The Song that Inspired My Blog Name...

And the woman who inspires me!

Janis Joplin - Little Girl Blue

(don't waste your time with the recorded version...this live one blows it out of the water)

and while we are on the subject of Janis...I must include a couple of my favorites for your listening pleasure.

Janis Joplin - Maybe

(I don't care if you can sing or not, learn the words and sing it in private if you have to...you will feel so good, if you're anything like me!)

Janis Joplin - To Love Somebody

(Really...the same applies to this one)

Check out this groovy band...brought to you by someone more music savvy than me!

The Generationals

And these are my two favorites:

The Generationals - When They Fight
The Generationals - Nobody Could Change Your Mind

better learn a few lyrics the first time you listen because these songs stay in your head forever!

Free Will

Today I am thinking about the notion of free will; the idea that our actions are spurred by the work of our brain, our intention, and nothing else.  This is fair enough, but breaking down the very term "free will" seems to open up a contradiction in an of itself.  If an action is in fact, free, it is undetermined, unprompted, goes unpunished and unappreciated. If it is willed, it is determined, prompted and upon its manifestation, will serve as its own reward. And if we do have this “free will” at our disposal, what does that really mean? Does it function with destiny? If we are interconnected souls then are our personal or collective wills not predetermined by something like destiny? Fate? What about the (for lack of a better term) scientific end.  If we are evolved from cell formations (or whatever it is) and if it is will, what makes it ours? If we depend on this notion of science then surely it must be science that dictates our decisions; our free will. How does that fit in with something like crying?  Is that our own? Sometimes we cannot hold back tears, laughter; we make decisions we regret; what do these mean for free will? When the decision was made was it determined? Is the regret just another factor in the plan? Or is it random event one after the next. Science and emotion translating into a coexistent language, rolled together to create the illusion of free will?

Fighters...back to your corners?

The most experienced couples will tell you that putting on the boxing gloves and “duking it out” is not only inevitable, but is a benchmark of a healthy relationship.  This is the case not only for couples, but for friends, siblings, parents and children.  For the sake of this entry, or perhaps more appropriately labelled, this rant, we will focus on the fights between couples, or at least people who are in an intimate relationship (whatever that means).  There is no doubt of the benefits of sharing feelings with this person; your boyfriend, as opposed to expecting them to know the answers to everything (they’ll tell you so themselves). But, when it comes to wishing this thing and that thing were different about the person we love, how many wishes are too many? How many times should we ask, or feel like we have to ask, or even, feel like its okay to ask, for them to change? How many gripes are too many? At what point in a relationship does the sign reading “Caution: He is going to stay this way” pop up? There is always some big fight followed by some big talk, a few days of residual bliss and them somehow the old quality rears its ugly head again. When the apologies are increasingly being replaced by retaliation, resentment and fighting, when is it time to throw in the towel? If we feel we deserve more, don’t we?  

Cosmic Recycling

I was talking to a friend the other day about a problem I'd been having.  Of course I expected some advice, some guidance...but what I got was a story that nearly mirrored mine.  Normally this sort of thing would bother me.  I hate when people take your problem and turn it around so they can speak about themselves, but this time it got me thinking, if it is so easy to do that to someone else's  story; spin it around to make it yours, then what does that say about the human experience?  To me it seems to say that the human experience really does transcend cultural and physically boundaries.
There are those fundamental hopes, fears, highs and lows that none of us can avoid or recreate in a way that has not yes been felt. Betrayal, heartbreak, promotion, love. For better or worse, none of these emotional mountains and valleys that, like steroids to body builders, strengthen our characters in what can often be the most painful of methods – are avoidable. It seems to basic an answer to conclude that we are all so similar that our lives will follow the same course regardless of surrounding factors. If not that though, it must be something more deliberate, even if on a subconscious level. Maybe all of our experiences, including those that we think are fastidiously pinned to us alone, the ones that would be unrecognizable in the personhood of others are really coming to pass because we are sending messages from our own minds (having recorded our experiences already) to the minds of those that surround us. Maybe this mysterious transcendence of experience that shocks us time and time again is not mysterious at all. Could it be that we are all part of some cosmic recycling program, transferring our experiences and emotions through ourselves to the next person and the next, until none of us are harboring an original sentiment? It could be a relief to know that we are taking turns reenacting our version of the story that has reached our subconscious first, sure. It would mean that we are not taking nearly as many risks as we thought we might be and that the outcomes of our actions are not innumerable afterall. Yes, this could be a relief to quite a few people. To me however, reaching the conclusion that I was having someone else’s experience would be an astronomical discouragement. I am an American and therefore can’t help but being for individualism. Still, the bright side of this recycled experience would be that we are a united entity and could therefore move forward in creating a shared identity to compliment the individualistic one we have come to know as “I”. There is something to be said for a solid common ground that we could manipulate to fit into not only our fleeting personalities, as Fitzgerald would say, but to fit into our more solid and far less fleeting, personage. In a way, it’s a beautiful thing.

I Shall Stay Until the Wind Changes...

Windy today – made me think about the idea of the winds changing. In Mary Poppins, she tells the children “I’ll stay until the wind changes” and it is understood that the wind does move, but does it change? Is changing merely moving, or is it more significant than that? It seems too easy for a person who lives their day to day, “moving’ along, to say they have changed. Maybe in order to change, we need to overcome something; something to serve as an anchor around which we begin our revolutions of life. If our reply to an old friend who inquires, “what’s been up” is “nothing much” have we changed? Grown? Or have we just been a part a pawn in the game of time, like a rock that sits in the underbrush, changing so insignificantly that its noteworthiness is in question. We all want to know that we have been changing, growing, in other words, enacting the human condition. We want to know that in terms of intellect, things are happening all the time, but how can we know for sure? If there are no tests to be graded, how do we know we’ve learned?

Competition

Faced with the idea of competition today. Competition is a fuel to the common man – enabling so many to reach a higher potential. This is not the case for me and is in fact, quite the opposite. In the face of competition, I am overcome with the feeling of defeat and incompetence. The combination can be completely fatal. If I am presented with a challenge, I am chomping at the proverbial bit to succeed. However, if I am one of two people presented with the same challenge, I may “chomp” but it’s a different kind. My drive to succeed in that case stems from a pressure, a threat of failure. When the two contenders in the ring are me versus me, I am driven not by the threat of failure but by the inkling, the taste of success. Only when it is me against, for lack of a better opponent, you, do I find myself considering throwing in the towel before the match even gets fired up. Worse yet, if there is no real “finish line” how is the competition decided? If you believe you have won, have you? If you call yourself a winner, or anything else for that matter, have you indeed become one? This applies everywhere. If I want to be a writer, if I call myself a writer, or a friend, or an individual even, am I one?



We cannot wait for validation from another, so yes; we must simply be what we believe ourselves to be. Any other way would be some manifestation of hell; to spend forever wondering if we are what we wish we were; what we think we are, or could be. Our perception of heaven and hell (or at least the general perception of the two) is that they are defined and juxtaposed against each other. Maybe this is not the case. Maybe heaven and hell are both internal and eternal. Maybe our souls never actually go anywhere but if we lived where, they find peace and if not, they are forever in the turmoil that I am talking about. To forever wonder if I am what I think I am, there could be no worse fate!

We want what we have?

In my 20th birthday card, my mom wrote “what integrity and truth you bring to this world”. And in these words the characteristics I work to build in myself are solidified by the person who loves me, but more inportantly, knows me the most. It is truly special to learn that someone in such a position sees the things you strive for as things you already have. It opens the curtains to a whole new experience of consideration.  If I push, desire, wish for things that it seems I already have, what is it that I am so relentlessly wishing for, to no avail? Is it because I do not see them? This is most likely the case and I’m sure the case for nearly everyone. We see in others things that we wish we saw in ourselves and therefore assume that they are not in us. I’m sure, however, that if we asked our mothers, our best friends, to divulge just a few great things they saw in us, they would touch on the very things we hope for, wish for, work for. Maybe that makes us fortunate. If we thought we were too many of the things we respect, then we would never grow. We would scoff at others, look down on others from our pedestal of superior personhood and in doing so, would starve ourselves of the human experience. As frustrating as it may be to doubt our own greatness, we are best off if we can assume that those we care about see it, and in the meantime, try to become great enough to deserve their praises.

Solitude

I’m alone right now and considering this overwhelming intermingling sense of emptiness and solitude. It is peaceful of course, but surprisingly chaotic. Why? Being alone promotes a contemplative experience which can be a very risky road to go down – everyone knows that. If it is so risky, and we KNOW it to be so, then why can we not resist wandering the stretching notions that pile in our minds one after the next? Maybe this is why, as a general rule, we don’t like to be alone. Everyone needs a bit of “me time” but only to a point.



It is interesting how being in a relationship can change the face of being alone; and even the vocabulary we use to describe it. Before a relationship maybe we are “alone”, or even sometimes a bit “lonely”. Then we get into a relationship and have to spend a night alone and we feel “isolated”, but not alone, not lonely. We grow so accustomed to the presence of one person that without them we become anxious, unsure of what to do next. Of course we were not always in that relationship and we managed to carry on quite easily before, so why does that change? Perhaps the comfort of the other stems from their ability to react to us. We have a thought (strange, boring, innovative…any kind) and we just spit it out to our “other”. If they are not there, however, we are forced to mull it over, and over, and over. Thoughts are plaguing in that way. They are supportive in that we always know another thought it around the corner, but in that same vein they are exhausting; it’s like they chase us in a game of tag where there is no base. We can meditate, which may get us close shutting up those thoughts but something is always there; for me anyway. In the quiet of solitude all those pesky thoughts seem to show their face leaving us to wonder if our drive to spend time with others and build relationships fueled by a more selfish desire to quiet our own thoughts?

Hello there...

Hello all you faceless lovers of thought and sharing.  Thanks for checking out my blog!  Here's the thing, I used to write all the time.  I have kept journals since they started with "Dear diary..." and went on to major in English at SUNY Albany.  Then I graduated last May and got a classic 9-5 job that I feel many things about but passion is certainly not one of them.  I would love to write, edit, or do anything that lets me play with words on a professional level, but until then, I figure I will try this out.  You will have to bear with me as I figure out what it is exactly that the focus of this blog to be.  Until I find that special angle, what you will read are simply my ruminations.  The first few are little tastes from journals I have kept over the years.  They are not necessarily what I am thinking today but they were my ruminations at some point and therefore, they are relevant!  Think of this as sort of the warm up...we're streching and getting some deep breathing going before the game.  Honestly, if even one of you finds one thing I have to say worthy of reading, then I have succeeded.  So, thanks for trying me on for size, I will do my best to fit you like that perfect cotton t-shirt that you know you wear at least once, or maybe three times a week :)