Bernatk - Heatherfield Citizen

"What direction - Life begins at the intersection"

It's a Switchfoot quote. OK, I know they didn't actually invent the line but it's in one of their best songs: Faust, Midas and Myself. This piece of music is more literary, than most of the contemporary novels. I'm not gonna add much about the lyrics but the basic question which it implies is whether our goals and dreams are well-thought-out - if we could have them all.

Recently I've been given/offered grand opportunities. One is: two contract offers from a good-named publishing company. It was sort of a before-the-right-time because I decided to continue perfecting my book. I don't even know why I tried to catch their attention. But the amazing thing is, that it worked easy as cake. WOW! Though there's clearly not much that I did. The whole situation is only a link of favourable but un-controlled events. For which I am really grateful.

I must admit, that it doesn't make me special, no matter how much I feel that way. At best, it's a special piece of art, which is worth the mention. But me? Out of the picture. Life often brings us to unprecedented intersections. We are to choose the direction. But do we choose wisely? No. (It was a very strong, firm no...) You know, we could be anyone. Life has no limits at all. Our beliefs, however, can lock us away from the best existing possibilities. We really do believe, that we can't be big people, successful, or simply happy. We let the popular concept take over: we are under too much weight to be getting anywhere in our lives. But in fact, there is no place, nodirection, which we could not choose. I guess the metaphor is as complete as ever...

If it leaves open questions, then answer them, it's on purpose!

Randomness rules!

Discipline is Hard but Weakness is not my Game

I’ve been feeling waves of regression washing over me recently but at the same time I’ve been leaning forward. My ambitions, exuberant and overwhelming, have been leading me. And, again, I’m arrested in a state of complete antinomy: I’m satisfied and dissatisfied, hopeful and disillusioned--I feel these over the same things.

Leaping toward the shimmering notion of how I think I ought to be is what I’m trying to do, yet there’s this unbearable inertia in my life. If I say I want to write, I find I should throw away people, or care considerably less. In my constant struggle for creating something noteworthy I encounter discouragement. Well, on the heartfelt occasions. Of course I get the you’re great and the it’ll be fine but what are those supposed to mean? Not even the ones closest to me think of my writing as a tangible thing with tangible effects. For my environment it’s no more than a dream I’m sometimes having. Certainly romantic but not to be pursued to the damage of even the smallest thing.

I often wonder if the world’s as small as some people see it. Do I need a small job in order to this and that? Well, I refuse the necessity of it and always have. The start of a career or a seed-like job is a different case but I’m regularly pressured toward being practical the ordinary way and I see that as derogatory. I do encourage some folks to master base skills and unromantic professions and I am not against the concept of these, only I feel they get the wrong animal with me. I can’t do all that other people can but I have a strong conviction that I can excel, even create new frontiers, where our race seldom goes: the abstract, the grand and often vain projects that frighten so many. I crave those paths but I get the feeling that with it I frighten those, who love me.

Yet, after all, on a few days I too wake up with doubt. I despise doubt and loathe it, along with cowardice and ignorance but, much like the next person, I’m susceptible to all of those. Sometimes I read back what I’ve written and I’m disappointed. Then, of course, I get down to the part of grinding and go over it once again, until I can accept it but the next day it’s exactly the same amount of disappointment over yesterday’s promising new words. The temptation is unceasing, the beating inside me is counter-driving my soul, into disbelief and the will to abandon my work. But then it’s the universal beating of all ages and if anyone ever amounted to greatness, it’s no more than walking without letting herself be broken. We don’t need anyone for that--to break us. We are very efficient at giving terrible advice to ourselves, although it’s true that the world around us lavishes it at us without limit.

Similarly, in my emotions I’m conflicted. There are things that I want and there are people I want. My desires are sharply defined, there’s no need there, but I regret to want them. There’s no smart way around this though. Truthfully I don’t even know the objects of my desires thoroughly, yet if I were made to choose I would throw away all I have to have those. I think it would be painful but it wouldn’t take me more than a moment of having to contain whatever is trying to get out through our throats, when we feel profound loss, then I’d be immersed in the crisp breeze. I am certain I have the capacity to be like that only I know it’s wrong. It’s immoral and unwise, yet the demands of the soul of a man, who’s otherwise consciously fighting to reach his other desires, called ambitions, are hard to put away.

My desires resist and pull me. Whichever is to be attained is painful, and the ones that I denounce, will not leave me. Everything’s hard--said the poet.

“The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south, and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1,5-9

can you check out my blog?<3 its photography/vintage^.^

I just did and it's lovely :)

Winter lights on Her face

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Bill Murray Crashes Bachelor Party, Gives Awesome Speech - Video

There’s no happy ending with me.

The Secret Life of ME

Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) got some harsh reviews on accounts of being a cliché and of praising the sort of life that only a substantial amount of money can make possible. Some critics even say they'll graciously overlook these because Ben Stiller's just not that profound and we like him for his unique and entertaining humor, not his abstract thoughts. I watched the movie today and I was blown away.

I had quite low expectations because of the reasons above, and my intention was simply to watch something light and to relax. It was light, yes, and it was relaxing, true, but it wasn't at all as superficial as some say.

The title character, Walter Mitty, is a guy, who, after his father's death, became a responsible adult, who had to put aside his dreams and desires, in order to provide for his family and himself. He lived a life, where adventure existed only in the form of fantasies and daydreams. The movie is about his brave moves of going out to the wild and exotic parts of the world.

I admit, even in my brief summary it sounds like a cliché. However, what makes this movie extraordinary is there, among those lines. It's not the story of a man, who's just a little gray piece of paper (even one of the characters says that he imagined him as that) but someone with a past, with hopes and dreams and abilities. I can't stress abilities enough because that's a crucial point in Walter Mitty's greatness. He does the things that he can actually do and not the impossible. In an early scene we see him perform cool skateboard tricks and that's him, not his imagination, him. Now I'm not saying that someone has to be able-bodied or some such thing to live a good life. My point is that this story shows us a guy, who's coming from somewhere and goes on doing amazing things that he's had the potential to do all along. If he's an athletic guy, then it's a good thing he does things that require that.

Another important element of his character is that he wants to travel. You can say that everybody likes traveling and it's their financial states that prevent them from going to see the world. However, this is a misconception. I see people around me everyday, who say they wish they could go abroad and see this and that part of the world but in reality, they're afraid of people, who don't speak their language, they're uncomfortable with hiking, they hate spontaneity and so on and so forth. If pricey hotels with fancy rooms and fluent English concierges is what you want, then that's actually achievable almost exclusively through spending a fortune on it. If you want to see nice landscapes but only without breaking a sweat, here's tumblr, where there are endless photos that you'll be happy with and that's that. But if you're one of the few adventurous people out there, willing to jump in the ice-cold ocean, then you can do that on very little money.

My point with these is that looking at the events in the movie very specifically will make you say that yeah, it's pretty cool but no one can actually do that. But those specific events would take place in the life of that very specific Walter Mitty.

This movie is about the lifestyle that our generation has forgotten but even a hundred years ago it was the prevailing idea. And I remember that when I was seventeen I wanted to be a journalist and travel to the Sahara and climb the Mount Everest. I know, from my own experience, that abandoning these dreams won't erase them from the fabric of my mind, only I can oppress them with the new idea of life. But it's wrong. It's so wrong actually that my fear or reluctance to realize at least some of them has resulted in having me now with a poor heart, probably incapable of climbing the Everest but at the same time, a heart that's aching to do it.

My conclusion is that not all of us are adventurers or journalists and we shouldn't try to be the things we can't be, so it's not necessary to pretend we're Walter Mitty. However, figuratively, our generation's father died and we've become responsible. But it wouldn't be irresponsible to stop playing it safe and stop living petty lives. We complain a lot and believe all the crazy-labels that are put on all sorts of awesome things and I think these two things are on the top ten list of things that are wrong with people of this era. Let's try to change that.

Closing Thoughts

Considering everything I say I believe in, I'd be the greatest hypocrite to fight death. Obviously I'd be just as big a fool to give in to it, no doubt.

Last week, when I thought about dying, the first thing in my head was a list of all the things I haven't finished or haven't yet started. It seemed like my life was incomplete but that's just an illusion.

There's nothing that has to happen in a man's life and there's nothing I have to become or I have to achieve. The real necessities of life, crystallized and clear, are to love and to be truly God's.

Death is a frightening thing to face and there sure isn't an easy way to get through it. Don't get me wrong, I don't welcome it and I don't wish it but I'm at peace. Of course, I hope that I'll live for a good while longer but even now, I'm pretty full of love.