spontaneous birthings
head fluff when illuminated can reveal some very special thingsArchive for thought bubbles
return to seoul
It has been a long time since I’ve written on here. A huge change is approaching…I will be moving to the outskirts of Seoul, South Korea for a brief stint as an ESL teacher to 5-7 year-olds. I have started a new blog that details my life in Korea which you can find at Finding Seoul.
I most likely will not update this blog while I am in Korea, so I invite you to follow me there.
inspiration paused
Today I feel exceptionally uninspired. It’s one of those dreary days, a chill in the air (that would otherwise be refreshing) but matched with a grey sky and could-storm-at-any-minute atmosphere, it makes you feel crappy.
Because our culture rewards remarkability and inspiration and wittiness, I feel even more uninspired than an average day when I’m just average uninspired. Yes, there is a difference.
When I’m average uninspired, I still leave room for a glint of genius. But today, my creative pores feel clogged, like someone had plugged cement in them during the middle of the night.
And even still, I want to shout from the rooftop of my office building, that “Being uninspired is OK!”
If I feel like a lump of “meh,” it’s OK. I am all the more inspiring on a more-than-average-uninspired day.
energy shooter
Some of the greatest life lessons I’ve learned from my instructors at Yong Studios where I practice TKD. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard precious bits of advice about the art of TKD that so easily carries over to the art of living – about listening, about patience, about determination, about inner balance, and meeting struggle with acceptance and flexibility rather than stiffness and aggression.
A recent valuable quote was something about how your energy travels through your eyes. So wherever your eyes connect – be it an object, a person, whatever – is where your energy shoots out from the core of your being.
I’ve been conscious of this since I heard it last week. It makes me realize how important it is to be present, to be aware of each moment in your life, to spare your energy from being wasted (by focusing and dwelling on negative things) and instead, let it embrace someone you love, a memory that makes you smile, linger through a song that you can’t tire of listening – to melt into that positivity and simply be an expression of all that is beautiful in you and the world you see.
perspective
Funny how chance encounters stir certain thoughts and other mind wanderings…
I saw half (yes, sadly only half) of a fat, juicy worm lying on the pavement the other evening after a night and day of glorious, heavy raining and I started thinking…
What is the world to that sad half of a worm? What was its existence like?
See, these are the sorts of questions that result from my diving into I Am A Strange Loop, a book by Douglas R. Hofstadter about the concept of “I” and “self” and how our existences solely are based on a self-referential perspective.
Does a worm have a self? Interesting, hmm…?
on love
How do we understand love? I believe since the day I was born, I have been searching for peace in love. Peace in knowing how to receive and peace in knowing how to give. I used to think it was a self-assigned journey. That, I, out of the billions of people out there, have this unique challenge to dig out the roots of love, to nourish them, plant them someplace new, and let them sprout for a new generation. How wrong I was.
Love is not something for me to understand. It is a gift for all of us – for each one of us to make sense of. (And for those of you who see love as a curse, I am sorry for you.)
For even I who experience love and pain so deeply know, without a doubt, that love is a gift. Even when it hurts. Even when you discover secrets in its dark holes. Even when you feel like you cannot bear it anymore.
Love shines because it is within you. It is a part of you. Love shines in me not because it is love and that is love’s job. But because I shine from within.
