Beautiful Magic

I love this picture.  I love all the beautiful colors in this butterflies.  I love butterflies. Even more than the picture, I love the message.  EVERY SINGLE WORD.

I think the most beautiful thing about a human being is how flawed we all are to our very core.  We try so hard to be perfect, to be smart, to be beautiful, to try and not make a mistake, yet we don’t realize that our perfection comes from our imperfect flaws. It comes in those things about us that show we are damaged, we are defective, we are weak, and we are vulnerable – yet we keep trying, we keep flapping our wings.  If we go around lying to ourselves that we don’t need anyone, or anything, or any connection in any way - THAT is what makes our flaws our faults.  We are human. We were created as social beings to connect on a physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual level.  When we deny those connections, we deny our very purpose.  It’s a lie!  When we tell people we don’t want a relationship, we don’t want friendships, we don’t want a soul mate, a partner, a friend, or a lover – we are liars! We were made to connect to God, to the earth, and to each other. We were not born to be isolated, but joined together. Our pain and our fear is what deceives us and convinces us we don’t need anyone else or that we are not good enough, or perfect enough.  Celebrate your flaws – because our flaws show our true colors.  How we respond to failure, to pain, to heartache, to insult, to injury, to the fucking bullshit life throws at us is what truly defines us.  Our flaws make us strong or weak, moral or immoral, filled with love or hate.  We rise and fall because of our flaws.

Another thing that I find beautiful about the human condition is our quirky nature.  Stop being stiff, stop trying to conform and play a part.  YOU ARE NOT what you pretend to be.  No matter how much you try, you’re not who you pretend.  You are who you are when no one else is around and sees you – yet that is often the BEST of you.  It’s the You that dances freely and sings out loud to the music that moves your soul.  It’s the You that is playful and karate chops the imaginary bad guys.  It’s the You that is free, and imaginative, and fun, and quirky! Yet, because of fear of rejection and judgment we often hide our true quirky selves from the world.  Want to see someone really free?  Those are the people who are not afraid to be themselves no matter where they happen to stand or sit. They let their quirky shine because they’ve come to appreciate the things in life that make a person happy – being free.  Freedom isn’t being alone – it’s being uninhibited.  I see a lot of people all looking like each other, talking like each other, dressing like each other – they are clones of one another and bound tightly by their fear and insecurities.  A young punk – plays the part of a thug – but he just wants to be loved but too scared, too rejected to be himself, so he hides behind the outfits, the language, the rebellion and the disrespect.  But, take a step back and look at them again – this time seeing how desperately they cling to who makes them feel they belong.  The more they scream they don’t care – the more in the night they scream inside to be loved and to be wanted.  They’re bound – and can’t be their quirky self. My heart breaks for them. I wish I could open their hearts and pour that freedom right in – but that’s not how it works.  They have break their own chains of bondage.

That leads me into the next beautiful thing about the human condition – our uniqueness.  We may have a lot of similarities, we are all unique.  There is no one else like us.  We have our own DNA, our own personality, our own dreams.  We see only ONE life out our eyes.  While we may focus on others, everything in our life is from OUR POV.  I can’t experience someone else’s life. I can imagine, and try to put myself in someone else’s shoes, but I was born in this body, with this soul, and this mind and everything I see, feel, touch and experience is through HER point of view. Sure, I can get mad and think life isn’t fair I didn’t get to have someone else’s life, someone else’s parents, someone else’s family, someone else’s opportunities, etc.  NOPE… I was born Tonya – and only TONYA is who I can be.  There is no other ME.

I used to think I needed to save the world to save my own soul, to feel worthy of being a human being.  My life at times has been a living hell and I’ve endured things I would never wish on my worst enemy, but it’s the life I have and was given. I have responsibility to that woman – to love her, to protect her, to strengthen her, to keep her healthy, to guide her and to let her be who she was meant to be.  I can look at her as a victim – or I can focus on her potential.  I have a great destiny, a beautiful testimony.  I LOVE that woman in the mirror.  I LOVE her for all her unique beauty. I LOVE her soul, her will, her determination, her strength, her ability to pick herself back up after she’s been knocked down, rejected, unloved, and unwanted.  She’s amazingly unique.  I will never know another like her.

Beauty has nothing to do with having a pretty face, a nice body, or a hefty bank account, a degree, an award, status or rank.  Beauty is what’s inside.  Beauty is love, kindness, compassion, courage, determination, diligence, honesty, patience.  There are many pretty plastic people filled with ugly souls.  Beauty is how you treat others AND how you treat yourself. 

Knowing all these things, and being unafraid to embrace them is the magic that binds them all together.    

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Change

Change starts with the individual.  If we set our eyes on our neighbors proclivity for/against change, it will skew the changes we dare to make within ourselves, and therefore prevent any true change from occurring. 

I'm sick... I mean, I'm literally sick of the boxes we put around other people.  We see a victim and a terrorist in every box.  There is no right side of hate/anger/victimization/terrorism. It's all hate.  Hate is the true offender. 

I'm so sick of the violence committed in hate. I'm also sick of the repercussions committed by victims of hate, who now in hate, commit the same acts of violence. 

I'm so sick of the ignorant white community who think there isn't a race problem in this world, not just the United States, but in many different countries, involving many different races.  Blacks are not the only victims of racism.  ALL races, including white, have both victims and terrorists.

I'm so sick of the ignorant black community who think there's no compassion or action in this world against the violence committed against their race. Whites are not the only ones who commit racial hate crimes, and blacks are not the only ones standing firm against them. 

I'm so sick of religious and class wars, racism, sexism, human slavery and trafficking, drug abuse, sex abuse, child abuse, animal cruelty, waste, environmental and corporate greed, gluttony, poverty and disease. 

What can I do? We will never be free of these plagues, the evil and hatred  we humans commit against one another.  I can't save the world.  I can't change my neighbor's mind. ALL I can do is love my fellow human being.  Love them as I love myself.  Love them regardless of their color, their sex, their status, their religion or their heritage.  Grieve with them, fight beside them, show them mercy, love, and compassion.  I'm not talking about letting someone hurt or walk all over me, because just as much as I will love them as a fellow human being... I will also fight against their hatred and anger - no matter their color/religion/sex/status.

If ALL you can see is the hate and the differences between us - you are blind.  That anger, even as a victim, will take root and the result will be just another strain of hate.  You will become what you currently despise. 

I hate what this young man did in Charleston.  I hate it with every fiber of my being.  My heart hurts for those victims.  This young man committed this terrible act of terrorism in hate.  Don't let your own hatred, your own anger, your own prejudices, your own hurt make you bend to his level and become the next instrument of hate.  Because YOUR actions will either lend toward furthering the divide that already exists or else serve as a healing balm to breach the gap. 

Choosing to love and not focus on color, isn't ignoring the race problem.  It's helping create a human solution... one individual at a time. Before you hit the streets, before you make your signs of protest, before you start lopping every person you know, and many you've never met into one box or another - stop. Close your eyes.  Stop being black, white, victim, or crusader - and then open your eyes and be human - no matter if your neighbor does likewise or not.  You change YOU, and then YOU will affect the world around you. Hate will NEVER change hate.  Anger will NEVER bring about peace.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Happiness

I’ve really been spending a lot of time thinking about happiness, what I think would and does make me  happy in this world, and what I think would and does make those I love happy.  The answers to those questions are as unique as we are from each other, as well as similar.  Those answers really depend on the person, their history, their life, their thoughts, their ideals, their morals, and the things they value.  I can’t answer those questions for anyone else, because my answer would only be a speculation due to my observances and filtered through my own set of morals, values and experiences.  Therefore it’s biased.

Unable to speak,  speculate, or even postulate for someone else, I have to keep this idea centered on myself and treat me as the subject of study as well as be the student of understanding.

So what is happiness to me?

How the hell do I know? There are a lot of things, situations, and circumstances that bring on a sense of happiness within and around me.  I’m moved by emotion and consequence as much as the next, the only difference is to what varying degree.

So what things, situations, and circumstances move me?

Literature – reading, writing, discussing it, discovering it, sharing it, pondering it, and just having it fuel my imagination makes me happy.  It doesn’t just make me smile, it touches a very deep part of me, and brings out a satisfaction of the mind and soul the way coitus does after having great sex, which great sex is also something that moves me. Literature in varying degrees will always be a part of my life.

Nature – hiking, exploring, enjoying and learning about this beautiful universe in which we live makes me happy.  From discovering the function of the tiniest of atoms to speculating the vastness of the universe, I love existence and the science of it.  I love nature. I love knowing I’m a part of something so beautiful, so perfect in design, even when I feel alone in its vastness.

Humanity – this is a hard one because as much as I love it, I hate it.  The way we love one another and rise to greatness, we also hate and sink to vilest of depths.  I’ve seen the greatest acts of bravery and the lowliest acts of cowardice.  I’ve experienced both joy and pain, happiness and sadness, love and hate from my fellow human beings, and have committed these acts myself.  The way we treat one another confounds me.  I don’t sit in judgment because I stand guilty, too.  I don’t exalt myself either because that is also vanity – meaningless.  Solomon had it right in Ecclesiastes – Meaningless, it’s all meaningless.  There is no greater thing under the sun that to eat, to drink, and to be happy.

Finding out what makes someone truly happy isn’t  a cookie cutter answer.  It requires a lot of experimentation and experience, mixed with failures and successes.  But one thing that NEVER fails to make ME happy, make me glow inside with pure satisfaction …is when I do something  for someone I love that leads to their happiness.  This world is shit.  It’s hard. It’s cruel, hateful, and unforgiving.  I have every natural right to be just as angry and hateful, but instead of letting anger rule me as it used to, I CHOOSE to hope for that atom of happiness.  The games people play in this world are just a reflection of all the pain.  I’ve been played so many times, sometimes knowing I was being played, but still clung desperately to the hope that maybe one act of love could change everything for someone.  Some call me naïve.  Some call me a fool.  Some just come right out and call me stupid.  I’m discovering it’s the unloved and unwanted who often love the most because they’ve had to learn to love themselves and make themselves happy – something the greatly loved often never learn.

Love makes me happy.  I may never receive it from another human being, and I’ll have to be okay with that – and I will be okay with that because I’ve learned to love me. I will continue to love those around me even if they push me away or don’t reciprocate.  I don’t love – to be loved.  Because I’m already loved and filled with love, that state allows me to share that love.  I don’t love everyone.  There are some in this world I hate.  I’m not God.  God so loved the world … that was his job, not mine.  Just as it’s not my job to save the world, either.  Jesus said that all the commandments are wrapped up in two simple ones – that if we can master those two we will in spirit master them all and they both center on love – to love God and to love one another AS we love ourselves (people forget that second part – because most don’t love themselves  - so how are they loving others  - but that’s a whole other topic.).  Yet… those are the two hardest things in the world to do.  I don’t have a problem loving God, but I have a serious problem with religion.  I don’t have a problem loving myself, but loving others is a bit more difficult.  But when I manage to do it, it truly makes me happy.

What makes you happy?

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Connection

I think the thing that makes us most human among a planet of sentient beings is not in what we can do or not do better than the other, or even the uniqueness in our DNA.  Those are important and great to use in classification, but more important in separation and identity.  But what I feel truly makes us human - is our capacity to connect to one another and the universe around us.

I’ve seen people connect with each other, with animals, with a place, with a moment in time, and it change them forever.  I’ve experienced each of these things in my own life.  Not all these connections are good.  Not all are bad.  But each one helps define us, shape us, and guide us into the tiny spark of life we live. 

Compared to the vastness of the universe, we are but a speck.  Compared to infinity of time, we live but a tick on a grand clock.  It’s no surprise that sometimes we can feel lost, unimportant, and insignificant, yet when we truly connect with something or someone, those feelings change. 

Love is the greatest of them all.  It causes the greatest change, the strongest impact, and the deepest connection. Even among the worst of pain or the deepest of sorrow, it has the ability to heal, to nurture, to restore, to effect and affect – to connect.

The greatest thing I’ve desired in my life is to be loved.  It is also the hardest connection to obtain.  For those few whom I’ve had the privilege to connect, I thank you.  Thank you for being a part of me, of my life, and making my existence significant.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray