Excuses

The trick is not how much pain you feel - but how much joy you feel. Any idiot can feel pain. Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.
- Erica Jong
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
- Joseph Rudyard Kipling, 1865 - 1936

I thought: hey, one could always use a reminder. Enjoy your life, it's the only one you have. Besides, if you can read this, you're probably better off than most of the world. You might think that what you have is no big deal, but try to imagine getting all of this when you have nothing... not a thing. And look for reasons not to worry, before you decide to do so - not the other way.

Feel the joy! Jump around! Be happy, be in the world. No excuses.

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Darwin for beginners

I'm taking an Anthropology class this semester and found passages in the book that caught my attention:

1.

The point is, scientific curiosity is not a native human talent. It has to be shaped and directed by social situations; institutional arrangements and vested interests, which give certain inquiries their characteristic verve and momentum.

2.

In his great book "The Road to Xanadu" John Livingston Lowes discusses the origins of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. He shows how the facts and images Coleridge obtained from ceaseless reading eventually returned to be incorporated in one of the gratest poems of the English language. Lowes points out that this material would have been useless, unless it had been forgotten first. It had to be plunged into the transforming depths of Coleridge's unconscious imagination before it could be retrieved and reordered.

Two things to make you think...

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neversayers

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
- Benjamin Franklin

List of what to never say. I'm trying to learn. And why does it always have to be the hard way?
For that, I have no answer. Still, here's a list.
For all of these and more that I can't remember (shamefully), I'm sorry. I'm sorry...
(You live, you learn, right? - Alanis Morissette song)

• (I'm sorry, but) it's not my fault


• Sure, no problem - when someone asks for something. Correction: use "my/with pleasure", "i'd love to", express concrete wish to help, not like you're doing a favor


• I made a mistake, it will never happen again (see, because it has that "never" there?)


• never


• always

(last 2: or, as I wrote a while back: always remember never to say never)

TBC

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It had to be said

Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
- Mary Manin Morrissey

Since the year's fresh, it's time to realize that living happens now and here and stop waiting for something to come.
Life's all the time, isn't it?

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Some other times

How strange that only when you grow past a certain age you are capable of deluding yourself ... from your own self, for, perhaps, any amount of time.

---
NOTE:
Before I start... storytelling, I have an announcement:
Because of, let's say, previous experiences, I would like to point out that, out of all my writings, only some match my beliefs, while others contain one or more of the following (or others not yet mentioned :D):
- random ideas that someone might think of - either someone in general or I hear them somewhere (and/or I picked up on from others, or from the daily life)
- thoughts against myself (which I do because I find it clears the mind marvelously; plus, it gets rid of some nasty prejudices, try it!)
- moody swings (I'm not a girl, but hey! guys still get moody!)
- what if's of my own but not that I necessarily believe

In summary, this is a "don't judge what you read as my own beliefs" kind of message. I do value someone's beliefs, and on a great account I feel closer to those people that believe in the same things I do (don't we all?) but because beliefs are beliefs and nothing more, it would be unfair to dismiss someone simply because of what they believe...

Have you ever tried to argue against what's most dear to you? You must know how hard it is, then. If you try to start an argument on something that you're sensitive to, try not being one sided about it! *sigh*

Alright, this was perhaps because I'm setting the grounds for a big controversial thingy. Now, back to the story...
---

Getting busy with work.
Or school.
Hanging out with friends.
Listening to music, yelling it out loud.
Driving fast.
Writing about it. Not once, not twice.
Hope, hidden deep down - so well hidden that you don't even realize it's the first feeling you have in the morning; that along with the bittersweet taste of reality - that things will happen, someway or another, to make your dream come true.

You can't if you're a kid. How could a child lie to oneself? No, he couldn't!
It's like a sad story, that of growing up. You're born with this tiny mind and a huge huge heart. You learn so much, feel so much, everything that happens around you fires up your heart at first. You almost "love" or "hate" everything. But then you get older, and you stop feeling strongly about things. You realize that Santa Claus doesn't really exist. Or that your little pet didn't really go to Honolulu for the past 6 months. You come to know there are other people in this world, you become aware of them.
And so much else.
Gradually, slowly, you distance your mind from your heart. If you suffer, you pull away - IF you can. Then, even if you involve yourself again, you know you can pull back. And that's how it starts. When you're happy, you go for it! Again, and again... ah, and happiness makes everything most subjective.

We instinctively know when we're happy with our lives. Isn't it funny how you are so self-focused when you're happy? I don't mean to say self-centered. Or selfish. Happiness does not necessarily mean you're selfish. I think that depends on your attitude and beliefs, spiritual strength, will... stuff like that. Perhaps, to be more clear, I should make sense of the happiness I'm talking about: the kind that gives you butterflies in the stomach (does it have to be love? I don't know), excites you from head to toe and almost forces you to get out of bed full of LIFE! Damn it! YES!
Hah! High five!

So, being self-focused is good. It's knowing you love your place in the world, yeah!
[...]
We might have happy moments, but we're not happy all the time. We might have an overall happy life, though, isn't that great?

The TV's turned on, right beside me. I skipped through the list of channels and saw "The Notebook" title right on there. I wanted to see it again.
I knew it'd take me back in time, back to memories. I knew I'd tend to advocate one thing or another after/while watching it. I went back and forth only to realize that having something to go back and forth for gives me strength. Having to face myself and enjoying it is something I have been long missing.

I'm happy. I'm happy! :)
It's evanescent, probably, but I feel happy.
Feels like that quote:
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right? - Charles M. Schulz

I saw "The Shape of Things" yesterday. It's now one of my top movies ever! I'd strongly recommend it to anyone... The movie forces so many questions out of oneself that I can't even begin to say why one should see it! Seduction, truth, art, change, superficiality, what love is... what's real versus what is not.

Scraps of a bigger picture...

"Do I really have to make sense?"
"Meh. Only if you want to..."
"Good. Cause I don't want to right now."
*nods*
Really complex. I know.

I love playing the piano! Just can't wait for that holiday time so I could do it all I want... Fur Elise, sing it with me! (Was he really deaf?)

Oh, speaking of selfishness, I thought of altruism and generosity, about how much one tends to postpone it for later (aka typically when one can do it wholeheartedly and meaningfully), and how one ends up not doing it at all...

I'm going to go dream now :)
It's almost one.
Thinking of you... dear to me... here's a special felt thought reaching out to you!

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