Tag Archives: beauty

How I Really Feel

22 Mar

Every person’s life is  animated by one of two desires.  We either live to avoid discomfort, or we live to have as much intercourse with the world as possible.

By intercourse, I don’t mean merely sexual intercourse.  I mean a “give and take” with life:  taking in all the myriad things the world offers, and as a result having something meaningful and unique to give back with confidence.  This kind of intercourse almost always involves stepping out of your hiding places.  It’s often emotionally raw and you feel awkward doing it at first.  The reward for doing this, though, is that you feel new pleasures and understandings inthings that you didn’t even know you lacked before.  These pleasures and understandings are impossible without walking through that discomfort.

I suspect that everybody’s life, at times, traffics in both realms:  avoiding discomfort and having as much intercourse as possible.  Clearly, everyone is capable of both.  But make no mistake:  when you look at the lives of others, and when you look at the results of your own life, it’s not difficult to tell which of these desires animates your daily existence.

It’s really that simple.  The two are, over any length of time, absolutely, unconditionally, mutually exclusive.

Which desire animates you?  Which one, when you look back at your life so far, has produced your favorite moments — the give & take or the drive to remain comfortable?  Which, ultimately, has produced deeper comfort in your life?

When your sleepy eyes open tomorrow morning and no one else can hear, ask yourself how you really feel.

The Acoustics of Love

4 Mar

Koo and I, sitting on my couch a few nights ago watching poker, began talking about love.

It started when I asked him whether he felt the women that he had dated had “strong personal boundaries”.  The term, which I’ve taken from Dr. Paul’s usage, implies that the woman is capable of standing up for herself, determining what she wants, generally living on her own terms, and not sacrificing her desires and values and standards to those of the people around her.

You’d think we would favor women with strong personal boundaries.  And, frankly, we do.  But the most interesting part of the conversation came when Koo described women he dated who had strong personal boundaries but whose boundary was so strong that it prevented her from fully experiencing him.   She was missing what Koo called “a certain acoustic”, meaning that she lacked the happy, open space inside of her that could be filled with Koo’s life and enthusiasm.  Or, in his glorious phrasing, where he could “reverberate”.

It’s really rare to find a woman (or any person, for that matter) who has a strong personal boundary — and yet whose boundary is permeable enough that we get the pleasure of seeing our own life and influence reverberate around inside of her.

How strong is your personal boundary?  And to what extent does the life of your partner reverberate inside of you?

We Bonded Over Broken Bones

27 Jan

The concept of this song by Owen is simple enough:  a guy and a girl, strangers, sharing a hospital room for broken bones, start to fall in love.   What the song means, though, and how it’s really helped me to understand my relationships, is after the “keep reading” link below.

Enjoy the song first — it’s short, and light, beautiful, and acoustic.  The lyrics are right below the video.

We bonded over broken bones.
Who’s broke skin, who’s fractured in two places, and whose hurt the most.

We bonded over broken bones.
How many Vicodin we took before bed, how many we sold
to the band sleeping on our floor;
Week one of a two week tour.
God knows, they’ll need it more than us.

You and me; an x-ray machine.
I swear that day you saw straight through me.

We’re two bags of bones, broken and talking
of people we both know in common.
Amongst other things that I shouldn’t mention.

You and me: a hospital love scene.
If only these broken bodies were ours forever.

For the relationship of this song to, well, my relationships, click the “keep reading”.

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Anything You Can Synthesize

7 Jan

I’ll get back to the deeply personal, soul-baring blog posts very soon (they take a little bit to write), but in the meantime check out this mind-blowing video for (who else) The American Dollar.

Yes, that’s all one shot.  Yes, that’s rain on the camera lens.  Yes, that’s brilliant.   (Yes, that’s impossible).

2008: The Year in Review

2 Jan

As usual, this was quite a year.

365 days ago, I was living with spartan furniture in a different city, deeply in love and joined in a life with a woman I no longer even speak to.  It was before Bon Iver, before The American Dollar, before my last birthday night, before the old apartment got new furniture, before Terry Richardson, before The Wire, before Facebook, before David Foster Wallace, before Gossip Girl, before AG, before the real estate project, before the apothecary, before Taleb, before creating the Legacy Strategy movement, before starting to make it work, before EB White, before the trips to Jersey City, before de Botton, before the summer, before love walked away with little explanation, before the aftermath, before the healing, before the new spots, before the new people, before the midnight swims and the new apartment, before Bammers and a whole new generation of change, before the new clothes, before the new deals, before the  marriage proposal videos, before feeling the whole world rush through me again, before the new friends, and — most of all  — before being completely changed by Alice Miller’s work on the origins of grandiosity & depression in the lives of adults.

The great lesson is that I have no idea — none whatsoever — what life will look like in a year.

And there’s something beautiful about that.

We.  Shall.  See.

What a Night

29 Dec

Last night with Jabes was possibly the most incredible night I’ve ever had at MT in Williamsburg — and I’ve had some incredible nights there.

I sat there listening to The American Dollar, live, ten feet from me, and the music was even more gorgeous, more breathtaking in person.  I sat there with tears just streaming down my cheeks, trying to remember to breathe.   I almost had to walk out because I didn’t think I could contain any more beauty.   That kind of experience, on top of unforgettable food and wine, is what MT was built for.

After the jump is actual video from the previous time The American Dollar played there, which was their first live show ever.   Watching this poorly made video is obviously nothing like what it feels like to be sitting there with the drums reverberating through your sternum, but for those of you who don’t know of this music yet, well, here it is.

The video is here after the jump — Stick around at least until the drums come in right before the two minute mark.

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