You
would think that it’s merely vapid chatter, a barrage of nonsense sent and
received through social media. But is it, really? In that chat room where you
can never expect sanity to enter the conversation, where personal boundaries
are not respected and recollections are idealized by nostalgia, you can escape
from the humdrum concerns of adulthood and return to those years when life was
simple and fun was free. In those daily
exchanges that seem banal and inane you know that you have friends out there—the ones you’ve made two decades ago.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
Humor won't save you
Monday, January 26, 2015
Humor won’t save you; it
doesn’t really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years,
maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives
seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter
how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of
humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That’s when you stop laughing.
In the end there’s just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end
there’s only death.
~ Michel Houllebecq, The Elementary Particles, 1998
Friday, January 23, 2015
Just the Place We Wanted
Friday, January 23, 2015
Christmas in the Philippines can get overly festive,
almost bordering on the maniacal. To escape from the glitter and chaos of the
city and the commodified cheer of the holidays, we flew to the island of
Phuket in Thailand.
Kata
Beach, where we whiled away the days, was just the place we wanted or, better
yet, needed: touristy yet laid- back and devoid of the trappings of the
yuletide season yet filled with the seductions of a tropical wonderland.
Kata Noi, Phuket, Thailand |
Compared
with our previous trips that entailed trekking poles, heavy boots, gore-tex
jackets and a huge amount of stamina, this one only required no more than a
bottle of sunblock, sunglasses, and a swimsuit. Lying on a beach mat while
watching the waves crash against people’s legs, I realized how relaxing vacations
of that type are. We didn’t have to wake up early; we didn’t have to go
anywhere but the beach; we didn’t have to do anything.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
As if something so forbiddingly colossal must somehow be friendly
Thursday, January 22, 2015
I think back to the enthralled group silent in the face
of the majestic beauty of Machhapuchhre last night and I wonder if we aren’t
all in danger of falling into the romantic delusion that by staring at these
great massifs of rock and ice we achieve some form of communication with them,
as if something so forbiddingly colossal must somehow be friendly.
The mountains are far more likely to be enemies than
friends. We take them on at our peril and, despite all nature’s warnings, long
to go higher. And the higher we go the more the mountains tighten their grip,
squeezing the life out of most people, gently in some cases, more severely in
others. The locals who see the mountains as gods to be appeased are only
translating pragmatic experience. Human beings are not meant to live at these
heights and they should expect trouble if they do.
~
Michael Palin, Himalaya, 2004
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Souq, sahara, babouche, kasbah
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
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