...experiencEExcellence...

have you ever wondered? why you're doing all of the things you're doing? 

instructions

find god...

give up the world;
give up self;
finally, give up god.
find god in rhododendrons and rocks,
passers-by, your cat.
pare your beliefs, your absolutes.
make it simple; make it clean.
no carry-on luggage allowed.
examine all you have
with a loving and critical eye, then
throw away some more.
repeat. repeat.
keep this and only this:
what your heart beats loudly for
what feels heavy and full in your gut.
there will only be one or two
things you will keep,
and they will fit lightly
in your pocket.

~Sheri Hostetler~

i used to be holding on to my christian belief as if i was holding on to a rope dangling above a bunch of crocodiles. my world couldn't possibly exist without that rope, because it was all i'd ever known. it was my way to look at things, and my way to feel protected. my way to be. but then i grew older, just a little bit.

i was thrown into the dazzling jungle of chaos - at age sixteen i went to spend a year abroad all by myself. abroad. no family, no friends. and at home, a very close loved one my age, fighting cancer. on my journey: the many beauties and fairy tales the globe's open space has to reveal, but also the many dark feelings and desperations i was almost torn apart by. and i grew older again, just a little bit.

i got home and found my old world being changed. the faces i eyed - they were not the same. the loved ones i hugged had become a faint shadow of what they had once been. the place i'd once known so well - it became unfamiliar territory. i came home but i didn't. so i grew older, just a little bit. 

my home was not my refuge anymore, so i fled from it. i dived into the colorful but oh so troubling night, the long weekends, the never ending ocean of clubs. i found new friends, and a new love, yes, and i found addiction. i went from zero to a hundred, and i stopped to smile. so i grew older once again, just a little bit.

i grew older, and realized, that i didn't want it all. i couldn't take it all. it was too much to bear, and it was not doing any good. all of it. so. step by step i walked myself out of the scene i had jumped into. i carried myself through it, and got away. standing there and looking back, i saw, so many things had turned out to be okay. i came home. and grew older, just a little bit.

through all that time i'd given up. i'd given up on the world, i'd given up on self, and finally, i'd given up on god. but i'm just starting to find god in rhododendrons and rocks, passers-by. i am paring my beliefs and my absolutes. i make it simple, i make it clean. and i'll keep this and only this: what my heart beats loudly for, while growing older. just a little bit.

i'm just about to turn nineteen. therefore, i do not have a lot of wisdom, probably. and to some of you i might just be talking a bunch of nonsense. but. i've learnt things. i've heard things. i've been educated through time. and the more educated i get, the more questions i have. maybe, hopefully, there are people out there who are alble to answer them. or at least try to. or maybe just share them. (the reason i got this blog).

is our system going to collapse like the roman empire?  a couple of days ago an elderly person stirred up a conversation with me. a conversation about the loss of morals, shift of values. everything is about money today, absolutely EVERYTHING. disneyworld, movies, wars. we live in a purely capitalistic environment. i get sick walking through las vegas, thinking about the incredible masses of humongous amounts of money existing, being owned by the invisible super rich, by a good percentage of some kind of mafia, by whoever. i get sick thinking about how those people do not care about anyone else. and that's just vegas. but it's the whole entire world, too.

where is this going to go? we have wars being fought not because helpless women were being raped or poverty was governing and the interfering country wanted to change it. no one can tell me that - because no one gives a darn on what's happening in various african countries, either, for example. no one would ever have the idea of getting involved in a highly unimportant conflict down there. isn't it. (our western civilization has also only tried to find a cure for a.i.d.s. when we were first affected by it ourselves...). most wars are being led because there's money to make - in whatever kind of way. it's always been like that. i come from a supposedly neutral country, but don't fool me - while the rest of the world was experiencing a major downfall during ww2, my country's economy was flourishing. how's that. tell me one country that does not have any hidden scandals.

are we destroying ourselves? there are people who don't believe in global warming. and then there are people who believe in global warming, but think it is "just" part of a normal cycle taking place, and we're going through a phase of heat only to slide into the next ice age after that. all natural. personally, i belong to the people who believe that global warming is part of the eternal cycle. but. i believe our way of living makes this current heat phase worse. we've never been at this point before. we've never experienced such an extreme degree of growth, of pollution and natural resource use, combined with the point where we're at in our lovely global warming cycle. how do we know it's just going to return to normal after a few thousand years? big ice age time, everything's okay?

what i don't get: how can it be that, even if the planet-destroying effects of global warming worsened by mankind is not proven, no one cares that this world COULD really be destroyed by our civilization? and along with the world our species - any kind of species?? how?! even if it's NOT sure that we do actually have an impact on global warming: how can we just wait and see what happens. like: oh, the world is exploding - they were right, we DID have an impact on global warming... too bad... but why would any living person of influence care today. most probably none of our time are going to experience the end, if there's going to be one. it's gonna be our children or grandchildren, great-grandchildren that might have to get to see the SERIOUS effects of our behavior. right now, no one has to care, right. right now, economy is more important. money is more important. it's more profitable to get that oil and sell it and make people heat their homes with it, and run their cars, for example. and if i have the opportunity to earn my xxx billion dollars and enjoy life... why not?

i'm not dumb. i know you can't just say: okay, let's quit money. i wouldn't do it. but. what IS going to change this world and push it into a healthier direction? is there someone out there who will have to invent a whole, entirely new system that can be applied to our globe? like marx tried, like the movie "equilibrium" shows...? what will have to happen?

i'm young still. i might not know everything, and you might disagree with me on many points. but still: i think that the fact that a not even twenty year old teenager has THIS kind of terrifying questions on her mind (and believe me, i'm not the only teenager fearing the future in some way or the other) should wake up at least some people out there.

and maybe get them to try to answer some of my questions in an honest way...