It’s that time of the year

It’s that time of the year again, when I can’t but look back and reflect on what I’ve done, or whether I’ve done enough; on how far I’ve gone, or how I got there; on what changed, or what I would’ve changed. These are questions that don’t really have answers, and yet I ask.

I’ve changed jobs, met new people, spent my birthday climbing a mountain, learned how to use a tablet, wrote less, studied Nihongo, camped on a volcano, fell in love with Haruki Murakami, got accosted on an overpass, succumbed to the delights of having cable TV, and started jumping rope. That’s about it – a year that’s pretty uneventful but otherwise satisfying. 

Climbing Mountains

I’d always known that climbing mountains was a high-risk pursuit. I accepted that danger was an essential component of the game—without it, climbing would be little different from a hundred other trifling diversions. It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificent activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.

~ Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster, 1997

Thanksgiving at Anawangin Cove, Zambales

What could be a better way to celebrate thanksgiving than to spend it with family, surrounded with the bounty of nature, stripped of all excess, and grateful for having life’s bare essentials?  Enduring a few days’ discomfort truly makes us appreciate the everyday comforts we enjoy but often give little value to.