Perfect Timing

So someone once told me that we can’t all be perfect all of the time, and perhaps, against my better understanding of the term, to a point, can be true. However, we live in a world that is constantly changing, always evolving and always pushing the boundaries and limitations set upon it by society, nature, time and space. But here’s the thing about perfection, or perhaps about being perfected...is that people change and so do opinions, depending on the time, the place and conditions that they find themselves in, and depending on the things that influence the very fibre of their being, and sooner or later what was bad today is good tomorrow, or what once was flawed is seen as perfected today. So perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves, isn’t whether we’re perfect or not, it’s about how more than imperfect we are at the time.

Produce in a garden can never truly be predictable, unless we are 100% sure of the time it takes for them to grow, the conditions under which they will grow better and faster, the place they need to be located in order to grow at all, the season they are willing to grow in, and to what proportions they will grow to, which is also dependant on how much space they have, and until you can predict all of this, until you can get all of this right, until you allow yourself to grasp the concept and understand the process of a harvest of perfection, you’ll never be able to get things ripe. Yes, a harvest of perfect fruits can, at some point, be achieved if everything that makes up the perfect timing for ripening, are granted to the seed, then perhaps perfection isn’t that farfetched an idea to the farmer who must learn to be patient to grow. Then think of smooth, velvety, red wine that seems to grow more perfect and better with age. It takes a long time to get the ingredients right, and the process of growing the grapes perfectly, under the right conditions, during the right seasons, and in the right place, squeezing them all under the right amount of pressure, storing them all in the right wooden crate, adding just a touch of the right flavours, and waiting just the right amount of time to displace the lot into individual bottles, then sealing the bottle with the right cork, then leaving it in just the right space for time and passing to perfect it kindly, waiting patiently for the right patron to come by who hopefully will learn to place it under the right temperature until that person has found the perfect taste to pair up with that perfectly aged wine to linger on a perfectly selected pallet, and hopefully you’ll find yourself sipping on the perfect glass of wine. You see sometimes it’s not about being perfect that counts, but the long and hard process of being perfected. Are we not perhaps being too harsh on ourselves, by saying that we’re not or at least far from perfect? Perhaps we grow more into our own perfect selves with each passing second, or moment, or day?

No...perfection and imperfection is all about timing, all about location, all about the conditions and the people in that time and place. Perhaps that’s all life really is about, perfection and perfecting us until we are ripe and ready to pass on into another life, another lifetime, to perfect us for our passing on. For in truth nature is all about balance and imbalance, and you cannot for long have perfection in that space. So maybe there is a moment, a time and place for you to reach perfection in the eyes of a less than perfect person in a less than perfect space, but it will never last forever, so no we can’t all be perfect all the time, but we can grow to be more perfect every time. And perhaps one day we’ll reach perfection, even for a brief moment, but it’s never meant to last. So don’t give up trying to be happy, after all, isn’t Happiness perfection’s perfect place?

I am...RIGHT NOW...

So lately I've been wondering about the concepts of individuality and individuation, and I've stumbled upon a question that leaves me pondering upon a few thoughts. Can we truly call ourselves unique, or ever really consider ourselves as 'individuals' in a world saturated and riddled with influence, can we really?

I once heard someone tell me that we grow more into ourselves, but that bodes another question, and that is, who is this 'self' that we so strongly yearn to be, and fight so hard against social influence and peer association, who is this person, this 'self' that we're meant to be? Aren't we perhaps expecting too much from our 'selfs' and is it really as good as who we are willing to be? At the end of the day, there's never really anything good about settling, but sometimes, isn't it better to accept what you have right now, who you are right now, and perhaps realize and acknowledge that the current version of you is perhaps a touch better than any BETA you? That perhaps the latter you is not quite as good as the former, and that sometimes going backwards is the best way forward?

So the final question I guess is this. Who are we really, and who are we meant to be, if all that we are right now, are but pieces of our past, habits of our present, results of experiences, remnants of loves lost, and the broken whole of a hoped for future which you hope to be better than the future you've already imagined in your past, or as good as the present you never expected, and perhaps even better than the future of your past? Is this perhaps as good as it will ever get?

Greater than or Equal

Do you realize how hard it is to define the meaning of a word, that’s supposed to make you feel unique, a cut better than the rest, different in a good way, that gives you the kind of confidence which allows you to walk upright with a smile, that just gives you a natural glow no matter where you are, that lights up a room when you enter, a meaning that people seemed to have lost along the way, or has simply been watered down by a society built on independence, democracy, freedom and equality? Yes, I’m sure you can imagine the difficulty I’ve had in defining the fine line that separates the entire balance of society from being average or being special.

When we’re young, perhaps even infants, each of our parents take one look at us, and take a moment to stare and perhaps even disappear in a world lost in their imaginations, where they can paint beautiful pictures of great expectations, hopes, dreams, career options and endless possibilities, taking a moment to lose themselves entirely in a moment hoped for in time, taking a moment to immerse themselves in a lifeless thought, trapped in a time that hasn’t even existed yet, saying to themselves that against all odds, in a world cold and callous to the thought of you, that you and you alone, your individual self, curled up in the love of a parent-figure, that you...are special. And yet somehow, at some point the thought begins to rub off, either by subliminal messaging, or by the constant droning and propagated by the influence of our parents and those who look up to us, down upon us, inspired by us, or hope never to be like us, somehow the thought of you being special sinks in somewhere, causing us to believe that perhaps...just maybe...there’s something unique about who we are, thinking to ourselves...yes...I’m special.

But eventually we realize, that the fine line that divided the great from the not so great begins to blur, and the solid veil that once separated the mighty from the fallen begins to fade, and in the disfigured shadows and silhouettes of what once was the slightly imperfect idol of greatness...being special...is torn down and left to wither away by the gale forces of society’s wind of change, the gauntlet of communism and the gavel of capitalism, the mighty scales of equality weighing down the trees of success we nurtured our entire lives, cutting off its wealthy supply of egoism and selfishness, teaching us the ideologies and concepts of a level plain...yes, the concept of equality brings down our soaring skyscrapers of conceit, as if to pose a challenge to breach the limitations set upon us by society and ourselves. So the question remains...what makes us special, especially living in a society that says we’re all equal? Is equality just another way of forcing humility down our throats, or is it there to challenge us to be better than ourselves?

The Vile Pit

Like pestilence and disease that spreads throughout a bog of malignant maleficarum, a hopeless horde of restless men, like a bacteria, spread throughout the new age Zion, tainted by the lust and the corruption of sadism, anarchism, narcissism, taken over and cut down by modernism and minimalism in its black rivers, stony lakes and concrete trees, overpowering the morality and the purity of the just and true, throwing them to the flames of bureaucracy and blatancy, forging and moulding them into the twisted and misshapen design of perfection, the puppets and pawns of a long-lived lie, like a blight through a land once rich and ripe of hope and happiness, left to the demise of its own selfishness, to die in its own waste and wickedness, its own dead and decay, not bodies, just spirits of the once loved and longing...nothing more now...than a dirty Vile Pit...the Community is turned to a brothel of abhorrence, the abominations of love, truth, honour and hope...a lifestyle without life, a hope without hoping, love without loving, a cesspool for the world...for man...for men...

The pure and holy temple, once built and maintained by families of men, held up and supported by mighty beams and pillars of friendship, now broken and torn down by the dreads of life, the fears of its own fragility, the misunderstandings and the collisions of broken love and corrupted by the pains of its own humanity, its own mortality, a sacrifice leaving its solid walls brittle and crumbling within itself, with only its foundation left standing in the abyss of obscurity, a misguided memory of a once cherished past, the beginning of an end to an unknown story of a temple that once stood high in the heart of the now poisoned city, in the hearts of men, like a beacon of hope to the needy, the memorial for the grieving, the lighthouse of successes and dreams, now lifeless and lonely...razed to the ground.

Now it all stands, stagnant and dying, like still waters saturated in a primordial soup of nothingness, laced with emptiness and a shallow disdain. The Vile Pit is left there standing, waiting for it’s naive and unbeknown prey. But like many diseases and plagues that throughout the existence of men have been dealt with before, so too will the pestilence rife in the pit, dissolve in the counter-measure made by men. A cure designed and delivered by the hearts of men, the souls of our own uncorrupted self. A measure of truth and a touch of love, this fears The Vile Pit for its own demise. For in time, everything in nature must find its own equal opposite, bending the balance of life back on its path. So know and understand the Community well...The Vile Pit where the wicked and sinister dwell.

Advance To Begin

So oddly enough, and perhaps not too surprising, I find myself in a quiet place, simply vanishing from the world, lost in a deep trail of thought, contemplating about many things, but mainly about life...not just my life, but lives...or perhaps even life in general. Thinking about all my endeavours, and about lessons learnt, about adventures had, roads travelled, taverns explored and strangers met and lost along the way of my journey through life thus far. I find myself thinking about other people’s lives, like the strangers I have met and lost along my travels, trying to figure out what their adventures and travels must have been like, and how it is that they came across a pathway that lead them to me? I find myself thinking about the pathways and about the roads and taverns, rivers and seas running along the map of life, and whether everything along the road to living was meant to be, or whether choices and change leads all of these things, leaping and overlapping layer after layer, one on top of the other, all leading to what we call destiny, hoping that we can find some sense of accomplishment in what we is a well and fully explored life. And looking back at the tracks I’ve left behind, trying my best to remember all that I’ve encountered and all the paths not taken, I can’t help but wonder, have I chosen all the best paths, made the most sense of my direction, or even worked out some kind of plan about exactly where I want my journey to end...not necessarily to destiny, but rather some kind of destination whatsoever?

Board games are a lot like life I realized...you get movements, directions, opportunities, obstacles, progression, regression, diversions, growth, incentives, surprises, risks, clues and so much more...Except, here’s perhaps the difference between life and a board game...A board game, though filled with direction, have a very set course which one has to follow. While some have diversions and detours, depending on the choices one makes when an opportunity or obstacle comes your way, eventually they all lead to the same two places...either you win or you lose the game. But life, on the other hand, is not quite so clearly cut, no black and white, and isn’t quite as simple. In life there are more risks, more problems, more diversions and detours, sometimes more opportunities and incentives, and at the end of the day, all the paths don’t lead to the same place, and there is no win or lose...the only outcome that is either good or bad, depends on what your opinion of your journey has been, and whether you are happy with the end result yourself. I must also note that the one great thing about board games is this, that you can find yourself given the great opportunity of being given the chance to move forward, or to simply advance, in one step, to begin, avoiding all the obstacles, problems and risks all at once. The problem with that in the game, and in life, is that you may have just passed the greatest opportunity in your life...so one has to ask, is going back or ahead to the beginning really worth the risk of passing an opportunity by?

So that can only leave me with one question, one final request to time and fate, one last soliloquy to beckon a challenge, not only to myself, but also to life, to living and to the living, in the hopes that my life, my mind, my heart and my spirit will bequeath me at least this one last piece of repose...Is starting over just another form of giving up, or is it simply coming to the realization that the only way of moving forward is to advance to a greater future, by moving back to Begin?

Dé Ja Who?

Have you ever stopped and wondered about certain moments in your life, where you feel like the winds of change are blowing, like things are finally moving forward, that finally things are different, right until the time you find yourself blowing into a familiar space, surrounded by familiar faces, wrapped in the same thoughts and feelings you once had before, then stopping to realize that all at once, you’ve simply gone around in circles, in your mind and in your life, where your past has simply entered your present and everything that is happening all happened once before...? Well? The feelings are simple, and the process the same, the moment of history is just life’s little game of teaching you something and telling you this, that it’s time to step off the old tracks of life, which kept you going around and around, and it’s time to make a few new tracks of your own, headed in who knows which direction, as long is it took you to any place but here.

The mistakes in our lives are made without cause, under the worst circumstances, with perhaps good intentions, but lack direction. But the one thing mistakes teach us, is how to grow, how to recover, how to become who we were meant to be, who not to be, where not to go, which directions to take, which barriers to break, which fears to get over and which goals to climb under. The problem is, we get so swept up in the thoughts and feelings we felt whilst going through this amazing process, though tiring and daunting as it may seem, the feeling of loving and learning is indeed overwhelming and exhilarating, but they can only be used and felt once by a single source, and must then be left behind so that we can move forward and build on from there...But for some reason, History loves to find a way to repeat itself, as if our feelings of repression and regret have rubbed off onto time itself, so in an attempt to fix a past, it simply repeats itself in an attempt to bring the moment, the place, the picture, the person, the memory back from the dead, hoping that we can shape it and change it, and find some kind of solace within ourselves. But after exhausting ourselves over and over again, we soon realize that there are some mistakes that cannot be undone, some histories that must remain history, and Dé Ja Vu is simply a process of learning, teaching us to let live and let go...

Yes...sometimes in life we must learn to walk past our Past and move forward beyond the fear, beyond the regret, beyond the “what if” that we so blindly delude ourselves into believing. Sometimes we need to learn that life begins when you learn to let go, forget the past and remind yourself of a future, a better beyond, behind the past, ahead of the present...simply by saying “goodbye”...

Love's Mausoleum

In my short life...yes my very short life, and even so, I must say that I have managed to learn quite a bit. A little of life, and a bit about living, but recently of the Mausoleum dedicated to Love. Yes it’s scary to consider that there is a place, filled with neon lights, mirrored balls and where the hopeful go to mourn, not by wearing black (well at least not all of them), or by shedding tears (well not unless they’re drunk enough), or even by laying flowers down at the resting place of their lovers (that has yet to be considered). No, instead the process of mourning is done through dangling and dancing and flirting for fun, by downing as many drinks as possible to commemorate the memory of a once yet living Love. I suppose you could say that the whole lot there were mad, or completely insane or just high on hopelessness. But the truth simply is this, that we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that if Love has come and gone, then the place to mourn is where you simply will not find it, hoping that you won’t run into a distant memory, or the faded reflection of the perfect match, that by doing everything lust wants you to do, hoping it will bring you as close to the real thing, but not quite as much...It’s an odd little game, and everyone plays it, everyone falls for it, and eventually one becomes intensely, hopelessly, horribly addicted.

Now I’ve heard of a place once upon a time, a place where elephants that reach a certain age, or the ones that feel they have no fighting chance of surviving much longer, a place that’s serene and comfortable...a place to surrender their last breath on earth...a place they go to die. Now this Mausoleum may not seem very much serene, and it may not be comfortable, that is of course as comfort goes...however, to some it’s familiar, it becomes normal, it becomes regular, in other words...comfortable. But elephants and humans are not the same at all. They have an outstanding memory, people always seem to want to wash theirs away...They have great strength and dexterity, people always seem to surrender to the day...They can swim across rapid and rocky rivers, people can barely hold their heads above life’s waters. No...elephants and humans are hardly the same. So I find myself wondering what exactly attracts people to a place that they know is filled with nothing more than diseased hopelessness, a massacre of lust and debauchery, a pit of drunken despair?

So after much searching, and digging as deep as I could, I finally discovered the answer to why this Lamoure Memoriam was built, and why so many down-trodden have ventured therein...and to my surprise, and great disappointment, much like elephants go to their cemetery...the Elephant Graveyard...to look one last time upon a long-lived life, and to gather a last glance of the life they’ve lived...The Mausoleum, is simply a place, for the hopeless and heartless to leave Love there...to die...