littlestar

a quote i particularly liked:
"Live a life in which you cram yourself with all kinds of metaphors, all kinds of activities and all kinds of love. And take time to laugh -- find something that makes you truly happy -- every day of your life."

"Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made up or paid for in factories."

i'm always aware of the fact that some day... i will die. for some odd reason, i've just always been aware of my own mortality. maybe i was sick too much as a kid or all that talk of heaven in sunday school got to me... at least i don't think i'm going to die in my 40s or 50s anymore. at least, i'm not as completely convinced anymore. :)

in recognizing that i have finite amount of time in this world, i always thought that i should make every moment count.

as i grow older, i find this harder to do.

it's not like i needed something grand and meaningful. i just didn't want to live life with regrets (this i loudly declared to my mom when i was 12). people talk about changing what they would have done in the past sometimes. despite some difficult periods in my life, i can honestly say that i don't regret my decisions. i think some of them led to unfortunate consequences but i also wouldn't be the person that i am today.

and i like who i am today.

that brings me some comfort when i find myself getting too morose/depressed about some hardships in my life.

i'm pretty different from both my family. i think most of my friends can tell. i blame growing up with two different cultures that don't always agree with each other. i mean... it pretty much highlights that a lot of this stuff is truly arbitrary and that the individual has a choice in what they choose to believe and how to live his/her life.

i find some aspects of the asian/my family mentality hard to deal with. i really do like who i am today, and my past experiences have helped me develop into this personality. so i consider a lot of my past as a process. life as a process with an outcome that you can't forsee because nothing really goes as you planned anyway.

my family an relatives have the idea that life is a road, where you can go off on paths that will lead you to misery and unhappiness and regret. in fact, they already see my life heading towards this unsightly end. they regret my decisions when i don't. they believe that i should compromise, that growing up is about the willingness to see "reality" and acting "maturely".

is this just my family or an asian thing?

i attribute a lot of it to growing up in a society where survival really did come first before dreams.

i consider myself fortunate for not having to worry about surviving.

but growing up with all these expectations and views on life, i'm not immune to feeling trapped. that i'm somehow foolish for not going down a sure road (med school) and going for something tenuous and risky (art).

but i really really want to give it a shot. i want to wake up each morning happy and satisfied with my life. well... even if i feel grumpy/hungover/tired/lazy/etc, i want there to be an underlying sense of happiness.

it encourages me to read about or meet people that have that enthusiasm for life. it reminds me that certain things are worth the effort.

thus ends my long rambly post on why i liked what ray bradbury wrote.