What we ought

"Of all the records in my fast growing collection, it was the one to which I kept returning. Tonight, however, I figured out why. In the opera, Donna Elvira is swearing revenge against Giovanni - because he's robbed her of her virtue. In truth, however, Elvira's anguish is rooted in the fact that she fell head over heals for the Don who has seduced and abandoned her. Meanwhile, Donna Anna is doing her damnest to avoid the dull, cautious Don Ottavio who so desperately wants her as his wife.
For some curious reason, this story rang a bell with me.
I had surrendered to Don Giovanni. I had surrendered to Don Ottavio. But why surrender again to anyone when you're finding your own way in the world?"

(The pursuit of happiness, Douglas Kennedy)


We do not what we ought;
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will see us through

(Matthew Arnold)


"When written in chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity"

(John F. Kennedy)


I have surrendered only to a few men in my life and between them they are so strikingly different from one another that I wonder if there's any pattern at all. Line them up and you'll be left arching your brows and scratching your head.

Then there's the line up of men to whom I've never been able to surrender even though they'd been perfectly happy to surrender to me.
I've tried - and managed quite well - to get by on my own but if I actually have succeeded in 'finding my way in the world' is another story altogether. I still like to think that I haven't found my way yet, but if I really want to convince myself of the fact that I'm still finding myself and my way, I should at least be trying to do so in the mean time.

And that is precisely been the sour point during the last couple of years. I'm not sure if I am living my life or if my life is living me instead, and, believe me, I'm not saying there's something totally wrong with the quality of my life. What I'm talking about is the amount of thinking as compared to the amount of actual acting: The putting into practice of all these thoughts. I keep saying to myself that "there's still something special out there waiting for me", and don't think that by saying this I don't realize that some day I'll have to grab the bull by its horns instead of staring out of my window or doing my daily chores with that haughty look on my face. Action is the imparative word here and I know it. And what's holding me back?

Fear and laziness.

Still.

So tomorrow I'll drag my butt to that creative writing course information day with an open mind, and that will be part I of my action list towards the finding-my-way-in-this-world plan. Because isn't that the major objective in life? Didn't I always flee from mediocrity, nothingness and didn't I always break out when I felt imprisoned? All my fleeing and breaking out has to lead to something eventually, has to have some real purpose, indeed. Only then I will be able to trace a line through my life, a line with actions and logical consequences.

I'll keep you up to date!