A "Genius" Video

So here it is. I love this talk. I have felt the very things she mentions. Poems coming up like a linebacker and taking you down on your peaceful walk to a patch of grass. Or a busy day when you don't really have time to be tackled.  But I threw out the idea to Alex, and he backs up the popular idea that we are the genius. And I am wondering now if those two ideas are separate, or if they meet somewhere. 

I believe in inspiration. I believe I am sometimes just an obedient modem for a poem that actually wants, like a physical being, to be recognized. And I write it, and read it later and it's clear that something beyond "me" was happening on the page.

But I believe we can dishonor our genius. We can neglect our inspirations, or reject them outright, having no compassion over ourselves. It starts out as a person thinking of something perhaps only of slight significance. "I want to smile at the stranger." We hear it in ourselves. Someone saying that to us, and we realize for a very small second that it's true. Stranger approaches and something then inside can say yes or no to the desire, to the inclination, to the inspiration, the genius, even...

I know that for those of us who say yes, who always deign to say yes to their artful, brilliant, and good whims, they will head off in the direction of living well. Of becoming so in-tune with their genius, that they can come to understand her. Like a friend. Even having a healthy relationship... When we say yes to the genius ideas, we open the doors of creativity a bit wider, until the door is swung open completely and we are invited not only to visit but to practically move in.

And eventually, maybe Alex is right, and Elizabeth, and the ancients, too. Maybe we have a genius, but maybe we can come so close to it that we lose the lines between us, and we become the thing which is in us, we become brilliant.

LDS Marriage and Family. Thank you kindly Brother Goodman.

What

Girl in class: “You cry in a peaceful way, not painful. You cry because people cannot experience the joy you are feeling.”

So What

I have never experienced the clarity that I do as I live this gospel. Outside of it, the world truly is as in Lehi’s vision, a cloud of dark mist. I remember it. And it’s true. You cried because you were lost, and that you were lost is the only think you knew. You cried because you didn’t understand why you were crying. Because you could not feel the Savior’s compassion over you, but you thought you should. You cried because you actually did believe you were alone and you felt that that wasn’t enough. And then one day you found Him. And you cried again, but this time because of what His atonement does for you: It claims you jealously (as if you can hear Christ saying over you, “She is mine, Satan.”); it allows you to have hope for the world, for your own life, too; it helps you to forgive yourself and others; it allows you to have compassion for yourself and detach from the “old man of sin”; it renews you, makes you gentle and humble; you come to experience charity for everyone you walk past; you finally obtain protection from the gross ambitions of the adversary; so you can finally find direction in the dark mist by grabbing onto the iron rod and running in the direction of that great Tree; and so you can come home.

After all that discovery, you are free in the way you had always wanted to be.

We are not free when we run in random directions in a seemingly unassuming darkness. We are free when we know everything we need to know and then get to decide which way we would have our lives be. And there is not joy greater than having discovered that. And my classmate is right, I think. My greatest sorrows are no longer for myself.

Create

“Everyone has the desire to create something that did not exist before.”

Maybe this is why I have recently felt that conversation is an art… That having meaningful relationships is an art. Because creating connections between unique things and turning out beauty is what creativity is all about. And that’s also exactly what relationships can be. Every human being on earth is so unique, has some deep experience that makes it so they can understand their feelings in a way that no one else ever will. We are all little factories of feelings the world doesn’t know, and ones that it does, too. But there it is. We are unique. And when we can mix unique realities, for example two people, create a bond, and turn out something beautiful, then we have created something.

How to be Alone

Wonderful lonely friends: She affirms our instincts about being alone.

What is something you’ve always wanted to do?

Along the same lines as all my lovely friends answers to this question, I would probably steal the same answer. There are other things I would do too, but it’s late and I conjure any new creative thoughts right now.

But the answer… Reminds me of this daydream and night dream I’ve been stuck in lately. Have you seen inception? Because the dream I’m stuck in feels like that. It’s surreal… I first had it a couple months ago…

I had a dream that words didn’t exist,

And the miracle: that expression didn’t suffer one bit.

That ideas existed hanging in the air, in the yellow sunlight.

The yellow sunlight thick like fog. A haze of illumination…

 

I had a dream that to trade thoughts, feelings, and EVERYTHING occurring inside you, and to feel the very quiet middle of another person, I only had to see them. I only had to look at their eyes… No matter how far away they stood.

Or I only had to sit on park bench with them, not even to look and see them, but to place my hand on their resting hand.

No words.

None.

I wake up trying to reconcile the experience of sitting contently in a world made of silent things and not caring at all that language had never been invented for us. Because I woke up to the remembrance that I LOVE language, I love rhetoric, and I love words.

Then to the realization that I don’t. I only love communion with my brothers and sisters.

I love us. So I chase after your souls by conversation, by words, by poems, and by talking to you, sure…

But I could have existed forever in that dream, in that sunlight, in the infinite and haunting and tender silence.

What is love?

It’s not romance. It’s not a surging moment of excitement around some person. It can’t be. That’s like a hormone. I’m talking about love.

Maybe I should start with platonic love. What is this love stuff made of? How do you know when you’ve felt it? I think it’s much more describable than we make it out to be. And I think it’s much more common too, for some of us. For some, maybe this new definition will destroy all notions of love they thought they had in their lives.

Love is a genuine, deep care for the well-being of another person. I think that’s it. It’s just taking yourself into the shoes, no the heart, even, of another human being and empathizing. It’s feeling their heaviness, feeling their joy. It is becoming the other person for a moment and having an almighty desire for them to find true happiness in life.

I believe that.

But it leaves me wondering where romantic love begins? What is the difference?

I don’t know if there is some sort of mystical element to romantic love, besides the fact that even mere love itself is a miracle.  But for me, at least… being in love, is to sort of allow someone the honor of reciprocating that.

It’s sort of like affirming to another person’s desire to empathize with you and say, “Yes, you can feel what I feel. You do understand. And I would trust you to feel it the right way.” It’s to allow another to sweep in to all of your feelings, your greatest hopes, your most secret fears, and to trust them in the middle of it all to know it as you do.

If you think that my definition here is saying that the person you allow to do this, must agree with you in all things, that’s not what I mean. I haven’t explained it quite right.

I mean only that the person who you love could come in and understand the paths in your brain… why they trail off in the mixed-up directions that they do, why they are wide in some areas, narrow in others… And that their mind would be wired in some way to be able to converse with your  mind. Maybe not one’s mind, maybe their very spirit…

And also, maybe there is some mystical element to it. I have no idea. These are just my most honest thoughts on the subject, perhaps wrong. Perhaps hinging too narrowly on my own personal experiences with life. But I want to know what this “love” is. What’s making the world turn? And how can we understand it, and feel a pure form of it?

Love.

At Each 1:00 AM With You

Debated for 6 months on whether or not I should post this poem.
Decision:

I want to sleep
next
to
you
Just because we were holding hands while
we
were
tired
And I want to wonder
what
you're
thinking
I want to wake up
next
to
you
When the sun comes
poking
through
to light up the room
I want to wake up
in
a
panic.
I want to ask
"how'd
this
happen?"
It happened cause we were sleepy
and
we
quit
talking and just fell asleep
I want to wake up
in
a
panic.
I want to wonder
in
the
night
What's he thinking and
dreaming when he's breathing
so
steady
and
quiet?
I want to wonder
why
your
heart
Beats like a tank
against
my
soul
And I want to wonder
who
you
are
and what made you.
I want to watch your chest
rise
and
fall
so quiet and constant
I
want
to listen
to the room full of your dreams.
So someday
I
do
hope
that we can sleep sweetly
next
to
each other
in our own bed
I hope that I can
wake up
and just
lie there.
Because it's
Sat-
ur-
day.
at noon there's no place to go
but
to stay
I want to wake up
And not
feel like
a rush.
I want you to steal the covers
all
from
me
So I can roll closer
and
steal
them
back
I want to wonder
where it is
you
came
from...

Get-To-Know-You Questions

Good conversation takes effort and planning. Friendships do too. So, in many failures and a few successes, I found that asking people thought-provoking questions really helps. It doesn’t matter if they answer wrong, encourage them to just open themselves to you so you can just see the basic thought-process they go through to get there. Tell them: Interpret widely, answer specifically.

I always change my mind about these questions. And I try not to plan my answers, so I can be in the same boat of figuring my thoughts out as the person I’m asking is.

In varying levels of intensity…

• What is your greatest fear?
• How do you overcome it?
• What is your greatest hope?
• What trait do you admire/value in other people?
• What do you notice first about a person you are getting to know?
• If you had a social resume, and were forced to brag about yourself, what would you say is your greatest personality/character trait? Or, what would you aspire to have it one day be?
• Where did you come from? (A sort of what-made-you-who-you-are-question). A couple big moments or a small quiet process?
• Who is someone who most affected your life or who you are?
• What is your perfect day? Ever.
• What is your life goal?
• What do you think about in your "”quiet”/”greatest” moments? Is there a general theme at least?
• What is your favorite form of art?
• What is something you’ve always wanted to do?
• What would you spend $1 million on? No saving or investing.
• What super power would you want?
• Are you a beach, country, or city person? Or other?
• If you knew you could try anything and not fail, what would you do?
• Favorite childhood memory?
• Life motto?
• What kind of people do you like? Describe your best friend in as much detail as you can.
• In 5 years, what kind of person will you be?
• What’s your major? Why did you choose it? What do you want to do with it?
• What is your language of love?
• words of affirmation
• quality time
• receiving gifts
• acts of service
• physical touch
• If you could have a wish granted, what would it be?
• What’s your favorite season? Why?
• If you could give the world one piece of advice, what would it be?
• What’s your idea of romance? Is it a feeling or an action?
• Have you been in love?
• Do you daydream a lot? About what?
• Favorite books, movies, songs, artists, etc.
• Six flags or camping?
• A week on a dream vacation with your 3 best friends or 10 minutes on the moon by yourself?
• You have 24 hours to live… What do you do? Famous last words?
• You have a month to live… What do you do?
• What makes you angry?
• What makes you happy?
• What makes you sad?
• What is your favorite/most beautiful doctrine?
• Are you a curious person? Do you ever have questions that leave you pondering for long periods of time? Do you have an example?
• Is there a driving question in your life?
• What is happiness to you? What brings it, but also what is it?
• If you were trapped on an island what one thing would you bring? (Not a tool to get you off.)
• If your house were burning down, what one item would you save?
• What is something you’ve always wanted to do?