When the markets began to crash, I thought they’d bottom soon. I bet on a rebound that never came. My pulse raced at the financial news, the win so tangible, the loss so unthinkable. Now, they say that hope has strength, but I can tell you, it does not have effect. Every day, another one of my bets expired worthless. My investments turned to dust. I don’t remember the precise moment I stopped caring. But before the end, if anything, I had come to prefer to lose it all rather than salvage some pathetic remnant. With what little I still had, I doubled down on my positions, and all of them were wrong. So here I am. I would have to live for hundreds of years to earn it back. The impossibility of this is liberating.
I found my flute. The old case really did have dust on it, and I sounded worse than when I quit at 23. But the notes were still there, my breath steady, the shrill and endless loops of my mind gone silent. I remembered a Bach partita, and played it full of mistakes. I have never been more pleased.
A year ago I only made time to speak with friends in brief exchanges on the phone, often from a cab ride to some awful obligation. Now I spend hours with them for no reason at all. Yesterday I just sat on a stoop with my friend and all we did was bounce a ball. Really, I don’t even think we talked. It was perfect. I don’t miss a single one of the places where I used to eat.
The world is ninety-nine percent poor if we judge this in a certain way, and I am not out to glamourize poverty, but are you sure you judge the right things valuable? I thought I did, and that is exactly how I lost it all. We want to be free of the tyranny of need, and yes, in a way that is more philosophical than greedy, we do want to optimize our markets, fund our dreams, extend our knowledge and our powers. But why construct a game where to win is to concentrate financial capital, rather than to convert it into other forms: society, art, liberation?
What are the things you have accumulated without happiness? Do you own your things, your positions, your privileges, or do they own you? What you would be happier to lose, if everyone else would lose theirs, too? Let’s stay up late and throw it all away. And when this mess is over, let’s dance. Let’s dance like the light playing on the rubble of a ruined city we will one day rebuild better.
this is so sweet…
i feel both happy and sad while reading this entry.
i’m happy for the one you wrote this for… at this point when everything around us seems so haphazard, downtrodden – at least someone still sees the sunshine and will somehow spread the light.
sad.. for not everyone is as lucky.
I want to know what you would throw away, secretly, if everyone else would, too.
i don’t know. maybe, that cancer that corrupts. that which eats everyone alive. but how can i throw away something that’s beyond my control?
i don’t know… the things that i somehow have now (desire to keep, if i be more specific), i treasure.
but there’s something i hope some would wanna throw away… fear.
i’m happy for you. i hope everyone will be as free as you are.
I would throw away cigarettes if no one else smoked. I would throw away the past, if I thought everyone else would do it too.
funny, i was also gonna include the same thing. i thought throwing away some parts of the past (or some people from the past) would be cool – doing so would prevent me from trudging the unnecessary paths i believe i would have been better off without.
however i couldn’t bring myself to write it because my walk towards the dark path has made me appreciate the light i now have (and… once had).
plus, there’s something from the nearby past i want back… if only i could choose one without the other – if they can but be mutually exclusive – then obliterate those unwanted in my past past, i will…
I would not like the past to have not existed. I of course, like many others wouldn’t have minded coming to where I am by an alternative route, but thems the breaks.
If everyone could forget the hurt I had done to them, and them to me, I think my life would be easier. If I could forget breaking, maybe someone could make me whole.
in life i have learned this one difficult but important tenet: only love can douse hatred.
only in loving can we exercise the grace of forgiveness.
I choose to love. i choose to forgive.
I have very little hatred left in me. I find hate is a thing that burns out eventually. There are always exceptions.
..seems like you’re holding on to it still?
or did I misread the: “There are always exceptions.” bit?
if you forgot about breaking, wouldn’t you be whole already?
definitely not.
memories of my brokenness are parts and parcels of the total me.
…and they’re mine to erase, if I want to.
but i dont.
as it is, we defnitely should not erase memories that awaken us to the truth in ouselves. and others.
i am whole when i know the pieces that comprise my wholeness.
including the breaking.
i am not supposed to forget.
I said very little hatred. There is are certain things I hate and will always hate. Somethings are not forgivable.
Mind if I ask? I respect if you do…. Just wondrin’ what things could be so concrete they can become unforgivable.
Sorry for asking.
At least I assume it always will. It might burn out like everything else one day.
Many things, rapists, child molesters, abuser’s etc. These are things I hate.
Oh, them.. I’d be lying if I say i don’t harbor negative emotions against them… If I could but zap them into oblivion, I want to and I will… But I know I shouldn’t… for what difference would there be if we take the course these people have chosen to take and do it without remorse?… At a time like this when i am reminded of hate and yet of another option, I choose to let God do His thing, I’m curious as to what will happen from hereon.
God touches me, God touches you. He’ll touch the hearts of those who believe in justice, those who side with reason.
Let’s not take anger in our hands or hatred in our hearts.
Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.
He has plans for these people.
He has plans for us.
Let’s just wait and be ready for His leading.
Ah, if only I had your faith.
You make my head swim, toss my mind around anxiously, when you push me to yearning. Somehow, some way, you persuade me to want, and want this intensely. When my fingers settle upon your wrist, searching for proof of your existence, I find myself wanting to give you much more than the world.
In those senseless moments, I realize that I would give you more than the stars in the sky, more than nerves exploding with ecstasy, if only I knew how to give like this.
You’re always present, following like a shadow. In the back yard for the first years snow, I close my eyes against the wind and snow flakes, thinking: “How would he see me, in this moment?” But you are beside me, inside me, as these thoughts pass. You are everywhere.
The beauty of winters frost and ice and snow is nowhere close to the beauty you possess, or the beauty you deserve.
…
And, as always, I’m thankful for this lovesick.
This is really nice.
I have no other words than that for fear of ruining what I mean to say.