Is it weird I feel a little sad for the empty, dotted triangle?
So it’s four o’clock in the morning and I’m about ready to go clean gym equipment and scrub showers. Yup, my first post-college job is performing the ‘janitorial arts’ at LA fitness. Sure others might think I’m a failure and the pay is almost minimum wage, but fuck it, it’s a job. Those aren’t that easy to come by nowadays in case you haven’t noticed. Plus, I get a FREE gym membership. I might be poor, dirty, and a total letdown but hey, I’ll be in the best shape of my entire life. Stay in school kiddies.
It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.
I really hope I’m this badass when I’m older.
Growing up, I felt that our country’s political and business leaders regarded young people as a valuable resource to be cultivated. I felt that our abilities mattered, and that we had a responsibility to use them for the benefit of society as a whole, whether we were inclined to science or the arts or any other worthy pursuit. Now we tell young people that they’re a drain on the budget, unworthy of tax dollars, and after grudgingly warehousing them in public schools, we’ll dump them in the jungle and rail about their lack of moral character and family values if they can’t survive the dog-eat-dog world we refuse to make better.
—NY Times, Anonymous
I’ve been searching for my own place for almost six months now. Another perfect apartment just fell through, fourth one in a row. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up living in a cave with bears at this rate. Aye Carumba.
(via vaati)
It is no measure of health,
to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti
Welcome to my hometown. Any guess where it is?
The Old Year: In Retrospect
2011, was a bitter year full of resentment, goodbyes, and burnt bridges. People who I thought of as giants, pillars of strength and support I could depend on for a lifetime, crumbled in the wind. A freak accident took the life of a dear family friend, a younger brother by everything but blood in my eyes. He was barely 19 years old.
The honest lied, the kind were cruel, and the brave were weak hearted. I burnt more bridges than all others combined. Family members I thought of as mentors spread lies and gossip to snatch my inheritance and won. Lifelong bonds of friendship evaporated in thin air with a mumble and a shrug. I walked home alone this year.
All of my castles in the sky came tumbling down. Standing in the wake of their ruins I tell myself that the dispersal of illusions is just part of growing up. But there is this fear. The fear that all these vanquished dreams stem from an inherent character flaw that I refuse to give up. That I somehow deserve all of this pain because I refuse to deal with life on its own terms. I blinded myself to the dirt because I wanted to believe in a world where everything works out. Instead I just became a sucker and a doormat.
2011- I do not think any year has felt quite so serendipitously daunting and bitter. You leave me with a hollow feeling and a sour taste in my mouth. I won’t be missing you at all.
My best friend made me a Portal cake for my bday! Yay!!
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith
