No Know No Know

There are some people that we consider to know well and understand. But about this man, no one could say that they understood him. Rather they could say that they understood very well that they did not understand him at all. In this regard they find common ground with him. They know nothing about his circumstances though he has spoken about them countless times. We can reproduce the same details, same emotions from them, but no conclusions can be drawn leaving us for a loss. Is this alright? In a way it is always mysterious and leaves us very intrigued to hear these accounts. But what if anything do we ever gain? Is that the point, to gain something from them? On the one hand it is maddening to no end, living on the wrong side of this one-sided relationship. We receive volumes and anthologies full of nothing, or better nothing we are capable of understanding. I for one am not up to the challenge of wading through the jumbled life of someone else, at least not before sifting through mine own. I want to, but I can't. It doesn't take long but we begin to see this continual leaflet dropping as a front for actual communication, though it is not. Shortly following we(I) become bitter and choose to sever what appears to us as an already cut off friendship. But then it comes, a simple thoughtfulness from the other side. We thought it impossible, like Japanese soldiers singing carols on christmas night on the battlefield. Suddenly we don't know what to think. Then it seems all too likely that the other has no idea of the thoughts that have transpired on our part, and rightly so. So back to the beginning we go again. We must be left to our first conclusion and be satisfied: we understand that we don't understand at all. In some sort of twisted, unfulfilled way there is actually solace in that. I think, therefore I am...I admit to knowing nothing, therefore I know.

If this made sense to anyone, my hat is off to you. I don't quite understand it all myself. It is about everyone and about no one. Better put from the movie The Darjeeling Limited: "all the characters are fictional."

Great Expectations

If you have ever read the book Great Expectations, hopefully you can agree with me in that the author brilliantly portrays a potential flaw that many of us carry with us. Great expectations: I've had quite a few, and what I've come to believe is that they are not to be taken lightly. When we expect something the possibility exists that we will be let down. Life rarely goes the way you plan, and there is defeat when you are counting on something and it falls through. Great expectations can also be unfair. To tip the scales in your mind on how a situation should pan out, to hope for words from a friend, that your brother or sister will suddenly want to take an interest in your life. Isn't that just forcing them, willing them to do what you wish for? Even if they concede, was it on their own or because they were nudged toward that decision? However there is merit to these expectations. Without hope life in my experience seems less worth living. Without something to strive and pray for, how can we (I) go on? Yes life does go on, but with a heavy heart. And not to condone the overused, tacky, cliche sayings like "shoot for the moon and you will land among the stars" but we must have higher goals in our lives. Things that might be unreachable to us, yes unattainable situations. But what are we if we cease to strive, to struggle and to achieve? I leave that answer up to you. As per usual the balance, in this case farfetched dreams vs. hopeful persistance, is the issue. But the balance has not been defined, no one can look it up. They must derive it by living and come to their own conclusion. And I hope there is variation to the answer, because how boring is a single answer to a problem that everyone deals with. I myself don't know the answer but I'm going to start looking.

Forgotten Words

Let me say first that I am reluctant to publish this. I found this tucked away in a folder I made on my email. I wrote it over a month ago and forgot about it entirely. When I opened it up I realized I liked it a lot. The trouble is, this is a poor indicator of how I feel at the present. There isn't any hope in this piece of writing, if I could be a critic for a moment. I would say that is the biggest difference to my feelings then compared to my feelings now. I am much, much more hopeful. Anyway, I like it. This is more or less for me. This isn't a statement I am making. Writing doesn't always have little strings that connect to people and places and feelings. It can stand on its own, without latching on to objects that surround it. Sorry, one last thing and then on with it: it is really nice finding these little bits of writing. I seem to write on whatever I can get my hands on: school notebooks, emails, receipts, programs, you name it. Fun to find them and still like what I wrote.

Can’t Give Up

I was working all today, but I wasn’t at my job
No I was working on getting you out of my mind
Cause you’ve been stuck up there for so long
And I just can’t seem to get you out of there
Maybe it’s because I don’t want you to leave my mind,
just like I didn’t want you to leave my life
Why did you run?
I may never know
And why were you still outside my window every night after?
You didn’t discard me; you put me out of reach
That is what hurts me the most:
knowing you are there, but that I’ll never touch you again
At night I’m a wreck, all alone with my thoughts
And there is no one to tell me to relax, no one to calm me down
If there was some way to change your mind I don’t think I could do it
Cause even if I could convince you, you would still run, you always do
Maybe that was the problem: I tried to stop you from running
And that's what you’ve been doing since you left home
I even tried running with you for a while but you like running alone
So I’m left to walk through this world lost and lonely
If you ever get tired of running, know I’m waiting for you at home
Know I am here if you don’t want to go it alone

This is killing me
To have gotten so close only to be pushed away
With the offer of a different kind of closeness in the future
I don’t know if I can be that for you
I do know I can’t lose you altogether
But your friendship may hurt too much
To see your face and feel your presence might feel too much like the past
You are a memory I just can’t shake, a nightmare that won’t stop haunting me
What have you done to me?
Can you bear doing that to yourself?
Do the right choices have to hurt so much?

I’ve finally gotten better
It took time, a lot of deep breaths and taking things slow
But one thing hasn’t changed: the hurt I feel when I am around you
No matter how hard I try I still can’t shake the memory of us
When I see your face I remember all those nights we spent together
When you talk I can’t help but think of all the things you told me
And when you touch me I recall when you held me and told me to never let you go
I remember when I was the one you relied on to feel safe
I know now that I could not be the security you needed

The hurt will never go away, nor will it drive me away
Because being away from you hurts more
More than the feeling of failure, more than the feeling
That you were my all before you gave up on me
And even if the pain of being near you became too great to bear I would be unable to walk away
See I can’t give up on what little I have left, it is what I cling to

Camping Conundrum

So this past weekend myself as well as a bunch of friends who are Young Life leaders went up to the mountains just outside of Yellowstone. Today I was looking at pictures and was struck. A certain picture of our fire at night caught my eye. I don't believe that I am alone when I say that fire is one of the most captivating phenomenon in the world. Think about it: wherever there is fire, there are people staring, mesmerized. Why is that exactly? On the one hand it is just fire, it's not like anyone is new to the sight. And yet we keep staring, as if when it dies out we will never again see the flames lick the air, or hear the crackle of the wood. We keep staring as though within the fire lies some hidden treasure, and if we look away for a minute or blink we will miss it. The question that still crosses my mind is simply what is fire? Yes I know that fire is the combustion of oxygen. But what kind of an answer is that? Science(as much as I have learned thus far) has fallen horribly short at categorizing this element of the earth. Because you cannot capture fire like you can a wild flower . You cannot collect a specimen of fire like a butterfly. All you can do is sustain a fire. You can keep it going with fuel and ideal weather conditions. But what is it? Sometimes the destructive power of fire is lost on me when I see it blown by the wind, seemingly as delicate as a feather. I think that our place here on earth becomes quite clear when with all our knowledge, technology, and history we are limited to describing fire as feebly as "fire is fire." Fire is a fact, a constant that is to be accepted, not challenged. Perhaps the task of breaking down fire is too daunting, and also maybe fire should be left alone. Afterall, who regrets the no doubt countless hours spent burning holes into the firelight, so to speak. Who doesn't enjoy the mystery that fire still poses? That enigma is a riddle I have and will continue to come back to again and again. With my blank stare and mouth agape, I will ponder fire and all that it holds.