Be Here Now

As I was scrambling to clean my house, in the midst of collecting trash I stumbled upon an idea about perspective. Perspective is a funny thing. The more I cleaned, the more my attitude toward the condition of my apartment changed. Normally, I look past a bit of food on the counter or a browning banana, but for some reason I began to nitpick. Now, if you don’t know me, I tend to let things slide. This isn’t to mean that I am dirty or irresponsible, but rather, I work to go with the flow so to speak. But, I am proud to say that during my cleaning spree I was compelled to come write because I had this mini epiphany that I needed to pull from my head to my computer screen. Your attitude of all of life’s happenings, is directly connected to your perception of it. If you look for the beautiful, you’ll find yourself pressed against grass beds looking up in wonder. Or on the contrary, if you look for the cracks in the sidewalk, you’ll see more cracks. Now the ticket is not to simply look for the majestic, that’s not enough. And the idea of ignoring the corruption, destruction and disruption does not hold true either. The trick, my dear friends, is to take it all in and be amazed by it. Watch smokestacks like sunsets, and inject that emotion into something positive. If you are like me, and the idea of how we are destroying our planet pisses you off, then do what I do, and realize that if we as humans engineered something of that magnitude, than surely we can discover ways to responsibly and efficiently improve our society. It’s all about perspective. If you continue to search for roses in a garden, you’ll find them. And if you are looking for fallen petals, you’ll find them. Absorb everything but work toward quenching that thirst of wonder, and soon, you’ll have a garden brimming with vitality. 

So my tumblr got hacked with a bunch of naked pictures. That just goes to show that I have not been writing enough. So whoever hacked my tumblr, thanks for the inspiration to go on tumblr more and write and change my password. Regardless I needed to write down some thoughts I’ve been having for the sake of sifting the swirling thoughts out so that they can rest like sand on the bottom of a creek. 

I just re-read “On the Road,” by Jack Kerouac, and I can see why my 17 year old self fell in love with his ideas. I too want to know what the “IT” is and I’ve discovered that I’m constantly rediscovering it. It’s those moments where everything seems to shift into place and the planets align in your favor. Everything that could have happened did with that extra touch of spontaneity that is like Kerouac’s life on the road. It’s the nights where the stars seem to gaze down upon you and every step you take seems to be guided by the moon, pushing you along into the welcoming arms of a friend or the embrace of a midnight lover. 

I promised myself to carry around a notebook in my back pocket so that I can start recording my life, but its difficult because I don’t want to miss living it. It’s a battle I have with myself, because I engage in as much of life as I can to become inspired to write, but I write to swallow up and digest all that life has to offer. Either way, I am constantly writing, whether it be chicken scratch on a weathered notebook, late-night rants on tumblr or the plot of my everyday life. 

You want to forget, but you can’t, so stop trying. Stop teasing yourself. The cacophony of that car crash has silenced her. Crash, klunk, boom, death, gone. Move on.

For years you go through those stages. The stages where you spend the mornings frantically running trivial errands and working. The work you do is relentless. It’s so you can not think, but only focus on the plastic parts of toys you mindlessly assemble. You refuse to work on the dolls that seem to mock you. Their arms and legs remind you of her body, hanging limp outside the smashed drivers window. So you assemble trucks and airplanes without thought. Day after day. 

The grey assembly line relaxes you. You think of how it is all planned out, you know everything, all-powerful. You fancy yourself as a god. There is no unexpected for you. No accidents, no risks. Just grey content. 

You count down the seconds of the clock on the white wall in front of you, hoping time slows down. The work bell sends shivers down your spine, like that Jimmy Peterson linebacker from high school. And of course, football reminds you of her. The pom pons bursting in the air, illuminated by that smile. Fireworks. 

After the sting of the bell subsides, the other people in the factory filter out, and you talk with your only friend Alberto on the way to your empty home.You always walk slow, and Alberto knows this. He understands why you step so calmly, walking through a quicksand of loneliness.

“So how you doin’ amigo?” Alberto says in that voice; a spiciness that sends warmth, a brief feeling of comfort. 

“Fine.” You say. You bite your lip. What is wrong with me? You ask yourself. Fine? Speak man. Let it out. You scream inward. 

Alberto always shakes your hand once you reach your house.

“Buenos noches.” He says with that sympathetic smile. 

You put on a fake smile, thank him and spin around on your worn out heels and walk up your sidewalk. 

“Cada cual hace con su vida un papalote y lo echa a volar.” 

It means: we each make a kite of life and fly it as we will. But you don’t even process it. 

It’s just one of his Mexican sayings that he says every night to you. You have given up on your Spanish. It reminds you of her. Her Spanish was beautiful. That semester she volunteered in Columbia taught her well. It blew your mind when she got back. She took you salsa dancing. You still think about that red dress, and those legs. You fell in love with her again that night. 

Now, you spend your nights reading and drinking. It’s the best way to escape your reality of the house, where the floorboards scream her name, the table she picked out at IKEA that she needed to have and of course, her chair. You can’t bring your self to move or sell anything, even though you need the money. You spent most of it trying to save her. 

So you press yourself into the books, and soon the white russians lullaby you to sleep. 

You have been going through these stages, but you are slowly learning. Some of your Spanish is coming back. 

“El mal de amores duele, pero no mata.” Alberto says one night. 

Love sickness hurts but does not kill. You understand. 

You watch TV that night with only one glass of wine.  

There are a lot of things in which I don’t know. I have ideas, thoughts and emotions swirling around in my head and heart, but I realize that there is a lot I do not know. However, there are things that I do know with every ounce of me. I know I desire love. I want happiness. I want educational equity for all. I want to make human connection. I want adventure. I want to indulge in everything life has to offer and conquer all the obstacles along the way. I want the feeling you get waking up next to someone you love with the sun trickling in and not feeling like you need to get out of bed. I want the nights where you find yourself talking with the sunrise and the nights you discuss over breakfast. I want the moments that make you dance in the shower or smile at yourself in the mirror. I want to know more about myself and more about others. I know I want all of these things and I know that sometimes I may not know how to get there. But I think that my burning desire at the core of me will guide me there. I think that through learning from mistakes and truly improving upon my perceptions, I can truly know and be. Be the best man I can be. I know this because I couldn’t sleep without putting these thoughts down. I may not have all the answers but I have many questions I want to answer. I may not know what to do at moments but I know I will eventually. Sometimes I wonder if I question things too much, and that I should just let it be. But something within me won’t stop until the flame within me is calm, and I’m at peace. Until then, burn, burn, burn and never stop wanting to know how.

After a long day on my feet, I return to my beloved bench in Central Park and watch the people traffic rushing home, criss crossing like figure skaters etching their path into the cold cold surface of New York City. I’ve developed my people watching skills to its maximum capacity, and I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about passing faces by the way they walk. Some walk with ambition, lifting their feet up and down in a concrete kind of fashion while others seem to drag their feet, as if something is holding them back, a reluctant kind of quicksand. It’s interesting to people watch because its a temporary opportunity to imagine the life before and after that encounter. It means absolutely nothing to the walker, but to myself, pressed against the bench, it means everything. An old man with a beard of snow and a ponytail hugged by a Cowboy hat is stored into my mind, and I wonder where his boots will take him. What drives this man? Perhaps he has a wife named Deborah waiting for him at home, and she is cooking him his favorite Chili recipe, the kind his mom used to make. Or perhaps due to his age his wife has passed and her memory is ingrained into his 3rd story apartment. A woman dressed in what appears to be a gaggle of dead flamingo, or most likely, a tacky pink jumpsuit with Juicy on her non-Juicy ass passes by. Rhonda, I log her in to my collection of characters, huddled closely next to the Western Santa Claus. A Chihuahua is pressed between her sagging boob and flabby arm, vibrating uncontrollably, suspended into the air as she struts forward away from my sight. I continue to collect all the people rushing to get somewhere or running away from themselves, forever ignoring my presence.  Ker-plunk. A little boy with an oversized New York Yankees smiles at me and runs back to his Dad, the obvious owner of the hat. I look down at the open can clutched by the hands imprinted with dirt and grime. The sun begins to set, the characters slowly fade, and I pick up my feet, only to swing them around and rest my head against my bench. 

The place of wisdom, is the place of love. 

That ice cream cone twist of knowledge

that melt between the cracks of experience. 

Life.

Life gives shelter to love.

It nourishes it. 

It transforms every one of us

into a philosopher,  

an optimistic thought juggler.

Like me.

Love compels me to write.

It thrusts the words from my entirety.

She welcomes love.

The one who entered life with the

arrive fashionably early attitude.

The one who could not wait

to take the first step

to find a voice

to bring luck for all

to live.

Love, at times, may create confusion.

The greatest wonders usually do.

But it forces us to become

us, me, you.

Today I was on my way back from the Red Cedar River, with music pulsating in my ears, when a white van passed by, with a white man driving, with a white outfit and white hat. There seemed to be no radio bumping in the car, so I wondered if he was lost in his thoughts as I was. Before that white van, I had never known of his existence. 19 years of my life, all those memories, and I had never fathomed that the guy with the white hat existed. Never thought about his name. Never considered what kind of music he liked or where’d he’d been. But poof, there he was, and I would most likely never to see him again. Pushed back into my mind as just another social happening. The norm. But that guy, the unknown man had a name. Maybe it was a Jeff. Or maybe he was from the Netherlands and he had traveled to find a summer love and to chase the “American Dream,” but had gotten lost on his way. Now he was just trying to make ends meet, dreaming about her hair blowing in the wind or the way she smiled as he gazed out the windshield. Or maybe he was thinking about that burrito he had just eaten from taco bell before his final delivery. Sometimes you recognize these people in life. Most of the time, you don’t. You’ve just met THE only person alive who was that guy with the white hat and the dimly lit van, driving in the darkness in East Lansing, MI near Snyder Phillips. Who happened to wave to the tall young man with ear buds stepping to the beat because he felt generous while thinking about his lover’s crazy antics and how the smell of honeysuckle reminded him of home. It was one moment, that won’t ever happen again. The 1,6,840,507,003th chance to meet that human being. Perhaps you’d see him again, but you wouldn’t notice. Eventually Steve or whoever, would fade. My advice, just recognize those improbable chances of meeting that person, think about what their thinking about, even if its, “Fuck, I really want to stop driving this van and go home and sleep.” I feel that it would ignite a better recognition of the importance of “us,” or at the very least, make you happy. The fact that we are all human and have that ability to be conscious of each other’s existence is a powerful thing. It helps us realize that we aren’t the only ones going throughout life. It’s ups and downs. The laugh and tears you dish out. You feel like you are part of something VAST, like the night sky. And each person is spread out for everyone to gaze upon.  Just a thought. 

My grandpa died when I was six. I was too young to know the ramifications of death. Too little to understand that I would never see my grandpa again. The only thing I can remember is the tears of my mom. Now, when I think about my grandpa I can only visualize the weeping willow that sways gently over the calm pond. There is no specific reason why, but it seems as if when he passed away the tree swallowed his soul whole. Now, the cancer is no longer of pigments of skin, but of the chlorophyll of the leaves. And his liveliness courses through the veins of the slender blades of green. People say, “that’s a beautiful weeping willow,” but all I see is my grandpa, infused into the towering tree. When the wind blows, it’s as if he is waving to me, saying, “hello grandson.” But I can only remember what his voice actually sounded like before it was captured by the willow. Memories have the ability to place themselves into reality. You can either accept that and appreciate it or attempt to lock those memories away. For me, I will continue to enjoy my grandpa’s company, sitting in the shade of his loving embrace.

We come into this world as a stranger. We knew nothing. We had not yet to even begin thinking about the life that would unfold for us shortly after our first breath. Our first inhale. Sucking in life itself. We don’t know where we will take our first step. How that first kiss is going to tingle. When our Dad hand’s us a beer and says, “im proud of you son.” In fact, you don’t even know who your father is, even your mother who brought you into the world you are now breathing in. We don’t even think about death, which was at our doorstep around 9 months ago. As if waving goodbye and that he will visit soon. You just forget when because you are too engulfed into this wonderful unknown. We have just entered into existence, and we immediately lose the feeling of not-existing. We are alive, and the world is ours. Yet as life molds us, we lose that feeling. We don’t have that beautiful wonder. We lose the moment. Now escapes. Then, eventually we grow old and we can see death walking up the sidewalk to our porch. A porch where we sit looking over a book of memories, lessons…and it clicks. You look at the compassion in all the dialogue you’ve engaged in, the adventurous stories and the hyperbole of love. You see the imagery of your father’s face, the way your lover smiles, your best friends laugh. You welcome death with open arms, for all good books must end. You close your life, and it is forever stored in the mass collection of individually written stories. Some who are still alive, may read through your story. With tears, with happiness, and with appreciation. Until that day they realize the value in the words that you write each day. We leave the world with everything. Knowledge, love, faces, songs stuck in our heads. We leave life. The life we have written. Everyone has the power of writing. The ability to formulate the outcome. Your hand may cramp at times, but shake it off and fill up that canvas. I can choose what word I want to convey my message. Not only in these words you read now, but in my life. Choose your words with love. And appreciate the stories you create. 

Imagine this situation. You are stumbling back from a party, or perhaps walking back from a friend’s house after spending the night, or even complaining about an exam you just took when you briefly look up to see a water bottle. One plastic water bottle in a bed of grass. An abnormal growth in nature. Your instincts say, pick it up and just walk it back to a nearby trash can or maybe even a recycle bin. But you stop. Because what’s the point? How can the single action of you picking up that water bottle worth it? It’s the individual responsibility vs the social viewpoint on change. This occurs in the majority of controversial topics. Why eat less meat? Why donate money to a charity? Why pick up that water bottle? And it is difficult to convince someone who does not think an individual action can make a difference. I would always debate that you either submit and participate in the problem, or you make a difference and lessen the problem. But nobody is convinced by that. So I thought of an analogy. Imagine if change is a seed and for each droplet of water is an action by an individual. Alone that individual would do nothing. But with many, it could produce life to change. And even if that droplet stands alone, it is still the beginning of the growth process. And like raindrops falling on a seed, absorbing into the soil, that individual action can grow into a significant change. WIth one rain drop, it could inspire a prosperous outcome. Similarly, like a seed, change has no exact rate of growth. Various factors could influence the progress of its blooming. So don’t think that it’s hopeless to do something. Be the sun ray, single rain drop, or nutrient in the soil that begin something. Because if nobody were to do a single thing the chance would shrivel up and die. So just begin the process. Hopefully that will inspire continuous showers from the people that come into contact with you. Everything has potential to turn into something beautiful.

Life is filled with simplicities.
A sky consists of air
A flowing river cries droplets
Yet we overlook each, we hardly care.

Life is filled with complexities.
Of things we have yet to know.
The universe is vast and grand
Yet but our awe is gone, no.

We live in some middle ground
Lost within routine
But if you gaze up or down
You’ll begin to see the unseen.

Oh look. A star. The abyss
The grass beneath your feet
The simple smile of a friend
Wow. The love your eyes meet.

The beauty is all around us
In the mystery and the known.
Each second is a stitch
Into the life we all will sew.

So currently I am doing research on the Educational Industrial Complex and the Capitalistic Degradation of Social Intelligence. Yeah.. its a mouthful. But I got distracted and had sort of a rant that turned into a speech I would ever give if I was blessed with thousands of dollars so that I could run for president.. 

In order to revolutionize the United States, we must be humble. We are only a reflection of our people. I for one am not perfect. Nobody is. But we must strive to be. We must reflect the logical and intellectual thoughts of our people. Grasp the goodness from every human being. Collaborate. Learn from failure. And give and take. Man may not be perfect, but the accumulation of mankind’s best can achieve wonders. But we must be humble. We must realize that none of us our perfect, and we must continually self-analyze, question and utilize the spark of perfection within each individual to ignite the ambitious fire. That is what a government should consist of, real people. People who care more about the green of our environment than the money in their pockets. People who care more about books than bullets. People who care more about peace than power. People who care more about true progress rather than capitalistic expansion. People who know they are not perfect but continually strive to be. 

To travel. To take a step, a journey. It’s that sense of inner and outer discovery. It’s sort of a paradox, the more you travel outward, the more you find yourself wandering inward. Each step you take forward, seems to bounce right back. It’s a give and take relationship, the way I look at it. You take a risk. You dive into an unknown feeling. You put yourself out there. And you see the local compassion or frightening unfamiliarity. Perhaps you fall in love, or perhaps its a young adventure, but those memories remain, and you keep traveling inward and outward. 

I recently purchased the book, The Element, by Sir Ken Robinson, and first off, I would like to say he is one of my heroes. Secondly, I have been dancing back and forth between the idea of intelligence. There are so many different forms of intelligence that simply cannot be measured. The IQ scale is severely inefficient in measuring forms of intelligence such as musical, kinesthetic, inter-personal and intra-personal. Add creative and practical knowledge to that list and your brain starts to spin. My goal is to illuminate the different forms of intelligence by trying new things, picking up an instrument, learning languages, and thinking. I’m in search of my element, and I’m definitely on my way, but I want to find that niche. That glowing ember that transforms hours into seconds and difficult tasks into simple pleasures. But I know that I’m on the right path, because I’m searching. I highly suggest you look at some of Ken Robinson’s novels and TED talks. 

I miss the independence of brazil. The cultural freedom of truly indulging upon the world around you. The clubs. The music. The city lights. The adventures. The drunk taxi rides. But yet, I know that you have adventures in the states. It’s just like im constantly in two places. Switching between two identities. It’s a beautiful thing yet hard to put to words so it’s a delicate matter. It’s transcendental in a way but somehow also brings me in touch with reality. It’s like a mind fuck with an orgasm.

Although time is constructed by man alone, and a “new year” holds no meaning, I’ve had such a great New Year’s. New Year’s allows the window of the world  to shine in upon you and illuminate appreciation and celebration of life inside of you. Firstly, my new year’s goal was to work out more, write more, learn more, improve as a person etc. but I realize that my resolution to treat each and every day like New Year’s. I reflect on all my past moments, while celebrating the present and looking forward to the future. That is how you should live life. To drunkenly text your friends scattered across the world, just to tell them you love them. To stare yourself in the mirror so that you can transport back to another you, at another time, in another place. To plot your ambitions. And you do this simultaneously. If you were to work toward treating each day as a New Year, there would never be an end or beginning, just a continuous journey of wisdom, pleasure and eagerness. Here is to the first step on that journey. Happy who cares what year or what time. Let’s enjoy life. 

So many things that are wrong with the world, and I will NOT submit to it. I don’t care if the world fights back and hurts my financial and social position. I will change the world for the better. No longer will teachers be less respected than doctors who just give drugs to patients without even speaking a word of sincerity. I want to change the way people think..

The following is a free write induced by mass amounts of coffee and unhealthy amounts of statistics. I am finding it more difficult to concentrate as the sun sets. Slowly as it goes to sleep, so does my concentration, awakening the dreams inside me. I can’t help but look out the window and think. I want to capture that feeling everyone feels but can’t describe. The sun hitting the tops of buildings, creating a gradient of warmth, as the darkness slowly creeps up from the cold ground toward the sky. The rushing waters of the Red Cedar, continuously flowing without stoppage. I want my mind to be like that river when I write, naturally flowing and slowly working away at a goal. For the river it’s to continue on pushing, and for me, its to finish this screenplay I’ve started. It’s slowly eroding away until it creates the beautiful sediment that settles and takes rest for eternity. I want to finish this so that it will always remain. 

For a writing excercise I was asked to tell an observational story/narrative with using only I, Me and My twice. I chose to use I twice. Here is what I wrote:

Here I am. Surrounded by the cold concrete walls, blocking out the even chillier weather. The humidity from coffee cups match that of the rain, pitter patting on the roof above. A fire blazes in a corner, contributing to the lights that shine down upon us. Four known friends and many friends yet to be known gather in Wanderers. Lost in their thoughts they digest information and wash it down with hot tea. “Not all who wander are lost,” the sign outside reads, epitomizing the wandering minds of every individual in the teahouse. Angie’s fingers play hopscotch on her keyboard while Marirose artistically draws out each word with a pencil. All wander to distant places within themselves. Alex’s feet rest upon a map of the world, as she ponders about the approaching future. A National Geographic magazine rests delicately to the left of her feet, with a picture of The Tuscan City of Italy. Two girl’s converse with one another to Marirose’s right, one is dressed in blue while the other is snug in a sweatshirt. They are friend’s of Marirose, yet she is lost in thought, still in the same physical state as before, but a journey has occurred. Her thoughts have allowed her to travel distances. Perhaps to the posters on her right, to the busy streets of New York or underneath Big Ben in London. A man sits next to a model ship, traveling upon the seas of his paper while his earbuds pump out music producing a storm of even more complex ideas. The clanking of used dishes interrupts the thought process of Noelle, as her gaze leaves the words on her computer screen to the other room. Michael enters the scene, sparking past thoughts of college and future wishes of graduate school. Thoughts continue to swirl and flicker like the fireplace. The final period is about to be placed but it will not end this narrative. It’s a continual story, self-perpetuating, self-invigorating and self-fulfilling. Here I am. 

In a writer’s workshop I was asked to connect two objects and create a story from them. Luckily, in the scatter of the objects I stumbled upon a card and an essay. The following is what I created:

Words can transport you from any time and any place, for words are immortal. Words, although they have structure, do not crumble like skyscrapers. Although words can be concluded with a form of punctuation such as a period or perhaps an exclamation, the imprint of these words prior last forever. 

Two objects lay on the wooden table. “Merry Christmas Granddaughter,” a scarlet card reads, speckled with snowflakes and christmas ornaments. “Love, Granny,” is signed on the blank canvas inside the card. Resting gently beneath is a lined paper, written with the hands of a growing woman. The description further pushes our perspective further into the past, as a five year old girl illustrates the dollhouse given to her by her father. 

Putting the card and the descriptive essay side by side, a clear definition between time is drawn on the wooden table. The essay is slightly yellow with slight rips on the side,while the card’s glossy surface is perfectly printed with an “American Greetings” logo.

To my left I see three generations into the past, and I can smell the aroma of egg nog in the air and can feel the cool breeze sneaking into the old home, underneath the wreath decorated door. To my right, I see the best wishes from a Grandmother to her Granddaughter. 

To the left it reads, “the older I get the more I can appreciate the time and effort that went into this venture - the many nights that he worked secretly in the basement to make that Christmas one of my most memorable.” The venture being that of the father, who built a gift from scratch for his daughter. The words capture that gratitude of her father, immune to the influence of time. To the right it reads, “just like I’ll always feel lucky you’re my granddaughter,” a proclamation of appreciation from a Grandmother to her granddaughter. 

Looking further, the “y” in the signature on the card seems to be identical to that of the “y” in “lucky” and even the “y” in “you’re”. The little girl on Christmas morning who discovered the handcrafted dollhouse is the Grandmother writing to her Granddaughter. It’s funny how words can take you on a journey through generations, and they continue to do so. 

No matter the type of paper, no matter the print, words are impervious to time. People inject their feelings, their thoughts and themselves into the words they create to form a fluid sentence. Placing that punctuation or dotting that “i” locks away that thought in time for eternity. Memories may fade and people may die, but their essence resides in the words they have left behind. 

I’ve become consumed by my screenplay. Often, I find myself looking up at the sky and see metaphors floating by. As the snow falls to the ground I envision the symbolism, while the sun melts the figurative language into the welcoming ground of plot. The reality I have been creating in my mind has been thrust from the pages and intertwined with mine. 

That is why I think writing is so strenuous and time consuming. For although it is one general idea, that concept grows and flourishes and spreads throughout your mind. One moment you give birth to your characters, the next you are creating the grass beneath their feet. You must know how they interact, their expressions and their dialect. You start contributing those smiles from your friends and the lips of your lover to your characters. 

The story continues to borrow all that you have experienced, and soon the world that you imagined springs from imagination. 

If there were a God or gods, perhaps this is how they felt. Consumed by their own creation. 

But I need to keep writing. To finish this living thing I’ve given birth to. For all good things must end.

Just had a winter adventure where my mind was blown by the cinema of winter and zachary salaysay. Many thoughts, many revelations, and many experiences, but I’m still in the daze of the moment, so I will write later about my thought process. 

i haven’t submitted to my tumblr in a while, but that does not mean i haven’t written my thoughts down. they are stored deep in my subconscious, and now they are finally flowing through my fingertips and bouncing off the keyboard. a lot has happened. i’ve been going through sort of an existentialist period, and although it’s been frustrating, its a relief. for a while i thought i had lost that inner drive of questions and that continuation of the journey. i just re-read the solitaire mystery, which allowed me to take a glance back at myself in the past when i was in brazil, sitting on my balcony, looking over the city of millions of people, completely alone. i realize how that book shaped me. also, i’ve been considering and re-considering my major, english or media and information, what i want to do with my life etc. and i keep dancing around in my head. for example, after skyping my good friend lewis i jumped back to my previous mind set and as i rode my back at 2 in the morning back to the dorm, i was alone. but i felt free. it was relaxing to be what seemed the only human being awake. of course, there were some people still scurrying about, but i felt like i owned the road. and as i listened to bands like as tall as lions, balance problems and lupe fiasco, the sky came alive. like a moving picture of my thoughts. oh, its 6 am in the morning so a lot of this is cracked out thoughts, but i needed to write. i miss it. i need to start writing every day. i have to. the more i write, the more i improve. and also, it will allow me to look at myself on tumblr, and i need that. i keep asking myself the question, how am i not myself? i’ve been wanting to get a tattoo for a while now, and i think its about that time. i have a beautiful idea and i want to start planning for that. i need a job, but fuck money, you know? it’s difficult because what i want to do with my life is to help people. to change the world. i want to die knowing i came into the world and changed it for the better. that’s my goal. and i’ve been searching on how to discover that. and i realize more and more that it’s just my daily actions that make the biggest impact but the whole money scenario is making me consider my job and i do not like it. if i could simply survive, have shelter, food, water, and money to just travel and help people, i’d be set. i was watching the human life today and it’s just so absolutely incredible the diverse lives people live. i wonder what it would be like if i lived on the mountains, slept outside and just went from day to day to simply survive. the sun would be brighter i feel like and the sky would hold a lot more meaning. but no matter where i go, no matter what life throws up at me, i’m always going to look up to the sky. and i’m always going to keep looking. deeper and deeper. now. off to dreamland. 

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” - Bob Marley.

I’ve been looking up Bob Marley quotes a lot today. And it wasn’t just because I had free time, but because I was investigating the social and economic aspects of Jamaica, and I needed to analyze a performance that three of my fellow classmates and I created. We debated on the symbolism and themes of the lyrics, while discussing the dynamics of the instrumentation, all the while incorporating the ideas of Reggae, and thus the social and economic problems of that time. You can learn in more ways than being lectured to. It is refreshing to the brain to be able to learn something you are passionate about, and in fact, that is how you should always learn. You should find a lesson in everything, and grow with that. But the reason why I chose this quote among all the poetically powerful sayings of the wise Bob Marley is because of a memory I had. I had just gotten out of the dream, and it was pouring outside. I strapped up my headphones, and walked all the way back to my dorm. And I remember just feeling the rain against my skin. Actually feeling it. While everyone around me was rushing to get out. To escape the moment. To escape life. Or at least that is what it felt like. Of course you want to be nice and dry in the security of your room, but next time it pours, just feel the rain. You’ll be surprised the warmth you can feel when you get “wet.” Refuse to get wet. I mean, if you were to live your life like when you were a kid or if you were just born, rain would be something amazing. You would observe it. Feel it drip down your neck. Feel your hair, and look up at the sky and see all these water drops falling from space. Its quite fascinating if you think about it. If you can force yourself to do that, and live the rest of your life, no storm could bring you down. Let the change in your atmosphere flow through you, and leave a footprint on your heart. You’ll be surprised what it can do for you. 

I have not tumbled in a while, or at least written on tumblr. I’ve tumbled. I’ve been thinking myself into a summersault of self-analysis. College can do that to you. Life can do that to you. So I just want to take the moment to recap some things I’ve been thinking about. (I don’t know if anyone ever actually reads this, but I hope to look back on this one day and stare at the reflection of myself through this blog, so until then…) 

I’ve been catching myself thinking about the direction my life is headed. But I want my life to be a period. Not an arrow, but a period.    . < thats it. A dot. A continuous point of the now. WIth an infinite amount of directions. No arrow propelling me forward, but a period. Life. That’s it. The end. No end. No beginning. Just now. And so I’ve been working on making my life a period. But I find myself constructing exclamation points !!!!!! and questions to the major riddles ???????. Like, I have so much stuff to do!!!! Cuipo! Screenplay! School! Shortform! RCAHive! Red Cedar Log! Just a lot of exclamations. And questions keep popping up, curving my understanding of the exclamations. How can I influence people to help save the rainforest? How should I portray this character? What should this paper be focused on? What video should I post? What? Why? How? When? But then again, I return to the period. Calm. All knowing. The it punctuation. That needle head in the sky of white. A period is an accomplishment. It’s the end of a sentence and the beginning. The death of a thought and the birth of a new one. And with a period, I can terminate the direction of anything and refocus it. But somehow its all connected. The minuscule prick of black, just like the earth in the vast universe.  PERIOD .

And you can tell that it is late. I have been not wanting to sleep lately. Time is another thing on my mind. Time slipping away. The perception of time. What is time? All that jazz. I mean, we essentially created the measurement of time, but time is just a progression of change. Time is change. May it be through gaining knowledge, or losing cells in your body through aging. Time is like sand. Not sand in an hour glass but in the palm of your hand, and if you hold onto it tightly it will slip through your fingertips, but if you just let it be, time will trickle away naturally. But at the same time, if you grasp it and allow the gaps in your fingers to sift out time as it may, and appreciate it, then you can feel the warmth of the fragments of time against your skin.

And again I digress. I write for the sake of writing. For the sake of understanding. So I apologize if my thoughts are out there, but to be honest, usually my mind takes vacations and ponders and comes back with a million questions and snapshots of the trip it took. 

I love to write. Even if its cracked out writing. Because I mean, I am just throwing my words onto the page. Letting my fingers play hopscotch on the keyboards. Injecting my thoughts into the tumblr.

Tumbling and tumbling…

“eternity will smile on me.” - Typhoon. Listening to Typhoon right now. Good band, I suggest you check them out.

Disorganized thoughts right now, and I’m loving it. 

Good Night.