What makes an year

An year is made of

• Change, above and beyond everything else. Seeing it, gritting your teeth against and finally accepting it for the inevitable fact of life it is.
• Decisions, no matter how big. The ones over which you ruminateand spend sleepless nights thinking about, or the ones which happen in the blink of an eye, leaving you with a "holy shit I did it!" kind of feeling. The ones which, no matter what the outcome, are always the right ones. The ones which lead you to now, this moment.
• Love, third but never last on the list. Big love for small children. Affectionate love for the goofy pet. Troubled, oft-tired sibling love. Surprising surges of love for parents, during those moments of realization of how much they do for you. Sweet, constant love for friends. Mad, passionate love for the other half your divided soul. Sweet, comfortable "let's do this for a hell of a long time more" love for the same.
• Friendships, old and new. Surprising discoveries about both.
• Happiness, from simples joys and big achievments.
• Sorrow, from inner realizations or senseless outside violence.
• Anger, at wrongdoings, mostly to others. At helplessness, mostly your own. 
• Family, constant. 
• God, and the untenable link he has over everything we do, unfortunately. Sigh.
• Nature, beautiful, the sea, the beaches, yellow flowers in the garden and blue, blue skies. Sunshine. Waves. Lights over a lake at night.
• Work, hopefull something you like. If you're lucky, something you suddenly discover you like.
• Booze, in high-to-moderate levels.
• Realizations, preferably about yourself, generally not too complimentary, but usually very revealing.
• Art, in any form.
• Books, in every form. From vampires to Jamaican plantation slaves. Never discrimate!
• Food...healthy, unhealthy, the whole lot. 
• People, strange acquaintances, those you never want to see again, hesitant friends, instant dislikes, confusion, struggle, always very interesting.
• And contentment, hopefully, that this year's been OK. 
• And hope, that there will always, always be something to hope for.
• And a quiet sense of achievement, because you've come through 365 days of your life again, unscathed (almost).

Good new year's :)

Making it count

I just stumbled across a blog post by a friend -- a good friend, in fact, someone I haven't had a nice. long jaw with in a long time. She says that she "stumled upon" her life's passion, and goes on to say how nice that is, given that so many search for what they want to do for so long. This kind of reassured me.

Because I logged on because I was feeling decidedly maudlin, the sort of gigantic rain-cloud-suddenly-above-my-head feeling that I don't usually allow to settle on me for too long. Any number of reasons are behind this, I know; new work hours, change, and overall, a general feeling of being chronically unable to make good decisions and get my shit together in a constructive way.

My editor at work has the most interesting desk--she travels extensively and has a miniature totem pole-like thing sitting next to a colurful creamic bowl that looks like something Machu Pichu would have in abundance. Around her desk are little inspirational quotes, printed out neatly and pinned to the spongy fabric of her workstation. One says, "If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." This has, for some reason, been haunting me over the past few days.

Perhaps the greatest fear we have is that, through our sheer inability to make use of it, our much-touted potential will go waste. Because everybody obviously has greatness, that much you have to believe...we may not all be created "equal" but we surely all have potential...even the child with Down's Syndrome or the torso-only beggar who drags himself through the streets of dirty Colombo. It's always just a case of tapping that potential, which in turn would depend on the tools one has to do so.

Some of us have hardly any tools, but strive and find more. Some have, and make maximum use of. Others, just are. They don't seek, they don't maximize, they "go with the flow" (ye grand excuse) and "hope for the best" (ye second grand excuse) and watch while Life takes them wherever she wills. At the end of the day, these people, who are really cowards in pretty clothes, can always say that things happen for a reason and that if they didn't make up to all they could have been, well that must be Karma, no?


 

A little something on Love

I write a lot on Love :) Most of these rants are induced by some form of heart pain/break, and are usually long and melodramatic affairs consisting of how the right person can harm you beyond all repair. They're very complicated. Sometimes though, in quieter moments, I sit and wonder what life would be without the needle pricks of love -- without the sunsets and the laughter and that inexplicable feeling that poets rave about and 80s rockers keep wailing about. Without love, we'd be fine. We'd be happy, self-strong and confident human beings, sure of our place in the world. Without the doubts and fears Love brings, we'd be good. But we would miss out some of the finest feeling humanity has to offer and the soul can experience.

Never forget, poets and 80s rockers are always right :)

Base Realizations

Base realisations are those where you realise that, despite and in spite of all the various layers of civilization you pile on in life, all the morals and ethics you claim to subscribe to, all the fantastic notions of being better than at least a few other people in the world, you are - at heart - a rather pathetic, base human being. Selfish, self-motivated and convinced that the world and all its inhabitants revolve around you. Determined to see the world from only your point of view and cocksure of always being the wronged, the injured, the victim.

And of course, once you realise that you have all this time been trying to convince yourself of being a bettr person, you feel less human and more worm-like. Like a lowly, earth-living worm, who deserves the monstrous boot that will soon come and crush it underfoot, and grind it satisfyingly in to the wet, clammy, stinking earth, where it belongs.