7 months, 21 days

Cory,

What's it like having finished your first year at UCLA? How'd ochem and calc go? Physics? Did you man up and take the 1 series? How'd La Gente go? Did you get published? Did you ever get that job at UCLA Medical Center? Change Majors?

I know that's a lot of questions but I ask them because I feel a whole lot of uncertainty.

I hope that you can easily say you are a better and stronger man than you were one year ago. No matter what happens, understand that I love you and am confident that everything happens for a reason.

Cory
10/08/08

(im)balance

The most elusive and breathtaking of moments are those that happen instantaneously before our eyes. How they shimmer and sparkle -- dancing upon the monochromatic skies of our lives like shooting stars only to fade away just as quickly as they appear, leaving us only with stardust memories and the hope of wonders yet to come. In spite of the irrationality and uncertainty of these occurrences, humankind has constructed a concrete view of time. Ingrained within each and every one of us is the concept of past, present, and future. With the past and future, there is a sort of assumed tangibility that allows us to feel as though we have inherited the very spindle of time that the Fates spun the tales of antiquity upon. We create new threads where none existed, measure the length to fit our needs, and shear the frayed ends in full confidence that our desire for order and our well-being flourish under similar circumstances. But this is not true, we do not realize that when we attempt to capture time within our clocks and calendars it is not time that is taken prisoner, but us.

The past is a cruel master. We are given few options in which to influence the bleached bones of times passed away and are left, in exchange, the rest of our lives to mourn it. The memories we seclude ourselves to already come packaged by our unconsciousness; maliciously waiting to roll over our eyes and steal away the emotions we feel, leaving only emptiness in its wake. It’s easy to welcome these shadowy thieves because they sing such beautiful melodies into our ears. We are transfixed by the Siren song and become sailors upon a sea of memories, futilely resisting our certain doom. We can plug our ears and tie ourselves down to the mast but the memories still come as relentlessly as the crashing of waves upon the bow.

Then there are those who believe that the future shines as radiantly as the sun, but like the sun, the longer we stare into the possibilities it affords us, the blinder we become of the world around us. The mindless reverence that is given to the preparation of what-is-to-come supposes that our lives are just obstacles in the way of the future. It is forgotten that the linear tide of time not only brings the future into the present, but also moves the present into oblivion. Like lambs to the slaughter, they naively follow this mindset until they no longer have life enough to live save for ephemeral notions and to lament their discarded coins, and the dreams they represent, that now lay rusted in the bottom of countless wells.

The present, or at least the representation we have created for it, is the most chaotic and intoxicating feat of orchestration, for the whole world is simultaneously constructed from the influence of the future and stored away into the past over and over again within a fraction of a second. Each moment lasts only as long as a still from a reel of film upon which the history of the universe is being played. We’re all actors upon its stage without our lines or motivation until we realize that what we are standing upon is a fulcrum counterbalancing two unfathomable weights: that of the past and the future and despite the heaviness of our lives; we are insignificantly small in comparison and do nothing to sway the balance.

As I come to this conclusion, I realize just how foolish it is to live life outside of the present. There is no guarantee of another day, nor is there a guarantee for another second. The past no longer exists and neither does the time that was spent discovering its nonexistence. One can only depend upon the sheer absurdity that comes with rationalizing everything. The only thing that makes sense is to surrender ourselves to the moment and live like we’re wild. I can only dream of a day when the hands of the clock come loose under the burden of time and come crashing down, breaking into brittle black shards. Until that time comes, I have little left but to lose myself in music, stand humbled by the beauty of nature, find purity in laughter, redemption in tears, and peace in song because only in these emotions do I trick myself into thinking time stands still.

better living

I salute you,
brave molecules,
rushing through my veins,
destined to interrupt,
the damned receptors of my brain

The Words

I want to find another way to express myself. I find the written word to be such an inefficient system in which to share thought. I’ve never been able to fully articulate the feelings and thoughts that spark in my brain because they shine so luminously that I could not find words that they deserve. The brighter they are, the shorter they last in my memories and the thought of being unable to convey them to another human being frustrates me.

I love reading but I hate writing because I lack the ability to express myself as well as the authors I read. The more novels I add to my bookshelf the more desirous I become of the power they have over me. It amazes me that words, these collections of scrawled ink and graphite, sewn together with enough care, can produce such wonder in me. I try so hard to express the abstract thoughts I have with these shapes but it seems futile. There is something mathematical in the things I write and I dread being left with a remainder that I can’t pass on.

It’s as though I’m writing in binary; the more complex the idea I’m trying to express, the larger the string of ones and zeroes must become until the effort outweighs the value of the product. I want to just put my fingers on the page and rub the letters until they run into subtle shades no one else has seen. I want to express those ideas I’ve had to compromise for so long because the words I’ve been looking for have been hiding in the spaces between each letter.

I wish I could find a way to transport just one raw thought to someone else without losing everything that makes it so beautiful to me. I want to open my mind and allow someone to experience, if but for a moment, myself without borders or boundaries. I want to be known and I want others to know me but I’m stuck behind these words that separate us like fences.

Sleep

Life frightens me. I tiptoe along a rocky precipice overlooking a shadowy depth unplumbed by all but human imagination and it takes my breath away. There is beauty and a sort of magnetism that attracts me to this blackness so total and all encompassing. In this I find comfort, a sanctuary away from the realities that assault my conscious senses. Like a child burying its head under blankets when frightened, I feel a primal comfort in darkness. How dearly I’d like to embrace everything that nothingness offers me! And with that thought, I lose my footing (of fault or of fate?) and plunge into the chasm.
Within its grasp, at last, I can feel the universe showing me a polite mercy as it cleaves the bonds between the very atoms that manifest the corporeal me. Wonderful sensations overwhelm my fingers and toes. They scream with wild delight as I move my thumb up and down each digit until they dissolve like sand in a great wind. Soon it spreads to my arms and legs which I move, curiously at first, and then stop, no longer able to discern whether they still belong to me or return to the possession of the cosmos. My torso surrenders all in an anticlimax and my mind clouds in euphoria.
Then I see them, bright colors spilling into my vision in drops and smears so vibrant it illuminates what was once devoid of color. The sight awes me and my mind begins to wonder marvelous things. Have I finally reached an awakening; a lightness of being of which there is no going back? This is the world I have so lustfully dreamt of. One in which I have transcended material things and bodily possessions for the sight beyond mortality. In the nothing I have found all desire. But then the visions swirl into one another like mixed paints until they recreate my familiar blackness and I realize I am still but a man. The sights I reveled so religiously in were part of a final betrayal by the eyes I had so neglected in life. While the colors danced, the childhood blanket I had run to in fear was pulled over my unknowing head and the only comfort it affords is that I will soon discover just what nothing truly means.

Untitled

The gravity of life is crushing. We come into this world kicking and screaming upon our backs and all too often we exit it the same way. The longer one stands upright, the sooner they are brought to their knees by the weight. But as that unyielding embrace pulls us to the grave, is it not an admirable pursuit to oppose its undisputed domain? Despite the impossibility of such a task, we lift ourselves to our feet, crane our necks and stand upon our toes with the naiveté of a curious child. We look to the sky with our desirous eyes and our beating hearts - sustained only by the dream of a night in which we too will shine from the firmament as bright as a star. Wisps of prescient memories cloud our thoughts of a glorious day in which we finally break the maternal bond that binds us to terra firma to find ourselves weightless. Driven by the lightness of our souls, we will dance upon the aether and we shall fill the vacuum with our song. Only in this unending void will our full potential be realized and yet, here we sit, drunkenly sipping fermented fantasies afforded to us by those whose lives have already come and gone. We forget that unlike the heaviness of gravity, time’s tide smothers.

a poem in three lines

i want to write stories and poems with you
and someday, maybe
they'll all come true