or something crazy like that

"It's everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so – I don't know – not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and – sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much only in a different way." -J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey, 1961)

Built-in expiration

"My meeting with him was not a date, despite how I’d nervously smoothed my hair throughout and worried about coffee stains on my teeth. Yet it reminded me right then of a brief love affair, the kind you have when you are about to move from a familiar place to somewhere new, and you begin a romance with a built-in expiration.

And when the time comes for the affair to end, you are sad but grateful, because having had someone who understood you perfectly in that moment helps you make the transition, allows you to walk into the uncertain night and toward that unknown place with a clearer sense of who you are and where you’ve been, your heart filled with all that’s gone and with everything that you will never, ever stop loving."
-Leah Carroll
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/fashion/24love.html?pagewanted=2&ref=style

Why?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8467755.stm

I wish there were more news articles like this.  I wish there were more articles with question, not just fact, and a greater concern about the world.  When something happens the why should be addressed along with the social implications and any hidden agenda a writer may want to emphasize.  When did we become so lazy as to just accept the story and forget the philosophy?

Debasing daily folly

As Much As You Can

Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,
at least try this
as much as you can; do not debase it
in excessive contact with the world,
in the excessive movements and talk.

Do not debase it by taking it,
dragging it often and exposing it
to the daily folly
of relationships and associations,
until it becomes burdensome as an alien life.

-Constantine P. Cavafy (1913)

Someone please explain to me how Cavafy slipped through the cracks of my life until just recently.  It's all about simple layers.

Goodnight Keats

ASLEEP! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!

-John Keats

Affectionate Pragmatism

There is a point where affection needs pragmatism for a marriage (or serious relationship, as this is my humble point of reference) to endure through time.  I don't think that pragmatism should ever indefinitely  replace affection, but is often needed to eventually see another side of affection. Having only minimal experience, and nothing monumentally enduring at the age of 23, I do not know much, but I do believe that this is an interesting thought that could prove itself in time.

*I have begun reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, which is her own reconciliation toward the idea of marriage.  Thus, it is sure to provoke random thoughts on marriage that may seem out of place in my young, naive, and inexperienced life.

Rumi on a cold night

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

-Rumi, We are Three

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light.

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine

and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

-Mark Strand

The beginning...

This blog will serve as an outlet for words which inspire me.  Recently I've become attracted to multiple visual blogs that provide new glimpses into the world in a lovely and accessible way.  This gave me the idea to assemble the same for words, ideas and thoughts that provoke me.  It is particularly challenging to continue searching, questioning and learning now that I have a job and life seems to have settled more than any other time in my life.  But I think the trick to life is to never stop searching, questioning and learning.  Hopefully I am able to keep up with this in a somewhat consistent manner. The beginning is always the easiest.