Archive for November, 2006
30 Nov, 2006
Passing Days
I woke; I showered; I worked; I slept.
I woke; I showered; I worked; I slept.
I woke; I showered; I worked; I slept.
I woke; I showered; I worked; I slept.
I woke; I showered; I worked; I slept.
I woke; I showered; I read; I watched; I cried; I called; we talked; I smiled; she laughed. I laughed. I slept.
I woke; I smiled; I showered; I dressed; I called; we met; we watched; we talked; we held; we kissed; we laughed; she went; I went; I called; we laughed; I slept.
I woke; I showered; I worked; I slept…
28 Nov, 2006
Sitting Next to Future Celebrities
I sat next to a trio of beautiful girls on the bus today. They were Mass Comm students, and spoke very good English; not accented, mind you, but good. I think they might make great radio hosts one day.
I could well have been sitting next to future celebrities.
I am so happy.
27 Nov, 2006
The Finish Line
Well, the finish line has been crossed, and I’m ready to go back to sanity. I think that the most important thing that I’ve learnt from this is that when we approach a difficult task, we always start out believing, then doubting, then, if we’re lucky, persevering; and in the end, winning.
I believe I deserve some sleep; I am going to sleep.
Good night,
Donn
26 Nov, 2006
The Dung Pile
As I was stumbling, I came across this site on Buddhist Stories. The very first story was The Worm, about two Buddhist monks who died within months of each other, but whose afterlives went in very different directions: one went to Heaven, while the other became a worm in a dung pile. Here’s the story:
There is a wonderful little story about two monks who lived together in a monastery for many years; they were great friends. Then they died within a few months of one another. One of them got reborn in the heaven realms, the other monk got reborn as a worm in a dung pile.
The one up in the heaven realms was having a wonderful time, enjoying all the heavenly pleasures. But he started thinking about his friend, “I wonder where my old mate has gone?” So he scanned all of the heaven realms, but could not find a trace of his friend.
Then he scanned the realm of human beings, but he could not see any trace of his friend there, so he looked in the realm of animals and then of insects. Finally he found him, reborn as a worm in a dung pile… Wow! He thought: “I am going to help my friend. I am going to go down there to that dung pile and take him up to the heavenly realm so he too can enjoy the heavenly pleasures and bliss of living in these wonderful realms.”
So he went down to the dung pile and called his mate. And the little worm wriggled out and said: “Who are you?”, “I am your friend. We used to be monks together in a past life, and I have come up to take you to the heaven realms where life is wonderful and blissful.” But the worm said: “Go away, get lost!” “But I am your friend, and I live in the heaven realms,” and he described the heaven realms to him. But the worm said: “No thank you, I am quite happy here in my dung pile. Please go away.”
Then the heavenly being thought: “Well if I could only just grab hold of him and take him up to the heaven realms, he could see for himself.” So he grabbed hold of the worm and started tugging at him; and the harder he tugged, the harder that worm clung to his pile of dung.
Do you get the moral of the story? How many of us are attached to our pile of dung?
– from the story The Worm, by Ajahn Brahmavamso
I actually thought I had gotten the moral of the story, when I saw the writer’s first question, “Do you get the moral of the story?” But when he asked “How many of us are attached to our pile of dung?” I realised that I hadn’t.
What I presume the writer’s intended moral was that we should not be so attached to what we’re comfortable with. Perhaps there’s a Heaven out there just waiting for us, with people trying hard to get us there, but we’re just too stubborn to see it.
In the context of this story, I do not agree.
Karma is there for a Reason
If the monk who became a worm was meant to go to Heaven, he would have gone there in the first place. If the monk who had gone to Heaven were to bring the worm there as well, what would the other people who were re-born into worms think? Would it be fair for them?
And what kind of Heaven would allow those who did not belong there to be there? It would be like inviting paedophiles into a kindergarten — it won’t be a pretty sight.
Heaven’s what you Make of it
One man’s meat is another man’s poison. One man’s Heaven, is another man’s Hell. What would a worm do in a Heaven populated by human-like beings?
No matter how nice we might think our house is, no wild animal would be content to live there. Animals are happier where they were placed by nature: in the wild. Likewise, the worm’s Heaven would well have been his dung pile; and if you noticed how hard he fought to remain where he was, you’ll find it hard to think otherwise.
My moral of the story is: Not everyone thinks like you do. You may think you know what’s best for another, but you will never know until you are the other.
Life’s simply not as straightforward as it suggests.
24 Nov, 2006
Giving up NaNoWriMo
In a writing stupor the 23,000th word was typed. Fingers slammed the wrong keys, misguided by the brain fatigued beyond total exhausation, hoping for some respite; but the heart would hear nothing of it, and I pushed on.
I only decided to stop for the night when I realised just how incoherent my thoughts had gotten, and how I simply could not concentrate at all on writing: I found that I had killed my character in Chapter 4 and Chapter 6, just as I completed chapter 12, in which she was a vital character.
But quantity, not quality, was the order of the night, so I allowed this metaphysical paradox to stand, fully believing that it would fix itself later on.
I went to bed and slept almost immediately.
The next night, I continued my writing. By chapter 16, I had run out of ideas. Writing stalled for a while, till I remembered that my character’s dual-death was still not resolved. With a stroke of genius, I decided this story would not be a thriller anymore: science fiction — complete with time travel and the theory of Parallel Universes — would be my genre of choice.
NaNoWriMo and its 50,000 Words
NaNoWriMo is about writing a 50,000 word novel in a month. I approached it thinking that it was an insanely doable task. And with so many other people having already done it (over 9,000 in 2005), how hard could it be?
Well, hard. Very hard, in fact.
It took me 19 days to hit my 13,000th word, and I was at this time already giving up over an hour of my time most nights to write.
Sacrifice
The last few nights, in my push towards the halfway mark, I’ve been giving close to three hours of my time. I’ve even given up reading, television, and my semi-daily run. I’ve isolated myself from friends and family; the radio’s been unplugged; and I have cut my sleeping time almost 20%. If this isn’t obsessive, I don’t know what is.
Purpose
I’ve asked myself countless times what I was doing all this for: Nobody’s going to read my novel; nobody’s going to say “well-done”; and I’m not going to get any monetary reward. Just what am I getting out of it?
Giving Up
I’ve often thought of giving up this silly game, especially as I struggled to find things to write. And of late, as the stagnation of ideas begins, this has been a thought continually playing on my mind: “Perhaps I should stop now. I could always try next year, when I’m more ready.”
That was the thing that made me realise that whether I liked it or not, I would have to go through with this: Not going through with this, all the way till the end, would be to set a terrible precedent, and I’m not prepared to do that.
I could well imagine myself giving up a business opportunity because “I could always wait for the next one to come along, when I’m more ready,” or not studying for an exam “because there’s always next year.”
I realised that if I do manage to get through these moments of self-doubting and push through to complete this novel, however bad it may be, it would prove to be a fantastic reference point for the rest of my life, instead of a terrible precedent for me to have to live with.
I hope to give you the good news in a week’s time when NaNoWriMo ends.