Life

Saudade

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Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of the ephemeral nature that we all have on this little blue dot in the great cosmos. Everything in this world is temporary. My life is one that is just borrowed from the Universe; some day the energy and matter that makes up my body and soul will eventually be returned.

I feel saudade… (I find it a little humorous that English doesn’t have a single word/term: I found it in Portuguese.) Maybe the terms “nostalgic melancholy” could begin to convey what I’m feeling, but I still feel that it’s missing something in the translation.

I’m grateful to have had the time with those who have made me into the person that I am today. I think that everyone that I’ve met has influenced my life in some way, even if it is only a small divergence from my previous course.

I’ve had many dreams where a faceless person and I share love: I just wonder if I’ll ever meet them or if I have already. Is it the same person or is it a composite character of many individuals over time? Every time I start to figure out who they are, I wake up.

There are no strangers here…

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This is the first year that I’ve ever spent a holiday by myself.

In the past, I could go home to my family or spend it with friends. Well, I worked today, so I didn’t spend it completely alone, but at the same time, as soon as I came home, there I was. I was alone with my cat. This is the first year that I’ve spent Thanksgiving without any loved ones. Even in the past, such as when I lived in Boca Raton, I would fly back home for the holidays, including Thanksgiving. Last year, I had my (ex)partner to spend holidays with. I feel strange that I’ve only been home to my family once in the past two years and that was just for three days. I think that I may plan a trip down to visit sometime early next year.

I think that the next holiday will be better, or at least I’m hoping that it is. I’ll more than likely see about spending it with a friend or two. I really should have planned for today or have taken today off of work to go hangout with some friends. It just felt a little lonely whenever I came home to my Spartan apartment.

I love living by myself in that I don’t really have to answer to anybody (don’t have a landlord that I’m living with), etc… Also, I can run around nude if I wanted to. I don’t; however, it’s still an option if I ever was so inclined.

The entire point of my human existence is to make meaningful connections with others. In an effort to do this, I put myself out there to meet new people at a coffee shop and a couple of other places. As long as I get out of the house and talk to a random person, then I’m not really alone.

williambutleryeats4-2x

A random Tuesday…

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So, last night I was hanging out at Epoch coffee… Ran into one of the regulars and met two new people. During this time, we talked about everything and anything, very openly. I loved every minute of it. At about 1am, one of the guys said, “you want to go grab some tacos?” … Hell yea, I want to go get some tacos! We then proceeded to walk through the night, the three of us, to a taco shop that is open 24 hours. One of the guys played a ukulele so he could get some tacos. He was pretty damned good at it. When we were there, we invited another two people to eat with us… They then asked us how long we’ve known each other because we were “jiving” with each other so well… I met one of the guys that night and the other one sometime last month. They thought that we had been friends for a very long time and it feels that way… Maybe we were friends in a past life or something? I remember reading somewhere at how a few people are kindred spirits and they end up circling each other’s lives… I think that could be true about a lot of people in my life. It was a great experience.

One of the things that I’ve been toying with is just accepting the Universe and the world as it is… Just going with the flow and accepting what comes at me. One of the guys said something that resonated with me… “The neuroses that I may have, I no longer claim as mine… That’s like taking possession of it and it gives it power. Rather, I just accept it as an experience and then it dissipates on its own.”

Can we be human in a digital age?

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To have sympathy for another human is yet another expression of connection and of love in a way. I think that almost every situation that you’re currently going through, someone else has already gone through in some way or another… We all have broken hearts at some point. We all make mistakes. Sure some mistakes are larger than others, but in the end of it all, we’re human, so mistakes are inevitable. If you can’t have sympathy for anyone, then you don’t really care about them in any way.

To show compassion to people should be natural and not forced, why must we work to be compassionate or to have sympathy in some cases? The main problem is disconnectedness. We live in a society where we can obtain the world’s information from our phones, we can communicate with others across vast distances quickly and easily… However, it is causing problems in standard human interactions. For example, when is the last time you’ve gone to a newly moved in neighbor’s house to introduce yourself? When is the last time that you’ve gone on a date with someone without texting back and forth to set a time rather than just spontaneously saying, “hey, want to grab a coffee?”. We live in the digital age where we’re so disconnected from human interaction that I believe that we’re losing ourselves.

via Daily Prompt: Sympathy

Commit

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A response for: Daily Prompt: Commit

This word has so much meaning to me. I’m committed to making my life better… However, I’m going to concentrate on the word “commitment” as a noun for this post rather than the verb “to commit”. Just a quick disclaimer: this post isn’t directed, nor is is about, any person in particular.

Commitments are some of the most important things to me and people take them too lightly. If you say that you’re going to do something and then fail to do so, I view you in a different light. I’ll give you another chance, but once you give me the commitment of doing something, I really hope that you come through on it. Otherwise, if I give you another chance and then you flake out on me, I won’t ask you for another commitment. If you’re too busy to commit your time to me, even if it’s something for as basic as a thing such as meeting up for coffee: don’t waste my time by making me think that you’ll be there when you won’t.

Basically, don’t waste my time, energy, or your own by committing to do something and then flaking out on me.

I think that I may take a friend’s idea of having rules of engagement for when dealing with him and they’re posted online. I should let everyone know my expectations as well as what they can expect from me. I think that it will help remove any potential misunderstandings and disappointments.