This has been quite a year. (13 reflections...)

The year felt long but it flew by, and I'm quite certain it's the same length as any other.

Handshakes turned to hugs. But waves became smiles, nods became glances.

It seems we were often too busy to be tired yet seldom too tired to be busy.

Beside my childhood home, there was a bristling stream beyond the chain-link fence. I didn't explore it much back then but I've missed the sound.

In theory, we could all publicize our personal stories, yet most of us won't.

Others shared my struggles, thus I felt less peripheral.

We found good jobs, lovers, and friends, and so we worried about something else.

Corner apartments and sunshine suit me.

Although you said yes instead of maybe, and maybe instead of no, it wasn't to mislead me.

It's because of all the choices that I was fearful of missing out.

From time to time, I forgot that the median bar was higher than average.

To everyone whom I've laughed and shared with: we're a part of each other. Surrounding myself with people I can count on is what matters most to me; thanks for your support.

We should have played cards. Next year, I'll make time.

s.d.

Dover Thrift Editions

Sometimes my mind is a Rube Goldberg machine. This past weekend I set foot in the bookstore of a reputable university with the honorable intent of purchasing souvenirs. Before I obtained an obligatory rolled t-shirt, my eye caught sight of a table lined with hundreds of plain, thin Dover Thrifts. I gobbled up poetry collections from Eliot, Carroll, Dickinson, Yeats, and Browning, as well as a sliver of African-American poetry and a “Top 101” of American works. This nifty little seven-pack cost me fourteen dollars--before taxes. This taught me two lessons: getting sidetracked can have positive results, but giving up a career to write poetry probably will not.

s.d.

A Thanksgiving Consideration

Most years, our family embraces an unoriginal tradition of going around the table over Thanksgiving dinner and allowing each person to publicly announce what he or she is grateful for. I don’t like this tradition very much. Fortunately, we had an atypically small crew this year and focused on various conversations (can Paris be done for two people under $300/day?) and sundry episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm instead.

While looking forward to December and ultimately 2010, I had a moment of crisis over this long weekend. I found myself stuck on what my goals ought to be. I remain unconvinced that the lone pursuit of any particular career path, romantic path, or personal trajectory will lead to satisfaction.

Then I felt better as I considered that the path to fulfillment is all about setting and achieving mini-goals. In the past few months, I’ve amplified these mini-goals and set myself on a course that’s sure to take me upstream towards new and exciting moments. That’s what I’m grateful for.

s.d.

Reorientation

Airplanes flying into Boston’s Logan Airport typically glide over the ocean and strike the runway so suddenly that I’m somewhat surprised when I’m sitting in one and it successfully averts a water landing. Today was atypical: my 747 re-oriented towards the northeast and deftly swooped in over land. I was sitting towards the front, by the window in 15A, where I saw Boston with a fresh, new perspective. This was the culmination of several experiences revealing longstanding yet subtle aspects of Boston life to me over the past month. In particular, I’ve realized how important it is to ignore hypothetical situations and focus on my existence in the present. I plan to dwell on those aspects I can influence at the expense of everything else. I’ll never presuppose a water landing.

s.d.

Let Love Go Free

“If you love something, let it go free. If it doesn't come back, you never had it. If it comes back, love it forever.” - Douglas Horton (an ecumenical preacher)

This is probably one of the most overquoted (and misquoted) aphorisms of all time and I’ve always hated it. I always dismissed it as comfort fodder for those who loved and lost (and wished they never loved at all).

On the other hand, maybe there is a greater truth here. Perhaps the purest way to measure love’s strength is by suffering its absence. The outcome is uncertain. But then there’s no resentment--no regrets.

s.d.

Life with No Vision

I looked up from the television to my phone and back again, and then I looked over my shoulder. I closed my eyes and I could still see it: a blurred patch, 1-inch square, in my vision. It was disconcerting that I couldn’t focus on an object directly in front of me. I panicked. I used eyedrops and walked in circles. Next, I went onto the computer to look up the symptoms but found that it was difficult to read because of the fuzziness and I had to skim via my peripheral vision. The spot grew until it was double, triple, quadruple the size.

Slowly, the undulating colors flowed outward and my primary field of vision was restored. I could read the text but the monitor frame was fuzzy. I closed both eyes and my brain perceived a crescent shape of color on the left side. It kept flowing outward until I saw the distorted colors and shapes in my peripheral vision (which gave me a throbbing headache). I couldn't escape by closing my eyes nor concentrate on anything else until this passed from my system.

This happened yesterday afternoon and the entire incident lasted about twenty minutes. It was one of the most frightening moments in my life for two reasons: vision’s relative importance and the feeling of utter helplessness. I was alone and my phone is not tactile so I imagined the steps as I lose my vision completely and bang on a random neighbor’s door to call for an ambulance; then the void of living the next sixty years without enjoyment of all the visual pleasures I currently take for granted. I would rank eyesight among the most satisfying of those marvelous miracles I enjoy on a daily basis.

Today is Easter Sunday and I just witnessed a particularly scenic orange sunset from my balcony. I spent the day considering all that I have to be thankful for and will continue to be mindful of in the future; in addition, I’ll probably schedule an appointment with an eye doctor.

s.d.

Good Days and Bad Days

I have good days and bad days. Like most people, I have some moments where I feel on top of the world and other moments where I feel the world is ending. There doesn’t seem to be any discernible pattern. Oftentimes, I wake up feeling great and leave work feeling upset for no reason. Other times, I have a difficult time getting out of bed yet wind up feeling like the luckiest guy on earth. The only constant when it comes to my feelings is that they are transitory. Neither end of the emotional spectrum reigns supreme. Today started out just fine, but by mid-day I felt downright rotten, and later I felt splendid. I’ve trained myself that the bad times are temporary and I shouldn’t dwell on them. I’ve learned to savour the good times. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to laugh, cry, and smile about tomorrow.

s.d.

Feeling Fortunate

Life is a strange conglomeration of planned and unplanned events. Today began unfolding itself in quite an ordinary fashion: I checked both the fun and boring parts off the list. I was driving back to my apartment feeling relaxed and found my street blocked off, and then another street, and then another... I glanced nervously around and gunned it the wrong way down a one-way street so I could return my car to its proper parking space. I paused. I took an extra moment because it felt good to be someplace that felt like home. Then I raced up to my unit and out onto its freezing cold balcony. There, I watched the fire department extinguish a smoky blaze across the street.

Most of the time I feel fortunate. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by life’s complications and it troubles me for a short time; I may seek reassurance in these fleeting moments. There is less uncertainty about my good fortune now that I can look out my window to see the charred remains of another home. If you’re reading this, I hope you realize that you are fortunate too.

s.d.

Most Fragile Thing

“Between us and heaven or hell there is only life half-way, the most fragile thing in the world.”

This is a breathtaking reflection on how delicate life truly is. Whether there is a heaven, a hell, or just the empty vacuum of space, it stands to reason that my life is a brittle, insignificant speck somewhere in its midst. At any moment, this life could splinter into a million undetectable, unrecognizable pieces. That’s how I feel when I consider religion, cosmology, and even human history. Each exerts its influence, pushes, squeezes, and squashes me; so far, I remain intact.

I borrowed this quote from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées. Pascal was a brilliant mathematician and physicist who became deeply religious late in life and abandoned most of his scientific research. I think he was most famous for “Pascal’s Wager” in which he argues that it’s irrational to bet against his faith since it promises an infinite reward (salvation) in exchange for risking something finite (life). In probably theory, the expected return of such a wager is also infinite which is a fancy way of saying that the risk is nil. (An aside: I took a seminar called “Thinking about Infinity” in which I refuted this argument in an essay. In essence, I claimed that life was not finite but infinitesimal and therefore the expected return of this wager is ambiguous and can be anything between zero and infinity.)

s.d.

Life is a Journey

There’s an interesting poem by Rabbi Alvin Fine that describes life: “Birth is a beginning / And death a destination / But life is a journey ... We see that victory lies not / At some high point along the way / But in having made the journey / Stage by stage / A sacred pilgrimage ...”

Even though I’m not a particularly religious person, this is a powerful and overwhelming concept. I saw this in a prayer book when I was a small child and it stuck with me. I’ve tried to live by it. Sometimes, I feel as if I’m in a rut and the next high place is so remote that I can’t possibly bear waiting. So I try to emphasize the importance of appreciating the present for all that it offers. I feel I’m succeeding in becoming more patient--at least most of the time.

As I meet others on their respective journeys who find themselves in similar ruts, I hope that I help them to emerge. I pray that, rather than just being a step along the way, I succeed in accompanying them to their high points.

s.d.

Nervous to Blog

Taking the first step is usually the toughest part of finishing something.

I think of all the deadlines I’ve had in my life: lab reports in high school, term papers in college, and PowerPoint presentations at work. I procrastinate like everyone else. I will never wait until the night before and pop caffeine pills. I do, however, wait until the ninth or tenth hour. Given six weeks to finish an assignment, I will proceed as follows:
* Days 1-37: wait
* Day 38: compose outline
* Day 39: compose rough draft (typically the longest night)
* Day 40: compose near-final draft
* Day 41: sleep on it (surprisingly important!)
* Day 42: change a few words around and submit

I feel miserable until I start the process but I still wait. Perhaps I’m lazy. More likely, it’s difficult for me to start something because I feel like it will set the tone for everything that follows. And I don’t want to make a mistake in the early stages. So I wait until an idea strikes me in some random flash of brilliance--and when that doesn’t happen--I wait until the deadline approaches.

The irony is that my finished product is usually quite far from where I started. I could have saved myself days of misery if I had only known better.

s.d.