in defense of smallness

In the grand scheme of things, nothing matters. Nothing is bigger than the infinite amount of time and space in this universe, so there’s really no hope that any one person will have done something that will be of any significance on that scale.

So what can we do but live for the small things? For the moments, however brief, of pure happiness and joy that we bring each other. For the smiles and the laughter, for the affectionate touch and the meeting of eyes. And for the moments of sadness and pain too - the tugging of our hearts, the sound of “no” or “I’m sorry, but...”, the glares of anger or the looks of disappointment... In many ways, our lives are composed entirely of and remembered by those small moments, even amidst the large and life-changing events.

So maybe there’s nothing wrong at all with placing so much importance in all these little things, be they the slightest gestures of kindness and affection or the most thoughtless acts of... well, thoughtlessness. Because it is in these little moments that we are truly alive.

coefficient of life

you were blessed by
a different kind of inner view
it's all magnified
the highs will make you fly
but the lows make you want to die
- missy higgins

Being able to fly for days off the smallest word or gesture, however thoughtful or thoughtless, is such an amazing gift to have... but boy, I can never get used to those drops caused by the smallest word or gesture, however thoughtful or thoughtless.

Given that you can't have one without the other, I wonder sometimes if I'd be better off (or, at the very least, more sane) without either.

I'm suddenly reminded of something e. wrote a long, long time ago:

But I can't say that all of Buddhist teachings resonate with me (what I understand of them, anyway). I have no interest in eliminating desire and suffering. I'm interested in experiencing them, reveling in them, learning from them, understanding them. Maybe the objective in Buddhism is to do that, and then to transcend them, leaving behind their capacity for destruction. Noble, to be sure. A world of enlightened beings would be terribly idyllic. Call it selfish if you want, but I want my world with drama.

colors and scents

It's amazing how different the world can look from one day to the next without visibly changing at all. During my drive to work today, I noted how much colder and darker everything looked... despite the fact that the clouds that had engulfed the skies the day before had all but disappeared by this morning. I found myself reveling at the sudden sense of overwhelming unfamiliarity that seemed to have settled onto the world. All the colors seemed to have shifted into an unrecognizable pattern, and the drive up 101 this morning felt like it was the first I'd ever made.

I have this strange habit of seeing and remembering things by their colors and their smells. I'd step outside onto a street that I've walked through a million times before, and every now and then, I would find myself thinking, "It smells like Japan," or "It looks like Boston."

I'm probably making no sense at all, as I remember trying to describe this once to a friend without much success. But it's interesting to me how strongly my memory is tied to the smell of the air or the color of the atmosphere, especially in combination with the fact that my own vision at the present is very much affected by my current state of mind. What's even more interesting are the colors of the memories that most frequently choose to surface in my mind.