The Things I Have Learned

The following is the last entry from my last journal. I wrote it on March 1, 2003. I think there are some gems in there, but for the most part it reads like one of those crappy email forwards. Please do not forward the list to anyone. Ever.


This journal is nearly full. Who am I now? What have I to say? For much of my life I have been Oholibah. For much of mlife I have been Joshua. I am a man, like any other, who has built himself of faults and successes, vices and victories. I have made accomplishments no other man will ever make. I have admitted defeat to the same demons that work over the souls of so many other men, as is told in this babbling book. I am ordinary in many respects and extraordinary in others. In short, I am a nobley average man. I see my ugliness. I see the destitute I am without Christ. The discarded infant kicking in the dust covered in the blood of birth. I see the adorned wife, the spotless bride of God. Both of these I know in myself. I am the pheonix. I am the leper, the blind man wincing at his first glimpse of day. I can feel the tapestry of my soul spun into golden robes through the stitching of the spirit of God. I think back to who I was when I started this journal, and I see how far I have come. I have come to terms with my ugliness. I have taken up smoking. I have known the cleansing of forgiveness. I have felt the opening stages of romance, and survived the death of a passion. I have learned to watch the world again, to feel the earth around me. I have acknowledged my sin as I have acknowledged my mortality. I am pleased with myself, but not proud. I am a sinner. I am a saint. My greatest victory of late has been in understanding that comfort is unrecognizable without discomfort.

Fallen men know no joy wihtout the threat of pain.

The hideous tail of love is loss. The trick is to learn not to fear. Fear neither love nor loss, joy nor sorrow.

Fear not the extremeties in life, for the give birth to one another. Learn to embrace them both, not as friends, but as inevitabilities.

Our lives here are largely based on causality and patter recognition.

The trick to living is to be content.

Be content in suffering so that you recognize joy. Be content with joy in order to outlast suffering.

Growth causes pain and pain causes growth. If we run from either, we experience neither.

Paradoxes are not meant to be solved, merely known.

Beauty is an essence, not a construct, and love is a choice, not a chemical.

Plenty of people on this earth will live with aversion or possession as their only goal. Do not listen to these men.

The rich are blinded by their lust. The poor are blinded by their thirst. Listen to neither of these men.

True friends are to be trusted and then forgiven.

Take your life as it comes to you and ask it where it comes from, not where it is leading you.

The words of men who publish themsevles are seldom genuine ;)

No man attempts to do evil.

No man wants to be wrong.

The glass half empty is full of water and air.

The abundance of a thing does not make it non-existant.

Learn to observe.

Walk slowly.

Drive in the right lane.

Do not envy anyone, chances are they envy you.

Love everyone, and everyone will love you.

Dogs that bite are taken out back and shot.

Keep secrets as they are given, but do not ask anyone to bear the weight of keeping yours.

Laugh.

Listen to glad music when you want to least of all.

Be thankful for everything.

Anger is never appropriate.

Maliciousness is never intentional.

Violence is always reactionary.

Forgiveness is the sharpest sword and the fastest bullet.

Every man blows his nose and cleans his ears, no one is above this.

Wealth is an illusion, if you are unconcerned with it, you will find that you have it.

Sadness occurs because we choose to focus on the voids in our lives.

Faith is stronger than belief.

Hope is stronger than possession.

Love is stronger than fear.

Pessimists are lonely, optimists are stupid.

Lies are contagious and water themselves.

Complaining is fatiguing.

Labor makes rest more pleasant.

Worry is unproductive.

Talk to strangers.

Tell everyone that you love them.

Youth is never wasted.

Innocence is never lost.

Watch the people you are talking to our you won't know when to shut up.

Never interrupt someone, chances are they won't listen to you either.

Love the people no one else loves.

Fear God.

Traps set for foxes catch bears, traps set for bears catch foxes.

Incorrigible children are in need of love.

All men are selfish, so give yourself away.

Make faces in the mirror.

Sing in the shower.

See if you can hear the stars.

Man has yet to destroy the sunrise.

Traditions are useful.

Never take the lead and it will be given to you.

Pray for everyone, just in case.

Be a good host.

Cleanliness is overrated.

Messiness is distracting.

There are at least two thousand individual scents in any given room.

Learn people's names.

Be content with who you are, but never finish.

Dead people don't cooperate.

Love and violence are circles that interrupt each other.

No matter the evil, you are forgiven.

"Five is a sufficiently close approximation of infinity."

Hebel.