journey

"We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." -Proust

and what if there is no epiphany....does that count? does realizing there will be no great "sense" made of it all count as an epiphany? to be honest i never really knew what I was looking for, so I can't really claim to have "found" anything. and for that matter what is found now may just be a glimpse of what I have yet to discover. what if my understanding at this very moment is not the great understanding I had hoped for but instead merely a beginning of understandings yet to come? and all of this brought on by what? This feeling I am trying to capture with words is elusive. It strikes me but when I try to hold it, to put it down to own it suddenly it is once again beyond my grasp. Mostly though its thoughts of Mom. Over 2 years ago and I have just begun to enter what could count as contemplation. The battle of grief fought, arrangements made, shock subsided and the cold realization that 2 years has both felt like an eternity and mere seconds. With the grieving past, there is now just a deep pain I feel some need to make sense of. This whole time I have been waiting to "see" my true calling, to turn this tragedy into something I could call positive by taking something from this loss. But lately it has felt more and more like hoping for an epiphany is what is dragging me down. Maybe there is no great realization other than that despite our best knowledge that life is short, brief and beyond our grasp we deny this very fact every day. Death has nothing to teach us except what we already know, but deep down resent knowing. I KNOW that at any moment life as I currently define it could end. With one phone call, a voice could deliver the news of another loss. The accidental holds a special place in the mind. We know it lurks in the recesses of every action, latent potential for tragedy. But we must pretend that this space does not have power over us. We wake and assume that the world will remain unchanged. That tragedy is a word spoken by others about their own misfortune, never a word used by us for somehow we are exempt. If we allowed the space of the accident to occupy our mind we would go mad, every ring of the phone, every step down the stairs we would anticipate the tragic, our living paralyzed by the mere thought of death. So instead we must wake up and pretend, our lives a beautiful work of fiction. Close the gaps, mind the borders, keeping the tragic out, denying the extreme fragility of this instant we call the present. And somehow we cant escape it. I guess I thought after 2 years I could live my life according to some higher calling, to locate a passion and let it burn my soul as I seized each and every moment that passed after 910 AM on December 9th 2005. Instead though my hope for sucking the marrow out of every minute afforded to me has turned into contemplating how best to seize the moment. If there is anything that is disgraceful to tragedy, it is inaction/ contemplation. The one thing that I hoped to draw from my loss was a sense of seizing the moment. Burning the instant. Running down every second of life. But now I have finally started to understand there may be no moment of instant transformation. Instead some moments Ill just have to live knowing that my contemplation is wasting fragile pieces of lived experience. Ill have to smile at the small victories. The moments where it all seems right, where it all fits together. Those moments burned deep in my memory of pure exhilaration, of pure life will need to carry me through the times when there is no clarity nor sense to any of it at all. My history will serve as the anchor which lets not the ship of absurdity take sail. Ill look back on the smiles with fondness, knowing there will be more. Theres been alot of moments that have been pure bliss, and I must not forget these. I will not let the tragedy steal from me the moments of pure life, of moments well lived. The accident may always be lurking, tragedy may await around the next corner but what it can not have is the past, the smiles, the laughter the happiness. While future memories were prevented by the accident, there were many lived moments before December 9th 2005 that can never be taken away. These moments I will forever hold and are my solace ...moms laughter igniting the room....moms goofy bedtime stories...moms home cooked breakfast...moms hug...moms understanding...moms compassion..moms unconditional acceptance...moms very humble passing-just another day like any other, heading to work with thoughts of tomorrow, hopes for the future and simply going about the daily routine....things left unsaid, deeds left undone, aspirations not yet attained, a mind filled with to-do's and must do's not knowing that in an instant all those undones, unsaids, and unattaineds would forever remain that way. And so it goes for us all as we step into a new day. Preparing for lands we may never see, mapping routes we may never sail, but nonetheless living, and in the end that's all we can do.

writing letters

why dont we write more letters? I think my New Years resolution will be to make an effort to write more letters seems like a good idea no?

your smile will forever remain...

for lack of my own words some reflections...

"We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very own complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves . As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all"- Joan Didion

Life changes in an instant, the ordinary instant... -Joan Didion

sometimes a quote so aptly sums up your current mental state

Wisdom is distinct from cleverness or mental efficiency. Wisdom is about getting the big things right. A prerequisite is the ability to recognize what the big things are, i.e., a sense for proportion, for what is important. I am often thinking about this: What if I am overlooking something essential or getting a big thing wrong? Then whatever progress I'm making is in vain. It is worse than useless to travel fast and far if one is going in the wrong direction. How can one reduce the probability of such fundamental error? And of course, if one spends too much of ones time worrying about such questions, one never gets anywhere at all. In the ideal world, perhaps one would have two lives. In the first life, one would figure out what the right direction is. In the second life, one would set off in that direction at one's maximum pace. As things stand, one is left to make a half-hearted compromise between recklessness and paralysis. (Nick Bostrom)

on being happy

random stuff for today

possibility

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!
-Kierkegaard

clarity

if i could only hold on to these fleeting moments of clarity

A POEM

Your life lies as a panorama unfolding before you.
Ahead there are mountains and valleys
Deserts, oceans and meadows
Ands the roads-the choices
Are many;
And their ends-the results,
Are often distant and varied.

There might come happiness or sorrow;
Mere contentment or fulfillment;
Pacifity or involvement
Exultation or regret.
But always,
Until one has reached the
Height of his aspirations
There must be change.

Choose your roads carefully.
Be cautious and analytical;
And free and flexible
Within yourself.
Try to anticipate all that might lie ahead,
And if your choice happens to lead to something less
Than what was expected feel not too
Discouraged or defeated,
Leave it and choose another
For through experience
Ones knowledge does usually broaden;
And often,
The second road is far more promising than could have been the first.

Maintain hope, confidence and resolution,
And remember always;
That he who stays in the desert
When he yearns for the ocean
Grows gradually deeper in
Frustration and regret,
And in the end perishes-
Having hardly lived at all.

-Anonymous

MORE MONTAUK

my best buddy in montauk

Tanzania pics

we dont always need more...we need today and we need eachother and somehow that is enough

 

more cali

 

Some cali Pics

 

updated

Below I have added some photos from some recent california trips...sorry for all of the trees