A song with a thousand images!

Building steam from a grain of salt by DJ Shadow was one of the songs that I liked the most and also got stuck in my head because of the beat it has. Amazing how this album was constructed from samples of other songs. While listening to it I thought of many events happening around the world. This song has the ability of making someone open the mind to creativity and imagination. Everything that I thought of, like a story or series of events would work great when placed in the song. I also analyzed the name and listened to the song for about ten times. I began to picture many different things like wars, guns, disharmony, protests, etc. Others did not made sense. The name gave me another taste of a message. I thought about people being part of a system, everyone contributing, helping, sharing, adding a grain of salt to that system to grow. Each one of us being like a grain of salt that contributes to the system. I interpreted like if that system cannot be sustained at the same level where it is stable, if we don’t take action then everything turns into steam, chaos, disaster. The analogy I have is the one of a pyramid. We are at the base of that pyramid trying to build it. In order to build that pyramid everyone has to participate in an orderly manner so that we can finish that pyramid. If something goes wrong, that pyramid falls into dust.

Day After Day...

I think that the film Groundhog day does a great job in showing how each day can be lived as a totally new one without taking into account that it is the same day (February 2). Phil is a TV weatherman with a bad attitude, and he wakes up on the same day over and over again.  At first he is frustrated by living the same day over again, and he tries new things. He pursues sex, but after a while it doesn’t work for him. He tries drinking, therapy, suicide, finding a love relationship, etc.

I think that after a while everything he tried was tiresome, and then he begins to try other options. When he tries to save a homeless man day after day, and no matter what he did, the man died. He really wants something and he is powerless. This was probably the turning point in which he begins to change. He helps the kid on the tree day after day, same with the guy who was choking at the restaurant, and the ladies with a broken tire. Each moment becomes a new opportunity, so the same situation is brand new, and eventually his response lead him to a unique result. In the end he wins the girl, instead of trying to posses her and though many days, he chooses a life of service, works through his demons and breaks the cycle of Groundhog Day.

I thi

...knowledge is the most worthwhile in life

We are all prisoners and our world is our cave. Things that we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall.

When people ask me about my brother I often tell them that he is going on the right path. As my oldest brother I always looked up to him, tying to be like him in every way possible. I always tried to walk like him, dress like him, and do various things he did. For me he was a role model.  

You have heard of the saying “You have to hit bottom before you can bounce back”, well literary this is what had to happen for my brother to change. He was someone who had to change in order to stay alive, for the simple reason that he was doing bad things in order to satisfy his need for alcohol consumption. He is someone who has consumed alcohol since he was 14 years of age, and finally this will be his second year alcohol free.

He discovered the fatal nature of his situation, and became open minded to conviction ready to change. It was hard for me to see my brother as an alcoholic and did not want to accept it. Even with all the trouble he would get into and I had to always help him economically, because I did not want to see him arrested or beaten. I had my own definition and concept of what an alcoholic was, and he fitted in every aspect. He drank everyday. He missed work and had job problems. He was arrested and had a DUI. Following this last event is when I opened my eyes and the vision I had of my role model dissipated. I was looking right into the sun and realizing that my brother was an alcoholic. Now that I put two and two together I realize that he was always acting weird, and sometimes would get irritated very easily and other times he would be very happy. Sometimes he would make sense and some other times he wouldn’t. Since we are eight years apart it was always easy for him to fool me.

He started having trouble managing his life, because one drinking episode about thirty months ago sent him into an erratic spree of behaviors that caused him to lose much. He admitted that he was powerless over his relationships and his relationships had become unmanageable. He believed in a Power greater than himself; however, he had not made a decision to turn his will and his entire life over to the care of God. Now, He knows, it is the only real choice, the only sane option, for having a chance to live a happy and purposeful life. I am extremely proud of him, because I have seen everything that he has gone through and in the past year of being alcohol free he is being correcting his life.