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| This past year I've thought a lot about desires. One thing I found is that in life, so often we want things, want them more and more as long as we can't have them. But once we have them, we don't know what to do with them, and we find that we never wanted it, we just liked the feeling of wanting something, chasing it. The chase is more valuable to us than the prize. And because of this we cycle through the myriad of things in our lives, new clothes, new music, new houses, new cars.
But relationships offer something different. People are different. The reason a relationship can last a lifetime and reach into the depths of eternity is because people are infinitely intriguing. To want to know someone, to want to be with them, this curious pursuit will not end when you come to know them, when you are finally with them. No, this pursuit only blossoms from there. Because people are infinitely deep, so much so that they can never fully understand themselves, and need the help of another just to understand these depths. A relationship is not a single ended chase, it can never be perfected. Like so many things in life, a relationship can never reach a state of total completion, but the fruits of joy and satisfaction can be found on its branches each day that it grows. When you want to know someone, and you finally do come to know them, the infinite stretches before you, because desire is something that grows.
Ultimately what I'm trying to say in all of this is that there's a mystery in people. In the way they smile, in their eyes when they look into the distance. An intrigue in each person, a riddle, that certain other people notice, and choose to decipher. And you find in life that the people you choose to settle with truly fascinate you. The friends that stay with you for the rest of your life, there's some thing about you that intrigues them. Something they try to figure out each day that they are with you. And the one that chooses to spend the rest of his life with you, he's dedicated his life to this mission. To decipher the meaning behind your smile, understand the mystery behind your sighs, to know what makes you cry, what makes you laugh. Because ultimately, you are the greatest mystery to him, one that he will always desire to know, and will spend each day learning.
Love is the pursuit of something that cannot be caught, but that doesn't make it futile. Somehow, that makes it the most worthy of all tasks. | | |
| "The people who run our cities don't understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit. But if you just value money then your opinion is worthless.
They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society, but graffiti is only dangerous in the minds of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.
The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you're never allowed to answer back. Well, they started this fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back."
-Banksy | | |
| The things that have gone and never will be again are always worth missing. The things to come are always worth hoping for. Living in the moment and capturing every second is the process of transforming the uncertainty of tommorow into the sweet memories of the nostalgic past. I've been looking at the pictures of the Philippines trip from last year. One year ago I explored a part of the world that was as foreign to me as another planet, but when I stepped out of the airport, I was greeted with a familiarity tainted by an exotic alienation. Something intimately strange, unanimously different. I was both stunned by the beauty of the place, as well as inebriated by the notion of having been there before. The humidity, the wild animals, the strangely familliar faces. Each picture transports me to the very moment in which that picture was taken. But I know those pictures will be replaced by new ones, ones that carry the burden of different memories, perhaps sweeter, perhaps bitter, but without a doubt different. The notion of time has always clung to me like a stubborn leech, refusing to leave me alone. Today is the passage of yesterday into tomorrow. A tunnel that yesterday must pass through to transform into the image of tomorrow. Like a cocoon. But that must mean that today is the most important day then, that I will ever have, because it determines tomorrow and defines yesterday. There are many things that have gone, that I miss terribly. There are many things that I regret wholly. There are things that I am unsure of as to whether I should regret or rejoice over. But as sure as the sunset here is a sunrise on the other side of the world, things will change. Sometimes the sweetest memories are the greatest curse, because they turn all other memories sour. Maybe there's a reason I'm so hesitant to forsake the night and fall into the depths of sleep sometimes. I'm afraid of what tomorrow may hold. The curtain of night seems to uncertain for me to merely leap into it's depths. But oh how I long. How I long to live in the past, in the comforts of guranteed paths. How I hope the future holds a fellowship as fulfilling as the past. Mostly I guess I only hope that the future is less lonely than the past, that today resembles tomorrow more than it does to yesterday. | | |
| I was thinking yesterday, at work. I had the message of 1 john in my mind, circling around. And I came to thinking about the nature of lies and deception, and what our actions have to do with them. I reached this conclusion:
Hypocrisy is perhaps the greatest deception of all; not because it is a lie about facts, but because it is a lie about the very existence of the truth.
But a person speaking about hypocrisy is not a claim to perfection or to the high horse of immaculate behavior. I didn't reach this conclusion about hypocrisy with the polished white room of a pure soul. I came to think of it the same way a vagrant would ponder the despondent life he lived in his cardboard mansion.
But as a broken soul can only long for wholeness, and an angry spirit yearn for peace, I can only yearn for truth, the truth. The Truth which cannot be merely spoken, for it is far too great to be contained by words. A truth too bright to be illustrated, and too divine to be manifested. A truth that shatters all of reality by its very presence. Truth.
Perhaps these were the words given for me to speak, and after having spoken them, fall silent. | | |
| Violet and pink was spilled across the sky like a glass of punch over the kitchen table as the sun slowly crept under the horizon. I propped my elbow on the corner of the counter and leaned on it.
"Yea I'm telling you, he's an awesome writer. His books go where a lot of other authors can't even imagine." I exaggerated slightly.
He looked fascinated. "Yea that's great man, I mean when it's hard to find authors like that nowadays. I'll check those out sometime."
The bells that hung on the store's front door jingled, bouncing as the door was pulled open repeatedly by several small hands. A line of five children flashed through the store, flinging laughter and yells at the walls and shelves, bouncing off the books and figurines. They chased each other through the store, down each aisle screaming and laughing. My eyes trailed them through the store, heart beating as they raced past each glass picture frame, narrowly missing the paintings hanging on the back wall, shrieking past the glass gift shelf that can barely withstand the gentle touch of a surgeon's careful fingers. They circled around and neared my counter.
"Hey guys! Could you please not run in here?"
Breathlessly they panted an agreement and ran to the front door laughing. The door shook as they slammed against it to leave. I looked back at the person I was speaking to. We finished our conversation, I rang up his order, and he was on his way. I sat back down on my stool, and thought about the things I had said. Hey guys! Please don't run in here!
It occurred to me that I am someone else.
I am not the guy who used to throw water balloons at cars on the first night of summer. Nor am I the kid who mastered the art of prank calls, toilet papering, and smoke bombs. I am not the boy who was the king of all things un-permissible and not nice. Prince of sly acts and quick fingers.
Thus the question arises, "Am I me?"
I sighed and watched the sky.
Ten minutes less than half an hour passed. The door jingled open again. I saw out the window that three of the kids had returned, and I secretly said a prayer for the fragile things in the store. Leaving the door only partially closed, enough to qualify their small group as 'inside the store' they squeezed into the door. The boy spoke a carefully scripted and rehearsed line written by a mature mind.
"Hey we're really sorry that we caused such a... we made ..."
The girl with the ponytails corrected him. "...That we made a ruckus in here."
The third boy contributed his apology. "Yea. A huge ruckus. Sorry."
Their eyes wandered as they tried to remember what else their parents had made them say. A hint of sorrow was on the edge of their lips, but in a group they drew the strength to withhold any emotions.
The boy who lead the group resumed the apology. "So we won't do it again, and we're really sorry about that."
I smiled and waited for them to finish. "It's totally fine guys. I used to do that all the time. I just didn't want anything to break. I know you guys are just tryin to have some fun."
"Yea we had a blast!" They smiled at the realization that I wasn't angry.
"Well I hope you guys have fun out there. Take care guys!" I waved.
The quiet ones of the group slipped out the door immediately at that sentencing. The boy excitedly explained to me that they were just looking for this one kid who might've been hiding in here. He quickly explained the situation of the game to me, and I nodded approvingly.
"Hey thanks again!" He ran out the door.
"Don't worry about it guys."
They began the chase again outside.
Now these occurrences make me think. Who am I? | | |
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