Clap Your Hands if You Believe

Life is full of suffering
Suffering is caused by desire
To eliminate suffering, one must eliminate desire.

These are the first three of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and I have found myself lingering over them in my studies. It's not because I'm a Buddhist, in fact I thought myself to be a fundamentally non-religious person. I never sought a god figure or worshipped anything in my life. But as I thought on the subject of my beliefs, I discovered that I do have some. And so, in the spirit of Buddhism, I meditated on it. This was something I had never before attempted and found it a much more difficult task than I had ever assumed it to be. Not only to sit calmly, but to focus on ones own mind, and maintain that focus for a length of time longer than a few moments. The world is a loud, busy place, even when hidden from it in private quarters, so to simply sit and focus for just ten minutes was quite arduous. But as I emerged, having spent nearly an hour doing nothing, and coming out with only ten minutes of total concentration, I felt a sense of satisfaction. The type I got when I ran and had been able to push through a particularly painful stitch and fall into a rhythm. Ten minutes is nothing, but to me, in that moment, it was something significant. I was able, for those ten minutes, to forget my hunger, forget my school work, and think entirely about the content of my mind. These were my thoughts:

I believed religion to be false. It is a source of pain, war, devastation, and injustice. Religion is the act of believing in a deity and a story which has no evidence to support it, and putting such faith in that imaginary subject that one would kill to defend the mere idea of it. Faith in a god is the last hope for those who cannot think to govern and guide them selves.
I cannot hope for a god to exist. Far be it for me to judge the existence of a magical figure in the sky. The only thing I know is myself. I exist, whether here or in my dreams. I am there and can feel and think and touch those around me.
But I am also a victim of the world. Society presses in on me at every moment of every day and pushes me in the norms. I want a new pair of boots and no matter how I try to justify the purchase, it comes down to a desire to look a certain way. It's cold and snowy, and there are boots here already, but these are not those boots. I have a desire which is completely unjustifiable and yet, I dwell on it, wasting my own thoughts on something material and fleeting.
Religion is not the act of believing in a deity. It is the act of believing. And this is something I cannot possibly condemn. I believe in science and history and philosophy. I believe in the power of human beings. I hope, with desperation that I am capable of more than science and history tell me I am. The complexity of life is too much for science to fully explain. I believe in hope. And I believe in the power of hope to give people a reason to live in a world of pain. I do not presume to change peoples' legitimate belief and hope in a god because without that hope, what reason is there to life? I can only hope that a person can choose that god for them self. Seek the manifestation of their individual hope. What is my manifestation?

At that point, someone slammed a door in the hall outside my room and jolted me back out of my head. In retrospect, my thoughts seem odd. I wondered idly if other people think of these things as well. What goes on in the minds of the people around me? The old man on the bus or the girl across the hall who makes silly noises with her friends to amuse them? I picked up the stuffed Peter Pan that sat on my pillow and looked at him. I looked out the window and admired the sparkling of the snow in the mid afternoon sun.

Meditation is a useful thing, I think.
M.G.

Observations...

The sad fact of apathy is that anyone who cares to write on it, clearly has never truly felt it, because if they had, they wouldn't bother write about it in the first place. Its really not an interesting topic. Anyone familiar with the dull, sagging feeling, can agree it is not a compelling subject. As proven by this paragraph. Moving on . . .

............

I don't like big group gatherings. This isn't knew or anything; I've just finally figured out exactly why I hate them so much. With about five people, I can handle it, but for every person added after that, it just becomes another chance for me to be incredibly awkward around normal human beings. With this in mind, I will decline invitation to any such situations . . . unless there is a promise of alcohol.

............

Problem: I need sleep to function, but I hate sleeping.
Solution: live on coffee and tylenol for a couple days, crash for a controlled nap long enough to dream, wake up painfully and repeat.
Not good, but seems to work. So what if I have gigantic dark circles? I always liked racoons.

..............

Capitalism sucks because it sees everything (including human beings) as commodity. The awesome thing, however, is that people, on an individual level, can rarely be labeled accurately as "capitalist" because everyone values things like art and writing and people, not for the price they might come with, but for the emotion and thought they provoke with us. Those things that can never truly be given a price tag without false or hollow feeling.

.............

I love cookies.

..............

Foot binding, like any other given feminine issue, is a touchy subject. All I'll say, is don't waltz into someone else's country, say "you're doin' it wrong!" and tell them how to live. By no means do I believe foot binding to be a good thing. it applies to more than lotus slippers . . . I'm just saying.

..............

I'm tired. Coffee time.



M.G.

Lest We Forget

To remember,
To think of a time I could not have seen,
And cry for souls I could not have known,
To remember.

On a certain day,
For moment's pause,
I transcend time,
On a certain day.

I'll thank you,
Soul I could not have known,
Days I can scarcely imagine,
I'll thank you.

For this day,
This moment,
Is only for you,
So I may sit with you and think a while,
And call it Remembrance.

For in remembrance,
You'll live still,
Live in me,
Live in us all who choose to remember,
Choose to be humbled,
And cry a tear for sacrifices made not so long ago.

I'll remember you,
On this certain day,
I'll thank you.


..............................
I'll always shed a tear on Remembrance Day, and pass it to my children in the future, so they'll never be forgotten.
M.G.

Class anecdotes.

The wind blew violently while I sat in class. My attention could not stay fixed on the piece of rib cage in front of me. It sat loosely in my hand and my eyes drifted out the window. The trees bent, strained against the pressure of the wind from the east. The air was very still in the lab room. It smelled faintly of formaldehyde from the previous lab. The false rib clattered to the bench and brought me back into the room. The TA looked up from her book for a moment and then back again. I couldn't be compelled to sit in the room any longer. I packed away my books, returned the bones to their appropriate drawers and headed to the door. I found my way through the maze of halls to the exit and braced myself for the wind. It seemed that the wind had grown tired in the time I had been in class though, because, as I stepped outside, it gave a final, vindictive gust. There was a girl sitting alone directly across from where I stood. She wore big sunglasses and had long dark hair which, when the last bit of wind hit her, whipped around before falling gently around her face. She sat, statue-like, on the bench, staring determinedly ahead. I felt like she looked straight at me with intent. I wondered what eyes hid behind the glasses, and what provoked the shape of her lips. Why her dark hair looked so beautiful and soft. I stood there for a moment, looking at the girl. The image stuck in my memory long after we both had parted. The beautiful girl with windswept hair.

Hang back your head and heave a deep sigh,
Think of a reason and try to explain why,
You think as you do in that simple way,
That makes you so lovely and tender at play.

I cannot see what goes on in your mind,
I only know me and still can't quite find,
What floats through my brain and dances and twirls,
Except maybe you, with you're gentle curls.

M.G.

*Some more of my artwork can be found (including this one) at >> http://okiiee.deviantart.com/

Enjoy the City While the Moment Lingers

I've spoken of my love before. Possibly the only thing I've loved in the non-filial sense of the word. Toronto. Not a single person, not particular thing. Just this great, moving, pulsing city. Where dreams are born, where they die and where another can resurrect them and make them into something beautiful. A place of hope and despair. Of great joy and tragic sadness. Love it or hate it; live it or suffer it.
Whatever it is about this city that I love, I cannot say precisely. It's many things. It inspires me and, like a drug, injects me with intense passion. My desire for it never ends. It changes shape and, like the city, pulses through me. It's a vital part of me. What makes me who I am. I haven't been here long, and yet, my life before Toronto seems to sink deeper into the fog of my mind every day.
I think perhaps it's just something about the city in general. Maybe not even Toronto specifically. Its this idea of the "big city" that grips every thought that goes through my mind and every word that slips out onto paper. Out of the hundreds of stories I've tried to focus into writing, not a single one has taken place in a small town. Yes, it seems as though, in my imagination, a population no less than a million will do. Of course, I've mused over big cities in almost every timeframe a "big city" could exist in. At the moment, for example, I'm haunted by the dream of a great metropolis in the genre of Steampunk. Grey, clouded skies, industrial sounds filling the air. Enormous steam-powered flying machines gliding high above. Everything draped in bronze and the smell of hot metal.
The image may change and morph, but the premise is always the same: Big city with a million possible stories to tell.
These images also seem to affect my artwork as well. As the stories I write change, so does the artwork that carries with it so much of my absent minded time.
Sometimes I feel like a character, lost in that big city in my mind.
Oddly enough, it's those times that I feel happiest.

Forget to eat.

Music is one of the all encompassing factors of my life. Perhaps of life in general. Music is cultural and indicative of a person's very core set of traits. Music holds the potential for great power over a person.

Confucius (Kong Qin, circa 551-479 BCE; philosopher, possibly the greatest influence on Chinese life for the past two millennia; Founder of Confucianism) was said to have been so absorbed and moved by a single piece of music that he (at least once) forgot to eat for three days. I realize of course, that this is an uncommon reaction to music, but it is an example that I find fascinating. To be so affected by a single piece of music that you would simply forget to eat for days? It seems unlikely, but it is recorded in the history of Confucius to be true. It's absurd, but potent and wonderful at the same time. The passion it must have instilled to cause such a response is staggering.

And then I began to think: What is the song that made me "forget to eat"? Not literally of course, but do I have a piece of music that moves me so deeply that it causes more than just a signal to go flying through my brain? I was listening to my iPod while I mused about this. Trying to think of my "favourite" song. Just when I decided that I didn't have a set favourite, the song changed.

The first movement of Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major.

Now, you may assume I listen to a lot of classical music now, but I really don't, I love it, but it isn't the only thing in my library by a long shot. I generally say, when asked about my taste in music, that I am "eclectic". This doesn't feel like quite the right word, but it's the closest I've got so far. I really do listen to just about everything now and rely on music every day. But this particular piece, no matter how many times I hear it, fills me with something words simply cannot describe. I must have listened to it a thousand times by now, but as I sat on a chair in the campus coffee shop, staring at my black coffee, tears came to my eyes. I'm not much of a crier, and I hate to do it in public, but I sat there for fifteen minutes with glassy, damp eyes, in the middle of a Second Cup. I forgot about the reading I had intended to do during my time there, I forgot I was in a public place, and when the music surged to the first coming-together of the entire orchestra, I forgot my whole life. For that instant, I was with the music like the air is with the wind. If I were to die in that moment, I feel as if it would be painless and without fear.
I forgot to eat.

Have you ever done this? Found a specific piece of music that changes your state of mind or state of being for a moment? Have you ever forgotten to eat?
What is your essential music?

No longer crying in public,
M.G.