russianamerican

Breakfast at Tiffany's

It seems to me that if I were to divide life into two sides it would be the same division we saw in Blake Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The division would simply be a life of careless adventure full of actions and reactions to new things, or, a life of commitment. Being “young and stupid” I can understand both the difficulty and hope that this choice brings.

The sad thing is that no matter how deep we are as thinkers, we as young people may still be naturally tempted to choose the side that offers some sort of instant ”meaning,” simply because if we embrace it, we are instanly reacting to our experiance in that very moment. This interaction with the exotic, new and unfelt makes us feel something. Somehow that void of true, lasting hapiness is distracted by the quick reactions to new things and choices. And no matter how deep we are in our thought process, a life of commitment (merely speaking) honestly and naturally seems downright boring. Yes, Boring.

But as we live our ”dramatic” and “exciting” life, we all still feel this longing for safety and a true, lasting hapiness. We can all admit to that. And no matter how open-minded and deep I try to be, I will always say that if you do not admit to the void of true hapiness, you are lying to yourself and others. 

The thing is that we need to understand that commitment is unknown to us and it is eternal, and naturally —if the commitment is sincere— true. C’mon, if we really are adventure seeking people we should be the ones choosing the side of commitment because it is the still uncharted to us.

Let Paul Varjack say it:

“You know what’s wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You’re chicken, you’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick out your chin and say, “Okay, life’s a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness.” You call yourself a free spirit, a “wild thing,” and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

Life

I love...

Mr. Lewis

I’m sittting here listening to “The Call” by Regina Spektor and thinking about how humbly pleased C.S. Lewis would be if he knew that so many great artists would carry his message and love for many years to come.

To be honest, I have not yet read any of Lewis’s works of fiction but after reading his “Mere Christianity” I found both my new hero and re-found God in my life. Since I’ve recently been dwelling on the idea of a true hapiness and wether it can ever really be attained Mr. Lewis has once again come to the rescue. I remembered several of the conversations I had with atheists when I myself was “half convinced.” One thing I sensed from all those conversations is this great fear in losing the pride of being the master/owner of all knowledge and power. It was this Matrix-like fear of being nothing more than a controlled machine. I also remembered that most of the them were quite embittered and left me feeling depressed.

Ironically, one of the analagies that Lewis used was that humans really are like a machine that runs on fuel: ”God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine.” To many of us that idea is painful to come to grasp. We do not want to beleive something unless it is physical and tangible and we are in control. But I also know that none of our materialist endeavers amount in a deep and most importantly, lasting hapiness.

The thing is that we are like machines —in the sense that we can only run on the fuel that the maker of us designed us to run on— and we have to humble ourselves and understand that this state is only a gift. The fuel: Gods gift of Himself, of his love, is simply the most comforting thing, and in fact, it is only disturbing to imagine ourselves once again unsuccessfully turn to the physical and tangible as our sources of hapiness. We need to acknowledge the immaterial and metaphysical feeling motivating us towards good. And then comes the love. Or like C.S. Lewis said, we’re running on the right fuel.

Broken

seriouslythough:

I was just at the beach on my lunch break and was watching a group of 6 kids in the water.  They were all sitting with different parents, so they didn’t know each other before, but had become best friends just because they were the only ones playing in the waves.  I sat there wondering where that freedom from the fear of rejection goes as we grow older.  Is the ability to make temporary friends anywhere, anytime, beaten out of us by people and situations we experience, or do some people still retain it as adults?  Maybe it’s just me who has lost that ability.  I think I’m broken.

 Me too.