Shout at screaming waves, shout at silent rocks
Lately I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen, I can’t help but worry. I know that worrying is as useful as trying to cool yourself down by turning up the heat. But we do, we can’t help it. I believe that the passion in every person comes from the need to belong. The need to belong to whatever it is we’re doing here, to make an impression. The only way we can do this, is through other people somehow knowing of something we left behind.
I want to leave something behind when I’m no longer here. I don’t want a monument, or a day to be celebrated in my name. I want to better someone, just one person. Not better that person in the way of trying to change who they are, or how they think. But bettering that person by enriching their life. I want them to know that there is no big secret. There is no large mystery. There is life, there is love, there are words, memories, and thoughts. Those words, memories and thoughts are saved and jumbled up into passions. Those passions are taken, and the lives are lived.
No single life lived is better than another. No person stronger, or weaker than another. We are all born to live, and from the moment born, we‘re living just to die. What you make of it is up to chance and your possibilities are great. You may be born into money, you may be born in an alley. No matter where you take your first breath, you’ve got the chance to take your life and mould it into something beautiful.
There will be days when you feel like you just can’t go on, days you feel that the world has come crashing down around you. There will be days in which you can’t describe the happiness you feel, and the appreciation for life as you know it. Lonely nights and days alone when anyone’s hand to hold seems too far to grasp onto. Days packed full of people, places and sounds that will overwhelm you to the point of exhaustion. You will gain, and you will lose. You will lose sleep. You will lose sleep worrying about worrying. You will lose sleep over worrying about someone.
You will lose days. Lost simply because you didn’t stop to look around, to notice the details, and breathe it all in. You will lose weight. You will lose friends, love, trust, and sometimes hope. You will gain memories, you will put up walls in your mind. You will gain relationships with others, you will gain a relationship with yourself. You’ll gain trust, happiness, sadness, anger and emotional ups and downs.
You will gain weight. You will close off the bad once it has stopped hurting. Some bad will hurt forever. Some doors just don’t open, and some just won’t close. Accept the inevitability that you will grow. You will become who you are, even if you won’t pause to get to know that person. One day you’ll raise your head, look around, and wonder how you got to wherever you may be. Your heart will break. You will be crushed. You will love and be loved, even if you never show it, or tell a single soul.
There will be words. Words will be spoken, taken, given, remembered, forgotten, cherished, and hated. Words will hurt you, calm you down, make you laugh, make you think, and make you remember. You will bleed. You will have a headache. You will have a stomach ache. From time to time you’ll wonder, what if? What if you’d walked away--what if you’d stayed? What if you’d told them how you felt, what if you’d taken that chance. Remember that the worries we derive from ourselves, the regrets, the unanswered questions… They’re all pointless.
You have one chance. Everything really is going to be okay. Every door you slam shut, opens a door to a new place you may have never imagined. Everything really does happen for a reason, though in some situations you may never figure out what that is. You are unique, and you are beautiful. Someone once told me that it’s impossible for a person to truly be unique. That every thought, word and emotion has been thought, spoken and felt before. This is partly true. Somewhere along the infinite sands of time, someone has had the same thought. Someone has said the same word. But when it comes to emotion, can you really be sure? How can you tell me that the emotion of love that courses through your body, is the exact same that flows through mine? No one will ever experience the same life, and in that way, you are unique.
Make every inch of it your own. Don’t let other people force you into thinking that you should look, dress, speak or act a different way. You will get sucked into peer pressure, family pressure, and media pressure. But whatever you do, don’t lose yourself in it. Remember that you are the only you, and only you can make these decisions, and live this life. You are the only one who can take the chances, and build these bridges. See everything you can. Travel. And trust me, it will be better if you aren’t able to stay in luxury hotels. Study different cultures, different countries and different people. And I don’t mean study as in “book” study. Take it all in, and don’t try to understand. Simply stand from afar, and watch.
Breathe the air, blink your eyelids, and feel your heart beating deep within yourself. Feel your blood coursing through your veins. Feel alive. Look up at the stars. Whether it be from a hostel in Russia, or your own bedroom window. Feel small. Know that we are only one small planet orbiting the sun. Know that each star, is in fact it’s own sun, with it’s own planets. Life as we know it is truly infinite. One day, you will come across love. Know that true love is unconditional. You will be loved for who you are, not what you are.
Understand that fear is also completely pointless. There is nothing to fear, not even fear itself. But there will be times in your life when fear will swallow you, and cripple you. Remember that these fears will lead to regrets, and lead to what ifs. Know that material objects mean absolutely nothing. It won’t matter when you’re gone, and it doesn’t matter now. You will be remembered by the wisdom and memories you left behind, as opposed to the new car you’re scared to dent. In the end, all we have are our memories. Truly, they’re all we ever had to begin with.
To those of you who I truly love, the handful; please know that each and every one of you, has helped to make me the person I always wanted to be. You’ve given me the life, love, words, memories, and thoughts that I will hold onto forever. And so inside of me lives your love. It will live with me, die with me, and make an impression into this earth one way or another. So for all of this, thank you. You are my passion. And you will never be forgotten.