dangerousthoughts3

[dangerousthoughts3]

Update

New Rule, If it's not worth writing a poem about, it's not worth worrying about.

Corollary, Here's my new poem called "Food"

Yummy yummy in my tummy Food is so nice to me When I am hungry it fills me up And tastes at least ok After that I'm not sure what to say... But if I can't finish this poem I'll starve by the end of the day.

[dangerousthoughts3]

Why is Poetry always so grim nowadays?

Rainstorms collapsing on the shore Wind battering the tightly shuttered windows A small hole inviting an indoor swimming pool Soon to be mopped up by worried parents But not before being thoroughly enjoyed by ecstatic children

Lightning lighting up the pitch dark skies Revealing in one momentous burst A single flash of all the grandeur In the heavens above Hidden by clouds minuscule in comparison

Screams of glee and terror compete With the earth shattering rumble Of the thunder that follows With furry friends finding a safe place to hide And little boys thundering back to prove their bravery As they hide the wobbles in their legs

The earth reminding us with Each crashing wave and gusting gale That we can do little else But appreciate it's terrifying beauty

But if you listen to the tiny warbles That escape the stretching and straining Of a wind that requires sound to fight just like the birds that make it You'll hear the peace that lives in chaos and calamity You'll hear the illustrious sounds of a world that survives its own terror

[dangerousthoughts3]

Poetry Night w/ the Bois (Drunk af)

When I showed up I planned cringe To show up and show out some Incoherent rambling to draw a cheap laugh

I considered sharing the metaphorical Abstraction of my love and pain From years ago Refracting my hurt Through the lens of broken wings Instead of broken people

And wonder why I feel so alone Incapable of dealing with my own shit Let alone sharing it With the people who I care about And could care about me

You may not hate but I love you Platonic for sure But real And in a way that I fear Because so often I've known That the people I care about wouldn't meet me Where I need

But by god I'm not hiding

[dangerousthoughts3]

Loving is easy

Loving someone is easy. Or, it's controllable at least. They need you and you show up. They ask you to meet their friends at midnight and you drive across the city just to see them smile. You're at the beach and you pick them up a seashell because you saw how much they appreciated the flower you put in their hair and you think they'd like a little gesture to remind them that they were on your mind. And that you wanted to bring them something pretty.

You just have to be there, and be stable enough to build the foundation of a life upon. Maybe for a while, maybe forever. Being loved may not be easy, but it is exhilarating.

Being loved is hard

Being loved is hard. Or, it's out of your control at least. Will she show up if I ask her to be there? Does she care to be a part of my life and meet my friends? Is she thinking about me when she's feigning interest in some art whose beauty would certainly remind me of her if I were there? Will she want to tell me about her night?

Worst of all, what if she does? And someday she just doesn't anymore. Someday this person I've built my life around just isn't there anymore and the foundation of my existence is left in shambles needing to be rebuilt. Being loved may not be hard, but it is terrifying.

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 7 of My Active Life

Today I held my niece and she beamed her little princess smile up at me

Last night, my nephew was offered “the king seat” at the head of the table for his birthday celebration, and he said “the king” wanted the seat next to me instead.

We exchanged our favorite stories about him.  There were so many stories.

I remember when he was born and spent a month in the NICU.  

When he came home I sat beside his bed for weeks to make sure he was safe (someone needed to be there in case his heart monitor went off).

But my favorite story was when he was given a candy cane gram form a friend for Christmas a year ago.

In fact, all but one student in his class received one.  Some received several, but my nephew only had one. 

He walked over and without pomp handed his away to the student who had none.  Not a close friend. Not someone who was crying about it.  But he showed a sense of proactive empathy that is so uniquely him.

His mother detailed another story about how he went out of his way to make sure a new kid in his class had someone to play with at recess.  

The common theme of the night was that he was so inherently full of passion for life and love for those around him. 

I think that he is my favorite person. 

When the world feels like a dark place I remember how much I love that kid and how bright a world with him in it must be. 

There’s no deep philosophy today.  No fancy words.  No argument. Just life.

Protinus Vive

[dangerousthoughts3]

Presumptuous

"I'm presumptuous?"

Perhaps, but perhaps I see in this.

Something that I'm certain of

Unspoken but...

Heard from the first "I love you"

That's never said with the tongue

Perhaps, you screamed it with your eyes' light

Perhaps, I shouted it with the way that I held you tight

Perhaps, we both simply whispered it with a pleasant word

Or maybe I am just presumptuous

But, then I choose to live in a presumed world

One where I see an invisible truth

An unspoken word

One where you are Mine

and I am Yours

[dangerousthoughts3]

And tread I will

I stand

and pace

ever treading 

in a sea of tranquility

the waves that batter my mind

spurned on by my own inability to float

at peace with the spirit of humanity that 

surrounds me and threatens to swallow all that I am

But if I only accepted to be drowned, then all that remains

would be an ocean so calm it may well be a wine-dark glass

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 6 of My Active Life

(Ok so I may have gotten distracted, but I think maybe for real this time…)

Wanting things is hard.  

Getting things is easy.  But… what to get????

Not sure why it’s something I’ve always struggled with, but I’m fairly certain it’s a mix of one of those ways I’m fucked up and ways I was fucked up.

As a baby my parents would buy me a handful of presents every year on Christmas.  I’ve rarely actually made a Christmas list (and when I do it’s usually ~1 item long).  But that was rarely what I received…

So I’d open a present as a toddler.  And then I’d leave to go play with my new toy.  My parents would fight me back to the tree so they could get the satisfaction of my joy at the next toy. And then I’d walk away with that toy… (I was stubborn. or ADD? Or something idk). 

As I grew up I remember so much fucking guilt with wanting.  

When I was in second grade I wanted a DS.  For my first communion my parents wanted to buy me a watch.  It was TRADITION.  I made a compelling case to get a DS instead. I loved that DS.  I hated myself for feeling like I’d ruined my parents joy. 

By the time I was in highschool I was pretty much completely empty.  My parents couldn’t control me with restricting my desires if I simply killed all of them.  

When my brothers warned my sister that “All men only want one thing” (a probably toxic idea, but one outside of the scope of this discussion) they hedged it without “except *insert real name here* he might actually be perfect”  of course their praise for my emptiness probably didn’t help… but perhaps the damage was already done. 

All of that is to say, answering honestly was gonna take some fucking work. 

And perhaps I’m still doing that work. 

But for today. 

I want to be passionate.  I want to be present.  I want to grow. 

I love what I do.  I love my hobbies. And the people around me often hate that.  Can’t tell you why honestly.  But I get more hate for working off hours than almost anything.  Fuck it do something you love and throw yourself at it.  Be the best and do it your way. 

I love to sit at a lake and stare out over the water.  Just sit and listen. Let my brain reset from the constant screaming and overstimulation that is life in the 21st century. 

I love to learn.  I’m pretty much always shoving something in my brain.  Whether it’s research on Chagas or the evolution of weaving practices in the middle east.  The world is so fucking beautiful and I only have so many years to experience it all. (Although finding the balance between knowing it and experiencing it is a new challenge in my life)

I don’t think that’s exactly what the question was asking, but it’s the truest answer I know. So it’s the answer I gave. 

Protinus Vive

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 5 of My Active Life

Yesterday we discussed how a simple promise made and kept changed the course of my life.  

Today I’d like to discuss how a simple question, set me on a journey I never expected and how that led me to this post.

“What do you want?” A new friend asked. 

“Nothing.” I responded.  As true an answer I could give.  

I suppose I must have been asked that question before before.  I knew that I had no desires.  So to know that, I must have given it thought. But I honestly can’t tell you if anyone had ever asked me what I wanted.  Not in a specific sense.  But what I wanted broadly.  What was it I wanted out of life? 

“That can’t be true.  I know you want something. “

“I really don’t”

“That’s not true. “

It wasn’t.  But it also wasn’t exactly a lie. I answered what I knew to answer.  And normally that would be the end of it.  But for once, someone simply refused to let me be.

If you know me, you know that I refuse to lie.  I’m not saying I’m always honest exactly.  Sometimes I’m wrong (I try not to make promises I can’t keep but I’ve had to accept my humanity over time).  Sometimes I withhold things.  BUT if I’m asked a direct question from someone who wants to know the answer, they’re getting the absolute truest answer I’m capable of. 

“Give me some time to get back to you.”

I knew she was probably right. I AM human.  Humans want things.  Therefore… But… what did I want? like actually fucking want? 

Anyways patience is a virtue so we will continue tomorrow. 

Protinus Vive

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 4 of My Active Life

Yesterday we began the discussion of “why?”  I dove into the deeply personal and tragic (in perhaps the most profound sense of the word as there is no greater tragedy than the daily acceptance of misery in a passive existence from a creature capable of choosing joy)

I’d like to dive deeper into a few moments that changed my life.  Simple conversations that helped me to design the person that I am in the process of creating. 

The first was a vivid memory I have with my brother.  We hadn’t always been close.  Or perhaps we had.  Trapped in a shared misery.  (But that’s beyond the scope of the current discourse).

We were at a park.  I was about to head off to college.  He had recently graduated.  I can’t tell you if he’d ever given me advice before.  But he gave me some of the best advice I’d ever received.  I was depressed.  I was alone. And it was my fault.  I knew it too.  I spent probably 10 hours a day playing video games.  Pokemon evolved into minecraft (pun not intended).  Which grew into Skyrim.  Soon I had over 2k hours spent in Dota 2.  

“When you go to college. For your first semester.  Promise me you won’t play video games alone.”

He didn’t ask me to abscond them entirely.  He simply asked me to avoid filling the hole in me and to use them as a tool.  

By the end of my first semester it was a running joke among my friends that “*insert my real name here* knows everybody.”  Because everywhere we’d go I’d walk up and introduce my closer friends to one of the dozens of people who I had met and made a careful and intentional choice to learn the name, face, major, and something personal about.  For the first time in my life I felt truly as if I wasn’t alone.  

A single decision.  Spawned from a promise to a brother who a part of me hated. And I was happier than I’d ever been.  

I’ve played videogames since (and at times had much worse hobbies). But I’ve never fallen back into that addiction.  Because the void.  The loneliness.  That had died.  I had killed it.  And I lived yet.  In fact… I lived a little more than I had before.

Protinus Vive

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 3 of My Active Life

Yesterday, we discussed the necessity of choice in an active life. Choice allows us to move from being alive into a state of active living.  The choice to read, to write, to love, to forgive.  Decisions we make allow us control and let us find the person we are. 

But behind every choice, there must be some motivation.  Some why behind the what. 

Today I’d like to open a discussion on “why?”

Here is where the abstract breaks down and the personal and real has to be allowed its day. 

I was miserable.  I’m not alone in that.   Many of you have been there as well.  (Assuming many people ever read this).

My story is not so unique.  I grew up disillusioned.  Devoid of the faith that drove my parents.  Lacking the academic drive that seemed to fuel many of my peers.  I was comfortably uncomfortable.  A shell of a person.  Never failing to meet the expectations of others, but constantly failing to meet my “potential.”  

What was the point of it?  School was a waste.  “I’ll never need any of this later, and my grades are meaningless.  I’m doing well enough.”  And certainly there was no point to even trying to do anything else. I was stuck in limbo.  

“When I go to college I’ll finally have an opportunity to do something meaningful.”  

“I’ll find friends that I care about then.”

Truth is… I was too damn scared to live my life.  I excused my behaviors as a byproduct of my condition because it was easy.  It’s easy to avoid blame. Today I will just watch netflix.  I’ll just fill my time with video-games, with shopping, with porn. But tomorrow.  Tomorrow I’ll be the person I want to be.  It’ll be easier tomorrow. 

I’m not saying any of those activities are per se bad.  But what was bad is that I did them mindlessly.  I sat around waiting for life to allow me to live.  

And I won’t lie.  My life was changed in many ways external to myself.  I met people who lived.  And I let them help me.  I finally felt free to be happy.  To be ME.  And it all began with a question a friend asked that to her was the simplest question in the world, but was something I refused to ask before. 

“What do you want?”

Protinus Vive

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 2 of my Active Life

Yesterday I established myself on a journey towards living an active life and defined that concept as living immediately.  

Today I am left with the question of what does it mean to live? 

 More to the point, what is the difference between “living” and merely “being alive.”  And why should I want to live.

As a matter of fact, I’d argue “why” is at the root of the difference.  To be alive is a state.  Your heart is pumping.  Your lungs are breathing.  Your brain is firing neurons.  Each of these organs is playing their part in allowing you to live.  But what part are you playing? You are merely being held by those organs as if suspended on an iron lung.  

Living is an active verb.  You have made the choice to do something.  You have found a why.  And that why motivates you from existence to activity.  

At the most fundamental level, you have made a choice.  It can be a simple choice “today I will go on a walk.”  

For my part, today I have started reading a book (More on that to come I’m certain).  Yesterday I chose to begin documenting my journey.  Tomorrow?  Who knows.  Tomorrow is tomorrow…

“Protinus Vive”

[dangerousthoughts3]

Day 1 of my Active Life

What does it mean to live an active life? 

“Active life” usually implies exercise, or outdoors and sport.  

Here it doesn’t.

An active life may most simply be stated with a quote by Seneca the Younger “Protinus Vive.”  This translates literally into english as “Live Immediately.”  

Of course, anyone who is reading this is currently alive, but in a more real sense can you say you are living?  I am choosing to share my journey towards living an active life (and my response to it) because it is meaningful to me.  But how did you end up here?  Do you want to make your life more “active”? More intentional?  Or did you simply stumble across a blog post and choose to waste a day reading the ramblings of a voice in the ether? 

As a lover of philosophy (a phrase which I am now realizing is a bit redundant).  I must emphasize that the point of knowledge is to better direct yourself in the direction of living a “good” life.  

It is my opinion however, that the first step in living a good life is living.  And as Seneca would say 

“Protinus Vive”

[dangerousthoughts3]

Masochism?

Imagine a world where we weren't all so damn terrified of being hurt. Maybe we would even lean into the pain just to make sure we never forget its sting. Maybe in such a world we would be able to understand and internalize how our actions harm others. Maybe we would give a fuck. At least we would stop drowning out every damn thing we feel for fear that caring might lead to suffering. We would take risks. We would get hurt. We would love. And maybe we would be loved.

[dangerousthoughts3]

You're just a mammal. Let yourself act like it. Your brain needs enrichment. Your body needs rest. You feel hunger and grow hair. You need to pack bond with other sentient things so you don't become unsocialized and neurotic. You are biologically inclined to seek dopamine and become sick when chronically stressed. Outrage about hedonism is made up to place moral value on taking pleasure in sensory experiences. I am telling you that if you don't let yourself be a fucking mammal, as you were made, you will suffer and go insane. No grindset no diets no trying to be above your drive for connection. Pursue what makes you feel good and practice radical rejection of the constructs meant to turn you into a machine. You're a mammal.

[dangerousthoughts3]

-Rumi

[dangerousthoughts3]

What are DanGErous Thoughts?

"Do something that sucks every day" - David Goggins

"Do something that scares you every day" - Eleanor Roosevelt

I've given a lot of thought recently into how I choose to live my life. And I wasn't getting very far. Vulnerability with a few close friends helped. But there were miles to go.

I saw a video yesterday about a yogic practice where you practice letting go of expectations by walking into a new restaurant every day for a month and letting the employees order for you. As a person who has always identified as a picky eater that was terrifying. But somehow I found the idea of it thrilling. I walked over and told a friend I was going to do it, and I had knots in my stomach the whole time.

Last night I had Bhan Mi for the first time. I almost puked before getting it into my mouth. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. I probably wouldn't order it again. But I walked away with a weird sense of pride. It's obviously not some massive accomplishment to eat a sandwich... But taking the first step in fighting back against an identity that I've never liked and always constrained myself with filled me with more joy and pride than almost any of the relatively major accomplishments that others would note on when analyzing my life.

Today will be day 2. And I've decided to expand my challenge to include a more broad range of things that normally scare me. One of the fundamental fears that I have is being seen in ways where I allow vulnerability in fields where I'm not comfortable with my competency. (Karaoke is a nightmare). Sharing Poems and thoughts I write is up there as well. Plan is to go ice skating and make a fool of myself. And instead of laughing it off actually try to improve. Admit to myself and those around me that it does matter. I want to be good and I'm not yet. I have a knot in my stomach about that. And one about writing this. So I'm fairly certain I'm on the right path.

Let's live DanGERously.