Between the lonely neurotic maid and the lonely cat that likes to pounce on walking legs at my office, I think I'm getting lonely and neurotic myself. :P

Hmm...I was just thinking that I have grace, truth and joy in my names - my first name means "full of truth" or "noble," my middle name means "grace," or "God is gracious," and my last name means "joy" in Thai. So this actually matches up beautifully with Randy Alcorn's quote on grace and truth and John 1:14 that I like so much, and Jesus' words - "I can that they might have life, and have it to the full"...I can make it my goal to be both grace and truth, and to have an abundant life full of joy!!

Only right now I'm not doing very well...the depression is not stopping. I feel worse and wors, more and more tired. I feel pretty worthless and I don't see the point of living very much. :'|

Actually I know now...sometimes you get epiphanies. I know now what started the depression. I don't know whether it is what I am depressed about now, because it's been two weeks at least. But that was what started it...

I really need to figure out what the problem is...because right now I don't feel like seeing anyone, or talking to anyone...at all. And if you don't interact with people, what is the use of living?

This is really bad...:P

Life must be meaningful for other people in some way, because somehow they go on with their lives...

But I cannot understand. I feel like my life has lost all meaning, that it is useless to go on. This must be a lie, but this is what I feel right now. And I don't understand how other people can just live...

...because to me their lives feel very meaningless - perhaps even less so than mine - and yet they live on, strive on...

...this doesn't make much sense. Maybe I'm just being very stubborn - after all, what is my word against that of a multitude?

Or maybe most of them live on because of pragmatism.

In cast you didn't know, I don't like pragmatism very much. I think it is a lame excuse to do things...

...lame because there's got to be better reasons for doing stuff.

I have always been suspicious of the happy people in life. If they never get depressed then I wonder if they feel deeply enough. Maybe they do, and they're just very strong...kudos to them!

Maybe I'm looking for the real me. I feel like I don't know myself anymore...

...it seems like the real me is pretty buoyant... I'm drawn buoyant, beautiful things in songs and art...yet gentle - I swore I never wanted to be an angry person who lashed out at the things around me...I hope I am gentle - I like splashes of color, but nothing garious ...I care for people...I feel with them a bit too much, so that sometimes I can't go on...and I'm pretty open about sharing myself if I trust the person enough. I like pretty heavy music at times. I don't like things that sound too happy...I like things that express paradoxes. I'm really bad at history and geography and I don't like pets. It seems like I lean more toward the social sciences than the humanities (I just learned the difference between those yesterday)...and one big secret about me is that I might say I don't mind about something, and gloss it over, but later - my subconscious will turn it into the biggest deal ever - beyond anything I could have expected or anyone else could have expected, so that none of us even realize it is connected to that thing in the first place. I'm really neurotic, because my imagination goes a little too fast. I like patterns and abstraction but for some reason fractals bother me. I'm really shy...I don't usually engage the situations I would like to engage...and it takes me awhile to realize what I think about something. Sometimes I don't seem to care at first but then later I can't get it off my mind no matter how hard I try.

What else...I don't drive - probably because I'm worried about failing the exam...and I hate cockroaches. :P When I eat I enjoy the food...until I start thinking about other things, and then I eat very fast and forget to taste the food. But I eat very tidily. And when I bring my dishes to the sink, I wash them so that they look clean...but I don't like actually washing them...so I leave them looking clean but still needing to be actually washed in the sink. Weird habits.

I don't like pets. When I was a kid I would have died to have a cute pet...but the problem is with pets is that cute baby animals grow up into big animals that require a lot of care, and then they die...and it is so tragic when they die.

I don't value things so much unless I can find some sort of meaning in them, and a lot of the time the meaning comes from other people...if I really love someone, then I can find meaning in the things that they care for and like...

Things that I have found meaning in lately:
- artwork
- making people feel unique
- writing about reflections or truths I've learned
- sharing about God and His Word with other people

I think sometimes it is much better to revamp the entire foundation of thinking behind something or to clarify, rather than to spend much time on revising the existent into something new.

I guess different people resonate with different things. It is very special when you find a person who resonates with the things you say...when you say stuff it just seems to strike them to the core, because that is them too. But it just goes to show that you cannot be too opinionated about your own opinion. There are many different ways of expressing the truth out there, and what each person resonates with is different. I can feel passionate about what I say, but it doesn't strike everyone else the same way...what I say speaks to only a few people. That is why we all must speak out about the truth...if we want many people to hear.

We cannot control people, much less hoard them for ourselves. Whatever our "intentions," that is not love...

I'm changing my personality lately. It seems like I sound more upbeat, playful, imaginative, and random when I talk with people...also I express a bit more of how I feel.

I feel a bit better. Yesterday went so well in cell group. And maybe that is the problem. I feel, today, very unworthy...of anything...and I don't feel like I have anything good to offer the world. But two people have told me that what I shared in cell group yesterday was so encouraging...

And then just now someone dropped by to the counseling office unexpectedly because they wanted to have their clients here...they said it was hard to go where they'd have to do the session alone, but coming here they could talk with me and ask me to pray for them.

And also Isra called me - that was encouraging. We'd talked last night about his driving exam today and he called to say he'd passed the writing part of the test and thanks for praying...

So maybe that is the exact problem. I do mean something in other people's lives, and I can support them - especially spiritually...and someone doesn't want me to do that!

I think I need to ask people to pray for me.

I don't feel like living anymore. It has only been 23 years, but for some reason it seems like things just get worse and worse. Maybe it is just me. I always thought when I grew up things would get better...more perfect, that I would be an improved person. But it is the exact opposite. It seems like each day I live it becomes more and more obvious how terrible things really are, and my flaws become more and more salient. If I could kill myself over my past mistakes, I would. They say it is a cruel thing to take yourself away from the people you love. But is living life just to be there for the people you love worth it, when it seems like things aren't real...when your moods are regulated by medication and not reality? I think I have wanted to twist reality to suit my perceptions...I thought my perceptions were truth - but in all actually my thinking something is one way doesn't make it one way at all. I always thought reality was what made us happy or sad, but now it seems that happy or sad is what makes reality. Somehow nothing seems worth it anymore. I think I'm losing my ability to feel...maybe because I felt too much for a bit too long. It feels like everyone else is dancing, but I'm not...I'm just standing on the sidelines, watching. I don't know how to dance. :\

I felt encouraged a moment ago when Isra called to talk and said he'd passed the written part of the driving test! I'm so proud of him. :)

I think I've gotten too scared of change too. I want to say changes are generally good, but...I don't know. This is not a very good way to start off this month. I hope things get better.

cell group sharing tonight...:)

One thing that is hard for Christians to understand sometimes is how to treat sin, when God has called us to a life of holiness. The problem is that sometimes we reject the sin and the sinner at the same time. But God doesn't reject people. In fact, Jesus said that He came to heal not the healthy but the sick. (Mark 2:1)7

John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

“พระวาทะได้ทรงบังเกิดเป็นมนุษย์และทรงอยู่ท่ามกลางเรา บริบูรณ์ด้วยพระคุณและความจริง เราทั้งหลายได้เห็นพระสิริของพระองค์ คือพระสิริอันสมกับพระบุตรองค์เดี่ยวของพระบิดา”

Quote: “Jesus was 100% grace and 100% truth, not 50% grace and 50% truth. He made sinners feel sinful, yet they couldn’t keep away from Him!” – Randy Alcorn, The Grace and Truth Paradox

If anyone could be both, it was Jesus.

Jesus was holy, yet He made sinners feel loved. This is part of God’s glory. Can you believe that? The One who can judge us has mercy on us!

 What is grace? – receiving something we don’t deserve
 What is truth? – reality

 (You don’t have to say aloud.) Have you ever had a situation where you had a friend you really loved, but this friend was doing something you didn’t agree with (and possibly it was because what they were doing was hurting them)? What would you do?

God is holy. Yet I think one reason that God hates sin is that sin hurts us so much. God loves us so much. Sin hurts us. Sin hurts God because He loves us. (Gal. 5:1 – freedom, and John 10:10 – life to the full)

Christianity is not a religion of rules, but of love. Yet this does not mean condoning sin. Sin is NOT okay.

 How do we show we love people and yet not accept what they are doing?

Jesus was called by His enemies as a “friend of sinners”. Let’s look at some stories of Jesus when He associated with people that His society considered sinful (or unacceptable, like Samaritans).
Luke 7:36-50 – Anointing of Jesus by the sinful woman
Luke 19:1-9 – Zaccheus
John 4:1-30, 39-42 – The Woman at the Well
John 8:1-11 – Scribbling in the sand
(Note that the Pharisees, the religiously strict, wanted to reject these people!)
 How did Jesus treat people so that He showed them what they were doing was not right, and yet He did not reject them?

Now let’s talk about love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
And then, “The greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13)
Love is faith
Love is hope
Because love is believing the best in a person, giving them the benefit of the doubt.

There is a quote from a song: “Why did they nail His hands and feet? His love would have held Him there.” Jesus loved us that much.

And, 1 John 4:18 – “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
I like to think that the best way to make a person behave is to make them feel loved – not demanding love, but free love.

 What do you think?

Babies die when they don’t feel loved, when they don’t receive enough hugs and care.
Love is like the breath of life. Withhold love, and people will wither. (หัวใจฟ่อ)
Not loving hurts people.
Sin hurts people
That is why we must love, yet not accept sin.

I am not perfect. I have failed many times, with my family, friends, even people I don’t know – to show love. Yet God shows me GRACE as He teaches me His TRUTH. I think this lesson is one I might spend all my life learning, because it is so important.

Even for a wicked person we don’t know, we must have compassion. We are called to love our enemies. Hate hurts us too.

 How can we love our enemies?

“It is the greatest feeling is to be fully known, and fully loved.” – if we can help give that to a person, we can help them to grow. “The One Who knows us best, all our weaknesses, even, loves us the MOST.”

We may say we don’t agree/don’t like what someone is doing. BUT Jesus calls us to love them. He did it for us.

family
coworker
friend
person we don’t know

 What does it mean to love the sinner and not the sin?
Jesus said for us to forgive, that our Heavenly Father might forgive us as well. I have this idea that unforgiveness may be the unpardonable sin (I don't know, but it could be) - if love is like the breath of life, then I think that is why it is so important for humans to have forgiveness and God does not withhold it from us. We need it to live!

I feel terribly stressed, completely tired and freaked out. I had a terrible dream early this morning. Then I felt better later, and then worse again.

I think I have not been interacting with people enough. The problem with this is that if I get a streak of solitude, then I really don't want to see anyone anymore, lonely as I feel...and much as I may need it.

It seems like people are busy right now...and the good friends I can really talk with are so far away...ah, cursed globalization...so that a good deal of my close friendships are on the Internet - and I rather wish it weren't that way because I should have more of a life in the REAL world. But they are very special friends...I value their friendship so much. But then, they are also busy and having fun visiting other friends, attending social gatherings... Also I work alone at my office most of the day because my boss is gone for summer break...the maid comes in the morning and then she's gone by lunch because there's hardly anything to do. I think I'm slowly languishing. I have another month of "solitude". I guess some of it can be a good thing...sometimes we need time "away" but if I get enough time "away" then I almost don't want to see anyone anymore.

This is why this blog is filled up this month and probably will continue thus in the month to come! I need someone to "talk" to.

I feel a bit burned out too...there are all these little requests to do this and that, and they add up. :P And I lack focus at work because there is no guidance and I'm not good at pushing myself to do stuff with no motivation from outer sources. I guess it is time to learn!

A lot of the stuff people ask me to do is enjoyable stuff, but when it starts to add up it's just too much. :P :P :P And if I'm not doing too well in the first place...and also I can't seem to help stressing about it...even when I tell myself it's not a big deal and I don't have to do it perfectly...

:|

I have this key on my keyboard that's not working too well...it's the number "1" key...the interesting thing is that if you strike it with normal force it just doesn't work...it won't budge and it acts stuck. But if you know where to press, and you press gently, it works quite well. I think people...a lot of people...may be like that. Lol.

Wow...I wish we didn't have to be skeptical, pragmatic, and circumspect to navigate life and relationships with other people. It would be nice if being naive, innocuous, giving the benefit of the doubt and believing the best in others could always be the rule of thumb....but - and I don't mean this in bitterness - I think it is part of wisdom to be a bit wary. I guess this is part of sin. We cannot live life totally unaware; we must be "gentle as doves, shrewd as serpents" (Proverbs). I guess I wish all the good things I imagine could be true, but then I would be divine -I would have the power to make things happen. Well, I wish I (and the world) were wired so that that could be possible.

One of the things I look forward to each day is taking in new data about the world. But sometimes the data is very depressing. I am so depressed...how am I going to share in cell group tonight?

So it turns out I need a new cell phone. Maybe it is okay to dally about getting it. At first I thought I should hurry, but maybe peace and quiet for awhile would be nice.

When will I ever learn... :P

My brain is completely overactive lately. I know, because otherwise I wouldn't be posting so much. The thoughts just need somewhere to go! But the problem is I am so distracted too...instead of being able to concentrate on things I should be doing...

My perspective on life flips over at least a couple times a day. I think maybe it has something to do with having an empathic mind. As soon as I step into another person's shoes then life looks and feels different. I have to learn to do this and still be myself...empathy and sympathy are not synonymous but if you make them so it will get you into all sorts of sticky situations emotion-wise.

It is such a wonderful thing when a person becomes the person they could become...when they fulfill their potential. It is a wonderful thing also to see this happening when a person comes to Christ. You see them more peaceful, more confident. Suddenly you see a glimpse of the work that Christ will one day complete in them, and it is so exciting!

Maybe it is time to learn to trust my own intuitions a bit more, rather than going with the opinions of other people (who don't necessarily live their lives the way I would like to live mine personally - I don't mean they're doing something wrong, at all...just - I need to live my own life)...which - I need to learn that it is okay to disagree, and that maybe my own intuitions have

So much of my mind's guidance about living is intuition...only sometimes I don't follow my intuitions - which is maybe why I am a very confused person sometimes. :o But I have started to learn that my intuitions are actually right and good a lot of the time. They tend to be a combination of subconscious observation/realization and reasoning that runs pretty deep or else pretty far into the future - so that my conscious mind isn't always inclined to listen to it, with its focus on the present and pragmatism and what is "known".

I wonder if at times following intuition could be faith. I mean, it could be the opposite too. But what I mean is that the world generally doesn't justify following intuitions; it is mostly hard logic and pragmatism...but the truth is a lot of the time God calls us to do things that defy hard logic and pragmatism. And although we are called to seek the counsel of those who are wise, sometimes the people who fill our heads with their counsel are not wise. Too often I have found that "advice" is personal prejudice, preference, bias, or judgmentalism.

I feel like I need some sort of rule of thumb for when to follow intuition (lol - an unintuitive guide to following intuition), but the truth is, in the end (and the beginning) it is God who we must go to. "He is the first and last...before all that has been, beyond all that will pass..." (Steven Curtis Chapman song, 'God Is God') Whether it has to do with following intuition and feeling or pragmatism and logic, I think that one is not more "right" than the other. The question is, "What does God call us to?" - "a man plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps..."

One last note - the heart is also the first and the last thing to evaluate in a situation, whether it be your own heart or another person's.

I was having some fun with the new blogsearch.google.com feature and testing to see whether my name would generate any results. It did one!

Apparently I posted this in the Third Culture Kids Everywhere group on Facebook quite some time ago. I had forgotten I wrote it! Someone quoted me in their blog...so I'm stealing it back now, because I haven't thought about this for a long time - but it is true, and it is still affecting my life...it kind of relates to what I said a few posts earlier about feeling non-grown up and old at the same time. :-)

I think TCKs tend to appear very mature in some areas and very naive in others. As a result it is hard to judge our age. Do you think this is true? Sometimes we feel very old and mature and other times very young and naive, and we also come across both ways to others. I have observed this in myself and in other TCKs. My explanation is that it is probably because we have been immersed in many cultures, but never fully immersed in one. So we are “fuller” than other people in one dimension and less so in another.

Interesting that someone else agreed enough to re-post in their blog and say they agreed and use it as a discussion topic! I would say this used to be very obvious to me when I thought a lot about TCK-ness, but nowadays I haven't thought about that topic much and I had forgotten! Lol. I guess even a couple years later after posting it I still haven't lost the quality of being both mature and naive...SO true. :P

I have not had as much TCK experience as many other TCKs. I just my life pretty equally split between Thailand and America. But I do think a lot about what experience I have had...

I think that a person cannot be "home" for another person until they've found themselves...

Sometimes when you realize someone loves you very much, it hurts...because you wonder how to return it (I don't mean "repay" but sometimes you just want to love them back but you don't know how to express that you do love them back too) - I guess the answer is just by loving them - but it is just so very special to be loved (just...loved - non-romantic). It just makes me ache when I think about it.

So apparently I am a neurotic but not a complete neurotic. I am trying to figure this thing out. For example, during the evening in my room I saw a big cockroach sauntering toward the rubbish bin. So - I hadn't seen any cockroaches for the longest time...a real blessing! but there used to be loads of them in the bathroom...it was such a problem when we first moved here...so that I have become sort of neurotic about cockroaches. This was the first one in a long time. Well...I was like, I should be freaking out...but I guess I went into denial? I don't know...but I knew there was a cockroach around there. Then later I was eating dinner and I went to the sink to wash my hands and I knew it was close by...sure enough, it was lurking in the shadows. So I decided it was time and I grabbed a long-handled broom and starting smashing him. Then he hid behind some boxes and so I started moving stuff around and whacking and then I started screaming too...because I was getting freaked out at the thought of the cockroach being close to me and also that it was injured and I had injured it was freaky. So my roommate came over and finished him off and calmly disposed of it...(all the while talking on the phone w/ a friend). Meanwhile I scream a little bit more then I wash my hands and go back to dinner and calmly finish dinner...

This is why I say I am neurotic but not a complete neurotic. My roommate said I was cruel. I asked why. She said because I was so freaked out but I was killing it anyway.

The weather in the evenings has been so beautiful lately. The sun takes its time going down, and there is a cool, fresh quality about the air...maybe from the plants rejoicing in the cooler weather of this month.

I do not think I can stay in Thailand for much longer. I enjoy the culture, and I love the place, but I cannot live life as one long extended hang out phase. I need more meaning in life.

Now that I am thinking of moving, I think perhaps it is time to buy a new camera. Besides being pretty beat up and not functioning so well, my camera has joined the multitudes of cameras that make people look bad in pictures. I can't stand that. I think people are so lovely...but most cameras do not do them justice, and some cameras should be locked up forever - like mine. Now that I have saved up money - that was the only thing I ever really thought of saving up a whole lot of money for - a really good SL camera...like a Nikon D70 or 80...(the only thing I've ever really wanted to be rich for is to visit the people I love who are scattered around the world)...maybe I will go out and buy a camera. But maybe it won't be an SL after all...I don't want to deplete my savings. I just want a camera that makes people look nice...as close to real life as possible - and that captures the beauty of color. And maybe now I think compactness is a factor to look for. I used to like photography enough to carry a really cumbersome camera around for good shots, but now I just want a camera with good features where you can adjust lighting and have several modes but that isn't huge...

I think I get on the Internet way too much. I am thinking that maybe I need a project...so that whenever I think of getting on the Internet, I work on this thing instead. In a month or so, instead of hours wasted online, I'll have something beautiful to show for my time. :-)

I think that probably I will struggle with depression all my life. I guess it has something to do with openness and sensitivity to beauty...because then you filter less...leaving the door wide open to take in beauty also means a lot of other things steal in too...and you're just as sensitive to the things that are not beautiful in life.

I freak out when I think about change...like people aging. Maybe that's why I want a camera to capture the beauty of the moment...how a person looks just at this point in life. Oh, the next moments will be beautiful in their own way, but I hate to think about change...enough that sometimes I think I would rather die now than live to see it. If only I could realize - the things we no longer have when we are in heaven...will be replaced with things infinitely greater. But I have trouble imagining infinitely greater - so maybe C.S. Lewis was right to write about things just a bit greater than what we know here on earth, so that we could catch a glimpse of what heaven might be like (rather than having to imagine something beyond our imagination and rely on logic).

I wonder if I will ever feel grown up. Somehow I doubt it. I thought I'd feel grown up three years ago, at twenty - and I still do not now. Maybe that is actually the case for most people (like some song I heard last week, "You're not the only one who feels like the only one..."). But then, feeling grown up and feeling old are not the same. I felt old a long time ago. Maybe it is when I actually grow old that I will feel young - because then, I will have been exposed to so much that much of it won't matter anymore. That is perhaps when we recover the spirit of youth...the bliss of ignorance, or perhaps in this case, informed ignorance. How much do most things really matter? Not THAT much; in the light of eternity only some things stand the test of time.

I think life is like a bell curve. During the first twenty years or so, things matter more and more to our conscious mind as we age. (I think it's the reverse for the subconscious...for the first few years of our lives, what is ingrained in our subconscious is going to affect us the most for the rest of our lives.) Then for the next 40 or so we learn to let things matter less, and maybe the last 20 we start to return to the state we were born in (never completely, and not in the same way...but: "I have LEARNED one thing - that I know nothing.").

...I hurt for all the pain in the world...

Oh...this is a very good verse for this moment!! It was from "Daily Bible Verse" on Facebook... sometimes those are very good!

" Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." - Hebrews 12:1

With this thought, I am going to call it quits for tonight and get a good night's rest. :)

Six more posts and I will have exceeded the number of posts that I made last July. I know there is a lot of random struggling through life here, but hopefully there is also some meaningful stuff mixed in along with it all. That is what life is like...you struggle, and you learn...the learning is all mixed in there.

My cell phone is not charging...I think the problem is with the phone. :P This should be a good excuse to buy a new phone (I have such an old model) but I don't feel like spending the money...also I had just bought a new cover for it - a beautiful shade of blue...and Isra had given me a little silicone jacket for it for my birthday (such a sweet, thoughtful gift...he is so good!!). I'm a bit attached to this phone!

oh...I think I take on stuff that other people exude too much...too well...I don't like vibes because I can't fend them off very well. :P

It is so bad when you feel lonely but instead of talking to people you avoid them even more. Tonight isn't a very good night. I should be used to saying good bye to people, but I am not - the world is just too big! :P Also I am starting to feel the itch to move on...it seems like once I've been about 2 years in one place then I feel like I need to move. :P Hmm...seriously - it starts to feel claustrophobic. The world is so big - how can you stay in one place for more than a year or two? Okay - not to panic. Change can be good.

We cannot control other people's lives...we so cannot control other people's lives. If we try we will fail or else muddle things up dangerously.

The first characteristic about love is that it is patient. But we must have wisdom about where to love with this quality (although we must also let it permeate our lives). "But the greatest of these is love..." Love is patient because love is faith, and hope.

I think humans can derive great joy from the act of loving...or from being loving. To give - without expecting things in return, but just to give - to show the other person how special they are...even just little presents...to understand... - brings great joy.

It is part of being made in the image of God, who is love. We do have a great capacity to love...we derive great joy from loving.

But these are very simple reflections. I will admit there are complexing factors...like sin and our fallen human nature.

Okay, I'm going to start writing...and say that I really don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just going to write. I think I cannot sleep because I did not eat enough today. :P I kind of forgot...I wasn't hungry and now I am. But what can you get at nearly midnight...I don't feel like going out.

I feel a little bit ashamed right now...just thinking about how limited my perspective on life can be. I really limit the world to what I know, even if in my knowledge I acknowledge how much there is I do not know. But somehow it seems like I don't take the implications of my acknowledgment into consideration. The world is so big, so vast, people so complex, their experiences so varied. Just think - within one day, how many different situations one person meets...take a composite of a year's worth of those situations, then twenty years' worth if the person is twenty, plus the number of years above twenty if they are older than twenty...

Seriously.

I take so much in and react so much via intuition. The problem with this is that you know so much and you know nothing at all. Maybe I need to learn to acknowledge intuition.

Maybe the hard thing about intuition is that it is not very bounded. It is easy to get overwhelmed...or maybe it has to do with being an "open" person, like on the "OCEAN" personality test...how it is hard to acknowledge how vast things really are because just the small amount you do know for sure is already enough to overwhelm you.

Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense to me.

Goodness - there are so many thoughts floating around my head that really affect my life but that I never take the time to acknowledge...I live my life by them, but I don't always realize it - because they are such givens to me.

I think I have had enough excitement for one day...so many different conversations, all meaningful. It is wonderful to interact with people...but it always gets me a little overexcited - you realize...there is so much to life.

Maybe that is part of what it means to be made in the image of God (it hit me today that falling short of the image of God is falling short of holiness...holiness is glorious!) - that is why we must interact with people. Because there is that boundlessness about people. Inside every person is a universe - I have said this many times...but truly - people reflect God in their diversity, their limitlessness - every person has these qualities to them.

Maybe some people just want to see more of the world, of the universe. Well, you have not if you have not talked to people...(of course, there are the closed ones...closed-minded people - who might actually shut you in more)...

This is getting ridiculous. I think maybe the thing I started taking for my mood isn't working...or is working too well. I'm not necessarily excited about anything in particular or unsettled but I can't calm down...and it is frustrating. There must be some sort of balance...

But seriously - there is something about going out and seeing the world, meeting people, doing things...that is very meaningful.

"This is what the LORD says, He who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it--the LORD is His name: 'Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'" - Jeremiah 33:2-3

However, as it is written, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him." -- but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. - 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

Life...is existence.
Love...may be the breath of life.
Home...is where the heart is.

I have to say I really think my posts last July were much more worth reading! So now I'm wondering what was going on in my life at this point last year that made me write things that uplift me at this point when much seems meaningless. But then - perhaps they have the grace of a year's age to flavour them...(to quote Elnora from A Girl of the Limberlost). It always takes me awhile to accept my posts. Also those posts sounded a bit philosophical. This year I think I'm turning mystical. :-)

Actually I know the answer. I've been rather self-focused lately in my posts. Also, I haven't taken the time to chase down the complex thoughts...because it does take work to record the random thought-workings of your mind each day...to trace how you got to each epiphany. Or sometimes stuff is so complex you just don't feel like thinking about it anymore. I think I have been lazy...I haven't wanted to think about the hard things enough to come and really write about them. I remember I had something worth writing and then I just kind of dismissed it in a fit of feeling overwhelmed with life...or else maybe just thinking I was getting too excited about things. I think I won't be so lazy anymore. I just realized it is so very good to have some thoughts recorded to look back on and encourage you when you feel down. And now I remember one of the significant things I wanted to post:

Unforgiveness may be the unpardonable sin.

More on all that later.

:| I definitely avoid the truth when I don't like it...or don't know how to deal with it. And meanwhile I grow more and more miserable and frustrated and upset as the sense of "mai sabai jai" increases...

I wonder whether it is more important to explore inside ourselves or to explore the universe. Somehow I think neither will solve any problems. Most explorations don't help unless they bring us to a better understanding of truth (that which is) and we cannot come to an understanding of truth unless we are honest with ourselves.

Funny how we can have two sides fighting it out inside of us...how we can be aware of both voices. Who is the third one who "hears" the voices? So maybe we are three inside of us. :-)

I want to try and say something meaningful tonight. Well, maybe I will let this article I found online at http://hbcprotocols.com/misery.html say it for me...

Studies Suggest the Mind Makes, Breaks its Misery Brain research indicates that people are hard-wired for empathy, and that faith affects the experience of their own agony and that of others.

Feburary 20, 2004

By Robert Lee Hotz, LA Times Staff Writer

Pain, like beauty, is in the mind's eye. It is altered by empathy and tempered by faith, three new brain-imaging studies suggest. The bewitching effect of belief can alter directly how strongly people feel pain, causing measurable changes in brain cells and synapses whether the torment is theirs or a loved one's. The new findings, made public today by independent research teams at the University of Michigan, Princeton University, UCLA, and University College London, offer the strongest evidence yet of how the brain thinks about pain.

Mapping the neural anatomy of pain, the researchers documented the ways in which the brain created a world of its own from the raw material of physical sensation. Using medical imaging scanners to monitor brain activity, researchers at Michigan, UCLA and Princeton revealed that simple faith in a placebo could alter the neural circuits that process pain, easing the agony.

In a separate experiment, the researchers at University College showed that the brain was a mirror of suffering, reflecting through many of the same neural circuits the pain that others feel, much as if the sensation were its own genuine torment. Indeed, the brain's ability to share another's response to pain at such a fundamental cellular level may be the key to a sense of empathy, the personality trait that underpins so many human relationships, researchers said. "These brain regions are critical to the interplay between the outside world and you," said neuropsychologist Helen Mayberg at Emory University in Atlanta. By directly monitoring mental activity, the researchers showed how expectations and anticipation molded the brain's response to the physical sensation of pain. To a certain degree, pain is an act of imagination. "We are zeroing in on some pathways where our thoughts and beliefs are changing our physical and emotional experience," UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman said. "We don't typically think of those as things we can control." Each team used brain mapping techniques to survey the same neural terrain from three slightly different perspectives.

Two of the studies were published today in the journal Science. The third will be published next month in Neuroimaging. To better understand pain and empathy, a team led by social psychologist Tania Singer at the Institute of Neurology at University College tested 19 couples who, because they were romantically involved, could be expected to be attuned to each other. One woman from each pair was monitored with a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. Her neural activity was recorded first as researchers gave her a brief electric shock, then as her partner received the same shock. The researchers discovered that the same critical brain regions involved in processing the physical sensation of pain were activated in each case. Feelings of empathy for another's pain triggered regions of the brain responsible for processing pain, much as if it were a direct sensation, researchers discovered.

To Singer and her colleagues, it strongly suggested that humans were hard-wired for empathy."We are pretty sure that it is a universal mechanism," Singer said. "It is how we can put ourselves emotionally in another's shoes." To investigate how belief affects the brain's response to pain, Lieberman and his UCLA colleagues conducted brain scans of 14 patients given a placebo to treat their chronic abdominal pain. The experiment revealed that the patients' faith in the substance they were given eased their symptoms and also produced physical changes in areas of the brain that processed pain. The greater the brain changes, the greater the reduction in pain, the researchers determined.

At Michigan and Princeton, researchers produced even more compelling evidence that the expectation of relief caused physical changes in how the brain handled pain. They tested dozens of volunteers by giving them shocks while monitoring their neural activity in a brain scanner. Then researchers gave all the volunteers a placebo in the form of a harmless cream the patients were told would prevent the pain. Then the scientists conducted another round of shocks. The expectation of relief was enough to cause physical changes in those pain-processing areas of the brain, offering evidence of the placebo effect. "We actually see physical changes in the brain that correspond closely to changes in symptoms that the patients report," said psychologist Tor Wager, who led the Michigan research team. The researchers determined that pain depended not only on the actual sensory signals from nerves that the brain received but also on a person's emotional state.

The Facebook Gifts application has 10,000,000 little virtual birthday cakes for $1 each. I find it very disturbing that people might spend $10,000,000 on virtual birthday cake. I can see people buying this cake...a dollar here and there. But then...there's lots of disturbing stuff nowadays. There's lots of disturbing stuff all of the time. It's a good thing we have inherent filter mechanisms...or are we just really dead to it all?

It would seem like Facebook would be a good place to rally people toward a good cause or something - but then, Facebook was created for recreation and maybe escape. It would seem that the majority of the time people spend on Facebook is spent escaping real life (real encounters, real action). I think Facebook is very good for popcorn communication - quick messages, even quicker posts, and little snapshots of people's lives - a very good overall picture of a person's life at one point in time. But given human nature...I think Facebook is turning out to be more like the twilight zone - not life giving, but life consuming.

Oh man...I feel like I'm deteriorating. I think my blog posts a year ago definitely had more substance to them. If all I can do is lament at the condition of things - there's already plenty of lamentation going on...we need hope!

okay...strange. last year i did the most blog posts in July too...more than any other month. hmm.

interesting things

I feel disturbed...mai sabai jai...

I think what makes me really sad is how Heath Ledger died. When I see pictures of the Joker from The Dark Knight I think that is why, and it makes me very sad.

Other interesting things: they arrested a protester who committed "lese majeste" - speaking against the monarchy - at my dorm! She was (lived? I don't know) on the opposite side, on the fourth floor...I live on the first. I didn't know a thing, but when I went to by dinner from the vendors in front of my dorm, the "maa ka" - lady vendor - just started talking about it to me. She probably thought I looked very unaware and needed to be enlightened. Or else it was late and she was thinking again of the exciting events from the afternoon - police all over the place, at 1 p.m.! And how probably we will be in the news tomorrow. She was she was running all over the place...couldn't chili the food properly; she was so excited. Lol...you can find the story at http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=128999 and http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=129000

In other news, I randomly found the company that I've been getting all these phone calls for at my office in the past 8-9 months (scores of phone calls, you could say) on the walk home yesterday. They're right across the street from my street! So maybe some things really are right under our noses...or it's coincidence...or finding a needle in a haystack...or being hidden in plain sight...or maybe ignorance or lack of observance on our part! Lol.

i guess sometimes you cannot hurry life...much as you want to have more input on truth and how things really are...you just have to keep living the day-to-day in order for meaning to unroll.

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same...

- Rudyard Kipling

I feel awful. I think...maybe...sometimes my conscious mind has moved on but my subconscious mind has not moved on. I wish I could control my subconscious!

idle ponderings upon a cool summer evening on the lawn

So when I close my eyes and try to rest it never works. My mind just starts thinking so hard! Maybe an wicked fairy godmother cursed me with this at birth.

So maybe I am more of a leaf than a flower. Not that flowers are better than leaves, or leaves than flowers. Both are needed in this world. But then - switch the criteria and the leaves may actually be the flowers or the flowers the leaves. Or maybe some people are flowery leaves and others are leafy flowers. Oh well.

Random thought: Maybe love is the breath of life.

I took a random personality test today that bases your personality on the acronym OCEAN - openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. I am apparently very open and sensitive to beauty and also very neurotic. I am quite conscientious and quite agreeable but not very extraverted. Generally these five qualities are good qualities...except for neuroticism, which kind of tortures your life - and I had the most of that. Maybe all this explains why in the 8 or 9 months I have lived here I have actually taken the time to indulge and sit on the stone benches on the lovely lawn in front of my dorm less than 10 times, even if I appreciate it every time I walk by it, I feel worried about bugs and mosquitoes and also having to talk to people. Not that it's such a big deal. But I wonder - I picked this place to live a lot because of this lovely patch of green outside which is so rare in metropolitan Bangkok...

So - that was a lovely moment to sit outside. It was right in between the time the bugs switch reigns...the flies had retired but the mosquitoes had not yet taken up their night shift...

...I really should go and sit outside more often.

So...why do people use artificial flavouring? When you compare artificial vanilla to real vanilla the artificial thing is so gross! But people use artificial because:

1. It works
2. It's cheaper
3. It is tantalizing to the senses

Sometimes when you walk into the grocery store into the aisles of the stuff that's really worst for you like candy and marshmallows or else when you smell microwave popcorn...it smells very tantalizing - but it's a manufactured tantalizingness...you know you're being worked on...if you're aware enough.

This is a matter of good vs. great. But the fact is, when you were made for great, the good may in fact be lethal.

In God - we have all the riches we need. Never settle! The rich people buy Rolls Royces and Cadillacs because nothing less than the best will do when you can afford it.

Life is freaky!

My subconscious is so deep! It's scary. I don't think anything in life is really random. We're just very ignorant of how magnificent our minds are. I think it was mercifully shielded from our consciousness so we would not go insane.

I decided to make a list of things that I really don't like. Not in order of degree...just as they randomly come to mind.

1. The same person telling me the same story over and over again, especially with medium spaces of time in between the tellings...so that it's not long enough for them to possibly have forgotten that they told you before, but not so short as to be continuous. It feels like deja vu and makes me feel detached from reality.

2. Cats fighting.

3. The sound of metal scraping against metal - enough said.

4. Babies crying angrily. Babies and anger just don't go together.

5. Unflattering haircuts. People have so much potential for beauty...why squander it on lousy haircuts?

6. Music that is sung or played just a tad off-key the whole way through.

7. Cynicism. I can't live with a lot of it...it just makes me sort of wither.

8. ...

I'm too tired. Nothing is making much sense. :P

Is the secret of growing up that of life becoming more of a torment each day? I understand, just now, how a religion like Buddhism could develop...why people quest for inner peace, and cut themselves off from lust and greed in an effort to cut themselves off from pain. Is this the curse of sin? That the more our eyes are opened to what is, the more pain we experience?

I think that if Christians want to show love and acceptance to people they need to have boundaries. The point being...if love for them equals no boundaries, they will come to a point where they cannot love anymore - because you cannot live life without boundaries...if you live life without boundaries, your life will not be your own.

I think I have seen people turned away from the church because people couldn't "accept" them anymore because they could not say no to their demands. They used dejection (out of fed-up-ness) rather than saying no.

I don't think this is the way to go. We must love and accept the person - help them to see we will always love them - though we may not be able to pander to their every whim or do all they would have us do for them.

There is a way, in love - but we must understand what love is!

zANNEniness! :-)

Humanity: You are dust and to dust you will return.
Computers: You are DOS, and to DOS you will return.

The movie In which Humphrey Bollick met Integrate Bergman in Calcablanca and said, "Here's looking at Euclid!" (from "How to Ace Calculus" - which I did not write, lol)

Chocolateship n. A good time eating chocolate together. (They shared a ~ last Friday night.)
[So it seems like people think this sounds spiritual. I just meant a good time! :)]

so close, and yet so far...

...this is life. So long, and yet so short. Funny how the things that seem the closest to being right can turn out to be the most wrong. Maybe long is short and short is long. Maybe what looks furthest from our reach is most within our grasp whereas what we think is right beneath our noses is impossible to attain. Think backwards for a moment and see if you don't end up ahead of where you started, because perhaps the closest things are the farthest away. And maybe we shouldn't find balance...because balance might turn out to be equilibrium and stagnancy...and could unexpectedly topple us. Maybe we were given two tightropes to walk (i.e. to live the short and the long, the near and the distant) because walking both at the same time would give the greatest balance - in the sense of us balancing because we are living (as opposed to living because we are balancing).

Most of the beautiful things in life are paradoxes...not balances...both/and may = vibrancy and life, not equilibrium.


(2008-07-12...2:37 a.m.)

Perhaps we should not be so quick to discount anything...anything. The fact being, all things should be taken into consideration because they have some sort of relation to the truth. I think that all things illustrate what is truth in some way, some by being lies. Discounting something because of your personal opinion, prejudice, bias, or anything else you does not change what is...not a single iota. But it does affect you - how you relate to the truth affects who you are.

But there is also truth to be considered not as the one large whole of existence, but as purity - chastity...what is true.

"It has been estimated that on the average each human being has about 50,000 thoughts per day." (From "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff," by Robert Carlson)

If you try to count your thoughts you will end up with 100,000 thoughts and no sleep.

Don't count your thoughts...count sheep, or better yet - pray. ;)

I think "incognito" is one of my favorite words. Sometimes you need to hide away. The best thing is to do it with style...thus, remaining incognito.

The funny thing is that when I lose my "smiling" perspective on life I can't remember how I ever smiled before and then when I gain it back I can't imagine - seriously - what there was to be so unhappy about. Maybe I can't imagine, but I know it's just around the corner - so I make sure to try and not think about it....the memory road is long but the thinking road is short.

See:

:) :| ;) :( :D :P =) :o) ...life goes by.

That's how it is.

anne's little life questionnaire

The important things in life...

1. Coke or Pepsi?
2. Sprite or 7-Up?
3. Your main source of caffeine: a) coffee, b) tea/green tea, c) chocolate, d) sugar, e) I'm a superhero and I don't need caffeine
4. Mountains or beaches?
5. What is your favorite form of water? (i.e. waterfall, ice, mist, drinking water, ocean, stream, river, etc...)
6. What is your favorite color?
7. What is your favorite color to wear?
8. To recycle or not to recycle?
9. Your favorite classical music composers are...
10. Sunrise or sunset?
11. Chewy or crunchy chocolate chip cookie?
12. Do you have a USB flash drive? If so, what did you name it? (Not "Untitled"! Oh no...go name the poor thing so it has a name to grow into!)
13. What is your favorite numeral from 0-9? Not a "lucky" number, but aesthetic-wise...a number you think is beautiful in form and amount.
14. What sort of music do you NOT like?
15. White chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate?
16. Life is: a) short, b) long
17. You are person who is: a) cool b) warm
18. The glass is: a) half empty, b) half full
19. Mac, Linux, or PC?
20. Have you ever used a Linux?
21. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
22. Would you consider adopting a child?

I think there are so many things in life that would be cleared up if we started to understand love.

How many times a day do we use the word "love"? "I love you," "I love ice cream," etc...

But if we ponder that God is love (1 John ) and that "in Him we live and move and find our being" (Acts 17 24) and that the greatest command is to love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul and mind and then, to love your neighbor as yourself - perhaps the breath of life is love, and our every breath each day should be love, because this universe is founded on love. Not love as in some impersonal "one-ness" world peace sort of force...but a magnificent, intimate love that moves mountains and makes hearts beat, that draws us in...a love can perhaps only catch glimpses of, with our limited human capacity to understand.

I think that if we are free to love, we can love without fearing being hurt so much...the act of loving itself is healing to us, even if the love is not returned. If we "love" but demand in return, it only hurts us and the other person.

Sometimes we build walls in our hearts...because we need to. But often it comes time when those walls have to be torn down, and that is painful. Don't build walls...draw boundaries. Build drawbridges. Keep yourself free to love.

Love simply is.

Just as God is the great I Am.

I think there is something wrong with me...I feel so sick. It has been quite a few days already...but I don't know why. :P

So if I complain here then I don't have to complain to a live human being...just to a digital blog...that for some weird reason I have been feeling detached. People don't seem very real anymore...almost like they're just floating by w/ their problems and worries. Bizarre. I can't remember feeling this way before. I wonder if it's that I feel frustrated with the hurt and pain in the world...so helpless to heal the hurts of the world.

Also feels like life has lost so much meaning. It seems like no matter which field the career is in, those whom I relate to, or how hard I try...I don't know - life has lost its meaning for me.

And it hurts so much. There's always hurt in some way, all the time - but lately it just seems to overflow so that it's just debilitating. I've been trying to pinpoint why...I like to think I'm self-aware...but lately I'm just confused. I don't know what is wrong...why I'm so tired...why things don't seem to make sense anymore and why it all seems so unreal.

Sometimes I can be positive, but other times...life feels like one bad joke.

Maybe some people would say I need to be a tougher person...be more hard-headed and shrewd and firm w/ people and less emotional about life happenings...to some extent I'm sure this is true - but what use would it be to make a tough outer shell? It would be the same, without the emotions...which - it is all the same anyhow, no use fooling myself...

I mean - if you say something like "no more Mr./Ms. Nice Guy/Gal" to the world...do you really think being Ms. Tough Gal or Ms. Mean Gal is going to solve things? Au contraire...I think it would just be worse. The pain that comes from naivete or transparency may be worth it. Maybe some people can't live with themselves if they keep getting taken in or run over...but I think I couldn't live with myself if I also lost my trust in people and my wonder at the simple marvels of life. But I know I must have something to learn...there is a balance.

The one thing about blogging is that it does help me to feel better somehow...if I talk to a friend I just feel bad about having made the person feel bad.

And sometimes, really, the main problem is something that maybe just hurts too much to talk about or admit to yourself. And so you make up lots of other problems to think about and emote about because anything is better than facing up to reality.

So I guess I want to say that it hurts...but it can be okay.

I got it. It's okay now.

I wish I could pause right here...right in this song. I like this song.

Life is what you make it. Seriously. Attitude is everything.

a) we change...meeting new people changes us, opens up our world...sometimes we can't go back to the old.

b) sometimes the things we think we don't want to ever change, change...so that they are no longer things that we want to last forever.

funny how one person could save you twice in one day in completely different ways, from two completely different things. is that random?

funny how i can put on the best show when i feel my worst.

funny how a person can feel very sad and very happy at once.

life is about paradoxes. there is always more than meets the eye. sometimes you need to spell backwards to get it right.

so i have a cool new song i've been listening to. i've listened to it 23 times already this evening. hmm.

So I am experiencing déja vu...it's surreal.

It is funny how a good song can save you.

And about me: Music is my alternate universe...a very happy one.

Graphic design is so stressful! Argh...it is all about fine-tuning the details...:P

I feel bad often that I don't seem to be there for people when they need me most. I feel like I have a pattern of failing people at their moments of greatest need. I'm not sure why...I wish I could improve in this. I seem to be a good friend a lot of the time, but when it comes to their crisis moments I'm just not there somehow...:P

Or maybe my crisis moments collide with those of others', so that I'm too wrapped up in my own issues when they need me most. I don't want it to be like that...maybe I need to turn outward more...

I don't know but lots of times when I want to blog it's when I'm currently feeling kind of sad. I have a hunch I may be a sentimentalist...I get nostalgic and sentimental way too easily. Grr.

So I'm uploading random pics to Facebook...from the chalk backdrop we made at church. :-)

Oh, I feel depressed. Sometimes you want to let go of the past but it's hard. And I mean the good things, not the bad. :-)

No deep reflections tonight. Just tired...and I should be in bed but I want to upload those pictures . :-)

Grr. Slow internet....:P

This is a ridiculous post I will probably delete tomorrow.

Hehe...it's 11:11 p.m. again. I always seem to notice...I have a thing for 11:11 and 1:11...1 is not my favorite number but there's something delightful about how neat they look all in a row.

So right now I really like hearing Carrie Underwood's "Some Hearts". I don't really agree that 'some hearts just get lucky sometimes' - I am sure it's more than luck...but the chord progressions are really cool. I also like Ana Laura's music - somehow...lol...I started pounding our random stuff on the piano yesterday at church and a friend was like, "You really like the sort of music that goes, up, up, up and takes you to the heavens..." - lol - very true. I like whimsical music..................:D

I don't know if it is silly...but I like music that makes me fly...and why not take the chance to fly without having to buy a plane ticket...lol....

And maybe now I'm really beginning to sound silly, because sleepy minds don't have much to offer in terms of something valuable to put in your brain...except drowsiness, which is valuable when you're sleepy and you DO want to go to sleep, which...some people have trouble sleeping...insomniacs might value it.

Lol - and here goes another "floating" song - Skillet's "The Last Night". Lol.

Okay...pics are done...I'm also done...for...if I don't go to bed. :P

I think maybe our greatest [material/immaterial, non-spiritual] asset in life is time.

"Time heals all wounds..."
"Just give it time..."
"It takes time..."

And also God created it so we could have redemption (I think)...it is the framework beneath which our salvation was orchestrated.

It's weird how maybe you're just walking along the street and random thoughts like this pop up.

Last night I spent some time in prayer. I asked God why it was that I felt so far away from Him - I reviewed my thoughts and actions again and searched for any place where I might have sinned and not confessed and repented...or a well of anger or bitterness - something that might be like a wall. But I could not think of something that seemed to be the answer.

And I started to wonder whether I might be imagining it - or whether I was being fooled into thinking that God was rejecting me for some wrong I had done.

But then I realized something significant I'd never realized before. I realized that Jesus is inside of us, if we have chosen to follow God in faith and to confess Jesus as Lord, and to admit that with our sin, we cannot pass God's judgment without Jesus' help. We are in Him, and He is in us. And I realized that God will not reject His own Son.

I thought again of John 4:18 - "There is no fear in love...because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

And I realized that even if I have sinned and my sin has come between me and God, He will not reject me. If I think He has rejected me then I'm on the wrong path.

So anytime we feel rejected by God, perhaps we need to think again - as to whether the feeling of rejectedness is from Him or from our own imaginations or assumptions. I think that God does not push us away; we push ourselves away. He is always inviting us...to come to Him and to find safety and repose.

"Come to Me, all who are weary or burdened...and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Note that it may not be the sort of safety or repose we think we want, but it will be what we long for most deeply inside. When we come to God, He often asks us to do hard things...but they aren't to punish us - they are to bring us, ultimately, to what we long for most and what will ultimately fulfill us.

And if He did not need to turn His face away from our sin, then He would not be the God whom we can trust and wholly give ourselves to.

I think that God is answering my prayers for more unity in our church. It really is amazing. There was a situation that caused me a lot of pain but because of it I started to pray for unity - and today I have realized that God is answering this prayer. I think others must be praying about it too...I think I will pray that God will continue to plant this desire in our hearts - not just in a couple people's hearts, but in many. And perhaps in the end...even people who didn't get along will heal in their relationships.

I am feeling happy because for the first time in a long time I feel like I actually friends again. I don't mean I didn't have friends, but it means so much to have physically-present friends that you can actually hang out with and tease and understand...in Thai you say "kuy kan rue rueng" - like you understand each other when you talk.

It really helps me to come out of my shell when I have friends like that. For awhile I had gotten terribly introverted and reserved in the sense that I was kind of trapped inside myself and didn't know how to interact with the world.

I'm definitely still an introvert, but it helps me to come out more when I have friends I feel I can trust and who I feel understand me. It is a terrible feeling not to know where you stand with people and always feeling that they're on the verge of hating you if you do something wrong - which, I'm sure that wasn't the case but I always felt that way.

I guess today (or maybe in the past week or so) something changed. I guess it's the fruit of long months of labor of hanging out w/ people and trying to understand them - what makes them tick, what makes them laugh, what they like and don't like - and finally the fruit of it all is...well...connection. Healthy connection - not dependency.

Interesting.

loss

There are many ways to experience loss. Sometimes...something doesn't have to disappear for you to experience loss. Sometimes loss is just finding out it wasn't there in the first place, or that what was wasn't what you thought it was.

There is a Thai pop song called "The One Thing That's Left." In the MV, a girl falls down the stairs and hits her head and contracts amnesia (classic MV melodrama). Her boyfriend is left with grief and sorrow over all the things that he didn't say to her before that happened...all the appreciation he never showed, all the times he took her for granted or paid more attention to his work than her notes or the orange juice she made for him each day. The fact is, she can't remember how they used to love each other.

I think this is a great song. I love playing it on the piano. It's definitely a piano song.

Verse 1:
"In the past I never noticed
What I should have done and didn't
I didn't understand your heart

I never used to listen
I did everything to drive you far away from me
And I only understood once I lost you"

The chorus goes something like this (and he sings it so perfectly):

"The one thing that's left...is my empty life.
Where there once was us, two have disappeared
I ask you to listen...I realized too late
I want to tell you so you can hear
Even if it's too late
...I still love you"

Verse 2:
"The opportunities I messed up
Everything that you shed tears over
Today I can understand well.

If there was a way
To help you understand, even for a second
I would give up everything so that you wouldn't leave..."

I really like this song.

English can't capture all the nuances of meaning held in each Thai phrase. [sigh]

facebook quotes april 08

God exists. Will we acknowledge Him?

"Life...is existence." - Andy



"The things about people that drive us crazy are the things that are keeping them sane." - Eugene Kennedy

"We are none of us invincible. Humanity is a fragile race."

"The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1



"The best way to make a person behave is to make them feel loved." - me

"Ask not how little but how much can love give." ~ Amy Carmichael

"Why did they nail His hands and feet? His love would have held Him there." ~ Michael Card

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - Jesus (John 13:34-35)

"And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." - Colossians 3:14



"If at first you don't succeed, try starting at the end and work your way backwards."

"Don't think yourself into boxes...think yourself out of them."

"If you want to change your mind, you're going to need a brain transplant." - Isra

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." ~ Isaiah 55:8-9



"Friday wouldn't be Friday if we didn't have Mondays thru Thursdays..." - me :)

"I don't know whether to be Edgar Allan Poe or Pollyanna." ~ Bethany

a lot of things make me want to cry...

like hearing a song someone likes and hearing that person so vividly in the song...just their essence - who they are, what makes them tick, what moves them...

One-year blog anniversary :D

I just realized, as I looked over all the posts I've made so far, that I started this blog around my 22nd birthday last year. And I just turned 23 a couple weeks ago...therefore this blog is celebrating its first birthday! This being a cyber-birthday, I guess it would be proper to send it an e-card. ;)

reactions

disagreements are disquieting
conflict is taxing
stress is exhausting
initiating/people interaction wears me out
when people I care for disapprove of me it saps my energy
finding incongruencies between my perspective and reality freaks me out
happy moods happen every once in awhile and are extreme
when people are friendly to me or initiate I just light up inside and out

Thai pop music vs English pop music

So...I am a huge fan of Thai pop music. Thai people are connoisseurs of not just food but feeling. Thai is laden with brilliant adjectives that would each take a paragraph to explain in English. And there is a pop song for every romantic situation you can think of...and somehow, they never sound dorky - they actually make sense, because they explain how you feel in each situation. They sound horrible when I try to translate them - especially the majority of them. Somehow the Thai manages to be specific yet relate to the listener and not sound mundane.

English pop songs have a different quality to them. Somehow they all sound the same to me...but it is funny because my brother says after listening to Thai pop songs for awhile they all sound the same. Maybe it's just that he doesn't fully understand the language. But then, I understand English and after awhile they all sound the same to me. English is a great language...so easy to write - very simple alphabet - I'm a fan. But it is so logic-driven that when it comes to expressing love it is very limited. I had a conversation with a Thai friend once and she explained to me how many words there are for "love" in Thai. I really didn't realize that, even after living in Thailand for 13 years. :P But it makes sense, given that most every feeling in Thai is expressed via its effect on the heart. Happy = "heart good" and sad = "sad heart"...

Thai also has a lot of compound adjectives which are virtually inexpressible in English. I don't really get them that well actually. But they are usually both expressive and lyrical...just like Thai pop music.

I listen to lots of pop radio nowadays because it mainly helps me not to be left alone with my own thoughts so that I think too hard. Sometimes I do tire of the Thai stations nevertheless so I listen to Western stuff for variety...whatever music is on. I am enjoying this sort of modern jazz they turn on a lot on the Western stations. But anyhow, I heard this one line in an English pop song yesterday: "I really want to touch your hair/But every time I reach out/You don't seem to care" I thought this was lame expression and lame rhyme. Not that all English pop songs are like that but even the ones that sound good don't express that much...they're very generalized and not very specific - for example, "Right Here Waiting" by Richard Marx - I feel like some songs are trying to say things but what they're trying to say is beyond what English expresses...a lot of extrapolation is left to the listener. Which can be good too. I do have an English pop favorite - "When You Say Nothing At All" - I used to think it sounded really idiotic but nowadays I think it makes a lot of good sense. I forgot to say that mainly the English love songs don't do that well. The ones that express everyday situations are great - like "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter...

I know I'm doing a lot of generalizing and not giving very many examples. But I have been thinking about this for a long time and I tend to generalize in general but if I have been observing quantities of data for a long amount of time and still draw the same conclusion it's probably safe to say it's a plausible conclusion.

I thought I would give an example of an expressive Thai pop song - romantic - that I really like. This one is actually a little bit different from the others...it doesn't express a very specific situation but more talks about love itself. For all the feeling-drivenness of Thai, I thought this song did an excellent job of expressing both the logic of feeling and love. It happens to be translatable so it still makes sense and sounds nice...maybe because there is logic in it...

More Than Love (Mak kwa rak)

This person used to feel lonely
...Really forlorn
I searched for that love - where was it?
The world is just so big
And filled with people
But my heart got lonelier with every moment

Yet once I met you
I don't know what it is you give me
That same big world
Never makes me feel lonely
So long as I have you next to me

You are more than love
Because you're half my life
And I've spent my whole life looking for you
And I've waited for you for so long
And in the end I've found that you're everything
that completes my heart
From now on every breath I take is you

If you are love
Then it is a love that is wondrous beyond words
I'm so fortunate to have you next to me
Your life has filled what was lost in mine

I must say I am terribly lonely for human interaction lately...especially artsiness and mildly academic discourse.

so I really really feel like blogging lately.

I get in these random moods where it seems like I should post every thought that pops into my head. Of course most of them never make it to the blog because by the time I have access to Blogger I have forgotten about them or else they no longer seem as significant as they did initially.

For now I will share this link:
www.eightysevenfour.com:%3Fp=14

Lol. Yesterday I got a wholly dramatic scratch across the back of my left hand merely by inadvertently brushing it past a thorn bush while leaving my grandmother's house. It is so funny because people will probably be all over this scratch, if they notice it, and I can just imagine what a time I will have trying to convince them it was just a plant at my grandmother's house. :-)

I'm feeling depressed again. I think I just don't sleep very well at night and this is why I keep getting depressed and tired out. :| I also wish that life made more sense, sometimes - I mean, life makes sense...it's just hard to feel it at times. Argh...I feel so sad!

Oh well.

Despite the depression, I do feel that God has been very gracious to me. He has helped me to discover that the things I fear most don't necessarily come true. In fact, the mirror opposite of what I expect from my romanticized fears may actually occur. I think that if we are not free of fear, we must fight for it - God wants us to be free...and sometimes it takes overcoming our thoughts and feelings long enough to believe that God can set us free, and to ask Him to do so.

I think.

Lol...I am thinking that I can be very stubborn at times.

I am sorry my posts are so depressing of late. Somehow it just helps to say how I am feeling, and I don't want to go burdening people with it so putting it here helps. It is funny how I have plenty of "lols" in the middle of depression...the truth is that I feel both; I feel awful...terribly sad, as if I did enough sighing I might just sigh myself away and disappear...but I can also laugh because there is much to be mirthful about. Life is full of idiosyncrasies that won't readily be ignored.

pondering <3

Thursday, January 3, 2008

I have been thinking a bit about romantic love. It has such an ability to cause either great pain or suffering or great joy. I think that because of that, it can be inferred that it is something of great import...it is not a part of ourselves that can be ignored. My heart just breaks for all those in the world with broken hearts, for those with dashed hopes...for situations that feel like they should be right but in the end were never meant to be. I think this reflects on the great schism that is a part of our universe because of sin. There must be a reason for all the incomplete love stories in this world, with the non-Hollywood endings.

If those who were suffering because the person they loved did not love them back (or else they loved each other and could not be together for some reason) could find a reason for why they suffered so, why such a small thing in the big scheme of things could cause them such pain, perhaps the pain might be lessened a bit or else made more bearable.

I think the world is built on a love story. Love is written into the foundations of this earth. Love (or non-love) and its impact cannot be ignored, nor should we try to ignore it. I think we should try to understand...there is something big behind something that can make such waves in a cognitive being.

It is what impacts the heart of us...to think that love is represented with a heart-shape (both romantic and non-romantic love) - maybe it is something so obvious, right beneath our noses, hidden in plain sight - love is at the heart of humanity. Babies die when they feel unloved. Maybe love is what keeps us going...keeps our hearts beating.

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:8

"For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' " Acts 17:28


What I wonder is what the distinction between romantic and non-romantic love should be. They both have such import...with such different nuances...I haven't figured it out. Is romantic love a subset of love...?

But then, the story of redemption is that of Christ, the Bridegroom, sacrificing for His bride, the Church. And after all the pain and suffering in this world is over, when things have been righted - there will be a great Wedding!

And romantic love is a type of that love. Perhaps that is where the meaning to romantic love lies - the redemption itself...not just the love that led to it. Maybe that is why it strikes at the very core of us? Or perhaps it is the extra bit that completes things...

"The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete." - John the Baptist (John 3:29)

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." - Jesus (John 15:11)

But I am not sure. Oh well. It needs lots more thought. There is some bit of differentiation needed and I haven't quite hit on it in my mind.

Come to think of it, trying to philosophize about love is a bit oxymoronic, love being the greatest emotion, and emotions being the least logical of things in this universe.

By the way, I was looking up verses that had "joy" and "complete" in them...and there seems to be a theme. It seems that completing joy has to do with closeness - either coming face to face ("I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete." - 2 John 1:11) or, even greater, when Jesus talks about it - it is "remaining in Him" - so I wonder if the significance of romantic love has to do with the intimacy of it - after all, sin made a chasm, so that intimacy was not possible - and romantic love on this earth represents the greatest earthly intimacy, which is but a shadow of the intimacy that the Church will share with Christ when it is wedded to Him.

Oh, but this is confusing...

I am at least minorly depressed right now. I guess maybe it's okay to just give in sometimes...I'm tired of fighting all the things to be sad about...and trying to be apathetic about things that matter. Maybe sometimes depression is appropriate and thus I should be happy that I'm doing the appropriate thing for once!

I was watching one of my most favorite movies and it had gotten to my most favorite part and the DVD was scratched at that exact spot!

But of course that's not really the issue at hand...

I wonder why there have been so many sad things happening this Christmas.

People hurting themselves, people falling ill, people being attacked, people passing away.

The season started this way and ended this way.

How so very strange.

Does it have anything to do with Christmas? Does it have anything to do with the lifespan of this earth?

I wonder. It is sobering.

I just realized today that analogies exist because there are patterns in this universe. I had previously realized the existence of both those things, and even consciously tied them together in some way, but the significant thought that cemented this idea for me was that we should consciously look for patterns because they exist. That is why analogies exist, and why they are so important. The thing I appreciate most from the SAT was the fact that I had to study analogies for it; that was what first brought this tremendously fascinating concept to my attention. I like looking for patterns anywhere and everywhere, tangible or intangible, but I used to think it was a sort of random hit and miss. Now I realize that not only is it valid; it is something that we should do.

I think we should assume a writer's mind and constantly search for analogies...not for writing but for improving our understanding of this world.

Patterns are fascinating things. For one, there are trees. The tree shape is everywhere...that of a trunk branching out time and time again (points to a Source for all things).

Someone told me that they thought the entire creation was one complex fractal - down to the molecular level. I wonder about that...what if it is? The patterns would make a lot of sense then. But of course it is not something we can really try to figure out. Proving or disproving such an idea is rather beyond us.

Okay...that last post was a horrible way to start off a new year - but wait...I said there was no change in significance between one moment and the next...so there is no new year - wait - lol. I just noticed that the past few posts I've made have sounded awfully depressed. I must turn over a new leaf! Smile...say cheese (*cheese*!)...grin for the camera of life and because I do have reasons to smile. I really need to smile. Lately I always seem to feel a frown on my forehead...I don't know why (and this is why I'm writing...because I kind of need to vent) - I wish that going on autopilot didn't entail anxiety and that my mind would feel a teeny bit lighter. (Smile.) Really try. <> It's not working. I feel like Garfield.

I think that maybe the very simple thing I need is sleep. But somehow I think I've had enough of vacation. I think it would be nice to get back to work.

Oh - there is a verse. :-) This one is worth recording.

Psalm 27:1 is one of my favorite verses ever...I think it has been my verse this year - it always came to mind in the hardest of times: "The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? " I cannot deny this verse. I liked it so much I put it on bookmarks and gave it out at Christmas. Amazingly it opened up the way for a conversation with someone who really, really needed to talk. I was encouraged that I was able to share with her that God could help her...and that I could mean it with all my heart and no doubt.

Yesterday I read the whole psalm and the last verse also stood out to me:

"I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD."

I guess it is an appropriate end-of-the-year verse...although I would not prefer another year of waiting, I think waiting is so very important...I think it is one of the best ways to hear God speak. I think we don't hear God as often as we might because often we don't wait long enough.

I started out depressed and it turned into this...I guess it is good to encourage myself. Now I am a sort of emulsion - feeling both positive and negative. They don't exactly mix but they can coexist in one spot.

Sometimes I think when people (me) are depressed...they just want to be depressed and they don't really want to feel happy because depression is fulfilling in a morbid sort of way. So..................... (small grin)..................

New Year's Reflections

I really don't like New Year's. What separates 11:59:59 p.m. from 12:00:00 a.m. anyhow? I don't see what the point of separating it all is. It's just a day like any other; marking it is depressing....depressing...depressing - a year gone by, with the weight of regrets of things happened and regrets of things undone - and the burden of another year to make the most of, to live...all squished into one minute. I hate countdowns. I used to make it a point to get up to see the dawn of the New Year - but houses and buildings obfuscated the view. City life.

I don't really understand why on earth I should be so ridiculously cynical about New Year's! I am not a huge fan of cynicism.

So I guess I'm rather depressed right now. A couple minutes ago I was informed by an informant that...apparently...it used to be that when I was depressed I would go and read Crime and Punishment. I don't know if this is true; I cannot remember. It is possible. But it must have been snatches of the story that I reread; I've only read the book through once and it was highly complicated so that now I don't really remember it all that well.

Speaking of punishment...I had some reflections a couple months earlier on guilt. Guilt is a monstrosity that can eat a person dry...especially unmerited guilt.

I was so confused about guilt - I kept wondering how on earth I could let go of guilt. It has such a capacity to take over, and it made me so wretched - and it didn't make sense; what was there to be guilty about anyhow?

And then it hit me that perhaps there is a link between guilt and pride. After all, if God is saying it's okay, who is saying it's not? ...What right do we have to say that it's not? Who is it that can't accept ourselves? Whose standards aren't we measuring up to?

Actually it was easier after that to let go of guilt.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." ~ 1 John 4:18

But oh, goodness, is it ever hard not to give in to a sad mood. :

What I need right now is a really beautiful song that has no hint of sadness in it.