John Lennon is a genius

Love.

It's funny you know, I remember five years ago in Mrs. Lauck's Freshman Year relating class. Our assignment: interview four people of varying ages and ask them one thing: what love means to them. I don't have my specific results, but here are some that I've found:

According to Yahoo Answers:

"arguing and making up."

"happiness so stong that it affects your body."

"caring about someone more than you care about yourself."

"When someone could puke on or around me and it's alright."

According to Famous People:

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

-Mother Theresa

"To love another person is to see the face of God."
-Les Miserables

"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is."

-Gary Zukav

"Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile."

-Franklin P. Jones (American Businessman)

“Love isn't finding a perfect person. It's seeing an imperfect person perfectly.”

-Sam Keen

All in all, I feel like it's something that not even Mother Theresa, Wikipedia, or anyone from Yahoo Answers can even answer. When it comes to love, I feel like it's one of those things that can never be put into words.

Love that I've seen:

A sixteen (and even a twenty) year old's love for their car.

A mom picking up a stray sock for the 14th time in a month.

A dad fixing the car door mirror after a long day at work after your sister knocked it off with her car.

A random text simply showing that someone is thinking of you.

The fourth day.

The lunchlady letting me into the cafeteria for free.

Simply a sunset.

Love that I'm excited to see in the future:

Falling asleep next to your wife after a long day of fighting but still knowing in the back of your mind that you made the right decision.

Everything that having children entails.

And more than I can even put on this blog.

Overall though, despite what language you speak or where you are in the world, love is universal. The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that John Lennon was right, All you need is love. So stop reading this and go show someone love today. Whether it be your spouse of 27 years, a friend you haven't seen in a year, the crazy lunchlady, the suitemate that drives you up the wall (just kidding if you're reading this :) ), or the one who knows your deepest darkest secrets, You never know what a little reaching out will do. You might turn around their day. You probably have many times for me.

Jumping

Time: 4:34 AM

Date: September 22, 2010

I feel so sorry for my roommate. I’ve been running around like an idiot trying to finish up things for an early departure for my time at home later this week. For the past six hours I’ve been that roommate:

• Typing away on my computer
• My phone vibrating well into 3 AM for the periodic texts I receive
• Chomping away on my Pizzalicious Pringles
• And above all things, having my printer run out of paper easily seventeen times, and thus making that really obnoxious beeping noise too many times to count.

All things aside though, after I finished my Spanish Study Guide, I fumbled through my email looking for the flight confirmation my pop sent me weeks ago confirming my flight leaving in twelve hours. Mind you, still in a complete daze from doing homework for almost five days straight, I pulled up the email.

Boom, it hit me.

“go. Nothing is stopping you.”

Time: 1:16 PM

Date: September 24, 2010

I’ve flown airtran back and forth to Indy many many times, but this was the first time that I noticed their slogan. And I saw it on every one of their brochures, signs, etc the day following.

A year ago today, my life began the process up being flipped upside down. I thought that I was destined to be an architect for the rest of my life, until I actually began the process, and realized that what I had thought I wanted to be for sixteen years was in fact wrong. It was a rough couple months, but as scary as it was then, now it is one of my favorite to look back on.

Am I positive that politics is where I am bound to be the rest of my life? No, not at all, but I do find comfort in that for right now, it is where I am supposed to be. And a year later, I still completely agree. For me, I find comfort in the small things, like a sunset. That is the way in which I know that even after the worst of days, I get a new chance tomorrow, and a new day to start over. It’s the sunsets of life that cause me to sit back and think about the big picture. To me, life is all about wandering through the path of life, not knowing where you are and getting lost. Trying to find your way through the forests, passing through clearings, by ponds, and down the riversides. But only when you are confronted with a dense forest followed by a cliff does it get interesting. You can play it safe, sit down on the edge of the cliff and choose not to jump, but rather stay there in order to maintain the existence that you have. You can stay with what you have always known, and choose not to change because it’s easier.

Or you can jump.

You can take the step back, a deep breath, and then just run. Take that running leap, jump, and have one of two things happen. You’ll jump and make it to the other side, barely clearing the gap and keep on walking, glad that you made the correct choice. Or you will fall. You won’t make it to the other side, and you will collapse, but it’s in your confidence that you must know that God will be there to catch you. Because, when it comes down to it, that’s what life is about. Life isn’t found sitting by the edge of the cliff playing it safe, but moreover it’s in the chances that we take, because in reality that’s where God is. It’s that “flying by the seat of your pants in all aspects of life” kind of feeling. You know, where you trust in God completely, blindly, and with absolute faith.

I think though, since last year, I’ve been afraid to jump in many aspects of my life and mostly because everything is so undefined. To me, it’s like I’m in a room. You know, like the one at the end of National Treasure. BIG. And, I see where I think I want to go, but I don’t know how to get there. It’s scary, exhilarating, daunting, and an entire range of other emotions, and for so long I let it hold me back.

That’s not the case anymore though. For any of you that don’t know, Sunday is my twentieth birthday. I’m not telling you this because I want presents or I want you to wish me a happy birthday, but moreover, for the next twenty years, I’m going to let the reigns go. For so long I quarreled with where I thought I wanted to go, compared to where I as actually going, and most importantly, contrasted to where life was going to take me. And looking back on it, that is what makes life worth living. While I will always be smart about the decisions I make, I’m going to purely let life take me in the direction that it wants me to go and I’m not going to fight it. I trust God that eventually I will make it to the other side of the room, but I’m not going to push anything or try and figure it all out now, because anyways, that would take the fun out of everything.

So, you, yes you:

Go do what you’ve always wanted to do. Life is too short and too taxing for you to be anything but happy. And, despite what the situation may be, go follow your heart. In the end, everything will work out. I promise. As scary as something may seem, and as inferior as you may feel now, you will look back on it and realize how in all reality it was exactly what you needed.

So, today, just go. Do something new. Nothing is stopping you.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones that you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

-Mark Twain

Be the best version of yourself

Before today, I had no idea who Gildna Radner was. I was searching for a quote to attach to my blog post and was almost ready to hit publish after I found a quote by her, but decided to look her up on wikipedia before I did.

Something that most people don't know about me is that I am entirely addicted to Wikipedia. Others are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, facebook, whatever it may be, mine is Wikipedia and Diet coke I guess. Before I delve in though, I want you to read the quote that I found by her.

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity."

It's a good quote right? Without any context about her, you would perceive it as something that you could apply to your life and maybe write it down for later use, or at least I did awhile ago. She was amazing. One of the originals for Saturday Night Live and a regular on Broadway, basically she was outrageously talented. Throughout this time, she also suffered from Ovarian Cancer. After two years of fighting she went into remission, mostly because of her beloved husband, Gene Wilder, whom was one of her largest sources of support.

Later the same year, she learned that her cancer had returned. Going into a normal CAT scan, she slipped into a coma and never awoke again.

"Gene Wilder had this to say about her death:

She went in for the scan – but the people there could not keep her on the gurney. She was raving like a crazed woman – she knew they would give her morphine and was afraid she’d never regain consciousness. She kept getting off the cart as they were wheeling her out. Finally three people were holding her gently and saying, "Come on Gilda. We’re just going to go down and come back up." She kept saying, "Get me out, get me out!" She’d look at me and beg me, "Help me out of here. I’ve got to get out of here." And I’d tell her, "You’re okay honey. I know. I know." They sedated her, and when she came back, she remained unconscious for three days. I stayed at her side late into the night, sometimes sleeping over. Finally a doctor told me to go home and get some sleep. At 4 am on Saturday, I heard a pounding on my door. It was an old friend, a surgeon, who told me, "Come on. It’s time to go." When I got there, a night nurse, whom I still want to thank, had washed Gilda and taken out all the tubes. She put a pretty yellow barrette in her hair. She looked like an angel. So peaceful. She was still alive, and as she lay there, I kissed her. But then her breathing became irregular, and there were long gaps and little gasps. Two hours after I arrived, Gilda was gone. While she was conscious, I never said goodbye.

...By coincidence, the news of her death broke on early Saturday afternoon (Eastern Standard Time), while Steve Martin was rehearsing as the guest host for that night's season finale of Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live personnel, including Lorne Michaels, Mike Myers and Phil Hartman, had not known she was so close to death. They scrapped one of their planned sketches and instead, Martin introduced a video clip of a 1978 sketch in which he and Radner parodied an old Hollywood romantic couple's dance. He cried during his introduction."

Life happens you know? And most of the time like Ferris Bueller believes, "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you're gonna miss it." So live life to the fullest because at best, each day you're given is solely what you make of it. So, accept the things that you cannot change, have courage to change the things that you can, and have wisdom to know the difference. Just like her quote says, "...Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity." Nothing ever happens the way that we expect it to, and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Most of the outrageous opportunities I have been given have happened arbitrarily, and I would venture to say it is the same in your life.

So bottom line: Be the best version of [insert your name here] that you can be. Go live, and you are loved.

Midafternoon at Little Molas Lake, San Juan County, Colorado

Use the love you've been given to empower those around you.

September 11. Last year, I didn't seem to notice it, but this year I'm going out of my way to immerse myself in it. Yesterday I realized that I had never seen the Pentagon Memorial, so I gathered my sketchbook, my camera, and my bike and just rode.

It's one of those days that always evokes a feeling. For the most part, everyone is somber and respectful because it is a day that is rooted deep in the hearts of all Americans. For me, and probably for countless others, that clear September morning was when my world crashed.

Terrorist Attack.

World Trade Center.

Pentagon.

These words meant nothing to me.

I still remember, exactly where I was sitting in the classroom, by whom I was sitting next to, what math problem I was doing when my teacher familiarized these words into my future daily vocabulary.

Walking into the memorial, it is set up like a huge timeline. Starting with 1930, it progressively gets closer to September 11, 2001. On the timeline each person is memorialized with a bench located somewhere on the timeline depending on their year of birth. All are engraved with the name of the victim and depending on which way it is facing, it represents whether the victim was killed in the plane or in the building. As I reached 1977, it stops. For twenty or thirty feet there is nothing, just gravel. Then, while narrowing, there are five or so benches that all face away from the building and towards the sky.

Then it became real for me. Three out of the remaining, were born in 1990. Bernard Brown, Asia Cottom, and Rodney Dickens were all my age. All three most likely left that morning just as I did, living obliviously to the hate that was about to invade our little tiny worlds.

They weren't given another chance. A friend once said, "Use the love you've been given to empower those around you." Just those three lives alone were lived too shortly. Out of the 184 people that died at the Pentagon that day, how many walked out the door without saying I love you to their spouse? How many got on American Flight 77 and waited to text their loved ones good morning because they didn't want to wake them, but had no idea that they would have another chance? It's unfathomable how many people you are loved by. Don't wait to say something because you are afraid, because like Bernard, Asia, Rodney, and the thousands of other victims that day, you may never have the chance.

I'll start. I love you.

...and so here we go...

I honestly have no idea what inspired me to do this, but here I am, 2:37 A.M. Tuesday September 7, introducing my blog. I should be in bed, I know, but after just reading my photography book for hours, I am now officially wired. The few diet cokes and handfuls of Skittles probably don't help the energy level, but we are going to at least make this time productive.

The title of this is part of a quote I found a few weeks ago before I left home. I was inside Barnes & Noble, I promise you I was only there to buy a picture book about pirates, but in line I saw a magnet in the check out line. There was a little display and by some odd reason it caught my attention. I scanned the different magnets that they had, and oddly enough, I saw one quote that I had never seen before. I would assume that if you are reading this, you know me at least semi-well and know that I am a quote junky, hence it being weird that I had never seen it and thus, is why this one stuck with me. And furthermore, with my mind going forty-two miles a minute, its amazing anything sticks.

"Fall in love or fall in hate.
Get inspired or get depressed.
Ace a test or flunk a class.
Make babies or make art.
Speak the truth or lie and cheat.
Dance on tables or sit in the corner.
Life is divine chaos.
Embrace it. Forgive yourself.
Breathe. And Enjoy the ride..."

I have not found this more true than in the last year. It's been amazing, and in essence, just like a roller coaster ride. Once I stabilize myself and actually think I know in which direction I'm heading, the car dips and I'm trusted full-force into a downward spiral only to be shot back up straight into the air.

That's life to me. Once I am cool, calm, and collective, my world gets flipped upside down and I wouldn't want it any other way. So check back every once in awhile. I'll keep you updated on my life, if you keep me updated on yours.

Remember, life is divine chaos. Look around. Most likely you are going way faster than you even thought you were. This is going to be my way to slow down a little bit every few days. You should do the same.

Also. Recent picture and quote will be attached to every posting.

picture: On saturday I went on a five hour bike ride and snapped more pictures than I probably should have. Anyways, this was taken on the Inlet Bridge, by the FDR Memorial.

quote: In my free time I've been rereading Into the Wild. Amazing. I want to be Chris McCandless, besides the whole dying part though haha

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

-Christopher McCandless.