Learning to Love Amid Modernity

What does humanity mean in the modern age?

Is it Facebook likes
Twitter follows

Replies and hollow
Messages of affection
A reflection of pain
Masked in updates
Notifications
Always able to talk
To new and old friends
But not in person
Separated by screens
Of pixellated writing
Status updates
Often just hiding
The frustration of it all
Building underneath
We’ve built all these walls
Behind the premise of being free
Free to express
Individualistic ideas
To post whatever we wish
From our hopes to our fears
But really we just try to impress our peers
By putting a filter over our heart
To say what we think they’d like to hear

Lets change it
Make it more sincere
Right from the heart
Straight to your ear
We have the power of connection
Whether far or near
Let’s spread the human affection
Compassion meant to share
More than just a link
Or a post to like
Its time to spread the message
That this is life

That as the days and nights roll on by
We can be more than just zombies
Refreshing ad-polluted news feeds
Clickhole sites and lists of pointless things
Let’s not be distracted by a society that thrives on our attention
But rather, lets grow strong
By sharing our affection
Deciding a direction
Finding skills and talents
To form our own expression
Life is the teacher
And class is in session
Until the moment you die
There will be another lesson

Break the Apathy

There we go
Almost lost the show ya know
Couldn’t find the Evernote
Writing stories just to say I wrote
Cause you’ll never know
When you’re gonna grow
Next challenge on the corner
Now you’re stronger and can afford to
Take a hit or two from life
Standing tall like a human being
Supported by a wall
Of friendship and family
Altogether just breathing
The same shared air
On a planet numbered one
Whose story still unsung
A moment to be aware
Of how far we’ve been flung
In a universe both here and there
Polarity undiscovered
Between whats wrong and whats fair
People living separately
Hatred and animosity
With a sense of such ferocity
In difference of another
Take on a heartbeat
Organs still the same
Just the visuals and culture differing
What if we thought differently
Somehow, just magically
Ideal didn’t have to be
So damn far from reality
This is why I’m writing here
An attempt to guide you much more near
A sense of understanding
That questions remain outstanding
And change will only come after the moment we all demand it

—

For those wondering, Evernote is the application I use to record my fleeting thoughts as I go about my days. I’ve been using it pretty consistently for a few months now and it’s beginning to pay off. Here’s one example: My recent post, Blip, was a fleeting thought from last month on August 13th, 9:07 AM. Must have been during my commute into work. That little thought — that fleeting idea — I probably hadn’t thought about since. Upon revisiting the idea during some time spent browsing notes, it struck me as something powerful and worth sharing. And thus, a moment later, a new post was born.

—

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center – Sunrise/Sunset Over Earth (NASA, International Space Station, 07/31/14) (Woah, they took this photo on my birthday. Sweet!)

Currents of Love and Hate

An incredibly creative and skilled friend wrote to me this morning:

Some days I feel like
A hollow shell of talent.
Nothing to show but
Phenomenal works of drawing
To make the world believe
I have it all figured out.

Still barely woken, I had no quick response. I told her that I know what I wanted to say, just not how to articulate it. Told her to expect a poem sometime later tonight. Fortunately, my pen began to hit paper during my commute into work. Here’s my response:

For every breath in
Is followed by an exhale out
Much like confidence
There is no escape from doubt
But know you’re not alone
In trying to make sense of the unknown
For history has shown
There are currents that direct us
Flows of love and hate that build and wreck us
Each new moment, a blank canvas
An opportunity matched with responsibility
To share the Love with respect and dignity
A touch of humility
As you capture the hearts and minds
Of those in your vicinity
With pen in hand
Imagination is how you break free
And you already know it wont be easy

So let go of the illusion
That it will all make sense
Believe that your heart can and will
Reflect onto life’s canvas
That there’s no way to fully plan this

But we can create
Choose to make today great
Open the eyes to those still in a state
Of disillusionment
That their life is more than a passing moment
Your talent is incredible
Raise your chin and own it
Hold on to these emotions
By putting things in motion

For with your art, you express not your understanding
But rather, your imagination in a world of  your planning

I’m quite fortunate to have a friend in which I get to communicate via poem.

If you like coffee-cup art like this, then totally check out more of her work at:
tumblr: Java Doodles
Facebook: Java Doodles

 

 

Blip

The ability to inspire is much more than saying and writing motivating and uplifting thoughts. An ability to inspire requires the capability to affect the environment of those in your presence.

This text is much like a blip on your radar. Here for this moment, capturing your attention. Soon gone, unless you’ve chosen to keep it in your memory.

Inspiration is the by-product of leading a motivating life. Make no mistake that motivation alone can not be created merely for motivation’s sake. It comes as the consequence of a pursuit in something. A dream or a wish accompanied by the strength and support to bring it to life. To create in the midst of silence.

This writing is a blip.

Something so short and barely graspable, but still a blip.

In these seconds that you spend reading and listening to these dreams of mine, I’m ever so slightly affecting your environment.

If your stream of thought is like a train, let this be the message to derail it and lay a new set of tracks.

Let these words become part of the later version of you who remembers this.

Blip.

—

Riccardo Cuppini – Submarine

 

You, too, grew!

As the seasons pass
Like they did ages ago
Are we closer now
To identifying a soul?

As a Human race
Are we more lost
Or in control?

As we can see the roles we have to play
Look in the mirror to see the hands that shape this day

Create!
Bring your work to life
Regardless the truth
I feel this is right
Using emotions and lyrical obsessions
To set life into motion, on this spherical setting
Aware of my limited blessing
Working against time to spread this message:
Life can hurt if you let it
But it’s absurd to live with your head in the dirt

It’s easier to feel as if life is against you
That no matter your actions
You only add more fuel
To the fires that threaten your deepest desires
Stress after stress only work like multipliers
Compounding pain into something more than just deal with
Change mandatory when a mindset’s stuck reeling
And at this very moment, being weaker looks appealing

But stop, breathe
Start to believe
That you already made the choice
To grow and achieve

This moment has renewed
You are more than just you
Believe that this is true
That like plants out in the sun,
You, too, grew!

So stop, breathe
Start to believe
That you already made the choice
To grow and achieve

Though time will move forward
Regardless your choice
Know that I look forward to your work
So that together, we’ll rejoice!

—

Eva the Weaver – Better late than never

 

Remember Our Dreams

Frustrated by mistakes gaining momentum
Feeling bent on
Self destruction
As if I could blow up at any moment
Was so close, but now I’ve thrown it
Blown it
Straight into the wind again
Intentionally just hindering
Capacity to grow, ya know
Recreating my old foes

Now I’m battling woes with prose
Cause I still recognize
An absorbed mind is the ultimate prize
Absent of worry
No concept of time
When lost in the entanglement
Of transforming emotions into rhymes

Remembering this breeze with gratitude persistent
Remember this moment, like the last, here for this instant
Be calm now, internal pain will pass
Remember your wishes
The ones from the beginning
The dream to keep on singing
Keep on living
Despite the desire to throw it all away
Let’s fight together
To make some positive change

—
Moyan Brenn – Dreaming

Woah

That moment when you realize every human being that you pass is also a system comprised of organs comprised of cells comprised of molecules comprised of atoms on a planet zooming around a star that is zooming around a black hole in a galaxy that is one of uncountable galaxies. I’m communicating to you through the ones and zeroes that make up the fabric of modern technology. Transmitting wifi through air to travel incredible distances culminating at your device which translates electricity into pixels that produce this text.

Everything and nothing of existence beautifully intertwined into wondrous polarity of
The in and the out
The big and the small
The self and the other
The atom and the galaxy

A universe aware
A moment to breathe
My verse to share
One for you to read

—

Image: Luis Argerich – The Orion Nebula

Uneasy Pause

“We are paused by the train’s dispatcher”
Stuck in traffic and just want to move faster
Keep up the pace
In the race we call life
Uneasiness takes over in the calmness of the night
Who’s right?
When so many people are coming up with answers
Conflicting ideologies just there to raise and stir
Anger and mistrust among like-bodied people
Still parts of the world where voicing thoughts remain illegal
Masses ruled by the regal
Say of few
Those at the top creating all the rules
With nothing to lose but billion dollar pools
Who view others as inhuman
Like a separate class of mules
Disregarding love and failing to resume it
Guilt-free use of slaves for monetary consuming
Danger looming
At the edifice of time
Angers fueling
Like a mine
Waiting for the trigger
Of a footstep, misstep
A moment to release death
When progress was so real now it feels deflected
Is it too late, or can we redirect it?
Has the ship to a better world sailed off into the distance?
Perhaps from a linear frame of mind
We might have just missed it

—

I wrote this during my morning commute into work. As you may have guessed, the train was stopped and the line that those in NYC have heard many a time became the start of today’s new rhyme.

Anything

You don’t have to be
Anything at all
No, you don’t need to be defined
By linguistically painted walls
Of adjectives
And sentences
That start with: “Oh yeah, That he is!”
No you don’t have to be anything at all

Wise and bright like a shining light
Are fancy ways to bring delight
To egos all around the world tonight

But the time and space that’s in between
The words that you so truly mean
Could never paint the picture
Of the ever finished idea of me

—-

Unlike the majority of my poems, this one originated vocally rather than mentally. The house was empty so I started singing out loud. Eventually, something rhymed enough that I sat down to work on it. I find it crazy how easily time just evaporates when my mind is in the middle of constructing these rhymes. The last 40 minutes of writing this out felt like mere seconds.

 

Emotional Polarity

The highest high you’ve ever felt
Will be matched in intensity with your lowest low
Come to see life as polarity
For no matter where you go
Opposites exist
To balance in flow
You can see it clearly
You already know
That to understand yes
You must think of no
The same holds true
For me and for you
Happiness can only thrive
Alongside sadness too