Meaning of Life

"We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life,
and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--
daily and hourly."

-Victor Frankl

Selfishness

"There is something inherently selfish about not allowing the love that you are capable of see the light of day for fear it will someday cause you pain.

Of course it will cause you pain.

It's the risk of pain that creates the love in the first place. I think I had come to want the love without the risk, but that was an illusion. There isn't such a thing."

-Donald Miller

That's a good quote.

Move it Along

Characters in a story need an "incendiary action" that will move the plot along.

Something, that once done, cannot be undone.

A door that is walked through,
through which you can never return.

Acting on a whim.
Pushing yourself into risk.
Following through with an impulse.
Defying your own comfort zone.

Involving yourself before you have a chance to talk yourself out of it.

Who Are We?

who is this person?

are they

loving or cruel

generous or selfish

strong or weak

truthful or a liar

courageous or cowardly

in pursuit of their desire?



i am as i do.

Iran is Not Utopia Yet

This morning I sorted through news articles on Iran's election. A week ago I was smiling in the car, listening to an NPR story about the expected victory of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the opposition to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I was thinking, "Maybe 2009 is a new year for our little world. Maybe violence, oppression and craziness will just fade out, rather than having to be pushed down."

And with that thought I wondered about a world in which what is rational actually rises to the surface and gains the popularity of entire groups and nations of people. It seemed like a wonderful world to be a part of.

This morning's soundbytes were a range of speakers asking questions about the irregularities of the election results in Iran and voicing opinions about the protests that have turned the hopeful election fever in that country into a black smoke of civil unrest. I came across this little animation project that is reminiscent of that well-done animation "Persepolis."

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.

Whatever ideas I may have had about Iran's possibilities, I was most likely wrong.

The Grey Albatross Flies

Another new adventure begins today.

Lily, Get the Ball!

This is our dog, Lily, whose favorite activity is fetching a ball. It is a strange experience, to sit for twenty minutes on a lawn chair in the backyard, tossing a slimy ball across the grass so that your dog can fetch it and bring it back. Strange for the body to throw and wait, throw and wait, throw and wait.

In an article in today's New York times about manual labor, Matthew Crawford said something brilliant about my generation:

"Confrontations with material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts.

What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive."

Working in an office, sending emails into space and receiving them back again, over and over--can end up feeling a lot like playing fetch with the family dog. I spent a small portion of my vacation throwing a ball--but a much larger part planting bushes and flowers in a garden. I was bored by fetch but inspired by the work of digging, planting and watering.

Crawford referred to a poem by Marge Piercy in his article, and I liked the feel of it:

"The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
...
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real."

-Marge Piercy, To Be of Use