"Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risks."

So much of my existence is consumed in being an American. When I travel, I don't feel so much as an American but more of a human. A human who shares things with other humans, no matter where they reside on the earth, even if it's only breathing, eating and sleeping. We are all the same species and we are all here to do basically one thing: to live. To survive in our surroundings.
As an American, I am blessed because surviving can be summed up in the avoidance of 5:00 traffic. Think about the people who cannot leave their homes, who have no homes for that matter. Surviving and living are two very different things in those circumstances. And this is 2/3 of the world. 2/3 of the world is not as lucky as me or my many American neighbors. 2/3 of the world lives in extreme poverty without food, shelter, peace. 2/3 of the world has no concept of the life I lead, or that a life like mine is even real.
The Internet and television has changed this in countries with communism. We have learned this from the iron curtain, from history in general. People living on one side see how others live on the other side and want that same life, or at least the chance at it.

In a way, we really are just animals. Animal Farm style. Survive anyway you can. No matter what it takes.

Evolution

When we finally die, and if there really is a heaven, I hope before you pass through the pearly gates a "passing on packet/manual" is handed-out to all newcomers with an explanation of how the universe was really created.

And no one could argue. Because it would be signed with God's signature, or lightening bolt, or moon rock from a moon orbiting Jupitor or whatever.

I'm curious. Real curious. Maybe more so than anything else in my life.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

"Two tall skinny men from Illinois have made a difference in American history: Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama." 

Barack H. Obama- President Elect. 

Barack H. Obama- the 44th President of the United States of America.

This is our victory. The people of America's victory. 

the west

When I was in New Mexico, I watched the earth change everyday. It was the first time in my entire life when I had consecutive days to enjoy the season of Fall. Fall is an incredible time of year, because nothing stays the same from wind storm to wind storm. What leaves were stuck like glue to branches are forgotten about as winds carelessly rip them apart.

      In the West, temperatures are never consistent. What was blooming one day will die the next day in an overnight freeze. Branches blow and leaves retreat. Green, soft and flowing grasses become yellow strands of straw. And everyday, while in New Mexico, I was lucky enough to notice this change. To notice enough the change that happened from day-to-day. 

    I wrote to Tate and told him how I didn't understand why and how people can be so afraid of change when it happens so regularly and beautifully in nature. But then I remembered how this was the first time in my life I was lucky enough to enjoy Fall everyday, to see the small changes that mostly go unnoticed.  People don't take the time to see the small changes, they just seem to care when it goes from Summer to Fall to Winter to Spring, and nothing in between. It's like we expect the big changes and are annoyed by them, but the small day-to-day changes- we will never have time for.

      I thought to myself, in an idealistic way, how we should all take two weeks of our lives to come to New Mexico in September/October to watch the leaves change colors. How a valley can be the same valley no matter the season, unless you let it be more. The same valley can change everyday.

      When I was in New Mexico, I watched the earth change everyday. Every single day, the earth changed.

friends are friends until they're gone.

The way it works is sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. I wish they're was a way to see into the future, to understand why things happen or don't happen the way they do.

Pat Flynn. It's been over a month since he's taken his own life. I wonder what he's doing. If his spirit is roaming the earth watching over his loved ones he left behind. Or maybe he's somebody else now, his spirit traveled somewhere else and is brand new again in the form of a newborn.  it makes me wonder if that is true, if his new self will kill his new self 24 years down the road.

Is that how it works? Some people just aren't meant to live for very long. Some of us go early, not by choice, and others of us go to our own regret- every single time they're on the earth.

When somebody kills themselves with a gun it seems so much more serious to me. Like they themselves wanted it to be that much more serious to everyone else. When somebody kills themselves with a gun it's not pretend. There are no second chances the way it can be with pills or slashing your wrists. A gun is instantaneous and the truest kind of lethal. That's it, no time for rehab or therapy. This was my choice and now everyone else has to deal.

I feel broken-hearted and helpless for people who choose suicide. the way all the living feels when it happens. it makes me want to call Pat's Mom and tell her it's not her fault. Call everyone Pat ever knew and tell them it's not their fault. 

I wonder if because I'm writing and thinking about him, his spirit can sense it and is next to me now. Reading over my shoulder, disagreeing with everything I think. If once you die, your spirit grows exponentially- being everywhere at once, with every person who could ever hope to think of you no matter they're location.

Heaven's always seemed like a selfish place to me. Why should we need an afterlife if we lived the best we knew how during our living life? Shouldn't this life be enough? I wonder if I'd still think that if I wasn't American.  

   Until now, heaven's always seemed selfish- something people make up to make themselves feel good about dying. What's so bad about dying if you know you did your best and made the most of it while you were alive? But there are those who didn't. There are those like Pat Flynn who I hope are in heaven. Who deserve heaven. And who deserve to wait for their family to be back together. I hope heaven exists, if nothing else for that reason.

    

I wonder when you die if someone comes to you and gives you a list of options and tells you to pick. Like buying a new car, sort of.  They show you a list of all possible options for your soul and body: heaven, reincarnation, becoming an angel, rotting in your grave etc.  And if you were a good person, your reward is to pick. You get to choose what happens to you. I wonder if you're lucky enough to pick more than one. Like: I want my body to chill out in this casket and eventually become part of the earth, and I want my soul to be shuffled on to the next life.  Just like a car. We're really just like a car that's able to upgrade.

Man and it's inventions. When I'm 90 I will re-write this and I'm sure it will be much more eloquent and appropriate.  Although, I hope to never be too appropriate. Life is full of those who are too appropriate. I'll let them worry about it.

how fitting...

my horoscope for today reads:

       It's time for you to get some new adventures cooking -- make some travel plans.

In three day, I'll leave for Montana to be a cook for Remi. 

What makes my life is the randomness, and sharing it with those I love.

sometimes you're supposed to be alone. but other times you're not. you're really just not.


love, love, love. because when things are said in threes 1) you really mean it 2)it has a greater chance of coming true.



I am a builder. I am a believer. I believe in the good that exists in everything- in me, in you, in life and lust and happiness and hardships and downfalls and everything in between.

For me, it's about trying. Everyday I wake up and want to try at something. It doesn't matter what, as long as it's something. The Peace Corps is my chance to try to help the universe, help myself become better, help people in the world at anything. My life's mission is not to live just for me. Micah asked me if I'm still a people pleaser. And yes I am. I am proud of myself and I love myself, but I live to make people happy. I live to help others in anyway I can. Sometimes it's stupid, naive and in vein. But when it pays off, there is no feeling better.

wisdom (in the trees, not the glass windows)

From the Buddah:
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

From Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls):
... and his mind now as quiet, empty-calm and sharp, cold-seeing as a man is after he has had sexual intercourse with a woman that he does not love.

From Sandra Boynton:
I love what you are. I love what you do.

growth

my love for you is like a mustard seed.

it started as a seed and turned into a tree.

life outside of the mall

is good. it's great. it's slow but goes fast, like sleeping in past 10 am. it's fast but creeps along, like sitting on a beach all afternoon. it's me on the road driving toward someone I love. Him. he's there and he's waiting for me to get there too. for me to catch up. "Quit your job tomorrow and come here this week."

I just finished Into the Wild. What interests me most is the physco-analysis of Chris McCandless. He has been turned into something he's not. Part of me hopes when he was dying in Alaska, he thought of his family. Thought of his family and was sorry for being so selfish. I appreciate his need to get out. I appreciate his want to disinfect himself of society. But the total withdrawl from his family gets me. His father was a cheat, a coward and a cheat. But he loved him. The author goes to great lengths to explain how complex relationships with fathers determine a child's life path. I agree. But Chris's father had love, a little too much love at times. But he loved.

Chris McCandless had to rewrite his life and himself as a person because he stopped trusting his father, and he stopped trusting himself as a person because he was raised by his father. The need to prove themselves. He died in 1992, but that need to prove himself is so alive and well in my generation.

the outside of the mall is filled with Chris McCandless and others like him. To proud to see self-improvement, to insecure to go home.

cheeseburgers

"If you want to talk about experience, look at George Bush. He doesn't even have experience in making a cheeseburger."

-My Baba, making it all relative.

the good news about the internet

"When the heart really wants something, all the universe will conspire with you."

Oh my dear CandaNce Myers. The internet is good for a few things. Random emails from friends is one of them. Candace is in Arizona. She is an amazing person. Full of life, knowledge and love. What's more is all of those things about her keep growing. She's like a watermelon seed, starting off minuature, only to grow, shape, gain. Amazing thing the process of watermelon growth.

When I'm bitter- just remind me.
When I'm angry- just remind me.
When I'm hungry-just remind me.
When I'm lonely- just remind me.
When I'm sad-just remind me.
When I'm neglectful- just remind me.
When I'm vengeful-just remind me.
When I'm grouchy-just remind me.
When I'm one-sided-just remind me.
When I'm narrow-just remind me.

Remind me of the luck I have. How my luck is real and not based on anything like luck. Remind me of the lessons I've learned, the lessons I've taught, the lessons I'll learn, the lessons I'll teach. Remind me that Candace is right...When the heart really wants something, all the universe will conspire with you.

same breakfast everyday

Come back here so I can make sense again.

To know yourself as one person by yourself and as another with someone else. Life is not a journey meant for one.

It's a fake, a facade, the way it works is you fake it till you make it. Whether you're buy yourself or lucky enough to get text messages.

It's funny to me how technology really changes things. A modern story filled with modern things. When people look back on this time in history... I think about history books elementary and middle school kids are reading. I remember reading a history/social studies book in 7th grade that had a picture of Bill Clinton beating George Bush in 1992 and discussing his second term in office. I remember thinking how cool it was to read such an up-to-date book. I wonder what history books say now about our time. The War? Bush W.? The influence of iPhone? Is Barack Obama in standard modern history books as the first black candidate? heck yes he is. We live in a post-modern world. What is hip today doesn't stand a chance tomorrow.

My boss, she knows exactly who she's voting for "and he better win or I just.... "(she couldn't finish her sentence). She is an immigrant from Greece in her mid 70s. She is voting for John McCain. I have no idea why.

The problem I see with most people is not that they are uneducated or do not want to know what's happening in our world. It is that they fear change so deeply. They wake up and drink coffee and eat their multi-grain bagel (because wheat is healthier than white) go to work, come home, eat dinner with the family, sleep, repeat. Everyday the same things annoy and make them angry, not because it actually annoys them or makes them angry EVERYDAY, but because one day it did, and now they are creatures of habit. One day something pissed them off and so everyday after that they have to pissed at that same thing.

How exhausting.

This is what I see in my boss and her daughter. Fear of Change. It's much deeper then eating the same breakfast everyday.

Mark Twain

I decided today I am in love with Mark Twain. Simple as love is when it's real. Some quotes which inspire my life:

"Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

"I learned long ago never to say the obvious thing, but leave the obvious thing to commonplace and inexperienced people to say."

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambition. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, can become great too."

"All you need is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure."

"Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company."