&& from your [ L I P s ] s h e ~ drew the (( H . . .

Hallelujah x Leonard Cohen [ Covered by CJ Saquing ]

If I could write nearly as well as she could sing, I think the empowerment and mental vivacity I projected for this entry to contain would be, for all intents and purposes, absolutely amazing.

CJ is a friend of one of my friends. She's been nice enough to entertain me whenever I pester her, especially when she's super busy, and hold a very nice and enjoyable conversation. If you don't normally sit and watch whatever video I link you guys to, this is one that you should watch from beginning to end. Not only does she put so much effort into setting it up to be aesthetically appropriate, but the emotions she goes through with each word connect you to her in some way.

Not to mention the ending is absolutely phenomenal.

It's Friday, another day of the week, the last for those who work five days out of the week, the first for those who celebrate the weekend.

The first for those who were born recently. The last for those who will depart soon.

The missed for those who did not make it.

Whenever I find something unsatisfactory, something to complain about, I reach my reasonable conscience with a prompt.

What have I not that would absolutely inhibit me from functioning. I am physically capable of doing all the things I need to do; I am mentally capable of performing at the level I am expected to; I am emotionally stable so as to exist without any outside reinforcement; I am certain that I am pleased and honored to be myself and no one else.

I have.

There are have nots, but I have. For that, I am grateful.

For there are cities within a ten-to-fifteen-minute drive from my neighborhood where people sleep on the streets, where people struggle to provide for their own.

Even in these cities, the hope that everyone else has lost for them has also slipped from their own fingers.

Never once have I looked into a stranger's eyes and have seen tears. Never once have I felt that they needed something that I had. I never felt like I ever had anything to give, yet if there were anything I could ever offer, my words and thoughts would be the greatest gift I could give.

The world suffers its losses and celebrates its gains.

After every storm comes a rainbow across the horizon and within every ribcage should be a cardiovascular system.

In the heat, in the cold, in the rain, in the shine, you rose against gravity in consciousness, you fought for your right to breathe, you battled the demons in your mind for your own voice, you ceded to the necessities of human beings to be greater than you were the day before.

http://asmileforever.tumblr.com/post/55837962902

For those who have lost faith in humanity, never forget that the ones that get the limelight never represent the entirety of a society. There are generations that have passed that have not destroyed the earth and there are many more to come that will bring just as much chaos, bliss, peace, carnage, hatred and love to the world we know, all the same. Time will help things fluctuate, though wisdom will never change: it will simply pass to greater minds with larger capacities and spread farther across nations and seas to help the world change.

If not for Nobel Peace Prizes and actuality of equality, then for a sense of analysis and progress.

A taxi cab - how many people would surmise that the people doing their jobs every day like the other millions of citizens in a country would ever make a difference in your life? Furthermore, with such a small altercation: a simple conversation.

One day, I was walking and a woman said hello to me because I was deep in thought. I replied, of course, alleviating my inner thoughts of whatever burdens they brought to me countenance. At the bus stop, individuals would approach me in questioning of simple things: whether their bus had come, whether I knew which bus would take them which way or to where; whether I knew how to get to this place or that - out of the many other individuals at the bus stop. I also gave what answers I could.

This conversation was simply different. A parent who speaks of their children to complete strangers is one of two things. Both of those things include loving.

Loving of their self.

Loving of others.

The taxi cab driver and his wife engaged me in conversation after I dropped of a sandwich for my brother during our waypoint-venturing. I learned a lot from the woman and her perspective chimed remarkably similar to my mother's own. Not only is a generational understanding essentially crucial, but it does not vary vastly from whatever ethical and moral values you hold.

You can tell a kind soul when you see one.

These two in the front of the vehicle certainly were the kindest I've encountered in such a serendipitous occasion.

At the end of the cab ride and conversation, I shared with them my blog on a strip of paper. I hope they read along, because they most certainly have been tallied in my eternal log of people to learn from in order to become a better person.

"Complete strangers can become the closest of friends."

~ My Angie. <3 =]

The violence and hatred and injustice in the world will never be completely null: that's a practical point. However, if more peace, love and justice are forwarded and shared than the former, there is a great possibility that, at the forefront of our minds, avoiding eye contact with a complete stranger who could need the sudden grace from a compassionate smile wouldn't flee us instantaneously.

"It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift - the baffled king composed a hallelujah."

Sometimes I just wonder what it would look if all the things we knew - not thought or believed, but knew due to moral understandings and defined boundaries of justice - were wrong did not happen. If people did not steal, if people did not cheat, if people did not lie and do all the other imperfect things we do.

We'd be perfect.

Too perfect.

" I t ' s   a   c o l d    a n d    b r o k e n    h a l l e l u j a h . "

Essentially, there are so many things that happen that we can grieve over. We can throw fits and rampage for those who cannot. We can argue from our points of understanding and curse the fates for what they like to consider static and immovable. We can spend our seconds out of the day, our days out of the year - our years out of our lifetime - counting the stars that wink out in the night.

Or we can spend it all counting the stars left in the night sky.

I thank everything I can thank that I have a bed to sleep in at night and a family to wake up to in the morning. I give thanks for my ability to move my arms and legs and head and eyes and mouth. I am grateful for the voice I use to communicate and the mind I use to communicate with myself.

For those who have thoughts that bring them down, remember that while balloons do deflate, there is always air left in the atmosphere. You are not the balloon, so to speak, but the air. I suppose that the balloon can be a moment in time, a circumstance, a phase or even a day at a time. And sometimes they pop, or sometimes they're not even tied to begin with.

There's always an analogy to help you understand whatever rut you're in.

There's always another analogy to help you out of that same rut and maybe another one along the way.

And there's always a friend or two to make sure to guide you away from those ruts whenever you're too busy paying attention to your own feet beneath you to look at the path ahead.

Love yourself. Love others.

"Everybody Love Everybody."
[ ELE ]

 

. Hallelujah .

<3 ~ Monty.
=]

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"I want you to imagine that you're listening to some random song and you see a little picture on the right-hand side that looks pretty familiar. Say you click on it and what you see is something that will change your entire life. Imagine if you clicked on the video, and you realize that somebody posted a video of you and labeled it, 'The World's Ugliest Woman or Man.' Think for a second: how would you feel?"

- Lizzie Velasquez, TEDxYouth @ Austin, TX.

Tumblr.

 There's always diamonds in the rough.

"Au Cinema" by Lianne la Havas has been haunting my ears for nearly weeks at a time, and I think it's about time it's used in this entry.

I don't know if people of "higher publicity" even bother to read every single means of social networking forwarded at them, but I contacted Lizzie and made it a point to speak of her video, which I stumbled over, courtesy of Tumblr.

Not too long ago, I was having a rather important conversation with my mother. She inquired if I'd ever been bullied in my life. Truthfully, I've been fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who were stable enough themselves to not attribute to any negative behavior. I can't say that I'd wish it happened, nor do I truly count my blessings, but I take it as it is. Eventually, someone "badder and better" will come along and pose a challenge. I will merely "make my enemy my footstool," as my mother often recounts of a major staple in her ethics.

Lizzie here did the same thing.

If you didn't care to watch the video for whatever reason, it's okay. I had the same, initial reaction most people would. However, I tuned into her words after her hook and saw that she was even more of a genuine and nice person, a better motivational-ist than I. I listened to her story and watched her as she went through her range of emotions and levels of her story. I learned to respect her and found that I had an admiration for both she and her parents.

Good parenting is not about providing for your child but should also incorporate teaching your children lessons that will be able to uphold them and useful for the children to support their self.

Lizzie found the fork in the road: "I could either choose happiness or I could choose to give up."

She chose happiness.

My conversation also garnered another piece of advice, and that was not to share business with everyone. There are certain things that need to be censored and there are secrets in the world that need to be upheld as secrets. I'm learning what those things are, though I aim to maintain a level of honesty and relative understanding to whatever the circumstances may provide.

There are many things I don't know in my life. I don't know how some people can get up in the morning and do something they hate every waking moment of their lives. I don't understand how they can do it for the people they love and manage to straighten their backs, keeping their nose to the grind. I don't know how people get up so many times after being beaten into the dirt, after being torn limb from limb and leeched of all hope and resolve by the environment in which they thrive. I don't understand how the fire in them rekindles each time, with greater vigor - with greater drive.

I don't know how people can fabricate such hatred, such animosity towards something or someone they do not know. I cannot understand how a notion of bullying is feasible when everyone - everyone - understands the distinction between "morally just" and "morally unjust." No matter the moral or ethic system, there's also an innate, physical reaction garnered from the things we do when we interact with other people: some of it gives us pleasure and others give us discomfort. I suppose there could be a fault in judgement of that sensation, but after the age of six, an individual's capacity for ethical distinction is engaged (Shaw & Wainryb, 2006). The worst bullying happens after that point and has an indeterminable ending point.

There's a line between humor wherein you laugh together and humor wherein an individual is the object of entertainment.

It's simply asinine and shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is. There are so many commercials and advertisements to stop bullying, programs in elementary schools to advocate a positive space, though ignorance reigns in the nooks and crannies of blanketing efforts.

It's not a war that needs to be fought in our schools, it's a matter of filial coherence that needs to be nurtured and amended in homes.

 Lizzie also spoke of utilizing what people said about her, every hateful and disgusting remark on the YouTube video, as fuel to her fire. It was incentive to prove them wrong and she did what she knew how to do. She made it her best and dedicated everything she had to speaking, to writing and sharing her story, even to developing herself as a person.

When I went to find her contact information, I found many images of her with friends, with celebrities that complimented her greatly. It provided more detail and visual of what the video was too scenic to capture, and after hearing her story, I wasn't bothered in the slightest. I actually envied the people who got to take pictures with her because I wished to meet her in person and just talk, befriend her.

That's what I did with one of my friends who's practically a sister to me now, Nicole Pastore.

"The most beautiful diamonds come from the dirtiest lumps of coal."

I saw that written on a wall. It isn't verbatim, I don't think, but it's the closest to what I remember. And it applies here better than anywhere else, I believe.

I don't know if you'd want to watch it again, but it's definitely worth your time. If you want to share it with your friends, family, school, strangers, the works by all means. I believe strongly that Lizzie would love it if more people felt beautiful knowing that other people have been through so much that we could never comprehend, yet they still feel like one of the greatest people on the planet.

It's probably because they are.

Thank you, Lizzie.

<3 ~ Monty.

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