Painfully Beautiful

Have you ever been talking to someone and used or heard the phrase "painfully beautiful?" Have you ever thought about it? Why would somebody say that? Isn't beauty a good thing? Isn't pain a bad thing? Why would you stick them together? Is it like when you are laughing so hard your stomach hurts? Too much of a good thing?

I don't think so.

I think I have an idea of what "painfully beautiful" means. It may not be true for you. You may not agree with me. That's okay. But hopefully by reading through my thoughts you will gain some perspective for another's life. Maybe that will help you somewhere. Or rather, maybe it will help someone else.

I really want you to understand my thoughts, so I am going to breakdown some things here so we have a platform to work from. What is something beautiful? Well, some people are beautiful. Some art works are beautiful. Sometimes Mother Gaia is beautiful. I might even say that time can be beautiful, if you only look at isolated chunks of it. Weddings? Beautiful (hopefully). First kiss? Beautiful. (Again, hopefully.) First children, graduations, jobs, promotions, new cars, new phones, great cakes....lots of moments can be beautiful. But this just leads me to ask, "What could all these disparate things possibly have in common?"

They are all good. They all bring joy to the lives they touch (Except sometimes weddings. I think I've seen a movie about that once...) And that is what makes them beautiful. The light they put into lives. The pure, undefinable goodness that we all know. All of the things I've listed are beautiful and good, but there are a few things that are exceptionally good, surpassingly beautiful, without which life feels incomplete. I hesitate to make a list here, because opinions and lives are so infinitely varied, but I'm sure you can think of a few things. Go ahead. Do it now. I'll wait.

Do you have your list? Good. Now think about everything on it. Think about each thing individually. Think about them together. Think about your life in relation to your list. Now imagine a life where you know all of these things, and you know that none of them will ever be a part of your life. Really tell yourself that you will never be loved. That you will never have children. Whatever it is you put on your list, imagine knowing that you can never have or experience it. Did you feel that? That was pain. Not because of any one thing causing you pain. A diploma can't hurt you. But you know how good it is. How beautiful the moment you when you receive it. And the pain comes from the sense of loss. Losing the beautiful, watching it disappear from your life and knowing you have to keep walking even though the light will be a little dimmer.

To me, that is "painfully beautiful."

Please, Really Look Into My Eyes.....

It is extraordinary how unintentionally selfish I can become. In my head I am a kind, caring, and selfless person. In reality, I am so focused on myself that I can't even see what people around me are experiencing and feeling. Sometimes I just need a reminder.

I didn't used to care about this. In fact, I used to make a hobby of annoying people. I was so good at it that you can unfortunately see little bits of that in my personality today. I still get a kick out of pushing people's buttons. Just ask Kara about that. Then, one day, for no reason I can explain, I decided that I didn't like it and I wanted to change. Perhaps that was the moment I started growing up. About that time, I was given this book to read. That was the book that began my journey.

Now, by saying I began a journey, I don't want you to think that I have finished it. I'm not writing to tell you about my transformation into a beautiful butterfly. No, my journey is more like a chaotic, fumbling walk through an unfamiliar house at night where the kids don't put away their Legos. Lots of stubbed toes, swearing, and tipped vases. But this journey has taught me something.

The truest thing in life is honestly connecting with people.

I wish that I had more of this connection. but I let everything distract me. I let the easy distractions that technology provides fill up my time so that I wonder what happened and why I haven't built a pottery wheel yet. I complain to myself about how nobody called me today and I'm going to die alone. I complain about this while I sit in a dark basement in front of a computer. And so I need reminders.

Tonight I watched this video again. Please watch it. It is beautiful. What she says feels so very true to me. The connections she talks about are so very real to me. And because she has reminded me, I am going to quit complaining. I am going to quit wondering why I feel lonely, and I am going to go out and see you. Really see you. I am going to do this, and I am going to be happy, and I am going to give you a little bit of my life, and you are going to give me a little bit of yours, and we are both going to be happier. Or we are going to split somebody's burden of sadness and be less sad. I am going to do this, and my life will be better.

At least until the next time I forget.

Creating a Scotch Korean

I am, like a Scotch Korean, a contradiction. I live a life in two simultaneous mental states. It could even be said that they are conflicting states. Before I explain why, I need to explain something else. I need to explain to you why I love art. And not just art, but all art. When I say art, I am speaking of painted or drawn art, sculpted art, musical art, performance art, theater arts....all kinds of art.

I love it.

Or rather, I love the idea of it. Sometimes I hate it. Most of the art that university told me was great left me feeling very meh. But that doesn't mean that the whole concept of art is meh. In fact, the concept of art blows me completely away. Why? Let me tell you.

As a species, humans have specialized in communication. It could be said that our ability to communicate is what put us so far ahead of the rest of nature. Not just that we communicate, (hell, macaques communicate) but that we can communicate complex ideas. Something beyond the basic mammalian "Shit there is a lion/tiger/dinosaur that wants to eat me!" Most mammals can do that. Many mammals can communicate all kinds of things. They can tell you where food is. They can tell you that you should make babies with them. They can tell you that you are no longer welcome with the herd. But humans...humans can discuss the feasibility of sending people to Mars. When was the last time you heard macaque talking about space? You didn't. Only humans have that level of communication.

Despite all this specialized communication and all of our fancy vocabularies, there are still some things that we are unable to discuss. One area that words fall especially short is emotions. Humans have been trying to express emotion verbally since before we invented verbs. In fact, I'm pretty sure words were invented because some cro-magnon man wanted to tell some cro-magnon lady, "Baby, I dig you!" But that hasn't stopped us from trying. Luckily, somewhere around 1800, somebody invented art. Finally, a way to convey emotion that isn't hampered by those silly words.

And because it isn't bound by vocabulary's limits, art has a remarkable power. Great art has the power to capture a particular moment in the life of the artist, folding all his emotions and thoughts into one unique creation. One frozen moment of her soul. And then she can give that moment to someone.

Now, I hesitate to post any examples of art I think is great, lest I start an argument about it's greatness and detract from my point. Art is incredible. It is powerful and unique and transcends all barriers. But what does this discussion have to do with my being Scotch Korean?

I love to create art. But I create it from my life and my experience and the moments I am living. When I am creating, I don't feel as though there is much variety happening inside me. I feel very sad/happy/depressed/frustrated, and it seems to be all that I feel. And I feel it until I am done creating. Sometimes I have to come back to the emotion three or four times, but is always the same thing for the entire creative process.

And after I have created, I look back and see contradictions. Like any good (read: not terrible) musician, I tend to write music in a state of inebriation or deep emotion. My life has a rather obvious lack of inebriation, so my music is written from emotion. And sadly, the most frequent potent emotion is bad. So I write sad songs of addiction and heartbreak and suicide. But looking back at these creations, I see a common theme: all of them have a thread of hope. Woven through the indulgent "I am so sad, so very very sad" lyrics is this weird, sometimes subtle voice that is whispering at you to look up and see the sunset behind the clouds. This is my contradiction.

But in realizing this, I think I have finally figured out why I love to create. Feeling these sad emotions sucks. It does. You know, because you've felt them. I hate feeling sad, and I hate when others feel sad. I wish so bad that I could fix them. Make them glad. Give them a reason to smile at the rain. And this is why I create art. I try to capture that moment my soul is experiencing. That moment of exquisitely meloncollie hope. I want to give that moment to someone who is feeling depressed, and maybe they will grab onto that thread of hope and decide that life is okay. Yeah, it is total shit sometimes, but maybe there are some things worth experiencing.

Right now, my life and circumstance don't allow me to get that much of my creating to other people. But there is plenty of art already created, and I can share that with people. And maybe a few friends who need it will be able to experience my art.

And maybe I will need some of the art you have created.

Scars

The more life you've lived is just more sorrow seen.
Every sadness you feel leaves a mark where it bleeds.
So old age is scars, and youth is naive.
I've seen kids of 18 so much older than me.

But youth, she is pretty, she laughs in our dreams
And try though we might, she will always retreat.
So reaching and grasping, we clutch at her feet
Until sorrow and sadness bring us to our knees.

Then sighing we stand with regret in our eyes.
Regret for the hurt, for the sin, for the lies.
But lurking respect in the back of our minds
Reminds of the wisdom we learned from the lies.

And now you admit you're no longer naive.
Your youth, she has fled, though young you may be.
And you'd never give up what you learned how to see,
Though hearts of the wise feel much deeper things.

So onward we march, all so bitter and pleased.
The mistress of youth just a faint memory.
And the scars that we wear full of pride on our sleeves
Remind us that beauty is earned before seen.

Brown Paper Bags Aren't Always Full of Poop

The thing about life is, it never stops happening. Sometimes, you want nothing more than to stop it for just a couple minutes, an hour. It might be that something wonderful is happening, and you don't want it to end. Or maybe you are having one of those days where you clean your glasses with hair spray, and you really just wish you could step out of life for a couple hours. But, like a freight train full of memories, life just keeps barreling down the tracks.

Too often, we focus on how terrifying it can be to have a train headed for us. A lot happens in life (train full of memories, remember) and it is so easy to paint our walls with the bad stuff. The bad job, the failed class, the painful breakup, the gross body.... Those are such heavy things to carry around. If those bad things are the rocks we put in our knapsack, there is no way we will get off the tracks in time.

This has happened to me many times. At any given time I could tell you probably 12 negatives I am thinking about. But I realize how bad it is. So I have taken to focusing on good things in my life. In the interest of motivating you to do likewise, I am going to share a few of my favorite things.

Rock climbing. Yes, I know this is a climbing gym. All you purists can take your pretentious opinions elsewhere. I climb in the gym, and I like it. I like the feel of moving across the wall, between the holds. I love forcing my body to do hard movements. I love feeling the power in my muscles as I pull my body higher on the wall. When I am climbing, everything else just doesn't matter. I am climbing. I'll think about life when I'm done.

Another thing I love is music. I love writing music. I love playing music. I love listening to music. At this point in my life, I am writing music with my friend Nicolle Okoren. We are actually writing some really great stuff. I'll let you know when we play a show. The music I am listening to currently is also bringing me a lot of joy. You will find a sampling below.

There really isn't a lot of terribly deep ideas in this block of text. Mostly, I just want to encourage you all to remember what is good about your life. I know that it isn't always going to be rainbows and butterflies. But sometimes it is. And those memories are what I choose to paint the room of my life. I am curious...what are your glad things? Please tell me what you love. Maybe I will too.

Just Assperimenting

I just want to see how this looks on my page, and see if it works. I did, however, make sure it is a wicked cool song for you to hear.

Sialorrhea

I'ma spit some words at you like a rapper with sialorrhea.

Google search for Thingzorz. I don't get it either.

You may or may not know me very well. So you may or may not know that I occasionally have problems with procrastination and overwhelm. I procrastinate the things until they have piled into a big mountain of THINGZORZ!!ARGH! and I am afraid to even touch it so I end up paralyzed with overwhelm and I do nothing and fail out of college.

This has understandably caused me some problems over the last 28 years (yes, even babies can procrastinate). I have struggled for some time to find a way to get things done and be effective in spite of these hurdles. And I believe I have found something that might have worked.

When I think about all that I need to do, my to-do list becomes an all consuming doom-beast and I end up cowering in fear. So, instead I absolutely refuse to think about the future. I exist now and only now. Just now. And then I pick something to do. Just one thing. I only have to do one thing. And then when I'm done with that, I relax a little. It is actually pretty nice. I'm never stressed, and I get things done. The only possible issue is that I occasionally let the relaxation sessions stretch out pretty long. But, every plan has a weakness and this one is pretty decent.

You know, there really wasn't any reason to share this with the world. But I thought it out while washing dishes this morning and I felt like writing. So, I got all sialorrhea on you guys and this is what happened.