That's Why I Hold With All I Have

You’re at the grocery store and you’re making small talk with the cashier. As your items are being rung up, the bagger asks if you want paper or plastic. Initially, you want to go with paper. You are, after all, an environmentally conscientious person who knows that paper degrades easier than plastic, and you wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt the ozone. On top of that, these paper bags bring your mind to simpler days where your mom would pack your sack lunches which always included those kind notes that brightened your day. Yet you look at the items that you have just purchased and your eyes rest on the eggs. A paper bag has far more fragile handles than its plastic counterpart, and you are struck by the time you were carrying eggs into your house when these flimsy handles suddenly gave out. As the bag crashed to the grounds, you heard the popping explosions of 2 dozen eggs smashed simultaneously and see the yokes seeping through the bag, contaminating those Hostess cupcakes you were looking forward to enjoying. Though this has only happened once, once is enough to be traumatized forever. So what do you pick?

It has been a few months since you got that job folding clothing for Macy’s. Not the most prestigious of jobs but the hours are flexible and help you to work while you are making your way through school. However, a few months of JUST folding clothing is a long time. Already, you’re growing weary as you near the half-point of your shift, dreading the coming two and a half hours. You monotonously fold another shirt. Right sleeve, left sleeve, find the crease that falls in the center and then fold it in half, make sure the collar faces the top. Why should you be made this tired and this depressed (on top of the schoolwork that you have to do) only for a few extra dollars? College is only for a few years, so make the most of it. And how much are you really learning in college when you are just depressed and tired the whole time? Yet college is very (very) expensive. Unlike your friends who are squandering what little savings they have on partying, you are working to pay back your student loans and getting job experience that will put your resume ahead of your hedonistic counterparts. You think briefly about those whose parents are paying for their schooling, but you’re saddened in knowing that they are not learning about the value of money and are probably going to have to degrade themselves later in life by cheating and lying to acquire the lifestyle that they have become accustomed to, being slaves to their self-indulgence. You reflect on how true happiness comes from practicing virtue and how you will not be enslaved to anything, be it a paycheck or greedy and gluttonous desires. Maybe of your friends are having a better time now, but when you retire at fifty and begin to sail the world with your wife after your children leave for college, you know that you’ll be able to look back and not regret the sacrifices you had to make along the way. But not everyone is guaranteed to reach fifty. So what do you pick?

You stare out the window into your driveway, tears in your eyes. You see your distraught husband fumble with the keys and drop them beneath the car while he’s trying to unlock the door. As he slowly lowers himself to his knees so he can blindly grope around for them, you wonder if you are being too harsh. It’s not like he was having an affair. It was a moment of weakness for him; he was in a bad place because of work and you were too busy with your community outreach to be there for him that night. You thought that him seeing his friends would cheer him up, especially this Sarah that you’ve been hearing so much about. You never suspected that she might have feelings for him, and he insisted that he didn’t know anything about that. It was, after all, her fault. She took advantage of the place that he was in, and he never would have given in if she wasn’t trying to get him to drink more under the pretense of “feeling better.” Besides, if you could get through this, then your marriage would be that much stronger. Every marriage needs a wakeup call, and now you can begin to address the problems and watch as your relationship becomes ever better. To forgive is divine, and how romantic would it be to head out of the house last minute and tell him that you believe he can be a great and wonderful man, and that you are willing to walk with him through his change. Yet maybe you should have some more respect for yourself. He knew what he was doing when he went to a bar with only one girlfriend of his. He’s not an idiot. He didn’t need to invite her. Scott would have been more than happy to have gone with him instead. He broke his marital vows and he is paying the price that any unfaithful spouse deserves to pay. If he’s feeling so distraught, why not just go to Sarah to make himself feel better? He had no problem with it before. If he were to cheat once, what’s to guarantee that he would not do it again? You’d be basing your marital life under the belief that he will change, but no one can guarantee that things will get better. All you can do is hope, and you may just be a fool for hoping it. It is irrational to think that a sweeping gesture on your part will bring about any real change. Sure, it may bring about change for a few months, but what about when he has the stress of kids? The stress of losing a job? The stress of losing his parents? If he cannot be faithful just after a lousy day, what will he be like when his life gets even harder? But you love him. You really do love him. So what do you pick?

You knew that, at some point, it would come to this. You slowly make your way to the gallows, hearing each step creak along the way. You wonder if it was all worth it. You’ve had integrity, you fought for freedom. You spoke out publicly against the tyrant and garnered support. Too long have you been not allowed to make decisions, too long have you been enslaved. You want to be a real person, not just some idle worker who just does what they are told and nothing beyond that. Seeing the truth, you tried to help others. You tried to instill a sense of liberty in them so that you could all, at some point, be free. You worked in secret at first, but people were slow to listen and only spoke out when they felt safe. As it went well, more and more people wanted to resist. It was time to make a public stand, it was time for you to speak out against oppression! But they found out. Somehow, they found out. Someone must have talked, but you don’t know who. It doesn’t really matter. Yet as they place the noose around your neck, your executioner begs you to reconsider. “Just recant your stance. It’s not like you have much to lose. They even promised you a place of power if you did. Your life would be better than it ever could have been if you just recant now.” It’s true. Your life would be better. They are good to their people, and you would certainly become one of them. Perhaps you would even be in a better position. You would not be a rebel, but a convert. Someone who they could listen to in due time. Governments can change, and perhaps you should have faith in the system. It has been around for a while, and less people would have to suffer if you could work through the system. And what’s to guarantee that, after one tyrant is overthrown, another wouldn’t rise up in his place. So what do you pick?

Too often do we face decisions that have no clear outcome. Time is fleeting, and days are evil. Every moment leaves and never comes back, and whatever choice we made is what we have to live with. Most decisions are inconsequential and are easy to pick between. Clearly, it was a good option for me to wear shoes today and not cut up my feet on the ground. Clearly, getting cheesecake instead of ice cream was the right choice because I’ve been craving cheesecake all week. Yet even these decisions you can begin to play with to see how things could have been different. If I had gone barefoot and cut up my feet, maybe I could have struck up a good conversation with the cute nurse who is taking care of me. If I decided to get ice cream even though I was craving cheesecake, maybe I could have met my friend at the ice cream bar and been able to talk them through a tough situation that they are dealing with (after all, friends only get ice cream when they’re severely depressed). If you base your decisions on logic or emotions, you are sometimes forced into a situation where both the logical answer and the emotional ones are good answers. But time is short, and you will never have that moment again, so you have to pick well. Even choosing not to make a decision but just see what comes is a decision, and it affects you. So what do you do?

You know who you want to be, and what you should do for the world.

You are either a man who is willing to inconvenience himself for the ozone or a man who knows how important practicality and rational living is. You are either a person who fosters relationships or one who plans for the future. You are either a romantic who tries to inspire confidence at great personal cost or a realist who refuses to let anyone get away with abuse, injustice, and infidelity. You are either the hero who died for his ideals or the healer who sacrificed what he believed to try and save lives.

There is rarely such a thing as a clear-cut decision. But, if you know who you are and who you want to be (and that who you want to be is in fact a good thing) decisions will be more obvious to make. I’m not saying that life will be easier on you, in fact, the more you know about yourself the more emotionally difficult it is to make a decision and turn down something that is potentially good. I can promise one thing though. When you need to make a decision, you will straighten up, stand tall, and model, with authority, clarity, and conviction, who you are.

A Merciful Response to Mercy

“A gentleman is someone who tries to make everyone feel comfortable around him.” (This applies to gentlewomen too. A friend said this to me.)

A few months ago, a few days after Easter, I was in a comic book store. While I was there, I overheard a conversation that a 30-ish-year-old customer was having with the store owner about Easter at his house. Evidently, the two of them were on familiar terms (I was a bit jealous). But their conversation, which was mostly the 30-ish-year-old customer talking, piqued my interested. It went something like this:

“My mother always makes us pray before our meal on Easter and then spends some time talking about Easter. Every Easter. Knowing full well what I think. How could she be any more disrespectful? She knows full well that I do not agree with her. It's so aggravating!”

“Sounds like it.”

“So this year, I resolved to myself that she wouldn't be able to get away with her dogmatism. So, after she said her bit, I stood up, thanked my mom, and said ‘Now, a few of us don’t share this same belief, so I’ll go ahead and talk about what I find important about this holiday.’ I talked about peace and brotherhood and celebrating humanity (I forget the actually traits that he listed).”

“Good for you!”

“She just gets me so angry sometimes. It’s like ‘Hello? Some of us think differently than you. You don’t need to shove your views down our throats.’”

I’m not the best story teller, so thank you for reading through my rendition of the events. Hopefully, it can at least put an image in your mind. I think that it is a common image of children being frustrated with their parents'  beliefs and feeling an inability to express themselves. All-in-all, I understand a desire to wanting to be fully known, but I find what this 30-ish-year-old to have been very unmerciful in expressing his desire.

Most people think of mercy as withholding punishment from someone who deserves it, which is many times what it is. But there is a day-to-day mercy that looks different from this. It is the mercy that allows a person to do what is normal and what is good when they could be cruel with no ramifications.

When you are in a position of power and doing bad things because you can, you are called merciless. We praise rulers for doing good things with their power, but it is rare that we praise them for having restraint. Yet just letting people behave the way that they want when you can control them in certainly an act of mercy. In the instance of a conversation, it is merciful to behave well and try and share information with your fellow man instead of dominating a conversation with your own views. It is the difference between sharing yourself and forcing yourself upon others.

Perhaps the mother in the conversation above is a merciless tyrant. She rules her house with an iron-fist and does not let any view stand other than her religious convictions. Perhaps she ruthlessly condemns her atheist son for his sinful beliefs and tries to force piety upon him. This tyrannical picture is not uncommon, and herson is trying to strike a blow for liberty. But tyrants are often replaced by other tyrants.

But that isn’t how she sounded to me. She sounded like an aged lady with a warm glowing smile who grew up in her religion and accepts it to be true. The type of person who shares her religion out of a love for it, and who probably spends her nights with her Bible praying for her son because she believes that her God brings true happiness and contentment.

If that is the case, her son is merciless indeed.

How dare he try and confront and fix an old woman’s simple, deep, and time-honored religion. What he sees as being oppressive thought is her trying to share her joy, and she does this with no malice and with no sense of force. Out of her love, she wishes to share. Out of his selfishness and insecurity, he wishes to silence her. Her love shares power with him so he has permission to get up and speak in her home; he is a guest in her house and she, the host, has every right to not let him speak. Yet what he does with her gift is try and smash what was sacred to his mother because, like any insecure fool, any viewpoint that is clearly stated and opposite to his own is a threat.

He thinks he is clever because he got away with what he said, but it was his mother’s mercy that allowed him to say it. He responded mercilessly to the merciful.

After he gave his speech at dinner, this is how I imagine his mother’s reaction. She was probably just smiling and happy that she got to hear her son speak. She would lean over and talk to him, trying to find out more about why he loves Easter as an atheist. Having every right to pick a fight with him for his disrespectful tone, she would let him leave at the end of the day, smile, and sincerely tell him that he is welcome to come at any time. Then, when she is alone in her home, she would pray for him, saying something like this:

“Lord, thank you for my son, who is made in your image. Thank you that he can find joy in Easter, and I pray that his joy can become stronger by finding it in you.”

Writer's Block (It's Not Good To Be Alone)

I think this is the second time that I've written a blog with nothing in particular on my mind. Due to the nature of this blog, I don't find this to be a particularly bad thing though.

Maybe a bit boring for some people though.


I find myself to be a bit overwhelmed with a number of huge thought projects right now. During these times, I often refresh my mind by just looking around and making some observations of the world around me. This is one of them.

Do you know that whenever you see people sitting alone, they're doing something with a phone?

I talked with a few friends about this and I posted a status of it on Facebook, just curious as to why they thought this happens. A number of people said that people do not like to be alone, so that is why they often busy themselves with their phone. They're probably right, but as a person who is some-of-the-time extremely introverted, I found myself a bit perplexed with their response. I very much enjoy being alone some-of-the-time. 


Though, when I think about it, if there were no one who loved me, I think I would be very miserable. I love spending time by myself some-of-the-time, but I've begun to realize that I am not alone in these times. Outside of my cave of silence and solitude I know that I am cared for and loved, and I care for and love others when I  am by myself. 


I think people have their phone's out a lot of the time because they need to constantly be in communication to feel this. I wonder if that is because these loves are not secure for them.

I find that some of the best times I have had with people were when I was just lying or sitting with them, saying either nothing of importance or nothing at all, and just mutually grinning. People have a presence about them that is more than what they say or what they do. At least I think they do.

I think you've found a good friend when you don't need to talk to them to know you are loved. You talk because you love them instead of because you want them to love you. When you are secure enough in your relationships that you can sit alone and not be texting.

But this is just an observation, and I can easily be wrong. After all, I do text my friends, but I hope it is because I want to enjoy them more instead of because I want them to keep me from feeling lonely. I hope it's because I just like them.

*Side Note: Due to the amount of work I now have, I will be updating this bi-weekly instead of weekly.

Asking Shadows What They Want

“Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.” – The Great Divorce

“Did you ask her what she wanted? It is the wisest thing to ask the dead.” – American Gods

“Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” – Till We Have Faces

The thought I’ve been directed to for these past two weeks (sorry about not posting a blog last week) has been about becoming more than what we are now. Not in the way that self-help books talk about, and not in the way that spirituals talk about finding our inner god. They weren’t about becoming something greater than a human, but becoming fully human.

We are shadows, unable to tread on what is true.
We are not dead, but we are not fully alive either.
We are unable to speak to the gods unless we know what we are truly saying.

So often I notice myself doing something and forget the reason why I am doing it. I don’t mean something like Alzheimer’s when you just cannot remember what you are doing. It’s more like when you are going to work, but forget why you wanted that job in the first place. You forget the reason why you first found someone attractive. You are doing something, but you’ve left out the substance.

It’s the difference between having sex and making love.

Plato says that there are four cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, restraint, and courage. These are known as the cardinal virtues because they are the virtues on which all other virtues can be built. There can be a danger in pursuing virtues if you don’t even have the basics down, just as good things can become bad if done at a wrong time. Think of it like giving man dying of thirst water. If he drinks it too quickly, we will get sick, yet if you wait too long, he will die. Obviously, one is worse than the other, but understanding both can help avoid any bad situations.

Introspection can be a very valuable tool if you have the training to use it well.

Before one can become fully human, one must know what and where ones is. I doubt anyone has reached a level of perfection by accident, and I doubt even further that it can be done alone and by one’s own power. But still, how can we have any chance of it if we do not even begin to try and understand who we are? How can we enjoy reality if we don’t know that we are shadows? How can we live if we don’t know what our passions are? How can we talk to the Divine if we do not even know what we are saying? These are rhetorical questions though, and they don’t need answers. But it is about looking into your core, your soul, your heart of heart.

I might not be explaining this well. It is hard to find the right words, and harder still to speak in a way that can be universally understood. But I am convinced that the following question is important and deserves some time, maybe even a few decades, to answer.

What do you want?

"The Simplest Things are Often Truest"

I saw Cars 2 a few days ago. I liked it, and felt like a freak for doing so. Granted, the Cars saga is not my favorite of the PIXAR films (I have too much of a soft-spot for Up and WALL-E), but this film and its sequel have been getting its fair-share of being knocked around. It is called a film for young boys, but not for most else. It has an immature and boring plot to anyone with sense (at least, that's what I think is meant by it). I, however, found the movie to have a very simple plot, simple morals, but never boring. Simplistic yes, boring no.

Doing nothing is different from relaxing. Static is different from turning the television off. White noise is different from no sound. Simplistic is different from boring. When something is simple, that means that it is not complex, not that it is not interesting. Complicated things can be boring, in the same way that music can be made white noise, or television can be used like static, or when you can be inattentive while you are doing something.

Surprisingly, many things can be said about simplicity. But, in the spirit of this topic, I will try and simply say what I love about it.

I find simple things enjoyable, because they are able to be enjoyed for what they are.

Simplicity is more comforting to me than complexity. When someone is a loyal friend to me because of some quality or some circumstance, I know it can change if the circumstance changes. If someone is loyal because they love loyalty and because they love me, then I can be comforted.

Simplicity does not mean that something is not deep, special, and meaningful; it means that you can easily see why something is deep, special, and meaningful. And you can spend a lifetime of learning how to appreciate the simple things well.

I loved Cars 2 because it was a simple story about friendship. Isn't that a reason to praise a film, not avoid it?

A Time to LOL (also called A Day Late, but Maybe that was Planned)

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace."

A time to play LOL, and a time to read books;
A time to watch movies, and a time to write blogs.

Something that I find to be important to point out before I continue this blog is that LOL = League of Legends, which is a free online video game. Now to the content.

This passages from Ecclesiastes is one that always gives me a lot to think about. I've heard it said that this section is just an observation that the world goes through phases, and that we can expect things to change. But as I've had time to think on it, I've come to believe that this is only a part of what the passage means.

Have you ever needed a day off? I'm sure you have; everyone needs rest. But have you ever done nothing on your day off and then felt worse off for it? You spend the day resting, watching television, catching up on your reading, but then feel like crap at the end of the day.

I am a person who tends to fill gaps in his life by engorging in excess. So this might be exclusive for me, but on my days off, I usually do an excessive amount of nothing. If I'm sad, I tend to have an excessive amount of food or drink to make up for it. If I'm bored, I play an excessive amount of LOL. If I'm lonely, I spend an excessive amount of time looking for company. This tends to make me feel good in the moment, but it never really addresses what I have been feeling at the time. Indulging in this excess keeps me even from recognizing what it is that I need.
I sometimes have problems recognizing what I need at the time that I need it.


There is a time to play a lot of LOL, but it's not when I'm bored. When I am bored, I need to find something beautiful or remember why something is beautiful or interesting. The solution to boredom is not excessive relaxation, but becoming interested in something. The solution to loneliness is finding how you are valuable. The solution to sadness is grieving then moving past it. What you're supposed to do on your day off is relax, not nothing.


Yesterday was a time for me to see a movie with a friend, not write a blog. But a day late is better than none at all, right?

There is a time for everything, but I've begun to realize that you need to recognize the time so you can begin to fall in line with it. It's frustrating when things get in the way of what we want to do, but it is detrimental when we aren't able to do what we need to do. It is when we don't know what we need and ignore it that we begin to waste our time and feel like crap at the end of the day.

At least, that is what I think about it.

Happy on the Inside

There is a type of happiness that varies from person to person and that is based on circumstance. Some find Disneyland to be the happiest place on Earth, while others would rather go to Yellowstone. Some are happy when they sitting under a tree reading a book, while others would rather be at a party making new friends. Personally, I’m happy lying on the beach listening to Jack Johnson or devouring a feast with my friends and family featuring my mother’s specially made ribs. These moments of happiness bring us out of a dreary existence and it can stand to reason that if we were able to surround ourselves with these things that are uniquely perfect to us, we would never be sad or angry again. We could be fulfilled in having these things around us all the time.

However, this circumstantial happiness is not what I am interested in. Instead, I find myself looking for happiness that is common to all of humanity, some singular achievement that all men are working toward. A type of happiness that persists in good times and terrible times. A type of contentment that exists through all situations. A lasting peace. Joy. Happiness on the inside. 

Some people that I have talked to do not believe that this type of happiness is possible, and from many perspectives, I can see why. At best, this happiness seems to be a lofty, ideological virtue, theoretical yet not practical. And on some level, I agree with this belief. If there is such a thing as happiness on the inside, then it must be something really difficult to reach, else we'd have more people believing it. So, it is by no means an easy thing to reach. But it would last.

The main problem with circumstantial happiness is that it lasts for a moment. Sure it feels fantastic when it comes, but it's just as short as any other feeling. It might be true that these moments are all that we have, and that the only way to be happy is to find a way to make these moments last forever. However, if this is the only way to find happiness, then that is must argue that this method is not only impractical, but also self-involved. These moments are far too unstable to be able to last forever, not to mention that they often come about through inconveniencing another. This is why I certainly hope that there is a happiness that all humanity is working toward, a goal we can all share in instead of fight each other for.

I lack the words and logic to try and describe what this ending might be, but I can wager a guess as to what would happen if we were to finally see it. For one, I’d guess that we would want to share it with others. Selfishly, we would want the help in reaching the goal, but I’d guess that a goal that unites people would be something that couldn’t be sought after selfishly. A goal that brings people together in harmony is hardly something that can properly be celebrated alone.

If there is a common goal that all humanity can reach towards, I sincerely doubt that we can reach this goal in our lifetime, which I know sounds like a cheap statement. “Best to be good now, but I cannot promise that you will ever be happy, just trust that you will be later. Just keep going for it though and do as I say.” But I am not trying to promise that there is an afterlife, I’m just giving you my thoughts. But if there is something that all humanity is reaching toward, I’d be willing to hope in an afterlife so I could reach it.  Pascal’s wager is often misquoted. People tend to use it to say “see how bad Hell is, it is worth it to believe in something better.” Pascal, as far as I can tell, meant it as “see how good Heaven is, why would you bother pursuing anything else?”

If there is an ultimate, permanent, happy ending for humanity, I’d be alright with dying to get to it.

This is a thought that I cannot completely grasp. If we are to be happy on the inside and to find joy even in the most difficult situations, we must believe in a happy ending. I was told by a friend that there are two ways to interpret situations after our initial feelings: sorrow and joy. It is not quite the same as “every cloud having a silver lining” or “seeing the cup as half full,” but it is similar. If you believe that the world will end in despair, then every event, either happy or sad, will be leading toward despair. You can be happy, but you know that it will eventually change and that is a reason to despair. If you believe that the world will end in joy, then every event, either happy or sad, will be leading toward joy. You can be sad, but you know that it will eventually change and that is a reason to rejoice.

Though, even as I finish this, I hesitate because I know that these words are very familiar to several people. Words like this are often used to oppress and schism instead of unify. Dictators and religious fanatics promise happiness to people if they will only do as they are instructed. They are promised joy in a next life through doing terrible things in this life. A promise of unity and eternal joy is often used to oppress and blind people. But, the problem is, those who changed the world for the better often believed in a common humanity and better lives. They believed that there was some goal that humanity could work toward.

Yet as the saying goes, you can judge a tree by its fruit. Dictators will be judged to be dictators, and good men will be judged to be good men. You need to observe, be prudent, and be wise.

Here is my final belief on the subject. If you believe that the end to humanity can be a happy one and if there is actually a happy ending, then you will find it. You can be joyful in all circumstances, even the sad ones because all circumstances can bring you toward this perfect end. You have the freedom to say that something is sad, but that it is joyful at the same time. I cannot tell you what this end is, but that is mostly because itis beyond the scope of my blog and it is not something that I have a strong grasp on (not to mention that I lack the narrative skill to do it). But I hope and look forward to the time when all will be happy and that it will never end, and right now I can be content in my pursuit of it. To be happy on the inside, I believe, means to have made the choice to find the joy in all things. Not because you have to forsake reason to do it, but because you know that the world will end well.

Thank you to my friends who have spoken with me and have shared their thoughts with me so that I could write this. You have made me a happier man.

Brain Fart

It's surprising to me.

This entire week, I had multiple conversations with people around the topic that I wanted to write about. I spoke to friends, I IM'd about it, I read, and I even pulled aside family during our family BBQ to get their thoughts. But as I sat down to begin writing it, though my head was full of thoughts on the subject, nothing was coming out.

So I waited a few hours to try again, and still, nothing happened. My mind refused to put together the complex thoughts and arguments needed in a cohesive manner. I'm interested in re-reading this blog, because I don't think it will be very coherent. But I made a commitment to adding one a week, so I feel the need to persevere.

I had a complete and total brain fart.

In layman's terms, a brain fart is when you are trying to think on a specific topic, and you seem to be doing it just fine, but you just freeze and are unable to continue thinking. They usually come up when you are taking a test that you've studied for or are interviewing for a job that you are more than qualified for. Strangely, my brain fart definitely puts my mind at ease, because I am far too prone to taking myself too seriously, and I'm very thankful that my mind sometimes cannot do what I want it to. Once you think you know everything, you tend to stop listening to everyone else.

People often try to stop thinking as an excuse to overindulge. You want to stop thinking when you are out drinking with your friends so you can avoid feeling guilty about what you are about to do. This is not what I'm saying. Thinking helps people to discover what is good, loving, and positive to do, and it can help you learn different ways of enjoying it, but I wonder if it should stop their sometimes.

Thinking too much gets in the way of living well. There are times when you need to just sit back and stare blankly into the beyond, to pull close your loved one and just enjoy the feel of their head on your arm, to dance to the song that comes up on your iTunes, or to roar at your children from deep within your chest as you play Hot Lava Monster. These are some of those rare moments where you know you are living well and just need to be present in it.

Sometimes, you need to just not think and simply be. 


The ironic thing is I might be wrong here, because I cannot really think well about it. But it feels right, and I hope it is. I do enjoy these moments where my thoughts are quiet and I can just lean back and sigh. I am content. 

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An apology to everyone who I have been talking to about the topic that I wanted to write about this week. It has been postponed, but not forgotten.

What a Wonderful Week

As I lay under a tree, my brother is next to me sketching a far off building, I find myself staring at the branches. A breeze comes and moves the branches back and forth just like it would in any other tree, the same thing I’ve always seen. But then I remembered that some people love nature; some believe that trees can dance. And then I saw it differently. I began to see each branch swaying back and forth, each individual leaf dancing to its own rhythm. It was no longer just a mass of twigs and leaves, but a waltz that I was invited to observe and enjoy. And I began to wonder. People used to believe in dryads and spirits in the trees, and I wonder if this is what they saw.

As I am at work watching a child play Mario Kart Double Dash, he keeps laughing loudly as he continually drives his car off the same cliff. Again. And again. And again. I get internally frustrated with him because obviously he is not realizing the point of this game. He instead gets a weird sense of enjoyment by repeatedly having his car plummet off the cliff, accomplishing nothing. But then I thought he might actually be having fun. And then I saw it differently. I began to find the courses as fantastical: you race around the feet of dinosaurs, speed across the tops of rainbows, soar across pits of lava, and navigate your way across perilous mountains. I thought he might be amused driving off a cliff because he was driving into lava and surviving, something that is bizarre and unheard of in this reality. And I began to wonder. People turned their imaginations into a virtual reality, and I find it remarkable that I can share in another’s vision.


As I walk to the car to get something to relieve my bored brother lying in the emergency room, there are people crying in the lobby that I pass through. I see a family talking to a doctor about their grandfather. I hear a child screaming in pain; I can see his feet struggling through a gap in his curtain. I see a woman with black hair sitting alone, distraught, staring blankly into space. I try to avoid meeting her gaze, but she makes no effort to look at me. But then I remembered that people in pain need people. And then I saw it differently. Though I was too much of a coward to say hello to the woman with black hair, I found the courage to at least smile at her and waved. I needed to be with my brother, but I hope my small gesture showed a bit of the care I felt but was too nervous to act on. And I began to wonder. People often need to become desensitized to survive working in a place like this, but what if you allowed yourself to feel all the pain of these people around you?


As I make my 6 hour drive through the desert that I’ve done this dozens of times before, I get caught in traffic along the way and lament my misfortune. I just want to get through this place as fast as possible. I try to find some good song to listen to and to numb my mind to the coming storm of boredom. But then I thought that this is a prime opportunity to sit and reflect. And then I saw it differently. I began to see the desert as a place of peace and calm but also a place where you could go as fast as you can without worrying about coming across anything. I imagine an oasis, home to a sage who spent his life contemplating signs in the stars. I imagined getting on an ATV and just driving for miles. And I began to wonder. People usually see deserts as big wastes of space, but maybe we need big spaces to run across so we feel what it is like to run as fast as possible. Or maybe we need them as places to get away from everything and everyone.


My favorite moment in the television show Scrubs takes place over two episodes. In the first, three patients die under the care of one of the lead doctors simultaneously. The second episode involves him in a deep depression, sitting around drinking scotch and not speaking to anyone. Eventually, the lead character is able to lift his depression by telling him that he hopes to one day become a doctor like him. Not because he is a skilled doctor, but because he still takes it hard when his patients die. He hasn’t become jaded, but he feels each of his patient’s pain.


I hope to be this way.


I think there is a difference between something growing old and something growing stale, but we use the two terms synonymously. Whenever we do an activity over and over, it gets tiring and uninteresting. It is just repetition; we’ve done it a thousand times before. But this is when something grows stale, and I don’t think this has to happen when something grows old. When something grows old, you get to experience more of it. You begin to fine tune and see the subtleties. You discover the intricacies and delve deeper into its secrets. I’m not sure how things grow stale, but whenever I wonder about something, I begin to see it differently.


Whenever I spend time wondering, I find that things don’t grow stale. To me, it feels like getting in touch with an old friend, and rediscovering why you loved each other to begin with. And then you love it more. It ages instead of growing stale.

Becoming a King

Have you ever talked with a stranger and had your life changed forever? I haven’t.

When I wonder why this has never happened to me, I don’t doubt that these conversations exist. Whenever I imagine a life-changing moment with a stranger, one of us is usually in a state of desperation while the other is an insightful, dignified fellow with warm eyes and a kind smile. It could be that I just have a wrong picture of how these conversations look. Or maybe I have never been in desperate enough for a stranger’s advice to be meaningful to me. Maybe I’m just a scary person who people are intimidated to approach. Maybe this age is just in short supply of insightful, dignified strangers with warm eyes and kind smiles.

In my opinion, I just don’t let strangers get involved in my life. I don’t think strangers want to get involved in my life either. I don’t mean for this to sound cynical though; I think several people share this distrust of strangers.

Imagine that you are sitting alone at McDonalds (or Jack in the Box, or Wendy’s, it doesn’t really matter) and someone pulls a chair alongside you, sits down, and begins reference your insecurities of being overlooked by people. He then proceeds to tell you how you are wonderful person and do not deserve to be overlooked. Either this stranger is insane and rambling off whatever comes to his mind, or he is correctly assessing your emotional state and trying to combat one of your biggest insecurities. At this point, all of your defenses have swiftly been pierced and shattered, and it seems reasonable for a person be put off in such a situation.

Maybe this image is too unrealistic. Instead, imagine that you are sitting alone when someone comes to you and says “I couldn’t help but notice that you are eating alone. Would you like some company?” Regardless of if you prefer to eat alone or the prospect of eating alone terrifies you, I’m sure most people would be suspicious of his “true intentions” and quickly respond “No thank you” to such an offer. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think most would be made uncomfortable from such an offer.

Perhaps even that example was too unrealistic. Imagine, once more, that you are sitting alone. Someone comes up to you and says “Hello, my name is Anthony. How are you today?” You shake hands, introduce yourself, and begin to talk about what’s been going on in your life lately. Yet I doubt anyone would respond like this. We’d probably just try to find some way to push this invasive stranger away as soon as possible. Or maybe we’d talk about the weather or our commute, thinking that we should say something, but nothing too personal.

  

Now place yourself in the position of the stranger in any of these situations. I doubt very many of us could do what these strangers did out of a fear of appearing abnormal. After all, even if we have something good to offer a person, they will not listen if we have dubious intentions. Ironically, it seems like those who might be able to be one of the strangers in a life-changing situation are those do not really care what others think about them. It seems like those who are likely to listen to a stranger is someone who takes anyone seriously. It is these anomalies in society that are able to participate in a real discussion with a stranger.

It is those who are insane that treat people sanely.

In an issue of Sandman entitled “Three Septembers and a January,” Joshua Norton insanely believes he is the Emperor of the United States, yet this belief defines all of his actions. The dignity he has as Emperor keeps him from falling into Desire’s temptations of women, money, and power. His care for his subjects makes him quick to listen and slow to speak. He makes little money and most of what he has is a gift, but he is able to find contentment in “the people in his country treating him well.” He dies alone in a gutter, but he never Despairs. Death herself is impressed with the life that he has lived, and 10,000 people pay homage to the kind, insane, homeless Emperor of the United States.

This madman changed San Francisco.

This comic made me wonder: What if we were insane enough to act like Kings and Queens? It is always tragic when a person’s insanity keeps them confined, but what if we chose insanity so that we might be able to do what is right, kind, and rational. What if we tried to comfort a person who is alone because a King cares for his fellow man? What if we behaved with dignity not for the sake of vanity or pride, but because royalty is dignified no matter who is watching? What if we sincerely and kindly listened to strangers and friends because we have no reason to be threatened by them? What if we simply behaved how royalty ought to behave?

I imagine several unspoken societal rules would be broken if we believed ourselves to be royalty, but this chosen insanity brings freedom. We could be free to treat people how they need to be treated. We could be free to have a life-changing conversation with a stranger. We could be free from the burden of what random judgmental strangers think of us.

After all, who cares about their petty judgments? You’re the Emperor of the United States.

(If you are interested to read the comic that I have referenced, here is a link: http://www.comicoo.com/sandman/Sandman31/index.htm).

Prelude to a Blog

Finding a name for this blog was not easy to do, most likely because I was not sure what I wanted to do with it. I knew I wanted a blog because writing in the first-person like this is very comforting for me and I like talking about things that do not come up in normal conversations, but these small attributes did not readily provide a name for a blog (much less a theme).

 My brother told me to name it something that expresses myself in some way, so I did something like that.

            In the more cynical moments of my life, I have felt that people use me very much like a stepping stool. Much like how a child needs a stepping stool to reach the tools that bring them to adulthood, it was my assigned purpose to help people move from one stage to another. I suppose that this is not a bad thing in-and-of itself, except stepping stools are discarded or put away when they are no longer deemed necessary.

I believe that things should be allowed to mature instead of being discarded entirely. A teacher becomes a peer when they have nothing new to teach their student. A mentor becomes a colleague to the apprentice who has mastered his trade. A parent becomes a friend. The only type of destruction that works with love is a type of progressive demolition. You may have to discard parts of relationships, but you discard them because they are toxic to more mature forms of love. Parts of relationships are destroyed so things even more beautiful can begin to form. It would be terrible for a relationship to never change, but it would be worse if they were discarded whenever they did.

It helps me to think about it this way. Suppose you were to marry your best friend. It would be very silly if you only loved her as a friend loves another friend, never once holding hands, kissing, or continually ditching her so you can see someone else. But it would be even worse to forget the reasons you first loved her: because she can kick your ass at Halo, because his favorite movie is Moulin Rouge, because you both compete over who can win the heart of Neil Patrick Harris, or because she was your first dance partner.

What I hope for this blog is that it helps me better love the things around me. After all, you only bother to try and know something because of love (whether it be healthy or unhealthy). In some sense, I don’t really mind if my blog is unknown by everyone, but I do want help on this project of mine. I want this blog to be a stepping stool to something better, with thoughts and loves that evolve and are never forgotten.


"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. "