Oh Beautiful Day!

What a glorious day! Off to the beach, hooray! hooray! So I’ll keep this post short and sweet… first a, I think, fitting quote to ponder:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-Nelson Mandela   

 I love this quote! Let me try to explain a small bit of the reason why, 

It seems so easy to be impartial, to not try, to be “cool,” detached, to pretend not to care… to really drift into complacency… there is comfort in the mask.  But, I think, when you really go for something, allowing yourself wholehearted belief – to really commit, consequence be damned –  the moment that follows is so beautiful, so magical, so profound, it aches…. its worth it.  when you take a chance, jump, you know? 

Its scary to proclaim, “this is what I want, this is what I believe in,” flat out, straight out, no facades, no outs, and run aimlessly, perhaps recklessly, for it… and I don’t think we can always do so, but when we do, I think that is one of the greatest things in life.  Theirs this idea that failure is somehow bad, but … I wonder, to actively try and fail… is their anything more courageous? To embrace it?  Imagine how freeing that would be… to just BE.  And I don’t mean embracing something, like, say, insecurity or arrogance, so much so that either disappears…. but really wearing it on ones sleeve.  I say be insecure! I say fuck up!  I say lose!  Beauty is in the inconsistency, perfection in the imperfect…. every single thing and person I have ever loved in my life, thinking about it, I have never loved for what I thought I would love them for… its always been some almost ineffable quality… the good and the bad, with no division.

And what about what others think?  Understandably, their are people who prey on judging and treating others negatively, feasting on a certain false sense of importance that usually follows… and it would be naive of me to say, forget them! …because, after all, haven’t we all been in that situation, trying desperately to win over a critic, sometimes even at expense of a friend?  All I can say is, a person who is quick to judge, with no concept of negotiation, is, in fact, completely under control of the person they are judging…. they exist entirely reactively.  And then, sometimes people are just different – and thats okay.  Live and let live!  Embracing failure is realizing that I’m not going to be agreed with, I’m not going to be understood, but I’m gonna put myself out there anyway, and let be – the very magnificence lies in the risk.  In the end, we’re all dead, why not live the way we ought to?  

I think, in general, barring extraordinary circumstance, we choose to be happy.  One can either take charge or wait, take control or be controlled.    We have to ask ourselves which position we would rather be in…. for most, or at least for me, its an easy answer theoretically, but a very hard thing to follow through.  

Being the best person I can be, will only make the people I care for better… how can that ever be bad? The world is filled with fear and complacency, because fear begets fear….. how can I then, with good conscious,  give into my own fears of rejection?  I realize then that doing nothing is absolutely something! How can I be a part of that?   I think I would rather be ridiculed, than further such a cycle.

 Its funny, sometimes when I put effort into something, when I try hard, when I am passionate, people look at me strange – “don’t you have anything better to do?”  Shouldn’t it be the other way around!? its absurd – to apologize for caring, for trying.  Sometimes the world seems absolutely backwards.

anyway, gotta go, haha, not so short, huh? maybe sweet?  I think I repeated a lot of ideas I’ve talked about before, but whatever.  Luckily, I type like the wind.  Smile! Hope y’all have, had, or are having a beautiful day!

 

   

I don’t know what I’d do without the internet.

9 times out of 10 people will pick the shortcut, the fastest possible route – see the microwave, the car, the television, the supermarket, the airplane.  The internet.  That’s what technology is all about – convenience, speed.  I think we forget that sometimes the means is as important as the ends, and every step we sacrifice, I think, cheats us of something really worthwhile.  Theirs this concept that one somehow always gains by doing things faster, but a minute is a minute is a minute, nothing is really lost, only negotiated.  We are so bloated, blinded, by the result, we forget that their is magic in the journey.  People like to call the internet an “information pipeline,” and I find that quite fitting.  The thing gushes and flows, giving whatever you want, whenever you want.  

It’s ironic that a little bit of the spontaneity, the adventure, of the now is relinquished in the ever persistent search of it.  I sometimes wonder if all this searching, all this information, serves merely as a distraction; perhaps it is just subterfuge of the mind for the mind.  After all, we pick what link to follow, we choose what article to read.  Are we getting more intelligent?  Or more ignorant?  Are we honestly searching, or, in fact, digging our heels further and further into our own established beliefs with minor gives and evolutions?  After all, there is strength in numbers, and our confidence in ourselves can only be strengthened by similar confidences – to know that somebody else cries “yes!” to our yes is comforting, empowering.  Yet, similarity sometimes breeds only more similarity, we see this in our family, in our friends, and in our cultures. 

People will argue that the internet signals the proliferation of choice, but I don’t know if I agree.  I don’t know if I agree, because I think groups tend to, in the long run, assimilate one another; monopoly, in an ideological sense, is almost always inevitable, and the same runs true with ideas; an original thought is not an original thought, it is an accumulated one.  A “pipeline” implies a source, what happens when we centralize it?  Cultural tyranny?  In the long run, what happens when everything is shared? Dilution or saturation? What happens to choice?  What’s happenned already?  The choice between democrat and republican, socialist and capitalist,  hell, mac and pc, google and yahoo, hd dvd and blu-ray, lcd and plasma, Mcdonalds and Burger King, Telus and Rogers, CNN and BBC,  you have to ask yourself, are these really choices?  I know they are choices, relative to each other, but is that enough?  I’m honestly not sure.  And, in the face of the internet, this scares me.  This scares me because the world is becoming more connected, differences are fading.  I know their are positive to this, such as minimized racism, perhaps greater potential for sympathy, but their are also negatives, because difference is uniqueness. Difference is choice.  Then again, perhaps a little sameness is what this world needs.  I don’t know.