life

A Day in the Life…

Yet again the universe was dropping choice turds in front of him. “That’s life!” some would say, without thinking. But it wasn’t really life. It was how you led your life, and he had tried, failing many times. He had tried to lead a good life. Looking at the finish line looming nearer and nearer, the idea of good was fading in favor of some peace and quiet.

The suburbs were never a good idea. They were never a good thing but for the time being he was hidden in their mazes of bland and beige houses. He was comfortable. But now he found he wasn’t opposed to it. The city had become even more of a monstrosity of human ugliness with every sort of man-made evil laid out for consumption.

It offered a never-ending comfort if you had the cash and if you didn’t mind watching the world burn from a comfortable chair. He sipped his coffee and pondered about the cement and trees that surrounded him. Comfort came in many forms bot for now he enjoyed its soothing but stern grasp knowing all the while that the thorns would show themselves at any moment.

Happy

I once believed that it took a lifetime to find happiness. But now I realize that it does not exist as a state, but as a process. Like most processes happiness has troughs and hills, valleys and mountains. This is why so many of us are so unhappy: we search for the perfect happiness. But the act of searching in some meaningful way for happiness is important. In fact, it is key…key to a happy life.

I’ve written that happiness is overrated and I believe that to be true. But I believe it is only so because of how we view it. The struggle innate in the process of searching for happiness is what counts.

To not struggle to be happy is the ultimate goal This is why the struggle is key. The process of life moves in time and we part of it. Happiness itself is fleeting but the process is ongoing; it is how we live while we choose (or not) to ask why be happy. And if or when we do there will only be one answer and that is that happiness is a good in itself.

We are both lucky and unfortunate enough to desire something as unfathomable and impossible as happiness.

Some Aspirations and Ideas

When everything else falls away look for where it is you are standing. There is always a somewhere and a something.

Can you move? Then do so. Is there a difference? Then make it. If it is true that life is an empty glass. Fill it or not.

Don’t listen to fools. Dismiss them, even if the world bows before their tripe. Rise above and be alone if that is what it takes.

To search for beauty begins with knowing what you search for. First, there is the fleeting and insubstantial, and then there is the Truthful. The one a woman who grows old and the other a smiling goddess.

An empty heart will sometimes stand still and wait. And sometimes it will search for something to love. It is not fickle; we are dismissive.

When you have nothing to say or to write. Listen. If it is silent, enjoy it.

Twilight

The twilight of our civilization is in the shiny screens we spend our days staring at. We slowly leak out the only good we’ve ever had into the abyss of 1’s and 0’s. We pride ourselves on the achievements of others, others who are blinded by their own genius and justify their chores by dismissing the truth.

They understand so Much and so little. And the money-crunchers look to god in thanks as they destroy his creation. And a pitiful life is lived for a pittance. And the only thing that is valued is passed around like a cheap whore. And we live the lie of independence and truth. And we sell our children for the pleasure of one more minute, just one more second of self-congratulatory destruction.

All because we have bought a lie and do not care.

Bored

Do not be bored. Do what needs to be done. Do not fill up days with busying yourself until it is time to eat or sleep. This is sloth. Look around and figure out where you are most needed, what is most needed.

You are needed! Don’t doubt that, but it is not in that vague, feel-good way. You are needed and if you are bored there are at least two reason for it. You have time and energy, or you are not challenged. If either of these are the case then you need change.

Change your activity or lack thereof or change your purpose. Work is not a remedy. Work ought to be your life, your love. Your life is your work and if you are bored there is something wrong, and a way to change it.

It is up to you to do it; if nothing else change that fact. And to do something about it you must do what is needed. The very least thing we can do is to meet a need, ours or the need of someone else. The very worst thing we can do is to be bored.

Age

It is a peculiar thing, age. In some ways clarifying, opening unseen pages of a book that we have forgotten. And in some ways oppressive, sucking the life-energy, the blood from our veins.

How we think about age matters long before we grow old.

In those years before age we talk of the past in terms of years and then decades, not often thinking of ourselves as young or old. We simply are, and this is good. But it would behoove us in our impetuous years to consider our own age then, and in the future.

When we are young we create our older selves.

Age comes upon us quietly and shrouds us in doubt and apathy, in fear and pain. Unmotivated to act we must draw upon our younger selves. Those times when we knew what we were capable of. When we are old we need to know our limitations. It is a different side of the same coin.

So if we know our limitations, and strive to know what we are capable of the child within will never really go away. We can live comfortably knowing we are old but believing we are young.

We can spend our old age playing like children.

Entropy

Entropy is a one-way street

Think about entropy seriously. Consider what it means and try to press yourself to understand the implications. It is important. It is the measure by which everything else is judged.

There is a god and it is entropy. but unlike the deistic myth, entropy does not wish to be nor does it need to be worshiped. Entropy is a cold fact. It is blind not because it cannot see but because that is its natural state. Darkness, endless, unconscious, void of all those things we have, and will lose.

Nothing we do; nothing we say or think, or feel, or believe, or wish, or want, or pray for, or understand, or beg for will change this. We are powerless and it is infinitely powerful. Entropy is unequivocal; it is unbending, and it is inevitable.

It is the meaningless driver of all things it knows nothing of. It is a cold fact that cares not to be understood. we must bow down to it but we can do it with a smile if we so choose.

Bow to no king or flag or god and accept that fate is a natural illusion.

Choose Life Carefully

Choose your life carefully. It takes time. You will make mistakes and you will have regrets. You will laugh and you will cry. And sickness will come, and sometimes it will pass. These are all steps on a staircase. These are all moments which become memories.

There are always compromises that whittle away at the best of intentions.

They too will come and go. And what we are left with is the moment. And in that moment we will relive those memories and look for new memories to make. Do this consciously. Do not count your days or waste your time. Do not give your self up easily to ease and comfort.

Resist much. Obey little.

Do the best you can. Always look to learn. Be curious. Smile when you can. Know who to take seriously and what to dismiss. Do not sell yourself or the world short. Make instead of buy. Keep instead of sell. Experience instead of watch. Let the batteries run down.

“It is not as much what you are doing but how you are doing it.” (Epictetus)

And one day we will die. Mortality is the future for all. Do not forget this, but live in peace knowing this. Do not wish for fantasies. Do not believe otherwise. And one day, hopefully in the mountains, you can watch the sun set and the cold mountain air surround you.

Poetry

-Truth is like poetry, and everybody fucking hates poetry

Introduction

There is a story that once, in a bar in Washington D.C, a politician was overheard discussing the concept of truth with someone at his table.  His response was, “Truth is like poetry, and everybody fucking hates poetry.”  I found this to be at once intriguingly disturbing and true at the same time.  Truth is a funny thing, no doubt. 

As I sat and contemplated this odd and seeming truth, I thought of my own definition of Truth: truth is the measurement of the quality of the relationship between the idea of a thing and the thing itself.  I found that the two statements were more related than I at first thought.  And so the idea of writing about issues that are facts and suggested solutions came to mind.

In the coming months I hope to present a problem and a solution to some of the problems that we face as human beings, some of which are rarely discussed and some of which are openly discussed.  Critical comments are welcomed, but I consider this a philosophical practice.  With that in mind, I hope those few that read this post enjoy the endeavor, even if they “fucking hate poetry”.

The Cowboy

The cowboy’s life is sometimes a hard one. He stays up night worrying about the days.

And when the light comes over the horizon he promises himself to mend his ways.

And the years roll by like the highway beneath him and he knows he’s been trying to hide.

Hide from the truth that life is mistreating and it’ll beat you down until you cry.

He’s been taught that crying is wrong and he’s been told to lie is a sin.

He believes that there’s someone somewhere who will on day understand just where he’s been.

The cowboy knows that time is sacred and he knows that life is short.

The cowboy feels each heart that’s broken and he cries a tear.

So if your a cowboy that tired of fighting and you feel that life has let you down.

Find a road that leads you somewhere and wait for the good to come back around.

Because life’s not fair for the cowboy but life doesn’t care who you are.

Life goes on for the cowboy, but he never knows just how far.