Life itself is grace...

It just occurred to me that I am staring at a piece of history that has changed human lives profoundly...

 

 

Yep, that's it -- this innocent looking, silent, non-threatening, and beautiful piece of device has taken over our lives!  It's made it very difficult for our minds to quiet down, to focus, to absorb the present and to think!

The ever-increasing creep of technology -- into our lives, our families, our brains -- has created the state of "continuous partial attention" where we are always partly tuned into everything while never completely tuned in to anything.  Sadly, "Continuous partial attention" seems like a good three-word description of modern life.

 

Listen to your life.  See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.  In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

 

-- Frederick Buechner   

 

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word...

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

-- T. S. Eliot

Where have I been?

I urged myself to answer the question: "Where have I been?"

Yeah, it's been too long since I stopped and reflected on where I've been, what I've done and if I'm still living my dreams...

It pains me to look at the calendar and realize it's June already!  Looking back, life has been pretty hectic -- I traveled almost every week for the first 4.5 months of the year, non-stop.  In the midst of all the craziness, we managed to squeeze in a trip to Hawaii and a trip to China, almost back-to-back...  Came back, took a few more trips for work, and here we are, rushed into June.  Over the past few weeks, I devoted 69 hours of my precious life watching seven seasons of Mad Men.  Can you believe it?  Am I crazy?  Where did I find the time?  I have to tell you that for the first time in a very long while, I feel so out of my own elements -- I don't even know where I am and what I'm doing...  I haven't felt so lost for a LONG time!

As I sat under the full moon tonight to rationalize my confusion, I was able to conclude the following -

There is a relatively big gap between the life I am living today and the life I aspire to live.  Over the past few years, I tried my very best to live within all the limitations -- I tried to enjoy life outside of my work, I tried to explore life with very limited free time, I tried to get up early and go to bed late to squeeze out a few more hours to pursue my love of photography...  The truth is: the more I know, the more I see, the deeper I realize what I truly want and what I truly aspire to.

It reminded me of years ago when I went to college in my hometown Beijing.  I witnessed the deep inner conflicts of those kids who came to the big city from remote villages.  All of a sudden, they lost their identities -- they had a really hard time to adjust to the new life in Beijing, and yet they had a harder time to go back to their village...  I remember when I traveled in the remote mountain areas back then, I always tried to imagine how peaceful life would be had those people just simply lived in the deep mountains and never come out to see the big cities.  In my view back then, they might be much better off to live with peace and harmony in their sweet home -- however simple and small it was.     

I actually understood their struggles many years ago, but was never able to relate to them until now -- I finally feel like I am in the same place as where they were back then.  Over the past few weeks, I read several well-established photographers' travel journals, learned how they developed their career and how they came to be -- it was quite amazing and eye opening.  All of a sudden, I find myself in this confined little hole living a life that is so far away from my dreams...  The more I see, the clearer I know how far I am.  Isn't that sad?  But the true sadness is not caused by this realization.  Rather, it's caused by my lack of action plan to change it!!!

.......

Oh well, tomorrow is another day -- hope I can see sunshine and find myself, haha -:)))