my aim is true





Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

all i hoped for





“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."

let's get lost






you'd think that being around the world a while would bring a better understanding to the mysteries of life. I still have a ton of questions. It seems the more i learn, the more complicated everything becomes. Up to this point there are still so many things i feel like i just cannot understand. Both life & death are the most complex subjects. it's so strange how the two things relate to each other. It reminds me of the relationship between light & darkness. The photographic process is all about the that dichotomy. how beautiful is it seeing how captured light reacts to the darkness. Sometimes it's subtle & other times it is bold. Sometimes one outweighs the other. I guess it's more than that the two relate, the thing is...you can't really have one without the other.

we used to wait



i had a penpal in russia when i was a kid, and i remember writing to him on occasion. When he wrote back it was in russian & translated by someone into english. it was the coolest thing i think our school kept going. i never knew when a letter would come in the mail but there was the coolest feeling when something would arrive. 

theses days, words travel so fast & there's a much more high demand for immediate responses. I wonder if we make decisions too quickly as a result. I also think tone gets lost through texting & instant messaging. the closest thing i've found to help is the use of emoticons - which don't necessarily work every time. 

I do wish people still sent letters by mail from time to time. i remember how you could almost read what a person was saying better when you could see how they wrote each word. or if a line had been crossed out and then rewritten. i really love those moments.

after dark









The coast was very still this morning, & the ocean looked more like glass than water. I watched the birds dive fast from the sky straight down to catch fish underwater. The risk is huge because if they get the angle wrong they can break their neck. I wondered about how bold they have to be to do that. Maybe it's because they don't consider the fact they could get it wrong. And that made me think about how many times fear can come in the way of us doing things.

My first serious bike accident happened in a race downhill when i was about 6. My bike displayed variious battle scars - including the handlebars with only parts of streamers that had worn off from taking corners fast & hitting the pavement. I was pretty much fearless, and the idea of falling was the last thing on my mind. I attempted to ride as fast as humanly possible on the road to my friend's house. As I fought the resistance of the wind, a car approached suddenly. I jumped my bike onto the sidewalk to avoid it. Unfortunately I noticed the ride would be cut short when metal trashcans blocked the path. I jumped off my bike & into the air expecting to land like a superhero on my feet. Instead fear hit me when i realized i wasn't slowing down. I hit the ground & did a superman-like slide to a stop & woke up spilled out on the sidewalk. From that point on I thought about the unexpected. I miss those times of being able to do things without the fear.

I think about how those birds risk their life to catch a fish, and it makes me want to live life with more confidence. cause yea, you could break your neck...but if you catch a fish you basically own the sea :)

beyond the reckless, reckless raise



every once in a while there's something so inspiring it makes me want to be a better everything. i love finding people that spark something in your head to make you excited about life. not in a motivation speaker way...it's something about they way they live & take in as much information as possible. they just naturally inspire the people around them. i think i just watched 5 billion lewis floyd henry videos.

Being out in nature can also inspire when it makes you feel small. i've found it does something to my brain when i start thinking about how big the ocean is - or how many things live in it. when you're away from your normal scene by the beach or in the mountains or something...it almost gives you context for where you fit in. you're a part of it, but you're also a witness to it.

i hope i catch as many things inspiring things as possible - they seem pretty endless.

a comfortable distance





things can be so different when slowed down. When you take the speed down on a song, you almost stop hearing for what it is at it's original speed...it seems to become more of a mood than a song. On a road trip this weekend I noticed how weird it is to look out the window to the mountains along side the road. And though i'm driving fast, it's like the mountains moved at just a fraction of the speed i traveled at. The juxtaposition of the two things weirds me out a bit. Running on the beach, the same thing happens when looking out over the water. My mind gets lost in whatever i'm looking at anything in the distance; it feels like i'm barely moving. The combination of things moving both quick & slow at the same time. Those are moments i question if things are real - sometimes life feels like a movie

you were a lion






weekends have held their weight for years & just might be the best part of the week. there is always something so exciting to do on the weekend. or maybe anything would seem awesome after being trapped inside at school/work all week. But omg, the feeling of freedom that comes with the rise of the sun on saturday morning - it's like no other feeling. When I was super young, i could barely sleep on Friday nights knowing what was in store for us the next morning.

This was a typical saturday in Paganini house in the late 80s:

1. Fill brains with endless cartoons. well, endless until some point mom comes by & turns off the tv. this is the starter pistol to saturday madness.

2. Dump out Aaron's entire box of Leggos all over the floor & build something awesome. If Aaron was around we'd make demolition cars & have a competitive launch off the top of the gigantic staircase onto the tile floor at the below. His cars usually won because he built them small & compact. I built them huge & they would smash all over the floor. Both of us agreed, i received an honorable mention because it created such a dramatic display of blocks all over the floor below us. This may or may not be the reason for various broken tiles (sry dad). Most of the time, this led to sleeping bag races down the stairs. this was also a death wish seeing as you reach warp speeds on the descent - your eternal doom met on impact you discovered at the finish line.

3. Blast the Rescuer's soundtrack vinyl on the turntable. Impeccable taste. Disney or nothin.

4. Chill on the floor jamming out on disney's finest & pull out every single photo album we owned. then flip through 'em till they're busted (sry mom).

5. Extreme gymnastics over a pile of pillows and/or seat cushions. This was the best way to practice flying. Flips are highly encouraged.

6. Go outside & make a Double Dare obstacle course. This was only for the brave. obstacle courses were really..really dangerous. it ended up looking a lot like a bunch of kids rolling around on the lawn, jumping over "recycled" wood that was full of nails, and jumping into buckets of water.

best saturdays...ever.