"The limits of your world are bordered on all sides by your facility with language."

You are able to do anything you put your mind on. There's no limit, unless what is stopping you is your language. Your desire may be to travel but each time you travel to the same place, it will always be different. You aren't going to experience the same thing more than once. Go to a different country and you will feel like a new born opening its eyes for the very first time. It all depends on how you take things. Not speaking the language of that country will limit you from knowing different things, as well as socializing with others. Its like being in a box, you have no way out, no holes to breathe from, nothing whatsoever. But the only way you are able to find your way out is by following instructions on how to get out of the box. There's a limit to everything in life only if you don't look beyond your measure.

"Memento Mori, Remember you will die."

Death awaits every living thing. In our current time, this kind of thing is always put behind a persons mind. Everyone fears death, no one acknowledges that it is there, we are not a fairy tale immortal, we are mortal. When I think about death, I have already said and spoke the words 'I will die,' and yet when anyone else who attempts to say it, they revise it into 'yes death comes to everyone'. Showing the very fear of death, not accepting it as their end.
In Palermo, Sicily there is a place where the living can be reminded of death. A catacomb filled with these mummified people, that are lay on display for many eras. A priest that takes care of these mummies, he said "People in this generation, come to this place and change, they change of how death is well on its way in the end of the road and people cannot accept it, they turn back from this place' I agree.
This quote "Memento Mori" "Remember you will die" is not meant to put fear, but as a reminder of our mortality and to accept this as our path to living. We grow, we age, we die, death is not a simple something you can disregard, a student said "You are born to die".

~Jennifer Macancela

Adding to the blog... for the first time! (Class prompt)

"You cannot borrow courage." -- ?

Well this presents an interesting visual. "Hey, can I have some courage?" "No." "Ok," you say, courage-less.

Courage. Hm. When have I ever been courageous in my life? Courage comes in all forms--courage is what moves you when you are out of your comfort zone. Courage, bravery, etc. are mental states and sometimes forms of adrenaline. Only you can decide to jump from the high-jump into the dark water, hold the tarantula, or enter the battlefield.

Before class today, Kyle showed his tattoos and Professor Jackson said, "You'll regret Elvira on your calf someday." Kyle responded neutrally, "No I won't. I live without regrets." Prof. J. says, "You've got courage." So what constitutes courage? How do you earn courage? Is it earnable? It's not borrowable, apparently. Or is courage just a built up resistance to your initial fear? In terms of the war, is every soldier courageous? What if they never feared war... Does that mean they're not courageous? Or are they naturally courageous--at least in the eyes of those who are frightened by it? Do you have to fear something, then overcome it in order to be courageous? Fear seems to be the most fitting opponent to courage. Thus, courage can't be borrowed because not everyone fears the same things in the same way.

Admittedly, all I feel like I can contribute to this quote is my nodding-head agreement and many questions I don't know the answer to.

True Love

When we are young, everyone always talks about finding true love. The young gentlemanlike handsome guy working at Blackstone expects to get the perfect girl, because he's the perfect guy. But as time goes by, he keeps on going through girlfriends saying, "she's pretty good, but there must be something better," and "my dream girl will eventually find me."

But now he's a 42 year old with a salt and pepper stubble and with the financial crisis Blackstone is laying off. Oh yea and he still hasn't found that true love. All of a sudden, as time trickles away, desperation kicks in. And he ends up marrying a girl he can put up with, after passing up on the amazing girl when he was 25. And as poppa Jackson would say, "Don't love the one that you love the most, love the one that loves you the most."

-Jonny TrueLove

"A tradition without intelligence is not worth having" T.S. Eliot

As much as I love my homeboy and fellow Leo Churchill, I'm going to have to roll with T.S. Eliot on this one. Only two generations removed from Quechua tribes left over from the Incan empire in Ecuador, I know a thing or two about nonsensical tradition. My grandfather left a tribe in Alausi because he felt things like nose piercings and ear gauges were pointless and barbaric, just to come to America where today my best friend since sixth grade has an inch gauge in each ear and his septum pierced. He traded bone for metal and was simply disappointed. "They call us savages!" he always said as he would walk by St. Marks. "At least in Alausi they wouldn't charge you because it had meaning; You can't put a price on a symbol." I can see now that he's older he'd rather have the bone than the metal, the dirt instead of rock, the handwoven headdress to the Alfani shoes, and the jungles of Ecuador suddenly seem to be bigger than he remembered; Bigger than any skyscraper in the entirety of the concrete jungle. It's sad to see someone so out of place. Maybe it's the jazz music in the other room, maybe it's because we're both Leos, but I think I agree with Churchill after all...

Forgot To Post This

Often times it is better to keep your lips sealed and pen moving than to put your thoughts into play. However, what makes you so sure that one who writes hasn't lived? What can you write about if you've never lived. All fiction is based in life just as all lies are based in truth. That is what makes fraud so dangerous. It is the most difficult sin to call out and according to Dante will land you further in hell than anyone would care to be. Fraud in all its forms is destructive. The cat and mouse between a detective and a suspect, the betrayal of a good friend with a kiss or the lie that now pulls your reigns as you attempt to keep your story straight...

Veins Called Love

“In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart o the woman who he may love later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.”

Love. The undefined emotion that is one of the mysteries of this world. What, how, when, to whom, why do we love? I love. I love my parents, my sisters, my friends, and my best friends all in different ways and all for different reasons. If you ask me how I know that I love them, I just do. Love should take over the Nike catchphrase of just do it so that others don’t try to search so hard for what it is. When you find love, love. It might bring you feelings of hate , jealousy, confusion, but it also brings you bliss and that reassuring feeling that someone is there for you, that someone cares about you. Now I wish that young men will love who they want and then hold the heart of the one that they love, but I’ve seen to many guys my age discard the hearts of girls that they love like the pen that they’ve used that’s now thrown away because its out of ink. The ink that runs through the veins called love dried out causing the heart to cease purpose, or as it may feel.

~Samantha Dunac