How will you be?

Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.

Life teaches its hardest lessons through experiences alone - no amount of education or preparation will ever make us ready for some things. It's kind of funny how we spend so much of our lives in school, being told by other people who have spent their whole lives in school just how we should live our lives. We try to prepare ourselves for problems that won't matter, possibilities that may never occur, and eventualities that lurk beyond a horizon we never see. And in all of that, they never teach us how to truly appreciate what we've got because one day, it will be gone. They leave out how all that time spent preparing for an unknowable future will never help us figure out how to say goodbye or to let go. They will never show us how to create a memory to hold on to when life becomes rocky, instead encouraging that our time be spent studying and working while all those times we could spend with those we love just pass us by.

One day we'll look back on all of this, these times and these people. One day we'll remember these days as some of the best we had. How will you look back - with a smile for the things that happened and the memories made, or with regret for what you missed and all that was taken for granted?

Rant over.

Pax vobiscum,

- zKhristy -

Quotes

Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.

Yeah. I love quotes. Here are some of the greats right now:
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seidaku says: remember, there is no problem so large that it cannot be solved with fire
Benjamin says: except for a fire resistant problem
Benjamin says: which is why I heart magic
seidaku says: that just means you dont have ENOUGH fire

"Bisogna essere molto forti per amare la solitudine."
- Pier Paolo Pasolini -

“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things - with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.”
- Corazon Aquino -

"Give every man your ear, but few thy voice. Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment."
- Shakespeare -

“A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."
- Unknown -

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
- Galileo Galilei -

“One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passersby see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.”
- Vincent van Gogh -

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you did anything at all."
- Futurama -

“True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.”
- David Tyson Gentry -

"In a mad world only the mad are sane."
- Akira Kurosawa -

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke -

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
- Mark Twain -

"Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself."
- Friedrich Nietzsche -

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
- Douglas Adams -

“Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts unconditionally, to those who barely think about us in return.”
- T.H.White -

“The most painful goodbyes are the ones you don’t get to say.”
- Author Unknown -

"We set out to change the world... ended up just changing ourselves."
- Curt Wild -

“Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”
- Hamlet (III, ii, 212-14) -

"No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets."
- Thomas Moore -

"We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us."
- Kahlil Gibran -

"I wait with patience, patience which I assure you requires more force of character than does action."
- Ferdinand de Lesseps -

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Rant over.

Pax vobiscum,

- zKhristy -

Autobiography

Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.

What's there to know about me? Every life is a series of stories, many beginnings and endings, meta-narratives within the overall plot. It doesn't really matter where or when I was born. My name isn't that important. I'm just a face, one among the billions on this insignificant planet we like to call "Earth," within the infinite amount of space out there that we could never fully understand. I am not a hero, nor am I a villain. My actions or lack thereof will never change the world. I am merely a random person stumbling about this life in an attempt to find meaning. Who I am now is the cumulative of all that I've ever been before, and I couldn't possibly tell you every little detail. That would be boring.

I am a writer, forever observing the world I live in and attempting to capture its reality in whatever story I am about to tell. I am a student, soaking in any knowledge I can, analyzing my experiences in life, and confronting the challenge of new information and ideas. I am a teacher, interacting with others and helping them learn as they in turn do the same for me. I am a wanderer, comfortably lost in the sea of faces that surround me and happy to just be unknown. I am a dancer, finding joy in my random twirls, preferably in the rain. I am a daughter, raised by my parents to be stubborn, independent, and proud. I am a sister, loyal to my sibling. I am a listener, always willing to be there for anyone who needs to just talk. Above all, though, I am a survivor. I will continue to fight with all that I have and survive every obstacle life presents me with, and I will never let my experiences influence me to stop caring. So many people in this world have sacrificed a great deal in order to give me a chance to succeed, to open doors for me that would have been locked otherwise. I owe it to them and to myself to be all that I can be, no infringement intended on the Army’s slogan.

But some things aren't meant for the world to see. Who I am, the person I really am inside, the person only a select few know, happens to be one of those things. If one earns my trust, they will earn the privilege of seeing that side of me I hide, the part of me beyond the mask. It is impossible for words to fully explain one’s personality, all the different aspects to a person’s life. We all hide behind what we think others want to see, speaking the words like parrots and holding tightly to our defensive front out of fear that others will harshly judge who we truly are. I, too, fall behind this screen, fearing the introduction of who I am to the world. This is the mask I wear, and this is my autobiography.

Rant over.

Pax vobiscum,

- zKhristy -

And so it begins...

Cemel Dosce. Know thyself.

Amber made me do it. Really, she did. So there.

Rant over.

Pax vobiscum,

- zKhristy -