I watched silently as you walk away from my side towards the summer sun.
I thought building a mosque near ground zero is insensitive enough. Burning Quran beats it all. Whatever happened to world peace that all the beauty queens talk about so 'passionately'? I guess those bs didn't move anyone's heart in the first place.
What really upsets me is that the person who is initiating this ridiculous move is a pastor, who is supposed to set a good example to his fellow companions as a leader. It is not as though he is a nobody who writes on his dissatisfaction on Facebook. (Anyway, what's with all the burning?! First that YOG news and now this... -.-)
I'm also disturbed by the fact that this pastor does not know anything about Islam and didn't even make the attempt to understand the religion. Well, isn't he just like the terrorists who refuse to understand the Westerners because of their mere pride and ignorance and, especially, ego?
This obviously will incite violence amongst people - even those who used to be tolerant and respectful of the various religions. And tell me, how can anyone NOT associate fire burning (and carrying pistol) with violence? So much for wanting this act to not lead to violence huh?
I wrote this when I was ten:
Sometimes I should take some time off and look around me. It doesn't matter whether I understand or not, but knowing what goes on will make life, at the very least, even more beautiful.
I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.
People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter's night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've received your test results and they're not so good.
Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.
You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?
Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.
Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.
It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.
I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.
Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.
I don't feel quite right. It is as if I am helplessly trying to stop the rain from falling. It is pointless but my heart carries a strong undying hope that I can do it, and when the rain eventually falls on me, I feel cheated and powerless.
I'm just not in the mood to do anything at work right now, but I have way too many things to do, so allow me to be pleasantly distracted before I plunge back to the endless dark hole.
Check out the 10 Most Bizarre World Records: http://news.xin.msn.com/en/silverlight-gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=4258364
The most heavily tattooed lady looks like a character from Avatar.
Okay, this is such a lifeless post. I'm just tired and I don't particularly like this feeling.
Oh, before I forget (like how so much forgotten time has passed), hello August. Is this really the month I was living for all these years? It doesn't feel so. Yet, i hope.
“I am the product of a society that attaches prestige to the ownership of cutting-edge electronic good and I am far from immune to its influence.” – Gary Hayden

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