10 Guidelines for an ambiguous high school senior Choosing a College:

1.       Let’s face it: at 18, most people are not going to know what they want to do or to get  out of life.  Give yourself a break and choose a school or a major at that school in something you are interested in at the time and give yourself room to change.  You probably will.  After all, as Pedro Arrupe said, “the minute you cease to change, you cease to live.”  People at 40 are making entire career changes so chill out and relax your stress for it is nothing but a detour.  You will get to where you are going and stress won’t help you. 

2.      You have allies everywhere.  Literally, all over the world.  Find them.  Freshman year is hard: Do not despair. 

3.      Unlimit yourself from the beginning.  Never say “I cannot afford school x,” I am not smart enough for school y.”  You can do whatever the hell you want.  There are grants and scholarships for people like you.  Find a school that will accept you for what you are on paper and as a human in the flesh. 

4.      It’s odd discovering where your parents are wrong and have led you astray.  You don’t have to listen to them.  They are not you.  Only you are you and your choice is your choice, damnit. 

5.      The most important thing I learned after first term of college was to juggle like a clown and I taught myself.  This one’s up to your interpretation.

6.      Ultimately, college, as in all things, is merely what you make it and someone who earns your same degree is not the same as you.  You are an individual and no one has gone to the same schools that you have gone to in your life in the same order that you have gone through them.  And still, if someone has been in school with you for an entire life: nobody can see what you can see the way you see it.  You graduate from the University of You, in any event.  The name of a school is merely an umbrella term to prove your endeavors’ legitimacy. 

7.      If you are unsatisfied, you always have the power to change your circumstances.  This is Chaplin: “You’re life can be a wonderful adventure.”  If you let it. 

8.      The odd thing about places is that it doesn’t really matter where you are in the world—what matters is how that place makes you feel, if you have the room to grow there, and if you can be yourself at this place. 

9.      Steve Jobs: You can’t connect the dots going forward—only when you look back does the chronology of your life make more sense. 

10.  You are confronted with a challenge that is both absurd and simple: freedom.  You can do whatever you want wherever you want.  You wanna go to India for service?  Do that.  You wanna go to Boston College for psychology and theater?  Do that.  What’s stopping you?  Seriously- what is it?  I’m curious.  Whatever you are passionate in right now—do that.  Do the one thing that gives you energy when you haven’t eaten in 10 hours and your low on sleep.  That thing that lifts you up once you’ve forgotten the idea of light.  For Christ sake- do that thing.  And if you haven’t found that thing yet, then experiment like a mad man and search for it everywhere and in everything.  Do that.  You and the planet will have been better for it. 

Airport Humor

I love walking in airports alone. Nobody has a clue who I am therefore I can be anybody in the world to them. I'm sure nobody gives a shit but its fun to pretend.

-Un

I am ill from thinking so much about myself and my own process.  Yes, the unexamined life sure as hell is not worth living but a life spent second guessing every damn motion leads you to a stand still with yourself, slowly making miniscule, miniature circles in the sand of your life.  Whether on the stage or at a party: the most interesting thing is the person looking back at you.  Be there for them.

Discourse is necessary.

Not any one person in this world will agree with every single thing that you say or do. If they do, they are blind. If they don't agree, good. Then we have opinions, discourse in conversation and through which we learn the most that we possibly can about different perspectives. At the end of these conversations, our foundations of belief may be rocked and one of two things may happen: we will defend our opinion and discover its legitimacy within our own being or, we change our opinions. Or we are just dumbfoundedly confused for a while until we discover what our opinion actually is. Not one person in this world will agree with everything you say or do and how wonderful. That means we help each other grow and become more dynamic and interesting humans. Fuck ya.

Write--do. Do--write.

If you want to write something interesting, do something interesting with your life.  It is that simple. 

London went to the Yukon.
Kerouac traveled across country.
Twain traveled to San Fransisco.
Melville fished.
Thoreau went to the woods.
Jung built a tower.
Gregory Boyle created jobs for homeless.
And so on.

You can also walk, talk, dance, run, sing, and play in interesting or different ways, which can be worth writing about and the product of which might be some fefu fofu tofu poetry stuff, which is all good and well but my contention is that an exterior change, like Kerouac's traveling, makes for more interest for a reader.

It is this simple: If you want to write something interesting, do something interesting with your life. 

Go.

Dear reader-

I need your input.  I need some feedback on the blog: how do you prefer to receive blog posts?  One at a time?  One per day?  Or in random chunks like I've been doing it?  I just need to know what my audience wants so I can adjust accordingly.  What is best for YOU?  Please let me know and please keep reading!  :)

Wisdom in Ramblings

In the heat of the moment, listen to the angry man yell for there is something of wisdom in his ramblings.

Read.

When I was younger I labeled myself as a "non-reader."  I hated to read because I was always was forced to read things for school that bored the hell out of me.  I recently discovered that I love reading more than most things in this world because I am reading things I am interested in and not just doing the rote and usually very boring and un-inspiring reading for school. 

My point is brief: there are words waiting for you, for all of us, like swimmers on-their-mark about to dive into the water.  These words are on corners of bookshelves in obscure or obvious locations that are waiting to become a part of you, to become one with you like soap in water. 

Always skip school if there is something better to read.

Hey, you.

Ya, you.  You impact people, damnit.  You are impactful.  Own up to it and make a choice to impact others in the way you've always wanted because that thing you've been searching for is right in front of your face and its been there forever.  Making the decision to "choose to not be impactful" is not an option.  You impact all the time and accidentally every second of everyday.  What you are doing right now is changing the world.  Not in a grandiose way, necessarily but rather, you are part of the ocean, as it were.  I just wish we were all a lot more conscious of how much we impact others all the damn time. You do!  Fuck. Own it.  Please.

Everyday.

Isn't everyday "the next day of the rest of your life?"

everyone, everywhere

What if everything you said was heard by everyone, everywhere?

And it was heard not through a barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world but rather told to all like a barely audible secret.

Would that change the way we speak if we knew this happened?

What if this was the case: your words bounce off of audible mirrors reflecting off of other mirrors eventually and inevitably circling back to the ears of the person you are talking about.  Or the words come to the ears of that person who you secretly love but you only have the courage to talk about her to everyone else but her.

Think about it: everything always comes around, full circle, in the end.  I suppose, at the end of the day, I am proposing an adjustment in lifestyle because everything you do all the time and everything you say effects everyone, everywhere.  I am always so self-conscious to be with a group of people and right when two people of the group leave, the remaining folks start talking shit about those two who just left--what happens when I leave the room?!?  Jesus! Do they talk smack about me when I am not here? What a terrible feeling. 

[Again: are these insecurities that we point out in others merely insecurities that we hold within our own selves?]

What would happen if we just talked to people about how we felt?  There would be so much more truth & honesty.  Why don't we do this?  Because of fear?  Fear of being rejected, fear of failure, fear of being the odd kid in the room who doesn't quietly glide by to societal norms?

I don't know about you but a big fear of mine quickly takes form of a regret and that is the fear of not having taken a risk and yet seeing the opportunity pass directly in front of my eyes.  Ah!  How terrible!  A missed opportunity!  I regret it instantly!

Hopefully this is food for further thought:  What if everything you said was heard by everyone, everywhere?

Follow your bliss.

Don't internalize the idea that you can't or shouldn't do something.  Never limit yourself.

Teachers, bosses, and older folks typically project their unfortunate experiences of life onto us and we typically accept that experience for what life is and then we all wonder why change doesn't happen in our lives, in our country, and world (it is, of course, because we do end up listening to these sad people who tell us "no," we don't change the systems thus our worlds stay the same).  These authority figure's experience is their experience and it does not have to be yours.  Make your own damn experience and do whatever you want.  Seriously.  Be idyllic in your dreams for, as David Mamet tells us: "There is nothing more pragmatic than idealism" because ideal realities (or utopias) do not exist and are impossible therefore we will always be attaining our goals and our loves and our dreams and thusly- never giving up on them because their is always work to be done.

Listen to these authority figures and hear what they have to say but don't internalize their thoughts and methods unless those same methods help you make your own method because that's what its all about: forging your own path, as it were.  Also- kindly don't assume my ideas here to be a childish hope that is disconnected from reality.  This is real, people. So: you don't believe me because I am just a 20 year old college student who is too ambitious or impractical?  If these are your thoughts I have two things to tell you: 1.  Fuck you.  2.  You don't believe me with these thoughts here? Fine.  Listen to mythologist Joseph Campbell and then the awesome words of first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Follow your bliss."

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right for you'll be criticized anyway.  You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't."

"You're crazy!"

Very well then.  I would rather be "crazy & impractical" than "boring & normal."  What about you?

Fuck. That. Shit.

The whole point

is that everybody has something to say.  We all have a story to tell.  And all too often, this idea is taken away by one's schooling.  College does this particularly well.  In school, both the concepts and you become generalized.  This is false.  The concepts are rich and you, even richer. 

Yes, you have a shared experience with your classmates for 4 or 5 or 10 years and this culminates in a ceremony called Graduation.  Your schooling is a shared experience with those classmates but in NO way is it the same at all.  Whether you graduate from the University of Oregon, Stanford, Yale, MIT, or American River Community College-- you graduate from the college of you.  Nobody sees what you see, nobody reads what you read, nobody experiences the same situations as you and nobody experiences how you experience everything.  The name of a college is merely an umbrella term.  The name of the school might as well change from person to person.  I go to the college of Riley.  Force your education to serve you and your NEEDS and NOT the other way around.  Go to your college--whatever that means to you.  Do that. Don't put blind trust in any system.  You are not a system.  You are a complex human being.  A school for example, may get you a job (though they probably won't) but only you can keep that job.

We don't grow up.

We just gain a larger vocabulary for things. 

Example: saying "round" to describe something that you later come to understand as a "globe."  We seriously don't grow up.  Look around you.  Think about it.

Age is relative.
Conventions are bullshit.

Seriously livin' the dream

There are not enough dreamers in the world and there are too many so-called "pragmatists." What are we but our dreams?  The notion that "being a dreamer" is ever considered a bad thing is absolute insanity to me.  You are a living dream.  We are our dreams.  You are a dream.  If you stifle dreamers' heads for being too much "in the clouds" then you need to immensely reconsider yourself, your life, and your path.  Yes, you are always wrong to do this.  Never stifle dreamers because, shit, you are one, you fool.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you are living a dream as we speak.  Which dream is it?
You have a dream or an idea as inspiration for every miniscule thing that you do.  Are you being as bold and brave and forthcoming and as helpful as you can be?

Who's dream are you living?  

We are at our best when we are boldest.  Go forth & conquer something today, damnit.  It's time to dream.  Go!

[compelling title here]

People who say they know everything about a person perpetuate boredom.  You can never know everything about any one person just like you can't know everything there is to know about yourself.  Knowing yourself is a never-ending process.  Every single human person is unpredictable (+1,000 different  and awesome adjectives).

People who say they know everything about any given person perpetuate boredom because, in the end of the day, you are not thinking of other people as so incapable of differentiation of character but you are rather thinking of yourself as boring and, damnit you just aren't.  Give yourself more credit.  As Whitman says, "Do I contradict myself?  Very well then, I contradict myself.  I am large.  I contain multitudes." You also contain multitudes.  Own it.  You are not just one thing.  You contain at least 4 different versions of yourself but, more likely, you contain 4 billion.  boom.

What I am writing here (and throughout the blog) isn't self-help bullshit.  This is just true.  Our actions and words all come back to what we think of ourselves.

What do you think of yourself & how do you project it on other people?

Take a minute and

constantly remind yourself of your extraordinary circumstances because, as far as I'm concerned, living is much better than the alternative. Enjoy the day.

Magic exists pt.2

This magic I am speaking of does not begin from a blinding to reality while telling yourself: "it's all right.  everything is all right.  Everything is happy."  When, in reality, everything may not be so happy at that particular moment.  I am not talking about this crazy type of person who blinds themselves against the world but rather I am talking about growth in your sense of observation.  While looking at a hat, you observe the number of stitches and tiny nuances that went into it and you do not merely see the outline of a hat.  You look at your thumb and you see the tiny nuances of your thumb print, the tiny things that make you you and not merely just an outline of a human being.

Ya dig?

Magic can be real if you let it.  Let it.

Magic can be real.

There are no simple things. 

We, as individuals, make things what they are.  We make them common or magical.

Take time to marvel at things.  Don't be afraid to wonder at the magical tendencies of a hat. 

How marvelous.  Seriously.

In short, things are so much cooler than we say they are, damnit! 

Give the inventions of shoes, shoe-laces, tables, chairs, books, electricity, and hand-soap more credit.

If you want your life to be [enter word here] then make the conscious choice to let it be that and accept nothing less from yourself and the people around you.  You choose what you are, no matter the circumstances.  There are always choices.  You are never stuck.  Go- and never say "never" unless you're telling someone "never complain again" because, as far as I am concerned, living is far better than the alternative so shut up about your damn iPod being broken and check your pulse for God's sake- you have a beating heart.  Fuck.  Go live already.

There is magic to be had. 

Riddle me this:

I spend half my time scheduling.

Does that make sense?

The most disgusting

sentence I have ever heard was while I living in the dormitories at the University of Oregon's campus in Eugene during the winter of 2010.  It was the weekend.  I am outside of my dorm with a few friends throwing a football around and a very drunk man wearing fraternity letters comes up to our dorm's door and starts knocking on it with his fist and I ask him: "Can I help you?"  It looked like he was trying to get into our dorm, being very loud.  He responds:

"I'm trollin' for dorm puss."

Golly. The way we court one another sure has changed!

Keep calm

and stop using this phrase for other shit. All right? Carry on.

Don't tell people to calm down.

In my experience, it only has the adverse effect and is therefore a waste of your time to call them that.  And these so-called furious people are usually onto something grand: a big thought that will change the course of things.  Let people be angry if they must.

The Eiffel Tower,

the Taj Majal, the Tower of London, and the Golden Gate Bridge were not created out of a stress-dream.  They were created from a dream of inspiration, motivation, beauty, and an apparent need.  And the work follows suit after the dream.  But the work does not have to be stressful or full of pain.  It can truly be a joyful process.  Not joyful in the idea of rainbows and ponies, no.  But an idea that you are a construction worker, for example, working on the Golden Gate Bridge and you know that you are part of something bigger than yourself.  What an honor.  There is joy and honor to be found in all work.

I hate the old adage "It's called work for a reason."  Fuck that.  I am in the business of theater and theater is so much WORK but the culmination of this work, we call a PLAY.  There is wisdom in the vocabulary of the stage.  We are most motivated by positive stimuli, not negative.  So why do we constantly pull one another down?

Why do we make it so hard on ourselves to see the good in things?  Why can't we say what we enjoyed about something before we say what we despised? 

Why are we, apparently by nature, such negative creatures?  How do we change this?  Is it possible?

The best advice one gives...

is the advice one struggles most to take.

Happy Birthday

Time & Birthdays are funny things.  If you think about it, neither really exist.  Let me explain (it's not as morbid as you think).  We create time based on arbitrary placing of numbers which loosely connect to the rising and setting of the sun.  When, truthfully, time does not exist because this moment that you are in right now can feel like a minute when it is really 10 minutes therefore, our concept of time does not exist.  For example, driving home from work takes a few metaphoric seconds because we usually don't pay so much attention but when we are with good company, time can last forever.  We create our time.  We also create our concept of birthday.  Yes, we were born on a certain day in this arbitrary, perfectly random date of October 30, 2012.  When, truthfully, you are reborn with every inhale as life and every exhale as a death of that moment.  You are born every day, every moment, every year, every decade, every breath...and we must celebrate ALL of them.  And a very merry un-birthday to you. 

Am I missing something?

 Did I not get a memo that allowed us to tell each other we were wrong in our life's pursuits? 

As far as religion, theater, and other activities of life--if someone finds something that brings them purpose: who the Hell am I to say they are wrong.  Just as long as they don't try to convert me into a sect of religion that I have no interest in and as long as they don't berate me for not knowing certain so-called theater greats, then I'm fine.  Why can't we just let people enjoy things for what they are?  There is no right or wrong answer.  Why do we push things on people?  I am seriously asking you, reader.  This is not rhetorical.  Am I missing something here?

I understand that people have certain interests and opinions but in no way does that make them correct.  Why can't we talk like adults about things that piss us off or about things that rile us up?  This is the best way we, as humans, learn: through discourse in conversation!

I don't understand.  Am I being obtuse and am I missing a huge gap in my logic here or is this just "the way it is?"  'Cus fuck the ladder half of that statement.  Things are NEVER just the way they are.  We make things the way they are, we create our circumstances.  We make our world.  Oh, is that too ethereal for you?  Then either fuck off or step up to the plate: life is epic therefore our language and actions MUST follow suit. 

I want to know your thoughts.  Let's get a dialogue going here.

Fall is for crunchy leaves...

Fall is for crunchy leaves on the sidewalk.
As I walk to some prior engagement in mid-October, eyes straight ahead:
I feel it.  The first rain drop: solitary, wet, and full of excitement
falls directly above my lip, below my nose
in that crevasse space where, as the myth goes,
God  shushed you when you were born. 

I immediately recall memories of rain and become happy. 

A happy fall indeed.

On Education:

If you are not constantly questioning your education then you have no education at all.  

Self Indulgent.

Is this, what I am doing here with the blog, self-indulgent?  Quite possibly.  It's really selfish what I am doing, really.  I have created a platform in which I can save interesting thoughts and ideas and if other people, besides myself, are interested in them as well, then that's just a bonus, I suppose.

None of my thoughts are original, anyhow.  They are merely echoes and ripples of folks from the past who said awesome things that are worth repeating whether I am conscious of it or not.  In any case, even if I am not aware that I am writing about something somebody already said, it is necessary for me to put it in my own words, so that I have a better understanding of the topic.  You feel me?

What is cool and completely original about this blog (these combinations of words that become thoughts that provoke reflection and eventually action) is that NOWHERE else in the WORLD do all these combinations of ideas exist in one place.  That is what makes "Riled Up" original. 

At first, I thought this was a cool idea to share with y'all but now, after I've read it, it sounds like an advertisement for my blog and I sorta feel like a prick. 


Oh, well.  Fuck it!  :)  Enjoy.

"Not all that wander are lost." -Tolkein

Don't go thru the motions and NEVER follow other people.
Take different routes to where you are going.
Get lost.
Become lost.
Wonder--allow yourself to be tangential!
          Somehow it will all connect in the end!

What you have, what you are doing is an incredible gift.  Do not forget what you are and who you are.

Be different.  Be you. 

Notes to self (and others if applicable):

I could just be hungry.
I could just be thirsty.
I could just be tired.
Ya.  Ya-- that's why I'm feeling this way.



Stop rationalizing your feelings, your humanity, away.
Feelings and ideas are dangerous and raw and epic and beautiful. 
Let them be that way, whatever you are right now. 

There is no should.

There is no should.

There is only do and do not. 
Strike should from your personal dictionary, from your vocabulary: take it out.
There will be more clarity after this.

There is no should.

from the cool Seth Godin:

Free Range

Ways to improve your performance:

• Compete for a prize
• Earn points
• Please a demanding boss
• Make someone else's imminent deadline
• Face sudden death elimination in the playoffs
• Wear a heart monitor and track performance publicly
• Go head-to-head against a determined foe

The thing is, all of these external stimuli are there to raise your game and push you ever harder. They are fences to be leaped, opponents to be defeated.

The alternative is to compete against nothing but yourself. To excel merely because the act of excelling without boundaries or incentives thrills you.

And the good news is that once you find that, you'll always have it.



for more:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Secrets do not exist.

The secrets to life do not exist behind the gates of a school.  In fact, there are no secrets to life at all (though the learning institutions would like you to believe that there are so that you stay in school for a lifetime and spend all your wasted money because your supposed "teachers" are the only persons in the world who can endow you with these magical life secrets and thus, you are part of the club.  Congratulations?)  It's a big scam, you see.

The only things that exist in life are questions and answers, which exist both within and without you. 

There are no secrets; just questions and answers.
Secrets do not exist.
Do not subscribe to them.
Question it all- even my words here.
Draw your own conclusions.
Start your own club.
Secrets do not exist.

Here's to you

O, to be the poet on the shelf next to Rilke or Rumi; Elliot or Whitman:
completely eclipsed by larger anthologies, usually assumed to be a smaller version of the more well-known poets that surround it.

Here's to you, the unread words of the library!  Here's to your equal, surpassing beauty and wisdom.  By jove, you will be read one of these days!

Some Cool thoughts from Alan Watts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX8D0yU0pMc&feature=related

"We know very well that after people die, other people are born.  And they're all you.  You can only experience it one at a time."

"Doesn't it astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing and that you're doing all of this and you never had any education in how to do it."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssf7P-Sgcrk

"So cheer up, you see."

"And always the secret lies in the place you would never think of looking for it."

A Note on Being Yourself

From the "KNOW THYSELF" inscription at the Oracle at Delphi to Polonius in Hamlet: "Above all, to thine own self be true."  This is a constant theme in the work of humanity.  What does it mean?

I don't know.

An answer:

The act of being oneself is a practice of following one's curiosity for your curiosity is your passion.  As Joseph Campbell says: "Follow your bliss."  Bliss can easily be replaced for "passion" or "heart."


WHAT DO YOU THINK?  I'm curious.

If you talk all the time...

If you talk all the time, people listen less.  If you talk all the time, people listen less.

One must decide: Do you want to be listened to?  Then shut up until you have a cogent, interesting, worth while thought.  Thanks.

A Note on Originality

Originality is being yourself.
It is not being different than everyone and everything for the sake of being different.

If being yourself for you is considered the norm by most, you are still being original because you are being true to yourself.
If truly being yourself for you is dressing in drag, wearing your hair like a pigeon and getting a tattoo of a llama on your left butt cheek: good for you.  You're being original.

BUT if you are being different for the sake of being different in the hopes of originality or creativity then this is false and you should be yourself above all because, damnit, you're the most original thing that ever was. 

Don't think of being different or being original. 
Just be yourself and put your seat belt on for the adventure. 

An Introduction to all these words.

in life, if one has ideas, it is typically easier though not altogether healthy to repress them in fear of rejection or ridicule. It is much more difficult for the idea-filled human to catapult their ideas out in the world and see what Miss Universe has to say. This is a lengthy way of telling you that I've created a blog and I'm nervous about this.

And a resounding fuck you if you think this is stupid. For those on board in the adventure:  enjoy my musings, if you please. And let me know your thoughts, if your are so inclined. :) peace.

What if...

Fall 2012: Seattle, WA.

What if we called each other “sir” instead of “bro;” if we said “hi there” instead of “hey bitches”

What if we didn’t mime masturbation for a cheap laugh?

What if we respected each other’s space and each other’s values?

What if we had values?  Do we have values?  What about morals?  Does it matter?

What if we shut up for more than twenty seconds in order to truly listen to one another?

What if we told someone how we felt…how we actually felt?

What if we didn’t ridicule our friends?

What if we were honest to our feelings and other people’s feelings?

What if we weren’t shallow?

What if we believed in ourselves?

What if we were brave enough to be ourselves, whatever the hell that means on a given day?

Wait--Does any of this matter?  Would it make a difference or is it useless to try? 

Is this utopian; unattainable?

Perhaps; perhaps not. 

As Rilke tells us:

I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

--from Letters to a Young Poet

9 Stories High

Winter 2010: Eugene, OR.

9 stories high.
I think of jumping sometimes.
Then I realize the horizon.
Look at it.
Sit just a little longer.
What's the rush?

Stairs

Spring 2011: 9th Ward, NOLA.


                                                            Stairs leading to nowhere.
                                                       Empty lots.
                                                  Numbers of the dead.
                                             "Dog on roof"
                                        Overgrown.
                                   Roots.
                             Weeds.
                         Ugly trees.
                    Bricks from what used to be.
               Trying to restore.
Foundations--gone.

A fight

In the halls of Jesuit High in Carmichael, CA.  Spring 2009.



A fight--a fight
From day's light into night
And Carpe diem!
Nay!  Carpe noctum!
And knock them off their steed
Piercing those who are not in need
Witch each thrust of sword and spear
I want to see them sneer
Into their heavy hearts of greed.

Chaos everywhere
No one person is awake or alive
As horses flee to roam
They cry and moan
Because they're hurt.

Walking with a million people
And yet feeling so alone
As they groan 'cus the shackles are too tight
And can't be broken with all their might.

Prisoners--sitting in a cell
..Hearing no bell of freedom...

Train Whistles

On a train in the middle of the country.  Summer 2011.

Train whistles call to a Home

            Though the whereabouts seem uncertain

Whistles like a groan:

            An invitation to The Curtain

The month of September felt as a Dream

            Conversations disappearing

Nothing is as it would seem

            Transportations ever nearing

Seemingly spending a life on this train

            Perplexing dualities forever confounding

Traversing the plain pretedingly sane

            Living to attain and become more rounding

Days speed up—taking their toll

            As we forget

We are growing but less full

            Never regret

Life is in constant transition

            We must transcend

Laughing at the idea of perdition—

We must mend

The time of life is now.

            Forever and always

Nothing is ever as important to know:

            Never live in future’s craze

Be never content to strive for mediocrity

            Every gift is responsibility

Talent is one’s curiosity

            Kinship is the doorway to mobility

Future is simply hope

            Past is an old, reinvigorating friend

Cease the feet of mope

            And Live Full ‘till the end!

The train will come someday

            The lights will all be low

We will step on board

            And still—we never know.