War Criminals

We are all repeat offenders. We put ourselves through hell and back over and over. We hurt the ones we love. We hurt the ones who love us. More than anything though, we hurt ourselves.

If anyone else did the things to us that we do to ourselves, they'd be in violation of the Geneva convention's ban on torture.

The Strength of One

Much can be said with small words. Words of one syllable are strong.

Look and see:

Hi.

Bye.

Why?

Why not?

Ere you can save the world, you must first be saved.

Save me so I can save you.

I saved you, for you once saved me.

I miss you.

Do you miss me?

What would you do if I kissed you?

What would I do if you kissed me?

Take my hand.

We are all one.

We are all the same.

I loved you.

I still love you.

I will love you till the end of time.

The Generic You

I often say “You” when I write in this. Sometimes it refers to a specific idea (such as in the post “You. . .”), but the majority of the time, the word “You” in my ramblings is a generic term. I literally mean “You” when I write it. I am not writing to any specific person when I write, I am writing to each and every person who reads this. So, when reading this, know that I am speaking directly to you, the reader. The person currently reading these words. The person looking at a screen and for some reason reading the rantings of a madman.

Wait you might say to yourself. He said he loved me. He said that I saved him. I do, and you did. Whether I know you or not, whether I have held you in my arms, kissed you, spurned you, ignored you, or seemed to hate you, the truth is, I love you. I love you because we are connected. Connected by something integral to our existence. We are all part of this universe. More than that, we are part of this Earth. Even more, we are both humans. Of all the creatures on this small spinning globe, we are two members of the same species that makes up an infinitesimal portion of the life on it. We are more alike than we are different, and there is nothing that can change that.

Just like nothing can change the fact that I love you.

Sparks

Last night while walking through the World Showcase at Epcot and again while talking with a close friend, I was reminded of one of my beliefs regarding the way this world works.

In this world, there are countless things that can cause pain and suffering. These things surround us. Human beings have every reason in the world to be miserable. The things that can make us happy are much fewer than those that can make us miserable. The sparks of happiness in this world are rare, but they should be cherished and fanned into bright flames of incandescent joy.

Each time you find a spark of happiness, rather than hide it away and keep it from the world, share it. Flames cannot survive in dark closed off spaces. Fire needs fuel and air to thrive. It is only by bringing each spark of happiness we find out into the open air and feeding them the fuel of others’ interest that they will spread, and by spreading our sparks of happiness, they will light on others, and they too will be able to spread the happiness to others.

So smile, because a genuine smile is one of the strongest sparks of happiness that you can spread. Smile, because every time you do, it makes the world a little brighter. Smile, because when you do, you light up my world. Smile, because I’ve fallen in love with your smile. . . and through it, you.

Irony

Why do I love the things that others hate?
I love driving in the rain.
I love sitting in silence with another person.
I love all the little things about you that you hate about yourself.

Quips

Yes, you did that.

Yes, that might happen.

Yes, this is happening, and that is what is important.

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

Pain happens.

Disappointment is unavoidable.

Loss is assured.

Happiness is a choice.
Sadness is a choice.

Love is a choice.
Hate is a choice.

Make your choices.

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

Breathe in.
Listen to the sounds around you.
Smell the air.
Run your fingers across your skin.
Smile.
You're alive.

Wishing to sleep... Fearing to dream...

I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I think it is because I have been dreaming every time I get a good night's sleep. That doesn't make much sense until the content of the dreams is explored. My dreams have been so vivid, engrossing, and enjoyable that I think I am scared that my mind will refuse to wake from them if I allow myself to dream. Let us examine my last dreaming experience as evidence of this.

Last... not exactly night. It was 4:30 before I actually fell asleep. During my last sleep cycle, I began dreaming, and while doing so, slept through the alarm I had set.

"What dream was it that was so enthralling that I refused to wake from it?" one might ask.

We lay on the sand. Not the sand of a beach mind you. There were no waves. There was no water. No, this was the dry sandy soil of a desert - Arizona I believe. By the deepness of the black surrounding us, I could feel that we were many miles from civilization. We were the only humans amongst the wilderness.

Looking up at the clear night's sky above us, I could see everything. I don't mean I could see all the stars. I mean that I could see everything. It was as if my eyes were more powerful than the Hubble telescope. The multitude of stars from our Milky Way Galaxy dimmed before the splendor I saw. I could see billions of galaxies in the depth of the night's sky. Looking on that sky, I truly understood how minuscule and ephemeral each and every human life is. The scale of the universe crashed down to the point where I realized that, to the universe, I was smaller than a single atom of my body is to me. If I were to suddenly vanish, who or what would miss me? What difference would it make?

... And then, as the bleakness seemed to reach its peak, you reached over and took my hand. In that moment, with you holding my hand, despite the understanding of how truly small I was, I felt like the most important thing in the cosmos. I was important because I was important to you. Somehow, of all the things in this vast existence, I was the one you wanted to be with, there, in the middle of the Arizona desert, and that was all that mattered.

Thus, my heart yearns to sleep again. It aches to feel that connectedness, that love, and begs my mind and body to follow it into slumber.

My mind remembers though. It remembers the feeling as I woke. The return of the loneliness as my hand moved across an otherwise empty bed. My mind remembers, and fears that feeling when I wake from another such dream.

Love

Once upon a time, I saw the world in a much different life.

As a child, the world was about what I could find. Each moment was about discovery. What was around the corner? What did this do? Why was the sky blue? In my innocence, I saw the world as a never-ending parade of questions and life was a search for answers.

But like all things, that innocence and childish wonder passed. A parade of questions became a parade of one question repeated in endless variations. "What can I get out of this situation?" "How can I manipulate this to benefit me?" "How can I get something from this person?" Life became about me. I became a manipulative narcissist - albeit one who was good at appearing altruistic. I looked at every situation as me versus the world. I had learned that the world was out to get me. I had been taught by life, society, and pain that I must fight against everyone and everything around me to get what I wanted from life. The sun seemed harshly bright; the wind bitterly cold. I no longer wondered why the sky was blue. I knew it was blue to keep me from seeing the stars. I should have realized that that too would pass, but in my cynicism, I did not realize that even I could be wrong.

Life changed as I felt love. Suddenly the questions were subtly different. No longer was I asking "How can I get something from this person." Now the word 'get' was anathema to me; it vanished from my vocabulary. Now I was asking what I could give to people. I was wondering how I could make myself better, and how I could make myself worthy of you. I was humbled by who and what you are, and it made me appreciate the hollow nature of my life. Now I truly know what love means. All love - be it Epithumia, Eros, Storge, Phile, or Agape - eschews taking. When love is involved, there is only giving, with no thought to recompense. Only when I realized this, did I truly start to live.

So thank you for teaching me of love. Though you may never read this, you may never understand how much you have taught me, I want it known that I love you for who and what you are, and as long as I have breath in my lungs I will show my gratitude by loving this world and all that live upon it. You have made me into the me that I was meant to be, and I can only repay you by spreading the true meaning of love and hoping that, like a spark falling upon dry tinder, it catches and spreads across this world like a raging fire. . . For as the song says, "What this world needs now is love, sweet love."

You

You are you. You were you. You are becoming the you that you are meant to be. You will never be anything more or less than you. You are exactly who the universe made you to be at this moment. Never worry that you aren't who you are supposed to be, because you can never be anything but who and what you are. Never pay heed to anyone who says you aren't enough for them, because it may be true. . . you may be too much for them. Wait for the person who can handle everything that you are. Handle your good. Handle your bad. The person who looks at you and, regardless of your current mood, says "That is the person I want to be with. That is the person who makes me. . . me."

They're the one who will make you the you that you were meant to be.

Harry Dresden on Pain

I take no credit for the following passage. It is from the book "White Night" by Jim Butcher. I was just rereading it, and this passage stuck out to me more than it did last time I read the book.

We still hadn’t learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good that you’re just going to get hurt again. But each time you learn something.

Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There’s the little empty pain of leaving something behind – graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There’s the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There’s the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn’t give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There’s the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you’re very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realize that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last – and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you’re alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.

Yeah, what he said.

Hopeless. . . Completely Hopeless

I've always been called a hopeless romantic. Normally I smile and nod. I'm a little more optimistic when it comes to love than most single guys my age would be, so I am used to the characterization.

But what does it mean to be a hopeless romantic? Does it mean that you believe that your soul mate will magically appear one day and your life will be sunshine and rainbows until the end of your days? Does it mean you believe in fairy tales and happily ever after?

No.

I don't expect some perfect love to fall out of the sky. I know that when it does happen it will be hard. It will take a hell of a lot of work. It will be rough. We'll fight. We'll say things that will end up hurting each other. We'll wonder how the hell we're going to get through it. We'll think "is this the right thing? Should I even try?"

But I also know that if it is the right thing and we do try, it will all be worth it in the end. It won't be perfect, but nobody and nothing is. I just know that somehow, in some way, it will all work out to be the best that I can make it. . . and that's all anyone can ask for.

So call me a hopeless romantic all you want. If being a hopeless romantic means that I believe that love, actual love, not lust, not the romantic perfection of movies and myths, but real love can pull people through anything. If it means that I don't want to just marry the first girl who shows interest in me. If it means that I am alone for a while until I truly find the right person. If it means all those things, then yes. Yes, I am a hopeless romantic and I gladly accept the title.

Thanks

You want to know something funny? Until I met you, I never realized just how much was missing from my life. I'm not talking about little inconsequential frivolities either. I am talking about the essential components of life. The things that make a life worth living. I was living a hollow meaningless existence before you came around.

I still don't have everything that I truly want or need in this life, but with your help I've been able to find so much. I don't think you even realize how much you've helped me over the years, but I want to thank you for waking me up. I want to thank you for helping fill my life with joy, and I want to apologize because I know I haven't helped you even half as much as you've helped me. I can only hope that I can make it up to you eventually.

Rules for Living

I've found this in various places under various names and attributed to various authors. I didn't come up with it, but I do believe it.

1. You will receive a body - You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
2. You will learn lessons - You are enrolled in a fulltime informal school called life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons - Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
4. A lesson is repeated until learned - A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end - There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive there are lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better than “here” - When your “there” has become a “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7. Others are merely mirrors of you - You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you - You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you - The answer to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. This will often be forgotten, only to be remembered again.


I'll come back later and make some comments about the various rules and the nuances and intricacies of them, but for now, just read them and let them soak in.

The Inconceivable Improbability That Is Your Existence

The next time you feel like life sucks - like your life has no meaning - I want you to think about something. You are a miracle. Your mere existence defies every law of probability known.

(Warning: The following contains some very large numbers. I have specifically left every zero in these numbers to illustrate the scale I am trying to convey. Using the mere words numbers fails to relay the scale properly.

In the grand scale of things, we can look at the universe to show us how truly special we are. Our star is fairly unremarkable. It is neither the largest, smallest, hottest, or coldest star known. It is just one of the between 200,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy alone. Now, scientists have said that there are probably as many as 100,000,000,000 galaxies in our observable universe (That just means the part of the universe we can see. There's no telling how much we can't). Let's say that every galaxy has 200,000,000,000 stars in it, that means that there could be 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (20 sextillion) stars in the observable universe, and conservatively let's say that each star has 5 planets (we know some such as our own have more, others have fewer or none, but we're estimating here). That means, of the roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 sextillion) planets in our observable universe you were born here on Earth. That is a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance. That by itself is incredible. That is 357,142,857,142,857,143 times less likely than getting struck by lightning. One would think that such an even would almost never happen, I mean the chance of getting hit by lightning is 1 in 280,000, and it is considered rare enough that we use it as a benchmark for when things are exceedingly unlikely to happen. Yet somehow, it has happened enough that there are 6,769,947,363 individuals who have had it happen to them alive on our planet right now (number from the US Census Bureau estimates as of 05:23 GMT Mar 30, 2009).

Perhaps you somehow believe that we are alone in this universe. You believe that there is no life anywhere in this unimaginably large universe other than the life that exists on our tiny orb. If that is true, then it was no mere happenstance that you were born on earth. There was nowhere else for you to pop out. How then can I argue that you are special if there was no other place for you to be born? Recall I earlier mentioned that there is a microscopic scale to this argument.

As a human, your body is composed of cells, and the makeup of each of these cells is determined by your DNA. Each strand of human DNA is composed of 220,000,000 base pairs of amino acids, the sequence of these pairs determines who you are. Your gender, skin color, eye color, hair color, figure, height, etc. etc. etc. – Everything that you are is determined by the sequence of these base pairs. Change a few key sequences, and you would be a completely different person. No two people in the world share the exact DNA (identical twins are close, but even they have some extremely small differences). So yes, you are unique, but how does that make you special? Well consider this, we inherit our DNA from our parents, and through the magic of reproduction, no two couplings produce the same mix of genetic material.

Think about it this way, in every ejaculation there are an average of 300,000,000 sperm. You are the product of just one of those sperm fertilizing an egg, but if it had been any of the other 300,000,000 sperm, you would be a different person. So you are the product of a 1/300,000,000 chance, and that is just from your father. What about when you go back to your grandfathers? Well, then the number jumps to 1/27,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Adding in just a third generation of ancestors jumps the number to 1/(2.187 x 10^59) or 1/218,700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

That infinitesimally small chance in itself should be staggering enough to convince anyone that they’re mere existence is a miracle, but I like to go for the REAL shockers. Our species (homo sapiens sapiens) has walked the earth for approximately 200,000 years. Estimating an average span of 20 years between generations, we can boil that down to 10,000 generations. Having tried to do the math, I can say that the denominators involved are so large, that the built in calculator on my computer freezes when trying to calculate it. Think about that. The chance of your birth is so small that a computer can’t figure it out. If that is not a miracle nothing is.

I have only looked at the numbers involved with the male component of genetics, but the numbers on the female side, while smaller, are still impressively massive. The average human female has approximately 7,000,000 oocytes (cells that can form into eggs) that are formed when she is in utero. At birth approximately 2,000,000 of them remain. Only approximately 400,000 of them remain by puberty, and only between 400 and 500 are released during ovulations, while the rest degenerate. So, of the 7,000,000 oocytes that formed in your mothers ovaries, only 1 created you. If any of the other 7,000,000 cells had matured and been released instead, you would be different. Needless to say, while the numbers are not as mindblowing as those of the male gender, they still add up. If I was to take the time to factor these numbers in with those of the male gender, the numbers would become incalculable even more rapidly.

As I approach the conclusion of this tirade, I have come to a realization. I didn't take time into account in any of these calculations. While this could be an interesting tangent to take, I am tired and the numbers I have already looked at have been enough to hurt my brain, so I will refrain from investigating it for now.

The chance of you being born as who you are, where you are, and when you were born is incalculably small. Yet here you are. You, a unique individual the like of which the world has never seen. An individual capable of bringing things to the world that it has never seen before and may never see again. You, a person capable of spreading love and joy or misery and hate throughout this world. Choose what you do, and do it with all your heart, for the universe had to have chosen to produce you, now, for a reason.

You. . .

What is it about you? No, not you. YOU. Everyone has a “you”. You know the one. That person who gets to you. Who, no matter what they do, is perfectly imperfect in your eyes. Right now everyone reading this is thinking of someone. If you aren’t, then you haven’t been in love, and you should stop reading now.

What is it about these people? Everyone has a different reason regarding their “you”. Maybe their “you” was the one who was willing to listen when nobody else was. Maybe they were their when everyone else abandoned them. Perhaps their “you” is that one person who gets them when everyone else thinks they are insane. Maybe, just maybe, they don’t even know the reason. Maybe their “you” just is. Maybe they have no idea why that person seems to complete them.

“You”s are simultaneously perfect and imperfect. Their imperfections are the very things that make them perfect. That silly way that they laugh. The word that they always say wrong. The things they worry about that nobody else seems to worry about. Each of these things is what acts like a powerful electromagnet between a person and their “you”. We can’t avoid them any more than we can choose to not have a “you”

Each person's "you" remains amazing in their eyes. They stay clean in a way that nobody else can. Yet they are just like everyone else. When they do something, it is alright because everyone does it, but if someone else does it, well then that person is a dirty whore. When they say something it is endearing, but if someone else does, it is showing their ignorance. A character flaw or defect is seen as a silly quirk. Each imperfection is made part of their perfection. What might be considered unattractive in most is considered cute and lovable in a “you”. That is the nature of “you”s.

Nobody really knows why “you”s exist, but we all know that they do. Perhaps the point of life is to find someone who thinks that you are their “you” and then make them your “you”. Because if you make someone your “you” when you are just another person to them it can lead to heartache and suffering. Be careful when choosing your “you”. They hold great power over your heart.

Nobody else understands this power. The power held by a person's "you" is ineffable. Each person can rationalize away the control their "you" has over their life, but is perplexed by the effects of another's "you" on that person's life.

So I end with a question . . . What is it about you?

Details details

To know you like your tongue knows the back of your teeth. That's all I want. - Iain Thomas via I Wrote This For You

That's an interesting desire, but you have to think about that. To know someone that well, that in depth, would get boring over time. Knowing someone that intimately, where you learn nothing new of them from that point on, would be stagnant. I much prefer learning something new every time I interact with people. To be constantly surprised and amazed by someone even after knowing them for years. That is the goal. That is the prize. Knowing every detail of someone's life is intimate, not because you know the details, but because of why you know them. It is the learning of those details, the sharing, the connection that you form over a period of time that matters. The details themselves are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

My random musings

I think I am going to use this blog as a repository for my various moments of philosophical, romantic, or psychological musings. Every once and a while I have a moment of clarity and write something that I find interesting and sometimes insightful. Here are a couple that I have written recently.


I was wondering if we could talk. Not because I have anything important to say. No, I just want to talk because I love talking to you. I love hearing your thoughts and ideas. I really don't care what we're talking about. Any subject will do. I just want to spend as much time as you can spare talking with you. Give me a minute and I'll be satisfied. An hour, and I'll be happy. A lifetime, I will love you until the stars die.


Every person you meet attaches to you a tether that binds you together. Each begins as thin as a hair, but over time, the layers build up until the tether is thick as the steel cords of a suspension bridge. Depending on the person and the relationship, they can be as smooth and gentle as silk or chafe like rough spun hemp. The trick to getting through life is to find which are the smooth tethers and strengthen them, while severing the rough. The more rough connections in your life, the more pain and discomfort you will feel. Cut the rough cords and treasure the gentle.