Some of Bill Kapoun's Thoughts on life... (long post, sorry...)

[Guest guest]

Bill Kapoun, a young American, recently died in a tragic fire here in

Korea.

 

Here are some of his thoughts on life, shared by his sister. This

post is not so much Kundalini related as it is life related, my

apologies. Please skip over it if you are in a hurry or not

interested. NO obligations to read it... It is long. If you reply to

this post, please delete the main body of text so it doesn't bog down

the daily digest!

 

be well everyone, bradly

 

********************

 

With my brother's passing, I think it is only appropriate to share

with all of you what he felt about life. My brother was an amazing

individual. I think the world of him. Only he could express these

thoughts so clearly, so beautifully. I hope that they will lift your

spirits and inspire you to truly live.

 

With so much love,

 

Laura

 

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))

 

I started this book approximately three years ago to the day as I now

attempt to close it. I had never written seriously in my life and was

essentially just putting down my thoughts and emotions after spending

five months in Ireland. The semester before I went to Ireland I had

been living the life of a typical frat guy in a typical American

college and was dealing with my first serious break-up. Going to

Europe was nothing like what I had expected. I thought I was going to

be partying and meeting girls all the time. I thought I would be

taking the life I had been leading in America to a new level. Instead

I started a completely different life. I met almost no girls during

those five months, I had almost no friends and I had almost no fun.

At the end of that time I started reflecting on my entire life, on my

past and on my future and I realized that there were many parts of it

that were not at all how I had planned or how I wanted them to be. I

saw large chunks of my earthly days completely wasted, unappreciated

and unused and it sickened me. I started writing about it. My writing

was then immature as was my outlook on my life. I do not claim

maturity or ability in either life or writing now, but I see myself

going in the right direction in both attempts. When I first started

travelling I spent a few days walking around capital cities with a

stupid look on my face and a guide book in my hands. Today I spent my

morning digging for clams in a mud bank on the Algarvan coast of

southern Portugal before spending my morning trying to sell tickets

to go dolphin sightseeing. Afterwards I went on a hike to collect

almonds, oranges and sage to cook the mussels I collected off the

shore (mussels are much easier to find than clams), which I cooked on

a hotplate in my rented room which overlooks the bay of a small

fishing town. So I have come a long way, as a writer, as a traveler

and as a person. Or at least I hope. Only the reader can be the judge

of that, but I hope that you will get some laughs, some tips, and

maybe even some tears or inspiration from my trials and tribulations.

Cheers.

 

That was life, when I wrote that. I was really living. Despair is

life, pain is life. Life is when you have such a terrible realization

that you break out in a sweat and suddenly your whole body is

overcome by heat and all you want to do is cry out for someone,

anyone to help, because you don't know how to fix the situation, and

you just can't believe that in your bit part as a walk on character

in this cosmic play that has been going on day after day, year after

year, millennia after millennia, you aren't even capable of keeping

yourself fed, out of the rain at night and, God forbid, happy.

Happiness is life, laughter is life, there are so many kinds of life,

but I, like so many of us, did hardly any living, instead I spent

most of my time looking forward, always anticipating, one day, yeah,

one day, if I just keep waiting, planning, one day, I'll be happy,

I'll be living. And then one day became this day, and THE day, the

day that was that oh-so sought after culmination of all my planning

and waiting, and wasting of life, would become one more day, one more

day, waiting, waiting for tomorrow to come, waiting for my life to

happen. Or if not waiting for tomorrow to come, I looked back,

remembering the days I spent living, even the bad times, the boring

times. In retrospect, we remember, we give credence to our waiting,

proof that living life is possible, but if we are truthful to

ourselves, we remember, most of those past days were either days we

had wished had gone sooner at the time, or were just the beginning of

the list of days hoping.

 

People say that once you lose hope, everything is gone. I'm not sure

you can lose hope, as a human. Maybe my relatively stable and happy

white working class upbringing makes me naive but I believe hope is a

fundamental aspect of humanity; perhaps to lose hope, is to lose ones

humanity. But when I walk down the street, and I see a gypsy with her

child, or a kid jingling a McDonalds cup with a few coins in it, I

have to think, the thought running through their heads is the same

thought as in mine, it's the same as in the beautiful blonde across

the street, and the fat rich business man rushing to a thirty dollar

business lunch, where decisions will be made that make the lives of

many of those poor people I've just passed even more precarious than

they already are. We are all thinking, why has the universe conspired

against me? When am I gonna get my break? Oh well, there's always

tomorrow?

 

It wasn't until I started traveling that I realized that not only

does life not have to be that way; it isn't meant to be that way.

Mankind evolved two million years ago, society is only a few thousand

years old, the things that once gave us solace; clear skies the

thrill of achievement and a tight-knit family have given way to

cubicles, anti-depressants and participation awards. We live our

lives through those of people that we can supposedly relate to on

reality television, through those who we can't relate with in the

tabloids, and through those that aren't even real on our computers.

Our ambition is crushed by a system that rewards and enforces

mediocrity. The natural world we spent most of existence alongside,

already physically distant becomes emotionally even further when we

don't celebrate and enjoy it. We lose sight of the beauty of

diversity and adventure; we become timid and weak in a world that

ensures that as long as we don't try too hard to attain greatness; we

can be assured that we also won't hit rock bottom. The trials,

tribulations and rewards of travel; meeting interesting people with

foreign and enlightening viewpoints, being put in situations that

seem incapable of getting worse, seeing beautiful things made by

people, beautiful people, and the beauty of nature provide me with

the safety net that most people find only by never reaching further

than they feel safe doing. I have become a better person by seeing

the world; there is much more that I hope to see and experience, but

above all, I hope that by sharing my experiences, others will feel

compelled to push themselves; and be reborn into a world without

limits, where everything is possible and the pursuit of the new and

beautiful takes the place of security and seclusion.

 

My fascination with Europe began in 1985 when I was three years old

and my family was sent to Frankfurt Germany, a time when America's

military presence in Germany was still enormous. Having already spent

four years in a small town in southern Germany called Bad Aibling my

mother refused to allow this opportunity to pass by and took me out

of school every Wednesday so that we could go to a castle, a zoo, a

fair or whatever other cultural event was going on at the time. I

don't necessarily remember many of the specific places we went or

things we did but those years planted a seed deep within me that

continues to flourish and so when people ask me what my family thinks

of my wandering I tell them that my mother is only reaping what she

sowed.

 

On its most superficial level traveling allows us to see and discover

new and beautiful things, on a slightly deeper level it allows us to

know more about our neighbors in the rest of the world, which is one

of the things America needs the most right now, but at its deepest

level the greatest gift of traveling is the personal journey that

allows us to see our own likes and dislikes, passions and

perversions, history and future, under a completely different light.

Only then can we be truly satisfied for; truly, many will shed a tear

when we pass from this world, but besides our nearest loved ones, our

days on this earth are quickly forgotten. Few will remember us a year

later. The things we do, the attainment of the goals we spend so much

time striving for, all mean little beyond the here and now. That is

why, when I die, all I hope people to say of me is he lived life. The

good, the bad, he took it all in, and relished it. Yes, he lived life

for life. Which is how we should all live our lives, never letting a

precious moment slip by.

 

William Kapoun