Now I'm sitting on the bus, thinking of yesterday rather than today because future is uncertain and I would like it to stay uncertain so I can open a curtain and unleash the beauty which will become the past.

I wrote this while on a bus, meeting up with the girl I liked.

-Ray Bradbury

This quote is important to me because I personally use writing as an outlet for when life gets too hard or stressful or even too boring. It allows me to escape into a world of my own creation in my time of need. I think it's important for everyone to have some kind of world to escape into, some kind of happy place. Desite the light of life, the real world can easily became an endless repetitive circle of work, school, and misery just by its very nature. Being forced to stay in that state of mind, being forced to constantly focus on and relive all your problems, that's enough to destroy a person.

Some say that people that spend a lot of time in their heads are crazy.

I say, the truly insane people are the ones who don't.

“A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl.”

~Steven Hoeller

Link for the story I wrote to accompany it here:

https://theprose.com/post/310871/story-for-a-challenge-but-too-long

The actual quote is "All perception is gamble" Robert Anton Wilson was summerizing the work of phenomenologist Edmund Husserl.

I come back to this quote often. It says something about our ability to both construct our own reality and the responsibility we have to each other when creating that reality.

Every perception you accept as a truth becomes a brick in the foundation of your consciousness. Every time you agree to the color "Red" or the definition of "solitude" you are building the framework of your future perception. Literally creating the scaffolding of your understanding of reality.

Each time you are presented with new information it is those previous perceptions that you have gambled on that you base your judgement of these new facts, this new stimulus.

Thus every time you accept a truth you a paving the way for your next perception.

You also bear that cultural responsibility for validating a "truth". Sartre said every time you make a decision you must be making that decision as an example for what you think all people should do.

This is why I also am very fond of the expression "kill the Buddha." The Buddha said don't just accept my teachings as truth, dig in, chew them up, dissect them, rip my words to shreds. If you find them faulty come back and tell me how. Let's talk about it.

You have to decide for yourself what is truth. Read the masters. Study their lives and words. Absorb it all and come to your own conclusions. And compassion should be your guide.

As Regina Spektor once said:

No, this is how it works

You peer inside yourself

You take the things you like

And try to love the things you took

And then you take that love you made

And stick it into some

Someone else's heart

Pumping someone else's blood

And walking arm in arm

You hope it don't get harmed

But even if it does

You'll just do it all again

okay, end digressional coffee rant. Thank you.

“Know, each of us has the profound ability to create change. Words are powerful tools when used correctly.” -Erin Sleeper

This is something I said in so few words, something that I feel is important for everyone to know. That our words are so incredibly powerful, especially when we use them properly. We can create change in our world with one simple word and that is incredible to me.

○ Originally this quote is a chinese proverb ○

°In essence the proverb is meant to be indicative of a persons response to untruth. Though the man is fed lies about how many dumplings he has eaten and thought to be fooled based on his physical infirmity, he still knows the truth of the matter, but he says nothing. °

°Wise to the idea that arguing with a liar is a fruitless toil, the man retains his honor and is capable of navigating his situation without the misleading altering of the truth effecting the outcome. °

This proverb is important to me as it is an external illustration of my approach to being lied to that I have come about naturally. An approach that I did not know to be considered the honorable way to do things; particularly in chinese culture historically.

Put simply, I have always taken note of falsehood within someones dealings with me and rather than ruffle feathers and call them out I simply take the bullshit. Rather than being called out the acceptance of the lie comes with the consequential adjustments to my veiw of that person. Ultimately my subsiquent choices in actions in dealings with that induvidual are where the affects occur, and I retain a less open way about myself. I become less willing to put myself out there for that person, in a type of gloves on, arms-length approach.

Ill never hold trust for them or really take them seriously when things come down to it, but they may never even know they didnt fool me or the things lost to denying truth.

“How long should you try? Until.” Jim Rohn

Every month for the last two years, I send my son a “Personalized Action Plan” (PAP). He created the idea when establishing the blog and weekly newsletter he co-authors with his best friend. What is the PAP? Basically, a way to keep yourself accountable. I’m not sure anyone else to whom he suggested the PAP is still doing it; but I am. It’s my goals for the month. Ultimately, the monthly goals are the building blocks leading to long term goals…perhaps. Or, maybe, they simply lead to physical, mental and spiritual well-being. According to Jordan Peterson: “It isn’t precisely attaining the aim that makes us happy as we all know if we’ve ever attained anything because as soon as we attain it then the whole little game ends and we have to come up with another game…Human beings are weird creatures because we’re much more activated by having an aim and moving towards it than attainment.”

So, I keep moving towards my goals; perhaps I will achieve them. Even if I do not, I will enjoy the journey.

″...and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”

It felt cliché to use the words of others as conduits for my own emotions, but somehow Tolkien managed to convey what I felt at that moment with hardly any effort at all. It was an innocent enough line in an innocent enough scene; perhaps it wasn’t even intended to strike readers as particularly consequential. But damn it if I didn’t feel that distinct, hollow pang in my chest when I first read it; that ache like the ghost of a bruise behind my ribs. It was reminiscent of a diagnosis, the way it simplified things. To have words for a feeling, even if they were exaggerated and taken out of context from a story about magic and dwarves, was simultaneously soothing and foreboding. It gave a name to that inherent subconscious desire to do something great—something different—in spite of inhibitions, fears, and an utter lack of spontaneity or personality.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking part is that, much like wizards and magic rings and good overcoming evil, embarking on uncharacteristically grand adventures is a concept that might only exist in fairytales.

Maybe you reconise this as a Dumbledore quote, but of course, it’s not. No matter how much we wish he was real (and still alive) he is just a fictional charecter. We need to thank Joane Murray, AKA, J.K. Rowling (Yes, Murray, she got married) for reminding us all that there’s always light in the darkness- as long as we remember to turn it on.

Now, the quote. The reason I really like it is because we all face our anger, fear and jealousy. We all face ambition and temptation. We all do bad things.

That’s okay, as long as we never abandon the goodness inside of us, and as long as we try to do the right thing.

As long as we come back to goodness after we do things wrong, we’ll stay good people.

The religous meaning is to merely ask for forgiveness.

I would spend more time on that, but Joanne never did get religous.