BarefootBlog

"More powerful than all poetry,
more pervasive than all science,
more profound that all philosophy,
are the letters of the alphabet,
twenty-six pillars of strength
upon which our culture rests."
--Olof Lagercrantz

Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant. He can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds. But unlike other savants, who can perform similar feats, Tammet can describe how he does it. He speaks seven languages and is even devising his own language.

This article is incredibly interesting. I read it a few days ago and have been thinking about it ever since.

A friend once told me,

"Many of the worlds problems are due to definitions. Definitions of territories, words, and relationships."

Territories - As far as problems over the definitions of territories are concerned, we can look to the Middle East for bloody evidence of that.
Words and Relationships - There are many examples here but in light of the previous, voluminous discussion about Love and perhaps trying to reach a definition thereof, I can see where he is coming from when he refers to the definition of a word or a relationship.

So I think I would agree with my friend, perhaps many of the worlds problems are due to definitions, or more clearly, the lack of clarity of definitions

It's been a little while since I put something up here. I've been pretty busy, but I've got some ideas brewing for some new posts and they are coming soon...

People are still making amazing, insightful comments about Love. We are going to keep this going. Please continue to share and read and think and share. Thank you so much everyone!!! I'm really enjoying this.

I have been pleasantly overwhelmed with the comments to my previous post about love. I highly suggest to anyone who hasn't read them all, that they do so. They are brilliant. Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and insight. I have learned so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

After watching The Wedding Planner, starring J-lo's booty, my freind Darin and I had a conversation about "love." We discussed if it is something that has been completely invented by Hollywood and love-songs. Is it some arbitrary, third-party force that takes-hold of its subjects and forces them to do irrational things. Or is it something more like this:

"Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active verb like "struggle." To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now--and to go on caring even through times that may bring us pain."
-Mr Rogers-
(thanks Emily Price)

What do you think. Is it stardust and moonlight, or is it labor and work, or is it Cupid, or does it even exist? Give me your thoughts. It is Valentine's day after all.

Some of you may also know that I am a huge fan of James Taylor. Well, I found an interview he did with Charles Osgood on "CBS This Morning" and here is a good little tidbit from it. Keep in mind that James is a recovered heroin addict.

“The thing about it is that if you're an addict, it controls your life and your life becomes uncontrollable. And then it's just boring, you know. It's boring and painful, you know, filling your system with something that makes you stare at your shoes for six hours. It just--you know, or for 20 years, you know. It's a waste of time. It's a tragic waste of time.”
-James Taylor during a “CBS This Morning” interview with Charles Osgood

I realize that I have not been posting as frequently lately. I have been pretty busy. I have spent the last few days working on a big assignment for my computer programming class, and that has soaked-up most of my brain power. So I am going to try to once again post more frequently with more little tid-bits of goodness, badness, and most of all realness. Thank you.

"You'd better be careful what you pray for," somebody once said, "because you're going to get it."...

Time after time I've watched it happen, in my life and the lives of people I know. I've tried to find somebody who didn't get what he prayed for, but to date I haven't found him. I believe it: whatever we wrap away in thought is opened for us, one day, in experience.

There was a girl I met in New York, who lived in lived on a tight-packed Brooklyn tenement, acred about by old concrete and cracking brick; by frustration and fear and quick wild violence in the street. I wondered aloud why she didn't get out, move to Ohio or Wyoming country, where she could breathe free and touch the grass once on her life.

"I couldn't do that," she said, "I don't know what it's like out there." And then she said a very honest and knowing thing. "I guess I'm more afraid of what I don't know than I hate what I have right now..."

Better to have riots in the streets, better squalor and subways and sardine crowds, she prayed, that the unknown. As she prayed, she received; she meets nothing now that she hasn't met before.

All at once I saw the obvious. The world is as it is because that is the way we wish it to be. Only as our wish changes does the world change. Whatever we pray for, we get.

Look about, sure enough. Every day the footsteps of answered prayer are ours to walk, we have only to lean forward and walk them, one by one...

From time to time, when I was barnstorming the Midwest a few summers ago, (barnstorm: v to appear at county fairs and carnivals as a stunt flier) a passenger or two would say, "What a great life you have, free to go wherever you want, whenever...Sure wish I could do it." Wistful, like that.

"Come along, then," I'd say. "You can sell tickets, keep the crowds behind the wing, strap the passengers into the front seat. We might make enough money to live on. We might go broke, but you're invited." I could say this, first because I could always use a ticket seller, and second because I knew what the answer would be.

Silence first, then, "Thanks, but you see, I've got my job. If it wasn't for my job, I'd go..." Which was only to say that each wistful one wasn't wistful at all, each had prayed harder for his job that for the life of a barnstormer, as the New York girl had prayed more for her tenement that for the grass of Wyoming or for any other unknown.

I consider this from time to time, flying. We always get what we pray for, like it or not, no excuses accepted. Every day our prayers turn more into fact whom we most want to be, we are. It all sounds like justice to me; I can't say as I mind the way this world is built, at all.

--From "Prayers" by Richard Bach

Many of you know that one of my heroes is Mister Fred Rogers, of the Neighborhood. When I was a younger boy I remember feeling like I was often being rushed by my mother and encouraged to "Hurry up." I, at times, found this frustrating. In fact I remember specifically telling my mother on one occasion, when I was feeling rushed and not allowed to do things the way I wished to do them, I said to her, "Mister Rogers likes me the way I am." As I have grown a little older, I have had the opportunity to read various books and articles about this man that I so admire. I would like to include here a selection from one of those:

"[This is] the way [Mr. Rogers] addressed Boston University's class of 1992 at their baccalaureate service. 'L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux,' he said, quoting from one of his favorite saying from one of his favorite books, The Little Prince, by Saint-Exupery.

'What is essential is invisible to the eye.' It's not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It's the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.
What essential about you is invisible to the eye?

He paused for a long time. That question seemed to grip many in the audience, even the president of the university sitting there in his tassel cap and fancy gold medallion. Then Fred recited a version of 'It's You I Like,' a song he often sings on his television program.

'It's you I like. It's not the things you wear. It's not the way you do your hair, but it's you I like. The way you are right now. The way deep down inside you. Not the things that hide you--not your diplomas, they're just beside you. But it's you I like. Every part of you.

A stillness fell over the crowd. The people sat in silence, thinking about some part of themselves that they had long since forgotten, or some part they had not yet found. Or something else entirely. Whatever it was, a lot of them cried."

"In this great future
you can't forget your past"

--Bob Marley

Okay, so I am not the sharpest pencil in the art-room, but I did just find out how to "respond" to your comments in the "comments" section. I had been wanting to do so earlier, but I couldn't figure out how. Then I looked on my friends blog and discovered that I can do it by merely posting my own comment as a response. Duh! So there you go. Let ye be even more encouraged to leave your own comments here, for I will definitely respond.

Well fellow humans, I, with joy, announce the commencement of another blog that is sure to be fantastic. It just so happens that another one of my best friends Nate Mecham is starting a blog. I already have a link to his website in my "Links." Go to his site. Check out the art, blog, music and other goodies. (I play harmonica on the version of "You Are My Sunshine"). Nate, much like Jared, is brilliant. Some of his writtings have been featured here before, and he is a lot more entertaining than I, so be sure to check his blog regularly. I guarantee that it will be worth it.

Hold on
Baby's gotta hold on.

Sometimes it seems like life comes crashing down on us, with all its immensity and force and uncaring strength. Sometimes we are just left thinking, "What the hell!?!", "Is this really it?!?" And the answer is,"YES!!!! This is it!", "And we get to be a part of it!" For it is that same life with all its same immensity and brute force that comes crashing down on us in so many rainbows and wonders. Forcing us to be constantly amazed by all of it, all the time. The beauty, the ugly, the excitement, the "what the hell!" feelings. All of it. That is what makes it Life and an intense learning experience and amazing and beautiful and exciting. And scary and frightening and overwhelming and nuts. Yes ladies and gentlemen, This is Life, and you and I are officially participants. Grab ahold, and hold on!

If you will refer to an incomplete list of geniuses that I made earlier, you will note that one of those is Jared Orme. Jared is one of my best friends. He is a man that continually amazes me with his insight, honesty, excitement, and beauty. He just emailed me and informed me that he also is starting a blog. What a beautiful thing. I will place a permanent link to his blog in my "links" section (in the sidebar to the right), or for now you can just click here to go to it. He is just starting out, so give him a little time to get warmed up, and check back often, I guarantee it will be worth it.