Friday, May 30, 2008

3 Statements

A few statements that have come to mind lately:

{Fear is stupid}

{Nothing is homogenous, mostly everything has some underlying variation}

{Now that school is out for the summer, I am reminded that I dont know how to relax and have a day well spent}

Friday, May 16, 2008

Two Trains

Picture it: Two trains travelling at the same speed, in the same direction, towards the same target.

The target is {Knowing Something Really Well Station}.

As train 1 progresses on its journey to the station, passengers board and bring little bits of information with them. They have a lovely ride and stay on the train the entire way to the final station.

As train 2 progresses it gets more and more tired of its journey, again and again, the same thing. It contemplates stalling or jumping the tracks, anything to get off its narrow limited path through the countryside. As this train approaches its target station-it is completely run down and sick of the journey and the countryside and all of its passengers.

The two trains pull into the station at exactly the same time.

I realized the other day that these two trains, are actually the same train.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Here is New York

This is an excerpt from E.B. Whites book, {Here is New York}, 1948: I am going to get this book and read it.

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last--the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company. . . .

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Demons

When you are so crippled by anxiety and you let it overwhelm you to the point that you completely ditch out on the lecture you have to give- tears mixing with beads of sweat- then you realize that your problem needs to be addressed. You feel sorry for yourself and people treat you with the kid gloves of pity. You are ill and a loser.

But when you are crippled by anxiety and you dont let it own you and you walk through the door and you do give your lecture. No one cares that you are battling a demon, they just judge you on your lecture: that your voice was not loud enough, or that you overstated or understated something.

Not sure what I want, but it just occurred to me the other day that once you actually do something people never assume that it was the hardest thing that you have ever done. They just know that you did it and now you join the ranks of all the others who have done it and you are judged against them.

Maybe this is my secret reason of wanting to just opt out of things, then I wont be able to be judged against others and they will never know how good (or bad) I could have been.