Hadji Bektash-i Veli

Principles of the Bektashi Path
•  Seek and find.
•  Whatever you do, do it for the Truth.
•  There exists in you a “there is” to replace every “there isn't.”
•  He who walks the Path never tires.
•  There is no rank or station higher than the Friend's heart.
•  The one who is wise but doesn't share his wisdom is ignorant.
•  To the ignorant, abandoning what is no longer needed is death; to the wise it is birth.
•  There is no repentance of repentance.
•  Let your heart, your hand, and your table be open to others.
•  Look for the key to all within your deepest being.
•  Whatever you seek, look within.
•  Do not forget your enemy is also a human being.
•  The beauty of human beings is the beauty of their words.
•  If the path appears dark, know that the veil is in your own eyes.
•  All blessings upon the one who overlooks another's shortcomings.
•  All blessings upon the one who makes a secret of secrets.
•  The Word is Truth.
•  Do not hurt others, even if you are hurt.
•  Hand-in-hand, hand in Truth.
•  One hour of meditation is better than seventy years of piety.

Musical Activity

My Top Artists according to Spotify:
-Suprême NTM
-Das Racist
-Jay Z (and Kanye, but they leave him out for some reason)
-The Decemberists
-Brigitte
-Booba

What I actually feel like I listen to the most:
-Chris Thile/Punch Brothers
-Suprême NTM
-Das Racist
-Saintseneca
-Brigitte
-Podcasts on itunes

Other music I enjoy regularly:
-Louise Attack
-Ratatat
-Ben L'Oncle Soul
-Raphael Saadiq
-Brittney Spears
-Adele
-Lil Wayne
-Radiohead
-Fleet Foxes

Concerts I've been to recently:
-Punch Brothers (Jackson Hole, WY)
-Saintseneca, etc (House show in Provo, UT)
-Flaming Lips (The Saltair in Magna, UT)
-Bright Eyes (SLC, UT)
-Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (SLC, UT)
-Fictionist (Provo, UT)
-Mindy Gledhill and some other equally boring musician (Provo, UT)
-some random concert at Muse (Muse Music, Provo, UT)
-Jesse James (Provo, UT)

Productivity

What I Accomplished Last Week:
-Packed all my stuff
-Moved it to my new house
-Cleaned my old apartment and checked out
-Wrote and gave a talk in church
-Wrote and gave a lesson in church
-Met a homeless man who gave me a good new perspective on life
-Told a woman how to get to the hospital to meet her daughter who was in labor
-Went to a free Bright Eyes concert
-Ate a Liege waffle
-Helped other people move and clean
-Made a podcast (it's not a real thing yet)
-Forced people to listen to Dolly Parton
-Rode my bike
-Took a friend to the airport
-Took off my glasses and jumped in the pool
-Hung out with Argentines
-Went to the temple with a roommate
-Hung out on a hammock
-Went to a bonfire
-Watched a lighter explode in said bonfire
-Talked about stuff with people (very ambiguous rhetoric)
-Went to a wedding reception for one of my favorite people in this world
-Got visit taught
-Ate a free dinner care of institute funds from the ward
-Hung out at the hospital cafeteria and saw the usual random people there, including the guy who stole my bike lock (and gave it back ten minutes later)

Boredom

What to do for fun:
-Bike rides
-Open more and more accounts for things on the internet
-Start a band
-Learn the lyrics to a random song
-Txtmsg random people
-Gchat
-Read articles/talks/devotionals/random stuff online
-Stalk someone on facebook
-Actually do homework
-Go to ward activities
-Find someone who looks bored and start talking to them
-Eat something
-Play the guitar
-Make lists
-Call someone on the phone
-Read lots of blogs
-Write a blog post
-Write a letter
-Write in a journal
-Clean
-Paint nails
-Bake something
-Daydream
-Go for a walk
-Go for a drive
-Go shopping
-Plan out a schedule for the next week, semester, whatever
-Look for jobs/housing/graduate programs
-Think about new hobbies to start
-Doodle on a piece of paper
-Drop by a friend's house just to see if they are there
-Watch tv/movies
-Go running
-Go to the gym

What to do the first week of July in Riverside, California

Things to do when visiting family:
-Go to Disneyland for a day
-Ride Star Tours at least twice while there, along with Pirates and Thunder Mountain
-See Cars 2 with all the children
-Go out with old friends a few times
-Push the nieces on the swingset in the backyard
-Spend time with a german shepherd
-Talk about what's going on in Provo, Mesa, Nashville, or Riverside these days
-Go watch fireworks at a family friend's house
-Watch Mt Rubidoux catch on fire just a few minutes into the fireworks show
-Wait for a long time to see if the fireworks will start up again-- mostly wait for the fires to be under control
-Watch roman candles in the field close by catch the field on fire
-Get bitten by mosquitoes and have those bug bites swell up to ridiculous sizes
-Don't even open thesis related work
-Finish off that book almost a year after starting it
-Go to Costco
-Go to the Galleria at Tyler
-Go to Von's and Trader Joe's
-Eat lots
-Macerate some meyer lemons from the backyard
-Make shaker lemon pie
-Make world peace cookies (aka chocolate korova?)
-Bring a loaf of avocado pound cake in suitcase to share with family, while leaving a dozen muffins for the roommates
-Text people a lot when bored
-Watch Harry Potter 1 with the nephew who had just finished the book a few days earlier
-Play the piano, mostly when no one's home
-Eat thrifty's ice cream sandwiches
-Let a niece be entertained endlessly by emoticons on gchat (the blue crying face is the best)
-Play basketball with family or just solo
-Ride a bike with flat tires that are also completely deteriorating and think about buying new tires for it for the future, but never follow through on that
-Spend time with family, alone and together
-Sleep in most days
-Listen to awesome testimonies in church about how great and tall trees are

Life Lessons

Things I Have Learned Recently:
-The guitar (not super well)
-Patience (kind of but not super well either)
-How to be more open than is comfortable (still working on that, too)
-How weak I am
-How strong I can be
-All about different cords and cables for audio/visual equipment
-Hard work is worth it sometimes
-David O. McKay was an awesome husband
-So was Harold B. Lee
-Hope is possible without seeing how things will happen, if they ever even do
-Sleep is not overrated, but hard to get sometimes
-I like capitalism
-I'm pretty smart and capable and stuff (more of a needed reminder)
-It's not fun to learn the same lessons over and over
-Finding patterns is kind of really fun.  For me.
-Emotions are good if you accept them
-Emotions sometimes still are the worst even then
-Stability and routine are things I actually really crave
-Knowing that I need/don't need something and actually feeling like I need/don't need something are very, very different things
-Perspective can be really hard to find
-It's really easy to spend money without thinking about it
-Being stable and having a good, solid network of friends for support is worth a lot more than any words can describe
-Music is really good for catharsis
-Movies used to do that for me really well, but now are overwhelming a lot of the time
-I am really funny (not that I didn't know this before)
-I like talking to strangers about things like beeswax, CSAs, history, trivial matters
-I miss some of my old hobbies a lot
-Touching hot pans is bad for my skin
-Being outside is a really good form of therapy
-Writing in my journal is another really good form of therapy
-Talking to friends/family is another really good (better, even) form of therapy
-Being optimistic is sometimes hard but it's always worth it
-Taking risks is also really hard, but it can lead to very rewarding experiences and lessons I couldn't have learned otherwise
-I don't like school enough to go on and get a PhD, but sometimes I wish I did because I do actually really love school enough to keep going on.  Just not enough for the work and life-sucking quality of graduate degrees.
-I should stop being as shy as I am, but I don't really want to talk to other people a lot of the time.  Not enough to actually do it
-I'm really stubborn and moody and prideful
-Laughter is one of the only ways to break the above
-It's really easy for me to be distracted at inappropriate times
-I can carry a joke on until it becomes something very serious, like how comic book characters are all based on scriptural characters.  That joke may have lasted like 24 hours, actively naming comic book characters and the scriptural characters that correspond.
-I have no clue what I want to do even three months from now, or where I want to be.  Like, literally.
-Life is good, even when it's hard
-Even when things can't get much worse, there's a silver lining in that it can (and often will) always get better
-It takes work to feel comfort and hope sometimes, but that work is always well worth it
-Just going through the motions sucks, so trying to be optimistic and actually like my life is really important
-Time helps perspective, so do prayer and scripture study.

Listening to NPR music, mostly

Songs I Listen to a Lot Lately:

-Two against One, starring Jack White (from Rome by Daniele Luppi and Danger Mouse)

-Stone Rollin' (from Stone Rollin' by Raphael Saadiq)

-Heart Attack (from Stone Rollin' by Raphael Saadiq)

-All Cried Out Redux feat. Doug E. Fresh (from The Light of the Sun by Jill Scott)

-Le BOOM (from The Light of the Sun by Jill Scott)

-Rolling in the Deep (from 21 by Adele)

-A la faveur de l'automne (from A la faveur de l'automne by Tété)

-99 problems (from The Grey Album by Danger Mouse)

-Justify my Thug (from The Grey Album by Danger Mouse)

-Detroit (from Rush by Black Gold)

-Plans & Reveries (from Rush by Black Gold)

-Le Premier bonheur du jour (by Françoise Hardy)

-Sleep With One Eye Open (from a Tiny Desk Concert with Chris Thile and Michael Daves)

-Bury Me Beneath the Willow (from a Tiny Desk Concert with Chris Thile and Michael Daves)

-Red Devil (from a Tiny Desk Concert with The Kopecky Family Band)