being the person you truly want to be, and other stories
#127
poetry isn't a vessel for answers
Imagine yourself in the vast halls of human expression, where words float like ethereal spirits, searching for tangible forms to inhabit. Here, you stand as the curious alchemist at the language's molten core, crafting with each stanza and line break an understanding elixir—a potion not merely sipped but often gulped down by cultures across continents and through the ages.
Step now into the garden of your imagination, where metaphors blossom like rare orchids and sentences curl around your finger like tendrils of ivy. You are the bee that plunges into the blooms, carrying pollen from one idea to the next, orchestrating a silent symphony of creation. Whispered secrets pass from one poem to another until thoughts take root, speckled with the sunlight and moonbeams of countless interpretations.
Poetry defies the pull of mundane expression, crafting constellations from solitary stars and carving landscapes with the persistent flow of its current.
Why does poetry hold significance? It poses as much of a question as it offers affirmation. Poetry is a question mark, an unending spiral drawing us inward, ever-seeking, toward an answer that might only be another enigmatic question.
Poetry isn't a vessel for answers. It is the very essence of questioning—distinctive and solitary, like a snowflake in a perpetual winter, set against a universe quivering with the inexpressible.
Could it be that, in the great expanse of the universe, we are drawn to poetry as a kindred spirit, yearning to unravel the threads of our existence?
Welcome to Friday Saturday, my friend.
being the person you truly want to be
dawn
when the sky is a canvas
you can hear the whispers
of possibilities
in-between time
where night shakes hands with day
lies a question, a murmur
who do you wish to be?
We are not static, not stones, not statues in some grand hall of existence. We're more like rivers—constant in our motion but ever-changing in our depths. To be the person one truly wants to be is to navigate these waters with a compass that points towards authenticity. It's easy to be swept away by the currents of expectation or to find yourself caught in the eddies of societal norms, spinning around the same old patterns and the same old shores.
bravery is required
to push off from the familiar and venture into the uncharted. And it's not without its share of solitude. To be who you truly want to be is often to walk a path that others may not understand. There are those moments, under a sliver of the moon or the harsh noonday sun, when you might feel the acute pang of being alone in your quest.
But is it loneliness or is it freedom? Perhaps they are both sides of the same coin, spinning in the air before it lands in the palm of destiny.
Do you remember the moments when you felt most yourself? Those instances are not random; they are clues, breadcrumbs on the path to the core of your being. The laughter that bubbled up from a place of joy, the tears that sprang from a well of genuine emotion, the silence that spoke of deep contentment—these are the signposts.
To become who you truly wish to be is an act of daily recommitment. It's waking up each morning and deciding to wear your authenticity like a cloak, even when the winds of doubt are howling. It's the courage to say 'no' when every fiber of your being wishes to conform.
It’s the courage to say 'yes' when opportunity knocks, even if its knock is faint and timid.
But let's not romanticize the journey too much. It's not all heroic soliloquies and standing atop mountains with the flag of self. No, there are times when being who you want to be means admitting defeat, acknowledging the lesson in failure, and understanding that even the caterpillar must become entirely undone to emerge as the butterfly.
And so, it seems, to be the person you want to be is to embrace a paradox. It's to be gentle and strong, to be consistent but not rigid, to be open but not empty. It is, as with all of life's most profound truths, a delicate balance.
Each interaction, each choice, and each silent promise to yourself adds a note to the melody of who you are.
So here you stand, at the crossroads of dawn, with the pen of your actions in hand, poised to write your story. What will it read? And, more importantly, when dusk comes to claim the day and the stars blink open their eyes, will you sit beneath their watchful gaze, content in the knowledge that the person you wanted to be was the person you were?
What does it mean, in the quiet corners of your soul, to be who you truly are?
tempest in a teacup
Her eyes, twin supernovas on the brink of detonation, lock onto me like a raptor sighting prey from high above a forsaken desert. They are cataclysms awaiting the cue to unfold, but also libraries where histories of unspoken wounds are archived, each gaze a chapter in an epic of accumulated resentments.
Her voice is a tempest, carrying lifetimes of repressed hurricanes. It is not merely air oscillating; it is earth quaking, tectonic plates clashing in a subterranean discord. It contains the rattle of snake tails, each utterance a flicker of fangs drip-dropping venom into the eardrums of those who dare listen.
In her wrathful display, there's an undercurrent of something ineffable, a certain fragility akin to dew on a spiderweb, trembling in the dawn. For isn't rage often a masked dancer, twirling flamboyantly to distract us from the vulnerabilities that hide backstage?
In her anger, there's also a longing for what could have been—echoes of utopias buried under the rubble of experience. If I could only trek through the landscapes of her ire, I might stumble upon these ruins—broken pillars and vine-covered marble where once dream palaces stood.
Venom is not always a weapon; sometimes, it's a plea for understanding, coded in a language shaped by evolutionary caution.
Each syllable she releases is not just an expulsion but a forging, shaping the reality around her as a sculptor with both mallet and chisel. The hammer of her tone strikes the anvil of the moment, and in that collision, something new is birthed.
She stands there, a tempest in a teacup, a universe in turmoil. She invites me, subtly, to read between the lines of her cacophony and to explore the uncharted territories that are her seething oceans and raging volcanoes. Should I turn away or attempt, like an alchemist, to transmute her venom into an elixir?
It's a choice that transcends the superficiality of audible decibels, taking me into realms uncharted by sound but navigable by empathy. I have to choose wisely, for this journey is not just through her psyche but also an expedition through the dark forests and moonlit meadows of my own understanding.
And here I am, on the edge of her event horizon. To dive in or to retreat—that is my quandary. I remember that either way, her eyes and voice will remain resonant and immutable, like constellations in the night sky or the low rumble of Earth, a symphony that was ancient before humans ever contemplated what anger could mean.
things people learn too late
1. Everything is temporary
2. Life isn't fair.
3. Family matters more than friends.
4. Beneath anger is always fear.
5. A lifetime isn't forever.
6. The biggest risk is taking no risk.
7. Things don't matter that much.
8. Happiness is a choice.
9. You played it too safe.
What would you add to the list?
going all in on X
I am a man of words, a disciple in the temple of ideas. My currency is the expression and exchange of thoughts, the communion with fellow seekers who thirst for knowledge and understanding as I do.
In this digital era, our pulpit has become the platform we choose to engage with, and our congregations are spread across the globe, connected by pixels and a shared passion for the wisdom sewn into the fabric of the internet.
My vocation is to the stories untold, to the epiphanies unshared, to the links in the grand chain of human thought. With the tools of a curator, I gather these treasures—the glinting gems of knowledge and narrative—for you, my fellow seekers on this path.
I have wandered through the landscapes of Mastodon, where echoes of familiarity resound off unscalable walls. I've threaded thoughts on Threads, sought the boundless skies of Bsky Social, and lingered in the ghostly realms of Pebble—now a whispered memory. My journey through these realms was a quest for the perfect place to share my thoughts. Because, in the end, it is where we share our thoughts that defines the map of our collective mind.
Thus, with both feet planted, I cast my lot with X, embracing it not as a mere platform but as a vessel for the journey. The voyage is toward the horizon of understanding, where ideas are the stars by which we navigate. X beckons as the best vessel for this odyssey.
*’I’ll still maintain a presence on the other social networks, but X is the main social network for me. Link up with me there for conversations and sharing in between issues.
endless succession of phantasms
In the quiet moments, when the hum of the everyday recedes into the background, one can sense the silhouette of this truth—that life, in its essence, seems a gallery of shifting phantasms, a dance of light and shadow.
Consider the morning sun as it spills golden over the dewy grass. For an instant, it is the quintessence of new beginnings, a promise that clings to the air as tangibly as the scent of earth after rain. Yet, with each tick of the clock, that moment morphs into something else, something new.
The café at the corner is alive with the murmur of conversation, the clink of porcelain, and the bitter aroma of roasted beans. Here, people come and go, each with their own narrative, a personal odyssey of the mundane. You might watch them, these protagonists of their stories, and marvel at how they flicker—how the young woman with the earnest eyes might, in a blink, transform into the bearer of some untold sorrow or unbridled joy.
Or take the tree that stands sentinel in the village square; its branches are a cradle of history. Children scuttle about its roots, oblivious to the silent tales it guards. To the passerby, the tree may seem constant, yet each day it is different—leaves unfurling or surrendering to the wind’s caress. It is no more a singular entity than the sea is one wave.
This procession of phantasms is the very rhythm of life. We are players on a stage where the scenes shift even as we act our parts, where the props are as fluid as the characters themselves. The laughter of a newborn, the furrow of worry over a brow, the soft surrender of twilight as it yields to night’s embrace—each is a vignette in a sequence that knows no end.
In a world of such ephemera, you might question the solidity of anything. The love that burns like a beacon today might tomorrow be but an ember, or conversely, it might be the fire that defies the tempest. Your convictions might be unassailable until the hour they are not. Even our memories—those keepers of our identity—are but delicate threads subject to the loom’s caprice.
The beauty of this succession lies not in its constancy but in its transience. It is the very impermanence that imparts the urgency to grasp at the ethereal, to experience fully and without reservation. It encourages one to look for the constellations within chaos and to find meaning amidst the mirages.
Yet, amidst this ever-changing panorama, we seek anchors—in people, in places, in the constancy of our own beating hearts. Perhaps this is our rebellion against the impermanence of it all, our way of painting permanence on the canvas of flux.
For some, the pursuit might take the form of art—words strung together, attempting to capture the essence of what is, by nature, uncapturable. For others, it might be found in the silence that sits between two heartbeats or in the echo of a song that stirs the soul. The anchors are as varied as the individuals who seek them, each a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.
And so life unfolds—a kaleidoscope of ephemeral moments, a series of breaths inhaled and exhaled, each a whisper of existence. To live, then, is to wander this hall of mirrors, to embrace the beauty of the illusions, and to find joy in the fleetingness of our dreams and desires.
In this endless succession of phantasms, what moments, what dreams, what echoes of laughter, or whispers of love will you chase tomorrow?
moments
Being randomly inspired (or serendipitously inspired) by the designer and maker, Olivia Crosby. I could feel her true passion for art pulsating through my screen
Remembering my best friend from high school It was his birthday this week. He died earlier this year from pancreatic cancer. He was only 58
Reminding myself that life is short. Live it how I want to live while I still can
I was lost in a mental fog. I surrendered to the mystery of awareness and found my way back
Meeting with my incredibly kind friend, whom I don’t get to see in person that often. We drank coffee. Ate pizza. Wandered through the streets of Birmingham. Drank gluwein at the German Christmas Market. And we talked for hours about everything and nothing all at once
Realising that life is a multiplayer co-op, you can achieve much more with others than you can by yourself
Committing to the belief that there is still more to find, learn and experience in this life and each day brings new possibilities and potential
recommendations:
i like working in virtual reality from time to time; it helps break up the monotony of working in the same office space. with the Occulus 2 VR set, i use an app called Immersed. i work in a virtual cafe there. i love the piano bar and working on three huge computer screens. now a new product has hit the market, the Xreal Air Pro 2, which takes spatial computing to a whole new level.
i’ve started reading Writing as a Path to Awakening by Albert DeSilver. the promise of the book is to help you look inside yourself and touch the raw emotional core that is at the heart of your creativity. so far, i’m finding the book interesting. i’ll keep you updated as i go along.
i thought this article on the passing of Matthew Perry was very good: Growing Up With Chandler Makes It Harder to Bid Matthew Perry Goodbye
here’s a chatbot that will help you find the moral lessons in any movie, song, TV show, or book.
postscript
What’s been working for you this week?
I am mindful of the dream that drives me: to build a thriving online community full of dreamers and seekers who are all deeply interested in exploring philosophical thinking, poetry, and the beating heart of online culture, while also keeping our feet firmly planted in the soft ground of nature.
The blueprint for our collective journey is clear: it requires an insatiable appetite for reading – devouring texts as a ravenous beast would, engaging with ideas that span the vast landscapes of music, beat poetry, nature, transcendentalism, and philosophy—and then sharing what we’ve discovered and learned.
That's the space my thoughts are occupying at the moment.
I hope this note finds you well.
Take care,
Clay
p.p.s sorry i was late getting the notes out this week.