Badge and Gun

You wear responsibility as if it was a badge emblazoned on your destiny. You are a captive in a glass jar, looking out at what you think is reality when the reality is that you need to keep pushing for the opening before the oxygen fueling your destiny is sucked dry with every exhale of disappointment. When the air of your desires start thinning out is when you need to fight hardest, stay conscious, before you fall into the deep slumber of complacency.

You are most brave when you dare to be afraid. You are most whole when you acknowledge that you are made up of disjointed parts, of missing parts you want to fill. 

You have the most to gain when you feel as if you have everything to lose. You’ll get hurt each time you bang against the glass. But every bruise is a step closer to shattering the prism of transparent lies holding you back. And those scars. Those scars will be your badge and gun. 

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy little ways every day.” – David Foster Wallace

From The Junk Shop 1, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue

- Inner Voice

Who You Love

The moments that come unchartered are the ones that end up charting your way. Right now you have it all planned, checklist in hand.

But honey, you’ll fall in love with that person who is not your ideal, and that will be ideal because your differences will nurture your thoughts, widen your horizons.

You’ll look for steady direction, only to find yourself thrown on spontaneous impulses. You’ll fall for the early rising tea-sipper when you can barely function without that hit of morning caffeine. You’ll learn to pace down when you’re raring to go, challenge yourself when you start feeling complacent.

You’ll drive each other nuts, you’ll turn your insecurities inside out. Naked now, you’ll hit those walls between you hard, only to surrender to your soft spots over, and over again. Because at the end of the day, you need friction to ignite a spark.

“ The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."  – Andy Warhol

Twenty Five, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue 

- Inner Voice

Call Me The Breeze

Here’s the deal. It is the nature of regrets to leave a sour aftertaste. If you knew the things you knew now, you may not have done some of the things you did then. But then, you’d never know the things you know now.

Talk to people who challenge your ideologies, disagreements are good for you. How else would you know that your beliefs will withstand the storms of doubt ? These exchanges will teach you to challenge your boundaries, nudge those rigid lines a little further. After all, you can only be free when the mould breaks.

And if someone tries to measure you against their own yardstick, I hope you remember that someone else’s figures, standards and rules cannot limit your growth.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau

You Need Some Rocks, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue 

-       Inner Voice

Wildfire

So I hear you have a plan.

You’re calm on the outside, but inside, you’re all rough seas and choppy adventures. Sometimes a little of that leaks out in the passion in your eyes. You think no one realizes, but on those days, you exude an energy that is infectious. There’s a bounce in your step, a jaunty tilt in your determination.

You’re in a maze that leads nowhere and everywhere all at once. That adventure isn’t always about the final destination, it’s about finding yourself by losing yourself. Sometimes the greatest adventures bring you far away, and back again. You’re old, and new, young and wizened all at once.

The road ahead isn’t easy, but let’s be honest kid. That is exactly why it’s so attractive to you. Go build some fires.

 “Adventure is not outside man; it is within.” - George Eliot

Growing Up, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue  

- Inner Voice

Dear Marie

A place you once held dear,

A time you said ‘no’, when you really meant ‘Yes, but I’m too afraid to”

all that remains now is the ghost of memories that time could not bury.

Recollections

The places you could have seen,

The things you should have said,

A hand you should have held more,

Bartering with time for more time to unwind past moments

Reflections

The many places that home is made of,

The inertia of failures and the steep climbs of successes,

Everything comes with a price tag, and dreams are no exception

Reminiscence

“ We must always have old memories, and young hopes “ – Arsene Houssaye

Of Silk and Diamonds, Photo Collaboration : Scenes de Rue

- Inner Voice