Brick walls September 26, 2007

“Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls aren’t there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want things.”

This is a quote from the dying professor Randy Pausch who gave his last lecture on “How to Live Your Childhood Dreams.” This quote has bothered me since I first read it last week. It bothers me because I can’t think of a single childhood dream. At least not one that I’ve ever pursued in any real way. The only thing I can think of is I wanted to be a doctor. I am not a doctor. And honestly I don’t regret not being a doctor.

But where’s the passion? Where’s the true desire to attain a dream, even through years of rejection? How do you find a passion? There are so many directions I could go in. But you can’t be passionate about everything. Right?

Passion requires focus, putting your attention on one thing. That one thing could be huge (world peace, ending aparteid), but it’s still one thing. How do I know which thing is the right thing?

Uncharted Happiness September 8, 2007

I was rereading an article from Yoga Journal about change: the willingness to change, how to change, the change process. In the past year I’ve made huge leaps and strides. Found mulitiple edges and reached over all of them. I feel different from the person I was a year ago. I am different, I feel it in my bones and my flesh.

But the anxious one in me constantly brings up a really good point: How can I be so different, when my life looks just the same? Same job, apartment, body, loneliness. How can I possible be different? Or is the external change coming? First inside then outsite, maybe. I don’t know.

I’ve been running into lonely poems. Last night, well at this point two nights ago, my yoga teach put up part of a poem by Hafiz:

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

It was so sad and beautiful that I looked it up, and found the first part even more sad and beautiful:

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

“Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly/let it cut more deep.” I can’t get over that. The loneliness is a constant. I can’t imagine it going even deeper. It never goes away, no matter the city or job or body, or how many people around me, it stays. It’s the same. It makes the same grooves, the same cuts, unchanged.

But I want to change, be different not just feel different. I want new grooves, paper cuts making a new map of uncharted happiness, newly discovered joy.

Can an issue of “O” be considered a SHB? September 4, 2007

O.k. after blasting O magazine for their 6 figure income ‘risk takers’ (wow! I’m bitter!), I’m clearly still reading it.

My friends if the answer to the question “Can an issue of ‘O’ be considered a SHB?” is ‘yes’, my tally of SHBs just went up exponentially.

And I think it can be answered yes. Each issue has a theme, this month “Do What You Love”. The whole magazine has a theme of “Live Your Best Life”, which sounds like a SHB if I’ve ever heard one.

Is it me, or are blogs boring? September 4, 2007

I thought it would be so much fun to join the exciting world of bloggin!!! All my thoughts and ideas in one place, journaling online. I looked to other blogs for guidance and to emulate the best.

Most of these people are freaks.

I don’t want everyone knowing all that! Come on people, rein it in! Why? Why? Are your parents reading this?!?