Hippie life update

It's been a long time since I posted anything on here.  Clearly I am not very good at keeping up.  Life has changed.  A lot.  More than I could ever imagine possible when I left the east coast to move out to Las Vegas.  I have grown substantially, through trials and tribulations that I was certainly not ready for.  I moved across the country for a girl, I was too stubborn and ill prepared and life has kicked me around a lot for my mistakes.  Karma has certainly caught up to me.  I've been in Las Vegas for 20 months now.  I've managed to ruin multiple valued pre-Las Vegas relationships in the wake of the move, to damage or neglect some of my most cherished ones, to shed the person that I knew myself to be.  I've wrestled with what I want out of life.  On my own with but a few regular people in my life to keep me sane has proven quite the challenge.  But it has also proven to be a very powerful time in my life.  One that is priceless to me and I feel has led me down a path that I can finally say I am fully satisfied with.  I would go through everything again and again if that was the price I had to pay to be who I am today.  I am very confident in the substantial progress I've made as a person and look forward to the rest of my life.  I am happy, content, and yet restless.  I don't know how much longer I will let work be a part of my life.  It's taken me a while to truly grasp that money and happiness are not the same thing.  That my life should not be in any way controlled by money.  Hard work and dedication, certainly, but towards an end that I deem worthy and fulfilling.  And so I am restless as I wait for a day when I feel comfortable enough in the rest of my intended future to reach out and grab it.  I sense that day's approach, as I have been preparing for months now to take on a task greater than myself.  Exactly how is yet to be seen.  And so I search vehemently on for the next step I take, carefully, thoroughly and with much concern for ensuring it to be exactly what I want to do, because I don't intend to go back from it.  Certainly it will be for the betterment of humankind in a sustainability-related field.  Exactly how is yet to be seen.

The purpose of this post is to share something I wrote.  Last night I was in bed and got out to write down a line for a poem that popped into my head.  I felt it needed to be written down, and I haven't had an urge to write anything in a long time.  Last night, though, it flowed.  And so, without further ado, I give to you...Untitled!

I'd been walking sightless in this world
Without a dream to carry me forward

Shackled by the times

I wanted to show my worth

Deceived by the currency

I was repressed henceforth

Never aware of where value is derived

I placed it in things contrived

By the mind of man and not out of necessity

Ideals that today just make no sense to me

Because the sun rose that day

Winter cold departing

The roots of ancestors my support

As my life was again starting

Buried deep within my making

Sprouted a life for the taking

Climb upon my branches

As I reach for the sky

And I will show you the meaning of life

Together we are not denied

Waterfalls and canyon walls

Fed my starving being

For nothing is more beautiful

Than the majesty that bears witnessing

I don't know what was

But I know what may become

We control our destiny

Let us march united on

As righteous a people as we are

We can be so easily misconceived

What holds us back

Is a world where ignorance leads

to foolish things being believed

Where value is ill placed

And people are deemed worthless

Where hatred and disconnect

Are much easier than co-existence

Where brotherhood is reserved

For those who are brothers

And we must fight to keep preserved

The lands that are our mothers

From cradle to grave

We are one with our home

Yet our children's rights we waive

Due to near-sightedness syndrome

We can't march to the same beat

And keep delaying the inevitable

We must join hands

And learn to be rational

For the betterment of mankind and society

And the preservation of this world

Together we survive

Divided we go the way of the dinosaurs

Oneness with the land and your fellow man

Can lead a man to be more than a man

For no one is but themselves

As we strive toward a larger goal

Let it not be for selfish purposes

That we spend our every breath

For, a breath taken for another is a breath worth taking

Anything that can end the soul's aching

And help start another's awakening

If you think we are forsaken

You are understandably mistaken

End the petty oppression of fellow man

Judge not by appearance

Beliefs or who one loves

But by the content of one's character

As we've grown numb to why we've advanced

The truth is

Together we survive

Divided we go the way of the dinosaurs