Stay Freaky!
This last weekend I went to the John Mayer concert in Dallas, TX. First off he is an amazing musician. Though through his musical talents I was hypnotized, it was through his soliloquy that I have been inspired. The subject, individuality.
John said it best when he told all of us to stay freaky. I thought to myself, what the heck, I'm not freaky, but then he expounded upon that to say that we should never let anyone control who we are. Who are we really? Products of the influences around us? I am a victim to social and peer pressure, I buy clothes that I believe will make me look like the man I think women want, I want a car that everyone will think is the bomb, I even watch the movies and shows that everyone says are pretty sweet. But none of these things really make up who I am do they? Am I the clothes I wear or the music I listen to? Theres so much more to a person then just what they appear to reveal. To truly get to know one another we must make those connections on life. Say hello, ask some one how thief day is going, then find out why. Simply knowing that the day is fine can be perceived by looking at them, it's more why their day is great that I have become more interested in. Maybe they know something that I should too. Or perhaps you might run into that random person who's day is going terrible and all they wanted was someone to talk to. What? Are we scared? We don't want to actually have a conversation with these strangers that we meet by chance on the streets, that's why they are called STRANGErs. Pathetic, I know those thoughts have crossed my mind more than a dozen times in one day. But it's only recently that I have discovered the true enormity of the individualism that this world holds. Waiting in line, striking up conversations about things other than the mundane, depressing, simplicity that we can turn life into. I don't know about you, but I definitely do not believe that life is really that simple, not as simple as good, or ok. It's more like, dang well I woke up late and had to hurry to get out my door in time to make it to my job, that I really don't care about so I sit there and do just enough to get by, I mean what's the problem in that, it's only what everyone else is doing... And so on carries the story of a typical day. It's pathetic, to think that we just try to coast on through life as fast as we can just like everyone else. What are we racing towards, I'll tell you what's at the end, we die. Life ends with death. So I sit back and ask myself why is everyone trying to simplify it by succumbing to the normality of cruise control? The faster we get through life the less there is to enjoy.
Take your time
Slow down, enjoy the little things in life. You'll find that once you discover the joys in life that suddenly like a ninja happiness will creep into your everyday routine. Beyond that be an individual, listen to what sounds good to you, wear what you think is appealing, say what you wanna say, and hear what others are meaning. Life is not meant to be rushed through, we only lose sight of who we are when we are only trying to get that promotion or buy that house so and and so forth. Live a little. Go out smoke a joint, it's not going to kill you. Bend a rule or two. Drink a little too much. Party hard. Experience what's out there, don't be worried about what anyone else is thinking of you. They will only be jealous that you seem to be enjoying life more than they are. Be yourself, be somebody, be the only one of your kind. Then when they ask you what's different about you, tell them, I just didn't listen to everyone when they told me no. Who cares that you don't have on matching shoes and socks, does it really matter? Some of the most content and happy people I have ever met wear all the clothes they have all at once. Sure you might think there crazy, but did you really take the time to stop and find out if they truly are. What if they hold the secret to happiness? I'm not saying they do, but damn if people can't find happiness in making the most money and buying the best they can, then why is it that we all want to strive for that lifestyle? Do you actually think that people will care what you wore to prom 10 years ago, or what you listened to when you were driving them to the pool that one time? Think about it, you get a chance to be someone all the time, everyday, don't waste it. Show somebody why it's good to be you today. Make them wonder why you don't care. Make them see that true happiness is not found in material belongings, but rather in the feelings and minds of everyone around us. Don't waste your life, go out make it count, only you can choose to be someone who doesn't care what they think!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Drive Fast, Take Chances...
A good friend of mine always tells people to drive fast and take chances. He uses it as quick remark to sound funny, but I always wonder if people ever grasp the meaning behind it. Do we ever realize just how short life is. Think about how far just recorded history goes, we are living in the 21st century. How much time do we have to make our mark in the vast compilation of what will become history. It struck me by surprise to see my little sisters history book that contained 9/11 as one of the major points in history. To me that's still a current event, in fact most things that have happened of the course of my life are still current events in my mind. But still, the fact of the matter is that most elementary students these days were only two and three during one the most pivotal event in the war on terror.
I just started thinking to myself, almost 22 years in to my life and what have I done that will have any lasting effect on anyones life. I haven't destroyed a national monument, I haven't brought about world peace. In fact most of the things that I have done have been all because of what I was told to do. Grow up, go to school, get a job, start a family, go on a few vacations, watch the kids grow up, decide I'm not satisfied with my family, give up and get divorced, live out the rest of my days working and really accomplish nothing besides contribute to the ever faithful travesty of death and taxes. This is the life that for the majority of Americans will be the only life they ever know. Now understand, I'm not saying that there won't be any excitements in there, just that those are the main facts of most lives. Where are the heroes these days?
Heroes, knights in shining armor, argonauts, champions, where are they in our world now? Who amongst us have risen up above the mundane, lonely lives of the ordinary? Are they the capitalist tycoons such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Or perhaps they are the amazing athletes such as Koby Bryant and Bret Favre? What do the people we praise as heroes have in common? What is different about their lives? It's simple.
Drive fast, take chances.
The only way to break free of the simple conveyor belt lives we lead is to make the conscious decision to change. Stop giving into what the normality is. Your life, is YOURS! It's the only one you get. I find it surprising that the one thing we will ever truly only get on of, life, is easily wasted by so many! We need to reach into ourselves, find out who we are as individual creations. Search your heart for your dreams and hold on to them. Take chances. If there is no risk in what we aim to attain then what is the value in it? If we risk nothin we will gain nothing, but to risk everything we will gain the world. Break free, be yourself, hold on to things like honor and virtue. Try everything at least once, never give into fear. Fear is the mind killer. Never give in to what others tell you cannot happen. Life is yours. No one can take it away from you except for yourself. Go out and risk it all just for the chance at having something of true value. Laugh at those who sit on the sidelines as you grab the bull by the horns. Go climb those mountains knowing that few ever will. Love like there is no tomorrow. Give your all into everything you do. Take a chance on life, then do it again, and again. I promise you, the good you find will out way the risks you thought were at stake. Get out there, live true!
Drive fast, take chances.
I just started thinking to myself, almost 22 years in to my life and what have I done that will have any lasting effect on anyones life. I haven't destroyed a national monument, I haven't brought about world peace. In fact most of the things that I have done have been all because of what I was told to do. Grow up, go to school, get a job, start a family, go on a few vacations, watch the kids grow up, decide I'm not satisfied with my family, give up and get divorced, live out the rest of my days working and really accomplish nothing besides contribute to the ever faithful travesty of death and taxes. This is the life that for the majority of Americans will be the only life they ever know. Now understand, I'm not saying that there won't be any excitements in there, just that those are the main facts of most lives. Where are the heroes these days?
Heroes, knights in shining armor, argonauts, champions, where are they in our world now? Who amongst us have risen up above the mundane, lonely lives of the ordinary? Are they the capitalist tycoons such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? Or perhaps they are the amazing athletes such as Koby Bryant and Bret Favre? What do the people we praise as heroes have in common? What is different about their lives? It's simple.
Drive fast, take chances.
The only way to break free of the simple conveyor belt lives we lead is to make the conscious decision to change. Stop giving into what the normality is. Your life, is YOURS! It's the only one you get. I find it surprising that the one thing we will ever truly only get on of, life, is easily wasted by so many! We need to reach into ourselves, find out who we are as individual creations. Search your heart for your dreams and hold on to them. Take chances. If there is no risk in what we aim to attain then what is the value in it? If we risk nothin we will gain nothing, but to risk everything we will gain the world. Break free, be yourself, hold on to things like honor and virtue. Try everything at least once, never give into fear. Fear is the mind killer. Never give in to what others tell you cannot happen. Life is yours. No one can take it away from you except for yourself. Go out and risk it all just for the chance at having something of true value. Laugh at those who sit on the sidelines as you grab the bull by the horns. Go climb those mountains knowing that few ever will. Love like there is no tomorrow. Give your all into everything you do. Take a chance on life, then do it again, and again. I promise you, the good you find will out way the risks you thought were at stake. Get out there, live true!
Drive fast, take chances.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Perception
They say hind sight is twenty-twenty, but is that really true, can you really see the past through clear eyes or are we really just wishing we would have been looking for the right signs and opportunities the first time around? Life is an experience, how else can it be described? Through our eyes we experience the colors of creation, with our ears we hear the heartbeat of the earth, and using our bodies we choose to connect with these things. We touch what see, and feel what we listen to. Is it a choice or are we just going through motions? We are creatures of habit, but is not everything in creation? The graceful lioness hunts because it needs to eat, the mighty oak grabs up the sun so that it may grow strong, but what do we do?
Seeing is believing.
We believe what our eyes have seen, we know that it's true, we have seen it. Habit. Throughout all of time mankind has set full reliability on the use of our eyes. I remember the first time I saw a magician, I was totally transfixed on what he could do, I believed that he could read minds, see through solid objects, defy gravity, even throw physics right out the window. I believed that it must be true, I had seen it with my own two eyes. As I grew older I discovered that it was all just an illusion. So I wondered to myself, how can we believe our eyes when they can so easily be deceived? We can look at everything in life, but how can we ever know what is true? We must train our eyes to see around the illusion, to seek out the truth. We must question our perception, throw it into the light and take a good look. Perhaps its not just that we have been the victim of some elaborate illusion, rather we have only seen what we wanted. Tunnel vision, when our eyes only see what we are focusing on. When I first started running, I would have in my mind one goal, go this far or meet this time, all I could do was look out at the path I ran and see that it just kept going. It was horrible, I never felt like I got anywhere. I only saw what I focused on, the boring path which caused me pain, until one day I saw a doe out in the forest that I ran every morning. She was beautiful, elegant and oblivious to my presence. I stopped and realized for the first time I had been doing it all wrong, I had let my eyes only see the pain and distance that I had to endure. From then on I started looking at the world through which I ran, and found that it was a beautiful ever-changing world. From then on I've never had a problem running. I widened my gaze to see what I was really looking at, and realized that my perception was all wrong. When we look for only what we think is there, it is what we are sure to find. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, because we realize, we were not seeing what we were shown. Look around, open your eyes, the world is full of beauty and truth. We need only to look for it.
Are you even listening?
How many times do we catch ourselves hearing what's going on but never listening to a thing that has been said? Do we truly understand the power of sound? How you hear something said can drastically change the meaning of the words that you listen too. Going through basic military training really opened my ears to grasp the meaning behind what we say to one another. Military training instructors use their words and control the way they say them to test people, to see if they can perform under pressure. Listening to what they are saying beneath how they are saying it is the key that everyone, who has made it through, grasps sooner or later. Extracting the meaning of the words that we are hearing is the most essential part of listening that truly allows us to understand exactly what a person means. There have been plenty of times in my life when I've gotten in arguments only to here them ask if I'm even listening to what they are saying. Truthfully, I wasn't, I was more concerned with how they were saying it that I only listened to the words they used. I have come to understand that the words that people use are not always what they want you to hear, they want you to know what they mean. The only way to do that is truly listen to what they mean by those words. Sound plays such a huge part in our lives not only in communication but how we feel as well. Have you ever watched a horror film without the sound? The fear factor is completely removed. The images can be the most terrifying in the world but it's through the sound of the film that our emotions are controlled. Listening to what is going on around us can also change how we feel about the place we are in. Out of silence I have heard more than any conversation I have ever had. Just taking the time to sit and truly hear what's going on around me has allowed me to realize that there is so much more to life then the simple work play sleep and eat routine. We clutter up the silence with noise so that we don't have to worry why things are so quite. When I was trekking through the Himalayan mountains of India I found the silence, at first, a bit unsettling. There were no machines at work, no cars speeding through the city, there were no extras to hear. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Wind gently rolling through the valleys, the water trickling through streams, the pure silence of sound. Peaceful. It was there that I discovered that as we live our lives we get used goths sounds that surround us and we never take the time to just listen to what we are hearing, the birds singing as they fly through the sky, the wind rushing through the trees. Listening to what we hear and truly understanding it can bring new revelations to our lives. It can help us understand the heart of the people we interact with. It can allow us a peace in Which all else fades away. All we need to do is listen for it.
Seeing is believing.
We believe what our eyes have seen, we know that it's true, we have seen it. Habit. Throughout all of time mankind has set full reliability on the use of our eyes. I remember the first time I saw a magician, I was totally transfixed on what he could do, I believed that he could read minds, see through solid objects, defy gravity, even throw physics right out the window. I believed that it must be true, I had seen it with my own two eyes. As I grew older I discovered that it was all just an illusion. So I wondered to myself, how can we believe our eyes when they can so easily be deceived? We can look at everything in life, but how can we ever know what is true? We must train our eyes to see around the illusion, to seek out the truth. We must question our perception, throw it into the light and take a good look. Perhaps its not just that we have been the victim of some elaborate illusion, rather we have only seen what we wanted. Tunnel vision, when our eyes only see what we are focusing on. When I first started running, I would have in my mind one goal, go this far or meet this time, all I could do was look out at the path I ran and see that it just kept going. It was horrible, I never felt like I got anywhere. I only saw what I focused on, the boring path which caused me pain, until one day I saw a doe out in the forest that I ran every morning. She was beautiful, elegant and oblivious to my presence. I stopped and realized for the first time I had been doing it all wrong, I had let my eyes only see the pain and distance that I had to endure. From then on I started looking at the world through which I ran, and found that it was a beautiful ever-changing world. From then on I've never had a problem running. I widened my gaze to see what I was really looking at, and realized that my perception was all wrong. When we look for only what we think is there, it is what we are sure to find. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, because we realize, we were not seeing what we were shown. Look around, open your eyes, the world is full of beauty and truth. We need only to look for it.
Are you even listening?
How many times do we catch ourselves hearing what's going on but never listening to a thing that has been said? Do we truly understand the power of sound? How you hear something said can drastically change the meaning of the words that you listen too. Going through basic military training really opened my ears to grasp the meaning behind what we say to one another. Military training instructors use their words and control the way they say them to test people, to see if they can perform under pressure. Listening to what they are saying beneath how they are saying it is the key that everyone, who has made it through, grasps sooner or later. Extracting the meaning of the words that we are hearing is the most essential part of listening that truly allows us to understand exactly what a person means. There have been plenty of times in my life when I've gotten in arguments only to here them ask if I'm even listening to what they are saying. Truthfully, I wasn't, I was more concerned with how they were saying it that I only listened to the words they used. I have come to understand that the words that people use are not always what they want you to hear, they want you to know what they mean. The only way to do that is truly listen to what they mean by those words. Sound plays such a huge part in our lives not only in communication but how we feel as well. Have you ever watched a horror film without the sound? The fear factor is completely removed. The images can be the most terrifying in the world but it's through the sound of the film that our emotions are controlled. Listening to what is going on around us can also change how we feel about the place we are in. Out of silence I have heard more than any conversation I have ever had. Just taking the time to sit and truly hear what's going on around me has allowed me to realize that there is so much more to life then the simple work play sleep and eat routine. We clutter up the silence with noise so that we don't have to worry why things are so quite. When I was trekking through the Himalayan mountains of India I found the silence, at first, a bit unsettling. There were no machines at work, no cars speeding through the city, there were no extras to hear. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. Wind gently rolling through the valleys, the water trickling through streams, the pure silence of sound. Peaceful. It was there that I discovered that as we live our lives we get used goths sounds that surround us and we never take the time to just listen to what we are hearing, the birds singing as they fly through the sky, the wind rushing through the trees. Listening to what we hear and truly understanding it can bring new revelations to our lives. It can help us understand the heart of the people we interact with. It can allow us a peace in Which all else fades away. All we need to do is listen for it.
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