Living in tension, with intention.

Current soundtrack: George Winston - The Holly & the Ivy

Is it weird that I need to listen to music while I write?

Here is how I know I am a blogging nerd...multiple posts in one day. Guess I can chock that up to a mentally intensive 24 hours.

Ok, shoot, I just need to take a bunny trail moment and comment on how insanely and intensely beautiful this piece of music is that I am listening to. George Winston. Freaking piano prodigy...wrote this arrangement of the Holly & the Ivy that combines joy, woe, surprise, lament, rebirth, love, and perhaps even loss into one delicious entity that is truly soul-soaring music. Maybe I am the only one that feels that way about it...but nonetheless, it touches me.

And I can't sleep. I have so much in my brain. And I had one of my ever-delicious green tea with soy milk concoctions tonight while having "coffee" with an old and dear friend.

Caffeine = insomnia.

It is this same old and dear friend that brought up the challenge of living in tension. What started it all was a rousing discussion of the life of Chris McCandless and the culmination of that life that led to the book Into the Wild and subsequently into a movie sometime thereafter. We were discussing how we both resonated with Chris's intentions in his apparent need to escape his reality. The way in which he chose to live his life was reckless...but he never looked back...and there is something about that that brings my soul a little bit closer to the surface of my being. However, the conclusion we came to regarding his decisions and ultimately the definite consequence to his actions, was that he lived his life in a great deal of selfishness. This is when my lovely friend brought up the idea of living in tension between the freedom and reckless abandon of Chris McCandless and the responsible awareness of being a good citizen of the human race.

And all of a sudden I realized the goal of my existence: to allow myself to live in as much reckless abandon as possible without neglecting the way in which I was made to impact the world and be impacted by it in return. The perfect marriage of emotional drive and heartfelt commitment to loving those I come in contact with in the most genuine and selfless way I know how.

What is most excellent is that this friend is leaving in 6 days to move to Zambia to work with a non-profit that believes they can truly change the face of Africa. What a wonderful way to live in tension.

Now current soundtrack: Bloc Party - On

Something about this band sweeps me away and drops me in London...perhaps it's that they are British. In all seriousness though, I seem to connect music in my life to many feelings and experiences and this song in particular puts me in London...in the winter...with rain falling...and a peacoat...definitely a peacoat...and it makes me feel alive. And brings awake my intense itch to travel.

But then I am reminded of my job and my responsibilities.

And just how early 7am will come tomorrow morning.

Sigh. My time will come, I know it.