a collection of my very best and most favorite
Background Illustrations provided by: http://edison.rutgers.edu/
Reblogged from monsterdisease  7,068 notes

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. By Thich Nhat Hanh (via divine-consciousness)

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. By charles bukowski

During my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn’t call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment
and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire. By Charles Bukowski

Her state of mind at the time was that of a refugee escaping a war torn existence, barely alive. Soul forced into a state of numbing acquiescence. Years spent with a familiar stranger, ever present, and never completely around. Silent screams trying to tear through, needing to be acknowledged, and never allowed to be heard. Brutal days after endless nights, constantly chasing that elusive and mythical state of perfection, the height of the master high. Her preference on the matter had no bearing in the next move. Sacrifice the queen….. and let the bishop feast.