The Writings on the Wall

He said it. and he said it beautifully.

2009-10-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

This isn't torture.

Torture happens in small, dark rooms in countries with names you struggle to spell.

This is just mildly unpleasant.

This isn't heroism.

Heroism happens in churches that are also schools, performed by teachers with no names and no place to stay.

This is just a good deed for the day.

This isn't loss.

Loss happens on fields filled with poppies, in hospitals buzzing with flies, in distant deserts and late at night when there's no good reason for the phone to ring.

This is just longing.

This isn't important.

Important happens on bended knees and is breathed on last breaths with hands clutched tight, hearts tighter.

This is just a distraction.

- Iain Thomas. (IWTFY)

On things

2009-09-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

"For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit... start whenever you want... you can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it.I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

Benjamin Button - From The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

.

on the knots

2009-08-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

أنا شاب لكن عمري ألف عام
وحيد لكن بين ضلوعي زحام
خايف و لكن خوفي مني أنا
أخرس و لكن قلبي مليان كلام
وعجبي

___

يا باب يا مقفول ... إمتي الدخول
صبرت ياما و اللي يصبر ينول
دقيت سنين ... و الرد يرجع لي : مين ؟
لو كنت عارف مين أنا كنت أقول
وعجبي

___

أنا كنت شئ و صبحت شئ ثم شــئ
شوف ربنا .. قادرعلي كل شـــــــئ
هز الشجر شواشيه ووشوشني قال :
لابد ما يموت شئ عشان يحيا شئ
وعجبي

___

حاسب من الاحزان و حاســـــــب لها
حاسب علي رقابيك من حبلـــــــــــها
راح تنتهي و لابد راح تنتهــــــــــي
مش انتهت أحزان من قبلهــــــــــا؟
وعجبي

___

ولدي نصحتك لما صوتي اتنبــــــــــــح
ما تخفش من جني و لا من شبـــــــــح
و ان هب فيك عفريت قتيل إسألـــــــــه
ما دافعش ليه عن نفسه يوم ما اندبح
وعجبي

___

رباعيات صلاح چاهين

on the only eternity

2009-08-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

"You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, Peter Pan. That's where I'll be waiting."

*Tinkerbell*

On Do.s

2009-01-31T13:04:00.000-08:00

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.

Shel Silverstein

On Human Firewalls

2009-01-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

I would like to be soft and warm. I would be terrified to be that way. I could be hurt if I were soft and warm. I could be hurt by something other than myself. It is harder to be soft than it is to be hard. I could be hurt by something other than myself.

~ a million little pieces : James Frey

On "nice"

2008-11-18T23:53:00.000-08:00

Nice is the word people use to fill in the blanks. It is the word they use when they can not think of a better adjective, or are just too lazy to utter one. Nice is the word people use to remain on cultural sidelines, avoid confrontation or isolation. Nice, is in fact, not nice at all.

Amino_a fellow x.blogger

On catharsis

2008-10-19T10:23:00.001-07:00

I'm One Stop
From A Breakdown
Two Steps From
Being Safe
Just Try To
See This Through
I'm Three Steps
From This Nightmare
And Four Steps
From The Door
The Rest Is
Up To You

Pardon Me While I
Just Turn My Back
And Walk Away
Pardon Me If I
Can't Listen
To The Things
You Say
Pardon Me If I
Can't Fake It
While You Still Believe
Pardon Me

I'm One Step
From Forgiveness
And Two Steps
From My Grave
We're All Just
Passing Through
Three Steps
From Redemption
Four From The
Devil's Door
On A Path
That Leads To You

Pardon Me While I
Just Turn My Back
And Walk Away
Pardon Me If I
Can't Listen
To The Things
You Say
Pardon Me If I
Can't Fake This
While You Still Believe
Pardon Me

Pardon Me While I
Just Turn My Back
And Walk Away
Pardon Me If I
Can't Listen
To The Things
You Say
Pardon Me If I
Can't Fake It
While You Still Believe
Pardon Me

I'm Two Steps
From Salvation
But I'm Only
Taking One
Pardon Me

Staind - Pardon Me

On the Past

2008-10-14T02:12:00.000-07:00

(Simba burps off-screen)
: Timon: Whoa! Nice one, Simba.; Simba: Thanks. Man, I'm stuffed.; Pumbaa: Me too. I ate like a pig!; Simba: Pumbaa, you are a pig.; Pumbaa: Oh. Right.; (all three sigh loudly); Pumbaa: Timon, ever wonder what those sparkly dots are up there?; Timon: Pumbaa, I don't wonder; I know.; Pumbaa: Oh. What are they?; Timon: They're fireflies. Fireflies that, uh... got stuck up in that big bluish-black thing.; Pumbaa: Oh, gee. I always thought they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.; Timon: Pumbaa, with you, everything's gas.

*****

Pumbaa: What did you do, kid?; Simba: Something terrible. I don't want to talk about it.; Timon: Good, we don't wanna hear about it!; Pumbaa: Come on, Timon. (to Simba) Anything we can do?; Simba: Not unless you can change the past.; Pumbaa: (trying to cheer him up) Kid, at times like this, my buddy Timon here says "You gotta put your behind in your past!"--; Timon: No, no no!; Pumbaa: I mean, uh--; Timon: Amateur. Lie down, before you hurt yourself. (to Simba) It's "You gotta put your past behind you." Look, kid, bad things happen, and you can't do anything about it, right?; Simba: Right.; Timon: WRONG! "When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world!"; Simba: Well, that's not what I was taught.; Timon: Then maybe you need a new lesson...

*****

Simba: Going back means I'll have to face my past. I've been hiding from it for so long...

(Rafiki whacks Simba on the head with his stick)

Simba: OW! Geez, what was that for?!

Rafiki: It doesn't matter! It's in the past! (chuckles)

Simba: Yeah, but it still hurts.

Rafiki: Oh, yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it.

(Rafiki swings his stick, but Simba ducks)

Rafiki: Aha! You see? So what are you going to do?

Simba: Well first, I'm gonna take your stick. (grabs Rafiki's stick)

*****

On Freedom

2008-10-11T01:45:00.000-07:00

How can I set free anyone who doesn't have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom? I think it's a lie – people claim they want to be free – everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most, the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that's bullshit! People are terrified to be set free – they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their security…How can they expect me or anyone else to set them free if they don't really want to be free?

–– Jim Morrison

On getting mad

2008-10-03T04:31:00.000-07:00

I don't have to tell you things are bad.

Everybody knows things are bad.

It's a depression.

Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'
Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first you've got to get mad.

You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell,
'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'

I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!'
Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:

I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!

[Howard Beale||The Network}

On the nexts

2008-08-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

"They call the wooden blinds "sheesh" and tell me it's the Persian word for glass. So that which sits next to a thing is called by its name. I have had this thought many times and feel as though I should draw some conclusion from it, but so far I haven't."

Ahdaf Soueif - Sandpiper

contributed by: Evaluna

On the essence

2008-08-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Who dares deny that this is true:  
The whole is more than all its parts? 
A whole love than divided love,
 Or than half love from fifty hearts? 
Yet who dare either this deny: 
The part is more than is the whole?
 That treasures halved with one dear love 
Are more than double to the soul?  

Arthur Dillon

On Beings

2008-08-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Shakespeare - All the world's a stage (from As You Like It 2/7) -

On Magic

2008-07-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. When I was twelve, the words was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present, and into the future. We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see out destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put in the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we’re told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wilderness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad at what they allowed to whither in themselves. After you get so far away fro it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get all weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theatre, the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm. The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks, and get crippled. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know its happening until one day you feel like you’ve lost something, but you’re not sure what it is.

Robert McCammon

On Love

2008-07-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-y

ou-apart pain. I hate love”.

- Neil Gaiman

The Funny Thing

2008-04-17T15:24:00.000-07:00

+Sometimes it still hurts. You know how it is, man. It's like, you wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And the funny thing is, is that, this is kinda weird, but it's like, it's like you almost miss that pain.

-You miss the pain?

+Yeah, for the same reason that you missed her... because you lived with it for so long.

Mike and Rob ~ Swingers

Your truth

2007-06-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Tyler Durden ~ Fight Club

Wax

2007-03-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

"Someone wise out there once said: It's like melted wax. Its burns at first but then, you get used to the pain."

- A Friend

The Run

2007-01-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road, and when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County. And I figured since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason, I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured since I've gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going. When I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry, I ate. When I had to go, you know, I went.

Forrest Gump

The Heart

2007-01-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

The heart itself is only a small vessel,
yet dragons are there, and lions,
there are poisonous beasts,
and all the treasures of evil,
there are rough and uneven roads,
there are precipes;
but there too is God and the angels,
life is there, and the Kingdom,
there too is light, and there the apostles
and heavenly cities,
and treasures of grace
All things lie within that little space.

Makrios The Great

The Crazy

2007-01-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in a square hole, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things. They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, and are the ones who'll do it."

Apple Computer - TV Ad

The Letting Go

2006-12-29T14:09:00.000-08:00

I believe we write our own stories. And each time we think we know the end - we don't. Perhaps luck exists somewhere between the world of planning, the world of chance, and in peace that comes from knowing that you just can't know it all. You know, life's funny that way. Once you let go of the wheel, you might end up right where you belong.

Stacy – Little Black Book

The World's Beauty

2006-12-25T03:45:00.000-08:00

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me. But it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world.
Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.
You have no idea what I am talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry. You will someday.

Lester – American beauty

Pain

2006-12-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

Pain is your friend, your ally, it will tell you when you are seriously injured. It will keep you awake and angry and remind you to finish the job and get the hell home. But you know the best thing about pain? .... it lets you know you're not dead yet.

Viggo Mortensen - G.I. Jane

is this thing working?

2006-12-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

is it? is it? is it?

The Writings on the Wall

He said it. and he said it beautifully.

On things

on the knots

on the only eternity

On Do.s

On Human Firewalls

On "nice"

On catharsis

On *the Past*

On Freedom

On getting mad

On the nexts

On the essence

On Beings

On Magic

On Love

The Funny Thing

Your truth

Wax

The Run

The Heart

The Crazy

The Letting Go

The World's Beauty

Pain

is this thing working?

On the Past