Roughly a year ago; I was reading the book 'The Art of Living'. I was still on my Dad's homeschooling curriculum, and so he had given it to me to write reports on. I was working through it chapter by chapter and giving my thoughts on each. One entire chapter was composed of simply 33 moments of happiness the man had had throughout his life; and had thought to write down. This inspired me to write down 33 moments of happiness of my own. This was a year ago... I'm going to leave my original 33 below and compare and contrast to my moments now.
Well... those were my 33 moments. The paragraph to the right are my current moments; the one to the left are my old moments. Reading through them, what do you think has changed? Can you tell? Dad in particular- you should also re-do yours. It'd be interesting to see the differences.
Good vibes and good night. - Maddie
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I read a new book today called ''Yes, No, Little Hippo.'' The little Hippo did something wrong and was yelled at, "No, No Little Hippo!'' He was yelled at for jumping on his bed.and riding his bike too fast and climbing on chairs. The hippo went with his dad. They went to the park. Then he did something good, like jumping rope instead of jumping on his bed. He also rode his bike safely and climbed on a jungle gym. ''Yes, yes, Little Hippo!'' his Dad said.
Ashleigh "We can change what we do, but not who we are." That is a quote from me! Well, I thought it was mine, but it seems two others have thought about it before. At least I found two other references to that quote on the internet. One was on a review to a Kanye West album on some obscure rap website and the other was by a Presbyterian minister on his local website in Jackson Mississippi. An no, I had never read either website before. So it is a quote by me, that happened to be used by two other people but on different subjects. I doubt you would be able to find Wikipedia articles on any of us, so don't bother trying.
If any of you have the time, feel free to put up a Wikipedia piece on me... just try to keep it accurate. That thought kind of reminds me of the movie Full Metal Jacket. There is a scene in that movie where a soldier is being interviewed by a TV reporter and he says that he joined the army because he wanted to be the first boy on his block with a confirmed kill. What craziness. Well, I guess I want to be the first person on my block with a confirmed Wikipedia listing! Anyway, it was after thinking about my last post that made me think about the above quote. When I was younger, I drank heavily and liked to "party". A lot of what I did revolved around drinking, getting a buzz and hanging around places where other people were doing the same thing. Travelling to a city I really knew nothing about to party with people I didn't know seemed exciting... not stupid. Nowadays, when I go to a new city (and its not for business), I am looking for interesting things to visit, and if i meet interesting people along the way, all the better. I am not looking to meet drunks, or partiers though. Instead, I want to meet people with interesting stories or interesting knowledge that they can share. I guess I am the same. Even back when I was just looking to get a buzz, I wanted to be surrounded by interesting people. I wanted to learn new things and get a buzz while doing it. Now, I still want to meet interesting people and learn new things... I have grown, though, and no longer need to chase a buzz to enjoy these different things. The more I look back, the more I see that my drinking was more of a way to break away from the every day and push the frontiers of my mind. Unfortunately, I got trapped into that lifestyle and IT became my regular way of spending the weekend, or an off night etc. With age comes wisdom. For those of us who learned, we still enjoy each other's company, but alcohol and other substances play no part in our lives. For others, my wife, my cousin, my good friend Tommy, they never learned that the substance wasn't necessary... and it killed them. Addiction is a horrible condition and the best way to beat it is to not start testing it. Although there are not a lot of things that I regret about my life, the few that I do, in one way or another inevitably involve alcohol. On the one hand, I have many good friends who I first met while partying and became friends with after we went partying. I have no regrets about meeting these people and adding them to my life. I do regret that I could not do those things back then without the alcohol to make it easier. In essence, I have changed what I do, but I remain who I am. I still find the same things funny, or interesting, I still have the same kinds of thoughts and I still like to do the same things. I am now just able to do them easily, no even easier, without alcohol. I still like to go see bands, walk a quiet trail and go to places I have not been before. Shop for antiques and have quiet, deep conversations. I do them sober now and share them with my daughters. I have changed, yet I am who I am! Who would have thunk it! Usually; motivational quotes are NOT my thing because they are very self-explanatory and require no deep thought and explanation. I usually like quotes that I can dig deep into and re-create; in a way. However; I needed a post title and today I'd like to talk about life in general- and how we all seem to dramatize it more than necessary.
In my life as a teenager, I deal with the minimal amount of drama- which is still a lot; despite my frequent attempts to minimize it. However; I have friends who continuously create drama and can't seem to live without it- but then complain that it's too much for them to handle and subsequently whine about everything. I see no point in this. Drama is quite un-necessary and if something bothers you in life, cut it out of your life. It's as simple as that; especially if it is something irrelevant. But these dramatic people and attention seekers are not who the title was aimed at. The title was directed towards those who have actual struggles in their life, problems that cause them great deals of stress and anxiety. I have many friends who are attention whores in their own way... but I also have many friends who suffer broken homes, alcoholic and addict parents, severe depression and anxiety, gender confusion, and a variety of other afflictions that are much more serious than the he-said she-said that often flies around social media. And it is to these people that I'd just like to say- you know who you are- I love you and you're doing great. Everything works itself out in the end; in one way or another. Things are tough, but you can always find a little bit of light to hang onto. Life is tough. But so are you. We are given the battles we are given because we are strong enough to fight through them; should we choose to do so. Make the right choice. - Maddie To be a loving girl you can pick flowers for someone. You can say something nice to be
loving. You can draw something to be loving. And you can take care of somebody to show your love. Ashleigh “You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.” Okay, I am going with something completely different today. That quote is by Neil Gaiman. Who is Neil Gaiman? you might ask. Well, thank God for Wikipedia... I didn't know either until I looked him up. He is a pretty well regarded author actually. He has won the Bram Stoker award, a Hugo, a Nebula, a Newbery and a Carnegie award for his writing. Not Bad! With all of those awards, someone must have read his stuff!
There are two types of writing in the world... fiction and nonfiction. Each type takes its own skills. To write fiction well, you need to be creative. I mean think about it, often times you are creating your own world, or at a minimum, new people to inhabit worlds people already know. I find it absolutely amazing when someone can take me away from this world and actually make me see another world of their own creation. In my opinion it is just as impressive to write nonfiction. With nonfiction you are using your analytical and research skills to tell a story that may not be obvious to everyone. You are also oftentimes taking the mundane and trying to make it exciting... or at least exciting enough for someone to keep reading about it. Gaiman writes fiction. To get back to his quote, I agree with it totally. Life can be and usually is a collection of inexplicably odd moments. These are what we remember fondly, anyway. I don't know about you, but I rarely remember what I had for dinner on any given day more than two days back. I eat dinner every day, yet I really can't remember any of those meals because they all run together. No need for an explanation there! Yet I remember vividly little odd things that have happened to me along with the major moments of my life. My life has been filled with odd moments. So odd in fact, that I don't really know where to begin. I couldn't tell you all of them anyway. They float into my mind, make me smile, and then float out again. I just thought of two that I have no explanation for. Why they happened? Who knows, they just did. The first one that comes to mind was that I once partied with a coven of witches in Philadelphia. Originally, my friend and I were going to Philly to hang out with his sister. Little did we know that his sister hung out with self-proclaimed witches. You never would have known that any of them were witches. A few of them were cute, and the others were average looking. I kept asking one of the cuties to put a hex on me, but that only led to her spiking my drink with an illegal substance. It was an interesting evening! No explanation ever came for why they were witches. I didn't really care. As long as we weren't going to become human sacrifices, I was okay to party with them. The night went by without incident, although I must say that we met a number of weird characters that evening. Oddly enough, these girls went to Temple, and that school's mascot is an owl. How fitting that these witches were going to Temple and rooting for owls! No explanations here! Just relating an odd moment from my past. The second odd moment that came to mind happened in the Hampton's in New York. When I was younger, a bunch of us used to rent a bungalow out on the beach during the summer. It was funny, there were people walking in and out of that bungalow all of the time, and half of the time I had no clue who the people were. We would all invite friends up for the weekend, so it wasn't surprising that there could be thirty people hanging out in the yard or house at any given time... and you might know maybe half of them. The time that really sticks out to me though was one day when me and a friend of mine were just hanging on the beach drinking beers. Neither one of us was going in the water, we were just standing there talking when all of a sudden, one of the girls from the party going on at the house came running up and said "hey come on let's go swimming and ran by us and went into the surf. We just stood there and watched her for a couple of minutes and she would yell "come on in, the water is fine!" and other such nonsense. We were content to drink our beers since neither one of us was really into her. Well, the next thing you know, the girl whipped off her bikini top and yelled "Hey guys come on! Hello!!!" Well, you know we both just looked at each other in disbelief, dropped our beers and went in the water! I still don't know that girl's name, although we hung out with her the rest of the day and me and her sang with the band later that night. (Just for the record, they shut our mike off after the first thirty seconds or so. We were THAT bad! Thank God we were friends with some of the guys in the band, they let us stay up there for a song or two before asking us to go back in the crowd.) So anyway, there are a couple of odd moments in my life without explanation. There are one or two more that involve shouting mazel tov! at inappropriate times, or allowing drunk friends to chase garbage trucks down Lexington Avenue in the early morning hours after they mistakenly identify them as buses. These too, deserve no explanations. Anyway, odd moments bring color to our lives. Tell me some of your odd moments, and I will tell you who you are. Or more exactly, who you were. We all change. The odd moments I have now have nothing to do with drinking or partying. They involve my daughters and their thoughts and hopes, and the moments we spend together. Fishing, hiking, karate and learning make for a much better combination than booze and cigars for making my odd moments nowadays. I read a new book today called ''The Berenstain Bears Think of Those in Need''. The Bears had too much stuff. And they are going to get rid of some of that stuff. They took the stuff to the Old Bears Home, and to a Children's Hospital. They felt good about themselves afterwards.
Ashleigh Neema's Birthday is in April. She will be so surprised. She will be 78. I will give her a big
hug. I love, love, love, love her. Ashleigh "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can, and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." This is a quote from one of my favorites...Buddha. There is not much I can say about Buddha, other than he was a very wise man. Oddly enough, there are no known writings of Buddha. Everything we know about him was written down after his death. In fact, it was about 400 years before anyone had put anything to paper. Given that's the case, I think many of his sayings could be made by his acolytes as well and then just attributed to Buddha. At any rate, it is very hard to tell. What can be told is that he is the spiritual leader of his own religion.
To get back to the quote, the first line really stands out to me. I have seen this one in action both in regards to me, and my wife, among others. No one can save you unless you want to be saved. When I first met my wife, we dated for about two weeks before she told me she was an alcoholic. At that point, she asked me for help in stopping. The problem was, she didn't really want to stop. She was using the alcohol to self medicate herself from some of her other anxieties and addictions. My wife had addictive personality disorder. She struggled with anorexia, binge eating, compulsive buying, hoarding, jealousy, gambling and other behaviors. It was both sad and scary. We did not know that all of these behaviors were tied together. We tried to battle the alcoholism and the anorexia, and I always found it a good sign when she ate heartily (it wasn't). It oftentimes led to binge eating when I wasn't around, and eventually to depression as she gained weight. This inevitably led back to drinking as she tried to regulate her mood or her appetite with the booze. I could not save her... although I naively tried. I didn't know the extent of her problems and I did not know or believe that she had to do it on her own. I swept the house for bottles, took her to doctors and psychologists, social workers and AA meetings. Nothing worked. I was often told that she had to hit bottom to be helped. That is a large crock of bull. The bottom for my wife was when she died. By that time she had lost her husband, her family, and her happiness. No one saves us but ourselves... it is so true. But don't be afraid to be there for someone and to bring them to people and places where they may be able to learn how to save themselves. It is one thing to have to save yourself... but it might be impossible to do if you are never given hints on how to do it. When my wife (then my girlfriend) asked me to help her to stop drinking back in August of 1999, she helped me to save myself. You see, I too was an active alcoholic at that time. I was functional, and more of a heavy binge drinker (weekends mainly), but I had been drinking fairly regularly since my preteens and I put myself into AA when I was nineteen while in college. I was sober on my 21st birthday, but eventually went back to drinking because I felt my social life was suffering without the drinking. I was bored with drinking by the time I was 33, but doing it anyway. I was looking for a reason to stop, and Sharon inadvertently gave me that reason. I have not had a drop of alcohol in nearly seventeen years. And with God's help, I will not have any for the rest of my life. In the end, although I could not save my wife, I ended up saving myself by trying to help her. Sadly, I feel that back then I did not care enough about myself to save myself, but because I cared so much for her, I saved myself to help make it easier to save her. I didn't realize back then that that is what I was doing. I don't think Sharon ever realized it. Since, as Buddha says, "No one can save us but ourselves", maybe it is a good idea if we are having trouble saving ourselves to find something or someone we value more than ourselves to save... as long as in saving it/them we have to save ourselves as well. I know it sounds odd. But it seems to have saved me seventeen years ago. Possibly, if I had suggested that idea to my wife back then, it might have saved her as well. I don't know. And I don't think I ever will know. All I can say is that I am here now. I somehow saved myself way back then. And with the grace of God I will continue to do so... One day at a time. I love this quote so much because I relate to it. I'm pretty sure most people can; to be honest. For those of you who suck at translating even the most basic of metaphors; this quote is essentially saying to make people happy when you can, and to cheer up those who you see are down as best you can if it happens to be within your capabilities. Sometimes, it doesn't even take that much to make someone's day!
Honestly; I try to compliment most people I run into. Usually; I can always find something I like about a person and if it makes them smile even a little bit; I feel accomplished. Some people really can use the lift up, you know? Some people I believe just walk around and think nobody takes the time they put into their appearance- especially girls. So when I can, I'll compliment a girl on her makeup or hairstyle; because I know all too well that we females take forever in the mornings perfecting our wings and contours and even our eyeshadow blending; and sometimes braiding our hair in all manner of fancy styles. So often; people fail to notice it and it's always nice when someone does. I guess the point I wanted to get across in this post is that it doesn't take much to be the rainbow in someone's cloud. While there are far greater gestures that you can do to make others happy; sometimes a simple compliment is all it takes to turn someone's mood around... and I'm always glad to help when I can. - Maddie Recently in my English class, we've been reading the awesome book 'Tuesdays With Morrie' by Mitch Albom. It's a touching memoir to an amazing college professor who suffered from ALS in his late years and it's a true story. In honor of this; I chose my favorite quote from the book- which I must say was hard to do, since I think the book offers many amazing quotes and bits of knowledge. The quote is the above.
I really see some truth in this quote... especially since I have experienced it myself. For newer readers who don't know me (or my family) personally; my mom died 3 years ago. It was pretty tragic; as she was not only young but also an incredibly beautiful and kind soul. However, she was quite sick and lost a very long and tedious struggle with alcoholism on August 1st of 2013. That aside- her memory lives on forever in the memories of those who's lives she managed to touch; none moreso than my dad and I. We were both very close to her, and she will never be forgotten. This relatability is partly why I chose this quote... but also because I wanted to lightly touch on how sad it must be to live a lonely and bitter life; where no one loves you. I firmly believe that the key to eternal life doesn't lie in myths and legends; but in the love of those you choose to let into your life- and how they value you, and vice versa. To have no one to love you must be to live without purpose; in a way- you'll die and be forgotten. Now, inevitably, we will all at some time be forgotten... but it's so much better to go through life loving and letting others love you than being cold throughout your entire existence. This brings me to the end bit of my post- the initial response quote that came to my mind upon reading the quote: Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid. - Marcus Aurelius And that, everyone- concludes this blog post. The key to a happy life? Is to be happy, live well, and love and let love. Honestly, I believe Aurelius says it best and it is that little philosophy that I myself try to live by. Living a virtuous and noble life. If anyone wants to add to these thoughts- leave me a comment below. - Maddie I love having Parties. I throw a lot of parties. Today I'm having a party. It's an Easter party
It will include finding Easter eggs. My Dad and Neema usually come to my parties. Ashleigh "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." That is a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson. Okay, although not a household name today, Stevenson was very popular during his day. In fact, while I would think that less than 25% of the sheeple could name him, I think most would have heard of one or the other of his two most popular works, which remain in print today even though he wrote them in the early 1880's. So for those of you who don't know, Stevenson Wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island. Although these are his works that still get read today, he was a very popular travel writer in his day, as well as a poet and political activist. A very interesting character, if you have nothing better to do some day and want to read about him.
To get back to his quote, I think it is important to take your eyes away from what you are getting and to look at what you are giving. For it's what you give that will ultimately come back to you in multiples. Many of the happiest people I know are always giving. Not giving money, mind you, but time. Their time. They may give it in small intervals, or in large blocks. It may be a second to give a smile or a moment to pass along a kind word. In the end, Time is all we have with value. Buy a new car and it loses about 20% of its value the minute you drive it off the lot. Give a person a smile and they may remember it for ever! Same with five minutes of your time. Take a few minutes to sit down and chat with someone you know. As long as they are not late for an appointment or something, I will guarantee that they will appreciate it and remember it. If you want to be happy, then plant seeds of happiness. You do this with your time and manner. Meanwhile, if you plant the wrong seeds, you are setting yourself up for a harvest of discord in the future! If you smile and say a kind word, you are more likely to get that in the future. And the funny thing is, while you may be planting the seed and thinking that it only impacts one person, you are wrong. People can and will see what you do... and treat you accordingly. I know that if I constantly see someone smiling... even if they are not smiling at me, I am more likely to smile when I speak to them or if I am around them. Why? I am not certain. I think it is because I like to make people feel comfortable and if they are smiling, then I have a tendency to imitate them to some extent. It is the same with someone who is always zinging other people. I find I am more likely to throw a zinger at them than nearly any other person. I try not to zing anyone, but sometimes I just feel that a person deserves a zinger, particularly if they have been undeservedly zinging someone else. To tie things up. Spend time treating people the way you yourself want to be treated, and I think that over time, you will find that you will be surrounded by people who will treat you the same way. Trust me on this, talk nicely with people and they will speak nicely with you. Treat them nicely and they will return the favor. That is how life works! My life anyway. Well, usually. There will always be one or two people who will be acidic no matter what you say or do. Still treat these people politely, but don't expect too much in return. You can call a car a jet plane, but it ain't ever gonna fly! One more thing. One of our readers gave me a beautiful card the other day that really helped to lift my spirits, and I just wanted to say thank you. I'll say it to you in person at karate too, but I suspect you read this blog and I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about that card while I was writing this post. A kind word can go a long way! Thank you! It's no fun to be sick. I am sick today. I have a light fever. My tummy hurts and I threw up! I hate being sick.
Ashleigh I love this quote so much. It's so accurate... and it has a deep meaning that I can relate heavily to. So many of my friends recently have taken to lying and being sneaky; and then denying everything even when confronted with evidence proving they did wrong. Nothing pisses me off more than someone lying; with proof of the lie in front of them, and still trying to say that they didn't lie or do anything of the sort. It's so.... STUPID!
So when I found this quote, it really clicked and I saw the point of it right away. For those who have a hard time translating metaphors; this quote means that denial and lies are easy to create; but not many people will believe you and you'll have many holes in your life where friends and trust should be. There's no comfort in being alone with your lies because they will in the end destroy you. No one will trust you, and you'll be lonely. No one wants to befriend a liar and if they do; it's often because they are the same. In the end; I give up on arguing with people so foolish as to believe the lies they create for themselves. And before you stop me- yes, people like this do exist. They lie so much that they build their existence on lies and they get so tangled within their own lies that they become a reality to them; to the extent that they don't even know when they're lying. It's awful, and very annoying. I can't reason with people like this, and I've learned to stop trusting them and stop caring. Their delusions are their issues, not mine. If anyone has anything to add to this, I'd love to see some comments. - Maddie My Dad takes me to the movies a lot. Daddy likes to play Wizard 101 with me. Maddie
is my sister. She likes to talk to her friends. Neema is the sweetest little thing! Lucky is our dog. Ashleigh For the past few days, time has been on my mind. How it works, how it was created, how we never seem to have enough of it in our lives and when we do seem to have enough; how we waste it. I don't know. I've been reflecting on life a lot lately as changes have been happening within my own concerning my friends; and I needed a bit of a release; some relatability. Now, when I'm looking to relate to something- I go automatically to google and search quotes; which is what I did earlier today. Since it's late and I don't have any fully-formed thoughts on time yet, I'm going to leave you with my favorite quotes about time that I found.
There's only one thing more precious than our time, and that's who we spend it on. Every moment is precious to those who know the value of time. Regret for wasted time is just more time wasted. Spend time with the ones you love, for one of these days you will be saying "I wish I had" or "I'm glad I did". We say we waste time, but that is impossible. We waste ourselves. Life is short- there is no time to leave important words unsaid. - maddie There are many sounds in the world. I like the sound of birds singing. I also like the sound
of a bee buzzing. I hate the sound of an electric knife! Ashleigh About ten days ago my daughter Madison wrote a post about the Pink Floyd song "Wish You Were Here" where she mentioned that she did not know what I thought it meant, but that for her the song was about living in shades of gray. For me the song always had three meanings. The first is the meaning that David Gilmour and Roger Waters gave it. They have both said publicly that they wrote the song as a tribute to Syd Barrett, a member of their band that did too much acid, and eventually had a mental breakdown and became a schizophrenic. The song, they say, was written for him. The other two meanings are just what I always got from the song. Overall, I think the song is about the certainty of youth, and that how over time a lot of what you were once certain about turns out to be totally false, or at least not how you pictured it. In fact, I have always felt that the song was about disillusionment with the Vietnam War. Admittedly, the first reason I will dive into was my first thoughts on the song, while my second meaning developed over time as I got older.I have pasted the lyrics below. Read them, think about them a bit and then read through my explanation. "Wish You Were Here" So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here. Okay, so in just looking at the first two stanzas I see a number of hints that the questions that start the song could be from either a friend or a lover to a man who is just about to sign up to go fight in the Vietnam War. Many signed up because they thought they were saving the world from communism. The friend asks: Do you think you can tell heaven from hell? Is what we have here truly better than what they have over there, when you have never been over there? Can you confidently say things are worse over there, or just different? How much can you really tell from what you have seen of the world? The second stanza asks questions of the soldier while he is in Vietnam. He has already seen action. He has seen friends and people he respects die (trade heroes for ghosts). He has watched Napalm turn green jungle into a burning hell and has felt the hot air from the explosions (Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?) He realizes that he left his home for an ideal that doesn't exist and therefore refuses to fight any more and gets put in prison (Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?) The third stanza is his friend or lover lamenting the foolishness of it all and missing the friend who is in jail. To me, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", is the tribute song to Barrett and "Wish You Were Here" is a tribute song to those disillusioned with their part in the failed Vietnam War. Remember, the album came out in 1975, after the U.S. ended their foray into Vietnam. U.S. goals were not achieved in Vietnam and many people were disillusioned afterward, and indeed during the conflict. Am I right? Who knows, but it was always what I thought the song was about. On a more personal level, things I was certain about in my youth, I am now certain I was wrong about. The meaning of life, what happiness is and isn't, and how I was going to live my life. What I thought I knew, what I think I know now and what I will think in the future is all so uncertain. Finally thinking back on my group of friends that I had growing up...we all thought we would be a close-knit group forever. It's funny how we are now spread out all over the map leading our own lives separately. I know people I consider good friends that I haven't spoken to in over a decade! Occasionally, I will see a post from one or the other of them on Facebook, but for the most part, we have very little contact. There is nothing wrong with that. We all went our separate ways. It reminds me of lines from the song Time from the Dark Side Of The Moon album: Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. No one told us when to run... we just did. We ran all over the United States. Only one or two stayed in New Jersey. The rest of us flew to points north, south east and west. Funny, after all these years, with little contact, I still consider most of those people friends. And, on some nights, when I am thinking about my younger days, I really still do wish they were here.
I love this quote so much; because it conveys so much through a metaphor. I really think this quote represents open and closed minded people; and how closed minded people view people who are different or unconformative to norms. Or perhaps this quote could be reflecting something deeper- such as people who are sad and miserable with life looking at people who are carefree and making the most of their life. Now these may not even be the intent of the quote; and there are probably countless other interpretations- but I'd just like to touch upon that last one I mentioned because I believe it is the most accurate; maybe even more accurate than closed-mindedness.
First of all; I'd like to point out that the metaphor matches beautifully. Dancing is something typically done by happy people; or is related to as a happier activity at a minimum. To 'dance' through life, you have to have the right music- 'happiness' being the music. To those who can't see the happiness in the lives of others; those "dancing" through life would seem odd, or crazy, for doing so in the manner they often do. Those who can't find happiness within their own life often don't understand how other people can, much less to they feel that others deserve happiness if they can't have it as well. But what if I have things backwards? What if instead of the dancing being happy, it was sad? I guess this quote could work both ways. Maybe happy people see how sad people drag themselves through life and don't understand how someone could be so gloomy in a world so beautiful. However, I am more inclined to believe this quote is about the view of sad people to happy people due to the mention of dancing. Regardless of the meaning of the quote- happiness is easy to find; but your mind must be in the right place. You can't find light by stumbling through a dark cave, and you won't find a gemstone in a pile of coal. If you look at the negativity in everything, you'll never find happiness. That is as simple as it gets. Try to find a little beauty and enjoyment in everything- it'll get you far. - Maddie |
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