It comes back, but it's never the same.
I now know how to upload video from my new phone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBNU0ZYemrk
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
yard marble...marred yarble
 |
| "All I can think of is 'ahh. ah ah. ahh...' each specimen of heavy hollywood wind down, little one" |
Sometimes, the things I do must be an attempt at getting my inside on the outside. I think that's what the picture above is.
I have some things to say about how the most satisfying things in life are finding out about yourself and you are never quite as fulfilled and close to love as when you go inside yourself. Because this is, I believe, how we find God and His voice; I gleaned this from a flash of inspiration one morning, and I kind of want to write a poem about it, but I haven't yet. It was this, simply- "God, when did you join the silence?" There are so many, so many voices out there. There are truths and there are lies, and there are sincere exhortations and there are outright manipulations, but those don't matter unless you know what's inside of you. I was walking down the street last week in the middle of the night, and the fog was forcing down on everything around me. I could barely see anything except for the hazy glow from the streetlights. In that atmosphere, nothing was clear, and nothing was discernible. That is how I feel most of the time in this life. The moments when everything is clear, just like a morning after a really clean rainstorm and the sun is shining and you can see everything for miles and miles around, those moments usually come when I go inside my self, quietly. God has joined the silence. He is not in the confused fog of the night, he is not in the advice and ideas and truths and lies and conversations of all the people around us. He is in the silence. And in the silence, he talks peace; he talks gentleness and healing to the soul.
That being said, everything else is important- the fog and the conversations and crazy life. They fill your silence with more meaning and more life. They give you reasons to keep going back to sort things out in the silence.
Now, because I think I am being funny by saying the next words, for my own selfish pleasure (are you laughing?) , I would like to interpret what came out of me with the drawing and poem that is above these words.
I changed my mind, about 40 hours later.
Just remember that the flower is being blasted by the sun while being soaked in water from a hose...a hose... And ahh. ah ah. ahh is aesthetically pleasing. Let it work in your buh-rain.
Please watch Stella. Listen to JJ. Speak nice words. Eat to your needs. Face your heart. Dance your face off. Or just dance your face. Face the dance? Let there be a tumultuous noise. Fight everything.
-Someday things bigger than me will swallow the ocean.
I changed my mind, about 40 hours later.
Just remember that the flower is being blasted by the sun while being soaked in water from a hose...a hose... And ahh. ah ah. ahh is aesthetically pleasing. Let it work in your buh-rain.
Please watch Stella. Listen to JJ. Speak nice words. Eat to your needs. Face your heart. Dance your face off. Or just dance your face. Face the dance? Let there be a tumultuous noise. Fight everything.
-Someday things bigger than me will swallow the ocean.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
my heart keeps changing colors
I haven't wanted to write for a long time (I didn't want to write anything- lists, letters, facebook posts, blogs, journal entries, notes, love poems, etc...), so I am glad the desire came back, tonight. I miss not being full...
Something really special happened to me a few weeks ago. Let me set the scene a little bit- a month or two ago, I was in a place I really didn't want to be. I was pretty well unhappy, and I felt constrained by stupid habits I had. There were some things I just couldn't seem to free myself from. And the worst part was, that there were some habits I had that I knew weren't good but I didn't even really want to be away from them. So, I would set goals and I would not do those bad habits for a day or two, and then, because the desire really wasn't there, I would just fall back into the way life was before I attempted the little goals. (I am really finding out in my life that some goals are better than others. In fact, the word "goal" started making me sick to my stomach before some cool stuff started happening here.) To sum it all up, I was in a place that was getting me nowhere, but I did not want to let go of the things holding me back. The saving power in all of this was that when I stood back and objectively looked at my life, I knew that I could be happier, and I knew that even though I didn't desire to get rid of my stupid habits, I did want to be happier and was willing to change for happiness.
However during this time, I started to get frustrated with myself because I couldn't change. I felt like I was in this muddy pit, and every time I tried scrambling out of it, I would just lose my footing and slide right back to the bottom of the pit. That's why this quote scared me so bad in this context- "the immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through what we might become." I hate hate hate the idea that just because we have certain preferences and certain leanings towards certain mistakes in this life that we can't overcome them. I hate hate hate the idea that what we are inside of us is essentially evil and that every attempt at change for good is just a sham and who we really are (sinful, evil) will always bleed through those changes. When I heard that quote, I really wondered, "Is that really true? Are these habits that I have really who I am? Should I just embrace my poor decisions because there's no getting around having them?" The quote seemed to be true because I really tried goal after goal to change with no success, and I was getting scared.
Then I started to think about the principle of having a change of heart. You know how sometimes some thoughts come to you and they just feel good? Like you are swimming around in some sort of uncomfortable, red, fiery air and you feel like you have heart burn all of the time, and then a giant drop of cool, refreshing water splashes you in the face and you think, wow, this feels good? That's how this thought came to me, and generally when I get those thoughts, they are not my own thoughts, per say, but flashes of light from Heaven. What came to me were things expressed here- "and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed," and that "the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, ...has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." And I asked myself "have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?"
I knew that this was the way out- a mighty change of heart. This sounds strange, but I had to have a new heart, one that had new, better desires (there were things that I knew were good for me that I didn't want. I needed a heart that wanted those things). I had to have a heart that didn't just take goals step by step to get away from habits, but one that was new and that had a chance to make new habits.
So, I started it all off with a fast and a prayer. After that, my goals changed. I went from wanting to change a habit to wanting to change my heart. C.S. Lewis said something cool, "Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. … Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours." I realized that I had been chopping at branches, trying to cut one here and one there, when I actually needed to be going for the roots. I wanted a whole new me, not a pruned me. Eventually, over a short time I had experiences that shaped and prepared me, and then I had an experience that changed me. It's impossible to describe and better left unsaid, but my heart...I am different now, and that means everything to me. My desires are new. My habits are new. My heart is new. I can change, and even though nothing like this is permanent without work, I am different now, which means that the immutable heart of what we are, when it does bleed through, can be a good, new heart.
Love sincerely,
Zach J. for Johnson
Something really special happened to me a few weeks ago. Let me set the scene a little bit- a month or two ago, I was in a place I really didn't want to be. I was pretty well unhappy, and I felt constrained by stupid habits I had. There were some things I just couldn't seem to free myself from. And the worst part was, that there were some habits I had that I knew weren't good but I didn't even really want to be away from them. So, I would set goals and I would not do those bad habits for a day or two, and then, because the desire really wasn't there, I would just fall back into the way life was before I attempted the little goals. (I am really finding out in my life that some goals are better than others. In fact, the word "goal" started making me sick to my stomach before some cool stuff started happening here.) To sum it all up, I was in a place that was getting me nowhere, but I did not want to let go of the things holding me back. The saving power in all of this was that when I stood back and objectively looked at my life, I knew that I could be happier, and I knew that even though I didn't desire to get rid of my stupid habits, I did want to be happier and was willing to change for happiness.
However during this time, I started to get frustrated with myself because I couldn't change. I felt like I was in this muddy pit, and every time I tried scrambling out of it, I would just lose my footing and slide right back to the bottom of the pit. That's why this quote scared me so bad in this context- "the immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through what we might become." I hate hate hate the idea that just because we have certain preferences and certain leanings towards certain mistakes in this life that we can't overcome them. I hate hate hate the idea that what we are inside of us is essentially evil and that every attempt at change for good is just a sham and who we really are (sinful, evil) will always bleed through those changes. When I heard that quote, I really wondered, "Is that really true? Are these habits that I have really who I am? Should I just embrace my poor decisions because there's no getting around having them?" The quote seemed to be true because I really tried goal after goal to change with no success, and I was getting scared.
Then I started to think about the principle of having a change of heart. You know how sometimes some thoughts come to you and they just feel good? Like you are swimming around in some sort of uncomfortable, red, fiery air and you feel like you have heart burn all of the time, and then a giant drop of cool, refreshing water splashes you in the face and you think, wow, this feels good? That's how this thought came to me, and generally when I get those thoughts, they are not my own thoughts, per say, but flashes of light from Heaven. What came to me were things expressed here- "and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed," and that "the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, ...has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." And I asked myself "have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?"
I knew that this was the way out- a mighty change of heart. This sounds strange, but I had to have a new heart, one that had new, better desires (there were things that I knew were good for me that I didn't want. I needed a heart that wanted those things). I had to have a heart that didn't just take goals step by step to get away from habits, but one that was new and that had a chance to make new habits.
So, I started it all off with a fast and a prayer. After that, my goals changed. I went from wanting to change a habit to wanting to change my heart. C.S. Lewis said something cool, "Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. … Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours." I realized that I had been chopping at branches, trying to cut one here and one there, when I actually needed to be going for the roots. I wanted a whole new me, not a pruned me. Eventually, over a short time I had experiences that shaped and prepared me, and then I had an experience that changed me. It's impossible to describe and better left unsaid, but my heart...I am different now, and that means everything to me. My desires are new. My habits are new. My heart is new. I can change, and even though nothing like this is permanent without work, I am different now, which means that the immutable heart of what we are, when it does bleed through, can be a good, new heart.
Love sincerely,
Zach J. for Johnson
Thursday, December 16, 2010
i have some reservations about posting this one...
Why is hell always suspended above our heads?
Each corner held by a rope, the center sags
If I stand up too straight, my head brushes
Gentlemen, don't put your hands up
Unless it's- gentlemen, put your hands up!
And they have a gun
Moving around or
When I jump the pieces of hell start giggling as they clink together
Everything I do breaks down and adds to the weight
When it collapses, the white paint around me starts speaking "red"
Go away hell, I don't want your pain
I'm tired of every little game
Every time I look up- you're there
I think to myself "I'm not good enough,"
And I'm not, so a corner comes undone
I start trying too hard, and I am-
So there goes another corner
I throw my cares in the air like sand
I rhyme I try to find relief
I read I write I pray
I try good
I try bad
I try quiet
I try loud
There goes another corner
Three are gone...three are gone!
Ah, here comes hell
I really tried to tie those strings again
I did what I did yesterday when there was no injury
Yesterday's routine turned into today's smoking gun
Saying, gentleman, put yr hands up!
Black and red
We're already dead
I have to get out of this room
In an atmosphere this thick, I might drown
pad pad pad to the next room
I close my eyes because I wish my eyes were closed
There's hell in this one, too
Each corner held by a rope, the center sags
If I stand up too straight, my head brushes
Gentlemen, don't put your hands up
Unless it's- gentlemen, put your hands up!
And they have a gun
Moving around or
When I jump the pieces of hell start giggling as they clink together
Everything I do breaks down and adds to the weight
When it collapses, the white paint around me starts speaking "red"
Go away hell, I don't want your pain
I'm tired of every little game
Every time I look up- you're there
I think to myself "I'm not good enough,"
And I'm not, so a corner comes undone
I start trying too hard, and I am-
So there goes another corner
I throw my cares in the air like sand
I rhyme I try to find relief
I read I write I pray
I try good
I try bad
I try quiet
I try loud
There goes another corner
Three are gone...three are gone!
Ah, here comes hell
I really tried to tie those strings again
I did what I did yesterday when there was no injury
Yesterday's routine turned into today's smoking gun
Saying, gentleman, put yr hands up!
Black and red
We're already dead
I have to get out of this room
In an atmosphere this thick, I might drown
pad pad pad to the next room
I close my eyes because I wish my eyes were closed
There's hell in this one, too
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
crooked angle
i kept on lingering.
smiling.
my crooked teeth set
in a crooked path.
"from this angle,
you look like a crooked angel."
but i would have none of that.
the weight of eternity
sits on my eyes, it rests
on my head.
when i bleed it's eternal blood
and my feet are golden.
"from who's garden did you grow?"
the rabbits
they are stealing
from out of the cellar.
they are
tying white ribbons to old oak trees
right when you're climbin'-
i didn't want to be
your ghost.
i didn't want to be
anyone's ghost.
smiling.
my crooked teeth set
in a crooked path.
"from this angle,
you look like a crooked angel."
but i would have none of that.
the weight of eternity
sits on my eyes, it rests
on my head.
when i bleed it's eternal blood
and my feet are golden.
"from who's garden did you grow?"
the rabbits
they are stealing
from out of the cellar.
they are
tying white ribbons to old oak trees
right when you're climbin'-
i didn't want to be
your ghost.
i didn't want to be
anyone's ghost.
Monday, December 13, 2010
working in hyperboles, today
The most terrifying quote I have ever heard-
"the immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through what we might become"
The scariest/most beautiful song I have ever heard-
Conversation 16
The funniest music video I have ever seen-
Drunk Girls
Blogging world, I may be petering out...
"the immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through what we might become"
The scariest/most beautiful song I have ever heard-
Conversation 16
The funniest music video I have ever seen-
Drunk Girls
Blogging world, I may be petering out...
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
i love what isn't true
I am reading a really incredible play by one of my favorite people- his name is Tom Stoppard. I love him solely on the merits of his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but I am now reading another play of his called Arcadia, and I love him even more.
I know, as I read, Arcadia is going way, way over my head, but since knowledge is a step by step accumulation, I think I am just grasping the first step of Stoppard's ideas and knowledge, and it's kind of blowing my mind. Check this out (it's a scene from Arcadia where a young girl is talking to her mentor, Septimus)-
THOMASINA- When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?
SEPTIMUS- No.
THOMASINA- Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart.
SEPTIMUS- No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it for ever. This is known as free will or self-determination.
Okay, so after you read that, did it start to bother you that jam can't be unmixed from the rice pudding? Did it make you think of things like a piece of wood shattering and not being able to go back to the way it was before? Of thoughts and actions that will never leave you, but that mix into who you are? Of relationships? Of chaos and atrophy? The jam in the rice pudding is still the most apt imagery- you just can't extract the jam from the rice pudding anymore. It's now one thing, or it's a broken thing; ah, the world we live in...
So I have been thinking- the only way to make something whole again, to take away its trails of chaos, is to make it new and to start fresh from the beginning. If you want rice pudding that isn't pink and has no jam in it, you have to make a new batch. If you want a piece of wood that is whole and complete, you have to start with a new tree. But what if we want to be freed from our ideas and our thoughts and actions that are all become chaotic? Is there a way out? What about with our relationships that have spiraled into a red-jelly meteorological chaos?
I wrote a poem while having these thoughts. It is not all the way organized, but I love it. So I present it to you in its incomplete and rough form-
If there is one less witch in the house tonight
It will be called "progress"
If one wrinkle is consumed by the marble of your brow
It will be called "improvement"
If every star in the sky collapses into the castled cosmos
It will be called "our chance"
If, at the end of the day, our little fires burn so low
It will be regarded "safe"
Liturgy, spent in chaos, cost
The token-inertia of this only-
"I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum"
And I thought, this must be order,
As I crashed through the room;
Ugly Anglican mirrors crushed the cradle
And I couldn't reverse the chaos.
Our chance came when we again reached the head
And stood forward in the arc of progress
But though we searched, there was no improvement
And so what regard had we for safety?
This poem begs a lot of questions. Is progress really removing what we call evil or do we just not understand that every one is supposed to mix together? Is staying young and hiding our age really an improvement? Is old age and atrophy good because it's a part of the natural order? "Our chance came when we again reached the head" is a reference to the image of the snake eating its tail and continuing on for eternity:
And so, when the stars are all gone and the earth is gone will it all start off new and fresh again, at the head? Is safety truly just being really careful and being cautious of what we mix into our souls (I have started to listen to Kanye's new album. Should I avoid it because it's full of discontent? Or is that something that is in the universe and part of chaos that needs to mix in my soul?) Where does religion and where does what I believe fit into this notion of the jam mixing into the rice pudding? Does it slow the mixing down or does it contribute to the inertia of the mixing? What should it do?
And the way the poem is set up is fun. It establishes definitions for terms like "progress" and "safety" in the first half, and then in the middle of the poem, time happens- "I run the spectrum/ I run the spectrum/ I run the spectrum." At the end, the definitions are approached again. Did the definitions really fit the terms they were attached to? Did the head of the snake really represent the new beginning for the universe? Since innocence is gone, can we ever have it back? Will things start all over again new? Will we be any further ahead or is the course the same over and over again? What is my role in the course? What, really, is progress?
The more I think about all of this, the more it establishes the need for Christ. Chaos just does not go away on its own. Really. It just keeps going on and on. And I think chaos can be divided up into two kinds- the physical kind, which is the way the big universe and the little, molecular universe work. That is the process of a sun forming, growing old, expanding, and exploding into space forever and ever mixing into the universe. Christ creates worlds- he is the active creator that fights all that atrophy and destruction and chaos. And then there is the kind of chaos that is a personal chaos. It's our lives. And were it not for Christ's intervention, our lives could not do anything but keep spiraling further and further into chaos- "And our spirits must have become like unto [the devil], and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies in misery..." (2 Nephi 9:9). Without Christ, if we made a mistake, that would add more jam into the rice pudding. We would try to reverse the jam, but we just can't- that would be like trying to stop the destruction of the sun. We don't have the power to reverse time and its effects, and the more we learn and experience and see and do, the more chaos is in our minds. I think Christ has a lot to do with the organizing that chaos, and He does that by truth. Truth helps everything fit correctly in its proper place. It gives light to our understanding. Without Christ, our lives are chaos. There must be a force and a power to balance the chaos.
And now here we are. I hope you made it to the end. Here is your reprieve and breath of beautiful air. Please listen to "Kin" and read the lyrics. They are a wave of peace. I think they are from the perspective of our loving God.
I love you, too.
(PS. I went on a blind date this week. I made a bunch of new friends this week. I registered for classes. I went to church here and, miracle! liked it. I am making strides and bounds. And please enjoy the Christmas song on my playlist. It's my favorite.)
I know, as I read, Arcadia is going way, way over my head, but since knowledge is a step by step accumulation, I think I am just grasping the first step of Stoppard's ideas and knowledge, and it's kind of blowing my mind. Check this out (it's a scene from Arcadia where a young girl is talking to her mentor, Septimus)-
THOMASINA- When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?
SEPTIMUS- No.
THOMASINA- Well, I do. You cannot stir things apart.
SEPTIMUS- No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it for ever. This is known as free will or self-determination.
Okay, so after you read that, did it start to bother you that jam can't be unmixed from the rice pudding? Did it make you think of things like a piece of wood shattering and not being able to go back to the way it was before? Of thoughts and actions that will never leave you, but that mix into who you are? Of relationships? Of chaos and atrophy? The jam in the rice pudding is still the most apt imagery- you just can't extract the jam from the rice pudding anymore. It's now one thing, or it's a broken thing; ah, the world we live in...
So I have been thinking- the only way to make something whole again, to take away its trails of chaos, is to make it new and to start fresh from the beginning. If you want rice pudding that isn't pink and has no jam in it, you have to make a new batch. If you want a piece of wood that is whole and complete, you have to start with a new tree. But what if we want to be freed from our ideas and our thoughts and actions that are all become chaotic? Is there a way out? What about with our relationships that have spiraled into a red-jelly meteorological chaos?
I wrote a poem while having these thoughts. It is not all the way organized, but I love it. So I present it to you in its incomplete and rough form-
If there is one less witch in the house tonight
It will be called "progress"
If one wrinkle is consumed by the marble of your brow
It will be called "improvement"
If every star in the sky collapses into the castled cosmos
It will be called "our chance"
If, at the end of the day, our little fires burn so low
It will be regarded "safe"
Liturgy, spent in chaos, cost
The token-inertia of this only-
"I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum
I run the spectrum"
And I thought, this must be order,
As I crashed through the room;
Ugly Anglican mirrors crushed the cradle
And I couldn't reverse the chaos.
Our chance came when we again reached the head
And stood forward in the arc of progress
But though we searched, there was no improvement
And so what regard had we for safety?
This poem begs a lot of questions. Is progress really removing what we call evil or do we just not understand that every one is supposed to mix together? Is staying young and hiding our age really an improvement? Is old age and atrophy good because it's a part of the natural order? "Our chance came when we again reached the head" is a reference to the image of the snake eating its tail and continuing on for eternity:
And so, when the stars are all gone and the earth is gone will it all start off new and fresh again, at the head? Is safety truly just being really careful and being cautious of what we mix into our souls (I have started to listen to Kanye's new album. Should I avoid it because it's full of discontent? Or is that something that is in the universe and part of chaos that needs to mix in my soul?) Where does religion and where does what I believe fit into this notion of the jam mixing into the rice pudding? Does it slow the mixing down or does it contribute to the inertia of the mixing? What should it do?
And the way the poem is set up is fun. It establishes definitions for terms like "progress" and "safety" in the first half, and then in the middle of the poem, time happens- "I run the spectrum/ I run the spectrum/ I run the spectrum." At the end, the definitions are approached again. Did the definitions really fit the terms they were attached to? Did the head of the snake really represent the new beginning for the universe? Since innocence is gone, can we ever have it back? Will things start all over again new? Will we be any further ahead or is the course the same over and over again? What is my role in the course? What, really, is progress?
The more I think about all of this, the more it establishes the need for Christ. Chaos just does not go away on its own. Really. It just keeps going on and on. And I think chaos can be divided up into two kinds- the physical kind, which is the way the big universe and the little, molecular universe work. That is the process of a sun forming, growing old, expanding, and exploding into space forever and ever mixing into the universe. Christ creates worlds- he is the active creator that fights all that atrophy and destruction and chaos. And then there is the kind of chaos that is a personal chaos. It's our lives. And were it not for Christ's intervention, our lives could not do anything but keep spiraling further and further into chaos- "And our spirits must have become like unto [the devil], and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies in misery..." (2 Nephi 9:9). Without Christ, if we made a mistake, that would add more jam into the rice pudding. We would try to reverse the jam, but we just can't- that would be like trying to stop the destruction of the sun. We don't have the power to reverse time and its effects, and the more we learn and experience and see and do, the more chaos is in our minds. I think Christ has a lot to do with the organizing that chaos, and He does that by truth. Truth helps everything fit correctly in its proper place. It gives light to our understanding. Without Christ, our lives are chaos. There must be a force and a power to balance the chaos.
And now here we are. I hope you made it to the end. Here is your reprieve and breath of beautiful air. Please listen to "Kin" and read the lyrics. They are a wave of peace. I think they are from the perspective of our loving God.
I love you, too.
(PS. I went on a blind date this week. I made a bunch of new friends this week. I registered for classes. I went to church here and, miracle! liked it. I am making strides and bounds. And please enjoy the Christmas song on my playlist. It's my favorite.)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
liquid mountaineering
If this is real, it's amazing.
If it's a joke, it's one of the funniest thing I have ever seen. (My favorite part is where the guy is falling in the water, holding up three fingers, excited for his three steps.) (...just in case you were wondering.)
Liquid Mountaineering. The new extreme sport.
If it's a joke, it's one of the funniest thing I have ever seen. (My favorite part is where the guy is falling in the water, holding up three fingers, excited for his three steps.) (...just in case you were wondering.)
Liquid Mountaineering. The new extreme sport.
happiness..?
I guess I am slow... I just figured something out yesterday. You can say "duh" if you want.
I was walking down the street after work yesterday, just walkin' with a huge smile on my face, looking at the gorgeous Provo winter mountains, and I think I must have looked happy. I was happy. It was the happiest I have been in a long time. Something shifted or something lifted (cryptic, I know. Sorry. But not sorry enough to clarify haha). While I was being happy, I got a couple of big smiles from other people. In fact, I could see one girl, out of the corner of my eye, watching me the entire time we were getting closer and closer to each other on the sidewalk. Right before we passed, our eyes met and she gave me a big smile and a really happy "hello."
Oh my gosh. Really? People like happy people?
And I wondered why it was hard for me to make friends...
That was yesterday. I am trying super hard to have that outlook on life that is one of constant looking out to others and constant focus on "happiness." It gets kind of hard sometimes. Like when I go to school sometimes, I start to hate people. I hate that people are so confused and then they pretend they aren't and then propagate stupid, confusing (confused) theories and philosophies. Thank goodness that every time I am reeling, tripping and jumping and dodging theories flying through my mind I always have a base to come back to. What is the base? Simply this- Heavenly Father. Jesus Christ. Faith. Repentance. Baptism. The Gift of the Holy Ghost. And Enduring to the End. These are a constant in the face of everything, everything else, because everything else changes.
I now shift gears quickly. Here is my stream of consciousness from this morning. I don't know how much longer this will last haha. I am already kind of bored of it. I will have to maybe try a new way of approaching it...
Set your sights to swinging- I can't take much more of this lack of being. You just get younger and younger until you forget about justice and the dead side of the road starts to crack and become warped by a sort of smoky silt. Little pepper grains of dust sit and rise and sit and rise with the vagrant wind. Why do you keep going and sitting down on the side of the road? Spending the last five years in a dusty dawn and wrapping yourself in a cloud of soot is certainly bringing you no closer to the freeway.
So the jumping bears and the sad clowns came and waved. We spent years just watching them play their games. We followed them, walking the side of the road, until we came to manhattan. We knew we had found something like a home because the raised hats waved us in. All the crowds in manhattan were not jumping bears or sad clowns. They all had faces and hands and mouths. Their performances were tireless and pure. The spectrum was in decibels of love.
So the jumping bears and the sad clowns came and waved. We spent years just watching them play their games. We followed them, walking the side of the road, until we came to manhattan. We knew we had found something like a home because the raised hats waved us in. All the crowds in manhattan were not jumping bears or sad clowns. They all had faces and hands and mouths. Their performances were tireless and pure. The spectrum was in decibels of love.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
david lynch
The worst days ever are also the best days ever. I hate nights when I can't focus on what I need to (homework, reading...), I don't have friends to be with, so I just waste the night wishing I could be doing something productive. At the end of those nights, I am so fed up with my self that I realize it's time to do something about it. So the worst day becomes the best day because it leads to BOOM! change.
Last night found me studying a little about a man I was introduced to by my friend Curtis Whitear back in high school. I will admit, until recently, I was so afraid of David Lynch that I would not go near him- I would not let my mind even wander too close to thoughts of him (paranoid, yes. Unprepared, yes). He is a visual artist/sound artist/surrealist- he makes films and videos and music that are so pure and strange that you can't help but be moved in an unsettled way when you experience them.
My first real experience with David Lynch was a movie called "Eraserhead." I could not sleep the night after I watched it because I was so unsettled. It's a movie about really strange people who live in a strange, mechanical, dirty world but they act like it's the norm, like nothing is strange. You are thrown into a world that the characters shouldn't be okay with (because you certainly can't be) but they are. For example, the main character, Henry, goes to a dinner with his girlfriend. In the house, Henry's girlfriend and her mother and him all sit down to talk. First of all, it's super awkward. Then, the mother asks Henry a question, and Henry starts to answer until he is interrupted by his girlfriend having a weird fit. She starts moaning and rocking back and forth. The mother is not fazed at all, and she grabs a nearby hairbrush and starts brushing the daughter's hair until she stops having her strange fit. Of course, none of this is explained in the movie- why does she have a fit? Why does brushing her hair make her settle down? Is this normal? You just have to take it for what it is. And it's unsettling.
I started to look into David Lynch's philosophy and it's very interesting. It's essentially a philosophy of meditation, and I don't want to go too far into it because I don't fully understand it and trying to explain it would lead to a lot of assumptions on my part. But as far as I understand it, David Lynch is always looking inside himself through meditation and bringing those things that he finds in his mind out in the open and expressing them visually and through music and sound (I like this because I am an advocate of finding one's real self. I think that that is where everything that is good has a place. I think that is where beauty and power and everything Godly can be found. I think that is where God can communicate best with us). Lynch's works have a dreamlike quality and are very interesting. They always cause you to feel something. Those feelings he conjures are feelings that are still relatively new to me. Want a taste? He released two new songs in the past couple of days, and you can try them out here. I really love the first one on here the most.
The whole point of this is that I feel like I have been too confined in my own expression and art. I have always thought that great art followed a set structure (and I will never say that you don't need structure in art- everything great has a skeleton of some kind), but that never led me to any exploration on my own. I want to explore my own mind and find some undiscovered recesses in there. So, I have a new plan for the next little while. I want to eat right, breathe right, sleep right, and think right in order to get my mind right. I am going to wake up in the morning and instead of being groggy and slow, I am going to wake my mind up through concentration and meditation (I really am working on self-mastery and self-control right now, too. I need it and I think this will help). And then I am going to do some stream of consciousness writing- just let whatever comes to my mind fall to paper. Because, I write poetry and I love poetry, but let's face it, as a society we are just not trained in understanding poetry any more. The way our culture is accessed (at least writing-wise) is through prose. I have always, always felt incompetent in story-telling and prose writing. So this will be all about exploration and experimentation.
I think this will be good for me because last night I wrote a poem. After I wrote the poem, I was thinking, this is the best thing that I have written. It was one of the most controlled poems I have ever written and yet, at least to me, it seems natural and exploring. Then, I went back and looked at my old poetry. I saw that every single poem I have written taught me something new. I was able to retrace some of my steps of progress to the poem I wrote last night. It came to me that everything we do is important. Every decision we make leads us somewhere, even if slowly, and if we want to go somewhere, we have to start making steps in that direction. Each step gives us new insight and new tools to use, and who knows when we will need those to do some good for some one else some day, may be to day. Every decision we make is important.
I have some new material to post on here, and I plan on doing the meditation/stream of consciousness every morning for a while, so I am hoping to post that experimental writing here every day.
Here's the first one. Listen to that first David Lynch song while you are reading it. Gro~ovy...
I had recently funded the ammunition of a basket-case. He had strapped for cash and breezed through the only test I have- windmills turning and fires burning. The result was inconclusive, so I spent the rest of my money on starving. We don't have to live this way, you know? I said to him. That's what he said to me.
I kept finding strange wooden barrels knocked over while I was walking home. Did he have something to do with it? Whatever the case, my initials were on those barrels- like when you find your name drawn from a cheap raffle.
We spent the night returning late movies. I had forgot to spend the money on saving, so loaded, the movie rental store didn't let us speak. The earth started moving the second we set off, so we never made it anywhere. When did the earth become a treadmill? I asked. Seven ghosts once inhabited our place, was his reply.
When we got home, I tried to eke out a meager existence. The seven ghosts had come back and I was a wanting host. I couldn't even turn my back on them. So I grew flowers and vegetables in the bathtub, with a slow leak keeping the floura watered.
In spring (seasons were judged solely on the rising of the plants in the bathtub) my heart caught in my throat. I choked and sobbed as I heard him say-
"What?
Scared and disillusioned by the flowers?
Horses Elliott must be determined by the hairs on his back."
That night, I ran to the fields. I stomped on every blossom that wanted to speak "life" and I spent the night forgetting mercy in the sand. Weeping, I dragged my self home, whispering things I forgot to understand. It all was clear to me as I saw him finally spend the last of my money on destruction.
But those were MY plants.
Last night found me studying a little about a man I was introduced to by my friend Curtis Whitear back in high school. I will admit, until recently, I was so afraid of David Lynch that I would not go near him- I would not let my mind even wander too close to thoughts of him (paranoid, yes. Unprepared, yes). He is a visual artist/sound artist/surrealist- he makes films and videos and music that are so pure and strange that you can't help but be moved in an unsettled way when you experience them.
My first real experience with David Lynch was a movie called "Eraserhead." I could not sleep the night after I watched it because I was so unsettled. It's a movie about really strange people who live in a strange, mechanical, dirty world but they act like it's the norm, like nothing is strange. You are thrown into a world that the characters shouldn't be okay with (because you certainly can't be) but they are. For example, the main character, Henry, goes to a dinner with his girlfriend. In the house, Henry's girlfriend and her mother and him all sit down to talk. First of all, it's super awkward. Then, the mother asks Henry a question, and Henry starts to answer until he is interrupted by his girlfriend having a weird fit. She starts moaning and rocking back and forth. The mother is not fazed at all, and she grabs a nearby hairbrush and starts brushing the daughter's hair until she stops having her strange fit. Of course, none of this is explained in the movie- why does she have a fit? Why does brushing her hair make her settle down? Is this normal? You just have to take it for what it is. And it's unsettling.
I started to look into David Lynch's philosophy and it's very interesting. It's essentially a philosophy of meditation, and I don't want to go too far into it because I don't fully understand it and trying to explain it would lead to a lot of assumptions on my part. But as far as I understand it, David Lynch is always looking inside himself through meditation and bringing those things that he finds in his mind out in the open and expressing them visually and through music and sound (I like this because I am an advocate of finding one's real self. I think that that is where everything that is good has a place. I think that is where beauty and power and everything Godly can be found. I think that is where God can communicate best with us). Lynch's works have a dreamlike quality and are very interesting. They always cause you to feel something. Those feelings he conjures are feelings that are still relatively new to me. Want a taste? He released two new songs in the past couple of days, and you can try them out here. I really love the first one on here the most.
The whole point of this is that I feel like I have been too confined in my own expression and art. I have always thought that great art followed a set structure (and I will never say that you don't need structure in art- everything great has a skeleton of some kind), but that never led me to any exploration on my own. I want to explore my own mind and find some undiscovered recesses in there. So, I have a new plan for the next little while. I want to eat right, breathe right, sleep right, and think right in order to get my mind right. I am going to wake up in the morning and instead of being groggy and slow, I am going to wake my mind up through concentration and meditation (I really am working on self-mastery and self-control right now, too. I need it and I think this will help). And then I am going to do some stream of consciousness writing- just let whatever comes to my mind fall to paper. Because, I write poetry and I love poetry, but let's face it, as a society we are just not trained in understanding poetry any more. The way our culture is accessed (at least writing-wise) is through prose. I have always, always felt incompetent in story-telling and prose writing. So this will be all about exploration and experimentation.
I think this will be good for me because last night I wrote a poem. After I wrote the poem, I was thinking, this is the best thing that I have written. It was one of the most controlled poems I have ever written and yet, at least to me, it seems natural and exploring. Then, I went back and looked at my old poetry. I saw that every single poem I have written taught me something new. I was able to retrace some of my steps of progress to the poem I wrote last night. It came to me that everything we do is important. Every decision we make leads us somewhere, even if slowly, and if we want to go somewhere, we have to start making steps in that direction. Each step gives us new insight and new tools to use, and who knows when we will need those to do some good for some one else some day, may be to day. Every decision we make is important.
I have some new material to post on here, and I plan on doing the meditation/stream of consciousness every morning for a while, so I am hoping to post that experimental writing here every day.
Here's the first one. Listen to that first David Lynch song while you are reading it. Gro~ovy...
I had recently funded the ammunition of a basket-case. He had strapped for cash and breezed through the only test I have- windmills turning and fires burning. The result was inconclusive, so I spent the rest of my money on starving. We don't have to live this way, you know? I said to him. That's what he said to me.
I kept finding strange wooden barrels knocked over while I was walking home. Did he have something to do with it? Whatever the case, my initials were on those barrels- like when you find your name drawn from a cheap raffle.
We spent the night returning late movies. I had forgot to spend the money on saving, so loaded, the movie rental store didn't let us speak. The earth started moving the second we set off, so we never made it anywhere. When did the earth become a treadmill? I asked. Seven ghosts once inhabited our place, was his reply.
When we got home, I tried to eke out a meager existence. The seven ghosts had come back and I was a wanting host. I couldn't even turn my back on them. So I grew flowers and vegetables in the bathtub, with a slow leak keeping the floura watered.
In spring (seasons were judged solely on the rising of the plants in the bathtub) my heart caught in my throat. I choked and sobbed as I heard him say-
"What?
Scared and disillusioned by the flowers?
Horses Elliott must be determined by the hairs on his back."
That night, I ran to the fields. I stomped on every blossom that wanted to speak "life" and I spent the night forgetting mercy in the sand. Weeping, I dragged my self home, whispering things I forgot to understand. It all was clear to me as I saw him finally spend the last of my money on destruction.
But those were MY plants.
Monday, November 29, 2010
hangin' with justin
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| Mel isn't as used to hanging out with celebrities as I am. You can tell she is pretty excited. |
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| I like to think of Justin as a little brother. Sometimes we get on each others' nerves, but for all that, we shore do love each other! |
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| I like his jacket. That's why I am pointing guns at him. |
i have a headache
and I think it's because I haven't been sitting up straight, lately. And I sleep with my neck all cranked. And I haven't been doing yoga.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
villiam vordsworth is cannon boi
I post this merely to show how hilarious I am.
So, I am writing an essay about William Wordsworth and whether or not he belongs in the literary canon, and the title of this post is what I put as the title for my paper. I am so funny!
I wish I was cannon boi, too.
If you, my loyal subje...er...readers, my loyal readers, if you wanted to grant me my deepest desire, you would start calling me "Cannon Boi."
So, I am writing an essay about William Wordsworth and whether or not he belongs in the literary canon, and the title of this post is what I put as the title for my paper. I am so funny!
I wish I was cannon boi, too.
If you, my loyal subje...er...readers, my loyal readers, if you wanted to grant me my deepest desire, you would start calling me "Cannon Boi."
Thursday, November 25, 2010
love is the word
Here are a couple of my favorite quotes in the entire world.
“Love is found in the affirmation of another person’s identity and stewardship, in seeking his or her growth and good, not in interpreting all the other person’s responses in terms of your own needs, hungers, or desires.”
-Stephen R. Covey
“Love is always open arms. With arms open you allow love to come and go as it wills freely. This is in harmony with the natural ebb and flow of love. If you close your arms about love – and attempt to capture it – you will find that you are left holding just yourself.”
-Leo Buscaglia
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
horses elliott
I feel like the structure of my life was shaken to its core. Whatever I built up has fallen down and I have had to rebuild.
What happened? A lot of things have culminated to bring this to pass, but the thing that really rocked me and started everything shaking happened today when my teacher discussed Mrs. Dalloway. He taught us that the philosophy really proposed in this book is that of existentialism. What an existentialist believes is that this life is all there is. Our souls are really only here for a brief minute and we have to make our lives what they mean; we have to find our own purpose and meaning. So, if you felt like this life is all there is, and you wanted to make something of it, what would you do? What would you do to make it meaningful and worth living? I think the answer is go out and do good things- experience tons of things, feel everything, be good to other people, do acts of love for others, and essentially, seize the day. "There's only one life to live- make the most of it..." So this way of living really resonated with me. Okay, but here is where the kicker came for me-
Compare this with a life with a religious take on eternity and the immortal soul. What is their philosophy? Life is a test. Life is simply a brief moment on the great eternities, stretching out forever before us and behind us. It tells us that our purpose is to have families and be responsible. A life that is not stable like that does not really fit snugly in a religious environment, right?
All of a sudden, when my mind newly labeled the first philosophy "existentialism" and then compared it to this (all of a sudden) fresh perspective on religious philosophy, I realized that I have been more and more living and thinking like an existentialist (everything has been about experiencing and experimenting). I didn't know I had been doing that, and I don't know what it is about labeling, but all of a sudden I realized that my ideas on life fit inside someone else's box and it became something that I could step back and look at.
So, I was there looking at my life, and we kept talking about the book, and other thoughts came to me that I had recently had.
First, was from the book- one of the amazing parts of the way Mrs. Dalloway was written is that each paragraph that follows a character's thoughts really shows the way a human being thinks. We don't just have a steady, flowing train of thought all the time; our thoughts usually jump from idea to idea because of whatever outside stimuli is around us. And in fact, our thoughts can be completely inconsistent with each other from one thought to the next. For example, I can think, "I have become a very collected and calm driver," get cut-off by another person on the road, and then think, in a sort of rage, "Stupid people should not be allowed to drive." This is usually topped-off with a bird. E. A person that substitute-taught today spelled "beautiful" like this (and this is really true, and he did it thinking it was correct): "beautE-ful." Haha the E was capitalized and the hyphen was there and everything.
So our thoughts jump around, and so do our circumstances change. So do our philosophies on life. In fact, there are so many philosophies in the world that have been used and discarded that it's a wonder we don't find a way to use them as an energy source in cars. Really, you can't show me a single philosophy for life that doesn't have some hole in it or can hold up in every situation and circumstance you put it in. Is that kind of depressing? No one has all the answers. All of this kind of was hard for me, too. But then I started watching things by Spike Jonze. He directed an amazing movie called "The Fall" and he also directed "Where the Wild Things Are" and other great films. No matter what the movie is about, no matter what happens, the overall theme of the movie is that love trumps all, love is over all and under all and through all, through everything that matters, that has substance. Paul said,
Love is the only thing that means anything. Last week, I watched a talk that President Eyring gave a few years ago. He told a story of when he was a bishop of a ward, and he was helping out a man who, for years, had had problems with substance abuse and breaking the law. The man got baptized, and a few days later, he was intoxicated by some substance and ran his car into a building. He was okay, and when the cops came, they were trying to arrest him. But the man said, "No, no, it's okay. I'm a Mormon, now! You don't have to arrest me!"
Eventually, the man got back to face President Eyring in his bishop's office. President Eyring, on being with the man, started to become infuriated and filled with (as he thought at the time) righteous anger- he could only think of how the man had hurt the church's name and had done nothing good. He could really only think how thoughtless and bad the man had been, and as he was filling up with this anger, getting it ready to let loose on the man, all of a sudden, something happened. (Here, as President Eyring was talking, he started to get really emotional.) All of a sudden, President Eyring saw the man as a child. And he knew, in his heart and through the feelings of the Spirit, that Heavenly Father was letting him see the man as He saw him. President Eyring realized that he had no idea what kind of hardships the man had lived through, what kind of painful experiences he had had. He saw him as a child who was trying the best he knew how, who really, in his heart of hearts, wanted to be good.
President Eyring then said that up to that point in his life, he had been praying for charity, the pure love of Christ, and in that moment, he knew what that was, how it felt. That was love. That is love.
So I think how I see so many people every day. At school. (I think that is one thing that makes BYU so hard for me- it's just that we are supposed to be practicing a religion of love. These are people who are definitely members and definitely supposed to be doing these things. They don't have an excuse...well... It's just hard because I feel like people not of the same faith as me are not held to the same standards.) The people at school don't seem to care that I am alive. Who am I to them? I hate that hardly anyone looks at me. I hate that hardly any one is trying to help me smile by acknowledging me. What, am I a spectre?
But President Eyring's story put it more in perspective. It's this- I just don't think very many people are truly filled with love, no matter what religion they belong to. I think it is something that is to be worked at gaining through lots of desire, asking, and sincere effort. I also feel like charity is not up to other people. It is up to me. I don't need to wait to have a group of friends before I can start acting charitably. I can do for other people what I wish they would do for me.
Can I say that I feel like I am making steps towards that end when I stop my own thoughts and really focus on a person sitting next to me? When I wave and say hello to someone and see a smile come on their face? When I make someone laugh? When I show something that is important and dear to me to someone else? It is simply a shift in attitude from me to someone else.
An autobiography I recently read really helped me understand that shift.
For me, I feel like my body is a machine, in a way. My spirit is inside this shell, this machine, and the machine can work pretty well with only a small percentage of focus from my spirit. I can let my spirit kind of wander around and sulk around inside my little shell without hardly ever looking out. At those times, everything seems very hazy and almost colorless. But then, when I make that shift, I feel like I am totally plugged into my body, experiencing everything that my body can experience. I am plugged into my hands, I can see colors vividly, I can think straight, my feet are gripping the earth, and my ears are filled with beautiful music that dances all through my being. That shift is completely outward. That shift is seeing a need and filling it. That shift is not being afraid. That shift is acts of love. That shift is not worrying about the self. That shift is, I will repeat it because I think it's important, outward. It is not forgetting the self, but it is. It's about totally being one with your self, but not doing things for your self.
This is important to me because I am tired of running in circles. I got so, so fed up with life and the way everything was the same! Every single time I felt like I needed to improve, I would take the exact same steps and set the exact same goals every time. Things would work for a little while, and then they would go sour, again. I would set the same goals, keep them for a little while, and then fall again. I decided that that is stupid. It is incredibly stupid. I don't care if I am "improving myself," if i keep doing the same things over and over again, I am crazy, because it obviously isn't working. I kept thinking, oh this time I have more dedication to my goals so I will be able to keep them. No. All I could think of was Thoreau asking me, "Does wisdom work in treadmills then?" And Isaac Brock mocking me- "I took off running at the greatest speed/ Didn't bother looking to either side of me/...I left the hills at this point in time/ To run on treadmills in a dotted line." Things had to change. I had to change them. I changed my attitude. I changed my perspective. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was change, and I am still changing.
So there is all of this, and all of this has come on the end of a couple of worrisome thoughts for me. Do you realize that the world is a huge mess? Sufjan Stevens made a documentary called "The BQE," and this, more than anything else I have seen, seems to be able to encapsulate my thoughts- it is finally the symbol that best captures and expands my ideas. The BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) is a road system in the outskirts of New York City that was built over a relatively long period of time. The design (due to many difficult circumstances) is incredibly messy. It came as a solution to the huge increase of commercial traffic in New York, but it is just jumbled and almost haphazard seeming. Watching the documentary, I started to think how even though the road-system is not great, everything has grown and expanded around it. There are offices and apartments and stores and warehouses and other roads all built around the BQE. So the system is not great, but it is kind of working. The only way to improve the system and make it more efficient would be to tear it all down and start all over. But what would that mean? It would mean displacing thousands and thousands of people and tearing all those offices and apartments and stores and warehouses and roads all to the ground. There is no way that that is going to happen. So what do those people in New York do? They make the best of it. They do the best they can with the system they've got.
What does that mean to me? I have started to see and feel how the system we are living in is really not good. Yeah, we are getting food, but really, are we eating the best food we could be? No. Do big businesses care about us? No. Do companies care for anything but money? No. Most of us have housing, but could the system be more efficient? Yes. Is the system of government perfect? Are the people in power perfect? No. Are morals holding up? No. Is there deep-seated corruption where we can't see it? Yes. We are living in a fallen world of imperfect systems. We won't live in a perfect society in this life. And this completely scared me. I felt like I was living on top of a bubble that was about to pop, and here I was afraid for myself and so many people, and here I was wanting to revolutionize the system. I wanted to change everything. And here was religion telling me to just do the best I could with what I was given. It was telling me to lead a good life- raise a good family, become stable, learn and give way to many inner changes. I could not reconcile how big a mess the world was in with what religion was asking me to do. What, you want to pretend the world isn't a very big mess and just live on happily ignorant of everything falling apart?
Then I heard recently that a church leader (I think it was an Apostle, but this is really information without a reliable source, as I think I am telling this as the third or fourth source) gave a talk about this in church. He said, yes, the world is a mess, we are aware of that, but just keep on living, doing the best
you can.
So, the church, our leaders know this world is a mess.
Then I realized why we have received the counsel we have received, and I realized it because of the BQE. Everything, our society, is built up so much, our laws and ideas and systems are so ingrained in us and our culture that the only way to change everything would be a complete revolution. It would mean wiping everything out, breaking everything to the ground, to bring out a more perfect system.
So a lot of things started to click for me. I looked at existentialism. It is a philosophy of action, and I like it (actually, I love it. The more I live by trying to find meaning in life and in giving, the less I am bored. I realized a couple of days ago that I have not been bored for a long time. My mind is constantly trying to find better ways of doing things because I hate the way the world works right now), but I was giving myself too much to it. I could absolutely not be happy inside it until everything around me was perfect- school had to be how I wanted it, my roommates had to be who I wanted, the culture had to be what I wanted it, my friends had to be what I wanted, because it was all about perfecting everything around me. I can start living with the (again, fresh) religious outlook. I can be happy where I am because of love. And all of a sudden, life has meaning and purpose again.
And my friends, my family, I love you. I would have nothing if I didn't have you.
What happened? A lot of things have culminated to bring this to pass, but the thing that really rocked me and started everything shaking happened today when my teacher discussed Mrs. Dalloway. He taught us that the philosophy really proposed in this book is that of existentialism. What an existentialist believes is that this life is all there is. Our souls are really only here for a brief minute and we have to make our lives what they mean; we have to find our own purpose and meaning. So, if you felt like this life is all there is, and you wanted to make something of it, what would you do? What would you do to make it meaningful and worth living? I think the answer is go out and do good things- experience tons of things, feel everything, be good to other people, do acts of love for others, and essentially, seize the day. "There's only one life to live- make the most of it..." So this way of living really resonated with me. Okay, but here is where the kicker came for me-
Compare this with a life with a religious take on eternity and the immortal soul. What is their philosophy? Life is a test. Life is simply a brief moment on the great eternities, stretching out forever before us and behind us. It tells us that our purpose is to have families and be responsible. A life that is not stable like that does not really fit snugly in a religious environment, right?
All of a sudden, when my mind newly labeled the first philosophy "existentialism" and then compared it to this (all of a sudden) fresh perspective on religious philosophy, I realized that I have been more and more living and thinking like an existentialist (everything has been about experiencing and experimenting). I didn't know I had been doing that, and I don't know what it is about labeling, but all of a sudden I realized that my ideas on life fit inside someone else's box and it became something that I could step back and look at.
So, I was there looking at my life, and we kept talking about the book, and other thoughts came to me that I had recently had.
First, was from the book- one of the amazing parts of the way Mrs. Dalloway was written is that each paragraph that follows a character's thoughts really shows the way a human being thinks. We don't just have a steady, flowing train of thought all the time; our thoughts usually jump from idea to idea because of whatever outside stimuli is around us. And in fact, our thoughts can be completely inconsistent with each other from one thought to the next. For example, I can think, "I have become a very collected and calm driver," get cut-off by another person on the road, and then think, in a sort of rage, "Stupid people should not be allowed to drive." This is usually topped-off with a bird. E. A person that substitute-taught today spelled "beautiful" like this (and this is really true, and he did it thinking it was correct): "beautE-ful." Haha the E was capitalized and the hyphen was there and everything.
So our thoughts jump around, and so do our circumstances change. So do our philosophies on life. In fact, there are so many philosophies in the world that have been used and discarded that it's a wonder we don't find a way to use them as an energy source in cars. Really, you can't show me a single philosophy for life that doesn't have some hole in it or can hold up in every situation and circumstance you put it in. Is that kind of depressing? No one has all the answers. All of this kind of was hard for me, too. But then I started watching things by Spike Jonze. He directed an amazing movie called "The Fall" and he also directed "Where the Wild Things Are" and other great films. No matter what the movie is about, no matter what happens, the overall theme of the movie is that love trumps all, love is over all and under all and through all, through everything that matters, that has substance. Paul said,
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
Love is the only thing that means anything. Last week, I watched a talk that President Eyring gave a few years ago. He told a story of when he was a bishop of a ward, and he was helping out a man who, for years, had had problems with substance abuse and breaking the law. The man got baptized, and a few days later, he was intoxicated by some substance and ran his car into a building. He was okay, and when the cops came, they were trying to arrest him. But the man said, "No, no, it's okay. I'm a Mormon, now! You don't have to arrest me!"
Eventually, the man got back to face President Eyring in his bishop's office. President Eyring, on being with the man, started to become infuriated and filled with (as he thought at the time) righteous anger- he could only think of how the man had hurt the church's name and had done nothing good. He could really only think how thoughtless and bad the man had been, and as he was filling up with this anger, getting it ready to let loose on the man, all of a sudden, something happened. (Here, as President Eyring was talking, he started to get really emotional.) All of a sudden, President Eyring saw the man as a child. And he knew, in his heart and through the feelings of the Spirit, that Heavenly Father was letting him see the man as He saw him. President Eyring realized that he had no idea what kind of hardships the man had lived through, what kind of painful experiences he had had. He saw him as a child who was trying the best he knew how, who really, in his heart of hearts, wanted to be good.
President Eyring then said that up to that point in his life, he had been praying for charity, the pure love of Christ, and in that moment, he knew what that was, how it felt. That was love. That is love.
So I think how I see so many people every day. At school. (I think that is one thing that makes BYU so hard for me- it's just that we are supposed to be practicing a religion of love. These are people who are definitely members and definitely supposed to be doing these things. They don't have an excuse...well... It's just hard because I feel like people not of the same faith as me are not held to the same standards.) The people at school don't seem to care that I am alive. Who am I to them? I hate that hardly anyone looks at me. I hate that hardly any one is trying to help me smile by acknowledging me. What, am I a spectre?
But President Eyring's story put it more in perspective. It's this- I just don't think very many people are truly filled with love, no matter what religion they belong to. I think it is something that is to be worked at gaining through lots of desire, asking, and sincere effort. I also feel like charity is not up to other people. It is up to me. I don't need to wait to have a group of friends before I can start acting charitably. I can do for other people what I wish they would do for me.
Can I say that I feel like I am making steps towards that end when I stop my own thoughts and really focus on a person sitting next to me? When I wave and say hello to someone and see a smile come on their face? When I make someone laugh? When I show something that is important and dear to me to someone else? It is simply a shift in attitude from me to someone else.
An autobiography I recently read really helped me understand that shift.
The autobiography I am talking about was written by John Stuart Mills, a Victorian philosopher. His story is very remarkable in that he was basically a prodigy. Mills's father did not believe in the traditional education system, so he raised Mills and educated him himself. Mills was raised on the belief system of the utilitarians, which is simply belief in supporting “the greatest good for the greatest number”. It was a very calculating and unfeeling faith, and it was all about securing pleasure for oneself. Inside this system, Mills at first flourished, and as a genius-prodigy, he was publishing and lecturing in his teenage years and was quite prominent even at a young age. He was incredibly intelligent.
What was amazing about this story is that after a small number of years of being successful, Mills basically woke up one morning and had lost all his taste for life. He could not feel (I can think of no worse state in the entire world. Please give me feeling, even if it's deep sorrow or pain. Give me feeling). A deep cloud of gloom swept over him and he sunk to its depths. In his autobiography, Mills says that this cloud would not leave him for a long time- months. His life carried on like this, with him wondering if he should ever be happy again, until, while reading, he came across a fictional story of a father's death in a small family. This little story seemed to cut through the gloom and awaken in him some sympathy and finally! feeling. It helped to cause the cloud of gloom to leave, as this first emotion helped to change his attitude. Do you see, he finally felt?
What he learned, in his own words, was this: “Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind...”
For me, I feel like my body is a machine, in a way. My spirit is inside this shell, this machine, and the machine can work pretty well with only a small percentage of focus from my spirit. I can let my spirit kind of wander around and sulk around inside my little shell without hardly ever looking out. At those times, everything seems very hazy and almost colorless. But then, when I make that shift, I feel like I am totally plugged into my body, experiencing everything that my body can experience. I am plugged into my hands, I can see colors vividly, I can think straight, my feet are gripping the earth, and my ears are filled with beautiful music that dances all through my being. That shift is completely outward. That shift is seeing a need and filling it. That shift is not being afraid. That shift is acts of love. That shift is not worrying about the self. That shift is, I will repeat it because I think it's important, outward. It is not forgetting the self, but it is. It's about totally being one with your self, but not doing things for your self.
This is important to me because I am tired of running in circles. I got so, so fed up with life and the way everything was the same! Every single time I felt like I needed to improve, I would take the exact same steps and set the exact same goals every time. Things would work for a little while, and then they would go sour, again. I would set the same goals, keep them for a little while, and then fall again. I decided that that is stupid. It is incredibly stupid. I don't care if I am "improving myself," if i keep doing the same things over and over again, I am crazy, because it obviously isn't working. I kept thinking, oh this time I have more dedication to my goals so I will be able to keep them. No. All I could think of was Thoreau asking me, "Does wisdom work in treadmills then?" And Isaac Brock mocking me- "I took off running at the greatest speed/ Didn't bother looking to either side of me/...I left the hills at this point in time/ To run on treadmills in a dotted line." Things had to change. I had to change them. I changed my attitude. I changed my perspective. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was change, and I am still changing.
So there is all of this, and all of this has come on the end of a couple of worrisome thoughts for me. Do you realize that the world is a huge mess? Sufjan Stevens made a documentary called "The BQE," and this, more than anything else I have seen, seems to be able to encapsulate my thoughts- it is finally the symbol that best captures and expands my ideas. The BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) is a road system in the outskirts of New York City that was built over a relatively long period of time. The design (due to many difficult circumstances) is incredibly messy. It came as a solution to the huge increase of commercial traffic in New York, but it is just jumbled and almost haphazard seeming. Watching the documentary, I started to think how even though the road-system is not great, everything has grown and expanded around it. There are offices and apartments and stores and warehouses and other roads all built around the BQE. So the system is not great, but it is kind of working. The only way to improve the system and make it more efficient would be to tear it all down and start all over. But what would that mean? It would mean displacing thousands and thousands of people and tearing all those offices and apartments and stores and warehouses and roads all to the ground. There is no way that that is going to happen. So what do those people in New York do? They make the best of it. They do the best they can with the system they've got.
What does that mean to me? I have started to see and feel how the system we are living in is really not good. Yeah, we are getting food, but really, are we eating the best food we could be? No. Do big businesses care about us? No. Do companies care for anything but money? No. Most of us have housing, but could the system be more efficient? Yes. Is the system of government perfect? Are the people in power perfect? No. Are morals holding up? No. Is there deep-seated corruption where we can't see it? Yes. We are living in a fallen world of imperfect systems. We won't live in a perfect society in this life. And this completely scared me. I felt like I was living on top of a bubble that was about to pop, and here I was afraid for myself and so many people, and here I was wanting to revolutionize the system. I wanted to change everything. And here was religion telling me to just do the best I could with what I was given. It was telling me to lead a good life- raise a good family, become stable, learn and give way to many inner changes. I could not reconcile how big a mess the world was in with what religion was asking me to do. What, you want to pretend the world isn't a very big mess and just live on happily ignorant of everything falling apart?
Then I heard recently that a church leader (I think it was an Apostle, but this is really information without a reliable source, as I think I am telling this as the third or fourth source) gave a talk about this in church. He said, yes, the world is a mess, we are aware of that, but just keep on living, doing the best
you can.
So, the church, our leaders know this world is a mess.
Then I realized why we have received the counsel we have received, and I realized it because of the BQE. Everything, our society, is built up so much, our laws and ideas and systems are so ingrained in us and our culture that the only way to change everything would be a complete revolution. It would mean wiping everything out, breaking everything to the ground, to bring out a more perfect system.
So a lot of things started to click for me. I looked at existentialism. It is a philosophy of action, and I like it (actually, I love it. The more I live by trying to find meaning in life and in giving, the less I am bored. I realized a couple of days ago that I have not been bored for a long time. My mind is constantly trying to find better ways of doing things because I hate the way the world works right now), but I was giving myself too much to it. I could absolutely not be happy inside it until everything around me was perfect- school had to be how I wanted it, my roommates had to be who I wanted, the culture had to be what I wanted it, my friends had to be what I wanted, because it was all about perfecting everything around me. I can start living with the (again, fresh) religious outlook. I can be happy where I am because of love. And all of a sudden, life has meaning and purpose again.
And my friends, my family, I love you. I would have nothing if I didn't have you.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
yeasayer, welcome back to my life
I would like to formally welcome Yeasayer back into my life. It's been a while. And now I cry a little.
"cuz it feels like being tranquilized
i know that separation kills the soul
but i won't stop falling like raindrops
cuz i like it when you lose control"
!!!O.N.E.!!!
"cuz it feels like being tranquilized
i know that separation kills the soul
but i won't stop falling like raindrops
cuz i like it when you lose control"
!!!O.N.E.!!!
Monday, November 15, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
simplicity
I had a dream last night that I actually remember pretty clearly, which is rare.
I think it was about truth.
Dreams are all cloudy and colors, right? This one was swirling with black ribbons of cloud, and I was in the middle of a conversation. In the conversation, a person asked me about another person and said, "Why do you like them?" Now, when I answered the question, I didn't even know who they were talking about, but I answered. I said something close to, "Because they are simple and easy to understand." After I answered the question, I realized that the questioner and I had been talking about a modern singer who is direct and to the point.
It was kind of cool to realize I had carried on a conscious conversation about a person who I didn't even know I was talking about.
Anyway, I will explain why the principle of simplicity seems so cosmically important to me right now.
I recently read the introduction to Ender's Game, both the book and the introduction were written by Orson Scott Card. He talked about how the novel he attempted to write (and actually succeeded in doing) was one that was totally direct and not ambiguous at all. He wrote straight in the prose of truth and pure story. He totally has the power and ability to use all the fun English-language-tricks of ambiguity and layers to make texts nearly incomprehensible to people not trained in those tricks- Card graduated with a masters in literature. He simply chose to not write in a way that was inaccessible to everyone. However, he wrote a story that is applicable to many, many people in tons of different ways and a story that you can't walk away from without thinking, "There is a lot of truth in that book." It has inspired a lot of people, including me, to be a better person and more than anything else, to want to fight to be more capable and more intelligent. This comes from a story that I first read when I was in elementary school!! This is not, I repeat, not a hard book to read. It is straightforward and simple. However, I still read it today and glean new ideas and truths from this masterful book.
And then, there is this guy- James Joyce- whom I have to read for my English class. This guy is a genius. He is from Ireland and just literally absorbed the entire culture of humanity- he learned tons of languages and learned tons of philosophy and myths and religions. We are talking about a guy who, when he exhales, has knowledge dripping from the air molecules where the oxygen used to be. I think standing in his same vicinity would make you more intelligent from breathing his air. Okay. Now, let me show you an excerpt from his last novel. This novel is a sprawling 600+ page-mammoth, and it comprises a single night of one man's dream. This man has about five characters, and they are representative of almost every hero, every ordinary man, every mythological creature, every Adam and Eve, every philosophy, every language, and a hodgepodge of every dream-sense you could ever have. Here is the excerpt-
"Orkman ribpop easily cross arrows. Flaunting wissam on narrow shoulders opens me. opens me. Pilly saw Roman do the tiger on ruskpappy for Flynn. Squiggles on canvas slapped brightly on Easter fippoon aiktart. Common man sees field sorry fart on apple."
Ha. Try to read that for six hundred pages.
I don't care how many layers there are here. I don't care how much breadth and depth this prose covers. I don't care that the key to every lock to every door of happiness is in this text. I absolutely can't read it. Is this accessible? No. It's not. Does this help anyone? Yeah, like the 50 "scholars" who devote their entire life to the interpretation and study of the leaps this guy's mind makes across every word and every sentence to every allusion to every piece of literature in all of history throughout the text.
So, do I hate layers? Do I hate ambiguity? No. I think they have their place, but I think that place is nearly the same place as a puzzle. Understanding texts like that gives a feeling that is equivalent to putting a puzzle all together. It's fun. Sometimes it's enlightening.
Otherwise, it's stupid. And that's why I hate school.
I think it was about truth.
Dreams are all cloudy and colors, right? This one was swirling with black ribbons of cloud, and I was in the middle of a conversation. In the conversation, a person asked me about another person and said, "Why do you like them?" Now, when I answered the question, I didn't even know who they were talking about, but I answered. I said something close to, "Because they are simple and easy to understand." After I answered the question, I realized that the questioner and I had been talking about a modern singer who is direct and to the point.
It was kind of cool to realize I had carried on a conscious conversation about a person who I didn't even know I was talking about.
Anyway, I will explain why the principle of simplicity seems so cosmically important to me right now.
I recently read the introduction to Ender's Game, both the book and the introduction were written by Orson Scott Card. He talked about how the novel he attempted to write (and actually succeeded in doing) was one that was totally direct and not ambiguous at all. He wrote straight in the prose of truth and pure story. He totally has the power and ability to use all the fun English-language-tricks of ambiguity and layers to make texts nearly incomprehensible to people not trained in those tricks- Card graduated with a masters in literature. He simply chose to not write in a way that was inaccessible to everyone. However, he wrote a story that is applicable to many, many people in tons of different ways and a story that you can't walk away from without thinking, "There is a lot of truth in that book." It has inspired a lot of people, including me, to be a better person and more than anything else, to want to fight to be more capable and more intelligent. This comes from a story that I first read when I was in elementary school!! This is not, I repeat, not a hard book to read. It is straightforward and simple. However, I still read it today and glean new ideas and truths from this masterful book.
And then, there is this guy- James Joyce- whom I have to read for my English class. This guy is a genius. He is from Ireland and just literally absorbed the entire culture of humanity- he learned tons of languages and learned tons of philosophy and myths and religions. We are talking about a guy who, when he exhales, has knowledge dripping from the air molecules where the oxygen used to be. I think standing in his same vicinity would make you more intelligent from breathing his air. Okay. Now, let me show you an excerpt from his last novel. This novel is a sprawling 600+ page-mammoth, and it comprises a single night of one man's dream. This man has about five characters, and they are representative of almost every hero, every ordinary man, every mythological creature, every Adam and Eve, every philosophy, every language, and a hodgepodge of every dream-sense you could ever have. Here is the excerpt-
"Orkman ribpop easily cross arrows. Flaunting wissam on narrow shoulders opens me. opens me. Pilly saw Roman do the tiger on ruskpappy for Flynn. Squiggles on canvas slapped brightly on Easter fippoon aiktart. Common man sees field sorry fart on apple."
Ha. Try to read that for six hundred pages.
I don't care how many layers there are here. I don't care how much breadth and depth this prose covers. I don't care that the key to every lock to every door of happiness is in this text. I absolutely can't read it. Is this accessible? No. It's not. Does this help anyone? Yeah, like the 50 "scholars" who devote their entire life to the interpretation and study of the leaps this guy's mind makes across every word and every sentence to every allusion to every piece of literature in all of history throughout the text.
So, do I hate layers? Do I hate ambiguity? No. I think they have their place, but I think that place is nearly the same place as a puzzle. Understanding texts like that gives a feeling that is equivalent to putting a puzzle all together. It's fun. Sometimes it's enlightening.
Otherwise, it's stupid. And that's why I hate school.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
glark cable
I was waiting for a cross-town train in the london underground
When it struck me that i've been waiting since birth to find
A love that would look and sound like a movie so i changed
My plans and rented a camera and a van and then i called you
"i need you to pretend that we are in love again" and you agreed to
I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real"
And i want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd
I greased the lens and framed the shot using a friend as my stand-in
The script it called for rain but it was clear that day so we faked it
The marker snapped and i yelled "quiet on the set"
And then called "action!"
And i kissed you in a stye that clark gable would have admired
(i thought it classic)
I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real"
And i want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd
I know you're wise beyond your years, but do you ever get the fear
That you're perfect versus just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?
-Clark Gable, by The Postal Service
What I am doing right now, it's not life. I want to take a friend, and I want to walk across the country. I want to hold hands and not need food or shelter. I want to feel alive. I hate looking on the last few months of my life and thinking, "Was it all a dream?" I want life to ooze out of every action I take, every word that erupts from my heart, and every emotion that rattles my soul. I echo Ben Gibbard- "I want so badly to believe that there is truth, that love is real."
I wrote a poem.
Starving carved, hollow smile
Eyes that work out of duty
Fold yourself, pretty one
You are not a spider with eight legs
You are a coin glued to the ground
You are one part of many pieces
Not one piece of many parts
My hope comes from the lives of good people who have come before me and who are with me now; they have shown me that there is no emotion or power more abiding than love, and there is nothing more important to obtain.
When it struck me that i've been waiting since birth to find
A love that would look and sound like a movie so i changed
My plans and rented a camera and a van and then i called you
"i need you to pretend that we are in love again" and you agreed to
I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real"
And i want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd
I greased the lens and framed the shot using a friend as my stand-in
The script it called for rain but it was clear that day so we faked it
The marker snapped and i yelled "quiet on the set"
And then called "action!"
And i kissed you in a stye that clark gable would have admired
(i thought it classic)
I want so badly to believe that "there is truth, that love is real"
And i want life in every word to the extent that it's absurd
I know you're wise beyond your years, but do you ever get the fear
That you're perfect versus just a lie you tell yourself to help you get by?
-Clark Gable, by The Postal Service
What I am doing right now, it's not life. I want to take a friend, and I want to walk across the country. I want to hold hands and not need food or shelter. I want to feel alive. I hate looking on the last few months of my life and thinking, "Was it all a dream?" I want life to ooze out of every action I take, every word that erupts from my heart, and every emotion that rattles my soul. I echo Ben Gibbard- "I want so badly to believe that there is truth, that love is real."
I wrote a poem.
Starving carved, hollow smile
Eyes that work out of duty
Fold yourself, pretty one
You are not a spider with eight legs
You are a coin glued to the ground
You are one part of many pieces
Not one piece of many parts
My hope comes from the lives of good people who have come before me and who are with me now; they have shown me that there is no emotion or power more abiding than love, and there is nothing more important to obtain.
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