"Ughh!" is the sound of the day, as declared by the OEHS drama department.
And if you're Nicholas Pankuch, then it's "Ughh!" and "Yippee!" at the same time.
You know, I am in a very interesting mood right now.
I feel very stressed, but only because the day up until a few hours ago was very hectic.
I am better now, only because I have calmed down quite a bit, and I went on a walk, which is always gratifying.
On another note, I found these quotes in a few ODs. I ask you to read them and think about what they say. Some of them are funny, some of them are deep, and some of them are just really, really good.
Enjoy!!!
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish
"...I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
"...Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart..."
"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. "
Be Your Own Story
"...the past is already in debt to the mismanaged present."
"...And besides, contrary to what you may have heard or learned, the past is not done and it is not over, it's still in process, which is another way of saying that when it's critiqued, analyzed, it yields new information about itself. The past is already changing as it is being reexamined, as it is being listened to for deeper resonances. Actually it can be more liberating than any imagined future if you are willing to identify its evasions, its distortions, its lies, and are willing to unleash its secrets."
"...go out and save the world. That is to suggest to you that with energy and right thinking you can certainly improve, certainly you might even rescue it. Now that's a heavy burden to be placed on one generation by a member of another generation because it's a responsibility we ought to share, not save the world, but simply to love it, meaning don't hurt it, it's already beaten and scoured and gasping for breath. Don't hurt it or enable others who do and will. Know and identify the predators waving flags made of dollar bills. They will say anything, promise anything, do everything to turn the planet into a casino where only the house cards can win-little people with finite lives love to play games with the infinite."
"...if the next few [years] turn out to be the best, then you have my condolences. Because you'll want to remain here, stuck in these so-called best years, never maturing, wanting only to look, to feel and be the adolescent that whole industries are devoted to forcing you to remain."
"...Of course, you're general, but you're also specific. A citizen and a person, and the person you are is like nobody else on the planet. Nobody has the exact memory that you have. What is now known is not all what you are capable of knowing. You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without wealth. What it feels like to be human without domination over others, without reckless arrogance, without fear of others unlike you, without rotating, rehearsing and reinventing the hatreds you learned in the sandbox. And although you don't have complete control over the narrative (no author does, I can tell you), you could nevertheless create it."
My Memorial Day
"...Home was tense; I could feel the heaviness of the air...Mom was tired and distracted; those days she seemed to have several jobs, and the role of mother always spilled over into peacemaker and counselor... If I had taken the time that afternoon, I may have caught a sense of something different. I did not notice or care if anything was amiss; I just wanted to get out for the evening and leave the all-controlling mood of my father behind for a little while... "
"Temper is really a mild word that barely belies rage..."
"...That night, about five minutes after I got home, my daddy stepped in the hall, stepped back into his room, clicked the lock, and shot himself point-blank through the heart. My mom and sister were busy in another room. I was talking with them as I stood in the doorway, and I was the one who heard the shot. I looked at my mom from my surreal stance in the hallway and told her that I thought daddy had just shot himself. That moment, that explosion, that ludicrous sounding sentence I uttered, changed my life forever and completely."
"...The Marines that he loved so much helped lay him to rest; and as Taps was played, I listened and watched and wondered when this dream would end. At the beginning of my holiday, I had a daddy. At holiday's end, he was dead; and I was begining to realize that I would forever be without him."
"...Sometimes I think that I have come so far and moved ahead so well. Sometimes I get angry or jealous when I see other fathers doing something for their daughters that my daddy would or could have done. Sometimes, I am just sad, in a lonely, daddy's-girl kind of way. He has missed things in my life that I really wish he could have stuck around for. After all, who better to help a broken heart or check out that funny noise coming from the car."
"...These thoughts are all just a part of my Memorial Day. Sometimes, on the inside, I am still just a girl who misses her daddy so much that the ache in my heart feels like it will smother me..."
"...I want to shout to the world that my daddy died for his country, so don't forget him. Isn't that what Memorial Day is for? "Gone but not forgotten" has a hollow ring when Memorial Day is just another day. I urge everyone in our free nation to consider the price paid for freedom. Shattered lives, dashed hopes, and families left with nothing but pictures on a wall and memories recalled in a scent or sound; these are realities that are hard to imagine, and even harder to live with. The veterens of our country deserve a hundred year's worth of Memorial Days. The very least I can do is say thank you."
2000 Harvard Commencement Address
"...So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me tell you. As you leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is certain: Everyone out there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there. You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to Harvard?" Accidentally give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's, "And you went to Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper cables work and hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your underwear goes inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get your head stuck in your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was like to be a giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?""
"...But to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I have to tell you what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell you my story because, first of all, my perspective may give many of you hope, and, secondly, it's an amazing rush to stand in front of six thousand people and talk about yourself."
"...When you have a Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede and Leather, you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who chose Graduate School. You see their faces everywhere: in coffee cups, in fish tanks, and they're always laughing at you as you stack suede shirts no man, in good conscience, would ever wear."
"...I was finally on a network and really excited. The producer told me the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a way, it did. The show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks later, news of its cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst into applause."
"...And this is what the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom Shales, wrote in the Washington Post: "O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He giggles and titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He had dark, beady little eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever. O'Brien is a switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who should never have come. Let the Late show with Conan O'Brien become the late, Late Show and may the host return to Conan O'Blivion whence he came." ...There's more but it gets kind of mean."
"...If it's all right, I'd like to read a little something from just this year: "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed himself into the brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is the gold standard and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most inventive wit of his generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever." Ladies and Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as proof that, when all else fails, there's always delusion."
"...But let me leave you with one last thought: If you can laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk. Thank You."
On My Release From Prison"Last night I had the dream again and I held you in my armsI’d not yet been sent to this island for life and our daughters not yet bornO I was still young, my plan still clear, and the road ahead was mineBut today I count these twenty-seven years in one unbroken lineI still can hear an inner voice so loud within this jailThere’s always one more crossroads and always one more nailAnd every show of mercy, every curve in love’s designLeads from darkness into day in one unbroken line.""...'I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.' "
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Didn't that just feel good? I love finding quotes, especially ones that make perfect sense. And I love having heartfelt conversations with someone I love, especially when I feel like this.
As a final thought, I present you all with this:
When talking to a certain friend, I asked him,"...How does one make his way in the world?"
He replied,"With a hand to hold, and a song to sing."
I answer, "Why do you say that?"
" 'Cause it's the truth!" he types.
And I say, "But how, how do you know?"
Which he responds with, " 'Cause, cause I [just] know."
You know, sometimes life is rough, but you always have got to keep on truckin'.
Because you know what?
Life always has to get worse, before it can get better.
And I thought I didn't have anything left to say...
But I guess I was wrong.
Because this post is rather lengthy, ain't it?
It's a wonder how other people's words can just say your own.
'S the same way with songs, only lyrics have a way of speaking into your heart, further.
Well, I guess that's it.
Catch'a on the flipside.
~Hilary
