Life still goes on

For far too long the chase has been all that I know. Both in relationships, and in life in general. Seeing the world was a nice thought at one time, it is enchanting, when the view of the whole world lies at your finger tips. When impetuous youth grips your will, you have no clarity, no real direction, yet youth is what makes it impossible to see otherwise. Yet I do not, in any way, regret the choices that I have made in regards to the directions I have taken. You will not find me apologizing for the person I have become, the things that I have done. Most of it requires no apology, and other things are merely a lesson learned, progression on a path to virtue and wisdom. I would regret a continual habit of rebellion and sin, a hardness of heart, and with several of those things along the way, those are what sadden me.

So what have I learned in this time while living in Hollywood? I could go on and on about the depravity of mankind, but I am so tired of that, it haunts me constantly, I'd rather present something more useful.

I suppose one constant idea that runs in and out of everything I have discovered about the world, mankind, divinity, myself, is the influence of time. Time being the generic quality of the space within which life takes place. How that nothing is set to occur. Neither as we "will" it, and more often I wonder if in many cases, God has a specific time for all things. I must be brief and generic, I do not fully understand it myself.

My brother, for years, has made clear that the years eventually mean nothing. That life continues on, and things happen along the way, whether its five years, or ten, or never. We all have our entire lives to live, however long it may be allotted to us.
I never understood it, I thought he was nuts, that all those years in the laboratories and lecture halls had messed up his head a little.
But he was right, and thankfully, I realized it sooner than later. Natasha said the same things once, I think once she said it, I began to think through it a little more, until the last few months when it clicked in my heart and mind. Time it seems, is as bankrupt like wall street has become, a false inflation of value, speculation that I had made a false image out of. Time is irrelevant, and once that is understood, so many more issues that bother me lose their severity, lose their pertinence, their blinding unimportance.

Worries of time, bring worries of career, of friends, of love relationships, of home. All of these things are subjective, there is no "will" behind them, no Divine timing, it just is. I understand this sounds blasphemous, but you have be reasonable, you have to stop worshiping a book, and worship the Author. Subjective, yes, I've learned not to be close minded to any opportunity. The worst situations, from freezing on the streets of Boston, to baking in the heat of southern california while trying to find a doctor, have occasioned the most divinely arranged things happen.

They happened, without a stopwatch, just happened, and I'm thankful for whenever it happened.

Perhaps I only sound like I speak in gibberish, but I hope we all speak in tongues one day.

I've been home for over a week now, and I am thoroughly enjoying this thing called peace, and boredom, birds singing, and chipmunks "chipping" away all day long. Tonight I realized that wine glasses are only around to make us feel better about drinking, because honestly, some nights, I would drink myself under the table if I had no measurement. We all want the whole bottle, the blushing smile, the ability to say and think the things we hide all day. But not the headache, not the fatigue, and not the damage done to the liver. I think our longings for life are the same. We want only the good, only the wealth, the peace, not understanding the balance to the equations of all of our actions.

I've learned this also. that life starts today, with every moment. There is no current waiting period. Today is not the worst, and it is not the best, it simply "is". While living in Cleveland I thought it was a waiting period before getting to MI. Then about 4 months in to school here, I realized I couldn't wait to be out of Los Angeles. That I had come to think of it as a period away from the rest of my life, just as I had thought of my time in Cleveland. This single thought pattern has been the greatest inhibitor to me living the better life I know I can. I should have known that so long ago, when an old friend, whom i've not heard from in a while, and perhaps for the best, sent me this in a message:

oh dan, things are weird ... now we all have to go back to such different lives. Still, I hope you are staying positive knowing full well that there is a season for everything ... and sometimes the best ones are the least likely. I pray that for you. That this summer and next year aren't just an "in between" stage, but that they bring you closer to the Lord and closer to who Dan Scarberry is supposed to be.

Taking small pieces of advice could save your life, I wish I would have listened.
Wishes to the wind, I have to learn, and I hope the readers learn as well.

I've learned that most friendships are temporary. Don't take friendship personal. At least it is so with me, and perhaps with those of us who can never settle, whose very own impulses run the will. Scattered like the wind, knowing many, but known by few. I have been blessed by less than a handful of people who have kept close along the way. It was hard to accept that it could not be so with everyone that I have known. I dont know why I believed that all friendships can be kept fresh, fresh and unaffected by distance and differing life paths. It simply is not doable. I guess, I can not be sad about it, only happy that I have been blessed a long the path of my life.

Providence is fresh upon the breeze, I have not been abandoned.
In 6 days I will have to return to Los Angeles, more specifically, Hollywood. A place I have for many months loathed and despised. It's not difficult to utterly hate a town that smells like human decay and piss, a town run by a bunch of immigrants who can not spit 5 words of English, a city severely overcrowded and overpriced. Busy to the highest degree, re inventing the world at a destructive pace. It is easy to hate something that is superficial, drunk, corrupt, rotting, and winning the world.
You can be as righteous as you wish and will, and still you will lose everything, triumph is not a virtue, it is not a result to be had by someone seeking the most good. I think Solomon would agree.
Yet I want to love this town, i dont know how or when or why. I dont want to be sucked down into the mindless game of sexual conquest, pervasive drug use, hustling, gambling, pretending I am some rock star waiting an elusive break in a failing music industry, and stupid entertainment business.
The place I find myself is one of acceptance, if I do not accept things for how they have become, i will fall for one last time, and I will not get up.
So that is perhaps the greater lesson, accept and perceive, and do not ignore your natural inclination, eventually you will get it right.

I think Ben Gibbard nailed it to the ground in this Death Cab song.

Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue

Home's face: how it ages when you're away
Spring blooms and you find the love that's true
But you don't know what now to do
Cause the chase is all you know
And she stopped running months ago

And all you see is where else you could be When you're at home
And out on the street Are so many possibilities to not be alone

The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
But you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
Cause you knew you were finally free


Cause all you see is where else you could be, When you're at home
Out on the street are so many possibilities to not be alone
And all you see is where else you could be,
when you're at home,
There on the street,
are so many possibilities to not be alone
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Love is elusive, blinding, and beyond my reach for now. I've found the less I can think and worry about it, the better off I am. I am invisible to anyone that ever should have seen me, and life still goes on.

life still goes on.