Discussing: An act of Love

"I respect your views ..."

How many times have we heard this phrase, and with a sense of satisfaction in respecting human freedom, we tuck away so many of those topics of which we lie so ignorant, and away we through so precious an opportunity to share.

Here's my take. If you are ... if you would call yourself a friend, then are not the truths that you hold most dear the ones which you ever so wish to share. To search for truth together with him/her whose significance in your life is not a mere nighttime breeze - passing only through the hair.

But you argue, "Whenever I do get close to discussing, it ends up nowhere, since I do not convince them to change their mind, and they do not succeed in changing mine - and anyway, I bear no intention of doing anything of the sort."

And I respond to that "I agree that to convince the other is the nature of today's discussions, but it is not the nature of discussion."

Discussion should be an objective and truthful search for the truth, with the assumption that neither knows the end. Yet having agreed on the fundamental building blocks - the common ground which you may discover to be further than you imagined, both build up the arguement, together - pushing it like a wagon up a hill, until the result is known, or an unagreeable fact is arrived at, at which point opinion will have taken the place of fact.

And if with a Loved one the truth shall not be sought, then with whom, ... even more worryingly, then what else will you search for?

I pray that your hearts may burn BURN with a desire to exchange views in the search for truth in the most trivial facts - the building blocks of the more 'complicated' circumstances of life. Youth, at heart, youth - may you burn like a fire, burn away all fear and dark corners of your beliefs and purify your hearts and mind. Do this and life will come to be ever so beautiful - with no impurities of thought.

But I must warn, the joy will not be sustained by a pause - like a fire without firewood.

Love!

Friends and Friendship

It has been said that man is a social being.

Quite often, this statement has come with the qualification that in order to survive, man requires others so as to acquire from them what he cannot get on his own.

In recent times past, I have come to be exposed, initially through formal lesson, but fundamentally through experience, that whilst the statement remains true, the qualification does a great injustice to it.

I am not a social being merely because for bread I need a baker, for beer I need a brewer or for meat I need a butcher, for though these I may need, I am social because in a friend we, together and individually, find fulfillment in each other - in helping, supporting, and sharing tears and laughter the heart grows unceasingly. And truly the love that it bears cannot be borne in it alone, and must be shared, for it feels as though the heart would burst in excess of it.

For the father - a loving wife and needing children, for the mother - a loving husband and desiring children, for the children - guiding parents and many playmates. For each man, woman and child - a sea of love in the eyes of another, a cushion of tears on the shoulder of a friend, the silence of a listening confidant, a congratulations' pat from a partner, an opportunity to help in a trusting other, and a toast to life in the smile of life - our friends.

To Friends and Friendship!
To Our Friends!

So How High is this Sky

Too often I have heard the famous statment 'The sky is the limit'.

Recently I have come to wonder, how high is this sky? and is it lower for some people because of their economic, religious or cultural status? For many years I thought this was so - that dreams were dictated by current economic status, that goals were limited by religious belief, and that living the life was defined by cultural background, yet all the time it didn't seem right. But I had neither reason against it, nor the direction - at least not quite what I later got.

In the last very few years, some key persons have continuously, and very often unknowingly, guided me in this path.

Thanks to these, the sky's limit is only as far as my imagination can reach, and I'm hell-bent to discover the bounds of my imagination. With it, my economic status will be, ... precisely that - mine, what I mean it to be, depending on how I regard any current economic status. Religious belief - hey, if God created the world, and gave me my imagination, and the power to differ right from wrong, then I fear no danger in that aspect. By cultural status - that's what makes life so rich.

A toast to life!

There and back again.

It has been too long since that day on which I excused myself for 'a few days'.

These days have now turned into weeks, weeks into months, and these months landed us in a new year. But now, ... now I intend to be around a lot more often.

Oh many are the tales and stories that I would like to write down, of friends and family, experiences and growth, of joys and sorrow, laughter and silence, yet I write now knowing that the days due promise only more work and less time to relax and reflect on the movements of life.

I will take a different approach this time. For longer than should have been I have wanted to jot down thoughts, ... not to anyone in particular, yet that others may read them, think of them, and where duly they agree, but more appreciable that where they differ do they offer reply - and if fate may so gracious a gift may grant, a discussion may arise in an exchange of ideals and ideas, in desire to learn from each other, rather than in trying to undermine any other.

What more can I say, than that the days to come be filled with much joy and thought as both you and I may contain.

To Life!