Milestones of Memories

Every blog post is another milestone in my life. That's how I see it. The time you have on this earth is finite. There's a fixed amount of time in your pocket and you choose how you want to spend this currency called Time.

What then is considered a good use of one's time? It's the same consideration that comes into play when you decide what you want to do with your money. You can spend it on something that you enjoy or you can invest it. 

Usually to try to kill two birds with one stone: enjoy and invest. Writing in this blog is one of those activities that I enjoy but what do I get out of it? It is like physical exercise. If you want to improve your writing, you simply have to write. The more you write, the better your writing becomes. And that's my motivation for maintaining this blog besides having it as almost like an online journal of my thoughts throughout the years. 

I've been blogging since 2003, when the war in Iraq broke out. At that time, there were many so-called 'warblogs'. Facebook, Youtube and smartphones were not in the picture yet. That seemed like a different kind of world now. I was living in a hotel in Jakarta then and I remember having to dial-up through the hotel phone to PT Telkom's ISP service to get a connection.

This blog contains all my thoughts since then and I've covered a wide range of topics. I can see how my thinking has evolved over the years and I certainly know myself a lot better now having thrashed out these thoughts on the pages of this humble blog. 

No one reads this blog of course and I'm happy about it. You see, when you practice writing, you need some kind of stage for rehearsal. A rehearsal stage is both private and public. Anyone can walk in and watch the performance, but it is not the actual performance that you would want your real audience to see. Anyone watching a rehearsal too understands that there will be imperfections and the performance is just a work-in-progress.

That's the spirit of this blog and that's how I choose to maintain it. The good thing about writing in a blog is that, it is forever etched in the akasha of the internet. For the first two years, I blogged almost daily. Nowadays, I try to post something once a week. These regular blog posts gives me a sense of accomplishment every week--like a columnist with a dateline to meet.

When I run out of things to write about, I simply write...about writing. And that's what this post is all about. It's about time, blogging, milestones and writing. It's a blog about nothing and yet it is everything to me. In the end, all you have are memories. And they are captured here for posterity. And it gives me so much pleasure to be able to write this final sentence that ends the post for this week!

The Karmic Quest for Self-Expression

Happiness is listening to some piano music while I read or write. I have John Field's Nocturne No 1 in E-flat Major playing in the background as I type these lines. Classical piano music always bring me back to my childhood.

There's a certain sense of familiarity whenever I listen to classical music. When I first listened to Beethoven and Chopin as a child, it felt like welcoming back old friends--I had a feeling that I had heard them before and I had always loved them. Was I evoking memories of my past life? Perhaps. But I wouldn't go so far. 

All cultures create their own music. Is music a basic necessity? No. We won't die but life would be intolerably boring without it. Music is an expression of karma. (There I go again, with my annoying New Agey lingo!). What I mean is that there are certain tendencies in human behaviour, in the way the human brain works, that manifest themselves in art and other forms of human expressions. 

Why do we enjoy chatting with friends? Most conversations do not serve any practical purpose. There's no real practical value in 'catching up' with old friends. But we socialize because it is in our nature to do so. Our genes demand it. We are compelled to do so. We are driven by our instinctive behaviour to do things that we do not really comprehend its purpose. Because to live is to do things, even without purpose.

Why climb a mountain? Because it's there. 

Why listen to music? Because it evokes certain feelings and memories. Why do we value these sentimental evocations? Again, it is an expression of being human. We feel, we think and we do. Must there be a purpose to everything?

We chase after pleasures. Life is the pursuit of pleasure--not in a negative sense. Having a partner for life and bringing up children whom you can love and be proud of is a pleasure. There is no shame in striving for that. It is what makes us human. It is what life is all about. To love and be loved. Again, it is karma expressing itself--energy being conserved, transferred and distributed evenly across the universe. 

You can assist or impede this flow of energy. But the laws of nature are dispassionate. You can push things off, but the universe has infinite patience. It cuts channels into mountains of stones and sweeps the soil from the land into the oceans. It is forever looking for stability. 

To live is to allow your personal channel of energy--your karma--to find its optimal path of expression. That in a nutshell is the purpose of life. Why does life even need a purpose? The need for purpose is another karmic kink within of which its quest is an act of expression. The sense of dissatisfaction you feel inside--those are the unstable regions of your psyche that need re-balancing.

May we all have better insights into the workings of our karma and may we ease them into resolution through our well-chosen actions.