What Have We Got To Lose?

The transition from childhood to the status of adult is one filled with change. Lessons learned become knowledge which you can draw upon. The values your parents held influence the morals ingrained within yourself. Actions from your past influence how you view the world and you choose to interact with it. Everything becomes more concrete and definitive, as habits make life more routine. But for every child who had the privilege of access to books, another trait is imbued within them; Hope. With literature, fiction in particular as noted by Annie Paul in her article “Your Brain on Fiction”, the avid reader is more likely to be able to exercise their real-life social skills through the processes taking place within the brain while reading. This allows for readers to be more likely to understand different views and perspectives without bias or contempt. What Paul does not mention, is how reading allows for hope. Hope for a better tomorrow; Hope, that one day you will achieve your dreams; Hope, that your life will have meaning. Hope is not cockiness or overconfidence, but the belief that there is a reason for optimism. This is a trait that should be afforded to all who have felt the depths of despair. Fortunately, hope can be given to all who seek it, just as simply as opening a book.

http://noles1128.blogspot.com/2012/10/stepping-forward-with-hope.html

Space. The final frontier, as the saying goes. A never ending void of nothingness speckled throughout with planets and stars unfathomably larger than our own. Yet these same astral bodies, which dwarf our own, are mere pin pricks on a cork-board in relation to the size of the universe, and even that may not be an adequate comparison. I am not saying it is wise to fear the unknown because otherwise man would never push his limits, but so little is known about the universe, and as a result, it is perhaps the most terrifying thing known to man. Just think about it, a vast ever expanding emptiness of which the entire human race has only existed for less than a second if the life of the universe was scaled down into a single day. It is difficult to think that no matter what you accomplish in your lifetime it will be meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe. This concept may be a difficult one to accept, but if any good can come from this notion of irrelevance, it is that as individuals on our tiny planet living our short lives, we are free to live as we see fit. In a universe full of giant cosmic bodies that exist for eons, we have the distinct advantage of being able to live ever day as if it was our last. This appreciation for the little things, like life itself, is what make humans so distinct in the universe in which we live.

http://spaceistoimagination.blogspot.com/2012/10/star-wars.html

Don't Wait for Me

I have lost my way in this world of black and white. Rage consumes my every thought; my only desire, to have the recognition I deserve. The city is my empire of steel and concrete. Its streets are etched into my mind; there is not an alleyway I do not know. Honorable men, the ones your father tells you about with reverence, shudder at the thought of me. Respectable women suppress thoughts of me as they lay in bed at night. The person I wished to become has been smothered and replaced by an unfeeling machine; I have become the Resurrection Man. My aspirations have lead me to a world where only those who are willing to embrace their inner sins succeed. Lust, Greed, and Pride permeate throughout my city until every last soul is infected. This new landscape is where I thrive. Just as John Dillinger rose to fame through violence and fear, I too shall be known in time for my deeds. There is no turning back; I cannot turn around from the place I am going to where I've been. The person I was is dead and gone, I have lost my life and all that remains are memories.

http://noles2014.blogspot.com/2012/10/represents-openness-and-limitless.html#comment-form

Welcome to the Jungle

As you walk the streets of a bustling metropolis what is it that you see? Towers of steel and concrete erupting from the earth, peaking just below the clouds. Hundreds, if not thousands, of faces belonging to people you will never know and never see again. The world begins to blur, as those faces become uniform and the towers are cast in a gray hue. Everything around you has turned to gray as time ticks on and the gears of the machine rotate indefinitely. You alone perceive the monotony that plagues the land. Only you can see that man no longer cares to stand out from the crowd. But wait, what if it is not only you, but everyone who can see what has become of this gray world? Perhaps there are some who approve of the uniformity and predictable way of life, even thrive in it. What of those who have a similar view as yourself and find themselves alone in the concrete jungle? Do they conform and become gray or do they try to, once again, see the world in color? As the cliche goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so maybe those gray towers for one are resplendent marvels of architecture for another and all of the uniform faces are individuals that display how unique we all are in this world of gray.

 

http://100leavesinaconcretejungle.blogspot.com/2012/09/gray-jungle.html

Thoughts at Night

The thoughts that past through one's head at night can be truly extraordinary. Only during the night, do the unexplored reaches of your mind get touched. It is almost as if the dark invites them to come out and race through the brain. Rattling around in your skull these thoughts grow more vivid, more complex, more concrete. Thoughts of adventure and daring, the likes of which send adrenaline coursing though your veins, can easily be conjured when the sun goes down. The darkness lends itself to more intimate thoughts as well. Love won, love lost, and love not yet found all swirl about the mind, the form of which never fully takes shape, always out of our mental grasp. Thoughts of about the world, creation, and meaning can impact us in life altering ways. But it is in our dreams, that our inner desires are realized. Dreams can allow you to become anyone, anyplace, anytime, or anything because our dreams are our hopes and our fears and by understanding this, we can learn who we are and who we wish to become. These are some of the thoughts that have passed through my head at night, as I explore my mind.