Which way

Alice came to a fork in the road.  
"Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Bright eyes

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am 
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up 
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you 
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery

Light

Light cannot be held within a hand.

It scatters.

Let your hands dance in it when it comes, and settle when it goes.

It will return; light always does.

That's why there are cracks between our fingers and in our hearts...

The cracks in the pavement where tiny flowers can poke through.

And so cracks are good.

They let that light in.

Life is like a rain shower

Life can be like a rain shower - so temperamental that it catches us off guard.  Cold. The souls of our feet are penetrated by moisture trapped within our weathered sneakers as we run through the downpour.  But running may be the only way through, unless we stick it out until it ceases or we further prepare ourselves.

And yet – life is like a rain shower.  It stimulates our senses as the cool droplets run down warm skin; racing like cars, making pathways, down a face and into a mouth...

How is it decided what becomes of us?

Is it luck of the draw -genetics?

Is it our experiences?  How we were raised? Opportunities?

Is it our own mind that decides, or things beyond our control?

And this is diversity, uniqueness.  What we are is determined by all of these things.

I think that being a representation of a particular individual identity works in our favour, but most certainly make us aliens within our own species.  For how are we to fully understand another like us when we will never think with their brain or see with their eyes?  We look to shared experiences, opinions, habits.  But sooner or later do we have to be at peace with the fact that nobody ever has the ability to know us but ourselves?

Ultimately, we are alone as a duo of brain and body.  There are many like us, but never the same.

POACHED

I love that poached eggs are the new fried...

My favourite things #2

Wine.
How I love it.
I had the pleasure of attending a degustation dinner at Mosman's, run by one of my favourite wineries, Leeuwin Estate.  Of course the Art Series range is to die for...

Try the Chardonay (2008).

And what could pair more perfectly with wine?

Wine glasses...

I am a sucker for them, or glassware of any kind really.

Of course anyone with good wine would also need one of these babies.

I'd buy them all if I could..

Wine racks...

We live on.

For this is what we do.  Put one foot forward and then the other.  Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more.  Think.  Act.  Feel.  And our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world.

For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on

Razor blade hearts

We both understand, but dark grey clouds create heavy fog in your ignorant mind.
I believe that we humans all share the same ache inside, but it is experienced differently - hence we believe our pain makes our souls tattered and unrecognisable.
I'm not sure that you have pieced this together yet however, so consumed as if you've been swallowed and sit lurking deep...somewhere.
Your arrogance and unsavoury words are propelled with force, so that they might slice at my skin if they come off the tongue fast enough.
And the thing that makes us so different is what makes us much the same, except that the brightness of it burns your eyes and blinds you.
Perhaps I should embrace it as the weapon that I'm still learning how to use.
When your doubt finally strips you of every piece of armor, it will not lighten you but only make you more vulnerable.
But until that day, see me as you will - fearful and broken with a hole in my heart.
I think the thought excites you, providing a mass of glue crafted from the hate that has sedimented, and this is what fills your heart's hole at no man's expense.
Holes mend, darkest of white; especially if you tend to them for a while.
All it takes is a little growth and thus, your glue will not hold in this foul case.

Visual pleasure

Meaning makes us human

I know I quote others far too much, perhaps its a fault of mine or as Einstein may argue, an indication that my own thought processing has become lazy.  None the less, here is a discussion between character in a favourite book of mine...

"We're having this discussion about what it is that motivates people," Scorpio George pressed on, his Canadian accent and professorial manner combining in the documentary voice-over style that most irritated his English friend. "Y'see, Freud said we're motivated by the drive for sex. Adler disagreed, and said that it was the drive for power. Then Victor Frankl, he said "sex and power were important drives, but when you can't get either one, no sex and no power-there's still something else that drives us on and keeps us goin'-"

"Yes, yes, the drive for meaning," Gemini added. "Which is really just the same thing in different words. We have a drive for power because power gives us sex, and we have a drive for meaning because that helps us to understand sex. It all comes down to sex in the end, no matter what you call it. Those other ideas, they're just the clothes, like. And when you get the clothes off, it's all about sex, innit?"

"No, you're wrong," Scorpio contradicted him. "We're all driven by a desire to find meaning in life. We have to know what it's all about. If it was just sex or power we'd still be chimpanzees.

It's _meaning that makes us human beings."

"It's sex that makes human beings, Scorpio," Gemini put in, his wicked leer working even harder, "but it's been so long, you've probably forgotten that."

A taxi pulled up beside us. The passenger in the back seat waited in a band of shadow for a moment, and then slowly leaned closer to the window. It was Ulla.

"Lin," she gasped. "I need your help."

She was wearing black-framed sunglasses, and there was a scarf tied around her head, covering her ash-blonde hair. Her face was pale and drawn and thin.

"This... has a vaguely familiar ring to it, Ulla," I replied, not moving toward the cab.

"Please. I mean it. Please, get in. I have something to tell you ... something you want to know."

I didn't move.

"Please, Lin. I know where Karla is. I will tell you, if you help me."

I turned and shook hands with the Georges. In the handshake with Scorpio, I passed over an American twenty-dollar bill. I'd taken it from my pocket when I first heard their voices, and I'd kept it ready to hand over when we parted. In their world, i knew, it was enough money-if their_nice little earner client fell through-to make them rich men for the night.

I opened the door and got into the cab. The driver pulled away into the traffic, checking me out often in his rear vision mirror.

"I don't know why you're angry with me," Ulla whined, removing her sunglasses and stealing glances at me. "Please don't be angry, Lin. Please don't be angry."

I wasn't angry. For the first time in too long, I wasn't angry.

Scorpio's right, I thought: it's meaning that makes us human.

Lubbs

I love laying in bed in silence.... not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything when we can feel it :)

Happy.

So the spelling wasn't great but you get the idea :)

See through

How many people have you looked at but actually failed to 'see'?

D-tox.

“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.” 

...Sometimes I wish I could pull apart the lobes of my brain, insert new and interesting things into the spaces and somehow put it all back together again so it can never leak out.  In saying this, I wish I could just as easily pull things out of my brain as a mind-detox mechanism, but I guess I'll either have to live with them, forget them, or be more careful before exposing myself to anything potentially 'hazardous'.

Work your way up...

There is this weird thing about 'life stages', when you can look back and reflect on a former self.  It's like you're tailoring yourself to be exactly who you wish to be and I think many are under the false impression that they adolescent or 20-something-year-old self is the end product.  This is naïve thought indeed and one which I have probably had myself.  You build those ‘future selves’, and you become one of them every day.  And there will be sure signs of this personal growth along the way.  For me its like…when being drunk seems like a waste of money and your thoughts make you temporarily high.  You meet an asshole, you realise THEY’RE an asshole, you realise YOU’RE an asshole, you fix it and then you move on.

If I have learnt one thing, it’s that I want the me tomorrow to be version 9348.1, if today I’m version 9348.0.  Who says that change has to be rapid…if it is, you might appear nuts.  So it's time to roll with it; just self improve and disregard what other people think.  All it takes is a second of confidence, some positivity and self-belief. Presto!

Beware of 'happiness haters'.

Of course you’ll have haters if you’re happy.

Someone once aimed an insult at me that went something like "you're stupid because everything inside your head is like rainbows and candy".  The thing I wanted to ask was "and so why is yours not filled with similar things?".  I will admit that at times, my overwhelming happiness may give off the impression that I’m a little coo-coo in the head, but what gives someone the right to give an ‘insult’ like that?  It really makes me pity them.  I am well aware that the world is not made of party pies, warm sunny days and ice cream with cherries on top, but is it such a crime to be optimistic and content with little (and big) things?  Positive thinking isn’t a sign that you’re crazy or have something wrong in your life that you’re trying to counteract with your mind.  But if you are, then it shows strength- well I think so anyway.

Some people have the hardest of lives; harder than I could ever imagine… although some fall victim to the idea that their life is so tedious and see the contented as demented lunatics when we are staring right back at them with the same assumptions.

I will learn the hard way - wearing your happiness on your sleeve makes you seem vulnerable to those who can't find it for themselves.  Believe me, I know that at the best of times, optimism can be challenging but I find that certain souls carry this negative ‘aura’ because they need to have something to complain about.  And these are the people that want to drag you down and make every attempt to suck the air from your lungs and the warmth from your smile.  When they don’t spawn discontent, it is all a matter of trying harder.  Of course these tactics may give them absolute success, but they are only eased until they can prey on another for their next quick fix.

I will always reach out to drowning souls, but those who drown in themselves will slowly suffocate from their own warped perceptions, malicious nature and absolute insanity.