When I laugh

with my friends it's like the sky cracked open and let a million glittering shards of light tumble down around me and all of those creeping little tendrils of fear, worry, insecurity, what have you, they just crumble and get washed away with the tide.

Buddha taught us to be zen. But I look at the one hundred and eight beads clinging to my wrist, and I think, is that really what we're meant to be? Striving for nirvana, praying every day in a monastery?

I do not understand religion. But I do understand this. That as long as we can laugh like this, as long as in some corner of the world, people are gathering on dusty old couches and whispering until their eyes light up and the music shatters down like rain, something is right with the world.