The Person I Saw From Afar
I have seen a person from afar. Or rather didn’t ‘see’, as it often is these days.
All these great leaders of nations you see on TV – you will never see her be.
She is in the realm of magic, but since magic went out of fashion, she exists in no realm.
I have seen a person from afar. Or was she near? It’s hard to tell these days.
All the songs that sing of beautiful things, they didn’t sing of her.
Once there were ten millionaires – inexpensively, she gave something to expensive for money to buy.
I have seen a person from afar – when people spoke of technology, science and new things – their minds were to small to gasp her into view.
A person who can’t be seen.
A person who can’t be heard.
Would you believe me when I told you I once saw a person from afar?
A Lovely Afternoon
Walking up a hill for the view is such a nuisance.
I saw a lady drive up the same hill last time. She seemed fat and sick.
We try to buy ourselves freedom and convenience, but often, what we get is just plain illness.
The Nurture of Perfection
In a perfect relationship, small impurities and annoyances always seem to creep in eventually.
The first instinct is to just push them away and forget about them.
The correct way to deal with them, however, is to deal with them. The reason for that is that they like to grow in the dark, acquire friends and stick together to make a huge problem that may become big enough to break the relationship.
The second one is that if you pretend that the problems don’t exist (or even if you fail to notice problems as they are arising), pretending that the other person is something he isn’t, you may as well draw a stick figure on paper and be in love with it. The partner, if you keep making him something he is not, is, after all a fabrication of your mind in that case.
Therefore, someone should try to find what annoys him about the other person as soon as possible, and resolve the painful part of it with the love and joy that a perfect relationship has plenty of. And really, almost all serious relationship are perfect when they are new.
Consumption
We are a generation of men raised by women, I wonder if another woman is what we need.
by Fight Club
I have a comb yet my hair is tangled.
I have wall paint yet the walls are full of horrible graffiti.
I have a full fridge yet I’m hungry.
I have cleaning supplies yet my dishes lie dirty in the sink.
But all I’m thinking about is that i really need to buy a pencil sharpener. After all, my pencils are not sharpened.
We are a generation suffocating in stuff. I wonder if more stuff is what we need.
Teams
I was with a bunch of idiots again, or so it seemed. The project we were about to do would again be a contest about whether our mind’s will get numbed more then the ones of our audience, out of sheer, thick, suffocating, boredom. We heard it before, we were going to tell it again, and they are going to hear it again. None of us even wanted to be there. It was as fun as death.
Then i threw my ideas in. I was stunned. Not about what i said (it was just a hair-width away in terms of boredom, still a bit better, as i thought at the time), but what people started coming up with in reply. The whole thing started to become interesting and engaging.
All of a sudden, there was a flood of ideas that i found not boring, but just amazing.
What did just happen? Was it me that did something?
Generosity
If we don’t give away our good ideas (or make them come true ourselves) they block the path from where new ideas arise in our minds.
The Challenge
1. When young, we like to prove ourselves to the world. It is nearly irrelevant who the person we prove ourselves to is.
‘Look mommy what i did.’ ‘ Wow, you are awesome indeed.’
Then we get to know our first friends, and the number of people in our social circles increases. At this point we start to evolve to thinking that hey, those guys are actually full of shit, they have no authority to judge me! These people don’t know what they are talking about, i’m not going to associate with them.
Our environment is putting us through a kind of test – are you good enough? Sometimes, we succeed, sometimes we fail; often, we dismiss the system. It is irrelevant what someone who doesn’t really know anything about a topic thinks about your knowledge of it.
There are valid reasons to consider some examinations invalid. It is reasonable, that through life more and more things turn out relative and shallow, especially when we are looking intentionally into such things. But never to expose ourselves to authority we consider valid is some kind of cowardice really. It is something that causes our knowledge and vitality to regress.
The more the trivial things we dismiss, the happier we are. At least until we stop pushing ourselves at things that actually meant something to us. At this point, instead of life becoming richer, it looses some of its vibrancy.
This is a problem common with many old people. It prevents people to look out of the box and causes them to become in a way ‘rusty at life’.
We all know people that seem old even when their age is not even that old. Even if magically they turned young-looking suddenly, they would still have that grumpy old feel to them.
We also know some people whose bodies and id’s clearly show their age , but retain this kinda youth, vitality. Often, these people work into their old age, and keep up to date – with people around them wondering – what in the world is pushing them?
This is a consequence of a lifetime of careful weighting of personal priorities against one another. Such people know why they are doing what they are, even if the reason only makes sense to them. They haven’t given up when they were afraid or obstacles arose, because they knew that whatever actually happens, they are working at things that matter to them.
This is as opposed to people who found themselves in the wrong place, and tried to get out using someone else’s dream. We all know such dreams, they are advertisements, whether they are a product of a company wanting to sell you something (e.g. having a Yacht) or are subtle pressures of society (e.g. being generous). Such people tend to give up on life – ‘It is always going to be like this, why bother’, and stay dormant in a state of semi-contentment, always with the lingering feeling of something not being enough. After they get old, society gives them this excuse, and they take it with delight – “I can’t do anything anymore, i’m too old”.
They are bored, but will not do things. They are sick of their environment, but they will not change it. They can’t.
2. This is a point where many people get thrown out of balance. It is easy to get swayed by opinions and advertisements.
People buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like.
Clive Hamilton
There is a balance between a trivial busy life and paralysis in fear of failure. Where are you at?
The Return of the Living Dead
1. She had a husband, but now he had passed away. I was her guest.
“This rice is expensive” i said.
“Yes, but it is also tastier than the other kind” she replied.
2. “I think the gift you got me is way too expensive, why did you get it, you really shoudn’t have.” i heard him say in a concerned voice to me. I did not find words to tell him off proprely. What a jerk. I felt embarassed.
3. She told me she would sure be dead in five years. I asked her about it, and she did not have any medical or even any reasons for the claim. We went on to adjust her bread maker and eat dinner.
In a few days i got on a plane and left. I didn’t hear from her since.
4. I have this lingering thought that if she had cooked the expensive rice for her husband, she would still be alive today. I ate her rice with gratitude, but was it already cold?
5. I don’t want to make the same mistake. My own relationship may end tomorrow, but today is real. I may not get the chance of doing what i want to again. If it is about something silly i want to bring you because i want you to have it, something as trivial as a number next to a dollar sign will not prevent me. So fuck off.
Sheer Lazyness
Science
The most noble work is that that you will never do again.
Art
The most noble work is that that is never finished. Even after it is finished, people who see it should add to it by their own contemplation and interpretation.
–
I think there is too much art in science today.
Courage
If you have a good idea which you tell the world – and there is a crowd of a million people to ridicule you for it, maybe there will be one among them that will not only understand, but be be able to make the million others understand and appreciate the idea too.
So do not be afraid to stand for what you know is true.
zacione 