Options

Cluttered choices crowds out the chooser.

Even from a purely secular perspective, man has always preferred enduring truths over what we loosely term as "scientific truths" - truths that can be displaced, like how Galileo's discoveries displaced Copernicus' only to be superseded by Einstein. To be able to choose, is a great freedom. But how does one exercise choice in this day and age where there are so many competing voices and so many truths that appear to be enduring truths. It is undeniable that scientific advances make our options or choices even more numerous. The extension of life expectancy and basic biological functions such as fertility logically invites a youth oriented population to adopt a non-limits strategy in their youth like search for novel experiences. We act on our choices as if we will live for ever whilst paradoxically being fully aware of the brevity of our existence. It doesn't help that reports or articles about yet another young entrepreneur or more likely these days, another techno-preneur "making it" only increases the sense of possibility and anxiety. Define it as growth and it is exciting. Watch it in real time and, for many of us, life seems to be overcrowded and unsatisfying. So many choices, so many targets, so little time. It would appear then that the most logical thing to do is to start paring down our choices. But where does one begin, being surrounded by all the clutter that we have allowed into our lives or accumulated through our education and conditioning. A slow sorting and sieving process seems to be in order yet this seems to be an even more onerous tasks than having to choose wisely.

Morning

Today, morning, caged.

I wake and the sky
Is there intact
The paper is white
The ink is black
My charmed life
Harms no one -
No wife, no son.
~Samuel Menashe

Patterns

I long for a view of the un-caged sky

I have a problem with time. I try to keep it but it constantly escapes; running continuously. But I suppose that is what time should do. To be just in time is all that we can hope for. To want to be beyond time is naive. But how about trying to stop time? They say to give it time and the "it" will heal or disappear. One day I will learn to let go of the "it"- to be just in time. But for now, let me indulge in a memory or two, for here time has come to a standstill.

"Time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But its not convenient to believe this, it doesn't help us get on with our lives so we ignore it..."
~Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

Mysterion

The dead city of Al Bara, Syria.

The past reveals itself to those who are patient. And through the passage of time, we learn more and more about these ruins and what they used to be - because tomorrow I will be wiser than I was yesterday. If we do not preserve the past, the present and future will be poorer for that. Today I was told that "mystery" can also mean to unravel - a truth undiscoverable except by revelation. That each day there is a bit of this mystery being revealed to me, if only I choose to see it; And a choice is a commitment, implied.

Nurture

We are expanded by tears,
I was told,
not reduced by them.

Collage

Days become one, I am who I was.

"I must have been taught, or somehow learned early in my life to break easily away from intimacy. When Massi and I split, no matter what pain there was, I did not fight back. We parted almost too casually. So that long after my relationship with her ended, but still within the spin and eddy of it, I found myself searching for something to explain or excuse it. I stripped everything down to what I thought was the essential truth. But of course it was only a partial truth. Massi said that sometimes, when things overwhelmed me, there was a trick or habit I had: I turned myself into something that did not belong anywhere. I trusted nothing I was told, not even what I witnessed.

It was, she said, as if I had grown up believing that everything was perilous. A deceit must have done that. 'So you give your friendship, your intimacy only to those distant from you...'

'your goddamn cautious heart. Who did you love that did this to you?'
'I loved you...'
'yeah loved, you're leaving my life, aren't you?'

In this way, valid or not, we burned the few good things remaining between us."
~Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table

Vital

du grain a moudre

Yesterday I was reminded that "Life can either be absurd or it can be mysterious". Absurd in the existentialist sense of not having any purpose and mysterious in that there is a purpose but it remains a mystery to us. Ultimately, it is for us to choose. Indeed if I have only see further its because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Undone

Unmade, unread, unfinished, undone.

Some will say that an animal has no soul, almost as if to justify the ease by which us humans can and will take an animal's life. Look into the eyes of your pet and you will feel that it may have more of a soul than us humans, especially when you examine what we humans are capable of. I cried when I had to put Liz down. But I didn't shed a tear when my own grandfather passed on. What does that make me?

A young man cut down early in life is always a sad thing, without having experienced the fullness of life; To pass from this world as a son but never a husband and father. So many things left undone, so much left unspoken, so many moments missed.

L

And thus, although one dies
With nothing to bequeath
We are left enough
Love to make us grieve

Limbo

Left hanging

I look back not with regret;
But with the hubris of
wanting to fix the past.

Consolation

Let the light in.

The power over life and death,
creates a void within;
To be filled with the consolation
that there is stillness beyond.

Universal

Church, Perspective

The history of mankind is replete with examples of how religion has been used as an excuse to justify man's primal needs of lust, greed and glory. Just look at our recent history and the "clash of civilizations" which pitches an Islamic East versus a Christian West. But even in our personal sphere, we are guilty of using religion as an excuse to mask our lesser sins such as cowardice, hubris and fear. Instead of seeing religion as a common denominator, it has been far too readily used as a divisive tool, allowing us to pick at the difference rather than embrace the similarities. It is even sadder when this happens amongst people who share the same religious roots; that in spite of sharing a common text can proclaim that we worship different gods. To say that it is a matter of perspective maybe to trivialize the matter, yet I do not think that this description really misses the mark. It is about interpretation, perspective but more importantly, it is about consistency in our approach.

No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God remains in us and His love is brought to perfection in us.

Mechanical

At the heart of the matter.

Twin carburetors, no power steering and rear wheel drive - the ingredients for a good drive. I like old and mechanical stuff not as a rejection of modernity but because they require a certain commitment; almost akin to a promise, which these days seems to be a foreign concept. Old or mechanical stuff require commitment from you before it gives, a tacit understanding between user and equipment, creating a relationship - a mechanical watch requires winding before it faithfully records time and likewise a '72 Alfa Romeo requires driving commitment, especially committing to a gear change, before it purrs sweetly. In a society where we are spurred on to be takers (consumers), it is nice to be reminded from time to time that there is also a need to give before we receive, a need to build relationships, a need to understand. But commitment is time consuming. And time is a rare commodity these days. Maybe, if we manage to take time to understand our implements and environ, we may learn that we can receive more if we are prepared to give and what we receive may perhaps last. We may also learn that not everything old or time consuming should be discarded. And that includes old friends and family too.

Countdown

Keeping time

Another year has come and gone and it has been quite an eventful year, especially after last week. But looking back, it seems like the last three years of my life have been eventful and rather interesting to say the least. Perhaps, it is simply that life just gets more and more complicated with each passing year. Or maybe it is the vagaries and uncertainties of working life and the lack of a prescribed horizon that blurs the lines; I can't quite say for sure. I would like to see the trials of the past few years as the growing pains of my adulthood, because the metamorphosis into adulthood does not take place overnight - growing always involves some pain. So, a new year, a new day, a new beginning and today I am no longer the person I was yesterday. It is all about time and timing, apparently.

We live in time - it holds us and molds us - but I've never felt I understood it very well. And I'm not referring to theories about how it bends and doubles back, or may exist elsewhere in parallel versions. No, I mean ordinary, everyday time, which clocks and watches assures us passes regularly: tick tock, click clock. Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time's malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it seems to go missing - until the eventual point when it really does go missing, never to return.
~Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending