The Cost of Pleasing

If we do only what people want us to do and say only what people want to hear, we become everyone’s best friend and our own worst enemy.

Embodying the Universe

Somewhere along the way from wearing diapers to reading newspapers we forget how to love, how to be compassionate; as our identity comes to life, our love for all dies. But this does not mean it is “human nature” to fall out of love, for even to walk we must learn. And like walking, we must learn how to love. For hate need not be learned, hate is the by-product of ignorance, of a lazy humanity which wishes not to learn love, but to soak in hate; which fears a life of love, and so, clings to one of hate.

Do not be lazy and do not fear. As babies we were empty of fear and full of vigor, though we fell time and time again in learning to walk; due to our perseverance, due to our faith in our bodies, we now are able to walk and see the universe. So be empty of fear, be filled with vigor, learn to love. For though we may fall time and time again, though we may stumble and trip on the stones of hate; through our mental perseverance; through our faith in the good of ourselves; we learn to love, and no longer need walk to see the universe, for we embody it.

The Deciever and The Gravedigger

A life of deceit deceives no one but the deceiver. Blinded by ambition one believes through their lies and dishonesty they are erecting a monument to one’s life, but in truth one is only digging oneself a grave; a grave in which the digger be one’s blind ambition, the shovel one’s will, and the dirt which buries one’s life one’s lies. Lies told not only to others but to oneself; lies which hurt no one more than the liar themself; lies which bury no one but the liar alive in their self. Through deception one may gain fame, money, and power, but of what worth is that when one loses one’s self in the process.

The End In Itself

When all our actions become means to an end, life loses meaning and living comes to an end.

The Pangs of Hate, The Wonders of Love

There need be no punishment for one full of hate, for the inability to love is plenty punishment itself. Hate is a deadly poison which starts in the heart and pumps through the bloodstream. When left untreated it consumes one’s body and mind; sharpening the tongue, blinding the eyes, and deafening the ears. It is one full of hate that stabs and slices with the tongue; that judges beauty and condemns it as ugly; that hears truth and calls it ignorance.

One full of hate does not deserve hate in return, for the hate which consumes them is far too much hate for one. One who hates deserves to be loved, for it is through love that hate may be cured; for hating one who hates only sharpens two tongues, blinds four eyes, and deafens four ears. It is through love that the hateful tongue is blunted; that the hateful eyes see; that the hateful ears hear. It is through love that song is brought to the tongue; that beauty is unveiled to the eyes; that truth is bestowed upon the ears.

No Present Like the Present

The past exists in our memory; the future exists in our imagination; the present exists. Where we choose to exist determines how we live our existence. A life spent in the past is a life that gets passed by; a life spent in the future is a life imagined but never brought to fruition; a life lived in the present is a present to life itself, a sacred gift that keeps giving to the one who keeps living.

An I For An I

An eye for an eye may make the whole world blind, but an I for an I makes all humanity extinct.

The Man and the Tree

A man told me ignorance is bliss. A tree told me wisdom is.

Elusive Beauty

Beauty is seeing beyond the label, beyond idea. Beauty is seeing without thought, without words. Beauty is.

Change Knows No Tomorrow

We say we want to change, that we want to be a better person. We say tonight I will be better, tomorrow I will be all I can be. But tomorrow never comes and tonight is too late; if we are serious about being a better person, about finding joy in a life that seems to have had all its joy sucked dry, we must act now. At this very moment and never look back.

We think that tomorrow our minds will somehow be different, that over the course of the night, through our dreams and nightmares, our minds will have suddenly learned how to be this better person, and like magic, we will be this great human being full of joy and compassion. But we, our whole body, not just our minds, must take that first step now, and from that step leads a path never walked before by another, a path in which we find ourselves alone, but a path in which we find ourselves; in which we become that better person we have always wanted to be, but never had the courage to become.

This all starts with a step, a baby step, a step that anyone who was once a baby can step, and it must not be taken tomorrow or the next day, because such days exist in theory and not reality. We must take this first step now, at this very moment, and continue stepping on our path to discovery and enlightenment.

There will be days, moments, where we want to stop walking, where we wish to turn back because it is hard and we are alone, but it is precisely at these moments where we must find the courage within us to take that same baby step that started it all, and continue on, ever learning, ever evolving, ever being that better person we so dearly wanted to be.

The Golden Way

When we gaze at ourselves in the mirror of life and see our neighbor’s reflection, the Golden Rule ceases to be a rule and becomes a way.

The Internal Butterfly

If we focus as much attention on our internal beauty as our external beauty who knows what humanity can achieve.

A Nursery Rhyme

There is no devil underground, no angel flying Earth bound, on our shoulders they do not rest, but inside they do reside behind each and every chest. To nurture the angel or rear the devil is our choice, but there are consequences to who we give voice. An angel sheds constant tear, a devil thrives on others’ fear, for the angel lives off compassion and the devil on destructive action. Most of us linger in-between, growing half a wing and a horn so lean, but why not let our wings spring, soar above the material thing, and leave the devil in his crib, never to rise and tell his fib.

Holding Out For Heaven

Heaven on Earth will never be so long as we believe in a Heaven in the sky.

Knowledge is Impotent

With each passing day a wise person knows less than they did the previous day. For a wise person sees that knowledge is illusion disguised as truth, and mystery the key to unraveling it.

Made in Our Image

We know nothing and in our insecurity we create faith. We know not what will happen when we die, and in our fear we create Heaven. We don’t understand the meaning of our lives and in our anxiety we create God.

We Fear Who We Are

We fear realizing we aren’t who we think we are. Yet it is precisely from such a realization that we become who we want to be.

The Right State of Mind

The more present we are in life, the more life we beget. The more conscious we are, the less we regret.

The Solution in the Problem

A problem arises within and immediately we look outside for help. We devour so called religious books, consult renowned doctors, and beg almighty gods for the cure to our suffering. But no matter how much we read and are psychoanalyzed, no matter how much we pray, our problems persist. We must learn to believe in ourselves, to answer our own questions, for the solution is found in the problem and nowhere else.

The Cliché and the Medical Examiner

There‘s a cliché which says, “You don't know what you have until it's gone,” and for the most part it’s true. But there’s one thing we have which life doesn’t give us the luxury of knowing once it’s gone, and that’s life itself. When we die we’re no longer able to reflect on the value of life, nor return to it. Which is why we must examine our life now and not wait until the medical examiner is doing it for us, and far too literally.

The Ultimate Art

We are the painter before the blank canvas of our life. From our color palette of seemingly infinite choices and opportunities we dip the bristles of our brush and paint our masterpiece. Each stroke unique, each mark a focal point, every painting a testament to humanity. For we are artists and our greatest creation, our ultimate art, is our lives.

War and Peace

Those who want war should fight it, those who want peace should live it.

Fantastic Saviors

We are all looking for a savior, a savior who will do for us what our mothers did when we were toddlers; provide the answers, wipe our ass, and make us feel secure. But the truth is we are our saviors.

Buddha, Laz Tzu, Jesus, Muhammad, and Yahweh cannot save us. Their stories have been around for more than two thousand years and yet there is more hate and war than ever in the world. We constantly look outward for the answers to life and they are consistently unsatisfying. Medication provides us a temporary band-aid, entertainment a momentary escape, and religion nothing but self-deception. We must learn to look within ourselves, to be our own Jesus, our own Buddha, if we ever wish for our children to live in peace.

The choice is ours, but if we remain lazy and apathetic, waiting for others to figure out who we are as a people, we leave behind a world where our children and their children will be forced to fight in violent wars to prove silly things such as whose religion or nation is superior. Our children may return home from these idiotic wars unable to walk, or worse, in a coffin. And for what? The laziness of their ancestors? Such is the seriousness of our propensity to throw the responsibility of our lives on the shoulders of fantastic saviors.

Modern Time

We worship the past, pray for the future, and abstain from the present.

The Love of an Addict

We claim to love a person and yet the moment they don't love us back, we become angry and bitter toward them, the love we once felt becomes hate. But the truth is we never loved the person, nor saw them for who they are, we wanted to possess them, to make their image our drug. And once they declined to be our addiction, we sacrificed all that we found beautiful in the person to salvage our ego. We are experts in hate, but do not know how to love. Maybe it is time we learn.

World War I

All the Karate, rifle training, and nuclear weaponry won't overcome our worst and only enemy, our self. We fight our wars externally trying to evade the internal war, but the real World War is inside. Peace will never be until that war is fought.

The Human Family

In this life we live it is easy to disconnect and separate, to live only for our self and the select few we call family. But in reality, we as a people are responsible for ourselves and one another; we are each others’ mother and father, sister and brother, daughter and son. To ignore our responsibility is to ignore the existence of society.

Go To School

School taught me greed, envy, and fear. It trained me to compete, to blindly obey authority, and to do things I hate doing. School left me well practiced in racism, sexism, and heteronormativity; well versed in ethnocentrism, nationalism, and monotheism; and well fed the mantra, “happiness is success, and success is money.”

Life taught me school is the propaganda of the powerful, the worldview of the ignorant. Life taught me that school is a dangerous place for children, a place where one can lose one's humanity.

On Lovers

A possessive lover is no lover at all.

What is Life's Point?

Giving life a point is a human creation. The dog, the tree, the rose do not live with a point. They simply live. They don't live for, like us humans do, they just live.

It is in our "living for" that we find perceived happiness, but that happiness is only temporary. When what we "live for" dies (literally and/or metaphorically) we fall tremendously, unable to exist without that thing which we depended on so heavily for our happiness.

When one can live, not trying to achieve or gain anything, without a point, then there is that happiness that can not be taken away.

We Are What We Are

We are not the image in the photograph. We are not our names. We are not the thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions and images that fester in our minds and others. We are what we are in the moment, before interpretation and analysis.