A dream unthreatened by the morning light could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

I want to live. Not to just go through the motions every day, go to class, maybe get excited about something in class, go to practice, do some cool stuff, and then go home. That stuff is the core of what my life revolves around now, yes. And I'm happy with that. But that's not truly living.

I want to run around like a crazy maniac without caring, to dress in whatever manner suits me that day and not care if people judge me. I want to feel a deep excitement for life and the things it brings, not just for what I'm doing at MIT. People here think it's great when you're really passionate about something, and you're working toward exciting goals or aspirations. That sort of academic mindset just doesn't do it for me anymore. The other day, I was walking to Central Square, and walking down Mass Ave, I finally felt so alive and a deep feeling that comes with a cool wind going through my lungs, a place where people are who they are and are not judged for it, and an atmosphere of just being. Forget classiness, professionalism, and judgment on qualities that do not innately mean anything. I'm tired of people valuing and judging others for their accomplishments, mind power, skills, or ability to do five million things at once. What about people's intrinsic qualities, their ability to do ridiculous things without worrying about what other people will think, a person's ability to see beauty in something no one else does, or a person's ability laugh and love without regrets or looking back? I think that at a place like this where your passions tend to consume you, and for that to be the respected way of life here, makes you miss the deeper feeling of just living for little things, for the feeling of joy you can get from nothing, and the feeling that you are truly and absolutely alive. That feeling in your core of release, freedom, and of your soul just freely exploding from your chest, that is what I am missing here.

Frolicking.
Happiness dancing in flowy skirts.
Craziness.
Stubbornness.
Living in the moment.
Resilience.
Fearlessness.
A refusal to conform.
Letting go.

māunu

Sophomore year has been stunningly different, in more ways than one. First of all, I can no longer spell my class year, which I'm not sure what that says about my education, but I'll overlook that for now. I think more than anything, my thoughts for this year so far could be summed up in, "woah, life." For some reason or another, the bridge between high school and real life seems to be closing in on me more quickly than I would particularly like, but at the same time my life seems to be merging together to create a common purpose, minus a few extraneous aspects of my life. It's difficult to know that things that have been ingrained in me for so many years no longer have any significance, because they won't be part of my future regardless. It's hard for me to let people go, and harder still to hang on tight, because deep down I'm not ready for so many things to change so quickly. I've found a new mechanism for dealing with change, life, stress, or anything in general, and that is to just let go. To walk forever along the Charles and occupy myself only in the cool breeze that whisks my hair into my mouth, to do as I please without thinking about what other people will think or what the consequences will be. It's been awhile since I've been able to do that, and I'm happy that that's coming back to me, even if it does mean giving up some of my ability to build walls, to not dream because I'm afraid of the consequences.

Spring turned to summer
But then winter turned to mean
The distance seemed right
At the time it was best - to leave
And to leave behind
What I once thought was fine And so real - to me
And while I'm still gone
On the quest for my song

and for the million hours that we were
well I'll smile and remember it all
then I'll turn and go
while your story's completed mine is a long way from done.

Well I'm on a champagne high
Where will I be when I stop wondering why
On a champagne high
I'd toast to the future but that'd be a lie
On a champagne high, high
So high so high you left me undone

Perspective

As I was sitting in my windowsill on Friday night, looking out on most of Denver and the mountains, I was watching these fireworks going off nearby. It was interesting, because from the 23rd floor, I was actually above the fireworks, and they looked so tiny, just little bursts of color. It reminded me that it's all about perspective, isn't it? Life is about how you look at things, how you turn the bad into good by changing how you look at it, and seeing the world from as many people's perspectives as you can to learn what you can from each of them.

I feel like after a year of college, and after a month completely on my own, I finally have enough perspective to move forward. I don't know much about most of the things I'm interested in or studying, but I know enough to know that the direction I'm heading is the way that I've always wanted to go. I've picked a direction, finally, and I don't feel like I'm blundering around in the dark anymore. working on random projects without much continuity. Even though plans change, especially with me, it feels just great to have something to work towards, people to work with, and enough knowledge to get by.

One mindblowing statistic I read this morning was that the combined income of the 400 top earners in the US is $69 billion, which is greater than the income of four countries, Botswana, Senegal, Nigeria, and Uganda. Just seeing that statistic, I know where I have room to work. I know that I have work to do when I walk by twenty people sleeping on the streets on my way to work every morning. I know I need to do something when I see my culture slowly dying out and disappearing. But more than anything, I'm beginning to figure out what cracks I want to fill, not just which ones I have the potential to, or "should."

Ola i ke ahe lau makani.

Ola i ke ahe lau makani. Hawaiian for, "Life is in a gentle breath of wind." It was said usually of a nice breeze on a hot day on the water, and I just love the saying. It really reflects what I've learned this summer, the simple pleasures that are out there, and how great they can really be. I've always sort of been carried through life by the little things, an email from an old friend, a beautiful view, random acts of kindness, song lyrics that hit me just right at the time. Here, I feel like my life is made up of those little moments, a good cup of tea, singing to songs together in a car, a nice walk to work, sunsets out my window every night, and it's just so...wonderful.

Denver is fantastic!

Denver is really just excellent! It's funny, you never realize really how different different parts of the US are, but they really are. I can't really say which I like better because I'll always be an East Coast kid at heart, but it's a nice change of pace. Everyone here is just so relaxed, easy-going, and care-free. The city just feels so much more open and calm than the crowded streets of Boston always feel to me. I'm also loving all the exploring of Denver I've been getting to do. I finally tried Chipotle for the first time yesterday and it was absolutely delicious! And we found a very cute coffee chop last night with every kind of tea imaginable. Tonight we're going to check out the artsy scene, which I've definitely been missing!

On another note, I love my morning commute. It's about a one and a half mile walk past parks and everything, and it's so nice just to actually have time to think about life, love, happiness, and whatever else my brain feels like thinking about. I've made some fairly large decisions in that time, and I feel like I'm finally getting back to me, back to what I want, something you don't really have time to do at MIT. It's a good feeling. :)

I think, finally, the enormity of what all has happened this whole year has hit me. I can't believe, now that summer is approaching, that I don't have camp coming. I knew, back in November and December, that it hadn't really hit me yet that all of this was actually happening, but now it finally has. That all of those people I love so much will probably never all be in the same place at the same time for those two weeks, or at least a part of them. And all of the amazingly crazy and fun things we always did that I don't think I ever realized how much they meant to me, until now, when I don't have them anymore.

Phone calls, hearing certain songs, and seeing pictures come up on my scrolling picture screen saver keep making me come close to tears, which is very out of the ordinary for me. Not really sure what to do about that. At the same time, I hate that it keeps coming up in my brain all the time. I feel like I'm being selfish or something, thinking about it all so much when I haven't directly really suffered from what happened, and I also feel like I think about it too much or something. I can't really describe the feeling I feel, it just seems like I should stop thinking about camp and everything that happened and just move on. But the little kid part of me just keeps clinging to every memory and piece of me that's still lodged with that place.

Your Life is Now

It was quite a strange feeling to have my coach as me, "so what did you think of freshman year?" the other day. In my head, I was thinking, what do you mean? I'm still a freshman! Where did all the time go?

I don't feel like I'm one to waste time, in general. I've got this inability to sit still, to not be doing something, or to not jump in and do something when I get the opportunity. So why do I always feel like I'm still chasing time like a dog chasing their tail?

It also makes me think of how the other day I was pondering the differences in culture between here and everywhere else. In Spanish class in high school, we learned about how many Latin American cultures focus on the now, and us Americans are fixated with the future. It makes me wonder, is this fixation with the future what makes us always feel like we need more time? Maybe if we looked at the now, enjoyed every moment while it lasted instead of thinking about what to do next, our lives would be a little bit brighter and more full. Maybe if we did what we actually wanted now instead of acting in a preemptive strike for our futures, we wouldn't all be so confused with what we're doing, and we would all actually enjoy what we're doing now. I see a pretty clear correlation between living for the now and happiness. For people who have a choice, people who are doing things they actually enjoy, working in places they actually like, as opposed to working in someplace that gives them more money for the future are so much happier. For those who can't choose, who cling dearly to the present and are just trying to survive, even through all their suffering, they still seem happier to me. Maybe this is a bit of an overused image that doesn't actually reflect things as they are, but what immediately comes to mind as an example of this is a video I saw a few years about refugees from the genocide in Darfur, in which the closing section was just footage of them singing, dancing, and just joyously being with each other. You don't see that here, and we have so much more than those people will probably ever have. Think about it.

To quote John Mellencamp, "Your life is now,/in this undiscovered moment/lift your head up above the crowd./We could shake this world/if you would only show us how./Your life is now."

random

I'm super excited for a summer in Colorado! It'll be nice to get out of this state, be completely on my own and without anyone I know there for awhile. And it'll be weird to go home at 5pm and literally have nothing to do except read or watch movies or go on hikes and such.

These next two weeks may possibly kill me, but at least I feel like I'm doing something worthwhile and productive for once.

I hate that I don't know what I want in the end, that I'm working my ass off here for reasons that I don't even know, only to procrastinate actually figuring out what I want to do even more. I know I want to make a difference, but it's so hard to find an avenue to do that, to change what I see as the most important problems that I feel like here are overlooked or ignored for the appeal of something that can be solved by building a cool machine or something else that doesn't really float my boat.

I feel, in some ways, like high school again, but not really in a great way. Sort of like everything that I tried not to have happen here in some places just has come full circle and ended up exactly like I didn't want it to. Then again, in other ways I've gotten way more than I would initially have expected, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

triskaidekaphobia

I guess I didn't realize how much I rely on and love being a part of a team in gymnastics now. Since I've been home and working out at my gym again, it's made me truly realize how much I appreciate how much each of us does for each other, from little encouragements to full-blown screaming your lungs out at meets, it all adds up and has made a huge difference for me. I think coming into college, I didn't realize how much of a team atmosphere had really grown at MIT, and how little I was doing gymnastics for myself anymore, and how much I was doing it for my team. As I was getting ready to vault today, the mats were stacked up higher than I would like, and the horse was slightly on the wrong setting for me, so naturally I was a little nervous. I was getting ready to go and it took me way more tries than it would normally take me to go for something, and I was trying to figure out why things felt different. It was then I realized how much I both loved having and needed in a way my teammates to be there to push me, because at that moment, the only reason I would flip was for my own satisfaction and benefit, and at this stage in the game, that's not enough for me anymore. No one was cheering like I'm used to, and it took a lot more of my energy to get myself to go than usual.

I guess sometimes it takes stepping back a bit to see how much of a good thing you really have! :)

I feel sort of like I just came out of one of those huge dust storms, where everything gets swept up, moved around, and there's chaos for a bit, and then there's the sort of eerie resettlement of everything that got picked up. There's that time when everyone sits and waits, making sure it's really over before they start going about their daily lives again.

I came into college sure of myself, of what I wanted, where I was going, and how I was going to do it. Last semester, I felt a lot of that give way to various things, mostly because I was faced with more choices than ever before. And I realized that what I thought was so simple and clear wasn't really. Now, I've noticed more and more me feeling like my old self, doing the things I used to do, the things I used to think, and my old dreams come back. I came out of high school wanting to go into the Peace Corps because that seemed to me at the time as the best way that I could help people the way I dreamed of doing. After last semester's putzing around trying to figure out what was going on at MIT, thinking about how people here are approaching the same problems I want to fix from a completely different angle, I still want to do the Peace Corps, but I have a sense of the fact that it's a very temporary solution to a deep-rooted problem. The question then becomes, I suppose, what am I going to do to change those tough problems? If I had the answer, I guess I wouldn't be sitting here writing this, first of all, I'd be out doing it. But, I feel like I'm back on track again. Except, I feel like I'm walking along the same path I've been walking all my life but with my eyes open instead of closed.

morality

I've been looking through a million pictures to use for our conference lately. I'm supposed to be finding pictures that will bring a more real sense of what "poverty" really means to students so that they can empathize and/or at least know what it's like.

The more I look at pictures, the more I almost have a moral issue with everything that I'm doing. I know that the purpose I have is good, and I know that it will hopefully turn out for the best. But seeing people's pictures, the people in them, sometimes with students, of just their daily lives and what they're doing, I almost feel like, who am I to post these up around everywhere, and call it "poverty"? Who am I to judge what their lives are like, to say that these people need help, that we should all be helping them? Who am I to say that my life here is supposedly "better" than theirs? I say that my goal in life is to help the people in this world who need it the most, to better the world in some way. But, what if people don't want helping? Who am I to decide who needs help and who doesn't? If these people are happy, why is it that we say that we must help them with this and that and everything in between? Maybe their lives are just plain different than ours, and things we see as lacking is really just a non-need. Granted, everyone needs certain basic things, and that's what most people are working on giving them, but still, it goes a long way to take a step back and look at what they actually need versus what they don't have that we do.

It's also, I feel like, intrusive in many ways for me to put them up. This is these people's lives, not some isolated incident someone happened to catch on camera, not something demonstrated for the sake of one's arguments, but it's reality. It seems, especially since I know the people who worked directly with these people, that I'm invading into someone's private lifestyles and lives in general. I'm asking all the people I took pictures from if I can post them, but shouldn't I really be asking the people who they are of? It makes me wonder, all the photographs that are used around the world like this, what the people that are in them would say if they saw a photo of themselves being used in the way that they are.

you never know when things are going to sneak up on you and give you a kick back to reality. to scare you, stun you, hurt you, improve you, or whatever. i always forget that.

i wish i could capture the beauty of music without letters or words. the sighing melodies and the drumming heartbeat. the spinning flutes and the subtle yet imperative guitar. i wish that i could let music carry me far away from here to its home, to where my life would become simple. not simple in the sense of not complicated. simple in the sense that, i would have one purpose, one devotion, one commitment, and one life. simple in the sense that i could forget about where i come from, the people who have scarred and decorated my life thus far. maybe, even then, i still wouldn't be happy, who knows. at least, though, i will have tried, become wiser, known better, and hopefully feel at least a twinge of satisfaction. maybe i desire to desire too much. maybe what i want back is my past, when things made sense, i knew who i was, and happiness was in my back pocket all the time. i wish i could capture the lighthearted twiddle of my music and play it in my head again and again to keep me going, to not worry, to not think twice.

As I was finishing Children of Jihad today, this quote just really resonated with me, I don't know why. Maybe because my faith in this idea in general is what makes me do what I do, or maybe because I think anyone wants the idea to be true. Otherwise, what hope we would ever have that the world would get better?


"The post-9/11 years have no been easy for Middle Eastern youth. To most of the rest of the world, the Middle East seems caught in a perpetual cycle of violence, sectarian conflict, and fanaticism. On TV, we watch both Shi'a and Sunni insurgencies mounting in Iraq; mujahideen fighters trying to revive Taliban-style rule in Afghanistan; and Hezbollah and the IDF fihting a war in Lebanon. In the newspapers, we read about the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an offensive light, sparking massive riots in Europe; the president of Iran calling for the destruction of Israel; and terrorists in Britain conspiring to blow up ten commercial airplanes with liquid explosives. The images and rhetoric we see on the news lead us to believe that the world is on an inevitable path to catastrophe, even apocalypse.

And that's wrong.

My journeys have taken me from wild underground parties in the Islamic Republic of Iran to the military headquarters of some of the most dangerous Palestinian camps in all of Lebanon to the emotionally shattered villages of Syria and finally to the worn-torn streets of Iraq. As an American Jew traveling in the Middle East during this age of terror, I should have been unwelcome, I should have felt unsafe, and it should have been impossible for me to engage on any level with people who I'd been told hated my country and my religion. But I found that the easy, monolithic characterization of "us versus them" fails to take into account the humanity and the individuality of all of the people who make up "us" and "them." And the "them" I met - the young men and women of the Middle East - should make all of us very hopeful for the future."

A droplet of hope...

Happy New Year ( a few days late... )! I would put my new year's resolutions down, but as my friend and I decided, the only people who make New Year's resolutions ( i.e. deciding to do something just because it's New Year's ) don't really intend to keep them, because people never do. So instead, here goes my random thoughts on the New Year.

I feel like this year is going to be a year of change, both good and bad, but also a year of progress, learning, and moving forward. I'm excited because the classes I'm taking, the things I'm doing, they're all pointing me in the direction I want to be going, and the direction I've been wanting to go for so long. After high school, all I wanted to do was get out, go save the world, help people, but I needed to go to school. Finally, I feel like what I'm doing is indeed leading me in the right direction, giving me the tools to do what I want to, and become the person I want to be. That yearning to just do may finally become a reality, the itch I've been wanting to scratch finally in reach. I want to make a difference in the world, no matter how small. Because, something that starts small, if successful, will inevitably grow into something huge and beyond where even my imagination can go. This year will bring me to so many new places, both academically and experientially, that I can't wait for it to start. I may not go out and create some world-saving program, but I have to start somewhere, right?

Going home, if nothing else, reminded me where my heart lies. Not with me, really. I feel the pain of suppression, violence, poverty, and desperation of thousands when I open the newspaper and read about their lives, see it in their eyes in photographs, or hear stories of their tragedies on the radio. There's no way I can ever truly understand any of what they're feeling, but just being exposed to it allows me to have hope. That may sound backwards, but every problem in the world is a calling for someone to fix it. There will always be problems, but with enough dedication and compassion, we can lessen them, lessen people's pain, and at least make the world a little bit brighter. This is where my heart lies, in hope. Hope not in the sense that if something happened, it sure would be nice, but an active sense of the word. That my hope and belief in my and other's abililty to change the world can move us all to, as Gandhi said, "be the change you wish to see in the world."