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I like birds
-Liking the way you do that right thurr since 2001-
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Saturday, September 27, 2003
Continued from last week...
I'm convinced that Reeves is incorrect in his belief that "Because life is uncertain, the only way to avoid pain is to be careful to hold nothing dear."
I'll grant that "to hold nothing dear" may be one way to avoid pain, but it isn't the "only way".
My way to avoid pain is to understand and accept the uncertainty of life. My own take would be: Because life is uncertain, the best way to avoid pain is to understand that anything you hold dear is impermanent.
Manage your own expectations, and you'll spare yourself the emotional trauma when shit happens. Lives, loves, and jobs don't last forever.
Appreciate everything you hold dear, but don't expect them to always be there. If anything, use the uncertainty to remind you to take nothing you hold dear for granted.
posted by James at 9:46 PM | link
Saturday, September 20, 2003
In Happy Mondays, author Richard Reeves writes:
Anything or anybody that we invest heavily in has the power to hurt us. We grieve the loss of anything or anybody that has been precious to us. Because life is uncertain, the only way to avoid pain is to be careful to hold nothing dear. But who wants that?
Reeves makes the statement while making an argument for allowing yourself to be absorbed with work even though it puts you at emotional risk when things go wrong. He's basically arguing that caring deeply about something or somebody essentially places you in emotional jeopardy if anything bad happens to your object of affection or your relationship to it.
When I first read the passage, I found myself agreeing with the statement "Because life is uncertain, the only way to avoid pain is to be careful to hold nothing dear."
The line made me acutely aware of how little I fear the loss of anything that common belief says I should value: my possessions, my job, even my family and friends.
It may seem callous, but I simply don't fear the loss. If any of these losses were to occur, I'd be surprised, but I don't know if I'd be upset or sad, let alone emotionally devastated. Objects and people come and go. Nothing is static; change happens.
Of course, the sting of Reeve's closing "But who wants that?" judgement forced me to re-evaluate my valuation system. Is my current attitude some kind of misguided self-defense mechanism?
Nope.
But I'm tired now, so I'll explain later.
posted by James at 3:29 PM | link
Sunday, September 14, 2003
I feel left out when a television program mentions important, often tragic, moments in time that have the power to unify people -the moments where every person can recall where they were when they experienced the event or heard the news.
I never shared the excitement of seeing man walk on the moon for the first time. I wasn't around when John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, or Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. I think I was three when Reagan was shot (and I didn't even know someone tried to kill him until we were well into the first Bush Administration).
There are moments that I think I should remember, but I don't. I can tell you that I was in second grade when the Challenger went down, but that's only because I know it happened in '86 and I count back the years from there.
This post will be about the moments that I can remember. These aren't descriptions of the actual historical events. They're a simple recollection of my circumstances when I first learned of the news:
Nelson Mandela's release from prison - I didn't know who Nelson Mandela was, but news of his release was important enough to interrupt Saturday morning cartoons.
Fall of the Berlin Wall - I was on vacation in Hawaii with my parents. We watched the celebrations on the TV in the hotel room.
7.1 Loma Prieta Earthquake - I was at home watching TV, waiting for the World Series game (between the A's and the Giants) to start. The picture suddenly cut out, and then everything started shaking half a minute later.
LA Riots after the LAPD Rodney King criminal trial - We were on the bus ride home from a bonfire on the beach. I was listening to the radio on my walkman, and the DJ gave constant news updates on the riot situation thoughout the night.
OJ Simpson not guilty verdict - I was in Calculus class my senior year of high school, a student ran from room to room telling everyone the news. I only remember this moment because our teacher had to excuse himself from class a few minutes to recover from the blow.
I think our generation had already been raised with the understanding that the judicial system couldn't be trusted (see Rodney King trial above), but the older generation, who had the privilege of witnessing historic civil rights cases and high publicity murder verdicts, had a certain amount of trust and respect for the justice system.
Tupac's Death - I walked into the common room in the dorm, and Richard asked me if I heard that Tupac died yet. I thought he was kidding at first; I didn't even know Tupac had been shot earlier that week.
They played the radio over the loudspeakers in the dining commons that night -something they never did. Everyone ate dinner while listening to the DJs play Tupac's "Life Goes On" over and over in between tearful on-air listener testimonials.
9/11 - I remember checking sfgate.com, the first thing I do every morning. The top story picture looked like something out of a movie: a panicked man in an impossibly white button down shirt was running away from a large, expanding smoke cloud behind him. They changed the image a few minutes later to a picture of the smoking building remains, but I can't seem to forget the stark contrast between the white shirt and the dark smoke.
Those are the moments I remember. I probably have more, but they haven't come to mind while writing this post.
I think these circumstance memories may provide interesting insight into an individual's and an entire generation's world perspective. I don't remember what I was doing when I heard Princess Di or Biggie Smalls died, but other people probably do.
What do you remember? Why?
posted by James at 9:32 PM | link
Thursday, September 11, 2003
This article makes me feel better about not being impressed with most of the work I had to read during my last two weeks at Cal.
posted by James at 11:20 PM | link
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