He told me he is going to be a dad. I paced the room in silence. I paced the room in silent excitement. I paced the room, all the while going backwards to a time when we were kids. Now he is having one and all I can say as the emotion spills over both sides of the phone is that I am going to be an aunt. He is not of my blood, but he might as well be. I love a child that is still in the making. Funny how that works.
The bravest writer I know
I ran into a lady I had once taken a writing class with. Before even a hello, she asked me what I thought of the shades of grey poo, need I say more. I did add that I am jealous, perhaps a step above jealous. The kind of jealous that looks down on jealous, with its nose up high. A horrible color on me but there I was completely cloaked in it wearing it without shame. In her case, it would not have killed her to have someone edit the sex book before filling her money room. I am pretty sure her money room is bigger than Scrooge McDuck’s. While she swims around deep in her coins in her money room as all rich folk do, a school of writers who clearly missed this class, lie awake choking on her inability to use the language correctly as well as her repetition and and and and.
I read through another writers work and it just doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps it just doesn’t resonate. At this point I realize that he is brave. He strips off his clothes everyday to show the world more than most and invites a criticism that only creative’s attract.
Tell me my math is off I will open a book. Tell me that which I awaken everyday to do and the only thing that brings me happiness is terrible, well then you might as well rip from my body my beating heart and eat it. Not that constructive criticism isn’t welcomed. We are all learning and growing, this is important. Also lets not forget our tastes differ and I am okay with that. I am not the kid on the playground who is going to try make best friends with all the others kids. But respect the fragility of the creative soul, give it air to breath. Every person who wakes up everyday to create in my books is brave as hell.
Love loudly
What is the word for a writer who doesn’t write
A reader who doesn’t read
A lover who doesn’t love
Perhaps its time to redefine
Time to realign
Time to get lost
Get together
Get high
Get low
Figure it out
Loose it again
Not hold on so tightly
Drown the fish
Outrun the lion
I watch you aim your voice up high
You stand ten sizes bigger than your shadow
While you fool the fool who behaves foolishly wanting for everything while valuing nothing
Your eyes bury it all
You should really laugh harder
Love louder
And just sit so fucking still you can hear the world thinking
Clarity would spill over the edges of the glass
And it would all just make sense
Dog eat dog world
Driving along
The world plays around me
The pie looks rotten on the outside
It does not deceive
Child hides behind a pole
A game to distract a hungry mind
A distraction to a hungry world
That will not hesitate to swallow without chewing
A dog without a lead
Is guided by its nose
I see it moving toward a shadow on the ground
It does not recognize a dead one of its own
Its mouth tells it lies
To ensure it lands in chunks inside
It really is a dog eat dog world
My stomach turns
Tickled by drops of wet
Hand full of dried up leaves
Yellow
Worn by the world
Stepped on by bare feet
Crunching between young toes
Thrown through the air
Landing in pieces
No longer whole
Scattered by the wind
Exploring different ends of the world
Dissolving into the earth with every touch
To again be a part of the whole
To return to the beginning with purpose
Painted by a green brush, sitting in a tree
Tickled by drops of wet
To fall when the sky opens up
Gently floating to the ground
And so it continues…..
The animal that darkens your doorway
Loyalty for the place we grew is built into us. To know where we are going we must always look from where we have come.
Along the way we encounter two animals. The one is a fickle beast the other is mans best friend. We are capable of living beside either as long as we choose to understand both. Understanding can only be gained through experience. To know loyalty we must know deception. In order to know deception we need to have inhaled loyalty. They oppose each other yet they cannot live apart.
Now the question comes to mind. What would it entail to truly know oneself. One has to have lived with each animal. Been infected by its breath to such a degree one finds themselves sympathetic to the creature.
After which one can then move far enough away to remain consistent in spite of which animal it is that darkens their doorway. Yet it must also be said that where you rest your head determines how peaceful your rest as mans best friend will not bite in the night.
And so I cried
This was written awhile ago and not posted. I feel it shares too much. But of late I have been thinking about how people don’t notice sadness in each other even in those close to them, perhaps everyone is too busy living. It is important to recognize and not just in the people we know. Connecting to people is what makes life full and happy, it is what makes us human.
I was listening to a talk on Ted Talks about how to live to be a 100 ( http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html )
The people who live to be the oldest in the world are those with close friends around them and a tight family. They place value in the people around them. They are also connected to nature.
Onwards to my story.
I sat in the new manager’s office and I cried. I don’t know who was more surprised by my tears him or me but there I was crying. He passed me a tissue, I laughed nervously. I was never close to the guy. I saw him for a matter of minutes every week for the past two years. We never discussed anything serious or real, only work. I never saw behind that smile. I guess I never knew him well enough to see any of those signs.
He killed himself.
What sits with me the most is how I never saw the sadness and looking back it was clearly there.
I am not saying I could of changed anything.
We never know how our actions affect others. If we can make another’s life that little bit easier this is what we should strive to do. Connecting with others is that which makes our lives happier and full. We should never look away from someone’s pain.
This land is my land, this land is also my land
Can I cook? The answer is an easy no.
Do I have patience? This answer is situation dependent.
It has been brought to my attention time and again that these two go hand in hand. They are like the fat kids that always lapse to the back of the race and have to fight each other for second last place. Or for the last twizzler.
By that definition alone it is confirmed that I don’t like candy or running and that I may or may not be competitive. Anyways enough introspection.
So as I was saying I hate hate hate cooking. The one I shared the womb with received that gene along with patience in every situation except when in traffic and dealing with asshole drivers. it is not that I am incapable, I can list some damn good dishes that I make better than most. Unfortunately I have very few witnesses as the desire to create strikes me once every blue moon, and it must be said that these creations are no longer limited to eggs on toast (it is possible to fuck this up)
A man told me today how his wife the caterer lives, breaths and eats food. I told him about the fire that burns in my soul to fight such urges to make anything. I like guys who can cook. I also like guys who can wash up and clean my house. Just kidding.
I just wanted to mention that I hate cooking and if I have to choose two things to forever live on I don’t have to think too hard.
Whiskey and salmon. I would be a healthy drunk it seems.
Game over.
Lets play ball – reason vs emotion
John O as promised –
When we are younger we are driven by emotion. As we come to age we see the importance of reason and the role it should play in our lives. Yet it is the balance of the two which is the mark of a human being. If we are driven by emotion but capable of reason then it is true that both of these influence our behavior, these two halves therefore make up the whole.
I know we are emotionally charged creatures and emotion tends to be a big driving force. My argument is that a balanced human being (please take note of this word for it is the backbone of my argument) who is able to take a step outside of a situation and see it from all sides and allow rational thinking to dominate yet take emotion into consideration is sure to make a sound judgment. It is only once we have allowed ourselves to detach from the situation that makes this possible.
Reason and not emotion leads us to thinking about cause and effect. Reason is associated with human activities such as art, philosophy, science, maths. Emotion and reason are like twins who from sharing the womb cannot live life apart.
We must remember emotion is an automatic function it leads to poor decision making and snap judgments. It is child like in that it searches for pleasure, it does not understand delayed gratification it will always look towards happiness and naturally steers us from pain. (It is like America in world war two, it cares only for itself and its own gain). Negative emotions will play its role in our decision making process but what if that which emotion tries to steer us from is actually for our greater good.
Alone emotions are a good guiding tool they should be regarded as a wild unpredictable child and should not alone have full control over situations. It is reason which is something we have to consciously tap into to make use of when trying to understand a world outside of our own.
A combination of reason and rationality is the true mark of a human being.
Plato
-Happiness was achieved if ‘reason subdued the primitive passions’
This is part of the process of balance so I do not see it in the same light as Plato, for him emotion needed to be extinguished completely to let reason rule. Plato describes in his Chariot Allegory two horses pulling a chariot in separate directions. Reason is the horse of good breed while emotion the wild horse.
Plato does show us two separate contradictory sides of ourselves yet he fails to see that these horses cannot be pulling in opposing directions as they are both searching for a means to the same end. So they can not be going in different directions.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/10357 – reason nestled in emotion and dependent on it
The above article depicts emotion to drive reason yet does not deny the importance of reason.
As I said balance is the backbone of this argument. It relies on the premise that the individual is balanced as only a balanced human being can step outside of emotion and not get caught up in it. Only a balanced human understands the importance of reason. A balanced human being uses opposing sides of self together.
Strange to stranger
I found out his name almost half an hour after sitting down. I was seated to his right by the window. We celebrated the seat between us, rare on a full plane, with a high five.
A small space like a plane definitely creates a sense of comfort between strangers. He speaks with his hands but not frantically, rather in a gentle controlled manner. My hands tightened around my arm rest and he asked if I was okay. I was not liking the flight right from take off, the turbulence constantly caught me off guard. He assured me that if I was to die in a plane crash it would happen very fast which I took some sort of strange comfort in hearing. Although I have had plenty of time to think about such things as I have been on many occasions unlucky enough to be seated next to the emergency exit. What a sense of responsibility those seats create in the minds of the uneasy travelers. Now I am sure to request a seat anywhere but there.
As quickly as we met we separated, him to a job interview and a return trip home to his family and me to find a friend whose car I only remember by colour.
I think therefore I write 