"A brief candle..."

A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.

-Charlie Daniels
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Every death creates an empty inside us where they used to be. After two, they clump together to make one big empty. When a new one comes, the shock of the new empty, on it's own hurts for awhile. But after time it moves into the big empty. It's still there, dully, it never goes away, but the hurt becomes less sharp and our minds can slip free for awhile. Inside the empty, there are these little dark wisps of doubt. The stray thoughts that speculate on who is to blame. They are gaseous, but when you get enough, the pressure causes them to condense into a horrible, corrosive tar in the bottom of the empty. It eats away at you, makes the empty bigger.
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Ziggy; wherever you go, may the higher powers smile on you. And if there is nothing, may the darkness be a blessed relief from the pain.
X ycph lcz... Qcjphj bsm gphj. Bygbln.

"Why should I tell the truth?"

"Reality is bad enough. Why should I tell the truth?"

-Patrick Sky
I haven't blogged in awhile, I know. But I have not had many thoughts worth blogging that I am willing to share, or those I have have not been enough to sustain a decent amount. But now I feel is the time where I have to do something, or I will never be able to start again. So here is tonight's thought, coming in the form of a cleaned-up MSN conversation with a close friend of mine:
Bec says:
*clings to last battered, torn, and blackened shred of hope*
A Friend says:
lol
Bec says:
I spose thats all we can ever do really...
A Friend says:
yer truth
Bec says:
And we can pretend to deny truths, because that moment when you forget the pretence is a pretence hurts just so much less than the pretending itself.
A Friend says:
ok im lost
Bec says:
If the truth of our life is harsh, we can pretend to not know the truth. And pretending we don't know the truth hurts, but the moment when we actually believe our pretending is real makes the extra hurt of pretending worth it.
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And I suppose that even if we don't lie to ourselves, the lying to others with a totally happy face and not a care in the world helps lessen the weight of our truths upon our shoulders. And if you want me to elaborate in this, turn to the title. If I wanted to share any truths, I would have done so long ago.

"Feelings are not supposed to be logical"

“Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions.”

-David Borenstein
You know, I think it's time to get my views straight on some things. I have been working on that with a few of my blogs, like the whole ugly vs beautiful/evil vs good one. So I thought today I'd do one on emotion.
Emotion. Big word, although it contains so few letters. We all know what feelings are, so I will skip that part. This blog is more about dealing with emotions. We all do it differently. Me? I can control them, pretty much. And I can control them by finding the root. There is not one emotion in me that I cannot find the root of. And knowing that, doesn't it make me seem so much less emotional than everyone else? I'm not really. I just know where they come from so I have better control of how I portray them. So, in a way, I guess that makes my feelings logical. If I cannot find the root, then I should not be feeling it. So then... It's hard to say... I refuse to feel it? I don't know. But I know that if I cannot find the root, I stop feeling it, because there is no reason to.
"Dangerous is the man who has rationalised his emotions." Maybe so. Take Conor, for example. From Bloodtide. He has rationalised his emotions. He uses his love of Signy to deceive her in the great betrayal. "All his life he had been able to hold his feelings deep inside himself, like tiny fish frozen in the icy tightness of his heart... and now it served him beautifully and horribly in his deception of Signy. So deeply and tightly had he frozen his feelings, he had no idea what they were." Doesn't that make Conor a dangerous man? It means he has no compassion, no idea how to protect what he loves. "He didn't know it, but Conor was breaking his own heart first of all." Conor has rationalised his emotions almost to the point of insanity. I rationalise my emotions too. Does that make me dangerous? I don't know. I haven't really hidden them as deeply as his, I can still feel.
But do you ever wonder whether it is better be able to feel sadness than nothing at all? Without sadness, you cannot know happiness. Without trust, you cannot know betrayal. But what would it be like to have no emotion at all? It would probably feel like sadness, to a person who has had emotions before. But if you grew up with no emotions, if you were born emotionless, and died emotionless, how would it feel? Imagine, a life without sadness, or anger, or feelings of betrayal. Wouldn't it be nice? Imagine, a life without happiness, or love, or feelings of trust. Wouldn't it be horrible? Maybe that's what rationalising emotions is... Having none that are real, because by rationalising them too much, you control them completely. Which makes you a dangerous person. But... I can do that... I can rationalise my emotions. I can't make ones I have reason for go away, but I can make those I don't leave me alone and I can prevent showing those which are real. I... Am I dangerous? Theory says I am... I guess that if I did do bad things because of emotion rationalisation, that would provoke uncontrollable bad emotions. So I do not think I am dangerous... Who knows?

"The mind is like a parachute"

"The mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work unless it's open."

-Frank Zappa
So. D'you like today's quote? Isn't it true? Lots of people say that I am the only one who understands them. That's not really true though. I may not understand them better than anyone else- My mind is just open to any possibility. Just because I don't work like that, it doesn't mean others don't. Just because my family isn't like that, doesn't mean others' can't be. And I find that principle serves me well. I have many friends and hardly ever get into fights, in fact, I cannot remember the last time I had a falling-out with someone... Wait... I think it was that Chloe girl in Year 8. She spent all her time being difficult, asking me for help, so I did, then she totally attacked me for it. So, that was no fault of mine, I had hung on through thin ice for quite some months.
Open-mindedness is good. Not just the ability to accept others, but the ability to put your own wants and emotions aside to solve the problem. If I have to make a decision that will hurt at least one person, no matter what, I will choose what is best for the most amount of people in the long run. Because, it doesn't really matter what I want- As soon as I make a decision that hurts someone, I get hurt anyway. So why not choose what is best for most people? And it's a mere bonus if my decision is good for me. So many people can't see that ._.
It is good to be open minded at all! Even if all you have the ability to do is recognise how your bad mood will affect others then pretend to be happy for their sake :):)
"The mind is like a parachute- It doesn't work unless it is open" That quote can be dissected more literally too. If your parachute isn't open, you will fall to your death. If your mind isn't open, you cannot take anything new on board. Isn't that kind of a death in itself?
So, moral of this blog: Open-mindedness is good. Put emotions in the back corner when making decisions that affect others. Put yourself in different perspectives. A closed mind is a death in itself, much like a closed parachute. If you think I am talking crap, or trying to force my opinion upon you, what does that say about your mind?
My mind is like a parachute- It is working because it is open.

"When we know beauty, we know ugliness."

When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil.

-Lao-tzu
Well. I know what this post was originally going to be about, before I started googling for that quote that I saw in a book once. It was originally going to be about my teeth. Yes. Very exciting.
Well. I am going to be getting braces around February/March time. I know my teeth don't look too bad, I hardly notice them myself anymore. But they are terribly crooked. The braces are more to improve the functionality than the aestheticism. So yeah, I thought I'd blog about that, but I can now see that it's kind of pathetic in the wake of the quote I was looking for to head it up.
So. Back to the quote. "When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil." Opposites are purely a human invention, aren't they? John Marsden touches on this in his Tomorrow series, which are fantastic by the way, you should read them. "Nature knows no opposites." He says. And isn't it true? To use his example, if a dragonfly is eating a mosquito, he is simply surviving, filling his belly so he can live a bit longer. He is unaware of the mosquito's suffering as he fights for his life and is devoured painfully bit by bit. We would call the dragonfly evil because he is doing that to the mosquito. But are people who kill accidentally evil? The dragonfly is doing the same thing. He is just eating. Are we evil because we kill plants and animals to survive? "When they all know good as good, There arises the recognition of evil"
What about beauty? "When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, There arises the recognition of ugliness." Isn't this also true? If we all looked the same, we would not recognise either in people, I don't think. But because we recognise these stick-thin models as beautiful, we recognise those healthy-sized, vibrant women as ugly. Because our recognition of beauty is becoming increasingly narrower, how long will it be until we consider the whole human race as ugly? Cast aside this image, look at it honestly- Are they really ugly, or do they just differ from the media-recognised image of beauty?

"A good essay should be dripping with quotations"

-Mr Shefford (My 2009 English teacher)
So, here is my plan for this blog. I want each title to be a quote. Each post to revolve around the idea of the quote. That way I can stay on subject and not go off on one... Like Mr Shefford says: "If you don't quote, you won't achieve! To get excellence you have to know your text, know your quotes. A good essay should be dripping with quotations." And a good blog should not ramble and stick to the topic of the quote.
I quite like blogging, which surprises me, much like it surprised Jared. Heheh. If you guys get blogs, I'll read them for you :D:D It's quite nice tapping away here, being able to follow a train of thought without having to accomplish anything. My quote idea is more for direction and to keep me from following my train of thought off the edge of the cliff and into insane boredom. And on that note, here is where I sign off. "A good essay should be dripping with quotations." And a good blog should not ramble and stick to the topic of the quote.

"Argument is the worst sort of conversation."

"Argument is the worst sort of conversation."

-Jonathan Swift
This has been bothering me. I am sure you are all aware of the war in Bat Country. I have seen the argument presented, from live commentary over microphone, to long sections of MSN conversations, to opinions trying to win me over. And you know what? At the risk of incurring your wrath, I am creating a new side altogether. Don't take this as me wanting to be exiled- that is the last thing I want. But here is my honest opinion: On the Aprille part: They are all taking the internet too seriously. However, Aprille is not taking it seriously enough. She forgets that there are real people on the other end of that IM window, and they all forget that she does that. So, it escalates. Argument is the worst sort of conversation. On the Justin part: A misunderstanding over a joke in bad taste has escalated. People refuse to put their emotions aside to look honestly at what is happening. Feel free to tell me if I have misunderstood- But please, tell me as if it is you who is standing in the middle, confused and being tugged from both sides.
And, if I can be honest some more- The threats being given here are way out of line. I think you should give your opinions, choose logically and then let that be the end of it.
There. That's enough from me. Now please don't exile me for this. I want no part in the argument. My suggestions above are my interpretation of what has happened and what I think would be best. I take no side in this and will continue to converse with all parties, unless they give me reason not to do so. Please let this end soon. It saddens me. Argument is the worst sort of conversation.

"I get by with a little help from my friends."

-John Lennon
I do. Although I seldom need to lean on anyone. They get by with help from me. But it seems lately, it is more the latter than the first. So I thought, here is an experiment, let's wait for them to call me. It's always the other way around. And, it kind of worked. Celine called me. But I was in Wellington that week, isn't that typical? Ha. But, she did text me, at least she had conviction :) But Nicki... I called her earlier in the holidays, she said she was busy, so I told her to call me back whenever. She still hasn't, I called her shortly after New Year. Now Dad says today he wants me to call a friend. I want to see Nicki, but am torn between breaking my resolution or keeping to it and weakening the friendship. *sigh* Never mind. I will call Nicki later. She's probably in Auckland anyway, heh. I'll wait for a bit longer to make sure everyone in her house is awake though...

"A brand new cliché"

"And the weirdest thing about a mind
Is that every answer that you find
Is the basis of a brand new cliché."

-Tim Minchin
Tim Minchin may be funny, but he has some good ideas. And isn't it true? How often do I repeat myself? I have clichés that only I use. But that is otay, because they are my clichés. My favourite is: Being weird is more fun than being normal. Doesn't it just sum me up? I feel that in my first proper post I should be finding something deep to say, and I am trying, I really am, but I keep getting distracted. By my hair tickling my cheek, my fan making me shiver, my friends sending me messages. So I reply, run my fingers through my hair again, straighten up and try to continue. Let's go back to my quote. "Every answer that you find" Answers to yourself. They become the clichés. Because when you understand something you can answer people's questions on yourself. And there are only finite answers to give, so, it becomes 'the basis of [your] brand new cliché'. And now, I can feel I have accomplished my goal. I can run my fingers through my hair, reply to my messages and sign off this post feeling like I have accomplished something. But yet, I still feel something is missing. But, I cannot find my answers yet. Maybe I'll give you my clichés in the next post...

Is this the start of something wonderful?

Will this be meditation? Will I bear to drag my thoughts out of my head? Will people care or will it be just for me? Will this be deep, or will it be shallow? Will it become a replica of my other site or be an original all of it's own? Will it be creative, or really rather dull? Will it be like me? Ever-changing, brightly-shining? Is this the start of something wonderful?