:: 2008 24 May :: 3.19 pm
:: Mood: amused/comfortable

hahaha...I guess that the noun would be the verb, then, wouldn't it?

In both trust and love. And faith, too, I suppose. Hope follows in form of faith. So all of life's goals are passively active? In all things I should actively not pursue, but rather relax, give up my "fish and loaves", and surrender myself to the consequences in full knowledge that they are to my benefit, although I may not see from here why? Yes.

To be as I am and know I am without really considering the purpose of it being that way. I don't know why I was made male over female anymore than I know why I am white and not black, American and not Chinese, Human and not a dog. I am, and should act. Funny that acting on those things is a surrender for me. How I have struggled so furiously to understand without realizing by doing so I was doing nothing...the Hamlet effect. In summary, I think too much. If I don't shut myself up from time to time, I'll never get anything done. The simpler way of thinking might better suit me. Wisdom is powerful, but only in context of simplicity. That's what makes it Wisdom instead of knowledge. You can know everything there is to know without being wise, and you can be the wisest person in the world without ever knowing anything. Maybe then wisdom is simply taking what we don't know and using it in context of what we do.

I need to be a more practically minded individual in order to achieve my ideals. That's the chasm, the leap of faith. I must surrender my ideals to obtain them. "Whoever keeps his life shall lose it, but whoever gives up his life for my sake shall keep it." God's economy, if God can be described as economical.

Oh there I go again.

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:: 2008 10 May :: 8.46 pm

I sense in them a wealth of knowledge yet unattained. If I seek anything, it is completion. If I desire anything, it is to know wholeness.

The Adam in me is hopelessly lost without Eve, yet strangely and supernaturally pacified. But it's temporal, in waiting. In expectancy. What He has done to prepare me has also stayed the flow of desire, but I am not cursed, I sense, to that wretched loneliness that, were I God, would not be forgiven me.

There is something I can learn from them. We are cultures far apart, and rather than get them to see mine I should tell them what I see in terms of theirs. Learn a new language.

In the context of my dad and I, we're nothing alike. In the context of everyone else...well, we're probably more alike than I would willingly admit under other, less humbling circumstances.

...

I really like folk and soul.

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:: 2008 17 April :: 10.51 pm

He never grows weary. He never let's up. He is never defeated. Time and time again I drive him back, chain him down, and run as hard as my legs can allow.

How are you one step ahead of me? How can you keep your breath?

And though I fall, I am not fallen. Though death seizes me, I do not die. Though I am struck, my body is whole.

I am so weary of fighting him. I want him to just die...but he is me?

Who is more myself? The zealous, devout, vengeful Lazarus? The indulgent, kniving, amiable Aaron? Both with virtue, both with vice. Never at peace. Always at odds.

Hope is an odd thing..."Come all you weary, lay down your loads."

Grace odder still. I am so grateful for all that I have, for the chance to fight this way, to see things from this vantage point.

I don't know where this is going.

I'm sorry? This is an apology. I've disgraced myself and my friends. Those dearest, those I've told I would guard. Time and time again I betray my intentions. But He is there, always beckoning, always welcoming, despite my flaws. I'm going to go to him now, when I feel most useless.

"The Lion's outside of your door, the Wolf's in your bed. The Lion's claws are sharpened for war, the Wolf's teeth are red."

2 = | +

:: 2008 9 April :: 10.21 pm

Now that I'm here, I don't ever want to look back

All that any of this is really worth to me is just knowledge. Knowledge that my identity is not dependant on my short-comings. Knowledge that I fought the good fight. Knowledge that I did what was best regardless of the circumstance. Knowledge that as long as I don't lean on myself, my life is worth being proud of.

Kameran had a really good idea. He took a dry erase marker and wrote all the reasons he was worth loving on his mirror.

I should paint "Death Be Not Proud" on my bedroom wall.


Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful for thou art not so. For those whom thou art thinkst thou dost overthrow die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. For rest and sleep which but thy pictures be, much pleasure then from thee much more must flow. And soonest with thee our best men do go; rest their bones and souls delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men and doth with poison war and sickness dwell and poppy or charms can make us sleep as well or better than thy stroke. Why swellst thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and Death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die.

Kirsten and I have had some really cool talks since then.

Haha, the bus-ride, the sports movie, the chic flick, the red-bull, the elevator...

It's amazing how much I appreciate my girl when I haven't been able to think of her that way for a week.

The Mexico spirit is still alive, I think. I can see it in the way people still communicate so well now. It's a bummer that I'm going out of town on Friday, but Saturday night I can hang with them.

And Sunday I should talk with Bob.

Ah...seven thirty class tomorrow. Know what that means? Bed-time.

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:: 2008 25 March :: 9.27 pm

I suppose there comes a point where every one who does this sort of thing asks this sort of question.

Is it defining of me? Certainly not.

But it is facing my past and giving up is surrendering to that past.

So I can't give up. Never, ever, ever give up.

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:: 2008 19 March :: 10.04 pm

TELL ME ARE YOU FREE

WHILE THE GALLOWS STAND

AND BULLETS LANCE

THE BRAVEST LUNGS

WILL I FOLD MY HANDS?

OR HOLD MY TONGUE?

OR LET THE FLAMES LICK AT MY FEET

AND BREATHE IN FIRE AND KNOW I'M FREE?

the flames will rise and devour me. To breathe in fire...

...and know I'm free

3 = | +

:: 2008 17 March :: 11.38 pm

I keep chasing myself in circles inside of my head.

But it's not really going anywhere right now. I feel loved all of a sudden...

out of nowhere some strong affection is raining down on me.

So I'll take this moment of peace as an opportunity to get some sleep.

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:: 2008 17 March :: 11.20 pm
:: Mood: Sad

I want to be Superman.

But I'm not. I'm Paul.

I can't fly in and save the day. I don't have some sense in the back of my head that tingles when I there's someone in distress. I haven't done anything that amazing. I haven't saved people from burning buildings. I haven't cured a disease.

I'm not Superman.

I'm Paul.
I'm Paul.
I'm Paul.

What does that mean...?

Ton Amie...

haha

She makes me feel so loved...you all do. I go on these crazy rants, and even though you don't say a word I know you read...at least sometimes.

Thank you.

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:: 2008 23 February :: 10.42 pm

Words really are sawed off shotguns. I can't hit just what it is...

I see now by what isn't what is, and it makes me so grateful.

That I have moved on, and that I am a new and different person. Knowing that, and loving what has become of my life.

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:: 2008 10 January :: 8.13 am
:: Mood: peaceful
:: Music: The Whaler

2 = | +

:: 2008 3 January :: 6.35 am
:: Mood: peaceful

Yesterday was really, really good.

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:: 2007 7 November :: 8.04 am

I feel like I should write something, for tradition's sake. I feel like the cliches should boil out of my skin and flow down to my finger tips, tattooing some private page with dreams of unfathomable perfection.

I wait, yet nothing comes. The difference, perhaps?

4 = | +

:: 2007 2 November :: 10.21 am

As flattered as I was by all the comments you guys left about Kirsten and I, I was getting a little weirded out.

6 = | +

:: 2007 29 October :: 10.19 am

Watered by the blood of martyrs, blessed and blind as sons and daughters. Sleep with one eye open, live with both eyes shut. So let's find the place where sight begins and see the things that we saw when our eyes were bright and wet against the light.

4 = | +

:: 2007 19 October :: 6.34 am

It was a paralysis inducing beauty. I couldn't go.

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:: 2007 18 October :: 7.42 am
:: Mood: restless
:: Music: Grace can still be found in the Gale. With fear and reverence raise your ragged sail.

6 = | +

:: 2007 4 October :: 11.54 pm
:: Music: Firebreather

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:: 2007 1 October :: 8.20 am
:: Music: Digital Sea

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:: 2007 27 September :: 8.55 pm

Happy birthday journal.

1 = | +

:: 2007 5 September :: 10.03 pm

I need to stop listening to music. It messes with my head when I'm trying to write.

8 = | +

:: 2007 5 September :: 9.36 pm

"duuuude.

I assume you are making reference to the incident of the, ahem, "creamy concoction."


or wait, are you talking about. . . uhh. . . the cruise!?!?

thats going to be so fucking awesome.

I MEAN SO FUCKING AWESOME!!

i can't even scream loud enough to depict how awesome that cruise is going to be, let alone how much i shit my pants every time i think about it.

YES.


and also, we will try to hit on the flight attendants. just to be douhcebags. Because you know what you can't get kicked off of?

an airplane."


haha, thanks alex

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:: 2007 30 August :: 10.27 pm

17 years gets shorter everyday.

"And though my experience is feeble, I've come to find that life is best lived away from the things we know best. I don't believe that time heals all things. But over time, we rub shoulders with enough people we can't help but love that eventually the holes get filled in. There are enough good memories to hem the bad one's in such a way that they start to matter less. They bring revelations long after the wound has faded, teaching us the lessons we wish so desperately we had been taught before.

It is one thing to love someone because we want to. When we find that we can't avoid loving someone, it something entirely different. Like slamming into a concrete wall that circumnavigates the earth. This love triumphs over pain, over passion, over hatred and malice. It shatters the darkness and lays waste to our blindness. There is no greater love than this; that a man should lay down his life for his friend."

These last three years have taught me a lot about who I really am. About what I love, and what my capacity for love is. It wasn't until I was sitting on top of that mountain telling 16 people, most of them strangers, that the Paul of three years ago would never dream that he'd one day become me that I realized how true it is. It doesn't make sense that I have become this person. That I ever grew up. I was so far gone, so very dead...how is it that I came to love life? How is it I came to love people? Me? The bitter, cold, broken child of that spring? I wanted nothing more than to watch this world burn. Now I would die to keep it alive. How did I change so damn much? I feel like I'm the second person to live in this body.

"Poignancy is the fabric of our brilliance."

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:: 2007 1 August :: 10.47 pm

Contact
I'm so tired of being jocular about these sort of things.

Hanging out with Michael too much made me insecure in my solemnity. I need to do a little less leaching, no?

It's just as well. I'm making progress.

I've had a couple small breakthroughs lately, and then today I had my biggest one. I almost called Roberts and told him, but then it solidified itself by preventing me from doing so. A shimmering thread in my mind, victorious and alone. It's loneliness does nothing but cause it to shine all the brighter. A proud entity, the fruit of my labor. It's an amazing sensation. This must be what it's like to be raised from the dead. Feeling life trickle back into your being. And it's still there. It will always be there, the first real permanent structure in my being.

1 = | +

:: 2007 1 August :: 10.34 pm

Why does naivety rear it's ugly head now?

It's not me.

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:: 2007 18 July :: 12.14 am

Tonight was pretty bombin'

8 = | +

:: 2007 15 July :: 9.56 pm
:: Mood: amused

Haha
Friday I got my nose broke in a mosh pit.

1 = | +

:: 2007 3 July :: 9.29 pm

I just had the nastiest kabobs I've ever tasted. They got really dry in the microwave and the rub on them started to taste like vomit.

But I heard they were good before I ruined them. Oh well.

3 = | +

:: 2007 2 July :: 10.32 pm

wow...


wow.

2 = | +

:: 2007 29 June :: 12.29 am

Lights out
on Division Street

I'm feeling really weird right now. I need to sleep...

But I can't.

5 = | +

:: 2007 11 June :: 8.45 am

Haha, I clicked on friends and these were the first two entries.
rorin
:: 2007 11 June :: 8.35am
:: Mood: complacent

I think the worst thing is...
That I still miss you.

+

aerii
:: 2007 10 June :: 9.32pm

i miss you so much that it hurts my head.

+

3 = | +