Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Forty-4

Great quote I found in an article today:

You have something in yourself that is fundamentally, basically good. It transcends the notion of good or bad. Something that is worthwhile, wholesome, and healthy exists in all of us.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

About

About me from Astro.com (really accurate!):

The world of human relationship means everything to you, and the feelings of others are primary on the scale of your values. Yet you are often caught in a conflict between your need for warmth and closeness with others, and your need for privacy, space and the freedom to pursue your own interests - which often involve abstract concepts quite divorced from human reality. You have great compassion for the problems of others, and may often find yourself playing the role of the good mother or father [gotta pay for more from this point on ...]


Your sensitivity and compassion for others combines with realism and practicality about life, thus making you one of the most reliable and supportive of companions and friends. Your valuing of others and your tactful response to their needs is enhanced by common sense [and pay more from this point on ...]

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Forty-3

Learn to see everything as plenty, not as not enough! Such a huge thing that's been engraved into my being my entire life. I may have money saved up but it's never enough! Oh no it's depleting, I'm going to run out! A friend of mine has left town, I don't have any more friends!

Switch it around. When you look at your bank account, no matter the amount, think to yourself "Wow, I've got plenty of money!" When you think of the people in your life, appreciate every one of them and know you've got plenty of people around you that care! Plenty of time! Plenty of space! Plenty of energy to circulate and go around!!


Memo to self!

Forty-2

Life and death are but two opposites of a whole. Appreciate death as much as you do your life, for neither would exist without both coinciding. You are inevitably perpetually feeding the beast that preys upon you -- but do not fear! For this is the cycle of life ... and death.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Forty-1

Being confined to a building -- 4 walls -- is totally mind boggling. We feel as though we're breathing in the air of only the room we're in. As though the energy we are living and experiencing in that moment is only the energy inside the four walls. But think outside the box! You're still in open space beyond those walls, are you not? Why should you feel confined at all? Do we feel confined because the ozone layer keeps us from being connected to the solar system? Or because of the particles of matter surrounding our bodies? Or even, the skin on our bodies -- is that restricting us from feeling free? There's so many levels you could take it to that four walls, in the end, is really nothing to fret. Perhaps to the mind, but when we're talking energy -- it's all the same shit anyway.

Forty

So what do you do when you start your day off badly? When you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or you wake up just fine but the next thing you do is stub your toe on the desk, and you don't have the strength or will power to make yourself laugh through it? Are you destined to be angry or overwhelmed or stressed out or sad all day long?

I don't know what it is that makes every single day different from the next .. when you think about it, a "day" is only determined by you going to sleep and waking up. What if we never slept? How would we gauge our difference in mood, when would it "switch" over? And why is it that waking up from sleep means we have to switch our mood at all? I want to feel happy at ALL times -- so what's stopping me?

We have to keep in mind that we are the only ones who can affect our mood. But even when you're conscious of feeling shitty, you personally have no idea how to trigger that happy mood, how to get rid of that little aching pain in your heart that is carried along with you throughout the day. But sometimes we're blessed with a trigger; we see a butterfly, or someone tells you you're beautiful, or you find a $10 bill on the ground. What is it that makes these things make you see the world differently? is it because we forget how beautiful we are, how beautiful our earth is? Is it the strain of monotonous work, day after day, that is remembered on grey gloomy days?

This post is mostly made up of rhetorical questions ... but hopefully while reading this you'll wonder why you're in a bad mood right now and remember that you can change it instantly. Think of something pretty. Think back on a wicked bad-ass day and how good you felt when you were in that brighter state of mind.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Thirty-9

"A thousand years is but an instant. There's nothing new, nothing different. The same pattern over and over. The same clouds, the same music, the same insight I felt an hour or an eternity ago. There's nothing here for me now, nothing at all. Now I remember. This happened to me before. This is why I left. You have begun to find your answers. Although it will seem difficult, the rewards will be great. Exercise your human mind as fully as possible, knowing it is only an exercise. Build beautiful artifacts, solve problems, explore the secrets of the physical universe, savor the input from all the senses, feel the joy and sorrow, the laughter, the empathy, compassion and tote the emotional memory in your travel bag. I remember where I came from and how I became a human, why I hung around, and now my final departure is scheduled. This way out. Escaping velocity. Not just eternity, but infinity."

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Thirty-8

Is it not true that liking a specific band, song, or kind of music is simply remembering the fact that you liked them a moment ago? a year ago? If everything is but a fleeting moment, your love for music only relates to the person you were then. Perhaps jazz put me in a state of ecstasy an hour ago while this other techno loud beat-filled music is inspiring me now.

So how can anyone ever tell another what music they're into?

Thirty-7

"It's just that moment, which is holy. You know, like this moment, it's holy. But we walk around like it's not holy. We walk around like there's some holy moments and there are all the other moments that are not holy, right, but this moment is holy, right? But, like, who can live that way? Who can go, "Wow, holy"? Because if I were to look at you and just really let you be holy, I don't know, I would, like, stop talking."

"Well, you'd be in the moment, I mean ...."

"Yeah"

"The moment is holy."

"Yeah, but I'd be open. And then I'd look in your eyes, and I'd cry, and I'd like feel all this stuff and that's like not polite. I mean it would make you feel uncomfortable."

(Long moments pass with them staring at each other)

"Everything is layers, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I mean, there's the holy moment and then there's the awareness of trying to have the holy moment, in the same way that film is the actual moment really happening, but then the character pretending to be in a different reality. And it's all these layers. And, uh, I was in and out of the holy moment looking at you. Can't be in a holy ..."



What a great scene.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Thirty-6

For I do not await the future, anticipating salvation, absolution, not even enlightenment through process. I, I subscribe to the premise that this ... this flawed perfection is sufficient and complete in every single ineffable moment.

... a single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage from which to view this ... this experience. And where most consider their individual relationship to the universe, I contemplate relationships ... of my various selves to one another.

You know, they say that dreams are real only as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life?

To the functional system of neural activity that creates our world, there is no difference between dreaming a perception and an action, and actually the waking perception and action.

Thirty-5

"The quest is to be liberated from the negative, which is really our own will to nothingness. And once having said yes to the instant, the affirmation is contagious. It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit. To say yes to one instant is to say yes to all of existence." - Otto Hofmann

Waking Life

A few things led to me watching the movie Waking Life. Best movie I've seen in quite some time, the kind of movie that makes you think and makes you want to watch it 10 times to understand it.

I would attempt to quote the movie but I'd have to just post the entire transcript on here. I would suggest you just see it for yourself and conclude. Or, you could just visit the transcript!

http://strivinglife.com/waking-life-transcript-with-revisions/