the wonder years

Summertime with mat herold in the valley

the heat is coming, the smells are returning

I grew up here, I found the world here, I was happy here

Happy in the truest sense

My childhood was unimaginably good

I was perhaps the luckiest kid

And perhaps thats why I am disappointed now

Most kids need parenting

but I was the perfect kid

I was athletic, cute, smart, funny and curious

I was humble and innocent and carefree....I was 9 years old

summer in this valley for a kid like me is like Hawaii for Hawaiians

Everything just made sense

Food, sports, toys, cartoons, and sunburns

The clinton years, the AYSO years, the waterpark years, the wonder years

God bless the kids

Small steps

I have a headache

I feel it in the top of my brain and it emanates and recedes with each pulse of blood

The headache speaks to me loudly.

It tells me I suck, I cant win, I am diseased and unwanted

These pulses of pain and relief come and go all the time

And these thoughts are beginning to wear on my mind

Some people laugh harder at parties

Maybe I am not a happy person and I need to learn how to let go

I think I need to stop trying to put the world on my shoulders and accept that I can only deal with what´s in front of me.

I can win small battles

I can chew small chunks

Tomorrow this headache will have never happened and I will be back where I started

But maybe tomorrow I´ll stop shooting for the moon and start climbing that mountain.

You've never been to hell

So you don't know the depths of evil

Your demons come at you straight on

They grin at you and you shoo them away.

Your world is full of the craziness that you desire, not the madness you can't handle

You have never been to war

Youve not seen the devil's workshop

Your pain and your misery need not grow

And your happiness is relevant

But you cannot complain

You cannot smile at a blinded soldier

Your smug gesture of empathy will not brighten their day

You've dedicated your life to the pursuit of money

To really care about the suffering of others is to stop what you are doing

To really understand how shitty life is for certain people

Is to dedicate time to that world

But you have strategically separated yourself from that world and you have effortlessly pushed that suffering out of your mind.

"First help yourself" they always say.

And you interpret it to mean: "first help yourself to the luxurious lifestyle you crave"

First help yourself to all the food and then share the crumbs from the backseat of your Mercedes Benz.

20 years will go by and the world will be the same unjust, money-obsessed place it's always been.

There is no evil greater than greed

the urgency

the urgency is not in words
but words can facilitate the process and words can inspire the first steps of action

I have embarassed myself before, and daniel day-lewis has perhaps embarassed himself too
Embarassment is okay: knowing this I can disengage the breaks that are unconciously pressed at every turn.

Life is short, there is no eternity in my religion.

Mistakes are part of the terrain, but failure...Failure is really not an option. I will not always have my way, but allowing myself to give up, accepting that I am not capable, uttering the words "it's hard" or "really hard", even questioning why life must be as it is... None are options.

The facts are that life IS not easy, the facts are that I am my own worst enemy at the moment, the facts are that I give up too easy, I complain too loudly, I worry too easily and I doubt too often.

I will not continue to live as I have and I will not become complacent. Complacency is the devil and weakness is not in my vocabulary. I am daniel day-lewis.

I need to step up my game now and it starts where it began: California

Me and mine

I am a person who deludes himself into thinking he already has the solutions to his problems . I overestimate and underestimate my abilities all the time. Over and under. I believe I think I know EVERYTHING. And yet I know that I know very little. I think I know discipline...I don't know my father's discipline. I think I know hard work... I don't know my brother's hard work. I think I know pain...I don't know the pain of my mother...who struggled with weight, who struggled with love, who struggled with cancer two times, and who fought and smiled to the bitter end. I think I know joy... I am lost in my head and in my illusory future. And when I stumble across the tiniest hint of progress I decide that my efforts have been sufficient....that my luck was deserved....that Allah is smiling upon me. Oh joyous earth. oh plentiful life. A day's work is a beautiful thing...joy to the world. And then, faster than you can say "fuck my life", it seems that hapiness is gone again. And progress is a mystery. And discipline is something I was born without. And joy is not for me. But I can take comfort in the fact that within this life are the solutions. The solutions to my malfunctioning psychology, the solution to my complacency, the solution to my total lack of integrity with myself and others, and the solution to the unnecessary suffering that plagues this planet. I am intelligent enough to find and implement these solutions and reach my heaven. Hope is a beautiful thing

shwot

At first I did not realize
What others seemed to know
That summers weren't forever
And life was but a show
That time is ever turning
And quickly hastes the day
When all our toil ceases
As darkness carries us away.

I was young and I recalled
A simple year ago
My play-days had felt longer
It hit me like a blow
For years beyond this moment
I raced to find a way
To learn all that I ever dreamed
Before my summer fades to gray.

better

One day someone will show up to your suffering and permanently form an opinion of you that will piss you off. And they will think themselves to be better than you.

"I am better than you. " they will say. "And here is the evidence."

It is so easy to be pleased. Yet you will never be. Not in a world decorated with so many outstanding people. Here you are forever mediocre.

Worse than that you will never be impressed, because you will never accept that others are better than you.

The trick is to give yourself confidence points for everything you do and to compare yourself primarily to one person. Find one person who you recognize as above average and then set about beating that one person in every aspect of life. And always have excuses on hand in case there is a recession of confidence. The problem is circumstance, not you.

When you beat this one person, then you will be proud of yourself. "Here I stand, better than that one person. At least I am not that person. At least I am not that piece of shit over there." you will think.

Go somewhere like the Congo where you are better than everyone. More intelligent, richer, healthier.

Be proud to be better. You played great!