skim latte with 2 packets of raw sugar

Dear Australia,

hairinbahren — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:57:08 +0000

Remember the times I visited you once, sometimes twice a year? It’s been too long.
Love, Hairin

Demons

hairinbahren — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:52:01 +0000

“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Don’t let the fear become the hate

hairinbahren — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:36:07 +0000

‘Cuz if you never leave home, never let go
You’ll never make it to the great unknown
Till you keep your eyes… open my love

So tell me you’re strong, tell me you see
I need to hear it, can you promise me
To keep your eyes… open my love

So show me your fire, show me your heart
You know I’ll never let you fall apart
If you keep your eyes… open love my love

- Keep Your Eyes Open, Needtobreathe

From dinner just now

hairinbahren — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:14:20 +0000

A close friend and I were catching up over dinner at The Mark just now

H: So after your operation you went to Russia to get a second opinion?

K: Yeah, I went to this doctor in Moscow who is really experienced

H. And you’re taking medication from him now?

K: Yes, he gave me special herbs from China which I take every day.

H: Well then you can’t go wrong, taking Chinese herbs from a Russian doctor..so, what did you do after that?

K: I went to an ashram in India, one of the best in the world.. even real Indians go there.

H: You definitely have all bases covered. Russia, India and China. You’ll be OK.

A Typical Conversation

hairinbahren — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:00:04 +0000

H: I miss the folks. Do you ever miss home? Or the folks?
E: I dunno. I don’t think so. What does it feel like?
H:: F- you. I just LOL-ed in my cube.
E: Knew that was coming. But it was an honest question.

This is one of the responses I got to my post below

hairinbahren — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:53:21 +0000

“A connection of the mind or a shared ideology…?

This may yet still be idealistic. What makes marriage last is the shared goods (for lack of better terms), including children, houses, bank accounts and business interest. These common goods (like the euro), were developed based on some shared ideals which sound great when it began but now not possible to unwind even when the ideals are no longer there; for the mess from unwinding is too great for anyone to bear.
But where is the Love; that is something elusive and a notion that means different things to different people always…….But it doesn’t really matters for it is the common goods that create the Love?”

Valid point. Reality. ‘

What do you want more?

Love Does Not Conquer All

hairinbahren — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:19:50 +0000

An article about love and commitment – and which was more important in making a marriage work was brought to my attention yesterday in which the author argued that commitment was integral in a marriage, much more so than love. My first instinct was to agree one hundred percent with the author and after having two days to think about it, I agree but I think it differs from person to person.

Let’s start with love being a feeling.

Feelings change. Feelings are selfish. Feelings are uncontrollable. Irrational. Primal. Natural. Feelings are deeply personal, which is why I never discuss it. It is not something up for discussion. What is there to discuss, really? You just feel the way you do because you’re you. It is probably a product of one’s upbringing and one’s position in their timeline of life mixed with that precise moment in time (yes, that precise) and one’s geographical co-ordinates. No one can understand how you feel, better than you (if that’s even possible). And since emotion is beyond reason, forget even talking about why you feel the way you do. You just do. Let’s move on.

Real happiness can be reached when you put your feelings into action. ( That chocolate cake would know what I’m talking about. So would that peanut butter bagel today. Yeah, it was that kind of day). Unadulterated, intense joy can be attained when feelings are shared and better yet, returned. But imposing feelings onto someone else is selfish, being controlled by feelings is weakness, expecting someone else to feel the way you do is foolish and guessing how someone feels is a crime.

Love, is a feeling. It much more than that, fine, it is a powerful emotion. But for all intents and purposes, it is a feeling. Feelings, as I’ve said, are personal. To say you love someone because you feel you do, is acceptable. But to expect someone to say it back when you do is selfish. Yeah, what are the chances of those four above factors combining in the same magnitude for someone else as it has for you? Slim, is the answer. It does happen, but rarely. Do the math. (Yeah, I know. It’s near impossible.)

The person I choose to marry, I have to love. I have come to realize that I’m too selfish to marry purely based on reason. I place too much importance on my own happiness. I think to have truly happy, fulfilled life with someone, a connection of the body (sex), mind (ideology) and spirit (feelings) must exist. This has to exist at some point in a relationship with someone and to have it endure is ideal. To hope it will is human, but to expect it to again, might be foolish.

At the end of the day, at the end of 30 years, the attraction of the bodies might have faded, people change, hopefully together but more often than not, they change individually and their feelings evolve as they do. What’s left is a connection of the mind. A shared ideology, hopefully born out of individual character that forms the core of a person. This, I won’t compromise when choosing who to marry. Compromising a connection based on reason, is dooming a marriage to failure. This is what’s going to a make a marriage work. It will be what’s going to make a marriage last.

But love? That is going to make for a happy marriage. And although love does not conquer all, mutual love will.

One Hundred Percent.

Beauty and Truth

hairinbahren — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:49:14 +0000

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

“For Beauty,” I replied.

“And I for truth,–the two are one;

We brethren are,” he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

- Emily Dickinson

Did you fall for a shooting star?

hairinbahren — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:38:03 +0000

Tell me did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated

Tell me, did you fall from a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there

Crime and Punishment

hairinbahren — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:37:47 +0000

Although [she] was already forty-three years old, her face still kept the remnants of its former beauty, and besides, she looked much younger than her age, as almost always with women who keep their clarity of spirit, the freshness of their impressions, and the honest, pure ardor of their hearts into old age

-Dostoevsky