The Luxury Of Having Little

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. Dorothy Thompson

Money, wealth, power, intellect, control. The luxuries of life.
Luxuries?
Men live and die for such things, surely they must be worth the pursuit. ?. We endure the agony of loss, the continual trial of sustenance, the distrust, the conflict, the flicker of passing pleasure - hopes and dreams wrapped around the absolute pursuit of an elusive happiness.




I challenge that thought.
I challenge the slavery to pointlessness.
I challenge the preoccupation with the comfort of life - instead of life itself.
I challenge the minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades spent working towards a life of freedom that is always a day away.



Consider this, the luxury of having little.
Be lured by the taste of absolute freedom. Is life not unspeakably beautiful? Does the warmth of the summer sun not draw a smile from your lips? Do ocean waves not seduce you to journey into their mystery? Can you not taste the sweat of mountains, and the revalation of ice water in a scorching desert?
The luxury of having little is this: Everything becomes incredible.
you will always be consumed by motion, you will always be free to go, you will always have your mind twisted and your opinions will be lost in truth. The luxury of having little is that you will feel above very few, in debt to none, and able to lock eyes with whomever you cross paths. You will be strong, you will be tired, you will miss meals, you will feast like a king. You will meet strangers, you will find friends, you will lose enemies. You will touch this world, and it will touch you back - and you will never be the same.

Life is almost over; there will not be a second. What luxury will be left?


(Andrew Tipton)

Alone in my Head

There are moments when I am owned by my mind. Moments when I am absorbed into the drama and confusion of my own imagination. Beautiful moments, full of thought and introspection, debate and color. I live within the bounderies of my skull, wrapped up in the process of life - the seconds that have just passed me by.
Its a good place to rest for a minute, to recharge and reinvent. Never underestimate the power of being still!
At times though, I linger there, pondering myself and my reason for motion. I get caught in the cycle of thoughts, the rythm of thinking. If I spend too much time in my own mind, forget the present. I forget that there are words to say, and smiles to give, and skin to touch, and children to hold in my arms. I forget about the sweat from running, and the pleasure of diving into a cold stream. As incredible as the mind is, I do not wish to live a life inside my head.

I need motion, we were all designed for movement! I shake myself loose from my coat of self-awareness, and focus my attention back on the beauty at hand - the beauty that is absolutely blinding my eyes. I look into a sunset, I smell the sweetness of freshly cut grass, I taste the flavors hidden in strawberries, I hear the perfect notes of songs.. My eyes begin to light up. Truly, Life is better, lived.


(Andrew Tipton)

How to Untame a Tiger

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. -Albert Schweitzer

What would happen if we lived life without inhibition? How would the world change, if we stopped pretending, and actually lived outrageous, uncivilized, incredible lives? Does any American do that?

What if you owned freedom. What if you owned truth. What if, when you talked, there was substance in your words, and wisdom in your thoughts.
There is absolute seduction in owning what you talk about. When you have explored lands, and bled, and tasted oceans, and seen sunsets over deserts, and touched jagged stone, you become more than simply someone who has read a book, or heard a speech - you become REAL. Places, people, experiences - they all become part of you... and you get deeper, stronger, wilder, and wiser.

People need real. We lost it somewhere along the way, while we were searching for comfortable. We rarely see lives that exude unpredictibility or embrace constant motion - and yet, we are facinated by the idea - facinated by people who challenge it all. We crave the life that is consuming, we crave passion and depth and emotion, we crave freedom and living like there is no tomorrow - but we are too scared to leave our cage. The entire, beautiful world calls to us! and we are too frightened to step into it. Shame.

We are tamed tigers. Splendid, sensual beasts that were created to roam free, to explore, to growl - but who have forgotten the feeling of freedom. We are tigers content with jumping though a hoop.. rather than jumping through the tree tops and running through the jungles.
Wouldn't you love to see a tiger, living as a tiger? To see that untamed look in his firey eyes, to hear him growl low and strong, to feel the scars and wounds in his beautiful stiped coat, from his battles and adventures. Would you follow that tiger out of your safe little cage? I would.

How to untame a tiger:
show him a free tiger, a real tiger, an untamed tiger. There is nothing on this planet more attractive.


You weren't born in a cage - don't die in one.

(Andrew Tipton)

The Taste of Raindrops

It rained today.
It rained thick and heavy... dark and mysterious like ancient stories from the pages of a dusty book. The smell is intoxicating. It has the scent of energy of life and strength, of wildness, of the untamed - the smell of all things alive and breathing and full taste.
The rain poured down, it flowed through tree branches and across the leaves, down the bark and onto the ground, and into the soil and through the roots.. it flowed into the earth and the world let out a sigh that you could feel in your soul.
I stood under the drops.
My eyes closed, and my mouth slightly open - I could taste the sweetness and saltiness as the water ran down my sweat stained face and along my dry lips.
Everything about me is wet. My face, my arms, my hair, my skin - it is the feeling of complete saturation; it is amazing.
I let the drops run from my lips, down my neck, and all the way to my finger tips.. they slide down each one of my fingers and hang for a few moments before dripping onto the ground.

Standing bare in the rain, it runs over my body and my thoughts - washes away the blood and the tears and the anticipation.
Rain is real and it is beautiful on a summer night.

(Andrew Tipton)

Myself & What You Think You Know

"Its not that I am so tough, I just put everything in a box, lock it up, and bury it deep down inside where no one can touch it." J. Maxine



I listen and smile politely whenever someone tells me that they know all about me.. that somehow they can read me, or understand me or percieve the depths of my thoughts. I am deliberate.
My life revolves around truth and openness, and yet, you know only the person that I allow you to know. Don't be naive.

Friends often wear their deepest self on their shoulder. They grow spiritually, mentally, physically, and they must, at once, share themself completely with the world. They spend no time savoring the moment, or reflecting on the deepness of discovery - they are simply concerned with telling someone. What feeds that need? Have we become so insecure as indivduals, that we feel almost obligated to tell people about ourselves - to glorify our actions, to dramatize and hype our days and words? Our egos, our security, our very place in existence, rests solely on knowing that people "know" that we are ok, or that we are successful, or smart, or powerful, or weathly, or hopeless, or in pain.

We sell the sexiness of our souls .. we strip the depth of our concious! How does one retain beauty, and mysteriousness, and subtlety if our minds are continually naked and exposed? Where do my thoughts go to swim with one another, after I have drained the pools of personal reflection?

There is a satisfaction that comes from knowing motion in my mind, of which no other person is aware. It is a relationship that I have with myself. My spirit and my soul share secrets, they tell each other stories, and play games together. There is beauty wrapped around the thoughts that no one hears about.

GO. DO. EXPLORE. DREAM. BLEED. GROW. LAUGH. And I will share much. There is still a box inside that no one knows - don't be naive.


.


(Andrew Tipton)

Light And Water

(Andrew Tipton swimming in Yosemite Falls upper pool)

The Day you Wake Up

There is a moment in life.. a instance that cannont be touched, defined, or written about - it cannot be described or depicted, it is beyond comprehension, beyond reason, beyond thought or intellect; it is the moment truth and spirit kiss, the moment fear is slain by freedom, and the moment your eyes awake, and for a fleeting breathe you behold the delicate, priceless beauty of the very moment.
You are outside yourself, you see the world as a speck, you see time as fiction, you hear only the rumble of motion and feel the rush as it consumes your thoughts and your movements.
There is the illusion of tomorrow, of beyond now - it is what keeps us in check. We follow rules, save, fret, worry, rest, kill - all in the name of anticipation. But there is something better, something more powerful and more brilliant than safety - it is what you do now. When you are aware of the moment, you are free. Outside the bubble, outside the grind, outside the lines - danger tastes like sweet sweet berries. A life that is wrapped around freedom is dangerous... and if you are afraid of danger, you will never ever experience the moment.

Andrew Tipton