Friday with tuesdays with Morrie

Words cannot describe how badly I needed to read this today... you really have no idea... oh universe out of all the gifts you have given to me I thank you soooooo much for this one.

"The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it."

_____________________________

“Have I told you about the tension of opposites? he says. The tension of opposites? Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. 

You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.

A wrestling match. He laughs. Yes, you could describe life that way.

So which side wins, I ask?

Which side wins? He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.

Love wins. Love always wins.”

_____________________________

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”



and OMG 

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levin said it right. He said, “Love is the only rational act.”

Smh... this is going to be a one day read... I cannot put it down... 




More... 

“You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

“Take any emotion—love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. “But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment’.

We've got a sort of brainwashing going on in our country, Morrie sighed. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all of this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.

Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. 'Guess what I got? Guess what I got?'

You know how I interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.

Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.”

GAH.... 

Well said..

“For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A commercial. You know the awful singsong of blase: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality really can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared scripted.
It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.
And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls.
It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else.
I would have done anything to feel real again.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Alive

The moon fading in front of me, the sun peaking out behind me, the open road underneath me... 

Has it really been that long?

A year and a half without so much as a half hearted ramble! I seriously need to learn to prioritize better, in the wake of countless abandoned hobbies and ill fated resolutions there has to be something I have stuck to... oh yes, the wrong things.

Facebook

(‎"TGIF", "I am so grateful", "GREAT Weather we are having", "I love my significant other", "having so much fun" "DAT MONEY, "Bible quote", "philosophical quote", "music quote", "motivational quote", "I AM SO HAPPY", "I am somewhere cool, you are not", "Damn it life is _______" "repost this if you have nothing else to do" "1 millionth self portrait"

I just saved everyone 45 minutes, you are welcome.)

That was my finale on Facebook... I really had nothing to say after that, so I spent the better part of the next morning deleting all my info, photos, friends and then finally deactivating my account. 

I guess in the end Fb showed me that having access to other peoples thoughts and expressions is not always a good thing. While I did understand certain people on a higher and deeper level the amount of people that I ended up just disliking as a result was staggering. 

In my reasoning for deactivating my account I listed other and said that in the facebook made me dislike the people who were "my friends" sometimes, enough IS too much. 

Just do your best and don't worry... ugh?

The old line has always been to do your best, or try your hardest. If you did that then you were rewarded with peace of mind or whatever it is you were striving for at that particular time.  Well what happens when you do your best and it still isn't enough?

When you go out of your way for people, go above and beyond what is expected of you and you still end up on the losing end. Now obviously the "the losing end" is completely up to interpretation I get that. But I guess what I am trying to say is what happens when everything you try and do comes up short.

When all your efforts are lost and nothing you do does any good? What is the correct reaction to this? Stop trying? Try harder? I really don't know what I need to do sometimes. ( maybe most times) and I am tired of trying so hard to make things better or easier only to end up making things worse.

I am not sure what needs to be done anymore I really am not. I wish I had the answers I wish I could just know what to do or what to say. All I want are simple things, peace of mind, good times, good company. But it seems like the harder I try to better myself and achieve my goals the quicker they seem to slip out of my hands.

I realize life isn't always supposed to be easy and that frustration is just part of the territory... I just don't have to like it.

Sometimes I just don't know

I try to put things in perspective, I try to look at things from a different place, and I try and be appreciative. The problem is the day in day out mental assault just makes me more and more bitter. I get so caught up in the frustration and rage I get from it that I lash out or come across as maybe ungrateful or even hateful but the truth is I need to go. I shouldn't be there anymore and I know it...

I can't blame her for being the way she is, even though I have heard the stories a million times I really have no clue what she has gone through in her life. I know that Al took his toll on her as it did to everyone but especially to her. I know her life growing up was painful and by today's standards, torturous.

I try to think about these things when she is forcing her dogma on me. I try to think of these things when she is pointing out how fat I and everyone in the universe is.  I try and think about it when she is constantly picking at Marci for the things she does, and how it isn't the way she would do it. Marci doesn't have the skin for it or the heart. To be a Vera sometimes means you have to just deal with projected bullshit and politics, it's just our dynamic. One that perhaps I have grown weary of..

It wouldn't even be as bad if it just what it is, in a straight out way but it isn't... its a game. I am not being offensive I am looking out for your best interest, I CARE. That is why I am always watching and always judging, criticizing, listening... chiming in with my two cents.

 This week has been especially difficult, she has had too much time on her hands and idle time always leads to boredom and amped up critiquing. You combine that with the upcoming Easter Sunday and you have a powder keg of epic proportions.  I watch my dad fumble through the bed he's made for himself and I wonder if I will ever leave this place..

It was always a place of comfort and peace for me growing up. I used to stay home from school to bask in the little world my mother created. It was safe there after all. Even the first time I moved out after our wedding, I missed it. But the older I got the more I realized how much denial and manipulation went into it, it turned from a sanctuary into a prison. I want so badly to leave more than I have ever wanted anything. Not just for me but for Marcia as well...she doesn't deserve this...

I am caught between a rock and a hard place literally, do I move out and risk the business...Marci's job is teetering and the economy has yet to bounce back. But how much do we have to sacrifice how long does this have to go on. I used to think I could wait till she finished school but I seriously cannot even begin to imagine another two years... Marci has already cracked and I am next...

At the end of the day, it isn't my place to even complain... I am there. And as long as I am there I will have to deal with this. That is just the way it is right now...