Microsoft Word
now has a pleasantly dreamy blue background, slightly hazy and washy intended to give a relaxing backdrop to whatever
mire I decide to commit to black and white.
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There is nothing as remarkably
futile and yet strangely necessary as
hope. Hope implies acknowledging a
future turn of events and we have no guarantee whatsoever about what the future has in store for us. The
past, that was once our future when the present was
then and not
now, has dealt us wickedly
cruel blows as it has been kind to us. We pause to contemplate the past disregarding the fact that we yearned for it to be different,
for better or worse. Hours of
introspection are dedicated to this
retrospective rumination and yet we drift ahead with resigned knowledge that we are unable to take a firm grasp on the outcome of tomorrow’s events. Those of the day after are even more
hazy. Next week is a deep, gaping void. And yet we invoke hope with bizarre notions such as that of having
nothing left in life but hope.
I pity the fool.
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I reversed out of a parking spot and a
kind lady stopped to let me
manoeuvre easily. I nodded my thanks in her direction and proceeded to back out of my spot. A squeal of brakes. The car behind hers slammed into the back of her car. Few
good deeds go
unpunished.
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Love is blind. Love is the
smile on a little girl’s face. Love is the
answer to all our questions. Love is the
question we cannot answer. Love is all that is left when all has been stripped away. Love is impossible to
define. That which we can’t define doesn’t exist if we take a purely
empirical standpoint. But how can one be so
callous?
Does she
smell like a girl when she
smiles? Do I leave a little bit of myself in the
sauce I prepare to douse a steak with? Has she spotted me yet? Will it
hurt? Have you ever felt like this before? Have I ever felt like this before? Do you wish you could take away the
pain and make it your own? May I take your pain and own it like I’ve been
born carrying it? Why can’t I do anything to help? Love is always a
question. There is no single correct answer to it.
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Why do
dogs hate it when we blow at their cute little
muzzle and then stick their head out of the window as soon as the car starts moving?
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I would like to
stop what I’m doing and give you a helping hand but I’m moving
too fast. I could hurt you more than I could ever provide
solace when travelling at this speed. To my left are the rolling, inviting planes of
submission and to my right the barren, jagged landscape that jolts me into
action and yet I can’t step out of line because
time prods me in the back.
Charity must be preceded by a
conscious break in routine, the searingly painful detachment from all that
inextricably links us with here and now and comfortable.
Charity is a word that is rarely more than a sentence away from
altruism. It is inevitably tied to the act of
giving without hoping to
receive, the most
noble endeavour known to us. And yet we receive every time. We are rewarded with the knowledge that someone stands to gain from the results of our actions. That we are a little worse off in terms of
time,
effort or
worldly belongings but that someone else is reaping the
harvest of our selfless
seed. We then return to where we started, basking in the warm glow that is our reward for an act of charity only to find that the earth has not changed to accommodate these actions.
Cynics claim that acts of charity breed
complacency within the wretched recipient of our act of
kindness.
Socialists propose that the needy are in that state because they haven’t
worked hard enough.
Tree-huggers complain about the
carbon-dioxide load of those who speak all day but don’t do a
stroke of work. And a multitude of other justifications to stray away from charity are
postulated, simply because stepping off the track that we’re dashing along involves leaving a little bit of oneself behind. But is that not
love?
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There was once an
old lady who lived in a shoe with a hundred little kids. She had not enough
money to feed them all, nor
clothe them all, nor send them all to
school. And she loved every one of them more than she loved herself and they somehow
survived. The labour of her love was topped up when insufficient by
charitable acts of those around her and her eldest son was now five-and-twenty years of age and a strapping lad indeed. Yet she still
spanked them all and sent them off to bed, hoping that tonight’s
unwarranted punishment will make them a little stronger
tomorrow.
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