by David King on December 14, 2011
I walk down the street, and a stranger makes eye contact. She smiles, and continues passing by.
Sometimes, when I look closely, I see myself as a collection of everyone else. In truth, maybe that’s all we are – pieces collected along the way.
In the last three years, I have nearly drowned in anecdotal evidence of the idea that life isn’t always what we expect. And indeed, I have had very few recent expectations actually materialize. In some cases, expectations ended traumatically, while others drifted more slowly.
But there is beauty in the breakdown, or so they say. The greatest gift of life lies not in the materialization of one’s dreams and visions, but in the amazing ability… Read More.
by David King on December 5, 2011
More often than not, the end is all we see. And who can blame us? The end is guaranteed. The end is definite. The end is always there, waiting, patiently or otherwise.
There is a lot of talk among us humans of living in the moment. It seems to be something we all strive for – some sort of golden ticket that’s forever dangling at arm’s reach, just inches from our fingertips, nearly attainable but never quite so. When you consider that even a Tibetan monk plans ahead for long meditations by stretching, you might agree that it’s time to rethink this moment stuff.
So what’s in a moment? Not much at all really…seconds at best, maybe a minute,… Read More.
by David King on December 4, 2011
Time is…well, it’s simply another dimension, like length and width, a point of measurement only within the context of this life. From outside, or deep within, the increased number of dimensions creates a view much like a four-dimensional box, with time being yet another angle or direction in which matter – the big stuff – moves. It’s our minds, of course, that make time into something so different, so significant and transformational. And it is all of these things, indeed, indeed…but it is also something far simpler, and therefore something that can be grasped in a way that many may have previously thought impossible. It is a component of a mathematical equation, an anomaly of the three primary dimensions, and… Read More.
by David King on May 10, 2011
Of late, I have had an increasing number of increasingly disturbing encounters with individuals who, in supposedly seeking acceptance and respect, have become increasingly judgmental and presumptuous.
Most of us, in one way or another, have had the opportunity to partake in some sort of social minority, whether by choice or by uncontrollable forces (i.e., genetics). Some of us, of course, are members of minority groups which encounter heightened levels of scrutiny, discrimination, and/or hate (to be frank). As a fairly liberal and progressive thinker myself, I have always made a conscious effort to not assume, to not judge, and to not categorize. Of course subconscious processes may make this difficult at times, but at the end of the day,… Read More.
by David King on January 23, 2011
I feel compelled to return to this notion of “living in the moment.”
I have come to the strongly held, now frequently rehearsed, and both emotionally and rationally considered conclusion that living in the moment is, in its basic and standard form, a potentially hazardous ideation. In theory, and from a strictly optimistic perspective, it works: Live in the moment, escape the confines of the past and abandon the worries of the future; focus on the here-and-now, and be attentive to the beautiful details of life that are often overlooked.
The problem, of course, is that millions of years of evolution have led to a sophisticated self-consciousness that facilitates both long-term memory and complex consideration of future events. It… Read More.
by David King on November 5, 2010
There is an old adage that we’ve all heard, directed at us or someone around us, that goes something like this: “You need some time alone.” Or similarly, “Some time to yourself will do you good.” Many individuals further adopt this as a lifestyle of sorts, bragging about how much they’re “too busy for a relationship” or “enjoy living alone.”
The former of these may be the most irritating, for they are wrought with assumptions and presumptions and condescensions. None of us has the right to suggest to another that they should deny their natural mammalian drives to pursue social interactions and to find a mate. And sure, perhaps we’ve somewhat overcome these “simpler” needs and drives in light of… Read More.
by David King on October 24, 2010
In the midst our daily hassles and misfortunes, we often find ourselves in need of more. Sometimes wanting more means wanting another person, a particular someone who will lift us up, or love us. Other times, wanting more means wanting peace, or quiet, or time to ourselves to reflect – and perhaps even dream.
This ‘longing for more’ is an inherent quality of being human. Striving, goal-setting, progress – these are fundamental aspects of being alive. But they are also fundamental sources of hopelessness, worthlessness, and despair, for the pressure is enormous. As individual human beings, we MUST progress. We MUST endure. We MUST work, and build, and accomplish. This constant force is often life-defining, but with its enormous weight… Read More.
by David King on September 22, 2010
The truth is, we don’t know a damned thing about anything.
In the moment, of course, we think we do. Sometimes we think we have it all figured out, that we’ve somehow become aware of the greater plan. In such moments, we are surely always mistaken, for nothing ever fits that neatly into the box that is our life. This is not to say that moments of “clarity” are wasted; to the contrary, they are valuable and meaningful experiences that help to guide us, to move us forward. Nevertheless, to ever assume that the full path is known, or that the universe is correcting itself, is to express the up most naivety. We are but a small collection of particles… Read More.
by David King on September 6, 2010
Eight years ago, I wrote the following: “Regret is a completely unnecessary feeling in life.”
I lied.
My reasoning behind this statement went something like this: Follow your heart, do what you feel is right in the moment, and doing so will essentially prevent regret, so long as such philosophy remains at the forefront of your thoughts. This may be an ideal, but it has (seemingly) worked well for me for the past decade. What I have learned in the past couple of months, however, is that no matter the extent of dedication to one’s gut reactions or “heart,” regret is still very possible and in some cases (like NOW), it is all-consuming. I do not say this lightly, for… Read More.
by David King on August 27, 2010
There was a day when good ideas were restricted to towns, cities, nations, or at the most, continents. Today, ideas belong to the world, once they’re released.
More important than ideas, I think, are voices, for indeed voices serve as foundations for all ideas, good or bad. Voices – voices that want to be heard, that thrive on being noticed, that cannot survive without someone to listen to them. We all have a voice. We all want to be heard, to be noticed, in one way or another. The challenge to this, of course, is that a pool of over six billion people leaves many individual voices unheard. It is ironic, of course, that an increase in listeners and observers,… Read More.
