Midori, sans liqueur.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but it’s very difficult to learn to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

As for communicating nobody-but-yourself to others, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t real can possibly imagine. Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as just being just like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time, and whenever we do it, we are not real.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve loved just once with a nobody-but-yourself heart, you’ll be very lucky indeed.

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become real is: do something easy, like dreaming of freedom, unless you’re ready to commit yourself to feel and work and fight til you die.”

-e.e. cummings.

I think what this says is important on a lot of levels. Definitely a reflection of my aspirations and goals, not only in writing, but also in LIFE. It’s hard to be yourself in the face of social competition, surrounded by most people that blindly conform into whatever is easiest. coolest. acceptable. popular. I am guilty of this a lot of the time. It’s nearly impossible to be yourself 100% of the time. However, when you find yourself in love, whether it’s with a person, a place, or an art, you’re closer than ever. For instance, in a song is where I’m most myself. Capturing all my emotions in my own little melting pot of self. When you find yourself in a moment in time when NOTHING else matters but that moment, and you and yours in that moment alone, you’re real. You’re free. That’s the feeling I get when I write. When onstage on a particularly magical night. When mike and I finish a song. When I lay in bed with her for hours, well into the afternoon. When I cry and laugh at the same time when no one is around. In these moments alone, I’m real. I’m free. Discuss. (via thewilliambeckett)