NEW WORDPRESS BLOG

http://mdalpont.wordpress.com/

Apologies

I am not ignoring this blog by any means...but I am in the process of setting up a wordpress account. My blog, from now on will be located there. I should have it up and decently running by next week hopefully. Keep checking in!

Your Flowers Are Dying and So Are You.

To be jaded by youth is a beautiful thing.  It’s hopes, dreams, and a whole life that awaits for you to create it.  Now, you don’t have to be young to catch this fiery spirit, but it is more predominant in teenagers and young adults…proven fact.  Some say because youth are naïve and have no idea about the reality that will soon come to them.  But I prefer to look at it in a different way.  I prefer to see it as an opportunity, simply by the outlook you take in life.  Young kids are more willing take a chance, a leap of faith, without hesitation.
 As people get older, responsibility starts to become an excuse to forget excitement, to forget how to enjoy yourself properly and make opportunities to enrich your life. Cleaning the house, taking care of the kids (if you have any), doing laundry, going to the dentist, getting groceries, working the 9 to 5, planning dinner, feeding the dog, getting an oil change, and the list goes on and on. 

Where in that list does it say “get excited about something new in your life?”  Nowhere.  Life becomes a list of chores and everyone forgets to enjoy anything, much less be excited about it.  Granted that these everyday tasks are unavoidable, it is no excuse for your lack of enthusiasm.  It’s called: STOP BEING LAZY.

You know that one night you have free? And all you want to do is stay home?  Yes, you’ve been staying extra late at work. Yes, you hardly get any sleep.  Yes, the flowers in the vase by your window are wilting—but what you don’t realize, is that those flowers aren’t the only thing expiring, so is your spirit.  And that is dangerous territory to contend with.  Do not go there.

So let’s make a solution. When an old friend calls you last minute to go to some dive bar—that probably smells like piss and musty walls—GO.  Even if you don’t want to.  Perhaps that one night will turn out to be the best night you had in awhile.  Maybe even all year.  After all, the best nights are the ones you don’t plan all the way through.

Where am I going with all this?  People do not make enough of an effort to enjoy their lives, and push themselves to do things that will make them happier people. 

The unexpected is all around us—we just have to expose ourselves to it, to reap its benefits.

My Car as a Time Machine, oh yeah and ranch

How the night ended:
Reflecting back on old friends, lovers and situations brings a smile to my face.  Certain songs remind me of a different person and a different time.  I love when I get in those happy moods when I am driving--those moods that make me reflect and see how far I've come, those moods that make me want to dance in the car with the music blaring, those moods that get me lost in an old memory and an old (but good) song.

How the night started:
Today, I had dinner with an old friend and her son.  I love hanging around kids because sometimes they are the funniest characters.  Her son loves ranch, which I naturally understand--people who do not like ranch have a screw loose in their head.  Ranch is the best dip for french fries, chicken strips, vegetables, and hot wings--which is essentially the base of any good food pyramid.  Anyhow, we went out to eat at a restaurant and his mom asked him what he wanted.  His natural response:

"Something with ranch."

His answer was all too perfect.
So I began to scour the menu to find what would be suitable to use ranch on.  The solution?  He beat me to the punch line...steak and french fries.  Dragging out each dab of his french fry into the ranch container, he slowly consumed the whole cup.  He polished off his whole plate, only leaving the salad greens on the plate.  Then, content and full, he began bopping up and down to the rhythm of the song playing overhead.

Moments like that make me appreciate what it's like to be a kid.  If only I could go back for a day.

Vegas Update #1: Contradiction, the temporary, and meaning.

I am running into a dilemma. I see Las Vegas as something I do not completely understand. The transformation it undergoes when the sun goes down is nothing short of a miracle. Going from barren and lonely to inviting and attractive, is something I'm not sure makes sense to me. Is barren and lonely dependent on inviting and attractive, or are they like two faces to one coin--independent, with each operating on it's own axis?

Another question I have is:

Can something that you know is going to be temporary, be something meaningful? You know Sin City won't be a place of residence--chances are, you are just there for the week, or even the weekend. AND there is a reason why they say: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Because you generally act like a fool when in Vegas, but not so much everywhere else. It's the norm to see cracked out brides, drunken men stumbling in dress shirts and shiny shoes and people throwing away money in casinos, as if they had all the money in the world. People don't act like this in the real world, at home, in front of the kids, or at work with their bosses--people don't even think of getting away with it. But in Vegas, you can create an identity and discard it as fast as you created it. The notion of the temporary, can be a liberating thing, especially when attached to the infamous five letter word...

V E G A S.

Is Ignorance Really Bliss?

To tell the tale of all the misfortunes of the world is a daunting task. Ever heard of the expression:
"What they don't know, won't hurt them?"
It's a bunch of lies and a cutting truth at the same time. The more you know about how things work, and the "cultural capital" hierarchy, the more you wonder...
Would ignorant people even want to know the truth, if they can't change the outcome of their situation?

Having knowledge about something that is out of reach does not equate to a pleasant reality. It's as simple as material goods...before that you knew that cars like BMW's existed you didn't want one. But now that you do know, that is all you think about, and your Toyota sedan doesn't catch the light quite like it used to...it looks quite dull in fact.

Who has power in this world? Rich people. Why do they have power? Because they're rich. How did they get to power? They had more resources available to them, because they are rich. Deciding the fate of an overwhelming majority is left in the hands of crooked politics and educated yuppies. It's a foolproof system....you can't win. The politics have the yuppies running in circles, too busy to use the educated minds, paid for by ridiculous amounts of money at ivy league schools.

How do u break the cycle is like asking how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop. The answer isn't worth knowing, unless put into action.

What is LOVE?

A character from a movie once said:
"Love is just love."

Listening to that quote at the time, made me think about all the assumptions I had about the word myself. Love. What does it mean? After, all it is a very loaded word--one that has one of the highest values and meanings. Why does love imply a whole list of different things? Can it not exist without all the implied meanings? What if love doesn't mean falling head over heels upon locking eyes with that handsome someone? What if it doesn't mean loyalty, or fidelity, or even trust?

The trouble with extracting all these meanings from it, is we don't know what to think about love otherwise. It becomes a mystery. We don't like mystery...we like to know the facts and have it planned out, you know: an expectation of what love should be. But I don't think there is an explanation. Look at us. We aren't perfect, and we aren't made to be. We lie, cheat, steal and hurt the ones we love: most without the intention of doing so. Rather we do these things because we are hiding from ourselves and our responsibilities. Does that mean we don't love the other person to whom we do such awful deeds to? No. It means love is imperfect and all those expectations cannot really explain what love is. It is a mystery that we desperately try to solve by piling on attributes of our own version of a so-called "Love."

The Beatles once said:
"All you need is love."

Such a heavy responsibility, for one small word. Think about that.