Just to get one in for July.

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Over-Soul"

People have different ways of tapping into this. For me, I seek it out in "the wise silence." I listen to what makes no audible sound, but is always ringing around us. It is inescapable. It is a common ground found from within that I can harmonize with the external world. It is like the Earth in its place in our galaxy, in our universe. We share space. We are connected. On an atomic level, if sound is a proton, neutron, or electron, silence is the space in between. And how interesting that atoms are mostly composed of this space. So yes, I turn to silence as my home base, my existential compass. This silence is peaceful. It is calm. It is confidant. It is free of worry. It is free of fear. And if this is home, there are times when I like to go out and socialize. What's beautiful is the ability to share your home, share your silence. That is love. I've often described a lover as like coming home. Come home to silence. Come home to love. It is inherently in us.

A little more from less.

I've often felt that I can learn the same harsh lesson from less harsh experiences or even appreciate the same overwhelming joy from a less overwhelming experience. I asked my mom if this has always been something I've done, and she conceded. It's made her work as a parent easier, and it's made my life easier as well. It's allowed me to make the same essential mistake with half the consequence. It's like messing up in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship as opposed to a marriage. True, it's relative; but that's where it becomes a matter of imagination almost, and empathy really. Hearing stories of other people's plights, I automatically put myself in their shoes. It allows me to see enough of that reality to be somewhat prepared for it.

I think A LOT. In that thinking, I make myself FEEL. It's possible to do too much of it and get lost in a reality that's never actualized, but at least I can snap out of it and get back to reality. There is what goes on in mind, and then there is what I do with those thoughts. It's wonderful. It's like a constant test-run to everything. And yes, there are somethings one can never prepare for. I embrace those too. They are beyond me. I humble myself to them. But, to most of life's trials and tribulations, I can react wisely because I've already ran through it. I've already rehearsed.

Just to get the fingers rolling.

These days, my wants don't surpass my haves. It's a wonderful thing but does require a bit of readjusting. It's strange going from less to more of what I want and still needing to pause. It's funny that whether I move from "negative" to "positive" or vice versa, I always need to take a deep breath. I need that second to take a step back and say "Wow." These days, after that step and that "Wow," I smile contently. I am at peace. I am happy. I am grateful. I guess that's just how I appreciate things good and bad. With a step back and a conscious decision to step back in. Funny. All that said, my mind rests at ease. Love.

Compensation.

My faith is renewed in Emerson's ideas on compensation. He believes in natural law and not just in relation to plants and animals but in the universe and our human souls as well. Life is in motion. As a human manifestation, we have choice. We can put out anything we want. The spectrum of "negative" and "positive" is wide; whether they are negative or positive is dependent on our intention. I want to do good, I try to do good, and it IS being reciprocated. Not because I deserve it, but simply because it is natural law. It needs no thanks, merely appreciation, and I do. I really do appreciate it. Thank you Life. Thank you Love. 

Discipline.

I am too easy on myself.

I try to live in the moment always. What I find is an inconsistency that I disagree with. Through the Buddhist perspective, we are never the same. I believe this, but I feel I waver from the tenets of my beliefs too easily. 

I say, "It's okay Rico. You can try again later." In one aspect, that's great. I don't live in regret because I know I can always do better. On the other hand, I am never progressing to what I ultimately want to be. I want to be beautiful, inside and out.

At the end of day, in the dead of night, I know inside if I really tried all day to be all that I CAN BE. Lately, I can't say I have. So, today, I start again. I WILL be beautiful, and I WILL beautify the world as best I can.

Becoming me.

I believe I'm settling into the quintessential me that will be for the rest of my life. I know there will be plenty of adaptations and learning, but they will address the particulars. I have found the essence and nature of me, and the rest of my life will be spent fine-tuning and applying. I started getting this feeling leading up to my 22nd birthday and have somewhat been validating it thereafter. It's a comforting feeling. It's a direction towards that "experienced, comfortable old man" I've always wanted to be and felt inside me. So what is that exactly? What is it that makes up this concept of an identity I call myself?

I believe in love. After all the spiritual, philosophical, existential, transcendental etc... questions that lead up to "What's the point of it (life) all?", love is what transcends. It is the purest, most valuable, and fulfilling thing we could do/create with this life.  How one does so doesn't matter as much as the pure intention of it. With this as my core, it resonates throughout the rest of my being.

I want to help humanity, and I want to do it directly. I've spent my whole life being a keen observer of human behavior. Why do people do and think what they do? I know most do this, but I don't think to the same thoroughness that I do. Then I asked myself, "Why do I care? What's the point of my observations?" I find that for one, people are my favorite art, my favorite book, my favorite movie, and so forth, thus most interesting. I think they are the most dynamic, possibly surprising subject in all of life. Secondly, I want to relate so I can connect. I want to connect so they can matter to me, we can matter to each other, we can beautify and share each others' experience of this existence we call life. 

As far as how I can help humanity directly, I know communication has a lot to do with it. My ability to communicate is something I cherish and find I have a natural knack for. I find it is my best means for connecting. I'm all about intimate conversation. More than anything, how people are feeling at the present moment about life is what matters to me.

I find that I very much cherish beauty, wonder, and just sheer interest in life. It is what gives me fervor for life. If I find that I am not somehow awed or at the very least interested in some anything about what I am experiencing at whichever moment in life, I am very much numb to it. It is the recurring negative episode that happens to me. I just get bored for life. Little of it affects me. I never really got mad, and I don't get terribly sad anymore, but the worst for me is I get a little paralyzed to it. My reasoning for why I think it's negative is because I can't appreciate it on any scale. I feel like a spoiled child, given the gift of life, and I can't even appreciate it.

These days, I've been able to will myself, in a sense, to appreciate it. I just get back to the moment and realize it's all I've got. As Adam, truly a kindred spirit and brother to me, would say, "Eternity is Now." So simple, so true. I hope these words affect YOU (reader) at all. I love you. I wish you well :)

In Psych. class,

the professor likes to ask people to share personal information for the sake of making a point, and, I think, for the sake of being unique and having a challenging approach in a psychology class. He usually precedes the question with, "If anyone is honest enough to say, who...?" 

Well, the other day, he asked, "Is anyone lonely?" I raised my hand without hesitation. Then, he followed with "Does anyone have a problem with love?" I did not raise my hand. I thought it peculiar that I had contrasting responses. Although I could admit to being lonely, I wouldn't say I have a problem with love. I think because I personify love as a whole concept and truth and felt it wrong to say I have a problem with it. It is what it is and I accept how it is, through the pain, through the loneliness.

A week earlier, I had the same essential thought. In a description of an afterlife in The Myth of Er by Plato and in many other descriptions of an afterlife, they speak of living the happiness of this life on a multiple scale. I tried to imagine what that might mean specifically to me. So I figured it would be to be in love void of heartache? And that didn't really make sense to me. Love is a process, much like life and nature. To experience it on an exclusively pleasurable level didn't seem complete. It brought me back to appreciating this life, this opportunity for all its pains and pleasures. And then I read something somewhere that asked, "Can there be love without pain?" I think there CAN BE, but I guess pain gives it something to be compared to. Something to accentuate its true significance.

To relate it to the current events of my life: a couple of days ago, I heard some news that bothered me later into the day and night. Luckily, an insightful caring friend said ever-so-beautifully and simply, "At least you got to love." Oh so true :). It reminded me that anything one goes through before, during, and AFTER is always worth it for the moment(s) of its existence.

I am okay with death.

I'm taking this Humanities class on Death where we survey through different cultural perspectives on death and consequently life. How you view death will influence the way you live your life. I realize through my responses in class that I am coming from a totally different place than most. 

Most are looking for justification and promise of something more. They want THE ANSWERS to why we die, what happens after we die, how do we live to ensure a good afterlife, etc... When I hear people's questions and comments, it's interesting how difficult it is to find peace in not knowing, and also how people want answers so bad that they accept unprovable explanations. How they seem to be able to ignore the fact that they are actually completely active in what they accept as truth. No, they just believe it to be true for all, as if they had no bias. How they are actually just satisfying their fears.

I am okay with death because I am okay with just having this life, this opportunity. My own death is trivial compared to my life. I will live and learn, and when I die, that will be it. I will cease to exist. There will be no great meaning. This idea doesn't depress me like it might or should. I think it's because there is so much in my existence here and now, and I understand that this is just the truth of the world. Things come to be and they pass. I am no different. I understand my place in the grander scheme of things. Also, why stress over the unexplainable, the unpredictable, and a momentary transition.

We went over brain death, and The Phaedo by Plato, and I find that all the meaning and purpose lies in consciousness for me. If I am not conscious, but my heart is still beating, please let me die. In The Phaedo, what Plato calls the soul is what I call consciousness. One day, I will die, I will not have my identity, my consciousness. Rico will no longer exist. I'm okay with that because I won't even be aware of it. I worry more for the living that will have to endure life without me. They will be the ones suffering, not me. So this is for them. My last words will have the undertone of: It's okay. I've lived my life. Celebrate the good memories we shared and DO NOT mourn my death. Let me live on in you and your memory forever. I can never fully be extinguished because I have had an influence on you that will continue on long after I die. Please do not degrade my life by saying I could've done so much more. I was so young. If I die today, I feel I have lived a full lifetime already. I have shared and experienced love and that's all that really matters.

Spring.

I think Spring started for me on my birthday. That day, before I left the house for school, I worried a little about the possibility of having another one of my mundane days. And I jokingly told myself,"C'mon man. You gotta have a good day today." I think it motivated me not to let myself slump into one of my lonely moods. And I didn't. For one, I did get an extra amount of love that day because it was my birthday. I acknowledge that. But, I did spend a certain amount of it alone. Times I tend to think a bit too much, get lost in thought. I know I told myself to give it a break. Not to go so easily into it. I consciously changed my perception in the given situations and made myself feel better. I think before when I would allow myself to feel sad, I consciously did that too. Anyway, doing that made me realize how I think I'm ready to make myself feel better. To an extent, I've been feeling out loneliness for quite some time now, and I'm ready to move on. 

Through the help of good things happening around me, what I call the work of Spring in my life, and my own effort to feel good, I've felt the change in seasons. I'm ready for warmth :) 

I am a lover.

Some words by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on Love:

"And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover."

"For persons are love's world."

"In the noon and afternoon of life we still throb at the recollection of days when happiness was not happy enough, but must be drugged with the relish of pain and fear; for he touched the secret matter, who said of love,-

          'All other pleasures are not worth its pains';"

"The world rolls; the circumstances vary every hour."

"The soul may be trusted to the end."

The past and memories.

I used to be able to view the past and apply it positively to the present, whether it be a lesson to learn or simply cherishing that I've already had a beautiful life. Lately, certain good memories are too much to bear.

The other day, I woke up unhappy. I didn't know why nor did I try to figure out why. I just felt it. While at work, I was making some mocha (one of those mundane tasks that allow you to get lost in thought), and revisited a memory of a beautiful girl I "had" once. A girl I connected with and got myself emotionally invested in. Someone I allowed myself to be vulnerable to. I almost cried. It seemed like a fantasy, a dream. It was a life I once lived but didn't matter because I no longer lived it. It's so strange how the past can sometimes feel like it never happened at all. Foreign. Memories like this feel like they are stored away in an ice-case and sent off to drift away forever. Nowadays, I don't feel the warmth of the past, just the bleak reality of its absence.

I'm sure all this will pass sometime. 'Till then.  

Hm...

I don't think I've been content for a long period of time for a while now. That's kinda weird. It makes me feel bipolar. And, it's not the extremity part of bipolar, it's just the inconsistency. I haven't given it a lot of thought, but I think it might be true. I don't know what it is exactly. It could be possible that I'm just not feeling all I want to feel out of life. I feel most of it and I love most of it, but in a sense I still feel incomplete. I guess I could say I feel "unfulfilled." Gosh, this is whining. This is me being a spoiled child. I feel apologetic, but I'm just gonna keep exploring this. I guess I'm a bit disappointed in myself. I know so much. I've felt so much. I've experienced so much, and yet I have room to feel discontent with life. Oh... (sigh) my... I'm blogging this because to an extent I feel uncomfortable/self-conscious expressing these kinds of feelings to people directly. I feel like such a downer, and if I can help it, I don't do that. When I'm directly with people, I want to be a source of love and positivity. That's where I can separate how I feel and what I do: when I'm around people. I guess that's why I've been more anti-social lately. I figure if I'm gonna feel this way and act on it, I may as well be alone. No sense in wasting the time you share with someone. And it's not that I think there's anything wrong with that per se, but I feel alone in that aspect in my life. I'm not sure if I have an intimacy with anyone to do that with. A dear friend shared with me once that, "Sometimes. We just lay next to each other and cry." That sounded so beautiful to me. It still does.  

A simple life.

I think I have a simple, tranquil state of being that I gravitate towards naturally and consciously. I hold it as a paradigm of how I want to perceive and live in the world. I want to adore my simple moments, from moment... to moment. And I want to appreciate them calmly and slowly, on a peaceful rhythm and tone. I started thinking that when I noticed most of the music I prefer to play when I'm by myself is all very chill. The way I try to carry myself throughout the day is on an even keel. I enjoy excitement, but I prefer quite appreciation. 

Cycles

The last time I was in my funk, being numb, I started tripping on the idea that this is bound to happen throughout my lifetime. My life will go through the seasons, and this will be one of them. The feeling that this is something I might never fully get over made me feel so cynical. It was strange because it was the first time that thinking of life and its cyclical nature made me feel worried. Usually, when I think about life going through cycles, I embrace the hope that there will always be ups, but this time I realized it is a double-edged sword, and this numbness will probably be a constant affliction of mine. That made me brood over my funk even more.

Then, I realized if/when it happens, I just gotta ride it out. It's silly to feel a future that hasn't even happened. I regressed into getting lost in a possibility. I told myself awhile ago not to waste my life on "What ifs." That's just how life goes. This or that may arise, and I gotta be down. I'll deal with it when it comes. I can't expect to solve my future problems now. I'm sure I'll get better at dealing with it too. I'll live. I'll learn.

Anyway, I'm better now. I don't feel so lost. I just know I gotta feel it all out. There'll be a break in the dissonance. And best of all, I've got the support of so many beautiful people to help me through those times. :-)

Intention

Sundays have a serene air to them. I guess I've turned it into that. It's the day I don't have to do anything, no obligations. That's important for me. I need a decent amount of that on a daily basis, but in the course of a whole week, I need a whole day of it. Whether the week is hectic, frivolous, or somewhere in between, Sunday I try to hit that "refresh button." I take it slowly from this to that all the while holding on to some sort of clarity. It's like rubbing your eyes clear. I reflect a lot. It's usually a day I allow myself to be taken away by thought, sometimes lost in it.

Today, I reflected on intention. I believe it's the basis of all interaction. And not necessarily what the intentions are but even non-intention. That can be good too. Intention is something I've tried to cultivate myself into being constantly aware of. "What are my intentions?" or "Do I even have any?" It's fundamental because ever since I've comprehended the full meaning of a hypocrite or hypocrisy, I've been careful not to become one or get caught up in it. I don't want to have hidden intentions or ulterior motives. I don't ever want my word or character to be questionable. I mean well. I am trying to do good. (That may be an overstatement.) At the very least, I don't mean harm.

It surprises me how often good intentions yield sad or hurtful results. People get hurt, and to feel at all responsible for someone's pain or suffering is something I try to avoid at all cost. It's a big catalyst for my self-questioning. "This is what I want or want to do. This might hurt him or her. Should I do it anyway?" It makes me try to find my balance between living my life for all its potential, which can be selfish, and being altruistic, which is all about selfless compassion. I don't want to hinder on my life, but I also can't ignore how my actions affect others.

I can't lie. When I really think about, the most trouble I've run into in regards to this dilemma have been in dealing with females. Whether it was the actual female, the female's friend(s) or my friend(s), I've had to be weary of hurting someone, and someone has gotten hurt. It's been traumatic in the sense that it's a constant red-flag not to do it again. The depths of the pain that people have had to endure makes me feel terrible:

- I ended a relationship after 2 years and some change of utter true love and she wasn't ready for that, not that someone should be or anything, just a statement of fact. Explanations don't matter for the pain that comes after. I didn't experience that, but I can understand and try to empathize, and that leads me to my apologetic reaction even though my intentions were pure.

- I followed through with a relationship with someone, whom my dear friend, a brother really, had pursued for 3 years. They had previously been in love, experienced it through and through together, and to my brother, she seemed to have become a source of life, motivation, and future. And then, almost simultaneously, as she realized that they would not spark that same old fire, she saw me. She told him how what he wanted would not happen, and in a sense, this allowed the connection between us to further. My brother had to deal with the reality that she was no longer in love with him, and now his brother (me) would pursue and possibly get to experience what he sought after.

Those are the two major ones. I have inadvertently hurt two of closest people to me, and I never meant to. We have made amends and for that I am grateful. That they didn't exit my life with resent. Still, that is the trauma that haunts me. It gets so convoluted when dealing with females for me. It's because there is so much emotional investment. And I think, specifically to do with me, because I love the female counterpart so much, it's the area I really can't be ignorant to. Also, it's the area I don't think one can master or figure out completely. It's an ever-evolving dynamic between two people. When something sparks, I've got to follow through. It may be an excuse for some, but for me, when the possibility/actuality of love arises or subsides , I let it take over. In letting it take over, it's hurt some.

Time and time again...

I learn the same lessons. I find that in my lifetime, the questions change because of circumstance but the answers repeat. It's funny and ironic, but it can make me feel like I've regressed. I don't believe I've regressed. I've just had to apply what I already know in a new way, with new variables. What I cherish about the whole experience is its humbling effect.

That's where I'm at right now. It's a time of listening, watching, absorbing. Less analyzing, judging, evaluating. I'm trying not to hold on so tight to my past and sense of self (possibly ego). I am what I am, and I go on in the world the way I do. I think for the most part, I'm a good person so I'm glad I don't have to worry about that.

Really, whatever struggles I have are with myself. Being content and happy. So, lately this means keeping things simple, having more clarity. Specifically, smoking less. That's key. I never thought there'd be a time where it felt imperative that I do for my own functioning but it's about that time. It's gonna be a combination of simple joys (reading, film, music, heartfelt conversations, family time) smoking less, getting into my yoga practice (taking care of my body), and reminding myself that Now is amazing. Having plenty of people that care and love me is a gift as well. Key words lately: humble, simple, thankful.