My birthday
Hello! Sorry for my disappearance. I've been lost in the creative process, but my mind frequently turns its attention here.
Today, I aged. In an instant, a whole year was gifted to me, while another was locked away in the halls of the past. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't stop it!
Endlessly floating through the river of time, I suppose I should learn how to swim. Every tip, every piece of advice, every nugget of wisdom, holds my head high above the relentless waves.
This storm will be weathered. I may have found my own island, a place to observe from a distance, but that distance is heartbreaking. Wherever you are, however you feel, you do not walk alone.
For me, my birthday is about reflection. It pays to step back and integrate the past, and allow the aging process to happen.
My memory is poor, so I have trouble recalling actual events of the past. It's getting better, but I do sense the contrast: I have changed. I am a different person now.
In many ways, I still feel like a child. I tried to know, I tried to have certainty, like so many adults around me seem to do. But increasingly, I see lessons to be learned wherever I look.
A perpetual student, I find the world amazing. It's tragic and beautiful, like a fractured rainbow. I trust we can complete the picture, and am in awe of that trust.
Today, I want to share music and stories. I want to bask in the wonders of the unknown and mysterious, and revel in the feeling that we have the potential to learn more.
So, if you could do just one thing for me today, find a moment to listen to a song that strikes a chord. It doesn't have to be any particular chord. It could reflect the nothingness of the void we can't seem to ignore. But I want to know what means something to you, even if you are overwhelmed with a sense of meaninglessness. You don't have to share it here, it can be totally private. And remember: it's totally optional.
To keep this post from getting too long, I'll post a reply of a song that's been on my mind. Then, I'll share a little story.
Read, or don't. Listen to yourself first. I push no angle. I force no will. But today, I celebrate people, and am proud to be alive.
@jesusredeemedme2425
@Amanda84
@Tinywhisper11
@Torean
@azurePond
@BastionKnight
@PiecesOfWhoeverIWas
@Creamyyy
@cyanessence 🎶 happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah vodka 🎶💃💃💃
Here's your present 😁 hope you enjoy💖
@Tinywhisper11 so I've been listening to Xmas music lately😁 because it's the happiest music ever, and because well I'm a grownup child😁 but there's one song that always pulls on my heart strings it's so heartbreakingly beautiful, it really makes you think and realise that love and life and kindness is so very precious💖 it's called...
Christmas shoes- by John Mcnicholl
That song makes me cryyyy… But it’s so sweet too <3
@jesusredeemedme2425 yeah it pulls on your heart strings💖
@Tinywhisper11
That is a precious song. A song about simple shoes can carry a lot of meaning.
I hope at the end of it all, I'm lucky enough to still have shoes xD
Nothing like a little Christmas in September. Break every rule to feel the feels ^^
@Tinywhisper11
You have such a gift giving talent 😂
@Amanda84 😂😂😂
@Tinywhisper11
Haha, you never fail to get a laugh out of me. Never lose that randomness. It can be a source of creativity.
@cyanessence 💖😁💖
My birthday was in July. I turned 32. not a happy birthday. But who ever said a birthday was something to be happy about, clearly knows very little about a birthday.
You came out of a woman screaming. And then you spend the rest of your life either screaming or being screamed at. Every square inch of space of this universe, down to molecules, is vulgar and meaningless. The people inside this glass globe are all insane. nothing will ever make life right or okay. If We embrace our worse natures, we get to at least have the empty pleasures and conquer a few nations who will eventually forget everything about you.
Here's something no one is ready for:
You'll never love hard enough for it to be enough and you'll never hate enough to make it all go away.
Your only options, are live fully by accepting that nothing will ever matter or have tangible importance beyond your own experience of it.
Or you can hurry up the dying process.
Either way, nothing will ever bring happiness. You can't even chose to create it or become it. It's just an idea. Happiness is a lie that people tell themselves. Too weak to become strong.
I want to grind this existence into dust in my palms. I want people to be struck with fear by me. I want them to see a demon. I want them to know what a real one looks like. This is what makes me happy now.
@limegreenSugar9416
I once felt this way, exactly, and I'm not going to try and change your mind. Rather, I will validate your thinking.
If there were a singular, ultimate point, a place we *had* to reach, a clear and defined meaning, what then?
That truth would inevitably pass through our distorted lenses of reason, and people would argue about definitions, and how to strive for the point. I imagine it would cause utter chaos and despair, far greater than anything we've ever experienced.
I once thought happiness a lie. A delusion. A fake smile that people wear to convince the machine to keep turning.
I didn't find happiness through things. I didn't find it through the insight of others. No book, no story, nothing but me led me down my path.
I cannot ignore the contrast. I cannot deny the truth of my feeling.
I once felt dead, and now I feel truly alive. Like you, it was by knowing myself that I found something better than mere contentment or acceptance.
Without a given meaning to life, we are free to create our own. Suddenly, no life is invalid, and we can do what we want. We can glide on a feeling. Live for the pleasure, like you said. I just don't derive pleasure from wading in the shallows.
I derive pleasure from reason, and since I really started using it over 6 months ago, each day has had new peaks of bliss.
I am living the dream of the lie they sell on television. Where they show people waking up with radiating smiles. It's not the bed that causes happiness. It is not the sleep. It is knowing the self that happiness lies, and I'm glad you found your own path.
@cyanessence happy birthday brother
Hiya @cyanessence your absence was certainly felt, I’m glad to see you here again and thank you for sharing such a beautiful reflection.
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou
Thank you for your heartfelt words. I'm not trying to be tricky or clever, wise or insightful. Attention is not the goal. I just wondered what would happen if I opened my heart, and talked with utmost honesty, without trying to force perspective, but just trying to become a better person.
I have seen much darkness in a period that was both short and long. I felt old when born, like I'd seen it all, and was hearing the same thing repeated over and over. I wanted something new. I wanted to experience the wonder a child does when they gaze upon a rainbow, lost in wonder at its simplicity and sense. But it felt like I was stuck in a storm, and the only one that could get me out was me.
So I wrote. I thought of the kind of rainbow that would impress me. But I had to exhaust myself of all words. I had to create a lack of description, and in creating space for the unknown, I found profound peace.
I don't quite know how to help people, or if I can, but if I can see reason in darkness, that my trials shaped me into someone who I am proud to be, then perhaps I can show that there is always hope. Because when the broken and lost rebound, one is reborn, and can see the world with clarity.
Storms pass. Lightning might strike, but it rarely strikes a person. All we have to do is think of the promised tomorrow, that sense can be made of things over time, and we are wholly human for triumphing in the face of uncertainty.
@cyanessence Hey Happy birthday!! have load of fun
@cyanessence
I hope you are good my friend 🥰
