Category: Ms. Square
Photo courtesy of Ms. Square
laugh·ter — (noun) the act of opening one’s mouth and expelling short repetitive breaths–usually accompanied by sounds; usually has side effects of lifting one’s spirit; usually shared with loved ones; usually associated with happiness.
Note: Does not occur as often as it should.
Advice: Start now. ■♥●
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Many symphonies, countless painted masterpieces, volumes of poetry, and the Taj Mahal all have something in common: their inspiration. All inspired by love, it is unnerving and reassuring all at once to know all of us wield this power. This undying source of beauty and purpose is what fuels and replenishes every mind, more than food or water does for the body.
To love someone, to truly love, means different things to different people. Some think to love someone is to extend yourself beyond your boundaries—to view that person as an extension of oneself. When the loved feels pain, the lover feels pain. When the loved feels joy, the lover feels joy.
Photo courtesy of FBRblog.wordpress.com
Others believe to truly love is to give a piece of your heart away. Author Elizabeth Stone once said, “Making the decision to have a child—it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body.” This view makes love seem almost like a risk. That to love is to have the most precious pieces of ourselves given forever to the person of our choosing. To trust enough to have that piece of us safeguarded as if it was still ours.
I believe to truly love is to lose oneself so much in that person that two become one. To love viscerally—to love them so much they become closer than the visceral flesh. That to lose that one would mean sure destruction, but to continue loving him would mean heaven twice over. Aligning the angles of personality and experiences, always breaking down the worn and rebuilding it better, relishing every fault and flaw, and patiently repairing the world’s damages are true love.
The full subtlety of love—the language of souls—is something I am only beginning to understand. Diving into the depths of each other’s personas is difficult at times. The innermost parts of ourselves are seldom felt by anyone other than us. Innate defense mechanisms must be turned off, shame must be put on the backburner, and growth must be at the forefront. I am only beginning, but this much is good news: I have begun.
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Albert Einstein was a very wise man. That fact we all know because countless books speak of his glory and one can hardly read the word “physics” without seeing his name in the next sentence. Though I learned through textbooks and lectures of Einstein’s genius, I didn’t really come to realize it to its fullest extent until a few weeks ago.
I was sitting on the porch, the Florida heat lying heavily on my shoulders. Butterflies and birds flew lazily past me in search of escape from the midday drawl. It seemed as if the world was in a haze—everything was moving in slow motion. The trees’ branches reached for the ground, while the solar rays shooting from the sky beat down upon them. The clouds, like oversized zeppelins, sluggishly crept their way across the stratosphere. Reaching for my icy lemonade, beads of water crawling down the side of the glass, I came to realize something: I can FEEL time.
Photo courtesy of Biobreak.wordpress.com
I looked at the clock hanging on the wall behind me and saw the second hand taunt me with its slow mechanics, creeping its way to each number, counting down the death of the day. My heartbeat joined this deadly dance as it beat the seconds down in my life in time with the tick-tocks in the background. I thought of other times when my heart’s sounds would blur in my ears and my eyes could barely see the second hand swing around that stone-cold face on the wall. Five minutes seemed like one sixtieth of an hour at times, other times, one second felt like one twentieth of an hour. Einstein’s Theory of Relativism was awake in every syncopated move of the hand. Every beat of my heart and every move of the hands on the clock were singing the theory’s verses.
The notion is simple, but brilliant. There are moments in a person’s life when time rushes past in a blur and others when life seems to come to a complete stop. In my life, as I’m sure you’ve felt in yours, there have been days when I barely notice there is a watch on my wrist counting down the seconds to when I put my head at rest. Then there are others, the periods of weeks and weeks where life monotonously drones by, hour by hour, day by day each day greyer than the next. The blur between them is insignificant and the feeling of night and day has been wiped from my mind. I wake up feeling the deadweight all around me, hanging on my walls, on my wrist, on the clock in Time Square.
I wonder if I could, if I tried, feel the proof of Time—unchanging and unflinching—standing at the sidelines of our life, laughing at the inevitability as we scramble to pick up the seconds scattered on the floor. A facet of life, totally separate of our struggle to make appointments, entirely detached of the yearly ritual of lighting candles and blowing them out, Time is unaffected. Like in a movie theater, the white screen that all movies are projected upon remains as vast a blank canvas as ever, Time is very much the same thing. It is the canvas our lives are projected upon. The dancing colors and vibrant activity of everyday life flicker momentarily on the screen…but as the light fades, what remains is Time. Time sinking into the far reaches of eternity, farther than any of us will ever see.
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Life is taunting me. It’s running past and throwing moments at me: the taste of the air, the smell of the grass after the rain, the hot pavement under my feet, the feeling of his hands entwined in mine, the healing sounds of wind rushing past…I never feel like I have enough time to soak in each moment to its fullest, to observe every detail—how the rain sounds splattering against my windows or how the beads of water race each other to the earth. To sit on the sidewalk, eyes unblinking and observe life as it passes by would be such a blessing.
More than once, I’ve looked up in the sky at an airplane flying past and wondered where it was off to. Who was on that plane? What was their story? There are countless reasons to fly away or to somewhere…I am a dot on the ground below to those passengers. My chase after life and every moment is unknown to each of them as they look through their windows and think of home. I recall those shots you see in movies when, for example, they zoom in on an ant and slowly zoom out to a bustling New York City scene. I like to imagine something happening like that to me as I lay in the grass, hands under my head making friends with the clouds…The camera would slowly zoom out from me to my yard, to the city, to the country, to the planet, and then to the infinite cosmos beyond.
We’d all be little dots then. The millions of experiences slipping through each of our grasps simultaneously would seem like clockwork, or madness. I don’t really know which one because it’s another funny game Life likes to play with me. Life is madness as I am chasing, trying to catch each moment just long enough to let it go, but when I look behind me each moment is slowly making a masterpiece, as if it’s clockwork. Stringing all of these moments together is a fine, precarious thread—dreams. It’s the only thing I find I really have control over as I’m on this chase…the weaving of these dreams. However strong I make them determines how beautiful my masterpiece is as I look behind me and how well I can enjoy the fleeting moments that make up that masterpiece.
It’s funny when I meet people. I can feel a kind of aura of who they are reverberate around them. It’s a language I don’t quite understand as yet, this…innate language we all seem to share. The smile in someone’s eyes is universal…the same way a teary eye is understood. The subtleties of the soul and the interconnectivities between us all are much bigger than my mind can swallow. When I listen to a particular piece of music and there is a moment where I can feel a note get tangled inside of me, or when I see a sunset and can taste how sweet the color dripping from the sky feels in my eyes, I always wonder if those feelings also count as being that innate language. That if we just quiet ourselves from everything for just a few moments, just stop the chasing and let the moments slip by in front of our faces, we could feel ourselves change. Feel it the moment it happens.
The roads ahead are winding. I’m not sure which one I’m going to take, but I know I’ll be certain to drink in as many moments along the way as I can.
Cheers, Ms. Square.
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Souls Speak Their Ancient Language
Thirsty for something to feed their aspirations, quench their need for acceptance, comfort, home.
Carefully, quietly, hesitantly, we reach out to the warm hand of another.
Souls speak their ancient language. Connecting, celebrating, reacting…freeing the hateful bonds.
Glowing warmth—sweet, shining, pure and golden—the great escape.
Stresses ebb, tense shoulders fall, faces crinkle into smiles—release.
Dreams and hopes are fed, are thriving—fueling life.
Heartbeats are the soundtrack, kisses and hugs are the lyrics to this phenomenon.
Love, like a great pair of wings, can free so many—the great escape from the ordinary.
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Hey everybody,
I kinda just want to give a bit of a pep talk to y’all. I have been noticing, in my life and some of yours, a shift from the light side to…the dark side. In my life as well, I’ve been stressed lately, lonely at some times, filled with dread at others, and drowning myself in chocolate to cover my feelings the rest of the time. School’s difficult for everybody; especally for my high achieving friends. For you all who know me well, this may seem incredibly hypocritic. If it seems so, I’m very sorry, but some things just need to be said and if I’m the one to say it, then so be it. Kindly forgive me.
To you all who look back and see the smoking shambles that was once your life: it’ll be okay. It really will. The human spirit, though fickle and feeble it may seem at times, is a very strong entity. We are made of much stronger material than we give ourselves credit for. It simply amazes me how the human spirit can withstand all types of adversity; adversity being a state, condition, or instance of serious or continued difficulty.
You only have to look around to see this all-too-human condition. It is prevalent in people going through divorces, sickness, war, loss of loved ones, victims of crimes, poverty and many more human maladies that keep us in continued difficulty. And yet, with all the above, we have something stronger inside us to fight adversity. This is the will of the human spirit which continues to fight all circumstances, be they physical, emotional or spiritual, and rises above the suffering.
When our world seems to be falling apart, most of us keep trying and striving to fix the problem. We all possess an inner quality called resilience. I want to remind all of you–the dearest people in my life: my friends–that you all have a fire inside of you. When you feel it flickering and wavering, do not forget that although this may be so, it is still there. The flame is within and without you.
Think about this today because I’m thinking about you. If you know someone who needs to read this post, please send this to them.
Shine on, Ms. Square
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Hello again friends,
As you all very well know, I am a thinker…a big thinker. One of my favorite things to do, and something I’ve come to view as a necessity these days, is to assess and reassess the beliefs and ideals I hold so dear. Beliefs and ideals as complex as what I think about the beginning of creation and as simple as the one I have been thinking of most lately—love. Since the beginning of time, man and womankind have lived in search of love. Those who have found it experienced heaven on earth, where those who were denied love suffered far beyond my comprehension. However, love is not a mere belief or ideal, nor is love a feeling, as we tend to categorize it. No, I think love is an experience, a phenomenon we witness, as if from someone else’s eyes, when we lose ourselves in someone else.
Photo courtesy of Ms. Square
My favorite time to mull over things is in the evenings, right as the blazing sun dips past the horizon to grace the next hemisphere with her presence. The summer sky is a silken sheet of color—periwinkle ribbon with wine colored stains…the deep violet soon consumes the riot of color in one swoop as the stars peek at me from behind their veils. The smell of grass and the trees’ whispers drift by as a cool, crisp breeze softly plays with my hair as I close my eyes to take it all in…the way I am desperately trying to capture this moment to share with you is the same as trying to capture the way love feels. It’s like trying to explain how sweet sugar really is, or how wonderfully warm a puppy feels in your hands…it can’t be done!
But the eternal question at hand is this: What defines love? The limits of love are boundless, and it is arguably the most powerful and dangerous device a human has. There are obviously different kinds of love. I love music, I love my mother, I love my friends, I love my dogs, I love trees…they are all different versions of love. This is what makes love so difficult to define. To define something is to confine it in term of words and phrases. To define love means to cage it in a set of definitions, and perhaps that is why people tend to avoid the topic. However, this is something we all need to think about because at some point in each one of our lives, there will be a time when we have to choose between two kinds of love. In fact, that point in time has come several times in my life already, as I’m sure it has in your lives…a most recent event planted the seed of this note. I won’t speak straightforwardly about the “most recent event” because it’s so personal, but I will share one time in my life where I had to choose between two loves. Most of my close friends have already heard this, so if you have, kindly skip the next paragraphs. : )
Growing up—it sounds funny I know, because I am, in many ways, STILL growing up…I don’t think I’ll ever stop, really…anyway—growing up, I was almost constantly frustrated and depressed about what was going on around me and in the world. Things like watching the news bothered me more than it did most people. I couldn’t see a story about a child killed by his father and then go on, emotionlessly, to the weather. I couldn’t see people suffering from the tsunami or Katrina’s flood and feel unaffected. It was at these times I was the most frustrated with myself because it was then I was harshly reminded that I was only one among millions, billions…I was frustrated at my parents for doing nothing, at my friends for not caring (half of them didn’t even watch the news) and at myself for feeling helpless. It was at this point in the downward spiral of emotions that I would feel depressed. I could feel the sadness pregnant in the air, weighing down on me. The need to do something, as I have said so many times before, has always been a burning desire for me. For a long time, I felt like this almost daily—depressed at what a cruel world I lived in, depressed at what a cruel world I would have to raise my future kids in, depressed at my seeming helplessness…and frustrated beyond belief at the monotonous drone of everyday life—the plastered-on smiles, the ready-made relationships that had no real substance, the empty conversations…It all felt so fake.
Eventually, I learned how to deal with these feelings. I met an amazing person, a mentor, a real angel who helped me find myself. I soon found my outlets—writing and music. I am not saying I’m incredibly talented in either, for goodness knows I need help in both, but I found solace in writing. I found understanding in music. I discovered a way to channel my feelings into something positive and stop dwelling in the many negative aspects of life. Soon, writing became my intimate connection with everything. If I felt something, I’d write about it. If I witnessed, experienced, thought, observed anything, I’d write about it. All the while, however, I was growing up. I was becoming who I am today, and with growing up came decisions. I realized that I had to start thinking about my future in real perspectives—would writing, the thing I love beyond anything, be enough to sustain me, and perhaps, a family? I didn’t think so. My love of writing and my love of being in control clashed horribly. I would love to write for a living, but it’s something that isn’t dependable, nor does it leave me in control of my life. This clash was one of the hardest of my life so far, but thankfully I’ve since found a resolution in medicine—a love and passion with a long history that could fill up another lengthy note. This clash of loves is an academic one—naturally, there have been other “love clashes” but none that required as much soul searching or was as life changing as this one. Surely, you have felt something like this in your lifetime?
Despite this theoretical approach to love, a quality of love that I find the most intriguing is its irrationality. It goes beyond the silly rules of logic made up by man and can transcend every boundary that man has put up—culture, language, nationality, religion, and so many others. Love has even gone beyond natural barriers like geography—so many tempests braved, mountains scaled, planes flown, roads driven in the name of love. The science of love is interesting in itself, but the allure of a black and while explanation has less appeal to me—science is a young field. Love is something ancient, much wiser, and much more understanding than science. Science is striving to understand, categorize, define, and methodically replicate love into something to study. I don’t think love will be tamed for long enough to let any of this happen. We have all felt what it’s like to be consumed in love, and in those times, reason pales in comparison to the power of love.
I have had the curious experience, as I’m sure some of you have as well, of looking into a stranger’s eyes and reaching a complete understanding, or feeling something without words being exchanged. I felt this not too long ago when I first met someone. I looked at him as he was talking and got the inexplicable feeling that he was going to be very important to me. I had no idea why I thought that, or where the feeling came from, but I felt it. When I walked away from that experience, I thought about what I felt for a while and concluded that I FELT it, I did not THINK it. The feeling was outside the boundaries of logic because I could not trace WHY I felt that way…It was a very bizarre phenomenon that I still think about often. And that person IS very important to me in the few months I’ve gotten to know him, and I think he’ll continue to hold an important place in my life. But this got me thinking about what I brushed upon in my last note about Greatness—about how a small ripple can cause a tidal wave of change. I do believe that all of us are connected in more ways than we think—especially in this age of computers and Facebook—and that every little action does have an equal reaction. The Theory of Interconnectivity is very much alive. I think the reason we can look at a complete stranger and feel something from them is because of our innate ability to love. Love is very much a universal language in the same way a hug, smile, and kiss are universal in their respective messages.
One of my favorite quotes in reference to love is this: “If the body thirsts, give it water. If the soul thirsts, give it love.” In my life, I’ve seen too many examples of people thirsty for love. So thirsty for love, in some cases, they forget what love really is and settle for a cheaper version of the real thing. I know you too have seen people in your life who are silently begging to be heard, to have someone hug their problems away, or to see a friendly smile. There are millions of people, as I sit here typing away, starving to death, fighting wars for no reason, suffering from diseases that could be cured with a five cent shot…millions of people who have given up hope that the world loves them enough to help them. It is the brutal truth that I cannot save the world, but we each can make a difference in each of our individual worlds. My California friends make a difference in their neighborhoods. My dear Tennessee friends make a difference in their world. My Georgia friends make a difference in their world…together, if we each seek to do a little in each of our “worlds’, we can make an enormous change overall. Love is the weapon we wield. Love is the antidote to the diseases of loneliness and abandonment. Love is the eternal quencher of our thirsty souls…we don’t have to understand love to appreciate the massive impact it can have on the world. So let’s do this together guys. I’ve seen too many sad and misunderstood faces lately. Let us change this. Go out into the world ready to reach out to those who are reaching out to you. Be a mentor. Be a friend. Be a volunteer. Tell somebody you love them…and tell them again…and again…and again…because it may be too late tomorrow.
On this depressing note, I take my leave, hahaha. Thanks for bearing with another one of my monster notes. My friends make my life worthwhile…I can’t thank you all enough for filling my life’s lines with color. Now, go out there and fill someone else’s life with the vibrant colors of love.
Yours sincerely, Ms. Square
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Hello all,
I am writing this note in response to several events that have occurred in the past weeks—several external events, but mostly internal events within my own puzzled mind that really needed to be put down on paper…well, at least a virtual kind of paper. So please, bear with my run-on thought that is this note.
Every thought begins with a little nudge. This note, this long thought process that began a few weeks ago, began with a good friend’s note on the topic of being inspired. There is something so innately beautiful about being able to be inspired by a fellow human being—the delicate thread that ties all of us together slightly tugged by one can create a vast rippling effect to hundreds…and so the ripple brushed my mind and created a tsunami of thoughts thanks to the quiet prod of my Tennessee Twin’s note…The crashing waves of thought finally settled into calm and led to the topic I am writing about today: Greatness.
It dawned on me one day.
Photo courtesy of Ms. Square
While walking in the cool aftermath of a thunderous tempest, I stared upwards into the magnificent swirling heavens—dark, powerful, and ominous. The trees, grass, and Earth seemed to sway according to its will and the arrogant heat of day was nowhere to be found. The wind slipped through ancient branches and whispered in my ear as it dawned on me this day: How amazingly small we are! How the odds are stacked up against us! The awesome power of nature, the web of forces that seem to tangle our future into their definitions, the silent strain of societal expectations, the fortress of responsibilities, and above all, the weight of greatness…does the weight of greatness lie on everyone’s shoulders evenly? Or does it lie askew on some more than others?
The desire to do something to change the world as I know it has always been a desire of mine. I’ve almost come to find it as a duty—as a way to repay everyone in my life who has invested even an iota of their energy into who I have become. It has been said, in many ways, that we should never be content with the world that is, never be daunted by the word that could be, but always fight for the world that should be. The practicality of this belief’s application is indeed questionable, as well as the population’s ability to fulfill it, but the notion that this belief should be reserved for few—is that understandable? Should it be tolerated? I have found it very difficult in my life to forgive people who are born with amazing gifts and do not use it for the betterment of their world. I have found it very difficult to forgive people who do not live life in search of a better one. Contentment is all good and well, but apathy and stagnation are not.
It was at this time in the thought process that my mind shifted to the friends of mine who have finished a chapter of their life and are embarking on a new one. I am, of course, referring to my graduating friends. How will they change the world?
To answer this, I went in search of one of my favorite excerpts from John Steinbeck’s bookEast of Eden. This excerpt is of a conversation between two friends:
Adam said, “I’ve wondered why a man of your knowledge would work a desert hill place.” “It’s because I haven’t courage,” said Samuel. “I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name—but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It’s not an un common disease. But it’s nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.” “I’d think there are degrees of greatness,” Adam said. “I don’t think so,” said Samuel. “That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility and you are alone to make your choice, on one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other—cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I’m glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He’s suffering over the choosing right now. It’s a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn’t that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfish ness that must be.”
I think most of us are in the struggle of choosing right now—the struggle to choose between mediocrity and greatness. It is a very interesting perspective to call greatness the “loneliest state in the world”, but when we think about it, it really is quite a lonely state. The choices a great man had to make in order to reach where he is were difficult ones. They are probably simple choices to begin with, but as he grows and begins to view the world in subtler and subtler ways, his choices are more difficult. It is said that the hardest thing in life is seeing the world walk down the beaten path and consciously choose to make your own path—to break out of the norm and transform yourself.
The man “condemned to greatness” is truly the blessed man, for he is the one who grows most as a person. It is natural for us to desire acceptance, but is it the responsible thing to do? Is it responsible for a person to NOT live to their fullest potential? Isn’t that like robbing the world?
I think the real question is this: Is greatness a responsibility that most of the world just shies away from? Greatness—the choice to walk away from all that we know and venture into the places few have chosen to tread—is the most a man can do for this world. To live to his fullest potential and live so that he can break out of the web of forces shackling him to the mundane is everyone’s responsibility and right. Greatness, the journey to greatness, is the key to growing wings in a world full of flightless dreams, of flightless souls, of passionless eyes…
The weight of greatness falls evenly on each one of our shoulders, that is for sure. The difference lies in what we do with that weight. Some of us choose to live our life, shoulders drooped inwards cowering from the brilliance of greatness. Whereas others try to use the weight as a means to become stronger, become something more, use it to propel themselves into the brilliant light of greatness to show those too scared, or apathetic that we CAN become what this world needs…and together, if we all strive towards this greatness, if we all at least TRY to tread the path less travelled, we can make a world worthy of the future…
And with this, I ended my run-on thought several weeks after peering into the swirling heavens…I made my decision. Now, you make yours. Hopefully together we’ll make the state of greatness a little less lonely.
Shine on, Ms. Square
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