“Faith. Humor. And determination. Gets you through life. If you don’t use it you’ll lose it.” A common statement my Oma says every time I see her. There are so many distractions in life. Everything we do is about finding ways to distract or entertain ourselves. TV, movies, twitter, Facebook, Instagram, tumblr, video games. What happened to the idea of going outside and rolling in the grass, running between the trees. Loving life is simple, it is us who make it complicated. Our generation can’t eat a meal without taking a good photo of it first, we can’t look at each other in the eye and have a conversation face to face, we can’t even go a moment without checking what the hottest celebs are up to or the greatest trends to wear. Who cares? Pardon me but, who gives a damn? Are we really so bored with our own lives that we have become accustomed to keeping up with the Kardashians? Teens don’t sit down with their parents and talk anymore. Parents become lazy and don’t even care to discipline their children out of harms way. There’s a saying with the teens I hear so often, “do what you want to with life, live how you please, no one gets out alive anyways.” This is true. I fyou live how ever you please doing whatever you please and don’t give a care to what’s important, you won’t get out alive. I fear for the adults that will arise from my generation. We are going to be extremely divided. If only we could learn to think for ourselves and stop trying to numb out the sounds of the earth with the buzz of the media. I guess you could say I was born in the wrong generation with how passionate I am about morals and values. But I think there’s place here in my generation for people to stand up and stand out. Those rare ones who see the problem, the diagnosis, and are now searching for the treatment. The treatment is simple. Jesus. Jesus had more faith than any man who has ever or will ever walk this earth. He was funny too. He was satirical and smiled and laughed. I believe God laughs a lot. And Jesus was determined. He was determined to see man saved, to reach salvation for all the poor and powerless. That is what will get you through life. That is what will get out out alive. Because with God, through Jesus, we live on eternally, we get out alive. So don’t lose Him. Use Him. He’s waiting for you, waiting with open arms, ready to love you, to love all of you. With your bruises, your scrapes, your rough edges. He wants all of what you have. All of your baggage, your demons, your tears, He wants to cleanse you. Allow Him to and you’ll make it out alive. 

and those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Friedrich Nietzsche

no matter what you do you will be judged by somebody. You can’t live your life worried about someone else’s opinion of you. You deserve to be true to yourself. when you are honest with yourself you will be surrounded by positivity. 

the function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought

i want a love so beautiful, like light reflecting rain

glistening in the darkness, makes you go insane

shining on the edges of the moon so high

I want a love so beautiful, it almost makes you cry.

i want a love so sweetly, it makes the poor boy smile

lighting up the world, like lily of the nile

spreading like wild fire across through every plain

i want a love so sweetly, makes you forget the pain.

i want a love so deep, the oceans oceans go green

with envy of such steep

i want a love so bright, the sun needs shades

lighting up the path, on days to better days

sharing all its love to each and every place 

I want a love so beautiful

I want a love so deep

I want a love so warm

you can feel it in the streets

a love spreading wide

a love digging deep

a love stretching high

you can feel it in your sleep

i want this love so meaningful

you can’t even sleep

without saying,

“hey beautiful, you’re someone I’d like to keep”

the beautiful garden

Let me tell you a story. A story about a beautiful garden. There once was a beautiful garden where everything grew. Careful if you drop a clipping because before you know it, it'll be 3 feet tall and covering the sky above you. A place where nothing grows in rows but rather patches, as they should. The soil is always fresh and filled with critters. Lizards, snails, spiders, all living at peace. Blue jays and ring neck doves come and go as they please. As do the finches and the bees. Then there's the butterfly's on every peddle of every flower, fluttering by. What a wonderland this garden is. A place where an orange tree will return every season as do the plum and apple and peach and lemon. Flowers shoot out wherever they please. There's a house in the garden but it doesn't end there. The vines and the flowers creep through every open window and door. The house is not separate from the garden and the garden is not separate from the house. They are one as a flower is to its root. And beneath every leaf or stone is a pile of shells, pots, or little chipped mugs. And the plants simply grow through each nook and cranny. This is the beautiful garden. A little taste of Eden. Over grown and beaten. Fruitful and flowering. Oh how I love this beautiful garden. 

music. raw music.

I like the unedited recordings because that is what music is. raw and true. music is the voice expressing what the mind can’t get into proper formatting. music is the truth and passion the heart wants to tell but can’t speak. the sounds of an instrument are the sounds of the heart telling what it feels, music is raw communication of the soul to the heart to the mind to the ears.

A handsome man of God...swoon

The most attractive thing a man can do is be whole heartedly madly in love with The Lord. If he thinks of Him before of me. When a man loves God and a woman loves God there is no need to worry about falling in love with each other because God's perfect love can interviene into their relationship and grow them into a love indescribable. You must go through the son to the father before He brings you to me. I don't know much of how that looks but I can easily imagine and dream of a man raising his strong arms in church and feeling weak in the knees at the presence of The Lord. Those are the moments my heart flutters and I feel bubbly from my head to my toes, from my soul to my nose. 

bless to bless never bless to expect

I think everyone has a right to believe in whatever they chose to believe. Who am I to tell everyone what they should believe. I should always give the same amount of respect and attention to someone's beliefs and opinions as I want for mine. If they chose to believe in the same things as me, then we can have a grand time discussing and agreeing, and if not, then we can still have a grand time but of debate and new ideas. "Do unto others what you want done to you". Live this way with others and you can be at peace knowing you did your part. If others don't do theirs, there's nothing you can do about it. You can live with that simple piece of humanity, right?

It is never your job to decide the future of someone else or make their decisions for them because in the end all the opinion is to them is simply that, your opinion. There is no way to obligate someone to do what you tell them. You can only simply give advice and love them and hope for the best. You never cease to bless someone for fear of how they will take it or abuse it. You just bless them without any expectation of anything. You simply bless others to bless and nothing more. This goes for knowledge, money, food, anything and everything. Bless to bless never bless to expect. 

if i were a bird

i’d live by the sea

i’d go by the wind

and walk by the sand

i’d sing with the roar of the waves

dance in the moonlight shadows 

if only i were a bird

love, darling, is tragically beautiful and gracefully painful.

some people are just wonderful

and some people just aren’t

It’s is a wonderful feeling to know that someone loves you

even if you don’t feel the same in return

but it’s a terrible thing to love and not be loved in return

yet, when you do love and it is returned

it is the greatest thing to ever learn

and it will never leave you

not for the wind

not for the sea

not for time

it is the most powerful force in all of existence 

because it is the only truest form of emotion to be

so when hearts full of love are broken

it is the most painful experience imaginable

all the existence of the most beautiful sorcery

held together by the fragile strings of a heart

pounding together and bringing light to their eyes

breaking such sweetness

is the darkest

most evil

terrible thing

a human being 

can do

What is the difference between love and infatuation?

Infatuation is the state of being completely lost in the emotion of unreasoning desire. Love is a decision to commit oneself to another and to work through conflicts instead of giving up. Infatuation is associated with selfish uncontrollable desire where as love is associated with physical chemistry over a fairly long time. Love is also intimacy, commitment, security, and the desire to please and help the other person. Infatuation is short lived physical desire, crush, lust, hormonal activity, and addictive chemicals in the brain. This leaves the person not revived with the same person without a deeper feeling. It causes urgency, intensity, sexual desire, anxiety, high risk choices, and reckless abandonment of what was once valued. Love, however, consists of faithfulness, loyalty, and confidence. Love is willing to make sacrifices for one another, working at setting differences and being able to compromise so that either both “win” or at least give the other person’s opinion a chance. From person to person, infatuation is reckless commitment to satisfy one’s all consuming lust where with love, there is commitment to one another, genuine intentions, and thought about the other person’s feelings before acting. Infatuation feels like all-consuming euphoria, similar to recreational drug use, stupidity, and can risk everything for the next hit of adrenalin. Love feels like a deep affection, contentment, and confidence. Partners communicate and negotiate appropriate expectations. Love requires a lot of selflessness and polite assertiveness. You are loving your best friend. The results of love are security, peace, and a solid partner-ship which can provide the ideal atmosphere to raise confident secure children. The results of infatuation include emptiness and consequences of choices made while under the influence of mind numbing temporary lust. Infatuation also comes with the effects of being controlled by brain chemistry, not the heart, and loss of ability to make rational evaluations of what is true, valuable, and worthy. Now, the effects of love? Simply are, contentment and stability. Infatuation can be interpreted as not being able to be sustained without some portion of “love” and physical attraction. The desire to always be close to that person at any cost. Love is a partnership. It can lead to codependency if not tempered with self-awareness and self-guidelines. Over time, love will deepen were infatuation takes off fast and furious like a spark in dry grass burns out quickly and can leave feelings of emptiness. Infatuation is temporary in life and goes off after some period, but love, love is permanent commitment and stays throughout the life. Bottom line, infatuation is delusional, not real. Love is unconditional and the real deal. Infatuation is of the now. Love is a gradual process. it happens over time. 

So there.

You cannot have both. 

My question now is, can infatuation grow into love? 

Hello

Eating steamed veggies with rice and drinking flowering tea, I sit here writing to you. Writing with little understanding of myself and who I will become. I’m not very good at talking. I prefer to write, give myself time to think through each word. Reading and writing are just as much my outlet as swimming in the sea or painting a picture. So here is where I will write. Write my stories, adventures, trials, and thoughts. The world is a complicated and difficult place. We are all striving to survive this life to the best of our ability. Well guess what. No one gets out alive. So how then should we live? A great speaker once proposed the question, ‘why do we tip-toe through life in hope to reach death safely? Once we reach death are we going to think, “well, I am so glad I didn’t take any risks in life so I can die safely now.” I’d rather reach death at a screeching stop.’  Flying through life and taking every opportunity to experience the adventure it presents to us. So this is where my stories begin. With the intention to grab life by the horns, look it dead in the eyes and say, “have at it. give me all you got. I’m ready”