This Moment

Sometimes, it just feels as if your life has led up to one moment. This moment. The very time when all your past decisions line up perfectly to create the perfect storm of wonder, awe, and beauty.

This moment is one of those times. This moment explains all past hardships (pff...I haven't really faced hardship at all, who am I to talk?), explains all past happiness, explains why I am where I am today. It explains my parents, my family, my friends, and those close to me. This moment creates a feeling that will only be replicated a few other times in my life - the feeling of complete and utter joy and gratefulness for what I have been blessed with in this amazing life.

The time from my conception to now has been marked by an unimaginably large amount of forces beyond and within my control. Chaos and I are constantly creating a beautiful storm of nowness, a now that has contributed to this now, this special moment of being. Even though this moment is constantly moving and shifting its place, a piece of this moment intertwines itself with the past and the future. This moment is a never-ending tornado that rips time across boundaries, spreads time across infinite spatial bread like peanut butter.

Because this moment has shreds of the past and the future, I just want to express my complete and utter thanks for all the love that I have been shown throughout my life. I know love has been a common theme on this blog, but its truly what mostly inspires me to write. Sometimes, even when I am alone and sitting at my computer, in what seems like a meaningless moment, I can feel the meaning of life because I have felt and continue to feel the love of the incredible people that I inhabit this earth with.

So thank you, friends. Thank you, family. Thank you, nature. Thank you, world. Thank you, universe. But mostly, thank you, love. I know you're out there.

The Dalai Lama Knows Whats Up

At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules for living.

# 1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
# 2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
# 3. Follow the three Rs:
# 1. Respect for self
# 2. Respect for others
# 3. Responsibility for all your actions.
# 4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
# 5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
# 6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
# 7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
# 8. Spend some time alone every day.
# 9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
# 10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
# 11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
# 12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
# 13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
# 14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
# 15. Be gentle with the earth.
# 16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
# 17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
# 18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Just some food for thought.

Dubstep

I sit here and try to write
The perfect poem to describe
A gathering of particles
Formed together to create
That which does not belong
What is this mess I hear?
This gathering of atoms against air
So carefully organized, so masterfully connected
Why does it seem to make sense?
It spreads throughout my body
The cancer cells metastasize
My organs are anthropomorphized
One with each other, feeling and thinking
They bring the chaos together
An electronic masterpiece
A well executed orchestra
Of what it means to be alive...
DROP

Rhythmic Therapy

"Come, let's scatter roses and pour wine in the glass;
we'll shatter heaven's roof and lay a new foundation.
If sorrow raises armies to shed the blood of lovers,
I'll join with the wine bearer so we can overthrow them.
With a sweet string at hand, play a sweet song, my friend,
so we can clap and sing a song, and lose our heads in dancing."

-Hafiz (Ghani-Qazvini, No. 374); Sufi Muslim Musician

Unfortunately I've been pretty swamped with schoolwork lately and just living life to post something of content on here. I suppose a quote counts as content and can be just as valuable as my own insight, but I like to think readers (the few out there) value the personal more. This quote in particular I pulled out of a reading for a class, and fit my mood at the moment. I'm listening to relaxing music sitting in my room letting my mind wander all over the place, trying to tame it and wondering if that is necessarily even a good thing. My mind seems to dart from corner to corner, operating in space almost, my body a vessel it is simply attached to. The music expands me mentally, simultaneously inducing calmness and an excited awe. I'm almost like a kid in a candy shop, but all the candy is free, and I can taste everything and anything that I want to (albeit, with my ears).

I regret posting on this blog because it creates moments for me like this to just spill my thoughts onto paper, thoughts that I would feel foolish to bring up directly in conversation, or even in the classroom, but still need to get out. Its almost as if part of myself spills out onto the "paper" (in this case, my keyboard). In front of me exists a conglomoration of plastic keys, manufactured in some faraway land, perhaps not even by human hands. Same with my ipod, same with the desk that my arms rest upon. So many moments have come together to create this singular point in time, this release for my mind which is incredibly healthy and soothing. Humans need to express, and this moment grants that.

All humans need a therapist, a friend once told me. I don't agree with her, and know many people who would argue against that claim. I think, though, that every person needs therapy. We spend so much of our lives living and going through the motions that sometimes, a person just needs therapy - whether that therapy be music, writing, a sport, or hell, even just laying in the grass (or, in my friend's case, an understanding and sympathizing person). Each individual has a baby's bottle, a something that nurtures and satisfies the human need for happiness. Today, a saw a friend who is usually extremely angry, depressed, and pessimistic get his therapy. My friend was offered a position in film, a something he gushes about, a something that infuses him with passion. He sees three therapists, but this is the first time I have seen him truly happy in a long time. It made me so joyous, so happy, just to see him smiling, laughing, and legitimately loving and valuing his own life.

This blog, this writing? This is my therapy. This is my happiness. This is my life, for you.

The Simple Pleasures

Recently I've taken to, well, just loving the simple pleasures of life. Each day lately I seem to notice little details that I usually don't, noting how simple they are in their beauty. It's so easy to become lost in the hectic haze of modern society that I think we sometimes lose sight of what can be profoundly beautiful about the simplicity of life. I sit here now, profoundly relieved, having just finished a research paper for psychology. I think with all the hustle and bustle of finals and the drive to be social, I haven't taken time to sit back and observe what is truly obvious: that life itself is absolutely gorgeous, a sort of dynamic piece of art which never ceases to fascinate. I've really been itching to get a blog post up because I'm sick of writing for a grade, so I think now I'm just going to release, a pouring out of my soul if you will, of what my soul has touched, felt, and perceived, of that which has permanently imprinted itself upon my being.

The simple pleasures:

• Watching my friend write on a banana and laugh about it
• The physics of a door swinging back and forth in Main Building, my dormitory
• Jumping in order to touch really high things, like branches
• Listening to Sigur Ros in this very moment (god their Icelandic is stunning)
• The fact that I'm alive (you might say well duh! but I'm talking about being alive, anyone who has experienced being alive, fully conscious of their own being and the being of everyone and everything around them, knows what I'm talking about)
• Having a profound experience at an amazing musical performance (my body extending into a tree and filling the room, fyi)
• Seeing my friends smile
• Hearing the voices of my parents
• Saying a prayer
• Talking to friends far, far away
• Vassar College and all its amazing people
• Being praised for hard work
• Chewing gum that tastes like yummy berries
• Making a summer reading list, and just the thought of reading for pleasure
• Realizing how much I have grown as a person
• Being asked to sing "Singing in the Rain" by three random girls in the middle of the day
• Seeing a family happy together
• Making the day of a child just by giving them a paper airplane
• When animals seem to smile
• Acoustic music to calm the senses
• Letting go of nagging stresses and worries which don't even matter
• Just being alive (not alive, but alive now)
• God
• Letting all your muscles completely relax so that you get that tingly feeling in your body

What has made you happy lately? How about right now, in this very moment? Think about it...

Because I'm lovin' the simple pleasures.

Goodnight

There can be so much serenity, found amongst the dark
My ears feel the breeze of vibrations formed elegantly
Sometimes I like to question pessimism
Sure, maybe I have quite the good life
But here, on this raft, all is right
I am a man enclosed, yet so free
Looking up at my boundaries
I feel so liberated, floating above the cracked brown floor
The moon enters the room, a waxing crescent
Brushing aside the darkness, letting in light
Wait a second....am I dreaming?
It's simply the white of my smile.

Beauty

As the brushstrokes collaborated to create a new work of art, I simply smiled and appreciated the wonder of it all.