Why Does It Take Me So Long To Read?

Why does it take me so long to read?

To read this word, this line, this stanza,

Sentence, paragraph, page, book. This novel?

Is it because I can’t forget about what that word meant on page 36?

Or is it because everything I peruse dissipates past my eyes?

Most likely it is the former.
 

Why do I read so slowly?

An 80 page, double spaced book

With more blank spaces than black text.

Why does it take me two weeks?

Is it because I am laggard?

Or is it because I like savoring the words kept in my mouth?

Not easily to move onto the next word
Without an ephemeral capsule of knowing what each and every word meant.

Here’s something noteworthy,

What we will not grasp is lost.

I want to extract every penny I paid from this book.

Yes, I’m frugal and being thrifty doesn’t help my advances.

I am a man stuck within my head.

(My sanity does not thank me for that)

I cannot force myself out of or past my headspace.

That’s gold capital, real estate.

I spend my time starring into thin air, blank wall, digital clocks, empty spaces.

And stare at moments passing by, like this one.

I call this productive procrastination.

Leading myself on acute tangents.

I spend my life in organizing my life.

I spend time thinking how I will spend it.

I spend days, hours, minutes on things that should be seconds.

I spend more time thinking than doing.

I don’t care if I do this again.

I wish, hope and pray I don’t.

But if I do, a note to future self:

Take longer, that's you.

5/12/15 written at around 11pm-ish after finishing Pity the Beautiful. This is my first post in over two years post high-schooling, it feels empty up here.

Life is

Life is beautiful for only those who know how to celebrate the pain.  Enjoy this time, every moment is precious in life.

 

Some enlightening words... 

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. – Mary Tyler Moore

Being strong means rejoicing in who you are, complete with imperfections. − Margaret Woodhouse

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...
It's about learning how to dance in the rain.
– Vivian Greene

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced. – Art Van Der
Leeuw

Your life is your life.  Know it while you have it.

Life is a beautiful struggle.

Peace.  Love.

What I Do

Shout out to my homie Maestro

Word.

RISEOFTHEDANDELIONS Pt. 2

Beasts of the Southern Wild

This was a beautiful film, an American fairy tale of five-year-old Hushpuppy and her unhealthy, hot-tempered father, Wink.  As an approaching storm nears the southern Louisiana bayou community, the Bathtub, the two are optimistic about their life and their future. I suggest you best check it out, after all it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture among countless others. Simply, spectacular.

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone Where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

-Henry Van Dyke

Throwback Thursday

These two songs pretty much defined my junior year of high school.  Listening to them pretty much everyday.

Tupac - Me Against the World

 

Tupac - So Many Tears 

"I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that.  So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up.... and handle it."   - Tupac Shakur

RISEOFTHEDANDELIONS Pt. 1

Everyone and everything is interconnected in this universe.

Stay pure of heart and you will see the signs.

Follow the signs, and you will uncover your destiny.

 -Jeff

The first step to finding your destiny is leaving your mother's basement.

Something about the winter time, where I don't feel comfortable.  I was starting to doubt myself, then on the night of December 30, 2012, I was instilled enlightenment.  Two days before an end and a beginning to a year, I was wondering why there was a Netflix ad on Facebook after I logged out.  So I clicked on 'About This Ad' on the top left corner of the ad.  Then it directed me to the Netflix page and the first thing I saw was a post promoting Jeff, Who Lives at Home.  In the dead of night around one a.m. my freaking mind was blown... again!

As I was watching this film, it was touching my heart and spoke to me as if I was Jeff.  Thinking to myself that this film is speaking the language of my mind.  I knew as I was watching this film smiling that “all this randomness [was] leading towards a perfect moment.”  All these realizations where overflowing in my mind and I knew it wasn't just by chance, but for a reason that I clicked on that Netlfix ad on Facebook.  Guiding myself, as a being continuing to open my mind to the puzzle of the universe.  Trying to understand the ways of the world.  This is one of my favorite movies that I'll have a pleasure to watch over and over again anytime.  It's a soft film, speaking a beautiful truth.

This enlightening film, Jeff, Who Lives at Home is about two brothers Jeff (Jason Segel), a 30-year-old unemployed stoner, living in his mother's basement and his older brother Pat (Ed Helms) who struggles with a failing marriage.  Their widowed mother is disappointed with Jeff and with her unfulfilled dreams.  You have to watch the film for yourself, and you'll get a different experience and effect on you, cause your a different person (duh)!

Today is the greatest day in the history of the world! - Jeff's dad

Wonderful World

"Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."  - Albert Einstein 

 

Easily we get caught up in the ills and hustle n bustle of this world that we forget to take the time to appreciate and see God's beauty in nature around us.  Take the time to notice the beauty of nature around you.  Thich Nhat Hanh once said, "People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.  But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes.  All is a miracle."

This is a picture I took of a flower at Cal State L.A. last summer.  Its not the best of qualities, but it's the quality time that went in to appreciate, stop, take a step forward and amidst all the hustle smell the roses.  Live in the moment.  Put your troubles in perspective, slow down and enjoy the beauty of life.

"Smile, breathe and go slowly."  - Thich Nhat Hanh