Considering that one of the great pretenses I had for my having come to New York was to write, and considering that I do much less of this than I had ought to in general... And seeing as I have spent the day inside the quaint house in Brooklyn spinning wheels, going over questions and searching for answers, and pulling metaphorical shoe boxes of pictures out from underneath my metaphorical bed I literally sleep in (Or rather, cannot sleep in) on a daily bases, I thought now at nearly 3 in the morning would be a grand time to do such a thing. Write, that is... Not all the other circle-running, run-on sentence creating disaster that runs parallel to my existence and what I allow it to be.
If you know me at all, or are from New York and mention it at a table I'm serving you will notice that I have quite the affinity for the City. It runs in and out and stops and goes and pulls and pushes and when you have something to do, you don't feel like you're doing it alone so much. At least, that is the way that I experience it. I write better here... The romantic in me, though it may be. I know that I can go out and take a walk and ask someone where to get off on the F if I'm trying to get to Strand and they will even walk with you there provided it's close enough to where they need to go. Everything moves too fast for you to worry about every action all the time, and this I use a great deal of my life to do.
This said, I am finding myself in a predicament that I fear I have caused. Rather fitting as "Chance" may find it, one of the books I had brought with me this trip is The Abolition Of Man by C.S. Lewis. A lecture on the importance of the universal values and the defense of them. This is both interesting and important to me and quite frankly at present it is a little frustrating to me. I try with great effort [if not always in action, than with hope, in heart] to live my life now and have always in an attempt to do what is right without compromise. This has been the very mechanism that has made me tick. I want others to go first, I want to teach and love and encourage and I want to change wherever I am for the better before I move to my next place. I would like to believe that is all good, and I believe it is in theory (And that last statement is what makes Lewis' book a bit more confusing at present). I do not think that you can debunk those things as good virtues; the desire to live honest, true, noble, and honoring. I have a rather hard time writing any of that off and would fear very greatly the day in which I ever did not feel that way. The issue at hand is that I'm not entirely sure when exactly it is okay or unselfish to do the self preservation dance.
People, or at least a few key people, have asked me many times in my life what I want and told me about how I need to look out for it. Note that many of these people make me feel terrible as soon as I do that very thing, but I digress. I honestly do not know how to answer that question a good deal of the time... This is not however, because I am a indecisive young man without great opinion; I'm rather the opposite and perhaps too often. It is because for a very long time my desire and want has been to take care of the people I care so much about. What I want on a very basic level has often not been an option and when the time comes where it can be I feel uncomfortable and selfish about it and so I dismiss or suppress it (Because that's healthy) and so I don't think about it often. It has no answer because it is not a question.
That being said, it is important to me that I do not play myself as a tragic hero torn apart by his great love and attention to others. I want to view the other side of the mirror I have... I do believe that I can be rather selfish and I have found that when I act on these selfish feelings I tend to do the first thing on the list of things I never wish to do: hurt the people I love so deeply. I may sound confusing and contradictory but it's my blog and so they are my thoughts and I am deeply sorry. This is more for me than anything else as I have very little place to flush out the papers I allow to pile.
This really amounts to this: I go left and do for another who I care about far more than most anyone, or go right and attempt to clear and clean up many situations and feelings spread in various places for over half a decade. Narrowed down further: You or me. If I choose you, I feel I may end us here again, and if I choose me I hurt you. But if I choose me than I can know better what to do, but that means choosing me and that might hurt you and leave you out of the picture... Maybe forever. So I feel this way, do I be selfish and not think so much about the other situation so as to figure out what I want? Or do I stick with what I have been doing and risk a.) Hurting people because the feelings I suppress come out. b.) Faking my way through it all? Or is it faking it? Or is it just persevering. I don't know. I just know that I care very deeply, and that this is what I think about late at night and all the time. I hope that anyone who knows me knows that I care and that I try and that I don't want to put me first. I try.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
Goodnight.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
The Lovers, The Dreamers And Me...
I am so thankful to Kermit the Frog for reminding me through joy or sadness; struggle, trouble, problems, or pain; joy, laughter, and happiness... In tough and easy times, that there's still hope. There is still more to all of this. In this, we press on...
Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
Who said that every wish would be heard
and answered when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it.
Look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
All of us under its spell. We know that it's probably magic.
Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
Who said that every wish would be heard
and answered when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that and someone believed it.
Look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing
and what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
All of us under its spell. We know that it's probably magic.
Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors.
The voice might be one and the same.
I've heard it too many times to ignore it.
It's something that I'm supposed to be.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Is it in you now....
"If" by Rudyard Kipling
"Sowing Season (Yeah)" by Brand New
------------------------------------
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Like you say you do?
A man in the park read the lines on my hands, told me I'm strong; hardly ever wrong. I said, "Man, you're mean."
You had plans for both of us that involved a trip out of town to a place I've seen in a magazine that you left lying around. I don't have you with me, but I keep a good attitude. Do you miss me, Miss Misery like you say you do?
To vanish into oblivion is easy to do. And I try to be, but you know me... I come back when you want me to. Do you miss me, Miss Misery? Like you say you do?
You had plans for both of us that involved a trip out of town to a place I've seen in a magazine that you left lying around. I don't have you with me, but I keep a good attitude. Do you miss me, Miss Misery like you say you do?
To vanish into oblivion is easy to do. And I try to be, but you know me... I come back when you want me to. Do you miss me, Miss Misery? Like you say you do?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Sick down to my heart, but that's just the way it goes...
So, I'm really angry. It's upsetting because I feel like I have little to no outlet for what I feel so it builds up within my chest and I just think of mean things and I want to yell and break something. I've decided that when I have a house of my own, I am going to designate one corner of the back yard to be the "Sean's Angry Corner" (We're still working on the name). It's really quite interesting to me, because for a long, long time I did not consider myself to be an angry person. It's only been the last couple of years that I've identified the anger. For me, I press down on feelings I have that I see as wrong or upsetting or especially hurtful towards others... That's the last thing I want to do, is hurt other people. The problem is that I confuse those three things and they should not be confused.
When I was young, I grew up around people who treated one another very badly out of their anger and it was something I never, ever wanted to do. I think that in this, I associated anger with with poor situation management, and by extension, "Bad." So once you break all that down from it's many parts to just one view that view becomes Simple.
Being angry = Being bad
Now, my desire to not want to be anything like the people who hurt others in their anger, I pressed it all down. I told myself never to behave "Badly" and that included never allowing myself to get angry. I would tell people I was sad, or hurt, or depressed... Which was not untrue, but in that I also became angry. I just did not recognize it, but rather dismiss it and it wound up pressing right back until times when I would say hurtful things and I could not figure out for the life of be why that would happen. Where would my mean words come from? I didn't want to upset or hurt anyone, so why would I act like an asshole all of the sudden? And I knew why, I knew it was because I got tired or being treated poorly, or being hurt or walked on and so finally I would not be able to take it anymore. And it was in this a few years ago that I was reminded by the verse Ephesians 4:26 "Be angry, but sin not...." Anger is natural and maybe even healthy, There is even talk of "Righteous Anger" or a "Holy Discontent." God gets angry, and God is all good. Anger is not the issue, it's what you do with that anger that can become the problem. Despite my natural instinct to press down my anger, I try to find ways to say I'm angry rather than ignoring it, and learning all of this has been huge for me. Please excuse the following rant of my anger in a more healthy form.
I have been more hurt by more friends in the last few months than maybe any other previous time in my life. I'm trying not to be, but I've just been hurt and betrayed by so many people I never thought I'd have to worry about doing such. And what's confusing, is when I recap, I know that there's nothing I can do because any miscommunication we may have had that I caused, I have cleared up... I've tried to be soft, then nice, then firm, then mean, they just explain how sad I was and here we are.... Nothing I am doing is fixing this or letting these people know what I so desperately wish they would get: I love my friends and I always want to do what's right where they are concerned... And yet I get lied to, betrayed and left by people I honestly thought I would have forever. And I know "These things happen" and "Now is not forever" but, damn it I'm just so brokenhearted and I don't know what else to say. I've said the truth and I suppose that's all I have. And so now I'm trying to fight the anger, but stop fighting the anger, but make sure that I don't sin in the anger, but still feeling and letting out the anger and it's all just making me very angry.
"Is that what you call tact? You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back, so lets end this call and end this conversation. Is that what you call a getaway? Well, tell me what you got away with cause you left the frays from the ties you severed when you said, 'Best friends means friends forever.' Is that what you call a getaway? Well tell me what you got away with, cause I've seen more spine in jellyfish. I've seen more guts in 11 year old kids..."
And for now, I will be thankful for what I do have... For the friends who stick up for me and know my heart. For my friends who shut down the lies when they hear them. For my friends who get angry that I'm sad. And it is so hard because I care so deeply.... These people mean the world to me and I honestly want to help these people and fix these situations. It hurts so bad, and that's why I'm so angry. However, I know that I also need to learn to let go... To stop trying to fix everything all the time. I know that, but it's just so hard when you honestly genuinely care about the people you have to let go of. For now, I have to try and surrender the situation(s) to God. I'm sure He's got it.
And I do hope that these people will wake up and see what they are doing. See that I am here and I'm trying to do what's right. I hope that they miss me and know that I love them... I hope they find out. Until then, I have to side with Steven Morrissey on the matter....
When I was young, I grew up around people who treated one another very badly out of their anger and it was something I never, ever wanted to do. I think that in this, I associated anger with with poor situation management, and by extension, "Bad." So once you break all that down from it's many parts to just one view that view becomes Simple.
Being angry = Being bad
Now, my desire to not want to be anything like the people who hurt others in their anger, I pressed it all down. I told myself never to behave "Badly" and that included never allowing myself to get angry. I would tell people I was sad, or hurt, or depressed... Which was not untrue, but in that I also became angry. I just did not recognize it, but rather dismiss it and it wound up pressing right back until times when I would say hurtful things and I could not figure out for the life of be why that would happen. Where would my mean words come from? I didn't want to upset or hurt anyone, so why would I act like an asshole all of the sudden? And I knew why, I knew it was because I got tired or being treated poorly, or being hurt or walked on and so finally I would not be able to take it anymore. And it was in this a few years ago that I was reminded by the verse Ephesians 4:26 "Be angry, but sin not...." Anger is natural and maybe even healthy, There is even talk of "Righteous Anger" or a "Holy Discontent." God gets angry, and God is all good. Anger is not the issue, it's what you do with that anger that can become the problem. Despite my natural instinct to press down my anger, I try to find ways to say I'm angry rather than ignoring it, and learning all of this has been huge for me. Please excuse the following rant of my anger in a more healthy form.
I have been more hurt by more friends in the last few months than maybe any other previous time in my life. I'm trying not to be, but I've just been hurt and betrayed by so many people I never thought I'd have to worry about doing such. And what's confusing, is when I recap, I know that there's nothing I can do because any miscommunication we may have had that I caused, I have cleared up... I've tried to be soft, then nice, then firm, then mean, they just explain how sad I was and here we are.... Nothing I am doing is fixing this or letting these people know what I so desperately wish they would get: I love my friends and I always want to do what's right where they are concerned... And yet I get lied to, betrayed and left by people I honestly thought I would have forever. And I know "These things happen" and "Now is not forever" but, damn it I'm just so brokenhearted and I don't know what else to say. I've said the truth and I suppose that's all I have. And so now I'm trying to fight the anger, but stop fighting the anger, but make sure that I don't sin in the anger, but still feeling and letting out the anger and it's all just making me very angry.
"Is that what you call tact? You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back, so lets end this call and end this conversation. Is that what you call a getaway? Well, tell me what you got away with cause you left the frays from the ties you severed when you said, 'Best friends means friends forever.' Is that what you call a getaway? Well tell me what you got away with, cause I've seen more spine in jellyfish. I've seen more guts in 11 year old kids..."
And for now, I will be thankful for what I do have... For the friends who stick up for me and know my heart. For my friends who shut down the lies when they hear them. For my friends who get angry that I'm sad. And it is so hard because I care so deeply.... These people mean the world to me and I honestly want to help these people and fix these situations. It hurts so bad, and that's why I'm so angry. However, I know that I also need to learn to let go... To stop trying to fix everything all the time. I know that, but it's just so hard when you honestly genuinely care about the people you have to let go of. For now, I have to try and surrender the situation(s) to God. I'm sure He's got it.
And I do hope that these people will wake up and see what they are doing. See that I am here and I'm trying to do what's right. I hope that they miss me and know that I love them... I hope they find out. Until then, I have to side with Steven Morrissey on the matter....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)