someday we'll live our lives out loud

"Someday"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYh3olR9xKA


You can go
You can start all over again
You can try to find a way to make another day go by
You can hide
Hold all your feelings inside
You can try to carry on when all you want to do is cry

[Chorus:]
And maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
Try to put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to make things better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

Now wait
And try to find another mistake
If you throw it all away then maybe you can change your mind
You can run, oh
And when everything is over and done
You can shine a little light on everything around you
Man it's good to be someone

[Chorus]

And I don't want to wait
I just want to know
I just want to hear you tell me so
Give it to me straight
Tell it to me slow

Cause maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
We'll put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to just feel better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

[x2]
Cause sometimes we don't really notice
Just how good it can get
So maybe we should start all over
Start all over again 

Being one with life

I feel pressure within myself to become what I am not yet. I have a constant feeling of failure as I don't seem to achieve the status of who I should be. I feel guilt for not being all that I could be. I fear wasted potential in the use of my time and in the amount of energy invested. I dream of how much I could accomplish if, only if, I would do more and be more.

But the truth is that right now I am who I am, and that's all that I can be now. There's nothing wrong with that. Accepting such truth seems to be the first step to being one with life.

I don't need to be anyone else--I couldn't be anyone else! If I see the need of changing my deeds and beliefs then I should do so without fear of lagging behind. Who sets the standard anyway?

Today, I'll be one with myself; I'll be one with life.

(yep, that's a dialog with myself but you're welcome to comment on it ;)

Hegemony

Writing from prison during the 1920s, Gramsci compared two Marxist notions of social control: domination, direct physical coercion of the people by state institutions like the police, army, and law in political society; and hegemony, ideological control through the production of consent by unions, schools, churches, families, and so on in civil society. Civil institutions, Gramsci thought, incalculated in people an entire system of values, beliefs, and morality that he found supportive of the established order and its dominating classes. Workers identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie and  helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting. Hegemony is a worldview diffused through socialization into every area of daily life that, when internalized, becomes "common sense." Hegemony mystifies power relations, camouflages the causes of public issues and events, encourages fatalism and political passivity, and justifies the deprivation of the many so that few can live well. Hegemony works to induce oppressed people to consent to their own exploitation and misery.

In his concept of "American Fordism" Gramsci explored the development of a new kind of hegemonic regime in which trade unions would be subdued, workers would be offered a higher real standard of living, and the ideological legitimation of this new kind of capitalism would be embodied in cultural practices and social relations extending far beyond the workplace. More simply, Fordist capitalism might achieve institutional stability through the achievement of willing consent (keeping people happy) through mass consumption.

Revolutionary political transformation, Gramsci said, was not possible without a crisis of ideological hegemony--changes in civil as well as political society. Socialist movements, Gramsci concluded, had to create "counter-hegemony" to break ideological and cultural bonds and penetrate the false world of appearances as a prelude to the making of new ideas and values conducive to human liberation (Gramsci 1971 ed.; Boggs 1976).
(Peet & Hartwick, 2009)

This week's trend: Breath Awareness

I've been thinking too much lately: what things do I have due tomorrow? what should I be doing now? or should I be doing something else? how do I achieve my goals? what if I cant? what should I do next? and what about time for my friends? blah blah...

I've been thinking too much to the point of getting overwhelmed by my thoughts and even defeated by them at times. So how to stop this constant thinking that is taking me nowhere good?

--> One way of doing this is to take a few minutes to be aware of my breathing and in that way I create gaps in the stream of thinking and bring myself back to the present moment...

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"Being aware of your breathing takes attention away from thinking and creates space...

Be aware of your breathing. Notice the sensation of the breath. Feel the air moving in and out of you body. Notice how the chest and abdomen expand and contract slightly with the in-and outbreath. One conscious breath is enough to make some space where before there was the uninterrupted succession of one thought after another... 

Being aware of you breath forces you into the present moment--the key to all inner transformation. Whenever you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present. You may also notice that you cannot think and be aware of your breathing. Conscious breathing stops your mind. But far from being in a trance or half asleep, you are fully awake and highly alert..."

(A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle)