With Your Ear Against the Earth

"When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the 'why' for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any 'how.'"
-Viktor Frankl

This really annoying thing has been happening to me lately where, as I fall asleep, I think of relatively deep shit that I'd really love to think about during my Waking Life only to wake up and have no idea what in god's name it was. I am a bit concerned that I am my most thoughtful while I'm half-unconscious, but alas, whatevs. 

However, last night, I was prepared for this bullshit and had my cellular phone at the ready to take notes. And take notes I did. I thought about identity. It occurred to me that if and when you choose to identify as something, no one can take that thing away from you. When you identify with/as something, you are committing to the idea that that something is intrinsic to who you are. That even if you wanted to not be that thing, you'd have to keep being it anyway. I mean, okay. Can you imagine how much happier everyone would be if they identified as "lovable?" That would mean that even when someone is mean to you, you can say "well I know I'm lovable, so they're just wrong." Or if everyone identified as "beautiful?" That would mean so much. Every person could look at the millions of reminders of the "standard of beauty" (which obviously is stupid) and say to themselves, "well, I don't look like that, so there simply must be more than one way to be beautiful." The possibilities are endless.

Scrambled Begs

 Something I have learned as I've been striving to become an adult (see: College) is that life is complicated. Everything is complicated. Good things can come out of bad things and there is like an infinite amount of sides to a story and things can suck for no reason. This is incredibly complicated.

I am a strong person. This I have reclaimed.

There are many different ways to love someone. And whether it's because it's just hard or because I am only 19 years of age, it's hard to tell in what way you love someone.
This miscalculation, the uncertainty in knowing how exactly, which way exactly you love someone can hurt them. How complicated is that?

I don't know if you've heard, but I am the luckiest person in the world. One time I was told not to use the word "lucky" but to use the word "fortunate," but I didn't like that. "Fortunate" implies that you earned it. I don't like this idea because that means I could at some point for some reason stop deserving and thus stop having the wonderful things in my life that I have… I don't want to be deserted by these wonderful people and wonderful things in my weakest, most undeserving moments. No thanks.

It is a gift to have something worth mourning the loss of. Every time as of late that I have mourned, I have simultaneously thanked the cosmos. You have worthwhile things in your life if you would mourn their loss. Remember this and thank your lucky stars.

We should be kinder to ourselves. There is productivity and kindness in letting ourselves feel our feelings. It's scary, I get that, but we are imperfect and will have scary feelings sometimes, but can you tell me that bullying yourself for having scary feelings helps? Ride it all out. More than that, we are not cut out to feel stress and anguish forever. We are literally not wired to feel this permanently. Ride it out and then when it's over, if even for a little bit, appreciate every tingle of happiness. This is what feeling alive feels like.

Life is a good place. Happiness and gratefulness are good states of minds. We are so lucky. If you are reading this, I've probably thanked my lucky stars and the cosmos for you. BLAH!