Friday, December 31, 2010
Resolutions & Revelations
Monday, October 25, 2010
A smart man once said, "Live everyday as if it is your last and eventually you will be right".
Life is short. One of the most powerful intellectual tools is to know that you will absolutely die. You have no option. It is the only destination that we all share. Death will come with certainly and will seem to have arrived much more quickly than you can imagine now. I have had plenty of discomfort in realizing this fact, but it has also helped me greatly. Steve Jobs spoke about this in a speech of his and I couldn't agree more. Realizing that you are going to die certainly and relatively soon will help you greatly in life. Because, once you realize this almost everything -- all external expectations, pride, and fear of failure and embarrassment disappear in the face of death leaving only what is important.
Steve Jobs says, "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart."
He goes on to say, "No one has ever escaped death and that is as it should be. Because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Someday very soon you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your inner voice. Most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you want to become. Everything else is secondary."
To the journey,
Soccer-tease
Sunday, October 24, 2010
You Are Not That Important
Where am I going with this? Well, in today's society we are obsessed with things that make us feel important. For instance, many people are now using twitter, but why? Perhaps for a good laugh. Maybe to keep up with old friends. I would like to propose that the fascination with twitter and other social media sites is it forces others to take notice of your thoughts and daily activities. Status updates, tweets, and wall posts are just a way of getting your opinion or thoughts out to your social circle. You would never hear anyone say directly to you half of the things they tweet or put on their status. In all honesty, no one gives a damn if you "raged last night" or if you are studying or your opinion on anything. It's those that are close to you that really care.
This seems pretty drab, but my point is coming around. In 1776, there were about 2.5 million Americans and 800 million in the world. You have less of an opportunity to matter to society now than ever before. The odds are, you will never be important. Here is the catch. No one's opinion alone is important. After all, opinions have no clout unless others agree and exchange the information. It is all about the small interactions you have everyday with the people that are important in your life. This chain of interactions is what causes the real movements in the world. There must always be a leader, someone that seems to be the important one. Truly, it is everyone of us in this huge network of nobodies. Throw your conceit out the window and make the changes you seek through the people you meet everyday. You don't have to be a Martin Luther King Jr. or an Albert Einstein to take part in changing the world.
And when you look back on life, like looking back after you climbed a mountain. You will remember each step you took along the way, not the fact that you actually made it to the top.
Soccer-tease
Friday, October 22, 2010
Real recognize Real
"The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created--created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.”- John Schaar
Friday, October 15, 2010
Is Bono really human?
The peak of the mountain always seems better before you reach it. I have realized, quite recently, that no matter how many achievements one may have under his/her belt, the fact is happiness comes from deep down inside. Pulling oneself closer to the person that you wish to be brings happiness. The vehicle for this is not always big achievements. In fact, it's almost always the smallest details in life. Why am I in pursuit of happiness using the wrong vehicle? I must redefine success. One of the hardest things to do is understand yourself and what makes you feel happy or complete. It seems a lot easier to inundate ourselves with material possessions until those possessions grow old and then aspire for more possessions. I, personally, would rather figure out the real secret to satisfaction and fulfillment. I guess where I'm going with this random stream of consciousness is: I want to rid myself of any vices I may have (I'm not sure this goal is attainable, as I have a beer in hand and am sharply craving a cigarette) and seek a pure existence. So, cheers to the nearly impossible; true happiness.
IM BACK,
Soccer-Tease
Thursday, October 7, 2010
ARMED TO THE TEETH
LUCID LIVING
Sunday, October 3, 2010
different than we've ever been
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
the great majority of men are bundles of beginnings
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Lewis Pugh After Completing the Mount Everest Swim
Monday, July 26, 2010
I Have Better Things to Fill My Time
So many times we hear, "Do what you must now so that you may do what you want later". I am so tired of modeling my life to sculpt and form some future that is correct only in societal views. I want to be an explorer. An explorer of life. And of thought. I look back on my youth and allow my thoughts to create havoc when I realized how I was hoodwinked. To be told, "you can do whatever you want in life", is a hoax. You can do whatever you like in life so long as you attend school, stay grounded, and do as everyone else! I'm done with that.
That is all for now.
Hope & Power
"The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but, rather, an ability to work for something that is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper the hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless as ours do, here and now.
I leave it to those more qualified to decide what can be expected “from above”—that is, from what is happening in the sphere of power. I have never fixed my hopes there; I’ve always been more interested in what was happening “below,” in what could be expected from “below,” what could be won there, and what defended. All power is power over someone, and it always somehow responds, usually unwittingly rather than deliberately, to the state of mind and the behavior of those it rules over. One can always find in the behavior of power a reflection of what is going on “below.” No one can govern in a vacuum. The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: Everyone has a small part of himself in both.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thank You
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Shine On
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
All I can do is be me, whoever that is
Thursday, June 24, 2010
I really fucked that up...Thank God.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Remember the time -- It's now
Here's a puzzle for you: What do you see in this grid above? What do you think it represents?
Okay, it's not a difficult puzzle. The answer is "one year." The columns represent days and the rows are the twelve months of the year, so each day of the year occupies one square.
"Okay," you ask, "so what's the big deal?"
When I look at this grid I get a chill because I'm used to thinking about one year as a long time. Chances are, you do too. But when a year is represented like this, and you can see every day of the year at a glance, suddenly a year doesn't seem so long anymore.
This grid is the layout of a typical table blotter calendar that you can find in any office supply store. It's quite an ordinary, everyday thing. Why should it be any different from a regular yearly calendar that shows the same thing month by month? I'm not sure. Perhaps it is because we've also been conditioned to think of a month as a long time. Perhaps the irregular number of days in a month and the space between months all contribute to that illusion.
In any event, confronting the grid and contemplating its meaning is a sobering experience for me. You cross out a square with each day passes, and no power in Heaven or Earth can bring that day back for you. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. And when another year has passed, all the squares will be crossed out, irrevocably lost. You move on to another grid.
How many more grids do you have? For me, perhaps forty more, if I am lucky. And what is the number forty? It can be expressed as a five-by-eight matrix. The number of table blotters I have left fill the matrix, representing my life. With the passing of each year, one square from this tiny matrix disappears, never to exist again.
If I am lucky. If not, then my matrix - yours too - contains considerably less squares. For all I know I may have just a few more table blotters remaining. The same is true for you.
When you see it this way, you come to the inescapable conclusion that, indeed, life is too short. We hear this platitude so frequently, it has all but lost its power. But now, seen from a fresh angle, the message regains its dark potency. We, all of us, really don't have that much time in this plane of existence. If life is a lesson, it's a crash course.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Are You Living?
A pretty wise, fictitious high-schooler once said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” How many times in our lives do we find ourselves just going through the motions and living the day out like there are many more to come? What ever happened to living each day as if it were your last? I see too many individuals caught up on all the numbers in life, too worried about the complexities and social norms imposed by society. This detrimental effect has created the bubbles we all live in today.
From time to time, I find myself just reaching out for that next benchmark in my life, disregarding the people, places, and experiences I have had. I ask you all to learn from my mistakes and not live in the same dull, numb manner. At each stage in your life, there is something to be learned and absorbed to create the individual that is YOU. YOU are the most important factor in YOUR life, and by downplaying what makes YOU original and makes YOU special to this world, we have a society full of the exact same individual.
So I challenge the reader's of this blog to go out there and live YOUR life. In a world of competition, too much emphasis is placed on what others are doing. It is important to remember that no one else is living YOUR life, and the more you focus on others, the less of YOUR life is actually being lived.
3some
The man in the glass
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass.
The fellow whose verdict counts most in you life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
You may be like Jack Horner and chisel a plum
And think you’re a wonderful guy.
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.
He’s the fellow to please-never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear to the end.
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.
Anonymous
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Never truly satisfied
For a little while I thought I knew everything, now I realize I know nothing, and while I know nothing, I don't think anyone else knows much either.
The more I learn, the less I know.
We do know some things however. We know who we are because of our choices, we know where we want to go because of our hopes and goals, but do we know where we are now? Or are we just mindlessly stuck in this routine, like a B-rated movie, where we already know the ending.
Step 1 of Self-Actualization: Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly.
Throw yourself into the experience of something, let it take you fully. At the very least you learn. Learn how you feel about it, or learn more about how it makes you feel. There is no substitute for experience.
To those who are waiting for something, life has no obligation to make things happen for you, you have to go out there and take it. Stop looking at things in such a grand scale, foundations are made one brick at a time. When you can believe that, you can feel opportunity hanging on to the second hand of your watch, bellowing you to move.
They say the world steps aside for men who know where they are going.
It starts when you start. Today is Day 1.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
I'm a gonna show the way.
Ahhh the purgatory of life. College. So often I feel as if I'm in The Phantom Tollbooth's Doldrums. Are you thinking? Stop. Laughing? You wouldn't dare. Sitting, waiting, and stagnating. Formal education shouldn't feel like such a hindrance to one's true education and pursuit of life goals. I try so desperately to enjoy the journey. Enjoying the hike as much as reaching the summit. This concept, so easily conceived, is much harder to implement in my life. My aim in this blog is not at all to turn readers into cheap therapy for myself. I don't want you to become sounding boards. I'm just attempting to provoke thought. Shouldn't society be more tailored to fit all of its diverse members? The ease with which performing well comes in a top public university is astounding. Let me set up an independent study curriculum for myself and then give me a degree.
I digress, I guess I'm tired of ignorance setting the precedent. Which leads me to the following conclusion:
Please, Let us stop fooling ourselves America. Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Also, forty-four percent of US adults still believe the earth is less than 20,000 years old. I'm not making these figures up, it is in the 2008 Gallup poll. The only way for us to achieve our educational goals is through independent study. Make the world your classroom and for the love of god, do not give in to ignorance. Knowledge IS power.
Until next time,
Soccer Tease
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
none of us are everything, but we are all something
The only thing we are sure of completely is that we are experiencing something.
Our instincts and emotions are the realest thing we have in this world, and without them we are nothing.
Life is quick, too quick; and the older we get, the faster it goes. It's our very own tragedy, and it's beautiful.
It's too hard to remember everything we have seen. The only thing we can do is to remember how things made us feel.
So remember to feel real.
Let me ask you something powerful, and please try to answer yourself honestly....can you name 10 of the best moments of your life?
1. The day my brother was born
2.
3.
4.
5.
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10.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
I'm Alive!
Here's to you
I have so much to tell you, I don't quite know where to begin. In a world full of billions of different minds and ideals, I am quite sure that all the answers we seek can be found in each other. A lot of the questions we beckon have already been asked and answered by either those around us, or the immortals that lie on our bookshelves. In a world full of people trying to make sure they say everything they need to say we often forget to listen to those who needs us most.
This is one of my favorite quotes of all time, and it certainly highlights the allegory I present to you today.
"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
-John Donne
All the people I have yet to meet and the capacity as to which they could affect my life sets my mind on fire.
There is so much more to us than what we are on paper & often we need to reach out and touch others because we don't know who can touch us back.
This is for those who are not satisfied, This is for those who can see the potential the day offers, the greatness that hangs on to every second of every minute of every day. This is to those who listen because they have more questions than answers.
This one is for you.
If we can't have hope in each other, than how can we have hope in ourselves?