its quite obvious when you see Lisa Frank dolphins jumping from the depths of the water into the overbearing sunlight through the sparkling, effervescent water. But to see Him reveled in the drab, misunderstood faculties of life is vital to understanding oneself.

I don't think you have to expect the best all the time. Even when you feel like a funky cloud is surrounding you, (Think Eeyore, storm cloud following him everywhere he goes) just keep swimming. I will contest to being in a funk myself. It sucks not having a job. It sucks being in a new city and having long days filled with endless job searches and guitar licks (the later has been kinda nice). But ya know what?

Its awesome having a mom who supports me.
Its awesome having the freedom to run at 5 in the morning because I can't sleep.
Its awesome trying to write the song no one has written.
Its awesome amping up my body and writing my hand off. (And I don't do it enough so if you read this, text me right NOW and force me to write)
Its awesome being creative.


Had to write, it hurt to hold this in. Find your rainy day. Time to leave this over caffeinated room and head back to those six strings.

My Sweet Lord- George Harrison

Thanks ya'll, turn it up.

SL

Trane

Someone told me I needed this so here I am. That someone was me.

It might be time for me to air out some dirty laundry, to take out the trash, to dispose of the garbage, to free up some of the free radicals, to clear out my synapses and create new connections, to clear out my hard drive . (andddd enough)

"I don't want to be scared anymore, but I know I will be anyway. I think fear is the monster inside that somehow, one day, makes itself fully actualized as an angel and is clandestinely walking you to the place where you should be. Turmoil is merely the angel taking you by the hand, the rough, flaky, dangerously sharp edge-laden appendage that appears to belong to a subhuman, subterranean beast, but its actually just the angels hand all along, you were just too scared to realize who it was."

I'm coping with pain here. That last whole paragraph is the only way I can understand what pain is, because I feel it. I feel it when I handle my future without forgetting the let downs of my past. I feel it when some things seem impossible and the pain makes that impossibility seem real. I feel it when I forget my place. I feel it when I give and don't feel others doing the same. I feel it when I look in the mirror and realize I don't need to feel it anymore.

Give freely and don't look back.

Play your instrument to the effect John Coltrane on "Every time We Say Goodbye", frantic yet controlled, yet tactful, yet lovingly.

Even if people forget you, I know some won't.

Heres to hoping half of my heart is as heavy as the other half.


SL

Free

And i want to be free
Wind in my hair
Salt on my skin
Sun in the air
I have to feel love
Holding on me
I'll give you everything that you would ever need

SL

Its a day away from a day.

Movement

Yea, why not.

3,200 miles later, I figured things would be different, and they are. But I was surprised to find something that held constant the whole way through. Throughout the trip, I thought "it be" cool to take short snippet videos of my trip as opposed to the standard still shot photograph because for whatever reason, we remember movement so much better than still action.

I remember how I felt when you (insert some significant action here). Movement helps us remember how we feel or felt for that matter, whether it be dance, athletics, music, art, etc. These are all movements that we remember not because they are merely movements in themselves but because these movements extract emotion.

Thats all it is. Thats all movement is, an extraction of emotion.

So it would make sense that moving 3,200 miles across this beautiful country would elicit an emotional response

The most important of these emotional responses was somewhat unexpected. I pulled into my drive at midnight or so last Saturday night, turned off the car, opened the car door, stretched a bit, looked up, and what did I see but the most beautiful sky I had ever seen in my life. It was unexpected because for the last four years, I've lived in arguably the most beautiful place in the world. For some reason, it took me 3,200 miles to remember how big things really are and how beautiful the big things really are.

Hence my frustration when people fail to recognize the beauty in where they are NOW. Be moved by now and you will continue to do so. I think. ? .

SL

(Btw: The content of "Man in the Mirror" is unbelievably more moving than it was a week ago. Now thats art.)