Branching Out

I read something the other day. A rule of writing, it went kind of like this: Write not for the faceless crowd, as it does not exist anyway, but write for a specific person.
This got stuck in my head, and I've been thinking about it ever since.
It's been slowly dawning on me over the course of a couple of days that I write to myself more than anyone else. My writing is like a slow conversation with myself, musings and philosophies directed at my own heart.
This is an interesting way to write, I suppose, but I would like to start challenging myself, I'd like to explore areas of writing that I'm not very familiar with. I'm not sure how I will go about this just yet, but I do have a definite point to start from now. 

Upbeat Whining: At Least, That is What I Tell Myself

The thing is, I don't want to live in a dystopia, I don't want to raise a family in a dystopic society. I don't pretend to be an expert, but books of that genre don't end well. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl and everything is wonderful for a short time until they get torn apart through horrible and inhumane circumstances involving a crippling, crushing government.  What could be more important and more dangerous in such societies besides love and friendship and human relationship in general?

In a lot of ways, this society feels like it is dystopic, and getting worse. However, even as I do my best to navigate the bureaucratic hell of emerging into adulthood, there are also bright, beautiful people growing organic gardens in their front yards, and other people building tiny homes for themselves and others out of reclaimed materials. There are organizations working for the betterment of the human race and condition, and individuals crying out for the inclusion of environment and kindness in all of our dealings instead of pollution and greed.
I'm hopelessly apathetic, but also detrimentally idealistic. Even as I despair for the future, mine in particular and the world's in general, I can see seedlings of change growing from the ashes of everything past.
I've had an allegory for many years now, related in the following paragraph, that I used to tell my mom whenever she was despairing about the direction the world was headed in. I'm not entirely sure I believe in it as much as I once did -I've gained experience and some degree of cynicism, but the allegory has become woven into my being, enmeshed within my thought processes and viewpoint;
Even as society drags humanity deeper into depression and oppression, there are vast numbers of people waking up and figuring out better ways to live and grow and cooperate. Humanity is in the midst of the creation of a new world, and destruction of the old. There's a graph in my head for this concept, a sort of crossing of lines, the gentle slope of hope and change for the better, intersecting the jagged line of corruption and oppression, fighting for every pinnacle even as it slides deeper into oblivion.
It takes time for things to balance out, and I know I won't remain unaffected by everything, but I can still hold onto hope and choose to see the optimistic light amid the sometimes overwhelming darkness. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Musing Upon The Writing Process

To sit upon and further articulate, incubate ideas as T.S. Eliot once said. To allow them to mature and grow in complexity, giving them free reign before fully writing them out, or even beginning to write them at all.
But to leave them too long, in my drafts, is to allow them to stagnate and decompose, becoming dead bodies in a still pool.

More from the Utaha hippie girl

I catch myself worrying about other people's judgment of me occasionally, nothing new in the human race.


I don't shave my legs, love, personal choice.  I'm pretty sure our relief society visiting teachers glanced down at my unevenly shaggy legs a couple times last Wednesday. I honestly didn't care. It might, truthfully, be an effect of their affiliation and purpose, but whatever.

The opinions of people I care about, am close to, or want to impress are a bit more important to me, however, and they still very much influence my actions and thoughts.

The thing is, I've found that judgements most often exist only in my head, not even in the head of the person I'm so afraid is judging me harshly. 

All Things Wound Together

A question:
Am I the creator of the world around me?
Or is the world around me the creator of me?

-(It would seem that this sounds awkward and unmusical and a little bit muddy no matter how I write it.)-

A winding-gliding answer:
I think it goes both ways, I create and am created. The path I take is drawn, but also chosen.

I seem to be a woman of few words today...

This is something I did not choose *grins*


I was reading this blog on a college website the other day, and marveling to myself at the craftsmanship of the writing. It's a little bit intricate, but in a way that pretty well covers the entirety of the subject at hand, I think. It's fairly descriptive and it doesn't float off into the air like almost everything I write, it's solid and occupies its space.

So I am doing my best to pare myself down as a person and reach the very heart of me which I guess also translates to my writing, but it feels like a sort of simplicity and spareness of words that's boring rather than refreshing? *shrugs*
I have no idea, but I do think it links somehow.
I have to try, kinda really hard, to wax lengthy and delve deep into any matter. But I guess that's just how it is with such things, no matter who you are. It all takes focus and determination.
That's not something that seems to come easily to me most of the time, determination. I act like I'm good at it, but I'm not so sure anymore. What have I really seen through to the end?
Mostly I feel flighty and like a shallow dipper, hummingbird drinking from the surface of a small pool.

Musing, not intellectually plotting out and methodically sifting every rock from the sand from the dust. They're all full of universes anyhow...

Understanding all of this, though, allows me to consciously choose instead of merely following a path drawn or dug, I don't have to fall into the ruts of my own mind and experience, I can forge a new path for myself.
(For a minute it looked like that was going to draw itself to a close, but the thread of thought continued and I watched it split once again into ten different branches, all a different color and voice.)
I suppose I enjoy following every little path, either physically or metaphorically, and that is why I don't often like sifting the soil to fine treasures. It all looks like treasure, it's all breath-takingly beautiful and fascinating. So either I want to hold and see every treasure, or forget it all and continue on forward with blinders. A horse and carriage in London, don't you know... That's not fun for long though, so then, I suppose, I enter supernova.

You wouldn't believe how analytical I can be, but that's not all there is. That would be why I try to refrain from "I am" statements. It's all good, it's all me, and it changes so quickly. I've said I'm contradictory before, but it's funny how much more even that means now.
Creator and created, so it goes with god? Perhaps, perhaps.
After all, if we are god, if god is within, all around us, wouldn't god look so strangely opposite, though yin and yang are inseparable? God being inseparable from anything, everything, and Good/ Bad, separated by the human mind with the imposing forward slash, really being more gad, or bood than anything else. Black and white, spaced apart and brought together by the word "and", being more of a beautiful swirl and swoop or gray than the harsh straight line between them.

I'm not entirely sure any of this is following, or rather, leading whatever came before it, because the longer I sit here and type, the more my mind becomes a mess of color and static and my eyes light up with the glow from this strange tapestry that seems to be weaving itself from the movement of my fingers, the dance of my thoughts.
The longer I meditate, or think, for that matter, the more my language dissolves into something purely from that space in my heart that isn't entirely of me but is also the purest me there could possibly be. The more parallel universes and strange dimensions open up into milky galaxies and colors unknown by any psychedelic experience.
I can barely follow myself, so how should I expect another being to? I wouldn't personally know if this is a quandary experienced by all or none. I tend to relate my philosophies to all of the world and human race, and sometimes I don't seem far off, but at others I am quite sure I have missed the mark altogether.


To wrap this whole thing up finally:
As with many of the questions I ask, there are two answers, or an answer disguised as two, when really it is one thing of two colors wound together. Perhaps the question should not have been separated into two itself in the first place.
I would say that I am created by my world as I create the world around me; It is a dance, no one partner doing all of the leading or following.

Every Once In a While (This is Supernova)

Can't apply myself to writing today,
Though the pen scratches at my ribcage,
The birds are making an enormous racket--
And I would throw stones at them--
But I'm a content sort of restless.

Every once in a while I become sick of metaphor
Weightlessness,
But I'm trying to fly,
Alternately floating off and crashing to the ground.

Creativity, today, is an itch I can't scratch,
A rope thrown over a tree branch that won't catch.
Would anybody like to hold these things?
Take them from me and explore them
And give me your own things in return.

How much does the song in your heart vary?
Every once in a while mine becomes this elemental,
Orchestral movie score, and I have no idea what to do with it 

Or how to sing it anymore.
That is the itch that begs to be scratched,
Scales hanging just so,
Ready to be shed at the slightest touch,
But it is an art.

The dance of the girl in supernova,
Brighter than she can stand,
A whirl of color and light;
Singing and drawing and playing the guitar--
And wondering what to do with it all,
Everything begging for another shoulder to alight on.

Did you know that the universe is underneath our feet?
This planet is round,
But it is no wonder we once thought it was flat,
And every once in a while we forget
that the universe isn't just above our heads;
We stand upon the stars.

Free-form Crochet in Digital Ink

Hello, it is me, come to visit this place of home.

There is a child hiding in my closet. I have no idea how there is room even for her small form in there, stuffed full as it is, as everything in my room is. I suppose I shall look back on all of this fondly someday, and indeed, I do not hate it terribly right now.
There is another child struggling to hide behind a dresser, but he has been found. The child in the closet is smiling at me from between the folds of a few dark dresses, and the child who was found is back again, hiding under my blankets and rocking my bed.
Apparently this is a game of hide and seek, based upon some sort of prison system.
The closet child has been found, a white arm and mess of hair were visible and the "warden" called her out. The child hiding in my bed has also been recovered and led to the next room, to return to "prison" once again. Now there is no one in here but me, and my sister who is actually in dream land still, so she doesn't really count.
I sit cross-legged amid mountainous folds of purple afghan and floral bed sheet, the corners of my laptop resting on my legs below my knees.
I'm kinda sorta lost. And I don't really know how to find my way back.

Never alone for long, a child darts into my room and onto my sister's bed pursued by the "warden" and is hauled off once again. My sister is sitting up, looking at me blankly, says "I hate getting up". And she lays back down, all yellow shirt and hair, sits up, blinks. I look at her, she looks at me, and says "what? what are you doing? what are you doing? Smiling so sneakysly."


I rather miss my school-time schedule. It's easier to write and remember to nap and exercise. I've given up on all else during vacation, but writing is life and nap-time, haha, makes life easier. I really am quite the four year old.
Never did it occur to me that I would be comforted by schedule and regularly ordered days, but I am, silly girl who thinks she's so very random. But ha, balance... Because yes, I can get very, very bored by too tight of a regimen.


How does this all fit together, I wonder? I followed the thread, but I also wound it. It is my making, so do I have the key to pulling it all tight and tying it neatly, or having been made by me, is there no answer nor key at all? 

Quest and Weave, Crest and Wave

I have spent today doing the things I enjoy, and yesterday I did the same.
It would seem that I turned nineteen at five in the morning a great many more than 24 hours ago, one more year spanning across the ages in this grand, small life.  
That's the age two of my best friends were, nineteen, when we met one of them, and really started hanging out with the other. They made being nineteen look absolutely awesome, and I seem to remember and hang onto weird little things about other people, remembering conversations and idiosyncrasies and outward appearance and small details of lives and being at certain times.

This is a year I've been rather looking forward to, for abstract and intangible reasons. This is an age and birthday that arrived gracefully, fitting and flowing freely. Still, I never really think of myself as just one age. I am many. 
I had no expectations, though many hopes for my birthday, however, hope is more flexible than expectation, and doesn't fall as hard when it is not met. Everything was perfect, which I guess is just how life has been lately, perfect as it is, perfect day by day, nothing amiss, though, yeah, there are still things I wish would happen or happen more, and it's not like I'm just blithely happy all of the time.
I am exploring life and being, and rather liking everything I find. There's not much of a concept of good or bad in my head anymore, which in itself, isn't necessarily great or worse. I mean, I do things that don't strike others as kind or safe, but I see no "wrong" with them. Maybe I'm overconfident. Part of the problem with being in the moment, I guess. But I still feel that I straddle past, present and future in my life. I'm getting more and more independent, even though others' still matter, other people still have wisdom and can offer guidance. It's confusing though, because I look at my grandmother, who asks for advice often, and voices her grand dreams, but she doesn't necessarily actually listen to the advice and guidance she gets. I don't really want to do that, because it makes people feel ignored and ill-valued.

I dance around the concepts in my head, as well as the things in outer life, looking carefully at every side of all the dimensions I sense. This can make for confusion, or at least, confusing writing. I look at every side, up and down and in and out, and I can see how I could go spinning off on the tangent, but I hold my core still and continue to observe the thing I am exploring; I want to see it all. Like the blind men and the elephant, except I want to feel every side of the elephant, and I want to know what others feel, what the elephant is to them, and then I can fit it to what I know of the elephant and know the elephant a little better.
I want to choose, not just fly off at the most opportune sound or sight. I guess that's why I don't really get mad anymore, at least not lately, not necessarily never --stretching of into the future-- There are so many sides to everything, and so many sides to every person who, themselves, feel so strongly. And the why for their feelings, oh, that could be explored forever too.
My brother, who reading a piece out loud during the Christmas organ recital, mispronounced a word. This, along with the absolute beauty of his tone and inflection while reading, striking every word in gold and mahogany, sent me and my sister into a strained giggle fit. It wasn't meant to make him uncomfortable, and it wasn't even entirely because of him, but also of the absurd beauty of the entire program, the emotion and setting and remembering there, everyone singing lovely songs off-key but whole heartedly and in easy companionship. Beautiful things can be amusing, you know, and I am elvish, fairy-kind, Gwragged Annwn, seeing the world at odd angles which can elicit strange reactions and emotions from me. It was exhilarating, in a way, and uncontrollable, I knew it wasn't a good idea, but it was nigh unto impossible to stop. I kept bumping up next to and careening off of my sister's giggling. We did eventually get a hold of ourselves, though, when the next carol finally started.
The whole thing was kind of embarrassing, and I apologized profusely to my brother right after and multiple times over the course of the evening.
Somebody asked that evening, after the program was over, whether I felt more mature, it being my birthday and all, and I said yes, though inside I was remembering the giggle fit and how childish that was. It was embarrassing, but it doesn't actually bother me a lot, it was what it is and will be. I am forty and four and nineteen, you know; I'm not sure how it all meshes together, but somehow it does. 

My own definition: getting closer to being able to write about that concept I referred to a while ago

Adopting- to make something our own through reaching out and enveloping with our heart, a sort of folding under and integrating something "other" with your being, making it your own. 

Because I want to, nothing more

Everything I feel lately makes my heart a shape that doesn't fit inside me anymore, and this, in turn makes my body a shape that doesn't fit to the edges of life. 

I'm sorry, little brother, but I'm not all here lately. To be honest, there's a part of me missing, and it walks the world somewhere else. It was taken from me piece by piece, but I gave it all willingly. 

I keep anchoring myself to things beyond my control, and this is never good because when nothing works out, I am lost. 

It's just, I don't really feel like anything matters lately, not my emotions or wants or feelings, and this applies to the outside world and other people to an extent. It's like I just can't care, but that's not true because I really do care and that's why I'm so sad right now, and why everything that happened yesterday affected me so much even though I tried not to let it because nothing matters; The leak in the gallery, the crabby lady, the blithe and standoffish musicians. But it's not like I see anything truly, it's not like I judged anything correctly. And my eyesight is especially cloudy and fractured lately. And there was some good stuff to balance out the hurtful. 

It's true, I'm my biggest bully. And I really don't know how to stop. 

It's hard to say stuff to other people out loud, because when you put something in another person, maybe it can't change. But I guess that's operating on the belief that other people are stagnant manikins. I don't know, sometimes I forget that other people are real, but maybe they don't often give me a reason to believe they are. But that's not true either, that's looking at one facet on the stone of life and experience and forgetting all other sides. I can't look at or remember every single side all of the time though, because it feels like I only live one after the other, like there can be no two together. 

I don't want to be in my head anymore. I don't really want to exist anymore, but this too should not be taken seriously because I think of it in a transitory sense, I don't consider nonexistence to be a permanent state. 

Musings

Life as battle or quest? Or something else entirely?
Life as battle, war; everything is won or lost, everything is a struggle and a fight, an upward climb and tearing of the heart and soul and flesh. You can only ever conquer or fail, pulling yourself up a cliff's edge by your fingernails and teeth, crashing down onto the rocks below when you falter and lose your grip. Life as some great thing you must win, only one pathway, only one right. Inflexible, binding and restrictive.

But life as quest, a wending pathway of discovery, exploration, learning and seeking, is a beautiful living. Then life is stream and pathway and wind about your ears. Then you can shine and love and really see, really understand, and understand that, honey, you're really never going to get it all, and that's perfectly okay. Life as quest; life as play and happiness, life as learning to be with sadness, tears as rain on the ground, nurturing growth and further beauty. Being in emotion, all emotion, acknowledging and allowing it. Life as flowering, a great opening up and unfurling and shedding color and light. Giving, not taking. Creating; not only destroying. Life as pulse, wave, flow; up and down and back and forth.




Rumi;
"Great lions find peace in a cage.
But we should only do that as a last resort.

So those bars I see that restrain your wings,
I guess you won't mind if I pry them open."

And Hafiz;
"How did the rose ever open its heart and
give to the world all of its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against
its being, otherwise we all remain too
frightened."


If I let it be, and don't try really hard to fit it all together, it will fall into place in its own structure. 

Two-headed Poem

(To explain the title, love, I once read that when writing a poem, it can emerge as two intertwined poems, and you must then work to separate them from each other. I haven't actually experienced this phenomenon much, there have been a couple cases, but this is the first that seemed distinctly so. As it is, I decided that I'd break that rule, I'd let this poem stay siamese-twin, and try to further twist and weave it, and so I did; what you shall read presently, is two-headed, dualistic, two concepts in my head right now that seem to play off of each other, separate but entirely related.)








I.
Mmm,

The complexities of language, 

Crashing waves beneath floating papers, 

Cobwebs and spindly plants.

II.

The refinement of her expressions,

Intricate and infinite; 

A testament that everything communicates; 

It is we who must choose to listen.

III.

Looking beyond, between, underneath, 

All of the winding tendrils around written words, how wondrous, 

More wondrous still, how you can nearly read her thoughts 

from the positioning of her eyebrows and ears. 

IV.

They all have different voices, 

You know, 

Mountain peak and ocean depth, 

Short bark and long drawl, lilting or singsong. 

And their voices are no different, loud quiet infinite--

Like ours 

Seasonal Affective Disorder maybe? But that too would feel like theft and misalignment. None of it matters anyway.

So basically, it feels like almost nothing I'm doing with my life lately is actually getting me anywhere. Don't know where it is I hope to go, exactly, but I'm feeling terribly stagnant and impotent.
I don't feel like I'm really learning anything well.

What do I have to give to people? Life as connection and network; but I don't know how to do that really. I'm not really woven into life, I don't really feel like I fit; I am jangling, dissonant.
I keep skipping days, or rather, living through them as through a dream, something to get me somewhere else I already am. I don't know... Can't really explain. And I guess that's what I figure my purpose is, explain the unexplainable, but does it even matter? Even if it matters not to anyone else, is it enough that it seems to matter to me?
I'm getting nowhere, and yeah, it feels like I ought to be getting somewhere, but I don't know how. I've got suspicions, but not much more than that, and I don't want to look at them too hard.
Trapped and stuck in all of these things I thought I didn't have to deal with anymore, or even yet. Somebody keeps saying that it is so easy to get out of it all, to move past it all, but here I am, futile and strung up.
Maybe I keep looking outside of myself too much, but I learn from the patterns of others. I'm kinda lost, and maybe it's just the weather, but I don't know. I'm so quick to adopt the things in others that I think fit in me, but I still feel like that's a little invalid, a little untrue. I'm so colorless, it seems, but that doesn't sound true either. Looks like I'm looking for truth, even though I thought I'd decided against that long ago. I decided to search for love and compassion rather than truth. Truth is so subjective.
Chasing my own tail and spinning off after the tails of others.
I don't really believe in this world, I guess that's why I don't fit. Where do I fit? It doesn't seem like I really fit here anymore, but even that is transitory.
Nothing's the right color. But that doesn't seem to matter either. I feel so autistic. But nobody believes that either, and probably they're right. Yeah, still stuck halfway between my feelings and others' sayings. So many dang directions...
Isn't it weird that you can live in your own body and head 24 hours a day, and still you don't understand yourself entirely? You don't know where everything inside you comes from or why? But it never works for me to just surf over it all, I have to experience it, dips and crescendos. I'm so torn still, still don't know why. Still don't know why. Thought I was getting closer, and maybe I am, but I really don't know. It's like nothing I do matters, and in one way, I don't care, but in another, it's driving me nuts. Sometimes I wonder if I'm one of those nineteen to twenty-one year olds who's going to spiral off into nothing in a fantastic display of insanity, but even that is nothing but idle curiosity, though I admit I have a morbid and self-effacing side I don't like to indulge often but still it comes up, all self-satisfied and smug every once in a while. Sometimes it's kinda perversely pleasurable to stare into the void, eyes wide and glittering.
Is it possible to be objective about oneself? I guess that's something I'm trying to figure out, but even that annoys my sometimes. I don't like being removed from myself and my feelings. I kinda have a tendency, it seems, to run away from that which makes me uncomfortable, but something always yanks me back, and now I am tiredly resigned to just going through whatever it is I have to. 

Voice

Man, nothing will come to me today. Can't seem to write anything well, neither poetry, essay, nor stream-of-consciousness. Nothing will really fit together, and I'm dissatisfied with all of my drafts and writing ideas at the moment. I want to write, but it doesn't come out very well, I'm still not complete or clear, I've got shallow-digging dis-ease (as our friend G would call it) and ADD in some form today. Don't know what to do, and what I want to do, I think I should do something else instead. At least I finally practiced guitar today -I want to learn; I want to learn how play guitar, drive, write, be with people, and just generally apply myself. I can be fierce and focussed, but I guess I don't fixate much. --Even that isn't true though, I like to think I'm not obsessive, but when I really look into and at myself, I am totally obsessed. I am so so so redundant, but, balance. It's hard to talk of balance, though, it's so easy to fall into duality and polar opposites and untruths. Juggling differently colored balls from hand to hand and back again. Why keep them moving though? Can't they just be? I'd like to think they're not even separate; the yin and yang symbol, though overused, is beautifully fitting; two things as inseparable, interconnected one. -That's pretty cool, and in some ways it simplifies things, and in others, complicates. But you know, this world is more than one dimension, and to look at any one thing differently, the whole web shifts. Nothing is just surface, or just depth; no one is only one thing. I dislike referring to people as occupations because it seems to dehumanize them. I'm not even a "writer", I'm Amoniel, but that doesn't quite cover it either, I'm this thing that takes form around, I'm this that changes shape constantly, that never fits into the world the same way for longer than right now. Yes, I fall into shallow-digging dis-ease every once in a while, but even that is not how I work always. --I want to dive deep deep into the world, life, the universe, -it sounds silly, and I don't always want that, but -everything. I love stained fingers and dirt and all of the marks life and time leaves on us, scars are beautiful; wrinkles, freckles, and moles, absolutely lovely. I love to get paint on my hands and graphite all over my fingertips and face. I love calluses and rough hands, tough feet. I don't want to be perfect, I want to be alive. I am life's canvas, my own canvas, the canvas and paper of others, mirror and imprint. When I get firewood with my family, I like to see the scratches on my arms from the hard work of loading and carrying and unloading, and I like to watch all of the marks fade away. All of these things that fix and flow us in time, now then tomorrow. I want to dig deep into my own soul and examine it intently, and I want to do the same with others. I'm looking looking finding the thread that ties and unwinds all things. Maybe it has a name, maybe it doesn't, but I seem to be able to find and talk with and about it just fine without a name, and even with an imperfect name. The imperfect name reminds me that it won't fit forever, I think; that I know it all and I know nothing, and everything fits perfectly. 

I said I couldn't write today, but perhaps I was trying too hard. And now I have found my flow, my track; my voice. 

One way to write down my philosophies and beliefs

There is life to be lived; I am so cautious, though, and I'm looking and searching and hoping and praying and waiting and writing, because there is an answer in my bones, the air, my heart, the music I listen to, the books I read, and you.

This god I am learning, this god is everywhere, this creator is everything and creation itself. This god is me and you and our parents and siblings, this god is Zooey, her friend, and the people in my Ekklesia, this god is relationship and loneliness, the universe, my love, and every atom, as well as the space between atoms, and the spaces between spaces, and the spaces between those spaces.
I am looking within and without and all around for answers, every step I take. All is good and all is strange and all is impossible to put into words, but that is the only thing I can do, put all into words. That is the way for me to learn and communicate and shape. But all is feeling; so staggeringly abstract. So this is my struggle, to give form to the formless, and decide if it is worth it in this world of material goods and science and skepticism, this world in which man's purpose is to make money and he suffers, and he who does not follow this purpose, or he who tries to use the purpose to bring about the things of his heart also suffers.
The weaving, winding voice of contradiction in all things, my love, this is what fuels the ludicrous act of struggle in a web that doesn't actually exist, but we created it, so here it is.

All I can do is search blind and fingerless for myself and hold it out to you, inviting you to take of your own free will, and share whatever you desire with me, but nothing, my child, is required.

Nothing is required. 

Musings on the facts of life as I can see them presently

This whole growing up thing is really weird. What to do when next year, life will probably not resemble what has been constant over the past eighteen years?
I have no idea where to begin, though I'm planning on taking a driving course with one or two of my other driving-age siblings next month.
Why not this month? The instructor I called doesn't hold a class in August, as most people are finishing up or going on vacations that month.
I've been told that it's crucial to get my GED, so I guess that's my next big step. Everyone says it's easy, but I still harbor small, whispering doubts... I don't have much confidence in myself or my abilities. I guess that's my biggest challenge in becoming a more or less independent adult, the fact that I'm quite self-doubting, at least in the ways of the world.
I'm thinking I can at least get my GED, get a job and save up for the next year after which maybe I can attend college. I don't know, I hate making plans. I've been planning on going to college "next year" since I was fourteen. Baha. Look at me now...

Faith and Hard work. Faith in hard work. Hard work in faith.

School teaches an oxymoronic double standard of accomplishing things through luck and really hard work.
Some people mature, go out into the world, and choose to follow one of two or more paths. They work really hard, pull themselves up by the boot straps, and blame a lack of luck when something doesn't work out the way they wanted or expected it to. But the thing is, almost nothing that used to be guaranteed through hard work or discipline works anymore. For a few decades, you graduated high school, persisted through college and obtained a degree, and then you gained an entry level job with pretty good benefits and security that you could pretty much depend upon eventually retiring from at a pretty high level. None of these are a a given anymore, though, and hard work all of your life with no, how shall I say this... just allowing things to happen or trusting that things will work out and allowing yourself to be flexible is not a good balance.
On the other hand, there are the people who just wait for everything to come to them, who rely only on luck and conversely, never get anything done, whether it's hard work, or just something a little out of the ordinary that is a dream of theirs, but would take a little pushing and shoving to get done, such as world travel or learning how to fly an airplane and becoming licensed for such. This is the side I am learning to balance with hard work and perseverance.

I have also noticed that sometimes people who choose one path or the other tend to blame their lack of the opposite when things don't work out; a really hard worker who never quite made it lamenting the fact they didn't have the right connections, or even that they just didn't work hard enough, though they're worn to the bone, and honestly don't have that bad of a life, but they are not successful in society's eyes. Or, for example, a person who just went with the flow their whole life, going in whatever direction life took them, only to find themselves stuck, seemingly with no new direction or way out, and getting frustrated with themselves for not working harder.
Perhaps both of these examples feature a "character" that has come to a hard place, a down direction in the wavelength or life, and has forgotten that things are always in transformation and change, through outside as well as internal forces, and when things are looking down, they will inevitably make their way back up and vice versa.

There's a balance to be had between the two life philosophies, Faith with direction, diligent labor with an eye toward flexibility and openness. Sometimes one side works better than the other during a different time in life. During childhood, you go where you parents take you, do what your parents tell you, learn what they teach you. But in adulthood, self-sufficiency and responsibility is required, your own momentum will get you somewhere worthwhile, so one side of the spectrum dominates at different times. The key is knowing when to let one take precedence over the other. 

A silver-spoke flower seed walked across the floor in a shaft of sunlight

I rarely ever get around to writing my ideas and philosophies, they just never come to mind when I sit down to write or I have no idea how to begin.
I also have no knack for waxing long upon writing subjects. I can think and think, but when I write, I get a few short paragraphs and not much else. I'm not fantastic at expanding.
My style is kinda short and to the point. I guess that's why I'm so drawn to haiku, and why I enjoy writing haiku.
Maybe that's part of being introverted to some extent, it's just not in me to talk and talk or write long, complicated papers most of the time. I admit I'm not entirely introverted, I fall somewhere in the middle to one side.

I'm pretty sure that if I wrote down my ideas and philosophies, they would become more concrete, more realistic, easier to stand by. Easier to communicate, and in some way, more flexible. Maybe then I would understand myself a little more than I have been lately.
I feel so objective and conscious, but still blurrily befuddled. So what good are those tools to me? All they do is make it impossible to act and hard to truly feel. Clarity of sight, Ha!
(Well, that digressed.)
I'm also really bad at endings. Can't really do beginnings some of the time, my middles aren't so great, and my endings never quite come to a complete close. Heh, why do I write?... I write because: I am always in the middle, I think I began, and someday, somehow, I will end.

Maybe one of these days I will write some of my ideas, beliefs, and philosophies; why, I'm not entirely sure. Feels like a good idea though.
Maybe I will write it as a list. I'm fairly good at writing lists, but I do not like reading them, so perhaps I shall write this future project as something I would enjoy reading, not something I will create and then toss into the stream of time, never to be looked over with joy again.

Letters Blog: May 4th, 2011. Wednesday

Another letter to Yo

Dear Yo,

You've become a sort of confidante 

in my mind.
You don't really talk back, and I 

probably wouldn't talk to you in 

real life like
I do in my mind, but who knows? 

Maybe this is just practice.
I've been very open to you in 

our person-to-person correspondence,
I'm generally very closemouthed 

and afraid of what people will think of
what I say.
Perhaps the conversations 

(more like monologues) I have

with you in
my mind will allow me to feel 

comfortable to really talk with 

you, and
perhaps with other people as well.

I wonder what you would think if 

I were ever to tell you all of this, or
if you were to come across this 

letter. Would you even recognize
this as being written to you?

You know, there are all these 

rather abnormal questions I want to
ask people, though I doubt I 

will ask most of them.
I want to ask you what you 

honestly think of me, what 

you think of
what I have to say, and what 

you thought of me when we were
first introduced.
I wonder if there are any questions 

you want to ask me. I would
answer them truthfully, I think I 

generally do.
In a strange way, I trust and 

relate to you as a sort of kindred
spirit from what I know of you, 

and what you have told me.
I won't say that I haven't found 

many kindred spirits in my life,
I've found quite a few, and most 

of them became my best friends,
If only for a time.
the thing about kindred spirits 

is they don't stay that way for long.
Would you remain a sensed 

kindred if I were to get to know 

you more,
or am I just projecting? It 

doesn't seem that way to me, 

but I don't know.

Would you be scared of me, 

or who I am, if you were to 

get to know me
better? I see myself as a very 

strange and abnormal person 

inside and
out. I don't really know if anyone 

else thinks that. But judging from
Sixbillionsecrets, most people 

think they're completely alone in their
fears and insecurities. Everyone 

thinks they're the weirdest person
around.

I had a whole other paragraph 

here, but it digresses from the rest of
the letter, it has no point, so 

I'll just forget about it.

Thank you for all of you've

unconsciously and indirectly taught me.
Thank you for reading this letter, 

and thank you for being you.
love,
Amoniel

The Idols of Environmentalism | Curtis White | Orion Magazine

The Idols of Environmentalism | Curtis White | Orion Magazine

Finally finished this article today, my mom emailed it to me a month ago, and I did start it, I just never felt like I had the time to finish it, beh.

Anyway, it's pretty good, it mentions a lot of the same beliefs as me and my family, and it gave me a lot to think about, mainly on the subject of my garden and how I'm going to share vegetables with my community as I first intended.
I started the whole thing with the intention of selling vegetables at our community farmer's market, but it is in great disorganization, and the person who is currently in charge is, I have heard, running out of steam.
My mom and I have spoken with some friends about their possibly heading up a new farmer's market on some land they own out of town, but I don't know how well that will go; they're pretty busy as it is, and I haven't heard anything more from them about it.

I have a neighbor who is interested in buying vegetables from me, but I have no idea how much I want to charge or how I should arrange it. I went to her house with some swiss chard from both my and my mom's garden and some turnip greens (she said she'd try them out) this afternoon, but she wasn't home, so I took the bag of vegetables to our neighbors the next block over and gave it to them.
The thing is, I don't know if I want to charge money. I don't feel good about that, and my garden is kind of an experiment in how I fit into this world and nature, as well as me figuring out how I could possibly support myself. But I don't like money, and I'm earning a lot as it is, so maybe this will be a community experiment in kindness and selflessness, because I would rather give away my heart's work in kindness and friendship rather than for personal gain.