/unexpected/...

Just to start: I've never addressed this blatant fact but I have absolutely no idea who actually reads this. At times, I think it would be helpful to know who actually reads what I write so if you do read, maybe poke me on facebook. Because without a motivation, why write. Without poverty, why solve it. Get it? This feels like the start, this is the powder to my Easy Mac. Add the water, heat, stir, and BAM... Mac and cheese

B.S. i know. I pump out straight bovine feces sometimes.

But you know what else is unreal... what we constantly reinforce as real. I take everything I think is real, "for sure", a done deal, etc. and make those things literally that... over and no longer in need to work.

I constantly am reminded of how much work I have to do. I've always believed I "deserved" something special, something that works, and I always thought that "something special" would come naturally, or more that it would "feel right". Yet everytime I feel it's right, it's never right.

Ok, i'm rambling but the point is...

don't expect what you think is expected... because it's all unexpected.

Also see the film Burn After Reading and think about the following. Not a great film but think on the following few things.

Take a positive/fatalistic yet optimistic spin on what it really means to live in a modern society where you can only trust traffic, taxes and death. Is it not worth it to trust your life with a significant other? Is trust so hard in this facebook, eharmony world? Journey said it best, and I think about it everyday, no matter how hard it seems, and how far off she is... 

"DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'"

Pray, love, live, and hopefully in the end, expect the unexpected

sl

I don't want to follow...you

You have taken everything I thought was guaranteed and made it questionable,

You make the difficult seem really easy, key word there is seem,

You have made the recipe for success different, you define life by numbers,

You make it so easy to give up and give in,

You have made consequence a means instead of a lesson learned,

You try to make hearts break without vision, without answers,

You throw people down,

You kick,

You rip, you tear, then you run

You pick what looks good to make good fall, stumble, and break

However,

You may get some, but you won't have everything,

You can make my goals and aspirations seem as difficult as possible, the difficult will become possible,

You can't make it too easy to give in, i'll keep pushing,

You can't break more hearts than He can fix,

You can't throw people down without someone holding our head before we fall,

Rip, tear, kick, manipulate, and run, give us whatever you have, whatever you want to do, it doesn't matter

It really doesn't matter.

Get to your knees, eventually, you will break, you will fall, your vices will become powerless, what holds me back will be gone, i'll come swinging

i will fly, i will laugh, i will feel great joy and love and most of all, peace will flow, and i will drink from it

the poor will be rich, the sick will run, the unfortunate will be fortunate, the blind will see the sunset, the depressed will roll in fields of ecstasy, blue will become ivory, colors will fade and all will mean one thing...

that love has come

SL

Where the light is...

So i've been meaning to write this for quite some time now and it's finally ready, maybe, maybe not. But now seems like a good time to "launch".

This isn't about the hook of a song or a sweet music DVD that somehow found a way to combine phenomenal musical prowess with attractive and dramatic cinematography. This is about a fundamental concept of "the light", and all that is "good".

In saying "keep me where the light is" we somehow infer that because of the hopeful light, we are somehow running from something that is hopeless. It's the Yin to the Yang. For every failure there is a success. For every step backward, there is a step forward. But, however, challenge yourself to pray, beg, plead, hope that somehow, you can stay where that light is.

We all make mistakes. We always will. I always will. This is not to say "oh well, it's natural for me to trip up and fall short of my expectations, so i guess i won't expect better of myself" (for the Paul people in the crowd, you know what i'm talking about.) EXPECT BETTER, YOU CAN DO BETTER.

This is not your reaffirmation, this is you call. Better is your future.

So think about your light. Think about THE light. Think about what it is that makes your goals, "your goals". What are your true motivations? I know I don't ask myself what my motivations are near enough but it brings me back to the importance of the light.

My prayer is stay where that light is. This isn't hopeless or helpless. It is however hopeful and humble.

Keep me, come on, please, please, keep me where the light is.

SL

Anymore it just feels right to make anything you feel,...feel right. Thats redundant, I know. But think about what you feel and keep thinking about how what you feel is really reflected in other people's perception of you. It's possible that my world is coming down and no one knows it unless things associated with such are expressed in that manner. Ex: The only way a coal miner can tell if the air is thin is by looking at the canary. 

The struggle comes in opening that feeling up before the canary dies.

This "feeling" doesn't have to be good or bad, exuberant or gloomy, compressed or depressed, whatever that feeling it is, that feeling cannot be understood by itself and in itself. That is unless pressure builds to such a point where the floodgates open and "the bird dies". I think the goal has to be to prevent such an occurrence.

I think recently and within the last year, i've seen things build up in a number a ways and in a number of places and in response to that, very rarely do people choose to alleviate that pent up (pressure, stress, etc) because to go out of your way to make that happen is uncomfortable and inconvenient.

But should we expect the people we surround ourselves with to take care of those things? Is it our job to attend to others? I think so. Whatever happened to the Golden.

I could go on but it starts and ends with taking care of each other. Look out for 1 after 2 is taken care of. Forget throwing all your chips in on someone who "might" let you down. Pile sky high the hopes in someone, something, you KNOW won't EVER throw you to the side for someone/something else.

I ramble, i know, but i guess thats just what happens when my mind gets clogged. 

SL

Heres the thing. With modern technological advances, sprawling media coverage of everything and anything whether meaningless of meaningful, and a culture of significance assigned to insignificant things, it's pretty easy to call a spade a spade. It becomes pretty easy to root for number 1. It becomes pretty easy to forget about what burns in your heart at the expense of what makes sense in your mind. It becomes easy to accept appearance that is superficially superimposed upon reality.

These unreal things become real easy.

Check it: So I was watching the olympics tonight, as a good American should, and I came across a strange concept. What if for some reason, 8 meant 1. What if for some reason, Michael Phelps felt that whoever finished last in the 200m butterfly can take his 7th metal, he doesn't need it. What does it really mean anyway? He still won the race, and he knows it. I don't want to get reward confused with some kind of communist plot to make things equal but hear me out and try this simple act.

Listen to 8 just as hard as you would listen to 1.

Root for the other guy, and the underdog. They might just surprise you.

Good to be back

SL

 

Try

It's going to happen and I no longer care. I've spent too much time caring...

we spend to much time caring

(self-conscious, nervous, alone, jealous, intimidated, dirty, used)

Your goal is to try and find a way to turn all of these things around.

(bold, confident, together, content, at home, clean, new)

Stick with it. I know it's hard, I feel it now. All I know is i'll just have to try. TRY.

SL

Gone Fishing

Consider the following: (the subsequent metaphor will be comical and sophomoric but enjoy it while your young)

A young boy dreamed always wondered what the big kill felt like. Growing up in rural Southern California, he had dreams of riding his off-road through the mountains of NorCal and setting up camp, scoring something BIG. After years of preparing for that perfect moment in the high mountains, the young man heard something in the brush. He turned and aimed his 75' Winchester to where the noise came. After much patience and concentration, the animal came out from the brush and was more than an animal. Standing 12 feet tall, the big brown carnivore stood merely 20 feet from the "still" young boy, clearly aggressively prepared to "feed the family". He nervously aimed his rifle towards the jugular and pulled the iron... once, CHU CHU, twice... CHU CHU, and a third time. After the smoke cleared from the third shot, the mammal hit the ground...the big bear was his to take home and dwell. And so it would for the rest of his life.

Another young boy, lived outside urban Philadelphia, with posters of Kevin VanDam and a Bill Dance tape in his VCR, loved days when he could escape and go to the river, throw in a line, and reel in a BIG FISH. Fruitlessly, he would endlessly throw out lines in his front yard in the hopes of finding the perfect technique yielding the flawless cast. After years of practicing and honing his skills, he set out on a month long fishing expedition with his buddies. Throughout the week, he turned up nothing substantial finding merely pennies among his friends Benjamin's, until the end of the week. He settled in at Crabtree Cove, notoriously known as a dead zone to catch something significant. Spending hours with his line in the water, hanging out reflecting on the week, he finally felt a bite on his line. Just a small nib. Waking up from his daze, he sprung to his feet in wait of the big bite, slowing reeling his Quantum. As the ripples of the water indicated the size of the bite, he finally saw the BIG RIPPLE. Furiously, he began to reel in his catch, and boy did it ever feel big. Pulling closer and closer, it became more and more difficult, even uncomfortable. When finally he pulled into the boat, the biggest catch of his life. It was so heavy, the boat sank closer to the surface of the water upon pulling it into the chassis. He was so satisfied, so much so that the "big fish" story meant so much more. The biggest catch of his life became the challenge he conquered. No one saw it, but he did, and people will "see" it eventually. And so, he threw it back and headed home, only to come back another day to catch another fish.

It is so important to never be satisfied. In your career, in your relationships, in In-N-Out, whatever, its monumentally important to catch the fish and throw it back, with the hopes that you'll be able to catch another. 

I plan on doing with the fisherman did. My story will be told through things i get my hands on, only to throw those things back, in the hopes of catching something else.

Consider being the fisherman.

(written 6.8.08, transcribed 7.2.08)

SL