Wednesday, February 23, 2011

LVI - the gift that keeps on giving

song of the week: ac/dc, thunderstruck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcKLqO789RU

dreaming is a dangerous game. discontent may fuck you up.

there's so much life in norwegian wood. you could say it helped.

life doesn't have innings like softball, but the idea is that each inning is a new one, and no matter what happened in the bottom of the fourth, or the top of the fifth, there's always the bottom of the fifth. three more outs and plenty of dangerous time. therefore, a person has to literally let go of everything that has passed, and go out and hit the ball hard.

and there comes a time when a person wants to learn to hit opposite field. and in that time he necessarily has to learn to limit himself so as to achieve good opposite field technique. and the limitations tend to reduce sharpness, either because the mechanics are different, or because the goals are different; at least in the first stages. but the truth behind hitting is to go out there, to see the ball and to let the disciplined instincts take over. so i guess the idea is that you can't hit the ball if you're not ready to hit the ball, pure and simple.

life takes time. people take time to know each other, in both compressions and rarefactions. it's a bit puzzling but i guess it's true. like getting used to a person's throw, coming to trust that throw, and slowly visualising the completion of a good strong throw. from the little things before a throw, such as a person's balance, posture, timing (mechanics), timing (sense of time in which to act) and confidence, many times the resulting flightpath of a throw can be foreseen. coming to trust the thrower and correspondingly the thrower to trust the catcher takes time.

there are few middle grounds in softball. something is either very difficult or very easy. i can't explain it either. i suppose this is why visualisation, playing according to basic fundamentals, and confidence is so important. i still feel a sense of semi-confused awe when i make a good throw. and i've been playing for twelve years.

i can't begin to describe how it feels to have someone put their trust in you as a team mate. i've missed my old team for so long. and now i'm starting to feel it. it's good.

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 i learned today that i take something very basic and very important for granted in softball. partly because no other sport requires it so much. and i realised i don't do it anymore, and it cost me. but no longer.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

LV - the green statue in my hall

in my heart there is a statue of the godfather which i have just removed.

you are my hero, don corleone, but it was a mistake to follow you, for now i know that i am made of meeker stuff.

i am made of few things and of many things. i take it that these are not of the world.

and now i go, as a man once did, to a celebration of his return.

apologies to his brother; but i never meant to be a prodigal.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

LIV - enervated

i feel colder lately. and feeling colder tends to reinforce being cold.

and i think in some sense the things said about and to me were right.

i feel kinda tired, and jaded. i dunno, blog. is that it? sigh, i'm not emo. i'm more jaded, i guess. scroogey. i'd like to put up some excuses for the way i feel, but i don't think i want to hear them.

my head thinks that it has to do with feeling disappointed about stuff, well, about something i was looking forward to. but i dunno, it all adds up and right now i feel quite. i feel quite muddled, like why people are so friendly and happy, and get along with each other so well. haha, what nonsense. i seem to be missing something, but it doesn't feel like i am.

and yes, you guys are right since you said it. i really am not nice. i think that i couldn't really care, but somehow some part of me feels jaded because of/ despite it.

it's not terribly bad, but it's there. on a scale of one to ten (this is my favourite simple thought exercise), with one being like i dropped a slice of apple and ten being, well, God not existing, i feel about a four. yes, that's about right. five would be like when i think about my mom. two would be about like having a stomachache. three would be like waking up an hour late for lecture, or losing a big gamble. six would be if i knocked my car, seven would be if i fought with someone, eight would be losing to that stupid school at softball, nine would probably be how i imagine Gatsby felt about losing Daisy after so long. hmm, it's quite hard to reach ten.

i don't like feeling like this. it's a funk. i like to say, as i usually tend to think, that things couldn't be better. but hell, i do wish for some things, and that is kinda uncharacteristic. i wish for some things.

jaded, jaded, oh how the mighty fall,
where are the things you hold dear now, the stones upon which you stood.
what do your creeds hold you to, you, futile of men.
jaded realised, the forest cares not for one proud tree.

Friday, February 4, 2011

LIII - to mourn, to mourn well, and to unmourn

i've cried more in the past few days than i have in my life, and it makes me feel stronger. it makes me feel like i've been somewhere important, i touched some feeling out there, perhaps waiting for me, or for anyone out there in the future. feelings that belonged to someone else, feelings that i took and empathised and understood and made a part of my maturity. strong feelings. and i never thought i'd cry broken-hearted; but people do.

there's so much love out there in this world. strong, majestic love. if there are better things to know and to admire, i'd rather not have them. love for the beloved, in every manner, shape or form. beloved for better or for worse, beloved in life and in broken-ness and in passing. for all the beautiful things that human beings do, love is the best. love is the foundation and the overcoming of loss. the loss of a full aliveness, the loss of a full life, but more: a mother's loss, a father's loss, a grandmother's loss, a cousin's loss, an uncle's loss, a friend's loss, a loss in a human person, a loss all in all in all. a loss echoing through a family clan, a loss irreplaceable. such is the nature of loss, and to know it is perhaps the half. but not only must the loss be known, the love must be known even more. weep then for the love.

and life must go full circle. after death there is life. such is the nature of things. where loss has impoverished the heart let not the heart be hardened. let the love of other things which require the attentions of love find precious room where it may. for life must go on, and if we are to be any part human then we must continue on life's footpaths. things that need life would need us to.

i suspect there is nothing really worth remembering about people, when they are gone. glory, power, wealth, beauty, piety, honour, pride, station, goodness, love. no, these are good and well but as much as i cherish these things i could but care little for them. and if a person's good things past are unimportant then all the less so is the loss of him. thus, i think, be of sorrow not for loss but for love lost, but be not of sorrow when love is yet needed. and love is always needed, in this old world, always with sorrow and always with preciousness.