It's happening. You may not be aware, or it may be what is defining your life. You may not feel anything or you may have lost the ability to feel anything because you've felt everything. Despite the combination, it is happening; you are completing an era, and it will change you. Your giddy rondo will move into the next movement and become an elegy, but unlike music you will never again revisit the era from which you depart. You may again hear a theme or motif from a treasured movement later in your symphony, but the exact expression created by the intricate weaving of your emotions during this era will never be reprieved - at least not long enough to satisfy that nostalgic craving.
So take your time. Let the taste linger before you cleanse your palate and move on. Spend time with those around you that you know you'll never see again, but more importantly spend time with those most important to you. Sometimes, it's the least expected people who leave your life. And they are the ones who will sadden you the most, once you realize. Last you remember, your best friend and you had been laughing, crying, skinny dipping in the creek, getting existential under the stars, understanding each other completely during the silences. Where did it all go? Well you see, when you left, a great divide opened up and began consuming your understanding. Playing "Let's Get Coffee and Catch Up on Life!" slowly becomes a futile attempt to grab the most important things from falling into the divide. It's like the question "What five items would you save if your house was burning down?" Except the items aren't necessarily material. I'll save the boy who took my innocence, the friend who killed himself, the glasses broken while drunkenly streaking, the album that got me through the winter, and the knowledge gained from a complete stranger you spent the day with and never saw again. But all the little bits that make up the idiosyncrasies that make you unique get burned up. So... What will you save?
At the end of an era, everything becomes symbolic. Giving your box of old toys to Goodwill becomes a metaphor for your loss of innocence. A party around a fire becomes a parting of ways, and the burning of what brought you all together. In reality, symbolism is only real in that it's human.
It's happening. And you're intensely aware. It's the beginning of summer and it's the months for goodbyes, for nostalgia, and coping. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll do things you never thought you'd do before. And you'll think about everything more than you ever have before. You may figure out, perhaps, that the question is not what will you save but what CAN you save. And whatever you find you can save, hold onto for dear life because what stays now will be some of the most important aspects of your life. And suddenly the summer is coming to a close. It was a later and its become a now and you have no idea how that happened I mean you only closed your eyes for one night didn't you? And after one more night theres only one week left and there's so much to do but doing anything makes you break down and cry into your best friends shoulder and the moving van is all packed, hey do you think we could get some coffee I need energy and I leave soon? Now. Tomorrow. better hurry. Say goodbye to family, say goodbye to best friends, goodbyes to friends and acquaintances who will completely fall into the divide themselves. Say goodbye to your bed and your dog and the tree you would climb and read in back when you were young and innocent. What do you mean that was only a month ago? i'm leaving, no time for memories now, unless we're making them. memory making machines, set precariously on the edge of the divide. be careful not to fall in.
Tomorrow you'll be gone. we'll all be gone, won't we? no one left... hey I was literally just about to call you, i really need to see you. okay perfect, let's get coffee. I need energy, just put the last box into the car. yeah we leave tomorrow afternoon. so i need coffee because i dont want to close my eyes again. Let's not close our eyes together. see you soon.
I know, and youll let me know next time youre back in town right? hug me tight please or i wont make it. I'm going to fall asleep again soon, I can tell. I don't want to, but I'm going to. Tomorrow will be my last day awake for a while. oh wait i mean today, i need to go now or we'll be late... i cant do this i can't say goodbye please don't leave me. I know you're not leaving me i'll always be here too just for you...
I'll see you soon.
And you watch out the back window as you leave them behind, waving, the tears hidden in the shine of the sun. You pass the places you've always known and you'll always remember. And even though you may return, they won't be the same place anymore. Your friends won't be the same people. The sun won't have the same shine and the tears won't have the same weight. It's always the unexpected. It's always the most painful. Changing and forgetting - these are the hardest of it all......
Yeah, I remember that! Oh god, that day was perfect. And then when we went down to the lighthouse and watched the tide roll out and the sun go down? I miss those days. Eh this coffee is a bit burned. My friend at college loves burned coffee and I don't understand. Yeah, I broke up with Erik... it was about a month ago or so. I met this other guy and it really made me realize, you know?, that like I wasn't getting what I wanted out of life and I needed to change things. Get back to where I was last summer. Yeah! Oh this scar? It was stupid really, i was like running around and a friend from college bumped me with her car and I fell onto a curb. Hahaha it wasn't so bad but ya know?
Yeah, I've really missed you too. So much. I remember leaving... like it was yesterday. Wait wasn't it? I think I'm waking up again. huh? what'd you say? Ohh yeah, you're so right. Well, anyway.....
What have you saved?
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Existential
We live in a cloud. We get caught up in the fictional, dedicate our hearts to objects that can never love. And in the cloud we can’t see the darkness of death ahead - the absolute abyss of nothingness afterwards. What’s the point of it all when in the end we disappear in nonexistence? We can only serve to benefit others once we’re gone, so why are we such selfish beings? The finality of existence is one of the most frightening things, and it’s inevitable. So why not make it worth something.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Consolidate
It starts out as a friendly group activity. You invite a dozen of your friends to go on a night hike up a nearby ridge. It'll be fun and athletic and everyone will have a great time. But it's an hour before the hike was set to begin, and the last person falls out. One has to work the next morning, one's too tired, one's got an injured ankle, others have no reason at all.
So you go it alone.
You pack a bag. Extra sweater, water, flashlight. You go out to your car and begin the drive to the trail head, just a bit agitated about the situation, but determined to make some use of the evening. It will be fun, even if you're all alone.
You park the car and begin hiking, along moonlit paths and past shadow-ridden orchards. It's all a bit spooky, but the flashlight lends it's beam of comfort, and you trek onwards. Up, up the slope, you make random noises to scare off animals and start playing your music. The music that finds comfort in loneliness.
The cold wind bites at your face as you climb higher, looking up to the stars and the full moon, shrouded in thin clouds. As you reach the crest, you turn around and see the whole valley laid out before you - the lights that form the town glimmer, the monotonous red lights flashing from the wind farm, the cloud bank marching in over the distant hillside.
You start to cry. Standing there, on the ridge, you start to cry, the tears freezing as they run down your face, with your comfortably lonely music and the stars and the valley and the full moon and the sound of the brush as it plays in the breeze.
And suddenly it all collides. The past, and the future. Who you were, and who you will be. Where we once were meets where we will be. It has never been like this before. Always it's just been fragments of the past, imaginings of the future, together making you as you are now. But on that ridge, the tears start as you suddenly realize the world.
As you realize yourself.
It's not just that we're incredibly tiny in this universe of ours. It's that we're tiny and alone. Tiny, alone, and incomprehensible. It's said that we can not fully understand others - not without actually being them. We imagine others as a mix of what we have experienced of them, what we expect of them, and how we relate to them. But really the problem is: how can we understand others when we do not understand ourselves? How do we understand others when they don't understand themselves?
And yet, that's not even it. As you stand high on the ridge you contemplate everything, and you come to a realization.
As you start the hike down the ridge, you try and cope with this fullness of self - but you can't. Even as you begin to embrace it, you begin leaking away again until you're back to your fragmented self. And you can't help but start to run. Run not out of fear, and not of a desire to be anywhere sooner, but rather because there is no other option. You are incapable of not running, and you don't truly know why. As you approach the shadows once again, you realize that what people fear is not the dark. It's not the shadows, or monsters. What people fear is life.
You sit in the car, having run all the way back, and stare blankly. What are you to do? Where are you to go when your past, present, and future have collided? You go back to the beginning.
You call your parents.
We're all alone in this world. We barely have the capacity to understand ourselves, let alone others. Too often we find ourselves clinging to friends or lovers as a source of entertainment - assuming them a constant. And when they've finally made their leave of us, we no longer have that rock, that source of comfort and consistency. In the end, there is only one constant: yourself.
As I stood on the ridge, I realized: life is what you make it. All life, not just your own. The world is yours to craft. And all along, humanity has been asking the wrong questions, and thus looking for the wrong answers.
In truth, there is no answer to the meaning of life. But that, you see, is because there's no question to begin with.
So you go it alone.
You pack a bag. Extra sweater, water, flashlight. You go out to your car and begin the drive to the trail head, just a bit agitated about the situation, but determined to make some use of the evening. It will be fun, even if you're all alone.
You park the car and begin hiking, along moonlit paths and past shadow-ridden orchards. It's all a bit spooky, but the flashlight lends it's beam of comfort, and you trek onwards. Up, up the slope, you make random noises to scare off animals and start playing your music. The music that finds comfort in loneliness.
The cold wind bites at your face as you climb higher, looking up to the stars and the full moon, shrouded in thin clouds. As you reach the crest, you turn around and see the whole valley laid out before you - the lights that form the town glimmer, the monotonous red lights flashing from the wind farm, the cloud bank marching in over the distant hillside.
You start to cry. Standing there, on the ridge, you start to cry, the tears freezing as they run down your face, with your comfortably lonely music and the stars and the valley and the full moon and the sound of the brush as it plays in the breeze.
And suddenly it all collides. The past, and the future. Who you were, and who you will be. Where we once were meets where we will be. It has never been like this before. Always it's just been fragments of the past, imaginings of the future, together making you as you are now. But on that ridge, the tears start as you suddenly realize the world.
As you realize yourself.
It's not just that we're incredibly tiny in this universe of ours. It's that we're tiny and alone. Tiny, alone, and incomprehensible. It's said that we can not fully understand others - not without actually being them. We imagine others as a mix of what we have experienced of them, what we expect of them, and how we relate to them. But really the problem is: how can we understand others when we do not understand ourselves? How do we understand others when they don't understand themselves?
And yet, that's not even it. As you stand high on the ridge you contemplate everything, and you come to a realization.
As you start the hike down the ridge, you try and cope with this fullness of self - but you can't. Even as you begin to embrace it, you begin leaking away again until you're back to your fragmented self. And you can't help but start to run. Run not out of fear, and not of a desire to be anywhere sooner, but rather because there is no other option. You are incapable of not running, and you don't truly know why. As you approach the shadows once again, you realize that what people fear is not the dark. It's not the shadows, or monsters. What people fear is life.
You sit in the car, having run all the way back, and stare blankly. What are you to do? Where are you to go when your past, present, and future have collided? You go back to the beginning.
You call your parents.
We're all alone in this world. We barely have the capacity to understand ourselves, let alone others. Too often we find ourselves clinging to friends or lovers as a source of entertainment - assuming them a constant. And when they've finally made their leave of us, we no longer have that rock, that source of comfort and consistency. In the end, there is only one constant: yourself.
As I stood on the ridge, I realized: life is what you make it. All life, not just your own. The world is yours to craft. And all along, humanity has been asking the wrong questions, and thus looking for the wrong answers.
In truth, there is no answer to the meaning of life. But that, you see, is because there's no question to begin with.
Monday, April 9, 2012
The Friend High
There is a curious phenomenon. It happens all too rarely, which is rather a sad thing. And I believe that fewer people experience it than you would expect, which is also incredibly sad because it is one of the most wonderful things.
It's a feeling. A rush. It's incomprehensible. I call it a Friend High. It's the sudden realization that you have the most amazing friend(s) you could have ever asked for. It usually strikes at completely random times, and it can be debilitating. You suddenly realize that you absolutely love your friends, and always have and always will. These are the friends you will NEVER lose, no matter what happens. You can't afford to.
These are the friends who understand your brain. They understand your heart. And they still like you despite your faults. They, of course, have none whatsoever or if they do you're completely blind to them. And it's perfect that way, and you would love them even if you discovered these faults.
With this Friend High comes the intense desire to relay to your friends your feelings for them. This is, of course, impossible. That's the nature of the Friend High. Even when you try to put it into words, it gets all garbled and doesn't come out right.
So this is my attempt. This post is for you. Because if you're reading this, chances are pretty high that I have felt this Friend High towards you more than once. Because you are not only an amazing friend, but an amazing human being.
Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for always being there. But most of all, thank you for being you. I wouldn't have it any other way.
It's a feeling. A rush. It's incomprehensible. I call it a Friend High. It's the sudden realization that you have the most amazing friend(s) you could have ever asked for. It usually strikes at completely random times, and it can be debilitating. You suddenly realize that you absolutely love your friends, and always have and always will. These are the friends you will NEVER lose, no matter what happens. You can't afford to.
These are the friends who understand your brain. They understand your heart. And they still like you despite your faults. They, of course, have none whatsoever or if they do you're completely blind to them. And it's perfect that way, and you would love them even if you discovered these faults.
With this Friend High comes the intense desire to relay to your friends your feelings for them. This is, of course, impossible. That's the nature of the Friend High. Even when you try to put it into words, it gets all garbled and doesn't come out right.
So this is my attempt. This post is for you. Because if you're reading this, chances are pretty high that I have felt this Friend High towards you more than once. Because you are not only an amazing friend, but an amazing human being.
Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for always being there. But most of all, thank you for being you. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Fuck Reason
So I'm a bit of a pushover. At least in the things I really care about - which is kind of backwards when you think about it. You're supposed to be assertive about the things that matter and let everything else sort of happen. Right?
In hindsight I always find that I have more to say. I think it's rather typical for people to feel this way, but I don't think quite to the same extent. It's almost like I read into what the other person wants, what they expect, what they hope for, and then comply. But it leaves so much for me to feel later, that as a result then goes unsaid.
So I'll say something now:
Looking back, I shouldn't have let things go so easily. Forgiveness and understanding was what you hoped I would give you, and thus that's what I provided. Revisiting the whole situation, I'd have much more to say on the matter. I wish you could understand how I feel about it now, instead of only knowing how I was then.
Looking back, I should have been more straightforward. It was expected that I accept what you said as truth, but I should have probed more. I mean, maybe you would have understood sooner had I questioned you. But I'm not really caught up on it anymore. I was for longer than I should have been, but I'd rather like to be friends.
Looking back, I should have said everything I felt. You had valid reasons and you made sense, and I think that's what I hated most. I didn't want you (or myself) to feel like I was trying to persuade you into it, but I should have said far more than I did. I certainly had more to say. And maybe I'll find a way to tell you all of it soon. But I think the main thing I feel in this case is: fuck reason. Reason sucks. The times in my life when I go against reason are most often the times that I find the most enjoyable and rewarding. So, maybe I'm biased, but I think everyone needs to have a bit of time in their life when they take logic and reason, tie them together, and throw them out the window of your car while flying down the freeway - let your emotions and your gut take the wheel and drive you on a journey with an unknown destination.
Because fuck reason.
In hindsight I always find that I have more to say. I think it's rather typical for people to feel this way, but I don't think quite to the same extent. It's almost like I read into what the other person wants, what they expect, what they hope for, and then comply. But it leaves so much for me to feel later, that as a result then goes unsaid.
So I'll say something now:
Looking back, I shouldn't have let things go so easily. Forgiveness and understanding was what you hoped I would give you, and thus that's what I provided. Revisiting the whole situation, I'd have much more to say on the matter. I wish you could understand how I feel about it now, instead of only knowing how I was then.
Looking back, I should have been more straightforward. It was expected that I accept what you said as truth, but I should have probed more. I mean, maybe you would have understood sooner had I questioned you. But I'm not really caught up on it anymore. I was for longer than I should have been, but I'd rather like to be friends.
Looking back, I should have said everything I felt. You had valid reasons and you made sense, and I think that's what I hated most. I didn't want you (or myself) to feel like I was trying to persuade you into it, but I should have said far more than I did. I certainly had more to say. And maybe I'll find a way to tell you all of it soon. But I think the main thing I feel in this case is: fuck reason. Reason sucks. The times in my life when I go against reason are most often the times that I find the most enjoyable and rewarding. So, maybe I'm biased, but I think everyone needs to have a bit of time in their life when they take logic and reason, tie them together, and throw them out the window of your car while flying down the freeway - let your emotions and your gut take the wheel and drive you on a journey with an unknown destination.
Because fuck reason.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
-Waiting and Waiting-
Waiting
Waiting and Waiting
The dusting of the moon slowly spreading across the Earth's soft hips
Its hair flowing gloriously towards a far off waterfall
All is silent
Silent Still
Until
The murmuring of the words desired, falling upon future ears
Or is it
The soft whispering of destruction
Falling Fast
The Earth comes crashing, shattering
And then silence.
Silence until
A prospect. An idea, spoken to baited breath
That may the sun bring to the dusting of the night
And call forth sweet Spring
Or yet may forever cast away the warmth
And leave all shrouded in Black Velvet
And yet
Only the Fates can recall the weaving of their tanged skein
For the rest there is Waiting
Waiting and Waiting
Waiting and Waiting
The dusting of the moon slowly spreading across the Earth's soft hips
Its hair flowing gloriously towards a far off waterfall
All is silent
Silent Still
Until
The murmuring of the words desired, falling upon future ears
Or is it
The soft whispering of destruction
Falling Fast
The Earth comes crashing, shattering
And then silence.
Silence until
A prospect. An idea, spoken to baited breath
That may the sun bring to the dusting of the night
And call forth sweet Spring
Or yet may forever cast away the warmth
And leave all shrouded in Black Velvet
And yet
Only the Fates can recall the weaving of their tanged skein
For the rest there is Waiting
Waiting and Waiting
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Time for Adventure
So, there's been a question floating around recently. I can't seem to find a solid answer to it... So I'll ask you:
Do you start something you know has an end date? Something that, when it ends, will hurt an incredible amount?
My first response is yes of course. Life is experience, memories, and emotions. Why deny any one of those? They are what we build our personalities out of, and what teach us how to grow. Not to mention the fact that, essentially, everything carries with it an end date, even if that end date is marked by your own death. The only thing that has really changed is the fact that you know roughly when the time will come for things to end. And I think "I can handle that, it would all be worth it." And it very much is, and would be.
But there's no denying there will be pain. Laying here imagining the arrival of the end brings more than the comforting melancholy of evening thoughts. It brings a sadness. If the prospect of the end is already this muting, can already cause this hollow feeling, it's hard to figure how much worse it could be when it's finally time.
But of course what's life without living? Of course it'll all go through. After all, the pains in life are the proof that we're alive. Without pain there couldn't be true happiness, true euphoria. Isn't that one of the things about drug addiction? And without life there couldn't be death. Everything can be a metaphor for death.
So the pain will be put off to the future. Now is the time for adventure, enjoyment, fulfillment, and intrigue. I'm off to the safari. I'll try to send you a postcard if I get a chance.
Do you start something you know has an end date? Something that, when it ends, will hurt an incredible amount?
My first response is yes of course. Life is experience, memories, and emotions. Why deny any one of those? They are what we build our personalities out of, and what teach us how to grow. Not to mention the fact that, essentially, everything carries with it an end date, even if that end date is marked by your own death. The only thing that has really changed is the fact that you know roughly when the time will come for things to end. And I think "I can handle that, it would all be worth it." And it very much is, and would be.
But there's no denying there will be pain. Laying here imagining the arrival of the end brings more than the comforting melancholy of evening thoughts. It brings a sadness. If the prospect of the end is already this muting, can already cause this hollow feeling, it's hard to figure how much worse it could be when it's finally time.
But of course what's life without living? Of course it'll all go through. After all, the pains in life are the proof that we're alive. Without pain there couldn't be true happiness, true euphoria. Isn't that one of the things about drug addiction? And without life there couldn't be death. Everything can be a metaphor for death.
So the pain will be put off to the future. Now is the time for adventure, enjoyment, fulfillment, and intrigue. I'm off to the safari. I'll try to send you a postcard if I get a chance.
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