I want to be unstoppable!

ya know? Like that Santigold song. Here you go, you can listen to this song while you read the rest of my post

I WANT TO BE UNSTOPPABLE

There is this restless feeling in me that has been growing.

Good things have been happening in my life, I have many people surrounding me who adore me and I’m having fun just being with them. I feel sometimes like I’m having too much fun and that life will come back to bite me in the ass sooner or later and then I’ll be sorry. I should be working! I should be saving money! I should be paying off my student loans and looking for a real job instead of waiting tables! But…I like the freedom this life brings. Hanging out with friends in the sun and going to concerts is all I want to do at the moment. Is that so wrong?

I will not be a slave to a 9-5! I can’t see myself following the traditional school->work->work->work->retire->live framework. I want to live the life I want to live NOW. I have so many self-help-y books littering my room. Here are a few:

• “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich” by Timothy Ferris
• “Career Renegade: How to make a great living doing what you love” by Jonathan Fields
• “Uncertainty: Turning fear and doubt into fuel for brilliance” by Jonathan Fields
• “Escape from Cubicle Nation: From corporate prisoner to thriving entrepreneur” by Pamela Slim, foreword by Guy Kawasaki (that RichDadPoorDad dude)
• “The Mind: It’s projections and multiple facets” by Yogi Bhajan PhD, compiled by Gurucharan S. Khalsa

I’ve only just recently solidified that this is what I want, to live outside of the traditional box, but how….that is something that I pray pray pray will show itself to me along the way. But, I have to be working towards something. I can’t just wait for the perfect opportunity to show itself. I must choose something and work towards that. I’ll describe this feeling with an image:

It’s like I’m crossing a river by jumping on stones that are sticking out of the water. Only thing is, its foggy. So foggy in fact that I can only see one rock at a time in front of me. The wind is blowing heavily and I’m carrying a heavy load so I have to lean into the wind to not be knocked off balance and thrown into the rushing river. I have to consider the wind when jumping to the next rock. I do not know if there is a path that crosses the entire river, and I do not know how wide it is, but I must move forward…because I cannot go back.

Er…I just…can’t. Would you go back to where you were? I don’t know specifically where I’m going in life, but I do know that I ALWAYS ALWAYS want to be moving forward and growing and learning constantly. Challenges will always come up. You never know how close you may have been to reaching the end…

I just discovered this guy, Jonathan Budd who is focused on empowering ppl to become entrepreneurs. I like him because he talks very poignantly and also from a spiritual perspective: Only You Can Set Yourself Free

Some of his main points:

1. book knowledge < experiential knowledge (my thoughts exactly 
2. you must embody what you wish to achieve
3. your outer world mirrors your inner world so discipline your life and take care of your body, mind and spirit

Hope you found something interesting in this post. More coming soon.

Keep Up  xoxo

Just some tunes…

Here is whats been on my ipod recently. I can comfortably say these are all dam good songs.

Florence + The Machines

 

Mumford and Sons

 

The Weeknd

 

Birdy Nam Nam (Skrillex Remix)

 

Daddy Yankee (I know…)

 

Cut Copy

 

My latest obsession, Skrillex

Ok, I have to admit I was never a HUGE fan of the DJ Skrillex in the past, but after listening to this album I’m so down with his work. He is an amazing artist. This album really got me. I was dancing in my chair the entire time, and I am super picky with my music. It has to have a really good beat to make me want to move. I really appreciate that he is doing some really experimental things with mixing different genres that I’ve never heard.  I think what really got me was the last part which is classical! What the…..? It still has the same tune from earlier in the album, but there is no deep beat behind it. Soooo cool. I really like the hip hop beats that he mixes in along with sometimes kinda creepy synthesizers.

WARNING: If you are sensitive to loud noises or deep bass or electronic music at all then this is not for you. For example, I know my mum would get a headache listening to this.

Music is like wine. You can taste it and savor it and discuss it, or chug the cheap stuff just cause you wanna get drunk.

brilliance

this song gets me so hard

Uruguay Buildings

i’ve had this stuck in my head all day

“Do you know how beautiful You are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.”
~Hafiz

Jodhaa Akbar I love you

I am a sucker for romantic Hindi movies. Maybe it’s the Punjabi in me, but I absolutely love it when everyone breaks into song and dance and when the couples have these cutesy chase scenes in random places. Also, I really love period pieces about ancient times of kings and queens. This movie takes place in beautiful temples and everyone is always dressed in exquisite jewel-studded swaths of silken beautiful-ness.

I threw out my back this morning…sad day, but on a positive note, it did give me an excuse to watch this 3 hour Hindi movie which I’m sure I would not have allowed myself to do under any other circumstances.

I have a serious celebrity crush on Jalaluddhin Muhamad Akhbar….too bad he died in 1605. Jodha Akbar, is based on him and his wife (well she was one of his 30+ wives really) who was influential in his court and on him becoming more tolerant of other religions since he was a Muslim and she was a Hindu.

I know that this movie has idealized him, but I don’t really care cause I’m still pretty smitten with the way they portray him as so honorable and respectful. Surveying his wikipedia page, this popped out at me: “He is most appreciated for having a liberal outlook on all faiths and beliefs and during his era, culture and art reached a zenith as compared to his predecessors.” Hot.

“Akbar adopted the Sulh-e-Kul (or Peace to All) concept of Sufism as official policy, integrated many Hindus into high positions in the administration, and removed restrictions on non-Muslims, thereby bringing about a composite and diverse character to the nobility.  As a mark of his respect for all religions, he ordered the observance of all religious festivals of different communities in the imperial court.” Why don’t we have rulers like this nowadays?

This is a great post about his religious views It seems that his religious tolerance was affected mainly because of his mother, contact with Sufis and his Rajput wives, mainly Jodhaa Bai (who was the Hindu one).

Why are so many people concerned with their religious title? What faith do you identify with? What ARE you? What do you practice? What do you believe in? Why does it even matter? When it comes down to it…it really doesn’t matter at all. I have met people who didn’t identify with a religion but were the most selflessly caring and uplifting people I have met. I know other people who wear traditional religious garb, recite daily prayers, and do all the “right” things according to their faith, but they can be extremely rude, negative and inconsiderate. A religion is a positive influence on your life if the teachings go into your heart and soul and cause you to be a better person because of it. Take the best and leave the rest. Organized religion in general I feel has some major faults. There are many aspects of some of the ancient religions that have been altered at some point not to bring people closer to their God but to control them. It is important to always go back to the core teachings and re-question yourself what they are really saying, and what are they saying to YOU. Your relationship with your spiritual beliefs is unique and your connection to whatever you believe is not going to be the same as the next person. What do you think?

Just love, serve and try not to hurt others.

Enough of this serious talk…back to the my new celebrity crush. Can I still call him that if he has been dead for 400+ years? I appreciate that there are such sweet love scenes in this movie. I’d rather see this than a full-on sex scene hands down any day.

This is another one of my favorite scenes. The Sufi chanting is just beautiful and their dancing is beautiful and it is really sweet how he gets up and dances with them at the end       The dance that Sufis do is so peaceful. That is their form of prayer, to dance to the divine. Love.

Love

…lifts us up where we belong

…makes the world go ’round

…is all ya need

it is not a feeling but a state of being.

“i have forgotten all my learnings, but from knowing you I have become a scholar…”

it has to start from somewhere deep inside yourself. if you don’t have an understanding of what it means to be in love with you, how can you be able to love anyone else? everyone else is a mirror.

no one will ever be good enough without first loving yourself.

strength must come from that infinite place,

you came alone and alone you shall leave

and in between there will be beautiful people and place to love

and that is the beauty of life

it expands you

it flows through you and makes you look at the world with child-like eyes of wonder

“The lovely one whispers under her breath, and you go mad, witless, no reason left…O Lord, what is this chant, what magic art, that weaves its spell on even a stone heart?” ~Rumi

where your thoughts end, love begins

“…en el amor como agua de mar te has destado:

mido apenas los ojos mas extensos del cielo

y me inclino a tu boca para besar la tierra”

“…in love you have loosened yourself like sea water:

I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes

and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.”

   ~Pablo Neruda

where there is love there is no question.

in love, the impossible becomes possible

No one can measure, not even poets, how much a heart can hold.

This is really sweet!
My kinda love song!

How much passion can one heart hold?

just leave me here love

I just get so filled up with…well, with what? Love? Oh god that sounds so cheesy. Lust for life? Maybe.

I bet you have already heard this song already but it is one of those ones you can’t listen to just once in a row. It amazes me how relevant this song is for so many people I know right now, myself included. This song has everything going for it, good lyrics, good vocals, good background music. Oh and not to mention the music video is captivating. Raw.

Whatever it is, it makes me want to throw all social norms out the fucking window and dance and sing at the top of my lungs. There are not many things I can do in a daily routine that will quell this thirst of self-expression.

I want to be in the woods. I want to commune with the trees and the natural cycles of life, not this concrete jungle that force feeds me lies of an ethnocentric, consumerist culture focused on the individual.

I’m figuring out how to channel this energy into more productive things than dreams. Dreams ain’t gonna pay the bills or save the world* (my #1 priority)

a piece of my heart was left there

I love how he just belts this out, and the guitar is pleasantly reminiscent of Vampire Weekend.

*I have a healthy understanding that no person, no matter how amazing can “save” the world. It is just too long and wide and contains way too many conflicting interests for anyone to feel burdened by this grand task. There is no need to place so much pressure on yourself. Still, I am an optimist and will never give up the hope that maybe I will be able to effect some positive change that will last.

….   w  h e r e    do we go from here……..?