being_alive_is_really_hard frAnk i think the ways in which people are damaged are the ways in which they are strong. it's what makes people interesting, what they've overcome and what they haven't and how that's become a good thing. almost everyone's life is both a gorgeous story and a tragedy. i think being alive is really hard and i'm constantly stunned and amazed by people who make it something interesting and beautiful. 010412 ... silentbob i fall in love with everyone after getting to know them too bad it doesn't go both ways 010422 ... misstree the only thing that's kept me kind all these years... people are mean and selfish and stupid, but everyone has it hard, and it doesn't hurt to soothe a little pain here and there.b 010422 ... sabbie so is being growed up. so i shall jsut try hard to be ok. 010425 ... lost i wish i could make my life beautiful, but i always pay attention to the bad things not the good things. 010425 ... Casey I like silentbob's quote. But there should be more to it. You should fall in love with the people you DON'T know. Be helpful and friendly to others. Never spend this life trying to harm others. Me, my life sucks, but I have promised myself that I will try not to bring down the lives of others along with mine. 010425 ... fardreams you wouldnt know what iv been there, cuz i'v been there all the time. *song* it fits well 010427 ... jo the wonderful, incredible thing about being alive is that.... it is what we make it! I remember long ago being told of two men in a cell. They would each stare out the tiny window in turn. One would only get depressed by his daily perspective of the world, which in his eyes consisted only of a small mud puddle. The other man would come away from his experience totally rejuvinated, for he had seen the stars, the moon, the sun. We exist in the same world and many with simular circumstances, but it is for us to choose.......our perspective on life~ The other 010427 ... kx21 Layman's thought as to being_alive_is_really_easy... Your 'hard' is someone's 'easy'... Being alive is neither hard nor easy. It is none other than the state of Mind. 010429 ... aeiou we wake up every day and choose to be alive. we choose to breathe, to live, to be. it may be hard but we do it for a reason. 010429 ... . . 030901 ... min although being dead is effortless, why lose easily when winning is more rewarding 030901 ... . . 040115 ... Doar geez...bob...i thought you were going to throw in sumfin about your john thomas 040115 ... pipedream being alive is easy. we don't choose to breathe; it happens on its own. living is what is hard- living is the hardest thing...living through sorrow and pain and still finding reasons to make your existence worthwhile, reasons to be thankful for another sunrise, to hope for laughter and joy...we all survive; do we all *live*? 040115 ... blah-ze being alive is a drag, living is the reason why 040116 ... oldephebe yeah..i've been doing a little reading about what the quran has to say about perseverance and struggle and what the soul is endowed with from God..it's pretty basic wisdom..but things i tend to over look...sure it is pretty tough..these thousand shocks that flesh is heir to..yeah but..i think during those times when we can transcend circumstances..or find purchase on a plane that neither seeks to avoid or escape objective reality only offer a means of stepping into a transcendant self-fulfilling state of being..in these narrow breaths..upon the hard ground..without cover or quilt or pillow or comfort of familiar, fond things..among these narrow contours..this is when we learn HOW to really be alive, how to live..that's just my take..i've only read a few pararaph's of this Arab scholar's work..but he's really got some fascinating things to say..and of course - i am distilling what he wrote through the unique apeture of my own experiences and biases and so forth..but still.. 040116 ... oE and really though..the wound of longing..of freeing ourselves from the emotional indentureship of honest feelings..it is not an easy journey to make..sure..i get that.. 040116 ... pipedream you've pretty much hit the nail on the head, oE...personally, faith is a lot about trusting God when the easiest thing in the world would be to abandon that trust- 'all i asked for was this, how come You never give me what im desperately asking for?'. its easy to stop believing in God when the going gets tough- and the ironic thing is that the going getting tough is the test He is putting to you to see if you pull through or not...so yeah, holding onto something you don't even know takes quite a bit of fortitude, i think, to keep your chin up and actually trust in the belief that everything happens for a reason. if you can believe in prophets, angels and a God you've never seen i guess you can believe in most anything. 040116 ... oldephebe faith..yeah the substance of things unseen..ol' Apostle Paul so oracularly captured it's essence and transfigurative properites in the midst of exigent circumstances...ostensibly faith requires a kind of fortitiude but once you step into it's yoke it lifts you up and out of the exacerbations, the threshing of our own hearts understanding beset by tribulation..at least that's my take..so many times it's pulled me from the precipice's edge.just as my nails were about to slip off of the stone made slippery by own exertions..I cannot meet the argument of faith with any kind of arsenal or rubric of reason or rhetori or device(s) of argumentation..er rational that is... well miss it's time for me to sally forth out into the artic winds.. peace pd..peace for all of us... 040117 ... pipedream i seconds the motion. 040117 what's it to you? who go blather from