28 February 2004 Today I walked through the city, mostly around the streets within one half mile of my apartment. The city is an incredible mix of ugliness and beauty, a mockery of nature. I saw lovely streams of water, the element of life (my wife and I watched Mortal Kombat together today, out of curiosity, and one character said to another, 'in your next battle, use the element of life', and I was reminded of the ancient Greek conception of the elements: air, water, fire, earth.) flowing through dirt and over pavement into the gutter... ah, how sad, it makes it sound futile to say that it flowed into the gutter. But really it was beautiful, to see the water, pure and calm, it looks so lovely as it flows. But all around are buildings... made for utility, not for beauty. I've never seen a beautiful city, but only ugly buildings, many of them in disrepair. How can humans build things that are so ugly.. if one is going to take the time to build something, days, weeks, or months, why can it not be made to appear beautiful? But they construct them of plain bricks, and before long they appear dull and ugly like everything else in the city. The people are the redeeming element of the city, as there is no nature, no animals, flowers, or trees. But all that they aspire to is a sort of mediocre goodness, if even that. The only hope in the city, then, is the sky: the one thing that one can see (in the city) that humans have difficulty in corrupting. Occasionally an airplane may pass by, or a building may ascend high, but still the sky is blue, and the sun shines, or the clouds float above, and it is lovely. In nature, the ground has many flowers and grass, varieties of plants and many delightful things. The ground in the city has its own kind of randomness, but it is a variety, not of beautiful things, but of cigarettes, beer bottle caps, trash, and pavement. Only the dirt is lovely, and that is plain and brown. The grass is a dull yellow and brown, barely able to grow, where it is allowed to exist. What is beautiful to hope for... I found a very nice quote by Emily Dickinson on my friend's web page. My friend's name is Kris, and we know eachother from university. We met because I fell off my bicycle performing a foolish maneovre and ripping my knees and skinning my knees a bit, and I decided to walk with her and my other friend Hope back to the dormitories. Then later we had psychology class together and disagreed so much that we decided to become friends. Later on we found ourselves agreeing from time to time and enjoying being together and talking. Long friendships are very good, especially with the right people. Here is the quote (actually, there are two quotes, one by Aristotle, but they go well together): "The gods too are fond of a joke." "They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse." Dark shadow. Something has drawn you into darkness in the past, and you're now trying to get out of it. The darkness is already inside you, and getting it out will be hard, but if you try, maybe one day you can be who you want to be again. Don't give in!!! What kind of dark person are you? brought to you by Quizilla\ Thoughts and Events