atma-ren

[atma-ren]

Carousel ponies never rest

I value myself through the value i give to others and by that, of course, i mean the impact i have in any aspect of their life. I understand that the new age philosophy dictates us to care only for our own selves but i am not quite into that. Not really. I need a purpose. Maybe that is merely a residue of my declared atheism. Maybe it is the way people oughted to be and somehow we managed to forget. I edorse the perspective that we, humans, are a social animal, but an animal nevertheless.

We tend to go round and round, like our lives is a carousel. Some of us even have that childish smile. The ride however will eventually stop. Do you get off or are you up to the next ride? There is nothing wrong on feeding candy to your inner child, but do not forget that children get the sugar rush effect. What do you do then? What do you do with a candy over fed child eager to go out and trash the place? 

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryan

Dare you look people in their eyes only to see their struggles. Sometimes we are children trying to act as grown ups and the other times we are grown ups trying to be reminded how childhood was like. Emotions come and go. We all search for completion, excellence, happiness and those precise things we shall never have. Those are virtues that come with time and patience. You have to be lonely to appreciate companionship. You have to be sad to recognise happiness. Most certaintly you have to know defeat to achieve excellence. 

“And the seasons they go ‘round and ‘round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on the carousel of time We can’t return we can only look behind From where we came And go round and round and round In the circle game.”  ― Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game

So step out of this carousel, you only see the same scenery again and again. Take a chance on life. Take a chance on people. They will disappoint you but do not stop trying because deep inside you know there are those few who will amaze you. Fall in love. Remember this feeling? That intense moment when you stare in someone’s eyes only to see yourself staring back at you. Believe in your ability to feel. Have friends. It is not guaranded that you will suceed but at least you will have made an effort. Bring back romance in your life. Romance is an attitude not a mere moment. Be romantic and be a fool..

“Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.”

Amanda Cross

atma-ren

[atma-ren]

On doubt, or maybe not?

What is it with us people that makes us doubt? We doubt our family, our friends, our loved ones, even ourselves and our wants. Feels as being a tourist on a bus and every next stop coming looks more promising than the one in front of us. Where do you get off?

“Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.” ― Gustave Flaubert,

You always have some form of doubt in your lives don't you? Am i loved as i want to be? Am i as accomplised? Do i do a job that i love? What do i want from me? What do i really wanna eat?

“Doubt is an uncomfortable condition, but certainty is a ridiculous one.”  ― Voltaire

Honestly, it is quite exhausting. We have too many small desicions to make and somehow every single one of them seems so important and life depending..  We are only here once and we want to do it as enjoyfull as possible. But we can't. So why worry?

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”  ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

There is something utopian in the thought of never having to doubt everything again. But there is some relief in embracing whatever comes your way. Que sera sera.. An if i may wish to everyone your only doubt to be whether you expressed your love enough.

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

Walt Whitman

[atma-ren]

Short story..

[atma-ren]

On Boredom

 There are those times in our existence when everything seems insignifigant or even pointless. How many hours have you browsed the internet today? Refreshing your facebook page, checking 9gag, stumbling through your "interests" ? Endless hours in front of a screen, nights staring at your ceilling, scattered thoughts.

Routine feeds the illusion of safety.- Christopher Moore

Growing up is not easy. One single thought is stuck on my mind most of the time. Is that all there is to life? All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But what if Jack is already a dull boy? What if he was born this way? Has anyone ever asked Jack if he actually enjoys being dull? There is a possibillity and a strong one if i may say, that he does. For the most of us one thing is clear: we find  everyone interesting but ourselves. Beauty, culture, manners, humour, wisdom all of these are virtues others already own and we just have to strugle for them.

Boredom: The desire for desires. – Leo Tolstoy

Maybe Tolstoy is right. We just long for desires, Desires to inspire us, to empower us. We are not gonna find them if we keep living the same days over and over again. I know there is beauty out there. Impecable, astounishing beauty in every little thing. You just have to notice and yet somehow i fail to do so. I imprison myself in the safety and comfort of my beloved house. I alienate myself from everything new and challenging and then i complain about being bored. I am my own conviction.

So, for all of you out there, i just wanted to remind you that you are not alone. We all get bored. We all lose interest in ourselves. We are all too afraid or unmotivated. Cheer up. This is a part of life. Even the persons you admire have those uncomfotable and utterly disapointing moments. We are all prisoners in our own heads and we might as well accept it and make the best out of it. Remind yourself you are an interesting person. Remind yourself you are capable of happiness. Stop being bored and start being awsome instead as Barney once said...

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. - Carl Sagan

Go out and find your something incredible. Laugh. Most of all laugh as hard and as honestly as you possibly can.

                                                                          Yours sincerely,

                                                                                 atma-ren

[atma-ren]

On Love by Alain de Botton

  We have to fall in love. We seek the foolishness, the anguish, and eventually the pain of it all. In this book Alain de botton, follows the entire procedure from meeting someone, falling in love, and longing to destroy what you have initially fell in love with, up until the inevitable point of total disapointment and heart ache.

We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.

    Why is it that we need someone in our life to validate our own existence? How comes and when in love, we admire and utterly adore the object of our affection so vastly much that it comes to the point of blindigly worshiping?  Maybe we need that feeling. Maybe admiring our own self is not quite enough. Or maybe people will always seek this extraordinary feeling of having something unreachable, unattainable.

Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.

     The steps are easy and predictable. First comes infatuation and adoration. Then when you have, strangely enough, found a way to get what you want comes appreciation and brief times of happiness. The worst part of being in love are those final and at the same time fatal steps. The moment when you demystify your beloved one, sort of feels like waking up after a long sleep. Open your eyes and see. Suddenly next to you is a human being so imperfect as you are. Disappointment follows as you understand that you adored someone not as impeccable as you thought, someone not as sophisticated, someone who is actually as boring as you are. 

“We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?” 

    You can procrastinate and decide to work on it. You can try not to lose your routine and your safety net. Who has the power to start over anyway? Try to think logical and see the best of it. No matter what you do infatuation is gone and maybe it is time to accept that it is over. At this point most people, myself included, accept unhapinness and constant fighting into their lives. I have to wonder: what makes us try so hard for something we actually know it is over?

In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts

      Regardless how much we have suffered in past relationships, we always find the power to do it all over again. Test ourselves, test our limits, test our hearts capacity. Do we ever learn? When it comes to love i think not. We will do the same mistakes. Risk our sanity. Compromise our needs. As you see, we need to love. We need to believe in something more than ourselves. We need the hope that somewhere out there is a person to fullfill us, to help us be better. Most of all we need to lose balance cause is there any better reason to do such a thing other than love? We need to dream and that is what being in love is: a constant state of  happy dreaming. Hopefully when you wake up next to you lies a person not so different from what you initially thought it was. Or better yet, hopefully you will find a person to share the same dream up untli the flat line.

The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

[atma-ren]

“Routine feeds the illusion of safety...”  Christopher Moore

[atma-ren]

Lamb by Christopher Moore

               Laugh. This is the best remedy for most of our daily problems. Even if you are facing a truly intolerable and difficult situation, laughter will keep you going. This is why i strongly recommend that you read this book, or any of Christopher's Moore books.

   This author is amazing. If only i could quote the whole book. The story is simple but yet genius. Archangel Raziel comes to earth in order to ressurect Christ's best friend Biff. The reason why an archangel would have to do such a thing is simple. They want Biff to write another gospel. One that narrates the hidden and lost life of Christ, from the time he was a child up to the point he starts preaching.

   Through this astonishing satirical book, Moore manages to address real time concerns about our lifestyle and way of thinking, while on the same time offers a fantastic trip through moral issues, love, friendship and faith. Have you ever noticed that we tend to sugar coat unhappy situations? Have you considered how our own language is deteriorating? Do you ever feel we live in a superficial society, the one that cares more about the word than their meaning? Nowadays we have all these labels to call things and sadly nor the problems or the situations have changed.

I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably won't even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them 'parts-dropping-off challenged' or something

   What truly amazed me is that he managed to talk about a different kind of Jesus, without however deminishing any of his values or morality. He made him different and yet exactly the same. Biff on the other hand is hysterical. Every piece of his sayings is a marvellous gem of both wisdom and laughter.

“Nobody's perfect. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him....”

     This is the book you will read if you wanna laugh, distract yourself and on the same time reflect on serious matters, learn about sarcasm and faith, real faith not strictly religion like faith. It also includes parts of cute love stories. Personally, i took great consolation through these pages. I laughed really loud deep in the night, waking up everyone and more importantly i still smile thinking about it.

“Unless you can change the past, you’re wasting the present on this guilt” 

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal an amazon link where you can buy it

[atma-ren]

Just Do It..

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done...

[atma-ren]

La fille a levre d' orange by France Huser

     Have you ever been in love with an artist? This book written by the French author France Huser, is an imaginary diary of Jeanne Hébuterne, the wife of the great artist Amedeo Modigliani. It is based on their wonderful love story and her struggles to live next to her addicted husband.

    It is, indeed, widely known that artists, true passionate artists, tend to be quite anorthodoxed and vastly maladjusted. Of course, trying to avoid any predjudice, i have to say that i profoundly admire artistic minds..

   I honestly can not say that i chose to read this book. Ironically it happened the other way round. Nevertheless, i took a good look into the unbearable suffering of loving the unloved. France Huser, in my noble opinion, has achieved a shocking grasp into the soul of Jeanne. The endless hours she spend waiting by the window, for her drunk husband to come home. The guilt that she didn't know the way to save him, how to redeem his troubled soul. Her genuine concern as she saw him wasting his talent, his health, in front of her eyes. For what is truly an artist without a little self resentment?

    Page by page i suffered with her. I could feel her tears on my own cheeks. I could sense her disapointment, her frustration. What gives us power in times like this? How is it that sometimes something magical happens and we love our other half more than our self?

   Pathetic, someone might think. I doubt it. Have you ever felt your heart connected to another being? Aren't two persons considered one if love unites them? Some are lucky. Some people love strong and complete human beings. Nevertheless, troubled souls, misfits deserve to be truly loved. Correction, they need it the most. Jeanne loved Amedeus through all their unhappiness and it was a true love.

    It takes a lot of courage to stand up next to such self absorbed and pessimistic person. You have to open your eyes every morning look at misery and say: " I will not let you into my soul. I will try my best. I will not give up until i suceed." Of course you should not fool yourself as Jeanne did. It is not up to you. The truth, as depicted in this book, is that no matter how much you try, no matter how patient and strong you are, if you really love a person like Amedeus you will get addicted to suffering. You will get sick. Misery will eventually find a way in.

   The choises are not easy. Either you stand by the problematic person you love and quietly suffer the consequenses or ran for your life. Sometimes i think choosing to stay, brave as it may seem, will make it even worse. Why? It is one thing if someone wants and needs to destroy himself and another to witness himself murdering the only person that ever loved him and loved, day by day, with every choise he makes.

   So if you have ever truly loved an artist i feel for you. If you have ever truly loved at all, you might want to be openminded and understand Jeanne. After all, love comes with hope. Hope for the better. Hope for change and improvement. Let us hope that our hope will cary on. Hopefully.

[atma-ren]

High Score

"I want to win!"

I watched as his lips curved around those words like hot wax cloaking incendiaries. His jaw, his jaw was frozen — his teeth, clenched; there was more anger restrained in that sentence than ever existed love for her.

"So, that’s why you continue?" I pried. "That’s why you let her keep using you, hurting you?"

"So that she might choose me, yes."

"And if you win, what then? What’s your endgame?"

His eyebrows contorted and his lips puckered as he chewed on the sourness of the flaws in his plan. It was then that I realized I had been holding a conversation with my best friend’s fragile, rejected heart, not the man himself.

"I just want to know I’m better than him," he said with tears in his eyes. "He broke her heart. He treated her like a plaything from half a world away, and yet she still loves him. I could have loved her."

"But you don’t," I said calmly.

"No," he said.

"You’re better than he is, you know. He’s a coward who made off with the heart of an angel. Listen to me, though: If you win — if you build something real within the heart of a woman for whom love has only ever been a game — just because you can, then you’ll be no better than him."

"So what do I do?"

"You lose. You walk away. You let her keep what’s left of her prizes behind the counter and you throw away the tickets you had fun winning, because you’re too old for a goddamn plastic ring."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

[atma-ren]

Sonder and something to wonder

  Recently my vocabulary got a little bit richer. Sonder. This is the word i learned and somehow it got to me. I have always loved to be a spectator of things. A silent woman on the bus, an anxious pedestrian, a child playing. So many stories evolve around me, it makes me wanna pay attention , it awakens my imagination.

  Sonder it is then. I have been the background stage prop for so many love stories, friendships, achievements. I have been their background.  Wow right? Seems romantic though it is not. It is merely a way to say we are all connected to each other. We are all here to contribute in our struggle to make a difference. I do not mind being your background while you go out there trying to make it happen. I even might give you a hand, a smile, help you with your bags. This is who i am. Happy to assist you and make the scenery a little bit more bright. Your friendly neighboor. 

   Undoubtfully i am not a quitter, but i surrender to you world. I have stopped trying to be the protagonist in this story called life. i just want to attribute something. I have been lied, cheated, manipulated. I have been sad, frustrated and angry. From now on I will be a spectator to your shows and i will cheer for you, i will applaude while on the same time i will write my own little story. It may not be a great story but it will be mine nevertheless. 

   So next time you are offered unexpected help from someone please be polite, be receiving. Try not to be so closed up in your walls. Try not to be afraid of everyone around you. Try to trust cause it might be me and i will come with the best intentions for you. I know it is hard out there, i know your doubts and your pain. I have felt them deep inside my soul eating me up but please understand if you disappoint a good intentioned heart its irreversible. Benovolent people are endangered species nowadays. Make an effort. Sometimes what people really need is to look around and see smiling faces. Open up and keep the hope alive. I will be there to support you. 

                                                                                     Yours truthfully,

                                                                                             atma-ren

[atma-ren]

[atma-ren]

[atma-ren]

The raven- Edgar Allan Poe

[atma-ren]

[atma-ren]

We can’t own each other’s past. The question is whether we have a future together. Jostein Gaarder the orange girl

[atma-ren]

The orange girl by Jostein Gaarder

     Is our short period of time spend on this planet worth it? Jostein Gaarder, a great modern philosopher and novelist known for his best-seller Sophie's world, lures us in a fascinated dialogue between a son and his diseased father.

Look at the world, Georg, look at the world before you’ve filled yourself with too much physics and chemistry.

     It is a love fairytale,nonetheless, but on tha same time Gaarder manages to pose some of the most turbulent  questions of our time. What is the meaning of our own existence? Does it worth the trouble? If we had a choice would we choose to live for this short period of time?

If I’d chosen never to the foot inside the great fairytale, I’d never have known what I’ve lost. Do you see what I’m getting at? Sometimes it’s worse for us human beings to lose something dear to us than never to have had it at all

    Our protagonist Georg reads a letter from his dying father and follows him as he becomes infatuated by the orange girl he saw in a bus. It was love at the first sight. His father felt the agony of not knowing anything about the object of his desire. Would he ever see her again? 

Perhaps there is no intimacy to compare with two gazes that meet with firmness and determination and simply won’t relinquish each other.

I was far too personally involved. All I could do was try to find her.

   One have to admit, there are so many things in our existence that makes us worried and afraid, so many uncertainties and unanswered questions. Love helps us forget our insignificance and gives us a boost to carry on. Sentiments in general is our way of relaxing our brain from all these things we will never learn. So why worry? Why not try to relax and surrender into the unknown? 

Then there is something else: ever since that night I’ve always known that the stars can’t be trusted. They certainly can’t save us from anything. One day we will leave the stars in the sky and go away.

     Let it be and embrace everything you find along, every little piece of knowledge, every bit of sentiment, every experience as little or insignifigant it might seem. Let it be and let it fill your soul up. Just have your eyes open to the beauty around you as it is everywhere to be found. Start paying attention and make your life worth living.

I’ve nothing against eye make-up and lipstick. But the fact is we’re actually living on a planet in space. For me that’s an extraordinary thought. It’s mind-boggling just to think about the existence of space at all. But there are girls who can’t see the universe for eyeliner.”