Success.

Success

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.


-Ralph Waldo Emerson

How to sell all your stuff.

Once in a while I come across a line, a sentence or something that encourages me to think about certain things. One of these is the website: http://www.neverendingvoyage.com/how-to-sell-all-of-your-stuff-part-1/

You've probably heard the line 'the things you own end up owning you' before. Well,
cliché as the line may be, it's still very much true.

The quote I'm talking about is:
'Lately I’ve been contemplating how attached people become to the things they own. We live in a very consumer driven culture where we are constantly told that our possessions define us as people. We buy iPhones and leather jackets and even cereal because it embodies the lifestyle we want to lead. As a result the physical things we own start to become not just our goals but our responsabilities. There are costs to owning things, both big and small, which we never even stop to consider. Without going TOO obnoxiously preachy on everyone I have to ask if getting so caught up in the possesing of stuff distracts us from what’s really important in life?'
by -Steph- (that's all I know)

So this got me thinking about my own situation. I'm not going to go on a preachy rant here about how we 'should all better ourselves and start living like hermits'. A couple of years ago, I've come to the realization that I own A LOT of stuff. And like the author of the quote, I've decided to let most of it go. These are things that I don't miss or even think about when I'm away. So, in the spirit of fully - blossomed spring, I'm doing a cleanup after my exams in June.
The hardest things that I will try and let go are books. I've recently picked up the habit of passing on books that I've read, in hopes that others might enjoy them as much as I did. I encourage them to do the same, and pass the books on when they finish them. Somehow I find this to be a lot harder than I imagined. I somehow always think that I will 'need' those books in the future. A personal goal to work on.
Another thing are CD's. Dozens upon dozens of punk-rock cd's that I've accumulated over the course of my pre-teen and teenage years, and that are (most of them anyway) stored on a hard-drive by now. I have the feeling these will be particularly hard to let go as well. Like giving away a part of my childhood. Silly? But necessary. I will probably never be able to kill the materialist within, I will always 'need' certain things which I really don't. But I will enjoy the conscious struggle, that's for sure.

Which brings me to this: something I wrote on a scrap piece of paper somewhere, a while ago, can't remember when:

I chose experiences, I chose adventure. I chose love.

Everybody seems to be in a continuous chase.
People chase that which they desire. Most of us let our lives, thoughts and actions be ruled by desire.
To want is innate to man's being. We chase beauty, we chase ideals.
We focus so much on reaching that goal that we don't enjoy running across the field. We feel like it's our duty to teach, while we forget what it's like to be a student.
We don't think about the legs enabling us to get there. We don't think about our lungs filling themselves with air to keep us going.
Our eyes and mind are always fixed on the finish line.

I, most of all, don't ever think about these things. I get so caught up in reaching my desires, it being experiences, it being love, it being thoughts, it being pleasure, it being altruism and especially egoïsm, it being skills, that I lose sight of the way.

I often see daily life as an obstacle. My personal purgatory where I wait until the time comes for me to move on. I wake up in the morning counting down how many more of these mornings to go until I can finally be in control of my own path again.

But.. Come on. Really? Is this the idea that I'm living for? Is this what I've become? Now I'll write 'no more'. But I know, in a day or two, my mind will have set itself back to that old state.

That's why it's important that I live purposely. That I draw conscious, not automated breaths.



I can feel the hypocrisy, sitting here writing about materialism on my fancy laptop, inside a nice house, plenty of food in the fridge. Judge me those who think you can. I mostly write this for myself, and I'm working on my path.

Reconnecting with the lost girl-cell. Food for thought.

As a new adult recently emancipated from the many tedious tasks of the past four years, i will take advantage of this newfound freedom. i’m moving on to find my place in the world. and as my good friend eddie says, “i keep setting forth in the universe.” be it no concern. which brings me to vietnam. a plan that is, small step by small step, slowly becoming more real. even as details begin to fall into place, i cannot even begin to fathom what my life will look like in a month or two. but i’m okay with that. i find peace in the not knowing. it’s exciting, this newfound freedom.

I found this on a blog recently. Author is unknown, but his or her vision feels very familiar. In about 1,5 years, I hope to set forth in the universe myself, with the same hopes and breath of freedom.

He says his name is Mr. Nit

We’re standing on the side of the road somehwere north of Luang Prabang, Laos. About half an hour earlier, we had decided to rent some motorcycles and go swim in the nearby waterfalls. However, once we were well out of town, one of the bikes got a flat tire, so we were forced to retrace our wheels and ended up at a makeshift garage some 15 km down the road.

The garage is basically a shack with the bare necessities, being handled awe-inspiringly by two young grease-monkey-style mechanics. I’ve always had a weakness for the ‘your average grease-monkey’. The overalls, the mandatory cigarette butt hanging out the corner of the mouth, a half-broken guitar hanging on the wall and the tough, borderline-arrogant attitude you reveive always intrigued me.
Too bad I don’t know shit about cars or anything that is not a shoe. (one of the many goals I have set for myself – learn the mechanics of a car)

The owner of the place is sitting squat-style on a stack of spare tires, and for the first minute we exchange glances between shyness and curiousness. After which, we all burst out in broad grins.
It doesn’t require much effort to explain what’s wrong with the bikes, and the mechanics get to work.
He says his name is Mr. Nit.
He explains to us he’s been running this garage for about 3 years, as an extra job on the side. He works as an English teacher in a nearby school, and promptly invites us to drop by the next day (We would end up missing this meeting, and donating some of the books we brought to the school instead).

All of a sudden he stops talking mid-sentence and walks into his house. A few minutes later he re-emerges holding something in his arms: the cutest baby-girl if I ever saw one.
Three months old, and she’s looking around at all the bright and colourful things around her, in a way that most of us have long since forgotten how.
After a bit of chit-chat about the girl, Nit becomes completely serious and asks us: ‘Will you give her a name?’

Looking at our confused expressions, he explains that Lao people have their Lao name, and a sort of English nickname (as you may have guessed, Nit is his English one).

Being caught completely off-guard with the question of thinking of a name for his child, my friend and I are both speechless.

One of the grease-monkeys gives the signal that our bike is repaired. We decide to think about the name and make arrangements for meeting the next day. We pay the bill and get on the bikes.

As I start the bike, I look back at these 4 people in their daily life. I can’t help but be awe-struck by the kindness and randomness of this happy-go-lucky attitude.
Nit looks at me, then at the little bundle of joy in his arms, then back up towards me, and gives me the broadest grin I have seen in ages.

Work.

Work. Some crave it, others despise it. Some need it, others drown in it. For the moment, many can’t find it. Some people say they thrive on the ‘high’ of a stressful office-lifestyle. To each's own.

However, what can seem like the most mundane chore to an outsider, can be a core-factor in a daily routine for someone.A source of confirmation that we're still useful to society, even if that society is limited to our own household.

Whether we like it or not, in our current day and age, work gives a certain (illusion of) safety. People like routines. They like something to hang on to, something that’ll be there every day. Ironically enough, at times it’s often those very routines that end up tying one down and becoming the main obstacle for personal development.

Work is a malevolent goddess, made impossibly conceited by Unlimited and untempered flattery. She does not even make any effort to attract new lovers, knowing that no matter how insolent and indifferent she is to them, they will cast themselves on her sacrificial pyre unasked.
It may not mean much to her who has everything she could want already, but I am vain enough to hope that she is nettled when, strolling unsouciantly through her temple, I raise my eyebrows in amused contempt as I look at her marble eyelids, and walking with a slight swagger, feeling her hostile eyes boring through my back, I saunter gracefully out of the dim, reeking temple.

Everett Ruess – letters 1933 to Fritz Loeffler – in ‘A vagabond for Beauty’.

It’s clear that Everett Ruess doesn’t like work. He says not to have the proper constitution nor stamina for it, and doesn’t care for it. You might say he looks down upon those who do ‘cast themselves upon her pyre’.

Joseph Conrad wrote in Heart of Darkness: ‘I don’t like work, but I like what’s in the work: a chance to redeem yourself.’

It’s true. Work does bring a sort of piece of mind at times. Mind you, I’m talking about (physical) labour, not a 9 to 5er in an office. There should be a clear distinction between work in the original sense of the word, and work in the sense 20th century society has given it.

I can’t say I completely agree with Ruess, however. Work has its values. To me, work can be a means to an end, but I do believe it should stop there. Personal work however - education, a life’s work, artistic expression, constructing a home for your loved ones – should only stop when you feel it should.

But few things feel as right as reaping certain rewards work might offer.

‘Work is a blessing when it helps us to think about what we’re doing, but it becomes a curse when its sole use is to stop us thinking about the meaning of our life.’ - Coelho

A possibility for change always needs energy and friction.

Let’s see work as a way to personal enrichment, but let’s not have it in cash-value, for a change.

Prospects.

'What does he care if he hasn't got any money: he doesn't need any money, all he needs is his rucksack with those little plastic bags of dried food and a good pair of shoes and off he goes and enjoys the priviliges of a millionaire in surroundings like this and what fouty millionaire could get up this rock anyhow? It took us all day to climb!'

'And I promised myself that I would begin a new life. All over the West, and the mountains in the East, and the desert, I'll tramp with a rucksack and make it the pure way.'

Kerouac - The Dharma Bums.