The Sensualist

Well, I just had one of the best moments of my entire life - one I will remember forever. It was one of those moments where your emotions and nature conspire together to create perfection.

I was driving home from my parents' house (celebrating my mom's birthday - happy birthday!) and it was raining fairly hard, but there was intense lightning. I just so happened to have Muse's latest CD, The 2nd Law playing, and I decided to pump up the volume to the point of almost being painful (which is how Muse should be listened to).

As I drove down the freeway the music and the lightning together evoked electricity within me. My blood sang.

Let me pause here for a moment to explain the title of this blog entry. "The Sensualist" is a victim type according to Robert Greene's The Art of Seduction, which is a very useful psychological study on what attracts people to each other. Here is a synopsis of a Sensualist:

What marks these types is not their love of pleasure
but their overactive senses. Sometimes they show this quality in their
appearance—their interest in fashion, color, style. But sometimes it is
more subtle: because they are so sensitive, they are often quite shy, and
they will shrink from standing out or being flamboyant. You will recognize them by how responsive they are to their environment, how they
cannot stand a room without sunlight, are depressed by certain colors, or
excited by certain smells. They happen to live in a culture that deemphasizes
sensual experience (except perhaps for the sense of sight). And so
what the Sensualist lacks is precisely enough sensual experiences to appreciate and relish.

I am a Sensualist.

So here I am driving in my car, Muse on really loud, playing "Follow Me." There is a moment in the song when the drum syncopates and the bass drops into dubstep, and at that moment, lightning flashed across the sky.

This is what happened to me:



But seriously, it was an Herbal Essences moment. I was hyperventilating and screaming "yes" over and over. Hahaha. I know it sounds crazy, but this really happened in real life!! And then it happened again on the second chorus!!! I was ecstatic.

The song is really incredible for those who are still skeptical of my enthusiasm. My soul breached another realm where there is no difference between fantasy and reality, and I was sent back to earth to tell you all, MAGIC HAPPENS. It may be just a flicker in your ordinary days, but if you look for it, you will find it.

I am SO IN LOVE with life!!! Here's the song; it is absolutely brilliant.

Why Glee Has Changed My Life

In light of the death of the actor of one of my most favorite characters on Glee, Cory Monteith, I've decided to finally write the blog that ennumerates why I love Glee, and why I think I needed it in my life. For those of you who are haters, please stop reading now, and I don't want to hear your opinion. Thank you!

1. Glee taught me to stand up for myself. Not in a beat up everyone, bitterly condescending, backstabbing way. In a way that says, "This is who I am. It's not perfect, but I'm doing my best. If you can't appreciate that, then I don't need your negative influence in my life." There are many times on the show that a character feels like they are being oppressed of under-appreciated, but particularly I want to mention Brittany. She is totally overlooked a lot of the time, but she just keeps going, keeps being herself, and doesn't let what other people say or think about her keep her down, and I think that is awesome, and something that I and many people in the world should learn from.       
2. Glee showed me how to forgive and move on. I know it sounds ridiculous, but because of all the drama in the show, people dating people, then cheating on them, or leaving them for someone else, or spreading rumors, or bullying, or shaming, or a great number of horrid things to each other, the characters always manage to sing it out and be ok with each other. When I first started watching the show, I thought, how on earth can he dump that girl and be with another girl right in front of her face and she doesn't try to strangle him? But then I really began to think about it, and decided that my feelings of hurt and revenge were probably pretty extreme, and it took another extreme (because I still don't believe that people could completely forgive each other in such short amounts of time, but they can start the healing immediately) to counterbalance my mentality and bring me into the middle. Forgiveness is essential to human happiness, and we should be forgiving everyone regardless of how they've hurt us. Which leads me to my next point:
3. Glee showed me that everyone has value. It doesn't matter how different you are from someone, or what they've done/been through, or where they are from, or how intelligent or talented they are, every person on this planet has value and something to offer the world. We must remember that and treat everyone in a way that shows we understand they have value including ourselves. You, and everyone around you, has something inside of you that can change the world, so believe in yourself, believe in others, and share your light (talent, love, etc.) with everyone. The characters in Glee are always getting picked on, made fun of, etc., but they come to glee club and know that everyone there is their family, they are safe, and are appreciated. I want to create that kind of environment for anyone that I come in contact with.
4. Glee taught me that love is selfless. This lesson came primarily from Finn (Cory's character). Now, I've been taught this my whole life, but it is another thing to see it played out before you (even if it is a written script and acting). Two occasions I'd like to point out. First, at a high time of bullying for Kurt Hummel, Finn's future step-brother, Finn dresses up like a lobster (Lady Gaga style) and stands up to the football team (of which he is a part) that is harassing Kurt. Finn at that point makes a choice that he loves his friend/step-brother more than he loves his reputation or his team or other friends, and never backs down from that. He never turns his back on Kurt again.  Next, Finn takes his fiancee Rachel to the train station instead of the courthouse on the day they are supposed to get married so she can pursue her dreams of school in New York and Broadway. Enough said there, I will let this video say the rest:

Now for less serious things that Glee gave me.

• The desire to start taking voice lessons again (although that was pretty life-changing)
• A way to get certain friends to listen to amazing classic rock songs!!
• Another wonderful fandom (as if I need more)

That's all. Glee is awesome. I am devastated that my favorite character (and ideal for my future husband, let's be honest) can no longer be a part of the show, but I am grateful for what he gave the world while he was alive. Thanks, Cory.

A Female Thing

I had a really interesting/awesome experience this week.

On Thursday I went to the temple with a couple of friends, as I do every week. This week we decided to go out of our normal zone and to the Mount Timpanogos temple. When I was ~11 I went to the open house of this temple, and thought it was the most beautiful temple I'd seen and was determined to get married there. Only once had I ever returned, to do baptisms. So I was curious if I'd feel the same way when I returned this time, now that I could see the whole temple.

When we walked onto the temple grounds, my heart sang. And by that I mean beat so fast that it sent a sweet vibration through my whole circulatory system. All temples are beautiful, but somehow this one speaks to me in different way. It is not just beautiful, but gorgeous, which sounds weird for a building, but that's just how it is.Somehow the quadrilateral structure combining with feminine curves makes the whole presence of the building delicious to me.

 While inside the temple, I was looking through one of the long tall windows, probably the one that's lit up in the picture. I noticed that the panels were etched with gradually curved lines that look like waves and sand on a beach. There are no real beaches in Utah, so I thought that was interesting. As I kept observing the glass on the window, I couldn't find a real pattern to the curves in the etching. Some were fat, some were close to each other, some were curving up when the one below was curving down, or some were parallel. And I thought...temples are supposed to be perfect. Why is there not a pattern? Why isn't this symmetrical?

Then I realized...since when does perfect = symmetry and symmetry = beauty? It doesn't. In nature, you can find patterns in many plants and even animals, but they are not symmetrical. Most of them follow the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is added to the previous number in the sequence, starting with 1. So we have 1. Then 1+0 (because there is no previous number)=1. Then 1+1=2. 2+1=3. And so forth. In nature, the numbers of petals on a flower, or spirals in a snail's shell often fall on a Fibonacci number, as well as the ratios of size between sections of a plant or animal.






Not symmetrical, but beautiful. Just like all of us!

I know I've struggled immensely with having a consistently positive self-image, and many women out there do. Men do too, but not nearly as often. Well, women and men, perfection=/=beauty. So find (at least) one thing on you that is beautiful, and cherish it. Soon you'll realize there is more than one. :)