absolutwillie

Tag: narrative

  • Like The Secret

    “YOU HAVE TO take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

    Every day, God gives us the sun – and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived that moment, that it doesn’t exist – that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that seem the same to us. But that moment exists – a moment when all the power of the stars becomes part of us and enables us to perform miracles.

    Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments – but all of this is transitory; it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.

    Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never e disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back – and at some point everyone looks back – she will hear her heart saying, “What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed upon you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life.”

    Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life’s magic moments will have already passed them by.”

    [Paulo Coelho: “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”]

  • Going the obsessive route

    (aside) My addiction to the HBO series “Carnivale” was abruptly transformed into an obsession. I watched the last episode of series two last night… I’m still struggling to deal with the fact that series two is “all she wrote”. There’s nothing else. All the hanging plot lines are left unresolved.

    I couldn’t sleep last night. Sophie’s transformation bothered me that much! And now that I know there’s no ‘next episode’ – it’s driving me crazy!!

    Why HBO? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!????????????

    *sob*

  • Yellowcard: "How I Go"

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foWX08Un4Ew&w=425&h=350]

    YouTube

    If you still haven’t seen Big Fish – now would be a good time to do it. Even if you’re not particularly interested in the intricacies and science of knowledge transferrance through the application of magical realism to narratives – you’ll be enriched by the experience.

    (It is a bloody good movie.)

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  • Lengthy, but worth the read

    Here’s another piece I rediscovered. It’s taken from the online journal of Jan Arden:

    Keep Asking
    09-Sep-2005 11:58 am

    How do you learn to love yourself without reservation, without hesitation? How do you truly and honestly learn how to forgive the things you have done, or furthermore, the things that have just “happened” to you? How do you come to terms with your own body and your own thoughts? Time…time…time…a wise healer and a wiser teacher. You cannot know until you face the demons that lurk just under your beating heart. There will always be part of your ego that wants to bring you down; you just have to keep it at bay with your spirit. The spirit is bigger and braver and smarter, it’s just not always as loud. It’s a whisper that takes time and attention to hear. You have to spend time with yourself and not always bask in other’s company.

    How do you learn to just be? I still keep going back, time and time again, to the delicate art of the “thought” – the way in which we communicate essentially, with what and who we are. We are infinite. We are omnipotent. We are here now – and always “were” here. We are all here together trying to finds bits of ourselves among the others we know; that’s why we are always seeking a soul mate, endlessly seeking to retrieve a particle of where we came from. Sometimes I do believe another soul can hold that part and is waiting to give it to back to you.

    I was talking to someone about attraction and the laws in which it seems to work. (Who knows what they are, I don’t know.) Why do we like certain people? What makes us want to be with them, no matter what the outcome, or the conflictions – when we want something so badly that we care not what the consequences may in fact be? Is it chemical, spiritual, circumstantial? Is it Godly? Is it just plain and simply the recognition of seeing them for the first time and recognizing that you “know” them. You know them so intricately, from another time all together. You don’t hesitate, you just walk into them body, mind, lungs and all. When you see someone for that first moment and say to yourself, ahh, there he is…or there she is….or there YOU are. The mystery of who you are reflected in someone’s eyes and when they look at you, you see for a second everything all at once.

    Most of the people that I have met as an adult have those mysterious qualities about them; they have that thing that pulls me in. I feel like I know them and my comfort is instant, my comfort is immediate. There is no reluctance on my part to stay close to them…I want to run toward them. I want to know them and be with them and think about them most of the day. It’s different meeting new people when you’re older; you have a built in “caution” in all that you do. You realize that hurt is shaking hands with anything unfamiliar. You avoid being hurt, so consequently, you miss out on some wonderful souls. You will always risk being hurt as you take on a new friend. You will always risk being let down or being rejected. But risk you must. Once in a great while, things turn out. If you set your thoughts to the task of getting what you want, you most certainly will have things go your way. I have “thought” my way this far and shall continue to do so until I am no longer in this body.

    The body…one’s great foil, one’s certain enemy. With age comes true acceptance. It’s hard being young, it’s hard facing a mirror and not liking who you see. As corny as it sounds, if you tell yourself horrible things, your body will react by giving you horrible images of itself. It can twist itself up into a heap of mutant cells and bone if you let it. Kindness towards one’s self must become a part of your day; a part set aside to just talk to yourself…to say good things, to pick yourself up. Darkness is only the absence of light, the light is there, you just have to really look for it…it will find you. (I tried to be kind…I tired to be good…..I think that was in a song of mine.) It’s harder than anything in this world to do – that’s to be honest with yourself – to actually sit in a chair in the sun and tell yourself the truth. Ask yourself questions that you’re afraid of and you won’t be afraid anymore. Ask yourself what you like, what you want, who you want? Don’t stop asking yourself everything you want to know; it’s a conversation you won’t ever regret having.

    jann