The Author

You all know of the story of Excalibur I'm sure; the magic sword that can cut through stone. Excalibur was the sword that didn't crack...

When a sword is made, the iron smith begins by taking a piece of iron and placing it in a red, hot furnace. Next, the sword is placed on a metal table and pounded until it takes a shape. Then it is immediately dunked into cold water, only to repeat the three step process again. Once in awhile the metal cannot take the drastic temperature change, and cracks. If, and when, this happens, the iron smith will toss the piece of scrap metal aside. As soon as enough of the scrap metal is collected, the iron smith will heap it together and melt it over to be used and made into a sword once again.

You can use this aphorism to depict yourself as either the iron smith, the sword, or the scrap metal, but either way I think it is a clever way to look at life. Sometimes you find yourself in the furnace (your boyfriend is cheating on you, your mother is abusing you, you are addicted to cocaine). Other times you find yourself being pounded (you are failing a class, you get into an accident, you locked your keys in the car). And other times you find yourself in the cold water, immersed in relief (you get engaged, you have a beautiful, healthy baby, you receive a large inheritance from a long lost, and recently deceased relative). But the process is, well, just a process. You are going to have days where your in the furnace, and you are going to have days where you are in the cold water. But in the end, you can choose to be Excalibur. In the end, the ones who hurt you are the ones who cracked and became scrap metal.

Everything is connected my friends. Everything.

East of Eden

My favorite part of my favorite novel, East of Eden, is one that occurs soon after Adam returns to the Trask farm from the army and his travels. Charles confronts Adam about how although Adam did not love Cyrus, yet Cyrus had more love for Adam than Charles. Adam goes on to explain that when you do not love someone, you tend to have more faith in them. How when you love someone, you grow suspicious of them, hurt them...

Personally, I agree. When you do not love someone, their actions will not affect you; you invest your faith in them, because you know if they let you down there is a shorter distance you will fall. It's just the same with most every situation, human nature tells us to pick the easiest route, and the more we fight against it, the more we end up losing; our faith always goes with our losses each time as well.

Loving someone is like jumping into open water, senses cut off, defenses lost. We rely all too much on our senses, and we are defenseless without them, but when you love someone, you have to learn how to use those senses all over again. It's scary as Hell, or so I've heard....

Well I'm still trying to figure out if I believe that loving someone who did not love you back counts when someone asks, "Have you ever been in love?".

The way I could explain it would be:

I've loved someone with all my heart and soul, but I have never been in love.


what do you think?