Friday, July 29, 2011

Homecoming

Someday, I would like to go home. The exact location of this place, I don't know, but someday I would like to go. There would be a pleasing feeling of familiarity and a sense of welcome in everything I saw. People would greet me warmly. They would remind me of the length of my absence and the thousands of miles I had travelled in those restless years, but mostly, they would tell me that I had been missed, and that things were better now I had returned. Autumn would come to this place of welcome, this place I would know to be home. Autumn would come and the air would grow cool, dry and magic, as it does that time of the year. At night, I would walk the streets but not feel lonely, for these are the streets of my home town. These are the streets that I had thought about while far away, and now I was back, and all was as it should be. The trees and the falling leaves would welcome me. I would look up at the moon, and remember seeing it in countries all over the world as I had restlessly journeyed for decades, never remembering it looking the same as when viewed from my hometown.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Provocation Catalyst

If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Unrequited: The Antithesis of a Love Story

"You're a lover, I'm a runner. ...Got a gypsy soul to blame and I was born for leaving." -  Zac Brown Band

I can jump out of a plane, jump off a bridge, scale a mountain, ride a bull, do just about anything that most people would deem insane with little or no fear. But I do have one fear...It ties my gut in knots and makes me want to run for the hills. The worst four letter word of them all, love.

I'm neither jaded nor optimistic when it comes to the topic. I feel most comfortable when I'm alone.Travel is my love. Travel is safe. The road isn't going to wake up one day and say, "Thanks for the past 22 years...but I don't like you all that much anymore." I feel a need to be in constant motion...always a new venture on the horizon. I looked into a copy of one of my old books and came across a mini rant about the road and how it takes a person over. Appears old habits die hard. Funny...I speak of living a life with passion, looking fear in the eye, never letting that fire die. However, when it comes to love I have become what I loathe the most...a nihilist. It'll take one hell of a person to change my ways, to convince me otherwise. Flawed, I know. But it works for me. Honestly, with the people I've come across they leave me more and more indifferent. So much bullshit, so little time. Injecting integrity into the dating world seems far-fetched.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Zen and the Art of The Road

There are books out there that are far from just books, their quotations are not just mere quotations...they are life....pure and raw. To me those books were On The Road and Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I remember when I first read On The Road. I found myself nodding, over underlining and wanting to scream with alleviation. I consumed On The Road as if I were starved. I felt like it was speaking to me and me alone, it flowed in my blood, inspired me...

My copy of Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was put through the same torture my copy of On The Road was. This was a novel of traveling, analyzing human existence and pure truths (derived from Greek philosophy). Pirsig brought about a perception of the world embracing both the rational and the romantic. He truly expresses how being rational and "living in the moment" can coexist. A dash of reason to the romanticist philosophy! ;) I felt as if I were personally conversing with him. I soon dubbed him the Kerouac of our generation.

It makes me wonder....what novels have had that pure, all-consuming effect on others?