Dear Robot,
Guess what I’m making. One down. Thirty to go…
This seems small, but my biggest take away from yoga is the realization that we constantly tensing our muscles unnecessarily, especially our face muscles.
The pure act of relaxing your face muscles puts you in a slightly better mood. Try it, but first you have realize that you are even doing it.
This weekend I went to a celebration for N. The day was clear, the breeze was blowing, and the open windows let it all in. He went to a performing arts school and it was really touching to see the sense of community and kinship that exists in pockets of people who have common goals and what positive potential there is in that – restored my faith in humanity a bit. Living in the Silicon Valley can sometimes strip that away from you.
It made me think about death and how it is going to happen to all of us, it’s just a matter of how and when.
It helped me become less resistant to it as N was celebrated in such a meaning and befitting way – not just by people speaking and remembering him, but by doing and continuing his legacy through music. I came to the realization that the concept of us truly lives on in the people we choose to touch.
It made me think of what my own legacy would be.
Perhaps if nothing else, I would hope that I leave a small, silent legacy of integrity. I hope that the people I touch become more honest with others and to themselves in even a small way as it’s so easy to get away from that as we cope with navigating through a world with a lot of clutter and noise in it on top of trying to just navigate through our own monkey brains.
I hope when others think of me, they do so with the same sentiment as one would have reading a deep piece of poetry that truly speaks to them, more as a testament of my lacking ability to do so sometimes.
Perhaps this one:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Or perhaps a poem of my own someday. Or perhaps just a poem of your choice.
To live or not to live
science as a form of understanding
freewill = the sensation of choice
Hola,
I did a few things this week that made me feel good.
This is my third week of consuming alcohol only two days a week. I was able to squeeze in some yoga. Now, I just need to get my diet under wraps.
I decided I am going to buck up and spend more time being productive, although it is at the cost of seeing E less… for now. 🙁
We celebrated my mom’s birthday yesterday. Each year on my mom’s birthday, I reflect on her life in relation to how I see it and each year I feel some form of sadness or regret for her, which makes me feel guilty. This year, I feel like she’s in a better place. She seems more calm and complacent about things. Some big things that happened for her this past year is she got a full-time job for the entire year and can afford at least her basic needs like groceries and small knick knacks from Goodwill that make her happy. This changed her attitude a lot when it came to money-related things. She became much less petty. She became less of a hoarder. Not having money seemed like the crux of a lot of her sorrows. I sometimes feel guilty that I didn’t try harder to make money so I could fully take care of her. I only make enough to afford my lifestyle at the expense of my mom’s to some degree. I never realized what losing the house truly meant to her, but now that even I’m not so sure about my living situation sometimes, I can see why someone who values stability would be devastated from losing her house. Also, in Vietnamese culture, I think it’s a big thing to keep the family together and grow old with your children and having the house I think gave her a certain hope that one day we might all end up back with her or at least she could provide for us if we needed it. I’m not sure if she really even understood her own psyche at the time. She seemed like she was mostly in denial and making unreasonable decisions to be able to keep the house, but looking back, I think I understand what she was doing a bit better. At the time, it was extremely frustrating – especially because it seemed like she was throwing away my money to do it. Anyway, I diverge. Point is, I’m happy that my mom is in a better place. I hope that with each year starting with last year, her life gets better and better. Perhaps I can even make a commitment to help make that happen and not be so self absorbed with myself as I’ve been most of her life with me in it. I resolve to not snap at her even when I get frustrated with her insistent mom-like tendencies. God/Buddha bless you, mom.
-ed
Hello,
Sorry, I couldn’t really have a full on conversation earlier. I also find it hard to just conjure up in words what I’ve been up to cause in essence it just involves a bunch of random thoughts so when people ask “what’s new” or “how are you” some generic answer just comes about. “Doh, I’m fine.”
But generally, I’ve been thinking a lot about the phases of life (perhaps sparked by my daughter’s graduation) and have been reminiscing about the phases of my life and the people how have come and gone and (thankfully) stayed. I’ve been also thinking about my parents lives and how it has come and to some degree gone. You see people in a certain moment but you have to realize that there were several moments that got them to that moment in which you see and share with them – old ancient worlds you could never know of. Worlds in which they were once alive and full of youth, but won’t share because they are too ashamed to admit their wrong doings. I have to be careful not to become like that, but who likes admitting their wrongdoings in the first place?
I’ve been thinking a lot about old age and I’m not sure how to age gracefully as it slowly creeps up on you, it becomes a bit more scary although I try to fight this fear as much as I can. How I don’t want it to come to me. I also see people walk around and think that we are just leading these lives like little effing ants day in and day out. People crossing streets, driving cars, waiting for trains, staring at phones, talking about nothing. Even if we break free of this ant dome and move to another one, is there really an escape? It’s just more of the same thing, but different. I try to keep myself entertained but I’m getting kind of tired of it.
I’ve been watching Golden Girls – trivial to but helps me understand old people problems and makes them seem less foreign.
that’s me in a nutshell. hope you’re doing more better. i’ve also been sick the past few days which also tends to put me in a sullen mood. that’s probably the crux of this message. i hate being sick. it reminds of how useless one can be.
-ed