what is enough

what in this life do i deserve to ask for? what is the point of too much suffering, what are the things that must remain as inifinite dreams? Its hard to justify the reasons in why we walk this earth.

5 years ago, i would've never believed anyone if they explained the life that was going to happen to me. I sit here confused and tired, dealing with this world, with these cirumstances, trying to mediate the extreme from the impossible, into a clean single point. For the past couple of years, I have been set to witness the suffering presented as my parents lose their pride, their life savings, and there health. Its quite impossible to believe the fall of my parents faith in this world. And for all of the cancer research, I am capable of doing, I sit here talking to my mother, trying to cheer her up, b/c the tone of voice is just breaking my insides apart. One of those few moments where the world smacks you in the face and tells you that you older. Listening to your mother, in that tone of voice, where it seems she's looking straight at the grim reaper. The real soft tender tone that knows deep down inside, that something is really wrong, and that the time left in this life is running down. She wants you to not worry about her and concentrate on the things that would make us all proud to be alive, but as you sit there listening to those words. Don't worry, everything is going to be alright. I'm going to be fine, I promise. ......

but we both know that she is lying. she knows that I can hear her back being broken, her fight against the world, her hope. Standing here, 8000 miles away from my family, feeling the hope escaping, is a quiet and lonesome pain. This feeling only becomes real when it is happening to your own family. I've seen this heartbreak hundreds of times before, I know all the stages and frowns associated with this state of mind, this state of being, but I never quite understood it like this. And all of sudden, all of the things you promised your parents are things that might never make it the reality of her world. I've always thought that I would have more time, but as the story unfolds, I never really had a chance at succeeding for the them in this world.

I am trying to cure cancer, but I have to watch my mother go through an unknowing diagnosis of korean medicine and korean doctors. Knowing myself, that the best treatment is where I am sitting, but yet again thinking that I have no power of dealing with the reality of the 8000 miles away from me. This is my life goal, but i still cant do shit. Thats a tough feeling to swallow.

Everyone tells me that this goal is a long term goal and it is imposible to think that you would've been guaranteed time with your own family. Life is not fair. One of the most honest statements in my head.

Is it real that a zen preist came up to me blessing me after my grandfather passed away? After reading the kanji tattoos off my back

Is it real that I still have a clear view of the hospital room of where my grandmother died from cancer?

Is it real that I drive fourteen thousand miles around this country only to end up in the only place where I thought I could never be?

Is it real to find my sister having precancer when I was looking for that moment to inspire the rest of the my life and abilities? Is it real that the cancer instititute called me the moment after putting my sister into the er?

Is it real that a tumor can appear and disapper in my mom's throat? Is stress and shame the reason why her body is dissappearing?

Is it real that I can sit here going to vip events around the world while my parents are worried about being able to live in a home? How can I be thinking about the largest grossing korean movie in history, million dollar funds to north koreans, while I cant even help my own parents?

I've never thought anyone could live a sustained life of poor and rich at the same time.

Am I judged on my current paycheck? Is that the korean way?

how can happy and sad be so close together?

am i just tired?

am i just crazy?

who really knows

but if i care i will lose

do what i can, with what I have, while I can
there is nothing more that can be asked of me
everything else is just sugar

uncertainty has never been greater in my life, but yet my resolve and confidence in my purpose has never been more sure. Are those two aspects of life direct opposites of each other?

must life be difficult to be fulfilling?

how do you stop thought streams? I need a pause button for my mind and a translator for anyone watching...

will i die crazy or as a genius.. there is no other option..

travel

This has been a cold winter, and spring still feels so far away. All a repetitive motion, a lack of emotion, a lack of inspiration, everything feels so faded. I dont really understand why but I know everything moves in circles. I have always made a concerted effort to travel and leave my current home as often as I can afford to. I am not running away from the everyday, I am trying to stay motivated about facing everyday.

these days are dark and the nights are cold
people acting like they lost their soul
and everywhere i go i see another person like me trying to make it
it'll feel like home

at times like these you start thinking
the first breath in
and the clock starts ticking
i'm not trying to bum anyone out
not trying to be dramatic
just thinking about
i'm just trying to make some sense of my mind
some defense from the cold that i'm feeling inside
and for minute
escape from the gray one moment at a time

i know it doesnt make sense and i dont expect you to know what its like
who the fuck really cares when your so far left that death looks right


lost soul search over and over again



these days are dark and the nights are cold
people acting like they lost their soul
and everybody is trying not to cry
trying to get by
trying not to feel out of control
and if you look hard enough
sometimes you'll find
someplace that might remind you of home
and if it doesnt feel like home
you can do what i do
just pretend you dont feel so alone

-- fort minor

friendship

There has always been one main criteria in determining a personality to be fit as a friend. I must believe with every ounce of my own being that this person standing next to me is a good person through every extension of their own personality. It does not mean that the person needs to be physically beautiful, metaphyiscally gifted, or even remotely intelligent. It means that I need to believe that this person desires and needs to see a world as a happy or as beautiful as I strive to find with my own eyes. It means that this person is willing to suffer for the dream that they seek.

Since beauty is defined by the beholder, my eyes help me feel a persons dreams and weaknesses. I see people in terms of feelings and understanding rather than superficial and naive projections. I am slow in trusting, and I am slow to love, because I rarely hold back when I have made a decision. As a condition of friendship, I am willing to suffer with and for my friends to help them acheive their own dreams and moments of perfection. I will help and hold myself accountable for future possible outcomes of our lives.

I know that I alone can not save this world, or do I let delude myself into being stronger than I really am. But I have an innate desire to see a world better than today. I can only move on with a belief in progression. I can not always fight the evils of this world, I know now that I must pick and choose the battles which I decide to fight. And then friendship becomes a perfect relative measure in choosing battles. I consider it a good day when I can make at least one friend smile. It is the first step in making that perfect world.

harder than death

A feeling of uneasiness has overcome a once recharged soul. The burdens of reality, the realization that life will always be suffering, regardless of your momentary fortune, is reminding me now. The point is to be able to fall down seven times and get up the eighth time.

The internal feeling of guilt,

a feeling of selfishness,

a constant process of analyzing my present and past choices.

Is hindsight perfect?

Is the perception of my own past a true reflection of who I have created in myself.

Are the Chinese right? Is Freud right?

That there are no coincidences, b/c it takes hundreds of lifetimes of karma for friendships to be created.

And it takes thousands of lifetimes of karma for two people to share a pillow?

Are there no choices?

Is everything predestined?

There are bigger things in this world, than these singular chaotic moments. Momentary happiness and momentary sadness are easy to deal with today. The questions that weigh down my mind are the emotions that shade a lifetime. Pain will always dissipate in our memories. And happiness will increase with the smiles of the present. Is the present a present from something bigger than us, the world, God?

I seem like a child having a hard time contemplating the vastness and possibilities of the world. I have no idea how I came to be here at the present moment and I know I will have no idea how tomorrow will reveal itself.

I do believe that things happen for a reason. I do believe that there is something bigger than me guiding my actions. Whether I realize it or not, something is helping me believe.

And the reason why this force is helping me is because I so desperately need to believe in it. I am nothing without this life force, this god, the idea, the emotional and logical nature of my mind are constantly battling each other for the answer to the question that I have not even yet asked.

Because I believe, it is necessary, and therefore it exists.

Smiles beget smiles, and misery begets further misery.

We all need to realize that there are bigger things in this world that do not work on the ever changing human scale of good and evil.

Happiness and pain are the same thing only with the only difference being time. Karma does come back to you. Gypsies believed that deeds are returned three times over. Hindus believe in reincarnation, and the actions of today will determine your next life. Even Muhammad Ali believed that the good deeds are the rent that you pay for living on this Earth.

Dying for a cause, a person, something I love is no longer hard. It is a purpose bigger than myself, and I have always felt comfortable giving up my life for something more important than me. Some may call it a martyr complex, I call it my view of helping this world become a more beautiful place. Dying for something more beautiful and more important than my own life is easy.

It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.

- Julius Caesar

What I realize now, is that the difficult part of this life, is not in the contemplation of my own death. Death will happen in an instant. Life is much longer in comparison and thus more grueling and more testing of your own will. The way that you live your life is what will define you in the end, the kind of death we will all face is just another chapter.

Living pain with patience is the true test of your will. It will define the reason for your own existence. It will determine how much wisdom you will acquire in this lifetime. The pain will change over time into wisdom, if you are able to last that long. And until you realize what you have in this world, each moment of pain will only get harder and eventually you will reach your own breaking point.

The point where you give up your dreams,

The point at which the fire in your eyes dies.

let it ride

@cielo watching lisa shaw....
blue lights, beautiful faces, beautiful music.
Beautiful ideas flowing inside a designed moment.

so clearly...

so clear to me...

took so long, to find out.
all the things that happened all around you.
thought you could see, even though it was clear to me.
tomorrow is a new day, free from all the things you didnt say.
better things coming, learn to let it go sometimes.

hope for you see, you want to put it all behind you.
missing something, searching for the strength indside.
finding a new way, i am here to show you my way.
better things coming, so learn to let it go sometimes.

when it all comes down, let it ride,
when it all comes down, let it ride,
when it all comes down, let it ride,
when it all comes down, let it ride,

hope for you see, you want to put it all behind you,
missing something, searching for the strength indside.
finding a new way, i'm here to show you my way.
better things coming, so learn to let it go sometimes.

when it all comes down, let it ride,
when it all comes down, let it ride,
when it all comes down, let it ride,
when it all comes down, let it ride,

so clear....

so clear....

It becomes a habit where every ideal needs to be personified to become real in my mind. It helps the moment become more distinctive and more creative. It is one of the few ways in which a memory can be seeded to blossom into something greater than what was experienced. There is warmth in beauty in moments, if you allow yourself to experience them. And the way you thought you smiled when you experienced that moment is the veil and overall character of that memory, regardless if you acutally smiled or not.

Bishop Connop Thirlwall, once said, "In our personal lives we eagerly pursue objects which prove worthless; but we also dread changes which fulfill our most ardent wishes.” Only when something becomes part of the past, can we become disembedded enough to understand if a wish was selfish or rewarding. The point is that we will never know exactly what we want, we can only want the image or idea of that dream, we can never truely judge if the possibility can bring us closer to our dreams.

Freudian dream analysis is noted in dreams meaning the opposite of what they represent in reality. Can we then become closer to living our dreams by doing the opposite of what we think we should be doing?

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
-- Scott Adams ---

brief history of irony

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."
--- Mark Twain

The best definition of irony is by Edwin Whipple who said: "Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment." It is the art of saying two things without saying anything at all. Some philosophers such as Demosthenes even deemed the ironist as an even less respectable liar: he understated his own powers specifically for the purpose of escaping responsibility. And even in the ancient days they used a fox to represent irony.

However, the original model of irony did stem from Socrates. The first perspective on irony assumed the role of an ignorant man lost in wonder at the wisdom of others. The beauty in the perspective is how Socrates was remembered. An earl of Shaftesbury described Socrates as, "a perfect character; yet... veiled, and in a cloud... chiefly by reason of a certain exquisite and refined raillery which belonged to his manner, and by virtue of which he could treat the highest subjects, and those of commonest capacity... together,... both the heroic and the simple, the tragic and the comic.” He was known as a man who could talk to anyone from any walk of life; below or above on any existent social ladder.

Aristotle said in the Ethics, “the boaster is a man who pretends to have creditable qualities that he does not possess, while conversely the self-depreciator disclaims or disparages good qualities that he does possess. Midway between them is the straight forward sort of man.” Of the two evils defined, he preferred irony because it was less flashy. He even went on so much to say that irony was "gentlemanly."

People have also described Shakespeare to have been an ironist. He was the first author to introduce self-deception and hypocrisy and assumed all intelligent people were relativists.

This notion seems to havebeen behind Norman Brown's “law of irony” by whichit could be shown that the “partially disclaimedthought is Swift's own thought”


Randolph Bourne believed that since the ironist does not absolutely reject any experience but is constantly contrasting and criticizing and moving on to new experiences, he has an “intense feeling of aliveness” and“the broad honest sympathy of democracy”

Freud asserted that irony as saying the opposite of what one means parallels the dream, which “delights in representing a pair of opposites by means of one and the same composite image” or “changes an element from the dream-thoughts into its opposite.”

But perhaps my favorite rationale is:

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."
-- Henry David Thoreau

Is it ironic when the point of your life becomes the dream you've always wanted? Does the dream die? or does life become that dream?