When the journey seems a lil’ too long..
I’ll always remember the quote on JH’s blog (Silver Lined Letters)..
“There are NO SHORTCUTS to any place WORTH GOING.”
Thank you for your words, always.
De el – Nuestra historia del amor
“Era Agosto de 2007 y yo me iba a Alemania a estudiar un semestre. Nos conocimos en la residencia estudiantil, siendo compañeros de piso. Yo de capital, ella de Singapur!(sí sí, eso es distancia). Ella estudiaba economía, yo derecho. 3 meses después, sucedió lo inevitable en una fiesta universitaria. Nos conocimos, nos enamoramos y viajamos. Ella se volvió y nos despedimos en la estación de micro. A los pocos días, decidimos seguir apostando a la relación y nos pusimos de novios, a distancia. Me decían q estaba loco, pero no me importó. A los 3 meses ella se recibió y me vino a visitar. Se quedó 2 meses en mi casa y la relación creció. Aprendimos a vivir con skype y la distancia.Fue difícil pero a los 7 meses me fui para Singapur, donde conocí a la familia y experimenté una de las culturas más opuestas a la nuestra. Viajamos por Asia y pasamos año nuevo chino juntos. En 2009 ella volvió a la argentina 2 veces: Mayo y Noviembre. En 2 meses, si todo sale bien, se viene a vivir acá… “
Harp of your soul
“Your body is the harp of your soul;
It is yours to bring forth sweet music or confused sounds.”
Which one is it for you?
I finally wrote it down;
3 weeks into the new year, and I finally decided to pen down a couple of resolutions. Some pencil scribbles and a messy sheet later, I had my mind a little more sorted out. Write it down and it’ll come to pass; keep it only in your mind and you’ll forget about it. I learnt this a long time ago in church; so I figured the best thing I could do was to put it in black and white, literally.
Looking at the list of resolutions I made, the recurring theme seems to be that of appreciating, maintaining and personal improvement. Below is a quick summary of my reasons for these goals; and a little more, in no order of importance.
Physically – Being in the best time of my youth; the twenties, it is also the time where aunties and older colleagues constantly remind me of the great importance to preserve the benefits and advantages of youth; through proper procedures for taking care of my health, and face, and body. They say it not only helps you feel better to have a consistent exercise regime, it also keeps you healthy and looking good. While beauty may be only skin-deep, they remind us that most average people are superficial, and during the first 4 seconds of any chance meeting, people size you up and decide if you are attractive enough for them to want to know you better.
“Take care of your face and it will take care of you”. Sounds so shallow and idealistic, but it is true; don’t the crowds always tend to get drawn to the good lookers, the lady with the hot body, and the pretty face? Doesn’t your attention focus better on handsome men as opposed to average-looking guys? Who do you usually remember more in a crowd of strangers – the boring wallflower-for-life or the charming, sharp dresser? Who is usually promoted faster, with all else equal? The lady who looks good enough to win the sales or the sloppy overweight girl who looks unable to control what she eats, not to mention client accounts? Colleagues tell me horror stories of how some people start off beautiful when they are in their youth, but due to their partying ways, late nights, excessive drinking habits and refusal to spend wisely on skin products worth their investments, they wilt as they age and by the time they are in their forties, they look haggard, their skin dry with premature aging and their wrinkles are too apparent to digest. They end up having to use a cake of make up each time they go up just to look presentable. It is important to maintain and treasure what nature has bestowed on each of us, so I’m going to start taking care of my skin and how I look.
Skills-wise/ Intellectually – The paper chase began a long time ago, and from the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like is going to stop. People no longer stop at chasing degrees, MBAs, CFAs, CPAs, they have moved on to PHDs. In the mad supermarket rush for the best brands available in the markets for these products, I think it’s time to hold back a little and focus on what is personally good for you, and not just because your neighbor and all the other neighbors are getting them. You can have many degrees without ever being knowledgeable, about life in general, the news that is happening around you, and the circumstances which are changing the way we live. I never used to like the news; I found politics and the economy excessively boring; I lived on Starworld and nothing else. Yet as the world changes in so rapid a pace, I have lost much interest in E! Entertainment, Starworld, with the exception of CSI which my sister got me hooked on. Instead, I am increasingly fascinated with the developments in Asia and beyond. How the political games are played are essential in understanding why some economies never move beyond what they were 20 years ago, while others have progressed but at the expense of freedom of speech, expression and so many other things. I want to increase my knowledge through the media that our generation has the great privilege of having – the Internet, as well as to talk to as much different cultures and races as possible – to understand and learn the worlds beyond just mine, and to expand my awareness of many different other types of views.
I want to focus a lot more on writing, to hone what I have declared for years to be an interest, and to make it something more. It is the essence of understanding myself, a documentation of my thoughts and learning and a way of intimate expression of things important to me. I want to put down what I feel, the path that leads to these emotions and thoughts and chart the progress of my personal development. A lifelong goal, writing is something that never ceases, will never stop, and is something that consumes me so much, time flies whenever I write. I also want to improve on my language skills, because the key to a person’s degree of influence and impact is limited by communication and language, and the better you are at that, the lesser the limitations and the greater your influence. When I was younger I never used to be proud of the fact that I could speak Mandarin, but now, I understand the power of knowing a language which at least 1.3 billion people speak. I want to also focus on my third language – Spanish; which almost the whole of Latin America speaks, and so many more in North America, Spain and all around the world.
Personality – There are many things which make us human, our personality making a large part of defining who we are. Some of our characteristics are intrinsic and difficult to change, but there are also parts of our character that we have the option of improving upon. There are a couple of aspects that I identified for improvement this year – patience, determination, pro-activeness, and willingness to explore new and different things. I wrote down to try something new at least one time each week, and while it seems ridiculously easy to do, I believe that the essence to learning and growing is when you are constantly exposed to things which are not the same. As the saying goes, you can’t expect different results if you are always doing things the same way. New year, new start.
Family/ Friends/ Loved-ones – Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, once said at a graduation ceremony, “Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocore, at my job is those other things were not true.….Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.” She has so concisely summed up what it means to spend quality time, to be a giver as well as how to learn to accept. She emphasizes on how those around are such a big part of her success, as she is to theirs, and how most importantly, that to love is not easy, but every inch worth it.
Seems like a pretty big plate of resolutions this year, but I’m gonna try.
To never forget
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.”
-Arundhati Roy
One of the signature quotes at the end of email messages, one of the quotes that always stun me in an absolutely refreshing way.
It is so easy to become immune to the violence and distress that once so thoroughly disturbed us during our daily news reading. It is so easy to frown and wrinkle our noses in disgust at the dirt-filled rat-infested conditions which the beggars live in, and then to walk on buy into the comfort of the five-star hotel, and out of sight, the poverty temporarily goes out of mind. It is so difficult to imagine and witness the pure joy on the faces of the little ones who spend their whole days playing with a simple ball, a game we take for granted, a game we are bored with, and it strikes us so hard to see these young children with more joy than us with all our expensive ostentatious goods. It is increasingly hard to appreciate beauty in what we do and have, when we have become shaped to complain without batting an eyelid, and to shout at what is not going well. We have became what we eat, and in this world of fast food, fast service, we have lost our patience for even the simplest things, we do not see anymore than we do not get nourished. It shocks us to see a woman with cancer encouraging her loved ones not to be upset, when really it should have been the other way round. We have become so accustomed to the grind of life which tells us money and status rule the world, that people high up on their pedestals should be treated like gods while poor people and those junior staff should be disregarded, ill-respected and not worthy of our time. We forget that sometimes certain things are just as they seem, and we spend precious amounts of time complicating two-dimensional matters when we should be spending more time solving and analyzing the world we live in. We become masks of insecurity mingling at events for the sake of networking, when actually we just want to spend some solitary time to gather our thoughts. What are we rushing to, where are we colliding headlong into? Why do we look away from that which is not pretty, nice or even just normal? Why do we forget so soon the things which have taken place? Why are we shocked when things which have been building up ages suddenly happen? What do we need before we can remember?
There is electricity in the air
What a terribly exciting month; so many things have happened in just the span of the last 5 days; the first African-American to have pushed the Americans into a land brimming with the promise on which the hopes of their forefathers banked on; candidacy that was never expeced to run among the leading; least of all to win. Yet all over the world, there has been a sigh of relief; the Asian stock markets abounded with a new life; perhaps there is hope for the economy and world politics at large?
Blame it on my lack of interest in politics in previous US elections, or blame it on my youth; but this isto me definitely a point of history in the making. Never before has globalization bonded continents across in the anticipation of one common outcome, for a country that isn’t even theirs. Africa’s heartbeat can be heard across the news wires; their celelbrations for their much supported representative Obama evident so blatant and stark; bulls reserved specially for feasting upon when Obama would eventually clear the tiles and declare a landslide victory; this was a magic moment; the one which Martin Luther King would have been so proud of he would cry tears of joy; the day of fulfilment of his dream “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’” and “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
There is an excitement in the air; his youthful energy and charisma seems to have charmed voters and observers in the USA as well as across the shining seas. America’s economy may be down in the dumps, and may have chain-dragged everyone else (participants and passers-by) worldwide, but the extent of the ripple effect of this historic elections has proven one thing– that America is still so tremendously important that we are all banking that we made the right decision in supporting a young, inexperienced senator with what currently seems like little more than many theories and assured calmness that he will not only weather through the stormy ride but emerge victorious. In this present time; he is a symbol of hope that many are deep down praying will not be a mirage.
Further away from the political scene, November is also a month where I rejoice for my friends around. I can’t say it till I hear it for myself, but I believe wedding bells will be ringing soon; a joyous occasion is bursting to arrive. There is a spirit of festivity in the air; an electricity to light up the world that just a little while ago seemed stale and depressed. Trust me, the world is currently less preoccupied with crazy christmas shopping that will eventually manifest towards the month’s end; right now, there are more and greater things that are happening, and all I can say is, life is for the living.
La medida del amor..es amar sin medida.
De abuela de Juan. Esto es verdadera.
The measure of love is love without measure.
Forgotten pearls
I speak to this someone in solitude,
The one who knows me well.
Whom else may I find solace in,
In whom else may I dwell?
I like to talk to this someone,
Who makes me feel like no one else.
This very one not at all like some,
That wish me be somebody else.
We are all fools that have no where to hide
Falling in great disguise
To shield our precious fallible hearts
That like oysters if opened must die.
We forget that we have pearls
All waiting in full glory.
To push open the hard cracked shell
Bursting to tell their story.
We can’t remember what we
Refused to commit to memory;
So we choose instead to flip and move on
And choose no more to tarry.
This was written after being inspired by Shakespeare’s famous comedy As You Like It, whose most well know phrase has been so oft used that no one really knew its source:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” — Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)
Such a luxury most do not embrace
Literature is a luxury; popular fiction is a neccesity.
How very true; we feed ourselves everything but the very best; we read mostly trash yet do not bother flipping pages of greater writers; we mix around and engage in flippant chatter with inconsequential people.
We are a sum of the things we read, eat and the people we hang around with. How does that work for you?
