cynosure

A manifesto.

We don’t have to follow in our mother and father’s footsteps.
We don’t have to treat our children the same way we were raised.
We don’t have to teach them how to fear, how to worry, how to dislike themselves, how to forget how to dream and play and imagine and live in the moment.

We don’t have to abuse ourselves, everyone we encounter, or the planet that provides us with a home.

We don’t have to believe that talent or skills or fulfillment or contentment lie outside of us in fancy equipment or expensive gadgets.
We don’t have to believe that happiness lies within the accumulation of material stuff. Or anything external at all.

We don’t have to follow the rules that someone else wrote out years ago, expecting us to obey without question.
We don’t have to listen to the shoulds or should nots.
We don’t have to live up to anyone else’s standards.

We don’t have to mistreat the earth, pollute the sea with plastic, waste water, or waste our money.

We don’t have to hate ourselves, feel depressed or guilty, not take care of ourselves, feel terrible when things don’t go our way, punish ourselves, let the external dictate our emotions, think negative thoughts.
We don’t have to believe we’re weak, give up when things get tough, lose hope in life when it’s just trying to teach us something.
We don’t have to believe we can’t be happy just loving and being ourselves.

We don’t have to judge others before we even get to know them, hate others because they’re not like us, hold grudges, blame others for our circumstances.
We don’t have to believe that are either “good” or “bad”, or that “evil people” exist at all.
We don’t have to put ourselves in neat little boxes, give ourselves labels of what we are and what we aren’t, pigeonhole everyone else who we think is “different”, and distance “us” from “them”.
We don’t have to believe that there even is a “them” separate from “us” to begin with.

We don’t have to believe we’re not beautiful just because we have short legs, long legs, no butt, big butt, flabby arms, strong arms, short fingers, long necks, big ears, bushy eyebrows, no eyebrows, big feet, thick feet, wide feet, small hands, short hair, long hair, frizzy hair, straight hair, nappy hair, little hair, no hair, stretchmarks and cellulite.
We don’t have to believe we’re not beautiful because the movies and the magazines and the media tell us a terrible untruth.

We don’t have to believe we’re just a number on a scale, a shirt, or a driver’s license. We don’t have to define ourselves by the brands we wear, the color of our hair, or anything outside of our souls.

We don’t have to believe we’re not smart just because they told us we weren’t, because we don’t speak ten languages, didn’t do well on the SAT, don’t get straight As, never went to college, didn’t make the honor roll, completely tanked a class or test or two or three, refused to accept that a dogmatic professor was absolutely right, didn’t graduate middle school, would rather chase our dreams than sit at a desk.

We don’t have to deny our natural selves.
We don’t have to hold back our hunger, our laughter, our flatulence. Our sweat, our scent, our scars. Our sexiness, our sexuality, our sex drive. Our menstruation, our erections, our wet dreams, our fun dreams, our tears.

We don’t have to eat mindlessly just because advertisements and marketing aimed to make us unhealthy say so.
We don’t have to use self-harming addictions to numb ourselves or escape from our lives.

We don’t have to be ashamed of our unshaved legs, unperfumed armpits, unpainted fingernails, untrimmed toenails, unstyled hair, unpainted faces.

We don’t have to hide our true beauty.
We don’t have to hide who we are.
We don’t have to wear the clothes, have the body, fit the size, look like the actor or the model.

We don’t have to be scared anymore. Of flying, of being wonderful, of being ourselves, of talking to new and exciting people, of going for what you thought impossible, of asking that cute sweetie out, of rejection, of acceptance, of trusting ourselves and others, of letting go, of healing, of moving on, of loving and living limitlessly.

We don’t have to listen to our brother, sister, mother, father, best friend, stranger, lover, spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, teacher, mentor, therapist, cousin, who tells us we’re not good enough– no matter how much we love them.
We don’t have to believe a bar of “good enough” even exists.

We don’t have to suppress, deny, or otherwise squelch our awesomeness.

We don’t have to pretend anymore. Not for a single second longer.

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You can judge someone, think they’re a terrible person, absolutely hate them from what they seem to represent before you even talk to them…

And then talk to them, and realize they’re, just like you, a human being. One deserving of love and peace and joy, just as you are.

And maybe you realize that you and I, well, we aren’t that different after all.

“The idea that other people are strangers only exists in the mind,” says Jesh De Rox (or something to that extent).

Speaking of which (not really, yet at the same time, very really)…

I saw The Tallest Man on Earth live (and met him too!), I met and photographed the awesome Alicia of Instant Vintage, I ate phenomenal vegan food, I befriended and photographed a new friend, I took a train from Los Angeles to San Diego, I wrote on the inside of a bathroom stall.

When I don’t know what to say in words, photographs do it for me.

When I don’t know what to show in photographs, words do it for me.

I’m blessed to have the option. Blessed blessed blessed.

This isn’t me, but I still wish it were.

Funny thing about life: life is funny.

(Which also happens to be an awesome adolescent fiction novel that still remains one of my favorite books ever.)

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I look at my body, stripped by myself, with my glasses off. The lines blur together in the mirror.

It doesn’t matter what or who I am, we’re all parts of the same great thing.

We are different but not separate.

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Do you know what’s the easiest way to accept or open your mind to or forgive someone you might not have wanted to before?

Talk to them. Reach out to them. Communicate. Or even just smile.

How can you love them or help them, reach out to them, do anything for them, or simply open your mind to their existence if you don’t, can’t even strike up a conversation? Talking with them makes us more able to relate to them, to be able to recognize that they, too, are just like us– humans who wish for and are entitled to happiness just as much as the next person. Let’s make the first step and simply say hi.

Instead of this distance. This vast and cold distance we put between ourselves and others that ultimately leads to even more isolation ignorance and prejudice instead of understanding and acceptance.

We were all strangers once. And then we got to know each other.

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winter, maybe.

do you ever feel like you don’t know why you’re alive? sometimes that it wouldn’t matter if you were dead or not. a second ago you had passion for everything in existence, but now the flickers have whistled away. apathy is worse than sadness, in my opinion. anesthesia is the real depression, indifference the true disease. wishing you can’t feel pain doesn’t make pain go away, it just makes you numb to all– happiness and joy included.

when I experience a moment like this, sometimes the first thing I think is: I was supposed to be over all of this by now. I was supposed to have “healed” from whatever wispy grey of fog (or pollution?) clouded my heart once upon a time. I’m “supposed” to be happy. but that’s what I forget, that none of us really “should” be anything but ourselves. that the only thing we “should” do is let ourselves be.

when I forget why I’m still here, I force myself to remember: I’m here because of love. for love. to love.

I want to save the world. this bold statement in milder form: I want to help people. but I can’t solve every problem in the world, and though I wish I could sometimes, it just isn’t realistic.

how can I take on this task I’ve committed myself to, when I can be so scared? when I’m sometimes too afraid to call a loved one I haven’t spoken to in weeks, then forget to take responsibility when I wonder why we’ve drifted apart? when I want to speak to random people I see every day or once in a lifetime, but out of fear, chicken out and don’t?

but I have plans. I will break out. I will do what terrifies me. I am so grounded in this quicksand of comfort right now. and comfort is dangerous; it promises, of course, that we will stay safe. that it will be less likely for us to get hurt.

it also promises that we will stay in the same place for as long as we stay within the small cage we’ve built for ourselves. sure, we have some minimal room to walk around, but we’ve fenced ourselves in. it promises that it will be much more difficult to change, change for the better.

I will (re)learn how to talk to people, in real life. I will put myself in situations where I am not guaranteed immediate acceptance and lack of challenge, spoon-fed to me from people with whom I’m already quite familiar. I want to meet new people and love them in new ways.

we can discover kindred spirits, kind souls, lovers, family in those individuals least expected, each curious face we pass by as we go through our day. after all, weren’t our best friends strangers as well, once upon a time?

…in reality, we were never strangers. in our cores, we are not strangers at all– we are each a part of the bigger something that encompasses everything. we are individuals, but we are not separate. we might not always get along, but we are not as different as we think.

let’s stop fighting and hurting each other because we don’t always understand. embrace our differences and discover our similarities. accept and love ourselves and each other. talk to the person we see eating alone. recycle and respect the earth, because we all need this space to survive. step out of our usual circle and befriend unusually. give and love freely. open our hearts, our minds.

let’s stretch ourselves.

there are no limits.

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