lost.

"You might be a big fish in a little pond, doesn't mean you've won, 'cause along may come a bigger one...and you'll be lost..."

~ Coldplay

a work in progress.

the fallen soldier.

Introduction

"I remember when we didn't wear helmets in football." This was one of the first stories my grandfather told me which, lucky for me, was the first among many others to come.

As far back as I can remember he had been a strong and giant-like man. His hands were enormous even on his deathbed. I remember only two days ago I sat across from him, in his room, and had what I’d pretty much expected to be my last conversation with my elder father. We spoke only briefly, but I can vividly remember he preferred my directions to my mother’s, a woman who is queen of unnecessary back roads. Anyway, I mentioned the size of my grandfather’s hands. I found it interesting that this somehow made me comfortable, and deep down I realized that I knew why. It’s simple really, I was in denial. I thought that somehow the normality of his hands, attached to his withered and decrepit body, could leave me a little sense of familiarity, a tiny dose of hope. But believe me, that isn’t how I will remember my grandfather. The real story is far more interesting…

Bad Ethics

It is clear that our government's "morality" has slipped away from the high standards of yesteryear. Without even elaborating on the many reasons of why I have this belief, I would like to point out something that we as Americans all should know.

Today (6.25.08) the supreme court ruled that in favor of Exxon Valdez in the sense that punitive damages would be downsized to a mere $550 million instead of the suggested $2.5 billion. Justice Stevens sums up this political mistake in his quote: “In light of Exxon’s decision to permit a lapsed alcoholic to command a supertanker carrying tens of millions of gallons of crude oil though the treacherous waters of Prince William Sound, thereby endangering all of the individuals who depended upon the sound for their livelihoods,” Justice Stevens wrote, “the jury could easily have given expression to its moral condemnation of Exxon’s conduct in the form of this award.”

The question I want to leave you with is this; what kind of country and justice system do we have when we put people in prison for killing endangered species and put people to death for murder, but corporations get away with paying a set price tag for killing hundreds of thousands of birds and marine wildlife? We should think about our environment, the species within the environment, and how the overall effect of the aforementioned, in turn, affects humans and society.

Post Vipassana

My sister asked me to write a few things about myself, so I decided to add a short essay summing up my thoughts post vipassana. They are as follows...

…the path of “enlightenment”…
“Everything is temporary.”
~ The Buddha
It has been said by many great thinkers in history that the most important thing in life is; life itself. It seems very obvious to the analytical reader or the philosophical debater, but those with the true understanding of life are those with the experiential understanding of what life is, and more importantly, isn’t. This experiential understanding is symmetrically similar to intellectual understanding, but one must balance the two; total equilibrium of mind over matter and vice versa. Like any other important force, concept, or theory in the universe, the analytical understanding of the value of life must coincide, and be perfectly balanced with, the effort and discipline of actually living the life that you so passionately read, write, and talk about. It may be cliché, but if you talk the talk you must walk the walk. People can see right through a person who tries to mold themselves around their own sense of identity, but if you don’t live that identity, if you only cling to the idea that this is how “you” want to be, you never really find the person that you so desperately yearn to explore. It’s almost like playing cover songs in a band your entire life. In the beginning you’re young and reckless and you feel like you have plenty of time to conquer the music biz writing your own music. But, the truth is, by age fifty you’re playing the same covers and still hoping to write that hit song. You can never write the song if you don’t pick up the pen. You’ll never write the song if your main focus is someone else’s song. Be yourself and no one else.