There's a difference between feeling connected and being connected.

There's a difference between sounding smart and being smart.

There's a difference between trying to help and helping.

There's a difference between liking each other and being good for one another.

There's a difference between wanting to be in love and being in love.

'Tis a world of appearances, one of wandering ghosts, in which the truth is hard to find.

O Winter, take captive my heart!

Bury thy treasures deep within me,

Stillness wafting over the houses,

The setting of snow setting me free.

I.  He

We'll be depressed, obsessed,

underdressed, literary finesse,

Deep in the night, sleepless,

yet careless, for friendship is

the only thing that is tireless.

II.  She

Surrounding glow, amidst

abounding snow, and now

I know, whereabout you go,

Despite having found it slow,

You come from a fairy land

for I heard your sound below

the drowning snow,

your forever whisper:

'The only time I frown so

is when I know

I cannot bound to and fro

between here and the fairy land,

whence I learned how to glow

many thousands of years ago.'

III.  Memory

That summer night, a brilliant host of stars,

Lake Huron was sure on alarm for our arms

to reach on high for what truly wasn't ours,

Our feet at the beach, we left the car at the park

And maybe if it doesn't start, we'll finally start

to see it was our prison bars, keeping us far

from living large, a life full of the glorious art

That God has imparted deep inside our hearts

Watching the univere, I'm glad I am a part

But then again, what if we two were apart?

For the cold planet of Mars knows no scars,

No tears nor tar, no fears, no one far—

but aren't our friends where our lives truly are?

O Winter, take captive my life!

I wish your presence eternal,

For I know the deep truths of love,

When the world you encircle.

IV. We

Our hearts fly and flutter,

a start and a stutter,

cuddled lovers under covers,

rudders aimed at the summer,

holding on dearly to each other.

What filthy gullies and gutters!

But you hug her,

chase away her hunger,

say that you love her,

for winter's here to let us know

that we need one another.

O Winter, take captive the world!

And stamp out our defiance,

For we most clearly see our evil,

amidst the holiness of silence.

You care about things you should not care about, and do not care about things you should care about.  But do you care about that?

We have been put into a world where we're bound to miss things: one place at a time, one time at a time.

Make sure you bury yourself in someone else; you'll forget on your own.

A life focused on just the world, and a life focused on just God: both are meaningless.

Silence is the greatest arrogance.  Not only are you beneath refutation, you are beneath explaining that you are beneath refutation.

When we need other people we realize that other people have something we want.  But if other people have something we want, that means you have that something too.  Think about being a giver before being a taker.

I like people who believe things.  They know commitment is the only thing that makes anything in life worthwhile.  But I like the unconfident.  They are honest about how much they can truly figure out.  So who is right?

Today is young; let it mature and ripen, let it age and grow. I go now back into the effervescent glow.

Recently I was thinking about why it is that humans kill animals and don't feel bad about it, but when they kill other humans we think they have done something terrible.  And then it struck me.

Animals are naked.

If you kill a clothed creature, of course you have committed a heinous crime.  But if it's naked, who cares? 

I have several pieces of evidence to support my theory.

1) No animals wear clothing.  There are no Pooh bears out there in nature wearing little red shirts.  Doesn't happen.  Some of them have fur, but other than that the animal kingdom is one big nudist colony.  Could this really be just a coincidence?

2) Humans feel the need to put on their clothes in private, and they immediately panic if anyone happens to intrude on them doing so.  This is because humans want to survive.  Naturally, they are going to become crazed and afraid whenever they feel that survival is threatened - such as when they are naked.

3) This is what makes sex so special.  It is two people naked together.  So having sex with someone is like saying, "I trust you to not kill me.  We're naked, which means you could and it would be 'off the record'.  But I trust you."  How beautiful. 

There do exist some humans so nefarious in composition that they kill humans even when they have their clothes on.  But we all know those humans are crazy.  Someday I'll write a dramatic movie scene where one guy has a gun pointed at him by another guy and says, "Dude, I've got my clothes on, don't do this."  And everyone in the audience will be in tears, because he does have his clothes on, and thanks to the costume department it will be a brilliantly good-looking outfit.  What a tragedy.

Little did you know as you get changed each morning you are in fact putting on 'soft armor'.  You are taking away other people's licenses to kill you.  Again, this is why the dream where you go to school without your clothes on is such a nightmare.  This is why streaking is so insane.  People putting their lives on the line - and for what?  Being the life of a party of drunken people?  Really so worth it?

So please please please - wear your clothes.  Your life depends on it.

People don't sympathize with squirrels enough.  Just imagine that you lived in a world where two thousand pound squirrels were constantly running all over the place at sixty miles per hour.  (After they had destroyed your home so that they could run all over in the first place.)  You want to go over to your friend Suzy's house, but then - SPLAT! - two thousand squirrel out of nowhere. 

Most people suspect squirrels of being nuisances on purpose.  I think they are just misunderstood.

Some people deserve to be misunderstood though.  Recently I met a girl who cannot eat foods that are primary colors.  She said when she was growing up she would never eat anything given to her that had a color on it. 

See, squirrels just want to live and frolic around and bury food for later.  But to not eat certain colors is kind of missing the point of eating.  You can't make fashion statements inside your body.

There is a big problem I am coming to in my life concerning sponges.  Sometimes I will need a fork, but there are no clean forks available.  Standard procedure so far in my life has been to squirt some dish soap on a fork, scrub it with a sponge, and then dry and use it for eating whatever food I’m making.

Here is the problem.  I don't care how much soap you smother the fork with.  There are some sponges that simply have too much food crusted on, too many menacing and extravagant colors swirling on them, too much a feeling of having been bought in ancient times, to be believed to actually clean anything.  Here, colors actually do matter. 

And most of the time only a dirty sponge is available.  So what am I supposed to do?  Eat spaghetti with a spoon?  Of course, with almost any clothing, that's suicide.  A different kind of SPLAT! happens here and there goes your t-shirt.  Again, here is an instance where colors matter. 

We think lots of crazy things.  Sometimes we think just because something touched a trash bag (perhaps a brand new one) that it's now 'trash', and therefore automatically dirty.  Sometimes we think just because sponges are meant for cleaning things, they are automatically clean.  We are fools with cartoon minds using plastic scissors to navigate the world.

If you get nothing else out of this, which is probable, take this away: be wary of thy sponges. 

So thee long.

Some galaxies collide with other galaxies and all I can think is, that is going to be a huge insurance mess.

Long-term thinking? Who does that?  Not people who are happy, let me tell you that.  You think children do much long-term thinking?  No.  And they're some of the happiest people on the planet.

I had an enemy once, but we never understood each other so we thought we were great friends.

Someone told me I was too self-conscious so I became a Buddhist.

I wish I could crash study for the dentist by just brushing really hard the night before.

We talked so much that all possibility of communication was thoroughly lost.

I wouldn't like using a roller backpack on campus, because every now and then I would forget what I was doing and think that I had missed my flight.

I feel like a misanthrope whenever I use the self-checkout. "I don't need help from you, you, you PEOPLE!"

It's snowing, and I love life and friends! Be extraordinary! So long!

Here is my New Year's Resolution: To kill more monsters. 

Why is this my resolution?  Well basically, because it gets the chicks.  Chicks really dig this resolution for the following reasons.

1. If I say I want to kill more monsters that means I already kill monsters.  And girls love guys who kill monsters.  Killing monsters is extremely hard, and that means I must be extremely strong.  My lanky cross-crounty-running frame must be an illusion, they'll reason, because he's resolving to kill more monsters.

2. Girls hate monsters.  They just can't stand them.  This means girls like a guy who will be able to keep the monsters away.  Especially because it means I will be able to keep our children happy when they are scared of monsters at night.  Marrying a successful monster-killer usually helps with stuff like that.

3. Resolving to kill more monsters is quite a lofty goal; it takes lots of taekwondo, crossbow, and disapparation lessons.  And girls love guys who aim high.  Especially with respect to crossbows: if you want to kill a monster on the first try, you really have to aim for the head.

4. This resolution has a strong implication that I am not a monster.  And since girls hate monsters, marrying one is one of the worst things they can do.  Not only would they never forgive themselves, but their girlfriends would never stop making fun of them for it either.  "Susy married a monster, Susy married a monster! Have fun cleaning up all those dishes! Ha ha ha!"  (Monsters leave a horrible mess when eating.)

In other words, this is looking to be a pretty good year. 

In the parking lot at Cane's, I felt my soul come alive.  I was not expecting it, the wind, the sun, the old joy from years when we were young and our lives had not become complicated beyond repair.  We would go to one another’s' houses, the adult somewhere.  But in our rooms we would have cards, and there was a whole big idea of adventure everywhere.  We could go to the creek, we could play in the street, we could see inside other houses.  How the sun glowed over everything in the days of my youth. 

Laughing in fields, with high swaying winds.  I feel the coolness, yet my skin is warm, and life has crawled underneath of it and is filling me with sorrow and meaning, for this is life, and it is beautiful because of the speed with which it comes and goes.  What a curious thing the memory is.  If you felt totally different at another time of life, you would never know it unless you buried the memory in something that would cause everything to come back.  The wind blowing and the warmth of the days reminds me of running.  But we do not truly remember - we are now, and the experience is in our minds.  Experiences can truly happen only once.  Every memory is a false memory. 

Are there those out there who do not feel the glory of their days?  When the sun is behind the clouds, and the sky seems huge, do they not feel that life is an awesome thing, that it is incredible we get to be in it?  Does the force of the emotion not stir in them, does it not well up until they are speechless with wonder? 

A man may doubt what he thinks, but he will never doubt what he feels.

Leaving Emily's and realizing how warm out it was, and the moistness covering the roads, with a big black sky covering the city's night life, I felt adventurous.  Where were we to go?  What was to happen?  These are the same fellows I've known for years, and here we are: we are alive.  The whole world has just joined together in watching as time goes by.  We are participating together.  Are we not together in the search for life and joy as well?

My childhood days are mostly gone.  I cannot get back what happened.  So much happens every day, I am sure I forget most of it.  But I know where I was, what sorts of things went on, and today, looking back, and seeing how everything evolves in life, makes it seem amazing that such a thing should happen to such creatures, and for it all to mean nothing.  That would be truly incredible. 

But life has been imparted to us; respond to the gift as it appears to you.  It is resplendent, and fills us with a giddy feeling of joy and a deep sense of mystery; its elements combine to create in us a feeling we would never trade, not for the most brilliant host of stars.  I am glad I grew up in the universe.  I am glad I got a life.  You can move around, there are other people; you can sing and dance and laugh and say hello.  You can become a person and love others, and they will love you back.  What a marvelous thing to be, this body with limbs for loving others! 

What a beautiful God there must be, I have heard someone say.  Do you believe it?  Could these warm sunny days be explained without him?  The weather makes me believe in God.  I am happy to be alive.