Fuck You.

I like rock music. I liked it before I got into any other music, before I realized how powerful music could be or how different rhythms moved me. To be more precise, I like rock ideology. I always find that after I listen to something really passionate or something weird or something moving or something that tugs at my heartstrings, I retreat back to rock music. After I started questioning things and trying out different beliefs and different lifestyles, rock music was always a sort of constant - something refreshing, relaxing, unemotional. Weird that these are not qualities that are typically associated with rock music, but this is how this genre made me feel.   This is sort of strange since rock music seems to be the antithesis of everything that I really deeply love about life (love, truth, yoga, silence, natural beauty...things of this sort). However, in pondering why I love the things/people/experiences/ect. that I love, I've come to conclude that they all have that "Fuck You" quality about them. I love yoga (as a metaphor for a particular kind of lifestyle) for the same reason I love Rock music. I think it is encapsulated in this poem, which, ironically, also has that "Fuck You" quality about it...

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People need help, but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

- Mother Theresa

Grad school is showing me exactly what I thought that it might, except in new,  interesting, and more esoteric ways - that the world is socially constructed and reality is never what it seems to be. This is cool because once we realize the latent paradigms that underlie the way that things function, we can create or choose our way - like the autistic child did in The Curious Case of the Dog at Night.. not that he could help it, but still (another book of "Fuck You" quality). So, fuck who? Fuck you socially constructed, ideologically perpetuating "reality" and all of the standardized products, services and creations that you propose to be true. I love you, but fuck you.

This blog sounds harsh. I really hate the F word, but it seems appropriate and not interchangeable hahaha.

On another note, fear and love are opposite sides of the same coin and I have been excessively afraid lately. But this is not really who I am, it is just something temporary. Anything that comes out of my mouth (or anyone's for that matter) that is written in letters or blogs or spoken or acted out that is not all-encompassing, unconditional love is fear - fear of transitioning, of relinquishing the past, of newness, of being on my own, things of this sort. Any words, thoughts, actions or creations that I manifest and bring into the world or thrust upon you/anyone that are not aligned with this ultimate goal of seeing the beauty in all things, of truly saying Fuck you to everything that is not unadulterated, unconditional love are not really me- they are just some ulterior me, some ego-bound me speaking or acting or thinking on some worldly whim. 

And this, I think, (what do I know?) is where the logical fallacy of life and love occurs - in the space between the real and the false - in assuming that one is the other, that my very essence is validated by what I say, do, act out, or create.... even though these manifestations of "me" might be motivated by fear - a transitory state of being. And this is why we tire of love, why we move on from a person or get anxious about the circumstances that we are in. But, ironically, it is these material manifestations that draw people to each other... so how now brown cow? hahaha... I just felt like saying that..... but really, people come to love each other for their idiosyncrasies so... I guess how now brown cow is a good way to end that thought.... hahahaha.  


again, what do I know?.

I like you a lot because I think that you realize these things -and because you also seem to have that fuck you-ness about you.

And I like myself a lot because I know I realize this. In this way I am so, so small, yet can be so large.

Thanks for serving!

.... we had an OCF conference call the other day and our leader ended it on this note of gratitude. It is such an obvious thing that my role in this new job title, and in life, is to be of service, to serve, to be a servant for a greater purpose. But it is something that I had forgotten somehow. I think this is natural when we are caught up in the busy-ness of life - we get caught up in the here-and-now and forget to make mental/physical time for all the stuff that isn't a temporary distraction. It's sometimes hard to remember that that is what all of this "stuff" is. It was especially hard during Pippin to not get hypnotized into thinking that the show was not but a fleeting bit of a nice experience in the grand scheme of life because I loved it so much. But I can't help but wonder... then what? and then what? and then what? and then what? and then what? and then what? And ultimately I come to the conclusion that we are meant to love and serve and that is the end of the then whats? And then all of these experiences that we have.. school, sports, music, theater, work, family, etc. take on a new transcendent purpose and we can go through life not consumed by the worldliness of each of them, but by the opportunities for loving and serving that are inherent in each one.

I've been questioning what my role has been in each of the schemas that currently comprise my life recently and, today, this statement somehow made its way to the forefront of my consciousness and made me feel blessed that I have so many opportunities to fulfill this calling. What immediately comes to mind is my role in Much Ado About Nothing - a waitress/bartender. I am literally a servant. I serve drinks and tend tables and clean up after everyone else and backstage I make sure everyone is comfortable enough to perform to their greatest capacity. It is very much a role that takes a backseat to the other leading roles -and I love it! In fact, when I think about it, I can reimagine my entire life as being made up of opportunities to serve - family, school, athletics, theater, relationships, etc. They are all glorious opportunities for us (me) to realize how/what/in what ways we can give of ourselves.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return.

But wait!

Waiting for the fish to bite. Or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for a Friday night. Or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting.

I just discovered how to put pictures into my blogs! I wonder if this will convolute or clarify what I am trying to say with words. At any rate, not that I've written life a letter of resignation... (yet.. haha)... I clearly have not done that since I've decided to go to grad school because I've learned that there is so much to learn....but is it not OK sometimes to just wait? This picture presupposes proactivity to be the path towards going places in life. But once we've reached a certain point, maybe one at which we're happy with ourselves or content that the person we've created ourselves to be is ultimately the person we want to share with someone else, then mustn't we just wait to see what becomes of what we've created? Or should we actively try to make something of the something we've already made something of (hehehe)? I feel absolutely ambivalent about this aspect of my life right now. To wait or not to wait, that is the question?

Sermon!

Last week, I attended the Taste of Danbury. As you probably know, it is a community-based event where businesses around town can set up booths to sell their products and services and get acquainted or reacquainted with the community. There was music and dancing and food and crafts and it was an overall good time. Last week, a few hours later, the ladies in my family also had a Julia Childs cooking party. We wore French hats and cooked French food, played a few games, drank French wine, had a few laughs and talked about life. Both events were important reminders that I am apart of something bigger than myself. That I am not alone in the world.

You all are probably able to tell similar stories about the communities that you have in your own lives. Here at church we have the lady’s society and the men’s society. We have Teen Soyo and Sunday school for our youth and a Choir for those who love to sing. Outside of church we belong to a myriad of different social groups or jobs that foster a shared sense of self. The Orthodox College Federation offers this sense of community to college kids as we venture off into the world on our own for the first time. Having gone through four years of college, I can testify to how unnerving the experience can be. We are thrown into dorm rooms with 6 other roommates who we’ve never met and are forced to get along with them. We are given books to read and ideas to toil with that force us to examine our beliefs and either strengthen or weaken our convictions. We are surrounded by so many different lifestyles and have to make an ungodly number of decisions about who we are and the experiences and people that we want to shape our lives. Some of us become athletes, some scholars, some of us politicians, some artists, and some human-rights advocates. As Orthodox college students, we are so many things, yet, hopefully, above and beyond all of the different directions that our lives take us in, we are children of God.

College kids have the world at their fingertips, a whole bed of knowledge to play with and a thousand different roads down which they can travel. What the Orthodox College Federation offers us is peace of mind. We can go out into the world and achieve our dreams when we know that we have something constant in our lives to turn to during trying times, despite the changing tides of the social world. We can rely on God and a community of patient, compassionate, kind, loving Orthodox Christians who enable awesome service programs like Real Break, Just Love, and College Conference to be made manifest. We can live in peace knowing that there is a community of other Orthodox Christians who are all striving to live according to God’s word. We can feel that all-important sense of connection with other people through the programs offered in and around the college community by the OCF.

For the past two years, I have attended college conference at the Village. You’ve probably heard testimonies about what a wonderful, peaceful place Antiochian Village is from the youth of our church who have attended the conference during the winter or camp during the summer. It is a place where we go to worship, where we go to dance and pray and make new friends and attend workshops that remind us what it means to be an Orthodox Christian. The conference is something I look forward to going to year after year, in part because of the programs and the prayerful environment that is fostered there, but also because of the other college students who attend the event from all over the country. How great it is that we can reunite for four days a year and get our dose of spirituality and community, then take all that we have learned and apply it to real-life situations. How comforting and lasting are the relationships that we form. This is what the Orthodox College Federation has done for me and for so many others; it has given us peace of mind and the comfort of knowing that we are not alone.

A list.. Because I like making them

I'm excited to rebalance my life. I was pretty good about keeping it in order this summer, except towards the end. But I think that is natural and I turn to Eat, Pray, Love's proposal that it is necessary to fall out of balance for love sometimes. Anyway, there is a lot of stuff I want to experience in life... actually.. there is very little I do not want to... which is why, I've come to conclude, I make so many lists. They help me remember what I REALLY care about and then align my actions accordingly instead of always going off on whims.

Things I desperately want to do in life:

Go to Burning Man
Hike the entire Appalachian Trail
Peace Corps
Study yoga/meditation in India
Spend some time at a monastery
Spend a summer volunteering at Kripalu
Study macrobiotic cooking here - http://www.kushiinstitute.org/

Get a PhD from this program - http://histcon.ucsc.edu/index.html!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Go through this program and come out bruised and beaten and rejuvenated
and certified to teach 5 rhythms - http://www.gabrielleroth.com/!!!!!!!!!!! (sidenote: sometimes I go to this website for hours and get so lost listening to Totem [or whatever other music is on repeat].. like right now =) )

The last two I want so so badly it almost hurts to think about them!!!
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!


Things I want to make a part of my life forever/keep pursuing:

yoga..forever..until I die!
writing
practicing the act of loving unconditionally
reading
guitar

... I think these things are things I will be able to do all of my life, even when I am old and frail, which is why they seem so appealing.

I'll have to probably think long and hard about timing because I also want to fall in love and get married and have a family and when that happens I won't be able to do the things on that list that involve traveling and intense study because I'll be preoccupied with my fam! Actually, come to think of it, I should probably get moving on some of these if I want to fit them all in! God forbid I have to make sacrifices! I hate doing that! hahaha!

I read over my entire blog last night. It was funny and shocking and beautiful and I'm glad that I have it to keep track of how my ideas/outlook has evolved and to remember how I felt at specific moments in time. Right now, I'm thinking a lot about when exactly all of these ideas took place and the conditions that allowed for them to be made manifest in my blog. I'm reading a cool book right now and one of the author's hypothesis' is that success in life is predicated on predetermined variables like what month you were born in (for some things.. Canadian hockey to be exact). Basically, if all your stars are aligned correctly (metaphorically speaking) then you'll be able to attempt to rise to the top of whatever field you pursue in what is very much a meritocracy. I think this is how love works, as well - you don't just fall in love - you have to be prepared to let it fall into you.
I guess what I'm also trying to get at in a very circuitous manner is that a lot of my mental/emotional/spiritual progress/current beliefs was/were both upended and cemented in college. I remember at times being so pretentious. And then so humbled. And then so confused. And I'm trying very hard not to talk about specific people, but I'm wondering how I should go about letting all of that happen to you. There are things in life that we can talk about and read about, but there are processes in life that we have to go through - we have to allow ourselves to be stripped of our beliefs, to be thrown into murky water so we can find somehow find our way up to the surface where we can breath fresh, new air again. I guess loving you means sitting back and watching college work its magic on you, all the while knowing that you might not be anywhere near the same person you were when you went in.

Anyway, I anticipate writing in here a lot more because I will have a bajillion new ideas/beautiful things thrust my way once grad school kicks in in about a week. Am I really going to grad school??!?! OMG!

Eat, Pray, Love... Read, Write, Watch, Live, Think etc etc etc!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo why must you be over beautiful book! I never wanted you to endddddddd. how could I not love it? It was the story of a woman trying to create/recreate/find balance in her life! It is one of those books that reminds you how wonderful it is to let your imagination run wild and makes you feel like there is nothing else in the world you could possibly need or want except to get lost in this beautiful piece of literature. The book ended with the author's favorite Italian word, "Attraversiamo!" (lets cross over). She said it as she and her Brazilian lover jumped over the edge of their boat..together.. into the (presumably) beautiful waters on their (most likely) beautiful Indonesian Island. I read it at a park next to some water. The first thing I did after I closed the book was jump in (onto a concrete step about up to my ankles.. that counts right?). Then I did a cartwheel. Then I sent a text message.
I'm going to document the things that jumped out at me.

"He laughed with me, not getting the joke, of course, but loving the idea that people make jokes."
Perfect. I think this is how I live my life most of the time (or at least how i strive to), why I love good theater and "bad" theater and all theater and things that are happy-go-lucky and things that are sad and depressing. I just love expressions of humanity and people trying to give life and breath and meaning to their time here on this Earth (although I think I tend to veer towards expressions of light and optimism). I think that maybe I will start to include this in my definition of love and my formula for living. When we are too busy studying a piece of media/outpouring of emotion (a play, movie, Hallmark card, letter, etc.etc.etc. for its latent intent and when we extend all our energy towards trying to uncover its "true meaning" or what the author/producer of the material "really meant to say" when he/she created it and then using the information gathered during our speculation as a way to judge the relative quality of the material in question (hahahahahaha this sounds so scientific I just laughed out loud) then we miss out on...... wow I just lost my train of thought and don't feel like going back to find it. Something about humans being fallible. So we should let them experience that aspect of themselves. I just like to find reasons to be happy and spread happiness even if the way I interpret or the fragmented pieces I take away from the material I consume might be classified as "wrong." Who cares? Creative genius is half misinterpretation anyway!... I feel a tangent coming on... maybe in a new blog...
I think it will work if you allow/appreciate that I am like this and if I allow/appreciate that you are exactly not...
Anyway, omg I am in love with this idea... and the idea of new ideas.. which is why I'm going to grad school hahaha!

"To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life."
Oh man, this sounds delicious!

And while I'm on the subject of balance... which I tend to be a lot... I LOVE BALI.. or the idea of it at least!

"The family compound is so vital that the Balinese think of it as a single, living person....When this system works - which it does in this healthy society almost all the time - it produces the most sane, protected, calm, happy, and balanced human beings in the world. But when it doesn't work?... The outcasts are lost in airless orbit"

Sane, protected, calm, happy, and balanced. sweet. so cool and spot on. People go crazy when they are afraid and they are afraid because they can't trust/rely on the people/things in their lives. Imagine being surrounded by a family/person that would love you..or at least stay with you.. unconditionally, no matter what. It's what we claim to do in America, although really we don't... but we also don't really put love on a pedestal here.. we put things like intelligence and money and success and fame and fortune on it instead. Damn Americans! =)

This is from a book that my one of my Aunts told me about... it's called The Outliers. It's about a group of people in Penn who's life expectancy (on the whole) was extremely high...

“There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didn’t have anyone on welfare. These people were dying of old age. That’s it.”

The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell... “They looked at how the Rosetans visited each other, stopping to chat with each other in Italian on the street, or cooking for each other in their backyards. They learned about the extended family clans that underlay the town’s social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof, and how much respect grandparents commanded.”

This sounds completely ridiculous, but I can't wait to have a family! Are there more important things in life than thisssssssssssssssss? I can't wait to create this safe place and give my heart to someone and know that they will give me theirs in return and then have some kids and love them too and teach them how great it is when you have someone you can rely on and then grow old and sit around doing nothing but experiencing old age with my husband who will be as content as I am!! How great it must be to be a grandparent.. your only job in life is to love... you don't have to raise or scold or put up with any of the stuff that parents do.. you just have to sit back and say things to your kids like "now you know how I felt!" and cook homemade donuts and buy presents and sit back and enjoy the dynasty you've headed! What a family does, I think, is eliminate one less variable from the mystery of life and success and realizing our potential and all that jazz. If we don't have to worry about having someone stand by you no matter what you get yourself in to then you can worry (connoted positively) about other things. And there is a lot of stuff to worry about!

Love is always the answer! (sidenote.. I was listening to "All you need is love" in the car the other night and I was overcome with this intense warm lovely feeling.. which was weird because that's the only time I've ever even really enjoyed that song.. it's always been sort of annoying to me for some reason.. anyway..) It always has and always will be! Love is a many splendored thing! Love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love!

On a slightly different note, I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas the other day. It was equally as awesome and really funky and ingenious and dark and I was totally enthralled. I have to watch it (yet) again though. (laugh out loud) The two-faced mayor really freaked me out. He reminded me of this one scene in Pippin when we had to walk through the audience with an expressionless face and say excited things like "We're so happy to have you here!!" I'll have to sit and ponder why stuff like that freaks me out some time. Anyway, I thought it would be funny to bring up the Nightmare right after that passionate paragraph about love.

hahahaha!

Some more Love stuff!

I chanced upon both of these ideas during the same morning and I think they sit nicely together. And they make me wonder...

The first....
We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is suppose to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened. You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real- but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.
-Chuck Klosterman

And the second....
From Eat, Pray, Love..

"Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soulmate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soulmate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it."

... so how do we know when we are done peeling away layers? How do we know when we've arrived at the layer we want to stay at? And how do we differentiate this kind of a soulmate from someone more lasting? And why can't a soulmate be the one who sticks around? You know what I think? I think people should come with labels! Then when you meet one of these soulmates you'll know what he/she is and you won't have to get your heart broken going through the tedious process of falling in love and building up a relationship only to see it crash and burn because this person's function was only to peel away another layer and not stick around. And maybe we should also have a "layer label" that warns people what layer we're on. So, like, if you've been totally stripped of all the baggage that needs stripping then you'd have one that said something like "Good to go!" or if you'd never had anyone chip away at you you'd have something like "Has barely scratched the surface!"

Then life would be less tricky and more methodical.. the way it should be! That's sort of a joke.. I like figuring it out. But it's also annoying sometimes. Like when someone tells you a really simple riddle that they know the answer to and you rack your brain trying to figure it out and they keep saying "it's so simple! it's so simple!" and you're like "shut up I can't figure it out!" and then when you do finally figure it out it really does seem so simple, but only in retrospect... that's kinda how life is. And you can either get pissed off at this inevitable reality or laugh at the process of life unfolding before your very eyes. It's cool that we can choose. I'll take the second option please.

I wonder what you think...