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June 21, 2005
Halo In The Sky
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Words From a Better Yesterday
Wrote this yesterday:
The previous week was spent at a not-so-faraway place for a spiritual retreat. It was a fruitful getaway and one which meant that my mind would be far removed from all things associated with life here. Not having access to the internet also ensured that I would be relatively untainted by the latest developments on the local blog scene (and notably the furor over someone’s posting of a photo of herself in her birthday suit). I have no problems with that, since some may have already seen better (or worse) floating somewhere in cyberspace. I do not have issues with how people choose to interpret it, since I do not own their eyes, or with privacy, since that young lady has chosen to do that (albeit by blurring her face out). My main argument is with something else altogether and I made my thoughts known on a particular site.
The world can continue to turn upside, toss on its head or implode. The one thing I have taken away from the spiritual retreat was simply one of trying to see beyond the things of life and to focus on life itself. It would be a tad sad to, using corporate speak, benchmark one’s life on the number of aces one scored academically, the amount of commas and zeros on one’s paycheck, the number of comments on one’s blog / journal and the fame, popularity contests. Statistics can indeed prove one’s worth, very much like how companies rate themselves. Yet, should there not be more to one’s life than aces, clicks, amount of money in the bank account, fame or popularity? Will there be any end to this?
In short, I am in pursuit of getting the best out of my life. It is not an earth-shattering piece of logic or common sense. It is not something that will make heads turn. It is not something that will make one appear three weeks in a row in the national rags. It is not about how others rate me or how I rate myself via mere numbers.
It is about my life and what I make out of it. I will attempt once again to isolate myself from the crazy world of the rat race and the numbers game. How can anyone define for me what it means to be successful with my life?
***
Perplexing Perhaps
She called again last evening. This came after a chat at some coffee place (although I was never a coffee drinker) on Sunday evening, and this came after a week of regular calls in the evenings…so much so that I could now recognize her house number when it flashed on my mobile.
Then at a point in time during our conversation, I recalled someone’s question about whether I was treading on thin ice for this, since she was already attached in a relationship which she felt insecure over. I remember my response to that and it was something along the lines of how my conscience was clear because inherently I had zilch feelings for her. I left it as that.
Now, I began to wonder why she would choose to call me pretty regularly on evenings when she already had someone who would be there for her. Perhaps he was unavailable when she needed to talk. Yet, is that not what boyfriends are for? Or perhaps subconsciously or not, in her mind, I was considered something of a surrogate boyfriend of sorts. Or, to put things simply, I was a confidente. Yet, I thought girls usually have their own circle of close girlfriends whom they shared their deepest and darkest secrets with and went ticklish all over them?
I have to admit that there are times when I do not know what to make of this. Not that I am adversely affected. I am more concerned about what her boyfriend, who has his own checkered history of being unfaithful or insensitive, would think when he found out that his girlfriend has been calling another bloke up for chats late in the evenings regularly.
Seriously, I do not want to conjure up another storm now that the one I have been dealing with for a long while has finally died down.
***
Zine: Telling Like It Is
I find it hard to believe myself, but work has already begun on the second zine. I penned the introduction or preface to it yesterday and started browsing through my very first publication for a self-appraisal of sorts. I am now unsure of how I would set the theme for my second zine. I wanted it to be a little collection of short stories which I have written at first, but now, I was more inclined towards putting together a little hotch-potch of entires which reflected my life for the past two years.
I am not trying to boast but I do believe that I have enough material at hand to plonk things together. The hard parts are to find a focus for it as well as to make it spiffier than its predecessor. What I would need now is to find someone to pen the foreword for the zine as well as to see if anyone could help me with designing the front cover.
It may well be exciting days ahead. Think about it, only my second (amateurishly) published work in hard copy.
(By the way, I still have copies of my first zine with me*. So if you are interested in getting a copy, please drop me an email with your mailing address and I will post it over to you. And yes, no matter where you are, I will pay for the postage, but you have to tell me how much it would possibly cost for me to mail it over.)
* Contrary to what I said once before, I did not shred them all up.
Posted by D W at June 21, 2005 10:13 AM
Comments
Do tell us when it's done. I'd like to read it.
Posted by: areya at June 21, 2005 03:22 PM
areya: Will most definitely keep you updated. :) Thanks for your interest.
Posted by: D W at June 21, 2005 05:00 PM