Ponder

In my anitqua music history class, I have really pondered about a couple of things that I have learned. I have really enjoyed Dr. Schlagel's remarks because masses and chants have much more meaning than I have ever thought they would.

When the bubonic plague rampaged through Europe in 1348-49, people's mortal lives were put at risk. Having a disease where once one symptom appeared you were dead in three days created a perspective on how valueable life is and how easily it can be taken away. People now had an acute sense of mortality.

Before all this occured, people were very religious. Music was there to honor God, for the most part, and everything had a sacred meaning. After 2/3 of Europe lie dead in heaps and mounds, the world moved from a vernacular to secular: people began to focus on the here and now (time on Earth) rather than the future time in Heaven.

So therefore, what is the purpose of life?

There are three approaches that I have been thinking about.

1- Religion--we are sent here, as God's children, to live a virtuous life and do the best we can. No matter which religion one is apart of, I think it is safe to say everyone strives to be the perfect self they can be. What we do on Earth will be rewarded in Heaven. We are here to love God and love thy neighbor. Two commandments. Simple. Period.

2- Pragmatic--We need to leave our mark on the world. We only live once and therefore need to make the best of what comes our way. When we die, will we be remembered or has it all just been an adventure? We not only need to focus on others, but we need to not forget about ourselves. What is it we want to accomplish while here for such a short period of time?

3- Humanist--We are all human beings. We all come from the same place. We should be the best person that we can be so that the people who follow us will be able to have a better life than we had/have a better experience. This is where the learn from your elders comes from. We need to be the best people that we can be for ourselves, our happiness and the happiness and lives of the future human beings.

Being raised in a religious atmosphere, everything seems to be layed out plain and clear. However, it seems life is not black and white. There is no right and wrong answer to every situation. Really, what is the purpose of life? Are we supposed to live so that we have an amazing Heaven experience? Is it based on blind faith and hope wishing what we believe to be true is in fact, true? Or do we take on all three concepts and be the best person we can be while focusing on ourselves and the future betterment of mankind?

I think the best answer for right now is something I wrote on my bedroom wall in highschool:

"You are who you want to be!"

Glow

As Mama Odee says, "Don't matter whatcha look like. Don't matter whatcha wear [...] Don't matter where you come from. Don't even matter whatcha are [...] We don't care no we don't care."

Katy Perry's Firework music video is very inspiring and just makes you want to let loose. Maybe we should all glow brighter than the moon, be who we are and reach our full potential. Reach, after all is a verb. It involves stretching, grasping and effort. This brings about Christina Aguillera's music video Beautiful. There is such an image that the society says is attractive or correct. Each person is beautiful in their own way. We should never have to feel inadequate because of what we look like on the outside. It should be what we are on the inside, the firework that we let free.

The "purple" rule.

So today, America is uniting against suicide and bullying. I have wondered why it has taken us this long to acknowledge what goes on, but I feel since it is an uncomfortable topic, people just turn the other way and don't recognize that it happens. It is strange to me to think it took Ellen to cause a ripple effect. However, even though there is the question "why now," I am grateful that it is being addressed. Everyone has had some sort of bullying towards them, but I hope not many have had suicide directly influence their life. It is something that needs to be addressed. The sad stories of people shooting themselves on church steps and other suicides going "undiscussed" on college campuses are no longer set in vain. I pray for the families and friends that have experienced any grievance from suicide. As a person who has been affected by this, I say that though you grow from the situation, not a day goes by where I don't think of my friend.

Suicide from unacceptance needs to stop.

Bullying needs to stop.

We need to do all that we can do to be a friend to others and love those we come in contact with. We never know what goes on inside someone's head. People may seem put together on the outside, but no one EVER knows if they truly are. Treat everyone as you would want to be treated. Remember, Love makes the world go round.

Sunlight and a Latte

N'aray je jamais mieulx que j'ay?
Suy je la ou de demeuré,
M'amour et toutte ma plaisance?
N'arés vous jamais cognoissance,
Que je suy vostre et demouray?

--------------------------------

Will I never have better than I have?
Am I where I've always been,
O my love and all my delight?
Will you never realize
That I am yours and will so remain?

--Josquin de Morton
"I think that possibly, maybe I'm falling for you..."

anything can happen IF you let it

I was at the doctor's office today (which I had to pay to park...very odd to me. I guess that is big city living). While I waited the two hours for my five minute visit, I picked up a lot of reading material. One of the things that I picked up was the September/October 2010 issue of PA: Positively Aware. It talked all about the Vienna International AIDS Conference in July. This is besides the point of what I am talking about. However, I had to give this little bit of background information so that what I write will make better sense.

I was greatly inspired by something I read written by Sue Saltmarsh:

"It seems to be an aspect of human nature that we hardly ever confront a problem head-on and solve it once and for all without setbacks, without trial and error, or 'if at first you don't succeed...' [...]

"So much of life in this world, at this time, seems fraught with seemingly no-win situations. People in Louisiana say they're angry with the Obama administration for 'not doing more' about the BP oil spill, but when a moratorium on deep water drilling is announced and the plan to make BP establish a fund to pay damages is achieved, they wail about the loss of jobs on oil rigs and the danger of losing BP's presence (and business) in the Gulf. For years, people have cried out for our soldiers to come home from Iraq and Afghanistan and yet, nothing but criticism is heard about the plan to start bringing them back next year. Every day it seems some new information comes out on the beneficial effects of eating organic food, yet the people who need it the most can't begin to afford to buy it. Legislators in states like California, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois have resisted raising taxes to solve their huge budget crises and yet people rant against cuts to education, human services, and infrastructure--do they not understand that the extra $5 or $10 out of their paycheck is not so high a price to pay?

"And then there is the issue of profit motive in finding a cure. In this time when almost daily we hear about some Wall Street financier who got a bonus of millions while bilking his clients of their life savings; of a governor who worked eight hours a week while taking thousands in kickbacks; of a doctor who diluted cancer chemo drugs in order to sell them while patients died from not getting the correct dose, is it any wonder that there is a prevalent suspicion that even if a cure is discovered, it won't be made available because pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and insurance companies are making too much profit with the current treatments that keep HIV a chronic condition, not to mention treatment for the related conditions or co-infections that often occur in the HIV-positive?

"Having worked in non-profit all my life, I just can't wrap my mind around how, exactly, any sane person could justify putting the acquisition of money before helping to improve or save lives [...]

"Each of us makes choices that affect our quality of life, our relationships, our finances, our health, our sanity. Too often those choices come down to the lesser of two or more evils. But in making them, we continue to go on, we hold out for a brighter day, some even dare to dream of the possibility of being able to choose from a multitude of 'goods.'

"And someday, somehow the oil will stop leaking, wars will end, clean and wholesome food will be available to everyone, the economy will truly recover, programs that help people will be strongly funded because our society knows it's right to do so, and there will be a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and HIV. We just have to hang on.

"Breathe deep, live long."

For some reason, Sue Saltmarsh's words really ring true to me. Though her views might not coincide with others about the war or the BP problems that this country has faced, I do feel that she does make a true and poignant point: people can never be pleased. They are always looking for the next thing to gripe and moan about, or the next big amount of money that can be earned.

I would really hate to see the pharmaceutical companies and the like put the precedence of their own quarterly growth over the lives of human beings. No one's life is that invaluable. This instance reminds me of two specific things that I have seen.

1- Angels in America. The character played by Al Pacino. He is so greedy that though there are people who have been on the waiting list for years to get medicine, he is rich/powerful enough to bump himself to the top of the list and obtain treatment. In the end, he dies and has a vision of former convictees etc etc and has a whole scrooge like encounter. However, unlike his counterpart, he does not learn from his life lessons.

2- Spirit. Here is a homeless person that had been living at Cole (in reference to Flipping Out) since 1968. She dies one night due to dehydration. The police come, they take the body away, and all that remains is a candle and a flower provided by the beauty salon's owner. Jenni, Jeff's EA, makes a valid point by saying that no one soul is more important than the other. I strongly feel this to be true.

Wealth, fame or intelligence does not qualify someone to be at the top of the ranks, but it seems that in this inevitable society that we live in, class has to be measured somehow. Someone has to be in the third class to go down with the ship.

I have gotten off on a tangent...

The reason I was so inspired by this article in PA was that we as humans are scared of the future. We may have goals and plans years down the road, but we are scared to go out of our comfort zone. Define the word comfort? Is the familiar comfortable or is it the uncomfortable/the adventure that we thrive for? Is it the stability or the cageless freedom that we as creatures yearn for? In our minds it seems decisions are easy. If we have a partner to share life with, than we make decisions around them. If we have children, they come first. However, what if you are single and have many different paths ahead of you? Do you choose the smoothest course or do you take the leap of faith? Then comes the question, what is the smoothest course? Where do we go? What do we do? Who/what/when do we live for? These are all questions that I feel everyone asks themselves, but in reality, we are all too scared to answer truthfully.

The fact is, we cannot see the future. We can have our little premonitions or flow with fate or have faith in God (whichever you choose to believe), but where does one allow fear to take over? Are decisions based on need and want or does fear of regret motivate us to put in the back of our minds things that seem frivolous? Do we, as Mr. Darling, put our dreams away and every night, before we go to bed, open that drawer? Overtime, it gets harder and harder to close the drawer, but somehow, we always do. What is a dream? Are dreams reality or do they live in our own Neverland with the rest of the childhood fantasies? Do we follow our dreams or do we choose love/stability/familiarity/certainty?

"If you reach for the stars, all you get are the stars, but we found a whole new spin: if you reach for the heavens, you get the stars thrown in."

Here is the last thing that I want to ask you to do. If you know how to answer, please tell me:

Define the word happiness.

unexpected

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me that I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."

--John Lennon

What is the key to happiness? Is it love? Is it friendship? Is it family? Is it success? Is it doing what other people think you should do with your life?

I am currently in the midst of an interesting twist, as Lisa would say. Of course, the road you are on seems to be smooth, then there is a construction worker who has to go and jack things up. You have the option of continuing to drive down the bumpy road that you are on with the chance of ruining your car, or you have the option to turn down a different one and press re-route on your GPS. Your ultimate goal is happiness. Do you continue driving down the bumpy road that seems to be a direct line to the end? You cannot see if the road smooths out, or if it indeed does end up where you want it to go. There is also the option of taking an adventure and driving down a new road, one that has a lot of turns and detours to the end goal of happiness. Taking that road allows happiness to come to you because you have to make it for yourself.

There is a famous saying that I love. Gay Hintze (an elderly woman I knew very well) made it into a bookmark for me: You may be at a fork in the road but it is the forks in the road that make life interesting and lead us to new adventures. The journey is half the fun.

I really do feel that the journey is half the fun. It reminds me of To Wong Fu. Vida Boheme throws the map out of the window while they are trying to get to LA. On the way, they encounter things that they would never expect and touch the lives of a dinky little town. Yet, it is what they wanted in the end--the growth, the friendship and the happiness.

"So don't be afraid to make mistakes, to stumble, to fail, cause most of the time the greatest rewards come from the things that scare us the most. Maybe you'll get everything you wish for... Maybe you'll get more than you could ever have imagined... Who knows where life will take you. The road is long and in the end... the journey is the destination."

--Chad Fiveash

Hues and Hughes

Here I am in Connecticut. Cheshire to be exact, and there is no cat here telling me confusing riddles that are hard to understand.

As I sit here and devour the eloquent, articulated ideas that Ayn Rand proclaims in her minimal words, I ponder many things that I have learned over the past few years and more importantly, the past few months.

A couple days past I saw the almost as ingeniously conceived movie Eat Pray Love. This is what has sparked my intriguing devotion to my thoughts.

"We cannot know what will be wrong or right in a selfless society, nor what we'll feel, nor in what manner. We must destroy the ego first. We must believe. Believe even if your mind objects. Don't think. Believe. Trust your heart, not your brain. Don't think. Feel. Believe."

This summer has been quite crazy. I have learned a lot about myself. I have learned a lot about friendship. I have learned a lot about relationships. I have learned a lot in general.

I have learned that I if I put my mind to it, I can do just about anything. I can pick up something very difficult that I would never think I could learn and become confident in myself.

I have learned that some people are crazy. They may seem sane on the outside, but the more one gets to know them, they turn hostile, untrustworthy and a lot of lies can be spread quickly.

I have learned that I need to not trust so easily. What I say to someone might not always stay in confidence. Things seem to always leak. Either that or you never know who is listening.

I have learned that someone you might think hates you, is jealous of you or rude may in fact be looking out for you and wanting to be a friend.

I have learned that moving forward with life may be difficult, but it is also the first stepping stone to creating a happy life. You can never look back with regret, but you can look back with fond memories.

I have learned people do truly care.

I have learned that some things are not worth leaving behind. They are worth holding on to and never letting go.