It's an inevitable problem to really believe you know what people are thinking, because much more often than not, you don't. Not at all. We are predictable, but never enough to justify assumptions. And our pity, it's often wasted on ourselves and the problems we've created. It's funny, really, how we torture our minds then feel bad for ourselves about it. Everything suffers. Time, effort, life, love, spirit, soul, mind, beauty. Personality. Morality. Talent. Perception. What a waste.
Reply
You stop to sit by the riverside. Taking in the simple flowing peacefulness, in the back of your mind you stumble across the thought of discovering a dead body. At first, you just see a face. This imagination quickly overtakes you, so you then find yourself searching for it. Amidst all this beauty, that is now all you're thinking about. The most haunting thing about this is how little the mental image disturbs you. Desensitized by movies and television, you tell yourself to feel more sane. Sure, the real thing would leave you paralyzed. Unable to move or speak, just fixated on the sight. You know you don't want this to happen, so what makes you search for it? For a true horror story to someday share with others? For the sake of the once living body, you hope not. In the mind it isn't real. That's how you justify it, but that doesn't make it, or your mind, any less sick. Time to continue down the trail, I guess.
Reply
This is you walking. Breathing. Thinking. Out of touch with all that surrounds you, your mind stays within its personal world. Shut inside your perception of it. Reality is a confused mess of everyone's reactions versus yours. Inner monologue becomes its own entity, which turns into your balance of sense and sanity. Don't confuse this with enlightenment. Excitement is something to look forward to. Identifying it is easy, reaching it takes patience, and keeping it is impossible, so you try again. That perennial failure of happiness - it's what creates our drive. Keeps us motivated to seek bliss. We will continuously believe we might win this fight. You watch people display happiness and it is perfect. From the outside briefly looking in, there is nothing wrong in the world. In that moment, when you see them look into each others eyes and share a kiss, you feel hope. You don't know about his affair two weeks ago, or hers two months before that. You haven't heard about their constant arguments that occasionally turn violent. You have no way of knowing how completely incompatible they are, but in that one happy moment, you see their perfection. In a dream, that makes all the difference, so that's where you live - within that sheltered dream. That naive perception of reality. Is it happiness? Well, if happiness is simply being mentally content, then I guess it is. If you're not happy, you either don't know how to make yourself feel that way or you just can't look past the ridiculous amount of terror in the world. Fortunately, that can go both ways. It's all about perspective and the mindset you choose for yourself. It is always a choice, and that choice, one way or another, is always yours. This is me walking. Everything I feel is beautiful, even if my mind refuses to agree. Even if I'm incapable of recognizing it. I don't believe in perfection, but right now, everything about this moment is perfect, because that's what I choose it to be. Sometimes that's all that matters, but only sometimes.
Reply
That one day when your maturity is altered most - that may be when you realize everything you do is a lifetime behind you. Then you realize it's not, but it should be. Then you realize what you've become. This doesn't have to be what you consist of, but it's what you are now. It's what you've let yourself be, and it's not worth regretting or being ashamed of. It should only be worth remembering and embracing. Ideally.
Reply
When your entire life foundation shifts, move with it and redefine it. It's one of the many critical chances to decide who and what you are. Never give in to your feeling of emptiness and try not to feed it temporary solutions. Loneliness is a pit, but there are healthy ways to fight it. Believe in yourself to not give up.
Reply
Although we are constantly thrown into states of distrust, our minds are not all lost. We are not overtaken. This evil - it can't become everything it was planned to be. Hope won't let itself be defeated. While good exists, fear cannot win. My thoughts are with victims of the Boston attack. May those responsible crumble under the weight of their actions. May they truly understand the place they've set for themselves in human history the way a rational mind does, and may they spend the rest of their lives dwelling in the horror of it. That's what evil deserves - to see itself from the perspective of good. "An eye for an eye" creates a blind world. Nobody wins.
Reply
The minister, dressed in an elegant gown with his hands raised, spoke his first words into the microphone "Christ is a lie!". At least that's what I heard. I laughed. No one understood. It's interesting to stare at people at the front of church from far away. There are moments when you can tell they notice you, and it either makes them uncomfortable or they keep staring back, usually in increments. This is especially effective during a song. Everyone else's eyes are glued to the hymnal as their voices drone the words. You hold your book at waist level, keep your head up and eyes forward, and don't move your mouth. People in front will notice you. This is when you can very harmlessly play with their heads. Find one staring at you and keep eye contact. Every once in a while look around at objects - not other people - then quickly return your fixed gaze to their eyes. Tilt your head as you stare into them, enough for them to notice. Break a smile, never losing eye contact. Be nothing but subtle and it may get to them. You're not trying to scare them but to offer them bewilderment. Confusion. Curiosity. If nothing else, it just helps pass the time.
Reply
The realization of death can easily find you anywhere. Walking through the newly-thawed grass of spring, you take in all the beauty, feeling the soft, warm earth under your toes - then it stops you. A dead animal carcass lies inches from your feet. You freeze in shock, disgusted and overtaken with reality. You imagine finding bodies of people in the same position and how, in ways, it's not so different. This world - we use it up until it uses us as dirt. Filler. Fertilizer. We become one with it. As for our souls, well, that's anyone's guess. For all I know, our souls consist of nothing more than our life force. Either way, everything disintegrates. To me, the work we leave behind holds our life force. Our soul. It's the only thing to prove life. Of course, I never claimed to be correct.
Reply
It always makes me laugh to look at myself from the bottom of a cup while I'm drinking something. The disproportionate, squished image of a face in a small, round, and unclear reflection - it's almost therapeutic. On a stream of consciousness, it makes me imagine a world without reflections. A world where eyes are the only form of lenses, with no possible means to view themselves. How would this effect our appearance-driven society? People would take the place of the mirrors. Two people facing each other, both using their eyes to fix the other. Trusting that the other person isn't making you look terrible. Of course people would still care about how other people look, but you'd never know your own face. Walking around your whole life not knowing the image people know as you. Appearance is half our identity. That's just the way it is, shallow or not. Imagining a world like that, you learn to find comfort in your reflection. Looking yourself in the eyes. You feel stability, as if you know yourself. As if you can have intense mental moments because the mirror is there to show you to yourself. I'm not saying you can't, but it's not always good. Staring deeply into yourself isn't always productive. You begin to see things that aren't there. Bad things you create within yourself through unintentional and unhealthy mental processes. You go too deep, there's no telling what you'll imagine is there. Just brush your teeth and walk away, end of story.
Reply
I have unconditional respect for personal opinions, even if I don't agree with them. At least those holding the opinions are thinking for themselves, no matter how warped the thoughts may be. It's better than simply accepting and projecting everything we're taught without question or complete explanation. I guess that makes me half of a hypocrite. At least I'm aware of it I guess.
Reply
Another Branded Lawrence / Blog
Assumption and Pity
It's an inevitable problem to really believe you know what people are thinking, because much more often than not, you don't. Not at all. We are predictable, but never enough to justify assumptions. And our pity, it's often wasted on ourselves and the problems we've created. It's funny, really, how we torture our minds then feel bad for ourselves about it. Everything suffers. Time, effort, life, love, spirit, soul, mind, beauty. Personality. Morality. Talent. Perception. What a waste.
Reply
The Riverside
You stop to sit by the riverside. Taking in the simple flowing peacefulness, in the back of your mind you stumble across the thought of discovering a dead body. At first, you just see a face. This imagination quickly overtakes you, so you then find yourself searching for it. Amidst all this beauty, that is now all you're thinking about. The most haunting thing about this is how little the mental image disturbs you. Desensitized by movies and television, you tell yourself to feel more sane. Sure, the real thing would leave you paralyzed. Unable to move or speak, just fixated on the sight. You know you don't want this to happen, so what makes you search for it? For a true horror story to someday share with others? For the sake of the once living body, you hope not. In the mind it isn't real. That's how you justify it, but that doesn't make it, or your mind, any less sick. Time to continue down the trail, I guess.
Reply
Creating Bliss
This is you walking. Breathing. Thinking. Out of touch with all that surrounds you, your mind stays within its personal world. Shut inside your perception of it. Reality is a confused mess of everyone's reactions versus yours. Inner monologue becomes its own entity, which turns into your balance of sense and sanity. Don't confuse this with enlightenment. Excitement is something to look forward to. Identifying it is easy, reaching it takes patience, and keeping it is impossible, so you try again. That perennial failure of happiness - it's what creates our drive. Keeps us motivated to seek bliss. We will continuously believe we might win this fight. You watch people display happiness and it is perfect. From the outside briefly looking in, there is nothing wrong in the world. In that moment, when you see them look into each others eyes and share a kiss, you feel hope. You don't know about his affair two weeks ago, or hers two months before that. You haven't heard about their constant arguments that occasionally turn violent. You have no way of knowing how completely incompatible they are, but in that one happy moment, you see their perfection. In a dream, that makes all the difference, so that's where you live - within that sheltered dream. That naive perception of reality. Is it happiness? Well, if happiness is simply being mentally content, then I guess it is. If you're not happy, you either don't know how to make yourself feel that way or you just can't look past the ridiculous amount of terror in the world. Fortunately, that can go both ways. It's all about perspective and the mindset you choose for yourself. It is always a choice, and that choice, one way or another, is always yours. This is me walking. Everything I feel is beautiful, even if my mind refuses to agree. Even if I'm incapable of recognizing it. I don't believe in perfection, but right now, everything about this moment is perfect, because that's what I choose it to be. Sometimes that's all that matters, but only sometimes.
Reply
The Act of Growing Up
That one day when your maturity is altered most - that may be when you realize everything you do is a lifetime behind you. Then you realize it's not, but it should be. Then you realize what you've become. This doesn't have to be what you consist of, but it's what you are now. It's what you've let yourself be, and it's not worth regretting or being ashamed of. It should only be worth remembering and embracing. Ideally.
Reply
Emptiness
When your entire life foundation shifts, move with it and redefine it. It's one of the many critical chances to decide who and what you are. Never give in to your feeling of emptiness and try not to feed it temporary solutions. Loneliness is a pit, but there are healthy ways to fight it. Believe in yourself to not give up.
Reply
Boston Attack
Although we are constantly thrown into states of distrust, our minds are not all lost. We are not overtaken. This evil - it can't become everything it was planned to be. Hope won't let itself be defeated. While good exists, fear cannot win. My thoughts are with victims of the Boston attack. May those responsible crumble under the weight of their actions. May they truly understand the place they've set for themselves in human history the way a rational mind does, and may they spend the rest of their lives dwelling in the horror of it. That's what evil deserves - to see itself from the perspective of good. "An eye for an eye" creates a blind world. Nobody wins.
Reply
Easter Service
The minister, dressed in an elegant gown with his hands raised, spoke his first words into the microphone "Christ is a lie!". At least that's what I heard. I laughed. No one understood. It's interesting to stare at people at the front of church from far away. There are moments when you can tell they notice you, and it either makes them uncomfortable or they keep staring back, usually in increments. This is especially effective during a song. Everyone else's eyes are glued to the hymnal as their voices drone the words. You hold your book at waist level, keep your head up and eyes forward, and don't move your mouth. People in front will notice you. This is when you can very harmlessly play with their heads. Find one staring at you and keep eye contact. Every once in a while look around at objects - not other people - then quickly return your fixed gaze to their eyes. Tilt your head as you stare into them, enough for them to notice. Break a smile, never losing eye contact. Be nothing but subtle and it may get to them. You're not trying to scare them but to offer them bewilderment. Confusion. Curiosity. If nothing else, it just helps pass the time.
Reply
Realization of Life and Lack There Of
The realization of death can easily find you anywhere. Walking through the newly-thawed grass of spring, you take in all the beauty, feeling the soft, warm earth under your toes - then it stops you. A dead animal carcass lies inches from your feet. You freeze in shock, disgusted and overtaken with reality. You imagine finding bodies of people in the same position and how, in ways, it's not so different. This world - we use it up until it uses us as dirt. Filler. Fertilizer. We become one with it. As for our souls, well, that's anyone's guess. For all I know, our souls consist of nothing more than our life force. Either way, everything disintegrates. To me, the work we leave behind holds our life force. Our soul. It's the only thing to prove life. Of course, I never claimed to be correct.
Reply
Reflections
It always makes me laugh to look at myself from the bottom of a cup while I'm drinking something. The disproportionate, squished image of a face in a small, round, and unclear reflection - it's almost therapeutic. On a stream of consciousness, it makes me imagine a world without reflections. A world where eyes are the only form of lenses, with no possible means to view themselves. How would this effect our appearance-driven society? People would take the place of the mirrors. Two people facing each other, both using their eyes to fix the other. Trusting that the other person isn't making you look terrible. Of course people would still care about how other people look, but you'd never know your own face. Walking around your whole life not knowing the image people know as you. Appearance is half our identity. That's just the way it is, shallow or not. Imagining a world like that, you learn to find comfort in your reflection. Looking yourself in the eyes. You feel stability, as if you know yourself. As if you can have intense mental moments because the mirror is there to show you to yourself. I'm not saying you can't, but it's not always good. Staring deeply into yourself isn't always productive. You begin to see things that aren't there. Bad things you create within yourself through unintentional and unhealthy mental processes. You go too deep, there's no telling what you'll imagine is there. Just brush your teeth and walk away, end of story.
Reply
Opinion
I have unconditional respect for personal opinions, even if I don't agree with them. At least those holding the opinions are thinking for themselves, no matter how warped the thoughts may be. It's better than simply accepting and projecting everything we're taught without question or complete explanation. I guess that makes me half of a hypocrite. At least I'm aware of it I guess.
Reply