hope

Nights of Broken Lights and Darkened Paths

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I used to want to be a hero when I was younger. Someone who shines a light on those around me, allowing people to see the world and all its wonder as I have. To be able to find hope in the most dire of situations, to find the silver lining in the cloud of grey, to finally understand their worth and the worth they bring to others. Though there is nothing wrong with these lofty goals, wanting to make the world a better place, but I realized that heroes can only exist where there is danger and distress. Where the time and seasons fall hard, and waves wash over our heads, a hero is needed to be there to right the wrong and save the day. It’s the light that needs the dark to exist. The greatest gift to a hero would truly be a world where they are not necessary. It concerns me sometimes that the archetype of the hero presupposes their rarity. That their actions would not be commonplace. That other would not act when the need arises. We need those to carry that role for others as the world will not take care of them on their own. Though this is a bit of a ramble, what I’m trying to get at is that is that there is not enough action and care to go around, that certain people need to shoulder that burden uniquely. That the world is a dark place for many others and people crave the path forward. It’s a lost place, with people feeling like their are surrounded by thick fog, feeling their way through and hoping that each step they take they are not getting close to the edge of a cliff.

It’s been my experience, as of late, that there are so many people who’ve just lost their way. People who have been out into the world with the expectation of competency but no explanation of how they are supposed to proceed. That they see the world and their situation as dangerous, disenchanting, and disastrous. That the bell rings in the morning and dispair for the continuance of life of the sets in.

I understand this completely because I’ve been there. The world, at times, is a harsh and unforgiving place, which leaves no room to know where to go. It feels like we fall behind because this mismatched expectation gives us no understanding of direction or feeling as if there is no time to grow to meet the challenge. We are stuck in a cycle, hoping for someone to reach out and tell us that we will be okay or extend a hand in help. It’s so hard to push forward as we feel alone in the universe, just trying not to get too close to the edge.

I’ve recently, for better or worse, taken on the whole of mentor and teacher to some very unexpected people. People who ordinarily would be perfectly capable on their own, but their lives seem to have burdened them with unnecessary troubles. But as time has passed, I’ve become more acutely aware of all those around me who feel the same. These people want that light, that guide, to clear away the fog and give them some semblance of direction. It’s just within these systems that we live that give no real guidance in the path to take, so we cling to the familiar in the hopes that the path we have taken will eventually lead us to where we want to go.

It feels like a breakdown in the community in which these problems can be voiced and care can be provided. I feel sorry at times for those who I help because I know I’m not enough. I can try to be the light in the darkness, but sometimes I feel like I am but a mere candle flame among the sea. That I, though, can help illuminate the way, but may not be able to show them their direction or help them heal from their wrongs. I’m scared that the advice I give will hurt them, that I will lead them astray. that they will regret their time and for listening to a fool like me. I just hope that I can be a warm presence to them. That I can give them strength to stand on their own. That one day they won’t need me anymore because the love and care they need will be right there for them.

I don’t know if I’m enough on this broken street of mine, with flickering lights and overgrown paths. I will keep you safe, but your journey is your own. I just hope I can help you be more of yourself and remember your strength because I think there should be more of you in the world, too.

Hoping for Wishes and Wishing for Hope

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Snow by Pascal Campion

I don’t know how to speak to hope, with the words I put to the page never seeming enough. The only reason I want to speak to hope in the first place is that I’ve been thinking about hope, or the lack thereof, in both myself and the world around me. It’s like gravity pulling dreams and aspirations down to the ground and burying them beneath the soil. It’s like a force is speaking little messages to people, telling them not to hope or pray for wishes because wishes are for the lucky and hope is for the foolish.

But what is hope except for a wish not yet to come, a part of our heart speaks out so loudly that ask us to take a chance on the world and its wonders and believe that more is possible? Hope is what the architect sees before the building, the engineer sees before the machine. Hope is an extension of the dreams but… dangerous thinking that is, because to aspire to leave your neck out to get cleaved and those who forsake hope, survivors of the dream guillotine, don’t want to get hurt again.

I can understand this apprehension and this desire to abandon hope. As you get older the world continues to test the willingness to hope and more of your life feels as if it were to be a graveyard for dreams. Those who are lucky, seem to be blessed in some way by the universe to continue forward unimpeded, but the for the rest of us, it feels as if every day we spend climbing mountains.

I’ve lost hope in people and institutions while I’ve been living in this stateless place. Maybe I’ve been an idealist all this time because I’ve been fortunate enough to guard my heart and hope enough not to get ravaged by the hands of time. Now my heart lays exposed and bloodied by the experiences of the past few years, marred and marked about the failings of hope and effort. I’m sure there are some that will believe that the death of ideals and dreams will give way to a clearer view of reality. Those who believe that setting the bar low only provides a more accurate view of the universe. The people who call themselves realists have been beaten and broken by the cost of dreams, see the world as one broken place and that if they dare to dream that dreams would be dashed and only pain would persist.

Maybe this is why I can’t stop myself from caring because I stop caring about this world and others that I give way to the death of my dreaming. That if I lose all hope and persist entirely without the expectations of others or the future, all that would be left is a shell of myself who goes through the motions without an end in sight. That it’s this foolish hope about the change in the world, that someday we find can find a better way and my efforts mean something that keeps me looking forward and coming back to the table.

It’s hard though, to hope in a place that has done nothing but balks at my dreaming and my aspirations. To call only for persistence through extraordinary circumstances as a solution. To feel isolated, alone, and not to be taken seriously. I can understand why I have so much hurt with hope because hope is the knife that continues to make me bleed. It’s the belief that things will get better here and that all my experiences have been a string of bad luck and not the result of my failings. Hope has me believe that the future is calling, and as long as I work towards it, things may go my way. It’s hard to continue to be as I feel hope as I experience the cleave of dream guillotine regularly. At times it feels as if these people and places are avatars of the universe acting like an executioner of my dreams.

I know the power of hope, though small at times, keeps me persisting ever longer with the belief that my continued progress will get me to eventually meet my dreams. I haven’t given up but man… it’s been hard, and at times I find myself hoping for wishes and wishing for hope.

Road To Recovery – Road 7 – Diametric Prose

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-Author Unknown

There is a great dichotomy in being, both through injury and in life generally. It’s a give and take that calls to control us and creates the unique experience that is paramount to living as people.

It’s hard though to deal with this, just as the act of being industrious, the desire to build and do works in direct opposition to desire to rest and laze about. Both of these things are essential though, working in tandem to create a reality of balance. Take for instance walking , something I have sought to do since the moment I laid flat on my back on one of those hospital gurneys for the first time. Walking is something I have to avoid and yet it something that comes so natural. The want of putting my foot down and placing weight upon it sits there in the back of my mind as I know that walking could break me. It’s so strange, I am told to rest but in resting I want to get out and be free. A lot of my life has been playing out this way causing this division within myself.

It’s just like what I’ve mentioned before with my lack of motivation, that inability to act causes both stress and anxiety about all that has not been done. I want to do, so the desire itself make manifest when I sit down at the keys and act upon that desire, the problem is the distraction that comes along with that feeling. Back and forth, it’s a fight for balance in my life and each day has to establish its own place on the teeter-totter. It’s this passé-ness that I have trouble with, flowing with the wind of emotion leaves no room for accomplishing dreams.

I think that’s why I have also had so much trouble with visions of myself and what I can and should do. It’s hard to recognsize because the only way inside to reflect and to reflect beings about the pain of what the accident and these last several months have been. These forces that ultimately settle in a true love-hate relationship with the man within bemuddles the rigidly established norms that I had fought so hard to impliment in the first place. It’s not a matter of blame but a desire for order. With everything in flux, and it being not of my own volition, I am left to try and establish something with the piece I have left.

I don’t know when I will feel the normalcy again, and I know I can never go back to the way things were but its the balance within that dicotomy that I desire. The unceasing differences from day to day though are beautiful and fantastic leave me with, for lack of a better term, with no leg to stand on.

A Hope In The Moment

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I think it’s a simple sense of hope that spurs it, or perhaps fear, but I find myself looking in my mailbox for a letter that may never come.

It’s the season of new hope and change, one caused by the artifice of new numbers and shifting times. We all push forth with that hope and desire to take this new time and alter the reality that our past has wrought for us. Even the most reluctant hear whispers of things that could be. But the the only promise that hold true is the promise from the sun to return ever brighter at the fall of each day until the moment words have become actions or regrets, and for some a whole new world awaits.

I have found myself developing a tick, one grounded in the uncertainty of my future. I waiting to hear back from these large institutions that hold the keys to a personally envisioned future, and all I can do right now is wait for an email of yes, no, nor maybe later. I usually really good at waiting, putting the worry out of my mind until it becomes pressing or relevant. This time though, with each pick up of my phone or use of my computer I end up sifting through my emails unproductively, waiting for that response.

The combination of hope and fear is what befalls me, knowing that any news doesn’t necessitate good news. I want to know, but not knowing also means that there is still the potential for something grand in my future. It’s a confusing feeling, but ultimately checking alleviates uncertainty so that I can resume my life.

I think a lot of us are like that, waiting for the outcome of our investments, whether it be in jobs, relationships, or personal growth. We just want to see that end result that blooms from our efforts. This outcome may take longer than expected, or ever be less than what we were expecting and yet it’s part of that big gamble at the end of the day. One we all take part in some time without even knowing the risks involved. We always get back into the game and play because that’s how life is lived, though it is uncomfortable. We all want to push forward knowing that nothing may return because the prospect of not advancing become so atrocious that it drives us mad.

I think what I want to leave on is this, there is hope in the future, whether it be where we expect it or someplace surprising. As someone who has spent the last several years learning to fail gracefully forward, the bumps and bruises on my body have always proven to be beneficial. Time is changing, every moment of every day so I choose hope and push forward knowing that things will happen in the time they need to and not a moment sooner. I think what matters most is spending the time making of the most moment rather than hoping and praying better moment comes along soon. Knowing I can put down my phone because the an email will come regardless of whether I am looking for it or not.

Drowning In The Storm

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There is a sense of unease, too many I don’t knows, a perfect dash of insecurity, and a lot of bad experience to create this perfect storm that’s raging through my life right now.  It’s got me held up, frozen in place with no end in sight. Hunkered down, I’m scared of this storm and the destruction it may bring as I hope these walls I’ve built will be strong enough to weather the winds and the rains.  I am trying to hold myself together but I can’t, it feels like I’m coming apart at the seams, not even able to cry out this frustration I feel.  My hands are failing, my head if failing, I try to carry on, but I fold back into myself with every step. I try to collect that power within that I have been honing the last several years, but there is a scar there, a scar that has built up over many years of perceived personal failure.  This fear of failing again holds on tight as I ponder what that failure would mean.  I know it’s not fair to myself that I spend so much time worrying about what may never come to pass, but experience has got me trained on the idea that maybe all I am striving for won’t become anything. This part of me feels that I am not specific enough about what I want so I can never obtain it, that I am not worthy of it because there are so many better candidates for the position.  I worry because I see myself in the mirror sabotaging my future, destroying the very opportunity I am trying to create.  Part of me doesn’t want to know, it just wants to sleep until it’s all over with, push off this burden until this insanity ends, but I know it won’t, not unless I give up my dreams.

I keep coming back to this story, one I have told a lot recently as more as a funny anecdote from my life than anything really substantial.  This is back when I used to ride a motorcycle.   During the cold dark nights of the winter months, I use to drive from my parent’s house back to college in the early hours of the morning much to the chagrin of my mother.  There was this freeway I would ride on my way back that was a perfect kind of empty that time of night. With is more than a gentle slope, it would be the perfect place to pick up speed.  At times I would ride down that hill quickly accelerating, opening up the throttle to see how far it would go. Sixty, seventy, eighty the speedometer would quickly rise until I would hit speeds of well over a one-hundred miles per hour.  When you get to that speed on a motorcycle all you can really think of is, if I fell now, chances are I would die.  Nothing frightening about it, in some ways calming for all the wrong reasons as this was just the fact of things as I whizzed by, some kind of truth that gave kept me in the moment.  A thought that made all the other thoughts disappear because that’s all there was, just a fact.

I am missing that clarity, that straightforward feeling.  I just don’t know, and yet I have to push forward somehow.  It bothers me because I don’t want to be stuck in a place I know I won’t be happy but what does that mean for the alternative. I feel like I am slowly breaking down, dissolving piece by piece wanting to destroy this world around me and myself to give this pain I feel in my heart a physical presence.  I wish it were just a cut or a bruise, something that I can point to and see but this pain is permeating through to my core, unreachable and untouchable sitting deep with my chest making my whole body ache. It feels like I’m underwater gasping for air, with this burning in my lungs as I slowly lose the the air I need.  The piles of water above pushing me further into the deep, and all I want to reach the surface and see the sun.  I keep swimming as a way of fighting through just like I fight through everything else.   I know things will be okay in the end if I keep pushing to reach the surface, but it’s just hard to feel that way right now.

Inside Pandora’s Box

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I’ve always been fascinated with ancient myths and legends, not just for their tales of magic and adventure but with each myth comes with it a belief about how we see humanity and human nature. Tales of valor and weakness, people, overcoming challenges and succumbing to temptation highlight these beliefs. These stories really give us insight in the best and worst of us and what we believe humans are ultimately capable of. I’ve been thinking about them a lot recently, but each time I do I seem to always come back to the story of Pandora’s box.  The story, for the most part, is meant to explain all the evil and terrible things in the world and why humanity is expected to struggle against these terrible evils.  In thinking though, the story shows us something else entirely, the only thing we have to push forward.  Without it, we have been lost long ago.

You see, Pandora herself was created by Zeus as recompense for Prometheus giving humanity the power of fire. The gods were angry that humans could wield this awesome power customarily reserved just for the greater beings that Zeus had a box forged and placed within it all the evils that humanity had never known. The like the evils of war, discord, famine, and sickness.  Zeus gave this box to his new human creation and sent her out into the world with only one command “Never open the box.”  Being human, she was naturally curious, but a while she left the box alone, even at some point burying it in the ground. Day after day, she found herself thinking about the box, “What was inside?” she wondered. That’s when she found herself, overcome with a single desire to uncover this great mystery that was shrouded inside.  She unlatched the box and opened it up to discover she set free all these great evils to forever torment humanity.  Before all of the evils were released, she slammed closed the box saving humanity from the greatest of these evils, total despair – the opposite of hope.

The reason I like this story so much it that it speaks to this belief we have, that as long as we have hope, not all is lost.  I mean sure, I would love not to get sick, or to have arguments, but the one thing that pushes us forward is that belief that things can be better, that a better outcome can come to us if we persist.  Sometimes this hope is misleading or causes us to behave naively, but ultimately it allows us to see a future that is better than the past.  It allows us to see a tragedy in a new light,  to implement change and not accept things as they are. Where there is evil, we have hope, and hope is the catalyst for the change we need to make this world a better place. Without hope, we are nothing.

The reason I keep coming to this story is that I’ve been running a study for my thesis, one I really love and want to work. But pilot study after pilot study, I can’t seem to make my paradigm do what it needs to.   Some sort of unpredictable element exists within it, and I simply don’t understand yet what is keeping it from functioning properly.  I have hope though, that if I keep trying I will make this work, and have something serious to show for my efforts.  Even if I doesn’t, all I learn today will help me for tomorrow, as long as I am persistent enough something will happen.  I have hope and that’s what makes make me strong because I have hope I can keep pushing forward into the deep.

Stuck In A Daze Like Dream

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It’s when I push too hard that my body starts to deteriorate.  It takes what would normally be my fast-paced and busy lifestyle and grinds it to a halt.  It’s frustrating, but for current it’s a blessing.   It makes me take a second to reflect on all the trouble.

The is a lack of direction again, an unclear path unfolds before.  In this period of time, leading up the eventual application season again, I feel by far only prepared for the process, not prepared for where the process may lead. I search names, I search places but all that comes back is memories of years ago when the process brought me down and crushed me.  This trouble persists in part because of this inability to put a finger on exactly what I want to be doing for the next five years.  Sure, I want to spend it in a school, pursuing a degree in psychology and technology but that’s as far as that goes. This fuzzy outline with no tangible or actionable itinerary drives me mad in the middle of the night because it stirs confusion within me. If I can’t even put into words what I want to do, then how I am supposed to find someone who is doing it?

Second, as mentioned before in previous posts, I feel this futility in what I do.  My motivations, though initially pure are becoming clouded by a distinct lack of self-efficacy about the world I am about to enter.  Even with everything I am doing, I feel that it is all too little too late and that ultimately I will be passed up for someone much more capable than myself.  It’s hard because people believe in me but in my experience, this belief seems to not persist into action.  I want to make people proud but there is a fear that I will continue to come up short. I keep pushing, hoping that I will bring myself to the level  warranted by their belief, hoping to guide the way and show people that it was worth the effort, but I don’t know, I have to convince a room of strangers that I am worth investing in and the excuse of, well if you only got to know him really doesn’t cut it.

Lastly, I feel this pressure from above and below.  It’s more of jealousy that turned my eyes green.  I see people doing so many cool things and despise myself for not coming up with it first. I feel like I just a child in this great research game, playing with toys and trying to show others how cool the land of make-believe can be while others putting in the work and the time to really push the world forward.  Maybe I’m old enough to finally put away childish things, but it feels like I’ve clung to this conception of what I want that I don’t realize that no one really cares about it. Like I’ve been living in the sky but it’s the ones down on earth who are sending people to the moon.

I want to stop this.

I will stop this. Stop looking out in the world and seeing what I am missing within. No one is perfect and being like this has done more harm than good.  What I really need it eyes up. Looking forward to the future I want, instead of at the ground commenting on how close I am to always falling.  So if you’ve seen me recently fade in and out of dreaming it’s because of this, these feelings that attempting to bore holes in my heart. This process is revealing and the only thing I can say thank you for showing me my demons because now I can learn to make friends with them.

Frisson

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frisson:  a brief moment of emotional excitement : shudder, thrill

This word, for me it symbolizes for me a moment that I feel when my heart reaches down and touches the world.  Pure emotion, profound emotion seeps into me as the overwhelming feeling of being alive makes itself known.

The best way I can describe it is an experience you are so enveloped by music, movie or book and you lose yourself for a moment.  You forget where you are, and whatever you are doing becomes the only thing that exists for a moment.  A silence, as you travel to another world or place and it becomes real for that one moment.
The feeling transcribes itself onto your soul so that you become so enveloped by it you don’t even care that it wasn’t your feeling, to begin with.  You share the pain, the elation, the sorrow, the untold happiness, and tragedy. You get goosebumps all over, standing on end in anticipation of the moment where the emotion comes home and strikes at your heart.  It’s silly, but it’s as real as it can get. For a moment, you are given a crystal clear view of an unspoken truth that unites hearts, and overwhelms you with the depth of our mysterious existence.

I found about about this word on accident, perusing the archives of the internet, I followed it down the rabbit hole until I found a word that explained something that I had felt for a long time.  The word came to describe this feeling I sometimes chase, this sense of being alive.  It has since become one of my favorite words.

The reason for this is there are some days when I begin to lose myself, at times life leaves me feeling empty, emotionless and flat.  Where everything begins to dim and become faded, and my emotions feel muted. It’s these moments where I seek this frisson, this passion that makes me feel human again.  Though it gets me into the bad habit of watching great profound and sometimes tragic moments from my favorite media, for me, it’s a lesson that life will go on and that at the end of the day, I am only human and that’s more than beautiful enough for me.

 

I would love for those who are reading this to post some of the things that make you feel this way.
Some of the examples of mine are:
Charlie Chaplin’s Speech from the Great Dictator
Last battle speech from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
and (without spoilers)
The end of the 10th Doctor from Dr. Who
And the end of some anime:
5 Centimeters Per Second
Ana Hana
Your Lie In April

 

 

Sickness Fatigue

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I got sick again, and in doing so, its thrown all my plans through the ringer. The idea that I would stay on top of things never accounts for sicknesses of any sort which is probably a bigger problem in the first place. I have probably have said this before, but it really has put a damper on things. This time not just the sickness but the recovery.  It’s taken me days to feel some semblance of normal, and I am still ridiculously tired. I think that’s the worst part of it, not the symptoms but the fatigue.

It hits me like a wall, almost as if my head is moving through a thick fog of fatigue. It has plagued me for days, forcing me to cut short the productive hours I usually have.  Maybe I am pushing it too hard, but I want to make the most of the time I have now and actually make steps to getting ahead in the life in which I dream to be. It even makes waking up feeling with my head feeling heavy of sleeping sand.  I don’t enjoy this at all, it makes me feel so detached from me.

I can say that being sick will always put things in perspective how good it is to be in good health.  I wish I weren’t tired, I wish it didn’t throw out an entire weekend of productivity, but I can’t undo the past. I want to work for the future, but it’s this fatigue that is following me everywhere I go.

I know this isn’t my usual spiel and more of a complaint than anything else, but what can I do when my head is pounding against my eyes asking me to hit the pillow instead of the books.  I can fight back, but I don’t know how much to, I don’t want to relapse and watch myself descend back into sickness, especially when I am so close to these days in which I am free to be as productive as I want to be.  So I will bide my time and wait until I can rise again healthy and full of energy.