Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Anarchy

So a friend of mine wanted me to watch a movie called The Anarchist Cookbook. I figured there could be no harm in that, so I did. I got to say it was an interesting movie, based around a group of people living an anarchist life style.

The basic definition for anarchy is, a state of society without government or law. Most people think of anarchist as people who do whatever without a moral once in their body. This may be true in some cases but most anarchist believe in the responsibility of the individual.

But it was interesting because in the movie there was this guy who's original name was Peter but now goes by Puck, who was best friends with a guy that didn't have an education, was raised by parents that didn't care about him or want anything to do with him. In the movie Puck is there for his best friend and promises to watch over him and take care of him. But when Puck ends up under house arrest he is no longer able to watch over his friend. Puck's friend ends up getting to heavy into drugs and ends up over dosing on heroin.

Watching the movie made me realize how much we truly depend on one another for protection, guidance, companionship, and so much more. When Puck wasn't around for his friend, his friend died. I don't know if that was like a subliminal message in the movie, that we truly need one another to survive and live together looking after one another. But that is what I took away from the movie.

But to say the least it was an interesting movie. My favorite part in the whole movie is when Puck and his friend start working at a coffee shot and end up taking 20 shots of espresso and go ballistic on a caffeine high. The End.

Waiting and Wishing

I have never really been the one of listening, rather more of action. This can get me into trouble sometimes. For example when I was young my family and I were in our maroon, seven passenger, 1995 Ford Aerostar sitting at the Lake City Way Dicks Hamburger joint. My mom, sister, brother, and I were sitting in the car while my dad waited in line to place our order. As we were waiting I decided I would push the cigarette lighter in for 5 seconds and then pull it out. So I did and when I look at it, the cigarette lighter wasn't glowing its normal orange redish color.

Before I could do anything my mom said to me, "don't touch it, it's hot". Like a good mom should, she knew I was thinking and what I was going to do, I was going to put my finger one the part you light the cigarette with.

Now you would think my mom would have taken the car cigarette lighter away from me, nope! She just let me do what I wanted to do. So sure enough I figured, it's not hot. So i put my finger on the cigarette lighter and before I could feel the pain, I smelt a burning stink in the car. I wondered what the heck that smell was. Of course it was my finger and soon enough I could feel the pain. Of course I was in shock and like a good mom all she said was, "I told you, you should have listened." But she knew! She knew I was going to do it, but she knew it was better for me to figure it out on my own.

Okay so back to the original statement, I act more than I listen. There times when God is wanting me to do something and I don't even have to pray about it. I know what God wants me to do. For example if God wants me to love on my friends the way God loves me, I am not going to pray about it, because from the get go I knew what was important, sharing the awesomeness that is God!

I have always had trouble with sitting and waiting for things to happen. I am not going to pray to God to tell me the answer when almost always its sitting right there in front of me and God is waiting for me to get off my lazy butt and go do something about it.

Beauty In Plain Sight

So for the past two days it has been bright and sunny. Cold but sunny! Today I had to make a couple of deliveries to down town Seattle and man was it beautiful. Then sun beams were bouncing off the tall buildings lighting up the city. The water simmering like glass. I thought to my self, how often do I look at Seattle with such detail and attention? How much do I truly enjoy its beauty?

From the thought of Seattle and its simple beauty, I began to think how much beauty created by God is simply staring me in the face knocking me on the head like they do in that V8 juice commercial. The more I looked around me the more I began to see the simple beauty in things and places and people that I had never seen before, never in the 20 years that I have lived here. I realized as I was screaming down the I-5 corridor ( I wasn't really screaming in my car as I was driving, I was just going a little faster than I should have) I realized how quickly I blow through things without taking the time to pay attention to the simple beauty of things.

Its as the saying goes, simply stop and smell the roses. Enjoy where your at, take time to appreciate the little things as well as the big things in life. Appreciate the simple things!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Birds

Listen! Can you hear it? Something doesn't sound right? I can no longer hear the birds singing. But still the old lady sits and listens and laughs and enjoys. She sits with her red bowler hat and her fluffy maroon overcoat, holding her hand out like a porcelain statue, waiting for the birds to pluck the individual grains from her shimmering palm. She hears them sing.
Filled with rage I become. Why her? Why! My mind explodes with envy, discontent, and anger. What does she have that I don't. What makes her so much better that she can hear the beautiful sounds of the calling birds.

I go to that old lady sitting there as she always does. That stupid smile on her face causes the corners of her mouth to seem an eternity apart.

I ask the old lady, "Ma'am, what is your name?"

She replied with a soft and gentle voice that made all your unease melt away, "they call me by many names". A bird fluttering their wings approaches the palm with such comfort and familiarity. With out hesitance the bird lands and seems almost at peace with the old lady.

I asked the old lady, "how come you can hear the calling of the birds? Why do they choose you and not me?"

Again She replied with that soft gentle voice, "They don't choose, you do."

How dare her! How dare her say that I choose whether I want to hear the birds or not. Of course I want to hear the birds, but I can't. I have concentrated so hard to hear that lovely sound. Those sound waves that massage you ears.

I asked the old lady, "please ma'am what is one of the names that you go by?"

The old lady turned her head to look at me. Her eyes staring deep into my soul and everything that I am. The world around me seeming to almost slow down. I could see the air brushing against the birds wings. The leaves surfing through the air as the feel to the ground.

The old lady look at me and said, "you can call me Love."

Friday, January 18, 2008

Flowing

I don't know what it is about me and writing. I love to write and its my favorite art form. But there are times when I simply don't want to write. I have never been a big fan of conformity in the essence of never going after what you have always wanted to do. And with that I have trouble engaging in round-table discussion. The types of conversations that continue to go on and on and never really go anywhere. Where nothing is added to the conversation and it just stays the same.

Part of me is afraid to write because I don't want to write what everyone else is writing. But at the same time I realize that what I write and how I write is unique and different from everyone else. In the times that I feel unique and different, I tend to write more...A LOT more. But in the times when I feel like I am jumping on the band wagon and writing something just for the sake of adding my two cents into the overflowing cup of society, I won't write.

Now I am not saying that the people who do right quite often don't have anything good to say. I have friends who blog daily and weekly and by that I am encouraged to continue writing as much as possible.

So if you read this blog, thank you. But know it may be time to time that I write. It may be months, it may be days, it may be minutes till the next post. But if I need to say something, trust me...it will be written.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

the Glare of Despair

I'm tired, I'm run down, and beat up,
My soul although is in repair
I'm sitting in despair
What is it that I'm doing?
Nothing seems to be going right
Living my life for one seems right
And doing my own thing could be easier
Making things lazier
I try and I try and I try so hard
To love right, breath light
By my cup is cracked by human despair
While we share the glare
I'm living in idiocracy
We want peace
But we're not willing to pay the price.
To be walked on and spit on
Our pride gets in the way.
All I can say is we got along way
To break away from the tracks of safety
But we're waiting till some one can break
The insanity that we're living in
Breathing in.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Coffee Shop Confession

Who knew that spark so simple and so timid,
Could create a drive so fierce and untamed.
It started with a conversation
Between Three Little Boys
And a Big Bad Girl.
From this conversation
Spawned a brand new creation,
That fed the soul and gave meaning
To all that is chaos.


I believe there periods in our life when we move with great passion and other times when we get completely lost and we can't find our way back to sanity. I remember the first time I ever wrote a poem. I remember the words flooding my mind and soul, as I connected each
words to different ones to make the meaningless sentences into something of reason. For me I found meaning in those meaningless sentences. The fact that I could create something and no one could touch it. They could make remarks about its texture, about the flow of the words, or if it made sense or not. But for them they could not say it wasn't beautiful. They could not say it wasn't art. I found that sometimes in art we need to break the rules and push the physical boundaries for our art to actually break through among the critics. Sometimes I wish it was more acceptable to break the rules that need to be broken. Sometimes I wish there was not a thing called race or ethnicity that separates us, but the fact that our souls are each uniquely different. I wish that when to people stood together one would see an idealist and the other a realist. I wish that we would not see black and white nor male or female, but humans, people, creating from dreaming, living from hoping, and breathing from loving.

My dream one day is to open up a coffee shop. Apart from the fact that I have been drinking coffee since about the age of seven, I love the atmosphere of most coffee shops. Granted there are some coffee shops that are all about the profit of massed produced coffee, but there are those coffee shops that create a beautiful atmosphere for catalyzing relationships and conversations. I want that! I want to create a place like that.