i let the tv tell me how love should be

100 happy days (round 2)

everyday for the next 100 days do something deliberate that will make someone else's day better¹

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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

- James 2:14-17

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^{1. and tell no one about it ↩}

home for dying people

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind

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notes 15/4/15:
life is too short to spend it half asleep

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we write about pain to to make it go away. we write to make sense of tragedy and loss. we give pain a name to make it mean something. because maybe it hurts less that way

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Am treating my exams like the eventuality of death, acting like it doesn't exist until it's finally upon me
— Pork Noodles (@ohlookyhere) April 15, 2015

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death feels distant to me. something alien and unnatural. it doesn't feel real. and yet it seems familiar. the joy of forgetting and the horror of remembering. feeling guilty for laughing.

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I had so many bad dreams last night. One part, the last part of the dream was that I had baked a cake but the plate I used fell apart and I was in school and in trouble because someone's dog had died because of me - they had fed their dog my cake - and now they were looking for revenge. I woke up at 9am still half asleep. I was scheduled for a lecture today and to be on the wards. I forced myself to get up and write my report which was due yesterday and sent a text to a friend to tell him I wasn't coming in. A wasp started buzzing at my window. How on earth did that get in here...? I remember thinking. It became increasingly agitated that it was trapped and started tapping the glass fiercely. I packed up my things and headed over to the library so that I could concentrate. I managed to get quite a lot of work done. At 5pm I check my phone, which has been on silent all day, then i see the message the first line hits me like a punch in the stomach: 'Dearest darling Jon... today Koong Koong passed away at roughly 1am. Poh Poh and I were with him till the end...' I stared at the message for a while, trying to make sense of it. I knew it was coming. He had been in hospital for the last month and a half, and his heart had already stopped once. I just didn't think it would be today. In the library. With my report half finished. I put my phone in my pocket and took a walk outside to clear my mind. I was trying to come to terms with the facts. I was slightly dazed still, marooned in my own reality, unable or unwilling to make the leap. I returned to my desk and blinked blankly at the computer. I finished the rest of my report by 8pm and returned home. On the way I picked up a subway. I had met the lady who made my sandwich before. She liked making small talk with customers.
'Long day in clinic?' she asks.
My grandfather passed away today.
'Long day in the library. Had to finish writing up a case report.'
'Ahh,' she says.

At home I toss my bag in my room and enter the toilet. I sit down and stare at my surroundings. I feel like I'm floating. I feel detached, not computing. I wonder if I'm still half asleep. Is this real, I wonder, or is this just another bad dream?

in with the old

sometimes the people who impact our lives the most don't always stay in them

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nowadays, I'm always a little apprehensive of endorsing anything that sounds too much like an aphorism .. anything too neat, seemingly reductive or obscenely simple. I'm alright if it at least pretends to be / tries to present itself as an earnestly thought out subject for discourse, but if it's openly, blatantly, unapologetically aphoristic - with all the hefty belligerence of a declaration or incorrigibly prettified and dandied up all statement-like, i feel like disowning it. I feel like cutting ties immediately and drowning it in the sea.

I guess my biggest qualm with aphorisms is not whether they are mostly right or wrong or even accurate, but with the spirit that's been built into the very architecture of the construct, right down into the foundations. there's a posture of the heart that accompanies most maxims like a bad smell. an air, an attitude, an impression of ... absolute certainty, and with it a sense of imperiousness, of being smug and satisfied in itself in the worst way possible. it conveys, to me at least, the desire to preclude any further discussion, boasts a kind of guarded refinement - a rigid refusal to be challenged implicated deep in its demeanour.

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A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. 

- Cervantes 

I always have a quotation for everything. It saves original thinking. 

- Dorothy Sayers

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I remember I read somewhere an essay called 'In defence of Aphorisms' that was written in response to Susan Sontag's disparaging remarks in calling aphorisms primarily the result of impatient thinking. The argument roughly goes: 'An aphorism is the pithy packaging of deep wisdom. It is the consequence of a long process of analysis. It forces the reader to wrestle with it and to be creative with it.'

Can't find the original essay or website anymore though, unfortunately. But I wonder if an aphorism is a better vehicle for profound thought than a good story is? Because with an aphorism you get the destination, the moral/conclusion tacked on hastily at the end. but in a parable or myth you get the whole journey - and then you get the pearl first hand, rather than second.

caves canyons and waves

season of long sunsets / folk

this month i will forgo chocolate and work on my patience

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i feel like if you're over the age of 20 your heroes should maybe all be at least over 40

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Chance's tracks come from the grit; from sweat, from rain beating down rocks and crowded concrete, the blood, smoke and roar of the industrial engine, its churning gears and manic energy. Feist's sounds are wide as the sky; transparent but enigmatic, unpredictable like ether, given to wispy echoes and harmonies, sometimes bright like the morning, sometimes dark and heavy as clouds, while Kyle's songs are probably born out of the earth and the tide, the surf, the hills, the beach, the meeting of land and sea - things of that nature; caves, canyons and waves. and maybe kpop's like plastic. polyester, PVC, polystyrene, latex, nylon, acrylic, cellophane. many forms and many names, but at its core all essentially the same.

kingfisher

oh my darling, oh my sweet
please give me a sign
if you can
i can't tell where i am
and the peace is such a pain to keep

and if i am wrong
then let me be young
spell out indulgence with me
drown my sins in the sea

then wring me out and dry me clean
hang me out on a line
and shake the dust
from me from time to time

i'll go out when the sun sets
and trace my steps through
every tried and haunted vein
and sleep on the pavements of the places i left behind

and if i am wrong
then let me be young
spell out indulgence along the vine
drown out my sins with weeping and with wine

when the morning comes
i'll find myself up on a cliff
with gulls circling overhead
and rocks waiting underneath

i'll shiver and look round
i'll catch a whiff of something good
and put on my coat
i'll pass through famous little pretty towns
and spend nights in strangers' living rooms
and on highways
i'll enjoy the view
and follow these spirit tunes
back to you

i'll pass through green grass and golden sand
days i wish would never end
and nights as cold and clear as glass
days i know could never last

and if i am wrong
then let me be yours
moor my boat just beyond the shore
trade in my gold
for fire stone and mahogany
tie keys to the cords
drape ropes around me

hold on to me like wet sand
and sun shining through the leaves
secure in the tide
i've got all that i need
the sea has my heart
but the beach brings me peace
in the water i am weightless
but on land i can breathe

TGIF / last chance to dress like it's winter

- Which is better - forced enthusiasm or genuine disinterest?

- Neither. Be interested. Be present. If you aren't interested that's a failure on your part. That's your fault, not theirs. What it shows is a failure of imagination and human empathy. Find a way to care, tap into that hidden pulse of living, the thing just beneath the surface that makes each of you alive. Search until you find the connection, until you hit a feeling. And then speak honestly and candidly, from the heart. If they aren't being honest, try and figure out why they aren't. Sit up straight. Pay attention. Be engaged. Are they tired? Are they sad? Address that, whether explicitly or in the subtext, but don't gloss over it. Don't just speak to the pose. Take the time and effort to search the real person. Dare to disturb the everyday facade of doing just fine. But I warn you if you do, be prepared for the consequences. The truth is often the thing that gets you into a lot of trouble.

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Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.

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I've been thinking a lot about the poor lately. People who have more than they need and people who don't have enough. And what it means to love your neighbour as yourself.

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A ruler questioned Him, saying, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. "You know the commandments, 'DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'"And he said, "All these things I have kept from my youth." When Jesus heard this, He said to him, "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

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" -I don't know, I sometimes miss the older -Are you sure? Yeah! -I look back. 

You can miss anything. 

You can, even if it's bad.  

I had that thought this morning because my oldest is going to middle school. It's a real schlepp now, the morning, and I thought, "This will be a tough winter. " Then my second thought was, "I'm gonna miss this. There's gonna be a day where I'm not gonna do this again. "  

That's very rich, Louis.  

-That's good stuff, right? -That's good stuff, man. "

- Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee