being mortal

"Human beings need loyalty. It does not necessarily produce happiness, and can even be painful, but we all require devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. Without it, we have only our desires to guide us, and they are fleeting, capricious, and insatiable. They provide, ultimately, only torment."

"All we ask is to be allowed to remain the writers of our own story. That story is ever changing. Over the course of our lives, we may encounter unimaginable difficulties. Our concerns and desires may shift. But whatever happens, we want to retain the freedom to shape our lives in ways consistent with our character and loyalties."

"This is why the betrayals of body and mind that threaten to erase our character and memory remain among our most awful tortures. The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one’s life–to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be. Sickness and old age make the struggle hard enough. The professionals and institutions we turn to should not make it worse. But we have at last entered an era in which an increasing number of them believe their job is not to confine people’s choice, in the name of safety, but to expand them, in the name of living a worthwhile life."

"At least two kinds of courage are required in aging and sickness. The first is the courage to confront the reality of mortality–the courage to seek out the truth of what is to be feared and what is to be hoped. … But even more daunting is the second kind of courage–the courage to act on the truth we find. … When it is hard to know what will happen, it is hard to know what to do. But the challenge, I’ve come to see, is more fundamental than that. One has to decide whether one’s fears or one’s hopes are what should matter most."

"People seem to have two different selves–an experiencing self who endures every moment equally and a remembering self who gives almost all the weight of judgment afterward to two single points in time, the worst moment and the last one."

"In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all of its moments–which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens."

will i ever really be?

as time goes by

so as my roomie nina and i were eating lunch, i was listening to this lovely ditty:


and as the lyrics came on:
You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh...

and then nina snaps back "a sigh is not just a sigh. it's a psychological scream."

home

'Rembrandt's embrace remained imprinted on my soul far more profoundly than any temporary expression of emotional support.  It has brought me into touch with something within me that lies far beyond the ups and downs of life, something that represents the ongoing yearning of the human spirit, the yearning for a final return, an unambiguous sense of safety, a lasting home.'

I have lived half my life out of a suitcase, sometimes seeing this world from thirty-seven thousand feet in the air rather than on terra firma.  I have to check & recheck where i left my passport and wallet and all other things that form the luggage of life on the road.  I lock my suitcases each time I leave the hotel room and twirl the combination lock.  There are visas from places near and far stamped in my passport.  Border officers or guards have carried out their routine dozens of times in my life.  I walk ever conscious of being on foreign soil, with an over-the-shoulder awareness.  Oh! for an unambiguous sense of safety in a lasting home.  It is the reality of the cross cut deeply into my soul that brings comfort of a final home that awaits me. 

-ravi zacharias

the happy ones.

The happy ones are almost always also vulgar;

happiness has a way of thinking

that's rushed and has no time to look

but keeps on moving, compact and manic,

with contempt in passing for the dying:

Get on with your life, come on, buck up!

Those stilled by pain don't mix

with the cheerful, self-assured runners

but with those who walk at the same slow pace.

If one wheel locks and the other's turning

the turning one doesn't stop turning

but goes as far as it can, dragging the other

in a poor, skewed race until the cart

either comes to a halt or falls apart.

-patrizia cavalli

beach house

there are a few bands/musicians i revisit time & time again.  the beatles. elliott smith. rilo kiley. yo la tengo. epik high. & now i would say beach house will be up there in that special category.  there were periods (months) where i would just indulge myself in their albums ("devotion," "teen dream," & most recently "bloom" - which is my favorite). their songs so perfectly encapsulate this mood of ethereal, melancholic wistfulness that i crave.

ugh, so amazing.

bathroom chatter

people seem to complain about those awkward, obligatory chats you have with people when you run into them on the elevator.  the only types of conversations that are reserved for this sacred time are convos about the weather, plans for/from the weekend, or the "busy day ahead!" but if you really want an escape route from these stale convos you can always resort to your phone and pretend you have some very urgent emails you need to tend to.  or just never take off your headphones and do the smile & nod.

i think what's worse than awkward elevator talk is awkward bathroom talk.

first of all, you're going in there to do your business, and the last thing you want to do is talk to someone before or after.  and i never knew what the proper etiquette is with that either...

you walk into the bathroom and you see someone you know. is it rude to just ignore them and make a beeline to the stall?

so if it is rude, you decide to engage in some light chit-chat, but when do you then disengage?
and then when you do walk into the stall, is it weird to keep talking from there?

and just say you pause the conversation while you're in the stall, then once you get out of the stall do you just continue from where you left off (assuming that the other person is still in the bathroom, which actually does happen more often than i would think - girls can take a long time "freshening up").

so many unwritten rules... somebody, please enlighten me.