truths

I found a list of life truths. There are some missing because I didn't feel they were entirely true or necessary. But here is the list of life truths as I see it

1. You can’t change other people, and it’s rude to try.

3. If you’re talking to someone you don’t know well, you may be talking to someone who knows way more about whatever you’re talking about than you do.

5. Everyone likes somebody who gets to the point quickly.

6. Bad moods will come and go your whole life, and trying to force them away makes them run deeper and last longer.

7. Children are remarkably honest creatures until we teach them not to be.

8. If everyone in the TV show you’re watching is good-looking, it’s not worth watching.

9. Yelling always makes things worse.

10. Whenever you’re worried about what others will think of you, you’re really just worried about what you’ll think of you.

11. Every problem you have is your responsibility, regardless of who caused it.

12. You never have to deal with more than one moment at a time.

13. If you never doubt your beliefs, then you’re wrong a lot.

16. Cynicism is far too easy to be useful.

17. Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.

18. Whenever you hate something, it hates you back: people, situations and inanimate objects alike.

21. Anger reveals weakness of character, violence even more so.

22. Humans cannot destroy the planet, but we can destroy its capacity to keep us alive. And we are.

25. Putting something off makes it instantly harder and scarier.

27. Nobody knows more than a minuscule fraction of what’s going on in the world. It’s just way too big for any one person to know it well.

28. Most of what we see is only what we think about what we see.

30. The most common addiction in the world is the draw of comfort. It wrecks dreams and breaks people.

31. If what you’re doing feels perfectly safe, there is probably a better course of action.

32. The greatest innovation in the history of humankind is language.

33. Blame is the favorite pastime of those who dislike responsibility.

34. Everyone you meet is better than you at something.

35. Proof is nothing but a collection of opinions that match your own.

36. Knowledge is belief, nothing more.

37. Indulging your desires is not self-love.

39. Self-examination is the only path out of misery.

41. Revenge is for the petty and irresponsible.

42. Getting truly organized can vastly improve anyone’s life.

43. Almost every cliché contains a truth so profound that people have been compelled to repeat it until it makes you roll your eyes. But the wisdom is still in there.

44. People cause suffering when they are suffering themselves. Alleviating their suffering will help them not hurt others.

45. High quality is worth any quantity, in possessions, friends and experiences.

46. The world would be a better place if everyone read National Geographic.

47. If you aren’t happy single, you won’t be happy in a relationship.

56. If anything is worth splurging on, it’s a high-quality mattress. You’ll spend a third of your life using it.

57. There is nothing worse than having no friends.

58. To write a person off as worthless is an act of great violence.

59. Try as we might to be otherwise, we are all hypocrites.

63. Casual swearing makes people sound dumb.

64. Words are immensely powerful. One cruel remark can wound someone for life.

65. It’s easy to make someone’s day just by being uncommonly pleasant to them.

66. Most of what children learn from their parents isn’t taught on purpose.

67. The secret ingredient is usually butter, in obscene amounts.

68. It is worth re-trying foods that you didn’t like at first.

69. Problems, when they arise, are rarely as painful as the experience of fearing them.

70. Nothing — ever — happens exactly like you pictured it.

73. When you break promises to yourself, you feel terrible. When you make a habit of it, you begin to hate yourself.

74. A good nine out of ten bad things I’ve worried about never happened. A good nine out of ten bad things that did happen never occurred to me to worry about.

76. Sometimes you have to remove certain people from your life, even if they’re family.

78. There is no point finishing a book you aren’t enjoying. Life is too short for that. Swallow your pride and put it down for good, unfinished.

80. Breaking new ground only takes a small amount more effort than you’re used to giving.

81. Life is a solo trip, but you’ll have lots of visitors. Some of them are long-term, most aren’t.

82. One of the best things you can do for your kids is take them on road trips. I’m not a parent, but I was a kid once.

83. The fewer possessions you have, the more they do for you.

86. Wishing things were different is a great way to torture yourself.

87. The ability to be happy is nothing other than the ability to come to terms with how things change.

88. Killing time is an atrocity. It’s priceless, and it never grows back.

i wonder

why are we alive if we eventually stop living?
i'm not asking the meaning of life, really.
why fight so hard to stay alive when everyone will die.
why is death such a negative thing when it is the one certain thing we posses?
but maybe that's like asking "why drive a car if you eventually stop driving?"
the answer is obvious, to get somewhere.
maybe we are just getting somewhere.
except we have no idea where as it is hidden behind the black veil of death.
would we spend out lives differently if we knew what was behind that veil?
but i mean, what's the point of being human if, at some point, every person will stop being human.
i am not saying we should live like animals but i just wonder what being a human is for.
in this book i am reading, "The Zen Commandments" by Dean Sluyter, it says that to sacrifice your life for someone you love is to give up every food you've ever eaten, every sunset you've seen, every breath you've taken, all the knowledge you have worked to acquire.
which made me think, why do we think? why do we do anything?
to what purpose does it serve to want to know more. why is the search for answers and knowledge so innate within us when the knowledge we gain does nothing for us after death.
why do we experience emotions, why do we test our emotionally capacity through human relationships? who do we see sunsets? how does any of this help us when we die?
in the afterlife, in Heaven, it won't matter what bands we enjoyed, what books we read, what relations we had. is life just to be enjoyed, explored and then ended. everything we've gained, fought for, and experienced, coming to an end, never to come to use again.
don't get me wrong, i LOVE being alive and being humans. i find it extremely enjoyable.
but i feel like there most be a greater purpose to life than to just be enjoyed?
but from everything i've said, maybe that is the only purpose.
i'm not implying that life is meaningless, i am just curious.
why be curious when whatever you are curious about doesn't matter when you die?
it sounds morbid but i don't mean it to be.
i don't find death to be as morbid as most people, i don't know it well enough.
i guess i just see it was that veil.
i sometimes wonder if eternity is real.
i mean, i believe in Heaven and Hell, but i'm not sure if I believe in eternity in Heaven or Hell, because what's the point in that, really?
maybe God doesn't keep creating new souls, maybe he only creates new bodies.
that probably sounds bad, but i think there are so many things that are so beyond us.
and the Bible only tells us of our existence. maybe there was an earth before this one.
maybe there will be one after this. i always hear about the Rapture and i believe it, but then i wonder, after it's all over, "then what?".
maybe there's different universes or realms or realities, co-existing with ours, and they have their own Bible, telling them of their existence. and maybe Jesus went there too and died for their sins too. and maybe their brains were created different and they developed in entirely different ways that we can't even comprehend, just as they can't comprehend our 3Gs and ever changing technology. maybe they can use magic and talk to animals. and i bet you think i just have a huge imagination. but maybe these things only exist in our imaginations because we are, on some cosmic level, connected to those other beings, in ways we may never notice, or that we pass off as dreams.
and maybe when we die, we do go to heaven and hell. and we wait.
wait to be put into a new body and live a new live on a new Earth or realm.
i wonder how many times i've lived before.
none of that explains the purpose of being human to begin with so it was just pointless ramblings.
but still, i wonder.

free footed author of all

[just a story that's been stuck in my head. this is just a really bad introduction. i am not good at writing prose. i am anxious to get to any part involving dialogue. i am terrible at it and it frightens me! [i know sometimes it's in past tense and others in present but i'm too lazy to fix it at the moment, plus, i can't decide.]

Monte didn't love Tessla Azul because she was extremely beautiful. She had plain brown hair, freckles despite her tanned skin, and had a lopsided grin. He didn't love her because she was extremely smart or exceptionally talented. Except writing, she was a world acclaimed author. According to Tessla, she had written every book and piece of literature ever known to man. This was due to the fact that she would simply scratch out any author's name and replace it with her's. She had a problem reading anything she didn't write herself.
That was one reason Monte loved Tessla. She made absolutely no sense all the time which just made so much sense to him. She never wore shoes. Not even to school. Her mother had to ask the principal for a special exception. Not that it mattered, Tessla would have gone barefoot with or without any special exception. "Our feet are our soles, Monte. And they are also our souls.", she would say, giggling at her own joke. It didn't make sense to Monte, but it didn't not make sense either.
That's what was so great about Tessla, He thought a lot about her but he never knew what to think. Sometimes he thought about what forever would be like with Tessla, what kind of mother she would be. But he knew they were not soul mates. No one would ever be Tessla's soul mate. Because her spirit was far to massive to fit inside the arms of any man [or woman, Tessla didn't judge those kind of things.]
But her body fit perfectly inside his arms as he sat behind her on the blanket they laid out by the river, watching the sun set. They did this every Friday, to celebrate the weekend. Every Sunday they would watch a zombie movie, to lament the start of the school week. Her hair always smelled like something different. Today it smelled like lavender and he was glad. Sometimes it smelled like things it shouldn't, like pickle juice or car oil.

Tessla Azul was by all definitions weird. And Monte Martin was not. He wrote bad poetry, collected stolen street signs, and wanted to be a weatherman. All his stolen streets signs were from Tessla. She liked to steal things. Not products in stores or people's personal items, just things, in public, that she thought were free enough. Monte had said that he felt bad for these items. They were free and could be themselves and not have to please anybody and she forced them into his possession against their will. So, to make up for it, she would set one item of her own free when she stole something. Monte didn't understand it, but he kind of did.

People did not get why Tessla and Monte were together. Tessla's parents were both writers and they thought Monte was a character and they seemed to think that everything Monte said was funny. Monte thought they were weird. Monte's mother was an elementary school teacher and his father was a photographer. Not the artistic kind that travels or works with models. He mostly did yearbook pictures and family portraits. Both his parents thought Tessla was sweet and interesting and a bit off.

Tessla and Monte had been together for 2 years, except for a three month period where Tessla was convinced that Monte was an alien. They were still friends though. She just had personal issues with dating an alien and asked if Monte could please not take offense. Monte didn't really get it at all. But he liked it.

One time they had sex. Spiritually it was magical, physically it was just okay. They both agreed it wasn't their forte and they should probably just leave it up to the professionals, but they were glad it happened. They didn't kiss much either, only when they were especially filled with love for each other at that moment. They didn't want the meanings of things to become obsolete or worn from use. They didn't say "I love you", but they said "I appreciate you." Monte got that.

They didn't talk a lot when they watched the sun set. Sometimes Monte would make up bad poems on the spot and whisper them in Tessla's ear. Sometimes she would spout off random "Tessla-isms", certain proverbs and facts of life she was prone to create. Monte kept a list of them. He didn't tell Tesla this. He didn't know if she would get it or appreciate it.

He didn't know how long she intended to grace him with her presence. She claimed forever, because he was good. But Tessla's forever and an average person's forever are a lot different. Monte was glad he got that, otherwise he would certainly be heartbroken when she leaves on some great adventure, free footed and filled with joyful memories. He often thought of what it would be like when she leaves. Will he still be happy when his life is significantly more mundane? Monte thinks he will be alright. He hoped she'd send him postcards.

lately

Lately, I feel confused and defiant. And confused.

I know what I want to believe. I know what I want to feel.

But with so many beliefs in the world, is it right to just accept what you want and ignore everything else? Isn't that kind of like creating your own deity?

But as it stands, what I am being told is truth doesn't seem right to me.

So, I must either accept that it is truth and not care, accept that it is truth and not follow it, denounce it as false and believe what I believe to be right, or denounce it and denounce everything that is connected to it.

Thus, mass confusion ensues.

I have been praying for clarification and guidance and peace. But it just seems like a huge cycle of confusion and uncertainty. Maybe it's not even that big of an issue and I am blowing it way out proportion and making it impossible for me to wrap my own head around. I tend to do that.

I got my septum pierced. It hurt. My nose is still all swollen on the inside. But I like it. The piercing, not the swelling. Might put a picture in the next blog. I really like dreadlocks lately, if I could, I would get them. But I found lots of pretty dreadlock pictures on deviantart, a wondrous site!

Also, lately, I have been trying new things and I definitely feel like it is making me more confident in myself. I have been taking ukulele lessons and some aspects definitely take me out of my comfort zone and require me to do things I would not normally do. It's been an extremely fun and challenging experience. I've realized that that is what I really need, to challenge myself. When I don't, I feel lost and useless and sluggish. But I found this really neat ukulele on deviantart as well.

I also went to Zumba once and I definitely want to go again. Things that allow me to have fun, be active, and meet new people all at once are great! I am excited to keep going! I also just really love dancing! Haha. And after getting to know a certain photographer on deviantart a little bit better, I definitely feel inspired to follow photography as a hobby and might try using my friends as artistic models soon, even if I have a crappy point and shoot camera at the moment. Deviantart just makes me so inspired in general! Haha, it's a great sight! Oh, and some songs that inspire me recently are "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by The Animals, "So Far From Your Weapon" by The Dead Weather, "I Just Haven't Met You Yet"by Michael Buble, and "Funeral" by Band of Horses. Sorry this was so long, I hope the one person that reads this has lots of time! Haha! God Bless!

don't drop your arms

This has been a difficult fall and winter,
with an unexplainable event and many unexplainable departures from my life, I've been left feeling numb, lost, confused, alone, worthless, invisible, and unloved.
I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live.
I settled for not feeling anything, not caring, not loving.
If I did something, it was without passion, I was going through the motions.
If i felt something, it was probably anger.
My body didn't feel right, it was in constant discomfort.
The feeling drove me to doing really bizarre things.
My spirit has been in disarray.
His presence was there, His breathing was vibrating the air around me.
but when I reached out, He was always just outside the brush of my fingertips.
Could never quite slip into the peace, the arms, the stillness,
where I desperately wanted to be.
I wrote a poem about what happened to me
and in it I said "Where is my God? Why can't He make me better?"
When I read that again, sometime later, the first answer I thought was
"Because I don't believe He can"
I was waiting for relieve that I didn't even believe would be delivered.
Once again, I was a walking contradiction.

It's still in process, I have a long path of healing in front of me.

my hands are weaker than myself

it was so softly that i stepped into the night
knowing that the bitter air would settle in my lungs
and push out all the feelings
eventually
but for now it's all so casual,
just walking a musical walk
with hope still left in my heart.
my music is so gentle
as to not upset this fragile thing
still beating inside me
your minutes flee
i am still
for just a moment
it is overbearingly beautiful
to just be still
even with the cold air pressing in
getting closer
to letting everything go numb
a sidewalk with so much potential
if he would only walk this way
just walk this way
and be everything i've waited for
make it worth it
but i'm now so cold
numb
the most beautiful harsh coldness
that i have ever experienced
caught within
oh, it fills me up
and surrounds me
and these bones inspire poetry
and i could float in this forever
but my hands are screaming
against the night air
to just release the pressure
just let up a bit
let a little warmth in
why are you so weak?!
why not let me linger
onto the little hope i have
as soon as my feet start moving
this feeling falls away
but you make the decision for me
as you are passing by
you do not see me
.....you do not see me
i should have screamed it
i should have let you see
the frenzy you've created
and what i've done for you
what i'd feel to be in your path
but you always thought i was so warm
and i've ruined that
my hands are screaming
release this pressure
as you turn away,
without the knowledge of my presence
my obvious presence
that screams against this cold cage
i could have walked miles
it felt that long
it felt like forever
that my legs were moving
but i couldn't even feel them
i didn't know i was capable
to move my legs in a direction opposite of you
how can you mean this much?
how can you be so bold?
my hands are screaming
i keep them in their fists
cause i know it will hurt more
when i unfold them
and i'm looking forward to it.
who could love this cold thing?
how would want to hold my freezing form?
the pool is reflected in my eyes
and in everything i could have dreamed of
the desire to just jump in is the strongest i have known
maybe i will float forever
i don't want to drown
i want to freeze to death
i want the waters to surround my frozen spirit
i want to feel that free for that little bit of time
but my hands are weaker than myself
and instead i return to the door
that brings me back to this senseless existence
a conundrum of repetition
and ever passing days
it's still so dark, still so early
and it's warm
i guess i should be glad
but the warmth that's penetrating
and pushing out the numb
is pushing out the hope for something better
all energy has fled my body
left motionless, silently protesting
the warmth settling into me
but my spirit doesn't settle here
purged by the exact musical moment
begins the symphony of letting go
and letting these tears fall
and not even sitting is good enough
the air is far too dense
with the glory of a Higher Being
the floor is where my body settles
my eyes can not be lifted up
and my body can not resist this gravity
my hands are weaker than myself
but they know so much more than me.

journeying is a dark, dangerous and beautiful thing

i have been on a journey.
i think some of you may have noticed the changes, the bad ones.
i have been gone, i have been dumb,
i have been angry, i have been numb.
i felt forgotten, closed off, used, invisible, alone, scared, betrayed.
i think people thought i was trying to make them feel guilty for what i was going through.
in all honesty, i was trying to hide it from everyone, but it escaped, and in an entirely incorrect light.
and it just made everything worse.
i felt like i was being judged for how i was feeling, for struggling.
i wanted to push everyone away.
i stopped feeling.
i was entirely numb.
i didn't want to love, i didn't think i could.
i didn't see the point.
i could not trust anyone.
i had so many questions, so many doubts.
and when i looked for answer, i only found more doubt.
i was afraid of what i would find if i kept looking.
i was afraid i would find that it's all a lie.
i have lived in fear.
which seems so unlike me!
this is not who i am.
i was always the one who cared too much, quick to forgive, too much love to know what to do with!
so alive, so free, so much hope.
how did i become so bitter? so empty?
and it's funny how the littlest things can make you see so clearly.
like taking a walk on a fall morning.
there is so much hope outside these walls.
i'm not just talking about my house, i mean this life i have built for myself.
i needed to get out of it for awhile.
i needed to find my own beliefs, my own purpose.
people keep telling me that if i have a purpose, i will feel better.
they talk about having a job or going to school, knowing my career.
i have never been one to really care about my career.
i don't see that as my life. i see my loved ones as my life.
and i know that the reason i have been lost, is not a lack of knowing what i want to do,
but the lack of knowing my place in the lives of those i love.
they are where my purpose lies, not my job.
i have felt misplaced, which made me pull away, which made me absent, which made me misplaced.
a most dark and hurtful cycle.
alas, i have been gone.
i have not been myself.
i have not been a friend at all.
but it was a good cause.
i needed to go through this.
i needed to journey.
it sucked, i am not going to lie, there were times when i felt as if my chest was being crushed under all the pain. it was painful, dark, and scary.
but it was worth it and entirely necessary.
i don't feel like i should hide my struggles, no one should.
i'm sorry if it makes people uncomfortable.
i do not share to place blame on others for my struggles, or make them feel guilty for not helping.
i do not expect anyone else to fight my battles, but i don't see why i can't share them as well.
i am not afraid to share who i am, even the dark parts, or what i am going through.
i am done living in fear, especially the fear of how others will think of my actions of thoughts.
my true loved ones will support me.
i am not perfect, i am not going to feel guilty for feeling alone or scared sometimes, even when surrounded by friends.
i am not going to feel guilty for needing to get away sometimes, to step outside of my life to find myself, to understand more fully.
i am only human. and i think more people should act like they are.