Happy Birthday, John

9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. 

* * *

It matters not who you love, where you love, 

why you love, when you love or how you love, 

it matters only that you love.

* * *

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

* * *

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, 

and I told them they didn’t understand life.

* * *

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

* * *

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.

* * *

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

* * *

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. 

It's just that the translations have gone wrong.

* * *

Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, 

and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.

* * *

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Sounds of laughter shades of love are
Ringing through my open ears inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns, and calls me on and on
Across the universe

* * *

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.