2008 - Time moves along without you

(Pick up the last crayon you'll need to finish this years picture)

The last day and the last breath of 2008 awaits.

It waits for us to breath it in and live it for one last time.

The question remains though, will we take advantage of the last time we see 2008, or will we let it drift away, never to see it again?

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Coloring in a Black and White picture

Philosophically, we must all understand that we invest our selves and our lives into each and every year.

When one year finishes, we've left a part of our soul with it.
It's as if we've colored one of those children's black and white pictures.

We started off with these nice goals, this nice outline of what we wanted to do.
Then we spent a year coloring it in, trying to get the right shades of color.

At the end of the year though, we have to ask ourselves, did we get the right colors we wanted?

Did we stay within the lines?

Have we become a better person and can we move on to bolder tasks and eventually the Mona Lisa?

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My Journey

Some of us rush to fill in what we can, at the end of the year.

Others procrastinate our goals, and leave them be for another year.

For once in my life though, personally, I can say I've colored in the picture as best as I can.
I've had breakthroughs and goals that I had never felt I could start, let alone possibly overcome.

I can move on to a closer image of my Mona Lisa.

If I had to define a climax in the first part of my young life (first 20 years) , I can say that this climax occurred in this year.

Things forever distant, or seemingly invincible, have become possible, and long journeys seem short distances.

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What we should do tomorrow

When you wake up tomorrow, try and take in as much of the last bit of 2008 that remains.

This doesn't mean that I'm asking everyone to go and create a busy schedule of events and to try and stay active tomorrow.

That's actually the opposite of what I feel is best.

Do the closest thing you can do, to connect with the world. How you do that depends on the person.

I go biking and I let the world slow down as it rushes around me. One hour on a bike is longer than most people's days feel.

Some people simply like going to a park, some feel it deep in yoga, and others feel it when the mist of the waves hits their face.

Regardless of what your task is, don't let your body, your soul, and your mind treat this last day of 2008, as any ordinary day.

Don't drown in normal entertainment and let them amuse your day away, doing things like watching T.V or going to the movies. Do not succumb to popular entertainment, and don't hibernate your mind, at least not on this day.

Do whatever you normally do, that slows down the world, brings it to a halt, and allows you to contemplate on your life.

That's where philosophy lies, it's where it hides, and if you have to put yourself in a prison to make it happen, then buy yourself some metal bars.

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The last day of 2008 is for remembering the past

Sacrifice that last day of 2008 to yourself. Sacrifice it to slow down the dizzying world around you.

Let that last day die and with it spark a revolution inside of you.

Let 2008 wrap around you and contemplate on what has happened, not on what must in the future.

The future, and your future goals need to wait for another day.
That outline and that black and white picture will be made in 2009.

But that last day of 2008 is for the past.

Soak yourself up in the lessons of history, and awake the next day, clean and rejuvenated, ready for the next picture, awaiting to be colored in, one step closer to your Mona Lisa.

~~Phoenix

It's easier to see Harm than it is to see Good

I've read things such as, "Religion has done more harm than good" and statements like this need to be reanalyzed.

All sorts of friends can name off a number of mean things you've done to them, or mistakes you've made, but ask them to remember 10 generous gestures and they go blank.

The harm is easier to see than the good.

No one sees the people comforted by religion, who do not smoke or drink, who live lives of ease.

What people see are the zealots who kill others and start wars, and they ascribe religion to be the cause and the only cause of that.


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I want to keep this one short, because it was a moment of intense inspiration, when i read that quoted sentence above online and it lit a fire under me.

You need to reevaluate ANY claim made by ANY one who says something does more harm than good, because good has a way of hiding and blending into the background, while harm and evil jump out at you.

It's another reason why News channels prefer stories of death, than to stories of achievement and thanks.

~~Phoenix

Using Time Wisely - Seven Pounds Movie

It's a movie you have to see, that encompasses my last post perfectly. *

Time is everything, don't let us sit idly by and do nothing while we burn in it.

This movie has received a lot of negative reception, and I don't care really. We voted Bush twice into the presidency, so maybe I'll trust other people's perceptions some other time.


I can't describe this movie as well as how Todd McCarthy did.

He puts it perfectly:

He characterized the film as an "endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head."


Will, this is an astounding role you did, it's completely unlike you. It cuts out all your charisma, and we were watching a completely different character up there.
He spoke in ways you don't, he acts in ways you don't, he had mannerisms you didn't, it was a work of acting genius.

Very Early on i knew what the movie was in full, and what would happen, i don't know if that was intentional and normal, or if i was just a unique viewer.

Either way it kept my attention, every waking second.

It's a drama, it's a love story, it's sacrifice, it's hope, it's DETERMINATION, and it's strength.

7 days to create the earth, 7 seconds to destroy, 7 pounds to rebuild.
One consistent determination.

~~Phoenix


*= (I noticed that sentance rhymed after i proofread it lol)

Do not let me Burn Idly by

(If we must burn in time, let us light the world with our final breaths)

I wish the same for you, my dear reader, as I wish for all the people of my generation.

I wish for the lifting of the great plague that has come upon my generation and possibly future posterity.

I ask that time not burn us, while we sit idly by. That if we must go, we go in a blaze of light that forever comforts the world.

Make 2009 the awakening of my generation and let it actualize all teenagers into young adults.

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The poem that inspired me to write this post:

Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day
by Delmore Schwartz

Calmly we walk through this April's day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are taken away,
What will become of you and me
(This is the school in which we learn...)
Besides the photo and the memory?
(...that time is the fire in which we burn.)

(This is the school in which we learn...)
What is the self amid this blaze?
What am I now that I was then
Which I shall suffer and act again,
The theodicy I wrote in my high school days
Restored all life from infancy,
The children shouting are bright as they run
(This is the school in which they learn...)
Ravished entirely in their passing play!
(...that time is the fire in which they burn.)

Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!
Where is my father and Eleanor?
Not where are they now, dead seven years,
But what they were then?
No more? No more?
From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,
Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume
Not where they are now (where are they now?)
But what they were then, both beautiful;

Each minute bursts in the burning room,
The great globe reels in the solar fire,
Spinning the trivial and unique away.
(How all things flash! How all things flare!)
What am I now that I was then?
May memory restore again and again
The smallest color of the smallest day:
Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

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A final plea, and 3 small quotes, by yours truly

Let not another moment go by, without our fullest potential being set into motion.


1) There were always better days, but time goes forward, and death never strays.

2) Into light we hope our deeds should turn, once time has run out, and our lives have been burned.

3) Remember death with every waking breath.

~~Phoenix