Old Blanket

From the book, The Gifts of Life and Love by Ben Zion Bokser.

Old Blanket

A child will clutch an old blanket or an old and battered toy, and will not let it go. He takes it with him to bed, as though it were his most priceless possession. Parents are occasionally baffled, but the child is only affirming a principle that dominates all life. He is attached to the familiar.

Amidst the shifting things which make up the world of common experience, it is comforting to hold on to something which does not change. It gives us a feeling of stability and permanence. The blanket is precious precisely because it is old and worn, because around it cluster many sweet memories of being tucked into it by the tender and loving hands of mother, night after night. The blanket is an anchor that holds the tiny ship to the shore, while yet permitting it to venture a little way in slow motions of discovery and exploration.

We all clutch old blanket of one kind to another. We feel a special attachment to objects, and places, and people, because they carry happy memories for us. We hold on to ideas and persist in habits because they carry the compulsion of the familiar.

This compulsion of the familiar maybe injurious. It makes it difficult for us to grow up, to change, to respond to the call of new ideas. Yet we could not meet life’s demands without it. For this is the source of our loyalty to all that we have and to all that we are. It gives us a feeling of security and permanence, amidst the anarchy of change which we see all about us.

The attachments to the familiar is a device that God has put into our nature, to make sure that we shall live in the three dimensions of time. We are moving from the present into the future, and we are meant to take our past with us.

What is your old blanket?

I have not one but too many old blankets – stuffs that I clutch on because they have been with me for a long time and I couldn’t get myself to throw them away. They hold very special sentiments. They are reminders of who I was, where I have been and friendships that came with it. They hold both good and bad memories, that sometimes they uplift my soul and sometimes they drag me down to sadness.

With these stuffs, uncluttering is especially hard. But in time, I have learned to be selective in what to keep and to let go of some of them. Sometimes in order to move on it is important to recognize that some stuffs are just stuffs.  There are those in our past that has forever left an imprint in our lives and we just have ourselves, the person we have become, as the ultimate reminder.

This is my HEADS or TAILS entry. For more details, visit the home of HEADS or TAILS.

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Happiness and Meaning

I recenly got really interested with the Heroes, TV Drama. I watch the re-runs when I can. It’s storyline is about people who have evolved to developed special abilities. While X-Men is more action packed, Heroes is psychological and delves more with how these people handle their special abilities and how these abilities affect them and each other.

Mr Linderman: You see, I think there comes a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning.

Nathan Petrelli: I’d like to have both.

Mr Linderman: [Shakes head] It can’t be done. Two very different paths. I mean, to be truly happy a man must live absolutely in the present, and with no thought of what’s gone before, and no thought of what lies ahead. But a life of meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past, and obsess about the future….

– Heroes, TV Drama

One of the scenes have the dialog that talks about two paths that we can live our lives. One is life of happiness and the other, life of meaning. As the dialog suggest, happiness and meaning are mutually exclusive, that they are different paths to take and that one can’t have both, happiness and meaning! It is very interesting and thought provoking but I do not believe this idea.

I think, a person can be happy that he has meaning in his life, and that a person’s life is meaningful when he is happy.

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Closure

This is a page in my organizer that I have been keeping since college.

I copied a poem from a newspaper and wrote it on my organizer to remind me that sometimes you work hard for something that you want but it’s just not meant to be.

P.S. I wish I wrote the author too.

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My Secret World

My Secret World

– by CHILLY

In my secret world
Stars are jewels
Fairies abode
Nights are bright
The Moon hangs full and low.

In my secret world
Dreams are real
Beer is wine
Laughter is medicine
Hearts intertwine.

In my secret world
I am happy.
I am a person.
I can dream dreams
beyond the coast lines,
with my heart intact,
my soul singing,
my spirit soaring.

Chilly is a high school classmate and friend, whose poems I find so enchanting. Get to know her more.

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