ANY OTHER DAY

Dream... as if you'll live forever,

Live... as if you'll die today.
Like any other day.
Today... like any other day.

Meandering down the same old paths,
routine... it's become.
Every road taken, no mystery unbequenthered upon me.

I remember my parents telling me to pursue my dreams,
when in reality
I became the root of their failure and disappointment.

What can you say to an underachiever?
You'll probably look at him,
shrug your shoulders and hope you never become him.
Yet you are the typical 9 to 5 man.
Punch in, punch out, find love, get married, 1.5 kids.
Die and lie in a frost ridden grave for all eternity...
with worms and all.

It's a beautiful life.

When you're born,
all those around you are smiling,
yet you alone are crying knowing what type of hellhole you've entered.

When you die,
all those around you are crying,
yet you alone smile...
knowing you're going to a better place.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
Hope, Faith, and Love.
Love...

To wake up everyday to the smell of her hair,
To hold a smiling child high up in your arms,
To know you are... where you belong.
A home in her wherever you may go,
wherever you may be.

They say love is to be patient,
they say love is to be kind.
But I am none of those things.
It's quite simple really.
She just took my heart...
and refused to let go.

Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die today.
Like any -- other -- day.
Through all the shit.
Live...

... for today.

A NECESSARY DISILLUSIONMENT

There are different reasons why we do different things but a single, converging constant... a well of unintended consequences if you like... appear to us over and over again within the actions of our everyday.

A world without Christ, we would assume and believe, would be a world without purpose.

A world without purpose would only be left to its own devices...

I'm not trying to be overtly essentialistic in saying that the world is some monochromatically divided slide rule of significance and difference... where the acceptable measurement is etched onto the metal slide rule with an exacto knife... that would some how suggest that we would offer up room in our brains to entertain the possibility of rejecting such wonderous complexity. Such rejection, I envision, would lead the earth (panoramic wide screen shot from thousands of miles way) to spontaneously implode, shrink and finally disappear with a neat little beep, almost in a Monty Python cartoon sort of way with old English comedians doing the Mr. Bean murmur in the background.

Ah yes... complexity.

I know complexity like Tom Cruise knows psychology.

How God has blessed us with complexity and the associated difficulties that have arisen due to the aforementioned. Some tools I've known have related such complexity and unpredictableness as being the "spice" of life or "what makes life interesing".

Oh Please... if the events of your life till the day you die were to be magically recorded onto a Palm Pilot calender... and if this PDA were to magically be stored in the top drawer of your desk... would you not be tempted to look at it? I know some of you out there will inevitably turn your selves into tools by answering with such post-modern ramblings akin to the ultimate tool of tools... Foucault. I don't know about you... but if I were to know all the disease and illness of which myself and those close to me were to kick the bucket with... and if I had the power to stop these things by simply looking at this PDA calender... I, and anyone else, would probably do the same. The whole disease thing only be one example of which I assume would be many.

But there are no such PDAs... yet... and until we can do what Dr. Sam Beckett did in the hit TV show, "Quantum Leap"... we are sadly bound by our global society's limited knowledge of advanced quantum physics... for the sake of Elvis and JFK to name a few.

So where's the spice in knowing? The whole point is that we can't water down the kimchi by simply dipping it into a cup full of water. We'll always have to have the spice with our kimchi.

Complexity will undoubtedly remain... that is why we are all doing different things and at different times. How would you know if the world was boring if everything were in fact the same? You wouldn't know... because you can never experience such perfect monotony and sameness... not possible... not even by buddist monks... sleeping positions, and the way the poop lands in the toliet... nothing will be the exact same... ever.

But to contradict myself... again... we often end up, in what we percieve, to be the same place. Why?

... (to be continued... like you care...)

DO YOU DARE QUESTION DESTINY?

I would like to believe that we were all made with a purpose.

That somehow... God knew what he was doing when he pulled out his little vile labeled 'drama', only to commence his liberal use of such an ingredient... James Barber style.

Paul said that we should rejoice in our sufferings. I'm pretty sure he meant that it was through our suffering that we built dependence on him (who is within us). Yet, I have a feeling that there's something more to it. Let me 'read out' of such a passage (as theologians would say) and create some healthy speculation on the topic.

Suffering. What is it? I would define suffering as any physical,psychological, emotional, and/or spiritual distress that is caused by a variety of tangible and untangible objects/processes/situations. Let's go deeper into the definition and try to figure an anti-thesis to such a postulation. Would joy reflect an EXACTLY opposing response or definition to suffering? No... a situation that produces joy would more be in line with suffering. So suffering can be described as a situation... regardless of a macro (societal) or micro (individualistic) interpretation of that particular situation in question.

So back to Paul...

Paul pronounces that suffering should be a positive within our lives... not a negative. I would take this further and suggest that the consequences of the experiences of suffering within that 'condition' of the situation that produced such suffering... is what produces this positive... and not the initial emotive response of suffering.

However, I get a sense of an 'organic' nature to the type of suffering Paul is referring to. This suffering is a deep and heavily personalized type of suffering that cannot be easily negated into the simplistic understandings of what we consider to be... whatever situation we may consider to be worthy to produce a consequence of suffering defined above. Paul's suffering was deeply personal. His suffering was associated with the one thing that could create such deeply rooted heartache and sorrow... God.

Through Paul's suffering... I am reminded of the nature of man... or what I will appeal to as being the 'nature of man' (or whatever else you may define it as). No matter what plateau we may reach... and no matter how high we may climb. No height is great enough to escape the basic human emotions and responses that we programmed within us... by him, who created us.

Yes... we learn something from our suffering. But may I be so bold to say that sometimes... we truly don't want to learn. Sometimes... we want to be left alone in our deep set comfort of simply not seeing the true reality that we ourselves have taken part in constructing. A reality that seeks to... brick by brick... construct a wall that will finally separate our futile human existence from him who was never even close to finishing us when we exited our mother's womb.

We were never completed... and we will never be truly complete if we keep hiding the pieces of ourselves that we love the most from him... pieces of ourselves that desparately need his knowing hands.

We grasp... we pull... and we turn round and round... attempting to never let him in... yearning to retain some illusion of normacy within this world that we desparately want to be a part of.

Knowing all too well that the words we speak with all our hearts... are but a fleeting speck of clay that fly into the face of the potter... a speck he wipes from his face with a cloth that finds moisture from the tears he had shed for his lost.

We hope to find our destiny. But we really hope to mold it for ourselves.

We all want different things... but in the end... we really want the same, little things.




Suffer

... not because you know it's good.

But because...

... you know no other way.