Tag Archives: know

Really

“Guidelines are for people who don’t know what they really want.”

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Art

Art is so pointless sometimes. Don’t you think with all the thinking that artists have done over the years that we would have figured out the meaning of life by now?

You know what I think about the meaning of life?

What?

Why would God create us if we are going to die? But not really even that. Why would God create us with the capacity of knowing we’re going to die? Why couldn’t he just have made us live forever? Or at least make us unaware of what death is? That’d save me a lot of trouble. I’d be happy. But you know what? Have you ever seen anything amazing come from an ignorant creature? I don’t think so. Ignorance isn’t bliss, because without knowing what dark is you can’t know what light is. Without down there’s no up. It’s like explaining color to a blind person. Live forever? That’s not the way to go. It’s in the struggle, the fight of knowing that we are going to die, and having the choice to give it our all and fight, and fight, and scrape and crawl and bleed; fight until there is nothing left in us, until we are everything we wanted to be, or become everything we hate, until we see the light and release our last breath saying, “That was all of me. That was everything. That was my magnum opus.” It is that fight that brings out the worst in us, the absolute worst of desperation, greed, malice, jealousy, and wrath. And it is that same fight that we can triumph, love, heal, conquer and live. LIVE. Really live… and that’s what makes it worth it. That’s what makes life worth living. That’s why we are alive. That’s why we were created. But do no mistake the possibility of life with real life. Do not mistake defeat for death, and hope for triumph. It is a fight. Nothing is guaranteed. Many will fail, and many will succeed, but one thing for certain is that all of us will die. You don’t need me to tell you this. It’s not a surprise. You know it’s coming, and so we are left, not even with the choices we make, but just one choice: Will you fight? Will you fight? Will you live?

But why don’t artists just say that? Why does it take them their whole life to figure that out, or maybe even never figure that out?

That IS the art. Art cannot be summarized or broken down or paraphrased without its meaning being summarized, broken down, and paraphrased as well. Art can’t be explained; it has to be experienced. How do you hear music for someone else? You can’t. How do you taste a delicious treat for someone else? You can’t. How are you supposed to live for someone else? You can’t. I could tell you the meaning of life, but it wouldn’t be the meaning of your life. It takes a lifetime of experiences to understand the meaning of life. Not just the meaning of any life; the meaning of your life. Life is the art, and art is life. We cannot live for someone else, but we struggle to, we try to pour our soul into art so that someone might feel a glimpse of the same thing we felt, live a fraction of our lives, and thus keep us alive through art. We don’t need to live. We don’t need to think. We don’t need to do anything; so I ask you this: why do we? …Your life is art, and you are the meaning of life.

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newspaper

A man sat down on a park bench and started reading the newspaper. He grew more and more bewildered with each word, not knowing what to make of the news.

A child then came up to him and asked, “Sir, why are you holding that upside-down?”

To which the man replied, “Because I’m illiterate.”

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To Know

To Know

The moment.
The moment of clarity.
The severity,
a rarity
that stings
and rings
with things
you can’t describe,
but only feel
and know
—you just know
what will happen,
and that you can’t
stop it
no matter how hard you try.
For better or for worse,
you lie to yourself
and say
I see the light;
another way.
I will fight!

Yet, you know.
You just know
that you’re only distracting yourself,
and falling back
into the very same moment
of clarity
which trapped you before,
and you know,
you just know
that you’ve been here before—
you’ve seen it,
you’ve felt it,
and now it is here
and is all you can see,
and you know,
you just know
it is all that can be,
and you slip

—Oh, you slip—
and you fall
to your knees
and say, If only
that moment of clarity…
hadn’t shown itself,
hadn’t spoken to me,
hadn’t consumed
then until now
in the wink of an eye,
so that months of inaction
have rolled on by
with nothing
more than the words
“Why couldn’t I…”

But you knew.
You just knew
when your future
appeared
that it would hold you,
entrance you
with its mysterious face,
so you watched
and you listened,
running in place,
when all it would take
to avoid that path
is to speak out
and say “No,
this can’t pass!
That isn’t my fate!”

…but you couldn’t,
you wouldn’t
want to leave it to chance;
take a risk
give her a kiss,
when at that moment’s glance
you cannot be together,
but she’s still in your life,
and to you that’s still better
than ‘maybe’ or ‘might,’
and you want nothing more
than to cherish that moment,
to keep what you can,
to hold onto the light;
even if only
a flash in the pan.

When the future finds you
and you don’t agree,
it takes all that you have
to let go of that moment,
and what used to be,
and accept the tears of its clarity.

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