One Trick Pony

Nelly Furtado has struck a chord with me today. I am listening to the CD my friend gave me spontaneously one night on the way to drop me off at home. Trying to sort through the recent events of my life. You know xmas, pagans, and poets. Suddenly appearing people. The ones that haven't spoke to you in so long, but now that Christmas has rolled around they want to call you. Rapidly disappearing people. The ones that at the time were so important to you for reasons often you don't quite understand. Slowly blossoming people. The ones that who are hesitant to crawl from their safety zones to catch a ride on a comet. Then, I wonder what kind of person I am and to whom? I am Swift to a friend or Lackadaisical to a family member.

"I don't want to be your babygirl. I don't want to be your little world. I just wanna be what's best for me. Wind it down with my own star. I got my own sun." Now, part of that may be a little off in the middle. I had a hard time deciphering it. But the jist is there. I know part of being a great man is being cognizant of the way you are affecting those around you. Making one's best effort to be a positive force in the lives of those around you while not compromising your core value system. Cannot say I have mastered that trick yet. Working on it though. I found the things I do FOR strangers to be better learning tools than the things I do TO my friends and family. Not sure why I feel that distinction had to be made, but it felt right.

I asked a new friend of mine why he believes in God. At first, he looked perplexed. I told him that even though he knows I am atheist, I was genuinely curious. See I never once felt that there was anything there. And when I tried to force it because everyone else seemed to really be THERE, I felt like a fraud. So, he says, when he looks at the love his family has he can't imagine that it would die. That he wants to believe that there is somewhere that it goes onto in the end. I said that is just fear of losing something precious. Which I can understand. He said he knows that some people think that humans need it as a way of dealing. That faith is helpful. I have faith, though. I have faith in something much more difficult to believe in than an infallible perfect being that never has to be proven. I have faith in humanity. With all her flaws and strengths. With all her evils and wrong-doings. I still have faith that everyone has good in them. Or at least that they don't really WANT to hurt, hate, or destroy from birth. I have always fostered a way of looking at people's actions as motivated more by secrets inside them than the things they show. Or maybe I just speak for myself....