Wednesday 26 September 2007
Thursday 13 September 2007
spring cleaning
I wish cleaning out the heart was as easy as cleaning out a room.
The remnants of six months worth of accumulated drudgery sit in a trashbag just outside my room door: papers, plastic, bits of wire and orphaned power chords - a potpourri of procrastination and spent utility in a yellow translucent plastic bag. While the room certainly looks cleaner and more spacious, the air feels slightly chalky, thickened by the dust thrown up during the hour-long eviction.
But dormant particles of shed skin and god-knows-what-else weren't the only things aroused in the process.
Memories and emotions found their form in rediscovered photographs, letters and trinkets as well. Celluloid smiles and neat script on folded pieces of paper strewn as carelessly around my room as their intangible analogues littered the space of my heart.
Memories are like wine: some better with age, others spoil quickly if left unresolved.
Everything looks neater now, but only on the surface.
The remnants of six months worth of accumulated drudgery sit in a trashbag just outside my room door: papers, plastic, bits of wire and orphaned power chords - a potpourri of procrastination and spent utility in a yellow translucent plastic bag. While the room certainly looks cleaner and more spacious, the air feels slightly chalky, thickened by the dust thrown up during the hour-long eviction.
But dormant particles of shed skin and god-knows-what-else weren't the only things aroused in the process.
Memories and emotions found their form in rediscovered photographs, letters and trinkets as well. Celluloid smiles and neat script on folded pieces of paper strewn as carelessly around my room as their intangible analogues littered the space of my heart.
Memories are like wine: some better with age, others spoil quickly if left unresolved.
Everything looks neater now, but only on the surface.
Tuesday 4 September 2007
i'm lovin' it
My job allows me the privilege of meeting a smorgasbord of personalities on a daily basis. I am rather discriminating with the individuals I choose to work with, much like how an epicurean at a buffet would select only the foods most congenial with his palate. My manager, Dina - wise beyond her years, would be the first to admonish me against accepting as a client someone with deep pockets at the expense of consideration for his or her personal integrity and virtue. I define my profession and the contract I enter into with the individuals and families I have the honour of working with, as so more than a mere transactional one. The relationship that is forged between us is based on the sacrosanctity of implicit trust. They tell me their aspirations, hopes and dreams. I tell them it is my responsibility to help them to the best of my ability realize the financial resources they need to fulfill their ambitions. It means that I will champion them beyond the narrow scope of monetary concerns. It means to some extent, I vicariously assume those dreams and hopes as well. I invest my emotional energy in them and reap the intangible dividends of personal satisfaction when I see them reap the tangible ones of monetary returns - because of my contribution. I invest in futures - theirs.
Once in a rare while, I meet a client who takes this to a new level - a plane where between us, there is not only a meeting of minds, but also of value, virtue and vision. A concinnity of moral substance and personal temperament that graduates us beyond a professional relationship and into a friendship.
This is why I do what I do. And love it everyday.
Once in a rare while, I meet a client who takes this to a new level - a plane where between us, there is not only a meeting of minds, but also of value, virtue and vision. A concinnity of moral substance and personal temperament that graduates us beyond a professional relationship and into a friendship.
This is why I do what I do. And love it everyday.
episteme seauton
I've lost the urge to write. Feeling all angsty. Thoughts swirling in convolution. They call it emotional constipation, I think. But I don't know why. Things couldn't be better. Opportunities to excel abound. But something is missing. I feel like I'm stretching myself out too thin. I'm good at what I do, in their individual spheres of requisites. But I'm not great at them - yet. I think that's it. An eagle soars when a lesser creature would have to perpetually flap its wings to stay aloft. Its nature demands that it master its element. Being merely adequate at it throws it off equilibrium. One either masters his circumstances or lets it master him. My greatest fear in life has always been being merely adequate - mediocre. Good is the enemy of great - another maxim that has had maximum influence on my personal cosmology. "Good" - contentment - is the deadweight that pulls one into the quotidian mire of spiritual inertia. The spirit dies if it doesn't soar. There is no such thing as spiritual stagnation. The law of gravity dictates it. Atrophy occurs in the absence of growth. Nature is never neutral. This then is what's happening to me now. (Writing truly is epistemic.) What is the cure for this spiritual ennui? Be great at what I do. Never settle for anything less. It will require sweat. And tears. And stress. But an eagle cannot expect to soar and not encounter the turbulence inherent in its chosen environment as well. But with every bout of turbulence, his wings become stronger. Men do not choose to be great. Greatness finds him, and he merely accepts. Today, I do too. For that is who I am.