tell it rilke

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final
― Rainer Maria Rilke

WINGS_&joy

"He who binds to himself a joy
Does the wingèd life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise."

"Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joys inclined,
Lawless, winged, and unconfined,
And breaks all chains from every mind."

-William Blake

An Arduous Elation

Sometimes I overwhelm myself with too many burning questions about life. I want to understand it all. Now. The material, the psychological, the emotional, the sociological. All of it.
Da Vinci the Great did say, "The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." And, I would normally whole-heartedly agree. But it struck me today, as I ran on the treadmill, that if there were no questions to ask in the world, where could one find any sense of wonder? Or experience that tantalizing, vast inner-intrigue when faced with the mysterious? In a hypothetical world (or mind) containing all the answers, there could be no curiosity, no adventure, no suspense; no fascination, no astonishment, no awe. So I asked myself, Why must I elude these effects of questioning -are they painful? mmm.. I pondered.. Not at all. In fact they can be pretty awesome! Pun intended. 
What is beauty compared to formulas, definitions, and logical explanations of it?
Pretend this "Everything-Answered" mind were possible. Would there be an every thing to comprehend? What would be the exact number of things to know? 69 trillion, 24 thousand, and two? Seems improbable.
Consider the reality of a universe solely consisting of mental facts. I say, très ennuyeux.
It was then, with sweat dripping down my cranium, that I began to fall in love with the brilliant multi-facetted-ness of our existence. There are some questions that have simple answers, some that have (as long as there's people to argue) endless explanations, and some that dumbfound even the wisest -whose answers may never grace a mortal mind.
I'm fairly relieved to be convinced there is no ceiling to understanding. For if there were, the top would certainly be disappointing.
I feel now a bit more associative with Mr. Rilke, "Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers."
Answers can be ecstatic, but questions I wager, can be just as fulfilling. I feel there is much peace in this realization.

to live by

il faut avoir du ZESTE.

"It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action that man finds his supreme joys."

-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Zest is the secret to all beauty. There is no beauty that is attractive without zest." -Christian Dior

"What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life."

-Bertrand Russell

NEWS: Never gonna happen..

So today I made another attempt at updating myself, like any good citizen should. I checked CNN, Drudge Report, NY Times, Huffington Post.. didn't last for fifteen minutes. Call it apathy, indifference, or small attention span - but I have an aversion to the news. All the top stories are either about an argument, an accusation, or some sort of eruption. Sarah Palin said this, Hurricaine Katrina is still happening. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about being aware of one's surroundings and being informed. But come on.. Barack Obama is 70% up in polls: "we love him!" To 69% of Americans have lost trust in our president and think he's a terrorist: "when's the next election?" It's getting exhausting. I heard this Chinese proverb the other day that said:

"Better to light a candle than curse the darkness."

I liked it. It seems like all the news can focus on is "dark" economy cliff-ends and Snooki's new abusive boyfriend. Yet here I am, the hypocrite: cursing the news.
In the wise words of Trish, the southern lady I work with, "You'd never go and plant yer picnic right next to the only pile of dog sh*t in the park." Almost wiser than the proverb I'd say. So there's my resolution. I'll be avoiding the piles of dog sh*t and eating my picnic elsewhere. Call me "plain ignorant" (also in the words of Trish), but if my country has a nuclear warhead pointed to it, I'm sure I'll hear about it from the ten people around me with their live iPhone feeds. But even then, what good would "knowing" about it do? Excuse me, I'll be enjoying my ham sandwich and strawberry milkshake in the sun.

ah-ha: some wise old men

"In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn't force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!" -Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, The world is beyond the winning. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

quotes

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” -Albert Camus

(pictures taken from the Sigur Ros music video for Glosoli)
Albert Camus is one of my favorite writers, so you'll probably see more quotes of his quotes.

I Don't Know.

"...every thought pretends it matters so much." -Eckhart Tolle
"An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering. There's only one thought to question: the one appearing now." -Byron Katie

I've recently been reading some books and material by this Byron Katie woman, and find her "work" to be extremely fascinating. She talks about how the nature of the human mind, when left unquestioned, is to think that it understands everything already. She also says that quite often, the mind's summaries, judgments, and assumptions about the world, people, and things are false or misled.
Anyways, I've really come to appreciate the "don't know" state of mind. I've also fallen in love with questions and the amazing shifting power they can have on a person's perceptions and personal reality.
For example, I was exhausted at work today (or that was the thought in my head at least). "I'm exhausted." So I questioned the thought. Is it true? Can I absolutely know that it's exhaustion that I'm feeling? Who would I be without this thought? And the strangest thing happened. As soon as my mind let go of the thought: "I'm exhausted," I felt a giant increase in my energy. The thought would come back and I'd feel tired again. Then I'd question it, and my energy came back. It was pretty cool to notice.
There's a sweet freedom in not-knowing. Almost an innocence, like a baby. Babies' minds are empty, and they have an entire world to discover. Us older people just think we understand the world, because we've lived in it a few more years. There's always another way of looking at something. Always. With this realization, anything negative loses its power, or is almost dispelled as an illusion. I'm sad: Is it true? Could it be something else? Love maybe? Life becomes more a game of belief; when the negative is questioned, only positive remains. Whoever said ignorance was bliss might have been onto something. Or maybe I'm crazy, ha I honestly couldn't tell you.
"Questioning breaks open the stagnant, hardened shells of the present, opening up options to be explored." -Fran Peavey

Alive

There is a certain cloud,

impregnated with a
thousand lightnings.
There is my body,
in it an ocean formed of its glory,
all the creation,
all the universes,
all the galaxies,
are lost in it. -Rumi