The Road to Recovery

It's been a sad couple of weeks. Last Wednesday, I had my first real sports injury, a partial hamstring tear and on Friday, I lost my mum-in-law to be.

The hamstring injury keeps me away from running for about 3 weeks, just when I was beginning to get some rhythm after a considerable break from long-distance running. And poof! My hamstring goes bust. In the midst of dealing with it, and it is a HUGE deal to me to miss marathon prep, my fiancee's ma passed away.

That took the wind out of my sails. And it was so sudden! Everything happened in a day, just like when Papa passed away over two years ago. It was really sad, even more so because she'll miss the wedding in a couple of months.

I'll be honest here. I didn't get to know her as well as I'd liked to, but we got on well. We'd make fun of my fiancee together, talk about cricket a little and exchange pleasantries. She was extremely warm and treated me like a son. I'll miss not having her around.

My fiancee's been very strong about it and I'm proud of her, but I won't write more about that here to respect her privacy. I think people's feelings on the loss of someone very dear should be kept private unless they volunteer to speak/write about it.

We've spent the last week dealing with the loss as a family and it's been tough. Like all such losses, I know this is one we will never fully get over. That's just the way death is. It leaves you wondering what just happened. Especially when it hits you so suddenly.

You wonder if everything you shared was a big dream. Those family holidays, the day your parent slapped you for doing something wrong, the surprisingly good report card you turned in every once in a while (read, 5 years in my case)... it feels like a different life. Surreal.

Where did they all go...

Exercise Ideas

Now that I've quit my job, I'm going to have more time in the early mornings.

One of the things I'm definitely going to do is start swimming again. I went for a swim this morning and it felt great! There was only one other person in the pool, I got a nice big wide lane and I gave it a good go considering I was swimming swimming (that's intentional, like properly swimming) after a long time.

60 lengths of a 25-metre pool was fun. And not too tiring either. (I took three brief 1-minute stops after a set of 20 lengths. 40 freestyle and 20 breast-stroke.) I've really missed swimming and it felt so good to back in a pool again. Besides, it's great to cross-train with running.

Another thing I'm going to do is get me a cycle. One of the little things that annoyed me about my job was the amount of fuel I'd have to burn to get to work everyday. (I drive about 56 kms a day right now.) Contributing to pollution, global warming and all that. It may seem stupid to you but it was this little thing always sat at the back of my head.

So anyway, once I get my cycle, I'm going to try and cycle short distances. I stay eco-friendly and I get exercise.

On a completely different note, I think I've got the soul of a hippy. Sometimes, I think I belong a world that wasn't so fast. Like my parents' generation or something. Blues and jazz, people had time for each other, idealism, romance. It all sounds like a dream now. Everything is so fast. The food, relationships, dating, cars, reading, work, deadlines. Where are we going in such a hurry?

The Secret

I was rained in yesterday so I decided to watch 'The Secret' movie.

I'd read about the law of attraction a little earlier but the movie was quite interesting. I'm not entirely convinced about it, but it has certainly got me thinking.

Basically, the movie/book says that you attract whatever happens to you with your thoughts. So if you're thinking of good things happening, chances are that they will happen. Likewise with bad stuff. What you "feel" is feedback on your thoughts.

Another very interesting point in the movie was that we should focus more on asserting what we want rather than thinking about things that we do not want. For example, instead of thinking 'I don't want to get stuck in a jam today.', I could probably think 'I'd like my ride to work to be smooth and quick.'

Why am I not fully convinced about all this? Mmm... I think my main question is what about all the people who think good things will happen to them or want good things to happen to them and they never happen. For some people, it could be earning lots of money. For others, it could be a dream holiday. I don't know. What about all those people?

My counter-question to my doubt is 'How do I know exactly what all those other people were thinking? Suppose they were just saying it on the outside but had some negative thoughts in their heads?'

The solution to this is to experiment with this Secret thing myself. I haven't really paid attention to my thoughts like this. But let's see how it goes. I think it's worth a shot.

Do you have any thoughts on The Secret? Have you experimented with it?

Caribbean Monk Seal - R.I.P.

The Caribbean Monk Seal

Yeah, that's right. Our race has wiped off another beautiful animal off the planet. They were killed for their blubber.

I can't tell you how sad I felt when I read this in the papers yesterday. A horrible helpless sadness.

How long will we humans live like the world was meant for only our "consumption"? How long will continue to systematically destroy our planet while we spend our lives lusting after more of everything?

Some day, all our indulgences are going to come back and bite us so hard in the ass that we will regret every little one of them. And it'll be too late.

I guess it's a cycle. We're (I include myself here) too stupid to understand how our lives and our lifestyles will destroy us.

Private jets, highly fuel-inefficient Hummers, food wastage, smoking, our hour-long drives to work in private transport, all our greed... it's all going to come back.

I'm not even sure we can reverse the damage we've done. I don't know. The least we can do, nay, must do, is to live as eco-friendly as possible. Because one day, the Caribbean Monk Seal's fate will be our own. The saddest part—we'd have "hunted" ourselves down.

To read more, click here.

P.S. The Hawaiian and Mediterranean Monk Seals are also at a high risk of extinction. If nothing else, pray for them.

9-to-(occasionally)5

The longer I work in a regular 9-to-5 job, the more I feel I'm not cut out for it.

I've always broken rules and despised authority and loved being the underdog. And now, I find myself fading. I don't know why. I don't know if I can handle this homogeneity that is forced upon us. It's slowly, very slowly, breaking my spirit. This despite working at a relatively liberal organisation.

I'm cynical about big business. Why must we work towards 40% profit growth? Why do we want to grow? What if I decided it's okay to not get my next raise and left work at 4 every evening, played football at the park, went home, showered, ate a healthy dinner, watched the sports news and went to sleep everyday? Would I really complain about not being paid well? Why do I feel like I never fully fit in at these big offices? I'm rambling.

Professional restlessness is kicking in.

A Long Way Gone

Just finished 'A Long Way Gone' by Ishmael Beah. It was amazing!

It's the story of a boy soldier in Sierra Leone, his life before the war started, his experiences during the war, the terrible things he had to do to survive and the road to recovery. It reminded me of the movie, Blood Diamond.

Reading about experiences like this threw up so many questions in my mind. But the one question that really lingers is how can humans can be so cruel to other people? I don't mean to be judgemental. I know circumstances can make the most gentle people do horrible things. But the question still remains.

Perverse Opinions

I am amused by George Bush's and the White House's stupidity yet again. Just when you think he's been doing well for himself, primarily by keeping his mouth shut, he'll go and shoot himself in the foot, exhibiting his incompetence and complete ignorance by saying something like this “[India’s] middle-class is bigger than our entire population... When you start getting wealth, you demand better food... and prices... go up.”

So what are you suggesting, Mr. Bush? That our countries stay poor and our citizens remain malnourished while you fatten yourself on mac-and-cheese, greasy McDonald's burgers and beef steak?

As if this wasn't an eloquent enough parading of the White House's foolishness, a few days later, they go and say oil prices are going up because of India and China. Hello!?!? Did we ask you to invade Iraq? Look at oil prices before your mass murder began, Mr. Bush. The numbers tell the story.

As if all this isn't shocking enough, the European Union, who willingly bend over for Bush and his cronies anytime they please and say 'Spank me hard!' with a big wide grin, asked the world (read: all 'developed' nations) not to overlook the, and I quote the EU Commissioner for Agriculture here, "elephant standing in front of them". Elephant = China and India.

You know what Mr. Commissioner, you really shouldn't overlook the elephant. You know why? Because one day it's going to trample all over your ass and drop a big huge douche on you.

Don't get me wrong. I love America and Europe. What would life be without Southpark, Hummers, French wine and Czech models?

Questions

As a person who asks many questions, not necessarily to others, I've found that there's a whole bunch of categories as far as questions go. Here's my little classification:

1. I'd-rather-nots: Questions that you ask but don't really want an answer to.
Banal: You're looking at yourself in the mirror preening away when you realise you've put on a few kilos you could've done without. So you suck your tummy in and ask, "Have I put on weight?" *Sound of the wrong answer buzzer* I'd rather not know.
Not-so-banal: You've screwed up at home with your sibling/parent/spouse and you go, "What did I do?" *Sound of the wrong answer buzzer* You DON'T want to go down that road!

2. Answerables: These questions can be of four types, a) easy to answer and pleasant, b) easy to answer and unpleasant, c) not easy to answer and pleasant OR, d) the worst one of them all, not easy to answer AND unpleasant a.k.a. the double whammy.
Banal: So where are we going to dinner? Type a or c OR depending on who you're with, a type b!
Not-so-banal: Does s/he like me? I'd rate this as type c and a potentially type d question.

3. Unanswerables: I find these questions the most intriguing. They're the kind of questions that creep up on you when you're staring into nothingness at the airport terminal or sitting by the ocean watching the waves crash onto the rocks. Most often, there are no answers. There are no banal examples in my opinion so we'll do the examples a bit differently here.
Relatively less not-so-banal: You've just graduated from college with a degree in Philosophy. What do I do with my life now? How do I plan to spend the rest of my life constructively... or not? Making ends meet kind of stuff.
Relatively more not-so-banal: Is this how it was meant to be?

I don't know what it is about the unanswerables that catches my fancy. Maybe I'm not constructively occupied enough. I don't know. They can be real monsters. Consume you. Drive you to every nook and cranny of your little mind. They make you scan your experiences, scan others' experiences, observe yourself, observe others. Maybe more. But the answers just aren't there.

I find that most of life's BIG questions have no real concrete answers. What is the purpose of life? Is there a purpose? What is its meaning? Or why should there be any meaning to it? Why can't I go through life like a journey? Possibly a journey to nowhere in particular? Why should I be judged on what I have achieved? Why can't I go through life enjoying what I have instead of always looking for what I don't have?

There are no easy answers to these. I don't mean answers like "You're real purpose is to find your true Self." or "You must have a goal to give your life meaning." Things like that just don't cut ice with me anymore. Can you define this true Self? And what happens once I realise my goal? Does my life have no meaning beyond that? Or do I have to go looking for meaning at 54 once I have realised my goal? Give me a break.

You know what the fun part about the unanswerables is though? It's that every now and then life will give you these little glimpses of what you think is the answer until you meet another experience that smashes your conclusion until you reach a point where you say to yourself, "Alright, I may not find the answers, but I can keep seeking."

What do you think?
P.S. If you have categories to add, please do! :)

When did...

... a bigger car become a better drive?

... a fancier house become a beautiful home?

... a faster computer mean better use of technology?

... a lot of knowledge come to be seen as true wisdom?

... more become better?