When There's Nothing Left to Burn ...

... You Must Set Yourself On Fire.

I've become obsessed with this song from the band Stars. It's called "Your Ex-Lover is Dead." It combines a myriad of instruments, which always makes me fall in love with a song. Always. They're introduced gradually, too, and there are lots of crescendos and decrescendos. It brings out my inner band geek.

Anyway, the song makes feel all kinds of -- melancholy. With twinges of something else. There may be a glimmer of happiness in there, for some strange reason or another, but generally, the tone of the song is one of longing, regret, and over-all sadness. I can't help it!: no matter how happy I am, I always love sad music. It reaches me on a different, deeper plane than any happy song ever could. I think it may be because sadness is one of life's ultimate equalizer. Not everyone becomes happy for the same reason; some people may find happiness when buying something, others when driving a fast sports car, while others find it in the company of others. Sadness, however, everyone feels, and for many of the same reasons. Losing love, death, falling out of touch with a friend, separation, and so on. Perhaps that's why I can't help but gravitate towards sad music. More than that, sad music that makes me think. Oh, what an intoxicating combination for me. Play a Death Cab For Cutie song, and you had me at "Love of mine ..."

God, that was strange to see you again.
Introduced by a friend of a friend,
Smiled and said, "Yes, I think we've met before."
In that instant, it started to pour.

Sometimes I wonder about the people who come into my life. Into everyone's lives. There's that very cheesy saying of how some people come in for a reason or a season, something something something. But I suppose that underneath all of that "Hallmark Fluff," there's some truth to it.

I try to stay in the present moment. I try very hard to do that. But sometimes, I get lost in my thoughts. It's a bad habit, but I like finding sanctuary there. It's like coming home after a long trip away and plopping down in your most favorite chair. You know you won't have the energy to get up and unpack your belongings, but it just feels so good to relax a moment. That's how it gets when I start thinking. I know that it will hinder me from doing other things, but sometimes, I just have to process the hodge podge of thoughts that are scattered about my cranial space. It's the only way I'll survive to the next day.

But anyway, despite my attempt at honest Buddhism and staying ever present in the moment, I think about the people in my life. I wonder who's going to be here for years, who's going to be here for days, for months, perhaps always. I wonder what purpose each person has in my life -- and truly, they all have some kind of purpose. Whether it's a friend who makes me smile at exactly the right moment, or someone who redeems my faith in others, or someone who shows me kinds of love that I've not yet known or understood or thought existed, they all have a purpose. Perhaps this is a selfish way of thinking, that everyone has a reason in my life. But how else can I relate things if not to myself?

Captured a taxi despite all the rain.
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain.
And all of the time you thought I was sad;
I was trying to remember your name.

I think about the people who've come and gone out of my daily life. I had to let go of some unwillingly. Others left when it was their time to leave. Some were in between. I wonder what it would be like to run into some of these people again, especially the ones who left some kind of imprint on me -- whether good or bad. I wonder how I would handle a run-in situation, how my compassion and love would hold up against, say, someone who hurt me in the past. I wonder if I would be reminded of distant memories that have been only collecting dust in the archives of my mind. I wonder if I would remember that person's story. Or if I would recognize him/her at all.

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin.
Tried to reach deep, but you couldn't get in.
Now you're outside me, you see all the beauty,
Repent all your sin.

Not surprisingly, I think about the last person I gave my heart to. I think about the last person I trusted so fully -- perhaps too fully -- who crushed whatever hope I may have had. I harbored a lot of anger and a lot of resentment for a very long time. Seven years, in fact. The anger and resentment would start off the emotional playlist, until I eventually wound up feeling worthless, wondering what I could have done to have made him stay or made him change his mind. Anything.

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose.
I chose to feel it, and you couldn't choose.
I'll write you a postcard,
I'll send you the news
From a house down the road from real love.

But then I realize -- he lived out his purpose in my life. He brought many good things to me, and I'll keep many of those fond memories with me as I go through life. He brought bad things to me, as well, but I've come to see them in a positive light. He hurt me, but I learned how to heal. I learned how to stand on my own two feet, to figure out who I am before attempting to give myself to another. I learned what I wanted in someone else and what I most definitely didn't want. I suppose he ended up giving me more good things than I realized, though it took me a long time to come to that realization.

And, without all of these things and all of this growth that he inadvertently made happen, I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be as happy as I am today, relationship-wise. I don't think I would have ever been open to a relationship had it not been for the pain that I had to wade through years ago. I wouldn't be able to appreciate all of the wonderful things about who I'm with now if I hadn't lamented over all of the bad things about the other. Because of that sadness, I fully understand and am grateful for every second of happiness that I have now in my relationship. It is a rare day that I do not wake up and immediately thank the Universe for all that I am blessed with -- for who I am, for who I am with, for who he makes me, every day. I don't think I would be able to understand all of this if I had no frame of pained reference.

Live through this, and you won't look back.
Live through this, and you won't look back.
Live through this, and you won't look back.

I guess the whole point of it all is that we don't know why people are in our lives. We don't know if they'll bring us immense joy or immense sadness. We don't know if we will have to let them go. We don't know if we will even remember them at all in years to come. All we can do is be thankful that we can experience them, that we can know them. We can experience people in ways that animals can't. We must relish every second that we have with another person, whether good or bad, for what else is life but a string of a few, scattered, important moments? We can choose to be angry. We can choose to be sad. But in the end, it doesn't really matter.

In the end, all you can do is love. All you can do is let go.

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave:
You were what I wanted,
I gave what I gave.
I'm not sorry I met you,
I'm not sorry it's over,
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save,
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save.

- May (you love, unconditionally).

Bolded sections are lyrics to the song, "Your Ex-Lover is Dead," by Stars.

Brainwashing.

My brain is dead, after having written about 10 pages about the links between democracy and the media. I feel like I ended up going on a rant towards the end, about how the media is more or less making us all mindless, gray blobs. No one questions things. No one asks "why?" or "how?" anymore. People take things as fact, at face value, and are too lazy (and/or too apathetic) to do any more research.

I was watching videos about Shirley Phelps-Roper. I'm pretty sure I've talked about her before. But in case you don't know who she is, she's this insane, insane woman who is a part of the Westboro Baptist Church. The Church has about 100 members, mostly made up of her family. They protest and picket the funeral marches of soldiers who are killed in Iraq. They carry signs that say, "God Hates Fags" and "God Loves Dead Soldiers." They promote hatred and malice under God's name. They say that we sin by accepting homosexuality, and that's why people are killed. She believes that the young Amish girls who were shot to death last summer deserved to die -- not because they did anything wrong, necessarily, but because of Adam's Original Sin. And yet, she and her family are untouchable, because they're spreading this message and "enlightening" the world.

The liberal in me says that everyone is allowed to have his/her own opinion. And I believe that, though I don't agree with many of them. But there is such an extreme amount of variance in the human race that to say that everyone should think the same way is ridiculous. The Buddhist in me says to detach myself from what she says and to disassociate myself from such negative energy. The human in me becomes angry every time I hear her talk in such a way. It's a weird threeway tug-of-war that goes on inside of me at listening to this manic woman.

And then it makes me turn inward. What sort of things do I promote, and do I promote anything to such extreme levels? I examine myself and my life and my message. I can't imagine I've ever promoted hatred of any kind - and if I ever have, my Universe, I am sorry for it. I like to think that I would never intentionally do such a thing. And all of this introspection reminds me that I must live a life for love. For peace. For happiness. For energy. For balance. For myself. For others.

I try to channel the positive forces within me that tell me stay true to my Lo(ve)-Fi and Om tattoos. Receive love from other people (and do not be afraid of it) and send the signal back out, stronger. Even when forces against me are trying to steal it away. Stay balanced and in tune with myself and the rest of the Universe. Turn negatives into positives.

Be happy.

If I could somehow get this tattooed on my body, I would. The following excerpt, from Carl Sagan (1994), is one of my all-time favorites. It is based upon the picture below, a picture of earth taken from the edge of our galaxy.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

- May (you never be afraid of what's inside).

Renewal.

There's something that the very wise and very profound Jason Mraz said in a blog post a while back. He said something about how you have to look through the eyes of a hypothetical tourist - always seeing something as though it's for the first time. It keeps life interesting and keeps you in gratitude for being where you are at that particular moment in time. It keeps you IN that particular moment in time, period. Things look new. Things are exciting. Things are worthy of attention. There's no skimming through a town, letting the scenery around you blur into an obscure oblivion. You are there, and no where else.

It was such a simple, yet powerful suggestion for me. I've kept it in the back of my mind since I read it however many months ago. But it wasn't until recently that I started trying to put it into practice.

Every time I come home, I try to notice something different about my house, or my street, or my neighborhood. At least one thing, every time. Some of the thoughts I've had over the past few days have been the way the hedges by the kitchen window never really grow in quite right, or the hole that still remains from when my first dog, Freckles, ripped the soil out of the ground (I was about three at the time), or the little web a spider made on the lamp post by the driveway, or the way the houses around me have changed and morphed over time. And I try to make them insignificant things -- the types of things I would be looking for if I were in an alien place.

I've been trying to do it at work, too. I noticed the clicking of the doors as they open and close, the particular smell of computers and ipods and air conditioning that I remember from when I walked in for my first day back in September, the sound my Converse no-lace-ups make on the hardwood floor, the beeping of locker combinations and restricted-access rooms' key pads, sounds of laughter and of frustration, the random pictures that are scattered around.

Jason Mraz was onto something when he suggested this. Not only am I ever mindful in every moment that comes my way, I am grateful for every single one of them. Even the frustrating ones. Even the ones where my brain fizzles, and I swear I am on my last bit of hope for the human race. I am still grateful because I am still here. I am breathing. I can smile and I can love and I can laugh and I can hug.

I am alive.

Are you?

- May (you not only walk a mile in a stranger's shoes, but live a lifetime through his eyes).