On Boxes

I'm sitting amidst boxes, and newspaper, and books. Mostly, I'm sitting amidst a lot of stuff piled up around me that I have yet to determine the sentimental value of, in terms of what I will keep and what I will not. I've been here before. I guess each time it feels the same, yet also different. It's so weird to pick up something and hold it in my hand and decide once again to keep it. A whole series of little moments like that will determine what stuff I will still have when I'm ninety and wrinkled and living in some old house somewhere, if I make it that far. And it's a whole series of little moments like that which will determine what memories I will retain, to some extent; since so many memories are triggered by a glance at a letter, or a sideways look at an old knick-knack, or a book, or a photograph. I would like to get rid of all of this, but only if it means placing it in the hand of a dear friend and closing their hand over it and putting my hand on theirs to make sure that they have it firmly clasped in their own. I can't do that, as friends are not storage spaces and they should not be treated as such. Instead, I will send a lot of this stuff out into the ether. It's weird how many things we manage acquire and then shed during our lives, and it's weird how much of it will still exist after we die. Unlike other animals, we don't manage to shed a big chunk of our skin in one long sheath, but we manage to make the things and people around us our protective layer, and we shed some of it as we go, but hold onto what matters. The older I get, the more I realize that the things that matter the most are few, but worth holding on to; and I realize that I only need so very few things to carry on.

We do so much in our lives to try to make ourselves live longer and to try to remind others of ourselves after we're gone, yet some little piece of wood that does nothing and says nothing manages to outlive us every time. Maybe that's why we cut down trees: We have an innate inability to bear the simple fact that these beautiful entities are going to keep living and growing longer than we can or will, unless we do something about it. This thought makes me sad; and yet it reminds me that I can't wait to be living in the trees again. It's comforting to be surrounded by things that have been around since before I was born and are going to still be around even after I am gone. If there's anything heartbreaking about moving, it's the thought that I might not be able to show people that I care as well as I would like to when I am not around to see them and let them know; but that's where trust comes in. No one wants to hear me tell them all the time that I'm glad they exists, and one of my faults it that I have a gross habit of doing this. People want, I think, to just have it be understood that their presence is meaningful in another person's life. I think I only say it so much because the more I care, the more I fear. Perhaps growing older is about learning to detach oneself not only from what matters the least, but more importantly from what matters the most. Strangely enough, it seems sometimes that the most guaranteed way of holding on to something is also the most intangible. A loose grip is a strong grip, especially when it comes to people. It will be nice to have a lot of space around me in which to loosely hold onto things and in which to learn how to hold on to very little. There's a lot of fullness in that empty space, and a lot of this fullness seems to be comprised of thoughts and dreams and songs and love and art.

Sitting amidst boxes, strangely enough, it is my future that flashes before my eyes more than my past. I've had moves in which the memories flooded over me and overwhelmed me to tears, but this time there's a feeling of acceptance that rushes over me. None of what awaits me beyond this point is yet determined, and somehow this is comforting where it should be terrifying. There's a point where it means being more at peace with oneself to just toss the dice. I feel more comfortable in my own skin when I let myself exist outside of what I know and what I love, in a place where I know very little and can expect nothing. I trust the people in my life enough to know that although I may see them rarely, I will still see them. Some may slip through the cracks, but they'll still manage to have changed my life forever, dramatically or subtly.

I don't know where I will land, but eventually I will land somewhere, and it will be home.

On Packing

Each of these objects that I pack into boxes is not an object at all, but a thousand tiny little memories wrapped up together; some of them bigger than others. Some of the smallest objects have the most memories associated with them. Some of the largest have very few. All of these things, all this crap; it's just stuff. It's stuff that I love, but it's still just stuff. It's the people in my life, not this stuff, that I really wish I put into boxes and take with me. But I hate to see the people that I love stuffed into boxes.

One of the hardest things to throw away today was a tiny, plastic, parachuting man that I bought once, using prize-tickets won in a game of skee-ball with a really dear friend. I threw it away because I recognized that it in itself had little significance to me, and I recognized that the memories existed there even in its absence. I'm going to a place where I hardly know anyone. I look forward to feeling small and I look forward to being surrounded by strangers. I look forward to trusting only those who earn my trust and I look forward to spending a lot of time alone. I look forward to filling that space with thoughts and adventures and new things that I might make. I look forward to reading new books and shaking new hands. There are plenty of other piece-of-crap just-object objects for me to fill with memories, and I have plenty of time left in my life in which to do this.

Packing this stuff, this stuff that I suppose I do love, I realize how easy it would be for me to just get rid of it all. The more I pack, the more I realize that none of this constitutes who I am or what my life is. None of it gives me the sense of my life itself. The real grit and the backbone of what matters is totally invisible. It's the memories, and it's the people. When it comes to moving these objects, it could be simple. I could store these items, and wait long enough to forget what I had stored, and then stop paying for the storage unit and let the storage company people just get rid of it all for me. I've heard of people doing that, as a way of being more cutthroat about what they are willing to get rid of. It seems instead to me that they are paying the storage sheds, and paying time itself, to make them forget what it is that they are supposed to not be cutthroat about. I guess this makes sense. I'm not going to do it, and it wouldn't be my style really, anyway; but I could. It's far more plausible that I'd just decide to put everything in a huge dumpster and then walk away from it, with a great sense of loss accompanied by a feeling of victory. The thing is, I can't forget anyone who mattered to me, and no one's going to come along and get rid of them if I try to forget them for a long enough period of time. I don't want anybody to come along and get rid of them. I want to sit on porches with them and drink whiskey and lie in fields, staring at the sun. All of them.

It's strange: I'm bringing with me all the things that I could see myself so easily getting rid of; and I'm leaving behind all the things that, try as I might, I don't think I could ever truly walk away from. Perhaps this is a good exercise in independence; or perhaps it's a realization that I've put myself in storage for too long. Whatever it is, I'm not convinced that what I'm actually throwing away amounts in any way to a little plastic parachuting man, and I'm not convinced that what I'm planning to take with me is really stuff at all. I'm taking with me a million moments and laughs and pangs of sadness and every other emotion I've felt over the years. I'm taking this with me, and it's all at once lighter than air and heavier than lead. Maybe this is what Kundera was talking about, but in the context of a shift in geographical location.

I've got so many amazing people in my life, and I've loved fiercely until it hurt. But this time, I'm going to find myself a home. I'm going to fill my rooms with all the memories that I have, and I'm going to cover the walls with all of your faces, because that's just how it has to be. Maybe I should call off the moving truck and just consider myself smashed under the weight of the things that I hate to leave behind. I'd rather, I suppose, not do this; and just lug the crap that I do own all the way to my new home. I'd rather be smashed in the embrace of an old friend's hug when I finally get to see them again. I'd rather keep everything that matters, because only the things that do not embrace one-another are crap (the books, and the cables, and the kinked wires), and even the crap reminds me of those that do embrace.

To distract myself from the strong sense of missing that I am already anticipating, I think I'll probably learn to find comfort in these objects, even if they are just objects. There's something to be said for a warm quilt that smells of laundry detergent, even if it just reminds me of someplace else. Until I have new friends and until I make new memories, this will do: a warm quilt, and a cup of tea, and my own young old self.

On Being Awake in the Dead of Night

It's been a while since I've written much here, but perhaps it's been a while since I've slept so little. I find it somewhat strange that insomnia is so often associated with distress, anxiety, and the like. I certainly am awful at sleeping - or at least I am awful at sleeping during the normal hours - but it is not always because I am feeling any of these things. I don't pretend to be immune to distress or anxiety, and in fact I can excel at both if I put my mind to it, but insomnia for me is something different. At times, it's felt like rebellion - a strange sort of semi-voluntary nonconformity. At other times, it's been a respite from the noise and chaos of excessive sensory stimulus. At times, it's been the time in which I can do all the things that I wanted to do during the daytime hours, but couldn't find time for: like reading, or drawing, or daydreaming, or drafting designs on the rest of my life and figuring out how best to direct my creative energies. I can't say I've figured it out yet, but I've got another fifty or sixty years to get it right.

There are nights in which I try to sleep, and I toss and turn for hours, but this sort of night is extremely rare. It may happen perhaps once every several months. The more common sort of night for me is the night in which I, finally having a large chunk of silence and space and time to work with, feel that I am free to think, and process, and sort through the things that I am feeling. It's important for me to have this time be alone and think about things and decompress, and it's easiest to do this in the middle of the night when the likelihood of any sort of responsibility interrupting my thoughts, or the likelihood of their being a loud voice in the next room, is slim.

I think it started out when I would stay up just an hour or two past my bedtime as a kid. I'd do all sorts of different things, and always it felt magical, like stolen time that I was using to do things that I had the pleasure of sharing with no one except for nighttime itself. Some nights I'd stay up late reading. My Dad or Mom would put me to bed, and I'd get out a little flashlight and hide under the sheets to read, like in the movies. Other nights, during the short time-period in which we shared a bunk-bed, my brother and I would talk about stuff to one another.

For a while, when I was thirteen or so, I'd try to quietly practice ballet within the small space of my bedroom. My Mom had recently made me quit taking classes, and I had this idea in the back of my mind that maybe if I practiced late into the night, even if it meant sacrificing sleep and being tired in class the next day, I could be a great ballerina. I eventually stopped doing this, because it was hard to do in the dark, and I realized that I was only fooling myself. Maybe I was doing it more for the sake of being obsessed with a craft - something that I feel strongly yet often direct at too many sorts of crafts at once, to the point where it is overwhelming and frustrating - than for the sake of being good at something. I'd really rather just obsess over one craft or art form and manage to pull off being good at it than obsess over every art form and obsess over creative expression in general. There is a point where it hurts to love something like, say, music, if one is forced to face one's own limitations; and these limitations are only increased when you throw in an additional love for drawing, and writing, and theatre, and ballet, or... The list could go on, and I don't want to get too hypothetical here.

Sometimes I'd stay up in my grandparents' house in Berkeley and read all of the old books on their bookshelf. Or I'd stay up at my other grandparents' house in Davis and tiptoe around, spooking myself out by glimpsing my own reflection in a window and then running, barefoot, on the cold brown tiles of the floor. Sometimes my cousin and I would stay up late whispering and giggling and talking about our lives and our families and the stories that we knew and liked. Sometimes we'd sneak out of the bedroom and just tiptoe around the house for the sake of making mischief. We weren't supposed to be up, and yet there we were, wide awake, with the clock above the stove to serve as a reminder of our delinquency. For such good kids, we sure loved to get into trouble, and we'd cry and then laugh about it once we were scolded.

Other nights, I'd open my bedroom window and press my nose against the screen, feeling the night air. I still remember the smell of that air, and the smell of the screen as I pressed my nose up against it. I did a lot of wishing on stars, and praying to Gods just in case they existed, and mouthing little wishes to whoever might listen. I wished a lot about my future, and about my family, and about people I cared about or people I had crushes on. I think I did a lot of crying while smelling that screen and while smelling that night air, too. But as much as I wished my nights away, I also just stared at the sky quite a bit. I looked for constellations, and I tried to sharpen my eyes to an extent that would allow me to see the deer running around in the back yard. Sometimes our cat would perch itself on the wooden railing near my window, and it would reach its nose far enough so that I could see its face through the screen. Sometimes I thought about removing the screen entirely and escaping from my room by climbing onto that railing, thirty feet or so off the ground; but when it came down to it, I had nothing really to escape from, and didn't know yet what I wanted to escape to.

At my Mom's house, it was different. I would stay up reading or writing or drawing, but I'd also often stay up playing my guitar, or listening to CD's in my discman. I had a copy of Sgt. Pepper's that I would listen to a lot. I had a copy of Peter and the Wolf that got some listening.

The best thing to do, though, was to open the door from my room to the front porch really softly, and leave my room. I'd step lightly on the front porch, and lightly in the front yard, and I'd open the gate softly so as not to let it squeak, and I'd be free. I spent a lot of time just walking around the old neighborhoods. Sometimes I'd go to the park and just sit in the middle of a field, or on the steps of the bleachers there. Sometimes I'd go to my old elementary school and look into the dark windows of the old classrooms. Sometimes I'd walk for hours and just keep walking because I felt I had a lot to sort through in my head. I didn't really sneak out for the purpose of meeting up with friends, although to this day I still like the feel of that notion, but mainly just for the purpose of seeing what it felt like to be out there in the night on my own terms, with my own thoughts. Sometimes I'd run into people while walking around - usually folks a bit older than me that I knew from the music scene back home - but usually I'd walk alone; and usually I'd walk for a long time.

I guess eventually this time of solitude had to be pushed back even further into the hours of the night, once I went to college and started living with other folks who stayed up late. Sometimes finding those hours of time to myself would mean waiting until three, or four, or five in the morning. After a while I think it just became habit.

I supposed the notion of insomnia being a vessel for anxiety hits home to some extent, in that I tend to do a lot of thinking during those wee hours of the night, but I still spot something of a misconception here, at least in terms of how I relate to the concept. The thoughts that I have are rarely thoughts of stress or anger or sadness. I get most of that kind of thinking done earlier in the day, if at all. Rather, I tend to find myself just remarking on the awe that I feel in response to life itself and in response to the world around me. I find myself dwelling in a sort of state of wonder. It's this state of wonder that keeps me reaching out to people, and letting myself open up my heart, and reminding myself to make art and music, and knowing why I live the kind of life that I live and do the things that I do. This sense of wonder can be found everywhere, and certainly not just in that space that exists in the silent middle of the night, but it's so immediate in that late, late hour, that I've grown fond of being acquainted with it in that way.

There's a comfort in the silence of the night, because it's a silence I know well. It's strange that different kinds of silence can feel so different. I think my favorite sort of silence is the kind that can be found by way of riding my bike way out into the country, stopping roadside, and walking into the middle of some orchard to just sit there amongst the little saplings or tomato plants or the tall grasses. It's a silence that seems to go well with the smell of grasses in the warm summer air. It's a silence that is rarely broken in a way that is abrasive, and more often broken in a way that indicates signs of life, sans the chaos of life. The buzzing of a fly, for instance, may break the silence, and although the fly has a more abrasive kind of sound to it, it still seems to be a sound that belongs.

Hours awake in the middle of the night never seem to bring about any confusion or unrest, despite the fact that what I experience during those hours is a very literal kind of unrest. Instead, I find myself coming to comforting kinds of conclusions. I find myself reminding myself why it is that I love what I love, and knowing - knowing that it is worth it, no matter how painful. I find myself remembering why I take risks in my interactions with people and why I remain open to people despite my own fears. I find myself reestablishing my love of music and art and writing if I need to, and if ever I find myself doubting whether I am wasting my time, within a few hours alone, wrapped in my own ponderings, I will manage to assure myself that I do these things because I must, and because that is who I am. Mostly, I find myself feeling great amounts of care - not care directed at anyone or anything in particular, but care still in the inlets of my heart, waiting to be applied toward some project or song or something. I find myself noting the great amounts of love that I have for the things in my life, and trying to find the best way to show this. I find myself thinking that maybe love is really all that I need, and the fact that I still find myself thinking this despite the number of times that i have been hurt only makes me believe it more. I find myself thinking about art and music and writing as extensions of this feeling, and feeling grateful that the source of these things is seemingly infinite and in no way confined within myself but existing in the people that I know and the songs that I listen to again and again.

The hours I spend awake at night are mostly spent thinking about why I am glad that I get to spend hours awake during the day. Sometimes I wish there were more of both - the daytime hours, and the nighttime hours.

Maybe it'll shorten my life, or render me too sleepy or sound-sensitive or introverted or ponderous; but fuck it. There is a clarity of thought that I find there, in the middle of the night, that I crave; and that I store for later use, lest I need it during the light of day.

On Lemon Trees and Spinning 'Round in Chairs

I'm thinking of a particular tree, in a particular yard, in a particular town. I haven't seen this tree in years. Maybe a decade. But i think it's probably still there. This time of year, it's likely bearing bright yellow fruit, and it's leaning toward the house and away from the house as a breeze that smells of flowers sways its branches. I've seen this tree a hundred times, but not in years. Something about knowing this tree, and thinking of it, and knowing that it's probably right where I left it those many years ago (not knowing then how long it would be that I would go without seeing it), makes me glad.

I'm thinking, too, of my Mom's old drafting table, and where it used to be in the house that I grew up in. I'm thinking of the spinning office chair that stood in front of it, that I used to sit on. I remember the exact feel of the metal circular bar at the base of it that I used to put my bare feet on - feet that grew in size as I did so. My feet, in all their different stages of growth, rested bare on that cool metal bar at the base of it, and many afternoons I spun around in the chair again and again, sometimes going so fast that I was sure I would fly off. Maybe I did. I don't remember. But I remember that feeling of just sitting in the chair and spinning, and again I feel glad.

I've written many-an-ode to solitude, and time spent alone. I've written many things about the reasons for letting people go, and letting people leave my life, and letting people know only a piece of me, but what I've come to realize is that there's something really incredible about truly getting to know people. There's something about things happening slowly, like the growth of those feet or the fruiting of that tree, that is really indescribable. It's been, lately, the people in my life who have made me realize how amazing it can be just to, well, be. It's not that my life is enjoyable only because these people are in it. It's sort of the other way around. I love these people because they are able to see and understand and appreciate all of those things that have always made life so rich - rich in ways I've often wondered if I could share with people, and rich in ways I've always hoped I wasn't the only person to understand. I love the people that I love not because they make life worth living, but because they understand why life is worth living, and they choose to live it, because they know how worth it it can be to do so. This makes me love many-a-small-thing about life, and it's manifested in my mind an ever-growing list of things that I would like to do, and places that I would like to see, and things that I would like to cook, and songs that I would like to find (if they exist) or write (if they don't). This ever-growing list of things that I would like to do, and experience, and see, and revisit, is something I'd like to share with other people. Maybe I'll do some of these things with people that I love, or maybe I'll do some of them alone. Maybe I won't do them, but I'll always know that I can. Maybe I'll meet people with similar ever-growing lists and we'll swap list-items, and we'll spend our lives doing things, and just being. And some of these things can be done again and again and somehow never be the same, because that's the nature of the mind, and one's thoughts and ideas, and the heart: It's constantly growing, and it relishes being somewhere beautiful or doing something fun or being with good people every time it happens, and always in a new way.

Sometimes those fleeting moments of happiness and awe and inspiration that I've talked about so much, usually couched as such (as being fleeting and ephemeral) are not so fleeting. Sometimes they come again and again. Sometimes they don't, but the memories remain. Sometimes new moments appear in their wake. Sometimes they're just dreams. But the beautiful thing is that so much can happen that cannot be anticipated, and there's a beauty to be experienced that even the most intricate and fruitful imagination can't, in its deepest state or REM or its most inspired years, ever guess would or could occur. There's a shaking of hands between will and volition and passion and determination and the unknown and that which is not apprehended and that which one never even dreamed existed. I'm ready for all of it.

Sometimes life can be so damn beautiful.

I'm thinking of impulsive decisions to jump on a bus with a dear friend in the middle of the night without checking to see where the bus is going, and I'm thinking of just letting the bus take me somewhere far away, where maybe I'll sit on a rocky beach, or drink a bottle of wine next to a redwood, or find some strange relic of yore in a little store in a box that hasn't been opened in years. I'm thinking of trains, and cars, and deserts, and night skies, and planes, and vehicles that take the individual away from one thing and toward another. And I'm also thinking of these trains and buses and planes as vehicles that move in two directions, and vehicles that will bring me home when I am ready to come home. I'm thinking of home, and somehow I can't help but think of it as a large and ever-growing entity that spreads out over my present and my past and the people I have known and know and will know, lost and kept and may lose and may not, and I am glad that all of these moments and all of these people comprise this feeling of comfort, and inspiration, and warmth, and nostalgia, and excitement, and anticipation, and home.

I just feel lucky. Lucky to be. And lucky to be in whatever way I choose to be. Lucky that the nature of this being can be whatever it should ultimately be. Lucky not to know yet what that may be, and lucky to get to find out.

Right now, I'm glad that when I think of why I am lucky to be here, I think of a lemon tree in a backyard on Thousand Oaks Blvd. in Berkeley, California; and I think of a drafting chair from long ago; and I think of the people in my life. I like, too, the fact that the changing of the seasons and the coming about of new smells in the air brings to mind new memories that cycle through me although I had for a long while forgotten them. There are things that I probably do not remember now that someday, maybe on some porch in front of some house I've never seen, next to who-knows-who or nobody or a cat, next to a tree bearing blossoms or fruit of a kind I can't predict, with a cup of tea that maybe I've had a hundred times before or maybe I've never had, I'll remember. And I look forward to remembering as much as I look forward to experiencing something new.

I've spent a lot of time trying to match up the things that I feel with the way that I live my life. There was an initial period of trying to understand the way that I felt, and why I felt the things that I did. This lasted probably through my adolescence, and in my adolescence it became the most difficult to reconcile with the world around me. It was during adolescence that I, like most people, learned about injustice, and the lack of immediate gratification, and the necessity of at certain points learning to let things go. One of the hardest things to learn was that the act of letting something go was not an act of betrayal toward the self, but rather an act of honor and respect for the self. In addition, I found that it was an act of respect for the thing that was let go. There's a certain point where one has to realize that the beauty of the world lies largely in its chaotic nature. The inability of one person to see what will happen in his or her life, and the inability to control that future, is easily seen as a cage inside of which the individual is bound. From a different point of view, it is a kind of adventure that is better than that with a self-prescribed itinerary, because the things presented to the self when control is relinquished are things that the individual wouldn't have chosen on his or her own. Because of this simple quality that these things have in common - the quality of being unexpected and unanticipated - they are exciting, and incredible, and capable of inducing awe. It's difficult to be awestruck by anything that is anticipated, so it seems that the best way to admit awe into one's life is to be open to things beyond one's control.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to wield my feelings, and how to wield them gracefully. I've come to the conclusion as of late that perhaps the best way to wield emotions is with absolute, shameless honesty. By this, I don't mean that they should be blown out of proportion, or played up, or wielded with the intent of gaining or manipulating. Instead, I mean that they should be held as precious simply because they are one's own, and because they are indicative of an honesty held with one's own self. They should be held as absolutely sacred because they are birthed out of real experiences, and interactions with real people, and because they exist as a direct result of the way that one's mind interacts not only with the world around it but with the heart, too. Where I was unable to find any sense of peace in downplaying or undermining the things that I felt because of a fear concerning how they would be received, I find one of the only comforts I've ever felt in accepting them as they are, and presenting them as they are, because each instance of this kind of behavior - an honest kind, that holds in high esteem the emotions and priorities of the self - reinforces the feeling of being alive in a completely sincere and vulnerable way. It's good to be vulnerable if the vulnerability is presented with absolute honesty and confidence, because it then embodies a kind of power instead of a weakness. No one can know what an individual truly feels, so if that individual presents something other than that which is real and sincere, the individual will feel out of place, not because he or she is misunderstood, but because he or she is out of touch with the self. The mind and heart may communicate clearly, but the mind and the individual's actions may exist in opposition to one another; or the mind and heart may disagree. The mind and heart may fail to even consult one-another, or the mind and the individual's actions may entirely contradict each other. The best way to enable a smooth travel from heart to mind and back to heart, or heart to mind to action, is to allow for each communication between each of these to be entirely honest, and open. Regardless of the seemingly stupid nature of any action that may be taken, it can be an utterly holy action so long as it comes from a place of honesty. And, because being honest with oneself can in itself be difficult, allowing for contradiction between past and present is another kind of honesty, and one that makes way for change and growth.

There's not enough time to silence the heart, and there's not enough time to be concerned with how things might be misinterpreted. The guarantee is this: if what is said is anything other than what is truly felt, misinterpretation is not only possible but absolutely present; and, worse, it is a misinterpretation not only held by others but also held by the self. It's hard enough, God knows, to understand oneself. Why make it harder for others to understand you, too?

Here's what I conclude: Seek to understand the self, of course, but don't hesitate to act in a situation that requires courage or strength. We remember this as children, but we somehow forget it as we get older. Could it be, then, that the act of maturing and growing is the act of remembering why we were right all along as children when we smiled at strangers, or hugged someone when we wanted to, or cried when we wanted to? Could it be that the act of growing up is nothing but learning to be a child again in all of the right ways, but now equipped with the emotional and mental maturity that it takes to truly appreciate what it is to be childlike? Maybe we force that emotional honesty out of our systems and, if we are lucky, we learn that it is absolutely imperative that we reestablish this. It is when we encounter things that we truly care about, and things that we can't risk being dishonest with, that we remember the reasons for being straightforward; and the strange thing is that, in being straightforward in these situations, we must take action, and through taking action we risk a change. Sometimes this change can mean losing that very thing that we hold dear - the very thing that made us aware of this need for emotional integrity. But, again, the guarantee is this: If we do nothing when we want to do something, we will absolutely lose that thing, not because of a sudden change, but because of a gradual loss caused by a lack of respect all around: respect for the self, and respect for other individuals' selves. If any one person loses someone or something simply by token of their being honest toward that person or that situation, then that thing was not nearly as precious as they initially perceived it to be. The most precious things in the world are not necessarily the easiest, but the ones that risk losing someone or something for the sake of letting that person or situation view their inner self and true feelings more clearly. The greatest gift I would ever want to give somebody would be a situation of trust, and this is the same gift that we should give ourselves. In trusting ourselves, we let ourselves trust others, and vice versa. Honesty - the shameless, brutal honesty of frolicking in the muck of life and love and risk and fear - may not be the quickest route toward comfortability, but it seems to be one of the surest routes toward feeling understood by the world, and understanding the world in turn. Maybe if we can all learn to do this, we can learn to feel at home wherever we go. What is home, after all, but a place where you are free to be understood, not just as you would like to be but as you are? I'd rather be understood as the absolute honest mess that each of us can be sometimes than as a composed shell of a human being, lacking in passion for the world around me. There's a lot in this world that warrants my love and my enthusiasm and my awe and my passion, and not only would I regret not experiencing those things in a way that lets me feel those things - I'd also regret not letting those things and people in the world know just how inspiring they are to me. It's selfish of me to fail to inform the world of the incredible extent to which it is capable of blowing my mind. From here on out, if something floors me more than I thought I was capable of being floored, I'll damn well let it know. If all this does is terrify it, then at least it will know more about itself by way of understanding its place as an influencing factor in the world and in the lives of others.

Frolic in the muck, I say, because we only get one chance to experience muck of any caliber at all. I don't know about everyone else, but I have an inkling that most people would agree that they would like to be around for their lives, no matter how awful or embarrassing the events in those lives may be. Sometimes you can't look at the ground closely unless you trip and fall flat on your face, and if you don't look at things closely you might miss something. I think it's important to give things the attention they warrant when they are interesting, and to be open to the possibility of failing and falling and embarrassing oneself, because that's just what life sometime entails, and it'll only make the good things better because we will know that we got there by way of unabashedly opening our hearts to the possibility of their occurrence. There's no reason to be afraid of truly living, in an honest way; and most of the time it seems that life is more painful when it is pain that we are most concerned with and worried about. Life is more painful when one exists in a strange interim, in which things are felt but not expressed, than it is when everything that is trusted and true is expressed - even if this sometimes results in loss or hurt or chaos. Better to have the bad kind of chaos along with the good kind of chaos than no chaos whatsoever. I'm excited to live and to learn every year how to better understand the things that I feel and act upon them in a way that pays tribute to how much they mean to me. One of these days I am going to say something and look back the next day only to realize that I had truly meant it, and had truly expressed it too; and although I'm sure this has happened before, I hope that it will continue to happen, and more frequently. I never fail to be amazed by the world around me, but I think I sometimes fail to articulate what this world means to me, or I fail to trust the things that most strike awe into my heart. Sometimes they are the same things that paralyze me with fear, but what I'm coming to realize is that the presence of fear is often a surefire indicator of deep care or feeling or love, and this is what it means to be alive. What we should really be afraid of is squelching those feelings because of that fear. When I feel fear in the future, I'd like to pay even more honest respect to whatever it is that caused that fear, because it'll surely be something of magnitude if it can cause me to tremble in my boots to that extent. I don't think fear will ever go away, because we will never stop caring. Fear is maybe an awareness of a risk, which is indicative of the extent to which something is meaningful to me. I never want to stop caring, so i say bring on the fear. Fear reminds me what I care about, and should never be a signal to undermine those things that I care about when I talk about them. If anything, fear should remind me to speak of those things with greater respect: not because they are innately good, or bad, or anything like that, but because they remind me what matters to me, and who matters to me, and why these things matter to me; and they will remind me to appreciate those things and immerse myself in those things and risk my own pride for those things. Pride can recuperate, and it is mostly illusory anyhow, so it's a small price to pay for true experience and a meaningful life.

Also, I think it's fine to stay up all night once in a while just to bask in appreciation, or inspiration. And I think it's okay to say things that come out kind of messy, and to stumble over words, so long as the attempt to be true is there. If the intent is there, and if one starts a sentence enough times, eventually some semblance of the truth will be understood. That's all we can ask for, and sometimes it takes years' worth of mangled sentences to get to that point. So, I guess, we should start talking and mangling sentences now so that we might be better understood sooner. We don't want to miss out on understanding and connection, because it is these which remind us of what is most beautiful in the world, and in our selves.

Even if things aren't always pleasant, they can be always interesting, and interestingness seems to be hugely underrated. Magic, unexplained or circumstantial, isn't going to find you if you don't give it a chance. If something means something to you, let it know - don't take to heel. Awesomeness abounds.

On Human Interaction

The balance between the self and the other is something that is very difficult to maintain; but in a way that is so instructive in teaching one how to be patient, both with the self and with others, that I can't help but remark on the beauty of this lesson, even as I myself struggle to remind myself of its wisdom and struggle to apply its wisdom to my day-to-day life and the events therein.

When one approaches another, the other moves away. When the first steps back in a mirrored response to the moving away of the other, then the other will step forward. The result is a mutual attempt to either maintain the distance between the two, or to keep the amount of movement toward the center done by either party regulated, so that neither moves closer or further away more quickly than the other. If one moves toward the other a bit too quickly, the other will step back. If one moves toward the other much too quickly, the other will turn and run. In some people, this response is greater than in others. If one steps back a bit in apprehension of the forward-motion of another, the other may step back just a bit as well. If one steps back too far, or just turns and walks away, the other might take it as a breach of trust altogether, and will turn and run as well.

This is a rusty and sloppy version of what I hear is called the "rubber-band theory" by psychologists. My concern isn't really the specifics of the theory, but more my reactions to this phenomenon when I attempt to be objective about it.

If the person distancing himself from me is someone I care about, it's difficult to see the beauty in this little dance or game or whatever it might most aptly be called. However, if I try to step outside of myself and think of a hypothetical situation of this kind, the movements between one individual and another of this kind are somewhat remarkable, in that they create a perfect opportunity for a lesson to be learnt, and a perfect context for this learning to occur, in which there is room for small mistakes, and room for slow learning, and room for fear and hesitation. The context is perfectly designed (bear with me on my word choice here) to ensure that this lesson must eventually be learnt, for one can't enter the context without eventually entering into this game itself, which can only be won by way of learning the routine, and can only be lost by way of being made very aware of the routine - the hard way.

What I find most beautiful about this very natural quality of human interaction is just the fact that, as long as the individual is alive and living, the lesson is being slowly learnt. If the individual has to step away from a situation in order to approach it anew, the individual is learning. If he or she steps forward too far and causes someone to run away as a result, he or she is learning. If an individual chooses to give up on getting to know someone and runs away on his or her own, that individual is opting out but still learning the hard way; and the lesson will be repeated each time a new person is met. The only winning is in getting to know somebody well and keeping that person as a lover or as a friend. The only losing is getting once again beat over the head with the nature of the lesson itself; and this isn't really a loss at all, for it is a step forward in the learning of how to be able to truly get to know a person.

The other beautiful thing about this is that every person is a participant, even if they don't make attempts at getting to know other people at all. If, say, a hermit leaves his home to buy a carton of milk, he may encounter a clerk, and the clerk might ask him a personal question. The hermit, in true hermit-fashion, might perhaps take the milk, leave the change on the counter, and run away; but this will cause two things to happen. Firstly, the clerk will exercise a tiny bit more caution in the future, unless he's entirely dense, and will refrain from asking questions that are too personal. Secondly, the hermit might become slightly less sensitive to being asked personal questions, and the next time it happens he will perhaps remember to pick up his change instead of opting to tip the clerk out of pure social awkwardness and utter terror. So, in this way, this phenomenon works even when the results are only apparent with respect to how they effect other individuals who may not have even been involved in the initial interaction.

It's lovely to think about a whole network, in which people are dancing back and forth with one-another, and in which some run so far from one person that they run too fast into another, who in turn runs too far from that person and too quickly into another, and so on. It brings to mind an image much like the one I had in my head in middle school when my science teacher taught us about the dispersion of gaseous molecules in a sealed room; and the way in which they would distance themselves from one-another so that the distance between each was the same; and the subsequent way in which they would restore this equidistance after it was disturbed (e.g. after a window was opened for a short while, or after more of this gaseous substance was let into the room).

With this in mind, human beings seem a very natural and predicable bunch. They aren't really, though, are they? The thing I like about it is that these human beings behave emotionally very much like these gaseous molecules behave physically. Rarely do we get a chance to say that the emotional realm is mimetic of the physical, or vice-versa. Loosely, sure, but nonetheless mimetic.