A Time for Everything

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

⁹ What do workers gain from their toil? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. ¹¹He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. ¹⁴ I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

¹⁵ Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.^[b]

¹⁶ And I saw something else under the sun:

In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

¹⁷ I said to myself,

“God will bring into judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time to judge every deed.”

¹⁸ I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. ¹⁹ Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath^[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. ²⁰ All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. ²¹ Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”

²² So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Metamorphosis and Theoretical Physics, or the M theory

When i think about you,

i think about you in the fifth dimension.

In the fifth dimension, our time line is but one branch of the tree,

where every decision creates the possibility

for infinitely many different branches

and thus infinitely many other timelines.

I like to think of myself as a caterpillar,

tracing my way back down this branch

to the branch where things were different,

where i made better decisions,

and somehow, things worked out.

Knowing that that time line exists somewhere in the fifth dimension makes me smile.

i think that would be a good place to build a cocoon.

My friend and I exploring and goofing around on roosevelt island, new york

birthday pics

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Awake, Oh Sleeper

This place is but a dream, only the sleepers believe it to be real.

So hold fast to hope and find comfort in the truth of yourself.

And when death comes, do not be afraid.

It will be like blowing out a candle at the dawn of eternal day.

You will wake up laughing at what you thought was grief.

2,000 years will be contained within a single breath.

You will wake up understanding what you thought was omnipotence.

The universe will be contained within the eye of a needle,

And duality will be blown away, like ashes from a holocaust.

For though the believers are sleepers, we are the dreamers,

And we walk through the valley in the shadow of life, lucidly,

Until we are called to awaken.

LANGUAGE CREATES REALITY. WORDS HAVE MAGICAL POWER. SPEAK ALWAYS TO CREATE JOY.

‎I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU. YOU NEVER WANT WHAT’S TRUE. YOU WANT WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE AND DON’T WANT WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE, AND SO YOU SUFFER. IT’S SO PERPLEXING! WHY NOT SIMPLY REVERSE IT? WHY NOT WANT WHAT YOU HAVE, AND NOT WANT WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE? IT’S SO SIMPLE! YOU CAN BE HAPPY; IT’S HERE FOR THE TAKING. YOU WANT LITTLE THINGS WHEN YOU COULD HAVE THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AND ETERNITY.

— SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Yesterday my father cut down a tree growing in my front garden. It had grown from little more than a weed to a massive force, marking the months I was gone from this place with the cracks it was putting into the gutters of my home. So strange how something so still and silent, so seemingly peaceful, can move bricks, can shake foundations, can break homes. Today it lies in pieces, scattered across the lawn, its leaves brittle and lifeless, still and silent. Tomorrow I'll go out and pick up the pieces, keep what's salvageable for fire wood, throw away the rest. No more threats. No more creaking of my gutters when I lie here alone on windy nights. No more birds singing outside my window.

hah!