Of sensations and perceptions

In a room full of mirrors, what is it that you see?

Is it all about you?

Or are the images not what they seem to be?

In the depths of the sea, what do you hear?

Is it all hushed and still?

Or is the silence deafening to the ears?

At the top of the mountain, how do you breathe?

Is it deep and comforting?

Or can you barely catch it?

In the middle of the darkness, what is it that you feel?

Is it comforting solace? Or the brink of loneliness?

Is it reassuring calmness? Or is it dredging fear?

Enter the Dragon

Another year is about to end and pretty soon, we shall all welcome the year 2012. It is interesting to observe that there is a polarity among people who have expectations about the year to come. The naysayers believe the impending doom that the world will end by December, as predicted by the Aztec calendar and as popularized by pop culture. The fortune tellers, meanwhile, anticipate the auspiciousness of the dragon, as calculated by the Chinese astrologers. Of course, we can also stay in the middle ground and combine the two: Drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

I couldn’t help but think that 2012 is the best time to really consider the adage of living your life fully as if it is your last day to live. What better time is it to take new chances and try on an adventure but the year of the dragon seen to be full of good luck? Imagine the regret you will have when you miss the opportunities to do the things you’ve always wanted to do when you run out of time just like everybody else!

Risk and caution may not be amicable with each other, but there is prudence in taking chances and learning from mistakes.

 

Hey

Life has a strange way of coming into full circle.

With the apparent meaningfulness (or lack thereof) of a date like today, I came across a not so distant memory.

Is this a test of prudence? Is this a test of will?

Tact has gotten me nowhere.

For I am still here, and you are still there.

Thoughts that are not Mine: Courage and Fear

..found some ramblings and notes while i was cleaning out my closet..

• No man is brave unless he is afraid. And if there is anything worth fearing in the world, it is living in such a way that one gives oneself cause for regret in the end.
• It is what we aspire to be that colours our characters — and it is our trying, not just our succeeding, which ennobles them. The moment you recognize you were after all a contender, you understand that there are many sorts of victories. The idea of good defeats — those which you learn or give, or allow the better to flourish — is an important one.
• Critics say the middle way blocks the road to progress.  the bold, adventurous, daring act, the quick response, the impulsive choice, even the taking of risks, are what have led to change and growth both in personal lives and in mankind’s fortunes. For impulse is not necessarily imprudence, or does a normally thoughtful life exclude trust in the emotions and instincts. There is a larger prudence in living boldly, because more possibilities for love and knowledge open that way. There are defeats more triumphant than victories.
• Ordinary life evokes extraordinary courage than combat or adventure because both the chances and inevitabilities of life – grief, illness, disappointment, pain, struggle, poverty, loss, terror, heartaches — all of them common features of the human condition. Everyday demands kinds of endurance and bravery that make climbing up the Everest seem an easier alternative.
• There is a different kind of courage required for the task of being human: the courage to meet the new and to accept the different in the chances of experience.
• The Aristotelian man is prudence personified because he always seeks the Golden Mean in any circumstance: courage, for example, is the mean between cowardice and rashness, as generosity is the mean between miserliness and profligacy.