I was looking for enlightenment… but nothing came and no one could help. No enlightenment… however, I do have light. You can’t even imagine how much these tiny aluminum cups filled with wax mean to me Greg… from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Walking down St-Jean I found myself. I found myself in every single person walking down that one way street. I could not help but be frightened. Everyone looked like me. Everyone was dressed like me. Same haircut. Same shoes. Do they think like me? Are they pleased with the way they are living? Do I wish I could be like them: out on a Saturday night stroll to a familiar place filled with boring familiar faces. Happy-go-lucky. Not a worry in the world. Ignorance is bliss.
“In joy and pain each one will grow
For wisdom is so much more than what we know
And every child will find their way
Of living the whole life story day by day”
The Cinematic Orchestra - Time and Space
Are both necessary? How far ahead is it? Which way? Is it truly whole?
Come next week, my brother and his girlfriend (who I now consider to be part of my close family) will no longer be living in Québec City. It’s a strange feeling to lose those that you love without really losing them. Their departure makes me want to leave as well. To discover something new. In my honest opinion, we, as humans, were not meant to be sedentary. If we were, then I must be terrible failure to society. Everyone seems to be moving, whether it be to discover or to return to that which is known and safe, tried and true.
You never know what you have until it’s gone. I can’t help but think retrospectively sometimes and wonder how life would have been if I would have been more present in the lives of those that I love. If I would have worked harder at school. If I would never have come back from Sweden.
Sometimes it feels like I’ve not really accomplished anything truly gratifying since I’ve come to Québec. I have not really accomplished anything special in quite a long time. I walked at eight months, I must have talked but a month or so later. I have an amazing family and the world’s best friends. I’ve gotten everything I could have ever possibly wanted handed to me on a fucking silver platter. All this, yet, I have not accomplished anything. Everything on my side, yet I still feel like a useless nobody with nothing to share, nothing to give and nothing to be proud of. I can’t believe how totally pathetic I sound… what a fucking disgrace.
Don’t leave me alone. It’s the cause of all this.
November 4th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Have no fear my dear friend from not so far.
Yes, I think we all go through that phase in our life… Some sooner, some later, some maybe never…
But the lesson is not what accomplishment you have made that is truly gratifying. Why is it not a lesson, because we all do accomplish something, one day, everyday of our lives.
Yes, Superman did some great things and we all remember him today. He is a great man in a costume. But do we all need to be great men and women in costumes to make great accomplishments?
I certainly hope not otherwise, society in it’s whole is a big failure.
The lesson is we do accomplishments that are truly gratifying. We just do not realize it… or see it as we all think that something real is something that will make the headlines.
But the headlines only come and goes as the seasons and we forget what the tree looked like past fall. We only remember that it looked nice and beautiful.
The accomplishment is what we all do every day in the benign actions that we think has no impact.
You get at an intersection and you let the pedestrian pass by instead of just flooring it to pass before him, which would have made you wait 32 seconds more at the stop. You did leave your mark as he is happy and when he see his wife, instead of feeling frustrated because of a stupid driver cutting him off and almost hitting him, he has a nice smile and is pleased to see his wife and give her kisses.
Your parents, having raised 3 beautiful boys who are today young adults fully accomplished and entering life with new ideas and a new vision of life have made a big accomplishment that is truly gratifying.
The teacher who one day gave you this word of encouragement that you don’t even remember and he passes by you one day and sees where YOU are today, has accomplished something truly gratifying.
The lesson is not in the grandeur of things that you have done that makes it gratifying as it will be forgotten like the seasons…
The lesson is that you leave your mark everyday and the gratifying part is that you have made good toward someone who will toward someone else…
And by such, a happy butterfly lives and brings happiness in others lives by simply letting the pedestrian cross in front of your car that Friday evening…
THAT is a true accomplishment.
The pleasure of showing what I knew in IT and seeing how far you are today, for me, that is a gratifying accomplishment and truly, I haven;t done nothing then just impress you with what I knew. Today, I’m the one impressed with what you know.
Trust me. Be good and good will come to you.
The butterfly does fly and brings happiness to those lives you touch who then touches others…
Take care my friend. There is hope for you too…
phil.