It's so hard to
Resist the narratives sold to us
We keep buying
And buying
And buying
Until we've got nothing left
But what we were
Meant to have
To help build
The narrative
That is meant to be
Monday, August 12, 2013
Friday, June 28, 2013
Love and Truth
Seeking the truth
Soothes my soul
As a blue sky does
A cold grey mourning
Succumbing to love
No matter what
Sets my purpose
Each new day dawning
Soothes my soul
As a blue sky does
A cold grey mourning
Succumbing to love
No matter what
Sets my purpose
Each new day dawning
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Trees of my mind
Yes!
I get lost in my thoughts,
My imagination.
The trees in my head
Shroud reality,
As they pull me into images
That I paint,
That I weave,
Around the lives of
People I have seen
For long,
For short,
For never,
Who will be
Forever
In my words
That seek
Not to cage
But to free
the minds that join mine
Frolicking amongst the trees.
I get lost in my thoughts,
My imagination.
The trees in my head
Shroud reality,
As they pull me into images
That I paint,
That I weave,
Around the lives of
People I have seen
For long,
For short,
For never,
Who will be
Forever
In my words
That seek
Not to cage
But to free
the minds that join mine
Frolicking amongst the trees.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Fire
The words I spit with fire
Will quench
My heart's desire
The words that I spit with fire
I will do so
Until I forever tire
Will quench
My heart's desire
The words that I spit with fire
I will do so
Until I forever tire
Sunday, April 14, 2013
A Squirrel's Imperfection
Perfection is a goal that can never be attained, but we all strive to attain it, producing great works of art, great scientific innovations, and perhaps, a great life lived. Yet, is it worth striving for if it makes us unhappy?
The issues surrounding our pursuit of perfection, in whatever area of life or work, is twofold. The first is the very nature of the fruit we pursue - a narrow window where only certain traits are considered gifts by society. The second is the dependence on constancy of the pursuit, where we assume an unchanging path towards success, and any deviations from it as failure, or imperfections in the process.
The First issue: A Small Scope
Society has a very narrow view of perfection, where physical beauty, mental agility, and success are defined by variations surrounding how skinny you are, how fast you think, or how much money you have. All things that do not matter when we are cremated to ashes or six feet under. It is quite common to sustain such a myopic view of perfection that we lose sight of we started with- our god given traits, which really are all gifts based on circumstance.
Look at that squirrel running up the tree next to you. Scurrying about, looking for the acorns it hid. If only it remembered better where it hid those damn acorns. It would get its food faster! No time wasted and everyone is happy, especially the squirrel and its buddies. Yet, if that squirrel in the fall burying acorns had a 100% memory of all the nuts it had hidden, how many fewer oak trees would we have in later spring seasons?
Just as we would imagine "improving" the imperfect memory of the squirrel, we are surrounded by flyers, radio and t.v. announcements that all proclaim a perfect pill for solving our inadequacies. We get hyper conscious, worry that we have become squirrels, running around looking for the acorns that we are made to believe we need all of, and, As Soon As Possible. For those who say, "Screw ASAP," I bet you are much, much happier than those that spend their lives in such a rat race. So what if you don't collect all your "acorns" right away? So what if you forget a few of them here and there? Maybe that path is just as valid as one of maximum efficiency.
Not suggesting that we all become Thoreau (or Emerson), and live a life of transcendentalism, but why be so harsh on traits and situations that are outside our view of perfect? What if we went through life, looking at the flip side of our imperfect traits and imperfect moments now and then? What if celebrated that we could forget, that we can be slow, become poor, become depressed and still consider ourselves valuable? That we may one day, as mortals, become dirt in a temperate oak forest, providing nutrients to germinating acorns that some squirrel forgot long ago? Maybe it's that same squirrel you've been staring at, while feeling guilty for not working on the weekends.
The Second Issue: A Stagnant Pursuit
It's not too hard to imagine that we get used to thinking about a standardized set of characteristics as undesirable, we are wired to be compliant to our fellow human beings. The greater problem comes up when we assume that they are ALWAYS undesirable Maybe your imperfections can become valuable in the right circumstance. A pursuit for perfection, whatever it may mean to you, would be a much happier process if the word SOMETIMES was taken seriously. It is not ALWAYS great if you are getting results in lab, because that would just keep raising the bar and create a standard that would consume all of your other activities in life. It is SOMETIMES perfect if you walked home slower, you may meet someone who needs your help, or will give you a winning lottery ticket (a look into what I think about while walking home:).
An example of looking at the flipside mentioned earlier: the variance in speed of speech in cities vs. rural areas. If someone speaks quite slowly, it is often viewed by those who are from a busier lifestyle that the person thinks slower. The problem arises when slow is assumed to equal stupid. Why do we make that jump? Did the slow southern drawl gain a stigma of incompetence only after the civil war? Can we blame the industrial revolution for pushing us into an era of equating faster with better? There is no requirement for accuracy in speed. Yes, the game right now is to make machines fast and accurate, but why do we place this need on humans as well? If we become dehumanized into machines, then really, we can envision a future of gained productivity and lost creativity. The slower speech pattern may be indicative of a more holistic, non-linear thought process, one where the contents of a speech bubble are carefully analyzed before being released into the air. The slower thought or speech process carries contemplation that seems to come only with age, these days. I now take to rolling around my tongue each word twice or more, going on a mosey to provide a valuable perspective in a fast conversation that is already rushing to its next destination.
So speak slower. Take your time. Summer is here. Markers for success are ephemeral illusions that we have bought into, forgetting life's real value. God bless the squirrel for all its imperfections. God bless all of our "faults" too, despite the negative connotations we assign them.
Note: This piece, despite my best efforts, is not perfect. Please feel free to partake in my own pursuit for perfection by leaving your comments- I will incorporate any inspiration they provide into my next piece. Thanks!
The issues surrounding our pursuit of perfection, in whatever area of life or work, is twofold. The first is the very nature of the fruit we pursue - a narrow window where only certain traits are considered gifts by society. The second is the dependence on constancy of the pursuit, where we assume an unchanging path towards success, and any deviations from it as failure, or imperfections in the process.
The First issue: A Small Scope
Society has a very narrow view of perfection, where physical beauty, mental agility, and success are defined by variations surrounding how skinny you are, how fast you think, or how much money you have. All things that do not matter when we are cremated to ashes or six feet under. It is quite common to sustain such a myopic view of perfection that we lose sight of we started with- our god given traits, which really are all gifts based on circumstance.
Look at that squirrel running up the tree next to you. Scurrying about, looking for the acorns it hid. If only it remembered better where it hid those damn acorns. It would get its food faster! No time wasted and everyone is happy, especially the squirrel and its buddies. Yet, if that squirrel in the fall burying acorns had a 100% memory of all the nuts it had hidden, how many fewer oak trees would we have in later spring seasons?
Just as we would imagine "improving" the imperfect memory of the squirrel, we are surrounded by flyers, radio and t.v. announcements that all proclaim a perfect pill for solving our inadequacies. We get hyper conscious, worry that we have become squirrels, running around looking for the acorns that we are made to believe we need all of, and, As Soon As Possible. For those who say, "Screw ASAP," I bet you are much, much happier than those that spend their lives in such a rat race. So what if you don't collect all your "acorns" right away? So what if you forget a few of them here and there? Maybe that path is just as valid as one of maximum efficiency.
Not suggesting that we all become Thoreau (or Emerson), and live a life of transcendentalism, but why be so harsh on traits and situations that are outside our view of perfect? What if we went through life, looking at the flip side of our imperfect traits and imperfect moments now and then? What if celebrated that we could forget, that we can be slow, become poor, become depressed and still consider ourselves valuable? That we may one day, as mortals, become dirt in a temperate oak forest, providing nutrients to germinating acorns that some squirrel forgot long ago? Maybe it's that same squirrel you've been staring at, while feeling guilty for not working on the weekends.
The Second Issue: A Stagnant Pursuit
It's not too hard to imagine that we get used to thinking about a standardized set of characteristics as undesirable, we are wired to be compliant to our fellow human beings. The greater problem comes up when we assume that they are ALWAYS undesirable Maybe your imperfections can become valuable in the right circumstance. A pursuit for perfection, whatever it may mean to you, would be a much happier process if the word SOMETIMES was taken seriously. It is not ALWAYS great if you are getting results in lab, because that would just keep raising the bar and create a standard that would consume all of your other activities in life. It is SOMETIMES perfect if you walked home slower, you may meet someone who needs your help, or will give you a winning lottery ticket (a look into what I think about while walking home:).
An example of looking at the flipside mentioned earlier: the variance in speed of speech in cities vs. rural areas. If someone speaks quite slowly, it is often viewed by those who are from a busier lifestyle that the person thinks slower. The problem arises when slow is assumed to equal stupid. Why do we make that jump? Did the slow southern drawl gain a stigma of incompetence only after the civil war? Can we blame the industrial revolution for pushing us into an era of equating faster with better? There is no requirement for accuracy in speed. Yes, the game right now is to make machines fast and accurate, but why do we place this need on humans as well? If we become dehumanized into machines, then really, we can envision a future of gained productivity and lost creativity. The slower speech pattern may be indicative of a more holistic, non-linear thought process, one where the contents of a speech bubble are carefully analyzed before being released into the air. The slower thought or speech process carries contemplation that seems to come only with age, these days. I now take to rolling around my tongue each word twice or more, going on a mosey to provide a valuable perspective in a fast conversation that is already rushing to its next destination.
So speak slower. Take your time. Summer is here. Markers for success are ephemeral illusions that we have bought into, forgetting life's real value. God bless the squirrel for all its imperfections. God bless all of our "faults" too, despite the negative connotations we assign them.
Note: This piece, despite my best efforts, is not perfect. Please feel free to partake in my own pursuit for perfection by leaving your comments- I will incorporate any inspiration they provide into my next piece. Thanks!
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Saturday poet
Winds blow past
Words assemble
Onto pages
Feather thin canvases
Carrying
Reams and reams of
Wild adventures
and
Quick escapes
Pointed battles
and
Pointless wars
Fruitful love
and
Frightful laters
God's great lessons
penned down
through the life
of the saturday poet.
Words assemble
Onto pages
Feather thin canvases
Carrying
Reams and reams of
Wild adventures
and
Quick escapes
Pointed battles
and
Pointless wars
Fruitful love
and
Frightful laters
God's great lessons
penned down
through the life
of the saturday poet.
If-then functions
Erasing memories,
that plague the soul
Facing reality,
that stings the sight.
Building new light,
that nourishes the life.
For you see the wisdom I have learned
Is the following set of if-then functions:
If no ego, then no shame
If no pride, then no fall
If no anger, then
no
hard
bitter
blame.
If I remembered an ancient tale, then I would tell you:
About the king who blamed
By pointing one finger toward
The accused
With three of burden pointing back at himself,
heard this every night:
"The burden of proof," one finger weeps
"The burden of duty," the second finger bellows
"The burden of righteousness," the third finger whispers.
A burden too heavy for a mortal to carry,
He silenced his fingers,
Curling the one pointed out,
Inward,
Opening up his palm,
Turned it upward
Choosing to forgive
Relying on justice
From above to take it course.
that plague the soul
Facing reality,
that stings the sight.
Building new light,
that nourishes the life.
For you see the wisdom I have learned
Is the following set of if-then functions:
If no ego, then no shame
If no pride, then no fall
If no anger, then
no
hard
bitter
blame.
If I remembered an ancient tale, then I would tell you:
About the king who blamed
By pointing one finger toward
The accused
With three of burden pointing back at himself,
heard this every night:
"The burden of proof," one finger weeps
"The burden of duty," the second finger bellows
"The burden of righteousness," the third finger whispers.
A burden too heavy for a mortal to carry,
He silenced his fingers,
Curling the one pointed out,
Inward,
Opening up his palm,
Turned it upward
Choosing to forgive
Relying on justice
From above to take it course.
Her greatest fight
Their eyes meet, questioning the other's intent
Time had passed, answers too-
From person to person
Surrounding the confusion that
Came to be
When one refused
To stand up for the truth
In fear of what his consequence will become
And the other refused
To lie down in silence
In fear of what her conscience will become
A bone made brittle by that which she was asked to conform
She pushed, softly, against the pragmatism advising:
"Take the path of least resistance,
For this is not your fight to fight,
Fight for your happiness,
For your peace is all that matters
In the end."
She fell, fighting, into the dreams painting:
A pond with water lillies that
She let float into her palms
And picked up
And put down
And picked up
And put down
Until the universe ran out
Of the colours that painted her perpectual fate
She woke, wisened, to the words saying:
"Your Duty to Me,
Is to love everyone
No matter their actions
Against you."
Wisps of nightmares now pass her by
Tendrils of its smoke disappearing
Into the reality of forgiveness
That now lies ahead
As the fighter's greatest fight
She had never anticipated.
Time had passed, answers too-
From person to person
Surrounding the confusion that
Came to be
When one refused
To stand up for the truth
In fear of what his consequence will become
And the other refused
To lie down in silence
In fear of what her conscience will become
A bone made brittle by that which she was asked to conform
She pushed, softly, against the pragmatism advising:
"Take the path of least resistance,
For this is not your fight to fight,
Fight for your happiness,
For your peace is all that matters
In the end."
She fell, fighting, into the dreams painting:
A pond with water lillies that
She let float into her palms
And picked up
And put down
And picked up
And put down
Until the universe ran out
Of the colours that painted her perpectual fate
She woke, wisened, to the words saying:
"Your Duty to Me,
Is to love everyone
No matter their actions
Against you."
Wisps of nightmares now pass her by
Tendrils of its smoke disappearing
Into the reality of forgiveness
That now lies ahead
As the fighter's greatest fight
She had never anticipated.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Thoreau and Emerson
Thoreau asks Emerson
"Hey, is graduate school
Still about education and training?"
Emerson preaches, "Of course!"
"And we must keep it that way."
Months pass by
And the young Thoreau visits
Emerson in his palace.
Looking around, he realizes
That graduate school
Is no longer about education and training.
It's about results.
It's about research and development.
It's about productivity, not life of the mind.
He walks on, despite
Emerson's Preach that Emerson did not practice.
"Hey, is graduate school
Still about education and training?"
Emerson preaches, "Of course!"
"And we must keep it that way."
Months pass by
And the young Thoreau visits
Emerson in his palace.
Looking around, he realizes
That graduate school
Is no longer about education and training.
It's about results.
It's about research and development.
It's about productivity, not life of the mind.
He walks on, despite
Emerson's Preach that Emerson did not practice.
And the truth shall set you free
The number of times you have ever lied / The number of times you have ever spoken
= Probability of you surviving in this world.
These odds represent my premise: society penalizes honesty. Honesty with those around you, and more importantly, honesty with yourself. Feel free to question my premise. Of course, then I would have to question your life experience. The benefits of being honest are simply not enough to overcome the barriers we as humanity have set for ourselves.
As children, we are told to not lie, cheat or steal. As we grow older, we suddenly feel those constraints become looser. The constraints are compromised for each item on a checklist we are provided - a degree - a job - a house - a secure life. Where do you draw the line? When your integrity is tested, it should be a black and white response. Do what's right. Right? Nope. The grey area comes in, and it becomes a trial to decide whether you can walk the talk you so badly want to represent.
If you have ever stood up for what is true, do stand up for what's true, you will most likely be faced with a few friends holding you in deeper respect, but a whole lot more people laughing at you. How do you shake off the qualifiers of idealism, naivety, and righteousness and accept your decision to do the right thing?
No clue. My solution is prayer, and keeping those who respect me for the principles I hold close to my heart, close to my heart.
Finishing off with a poem:
Black and white principles
Crystal clear decisions
Wipe the dust away
To reveal
Cobwebs.
Life's finer shades of grey.
No clue. My solution is prayer, and keeping those who respect me for the principles I hold close to my heart, close to my heart.
Finishing off with a poem:
Black and white principles
Crystal clear decisions
Wipe the dust away
To reveal
Cobwebs.
Life's finer shades of grey.
Armed with ideals
Lost in the haze
Chasing my ideas
Armed only with the ideals
That the world has since thrown away
Will I forge my own path
Through this fog ahead of me?
Chasing my ideas
Armed only with the ideals
That the world has since thrown away
Will I forge my own path
Through this fog ahead of me?
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