Inner Peace

People often talk about something they call "inner peace" in a heightened manner of one talking about a far off plateau or a unattainable goal that's always worth reaching for or perhaps as part of a path to some form of enlightenment. I'd like to take a moment and reflect upon how completely full of crap those people are.

Now, I'm sure you're at least a bit weirded out by now... but that's okay, I'm pretty sure you'll be even more so after I've said my peace. I'm also afraid that this entry will be rather self centered... forgive me, but all I know is myself.

I think I may have discovered at least a part of what people so loftily refer to as this inner peace. I find it hard to describe exactly what it feels like. It's somewhat like having the last third of a jigsaw puzzle fall into place by itself or having somebody whisper in your ear "It will be alright" as you try futilely to fall asleep. But what I find even harder to describe is how I found this - feeling.... this deep, primal feeling. There was no thought process that lead to a new conclusion or outlook on life, there was no book that spoke some ancient secret to my soul... it really just happened. In fact, the timing itself makes no sense. With the shootings at Virginia Tech last week and the forthcoming shattering of my life in the fall, you'd think I'd be an emotional wreck... I think I should too... but I'm not.

I passed a graveyard today. Under normal circumstances that's one of the scariest things to undertake in a human life... to look upon those that have fallen and know that that is your fate as well. However, today for some reason it wasn't like that... I think I was finally able to grasp what a graveyard really is - a tribute to all those of my fellow human beings who have LIVED LIFE. Maybe they lived it to the fullest, maybe they didn't, maybe there is no such thing as living life to the fullest... they all lived it though. That was enough to make me feel honored to be in their presence... in the presence of those before me.

It's odd... I feel changed, and yet I don't. Nothing will change about me... whatever it is I've found is inner if nothing else. I will still follow my passions with the utmost, well, passion. I am still myself... and yet I feel ready. Ready to face my life in the fall, ready to live life.... and ready to die when my time comes. I'm happy to be alive and happy for the chance I've been given. I don't know what the chance is for... and I don't think that this peace will last... but here and now I am at thankful.

So back to you, the reader.

I may not know you, person on the other side of the screen, but I know you are alive. I don't have any answers for you or ways to achieve what it may be that you want in life. However, I share with you and in you the force of human life. The ability to live. You haven't wasted it... I don't think anybody has. And either though I may not know you, I hope from the depth of my being that you will find your own peace.... and know that everything will be alright. Thank you for reading and good luck... that's all I can wish you

Life's Funny

In so many ways life is funny... but right now I guess I'll just mention quickly how a state of mind... or perhaps awareness can change anything.

Something caught me completely off guard today... it was something my band teacher said. For those of you who don't know, she's only five years older than me, perhaps less, but she gets it. She gets music, she gets life or at least gets it from my perspective... she makes that evident in how she teaches.

Regardless, I was caught off guard... we were talking about dynamics -a common enough topic- when she said, "You could be playing a symphony and nobody would know unless you made yourself heard!"

I'm sure she didn't mean for it to be taken figuratively, but I did anyways. I guess that's really a truth of life. If you want to be heard, rcognized, understood, loved, you have to put yourself out there; you have to make yourself heard. You have to make sure that you don't let life happen to you; that you happen to life. Make the world remember you or suffer the consequence of never having tried.

Life Lost

They call me Individual
And so I sit alone
This new warmth reminds me
after all
It was about a year ago
And so
I let my mind take me then again
Let the trees unbud, the rain arise
And there he was again, in front of me

He was just a child, I see that now
Although he didn't say it, I knew
He had lost his life
Or maybe never found it
Either way, he was without

I offered to help and he
He accepted, I'm not sure he should have
He told me about it
Described how it made him laugh, made him cry
And I, having no thought or clue
As where to search
Looked anywhere I could

I must have told my brother
He found the boy
Gave him his life
But soon the boy was gone
The rain fell and somebody else stood where
He had been

This new man and my brother left
And then it was winter
And now again it's spring
And now they call me Individual
And so I sit alone

Thirty Three

Thirty Three
And now it's Thirty Three
It should have been two
But, no there wasn't enough
Coordination apparently
Although
When two people are shot
And dead
You would think people would react
Rather than move on
But they weren't the ones dead
So that's what they did

Thirty Three
Thirty Three! The insolence!
That a number could hope to represent
Those human lives
These people had names!
Dreams!
Identities!
Thirty Three raised to infinity
But no, Thirty Three is how
They'll be remembered
Ridiculous!

Thirty Three
So what?
In the time those 33 were shot
Hundreds of others died
But do we care about them?
No!
People are shallow!
People die, it's what we do best!
Those thirty three fulfilled their
Birth given duty
Hopefully
They had the foresight
To make the time count
One did
He may have not done it in a good way at all
But he left a scar on the earth
That will not in my lifetime fade

Thirty Three
Thirty Three families deserted
Thirty Three potentials erased
Thirty Three churches one emptied
Thirty Three souls in heaven
Or more likely Thirty Two
But who am I to Judge
Perhaps it was only one
Or even none

Thirty Three
Freed spirits, Tell me!
For I always thought
That the 'winds of change' was
A tired platitude
But
Today the winds howled
Like the mothers
And the Husbands and the Wives
Of those who taught
And were taught
On this cold, cold
April

Thirty Three!
They have attained immortality
The set, tuner and web
Closed in
Before the skin was cooled
Shocked them into un
life
And they are forced to live
And they are forced into my life
And this undead army
of Thirty Three
Will change our world

Thirty Three?!
I was there but two days ago!
I must have seen some of their faces
God!
Now they're gone
And I never got to meet him or her
...as far as I know
But I saw them
They were just like me
But for an accident of 6 hours
They could have been me
Or I them
For 6 hours earlier in delivery
I would have been there now
And in thirty three days
I leave my school
For theirs
And in Three months and thirty days
I join

A tale of two days

To put it simply
Yesterday was a
disaster
And as these days do
It drug on, on
Faster and faster
And as these days are
I failed at all
I thought myself master

But!
Karma replied prompt
And luck was swapped

For today all
and everything worked well!
Again, I excelled
And once more the notes fell
into place
where the simplest person could tell
who I was
what I was
And where my soul dwells

Now excuse my manners for a time
For now I abandon all rhyme
And break the fourth wall

Tomorrow's the trouble
It terrifies me
Since Karma is callous
And Future's so grave
You! Never trust him
Or rely on his ways
For tomorrow determines
The rest of my life

Happiness... or meaning?

Recently I was watching a television show called Heroes. Great plot, great action, but it threw something completely unexpected at me.... philosophy. One of the 'villain's of the show posed this challenge to a character: "There come a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning."

Now, same as I would have, the character replied simply "Both." to which the response was even more interesting.

"Can't be done. Two very different paths. To be truly happy, a man must live absolutely in the present, no thought of what's gone before and no thought of what lies ahead. But a life with meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future."

Now this got me thinking. Over the past few months I've based my life off the fact that I should be pursuing happiness in my life, little else other than to serve God. Perhaps I've lost my way... perhaps I haven't... but this does make an interesting question:

Is to live only in the pursuit of happiness selfish? Surely it isn't if doing good things makes you happy... but what about those things that are neither good nor bad... or the wicked which brings pleasure? No, it seems as if the pursuit of happiness isn't what it's all about... it can be corruptible, it can be warped.

But is to live solely for a life of meaning any better? You can make your life mean whatever you want it to, after all, reality is only a state of mind. So what does it mean to make your life meaningful? Does it mean leaving a mark? Does it mean satisfying some preset purpose? Does it mean determining a purpose and fulfilling it? Does it mean touching others? Again, we find the corruptible... such as humanity is fated to be.

But does "wallowing in the past" serve any good purpose? Sure! we must learn from our mistakes! But to agonize over the past and the future... that can't be all chalk up my existence to? Can it? Only by what I've accomplished in life? The external marks I've left? What if those marks are scars?

What if I've made other people's life's happy, but neglected my own? Should I count my life as success or failure? Why do I feel the need to think about life as success or failure? After all, it's neither... it's just life.