Counter World Clockwise

“I’d buy your love.”

            Bare Naked Ladies - If I had a Million Dollars

Money doesn’t buy love, but anyone who says it doesn’t buy happiness is a fool.  You do not need money to be happy, and you don’t need money to fall in love, but it really doesn’t hurt either.

 I try, I really do.  An extra dollar into the donation bin at the check-out line; volunteering in mentor programs and buying an extra bag of groceries for the food shelf.  Donating money to “Feed the Children”, and babysitting the neighbor’s children because you can tell that all she really needs is just an hour to get away and can’t afford a babysitter to do it with.  I know my limits and I keep within them most of the time; but I find myself dreaming of all of the good I could do if I wasn’t barely making ends meet myself.

Don’t get me wrong; I have a good life; but one of my greatest sorrows is watching someone struggle when you would do nearly anything to help them somehow.

The world is a big place, and we can’t help everyone; but when it is right there in front of you, and you are helpless to do anything that will really matter in the long run…It sits with you.

 And so I’m back to daydreaming.

Daydreaming of what I would do if money wasn’t an issue.   Of what I would do if I won the lottery or had even one million of the success that certain people of hollywood squander with flamboyant wastefulness.

 I’d buy a home.   A real home instead of my little apartment.  A home with a backyard and a few bedrooms.   I’d take up foster care.  Because I would have a home that was paid for, and wouldn’t have to worry about mortgage payments, I wouldn’t have to worry about if I could pay my bills on time and just give those kids something that all children deserve…a chance to learn who they are; remember how to dream, and be given a chance. 

I’d buy my C6 friend a real car and not the deathtrap, gas guzzler of doom that she drives now. 

I’d buy a second house, one with lots of rooms and just let my friends live there.  Good people who have jobs but just can’t seem to get ahead because it’s hard to get ahead when you started off so far behind.  In return, they just have to do one thing.  Take up volunteering…anywhere, anytime…but just do it.

I’d get a list of all the local schools and get a list of the children who are on free-lunches and then send them home with a backpack loaded with food; a 100 dollar grocery gift card and fill thier locker with all the school supplies you could possibly need; and just for them…a 50 dollar gift certificate to a store where they can buy something for Themselves…

 I’d make sure that none of my friends had to agonize over how they were going to feed their family that week.

But I am a modest person, who lives a modest life and as much as I’d like to do those things, they are at this time, far beyond my means.   So I’ll keep volunteering, I will keep giving that extra dollar at the store, and donating an extra bag of groceries here and there, or dropping off a bag or two at a friend’s place so I know her family can eat a bit better that week; and I’lll try to do all that I can do, even without money.

 …You don’t need money to help someone.

And that’s sort of the point.    No one has an excuse for not helping someone else, no matter how little they have.

…What kind of person can watch someone’s pain and not want to do something?

Will any of those things change someone’s life?  …No, but it will make someone’s life better, if even for a single day.

 We all deserve one day of happiness…it gives us the hope we need to keep trying.

One day, I’ll be able to do more to do more, but for now, I’ll do what I can.

 More of us should.

“Seeking shelter under the trees.”

                       Aria Sharp - Scatter.

I write this as the storm clouds roll through the sky with careful vengeance.   The sun is nowhere to be seen, lightning strikes the ground with amazing and my only thought is how truly beautiful it really is. 

Have you ever danced in the rain?  Twirled around and around, bare-foot and soaked to the skin while laughing at the clouds?  Yelled defiently at the sky, daring it to grow greater and defying the thought that you might be afraid?

 …No, we’re too practical for that these days.

 …Storms are destructive, deadly, dangerous; and so we are scared of them.

 While true, perhaps it wouldn’t be as true if we didn’t put houses next to lakes, rivers and oceans; didn’t cut down millions of trees to make room for concrete and steel, or heat up the world with toxic warmth.

 If you don’t mess with Nature, Nature will usually leave you alone.

 Respect nature…

 It is easier to see the beauty of something if you aren’t blinded by stupidity or fear.

“A smile, turned into defeat.”

                        Aria Sharp - “Whats your name?”

We live in a world without names.

Oh, we have have them, don’t get me wrong; but does anyone really remember them?  What good is a name if there is nothing attatched to it?  What good is a story if there is no one to hear it?  What good is a dream if you are afraid to reach for it?  What good are we if we don’t even think about what good we even are?

 Some people might call it an obessession, but I think it is a very valid question that we fail to ask anymore.

Just who the hell are we?

 Does anyone know who you are?  Who you truly are?   Does anyone know your story?  Doesn’t it bother you that no one knows your story?   Why the hell not?  If we truly go through life to learn from it; if we truly go through life so that we can better understand our place in it, beyond it and one day through it, then why in the world doesn’t anyone share that story so that we might all learn something?

 Is it vanity that we conceal it; ashamed of who we are?  Or maybe it is fear that we hide from it, afraid that we might be judged.  Perhaps it is modesty, not wanting praise, or I know…maybe it is embarassement, not wanting pity.

Perhaps this is where apathy, humanity’s greatest enemy, that causes this silence.   Far more likely, a combination of these things, but I place most of the blame once again on fear and apathy.

We just don’t care anymore.   And those who do care, are afraid to.

Even in a world of self-biographies, online journals and blogs, we don’t talk about the important things.   Politics, current events, daily schedules and reactions, and perhaps once in awhile, there is a heart-felt rant somewhere.

But even in a world of everyone expressing something; we still pass over the greatest stories of all; ourselves.

“I am an open book with hidden pages.”  I’ve always been fond of saying that, but most people don’t quite get it.  I don’t really expect most people to anymore; to do so would only be asking for dissapointment.  Some people think you are being coy, others think you are trying to show off.  There have been those who thought it means I try to hide things about myself, while there have been others that just look puzzled.

Either way, it makes me laugh a little bit.

 …What good is a name, if you know nothing about who that name is attatched to?

 What good is a name?

“This is it”

       Aria Sharp - Past times.

Sitting in the grass and seeing nothing but the sky, the sun, and the dandilions that you would all too happily pluck from the ground and much to the distgruntlement of your neighbors, take a deep breath and blow those little white puffs all over the place.   Make a wish and blow, then count how many little spores are left; that’s how many kids you were going to have…or how many days would pass before your wish came true.

 Even the poorest of children will find some sort of whimsical game that somehow makes any day brighter, if even for a moment.  There were trees to climb, dirt hills to conquer or swampy marshes or ponds to sludge through.  There were woods to adventure in, cornfields or grasslands to hide in or a street to play stickball or street hockey.  There is rock collecting and flower picking.  Fairy chasing and monster tag…wizards versus dragons and racing just to see how fast you could run.  Bugs, Dirt, Sunshine and Germs…you just didn’t think about that kind of thing when you were younger.

 …Growing up just seems to ruin everything.

 Because now we give our children video games and television..or they have jobs.

 Don’t get me wrong; I grew up on television as much as anyone.    I’d like to think that the shows we watched when we were younger actually made a little more sense however…and if there was nothing on T.V. we would always just play outside.   We still drove our parents nuts, and there were always chores to do.

…But something is going away; it has been for awhile now.

 Free -  Time is being whittled away, Gym is stripped from school programs, playtime saturated with agenda and television is still our babysitter with fast food restuarants being our chef.  We shove standardized testing down the throats of our children, listen to whatever the radio has to say and blindly follow the leader without stopping to question the true morality of it all.   I think if we could pull our heads out of our asses for a moment; we might be ashamed…but I can’t really tell, since there seems to be wax in the ears of those who would normally listen.

The world has never been more obese, more unhappy or more lost.

We really are lost, you know…

And I just can’t help but think how much happier we would all be if the entire world could forget reality for just enough time to play a game of hide and seek, drink some sugar-water and take a nap.

“and some things are better seen than heard…”

                                              Aria Sharp -  Only if you mean it

It has been a long weekend.   There is alot to be said about acceptance of one’s self; and sadly, it doesn’t seem to be a popular area of which people open up about.  I thought I would post a rather simple song for the sake of demonstrating exactly what I mean by that.  There is something in this song that just embraces self-worth and shows defience to deny the speaker what they are.  Love for yourself; one of the greatest things to have and yet so few in this world truly have it.  Some people don’t even think about it or value it, which I think is just as sad.  I have a few other things to say about this subject, but for now, I leave you with the words to mull over; Make of it what you will.

Let it Stay.

I’m scary,
I’m real good,
haven’t you figured that out, yet.
I’m lovely,
I’m real, dude.
I’m a test of my own faith, and,
all of the bad things you say,
won’t change the times that I pray to,

Love, whatever.
Truth, whenever.
Death, yeah sometime,
but wasn’t quite this morning.
Jealous, not one day
Angry, well some ways,
Pain, yeah, but it fades,
never forgotten, but always worth stopping,
sometimes let it stay…
sometimes, let it stay.

“Stop the clock, inhale and breath”

                                    Static - Aria Sharp

There is such a dangerous, dangerous line that must never be crossed; and yet we do it constantly.

It is easier to be angry than it is to forgive, and it is easier to hate than to love.   It is the strongest, bravest person in the world that can forgive someone who would return that sympathy with hatred instead.   It is the most pure of all souls that can look at someone who has done great wrong and instead of wishing harm upon them, simply hope that they will one day understand the wrongness they have done to not only the world, but to themselves and seek to right the wrongs they have created.

 The need to be loved, admired, held, understood.   There is a need to be nurtured and there is the compulsion to try and fill the void that is within us from our birth…a purpose.   Apathy is our greatest sin, and the true destroyer of humanity…If one cannot feel, then one is already dead.  Everyone complains about how messed up the world is, but does anyone do anything to fix it?   What do you do to make things better? …what should we be doing?

It is incrediably sad when I hear someone state that nothing matters…because that isn’t the point.  I could explain, but instead I will just quote Garth Brooks, who truly got it right with his song “Changes”

And that’s the real point.  

 I will never give up on the world…because there is always something worth saving.    Even if it is only one small thing.  That is where we go wrong in the world, I think.   We’ve got it all backwards…the world in general has it all backwards. 

We think of things as how the bad outweigh the good and if this is true, then it not worth saving.   Shouldn’t we instead, see the good that still exists, even with the bad, and then realize instead that there IS something worth saving?  There is always good somewhere, if you can open your eyes to it…but you must be willing to see it.

 Sticking your head in the sand and claiming you only see certain things is not only unjust but wasteful.   It is something done when someone is convinced that they are right and everything else is wrong…it’s blindness in the face of realization that if they opened thier eyes, they could no longer hold the same opinion because they have seen something that proves their conclusion wrong…and it is easier to be blind than it is to see.

Being blind, you don’t have to change anything; you expect the world to confirm to your vision, even if by force.

…But to keep trying, even when everyone else would have given up?   That’s something.

 That’s worth something.

“Sorry, but I have, Love for life”

                           Violent Blindness -  Aria Sharp

I was reading a collection of writings from Isreal and I could not help but think of a classroom debate that I had in the fifth grade and how even then, the unmistakeable signs that define left from right, and right from wrong in the eyes of the beholder; even at age 10.

We were studying Geography, and Iraq, Iran and Israel came up.  At this point, we had only learned of Africa; the Lower and western regions that African American’s, (Blacks)  and when Iran, Iraq and Israel were explained to us; we then had to split up into two debate teams and debate the following.

 Group A had lived in a country for thousands of years.  Then Group A left, and Group B moved in.

A Thousand years later, Group A came back and demanded that group A had to leave.

 Group A demanded that group B leave and Group B demanded that Group A leave.

They could not live together and both felt it was their land.

…Almost all of the classroom declared that Group B should leave.

 I argued that Group B shouldn’t have to leave because it isn’t group B’s fault that Group A left, nor was it Group B’s fault that group A came back and it wasn’t justified to say that Group B had to suddenly leave thier home that they had lived in for a thousand years, and now it was just as much thier home as group A’s.    I then said that Group A shouldn’t have to leave either, but if they absolutely refused to get along and group B was willing to, than it really should be group A that had to leave, since they were the ones refusing to share and had no right to demand something back; but I felt they should both be able to stay and just accept that they were different.

 I was one of the only ones who argued this point; unable to see how everyone else, including the teacher could accept that group A should just get the land back.   I fet that if group A couldn’t tolerate group B, that group A should have to leave.   I also felt that if group B was the one being intolerant, than they really shouldn’t have any right to complain since it was Group A’s land in the first place…and if anything, they should have a common bond in that they were both driven away from thier homelands to begin with.

I didn’t really convince anyone else, but I remembered being confused at the end of the day.    

 It made sense to me as a child…what should it matter what we believe, as long as we remember that we are all human beings?  Why did people feel they had to have it thier way or no way?  Why couldn’t they share?  Why couldn’t they compromise…or why couldn’t they at least be tolerant of someone’s right to exist as they are?

I realize there are religious fanatics out there of all sorts who would flip out and start screaming about righteousness, but the sad thing is, I’m not even that religious and even -I- understand that god does not ask us to kill in his name.

God does not condemn us showing compassion to our enemy, and god does not codemn us for showing tolerance in the face of intolerance.   God only asks that we live our lives in a certain way…and this is true of almost all of the gods that I have studied.  

Never does it say anywhere that god is pleased when there was death…only life.

Never does it say anywhere that god is pleased when we murder in his name…in fact, nearly all of the gods I have researched ask that we respect life and that the greatest sin we could commit is to kill in his name.

God is not a murderer.    So, why then, can’t anyone else seem to remember this?

 I have a theory for that too.

 There was a clear and solid ‘right and wrong’ in our eyes when my class had learned of slavery; the conclusion being of course that it was a horrible thing to have done to another human being.   

When we had learned about slavery in fourth grade, I had then in return, remembered with distinction the discomfort of our teacher trying to explain our American History…glossing over that we massacerred thousands of indians in order to justify our own wants for what they had and what we wanted.   No one wants to acknowledege that the first “Americans” to America were murderers.  No one wants to be the bad guy, and so we glorify ourselves so that it looks as if we were justified to do the horrible things that we did.   That’s what all of this war is really about…making someone else the bad guy.

 And that’s the real truth.

 It doesn’t matter what you call yourself.  Republican, Freedom Fighter, Baptist, Athiest, Christian, Jew or Muslim.   When you justify striking down another human being so that they can’t disagree with you about what you are, or what you think is right…you are a failure.   A punch, A word, A gun, A bomb; If you cannot stand face to face with someone who would dare to believe something different than you and still see them as another human being; you are a failure.

 It makes my soul ache to know there is that much hate in this world.

 Because I look at you, and I see someone who lives, breaths, thinks and wonders; I see life…despite the monster of hate that lurks beneath your eyes.   Ther was once, when the hate did not consume you…

 When the hate did not consume all of us.

but then we grew up; and became stupid.

…So desperate to not have our children point out that the emperor has no cloths on; we’ve taken to brainwashing thier innocent minds early; disguising the truth in stories designed to make them believe one side is right and the other side is monsters.

 …I say, that in god’s eyes, we continue to fail.

 After all; we can’t even admit our own mistakes.

“Another moment passes by you, darling.”

                     “Almost Free - Aria Sharp”

Who are we but to wonder who we are in the face of everything we know when there is so much that we do not?   I’m not really sure what the answer is to that question, and I’m not sure that anyone really does.

In theory, we are only theory; doesn’t anyone get tired of all of the questions we don’t even try to answer anymore?  Why have so many of us have lost the rationality to exist without the instant gratification of anonymous belligerency?  Who are we trying to prove something to in the first place?  Does it matter that in the end, it doesn’t matter?  Shouldn’t it be the question, not the answer that is most important?  Shouldn’t it be the attempt, and not the result that deserves recognition? 

 Who would we be, if there was no one to judge us?  Who would we be, if there was no one to watch us?  Who would we be, if there was no one to answer to?  Who would we be, if we were accepted for who we were when there was?

 Who would we be, without fear?

 …Dream.   Believe.    And take back what was meant to be yours.

 Speak.