a poem for the elevator.

"innocent slave"

you are the ones who cover the writing on the walls.
you are the ones who tear down the messages from underground.
you are the ones who burn books of ideas, free ideas. free.
you are the rulers, the rulers of thought, the rulers of death.
you are the kings of king. the deciding rule. temporary life and temporary death.


there is a story of a people who had to survive in bondage. they had to survive as slaves in a land of freedom. a land that proclaimed freedom, while simultaneously imprisoning the hungry and the thirsty (denying them of food or drink). while ignoring those with nothing but innocence...chains and innocence.


choose the person you want to be. an innocent man in chains, or a free man hiding the key.


currently listening to "neon golden" by The Notwist. http://www.notwist.com/

honesty and openness invites pain and brokenness.

it's the wretched truth of our lives. we are empty with only ourselves.

if a person doesn't face this truth, he lives in a state of dishonesty with the world and himself. everyone must face this loneliness at some point. some people face it every day, some people ignore it always.

i might be one of those who faces it more often, though i often do hide myself in comforts, normalities, agendas, interests, etc. when i escape the lies, or walls that i build, i face the inevitable truth...i am lost and often completely alone. and then to think that every individual is in the same boat...alone...together and alone, a profound pain falls upon me and i think of Christ. Christ had to feel this pain of being a human, completely separated from real life, from breathing without having to inhale, he had to feel this pain intensely, but he also chose to feel it for everyone else and suffer our pains with us.

i believe that the path to take is to face this truth, this pain. to feel it, and then to find others who feel it, and share the pain with them. this pain can sometimes feel overbearing, and that is when you find cases of suicide or other empty actions of desolation.

this isn't something to look down upon. i've often heard individuals describe depressed, suicidal people as selfish. i would argue that they are less selfish than one who would say such a thing about this group of people. when a person is lost in thoughts of suicide and helplessness, they are only being forced in their minds to face this reality of humanity that we all should face more often.

i strongly feel that the best way to deal with this problem is to face the pain and find others to confide in. the most important thing in your existence is your relationships with important people and your relationship with Christ. we need to attach to one another in a real, honest and uninhibited way. you don't have to believe in a spiritual savior of your heart and soul to feel and experience the freedom that it can bring. you just can't be closed to the option, and you need to search for what heals you most naturally. i would not say that Jesus is truth, but instead, i would tell you to make a point to honestly seek for the truth. Jesus promised that if you seek then you shall find. anyone who has a belief but tells you not to seek openly and honestly toward your belief doesn't really have a faith in his belief, or at least he doesn't think things through.

i'm very serious about this and would be completely comforted by anyone's desire to discuss it. i'm always very hesitant to discuss suicide, because i know that it's a very real and dangerous thing. through experience, i've learned that you have to treat it with great sensitivity and understanding.

you who experience these thoughts of death and helplessness have no seemingly easy way out. you don't feel able to tell anyone about this...you don't feel like anyone will understand or approve of your brokenness. you feel like no one will be able to relate. i will be bold to say that you know someone very close who has felt similarly. go to someone that you trust deeply; family, lifelong friends, encouraging leaders, etc. tell them your feelings and fears. you are not alone, we are all here with the same emptiness. reach out. there is beauty worth reaching out for, and it is in the deep connections that people can make with each other.



currently listening to "Pretend You're Alive" by Lovedrug. http://www.lovedrugmusic.com/

Existence Lost, a sonnet.

Green to orange and brown; and death becomes beauty.
The health of entropy in life; growth in death.
Dying before my time seems to be my duty
and to rest my soul during my life becomes breathe.
A leaf that blooms, and shines, and clings to its branches
has the colors of deceit, unseen to the world.
The ground upon the roots of these trees advances,
and the lies of inconsequence are gladly told.
How a brief existence holds the ring of sadness?
But in this slight existence lies a true meaning;
the wind that blows through the trees creates a fullness;
and with the falling leaves, death brings life and uprising.
All things are complete in the brokenness of one.
And all things made new and meaningful when it's done.



by: Andrew t.



currently listening to "Brother, Sister" by mewithoutYou. http://www.mewithoutyou.com/

the art of making music that isn't art.

there is something i've never been able to express regarding my place with music. i'm wanting to retrieve myself as much as possible from the patterns of today's musical standards. i'm disgusted with today's music world, a world of money and popularity. the majority of musicians today are only involved with music as a means to an end. though they apparently enjoy music to some extent, it is not the music for which they're involved. they are involved only for some self-centered personal intent. each musician is individual in his level of devotion to the music itself. i am nowhere near where i want to be regarding this issue, but i am confident in my passions and believe i will be able to stand against this world of musical vanity.

i shouldn't compare my musical vision to the vision or lack of vision of other musicians. my music is my own, it is my art. my music is my expression, it is my painting. my music is my voice. my music is my prayer.

my music is not an education that will later provide me a comfortable, well-paid career. my music is not my career, that came from an expensive education and pays me well. my music is my enjoyment, it is what i want to spend my time doing. i want my motives to be pure, free of agenda. i want to write music for its beauty's sake.

like many other areas of life, i hope i have trained myself, or have been trained, so that when the options are presented, a decision is required, i won't have to figure out what it is that i believe to make my decision. my decisions are pre-decided. there is less room for mistakes when you have made pre-decisions. i am talking about if i ever had to make a decision regarding my music. i have to ask myself now...why do i play music? why do i write music? --- i have to decide now where i will allow my music to go. i want to have this viewpoint regarding my music...how much can i hide it, keep it secret? this is very similar to how i feel about Christ Jesus. i want to share my music with the world through films in hollywood, why? because i believe in it, it affects me, and i want to share that. i want people to be affected. i want meaning to defeat vanity in the heart of each person. but it is just that, i don't want to share Christ so that people know i'm a christian. i don't want to share my music so that people know that it is mine. i want to share Christ because of what he can do in the human heart, and i want to share my music because of the beauty i find in it, and i believe it can affect others similarly.

i feel very hypocritical now. i am a hypocrite in fact. but this is a discussion for myself to learn what it is that's in my head. so i'll continue.

tonight i had a discussion with two of my favorite people. it was about the importance of the existence of artists, current and ancient. it began when raeanna asked brody if he knew who Van Gogh is...brody, of course, didn't know. she was astonished, even disgusted at this, and that is how the wonderful discussion started. we ended up comparing classical musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart with current pop artists such as The Beatles (current?), U2, and pop-culture music in general. Raeanna argues that the classical artists changed the world and that current artists will have no such impact (there is debate whether that is actually what she intended to say or not --- please feel welcome to respond to this to clarify your point Rae...), but brody and i believe quite strongly that though we may not approve of how today's music is having an impact, it is indeed changing the course of music's relation to life for many centuries to come (if the centuries do continue...) ---

that may have been hard to understand. simply, i do not support where music is at this moment. mtv is disgusting, television shows such as american idol, or "supernova"---(my family watches it religiously, i hate it.) music as a form of entertainment is demeaning to the idea of music as an art-form. lyrics in music have replaced the music of music. music is a repeated structure of familiar melodies, all for alternate purposes. political, selfish, religious, financial, sexual motives are the purpose of so much of today's music, it's disgusting. this is so real that i sometimes feel a presumption from people that i am a musician for one of the above purposes. and maybe it is true that beethoven was only a musician in order to please his father --- (remember story of father beating his son if he made a mistake on the piano...through the night...slapping his hands at one rhythmic falsity, one unwritten note played...punisment.) --- mozart was only a musician in order to be accepted by a certain class of people. These are only hypothetical ideas in order to explore a possibility. maybe i am wrongfully assuming that classical music is more pure as an art-form because it is lyric-less or more beautiful than most of today's music. maybe it is only that the motives of musicians 200 years ago were different motives than the motives of today's musicians...maybe all musicians use music as a means to an end.


currently reading "Perelandra" by C.S. Lewis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

The rise of a girl. She is risen.

i'm in a philosophy of the arts class. one of the philosophers that we've read believes it is the artist's responsibility to make his art as clear as possible. in fact, he argues that the success of a piece of art is judged by how clear it communicates its message.

in class, i suggested that a possible problem with this theory is that art may sometimes be an attempt to express the inexpressible. or in other words, art is to express the ambiguity of a certain area of reality. we do live in a world where the idea of relativity is more and more being accepted as truth. in vagueness is safety. i find value in seeking. personally exploring, questioning. with art, you can create a forest to explore. that's art to me. it is not that each person finds their own truth, and that truth is different from other seekers' truths, but instead, each seeker may potentially find truth, and all who seek have this potential. none who don't seek will ever find it. you must seek in order to find.

of course, this philosopher was around in the 1700's, and things were different in that age. also, he was an author, not a painter, or a musician. all of these arts are similar to an extent, but i suppose that each carries a unique stance as far as expression, or the art of expressing.

out of love for the hunt. there needs to be a feeling of accomplishment; not in the sense that you've improved, or advanced yourself, but rather, you've become free and in some way released the humanity that binds you. (the divinity that we so selfishly desire for our own. we cannot have it, but we can be with it.)

i have a dear friend named Raeanna. she is an example of someone who rises above what may be expected, or at least what is considered satisfactory for a person. she surpasses that. she seeks and escapes. and ironically, her middle name is Rose.


currently listening to "Talkie Walkie" by Air. http://www.intairnet.org/