Living life?

We all have some kind of romantic notion of what our future holds. At least at some point in our life we do. We all have the capacity to change the world. A few of us may seem to realise our own potential earlier and strive towards it, others may squander it on the seeming vices of life. Other might just decide to take a path, not less noble by any means, but a path which takes them on a course with the mundane. We all do it. Especially on a blog community where it seems we all have a soul that seeks to expand, even perhaps to escape the confines of this reality. Always with a foot in a door to a place we all hope to glimpse, yet never quite reach. The author, the artist, the romantic lover, the poet, the adventurer, the dare devil…all these archetypes which seem to be beckons for those souls who realise that an end, perhaps even THE END lurks behind each corner. We know it is there. We see it in the faces of friends and loves, we feel it in a handshake or an embrace, we hear it when the birds fly away for the winter. It is there. Perhaps it is something unique to those who pay attention and can become the writers and artists that they are cursed with this awareness, yet this awareness comes with a power. To live, to live fully and to be self full, beyond some kind of fast food religious experience, the possibility to enjoy life in its entirety. Each moment is captured by a memory that knows that it is failing, that it has only one chance itself to catch a fleeting moment, when even the mechanism of memory is itself an enterprise that knows its own end, forgetting. But it is through this experiencing that we can live to know it. Each moment is all the more powerful, enchanting. To live is a wonderful thing.

All too often my friends and roommates seek to find entertainment through drinking themselves into oblivion, to lose themselves to alcohol just to seek some weird reprieve from reality and just mindlessly chase loose women. I cannot say that I am innocent by any means, but still—it seems a waste to life, to oneself to just try to escape it all.

Life is just there. Always beckoning to dance, it sits and continually presents us with itself. We can try to avoid it, to seek routine, to seek distraction, to seek some voiding factor, yet it is always there even when we try to ignore it, it will find us.

I meant to write about having to fix my toilet after it flooded my bathroom. Not a pleasant sight to see an inch of water in one’s second story bathroom, but I handled it deftly. I am among the world’s most reluctant engineers, but I really can fix things when the need be. An attribute gained from my father no doubt. He never lets anything leave the house that he has not attempted to fix. From cars (which also broke down, but he and I repaired it) to toys (he once reconstructed and super-glued one of my sister’s porcelain dolls) to jewelry to electronics…no system is too complex to be challenged and repaired. I learned as well when I was a mechanic one summer, if you look at a machine or a system, no matter how complicated it may be, it was made by man and should be looked at like any other machine from a wristwatch to a three story manufacturing process. No reason to be intimidated.

I also found my super oversized glasses. I may try to wear them now, since being ironic is the cool think to do.

A Motorcycle ride

I took a hiatus from writing. It seems that when life appears to be good, I stop writing. A travesty I should say. During those times, I do let myself appear in more pictures, which is a bit odd. I hate to write but I allow myself to be photographed. Reverse when I feel the reverse. I love to take photographs though, unconditionally.

I was riding my motorcycle the other day, a long very much needed ride, when about 23 miles into my journey, I lost my odometer and my speedometer. When I ride I just follow the road, each time taking a new and unexplored path. Here I was now, in the middle of a road without any signs of life, scenery I had never experienced, headed away from my home without any guage of how fast I was going except the wind in my face and the rpms of the bike. I suddenly realised that this was perfectly analogous to life. We are always speeding away from some origin, never really knowing how far we have gone or how fast we are going. We just drive and drive without knowing exactly how much gasoline is left in the tank, all the while debating when it is time to turn back, to find a pit stop, to quit...but the open road and unseen sights beckon us to go further. Even then we wonder which side roads to take and which roads to continue down.

I road and explored for several more hours, each minute feeling a bit uneasy, yet the same time oddly free. I rarely saw any other human, and just hummed down the road as fast I could at time, and at other times a nice leisurely pace. I saw creeks and rivers, abandoned towns and forests. Each moment I seemed to be navigating through a new and unexplored world, each memory I had to hold as I knew the fuel in the tank was running lower and lower. I eventually turned back, just in time to get home before dark, with all but fumes remaining of my once full gas tank.

Just like life.