advice to the young

This is the article my friend sent me. Just interesting stuff on why we're here, and if an older version of myself could talk to me now.

The woman who wrote this reply, eventually wrote the book "Wild" which is being made into an upcoming film starring Reese witherspoon.

http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/

"There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness."

"Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room."

"The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming."

Also, just as a PS I've included Patti Smith's advice to the young as well. Slightly different, but still very worthwhile. http://vimeo.com/57857893

When I'm all alone or in a crowd
In a quiet place or where music's loud
If I'm on the road, or in the other room
That's how you know, I'm thinkin' of you

When the flowers bloom, when the leaves turn brown
when the sun is hot, when the snow falls down, down
when the clouds are gray, and the sky's are blue
that's how you know, I'm thinkin' of you

You're always the first and the last thing on this heart of mine
No matter where I go or what I do, I'm thinkin' of you.
http://youtu.be/INkvQpjfrHY

this is how you keep her

“You must learn her.

You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to.

You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her.”
― Junot Díaz, This Is How You Lose Her

Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you.

Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler.

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. 

A dream you dream together is reality.” 

— John Lennon

be ok with being great.

I really like this video Kanye put up, about his outlook on creating.
I know people say he's so full of it thinks he's God etc.
But I know I personally struggle with being okay with being me sometimes, not apologizing for wanting to create- so i was glad to hear someone claiming so much ownership and passion for art and music.


“If you're taught you CAN'T do anything, you won't do anything. I was taught I could do everything!!! When someone comes up and say something like: ‘I Am A God!’ everybody says: ‘Who does he think he is??!?!’ — I JUST TOLD YOU WHO I THOUGHT I WAS. A GOD. I JUST TOLD YOU! Would it have been better if I have a song "I Am A N*gger" or "I Am A Gangster" or "I Am A Pimp"? Go listen to my music, it's the code to self-esteem. If you're a Kanye West fan, you're not a fan of me, you're a fan of yourself. You will believe in yourself. I'm just the expresso shot in the morning to make you believe you can overcome that situation that you're dealing with!”

Happiness is just outside my window
Would it crash blowing 80-miles an hour?
Or is happiness a little more like knocking
On your door, and you just let it in?

Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can’t make it come or go
But you are gone- not for good but for now
Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good

Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard
Happiness was never mine to hold
Careful child, light the fuse and get away
‘Cause happiness throws a shower of sparks

Happiness damn near destroys you
Breaks your faith to pieces on the floor
So you tell yourself, that’s enough for now
Happiness has a violent roar

Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, but you’ll never find it all
Let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, wake up and she’ll be home
Home, home, home

what its like

It’s not what you want that matters it's what you want more,
So go on, lie to yourself but don’t lie to me,
Everybody feels locked out of a house they can’t get in. Keep on wanting

In each interaction with someone you only have two choices, yes or no. And two chances to get it right. There's no asking for more.

Have you ever loved someone so much, you'd give an arm for them?
Not the expression, no, literally give an arm for them?
When they know they're your heart
And you know you were their armour
And you would destroy anyone who would try to harm her
But what happens when karma turns right around and bites you?
And everything you stand for turns on you to spite you?
What happens when you become the main source of her pain?

And when I'm gone, just carry on, don't mourn
Rejoice every time you hear the sound of my voice
Just know that I'm looking down on you smiling
And I didn't feel a thing, So baby don't feel no pain
Just smile back

If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room would you trust it

"Maybe it's not about growing balls but about growing roots" -Aurora W.

I've always seemed a little sad to people throughout my life. Because I know it doesn't last, it all fades and I try to hold on because it meant something to me, but people aren't like that. The things I've liked and wanted to hold I never really had. And the people who loved me most can't be my friends sometimes. Because it was too much to forget. And in that sense it's one of the only indications that it wasn't a dream. I never knew when I was young, what a loaded silence is. That two people who avoid looking at each other on the street might have more between them than other's who hug and want to catch up. There are lives lived that we don't talk about. Anyone who says nothing's wrong just isn't confiding in you.

I just want the things I love, all I have to give, seen, and appreciated. I think to work with someone like me would make me feel so lucky- when I care about my job and am getting paid right- I don't think there's anyone who would do more or better. But it's like back in high school how as soon as I lost respect for a teacher or saw something I didn't like in a friend, I could find no way to want to be anything like them, and turned away.

I wanted to perform, draw, to be in love with someone really beautiful inside and out. I still want that. To explore with them, share our families and friends. A man is invisible if no one else sees him. M remembers me like a past life. When I'm with him I feel like I could be redeemed somehow. I want him to want to see me.
I've always been told I had all this potential. But really. What is a life of potential, a month away from being 26, if it's not acknowledged the way I hope.

I found this video I made two years ago as some sort of weird self inflicted art project I didn't show anyone. From a time when I'd film scenes I liked on my iPhone. Anyway. Some thoughts on love from the movies:

Every Romantic Scene I like from the Movies from andrea chen on Vimeo.

I think my nature was always searching for something or someone. And like a drowning man flailing, that need kept me from seeing the clearly those trying to save me- the people and places I'm so lucky to have in front of me.
There's a story I heard Tuesday about a man who's young child asks him for a quarter. And he looks into his pocket and says he doesn't have a quarter, only a $10 bill. The child get's upset and exclaims- but I want a quarter!

I was on the subway platform tonight coming home from work and there was this guy singing this song… I thought it was really beautiful. About people learning to be better with time, and building things. Enjoy: http://youtu.be/qU4wxPw6t_g

"I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly:
I perceived that this also was vexation of spirit"
Ecclesiastes

Once in awhile I'll decide it's Booty's birthday. I'll order ribs from the Chinese takeout place that's seemingly open 24/7 and we'll lay around hand n paw watching Anthony bourdain. 

Lift your head when you're down so you don't drop your crown.

I really like how Madonna writes: (from her Harpers article)

"I was defiant. Hell-bent on surviving. On making it. But it was hard and it was lonely, and I had to dare myself every day to keep going. Sometimes I would play the victim and cry in my shoe box of a bedroom with a window that faced a wall, watching the pigeons shit on my windowsill. And I wondered if it was all worth it, but then I would pull myself together and look at a postcard of Frida Kahlo taped to my wall, and the sight of her mustache consoled me. Because she was an artist who didn't care what people thought. I admired her. She was daring. People gave her a hard time. Life gave her a hard time. If she could do it, then so could I."

I know things get hard but girl you got it, girl you got it there you go
Can't you tell by how they looking at you everywhere you go
Wondering what's on your mind, it must be hard to be that fine,
When all these motherfuckas wanna waste your time
It's just amazing, girl, and all I can say is...

I'm so, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so, I'm so proud of you

Everything's adding up, you've been through hell and back
That's why you're bad as fuck and you know you are.

Mark.

Shirley asked me some questions today.
One that stuck with me is what I've learned.
I guess I've learned how big my heart can be.
Love is like a liquid that needs to be held in a safe vessel.

My dad told me about this CS Lewis excerpt from "A Grief Observed"

When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house.

__

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. 

My dear Will,

You must be healed by now... on the outside at least, I hope you're not too ugly.
What a collection of scars you have. Never forget who gave you the best of them, and be grateful, our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.
We live in a primitive time, don't we, Will? Neither savage nor wise. Half measures of the curse of it, any rational society will either kill me or put me to some use.
Do you dream much, Will? I think of you often.

Your old friend,
Hannibal Lector.

My life is just dreams shared with people. Some of which don't come true. But some do.

I've made people my center, my job my identity, but all those things change. 

The only thing that doesn't is a belief system, accountability that dictates decisions. stable, unchanging.

Cool pics:

http://news.distractify.com/people/complex-humans/?v=1

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

so i finally got to see this thing i was in a while ago. coca-cola argentina
http://www.rebolucion.com/newsletter/view-latest-work-Re-inventing-Hilltop-Project-en.html 

Sitting here in the office on a sunday night, eating chocolate and drinkin' tea. In the sermon earlier there was this really nice story.

In his book, Run with the Horses, Eugene Peterson tells how he saw some birds teaching their young to fly. Three young swallows were perched on a dead branch that stretched out over a lake. "One adult swallow got alongside the chicks and started shoving them out toward the end of the branch—pushing, pushing, pushing. The end one fell off. Somewhere between the branch and the water below, the wings started working and the fledgling was off on his own. Then the second one. The third one, however, was not to be bullied. At the last possible moment, his grip on the branch loosened just enough so that he swung downward, then tightened again, bulldog tenacious. The parent pecked at the desperately clinging talons until it was more painful for the chick to hang on than risk the insecurities of flying. The grip was released and the wings began pumping. The mature swallow knew what the chick did not—that it would fly—that there was no danger in making it do what it was designed to do." Peterson writes, "Birds have feet and can walk. Birds have talons and can grasp a branch securely. They can walk; they can cling. But flying is their characteristic action and not until they fly are they living at their best, gracefully and beautifully. Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we were born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Some people try desperately to hold on to themselves, to live for self. They look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on to the dead branch of selfishness and self-centeredness, afraid to risk themselves on the untried wings of giving. Yet many people don't think they can live generously because they have never tried." We were created to live generously by giving generously of our time, talents and finances. We were meant to soar.

Theres a saying that perhaps is true, that love is feeling all you ever lost returned to you. 

As long as you're alive, you have chances and choices. Small ones like making up with a friend or trying harder at a job. and huge ones like not just being born but living. not just seeing but loving. 

If you get a second chance at love or life, it'd be stupid not to throw your hat in.

A lot of times Christian churches will ask you to be baptized twice. Because the first time you didn't really know what you were doing, maybe you were young and just had an idea of the right thing. And it takes leaving and questioning, to really figure out what to believe.

I don't think the heart knows how to love unless there's cracks in the seams.
Not because it's broken but because it's growing.

"I want to get married, though. I want children – to me that's the ultimate thing. When you're old and on your death bed looking back at your life, it's not going to be the films you've made or what you've accomplished, it's the relationships you have.
You're survived by things that matter – the people you love and those who love you back." - Chris Evans / Captain America

Let's play a game, where all the lives we lead can change.
Nothing that we can see stay's the same. 

(click below to listen)

"The most important things are the hardest to say" Stephen King


“It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.” Raymond Carver

by dennis mchale:

"This is a world where nothing is solved --

where time is a flat circle

and everything we ever do, or have ever done,

we do over and over and over again."

"brunch is my favorite meal" 

-someone in the west village.

click below to listen

–

I'm happy my parents are going to be back in Houston.

year of the horse!
work's going well, likin the apartment.
resolutions: go to gym. save money. paint more.

You only see what you want to see, and what I show.

i made this country mix for a friend and i just cant stop listening to it myself now.
older -> newer.
what i think are pertinent and best right now.

taylor swift's first big gig was opening for george strait- who did

carrying your love w me

garth brooks. the people's favorite, before tim mcgraw.
friends in low places.

trisha yearwood. married garth brooks. did the real version of how do i live.
walkaway joe

waylon jennings. momma's dont let your baby's grow up to be cowboys.

my dad used to sing this at my mom sometimes- 

she dont know she's beautiful 

THE losing your virginity song. strawberry wine

sexiest song tim mcgraw ever did- real good man

chris cagle- i'd be lying

these are my favorite in general lately,

hard to love
drink on it

There've been moments when I thought I really saw into a person. Looked into their eyes and they were completely open and honest.
But it's just a moment and that person will never be just like they were right then.