[Time Travel]
[Synchronicity]
[On the Existence of Time]
[Three Month Lessons]
[Slices of Life]
[The Tao of Pizza]
[Litanies]
[Reincarnation]
[Insecurity]
[On the Existence of Love]
[How to deal with things that go bump in the night]
[Perception, Truth, and Reality]
[The Unbreakable Axe]
When I returned to Alaska, I was welcomed by all my friends. And at the same time, I encoutnered a rather difficult situation. Now, when difficulties occur in my life, I take them very harshly. But if I can find ways to grow from them, they become more cherished and more positive for me than anything else.
I will not go into details on what happened, unless it is absolutely necessary. But instead I will share with you what I learned and what turned a very tough circumstance into a very enlightening one.
No one is the object of anyone else's destiny.
All too often we throw around the phrase "They were made for each other." Or "He and I were destined to be at odds." That is a cop-out. Why view things as unavoidable when we can accept the choices we have and, most important of all, act on them? Lieutenant Roczak from Paul Verhoeven's film "Starship Troopers" tells us that the only real freedom we have is the freedom to make up our own minds. Well, I don't know if that's our only freedom, but it is a very powerful one. Make a positive effort to use that freedom. You'll feel more in control, and consequently, more powerful. Besides, putting a destiny label on someone else puts a lot of undue pressure on that person, it causes one to act irrationally, and in the end, nothing good can come of it.
D.A.A.G.D.T.
This should be on my litanies page. My high school band teacher wrote those letters on the chalk board one day, after I told him I was assuming something. He wrote this, then asked me, "Do you know what this stands for?" Seeing the letters, I thought it was some kind of notation, a sort of arpeggio or something. But he told me, "Don't Assume A God Damned Thing." This is one of the most important things I learned from high school, and goes quite well with the above quote of "No one is the object of anyone else's destiny." You see, even if there is some prescribed course of action we are all destined to take, we must never assume it. Fate may be unavoidable, but forcing it can be nerve-wracking (especially since forcing fate never works very well).Some other important lessons I can draw on can't quite be capsulated into quotes. But if you have the opportunity to hang out with your friends, or start a romance, you should choose the friends. If the romance doesn't work out, you can always complain to your friends. And friendships tend to succeed where romances fail anyway.
Nothing ever ends; it only changes.
You may remember this from my discourse on reincarnation. This applies to almost everything. You eat something, it passes through your system, it becomes fertilizer, and feeds a plant that you can later eat again. The gravity you emit decreases with distance, but it doesn't fizzle out. Now, your personal gravity may have little effect on Vega, or even Jupiter, but the effect is there. With regard to relationships, you may become friends with someone, it could lead to romance, blossom into love, and if it doesn't work out, it may feel like it's over, but really it just changes into a different kind of relationship; maybe casual acquaintanceship, or what I like to call "distanceship" -- that state where there's nothing else to say and you generally leave each other alone, with the memories of things gone by.Communication is arguably the most important tool we as human beings have developed; but it can be very difficult to use. And while honesty is usually the best policy, it is a double-edged sword. If you are in a situation where you don't know what to do, start by being honest. Tell someone how you feel, and most importantly, tell them why. Let them know it's important to you to get things out in the open. Communication can solve a lot of problems, and prevent new ones from starting. This also goes hand-in-hand with "D.A.A.G.D.T." You may assume you know what another person is feeling, but it's always a good idea to double-check. If you ever have a problem communicating (and this is very important to me), remember this phrase:
"I feel [fill in the blank] right now because..."
And if someone feels the need to communicate to you in this way, by all means, listen to them. What they have to say has an important bearing on you, and you can only learn from it. And learning is a very important thing.
