Saturday, June 26, 2010

To Those

"Hence ... the exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility of this love. I have no duty to be anyone's friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival."

The Four Loves
Clive Staples Lewis


Party conversation is a teasing: discourse over a steady drink and a good smoke. You've both discussed God being dead and whether or not Euripides really authored Rhesus. He had good points, you countered with valiance. You parlay-ed for what seemed a mindless eternity and basked in the diet of that which sets us apart from the beasts, finding the unbridled substance and sanctified repertoire of thought at each other's core.

A good sleep can cure what ails you.




A friendship of convenience is captivating in its moment and its time but then there are those who long and thirst for more.
He wants to be known, she wants to be understood, we all want someone to reach inside to our very core and say, "Oh, there it is. See, this. I love this."

And what of the supposition that we don't all find it?
That there are those that walk through this life without a true Jonathan to their David?
We don't need it, we can live without it, its absence does not subtract from the forward motion of thought and progress.
I am not speaking of the friendship of convenience, the friendship over conversation and shared ideas.
I am speaking of the friendship that fights, struggles, prevails, conquers, and aches from joy and pain with its beloved.

How humbling it is to have someone set their sights on you as the object of their affection in light of their deepest truth. It is, however, all the more humbling to find that there are creatures that roam this earth whose deepest truths resonate with your own, who endeavour to live fiercely and without apology whilst calling you "friend."





"You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him."


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Place A Bet On The Bet

I like playing with my cards close to my chest.
The idea of me being the only one in this world knowing what I am going to do next and where I will be and what I'm actually thinking about it is nothing short of exhilarating.
It's plain addictive.

I left my college town once after repeatedly refusing to throw myself a going-away party, nor would I hear of talk of letting one be thrown for me.
At the very last minute, right before leaving town in the middle of the night, I scrawled a few well-wishing words on some post-its, located the appropriate cars on which to leave the notes, and got the hell out of dodge, so to speak.
I loved every minute of it. I still love thinking of it because I know that I am capable of post-its with kind words and then turning heel-toe for the hills.

I like laying all of my cards out on the table.
Living passionately and unapologetically is so abrasive for my stomache's disposition that I find it downright spiritual.
I, myself, do not even know what to do with the kind of honesty that meets me in the morning before my coffee or loiters around at the end of my 26 miles of bike path.
It's offensive. It's rude. It's invasive. It's overwhelming. It's suffocating.
But oh god is it intoxicating.
I see it in motion and I simultaneously want to destroy it but then devour it to make its soul's substance my own fodder for the person I long to become.
"That is salvation."