A Sort of Homecoming

It's 23:23 of December 5th, a Monday night. I'm tweaking out hardcore from drinking my very first Monster energy drink, and it is without doubt the most disgusting thing that has ever putrefied my tongue ever ever. I'm drinking this terrible sludge because I need to pull an all-nighter in order to finish my work on time, which is fine, it's just that I've never done that before.

I realize I haven't written anything in over 3 weeks, which is my longest unannounced hiatus ever. This is bad for a number of reasons.

1. I am going to be a writer for a career. That means I need to write as much as possible.
2. I use writing to unwind and decompress-- I haven't been able to do that for the past 3 weeks.
3. I got my 6,000th view and WASN'T THERE TO SEE IT.
4. You all want to know everything about me! Right? .... Right?

So, I'm treating this post as a sort of return, a reincarnation-- a sort of homecoming. I'm just going to be listing a few things that have been going on with me, and tomorrow (if I get a chance-- if not, later this week) I'll give you the second section to my music suggestion series, Sharing is Caring.

First and foremost, I got a girlfriend. Weird, I know-- I didn't think I had it in me, either. Technically, she started it all and initiated the relationship. She's a short one, with beautiful, long, curly black hair and mad curves with a smile that sneaks up on you and steals your attention away. She asked me out for coffee one night, and after a follow-up date to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, I knew I needed to stay after her.

Second, my penultimate semester at my community college is slowly (and stressfully) coming to a close.  I had a hold on my student account because some joker who worked in the library missed checking in ONE of my returned DVDs, and so it was counted as late and I was duly penalized. So, I got that figured out. After that, I needed a book for one of my finals, and it only arrived 3 days AFTER THE FINAL WAS DUE. Baaaaahhhhghghgh!!! So, needless to say, I've been kind of Hulking out the past few days.

Third, I'm working a lot. Too much, in fact. I'm beginning to smell like bread all of the time. Delicious, yet distracting. It's getting kind of exhausting, but the people are great, so it's no big deal. I've made two fast friends and I look forward to continuing working with them.

Fourth, I'm starting to return back to my roots in Eastern thought, which is proving to be a welcome comfort as the vice of the end of the year closes around my scrotum. I'm making more time to meditate, drink green tea, and study the Dao as well as learn a bit about Reform Judaism (which is best Judaism in my opinion) and a bit about the freedom (yet social inequalities) of Hinduism, just for funsies.

Fifth and finally, I'm beginning to realize who my true friends really are. I've been going through a handful of hardships, and the ones who have been there to clap their hands on my shoulder have been proving a wonderful source of strength, so to all of those who have seen me at my angriest, my most distraught, my most off-course, my most un-Dao, thank you for sticking with me.

That's all for now-- Time for me to get started on the second half of my all-nighter.

If you like my writing, you can join the site to the right of the page, like Speaking with Storms on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+ . If you have questions or just want to chat, I'm on Formspring too!

Thanks for reading. Stay human, my friends.

The Symphony of the Universe

Symphonium Universi

The world is singing! Do you hear it?
The world is singing. All you have to do is listen.
On this spinning globe, there is so many millions of expressions of life!
They all are singing out in a beautiful choir of existence,
That hits me like an earthquake that brings me to kneel
In reverence. I can’t help put part my lips to sing along with them.
When all the noise is blocked out, and you stop to listen
You can hear it.
The world is singing.

I sit on the floor, with eyes closed and ears eager to listen.
The familiar pat-pat-pat of raindrops on my window
Ushers in a welcome rain.
Nature is has lifted its voices too.
I hear strings and voices in the Wind, drums in the Earth,
Horns and cymbals in waterfalls, raindrops and rivers.

Now I know why sages travel to mountaintops, prophets spend months in the desert
And the wise know the value of quiet.
It’s not so they can get away from the world!
It’s so that they can get closer to it.

We are part of it! Do you hear us singing along?
Hallelujah, we sing!
Let all creation join in!
We are here, we are alive!
Let us do what is good and right
And let the innumerable expressions of life create!

If you like my writing, you can join the site to the right of the page, like Speaking with Storms on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. If you have questions or just want to chat, I'm on Formspring

 and Google+ .

Thank you for reading. Stay Human, my friends.

"In Darkness is Kindled the Fiercest of Hopes!"

"Hope" is an interesting word. In some languages, it's the same word for "expect" or "wait". In others, it's the same word as "confidence" or "knowledge", as in, something as fact. For some people, the word has a connotation as being overused and corny, but to others it feels as though a ray of light is shining onto their hearts.

No matter how it falls to your ears, I can say with certainty that there isn't enough going around.

Hope is a remarkably strong emotion. I'd say it's the second strongest, next to Love. The problem is that very few people of our age are experiencing enough Hope. I see people saying things like "Fuck expectations, all that's left is disappointment." and "We are all hypocrites, anyway." People are losing hope in themselves, in others, and in humanity as a whole. This nihilistic worldview hurts me so much to see. People need that ray of light to shine on their hearts-- They need something to lift them up.

The world is dark. It is war-torn, decayed, ragged, and barren. One thing it is not, however, is hopeless. A lot of people ask where Hope can be found. They see countries ravaged by poverty and famine. They see lives of loved ones taken by war. They see divorce. They see drugs. They see tragedy.

You can find hope within the ones you love. Your best friends, your family, your wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, sisters, brothers... These people can give you hope. However, it is not something that is done actively. We cannot transfer hope to other people. We can, however, set an example for our loved ones. We can give a smile to someone who needs one. We can give a crying child a new ice cream cone after she spilled hers on the sidewalk. We can return the wallet we found; cards, cash, and all.

I think of the word Hope a little bit differently than most, I would think. Hope to me is more than desperate uncertainty, gambling on a lucky die roll or coincidence. Hope to me is more certain that that. It's a very powerful thing, Hope. I urge you all to look toward the future with Hope, and look into the past only to relive a happy memory.

Our time is so short on this Earth. Everything we do-- Every drop of water we drink, every breath of life-giving air we take, every laugh we share with friends, everything we do should be an expression of Love. When we do this, we have such a great opportunity to inspire Hope in those we interact with! We can live in Harmony this way.

My favorite book to read when I need inspiration to find Hope is Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien. It may seem silly, but I always feel a very strong connection to the Hobbits in that book series. They are faced with such strong challenges, and due to their stature they are doubted by very many. (For those unfamiliar to the series, Hobbits or 'Halflings' are only half as tall as a grown man.) However, they have such powerful hearts that the challenges they face are defeated! It truly is something to admire. I hope to someday have Hope the way those characters do.

"By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something."

"What are we holding onto, Sam?"

"That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for."