"This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul."
"You take for granted what you have and you can’t take it with you when you die. There is never enough and you will always want more. No matter how much you learn, no matter how much you earn, you are still yourself and exactly as close to the edge as where you began. And all you can ever learn is what you already know. You will always want to know what the ending is, but you can’t because you’re dead. Dear God, I’m on my knees before you. the words are on their knees. Ready to go. All the words. All the words. The ending is words."
I think what you want is more money for an easier life. I can’t give you that.
I think what you want is for me to fuss over you all the time. I can’t give you that.
I think what you feel is a sense of loss and then you hope that your tantrums will change everything. It won’t change a thing.
I think you always want me to give in every single time you’re in a bad mood. I can’t do that.
You know when you tell me I’m the one who treats you the best when you’re appreciative and when you tell me I’m scum when you’re angry? It makes me confused as to what I really am to you and I abhor that.
I think what you need, in its most basic form, is for us to love you back. I am already doing that, in the only way I know how.
Meeting up with people and having deeper conversations than the superficial ‘tell me about school’ topics always leaves me feeling satisfied and sometimes, if we get lucky, it gives me a renewed sense of motivation that what I’m pursuing is right.
Today’s meeting was one of those days where everything just fell into place, no awkward silences to fill. Tong and I talked about a whole range of things, including Lady Gaga, bankers, cab rides, noodles et cetera. You can see the great range there.
All in all, what struck me the most was the fact that I wasn’t the only one (in a related field) who was ready to admit that bankers were pretty self-absorbed. Work is really one of the few things on my mind right now. I have a picture of who I’ll be, what I could say, the promptness of my email replies, being on the ball. This picture makes me makes me proud (in a bad way) and completely oblivious to anything apart from the financial bubble (for lack of a better word, pun not intended) I could willingly trap myself in. It’s strange because there’s nothing much to be proud of since it’s still only a picture. Then there’s a select group of people who have come into my life like an intervention and when they are around, I am reminded to ‘be present’, so to speak. Not sure that’s the right way to phrase it. Being present means to get out of my picture and whatever dreams that have stuck themselves to the picture and remember instead, what these people mean to me, remember that they were there before this monster bubble came along, remember that they will probably also be there if and when this bubble gets to me. So what they do for me, I can only hope to do for them.
On a completely separate note, I feel quite frugal! This is a strange thing to say, but I feel a bit indignant when my money is ‘forced’ to be spent on unnecessary, miscellaneous items. And it’s funny that we would so often think nobody can force us to spend money that we don’t have to, because that is almost completely untrue.
Today, he launched a tirade in semi-anger about not having personal space for his own things, that he had to share all these years and even up till now, he has to share his space, presumably with me.
What he meant was he didn’t appreciate what my parents had done for him all these years. What he meant was that it hasn’t been enough, even though all that they’ve given to him was their best. What he meant was that he is not who he is today because of where and how my parents have brought him up.
I was a little sad, a little astonished, a little forgiving because I knew that I used to be just like him. Also, at the point where I finally realized that what they had given to me was everything I had and that it would always be enough, I was thoroughly ashamed of my previous thoughts. Because it was a single moment when that realization occurred and not an entire period of time (aka ‘process’), it hit even harder.
The last week of being home is always the toughest. Wanting to meet as many people as possible in one week, feeling the pressure from family to spend more time with them, packing, getting anxious for the next semester, starting to miss people I am standing right next to. That is, by far, the strangest feeling. I used to think that was a stupid ‘quote’ people just wrote for the sake of writing. How do you miss people that you’re standing right next to? What did I know?
Brett Domino with a medley of songs, titled Now! 75 Chart Medley. This man is amazing. I especially like the part where his English accent completely takes over at ‘And since I made it here, I can make it anywhere. Yeah they love me everywhere’ and whatever other accent Jay-Z may use from here on out is irrelevant. You are amazing, Mr. Domino. And what a flashy name? Haha love it.
