Safe Love

As some of us might have experienced, learned and observed thus far, there are many different styles of "love". 

There is shallow love. Shallow love is not the same as superficial love, however. There is obsessive love. Obsessive love is not the same as deep love, either. There is distant love, there is irrational love, there is unrequited love. There is forbidden love. There is destructive love, crazy love,  lost love, traditional, innocent and pure love.

And then there is safe love. Love of the cautionary kind.

What is it about love that it is able to exist with universal understanding while maintaining so many facets simultaneously? Despite the method of love, one thing can be agreed and rarely argued: that when love is there, regardless of the style, it holds within it the weight of the world. Perhaps this is why after experiencing enough heartbreaks, cautionary love is born.

Cautionary/safe love is tough to criticize. Afterall, it uses rational thought, logic, and objectiveness to come to its conclusions. Thus, the scientist. But even scientists practiced alchemy. One must wonder what love can be if it is completely mapped out and orchestrated with a detailed agenda. Furthermore, how can we predict the future? Would we want to? Is our need for control and certainty worth potentially sacrificing a happiness that, having never experienced it, we were unable to anticipate during our calculations of what a proper love should be in this life?

No risk, no reward. No guts, no glory. It has been said that outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens. Love in and of itself is a magical world of mystery and emotion. A sparkling carnival of unknowns. It is all left to the imagination. But when fear reigns, where can these fantasies take us? Our emotions influence our fate. Love has the power to destroy us or save us, and that is a frightening thing. One must ask oneself if they feel the gamble is worth it.

For myself, if I had a million dollars to put on a one-shot spin on the roulette of love, I would take it. Perhaps that is because I know what I have to give, and I believe there are others like me. And if they are willing to place the same bet on me, how could I live my life wondering what would have happened had I not took a chance on them. Gambling is dangerous, and jackpots are few. But when the jackpot is true happiness for the rest of our short days in this life, how could I turn my back on that? The alternative is to spend the remainder of my days in regret and in imitation of something I wanted that I will never achieve.

So perhaps Bertrand was right.

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness." ~ Bertrand Russell

Talkin' 'bout My Generation

What the hell do people want anymore? In this day and age, it seems the search is worth more than the discovery. Everyone is always looking over another's shoulder to see if they can find just a little bit more. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Where are we going? In a time where it seems satisfaction is unattainable, and contentment is a dread, one must wonder what lies ahead for future generations. Through the advancement of technology and the birth of the age of the internet, so much of the mysteries of life have been revealed and discarded. Who needs to pick up a phone and call someone when you are just one click away from them on FB. I don't even have to define what "FB" means. We all know.

I had a 4 hour telephone conversation with someone this evening. Quite unbelievable, but even further, quite amazing. It's not just the initiation of the event, but one must be able to sustain conversation for that length of time. This is not so unusual when reflecting on times of the past, but in this day and age of convenience, so rarely are we able to sit and connect and "just be" with someone via this medium.

I remember a time when you used to be able to see someone, and there would be an air of mystery to them. Your imagination about said individual could wander wildly, and to even have a few words exchanged with them in person was a gift you would subsequently carry with you for weeks to come. The imagination used to soar. These days, with just a click of a button, you can have 90% of the questions you have about someone answered by examining their FB.

Have we all become a shallow electronic puddle by which we are all fishing from? I paused, rubbed my eyes slowly and deeply, and released a sigh after having typed that sentence. If we are indeed in that puddle, and if we choose to fish in it, do we become electric, then? "Are friends electric?" These are the times we are living in. Through the electric pool we are able to invest less, close doors (windows), and delete our emotions. The online community vs. the community of brother and sisterhood are two very differing realms, and the latter is fading fast.

Some say history repeats itself. In that case, there will eventually be a degeneration that leads us back to square 1 in terms of the way we connect and bond with our fellow beings. I can only hope and wish that by the time that occurs, my generation will be able to remember a time before (and very early during) their own...

...when people communicated without the vice of devices.

Are You Ready?

Happy New Year. And so it goes. Another year. Days and days will pass yet once again filled with all of our heart's desires. I hope this year proves satisfying for you all.

Today is a new day. A day of renewal. A day to revive lost faiths. A day to turn our heads to wounds of the past. It is a new year.

Nothing is of waste if we have managed to extract some sort of knowledge from it. The good, the bad, the ugly: everything comes bearing gifts.

Let this be your year to stand strong. To be whom you were intended to be. Be cautious. Know your value. Be discriminatory. You are the only YOU. If the people in your life do not see your value, then move along. Paulo Coelho said it best when he wrote, "Eat when it’s time to eat. And move along when it’s time to move along."

Recognize those that love you. Give them your love and your time.

Protect the hearts of those that are near to you.


Beware the joker.

Be kind and gentle to your fellow man.

Know that we all suffer in unity, yet we all are unique in our struggles.

Be patient.

Be kind.

Be honest.

Give love.

Or be the void, but be it quick--

anyone will understand your need to disappear as long as you don't try to deceive.

Goodbye, 2012.

Goodnight, my loves.

Who Can You Trust?

And so one must ask oneself---who can you trust? Can one even trust themselves? Can one answer that question honestly and have its answer stand up against the validity of the future? Does one ever know what may come one's way?

Perhaps these are variables that we cannot predict. But are we able to predict the behaviours of ourselves? I wonder.

Lately I have been reflecting on what it means to be a good person. How can one define this when we are all using a separate standard of measurement based on our own imprinting and experiences? When there is no universal code to go by...how does one summarize their existence and it's benevolence?

I feel so very few people reflect upon their behaviours and the effects they have on others. So many are so unaware. Unaware, or simply indifferent. I examine myself. I am weighted down by the unhappiness in myself that I am not able to give more, understand more, feel more.

Is it really so? Is it so that we exist in motivation solely for our own gratification--that ultimately it is our own desires being satisfied that determine our kindness and loving for another? Oh, say it ain't so.

But this is a truth that I fear.

Somewhere, what lies beneath us...we seek for only our happiness. Often we disillusion ourselves that if others can make us happy, then we are happy. We deceive ourselves that if we are happy, then others will be too. I am conflicted.

Often times I have been told that I do not care enough about myself. I am sure everyone has heard this in their time. But I feel I do. I know I am not a saviour, but often times I become consumed with people that I feel need the experience of my existence in their lives...that I need to help them unlock doors that otherwise will forever remain closed.

Is this ego? And if so, why do I physically feel the desire of this action stemming from a sensation in my heart? Why do I become overwhelmed and completely consumed with seeing a larger picture? Why do I feel that my motives are pure? Can I trust myself? Who can you trust?

I do not know the identity of the world we live in. I do not know how one is supposed to live, feel, what one is supposed to learn or seek. But I am relentlessly pained and feel the pangs of wanting to become more altruistic and make the world a better place. Why is such a good intention accompanied by so much pain and suffering?

I fear more than anything living a life doomed to superficiality, vacancy, selfishness, ego, pride, deception, and without empathy for my fellow man. And yet I find myself magnetically drawn to individuals whom live their lives just as that.

I can see it from far away. I know I am not a saviour, but it is my own saviour that I aspire to be. And somewhere inside of me, I feel that these individuals need me in their lives.

I have never lived on the surface. But perhaps there is nothing wrong with doing that.

One thing I do know, is that hell is below...and I have spent most of my life in that depth. What I don't understand is how my heart has always soared to great heights despite that.

So. Again, I wonder. Who can you trust? Can I even trust in myself?

"I cry out to no reply
and I can't feel you by my side
so I'll hold tight to what I know:
You're here...and I'm never alone."
B.G.

The Words

She hides the words

She keeps them sloppily yet safely crammed

in an old, beaten up suitcase.

She keeps them for

some reason.

What to do with the words?

To render them useless is to

bury them alive

to give them a torturous death,

to dry the blood of the heart.

What to do with the words?

Let them out?

Free them from captivity?

Let them dance off her tongue

and into his ears,

and risk once again the 

slaughter of her very own heart?

What to do with the words,

what to do with the words,

what to do with the words?

She knows these words will not fit him.

They are too large in size,

and she would be ridiculous to believe he

might 'grow into' them.

But perhaps if ever one day,

the cruel world leaves him alone and cold,

she can cloak these words over him-

over-sized, loving and warm,

wrapping him with all the words

she has secretly struggled for so long

never to share.

And when she does,

she will have to speak nothing.

He will feel them and he will know.

Her love, he will certainly know.

Oh, how deeply she has missed him...

All of us together, All of us alone.

Sometimes it feels like we're all just aimlessly shooting around life wounding one another. Like we're playing razor blade bumper cars with one another's feelings. The unfortunate thing is that for those that are unable to avoid the collisions, they become more erratic and inadvertently end up driving even more recklessly, perpetuating the problem even worse within those in their immediate paths of traffic.

Most people want very little more than to be understood and appreciated by someone. A genuine validation of their purpose and existence. What I find to be tragic about the seeming failure of such a simple human requisition is that it's as if we've reached a stalemate with each other because either no one believes that anyone is interested in the veritable contents of their true being, and/or, as a result, are emotionally repressed when they encounter someone who actually is interested. Which, of course, leaves the interested party feeling shut out or potentially rejected. Wounds are mutually inflicted, and both continue on feeling misunderstood.

To be open is to be brave. To be brave is to risk being hurt. But if we're able to choose between shooting a  gun at the virtuous and altruistic, or taking the bullet for them, I think the latter choice is the only way to ever define yourself as part of the former group. This means that we need to be brave. We need to be open. And we need to receive others, despite their considerable differences from ourselves. If we can all be decent and proper in our intentions, then we might just finally find a universal language that the human heart can understand.

Maybe.

The Great Death Game

I was 5 years old when my father came in the room, knelt down on the floor and with tears in his eyes told me and my siblings that his father had died. This was my first experience with death. I remember feeling confused about my father's sadness, and about what my grandfather's death actually meant. I was told that I was too young to attend the funeral, but my two older siblings were going to go. I don't think I ever mourned his death. I was too young to comprehend it all. I just learned to get used to his absence. 

It would be 7 years later when death made another appearance. It was a strange year in which 2 kids from my school whom I knew both died. The first died in his sleep at a young age of 13, and the second was killed in an alleged accidental gunshot wound at 14. At this time in my life, I could comprehend death a bit more, and I recall spending a lot of time in thought about the loss of futures ahead, and about the family of the deceased. I imagined what it must have been like for a mother to come in and try and wake her 13 year old son only to discover he was dead. I pondered over the mystery of the gunshot wound death.

3 years after that, death returned again once more. In a bizarre chain of events, my cousin and my father's then girlfriend were in a high speed head-on collision with one another on an old country highway. My cousin would survive, but my father's girlfriend died. In even stranger circumstance, this happened on my brother's birthday. The odds of a person being involved in a head-on collision in traffic are one thing, but the odds of being in a head-on collision with someone else that you actually know? It was so peculiar. My brother's birthday would forever be somewhat tainted with the sadness of the events of that day. While my father would surely want to celebrate the birth of his oldest son, his heart would always be marked with the loss of a woman he loved.

2 years later, I would be awakened by my mother telling me that I had an important phone call from back east. I took the call and it was my best friend telling me that one of our great friends whom we had known all our lives had taken his own life in the night. He shot himself in the head. He had just graduated high school and had enrolled in college courses. I remember wondering why he even suffered through high school if he was just going to kill himself a couple of months after graduating. I always took a lot of photos (still do), and after his death I remember looking at the photos. I also used to use a video camera and film my friends when were hanging out. I reviewed the photos and the films, and suddenly it seemed so clear to me. It was as if it was so obvious our friend was not happy.

2 years after that came the overdoses. These deaths would continue for years and years to come, and were many. There was something about death that had perplexed me. I could not distance myself from it, it seemed.

I then lost both of my grandmothers and an aunt. Then my sister lost a man she once loved, who was also a friend of mine.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that I wanted to become a mortician. I felt that I had a lot of experience with death, and I wanted to be able to help people during the most devastating time of their lives. I wanted to be able to try and quell some of their anxieties and suffering. Eventually, the human funeral, corpses, and grieving families became a part of my Monday through Friday routine. Though it could be incredibly stressful, I felt good inside knowing that I was doing something for others that few actually could.

Then I moved to Sweden. Death and I once parted from each other again. Until this year.

I lost a beautiful friend in May. Sara. She was 40 years old.

Then Yancey died. He left behind 2 children as well as my 2 nephews.

And today, I was told someone very special in my life died. David. He was under 30.

Treasure those dear to you. Love them with all your might.

Death has made its move once more in a great game that I no longer wish to play.