A Thought: On Drowning

When at risk of drowning, the solution is not to add more water, but rather to work, one handful at a time, to remove it. Read more!

A Thought: On Where We Choose to Live

Remember that every moment could be your last, so try your best to always be in a place you can look back on and say, "I was glad that was the last place I lived." Read more!

A Thought: On the Choice to Fail

A mistake only becomes a failure when we choose not to learn from it. Read more!

A Remembrance

I traditionally post a remembrance on New Year's Day, but I was a bit too busy with family and friends to have found the time which is, I think, a form of remembrance, all its own. I love you, and miss you, little brother. Read more!

A Thought: On Reconstruction

As children, the world builds us, piece by piece, with little choice in how we're made. As adults, and I think this may be what makes us adults, in truth, we can finally dismantle what the world's made of us and make of ourselves what we choose. Read more!

A Thought: On the Timing of Destiny

I used to believe that we were brought to situations and people at the times in our lives when we needed to be there. I still do, but for a different reason.

Now I believe it's because we are always, if we approach life openly and honestly, with a modicum of self-awareness and a lot of curiosity, capable of learning from those places in which we find ourselves and those with whom we do. Read more!

A Thought: On Leaving a Light On

Having never really had a place to call my own, a real home, in the physical sense, for a number of reasons, I have made it a habit to forge one of my own, inside myself. I build it from memory, bright and dark, and of the bits of others that I've collected along the way (always traded for parts of myself, in kind, of course). And I do my best, even, especially, on the darkest nights to leave a light on for those who need it. Read more!

A Thought: On Those Who Would Do Us Harm

If you give to those who would do you harm nothing but peace, love and understanding, those are the only things which they will have to use against you. Read more!

To Maya Angelou

In 7th grade, in Mrs. Blackwell's English class, Maya Angelou became the first poet to ever truly reach me. Without her, without that first tiny push on the door, I would likely never have thought to allow in all the others who have done so since. Without her, I may never have put pen to paper, never written a poem, essay or story, never have found my voice.

If it's true that we are carried past death by the legacy we leave in others, then I, humbly and with deepest gratitude, carry her, as she has carried me, with each word I write. Read more!

A Thought: On Music and Shame

In response to a friend's post about whether we're ashamed of the music we used to listen to, I wrote probably more than I should have, but this was the last and most relevant bit:

I think the real power in music is that it lets us time travel, in a sense, with the right song forever able to carry us back to a particular moment in our lives, even if it wasn't playing then, necessarily, but just captured the feel of it so completely the first time we heard it years later that it melded itself forever to the memory.

So to give it up, even were that possible, is to give up that ability. Just not worth it for the sake of saving face, to me. Read more!

A Thought: On the Language of Music

There is so much power in the universality of music. I firmly believe that, if Babel is what shattered the words of the world into something incomprehensible from one place to the next, before it, we all sang. Read more!

A Thought: On the Spread of Ignorance

All moral objection aside, to mock the beliefs of those who preach ignorance is to virtually assure that those who listen to them, knowing no better, will be too ashamed to seek out truth.

In essence, then, do we, by doing so, hinder passively the spread of reason as much as those who do so actively.

It is better to put forth truth into the world with reason, infinite kindness and patience than to waste breath in chiding those who would do otherwise. Read more!

A Thought: On the Brevity of Life, Good and Bad

There are some days, as the years go by, when I feel as though I'm getting older too quickly. Funnily enough, I've come to realize that those are the days I find to be most worth living, good or bad. And a part of that is because I've been lucky enough to have had, thus far, a life filled with friends and family who make me think, feel and, most importantly, anchor me to the world.

Life can feel too short because of all that you have or all that you have left to do. Either way, enjoy what's there, while it's there. Read more!

A Thought: On Grief and the Subtle Resilience of the Soul

It's been my experience, and I can only speak for my own, extensive though it may be in this particular arena, that time does change things, just in a more subtle way, and so slowly that we barely notice it happening, as it does.

In the beginning, and sometimes for a good bit after, the pain is acute, every memory seeming to cut us open anew. As time passes, though, and life moves on, around and, eventually, through us, the wounds close up some as the reminders of what was lost become less frequent and give us the space needed to start the healing process. Rather than a sharp, breathless jab, it becomes a dull ache that can certainly be just as profound, but has turned into something familiar.

Finally, even that fades and what's left is less an ache than an occasional sore spot, as the mind and soul do what they do and the bad things slip away, the last days, the things undone, words unspoken, leaving more room for the good, all the years prior, the things done and those that were said that, when recalled, will bring a smile, rather than tears, if a sad one.

That, to me, is grief. Read more!

A Thought: On the End of Violence

There is a phrase, "ending in violence," which I've never really understood. Regardless of the nature of the conflict, the level of the violence, it is never an ending, but rather the almost inevitable catalyst for more violence.

To stop violence, we must cease violence. I will never advocate standing down in the face of true injustice, but hands put to good use, set to building, rather than destroying, are a much more powerful force, and the only one capable of creating true change. Read more!