café! et qu'est-ce que c'est?

Two things I've been absolutely addicted to as of late? Caffeine, especially coffee, and news. Now, the caffeine part is no news. I've been addicted to caffeine for a long time now. But the news thing, that's new for me.
For the same reason I never really appreciated history lessons, I had a hard time following the news. None of it seemed relevant. It happened somewhere else to someone else and had/has no immediate (if any) effect on me. I'm not proud of it but you could say I was apathetic. Still, I have a hard time caring about and/or focusing on most history lessons but I have learned to appreciate more of the surrounding world currently.
This started because I felt like I stopped growing as a person. I graduated with my bachelor's and haven't decided on if/when/where to go back to school yet. My job can be challenging but it doesn't necessarily extend much beyond the brick and mortar. A goal that I have tried to set for myself is to always strive to be better. Smarter, stronger, somehow better. I decided to start listening to NPR in the mornings.
NPR is a gateway news feed. Soon enough, I would flip by a news channel and flip back to find myself sucked in partly because I wanted to see if I could learn anything new and partly to show off (even if only to myself) that I had already learned about the current topics during my A.M. NPR session. Now I read headlines when I see them on my e-mail homepages or stories when friends post them on facebook.
Furthermore, the teacher in me wants to share all of my learned lessons with everyone else. Again, this is partly to show off what I know about current topics. Still, it is also to learn others' input and to just spread the wealth of knowledge to those I know and especially to those I love.
I feel like my description thus far of my new news-appreciation is mediocre. Many have shared similar relationships with the media for years. What pushes it into an addiction is that I feel the burden of wanting to know everything, usually hopefully before I have to find out from someone I know. It's part of my "discoverer's syndrome". Yes, I diagnosed myself. Yes, I made up that diagnostic term.
This may seem narcissistic or stubborn or something but I have a hard time accepting/appreciating things (especially tv shows) that I don't feel I would have "discovered" without the help of someone close to me. While I can appreciate that they are willing to share with me the things that they like, it almost subconsciously bothers me that I am depending on them to supply me with knowledge/recommendations/etc. I spent a few years ignoring shows like Scrubs because someone else had told me about them. Once I started watching Scrubs and started to realize what an awesome show it is, I realized what was going on. So you could say I'm working my way through the stages of recovery, I guess. I'm at admittance and acceptance.
I just need to know more. Nothing fuels my mind and reading awareness/comprehension, I feel, better than caffeine. So there you have.

Coffee! And what is that?

What's new? What's happening? What went on? What can I do? What can I learn?



Ever inquisitve, ever challenging, ever growing, ever beautiful,
m'appelez Bella

la vie en film

I've been thinking for a while now, maybe a couple years or so, about trying to pinpoint beautiful experiences and trying to capture them in memory and trying to pass them on to the world. In sketches. In stories. In some sort of artistic expression. I have been searching for the right blend of experiences and related descriptions to deem worthy of one's reading. Years later, I am ashamed to admit that I have realized or perhaps been convinced that even the best of descriptions for the best of moments are still just copies of copies.
Thank you Chuck Palahniuk for taking my beauty, my insight, my loves, my memories straight out of my hippocampus and throwing them all into the metaphorical trash. Nothing that has happened to me hasn't happened to everyone else. No experience is unique.
I think back to the time when a boyfriend of mine would surprise me by dancing to nothing but the beat of our own footsteps. At the moment, I was mystified and surprised. I was so sure that the story of our love could be summed up in the few short minutes we spent closer to each other than the rest of the world had ever been. Closer to each other than anyone in the rest of the world could ever try to be. It made me feel beautiful and unique. Loved and special enough to spend the time and spontaneity on. And then I saw the same scene re-enacted for the world to see in a movie. Only it was different characters and it was in the middle of a road somewhere. And you could see her smile and you could see the passion in his eyes. And, although they were dancing to silence, there was a soundtrack for us to hear because it was after-all a movie.
The thing about movies though, is that you can see all the characters and even when the characters have a flashback, the scene includes all of them even the one whose mind is supposedly having the flashback. You get to see just how beautiful, just how in love all of the characters are/were. You get to see how the love in their eyes makes them that much more beautiful for just that moment. But the thing about real life is you are never going to be able to see what everyone else sees in the way that you feel. The love you held in your eyes only counts to the one who saw it and it only counts for that moment. You can never recreate that beauty or that moment because you couldn't see it from all angles.
And why would you want to? We say we want special and unique experiences but we're addicted to happiness the way a masochist is addicted to suffering. After having that one glorified, defining moment we can't wait for the next to come along. After all, if we were only due that one glorified, defining moment, what reason would we have to live for after it? So we try again.
We keep dancing in the silence hoping to feel that passion, hoping to recreate that moment. Little do we realize that the moment was 'special' because it was spontaneous and unprecedented. But, with the limited creative potential this modern world holds, it is hard, maybe impossible even, to continue creating spontaneous moments so we get sucked in to the hum-drum daily grind of real life. And we start living in movies and books because those copies of copies are unique to us and make us feel alive.

Tout le mond devrait le faire

I start thinking about it and my heart starts racing. If I were any more excited I think my body would actually start trembling. In ten minutes, I know that I will be right where I want to be. I will be hot and sweaty and I will be satisfied to know that there is something I do right. And afterwards I will be glad I made the decision to do this. I will be happy and I will even feel more beautiful. Still, I know the next time I do this will feel even better and I will be even happier and I will feel even more beautiful.

I have an addiction. A healthy one.

I love to run.