A lesson

You settle. Oh do you settle.
But before then, you suffer.

Reminder

The real magic in things like coffee and cigars and macarons and paintings is taking elementary things, likes fruits and leaves and eggs and paint, and making them into something extraordinary.

This applies also to more intangible things like sounds (to music) and feelings (to love).

Then all I have to do is take my experiences, all the good and happy and bad and sad and hopeless times, and make them into something extraordinary. I have to do better.

Back to Kierkegaard

In college I read Lowrie's biography of Soren Kirekegaard (SK).  I learned a lot of things about SK from that book, but the most memorable thing about it to me was a lot of effort elucidating his personality. One particularly vivid thing about him was his penchant for walks around his city of Copenhagen talking with ordinary people. I imagine him taking walks, thinking. Of course, this isn't particularly mind-blowing ... I'm told Kant was very fond of walks, too (at the exact same time and place everyday...). But what made SK's walks different is that those walks probably were more like our kind of walks than Kants. You know, being that SK probably went on walks wondering "What's the purpose of this all? Why am I struggling so hard with [insert self-improvement goal]? Is this all there is (i.e. my career, my relationships, my seemingly insurmountable problems?"

And he came up with an answer. Part of it is letting go of the vice-like hold on reason. Part of it is accepting God. Part of it is realizing... it just is that way, and that's... okay.

26!

Birthday post. YES.

I'm pretty happy right now. Last night I blew cake with my family at midnight. Greeted by family and friends overseas. Woke up to sweet Facebook bday wishes. I make it a point to reply to every single one. It's like the best thing. There's not many reasons to talk to old friends but at least when they hit me up I can ask/tell them a thing or two. And I get to reminisce on memories with that person.  I love that. Seriously.

Tomorrow I get to hangout with my best friend traveling all the way from Socal. I'm the luckiest.

God, what a kinda shitty 25th I had though. If I could only begin to say...

But it's all water under the bridge though. There were times when I didn't even know how I'd get through the day, sometimes the week... a month once! But there were some good times of course. Visited Italy and France last Winter for my mom's bday and I had a blast. I can even say it was my second time there, for both countries... Don't even deserve to be able to say that. But merci God! Grazie God! I'll visit again someday.  And I still have a great job. That's the real blessing right there. Very thankful for that every single day of my 25th. Man, I really hope I can do some good in academia.

There's not much structure to this post. I'll even update it later. I'm just spewing birthday happiness onto my blog. It's like the ultimate hair-cut, you feel great for that one day. I admit this blog has been monotonously sad the past few blogs... well it's true my 25th was a tough year.

26's looking good so far :)

Gogol's insight

Recently, I picked up Nikolai Gogol and some of his work. It's sad that I never read much of him in college. Not that I would trade him for Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or Chekhov... but I wish I at least read his "The Overcoat" or "Nevsky Prospekt" at least once then...

“What an amazing world we live in!” I thought to myself the other day as I walked along Nevsky musing over these two stories: ‘How strange, how inscrutable the games fate plays with us! Do we ever attain the object of our desires? Do we ever achieve that to which all our efforts seem to be directed? Everything happens the wrong way round. To one Providence has given a pair of splendid horses, and he rides along indifferently, oblivious of their beauty, while another, whose heart is fired with a passion for horses, is forced to go on foot and must content himself with licking his tongue at the handsome beasts which gallop past. One fellow has an excellent cook, but, alas, is unlucky enough to possess such a small mouth that it cannot accommodate more than two pieces of meat, while another has a big mouth…but, alas, has to content himself with some sort of German concoction of potatoes. What strange games fate plays with us!” 

- Nevsky Prospekt

We know this. But he said it right.