Tag Archives: philosophy

Vulnerability.

Written by Kamilah Carter

At the core of my identity is a strong belief in humanity.
Despite the disaster and deceit seen on the tv,
The damage, the pain, and all that is broken,
I can’t help but perceive a beautiful complexity
In the fragile threads of our tangled lives.

But sometimes I have a hard time believing in human beings.
Individuals have broken my trust what feels like a thousand times,
And now I am among the walled in,
The hiding, the hidden, the wounded,
Those who are still relearning how to ask for what they need.
We are all reduced to this tragic state of infancy.
From which growth is hard earned, earnest effort:
Bravery.

I know that I am full of contradictions,
But please don’t mistake them for hypocrisy,
For my most valued lesson is this.
There are no rules, no paths, no adequate metaphors for life.
We make what we make of it, and that rarely makes sense
And though this may confuse the human mind,
It causes the human heart to flourish,
For logic is as likely to be meaningless,
As a serendipitous connection will be deep, despite the overwhelming statistics
That insist it won’t be.

And although I plan my life according to the rules I’ve declared mirages,
I do not live according to plans alone
I live with intensity,
Intense fear, hope, love,
And from this stems my vulnerability.
For it is easy to do things the easy way,
But what is the point of apathy anyways,
There is nothing there to gain.

So breathe deeply and contemplate,
Forget time and live at a pace that is both exhilarating and terrifying
And then slow down to take in the scenery,
For the landscape we’ve created is both treacherous and grand
And whether you think that that is beauty or tragedy, it is striking.
Live not for happiness alone, but for meaning, for discovery
For the camaraderie of sharing 99.9 percent of dna with strangers.
Walk not an easy way, but where you want others to follow,
And walk softly.
But don’t be afraid to break things either, for that’s the key to progress.
This is my philosophy.

John Green, you are oh-so-quotable.

What a lovely human being.

Today

I lost one of my bracelets.

I don’t wear a lot of jewelry. I have some beautiful things that my mom has made, that I’ve made myself and that have been given to me. But I still don’t wear a lot of jewelry.

However, friendship bracelets are my favourite for a few reasons. They always have stories. They remind me of people I love. I don’t have to remember to put them on. I believe in the philosophy of wearing them until they fall off, no longer or shorter. I have trouble letting go of things and this is always a nice reminder. I can lose the symbols of friendship without losing the friendships. I can remember or forget and be okay with that. Everything has a lifespan.

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I think it would make everyone’s life a little better if we took time to plant things. I mean, the act of getting your hands dirty with earth and water and then patiently tending a fragile growing thing has got to be good for the soul. Plus, doesn’t the world need a little more patience, a little more nurturing? Things go fast fast fast all the time, and with speed comes haste and laziness, and soon things are done just to be done, with little care or consideration, and at that point the meanings attached to words, actions, projects and the like are easily forgotten, trimmed away for the sake of speed. I think the whole of earth could use a bit of a reality check, I mean, we need to get our priorities straight, myself included. It is so hard to see what is real when we speed along the way we do and contrived human notions surround us on a daily basis. Marketing, media and unspoken rules about what makes a good life. Phobias, greed, the cries for justice which so easily shift in to cries for war, blood. I understand that there are things worth fighting for, I really do, but I think we fight for silly things sometimes. We focus our attention on things that don’t matter. We isolate ourselves in order to avoid the conflicting emotions cause by empathy for those who are worse off than ourselves, and in turn feel jealous of those who we see as above ourselves in this social construct of our own imagining. And the thing is, when a vast majority of people believe in something, incredibly enough, it is very hard to distinguish from reality. It’s called the tinkerbell effect. I think children should be taught to plant things, instead of to tear them down. I mean, I think its time for us to choose some new things to believe in, this just isn’t working.

I am here because when my dad was young he had a meditation that started in the middle and extended within and without to the reaches of our universe and came around again in a size-less loop where the entirety of infinity was contained in a single atom, and ever since I have been caught in the complexion and perplexity of all that there is and isn’t, is known and unknown, and will be.

What Grease and Romeo and Juliet have made me realize

What makes humanity beautiful is rarely the depth of our thoughts, or our brilliant moments. What makes us beautiful is our clumsiness, our failures paired with an insistence that we couldn’t have failed because it’s not over yet. Our tendencies to blow things out of proportion, to believe in fate, love, purpose, god… Our beauty comes as much from our mistakes as our triumphs. Beauty comes from our passion demonstrated through lofty expression, dramatic sacrifices, quick judgments, and naive hopefulness that our luck will change, our feelings will be returned, life will be different even as we are bombarded with signs that we are wrong. Humanity is beautiful because we feel, and we value that above all else, because we try, and fail, and turn our failures into lessons, unexpected gifts and triumphs. Humanity’s most valuable and crucial quality is imperfection, it’s what makes us real.

True wisdom is not knowing that we know no truth but the truth that there is no truth, it is knowing that the truth is that we don’t know which truths we know and which truths of the truths we think we know aren’t true.