take it as you will...and run with it

He argued that social arrangements should be reasoned out from scratch and agreed upon by mutual consent, based on knowledge that any person could acquire. Since ideas are grounded in experience, which varies from person to person, differences of opinion arise not because one mind is equipped to grasp the truth and another defective, but because the two minds have had different histories. Those differences therefore ought to be tolerated rather than suppressed.

Steven Pinker, "the blank slate"

i don't want to explain what i'm getting at here and i quote more often than explain and preach for that very reason...this quote actually captures that...you will create your own meaning from your own experience...it might be more fun to see how you interpret and where you go with it than me telling you what i think and influencing the journey...no blueprint, no outline, no expectation of direction...leaves a lot more room for limitless discourse and fun philosophizing ;)

those bulgarians...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3jzvz_split-series-jason-mraz-its-a-lovel_music

hear me roar

e.e. cummings
lets see how you like it!

e
.
e.cum
mings

you piss me off
ooh! i found return on the keyboard! ain't i profound?!

but i'll give you my half smile here:
"...meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera"

and your fragments befriend and reflect recent frailty

the answers aren't in the books
i know
but they are both
a funnel
and a fertilizer
for the trees along the road
to Manifest Destiny
(light on the destiny please, waiter)
at least her law of attraction
was amended for freedom of choice
(choice as a noun not a verb)

borders
with its lack thereof
tonight, though, less than usual
were its calming effects

lack of logic? abounding obscurity? its ok
because you won't
since you already did
buoyancy leaving me less than centered
detachment leaving me less than grounded
alas, i am a female after all.

Beg your pardon, Alan...

I've been doing a lot of reading, on a whole lot of subjects, from music, to philosophy, to psychology, to environmental concerns, to economics. So many books, not enough time. It makes me value the time I have to read and the quality of what it is I choose to read. And it ensures that I read critically, not simply a sponge, but a selective sponge. Reading more and more, I've come to find that its a myth that we only use part of our brain. Maybe they meant, at one time, but in any case, our entire brain is utilized. In that case, its precious real estate and I want to make sure what I'm storing in there makes sense to me so it sticks.

So when Alan Watts says, "We are in a hurry about too many things...account of someone's day: The person got up in the morning and made some coffee, and I suppose it was instant coffee, because that person was in too much of a hurry to be concerned with the preparation of a beautiful cup of coffee. Instant coffee is a punishment for people who are in too much of a hurry." I ask him, Alan, ever consider what I'm going to do once I've got my coffee? I'm going to sit over there on my couch and read your book. If I sit there lovingly pouring a perfectly proportioned milk to sugar ratio for that coffee, I've got less time to read. And in the spirit of living in the moment, which your statement implores us to do, one is of the understanding that its because time, life, and love are transient. And I love coffee just as much as you appear to Alan, calling it a beautiful cup of coffee, its clear we are on the same page there, but you can be assured that I'm not rushing through something I enjoy to do something I enjoy less...only to get to something I value more. So maybe he wasn't talking to people like me, but instead to the masses who rush through life missing out on all the little beauties and things there are to appreciate, the people who live for the cliched milestones they are "supposed to" get excited for. I hope so, because instead of making some kind of three course elaborately prepared dinner for myself, I'm feeding my brain and soul during the time I'm saving, and I like it that way.

So when the philosophy is to realize that now is all we have and to not wait and leave things for later, to make the most of every present moment because there is no future, how can I be criticized for doing something unimportant quickly to allow for more enjoyment of that present?

Grist Mill magic...

"chapter 1: the birth of sustainability has a subheading called "the core of contemporary sustainability: the THREE E'S.
and the three 'e's' are in fact, ecology (environment), economy (employment), and equity (equality)"
and the fourth e later described: education (enlightenment)!!
"the sustainability revolution: portrait of a paradigm shift." andres r. edwards

Time to Eternity

"This is our problem, you see. We are not alive. We are not awake. We are not living in the present. Take education. What a hoax. As a child, you are sent to nursery school. In nursery school, they say you are getting ready to go to kindergarten. And then first grade is coming up and second grade and third grade. They say you are gradually climbing the ladder, making progress. And then, when you get to the end of grade school, they say, "You've been getting ready for high school." And then in high school, they tell you you're getting ready for college. And in college you're getting ready to go out into the business world with your suit and your diploma. And you go to your first sales meeting, and they say, "Now get out there and sell this stuff." They say you'll be going on up the ladder in business if you sell it, and maybe you'll get a promotion. And you sell it, and they up your quota. And then, finally at about the age of forty-five, you wake up one morning as vice president of the firm, and you say to yourself, "I've arrived. But I've been cheated. Something is missing. I no longer have a future." "Wrong," says the insurance salesman. "I have a future for you. This policy will enable you to retire in comfort at sixty-five, and now you can look forward to that." And you're delighted. You...retire, thinking that this is the attainment of the goal of life. Except that now you have prostate trouble, false teeth, and wrinkled skin. And you're a materialist. You're a phantom. You are an abstraction. You are nowhere, because you were never told, and you never realized, that eternity is now. There is no time...
...Time is a fantasy. It is a useful fantasy, just as the lines of latitude and longitude are. But they aren't real lines....Time is a convenience...But let us not be fooled by convenience. It is not real...
...People who believe in time and who believe that they are living for the future make plenty of plans. But when the plans mature, the people are not there to enjoy them. They are busy planning for something else...they are never here. They never get there. They are never alive. They are perpetually frustrated...the future is the thing with them. Someday it is going to happen, they think. And because it never does, they feel frantic...They are terrified of death, because death stops the future...
Please wake up.
I'm not saying that you should be improvident, that you shouldn't have an insurance policy, that you shouldn't be concerned about how you are going to send your children to college. Except that there is no point in sending your children to college and providing for their future if you don't know how to live in the present, because all you will do is teach your children how not to live in the present. You will end up dragging yourself through life for the alleged benefit of your own children, who will in turn drag out their lives in a boring way for the alleged benefit of their children...
...In our colleges, we value the record of what has happened more than we value what is happening. The records in the registrar's office are kept in safes under lock and key, but not the books in the library...
...When the record becomes more important than the event, we are really up the creek with no paddle...our education system is pretty abstract. It neglects the absolute fundamentals of life and instead teaches us to be bureaucrats, bank clerks, accountants, and insurance salesmen. It entirely neglects our relationships to the material world of which there are five: farming, cooking, clothing, housing, and lovemaking...
...it is time to get back to reality, to get back from time to eternity, to get back to the eternal now, which is what we have, always have had, and indeed always will have."

-Alan Watts, 'From Time to Eternity'

19, maybe 20, braingasms

So I had an IM chat today of epic philosophical proportion that was quite the mirror facing a mirror. The discussion's topic itself was of that very idea of the cyclical nature of EVERYTHING, and then how that reflects my own life experience is mind blowing.
Here is how it went:
Yang, "what does humanity's progress curve look like...as far as advancement and evolving...like people like you and I think about all the ways productive thought it being stifled these days...the ways people distract themselves from really thinking...back in the old days when there was no tv/entertainment...when mathematicians and philosophers made all their advances because that was all there was to DO...SIT AROUND AND THINK...so they developed all these crazy theories and plus back then most of it was original thought....now when we make advances they are built on that foundation so NOT AS MUCH HAS TO BE CREATED FROM SCRATCH, btu advances are still profound bc we're so far along so the material theories and ideas we are starting with are already so evolved...so when we do make steps forward, they are still huge...."

Yin, "it's probably exponential...like everything else"
Yang, "precisely what I was thinking"

Yin, "but, then again, an actualized humanity would be very powerful...i don't think it could happen without first casting off the shackles of institutionalized control, however."

Yang, "would evolution become static?"
Yin, "i don't think so...as Bill Hicks states, if we weren't so busy watching 'American Gladiators' and blowing each other up, we could actually move towards exploring inner and outer space as a team, as a species"

Yang, "hmm...but would be, or is actualization saying we wouldn't feel the need to, because 'its all good, and it is just what it is.'"

Yin, "actualization for me is the state of bliss induced by creativity"
Yang, "hmm, actualization for me RESULTS in creativity"

Yin, "haha...in order to be creative you need to be actualized?"
Yang, "no no...it can happen before or after but certainly when i feel the bliss of actualization, i'm it makes me feel productive in a creative sense"
Yin, "i feel as though if i'm not being creative, i'm not reaching my potential, and therefore not actualized"
Yang, "see when i feel i'm reaching that potential, i'm inspired to see what i can create from it...we are saying the same thing, we just differ on chicken or the egg...REALLY ITS ALL A CYCLE, like everything else"
Yin, "indeed...similar to music and mood, one affects the other, symbiotically, as does creativity/actualization"
Yang, "freedom/love"

Yin, "symbiosis, and i definitely appreciate when biological terms can be applied to philosophy"
Yang, "or the one i came up with "symbiOASIS...when two things are so symbiotic that its bliss"

Yin, "or maybe mutualism?"


Yang, "ooh i forgot that symbiosis has to do with DEPENDENCY...i don't like it anymore...in my personal adaptation of the term, it doesn't fit..."
Yin, "so perhaps mutualism is a better term? i don't think dependency in these circumstances is necessarily a negative...as all biological systems are interdependent, so are philosophical ones..."

Yang, "but i used it in such a way to describe two INDEPENDENT people being symbiotic...how can independence be dependent?"
Yin, "but think back to Alan Watts, 'The Book'"

and the ideas I had trouble allowing to agree in my brain...as they seem like contradictions...that you are alone in this world and your experience is completely your own and no one else could ever really know you or have your experience...but at the same time, we are all connected, which i've also seen and known to be true...

so my idea of symbiOASIS created by two INDEPENDENT things joins those two theories and perfectly depicts what i believe and shows how freedom can be a trap, independence can yield positive dependence, etc etc!!!

and then!
Yin says, "did you scroll down on the mutualism wiki page?? "The question how and why species might cooperate has also been addressed philosophically. Gilles Deleuze, for example, was interested in the way this questioned the conception of evolutionism and the notion of linear historical progress."

SCROLL BACK UP...WHERE DID THIS CONVERSATION BETWEEN YIN AND YANG BEGIN??

and then yin says "isn't it funny, too, that we're so concerned in creativity, but might consider ourselves to be 'evolutionists'...where the great "debate" of creation-evolution has existed all this time?"


and there again...why does it have to be one or the other when both so clearly need each other to exist but can't exist without being their own independent separate entities to begin with????

creativity <> evolution <> actualization <> potential <> independence <> interdependence <> [how the heck to i make an infinity symbol on the keyboard...i need it to reflect 1. the discussion's topic 2. the discussion itself 3. how i feel about my life and its endless possibility for exploration 4. life itself]
karma, energy in, energy out

This is what happens...

...when you listen to Dark Side 5 times in a row....

And to think I considered lack of sausage stuffing as a potentially less than spectacular Thanksgiving!!
Here is why I was thankful today:
1. ...my 16 year old cousin saying, "They asked us what we were thankful for in school and I wanted to write, 'Bush being out of office soon,' but I wrote, 'the troops in Iraq fighting for our freedom,' because thats what THEY want you to write."
2. ...my uncle at the table wearing his Albuquerque T-shirt
3. ...being old enough to crack open and polish off a bottle of Alice White Riesling with my aunt
4. ...my aunt and cousins who are cool enough to want to watch Wizard of Oz synced up to Dark Side of the Moon (and then try to transfer its powers onto The Suite Life of Zack and Cody yielding endless laughter)
5. ...pumpkin pie
6. ...hilarious games of scrabble
7. ...liberation from guilt-induced obligation (of ALL kinds, familial and otherwise)
8. ...that second sliver of pumpkin pie
9. ...that slice of pumpkin pie in the fridge for tomorrow morning

herenow prayer

Now I lay me down to dream,
I thank the universe for what i've seen
If I should die before I wake,
a smile is all I'll need to take.
and if I wake to greet the day,
with gratefulness and wonder i will say,
thank you for the peace of heart and mind
I'm so amazingly lucky to continue to find.

"We can't cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy." -Joseph Campebll

Grow, Change, Learn: Self as a work in progress

"Adolescence seems to provoke this difficult inner quest, since growth away from one's parents forces one to come to grips with life on one's own, but the quest for self-knowledge out not to be regarded as a "stage" that one passes through and leaves behind. Finding and maintaining self-identity can be a lifelong process. While it makes sense to expect that we can carry on the process without the pain and desperation often experienced in adolescence, it is a mistake to assume that once the pain has stopped the process is over. Rather than suffer the doubts and uncertainties of growth toward an indeterminate destination, many people fix a destination very early in life and then define themselves in terms of that destination: "I am a good parent"; "I am an engineer"; "I am a dropout." Many people imagine they can settle the account of self-identity once and for all and then live in the security of their certainty. But that premature decision is a subtle form of suicide. It amounts to opting out of life, for to live is to grow and change. "

(Self and World: Readings in Philosophy by James Ogilvy)

If you are alive you HAVE to be inconsistent -- you have grown, the world has changed, the river is flowing into new territory. Yesterday the river was passing through a desert, today it is passing through a forest; it is totally different. Yesterday's experience should not become your definition forever...one should be able to go on moving with time. Once should remain a process, one should never become a thing. That is intelligence." (Osho)

"Once you are in a relationship, you start taking each other for granted-that's what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery...they are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. Relate again, start again, and don't take for granted." (Osho, "love, freedom, aloneness")

digging or building?

Digging myself another kind of hole
But its okay
Because its lined with library books
So at least it smells good
And when I'm ready
I can stack them up like a ladder
And let knowledge be my way out

curse and contradiction of consciousness

...wonder is not a disease. Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons.
-Alan Watts, "The Book"

I met on my travels an old Brahman, a very wise man, full of wit and very learned; moreover he was rich, and consequently even wiser; for, lacking nothing, he had no need to deceive anyone. His family was very well governed by three beautiful wives who schooled themselves to please him; and when he was not entertaining himself with his wives, he was busy philosophizing.

Near his house, which was beautiful, well decorated, and surrounded by charming gardens, lived an old Indian woman, bigoted, imbecilic, and rather poor.

The Brahman said to me one day: "I wish I had never been born."

I asked him why. He replied:

"I have been studying for forty years, which is forty years wasted; I teach others, and I know nothing; this situation brings into my soul so much humiliation, and disgust that life is unbearable to me. I was born, I live in time, and I do not know what time is; I find myself in a point between two eternities, as our sages say, and I have no idea of eternity. I am composed of matter; I think, and I have never been able to find out what produces thought; ...I am sometimes ready to fall into despair, then I think that after all my seeking I know neither where I come from, nor what I am, nor where I shall go, nor what shall become of me."

The state of this good man caused me real pain; no one was either more reasonable or more honest than he. I perceived that the greater the lights of his understanding and the sensibility of his heart, the more unhappy he was.

That same day I saw the old woman who lived in his vicinity: I asked her whether she had ever been distressed not to know how her soul was made. She did not even understand my question: she had never reflected a single moment of her life over a single one of the points that tormented the Brahman; she believed with all her heart in the metamorphoses of Vishnu, and, provided she could sometimes have some water from the Ganges to wash in, she thought herself the happiest of women.

Struck by the happiness of this indigent creature, I returned to my philosopher and said to him:

"Aren't you ashamed to be unhappy at a time when right at your door there is an old automaton who thinks of nothing and who lives happily?"

"You are right," he answered; "I have told myself a hundred times that I would be happy if I was as stupid as my neighbors and yet I would want no part of such a happiness."

This answer of my Brahman made a greater impression on me than all the rest. I examined myself and saw that indeed I would not have wanted to be happy on the condition of being imbecilic.

I put the matter up to some philosophers, and they were of my opinion.

"There is, however," I said, "a stupendous contradiction in this way of thinking."
For after all, what is at issue? Being happy. What matters being witty or being stupid? What is more, those who are content with their being are quite sure of being content; those who reason are not so sure of reasoning well.

“So it is clear," I said, "that we should choose not to have common sense, if ever that common sense contributes to our ill-being."

Everyone was of my opinion, and yet I found no one who wanted to accept the bargain of becoming imbecilic in order to become content. From this I concluded that if we set store by happiness, we set even greater store by reason.

But, upon reflection, it appears that to prefer reason to felicity is to be very mad. Then how can this contradiction be explained? Like all the others. There is much to be said about it.

(Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire))



The "Story of a Good Brahman" was written by Voltaire in 1761

...to elaborate/explain my relation and adaptation of this entry to my own beliefs:


...what i'm saying is how, based on the economic model of capitalism, people, young people, at too young of an age to really decide, are unknowingly deposited in an area of study based on the demands of society and the market rather than their own demands of their own heart and mind. yes, its works, and for good reason, but i don't think it would fall apart, either, if we were able to stress to these students more often to follow their dreams. there would still be accountants and advertisers, because there would still be people inclined to be interested or adept in those fields or who truly sought financial security as their form of happiness due to their personal nature and need for such. but people LIKE ME, would not have, not wasted per se, but misdirected her intellectual energy pursuing a field because it seemed lucrative. luckily i found marketing (began as business management!) which was actually interesting to me because of the behavioral, creative, and mathematically-challenging aspects of it. but again, do i really want to do anything in marketing in the corporate sense...i've changed my mind about those companies that do higher ed marketing, so no i don't.

and we, in guidance positions (high school or admissions side), throw terms at these young people that impact them far more than i think we realize..."one of the most highly demanded professions right now." = if you go to this school, you will get a job. I think they often associate it, perceive it, attach to it a respectability because they've been taught all of their lives to be a part of the group, to be needed, wanted, popular...it all goes way back to the group think instilled in them throughout school and we aren't aware enough of their intellectual foundations when using these kinds of terms. and also just the fact that its the first thing we say and make it seem most important because, to us, from the point of view of the college, its a SELLING point. something is intrinsically wrong with this, and it goes deeper than somehow blaming the economics of a country. its got nothing to do with placing the blame there, as that is a neutral and naturally occurring mechanism that exists for factually good reasons, not as some form of humanly devised protection, enhancement, or service to society, but just because it DOES.

its got to do with what we, as human people, emphasize, what we stress, what we deem important and its gone a little askew these days (going to say "in America" but its probably everywhere) because of the power of marketing really. it needs to be balanced, but i think people are afraid that the system will fail if we give people another outlook or consciousness.

and yes, its hard, because its all intertwined and you can't always separate on from the other. and thats why im saying its not about separation or restructuring the whole thing; simply about consciousness of this fact and about making sure we are all THINKING FOR OURSELVES. all i'm saying is that we are way too influenced by the market and need to be aware of that when influencing those we are deciding on educational and employment choices that are supposed to result in fulfillment, whether that fulfillment be in the form of financial security, creativity, happiness, interest, etc etc.

Education as Liberation (Bert Lambeir)

"What we are faced with are mechanisms that aim to discipline society by disciplining each of its inhabitants. This results in a society as a collection of individuals, a multiplicity of subjects that can be ordered, numbered, and supervised...
'[w]hat is perceived as being worthwhile in education, and what is perceived as quality education, are being imposed...from outside the traditional educational institutions' This is to say, in part, that we are deluded in our notions of 'good' (rational) and 'wrong' choices, and that the way we choose is subtly directed in some way...We are not only or simply confronted with our freedom to choose; this freedom is imposed upon us, and we are expected to see our lives as 'the making of choices'...We cannot choose what we choose, neither that we choose (to choose)...
...The popular and concrete idea of lifelong learning incorporates mechanisms that discipline and therefore normalize people instead of emancipating them. The orientation towards the market ensures that specific economic needs will be fulfilled...The resulting normalization provides society, not so much with well-educated, liberated persons but rather with inter- and exchangeable units...And it becomes easy to manipulate the needs, interests, and choices...And again the irony is that the individual--as an entrepreneur--will keep on developing and updating her competences, in order to be wanted.
This being wanted as a unit in contemporary society differs strongly from being respected as the person you are.
...Suppose lifelong education is more than the provision of skill modules, freedom to choose and switch. Could it be?...
Respect is equated with obtained certificates, recognition is levelled to acquired grades. This installs an enduring 'hunger' to 'learn' more, and the subtle coercion upon those who are endangered to fall by the wayside, to jump on the carousel. As such, it has become a part of the human condition to be frustrated for the things one cannot realize, and to try to distinguish oneself fruitlessly from the uniformed, grey mass of 'autonomous learning entrepreneurs.' Is this constant striving, and the expansion of one's certification collection, what counts most? Is this what makes us think of those whom we respected most? Obviously not the skills of the other but the person she is, is what impresses us, what sticks in our memory. If so, this might have to do with finding and sharing meaning, with developing a personal stance, with creativity, with wisdom, with being captivated and interested, with joy and with being content, with taking time for oneself and the other, and with caring for oneself and the other.
Education then...means to be a live example, or to encourage learners to find one. It means addressing them in a way that stimulates exploring their own ideas and wants. This too is learning for life--a continuous process that in the end may be very worthwhile.

The word "education" derives from the Latin educare, meaning "to nourish"

we made it...

(so I should say that I PREFER the "in" for its connotation: inner, inside, in love, into, within, whereas "out" is linked to out of, outer, put out, go out, run out, all out. but, as pondered on the PATH train, here you go...)

out of the notes in the songs
out of righting my wrongs
out of finding my way
(from thinking of what you'd say)
out of just being us
out of abstaining from lust
out of discipline of temptation
out of building a foundation
out of the beauty of trust
out of abandonment of must
out of the cards in the hand
out of supply, not demand
out of the words from those lips
out of carbonated sips
out of packages and email
thanks to msn and gmail
out of markers and a board
out of a very long phone cord
out of everything thats free
out of letting me be me...

...

...so yea, being happy alone is great, rarely bored, almost never lonely, fulfilled by catching up on intellectual exploration and musical discovery...but when you really want people around, and no one is...the one time you are feeling lonely and no one has time...everyone thinks you are so self-sufficient, and then you realize how cold and lonely the hole you've dug yourself really is.

Trishna>Nirvana>Marga

"This is the wonderful thing about a great human being. He is like an animal or a flower. When a flower bud opens, it has no hesitation or doubts...when a bird sings, or the chicken egg breaks or a flower buds, there is no doubt about it at all. It just comes forth...
...He notices everybody around him looking dreadfully serious. Looking as if they had a problem. Looking as if the act of living were extremely difficult. But from the standpoint of the person who has had this experience, they look funny. They don't understand that there isn't any problem at all.
...the meaning of being alive is just to be alive...and this is what we are all here for, as well: to be. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. The funny thing is, they are not even quite sure what they need to achieve...
...this frenzy of activity all seems very weird, absurd. It is not to be criticized in an unkindly way, however. It's just a pity that they don't see their own absurdity..."

-Alan Watts

anitya

"You might love the sound of running water that you hear in a stream passing through somebody's garden. And you think, "Oh yes, I'd love to have that water in my own garden." And you arrive there with a bucket, and you pick the water up, and you take it away. But having caught the water in the bucket, it's dead; it's no longer living running water."

-Alan Watts, "Buddha and Buddhism" from "Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life"

Full Circle

With the Bear Mountain Bridge in my rear view mirror,
recruitment season is officially behind me.
It was really moving to have my directions home lead me over the bridge
opposite the way I normally come
Full circle, indeed, and on a beautiful day
the sunshine screaming at me to take notice and take pictures
to savor the last of fall's glory and travel season's freedom.

shoveling out...

"There are no outside causes of happiness or unhappiness; these things are excuses. By and by we come to realize that it is something inside us that goes on changing, that has nothing to do with outside circumstances...Now you understand that you are free from outside excuses, because nothing has happened on the outside and yet your mood has changed within a few minutes from happiness to unhappiness, or the other way around. This means that happiness and unhappiness are your moods and don't depend on the outside. This is one of the most basic things to be realized, because then much can be done. The second thing to understand is that your moods depend on your unawareness. So just watch and become aware. If happiness is there, just watch it and don't become identified with it. When unhappiness is there, again just watch. It is like morning and evening. In the morning you watch and enjoy the rising sun. When the sun sets and darkness descends, that too you watch and enjoy."
-Osho

"I Want To Sing"

I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
Take off your shoes take off my dress
I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
This too shall pass this too shall pass

But tell me, what have I done to deserve you?
Must have done something cause that's how it works
Must have been kind to kittens and birds,
In a previous life must have thought happy thoughts...

'cause there, you were there right beside me
Then somehow inside me while inside myself
Books on the shelf thoughts on the shelf
Hands to myself, i should definitely keep my hands to myself

Love is a dangerous pastime
Caught between madness and gladness of flight
Nothing is wrong and nothing is right
Falling asleep in your arms every night

But Love's such a strange situation
Full of frustration and anger and fear
Everything's tears
Nobody hears
Nobody's here, and nobody hears...

I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
Take off your shoes take off my dress
I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
This too shall pass, this too shall pass...

-Regina Spektor

...lost in my blizzard

its snowing
leaving a blanket of...
no, too warm an analogy
vast, pure, clean
but so cold
and so empty
they try to tell me its beautiful
and if i were able to feel any warmth
or any(thing)
i might see it too
but for now
indefinitely
vast, cold, silent, empty,
buried

where it can be found...

in the books of the sage
in the turn of a page
in the paragraph's pause
in the mystery of cause
in the suspension of belief
(and in flight's landing relief)

in the beauty of a machine
(right there on the screen!)
in the knowledge we glean
in the wonder that's seen
in the things that we mean
(then AND in between!)

in the softness of a sheet
in the completion of the feat
in the tab of a can
in the boy and the man
in the pupil's black mirror
it keeps getting clearer

in the 6 am hour
in tonight's incessant rain shower
in the way the notes look
(those of music and book)
in the here and the now
in the let go of how...

dobbs ferry wednesday

so even though i met not a single interested student,
i met this beautiful day...

...from panera yet again...

"Love ain’t the answer nor is work,
the truth eludes me so much it hurts.
But I’m still having fun and I guess that's the key,
I'm a twenty something and I'll keep being me"

ALMOST done with recruitment season...the end is in sight...
and the holiday feeling is creeping in...
right here right now in my sunny spot in Middletown
deep breaths and one thing at a time...

there's no place like...

"Tiredness fuels empty thoughts
I find myself disposed
Brightness fills empty space
In search of inspiration
Harder now with higher speed
Washing in on top of me
So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I'm down, down, down.

Rain it wets muddy roads
I find myself exposed
Tapping doors, but irritate
In search of destination
Harder now with higher speed
Washing in on top of me
So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I'm down, down, down.

Kosketa minua - Touch me
Älä käsilläsi - Not with your hands
Vaan niin että tunnen sinut - But so that I feel you

Halaa minua - Hug me
Älä käsilläsi - Not with your hands
Mutta sielussasi - But within your soul

Minä kaipaan eskimo-ystävääni - I miss my eskimo friend

When I'm down, down, down.
When I'm down, down, down.
When I'm down, down, down."

...from oz...

Do not hold onto your goal too tightly. If the Wizard accidentally takes off in his hot air balloon without you, the universe may be trying to show you something better. When Dorothy lets go and connects with her inner essence, she ultimately realizes she has all the love she needs within her own heart to be at home with herself...To acquire anything you desire, simply give up your attachment to the outcome.

Just in case

anyone is wondering
where i am...
i'm out enjoying
the evitabling
of an
unspeakability
in all of its
jawdroppingness.
and in my own wondermazement
of it,
i'm floored

Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose NY

50¢ books + big windowed quiet study room + sunshine and foliage behind me + wireless internet = bliss