Nos terres, ils se rencontrent ensemble à la grande plaine ouverte.
Drop the Frames; Remove the Schema
2009Dec5 at 1249 (Conversations in my Head, Heart's Land, Personal Life, Poetry, Thinkables)
Tags: artistic, concrete, connection, crash, criteria, drawn, experience, frames, image, imagination, imagine, light, memo, object, return to dust, schema, sight, sign, simple, situation, specific, story, truth, unique, view
Drop the frames
Remove the schema
Let them crash
And return to dust
Take each experience
Let it be as it is
Connect to it uniquely
However that is for you
Sign the memo
With something specific
With something artistic
True to your view, and the situation
Draw an image for yourself
Imagine a simple thing
That from its concreteness
The full story can be drawn
Put that object away
In a specific place
With similar criteria
Put it somewhere well-lit
So that you can see your imagination in detail.
To Do, in Life:
2009Nov1 at 1108 (Heart Thoughts, Personal Life, Statements, Thinkables)
Tags: action, awareness, bad, communication, comprehension, do, ecouraging, good, life, presentation, questions, right, schema, students, Teacher, thought, words, wrong
As a “teacher” (or a person in general): ask questions that makes “students” more aware of what they think, do & say and how they respond to others thoughts, actions & words by encouraging them to communicate/comprehend their own schema with one another (rather than present to them any one schema as “right” or “wrong” and/or “good” or “bad”).
What is hope to me?
2009Nov1 at 1154 (Thinkables)
Tags: accuracy, action, ambiguous, articulation, belief, discovered, doubt, experience, explanation, extension, future, growth, hope, imagination, indefinite, inherent, language, life, past, reality, recursive, truth
[A general question sent to the student population at my university. I answered conceptually of course]
From my experience, hope is discovered and grown; not inherent, in life.
It is something that one imagines, even if ambiguous or indefinite, and something that one believes, even if doubtfully, as a possible reality. It generally looks to the future, sometimes recursively as well, for an explanation of something in the past.
This hope grows stronger through language, an accurate articulation of its truth, and action, extended from oneself to move toward that imagined and believed reality.
I believe the most balanced and sensible hope is discovered in and grown from relationships.
Decision: How Will I Respond to the World?
2009Oct31 at 1016 (Conversations in my Head, Personal Life, Statements, Thinkables)
Tags: ability, circumstances, control, decision, emotionally, enjoy, environment, expansion, expectations, fulfillment, function, knowledge, limitation, made for myself, mentally, people, physically, potential, power, requirements, response, spiritually, structuring, understanding, world
I musn’t have the expectation to control or over-power the environment, circumstances or people around me. I must require control of and power over myself; physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, etc. There may be more and more accurate structuring of these, but to know and understand their function, potential, limitation, and the like, will expand my ability to fulfill and enjoy this requirement.
On Language Learning: Just an Observation
2009Oct31 at 1003 (Conversations in my Head, Personal Life)
Tags: foreign land, foreign language, foreign places, issue, language, learning, observation, personal
Learning a foreign language without a foreign land: personal issue.
Unfinished Things
2009Oct10 at 1020 (Personal Life, Poetry)
Tags: beyond, branch, closure, connection, dead, existance, fullness, healing, hear, heavy, humility, life, limp, relationship, remaining, remember, resolution, sadness, severed, sight, source, strength, time, tree of life, understanding, unfinished, weight, world
There are unfinished things
That must go beyond this world
Like relationships without closure, without resolution
Like a dead branch
Severed by a crack
Hanging limp from the tree of life
Not falling, not leaving
Because its source of life still exists in the world
But there is no longer a connection
And there was no healing, no understanding, no humility
Until it was too late
Occasionally now,
The creaking of its dead fibers
Reach my ears and draw my eyes to the memories of its fullness and strength
But its weight still hangs
Heavy and limp with sadness
Reminding me then,
There are unfinished things
تجربتي
2009Oct4 at 1048 (Community, Personal Life, Poetry, Statements, Thinkables)
Tags: decisions, find, foriegn places, home, knowledge, leave, lost, people, places, return, search
في الأماكن الغريبة، نبحث عن الأشياء التي في أوطاننا لم نجدها
ولكن، إذا نكف عن التفكير في الأشياء في الأماكن الغريبة
سنرى، الأشياء التي كانت ضائعة، إن شاء الله، في أوطاننا
وبعد ذلك، سنقرر أن نرجع، إن شاء الله، إلى أوطاننا
فلا نترك، الأماكن و الأشخاص الذين يعرفوننا دائما دائما
Life to Start…
2009Sep1 at 0937 (Personal Life, Poetry, To My Love)
Tags: acid, adequate, Africa, anger, bloodshot, body, boil, burning, Chinese, coffee, computer, earth, empty, escape, eyes, feelings, fire, forsake, give, heat, life, milk, mouth, night, perfect, remember, scream, sea, stare, start, sting, stomach, sugar, touch, violence, waiting, wanting, water, wrong place, wrong time
Anger rushes through my body
The Fire bursts out from within
Shooting from my bloodshot eyes
Violently escaping from my screaming mouth
I want to burn the whole of Africa
And boil the seas between us
That the water might touch you
And sting you with its heat
That you might remember:
I am here!
On this Earth.
Do not forsake me!
But the only thing that escapes my mouth
Is the acid in my stomach
As the home-cooked Chinese food
And the two cups of sugar and milk with coffee
Attempt to reckon with my empty bowels.
And my eyes stare at the computer screen
Hours into the night;
Waiting at the wrong time,
Wanting in the wrong place.
Neither of us are perfect,
Nor adequate to give.
I feel as if I’m waiting for life to start.
