Seriously, kids, just be yourselves...

Empty faces filling empty spaces.
Hollow hearts following a hollow beat.
Everyone's scared
No one's aware
Monotonous feet marching in a monotonous line
Straight ahead and right on time
A place to belong comes at a price
Only the crowd knows wrong and right
Everyone follows: nobody leads
No one knows who to be
Drowning in a sea of complaceny
No one cares about anything
As long as the line stays the same.

"Just be yourself."
"If people don't love you for you, they're not worth you."
"Follow your heart."
"Be the chalk, not the blackboard."
"Just be yourself."

This message of being yourself is persistantly thrown at us. It is a parent's or a teacher's favorite phrase. Books are written on it. Songs are sung about it.
And, of course, everyone likes to think that they are themselves. At least, when there are people around. But, in the quiet moments, these same people question whether they really are themselves, or whether they even know who that elusive 'self' is after all. The truth is, everyone is a little bit scared of themselves.
It is so much easier to simply follow trends than to actually become your own person.
Well, lucky for us, the new trend is being yourself. Now, it is cool to be your own person. Breaking out of the mold is the thing to do. Anticonformity is the movement of the hour.
The time has come to truly be different...
...just like everyone else.
Even in being ourselves, we can't win. Everyone is being themselves. And everyone gets their idea of who they are from the same place. So, in a sense, everyone is being different in the same way.
We can't help but conform even when we're trying to be unique. It's some sort of security to be the same as other people. Then, at least, we know that we're not weird. We're not different. But, at the same time, we're crying out for difference.
I know I've noticed this in my life. My greatest aspiration has been to just be normal, as is many other people's.
But, something else I've begun noticing: the normal people are not usually remembered. The normal people usually don't change the world. To change the world, you have to be willing to be different, truly different. It is hard to make a difference without being different.
Those with the greatest influence are seldom normal.
In fact, they're usually not.

Today's (complete random and therefore unrelated) quote:
"Trips to the dentist- I like to pospone those kinds of things" {Johnny Depp}

Don't Blink: You Might Miss It

Michael Jackson turned 50 yesterday.
So did millions of other people.
And yet more people were born yesterday.
There were still more people who died yesterday.

Life is not as long as we like to think it is. If you blink your eyes, you will most likely miss a good portion of your life.

Life is not easier with your eyes closed.

If your eyes are closed, you will miss something that you will never get back, something that will be over in a breath. You will miss your entire life.
It's been said that life is a vapor. And whoever said that couldn't be more right. Life is gone before you know it. You think you have all the time in the world, when you really only have one lifetime. And that is not a long time.

If life is so incredibly short, what is there to live for? Does it really matter, then, if you have the most "friends"? Does it really matter, then, if you were the best at...something? Does it really matter, then, if you have the right car, house, and clothes? Does it really matter, then, if you make everybody happy?
Because you never will.

Life may be short, but in it there can be more than we have ever known. In this short span of time, all of us are given an opportunity to live for something that is bigger than ourselves, something that makes life worth living. As cliched as it sounds, it's true.
There are bigger things than us.

Life is short. Live. But live for something worth living for.
And most importantly: Keep your eyes open.

Quote of the day (selected at random): "Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite." ~C.S. Lewis

Lightening Bugs

Is it fear... or is it simply a sense of practicality?

There are dreams that I have held tightly for as long as I can remember. And that's all; I've only held onto them, never putting them to any real use. My dreams are made of such improbable, impossible stuff. How could anything real come from something that echos so loudly of fantasy.

Am I only being realistic when I abandon my dreams, because I'm not tall enough to reach them? Or are my inhibitions the cause of my inability to reach them? Have I conditioned myself to give up on my dreams out of fear, all the while claiming that I am only being realistic?

The line between realism and simple giving up is so blurred. Do my fears cause me to settle for substitute dreams? Have I become complacent, apathetic to the whether my dreams ever become reality, because it is too difficult to make them real? Or have I found an alternative based on practical facts of life?

Even though I hold on to my dreams, every once and a while, in a safe and secluded place, I'll let go of them. I'll let them float around. Then I'll chase them. I have run around in circles for hours, trying to catch a precious dream, and make it last until the morning. Dreams are elusive.

If I want one, I guess I'll need to give up everything else. Am I ready to sacrifice my whole world to make a dream come true? How do I even know what I really dream about? What if I only think I want a certain thing? How dangerous would the world be...if my dream actually came true?

Maybe the fear to do something persuades us to dream about it. Myabe dreams are only visions of who we wish we could be. Then, is anything keeping my dreams from coming true? Were these dreams even meant to come true in the first place? Or are they only meant to be dreamt about? Is there any possibility of dreams coming true, or are they hopeless from the beginning?

What stops dreams from coming true?

It's me.

I keep my dreams from achieving the status of reality.

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. {Edgar Allan Poe}

Go Ahead, Take These Ashes and Make Them Beautiful...

There is a purpose to the madness. Things happen, but they don't just happen. Sometimes, life really isn't great.
There are times when you know it's not OK, and that it's not going to be OK. In those times, it's hard to see a purpose; the very thought that there could be a purpose leaves a barbaric after-taste. Why would Someone intentionally allow you to endure something so painful, even for some elusive purpose?
How could there be beauty in something so strikingly ugly? Looking deeper into these situations brings no hint of anything beautiful: there is only more pain, the worst kind of pain. It's the kind of pain that you can't point to, declaring that it hurts right there.
Simply, you hurt.
There's beauty in this pain? There's beauty in this hurt? There can't be.
And sometimes there isn't.
At least not at first.
Sometimes it takes a lifetime of retrospect to fully understand or appreciate the reason. Sometimes it takes that long to even hear a reason. Sometimes, you can't see the beauty in a sitaution until you are completely removed from it.
In some sort of retrospect, I don't think I'd trade my ugly situations for anything. If I didn't go and wasn't going through them, there is so much about me that wouldn't exist. Maybe that's where the beauty in the pain comes from. It isn't inherently in the pain; the beauty is inside the person who has experienced the pain.
The ugly situations of life are the ones that change us the most, for the better if we let them. They will give us a strength we didn't even know we had. There will be beauty from these ashes.
The wounded people are beautiful.

"Wounded people are dangerous; they know they can survive." {{Annonymous}}

I Love You so Much I Would...

Is it easier to die for someone...or to live for them?


"I love you so much I would die for you" is a sentiment that has been repeatedly echoed throughout time. Dying for someone is seen as the epitome of true, sacrificial love. Even the Bible says it: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends".


Or does it?


Does 'laying down you life' translate exclusively into 'dying'? Dying for someone is definitely an appropriate translation of the term. But laying down your life is so much more than just one action of death. Laying down your life for someone you love is a repeated action.


Every day, every moment is comprised of opportunities to live for you, or to live for someone else. True love lays down its life for the loved one...repeatedly.
Jesus died for people, because He loved them. And yes, He is the example, but... could He have died if He hadn't first lived? Could He have died for the world if He hadn't first lived in such a way that qualified Him for the job, basically, if He hadn't lived a perfect, human life? Jesus' sacrifice didn't begin on the cross. That's not to say that His death was not a sacrifice, because it most definitely was.


But, Christ's sacrifice began on that night in the stable; that night was the first night of laying down His life. Jesus' whole life was a sacrifice, laid down for the world. His death was a necessary part of that sacrifice, but His death would have meant nothing if He hadn't risen from the dead three days later: if He hadn't come back to life.

Although dying for someone does show a depth to love, it is not the ultimate display of love. Continually laying down your life for someone you love is more of a sacrifice than laying it down once. Living every single day of your life, with that person as more important than you, speaks more to the intensity of your love than dying in their place ever will.


So, anyone can die for someone they love.


But, will you live for them?

Quote of the day: {{I have found the paradox that if I love til it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love}} Mother Theresa

My Life as a Shadow

I thought I saw a star
it was a satelite.
I thought I saw an ocean
it was a puddle.
I thought I saw a sandy beach
it was a sand box.
I thought I saw a forest
it was my backyard.
I thought I saw the sun
it was a flashlight.
I thought I had a diamond
it was plastic.

I thought I was smart
I was ignorant.
I thought I was strong
I was weak.
I thought I was full
I was empty.
I thought I knew how to love
I was hateful.
Ignorant, weak, empty, hateful
And more.

I thought I was alive
I was dead.

My fears seemed too dark.
My demons seemed too strong.
My death seemed too final.
My efforts were too futile.

Maybe I was beautiful once
that was destroyed.
Maybe I was happy once
that was stolen.
Maybe I was innocent once
that was shattered.

I had no right to be saved.
You had no reason.
But the paradox
is I was the reason
or were you the reason?

The light to dissipate my fears.
The exorcist to banish my demons.
The power to halt my death.

I thought I was dead
I turned around
I was alive