When I couldn’t rescue,
Posted by Barry Hurd in Blog, Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Loss
In life, there are many times you realize failure. In many cases my friends think of these moments in terms of careers or relationships… while I think about the severity of a moment weighed against the most critical elements of life and death. I’m glad that my daily life does not warrant this kind of contest anymore, as the responsibility of life and death decisions is an incredibly complex notion full of limitless rewards and unmentionable peril.
In my mind I am glad to have had responsibility like this, and I wanted to say my own personal thank you for all the souls out there who take these duties when no one else will.
Not many people,
know the failure I have known.
Not of simple academia,
or lifelong pursuit,
but of missing the moment.
.
When a fraction,
becomes the only measure,
when seconds define years, often infinity,
and the most wanting, hurtful loss,
is measured by fractions of impossibility.
.
I cannot tell you that I failed,
to this painful misery of holding
your child, the jewel of your life,
your love, the definition of your journey,
for all my efforts I could not succeed.
.
I remember, with crystal recollection,
the moment of decision, made with with best intent,
when my choice was wrong,
and I now cry, forever wanting,
to make that moment different.
.
Yet I cannot,
Time and fate, cruel and unstoppable,
make me struggle, to yearn and hope
that I can choose again, not for you, but someone else,
and it will be right.
.
The thirst, beyond today
Posted by Barry Hurd in Daily thoughts, Loss, Survival
Without a moment
of thought,
recollection,
or insight.
I found myself
breaking into my own worth
drinking of the water
that gave me life.
I had no illusion
simple desperation
dumbfounded confusion,
unknown loss.
Yet I discovered
the breath I needed,
a hope of eternity
the life of tomorrow.
Flipping pages
Posted by Barry Hurd in Daily thoughts
As a child, I learned of life through the pages of a book.
Curiously browsing through the isles of thought
contained within parchment and paragraphs,
detailed within black and white.
Words became something I cherished,
While sometimes I fell in love with the characters,
or the perfection of a simple guide of “how to”
I always found room for more.
Then I grew, both up and older
finding the best parts of epic tales, the detail of life
to be trapped within each binding,
The essence of the writer mine to understand.
Anything but Vanilla
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee, Daily thoughts
Waiting patiently,
I found myself stumbling through idle thought.
A modest effort to curtail the agony of impatience
as I stood in line.
Quietly,
I thought within prison of urban music
quietly raining marketing into the illusion of my caffeine
A rustic reminder that this could go on forever.
A day passes,
and another
as I return to the vantage of always being last,
casually wondering if my good nature would wait any longer.
I finally dismiss the interruption,
Waiting feverishly for the substance I desire.
My mind focused; the obstruction gone,
as I order,
without further delay
anything but Vanilla.
The essence of dreams forgotten
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts
I wish that my life,
Could be remembered,
As if someone cared.
Wanting and hoping,
For when the day comes,
And they recall.
I wish for so many things
Curious and cluttered dreams,
That fade into a place I cannot go,
Where I may find myself,
Trying to hold on,
To just one.
I wish to be,
So unfettered by such desire.
Believing myself to be true,
Searching for everything lost,
I dare not succumb,
For I cannot survive such cost.
I wish a dream for me,
Beginning again and again,
If I need to be, so willing
Where I cannot fall into darkness,
And I fight again for the first time,
Knowing that I am wanted.
I wish to be remembered
To be valiantly held, so tightly
Without losing myself
To a time when someone knows me
Where I feel safe,
And I am not discarded.
Like many people, I have greatly pondered the aspects of my personality. I am introspective on a level that often gives me pause years later, learning from my unfortunate mistakes of the past and trying to become someone better tomorrow, hopefully today.
In my ponderous thought, I do not fail to realize what I consider to be the ultimate lesson of the human condition- that every experience is layered with emotion and feeling. Thoughts and actions are irrationally flavored by dreams and desires.
The essence of the simplest action can cause both ultimate suffering and the purest of joy.
This is the best part of experiencing life.
The reading of simple words can define who I am today, and possibly give me insight into the person I need to learn from in the future. I have found that my own experiences are incomplete in definition until I accept them for what they mean to me.
I realize that I am still learning. If I can only hope, I will learn to the day I die. I will be ignorant of things and then be enlightened, hopefully sharing what I have learned with those who are willing to listen. Perhaps this is the essence of wisdom – having gained knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and intuitive understanding, along with a capacity to apply these qualities well.
If I can apply myself well, then I will not have failed.
For me however, the largest driving force in my application of learning is the happiness of others. Perhaps you could call it the pursuit of love. I am to my knowledge one of the most hopeless of romantics. I am a reflective personality, trying to give of myself more than I have. I found with my divorce that the ultimate act of understanding love was the acceptance of being altruistic, believing in yourself on such a level that failure and success become irrelevant- there is only personal effort and intention.
This is not without cost, emotionally accepting that those you love may not love you, or that they must pursue different paths to experience life for themselves can be a lonely road. There are of course many versions of love. My own definitions of love and friendship are entirely formed upon from my past experiences and knowing who I am.
To examine my belief however, I look at the quotes of not only great people – but those who have touched large portions of the world:
I Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
I believe this is one of the best written statements of love that has endured. Love is patient, love is kind. Remembering those words has kept me out of a great many conflicts with those I care about and has also aided me greatly in understanding people I do not even know. Love of a person is only one aspect, but love of a fellow human tempered with the compassion of patience and kindness creates a better person in my humble opinion.
C.S. Lewis- Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.
Somewhere, someone loves me. The intangible security of love is a hard concept to grasp and hold onto. I cannot deny that I’ve had days where I thought I was alone, but the act of loving others without question has provided me with great comfort on many occasions. I am an unusually different kind of lone personality, because I accept that for some reason I am worth loving on a fundamental level. Love as an act is worthwhile and does not need return to be rewarded, the act of loving someone is a valuable piece of loving yourself.
Euripides: He is not a lover who does not love forever.
This statement was painful in my own personal lesson. My x-wife didn’t believe in such fundamental acceptance of love at the time, of having perseverance over time to endure and evolve. I hope she has learned that lesson and changed for the better. My own definition for the love of my partner is very long winded, but also very short. It doesn’t fade with time, not because emotions do not change, but because I am committed personality. I have the ability to choose if I will fail or succeed at love.
As a person- I choose not to fail. That isn’t something that changes tomorrow or in ten years. My word is my soul. It defines who I am, and if I care so little to set my goals and aspirations on a worthwhile goal, I have chosen to fail. As an adult I have struggled with everything I am to keep my promises and define my own life. Like any human, I have had my failure, but I have used each failure to help reach success the next time.
This personal decision was based mostly on the glorious aspect of being a father. I must set an example for my son, and I choose to reach for things and commit myself to them with all my heart. If you are to undertake a goal, in love or in life, do so with every fiber of who you are and do not let go of that dream. Even if I fail, I will be assured that I taught my son to reach for the stars, instead of being satisfied with looking at them.
HH the Dalai Lama: When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.
Who can argue with the Dalai Lama? I had the opportunity to meet him the Rainier Club back in April. From my own perspective- It is a unique aspect of giving of yourself that creates a worthwhile person. In regards to the typical concept of being poor, you are never poor if you have enough to help someone else. Regardless of who you are, you always have the ability to help someone else. This is choice.
Jack Kerouac: “No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.”
A few of my friends had related my writing to Jack’s style years ago. Yes he was crazy. So am I (proud of it too.) When I came across the quote above I didn’t see it talking about the wilderness, honestly because I had spent months of solitude in the wilderness finding my own hidden strength when I was younger. I saw it was about love of yourself, being worthwhile, and of being unique. When you cut away all the crap of society and have only yourself, you begin to define the world in an entirely new way.
William Wordsworth: The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person’s life.
Ah William, if you only knew that I actually take this statement a little further. Unremembered acts are worthwhile, but I often find that I don’t like taking credit for every act of kindness and love. Sometimes it is unavoidable and you cannot keep it secret, but I have sent out various secret admirer gifts to both friends and family, or simply gone out of my way to make sure they had a good day for an unexpected reason.
The very act of loving, for me, is often tied to being very altruistic. If I expect return, if I demand action, I am asking for something that is not of the purest intent. This doesn’t mean that someone shouldn’t ask to be held or remind someone they need a certain type of acknowledgment, but that when it is given without request for credit or validation, it comes from an entirely different place in the heart.
Can I stick my own on here?
Barry Hurd: The only answer to love is “without a doubt.”
I don’t mind going into a rambling of what love is and is not. I mean really, with a thousand or so poems and creative pieces I’m pretty sure that everyone knows I’m slightly insane. I don’t mind being different, I think we would all be better off sharing a little of our insanity with the world and creating a more colorful canvas.
When I originally started dating my x-wife, I wasn’t nearly as well versed with detailing my thoughts in writing. We lived about two hours apart and chatted over the internet on many nights, and when she finally had the courage to ask “do you love me? I smiled, and typed my reply- “without a doubt”
Those three words defined so much of my life for the next decade:
Without a doubt.
Even when things went wrong between her and I, my life was defined already by not doubting myself. Even in the confusion of divorce, I recall many nights when those three simple words clarified the intention of my feelings and the commitment I had to making things work. I would have moved the world over for her, but in the end my effort was not enough. I tried more than anyone said I should, and in the end we still went our separate ways.
Yet in the end, I had given myself the strength of holding on to my personal choice. I tried. I struggled against impossibility that was not under my control. When it was all over, I may have lost someone I cared about, but I had earned my own self-respect.
Conclusion:
There are no conclusions to this topic. Life, dreams, and love are the same thing. If you do not love, you are not living. If you do not dream, you do not love.
Choices are made everyday. Sometimes harsh, brutal choices. Sometimes bold and beautiful.
The perception you take from them is entirely yours.
The Saddest Day
Posted by Barry Hurd in Daily thoughts
The saddest day
I tried once to sing. Breathing in a moment of dreaming, trying to believe.
Yet the essence of my world was intangibly transparent.
In my tears my voice left me, sweet begging asking for forgiveness that wouldn’t come.
My heart had left my spirit to succumb to the effort of despair,
The futile effort of trying so hard that I could no longer afford my life.
My screams were not worth hearing, merely fading into a symphony of merciless silence.
Meaningful things
Posted by Barry Hurd in Daily thoughts
People are, by genetic definition and historical observation, pack animals. We are not designed to be individuals with isolation. We are created by our very nature to relate and communicate. As individuals any one of us is tragically flawed- the very items that give us strength in the right situation also give us weakness in the wrong.
“I stand upon the shoulders of giants”
“United we stand”
Either of those quotes has been said a million times.
No matter how remarkable we are as people, we are even more remarkable as a team.
Seven astronauts fly the shuttle. It takes 1232 more to get it in the air.
On one hand we understand that as a group we can achieve so much more, yet so many people who have never been on a true team fundamentally accept the idea. They simply tell each other to do it by themselves without asking (or giving) assistance.
That is were we fail as individuals. Whether it is in family affairs or working towards a dream, one person will always have flaws that cannot be compensated for by themselves.
With that idea I just come back to my personal saying-
“I would rather deal with the frustrations of helping you through this, than the heartache of knowing you failed.”
The strangest part is that I can immediately hear the “we” or “I” in how someone responds to the statement. Some people say it is insane to believe that you can take responsibility for the failures of others. In my mind, there is no failure of others, there is only my failure (our failure), in helping them succeed.
That statement actually makes me one of the strongest people I know. I am a lone wolf by nature, I prefer to do things alone in many cases. I prefer to challenge myself with overcoming odds that are unfavorable and sometimes impossible, yet I have the wisdom to accept that I am flawed.
I need help. I am human.
Memorable friends
Posted by Barry Hurd in Author's Favorites, Blog, Daily thoughts, Friendship
For some,
a moment is all we have.
Whimsical moments
that happen only once.
Coffee, tea, music, cigarettes.
Walking in the park.
Laughing at ourselves.
No need to have reason.
Just a second,
that sliver of time,
when we live,
a moment to remember.
Some people
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts
Some people ask themselves questions, some listen.
In a few of us, the conversation is often fluid and whimsical,
and in others we just find ourselves sitting in the wind.
My thoughts are tones of trivial nature,
wrapping themselves upon a canvas of presence.
The Handshake
Posted by Barry Hurd in Coffee - Volume Two, Daily thoughts, Friendship
I am, a humble gentleman.
Kindly tipping my unworn hat,
as if the frequent stranger
was my kindest friend.
For all that I was,
would I not be something more,
if only I was wise enough,
to open each and every door.
What more could I be?
The last time I say hello,
the first time I said good-bye,
to which my friendship has no degree.
Appareled and adorned,
without anything but to be polite,
and my hand is unborn again,
as if I grasp you for the first time.