12/11/2010

"On ne renonce pas à sauver le navire dans la tempête parce qu'on ne saurait empêcher le vent de souffler. " Thomas More

I remember jotting down this quote on a loose page taken from one of my many notebooks when I was reading Utopia. I was perhaps 15 at the time, and I remember keeping that torn piece of paper with me, drawing pictures all around the quote while sitting in class. Then I lost it one day, but I'm pretty sure it has remained safely tucked in between the pages of one of the many books resting on my bookshelf. The English equivalent of that quote goes something like: "“You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds..." but I always find the French version far more melodious and meaningful, for some unfathomable reason.

And after the storm, always comes the calm.

There was a storm in my head last night... It tends to occur when I suddenly lose focus, and therefore perspective. Something within me snaps and suddenly a deluge of Great Sorrow overwhelms my whole being. But then, I always learn from such occurrences... for even as the storm destroys many things in its wake, always it will leave behind enough water for life to be reborn greener, more beautiful and stronger.

The same notion keeps dancing in my head: patience. I have not yet mastered that art. And quiet abandon... Until I do, I won't be able to rid myself from the storms, which should really be replaced with a simple steady flow.

Often when I think about all the things that occur in my existence, I see all that occurs as lessons to be drawn so that I can develop my self futher. Some lessons are definitely harder to face than others, but refusing to face them would be defeating the purpose of being alive and human in the first place.

In that sense, I am like a piece of clay Life slowly helps to give it a perfected shape. Fighting against that process ends up living bumps and difformities of all sorts on the piece of clay being shaped throughout the years... Doesn't that explain to an extent why so many of us end up failing to become what we ought to have become if only we had strived to better ourselves truly?

It's too easy to look at the world and draw a list of all its flaws... Everyone is quite capable of doing it, and why is that? That's because it's easier to focus on the wrongs and weaknesses of others rather than our own. At the same time, making that terrible mistake not only blinds us from developing our self, it also ensures that we nurture all the wrong emotions within, such a deep-rooted anger, resentment, scorn and ultimately Hatred and Bitterness.

I need to allow the 'peace' within I can feel I always possessed from the start to flow unrestrained, because I know it can never lead me down the wrong path... But sometimes the noise of this world gets to me and prevents me from doing just that. I guess it means I need to develop a better way of being in the world, but not of it. And I already know that Time itself is the best ally of all.

I have also been listening to this today, and I have to say that particular passage has a wonderfully soothing, dream-like effect on me.