'Tis true. Very true.

I do have tunnel vision. I have wanted to write for a few days, but each time I tell myself off for wanting time to myself given that my looming exams are just around the corner. But now I shall give myself a quick break, before I tackle some more work.

There are a few things I would like to share today. Lack of time makes for lack of effort, and hence I shall start by copying and sharing a poem by Philip Larkin.

Why should I let the toad work

 Squat on my life?

Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork

 And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils

 With its sickening poison -

Just for paying a few bills!

 That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:

 Lecturers, lispers,

Losels, loblolly-men, louts-

 They don't end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes

 With fires in a bucket,

Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-

 they seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,

 Their unspeakable wives

Are skinny as whippets - and yet

 No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough

 To shout Stuff your pension!

But I know, all too well, that's the stuff

 That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like

 Squats in me, too;

Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,

 And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney

 My way of getting

The fame and the girl and the money

 All at one sitting.

I don't say, one bodies the other

 One's spiritual truth;

But I do say it's hard to lose either,

 When you have both.

I think the theme is self-explanatory. I shan't comment on the meaning, after all poetry is meant to resonate in each and everyone both in similar and divergent ways.

But I shall explain how I relate to this poem. The toad that squats in me has been croaking for many years, and although I may not yet actually be earning a penny, the amount of labour the toad demands of my penniless self makes me wonder how I can stand him at all. I too wonder at times why I cannot let things go and see where they take me. This is something I would like to try to learn, albeit not right now as my exams are looming.

The theme of letting yourself go and accepting yourself for who you are is very nicely portrayed in Disney's famous movie Frozen. So widely distributed, I won't give a link to the original song. However, today I came across a version that I found quite amusing given my circumstances.

 

I wish I could feel this way. But cannot not care. Whenever I have such thoughts, I cannot help but remember all the great things I want to accomplish in my life, as well as the amount of effort I have already put into my studies and experience. I am tired though. Exhausted actually. I want this to stop. And I would like to be carefree for a while. I really wish I could take a break from everything soon.

I must return to my Accounting Analysis, and my Statistical Analysis, and my... Oh you get the gist.

So yesterday I mentioned that I had seen two different movies. I talked about the first one at length but I did not have time to properly describe the second one. The second one was also a comedy (I need those these days) called "Qu'est ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?" (in English, What have we done to God?)


The movie is a reflection on interracial and intercultural relationships. Three daughters of a very French, very Catholic and very bourgeois family each marry a man of immigrant descent: a Muslim named Rachid, a Jew named David, a man of Chinese descent named Chao. The final daughter, Laure, is about to marry her black Ivorian boyfriend, to the great despair of her parents.

I found the movie to be great fun. I laughed a lot, but most importantly, it made me reflect on my own similar experiences. There are many issues I would have liked to address, but time constraints will only allow me to discuss one for now.

Sympathy vs. Empathy: how to understand others

Having been raised by a more or less atheist and very open-minded Northern European mother and very Catholic, fairly conservative Southern European father, I have to say that cultural differences do not make family life easy. Even if you stay within a single continent, the mentalities can vary widely, and it is never easy to change or see things from the other person's point of view. I myself have great difficulties seeing things as other people would see them. This does not mean that one does not take into consideration the circumstances of others, but merely transposes their own thoughts and opinions on the other person's situation. This simplification makes it a lot easier to understand, but it can lead to some counter-productive results.

From personal experience, I find Catholics (Christians?) tend to do this a lot. The Golden Rule ("do unto others as you would have them do unto you") is widely quoted, and yet quite misleading. Originally meant to keep everyone happy and satisfied, it overlooks the reality that each person's happiness is derived from different elements, and that one cannot simply transpose one's own desires onto others. It leads to a combination of condemnation if others express their different desires or perceptions of the world, and sympathy as those involved tend to be incapable (or perhaps unwilling) of altering their own perceptions in order to understand the other person's situation.

One might think that sympathy is not a bad thing. Indeed, in French the word "sympa" or "sympathique" is commonly used to mean a "nice" person. But in reality, sympathy can be very similar to condescension. If anything, it may even dismiss other people's pain completely. Therefore, one ought to focus on Empathy, which is the process of putting oneself in someone else's shoes. To illustrate this, this is a video that I recently watched that I personally really liked: 

In the movie, those who tend to make these mistakes are the parents, as the movie does not focus at all on the issues within the different couples. Rather, it is about the parents coping with their children's choices in life. The parents sympathise with their sons-in-law, but do not empathise with them. They know very little about their sons-in-law, and in all honesty refuse to try. It is only half-way through the movie do they all start taking steps towards understanding each other. The mother starts to take Zumba lessons, she makes three roast Turkeys: Halal, Pekin-style, and Kosher, and she connects with the mother of her soon-to-be son-in-law on their favorite part of the Bible.

The sons-in-law have similar issues among themselves, stereotyping the others and accusing them of various things. One thing I did rather enjoy about this is that the movie does show that minorities can also be just as racist against one another as "White" people can. This is a discussion I will have another time, but the concept that White people cannot be the target of racism or that minorities cannot be racist has always perplexed me.

In the past two days I watched two different movies, both comedies aimed at lifting my spirits.

 It has been a long time since I last posted here. Yet, although things around me have changed, it seems that I myself have not.

Yes, I have been through new experiences. I met someone whom I fell in love with. I lived with a friend with whom I had a great many arguments. I studied at a new school, a new subject entirely.

And yet, I am still in the same turmoil as when I last posted. But this is where I draw the line.

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Change is necessary both within and without. I need to change.

A friend compared me to a beautiful bird stuck inside its own shell. If only I could peck my shell away, I could finally live.

I have travelled far and wide. I have been to China, to India, to Japan, to the United Kingdom, to the United States. I have travelled across Europe. I have even lived in many of these countries. And yet, I still have not properly experienced any of them it seems.

I still do not fully understand how I can peck at my shell, or better, break it up. I realise it has much to do with inner peace, and little to do with control. But in a sense, it is also all about control, because the aim is to gain better control over my life, emotions and mind.

So I have decided that I need to start moving towards my goal.

My first step in understanding what I need to do was to watch, corny as this may sound, the film Eat, Pray Love with Julia Roberts. I had already watched it once, but I had absolutely abhorred it. Somehow yesterday I felt the need to re-watch it. And sure enough, I find it has helped.

These are the quotes I picked up throughout the movie which I feel have meaning and that I could benefit from:

Dolce far nienti

 Ruin is a gift. Ruin is a road to transformation.

For this one, I think I should explain my situation, because this seems to give me a new outlook on myself. I feel like my heart is in ruin. My heart started out strong, able to stand up to bullies who wanted my sandwiches. But hurtful child-play broke out around me, and upon my strong heart was thrown a mountainful of names, slanders, and insults. Injured, my heart came out of all this with hatred for those who had wronged me, and obsession to make them see who I could be, what I could become. I dreamt of them asking me for a job, being at my mercy. But life doesn't work that way. They did not stay in my life. Our paths met, and then we went our separate ways. Only the pain and hatred remained.

Soon after that, I began high school. Pressure to succeed lead my heart further astray, into a thorny forest of stress and solitude. Within the forest, my heart met someone who called herself Depression. At first, Depression just stood away from my heart, watching me and my heart as we walked on further into the forest. But slowly, as we left her alone, she approached us and we befriended her. Depression made the thorny forest fun. The thorns still hurt, but we could now play hide and seek. Depression knew and understood what my heart was going through, and Depression actually felt like a long lost friend.

Around this time, my parents took me to a doctor. My mother herself had long been friends with Depression, but on the advice of doctors she had kept her at bay by taking powerful medication that repelled Depression. I was told to take the same medication. But how could I take the medication when Depression soothed the thorns of the forest? At least she made it fun. I began to dance with my Depression. At times I would keep her at bay, at others I would invite her back into my arms.

After high School, depression left for a while. But sometime in my third year of university, I found my way back into the thorny forest and I found her again. Three years on, we are still together.

My Heart is in ruin because of the bombing of words as a child. My Heart is in ruin because of the excessive dancing with Depression. Love of course is in the equation, and only adds to the heartache I now feel. But now I understand that if my Heart is in ruin, that means that it can transform. I want it to transform. I need it to transform. And it is time for me to end my Heart's relationship with Depression.

Waiting for him to forgive you is a damn waste of time. Forgive yourself. 

I mentioned that love was in the equation. Yes, I have loved. Yes, I still love.

But I felt that love was preventing me from moving forward. Although you learn to walk with your parents holding your hands, it is only when you take your first steps on your own that you are truly walking. This is what I now need to do. Thank you Tony for having held my hand. Thank you Tony for having lifted me up and walked with me for a year and a half. I am forever grateful for that. But now I need to learn to walk on my own.

Until yesterday, I have been crying my eyes out thinking about him. I knew I caused him pain. I knew he was angry. I knew he wanted to move forward.

I wanted him to forgive me. I wanted to do what was right by him. But I realise now that my actions have been taken, and the only way for him to forgive me is if I forgive myself first. I will forgive myself, and I will move forward.

Hopefully, one day I will be able to walk and run to see him, and he will see that what I did I did not do in vain. But before that, I must forgive myself.

God dwells within you as you.

This one is a little tricky for me. Raised in the Catholic faith, I have always had a strenuous relationship with God. The someone may believe that a man born on this earth was actually the son of God, born to a virgin of 13/14 in the middle of the desert on one December night has always bewildered me. I did do my holy communion, I did study catechism at school, my parents were married in a church and I do believe in the sanctimony of marriage, but Christianity has never seemed "for me."

The concept of God however I do believe in. I have prayed many a time. I have talked with him, and I am trying to find him as we speak.

I want to believe in God, I truly do. I want to love God. And so I am in search of God. Now for some time I have always thought that the song "He lives in you" from the Lion King 2 was a reference to God, and meant that God was within each and every one of us. This seems to be what Gilbert found on her trip to India, and this is going to be my quest.

As I write, these are but words. But I want this to become the Truth: I believe that God dwells within me.

As a resolution, I want to go to the temple. I will meditate. But most importantly, I want to read and find a belief that I can respect.

It is ok to have broken heart. It means you have loved for something.

Tony, I hope you read this someday. My Heart is truly broken. I do not want to leave you. I love you still.

I understand that I have not shown it adequately during our relationship, but I want to earn back your respect, your love, your approval. I am sorry for the pain I have caused you.

But please look at my broken Heart: although it might not have been obvious, it was True.

When you set out in the world to help yourself, sometimes you end helping… tutti. (Everybody)

Now this is the goal. I want to help. I know this may sound kitsch, I know it may sound cliche, but I want to do the best I can to help those around me, as well as those on the other side of the world from me.

But now I understand, that before I can help "Tutti", I must first help myself.

And this is where my journey begins.

Written without music, and in two steps.