Morning Pages and 'Aha'

July 17, 2008

While on the taxi to the office , this thought recurred …… the ‘power’ of ‘and’ in expanding one’s mental horizons and opening up one’s mind to tolerance and perhaps enlightenment … as opposed to a pervasive ‘or’ viewpoint… of course, I realize that there contexts and instances when the ‘or’ thing is the only way … like the choice between good or bad , in which case , we go for the good.

Once instance when thinking of it as an ‘and’ is quite liberating …. perhaps an ‘Aha’ moment …. Which occurred while on the taxi … on one hand Jesus teaches to love and give preference for the poor (‘ Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto Me’ ….) . On the other hand , He says that the poor will always be with us ( when Judas was carping about a woman pouring precious oil on Jesus’ feet , saying that it should have been sold instead and the proceeds given to the poor). For the longest time and up until now , I’ve always thought of this as an ‘or’ situation , a ‘ conflict ‘ in the gospel message which sowed germs of doubts in my mind … The ‘Aha’ factor is when I realized that it was not a conflicting message … that it can be viewed as a ‘balancing’ thing … an ‘and’ instance when both situations can exist side by side….avoiding extremes from either side ….
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Quote this from a travel blog piece. Speaks of the kind of life/worklife I am envisioning
for myself … in the very near future , maybe next year …huh? Picturing myself with a laptop/notebook , a professional camera , sitting in a café in oh, Paris, Prague, Budapest, Bellagio , Istanbul … other nooks and crannies of western and eastern Europe, pounding on my laptop , writing reviews and observations of places I’ve seen and stayed in , and getting paid for it …. What a dream and what a life …
“This list is admittedly subjective, but comes from 30 years of professional wandering. Some places are more well-known than others, but all share a sense of tranquility and wonder. And since I review small boutique hotels for a living, I have included nearby recommended places to stay. Happy travels!”

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I would like to think that I am making a significant headway towards reprogramming my feeling inner world from a pervasive heavy and gloomy one to an upbeat, optimistic, forward-looking, happy-joyful and lighthearted one , not that I want to become a mindless , ignorant, naïve Polllyana again. Having gone through the dark , I want to be a realistic optimist , inwardly happy and steady and unfreakable , regardless of what’s happening outside of me . Then , my optimism for the most part was anchored on the good things that are happening to me and outside of me, and that is not a stable place to be … the other side would be that if bad things are happening outside of me or to me , my insides also become unhappy and freaked out.
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Made a last-minute search on the web for the word ‘love’ and what do you know …
there are about 4.47 billion references …. Oh well …

It’s five , ta-ta …..