Mi Primera Entrada En Español

Sí, esta entrada es en español. ¿Y por qué? Porque es posible. Muchas cosas son posibles, en realidad. Pero a menudo nosotros vagamos por el mundo sin aprovechar esas oportunidades. Otra vez, ¿por qué? No sé. Creo que todos nosotros son cobardes. Por eso... voy a escribir en español hoy.


La verdad es que yo soy una cobarde horrible. Tengo miedo de casi todo.
Tengo miedo de los aviones, los barcos, y manejar por el autopista.
Tengo miedo de cocinar y de tener hambre.
Tengo miedo de ateístas y personas religiosas.
Tengo miedo de los perros y los gatos.
Tengo miedo de la humanidad.
Tengo miedo de estar solo.


Pero al final, no hay ninguna razón para tener miedo. Después de todo, yo tengo la seguridad de saber que todo estará bien. El universo entero se precipita hacia adelante en algo tan hermoso, no podemos ni siquiera imaginar su belleza. Bueno, de todos modos, ésta es mi creencia. Y eso me recuerda: no tengo miedo de expresar mis creencias. ¡Tres hurras para la valentía!


Ahora yo tengo una pregunta: ¿tiene sentido esta entrada? No tengo ni idea.


(Por otro lado... mis entradas nunca tienen sentido...)

Stop!

I want you to stop and think about it.

What is it? you ask.

Well, if you can't answer that, then you really need to stop. Put everything on hold and just think about it until you realize what it is. Or, better, until you realize you can never fully know.

And by that I mean this.

We seldom, if ever, stop. Many people never stop. I don't stop nearly often enough, but sometimes I have to, or I cannot go on. I stop and I notice how strange it all is, how unlikely. I look around the room and I see Human Beings. And for once I actually notice, okay. This is really, really  weird. I listen to clocks ticking and think, there is something called time. How bizarre. I see color, I see light, I feel my heart beating and it comes over me: you know, none of this is necessary. None of this would have had to be. Which leads me to an epiphany of sorts. Read on.

I realize in those moments that none of this would have had to be, and yet it is. As far as I can tell, anyway. It is. That's the weirdest part of all. It's in that moment of realization that I personally realize something else still. I'm sure there are many other possible responses to such an epiphany but for me the response is a kind of a buoyancy and lightness. A feeling like I am being lifted up to some higher elevation where I can see what we call reality in its totality, as if from a great distance.

When I am up there on the heights I know jointly that nothing matters and everything matters. What am I striving for? I ask myself. For from here I can see it is already done. Worry is nothing. Awe is everything. Stop worrying and enjoy the wonder of today.

Sainthood Starts to Breathe

The fact is, you will reach outside of you for something and drag it in.
Keep it warm in some dark closet of your consciousness, nurse that thing, obsess over it.
Put it on tomorrow morning; tie it twice around your head and once around your face,
for protection, for the look of it.
You will stir it, taste it, stew yourself in it.
You will die with it clenched in your hands.

Every day I sit and watch the people walking. They move forward,
some fast, some slow, but all of them going... where?

If you ask them, you'll get stock answers.
"To work."
"To class."
"To the supermarket."

But why?
"To earn money so I can buy food for my family."
"To earn a degree so I can earn money so I can buy food for my family."
"To buy food for my family."

Yes, you think you know the where and the why, but if you stop.

* * * * * * * * *

 

You really have no idea.

 

That is when you hear the voices yelling from the bottom of the pit.

 

You dropped me, screams your childhood dream.

You lost me, screams your innocence.

You never found me, announces your soul.

 

We are walking, all of us, above a chasm.

We live our lives above it:
we are born and run wild and make love and make war
and die above it. And then they bury us in it, not knowing.

It is the saint among us who dares to lift the lid and stare down into the spaces.
It is the saint who sees with a shudder the debris smoldering in the depths.
The real saint is the one who refuses to slam the door and takes time to acknowledge

a Presence in the void.

 

Recalibration Resumed!

I was about to say something like, "I am so sorry for making you wait so long for Part II of 'Recalibration'," but then I realized that I would be lying if I said that, because I feel no remorse at all whatsoever actually. Which is terrible, but true. I just haven't cared enough to continue this discourse, and I'd venture to imagine that you (whoever you are) have not really cared all that much, either. But! I started a thought, so I do feel obligated to finish it. And my finishing is going to run something like this... (read on...)!

Recalibration, my darlings, is a very simple concept, really. First, though, it will help to remind ourselves what plain old calibration is. Very well: to calibrate is to "divide or mark with gradations, graduations, or other indexes of degree, quantity, etc., as on a thermometer, measuring cup, or the like," according to one definition. In other words, calibration is drawing lines that mark out specific measurements; so recalibration must mean to do that process over again, with the implication that this time around, we will be changing where the lines fall. Apply the principles of this process to difficult situations in your personal life, and you have the essence of the way "recalibration" is understood in the wonderful world of interpersonal communication (and other wonderful worlds, too, such as my wonderful world). This may sound a little vague to you at the moment, so let's see this concept in action, shall we?

Hypothetical situation: You get to be very good friends with a lovely person at college. Then you find out that at the end of this semester, said lovely person will be permanently moving to another continent. (I have been in this situation numerous times, so it seemed like a natural illustration of my point.)

Initial response: "It's so unfair! I finally get to know this fantastic person, and in a few months, we will be separated forever! Why did I have to invest so much time and energy into this friendship, anyway? Now it's just going to hurt all the more when we say goodbye."

Recalibration: "I am so fortunate to have crossed paths with this incredible individual. Just think - if things had been even slightly different, I could have completely missed out on this opportunity! I'm glad we met and got to know each other. My life is richer because of it, and no one can take that away from me."

Just shift your sights ever so slightly, and you'll get a whole new picture. That's the essence, the fascinating essence, of recalibration. This same basic concept can also be encapsulated in much more common phrases such as, "Look at the bright side!" or "Don't think of the glass as half-empty; think of it as half-full." But I tend to avoid phrases like these because, well, my official position in the optimism-pessimism dichotomy is toward the pessimism side, and since I enjoy that about myself, I just don't go around telling my friends and relations to "look at the bright side!" I have my reputation to consider, you know. I prefer to the cryptic nature of that one little big word: recalibrate. Now you know what it means. So now you have to try it for yourself.

Go on. Once never hurts.

Recalibration

...recalibration.

Just finishing my sentence from the previous post, sorry.

Recalibration is the better way of which I spoke. Better, I propose, than binge drinking at getting a pessimist like me off the steeply downgrading road to deep depression. Impressive, right? I thought so, at least. Allow me to explain.

I first learned about the concept of recalibration in, of all places, a college classroom. Astonishing, isn't it, that I actually learned something in college! (Besides the fine art of binge drinking, I mean.) But I did periodically learn things there. Some were even worth remembering past finals week. I often found, after fifteen weeks of grueling coursework, that an entire college class actually boiled down to about a one-sentence takeaway. In my macro economy course, that sentence was: The fundamental problem of economics is scarcity. That's all I remember from this class, but it's enough. Now at least I know that we won't have to bother with economics anymore after God's kingdom comes, since in God's kingdom there will always more than enough of everything. No scarcity; therefore, no economics - or, anyway, economics won't have a fundamental problem anymore. Religious mathematicians, though, promise me passionately that there will be maths in heaven. I just smile at them. They don't know that my one-sentence takeaway from (mercifully) the only maths course I was required to take as an undergrad was only two words long: Never again.

I took interpersonal communication in the first semester of my sophomore year, and although I did enjoy the course about twice as much as anything maths-related (not hard to double that quantity of enthusiasm), my takeaway was twice as short as the maths takeaway. One word: Recalibrate.

That would be an imperative sentence. A command - to myself. I often heard myself whispering the word in everyday, non-academic scenarios, and that's how I knew that this would be my one-sentence takeaway from interpersonal communication. I must say, it's also proving to be one of the more relevant concepts I've ever toted with me past any finals week. But what is it, you may ask? How exactly does one recalibrate? Why would anyone need to do such a thing so often? I think I'm finally going to tell you... in my very next post. Why wait, you ask? To keep you interested, I answer. And to keep my posts from getting desperately long-winded. I know from experience that no one ever reads long-winded blog posts. Stay tuned.

WARNING: Positive Thinking Ahead

Now, normally, I pride myself on not being an optimist. So now I'm coming out of the closet  and
announcing openly to my entire blog readership (all two of you sweethearts) that I do occasionally look at the bright side of things. In fact, I'm even about to advocate a decidedly glass-half-full approach to half-empty glasses, so hold on to your hair extensions, ladies! That's right, and make sure you've got those lovely comb-overs glued tightly to your heads, gentlemen. Because what I'm about to say is astonishingly un-gloomy, for an astonishing change.

That will be in my next blog post, though. Not this one. So relax. Some people, myself included, really resent having a blast of positivity sprayed in their faces on those days when a standard and comfortable gloom envelops them, in its security-blanket-like warmth and fuzz. If the above-mentioned some people is you right now, then just don't read the next post. The rest of y'all? Keep smiling - and soon enough, I'll show you how I manage to smile even in some of my most frowningest moments. Or, at least, how I keep myself from binge drinking to block out my misery. There is a better way. And it's called...

(Prepare your hair extensions...!)

The Only Reason to Live in an Apartment

There is a lot wrong with life in an apartment complex, like feeling your neighbors' voices as well as hearing them, and all the general nastiness of sharing space without sharing life; but there are some things that I have always envied about apartment living - mainly, this one moment I keep imagining: the moment when you pass one of your neighbors in the hall just as he is opening his door and you happen to get a glimpse of his place. And what do you know, it looks like the picture you see here. A magical atmosphere full of Moroccan lanterns and ruby lighting and all-around mystery. And maybe you smell some incense and hear music, very quiet; perhaps the gentle twanging of an oud with a shower of little rhythms from a djarbouka. And you are like, Oh, man, I wish I could go in there.

More specifically, I have always wanted to be that person with the magical room, making people envious. I would look up at the wishful thinkers, smile modestly, and lock the door behind me.

Blog Neglect, Pant Legs, and Other Serious Problems

Updating a blog is one of the easiest things to never do. Acknowledge that, and you've come a long way toward intellectual honesty. Now, there are several possible reactions to this realization, the most placebo-like of which is to start yet another blog, Only This Time You Will Post On It Every Day. Yeah. Right. I now have three such blogs, invented solely for the purpose of avoiding this one. Ironically, I now avoid those other blogs with an even greater passion, if that's imaginable.

I'm sorry, God. We humans can't keep up with Your incessant media output. (I'm apologizing to God because I'm thinking He's probably the only one who has never been guilty of neglecting a blog.) Reality is, things get in the way. Or they don't. Yeah, that's the dichotomy: either too much is going on so we can't blog, or nothing is going on so we can't blog. Notice that these problems are opposites in every other respect, but in both cases, we can't blog. That is pretty much the bottom line.

Let's get back to me. About the only thing I have to blog about today is:

Pant Legs

 

My pant legs are a little wide today, and so for once I didn't try to stuff them inside my snow boots. But they're also a little narrow today too, so I didn't do the other thing either, namely pulling them down over my snow boots. No; today I did something else, something nobler. Today I turned the bottom hem of my pant legs inside out and rolled them up about five, six inches, so that they sort of sit (sort of) on top of my snow boots. Which looks horrible.

 

I also promised in the title of this post to address some other serious problems.

 

...Yes. Yes, I did, didn't I? Well.