Posts tagged with "life"

Life Is Pain

Hand spot

Sometimes, you stab your­self in the hand with a point, but it’s not sharp enough to break the skin.

Sometimes, the blood comes to the sur­face, and this is as much of your­self as you can show the world.

Sometimes, the pave­ment is cov­ered in snow out­side, and you can dri­ve over 100kph in one spot before the trac­tion kicks in.

Sometimes, you scare your­self with your reck­less­ness.

Sometimes, you real­ize that life is pain.

Sometimes, you have noth­ing left but numb­ness and resolve.

A Thousand Kisses Deep

I can gath­er all the news I need on the weath­er report.
Hey, I’ve got noth­ing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only liv­ing boy in New York

Half of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where,
And we don’t know here.

—Simon and Garfunkle, The Only Living Boy in New York

Every day, we get caught up in our lives.

We adopt pets to give us a sense of fam­i­ly. We eat break­fast at work or in the car to save our­selves time so we can work some more. We scorn those who express emo­tion, we avoid eye con­tact with strangers on the street.

Everything we do — the food we eat, the movies we watch, the home team we cheer for, our cof­fee shop romances — they’re just try­ing to fill that hole, that gap that’s miss­ing, the only way we feel alive.

We don’t slow down, we don’t fig­ure things out. We don’t reflect and appre­ci­ate what we have.

Like straw­ber­ry cheese­cake ice cream with a thick gra­ham crack­er swirl. Like the seren­i­ty of the snow that falls around us, when heav­en decides to bless the earth.

Life gets in the way of liv­ing.

And now I real­ize just how guilty I’ve been of this. I’ve been look­ing for love, but nev­er rec­og­nized it when I found it. All I ever want­ed to do was lie in bed, look into your eyes, and go through my favourite albums with you. But I nev­er did. And now I won­der. Why can’t we just live? We can’t we just love?

Sometimes you have to stop. You can’t cap­ture every­thing. You need to throw your­self in.

A thou­sand kiss­es deep.

Life Is Full Of Possibilities

How sim­ple a thing is hap­pi­ness: a glass of wine, a roast chest­nut, a wretched lit­tle bra­zier, the sound of the sea. All that is required to feel that here and now is hap­pi­ness and a sim­ple, fru­gal heart.

—Zorba the Greek

I feel like writ­ing.

Saturdays are usu­al­ly reserved for relax­ation, but I mixed it with a few errands through­out the day. Bought extra auburn foliage for one of my pots, and a fun­nel to get fresh-ground pep­per into my new pep­per shak­er. Picked up my week­ly gro­ceries. Sat down at the piz­za par­lor to start Beautiful Losers while my Hawaiian was being baked.

I watched Zorba The Greek tonight, about the adven­tures of an aim­less Englishman who goes to Crete, and the lessons he learns from a man he meets named Zorba.

Thumbnail: Zorba the Greek dances

Thumbnail: The Crete widow from Zorba the Greek

Though gen­er­al­ly jovial and light­heart­ed, it was heavy and heavy at times. There’s a scene where a beau­ti­ful wid­ow (the love inter­est of the movie) is rit­u­al­is­ti­cal­ly stoned and killed out of jeal­ousy by the men of the vil­lage, sim­ply because she would­n’t let any of them have her. The direc­tion is a lit­tle incon­sis­tent, but Anthony Quinn’s por­tray­al of the Grecian spir­it keeps the movie in tact. Many believe the movie to be an analy­sis of Apollonian vs Dionysian thought, but I saw it as a nod to Taoism as well.

Zorba’s a Taoist, whether he knows it or not. He shuns intel­lec­tu­al thought and analy­sis, and loves life with bub­bling spon­tane­ity. In the end, the Englishman learns from Zorba, not about life, but how to live it.

And it inspired me. Not just the dia­logue or the play­ful­ness, but the loca­tions too. It made me want to trav­el, to see new places, to meet more peo­ple, and explore oth­er cul­tures.

One day. For now, I’ll enjoy the com­fort of my house.

So here I am, stay­ing up late with my back next to the open win­dow, eat­ing but­ter pecan tarts, drink­ing Dragon Well tea, and writ­ing as much as I can.

I think I’ll go prac­tice the form now.

Tomorrow, I have noth­ing to do but live.