sums up all I want in life.

all stolen from this site ------> here // the december runaways

if we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.

//ivan turgenev

"I want someone who will be monogamous and nice to his mother. And I want someone who likes musicals, but knows to just shut his mouth when I’m watching Lost. And I want someone who thinks being really into cars is lame, and strip clubs are gross. I want someone who will actually empty the dishwasher instead of just taking out forks as needed - like I do. I want someone with clean hands and feet and beefy forearms, like a damn Disney prince. And I want him to genuinely like me. Even when I’m old. And that’s what I want."

-Liz Lemon, 30 Rock

last night.

{{found on the streets of seattle}}

you can't really get mad at someone for not accepting you if you don't accept yourself..

..:. in fact I believe that most people who accept themselves aren't really paying attention to whether or not other people do too..:.

should be a no brainer. definitely a cliche!

but for the longest time I didn't accept this mantra as true altruism {{with a touch of objectivism.}} or get the cliche on a deeper level at all.

"love your neighbor as YOURSELF."

step 1.
love yourself. {{harder than it looks}}

a. may require counseling

b. may require discipline

c. may require antidepressants haha

d. etc.. etc.. etc..

step 2.
life becomes joyful

a. anxiety free

b. you can see life as an opportunity

c. you stop putting off happiness/having stipulations for happiness because you like where you are at.

((I'll be happy when I get a car.. a girlfriend.. a killer job.. etc.. etc..

d. you stop destructively demoralizing yourself. putting yourself down. limiting yourself.

step 3.
you will be able to love your neighbor.

a. motivated truly and selflessly without need of validation..

b. not as self focused

c. interested in deeper not immediately gratifying things. you'll put mileage in.

step 4.
that love will come back around.

a. self explanatory

b. other wise known as karma

c. otherwise know as this ganstas!!

{{ you can sort out the generalizations.}}


Last night I went over to my friend's house to watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in preparation for the 7th movie. All of them are avid Harry Potter-ers.. and I have to admit I was a little bit lost, not being that much of a Harry Potter-er myself. But, as my friend and I were talking after the film she gave me a pretty interesting thought to ponder..

As young people we tend to love the idea of possibilities. Life is full of them and, especially at this age, with nothing set in stone we can act on those possibilities quite freely. That is alluring and exciting, but, also, its the time to solidify the constants in life and narrow the possibilities ..so to speak. You might think it is sad that this has to happen. We look at our parents and their narrowed possibilities, the things that tie them down, and think that sucks. However, I'm starting to believe that it is necessary to being a whole person.

If you don't commit yourself to anything you'll end up with nothing. If you don't decide who you are, then you will end up being and standing for nothing.
If you value everything, you will end up valuing nothing.

If everything is sacred, then by definition, nothing is.

For instance, travel. Travel is filled with possibilities. Travel can take you anywhere and you can travel on a whim if you like. But if you are always traveling, then you can never build anything.. you can never invest in anything.



Our joint theory became that, traveling, in all aspects of life, seems so much easier.

Never deciding who you are means that you never have to be rejected.

Being honest about yourself is the hardest thing you can do. Its very vulnerable. You are telling others: this is who I am.. this is what I stand for.. now you can take me or leave me.

If they decide to leave you, especially at your most vulnerable, it can be heartbreaking.

So wandering from different versions of yourself, from person to person, to be accepted by everyone, to please everyone becomes very attractive.

but I think its time not to be fooled anymore..

You may please people, on the surface, but its yourself you have to live with.

Its yourself you need to respect and empower.

Its not about validation through others' acceptance, but finally being able to accept yourself, wholly and completely.

Make yourself the person you wanna be and narrow your faults down to the margin you are comfortable with.. mold yourself into a person that YOU can love and admire..

and then "take" the friends that will respect and care about that version of yourself and even desire to better it, support it... and "leave" all the rest behind. Sometimes its about quality vs. quantity. Sometimes its about getting real about yourself.. not only for yourself but also to be able to be there for others on true and substantive plane.

wha?? awesome!!

from my brother..

why..

when I want to look like this..

..do I always end up looking like this???? //

{{sahale smash!!}}

I'm conviced

The Sartorialist

is the Martha Stewart of the indie crowd.

I guess sometimes when I roll out of bed.. 30 min late, my priorities tend to shrink up into the sad state you find me in.

dang, being awesome takes a lot of time..

wondering

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

tid bits for you.

I got strangely inspired by this website today.
I'm not sure what it was about it.. kinda normal consumer-y type site.

CELEBRATE yourself. empower yourself.

CULTIVATE wisdom.

BE inspired.

FOLLOW your dreams.

CREATE potential for soul mates.

my morning. commute.

.: thanks KEXP :.

P.S.
vetrans day rocks!
(no traffic!!)

Dear Seattle Commuter,

i encourage you
to skip work to
thank your veteran

thanks,
Sahale's Evening Commute

yes! this what I needed to hear

}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{

I just found this interview and it really encouraged me.. good to hear ideas coming from someone else, that you may have been thinking and trying to formulate for a while.. makes you feel like you are not alone .. or perhaps just a weirdo.

I thought, dear readers, this might be encouraging to you too

: )

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Excerpts from Sufjan Steven's Interview with

Being an artist of some repute do you find the calling to spread the Good News sits awkwardly with your profile? Is it difficult?

SS: Not necessarily, you know, I think the Good News is about grace and hope and love and a relinquishing of self to God. And I think the Good News of salvation is kind of relevant to everyone and everything.

I find as I get older due to a sequence of events spirituality becomes more intriguing, though having been indoctrinated with the hard line dogma that I’d go to hell if I didn’t follow certain practices and believe very specific things, I was quite angry about Christianity for a while.

SS: Oh dear.

I suppose you could call it Protestant guilt.

SS: The church is an institution and it’s incredibly corrupt obviously, but that’s because it’s full of dysfunctional people and people who are hurt and battered and abused.

It’s very normal in any institution to have that kind of level of dysfunction. That’s unfortunate. I find it very difficult, I find church culture very difficult you know; I think a lot of churches now are just fundamentally flawed.

But that’s true for any institution you know, that’s true for education, universities and it’s definitely true for corporations because of greed, and I think part of faith is having to be reconciled with a flawed community.

But the principles, I don’t think the principles have changed. They can get skewed and they can get abused and dogma can reign supreme, but I think the fundamentals, it’s really just about love. Loving God and loving your neighbour and giving up everything for God. The principles of that, the basis of that is very pure and life changing.

Do you believe that God can be reached through other faiths? John 14:6 categorically states Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life" and nobody can get to the Father except through him. A lot of people take that very literally and don’t believe you can find spirituality through Buddhism or Islam or whatever...

SS: Yeah, I mean who can know the mind of God and who can be his counselor? It’s not man’s decision, you know. If God is infinite and he’s in all of us and he created the world then I feel there is truth in every corner. There’s a kind of imprint of his life and his breath and his word and everything. You know, I’m no religious expert, and I don’t make any claims about the faith. All I can account for is myself and my own belief and that’s a pretty tall order just to take account of myself. I can’t make any claims about other religions. There’s no condemnation in Christ, that’s one of the fundamentals of Christianity.

The Gospels are a good read, and then you get Paul ruining everything with his right wing attitudes.

SS: Well Paul is a good reference for the character of church institutions, the setting down of cultural principles. Because God is the church and the church is an institution and the institution is culture; you have to reckon with all the trappings of culture and that’s kind of what Paul designed. You know, that was his role. You can’t read it without looking at it in the cultural context of the time and place, it’s inherent you know.

Church originally was a body of people and it had nothing to do with a building.

SS: I mean it’s weird. What’s the basis of Christianity? It’s really a meal, it’s communion right? It’s the Eucharist. That’s it, it’s the sharing a meal with your neighbors and what is that meal? It’s the body and blood of Christ. Basically God offering himself up to you as nutrition. Haha, that’s pretty weird. It’s pretty weird if you think about that, that’s the basis of your faith. You know, God is supplying a kind of refreshment and food for a meal. Everything else is just accessories and it’s vital of course, baptism and marriage, and there’s always the sacraments and praying and the Holy Spirit and all this stuff but really fundamentally it’s just about a meal.

And there’s the cross of course. It’s an extremely powerful symbol and it has permeated into some of the greatest art and literature of the last couple of thousand years, but it’s peculiar that people wear an object that represents the putting to death of their Lord.

SS: It’s really morbid. It’s a really morbid symbol you know. It is very grotesque when you start thinking about it. But it’s also beautiful you know, it’s the ultimate sacrifice. And I think it relates to the meal as well because it’s Christ giving up his blood and flesh as food and that then itself is the giving up of his body for eternal life, therefore salvation. Whatever that means...”

I don’t know. It’s all a bit of a mystery to me.

SS: It’s the most important thing to me really but it’s also really important I don’t get too caught up in it. There’s a necessity for casualness, you know, because I think fear and anxiety are not elements in faith. And I think doubt is important and questioning and all that. I think there’s been too much made from fear and condemnation to manipulate people. I think that’s an atrocity really.

POLADROID // smile of note