Late Night Pondering?

"Supernova"

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Love and Hate … two seemingly polar ends of the spectrum for human expression of innermost feelings? Sitting here today, I have to wonder which is the easier of the two feelings to manifest given our “human condition” … Does the answer depend upon the individual person?  And is the answer merely a matter of effort, instinct or both?   That is to say, are we humans inherently selfish by nature or is this selfishness learned?  Sitting here today, I am inclined to think that selfishness is a predisposition acquired by most when we incarnate … take on flesh. Then the extent to which we are influenced by to act upon this “selfishness” of the human condition depends upon the current state of an individual’s spiritual evolution of their immortal soul. If you accept the latter as a truth, then does a predisposition toward selfishness make Hate the easier emotion to manifest? Does one have to work through the inclination towards selfishness, and hence Hate, in order to get to Love? And if this is the case, isn’t the relationship between Love and Hate rather circular in nature than purely linear and polarizing? Love and Hate, sitting side by side … but a stones-throw away from one another, intimately interwoven by varying degrees along the circular path of the continuum of our existence, with the greatest intensity of repulsion residing at the point of their closest meeting?  Hence the supernova...  And if you accept this circular relationship between Love and Hate, does it then take a truly enlightened --or innocent soul-- in order to be able to bridge this shortest distance of maximum repulsion while the rest of us must take the longer circuitous route? Love and Hate, the intimate nature of our human duality along the continuum of our existence.

9/25/2012 ... I wonder are there ever instances where anger is a useful emotion????? Many of my therapists seem to think that anger can be a useful emotion and of course they add that anger is an emotion I need to "learn how to express", but to my way of thinking these therapists only look at half of the equation.  They aren't considering the spiritual aspects of anger, I think.

... Then again, anger when internalized --as opposed to externally expressed-- raw and freshly processed, and of sufficient intensity, seems to be capable of opening up the tighty locked, and long-forgotten, closed doors of the mind?

One-eyed ME?

Not much writing these past few days :(  Injured my eye over the weekend.  Self-inflicted wound ... trying to improve my vision, perhaps?  Opened my eyes to a new way of seeing through pain pills, I guess.  Kind of knocks down all your protective barriers in a manner of speaking.  Truth is a booger sometimes ... But the drugs wear off and reality sets back in.  Life in the moment, right?  And when you look back, only the important ones shine through ... We tend to edit out the painful and mundane, don't we?

Life in this moment ... this here, this now.  No looking back ... Only forward.  After all, I believe that there is a ruling balance corrects over time.

I hadn't realized how much we do with our eyes on a given daily basis.  A bit frustrating to be one-eyed for a few days here.  Sensitivity to light and lots of pain ... Trying to give up the pain pills today.  They make me incredibly sleepy and loopy, never really cared much for drugs of any kind.  I have slept a lot these last few days though, so I guess that's something.  Lots of writing ideas buzzing around in my head.  Wish I had taken Ken up on his offer to buy me "Dragon" ; )  Still haven't played with my birthday presents either --among them a new high tech digital graphics tablet for photo editing and ART renders.  So this dang eye had best heal quickly!  Doctors say I should be good as new in 5-7 days, it's been 4 days now. I'm a terrible patient, I know.  I'll find something to do with myself --besides sleep, but I suppose a closed eye maybe heals quicker?-- between now and the magic number of 7 days and it better not take longer than that!

Since I can't see, I've no recent photo edits.  I could post a photo of me during one of my 3 a.m. --up all night-- photo editing sessions?  At least this photo has me without an injured eye?  Guess, I'll post and take it down in a day or two when these drugs wear off ; )  ... Pain is a funny thing, for me when I don't take the pain pills I can't tune out this eye pain, like I can with other pain.  The pain is so intense and IN MY HEAD, it just translates into intense irritation, bordering on aggravation.  Talk about short tempered?!? I have to wonder if maybe the drugs are the lesser of the evils in this instance?

3 a.m. photo editing ...

A tired, but not yet sleepy me?

Well, wish me a speedy recovery so that I can get back to writing, right?!  My ears are still working though.  I found a cool song by Lifehouse, titled "Broken" ... I would title it "Barely Breathing", but they are the artists.  Apparently, this group did a recent remake of this song ... newer more hip, instrumentally intensified version.  I prefer the original version, myself.  I didn't like the music video for this as it was not at all how I had envisioned or interpreted the song, but decide for yourself.   Oh well,  this song is about "pain" and "healing" and "broken" (my eye) so it fits with my current state of being.  Enjoy!

Song:  "Broken", Lifehouse



Healing vibes to all who pass this way!


Peace & Love,
~M




P.S. Have a friend who seems to be venturing into stand-up comedy these days.  Finding humor in this life of ours ... having a sense of humor ... is a form of higher evolvement on some level, I think.  Well, perhaps contemplating life from a one-eyed perspective will give him some funny material to work with?  Am I a rock star with my dark glasses 24/7 or would I go over better as a pirate with an eye-patch?  I've always had a thing for pirates ; )  Best to you, Paul.   XOXO

Escape, Love and Death ...

I needed to escape for a bit tonight. Lucky for me, the movie “Midnight in Paris” happened to be playing. I had heard great things about this movie and it seemed to get high marks from both the critics and the general viewing audience alike.  So I sat down late this evening to see if this movie would actually hold my attention.

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I’m funny about movies. I wouldn’t call myself a movie critic --I figure we all have different tastes and perspectives-- and in order to be a critic you have to finish all of a movie before you can offer a critique. For me if a movie doesn’t have me within the first 15 to 20 minutes I can’t see wasting my valuable time sitting there to watch the rest of it. This of course drives people I watch movies with nuts sometimes, because I often lose interest and start flipping through a news journal, magazine, or book … or I’ll start scribbling lines for a poem or story, or start sketching some sort of doodle. If the movie is really mind-numbing for me I just have to get up and get out of the room altogether --perhaps one of the few times that doing the dinner dishes actually has appeal to me ; ) ... So it seems to work out rather well for me when I happen to be up alone, late at night, to view a movie for two reasons: 1) I have a better chance of starting with a movie that I’ll be likely to sit through and 2) I don’t have to worry about disappointing anyone because I can’t sit through a movie that they might have selected. 

[End Scene of the movie.  Gil finds someone

who doesn't mind walking in the rain.]

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Well, I am happy to report that “Midnight in Paris” wound up being a most welcome escape for me.  I was able to escape into a movie about escaping to another, simpler, grander time: Paris in the 1920’s. This movie had a great story-line and it flowed nicely between the here-and-now and the past of the 1920’s Paris. Owen Wilson did a great job in his role as the struggling writer. I could relate. Very cool how Owen's character gets to meet with writers and artists of that “golden era” … especially Hemingway, who was a most interesting character in this movie. I have read a few works by Hemingway, but I don’t recall the quote his character gives to Owen Wilson’s character, Gil, upon their first meeting:

“I believe that love that is true and real, creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And then the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino-hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave... It is because they make love with sufficient passion, to push death out of their minds... until it returns, as it does, to all men... and then you must make really good love again.”

~Character of Ernest Hemingway in movie “Midnight In Paris"

Is that not a fabulous way to look at Love? I did some quick searching tonight and could not find this quote among those attributed to Ernest Hemingway, but one source said that there were over 5,000 quotes attributed to Hemingway. So, I guess, I’ll have to keep looking if I want to verify this an authentic Hemingway quote?



This movie has a good ending, but I’ll not say more as I don’t want to give anything away. I can say that I happen to agree with Gil’s assessment as to why so many hold a nostalgia for times past …

“Adriana, if you stay here though, and this becomes your present then pretty soon you'll start imagining another time was really your... You know, was really the golden time. Yeah, that's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life's a little unsatisfying.”

~Character Gil, in the movie “Midnight in Paris”

The present is perhaps unsatisfying because it is intimately interwoven with the mundane?  We tend to edit out the mundane in our recollections and revisiting of the past, do we not?

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All in all this was a great movie and if you haven’t seen it, you might give it a whirl. I have not made it to Paris, myself. I almost got there once: I was in Belgium and we ventured across the border into Bordeaux. I suppose one of these days a visit to famed city of Paris would be a wonderful adventure. One of my Christmas presents (had been on back-order all these many months) just came a few weeks back.  It is an ART book cataloging all of the over 10,000 pieces of ART on display in the Louvre: “The Louvre, All the Paintings”, By Erich Lessing and Vincent Pomarede. Perhaps after flipping through the pages of this enchanted book and browsing through the accompanying ART CD my desire to visit Paris will be greatly enhanced? If I were ever to visit, Paris at midnight --being the night-owl that I am-- would have infinite appeal to me, and being no stranger to rain up here, in Seattle, I wouldn't mind a stroll in the rain either.  I love to dance in the rain ...

History, ART, culture, and epicurean delights galore … How could one go wrong with Paris? And on that note, I don’t think you’ll go wrong if you take “Midnight in Paris” for a spin on a low-key, rainy night. Might I also suggest a roaring fire and nice bottle of red wine, with some cheese & bread to enhance your viewing experience? Cheers and do enjoy!  = )


Song: "Have You Ever Seen the Rain", By CCR (youtube.com)


P.S. Happened to come across this site while searching for the above Ernest Hemingway quote ... might prove useful to some of you singles out there?  www.thedatingspecialist.com/blog/5-ernest-hemingway-quotes-to-inspire-your-love-life/

Reminiscing ...

Change of pace.  No deep thoughts or soul searching tonight.  Reminiscing with an old album tonight ... Yes, I should be sleeping, I know.  Did some Admin stuff for my group.  Wrote for awhile and finally caught the tale-end of a movie that I keep missing.  Stinks not to know how a movie ends, right?  Anyhow, I'm too tired to read ... so I thought I'd try getting lost in music to see if that winds me down for sleep.  Don't feel like taking sleeping pills tonight ....

Here's the album I'm getting in lost in:  Toad the Wet Sprocket, album "Fear".  Great group! I love their lyrical ballads.  This was a favorite of mine in my college days.  Only one song I don't like on the whole album.  Bet you can guess which one?  Maybe, if I would let myself listen to it objectively, I might see this song in a different light?  Nope ... don't think I can be objective in this case ...

Well, here is one of my favorites songs off of this album, "Something to Say" ...


Love this song.  Says to me: you can talk ... we can talk, dancing in circles all night, but when you're ready to cut the 'crap' and show me the real you:  then we've finally got something to say.


http://youtu.be/70IPjPf3nnY




Well enjoy ... Nite, and hopefully some sweet dreams will follow.  But I guess, if you never had any bad dreams how would you have a reference to be able to appreciate the good dreams when, and if, they come your way? ... Just wish I wasn't still so afraid of the power of my bad dreams to hurt me ...

Song: "Pray your gods", "All I Want", "Walk on the Ocean"

Do Not 'Speak', Unless You Can Improve Upon the Silence?

"Do not speak, unless you can improve upon the silence."

~Quote from the Movie, "Everafter"

"Moonlight Reflections"

@Copyrighted Photograph, 2011.  All Rights Reserved:  Isabelle Black Smith.

"Be the waves that shape the world around you toward a greater end." 
~Isabelle Black Smith

I posted this quote the other day along with a photographic scene of exquisitely large pieces of driftwood in my post titled "Synchronicity." I am wondering now, based on a series of events that unfolded during the course of my day:  If you make no waves ... always 'play' within the safety of the 'lines' ... then how can you possibly shape the world around you?  Hmmmm ... perhaps not all are meant to shape the world toward a greater end?

Another thought, drifting in and out of my consciousness, was a seed planted from a line in a movie that I watched the other day:  "Do not speak, unless you can improve upon the silence"  [The title of this piece].  Well, from here my thoughts wonder toward another saying from conventional wisdom (despite my best efforts to steer them otherwise):  "Actions speak louder than words."  ... So then, what about 'inaction'?  Does it speak ... or speak as loudly as 'action'?  Based on my observations in watching people move through daily life, I would argue that inaction speaks perhaps the loudest.  That's my position for the moment ... we shall see if it holds.  I think there is some more pondering to do upon this subject.

And such are the motions, the late night ramblings of a tired mind ... Do you see now why I cannot sleep  (my  haunting nightmares aside)?  So many questions to be explored and yet answered ...

"Procession of Souls", By Louis Welden Hawkins

(Image Courtesy of ArtMagick.com)

 Here follows a poem that I wrote, as my thoughts unraveled, while pondering the above notions this night  ....

"Do Not 'Speak', Unless You Can Improve Upon the Silence?"

Silent mist, veil of shaded fog ...

Down sullen path do they hither trod.

The lost souls, wander on pointless journey.

A weary, disheveled band, they wander

As they once did:  cyclical marching,

Innermost feeling and emotions

Safely hid, tucked deeply down inside.

Parade of Lost souls marches samely,

In ordered fashion through motions

Of a recounted ordinary life.

Lost souls afraid to speak.

Lost souls forgotten how to seek?

Lost souls mild and meek ...

Lost souls afraid to be heard,

Ever fearful of the spoken word,

Lest deemed they to be absurd.

Lost souls afraid to be seen?

Lost souls afraid to truly live.

Do they pray a second chance

To them give?

Bounded by feared perceptions.

Afraid to breech set boundaries

Of an accepted worldly life,

Lest to be named

Inflictors of 'needless strife.'

To them the ordered march

Would thus suffice.

... But, ah to wonder,

Inflicting chaos upon the order,

To color and boldly outside the lines ...

Such a subtlety of knowing, sublime;

Alas to Lost Souls lies,

For the moment hidden:

Until, perhaps in due time

It be bidden.    

@Copyright Poem, 2011.  All Rights Reserved:  Isabelle Black Smith.

And in closing, I am reminded of a very wise saying ... "In order to understand the living:  you got to know the dead."