Get Into it

I told myself once that when I’m old, I want to be gray and leathery and living in a hut in the Andes Mountains. I would know full books by heart and be fluent in more languages that I could count on my fingers and toes. I would have little scars and big scars alike reminding me of fond memories and dangerous expeditions.

Let me tell you something. Look me virtually in the windows of my soul. Everything around us is in bright, vibrant colors. There was obviously a reason for it being so beautiful, so breathtaking, so captivating to the point where millions of people every day take pictures of that same gaseous ball of fire setting in the sky. And every day, they are still amazed. If we were made to sit in our chairs and on our sofas and… BE, we wouldn’t have deep shades of green in unexplored jungles or the rich, aquatic blues and pinks embedded in the coral reefs.

Life would be in the form of numbers and systems and programmed equations.

There would be no feeling, just reaction.

 No living, just existing.

                

            Tonight, I want you to remember to invest time, truly invest time into every single thing that you do. It’s not very hard. All you have to do is remember, in everything, strive for excellence. My dad once told me to be that person who people can come to if they need help, advice, or anything in between. He told me to be THAT person. And it stuck with me. That’s why I ask a billion questions every week. That’s why I want to know, inside and out, the hobbies I take up. I’ll never stop yearning for knowledge until I’m old and gray and sitting in my hut in the Andes. And even then, I’ll probably take up goat herding and speak fluently in bleat. Life is for storing knowledge and sharing wisdom. Life is for soaking in the moment and learning all you can from it.

What a Start.

           This is it. The beginning of my written expressions of thought. The beginning of a collection of insight, experience, passion, and hopefully at least a couple worthwhile reads. A friend once said to me, "Write often. Write every day. Even if you don't know what to write, write." 
Hopefully I'm not botching that quote too badly (and I'm sorry if I did mate). 


          Every day, instead of looking at this life as an insurmountable wall, I saw it as an impressive challenge. A feat, that if pulled off, would frame me, smiling and wearing medals once I crossed onto the other side. I felt like I was flying, turbulence free, engines go, and clear skies. But what happens when you hit that patch of turbulence? What happens when one of your wings freezes over solid? What do you do if every single cloud seems to form above you, creating such an electrical monstrosity that your internal functions momentarily falter and stop? It seems almost comical to imagine something going wrong if it's been going well for so long. For a thousand flights, you're a straight shot to your destination. On that thousandth and one flight, you crash. Alex Ebert (from the folk band, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes) once said, "Try to remember, that you can't forget." Everyone has heard the saying that you can't change the past. Like Mr, Ebert says, there's no point in even trying to forget it. It happens. We wouldn't be human if something unexpected and detrimental didn't happen to us. 

          I implore you to think about this; There is a man, a man who wakes up every day and smiles into a filth streaked mirror. While that hubcap, his mirror, rolls away screeching and voicing its disapproval, his chipped toothed grin vanishes in front of him as he sees the busy street before his eyes. This man has no legs. He can't remember how he lost his legs. He can't remember if he ate or not last night... But that doesn't matter as much as his desire for something else. He does know that he needs something. Something in a bag and something in a syringe. Something to ease this overwhelming pain that seems to reverberate through every single shaking pore. That man puts on his torn Nike backpack that stores empty bottles and soggy newspapers. After five minutes of consciousness a red tinge is around his vision. A broken shell of a human being gazes hungrily at the families scoffing at his existence. There's no point in asking "Why?" anymore. There's no escape from that internal monster that's slowly taking a death grip on his nervous system, its chemical vice seizing every last shred of his thoughts. Day in and day out, this narcotic-fueled machine, can't even comprehend that he once had limbs. He once had a mother. He once enjoyed the taste of wholesome foods. He once had a point. He once could articulate. He once was a man.

       
          I, a  privileged, Caucasian male, US citizen who is given three meals a day, provided for with paid education, given love, money, a home, and the assurance that I will have friends and family there for me, still complain. I complain when something doesn't go my way. I shudder at the thought of not having a freshly stocked kitchen. It's unfathomable to not go to Starbucks several times a month. When I think about that man, or my neighbor, or anyone else who has it worse than I do, I cringe and feel sick at the fact that I have so much. My goal for the rest of my life (even though I will fail miserably, several times), is to remember that I have the "Good Life". So many people would kill for the Good Life. I need to stop wanting the Better Life. 





     

(A very special thanks concerning the conception of this blog goes to Blanche Reichert for encouraging me to start living my life stepping out of my own shoes and starting to walk barefoot, encouraging others to do the same. Also to Stephen Leininger for inspiring me to write my thoughts down. Sorry for botching your quote mate.)