If you are to be fully healthy, there seem to be four areas that must be satisfied. These parts of being include the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual. When one is not being satisfied, the others also suffer. Your emotional well-being is directly tied to how you maintain relationships. Are you calling your friends and seeing them and family on a fairly regular basis, or are you shutting yourself in? The physical is simple enough, at least in theory, but if you are not eating well and are leading a sedentary lifestyle, then your desire to get out of bed suffers terribly, which in turn hinders many possibilities from being tested. The mental refers to maintaining an active imagination, and being able to see the world with clarity. Reading books and challenging our minds are essential if we want not to become braindead zombies who eat the trash that is dispensed before us without question. The spiritual is a tricky one, particularly if you do not have a strong belief in a supernatural god or gods. However, this can be remedied by having an appreciation for life, nature, and the universe that surrounds you every single day. Take a breath, close your eyes, and filter out the clutter in your spirit; recognize the universe as a wonder, and life as an incredible gift of happenstance.
As mentioned, these four parts of being are like the four tires of a car; if one is damaged or neglected in any way, the entire vehicle that is relying on these supports will suffer. Of course, discussing and writing about the necessities of a healthy human being is much different than putting these ideas into practice. But at least we are thinking, and that is a start.
Stop a moment and let me take your picture
The hood of your jacket looks perfect and your smile is true
These moments are fireflies in clapped up jars
Let me remember an honest look
All I want is a bottle of certainty
Suck it down and feel the sting
of awareness
swarming in my throat
and smothering my insides
A bit of perfect love
A hint of knowing where I'm going
And I'll do it slow
'Cause it's been so slow lately
But maybe just maybe
My life will take me
And I won't need the bottle
at all
Grip hold of my cage
And make my escape
I pray you'll stay with me
In body and mind
Dear passion, dear imagination, dear ambition, dear love...
I miss you.
At least it's beautiful outside. The clouds remind me of playful possibility.
Hrm. Listening to stuff I recorded over the past four years or so. I have thirty two MP3s on my computer that are laying around half finished. This is one of them.
Wrap me up in molten tissue and carry me to the mouth of the eclipse
There I will seethe and breathe
Sucking in nothing and believing in everything
As the moon eats space and is wrapped in night
All is perfect and motion
Freeze my heart and chip away at every part that flirts with reality
Earth is an impression left on my retina
And I melt in the illusion
I should really try to be creative on a more regular basis, even if my works may not compare with the best that's out there.
We always have a choice. The words are familiar, worn, and sometimes feel tired. Even so, their truth rings clear to those of us with privilege in our hands. I have a home, people who love me, and I feel safe. I am able to fit my life to a design of my choosing. With that comes the onus of responsibility to make something useful of this life; of this chance. The most difficult trait to acquire when you have succeeded is self-discipline. The goal is to never become complacent with your achievements and creature comforts. Once we start feeling entitled, we grow soft, bitter, and useless; retreating into ourselves and lashing out at a world that we feel owes us everything for our time on it. But contribution to life and those around us should be a daily activity. It is in the struggle that we are made. It is in finding purpose and putting our hands to good deeds that we become great.
I am trying to live a full life, and I hope I can defeat my own lethargic tendencies to make it happen. My thirst for this fullness of life must never be satiated, because once it is, there will be no more life to live. Without goals and purpose, I feel as if I'm floating out into nothing. Those times are okay once in a while, as long as I eventually find my way back.
"The cost of greatness is responsibility."
-Winston Churchill
I feel like I'm allowing myself to slip a little. Getting dumber. Harder to maintain mental sharpness in the midst of comfort. Self-motivated study is much more difficult than being given a date and topic to study something and say something intelligent and insightful about that something.
I need to be harder on myself.
