Sunrise

It was Friday night a few hours ago. I got off work early, did some banking, got some Chinese take-out. Then I conversed via the netterwaves with my friends until, one by one, they dropped off to sleep.

For once in a long, long while I do not work on a Saturday morning. So I decided, around perhaps two in the morning, that rather than going to sleep then and there, I would stay a while. I want to see the sunrise.

It's been a long time since I've been so "irresponsible", I suppose. But then again, I'm an adult now and it's my turn to decide what that means. This isn't a moment of irresponsibility. This is a life experience.

The last time I saw an actually sunrise, I cannot recall. I only recall the last time I was up whilst the sun was rising. I did not see that sunrise, though it ended a night marred with nightmares, which is what awoke me from my rest so early. That was late last fall.

It's very frightening, that hour before the sky really lights up. The sky is not so deep a blue as it was in the evening. It feels as though I could nearly smell the nearing dawn. And it's quiet. So quiet. Thus every sound is amplified. Each rustle of an insect in the brush is an imagined evil of the night. Every muffled tap of a cat hopping onto the roof of a car is the footsteps of a nighttime psychopath, fresh from the asylum.

To comfort my irrational fears I write. My creativity flows because suddenly I need it, like a shield, protection against the dark before dawn.

I sit on my porch and listen and breathe deeply. Someone's air condition near by shuts off and the silence is deeper even than it was before. The only sound is that of my typing and tiny, unnamed night noises.

I can see a planet. I think it's Mars. It's got an indistinct red tint to it. Or perhaps that's my eyes playing tricks on me. Is that the television on in my neighbor's front room? It is! Good grief. Everyone knows there's no good television on at five in the morning.

It's getting lighter in the east. Just a tiny bit. A solitary truck drives by and I wonder what could have possessed the driver to be up at this hour. Perhaps he is sleep driving.

The moon is nearly full tonight. This morning? I do not know. It's indistinct when you've yet to sleep. But of all the light, my streetlight is the brightest. There's one just outside my house. Usually it doesn't work. It's ironic that it should only work now, when I would make a bid to see the sunrise.

An indistinguishable tint of yellow permeates the deep blue at the edge of the eastern sky. It is nine past five in the morning. The sun should rise in twenty minutes, if the chart I looked up is correct. I wonder if the sun ever rises at the exact same time, or if it's always just a fraction of a moment out of pace?

There is a thunderstorm far to the north west. I do not hear the thunder rumbling, but every once in a while the northern sky lights up with a flash of lightning. It's almost surreal, somehow. The quiet, the purplish red below the belt of green and yellow beyond the eastern mountains, the flickering clouds in the north, it all seems like some unbelievable place, something from a sci fi movie or a fantasy realm.

It certainly doesn't ring true to what I've come to know of reality. Is this the world without people? With less people? I don't know what to make of it. The silence is like nothing I've ever experienced. What is in this silence?

I'm afraid that if I look away too long, I'll miss it. The sky is changing so quickly! There's a thin line of what could nearly be daytime sky blue between the deep blue and the yellow! And then an unsettling maroon at the edge of the sky.

I can still see Mars. The last lonely twinkle in the sky.

It's getting cooler. That's so strange. It just feels so odd, especially in a desert like this, for this sudden rush of cool that preceeds the sunrise. Perhaps it's what wakes up the birds. I can hear some of them now, quiety twittering, shouting out to one another from the trees.

It's truely amazing how one singular light, even one so great as the sun, can chase away the vast darkness of space. I say this because it's so strange to see the darkness flee, driven away. There is so much more darkness than there is sun. And yet the sun overpowers it daily.

I wonder when the streetlights will shut off. I wonder when Mars will fade.

Heh. Now it seems like the sun is taking its sweet time. There are some clouds on the east horizon. I wonder, is sunrise when the sun peaks over the mountains, or over the clouds obscuring those mountains?

For a brief moment, I wonder where that music, like bells, is coming from. Then I see that some unfelt morning wind has stirred the wind-chimes. It's perfect. I could not ask for a better instrument on which to play my sunrise.

Mars is dim. The sun would be up, if not for those clouds. A line of large, sleepy ants meanders past me. The early shift, I suppose.

I have a "I should be sleeping" headache. The sun was to rise around 5:35. It's nearly ten minutes past that and I still can't see it. It's those clouds. The world is illuminated, and I can't even quite see the sun yet. It's as though the sun has never taken such pains in rising before. Each moment the sky is brighter, but still the sun evades me.

I'm determined. I will see the sun before I submit to sleep and fail to extricate myself from warm, seductive dreams.

The world is bright but the sun is nowhere to be found! Perhaps it has disappeared, and left only its light to remember it by?

In the morning this desert city smells as the mountains do. Fresh and clean, cleansed somehow in the night. It's wondrous.

Oh! Some bold, foolish bird hopped into a dense potted plant here by my side! Looking for the bees that about in it, I suppose! I heard him rustling in the plant and turned abruptly, surprised, and frightened the silly creature away.

There it is! At last!I've seen the world awaken. And the shy but glorious sun comes forth and peaks through her curtain of clouds. Even the sun slept in on a Saturday. And now I think I'll do the same. Good morning! And Goodnight!

There she goes... there she goes again

GAH!! Always this ridiculous obsession with love!

Thank you Chritian's dad from Mulin Rouge! That'll be enough of your ranting!! It's my turn, and I'll raise your rant a rave. Love. I always come back to this one concept, which stands tall in the middle of everything and becomes the most important thing in the world.

How is it that it always comes back to love?

Avoiding it is like trying to escape a quick orbit around the sun. It just seems so impossible. It's always on my mind. I do try to think of other things, important things. Of course! I cannot really base my own value on the love that I wish I had.

There are many other important things in the world! Like what am I gonna do if/when the American government crumbles and we dive into civil war or poverty? They do love their penniless artists in France, I suppose. Perhaps the Canadians could smuggle me over somehow?

Or what about writing the next novel to go down in history? I've gotta get ON that! And what about READING all the classics that came before mine? And what about learning everything there is to know? And applying that knowledge? I still have to find a cure for cancer! And I didn't finish that hat I started knitting yet....

THERE'S SO MUCH TO DO! So why is my brain still all tied up and entangled in the wild concept of love? So much to do, yet does the hope of having love come and sweeps all my thoughts off the table and plunge me into fantasy.

Is love really this big, or is it just when we're young and hormonal? I mean, really? Plenty of people have time for war and peace and saving the environment and making money. Surely love isn't throwing them ALL off the same way it throws me and all my equally young and hormonal friends off!?

And then the many (really, it seems like everybody is either dating or undatable! Ludicrous!) lucky people that find a match to hug and kiss and hold or be held by, they don't seem to understand just how HUGE love really it!

They use it almost nonchalantly! Don't they realize just how important it is? The word love is not a term to be thrown around! Good heavens, what are you doing!? Getting past the third date SURELY does not unlock the level of love! LOVE IS NOT LEVEL FOUR, and romance is NOT a game!

Love is this powerful, unconditional thing, and teenagers are skipping around and tossing it like a Frisbee! NO! Don't say it until it is always true. And PLEASE. Be realistic. You've known each other only for a little while. Don't base love on feeling alone!

Love is a feeling, yes. It's also an action and a fact! Body, mind and spirit, right? Of course your spirit's soaring. Your body is pumped full of happy horomones, or what-have-you. As for your brain, somehow it ALWAYS gets left in the dust. Think about it, critically and realistically. Ask yourself, will this work?

If you don't know for absolute certain, then bite your tongue! Wait until you know beyond the shadow of a doubt. And allow me to remind you, it helps if the object of your affections feels the same. Love is a feeling, a thought, an infatuation as well as an agreement with another person.

Personally, I think you love somebody as soon as you plan on marrying them and staying forever by their side. Before that, it's an infatuation and a friendship. Before that, you really DON'T know for certain.

My feelings say there is no greater thing than love. My mind says, nuh UH! There's more to life than that! My body back-hands me with a large dose of hormones and I stand, confused. I look to my left, look to my right, make a wish at 11:11, cross my fingers and start moving forward.

That nifty knitter stabbed you with a knitting needle!!

THAT'S IT! I won't stand for it anymore! No fear! No foolishness! NO procrastinating!! I'm gonna do this thing! At long last, I will make me a hat!!

For too long we wait. It's a dream, but it isn't of immediate or obvious benefit to ourselves. Maybe it's a silly dream, and not doing it isn't a disaster to be averted. But really, it could be the saddest little truth. It's easy to do just enough. Work just enough to afford what you need, and your simple wants. And so it's all we do!

Believe you me, great artists, famous actors, the geniuses and celebrities of our times were not satisfied with "enough". They started out with just that much, and then they said NO! I want more, and I'm willing to get what I want!

Yes, this brings up an obvious argument. Selfish personal gain. DON'T USE THAT TO JUSTIFY WASTING YOUR LIFE!! I know that's not what I want!! I do not simply wish to exist! I wish to make some small impact on the world I live in!!

Or you know what? I'd be satisfied just to make an impact on a few people IN that crazy little world!! It's not selfish personal gain! It is you making the world a better place! Adding to it before you go! Don't just be satisfied to break even when you say adieu! There should be some kind of profit!

Profit for yourself, for others, it doesn't matter as long as you don't break even, and end up with a wasted life. There's nothing less spectacular in this world than that!! You can succeed spectacularly, you can fail spectacularly, but averaging out just does nothing.

This is a call to arms! Stand up and fight back the weariness that would send you to your grave with nothing to show for it! Sweep the lazy curtains back from your eyes and DO SOMETHING!!!

Write a book! Too much? Alright, a poem! Sing your significant other a song you wrote yourself!! Or sing along with a love song on the radio! Paint something and frame it! No? FINE! Doodle on a sheet of notebook paper and stick it on the fridge!! Personally, I'm gonna make someone a hat!! GO, GO, GO!!!









Link of the day!!!! ORRRRR if you wanna keep procrastinating, this is a fun way to do that....
HellOOOOOOO shopping cart hero!!!

Adventures in Craigslist

Intellect, atheism and theism.

I had the strangest random argument with a random stranger this week. He replied to an add I put on craigslist, of all things. At some point there was information looking for someone both intelligent and of a particular theism. It was to this that he replied.

You won't find an intelligent religious type, not often, he said.

I, in all good manners, replied, rather than deleting. I suggested it was closed minded of him to say so, and that I myself was acquainted with many an intelligent theist.

And then it got complicated. He attacked the particular theism that I had referred to, and claimed that all intelligent people were atheists, or would be, some day, because that was in fact the result of critical thinking.

Look, I'm not anti atheist, but good grief!! What a ridiculous, general statement! Yes, there were studies he cited, but there were just as many that in fact came up with exactly the opposite conclusion! And generally his studies only used groups of scientists as their intellectual guinea pigs!! Trust me, intelligence is not saved only for the scientists. There are english majors and teachers and philosophers and more!

For a while I enjoyed discussing the topic, but more and more often he was simply offensive and rude, rather than professional! Whatever happened to honest, respectful debate for the sake of learning?

What kind of lonely nut case wanders craigslist looking for people to call stupid? What, he can't get any REAL people to listen to him whine, so he looks online? Or perhaps he's a wimp that can't stand up to somebody unless it's anonymous and untraceable?

Stupidity abounds in atheists and theists alike! Just as not all atheists are scientists, not all intellects are atheists!

I played by his game for a while, in a respectful manner, of course (unlike him, I might add), but eventually I decided he was wasting my time. If he wants to toot his atheistic, intellectual horn, he should write a book or start a blog. Not search through craigslist personals for people to put on the defensive.

Because I for one don't care to argue with someone who can't be bothered to question their own beliefs, but delight in questioning mine.




LINK OF THE DAY!! This game makes me feel like an explosives expert! http://www.physicsgames.net/game/Demolition_City.html

An existential crisis

It on occasion bothers me, life. I sometimes feel that it doesn't have any worth on its own. Not for everyone. Some people make their lives valuable, by how they think, the people that they strive to be, rarely by what they do. WHO they are is valuable. It's something specific that I look for in other people of which I myself fall short on occasion, at least concerning my own personal standards.

Depth.

Perhaps that's a pretentious word. It suggests a certain distaste for "shallow" people, and often the kind of people that so desperately hate "shallow" people make nearly everyone out to be shallow. I could understand the majority of the population hating such a person, as well as being such a person. People are crazy. But we all knew that.

I had to take a step back from the chaos in my mind and figure out what I meant by depth. There was some great appeal to making my life worth something, in order to share it with those that matter to me. Friends, family, a special man someday, maybe even something bigger than all that. I want to have something of worth to share.

Of course I want a fair trade. Maybe it's too much to ask people to make their lives worth something? I doubt it. I think there are very specific things that lend value to a person.

Intellect, balanced with grace. Courage, balanced by wisdom. Love and loyalty. What is it that makes somebody valuable? What makes me worth anything? Does being intelligent but cocky about it lose me points? Is it even a point system at all!?

All I know is that this special kind of worth is what attracts me to certain people. Friends. Possible loves. Mentors. Then again there's my family. Are they somehow exempt from my system of worthy attraction?

Or perhaps it is just that the better I know a person, the easier it is to see their worth.







LINK OF THE DAY!!! Honestly I may have published this post specifically so that I could post this link. I've found the brownie bible. I wept when I found it for it was the truth, the way and all the recipes for the best brownies you never thought were actually man-bake-able. My life is now complete. http://thebrownieproject.wordpress.com/