Balance

I just wrote a page and a half of mantras to meditate on daily. If I get to a point where I feel like they are manifest in my life, I will write new mantras.

One of my affirmations is this:
I love balance.
One of the truths upon which I meditate is this:
The Universe seeks balance. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

These declarations made me wonder.
If the Universe seeks balance, does American gluttony provide the need for African poverty? Does European formality provide the need for Middle Eastern barbarism?  Do the actions of one society produce reactions in other societies? If we all lived somewhere in the middle, might the world perfect itself?

I think the answer to all of those questions is yes.

"Let there be peace on earth and let it begin in me."

tidbits

i must balance a thing/person's flaws with it's redeeming qualities.
disney never made me feel bad about myself. i can love disney movies and hate cookie-cutter images at the same time. i can see the stereotypes and the plot problems and love the music and the morals.
a story is still good even if i don't approve of the ending.

i looove country music.
perhaps it's because i live in oklahoma and my family is from texas, but i most appreciate songs about the real life stuff that people try to ignore. "it's a quarter after one, i'm a little drunk, and i need you now." classic.

i think facebook and twitter are the best things to be invented since personal computers.
via facebook, i can get glimpses into the lives of people i have "grown out with" (yes, grown out, not grown up. to "grow up with" is to experience life with while growing. it's a time and proximity thing. to "grow out of" or "outgrow" is to leave something behind. it has a connotation of being better or smarter or more evolved than the thing that was outgrown. to "grow out with" someone is to grow apart from them, as in not in the same proximity, but not in a way that is removed as if you are leaving them behind). several of the people i used to know are wonderful people whose lives make perfect sense for them. we cannot be close because our lives are so different. but we are not far away because i think i'm better. our paths no longer cross, but i still think they're wonderful. via twitter, i can let out all of my random thoughts and comments and they can be taken or left off at will. no pressure.

i want to write a movie script.
my world is too aesthetically beautiful to exist completely in the written word. it's also too complicated to be a song or poem. a photo collage is too extensive. plus the writing would be good exercise. i'm a story-teller struggling to find a medium.

13/30 - Invisible (title debateable)

She sits alone
not because she has no one,
but because she's old and no longer fun.

She hangs out with those half her age because they're the only ones around.
She lost her groove a long time ago and it has yet to be found.

She's enchanting because she's real,
not particularly attractive, but her eyes make you feel
and her voice has that appeal.

I wish I had seen her in her prime.
I bet she had a way of making folks laugh all the time.
I bet she had a great smile.

I hate that time can steal that away.
If only we never lost anything when we aged.
If only we always liked how we changed.

Now it's like she's invisible.
People look right through her.
All she wants is to be seen as real.

I feel sorry for her and the way she feels,
but then I remember that my own were invisible for hundreds of years.
This isn't a new tragedy.
Society must find someone to cast out
and they chose those that have aged like her
once they embraced the ones that look like me.

Perhaps we all pay our dues and take our turn
before the world decides we've earned
a place in their minds and eyes.
Then they transfer their blindness to those from other places and times.

I pray that the cycle is breaking
with the collective tolerant breaths we've been taking.
This world must begin changing,
lest this breathing become a massive suffocating.