When It's Silent Enough to Listen

For some reason, Sunday nights make me emotional.


There's nothing specific about the day itself, but the situation I commonly find myself in during these late hours at the end of the weekend just does something to me. Possibly because it's a combination of sadness that the weekend is over and bittersweet nostalgia brought on by being alone with my thoughts (and a glass of wine).


So tonight I find myself sitting at home spreading my attention between writing a blog post, doing my resume, and watching How I Met Your Mother.  (one of my favorite shows ever, BTW)


I've always had a disposition founded on a sense of emotionality that is very sensitive yet strong.
I commonly get teary-eyed at the stupidest of things, but I also very easily can keep my composure in the saddest and most intense of situations. And tonight, alone on my couch, I ponder my life and future with such deep conviction that my eyes well up with every passing keystroke and sip of wine.


My optimism is not lost.
My mood - only briefly low.
But right now - at least for tonight - I welcome my heart back to center stage and open my mind to hear all it has to share.


It tells me I love life.
It tells me I love children.
It tells me I adore all the beautiful people I'm so fortunate enough to have close to me.
It tells me that I've been far from perfect in all my living years, yet the pain of regret and consequence is one best embraced and learned from.


Of all it tells me, I listen most to what it says of my future.
For though there is no set path to finding all my heart desires, it knows the direction I must travel and helps guide me along the way. 


This allows me to know that as long I continue to keep my mind's ear close to my heart, my road to happiness will be one I will have no trouble following.

Another Year Older, Another Year Wiser

Yup.  Tuesday was just another one.

Another one of those days when US law requires I add 1 to the count of the number of years since my birth.

That date when the futile human desire to keep track of time combines with our idiotic yearning to quantify our lives.

You can deny the significance of the number all you want, but it's effect will not diminish.

The big X0 birthdays may carry more significance, but all the ones in between still seem like creaky, old, wooden steps in our staircase to each milestone.

Much more important than dwelling on your numerical age, is contemplating how much wisdom you've gathered up until this point.  Becoming smarter through experience is not always correlative to someone's age or level of maturity.  In fact, wisdom is more a question of character and will power.

There's many lessons to learn from in life, but what will you do with the knowledge you obtain when you've completed those lessons?

The industry of "self help" guides and motivational speakers and books is so huge because people are too focused on petty, meaningless issues and commonly fail to fully utilize the knowledge they get from life just by living it.

Learning a lesson and becoming smarter and wiser from the experience means absolutely nothing when no action is taken upon that enlightenment.

You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.
~Tony Robbins

Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action, converts adversity into prosperity.
~Abdul Kalam 

One of the most poignant examples of enlightenment gained through life experience is someone saying,

"If I only knew then what I know now."

Well if we could go back in time and educate ourselves, how would you convince your past self to act on the knowledge you're now imparting on them?  

Will only the shock of seeing yourself make them realize it's their duty to follow the guidance you've given them?

Every lesson learned in life, every test failed or relationship broken, every love lost, every regret harbored.............. it all helps to feed our minds and hearts with the essential knowledge we need to find happiness.  Where most of us commonly lose traction on this journey is when we idly wait around for some fantastic sign - a burning bush, the voice of God, a time-travelling version of ourselves - instead of decisively taking action on what we already know from experience.

Some of the best lessons learned in life are those that required us to take great risks.  If you can do so, and gain valuable insight into who you are and what makes you happy, do not do yourself a grave injustice by not acting upon it with that wisdom as your guide.

There is no doubt that there is great fun in the journey to happiness, but hey - who says there isn't a wild party waiting for you at the destination?  So why not help yourself to get there sooner?

And Now, I Live

Like a feather in the wind,

riding on the breeze,

I've lived aloft

up in the air

floating wherever fate may please.

And like the water in the curb,

trickling down the hill,

I've flowed through life

with fleeting days and nights

drifting alongside free will.

And like the train upon the tracks,

coasting down the rails,

I could only sit and ride

watching time fly by

never feeling the wind in my own sails.

But now the sun has risen,

now I look to the sky,

not flowing through life

now life flows through me

as I kiss the mundane goodbye.

My days, now steps, to unknown success,

be it spirit or love or fame.

With vigor I wake

each morning then take

a deep breath as I embark on my day.

I shall follow my will and pursue my dreams,

while exploring the path my heart leads.

And while I know not my fate,

my journey no abate,

as I know I can only succeed.


-BS, 10/10

To The New Year and Beyond

Once again, I find myself pondering the passing of another set of 365 days and how I spent them.
For some odd reason, I've always been very introspective and retrospective when it came to time.
In high school, in college, at random milestones that I'd encounter or make up in my mind............I'd consciously stop and try to fathom how much time had passed and how everything since then had brought me to the spot I was at that point.  I'd pause to reflect on my memories of anything and everything that I could dig up from the back of my mind.  It's a very bittersweet thing to do because nostalgia isn't always pleasant.  Something about getting older and the passing of time and realizing that all those fun/happy things from the past are forever gone and unattainable is just plain depressing.
UGH!!
That's what I get for listening to Radiohead while I write this!!

But depression, just like all other emotions, is a very personal and intense feeling that everyone needs to experience at some point or another. Just like death, heartache and disappointment,  its an essential emotion that I believe people need to fully embrace and experience in order to become a truly well-rounded and self-aware individual.  If you've never been exposed to personal hardships, you lack the important wisdom that comes with that valuable life experience.  You can't speak from the heart about or fully grasp the intensity of pain and loss until you've experienced it yourself.  There is no getting around it.

..........and now that I've dragged you into my little dark hole of melancholia, let me turn your face towards the light and assure you that I am still the eternal optimist.  No matter where you find yourself, there is always more fun to be had, people to love and be loved by, and more life to live and look forward to.  At some point - hopefully sooner than later - you'll realize that living well is not something that can be done passively.
Don't be the train stuck on the rails, just going wherever the track leads and having no say about it.
Jump off the damn tracks!!
The only person holding you back is YOU!

These barriers and restraints and responsibilities that you use as excuses to hold you back from living are only that - excuses.  Don't stand in the way of your dreams, whatever they may be.  And if you don't know what those dreams are yet, then now is the time to find out.  All the stuff you've been putting off and been wanting to try but haven't - do it.  Time will not slow down for you, so you need to get your ass moving and live the life you've always imagined.  Go for it!  You will never know what you can't do until you try!

As for myself, I'm going to try to live the next year and beyond with these words as my mantra, while also going for a few resolutions of my own.  Without too much elaboration, let's just say I have a few creative endeavors to try my hand at, traveling to do, physical and emotional challenges to undertake, people to speak my heart and mind to, loves to discover, and more meaningless dribble to post on this blog.  In addition to that, (to borrow from my post from a year ago) I still want to continue to be a better man and have it all together, in both body and mind.

I'm confident I'm fulfilling that pledge and will continue to do so as I dropkick 2011 in the face and make it my bitch..............and I hope you do the same!!

Wishing you all the very best this year and beyond.....

My Heart & My Future

With all of life around me,
and stray thoughts of love still haunted,
I will embrace my heart and my future
and shelter them - undaunted.
Dusted off and polished, and ready to shine once again.
And if what they say is true,
and good things come to those who wait,
then my future, and my heart, may stay idle
until a later date.
But I will do my best,
as I always have,
to be patient,
and know that time spent waiting for love,
is not wasted,
and moments of loneliness
are not in vain.
For once I've found happiness again,
long forgotten becomes the pain.



9/27/10

In a Silent Way

Even a hot flame can shiver

when a cool breeze passes,

yet it keeps burning,

keeps burning,

in a silent way.

Steady in the air,

and quiet in the mind,

you keep burning,

keep burning,

in a silent way.

Flickering,

but ever steady,

shining brightly

with inanimate diligence.

Burning,

and burning,

in a silent way.

And the heart hears loudly

what the eyes believe the flame speaks

as it keeps burning

and burning,

in a silent way.

Giving Away Memories

Last week I donated four huge bags of belongings.

Four HUGE bags.

Two bags that had been slowly getting filled over the past few months, and another two bags that only took me about two weeks to fill.

And fill them I did, with years of memories from my past.

Funny thing about giving clothes and stuffed animals and other random stuff away is that its easy to feel like you're giving away a piece of yourself.  Obviously, I'm not talking about some silly attachment to an old shirt, but rather the stuff you get rid of because its mere presence in your home will do nothing but spark painful memories of the people and times you associate with it.

I, for one, don't readily get rid of things that bring about powerful feelings and memories - even if they're powerfully hurtful feelings and memories.

The reason is because I tend to embrace melancholia as if it were an old friend, so a simple thing like a picture, a card, an old scarf or even an ugly coffee mug, can literally stop me in my tracks and take my mind and heart to some place a million miles away.  Happy or not, I embrace it as part of what I've experienced and learned from and felt through, and I take from it everything I can, leaving nothing emotionally behind.

But sometimes we must give away.

Give away pieces of our hearts and souls, pieces of our anguish and sorrow, pieces of long-lost times of joy that we simply cannot keep because the path through our memories to get to them is littered with too much heartache.  A memory, no matter how innately perfect by itself, is sometimes not worth holding onto when the painful reminders it spawns overshadow its beauty.

Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.  ~Harlan Ellison