"i hate all this work! is it so wrong to just want to enjoy life?!" ... "i don't know about me - i always feel like i don't fit. i mean i think i do, in the grand scheme of things, but on that personal level i feel like im always fighting the current. but then when i think about it i don't know if i actual am or if its just my perception that i am, my fanciful imagination." "it's not really funny, but it is because i was just thinking about that yesterday... i think you're determined to be unhappy, sort of. you're an explorer. you fight the current by necessity because that's how you place yourself in life, but because that's your niche you're not REALLY fighting the current, but you are at the same time. know what i mean?" "yes. i do. kind of. like, my reason for existence is to challenge it. mike keeps telling me that he wants to be like me, like my attitude, and i keep telling him to not do it, that its not worth it. maybe its not even something that you can choose to do." "i think its more of a habit for you at this point, if you can help it at all." "but i keep telling him to not follow it. i don't know... everytime i set out to change i try to, but i can't! i'm just meant to be like this. i mean, i'm not completely unhappy, but i do view life as a tragedy, but thats not to say it isn't worth it - but then i sound like a masochist, like i enjoy disappointment." "nooo i understand! this is going back to something we talked about before, but there is paradise in anger and sorrow and disappointment, kind of a prod on our asses to get out there and stop taking this shit from life! ...in a way. as long as we're feeling, we're in the clear!" "paradise is emotion, or within emotion, to feel and be connected to others." "exactly!" "but paradise isn't a good thing, always... it can be. but paradise can be as gloomy as anything." "but its still beautiful." "paradise was preconcieved to be this notion of happiness." *** True joy only fills the ceverns made in your soul by true sorrow. "that you can't know or have true joy without knowing sorrow, like you can't know something until you know the opposite." "some people do say that, but its definitely a grey area. just like everything else." *** And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears. Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain. When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. *** we may never come to any conclusions, but that isn't exactly our goal, is it? our paradise is the exploration, and once we uncover the true universal meaning of life, we must never know life again.