Pondering Prescription.

It is expected, normal, even, that friends are commonly treated as prescription drugs.  Feeling down?  Two coffee-lunch doses of Friend A.  Philosophical?  Call Friend B bi-weekly.  And so on and so forth.  Is this rarity of the wholly well-rounded tell-all cure-all friend bred from a fear of not being wholly accepted?

Or, perhaps more possible, is it simply a matter of uncharted territory?

If we think of ourselves as multifaceted, why then do we pidgeon-hole those around us into only being able to talk about a limited number of subjects?  And, if we ourselves give in to a narrow friendship, perhaps the other person is thinking that of us?

I’ve gone through this more than I care to express, where there are those I only call when I want to talk about a particular subject, or feeling a certain way.  However, I have the extreme priveledge of having a phenomenal few with who the conversation, mood, and topic can (and does) go anywhere, and this has deepened the friendship to a priceless, cherished status.

And I can’t help but wonder, why have I not breached these barriers with everybody else?

 

How can we expand, deepen, & grow with these people we proclaim to need the most?  Moreso, how do we prevent a narrow, predictable friendship from forming in the first place?

 

Let’s start with prevention.

Primary rule of thumb?  Start deep!  In doing this, overall compatibility can be expressed and gauged.  Perhaps the meeting or setting doesn’t seem to call for soul probing, but there is always a way to segue to deeper waters.  Whether through comment or question, always.  In relationships both romantic and platonic, it is a much easier thing to do to start from the bottom and float to the shallow when necessary than to begin on the surface and swim, fighting the current to go down.

Which leads to having to do that swim..

A goal to keep in mind for this is not to randomly come out of left field.  Easy there.  If all goes well, there is plenty of time to ease into non-routine paths of progressive conversation.

 

 

These are glimpses of processes, with vague generalities to be used as tools as one would see fit.  Every person is different, as is every friendship.  However, the most essential thing, the biggest key to success in any of this, is a genuine curiosity to increase your knowledge of the other person. 

As long as this pressing urge to further inquire exists, especially in both parties, any friendship can gain the capacity to hold so much more of our entireties than we have yet to give it credit for.

Warmly,

Rashel

My Staggering Palpitation

It’s indecipherable that anything should ever be entirely irreconcilable when both parties are willing to change.

It’s perhaps one the biggest personal philosophies I have, now made quotable for your pondering pleasure. Though this can cover the most ground under the basic Category, “Friends,” it can be easily applied to any level of relation with anybody, and its the core perception behind why I’m utterly bewildered in the (albeit rare) case of an argument or situation completely severing a friendship or relationship.

Obviously, this wouldn’t be posted were it’s core not based in a recent event.

It’s easy to be malleable, and so when it comes to the forgiveness-and-moving-on tango one can always find a willing dancer in yours truly. However – in this case it feels I’ve been left blindfolded on a dance floor made only for the waltz.

As you may suspect, this specific situation.. this specific person.. has been an unquenchable source for feelings that cause a palpitating heart to give a sickening lurch and steel butterflies to clamber about clumsily in a stomach drowning in lead. My throat.. my throat has been clawed raw by a beast of unspoken feelings and rasps with screams – sotto voce, always. Feelings of frustration, failure, misunderstanding, asphyxiation, of having been written into a character I’m not, of having foreign words crammed into my mouth as my truth is wrested from these arms tired from fighting…

A tempest for the tempter – deliverance pending.

Reprise to the top.

To think that the potential loss of a friend so close could ever throw me for the loop it has. To suspect such could be the downfall of half of my interior as it drags behind to slow my step with molasses juggernaut cling!

To think that I can still win..

Should my philosophy apply – nothing’s impossible.

I encourage you here, as I feel the need to consistantly do myself, to find that person – friend, family, lover, wife, husband – are things really past a point of no return, and one or both of you can never alter to work? Are the cogs and gears that made it work so rotted through?

Promote new grounds for an evolution, a breakthrough – promote malleability..!

Promote love.

Fragments, Sleek.

The more one learns on philosophies, relationships, life.. the more we find that we can validate any action we take as long as the philosophies for and behind each action remain consistent with each other… It’s almost hypocritical to do something under guidance of the words, “You can’t cross a chasm in two small leaps,” only to then do an action based off the phrase beginning with, “Slow and steady wins the race..”

However, the more we learn about the merits of the seemingly opposing sage words, the more we find ourselves wrestling with the wiser choice in more difficult matters, whether it be of the mind, body, soul or heart… It’s one thing to acknowledge opposing truths, and quite another to decide – which one to act behind?.. Which one to adhere to my own life and actions?

Add in the fact that those of us who are awake are in a state of constant change, ever-evolution.. and we may as well throw our hands up to malleability, all the while hoping not to lose integrity of character.

It’s one thing to have a battle between the mind and the heart… Mind and the body… Heart and the body… These rough engagements alone are enough to tear us down from any preconceived notion of sanity or stability… It only takes a minor plight between any of these components to utterly drain a day of its color.

What, then, happens when one comes to acquiring a soul?.. I say it like this in that while yes, we have souls, for many it’s a process before we really.. well, can feel it’s pull… Let it amplify our heart sounds, saturate the mind’s soil, and just drench the body with an accelerated sense of power – nothing is out of reach, though the circumstance that must be had may be one we would never wish upon ourselves.

So then, if this is the soul – so entangled with everything, what happens when the soul encounters an issue?

The body, mind, heart – all bound into a complete being with soul, and hence, a knit sweater.

Unraveling when allowed to be tugged.

What if you could accomplish the biggest goal your heart desired, but knew that in the process, you would lose everything that you’d once held dear, and everyone you’d ever loved would leave you – would you still do it?

Such is the danger of dreams, of adventure – hence why so many stick to more tangible realities, to comforts…

Freshly realized struggle… Options… Comfort, knowing, certainty… Unknown, sacrifice, journey.

Begins the battle of philosophies.

Ends the psychobabble.

Rubbernecking Rubberband

“You were meant for so much more than this..”

A song lyric, perhaps, or the words of a concerned friend, or the whispers from a brood of vipers.. I’ve had the backhanded pleasure of experiencing it from all three – though discerning between the middle and the latter options can be potentially tricky. It’s a simple statement, but one that is made to create an iron bar of hope in a future made of smoke and speculation.

As you look at the bar, however, the Tails-side of the statement cooly slides beneath wherever you’re standing at this moment, letting tendrils of doubt take root in relation to where “now” is in your life.

Those who are loved (and, my friends, if you read this and I know you, you are) will find an intimidating jungle gym of bars – some real, others mere tricks of the light. And more often than not we’ve seen too many leap for what we perceive as the wrong bar, or underestimate the jump and its requirements.

“Dear, you’re too deep into the analogy here-”

Yes, yes, so, the point I’m trying to make, or the question I’m trying to ask.. When is it best to jump back to the previous bar? When it’s so possible to be on the highest bar around, how do we know if we’re perhaps in the wrong proverbial playground?

Regardless, I know that no matter what happens -

Forward, Left,
Up, Backward,
Right, Down..

The worst thing to do – that anyone can do – is to remain on one bar. To remain at a single height on anything – quality of careers, relationships, friendships, philosophies.. is to stagnate. Is to harden. It’s one fo the reasons why we so often see older adults seemingly unable to change, that is, even if they want to.

The higher up we climb, the farther there is to fall. Greater risk requires more not only of ourselves, but of those we choose to be influenced by. Eventually, it reaches a point where, out of fear,

We simply.. stop. We cushion ourselves on high or make due with our inadequacies – too tired or too cowardly to brave the unknown skies.

To allow this to happen.. to stop.. even for a moment..
This is when we begin to feel ourselves growing older.
The bar is no longer the rod of hope we can stand on, but the ever-reaching, vice-like hand of Death.

I don’t wish to die from my own fear – yet it’s a way that so many of us willingly though unwittingly kill ourselves.

And so, because I cherish the lives and leaps of those here, I say – without ill-will or falsehood,

“You were meant for so much more than this..”

Forced Follies

I, like many, face a constant battle between the person we wish to be and our darker halves – those who know me well (the count for that is currently set at 6. Period.) know the particulars.  Those who know me well (still, at 6.) tell me that these traits are normal for my age, that I should remember, “You’re still young.”

The proclaimed precocious are not immune to falling to the common follies caused by their youth.

A truth, or a scapegoat?

Where is the line between the follies of youth and the mistakes caused by a defective personality?  “At this age,” what is the difference between “acting our age” and using it as an excuse to act simply irresponsible, cruel, and childish? 

When is it really our time to finally know better?

The thing is, realistically, we already all know better – how to have a good relationship, how to pursue your career goals, how to do well in school.  So, why is it that even though we’ve been told all the keys to lead a successful life, it’s fully acceptable and expected to throw all of this to waste until an older age?  Encouraged, even?

I suppose, in my own frustration and uselessness.. in the face of my own temptations to use my age and “young” state of mind to act/do/think things that are for all matter pointless..

When are we old enough to do better?

All this time, yours truly has been under the impression that if we learn something, and it can enrich our lives and lead it down the difficult but possible and tangible of a life worth remembering, then by all means.. As Josh would proclaim, “Go go go!”

.. One of the greater things one can learn and understand, would be the importance of admitting to one’s being wrong.  Hence, if I am, please, please, keep me in darkness no longer.

Breaking the Wall!

It’s only when we become inspired that we become acutely aware of our own previous stagnation.

Our hands, our hands that sit complacently on our laps, that fondle the remote, that dial booty calls and press buttons.. They could be writing something groundbreaking, something that will spark a revolution of cultural change!

They could be saving somebody’s life at this very second.

And our eyes, our eyes that gaze passively at television reruns and fast food menus, that look at the cement on our routine walks to our routine places.. We could be taking in the magnificence of the earth. We could be out, witnessing the look of somebody who’s experiencing hope, and love, and happiness for the first time in a world where such things have become such a battle to experience and hold onto.

But above all, our thoughts! Ah, our thoughts, that at the moment may not extend past tomorrow, that worry about gossip and when we’ll get our next high from our drug of choice.. To use such moments the way we do – when we can be delving into the very heartbeat of humanity. When we could be experiencing an epiphany that forces us from our cynicism and stagnation, when we could be gripped by the pulls of our very souls.

When we sit still in life, we stagnate. When our dreams and ambitions die, we, too, begin dying.

If this is the case, why are we so much more content with ending our lives instead of changing them?

Despite who we think we are, how we were made, what our drawbacks are – our capacity and potential for good is staggering.

Purpose overcomes design.

Familial Familiarities

The tapestry of moments we share with those around us forever influences how we’re perceived, and though we may suspect certain perceptions held by others is unchangeable, it takes but a single moment to alter everything – for better or worse.

It reminds me of the past few visits with my father.

It was a few weeks ago. He was going through an incredibly, inexorably difficult time in his life, and I remember sitting with him that morning outside – I’d come at his request to visit, before he was to leave for Michigan for a turn. Taking a drag from his cigarette, he struggled to hold himself as he explained why he was leaving – why he had to leave.

As he spoke and went on, his composure fell in fragments, and I saw a man’s soul falling apart before my eyes. He wept, the reality that Seattle wasn’t his home anymore, that his engagement to the love of his life was to be placed on hold indefinitely.. His heart broke, and mine could only go out to him as I grasped for the right words to heal a man who’d been brought to his knees in life.

It’s a memory that aligns itself with so many others – of being a witness to the raw nakedness of our humanity. How can we forget our compassion for others, our love and camaraderie for those around us, and instead only focus on our own pains? To see our contemporaries treat others with such cruelties, with such ruthless apathy and cynicism..

Look at those around you! The people with blank faces as they walk beside you on foreign sidewalks, the strangers you sit beside on overwhelmingly silent buses, the women in front of you in the Starbucks line who’s shouting obscenities at the barista.. Utterly different, but our plights, our emotions so similar!

We’ve all felt excluded from those we’ve so desperately wanted to be a part of.

We, all of us, have looked at ourselves in the mirror, seeing only the shadows beneath sad, gaping eyes as we’ve wondered how we got into all of this..

Even at this very moment, there are people who are sitting with their faces in their hands, bodies trembling with an earthquake of desolation that’s corroding the last vestiges of hope, so like us in our own dark times.

But oh, oh, my darlings! There is always hope!

Dad came back from the Midwest, and I went to see him last night. Plans; life has changed for the better. He spoke with a renewed optimism and energy, and I felt the indomitable strength that lies at the core of his being – a spirit that can’t be broken, for it is crafted from love. Both given and received.

When we are optimistic about the future, no matter our current circumstances, we thrive. When we live a life without passion, without taking the chance to accomplish our dreams, we’re not “becoming realistic,” but are only living out our own worst-case scenarios. We’re settling for less than we can achieve.

Failure cannot paralyze those who believe and pursue a better future.

To all of you I extend my love, my compassion; every ounce of tenderness I possess – that we can all grow in strength of character, in spirit, in passion for continuing into the days of love and warmth that we all deserve, and can all accomplish.

Preservation’s Latch

Where do we learn our instinct for self-preservation, outside of simple experience?  I’m speaking emotionally, mainly, as opposed to basic physical survival.

Some of us are so gun-shy of exposing ourselves to others in a vulnerable manner that we seem shut-off or insincere.. even untrustworthy to those we would claim as our nearest and dearest.  Others can’t seem to learn common red flags in matters of trust – always exposing their soft, emotional underbellies to completely sketchy or otherwise harmful people.

Naturally, neither extreme works.  Those with so much suspicion and cynicism in their hearts become like a closed fist, with no real love going outward, and any love trying to get in only grazes uselessly at the surface.  Others with a a seemingly unyielding open heart eventually get it filled with so many scars it becomes a tragic form of pseudo-masochism.

Granted, we all have scars.  The more experienced we get in our relationships with people, the easier it is to see them in people we hardly even know, clear as a spotlight.  It’s why so many of us are just looking to “have some fun” with others – purely physical encounters with people seem to be easier on us.  In these people, it’s most apparent how experiences with love have become too emotionally dangerous or hopeless to pursue. 

Afterall, when one spends so much time desperately chasing after love, affection, genuine caring and happiness, only to have it betray or not materialize at all… it seems the question would be, “What’s the point?”

Why should I pursue something that really, has only hurt?  Why am I.. just, completely falling over myself, destroying myself inside, for the sake of this person, of these people?

It’s a common root.  Alongside influences that have simply never experienced love. 

However, once one experiences this.. this unyielding, consuming, fierce and friendly, deeper than ourselves, chest explosion kind of love..  When we find a relationship with somebody with whom we can just pull out and dig into the darkest parts of ourselves and expose it without regret (though not without fear – it is a very terrifying experience to go that far with another for the first time)…

Even if that relationship fails, after experiencing something like that – it becomes almost impossible to pursue anything less, and it’s a disservice to ourselves to settle for less.

Seeking simple “fun” can be like drinking a bottle of salt water.  Seemingly fulfilling, but our thirst isn’t quenched in the end.  We still need, and crave, and want, and desire..  Have you ever questioned exactly why you still feel lonely, and unfulfilled, or bored when the afterglow fades?

The physical, alone, is not enough to sustain you.

You have a heart and the capacity to love because you were made to experience so much more than this!  The pointless physical may be like bottled sea water, but love, love is an ocean of fresh water – it’s clean and deep and all-encompassing.

But if we don’t pull out of where we’re at, immersed in superficial relationships..

It’s the thing
that’s making you
SICK.

It’s going to slowly hollow out everything inside, until there is only the cold, hard lump in the pit of our stomachs that consists of a mixture of frustration, desperation, and apathy.  Until we just sit passively in front of our computer screens, or our televisions, or behind our windshields…completely, utterly empty.

And that thing, that insistent pulling toward the unknown, to a place many of us are fearing to go as we stubbornly throw ourselves into routine?  That pull toward seemingly nothing that keeps us up at night?  That lull in the shower where we feel a hole in ourselves and wonder if we’re missing something?

Dear,
it’s love,
it’s love.

Whether our hearts have closed themselves as fingers, or wildly open and embracing anything we can get, we secretely..hunger.  Crave.  Need.

For the one thing that will cover all the bases of ourselves.  The thing that finally fills us and quenches this insatiable thirst.  The thing that will open the closed and fully embrace the open, the thing we all, every one of us, deserve.

It’s the thing I wish for all of you, if not stronger than I wish it for myself.

The most dangerous place to be, it seems, is in love.  You must have the boldness to tread, again and again, as long as it takes, because that is the true root of all we do, is in respose to love.

Always, always, Love.

Self-Stranger

Individualism. Honesty. Integrity. Authenticism. Genuine.

These are phrases that have been used to describe the leaders, the revolutionaries and pioneers of our everyday life – both in the present and times long past.  However, why do these things not apply to the masses in general?

It’s difficult.  Tricky.  It takes an unprecedented amount of strength, and there are few easy ways to attain it.

I read recently about the mentality of “boring” people – those with no seeming opinion, charisma, or inner desire to really engage and interact.  It stated that these people have covered their sense of self resolutely – so entrenched are they under mental walls and obstacles, that they’ve truly, literally, lost themselves.

There are more people that are heading in that direction than we think, and they go out of fear of rejection.  We want to be unconditionally loved and accepted for ourselves, but for some reason we confuse that with accommodating others, and letting them change us in such a way that it in fact erases who we are as an individual.

“I need your acceptance! I’m so scared of being alone after all!  I break under the pressure of silence and wilt in the face of adversity! Please, let me change for you, please, like..love..me..”

It is one thing to accommodate and try to bond with those around us – whether it’s somebody we look up to, or somebody we simply feel an intrinsic need to have in our lives.  However, once the moment this accommodation changes us for the worse, when we only feel it’s okay to act a certain way at the affirmation of somebody else instead of feeling it for ourselves, our openess to influence becomes our own poison.

We find ourselves lying.  Becoming eager to appear more than what we truly are.

Lying is a choice, often made by a lack of skillfulness.

If we continuously deny who we really are, what we really feel, believe me, your real self will leave you.  You will finally become who you’ve tried to be on the outside, but because it was never at the core of your being, and your center has been utterly repressed, at the end of the day,

you

will

be

hollow.

How do we keep ourselves from that fate?  How.. do we introduce the world to who we really are?  And for some, how do we even begin to introduce who we really are to ourselves?

I confess.  It is probably the most terrifying psychological thing one can delve into.  It requires that we not only come face-to-face with the disgusting, wretched, pathetic, angry, irrational parts of ourselves, but we then need to take responsibility for them.

It is only in understanding and accepting that we can truly find control.

It is only when we then take these vices and work to eliminate them, despite popular opinion, that we can really become exactly what our hearts, our souls, crave us to be.

We need to really see the people we try to idolize.  Those we imitate and try to be like:

Are we truly trying to attain a virtue,

or are we worshiping a dysfunction?

Exercise honesty.  Because you were never more beautiful in hindsight than when you acted with honesty - despite the consequences, than you ever were by being a slave to your fear of rejection.

Please, please, for the sake of your true happiness, save your Self.

Hierarchical Havoc!

Has anybody found it ironic that though everybody is technically free – truly we are the only ones who control our own movements and thoughts – we willingly allow ourselves to be placed under the proverbial shackles and bondage of so many others for the sake of an imposed hierarchy?

It’s one of the reasons I personally can’t really believe in placing blame on somebody when it effects me, and why the thought of “He/She/They/etc made me do/say it” seems utterly ridiculous.

Yes, there are instances where it is certainly to our benefit to entrust our actions and thoughts in the hands of others. Teachers at school, parents and mentors, respectable other loved ones.. When we allow their influence to change us for the better, our lives become more efficient, enjoyable, fulfilled and productive.

There is, however, a dark.. gaping chasm of difference between “influence” and “control.”

Realizing when one has breached this distance and, even moreso, realizing that this shouldn’t be so – this becomes one of the tricks that we all must attune ourselves to to best avoid entrapment. Such chains that begin to shackle us to the ground, leaving us to burble last breaths into mud instead of thrusting us into the air where we all so desperately long to be must be relentlessly severed.

Ah, and that is where the strength of our feelings of self-worth come in. The depth and brevity of this feeling is the key factor of just how well we are able to fight against such things, if we even get into this situation at all.

I remember having coffee and dessert with my friend, Dan Strang, late one night at a great place on Broadway, and he asked me if I thought that all humans were equal. I had sipped my mocha slowly, trying to avoid the whipped cream from pushing itself into my face while I contemplated. A moment later, I stated slowly, “I think that if we were to take everybody as we are now, nobody is equal. However, in terms of our potential to become, that is where we are all on equal ground.”

In other words, it is in our futures and our willingness to grow that we can all reach the same stratospheric height. We all have the innate ability to somehow overcome those that we may feel oppressed by – if we would only realize the true worth of our ability, which in this sense has the beginnings of being endless.

Though there is a seeming stability and ease with relinquishing our free will to others, and it certainly feeds our base human trigger to blame somebody else, but a life of such slavery is both an illusion and a poison. You are capable of rising above! You are able to survive and even more than that, achieve!

Love Yourself : Break Free.