Hi everybody. I've been meaning to do this for quite some time ... "this" being start a place where I could put my writing up for anyone to see it. I put it off for a long time because a piece of me thought it would somehow be "self-serving" and that no one would read it.
On the first matter: I've come to some realizations lately that have made me believe in my core that the only part of "myself" it would be serving would be my love for the people in my life and a desire to be closer to them. For those who know me, you know I'm not about self-promotion. Moving away from your roots and your comfort zone can get lonely at times -- and I'd like an honest avenue to let people know what's going on in my life -- in the hopes that they'll feel comfortable enough to let me know about theirs.
On the second matter: I'm trying to base my decisions these days around my work ethic and my heart -- rather than from some ill-founded fear of failure. We'll see where it gets me ... and I'm hoping people will read.
So, the first post is something I wrote about 2 months back (given the dated material). But yea, I think it's a beginning, and a fitting one.
Thanks for taking your time to read. Any, and ALL feedback is not just ok, it's needed and fully yearned for.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
A beginning.
I just figured out, not long ago, that somewhere in the tumult of the twilight of school, I’d forgotten why I love to write.
I used to write these quite frequently — about anything and everything — and what started as a form of stress relief and a way to decipher the distorted confusion of everyday life blossomed into a curious and wonderful opportunity: it breached the barriers of propriety and distance and timidity and inhibition and all of the countless phenomena that so often keep loved ones and friends from discussing the things that are on their hearts.
I don’t mean to be obscure. I’m not referring to anything indistinct or hard to grasp. I’m simply talking about the things that make being a part of a shared humanity so extraordinarily worthwhile.
My sometimes inane and confused ramblings allowed me, every once in a while, to have genuine and stimulating conversations with people I’d otherwise never had bonded with. It strengthened old friendships — kindled new ones — and introduced me to the hearts of strangers.
And God did I love it.
Writing that now makes me wonder how I could have ever forgotten. But I did.
Gliding through my days. Ignoring the tumult of thoughts bouncing around in my head. Believing I’d take the time “tomorrow” or “when things settle down.” It’s all bullshit.
Yet I suppose the stumbling and the confusion are part of the lesson as well, aren’t they?
I need writing. I need a space to share my thoughts and beliefs with others, and to converse with others. I need to spill my guts so I can make sense of them. I hate the walls people put up in their lives to keep people out, and I want to try to break down mine, and see if other people will let theirs down too.
And I think realizing all of that is simply tied into maturing and growing and learning to be the person I have inside me…the person of quality that seems so utterly unattainable at life’s most trying times.
Life’s been trying lately, I have to admit that. But its changing…really rapidly…so I guess I was expecting some of the discomfort. Yet now I feel like I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can slow down and assess where I am, and how I got here.
It took over three months.
Three months of living out of a suitcase on an air mattress on my older brother’s floor.
Three months of learning to communicate with said older brother again…of getting used to being a part of his life for the first time in years.
Three months of work in what everyone seems so fond of calling “the real world.” I don’t think I’ll call it that — it’s too perfunctory and unthinking. Why don’t we call it:
“The world of living independently, on your own two feet, according to your own terms. Passionately or as a drone: your choice.”
I just feel like I have yet to set those terms — and each day I push it off just pisses me off more and more.
So. Three months.
My older brother’s in Africa, caught up in the concerns of a people who genuinely need his help, trying to right the wrongs of a violence that’s plagued a continent that our country cares very little about. I’m so profusely proud of him I can’t even begin to relate it to anyone. I’m proud to have his light and passion to guide me, but more proud that he’s taking that kernel inside of him that says “UNSHACKLE YOURSELF FROM AMBIVALENCE AND REALIZE THAT YOUR COMFORT COMES AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS – AND THAT AMERICANS NEED TO BE SETTING AN ENTIRELY DIFFFERENT SORT OF EXAMPLE.”
And there’s a growing piece of me that wonders why the hell I’m not following that voice inside me telling me the exact same thing.
I just sat for about an hour and read through some old entries I wrote in a journal at the beginning of this year. I was kinda astounded by how lucid and clear my desires were. Strangely, they echo some things I could swear I just recently figured out. I guess it just goes to show that certain realizations take longer to form than you think they will:
“What I want is something useful, something humble, and something plainly ‘good’ to do for as long as I see fit. I believe some of the writings that I’m reading in my religion class—that ‘all we have on earth is our happiness’—and ‘the way to be happy is to make others so’—so perhaps all those mundane classes aren’t so bad after all.
It’s strengthening my resolve. Strengthening my desire to find a way to forge a life free from the constructs of ‘others’ wishes — wishes for following a career track, for gaining as much money as I can, for doing ANYTHING other than following my damned old heart.
So lately all I’ve been doing is trying to emerge from the fogginess that has surrounded my days…trying to gain a clearer perspective on the fleeting time I’ve got with some of the best friends I’ve ever found.”
I read that and stopped. I stopped and laughed, and got a little choked up. I really don’t want to do anything other than follow my “damned old heart.” The crux is learning how to listen to it. I’ve got time now to do that, and there’s the rub.
Reading all of that hammered home how idealism has to be married with action before anything substantive can come of it.
So in the mess of rambling thoughts that my brain has become, I’m holding out a firm hope that I can push myself to do something that will reverse even just a tiny iota of the shit that seems to be consuming this world.
I read a book called “Mountains Beyond Mountains” about a guy named Paul Farmer, a doctor, who is spending his life combating the injustices in the medical community. But that explanation can’t begin to even explain what he’s doing.
Here’s an approximated summary of his view: “I’ve become a doctor to help people, not to make money. Therefore, I will donate all the money I earn to a charity to further the medical work I do. The people of Haiti are some of the most impoverished people in this hemisphere, and their illness, TB, is one that Western medicine could cure if it really gave a shit. I give a shit. I’ll cure it.”
And he did.
He realized that TB medicine only costs a lot because of a lot of Capitalist bullshit and bureaucratic bullshit that he and his foundation could wade through if they cared enough…and they did.
And from there they began to tackle AIDs…in Haiti, Peru, Russia, America…anywhere they could, all while continually staying vigilant against TB. The list of things he has done and minds he has changed is endless.
He saw that American policy more often than not works against impoverished people in third world countries rather than for them. He saw that Communist Cuba actually has some things to teach the world about healthcare, rather than putting it in a category, labeling it as “bad” or “evil” and walking away. He was open-minded about every damn thing he did.
He’s a true inspiration for anybody who wants some hope in the world, and a different view of things. Google, Partners in Health. You’ll see.
Most importantly though, he realized that most people must endure a certain feeling of ambivalence towards the suffering of others in order to live the lives of comfort they’ve dreamed of – and he set out to develop a life that would ensure he’d never feel that same ambivalence.
OK. Sorry. I promise there was a point to that.
The point is this: I don’t think I could ever sacrifice everything. I really don’t think I have it in me. But I DO think that I can make a difference in some small way, because I’m fed up with feeling like a willing accomplice to a country that wittingly and unwittingly fucks over the rest of the world to get what it wants. I’m tired of endorsing our black and white international relations by doing nothing.
I just want, desperately, to begin to plot a course to do something plainly “good” as a member of a global community.
Sorry to use a wide lens, but lately I haven’t been able to see it any other way.
Maybe it’s all these news stories I have to keep reading about big international oil companies sucking the reserves out of the ground in Nigeria, Latin America, Northern Africa, Iraq, and on and on and on…while the people living in huts with bloated bellies and starving eyes watch helplessly.
All so that I can drive a car? All because “that’s just the way it is?” All because they don’t matter as much as “we” do? That seems to be the message.
Bullshit.
Call this a gestation period. I don’t know. But I feel empowered to continue thinking for myself, and to continue feeling with every ounce of me that I can get to feel, and to somehow find a way to act.
Let me know if you have any ideas. Seriously.
I used to write these quite frequently — about anything and everything — and what started as a form of stress relief and a way to decipher the distorted confusion of everyday life blossomed into a curious and wonderful opportunity: it breached the barriers of propriety and distance and timidity and inhibition and all of the countless phenomena that so often keep loved ones and friends from discussing the things that are on their hearts.
I don’t mean to be obscure. I’m not referring to anything indistinct or hard to grasp. I’m simply talking about the things that make being a part of a shared humanity so extraordinarily worthwhile.
My sometimes inane and confused ramblings allowed me, every once in a while, to have genuine and stimulating conversations with people I’d otherwise never had bonded with. It strengthened old friendships — kindled new ones — and introduced me to the hearts of strangers.
And God did I love it.
Writing that now makes me wonder how I could have ever forgotten. But I did.
Gliding through my days. Ignoring the tumult of thoughts bouncing around in my head. Believing I’d take the time “tomorrow” or “when things settle down.” It’s all bullshit.
Yet I suppose the stumbling and the confusion are part of the lesson as well, aren’t they?
I need writing. I need a space to share my thoughts and beliefs with others, and to converse with others. I need to spill my guts so I can make sense of them. I hate the walls people put up in their lives to keep people out, and I want to try to break down mine, and see if other people will let theirs down too.
And I think realizing all of that is simply tied into maturing and growing and learning to be the person I have inside me…the person of quality that seems so utterly unattainable at life’s most trying times.
Life’s been trying lately, I have to admit that. But its changing…really rapidly…so I guess I was expecting some of the discomfort. Yet now I feel like I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can slow down and assess where I am, and how I got here.
It took over three months.
Three months of living out of a suitcase on an air mattress on my older brother’s floor.
Three months of learning to communicate with said older brother again…of getting used to being a part of his life for the first time in years.
Three months of work in what everyone seems so fond of calling “the real world.” I don’t think I’ll call it that — it’s too perfunctory and unthinking. Why don’t we call it:
“The world of living independently, on your own two feet, according to your own terms. Passionately or as a drone: your choice.”
I just feel like I have yet to set those terms — and each day I push it off just pisses me off more and more.
So. Three months.
My older brother’s in Africa, caught up in the concerns of a people who genuinely need his help, trying to right the wrongs of a violence that’s plagued a continent that our country cares very little about. I’m so profusely proud of him I can’t even begin to relate it to anyone. I’m proud to have his light and passion to guide me, but more proud that he’s taking that kernel inside of him that says “UNSHACKLE YOURSELF FROM AMBIVALENCE AND REALIZE THAT YOUR COMFORT COMES AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS – AND THAT AMERICANS NEED TO BE SETTING AN ENTIRELY DIFFFERENT SORT OF EXAMPLE.”
And there’s a growing piece of me that wonders why the hell I’m not following that voice inside me telling me the exact same thing.
I just sat for about an hour and read through some old entries I wrote in a journal at the beginning of this year. I was kinda astounded by how lucid and clear my desires were. Strangely, they echo some things I could swear I just recently figured out. I guess it just goes to show that certain realizations take longer to form than you think they will:
“What I want is something useful, something humble, and something plainly ‘good’ to do for as long as I see fit. I believe some of the writings that I’m reading in my religion class—that ‘all we have on earth is our happiness’—and ‘the way to be happy is to make others so’—so perhaps all those mundane classes aren’t so bad after all.
It’s strengthening my resolve. Strengthening my desire to find a way to forge a life free from the constructs of ‘others’ wishes — wishes for following a career track, for gaining as much money as I can, for doing ANYTHING other than following my damned old heart.
So lately all I’ve been doing is trying to emerge from the fogginess that has surrounded my days…trying to gain a clearer perspective on the fleeting time I’ve got with some of the best friends I’ve ever found.”
I read that and stopped. I stopped and laughed, and got a little choked up. I really don’t want to do anything other than follow my “damned old heart.” The crux is learning how to listen to it. I’ve got time now to do that, and there’s the rub.
Reading all of that hammered home how idealism has to be married with action before anything substantive can come of it.
So in the mess of rambling thoughts that my brain has become, I’m holding out a firm hope that I can push myself to do something that will reverse even just a tiny iota of the shit that seems to be consuming this world.
I read a book called “Mountains Beyond Mountains” about a guy named Paul Farmer, a doctor, who is spending his life combating the injustices in the medical community. But that explanation can’t begin to even explain what he’s doing.
Here’s an approximated summary of his view: “I’ve become a doctor to help people, not to make money. Therefore, I will donate all the money I earn to a charity to further the medical work I do. The people of Haiti are some of the most impoverished people in this hemisphere, and their illness, TB, is one that Western medicine could cure if it really gave a shit. I give a shit. I’ll cure it.”
And he did.
He realized that TB medicine only costs a lot because of a lot of Capitalist bullshit and bureaucratic bullshit that he and his foundation could wade through if they cared enough…and they did.
And from there they began to tackle AIDs…in Haiti, Peru, Russia, America…anywhere they could, all while continually staying vigilant against TB. The list of things he has done and minds he has changed is endless.
He saw that American policy more often than not works against impoverished people in third world countries rather than for them. He saw that Communist Cuba actually has some things to teach the world about healthcare, rather than putting it in a category, labeling it as “bad” or “evil” and walking away. He was open-minded about every damn thing he did.
He’s a true inspiration for anybody who wants some hope in the world, and a different view of things. Google, Partners in Health. You’ll see.
Most importantly though, he realized that most people must endure a certain feeling of ambivalence towards the suffering of others in order to live the lives of comfort they’ve dreamed of – and he set out to develop a life that would ensure he’d never feel that same ambivalence.
OK. Sorry. I promise there was a point to that.
The point is this: I don’t think I could ever sacrifice everything. I really don’t think I have it in me. But I DO think that I can make a difference in some small way, because I’m fed up with feeling like a willing accomplice to a country that wittingly and unwittingly fucks over the rest of the world to get what it wants. I’m tired of endorsing our black and white international relations by doing nothing.
I just want, desperately, to begin to plot a course to do something plainly “good” as a member of a global community.
Sorry to use a wide lens, but lately I haven’t been able to see it any other way.
Maybe it’s all these news stories I have to keep reading about big international oil companies sucking the reserves out of the ground in Nigeria, Latin America, Northern Africa, Iraq, and on and on and on…while the people living in huts with bloated bellies and starving eyes watch helplessly.
All so that I can drive a car? All because “that’s just the way it is?” All because they don’t matter as much as “we” do? That seems to be the message.
Bullshit.
Call this a gestation period. I don’t know. But I feel empowered to continue thinking for myself, and to continue feeling with every ounce of me that I can get to feel, and to somehow find a way to act.
Let me know if you have any ideas. Seriously.
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