Written throughout the month of May

3

Summer’s so close. I can feel it. The fact that I’ll have summer classes and a job isn’t even tampering my excitement. Because work and school or not, it will be a change. A change in time. A change in season. A change in faces and a change of personalities. I can see new possibilities arising and new adventures occurring. I can feel the sun on my bare shoulders and my fingers skimming the surface of the sparkling river. I can see needed solitude and accepted sociability. I can hope for romance and one-on-one summer adventures with hands clasped and hearts beating. And I can cross my fingers that this will get a kick-start by my spoken words. Tonight. And I’m excited.

4

It’s so interesting how one thing can branch off into so many others. There are always so many metaphorical trees of ideas, events and relationships constantly branching off and growing in uncountable different directions. One thing can inspire so many other things which in turn inspire multiple other things. A person can change a person can change a person. A domino hits a domino hits them all. Somehow, someway, we’re all connected. Somehow, someway, we’ve changed an aspect in someone’s life who we’ve never even met before. And this happens all the time, constantly. Because the tree never stops growing.

5

So much writing with so little substance. It’s amazing how uninteresting and bland my writing can be when I am in the most content state of mind. How simplistic and similar these words and sentences can look to so many other mediocre pieces I’ve written. And it’s amazing and sadistic and oddly beautiful how the deepest, most powerful, and most emotion-wrenching pieces I write come from times when my mind is in the darkest places. when I am ripped with sadness and loneliness, overcome by a crazed stress, or when something just doesn’t seem balanced in the chemicals of my brain. In those dark places comes light. Where there is chaos, there is order. With destruction comes beauty. Everything comes with its opposite. Everything needs another thing that is completely different from itself to continue being. Night and day, light and dark, peace and war. Everything. And nothing at all.

6

So much time to waste when useless distractors are removed from life. What a wonderful thing to be able to waste time—and I use the term “waste” lightly. How pleasant it is to be able to watch the time on the clock tick by ever-so-slowly and know that there are no immediate priorities. Nothing that needs to be accomplished besides continuing to watch the time slip by. Or maybe not watch it at all. Maybe instead watch the sun set or focus on the breeze blowing through the open door and wondering how many other faces it’s touched. And wondering about those faces and looking at the faces that pass you by and wondering about those faces as well.

So many different faces. How wonderful it is to ponder the differences between my life and the stranger’s life who sits next to me in this coffee shop. Everyone has their own problems, their own concerns, different things that bring them happiness and different things to sit and ponder about. Everyone has something different that inspires them.

Everyone has something to write about.

And I’ll sit here and wonder about what these people are wondering about and realize that I will never know outside of the mind I know in: I will never live outside of this soul. I will never be able to peer into another’s thought processes or truly be able to feel exactly what another soul feels. And while that’s amazing to think about and while it makes me appreciate and be proud of the soul I live though and the mind I think out of, it just makes me feel so small. So insignificant. And that’s all we really are. Another speck of dust in the wind. Another bird that flies across the sky. Another flower that blooms. We are all like everyone and everything else. But while we all flow together in this similarity, we all still hold the vast, expansive universes that are unique to our own minds and souls.

Everything is beautiful. I feel so inspired.

7

I live in my own head so often. A good portion of my days are spent living vivaciously in my mind. This doesn’t bother me, nor am I ashamed of it, nor do I wish to change it. I am very content with how active my brain is. What does bother me, however, is people’s misconstrued interpretations of my mood and person while I am being caught up in my thoughts. My silence is mistaken for uncomfort or diswant to be in the present situation. My states of reflection can be mistaken for periods of depression. My introversion can be misconstrued to be distaste for social gatherings or casual conversation. But none of that is the case.

I think our generation is too scared to take the time to sit down and just think. Maybe scared isn’t even the word. Distracted, superficial, overly-extroverted, immature, unappreciative of the mind, unimaginative, “busy,” and unknowing may be better critical adjectives to describe this generation. We’re so distracted by things that won’t matter in ten years that we forget to pay attention to the things that will last us a lifetime. We’re too busy trying to put ourselves in the social spotlight that we forget the technicalities that need tending to backstage. Or maybe we’re just too accepting. Too accepting of the things put in front of us that we forget to over-analyze things every once in a while. We’re too busy saying “okay” that we forget to ask “why?”

There needs to be more thinkers in this world. The subject of philosophy is fading away because too many people are saying “okay” instead of “why.” Too many people are putting the false belief in their heads that everything that could’ve been thought up has already been thought about. Too many people are believing that your imagination is supposed to die off with your childhood. Too many people are giving up on ideas and creation and silence and staring off into space and daydreaming.

There should be more silence in conversations. People need to learn the beauty of enjoying each other’s company in silence and the wonderful moments when you’re able to look into someone’s eyes are feel a mutual understanding, a mutual connection, and a mutual happiness. Without words. Just being able to peer into the windows of someone else’s soul and know that they’re looking back and they understand. They just get it. Whatever “it” is.

There should be less “hi, how are you?”s in conversations and more “why do you feel that way?”s and more “why is the human race able to feel that way?”s. Too many conversations are wasted talking about the weather when they could be spent reflecting on the beauty of the clouds or the wonder of the feeling of the sunshine on bare shoulders.

So I’ll continue to stay in my head, all the while hoping someone will peer into my windows to try to grasp an idea of what’s going on behind my eyes. And day by day, I’ll slowly meet more people who get “it” and stay optimistic on the fact that all imaginations aren’t as fleeting as youth. I’ll stay optimistic that there’s still a good portion of thinkers in this world. And I’ll enjoy the silence, and hope others do as well.

8

I’m trying to think of something inspirational to write about, but it’s sort of difficult to reflect on philosophical ideas in a bus station while someone’s cleaning the floors.

I don’t know.

I’ve become very independent lately. I enjoy my solitude. I enjoy the times I can have with my mind. But then there’s that part of me that doesn’t seem too important but I know it’s silently and constantly nagging me. That part that wants my solitude to be accompanied by someone. And a very specific someone. That part of me that spends too many minutes and hours of the day daydreaming about different possibilities to be spent in the times I spend reflecting. Someone to think with. That someone.

But I’m not writing about that someone because I’ve already written so many different pieces focused around and inspired by him. And I guess that’s a good thing that he’s inspired so much of my writing, but I don’t want this to be another piece ranting and adjectively whining about what I want but don’t have.

Now I don’t know what to write about.

9

Tired. Tired. Always so tired. But the problem with that, is that as much as I like sleep—drifting off lazily into unconsciousness, letting my mind take over as my body loses function—I like being awake too much. In mornings, when the outside temperature is just perfect and the birds are singing as the whole town has a relative sleepy and peaceful mood among it. In afternoons, when trips to the river and drives with no direction sound like a beautiful idea. At night, when the crickets are chirping and a dark breeze blows through my window; when the day is wrapping up and there’s time to reflect on the daily occurrences. Every hour of the day is a beautiful time to be awake—to be seeing, to be breathing, to be exploring and to be creating. Even at the hours of the night when I know most of the people around me are fast asleep; I want to stay awake—seeing, breathing, exploring, creating.

But when I keep trying and trying to fight off sleep, it puts a lethargic damper on my daily thought processes. My mind gets lazy—faintly moving back and forth from what makes sense to what only makes sense in my mind. And my eyes get heavy and so much of me wants to fall into my bed and even the simple act of moving the pen on the paper becomes a difficult task.

Writing this is making me so sleepy. It’s putting me in a sort of dream state and I keep gazing out of the window and losing my train of thought. Every palpable and every mental thing just feels so comfortable. But I know that soon I will be home. Soon, I will fall into bed. Because right now, sleep sounds so beautiful. And right now, I want to see and breathe and explore and create in my own world of unconsciousness.