Life goes on, II

A prayer said at the funeral service of my friend Cheryl's father, earlier this year:

Grieve for me, for I would grieve for you.
Then brush away the sorrows and the tears.
Life is not over, but begins anew,
With courage you must greet the coming years.

To live forever in the past is wrong,
Can only cause you misery and pain.
Dwell not on memories over long,
With others you must share and care again.

Reach out and comfort those who comfort you.
Recall the years but only for a while.
Nurse not your loneliness but live again,
Forget not, remember with a smile.

--- Old Indian Prayer.

My life, in bytes

I churned out four blog-posts on my other blog this afternoon. Set aside my work to do it, because, for the same reason I carry a pen and a notepad around with me everywhere I go, if you have a thought and don't write it down, and then later forget it, then you effectively never had it. (I think I picked up this little piece of advice from a Tom Clancy book, as a matter of fact. Jack Ryan's wife, a surgeon, says it, in the book "Executive Orders", if I remember correctly.) (Hmm... this contains echoes of my earliest posts on the why and wherefore of blogging...) It made me suddenly realize that, starting from the time I left home to come to the US to study, and began corresponding regularly via e-mail with my family back home, and indeed, began to use e-mail with ever-increasing frequency to communicate with other people... that since then, virtually every facet of my life can be re-constructed from the vast, digitized archives of my various writings. From e-mails to papers that I've written for classes to, yes, my blogs. Oh, and digital photographs and video clips, too, in far greater quantities than previously imaginable with their chemical-film-technology predecessors. It's so easy now to go back to any given moment in my life and see what it, and I, were like at the time. My personality. My thoughts. My circumstances. Everything.

Mind-blowing stuff, when you think of the sheer scale of it all, compared to the pre-digital era. Historians of the future are going to have a field day. Assuming, of course, that our storage media survive till then, and the various encoding standards are still recognized. (Betamax, Laser-disk, DVD-ROM/-RAM/-D/Plus/-R/-RW/-R DL/+R/+RW/+R DL/Blu-ray/HD, anyone?) Ironic, that paper (and pencil!) remains the longest-lasting, and easiest to read, form of recording information around today.

The Wisdom of Mum and Dad

There are a lot of things that I never had when I was younger, and growing up. Things that my friends and peers had, and that I always longed to have as well. I'm not talking about material things, but the "intangible" gifts that life distributes randomly to different people. (I'm not going to be more specific with examples, because that gets too personal for this forum.) For many of those things, not having them was due, in large part, to my lifestyle then --- my life when when I was living at home, dictated -- and restricted -- as it was by my parents.

I have a lot of those things now. And because I never had them before, I appreciate them all the more. In the years since I left home, I've often, on many different occasions, stopped short and wondered/marvelled at the hidden (to me, at the time) wisdom my parents displayed, maybe conciously, maybe unconciously, in bringing me up. In retrospect, would I have had my life unfold any other way? I don't think so.

The importance of friends (one of many reasons)

When people would talk about how their friends helped them get over break-ups, I used to think that that only referred to their having their friends sit down with them and comfort them and analyse every little facet of the relationship-that-was and convince them that things would be better, and maybe that it was actually a *good* thing that they had broken up with that person. And of course, in my mental image, those friends were usually female, because guys typically don't talk about such things with each other, right?

Then I had my own experiences with break-ups. And realized that there's another aspect to that statement, which doesn't involve talking about or discussing the broken relationship at all. (Or maybe this has been just my own experience.) Having friends helps you realize that you still have a life, even if the person who was the world to you (or so you felt) is no longer a part of it. There are *still* people to whom you are important, and who care about you, and who like being around/with you.

All the more reason to not ignore or forget about your friends when you are in a relationship. Which, I know, is an easy rut to fall into, because you're so taken up with this one person that you want to spend every waking moment with them, to the exclusion of every- and anyone else, but you have to get a grip on yourself and do it.

To all my friends, who never forgot about me when I forgot about them, and/or who helped me realize that I still had a life --- thank you. You may not have realized that you were helping me, but you were.

Doesn't matter if it's true or not

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."

From the movie Secondhand Lions. Said by the character Hub, played by Robert Duvall, to his grand-nephew, Walter (Haley Joel Osment). Go watch it --- it's a great story.

Big Lessons from Little Kids

Excerpted from "21 Big Lessons from Little Kids: Little things you may have forgotten", from the Sept. '07 issue of Men's Health magazine:


2. Sometimes it's best to be completely blunt with people, as you used to be with relatives who wanted you to do something embarrassing or tedious for a shiny quarter.

3. Asking questions is how you figure things out. Lots and lots of questions.

4. An older, wiser Gordie Lachance says in Stand By Me, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12." Lachance is right. The trick is to try to be the friend you were when you were 12: fun-loving and loyal, with no strings attached.

5. Playing is work. Approach your downtime with all the seriousness of a 5-year-old with a secret treasure map.

6. Real guys don't dip their toes in the water. They jump right in.

8. You hated it when a grown-up told you, "We'll see." It's still unacceptable. Don't say it yourself.

9. The only way to know how something works is to completely disassemble it. (This is still good advice when tackling a complex problem. Your plasma TV? Not so much).

10. There's a reason they don't give credit cards to 8-year-olds. You're supposed to save up money before you buy a new toy.

11. Your body was designed for throwing baseballs, shooting hoops, and jumping off diving boards and stuff. In the secret language of children, the word "fitness" doesn't exist. It's called "having fun."

12. Your world can be half-real and half-imaginary.

13. Homework blows. Bring work home with you and it'll ruin your night. And your marriage. And your family. And your life.

14. Too much of anything will give you a tummy ache. Like, say, bourbon.

15. If there's even the slightest doubt, hit the potty before you leave.

16. The coolest adults were the ones who took the time to listen to you. You still want to grow up to be a cool adult, right?

18. Use adrenaline as your drug of choice. You don't need beer, pot, or cigarettes to have a good time.

19. Kissing a girl on the cheek is a big deal. Kissing her lips is an even bigger deal. Seeing her naked for the first time is a major, life-altering event.

21. Seeing a thunderstorm roll in is better than watching HDTV. And rain isn't something to curse, but to enjoy. Hurry up, before it clears.

Amun... Amen!

A long time ago, a man was born of a virgin in the likeness of God. After spreading messages of love and peace in his early life, he was betrayed by his friends and slain on a slab of wood. He was then resurrected on Earth before returning to heaven.

The man’s name isn’t Jesus. It’s Osiris, the god-man of ancient Egypt.

:) Got your attention? Read more here, in the Columbia Missourian's article on the book, "The Egyptian Origins of Christianity", by Lisa Ann Bargeman. Including about things like the etymological connections between "Amen" and the Egyptian god Amun/Amon.

While there are many clues to suggest Christianity’s roots can be traced to Greek, or Hellenic times, which began about 300 years before Christ’s birth during the development of Judaism, stories about Egyptian influences and other perceived “pagan” legends make some Christians uneasy. “The reason for such denial is that Christianity is always presented as the only true religion, the only way to salvation, and as such, it could not have borrowed anything from a religion they have dubbed heathen or pagan,” Harrison Ola Akingbade, an Anglican Christian himself, wrote in the foreword of Bargeman’s book.

So. Like I keep asking: why should God have only made Him/Herself --- in His/Her true form --- known to the Hebrews? Why should that group of people have been more special than every other civilization in Creation? Are we not *all* God's children?