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!

So it is another day. the sun rose as predicted
And i feel okay.. i feel good, relatively

I stopped questioning the emotions long ago, i just obey
From happy to furious and from ecstatic to psychotic... i am what i feel like these days

Of course I want to be a buddhist monk, and find the good in every moment
Evading the cynicism and negative with bruce lee reflexes

I dont want to need to tell people how I am, I want them to know I am doing well
I want my personality (the only thing that is real) to indicate more than anything else that I let nothing at all get to me...not even the death of my child.

Not even the death of my child.

Because my strength is like bruce lee's

You happily configure your body for rest

From a day most likely misspent

From morning to evening, every minute compressed

Wanting to be content

Your head finds the pillow and your arms hug the sheets

But your mind is still at a loss

This close-minded culture that you thought you could beat

Has nailed you firm to your cross

The weeks may seem to hint at progress

And the months symbolic of growth

But the unending obstacles and eternal stress

Negate the existence of both

you are tired in life and tired in bed

you are but perpetually dreaming

day after day, till all humans are dead

we are strugglers searching for meaning