On Vagrancy

A subject to which few intellectuals ever give a thought is the right to be a vagrant, the freedom to wander. Yet vagrancy is deliverance, and life on the open road is the essence of freedom. To have the courage to smash the chains with which modern life has weighted us (under the pretext that it was offering us more liberty), then to take up the symbolic stick and bundle and get out!

To the one who understands the value and the delectable flavour of solitary freedom (and true freedom depends on solitude) leaving is the most courageous and most beautiful.

An egotistical happiness, possibly. But for him who relishes the flavor, happiness.

To be alone, to be poor in needs, to be ignored, a stranger and at home everywhere, and to walk, great and by oneself, toward the conquest of the world.

The healthy wayfarer sitting beside the road scanning the horizon open before him, is he not the absolute master of the earth, the waters, and even of heaven itself? What housedweller can vie with him in power and wealth? His estate has no limits, his empire no law. No work bends him toward the ground, for the bounty and beauty of the earth are already his.

In our modern society the nomad is a pariah "without known domicile or residence." By adding these few words to the name of anyone whose appearance they consider irregular, those who make and enforce the laws can decide a man's fate.

To have a domicile, a family, a property or a public function, to have a definite means of livelihood and to be a useful cog in the social machine, all these things seem necessary, even indispensable, to the vast majority of men, including intellectuals, and including even those who think of themselves as wholly liberated. And yet such things are only a different form of the slavery that comes of a regulated and predictable contact with others.

I have always listened with admiration, if not envy, to the declarations of citizens who tell how they have lived for twenty or thirty years in the same section of town, or even in the same house, and who have never been out of their native city.

Never to have felt the torturing need to know and see for oneself what is there, beyond the mysterious blue wall of the horizon, not to find the arrangements of life monotonous and depressing, to look at the white road leading off into the unknown distance without feeling the imperious necessity of giving in to it and following it obediently across mountains and valleys!–all this fearful need for immobility resembles the unconscious resignation of the beast stupefied by servitude, offering its neck to the yoke.

There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagabond possesses the whole vast earth that is bounded only by the imaginary horizon. And his empire is intangible, a realm of the spirit where he has his enjoyment and dominion.

- Isabelle Eberhardt, 1900, Algeria.

Success

How do you define your success? Do you set definite goals and targets for you to meet? Do you need to be somewhere you weren't a year ago? Do you have the need to be recognized as a great person or leader by others? Do you need followers? Do you need people to acknowledge that what you say is good and true and validate your ideas and existence? Do you need to feed or serve to a certain amount to make you a better person? What defines your success?

Do you even know what it is you need to achieve success as? We look at what we want to do and measure our success by worldly standards. If you look at a man like Noah, Noah was an excellent shipbuilder, but that wasn’t his main profession – Noah was a preacher. In worldly standards we would have called him a terrible failure as a preacher, 7 converts in 120 years (all family members) - not a good track record. He was a failure by worldly standards. Also look at Jeremiah, great preacher – no results though. He fell out with all the religious crowds, fell out with royalty and weren’t all too popular with the plain folks either. The only one he seemed to please was God.

Same with Jesus, He was also such a failure by worldly standards – He never printed a book, didn’t build a school for the blind, didn’t organize a church group or a bible study or do any of the things we see as a necessity to ensure our wellbeing and high standing in the world (or even in the church). He preached for 3 years, healed and fed thousands and yet when it was over, He had no one left and appeared to but a few after He was resurrected. He was denied and betrayed by those closest to Him, all men forsook Him and fled. He was a failure by every worldly standard.

But by Godly standard He was GOD. He had a different measure of success than we do as people. Should we not rather try to measure up to His standard of success?

We view people as successful when they can get the job done. We need to figure out by what standard of success we measure our lives and our ministries. 

A pastor I listened to a while ago asked the question, “Is God and end or is He a means?”

And also "Are we serving men in the name of God or serving God in the name of men?"

People

Have you ever sat down and thought about the most defining moments in your life so far? It normally isn't the big things that you thought would stand out - like the job you took, or the salary increase you got. It isn't the new neighborhood you moved to, or the car that you bought. These are all material things that have less of an impact on your overall character. It is the little things, that form you as a person, and it mostly involves people.

The people you meet and interact with has a much greater effect on you than you might care to realize. You need people, you were made for people and some people even need you. You have been made strong to be poured out, to live in community and to serve. Some people you’ll meet along your road are distractions others are there to point you in the direction you need to go and some need your direction. But you need to remember that not everyone you meet will finish with you, you might lose some along the way.

Someone had a quote on a social network of some or other a while ago that read: Some people can only stay in your heart and not in your life. That is a very difficult thing for me to put into action. I understand it, I agree with it, but I struggle to cut people out of my life. How do I know who needs to stay and who doesn’t?

How do you know who you need to serve and who is actually distracting you? Who is wasting your time? And also, how do you pour out completely, without losing yourself completely? If you love yourself and then love others as you love yourself, whom do you compromise?

I fear that sometimes the people I try to love, does not need it from me. That they would be far better off without me, or that I would be better off without them. Everyone hurts, has problems and niggles and giggles. Who decides which are real important? Who do you invest your time in and who do you pass on to the next person?

One of my best friends is a very destructive person, towards herself and to me. She seems to have little concept of reality. Every now and again we stop speaking for a while and after a couple of months we rekindle our friendship only for her to promise that she has changed and to apologize for her selfishness. It normally takes a month for her to fall back into her old ways. It hurts me every time, and I’ve lately started wondering if I am enabling her every time I forgive her? Should I now make the cut final? Should I keep on investing my time, energy and emotions?

How do you care for someone who only cares for themselves? But the other extreme is just as difficult – It is very hard to attach worth to someone who does not attach it to themselves. When people are so broken down that you literally have to build them up hug by hug and word for word. That person standing next to the road with his/her sign who looks like they have walked all the mountain roads in life – not for the scenery. People are like eggs, put them in boiling water and they’ll get rock hard, and if you leave them there long enough they will burst.

 "There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong." - Jane Austen

I wrote most of this post a couple of days ago, I read it again today and changed a couple of things but I also had a realization. You know, one of those aha-moments. Assuming we are all trying to bring glory to our Creator (I try) – would we not want to do as Jesus had done? He had His 12 disciples. Jesus knew that they weren't perfect and also that some of them will betray and hurt Him, but He still invested His time and energy in them. I thus realize that no person is ever a waste of time. Invest yourself. People are eternal investments, even if they don’t end up finishing the race with you, impact as much as you can, where you can. I’m still not sure of all the other answers, but I think that if you see someone broken and you have the ability to help with repairs, you should.

Dissapointment

“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Disappointment... most of us meet up with it frequently. We are disappointed by many things - lovers, friends and family, but none of those has such a capacity to disappoint us, as we ourselves do. We seem to be more forgiving towards others than to ourselves. We desperately feel the need to be nothing less than perfect.

Have you ever not done something because you fear you will fail? I do it all the time. I know what I need to do to get to where I want to be, but fear of the unknown and fear of failure are my two greatest opponents.

We fear failure because it is not tolerated by society, our parents or our peers. We have the need to succeed, to show them that we are worth their love and time and attention. The problem is that we will fail horribly at some things (actually more often than not) on a daily basis. So why let fear of the unknown hold you back?? Is it to spare you the mockery of not being perfect?

Alanis Morisette has a song that sums it up nicely - Perfect: "We love you, just the way you are, if you're perfect..."

I am facing my fears of rejection and failure one by one, as I have built up a whole list of things that I should do but have always been to scared to do. I might have had bigger dreams than I should have, but that is okay. You sometimes need a little failure to keep you humble.

My dad gave me a book to read at the end of 2012 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull, written by Richard Bach. It is a thin book about a seagull who wishes to fly higher and be more than seagulls are accustomed to being - a true classic. Inspirational and simple. The lessons are as simple and true as you get, be the best you can be, fall down, get back up and always aim higher!

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding. Find out what you already know and you will see the way to fly.”
- Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Don't make your dreams little so that little people won't feel threatened.

Perfect

Sometimes is never quite enough

If you're flawless, then you'll win my love

Don't forget to win first place

Don't forget to keep that smile on your face

Be a good boy

Try a little harder

You've got to measure up

And make me prouder

How long before you screw it up

How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up

With everything I do for you

The least you can do is keep quiet

Be a good girl

You've gotta try a little harder

That simply wasn't good enough

To make us proud

I'll live through you

I'll make you what I never was

If you're the best, then maybe so am I

Compared to him compared to her

I'm doing this for your own damn good

You'll make up for what I blew

What's the problem, why are you crying

Be a good boy

Push a little farther now

That wasn't fast enough

To make us happy

We'll love you just the way you are

If you're perfect

On My Own

So since yesterday approximately 5pm I am officially on my own. I moved into my new flat - it is really pretty by the way! But I am, for the first time in my life, living completely on my own. It is something to get used to. Not having someone there in the mornings or after work, having to do all your own cooking and cleaning and not having anyone to complain to about the monsters under my bed...

I have lived kind of on my own while I traveled most of Europe on my own. It was very different as I was in a different country and everything was new everyday, but there I found out that I'm actually in very good company. I'm content with myself. I know I'll be alone now - but that doesn't mean I have to be lonely. I have amazing friends and great neighbors here.

So this morning I woke up to the first day of the rest of my life. Maybe I will marry someday and have to figure out how much everything has changed and how things fall into place then. For now though I'll have to figure out what makes me happy, what I want to do with my time and how I want to spend my evenings.

I will discover, explore, appreciate and if I need ice cream to remind me that life is good, I will indulge.

Happy Ever After

What happens if happy ever after just isn't? How did they come op with the term? Why would one instance make you happy forever after that? We rely so much on our emotions and what we perceive to be happiness, would we even know what it is if it hit us in our faces?

I love fairy tales, with castles and princesses and a prince who just knows that that one girl is the person for them. They've forsaken all others and will be happy with that one single princess for the rest of their natural lives. Most of the Prince Charming's are interesting characters - not because they are so well developed in the story, but because of their complete and utter dedication to the cause of finding a wife, and not just any wife, that one special princess locked up in a tower, or fast asleep, or under curse by apple. Why so much drama to find your princess? No nice ordinary girls in your kingdom?

I think the reason that girls are so obsessed with fairy tales and stories about princesses is for exactly that reason, we want to believe that our true love is out there slaying dragons to find us and that he will walk through fire to be with us. We face a sad reality when we grow up. Most men aren't charming and they're definitely not knights in shining armor on a quest to rescue you. You'll have to rescue yourself, babe.

The reality of the matter is just that you might be swept off your feet by a charming man - only to realize that he has an ex and a past and he turns out to be a complete and utter ass. No one is unscarred by our modern civilization. Everybody hurts. Everybody pretends.

We give way too much of ourselves too soon and when we do find that one person, who might not be perfect, but he's everything you want, you've already given so much of yourself away to people who were curious about you but never really cared, that you have too little left to give and he's not interested in the little.

How do you convince someone that you will not add to their hurt, and how can you be sure you won't? Are we all just shipwrecks floating to the shore, maybe we'll bump into someone we kind of like along the way, but how can we be sure? How do you know when you have found what you've been looking for?

Circumstances

I have often times heard people say that we are but a product of our circumstances. In a certain way that statement bears some truth, but only up to a certain stage in our lives. After that our circumstances become but a product of us, who we are and what we do.

We influence the world around us (our circumstances) by how we act, how we perceive, and even by how we fail to act. I also believe that we influence more than we are influenced. I have no scientific basis for this belief, but I still hold it to be true.

I love the word influence, in physics the word fluence can be used to describe the energy delivered per unit area. We should all aim to have the highest fluence rate into other people's lives even if it is just a smile, kind word or a much needed hug.

Your self worth cannot be tied up in your circumstances and your influence in people's lives can be great whatever your circumstance. It is difficult however to attach worth to someone who does not attach it to himself.

We are called to live lives of compassion and service, not indifference and selfishness. But you have to learn to love yourself first before you can love others as you love yourself or expect anyone to love you.

Do we create the moments in our lives or does the moments in our lives create us?