things that give me a strange feeling

-when it sounds like it's raining outside, but it's only the wind blowing and the leaves scratching the window panes

-when you search your name (or your friend's name) on google and see the lives of other people with the same name, and how those people have grown into someone successful. and wondering if that person could be you.

-going through the entirety of monday believing it was tuesday (then realizing that it actually is tuesday, what the heck?)

-going 60 mph on a 45 mph road and seeing a policeman on the side of the street

-waking up from a dream and realizing that the radio talkshow host is talking about the same thing that you dreamed about

-listening to a voicemail from eons ago and thinking that it was from today because it's still applicable

-meeting someone who's basically the same as your best friend, or ex

-watching a dog chase its freaking tail

-meeting someone and believing for a genuine second that he has no flaws (this hasn't happened yet but i'd imagine it'd give me a strange feeling)

bittersweet poetry

the soul, is what we likened to.

its flight to the moon and back again

and its pit stops in pink pastures and

stuffy autos on martian philadelphia.

and the heart, is what we avoided.

awkward look-aways in the craters

a thousand confirmations in the savanna grass

and in the car, which passed.

so the trip was short.

back on earth,

i don't remember anything except

that i swear it happened.

that wasn't supposed to make any sense to you; it was just for my own reflection. cryptic messages, let's go. anyways, i started this joint private blog with a friend of mine, where we record every single day and all of our feelings and etc. it's wonderful. but that means i'm ditching this blog for the infinitieth time. heh.

a brief death note

I can write about death all I want, read about it in every book I open. But no matter how much I try to reach into the depths of those five letters, no matter how much I research about it in encyclopedias, no matter how many grievous poems I read or obituaries I look up or discussions I have with my friends, I will never actually feel that pain until it happens, to me. It's like that scene from Good Will Hunting.

Sean: So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right? [Will nods]

Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.

So I'm going to stop acting as if I know you, as if I know your intentions. I'm going to stop criticizing in my head, thinking of all the things you should be doing, and start to listen, to sympathize instead. Because what do I know? I've never felt so utterly depressed that I decided to hide a knife in my drawer to make me feel alive. I don't know what it means to be traumatized by a broken family or a death of a close friend. It's all so unreal, all so distant, all so separate from this safe little bubble that I've been so fortunate to stay inside. Sure, I hear stories. But what do I know?

I'll tell you what I do understand though, and that's that any one of you could leave me at any second. That even though death hasn't happened in my life yet, it's going to. That none of us are going to stay here forever, that there's no guarantee that we're all going to make it to college and beyond. So here's to some loving, that absolutely everyone deserves. It's not worth it to be mean.

our calling to the world

If your neighbor's house was burning, you'd go and try to help, wouldn't you?

Or if you saw a kid stuck under a car, you'd try to get him out from under, wouldn't you?

My sentiments exactly.

It's like a river of hot lava.*

It's like a huge river of hot lava, flowing in massive currents, with metallic crocodiles viciously swimming around. You and the rest of the world just killed Jesus, so you're running and running, until you find this river of lava. And all these people are jumping, trying to jump across this 30 feet wide river, to escape their guilt, to get away from what they just did. You see people all around, jumping five feet and dying, jumping six feet and dying, jumping ten feet and dying. You see Michael Phelps, and he jumps 18 feet, but he still dies. No matter how far people try to jump, they still die. And so you decide to jump to your fate too. And it's like God suddenly built a bridge under your feet, right before you could die. You obviously don't deserve it. You deserve to die; you just killed God's son for goodness sake.

And yet, God's grace still saved you. This is beyond any love you've ever seen, past all the anger and revenge plaguing the world. He kept you from falling into the lava, so that you could walk on the bridge to the other side and join Him. You don't deserve it. Nobody deserves it. So, you complain about how God isn't fair? How it's unjust for Him to save only Christians and not Muslims or all the other good people of the world? Well, if God were to be fair, then we'd all go to hell, every single one of us, for the sins that we've committed. But He is merciful...

So God's built this bridge for you. But there's still something you're not good at- maybe you have a speech impediment, maybe you think you're ugly, maybe you're shy, maybe you're blind. So you ask God, please, please get rid of this feature. Make me better. But why? That's like trying to jump on this bridge that God's already made for you; why are you still trying to jump when you can just walk across? Why do you need to be pretty, when you're already on the bridge, when God's already saved your life? You can stop jumping now. Because from here-on out, it's all God. All your talent, it's made possible by God.

Oh, praise God! How wonderful it is, His mercy!

*Analogy heard from Joyce Zou :)