(via poetdreamer)
Anatomy of Emotion
I once heard that joy is felt in the chest, sadness is felt in the heart, fear is felt in the mind, and guilt is felt in the stomach. But what of love? Where do you feel it? What does it feel like - or is it even a thing to be felt? Anger feels hot. Loneliness feels cold and guilt feels heavy. But what of love?
Happy couples say they feel lighter. Is that it? To be loved, is it to feel…lifted? The dictionary says “love is an intense feeling of deep affection.” Such distant words for so involved an emotion. Remove the redundant adjectives and what are you left with? “Love is a feeling of affection.” Is that all?
It is a curiosity that we say we wish to “be” loved. “Be,” not “feel.” It is wonderful to feel loved, yes, but if it is just that - a feeling - then it means nothing. Perhaps this is because “happy,” “sad,” and “angry” are descriptions, but “loved” is a designation. It captures, in a single word, an emotion, a state of being, a commitment, and a relationship. I feel loved. I am loved. I love you and you love me, always. If joy is a firework, then love is a patient candle.
Patient, kind. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love is joy, love is sadness, love is warmth, love is cold. And it is felt from head to toe.
They say that
if something comes from nothing
it must be proof of God
But I dare not claim
that my thoughts of you,
spontaneous and random,
should prove such things
For if it did,
then I,
ambling down a concrete path,
would validate a new religion with every step
I would stroll through the park
and watch the isms come alive
But,
No, no,
my thoughts of you prove nothing
except that I love you,
that I love you very much
Hægt, Kemur Ljósið
Ólafur Arnalds — ...And They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness (Bonus Edition)
Once We Are Free
Why are we so quiet? A hushed generation, persisting down paths already paved. Living lives that have already been lived. To what end? In fifty years’ time, when your youthfulness has been spent and your eagerness weakened by the weight of two hundred seasons, what will remain? It is a common practice to shield oneself from the threat of mediocrity with humor and wit - to laugh away the imminence of death - but such things are merely salves for a greater wound. If we were to be freed from sarcasm, with our protective wit disengaged and our humanness exposed, what could be accomplished?
To achieve Greatness, in one form or another - surely, this is the quiet aspiration of all men and women. But we have mistaken the pursuit of Greatness as a pursuit of power and pride. This has altered the nature of Failure - it was once a source of wisdom, it is now a source of shame. And this shouldn’t be so.
What is it you want? I wish to be proud of the life I live. To be told, at life’s end: “You have done well, you deserve your rest.” To see a smile and know that I was the cause. Is that so beyond me, or beyond you? Is there any reason that Greatness should be anything other than another destination, reachable by ordinary steps?
So the question remains: what is stopping you? What is it that quiets your passions; what stills your hand when you move to act? To reach Greatness, merely start walking, and do not stop. Just one step, and you are already leaps and bounds ahead of those who chose to stay still. And when you fall - and you most certainly will fall - learn what there is to be learned, then let your failures further empower your ascent. Ever forward, ever faster - never stop.
“Your taste…. is still killer” - Ira Glass
Ask the sleepy dreamer why she spends all day in bed, and she will whisper in response:
“Because, my love,
Reality is, but
Dreams can be.”
Then she’ll kidnap the cat into her pillow fortress and yell for food.
Small Beginnings
The greatest addictions
born of a moment’s weakness
Every defiant anthem
born of a single note
You, me, all of us
From cells to flesh,
and from flesh to love
It is true what they say.
Big things have small beginnings
And what are we,
but specks,
but dust?
(via sdlguhglidugh)
(via madthoughts)
