So anyways, just a brief update. Hari ini jalan ke Plaza Senayan. Sushi Sei. Woo!
I believe I'm actually kind of regretting I don't have a camera phone, but that's for another time. But damn was that good. I had nigiri sushi teishoku and uh, this thing called shake wappa. That shake wappa thingy struck me the most. It wasn't served in bowls or plates. It was kind of like a wooden box. That was a nice touch to an already delicious serving. In the bottom of the box we have the rice, yg rasanya kyk nasi tim, but doesn't have the taste of nasi tim. So it was good. Next we have fish on the rice, some kind of fish, which I unfortunately don't know. On the fish was little caviars ;D
Now on those fish we have a broad, sweet leaf, which is filled with big caviars on them. That wooden box of food is so good. I swear it was, but then again I have a habit of exaggerating things. Then I had a taste of uh, salmon soup. It was goo- it's getting mundane. The point is, Sushi Sei is excellent. But the price...... *weeps*
So then we had a brief walk. Went up to Kinokuniya and its surroundings when I had a brief and awkward accidental meetup with Vania (if you're reading this, I'm sorry I didn't see you earlier)- but she's unlikely to read this blog. Very awkward because well, there's no "Hi!"s or "Hey
So I bought a small notebook. It's actually for learning Japanese, since they have some pages for the words and everything, but it being 7.5k, well, I bought it for my income/outcome notebook >_>
And I bought the Alchemist. Way too late for those who have read it, but I bought it nonetheless. Some opening words by Paulo Coelho already struck me, and since it struck me well, I'm going to list it down anyways, and to compensate for the words, here's a picture. Don't complain.
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Introduction
......
..What's the secret behind such a huge success?
The only honest response is: I don't know. All I know is that, like Santiago the shepherd boy, we all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God's blessing, or the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don't all have the courage to confront our own dream.
Why?
There are four obstacles. First: we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our sould to be invisible. But it's still there.
If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impeuts, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.
Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the same old excuse: "Oh, well, I didn't really want it anyway." We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.
I ask myself: are defeats necessary?
Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.
So, why is it important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?
Because, once we have overcome the defeats- and we always do- we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.
Having disinterred our dream. having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.
Oscar Wilde said: "Each man kills the thing he loves." And it's true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the sould of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forgte about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mustakes and never reached their goal- when it was only a step away.
This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you became an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.
Rio de Janeiro
November 2002
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
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That was long to type out. But there it is. That struck me. And I think the content of the book is going to strike me more. If it does, well, I'm going to go to Kinokuniya again to buy out other books >_>
Now, in another unrelated news, I actually got home and took my laptop, and found out it was full of FRIKKING ANTS!
I mean, what the fuck? I never eat and spill crumbs or food on the laptop (perhaps my brother does, but if he does, someone's going to be dead). I cleaned the laptop yesterday. Fuck. Something must be wrong around here. The problem here is; it has happened several times. So yeah. wtf indeed.
And in other news, I'm going to take my TOEFL on the 24th of August. Still a long time. And I want some sushi. Again. Or anything Japanese.
So I'm going to spend my school tomorrow (if we're not doing anything) by reading the Alchemist. The prologue was very clever. Very clever indeed.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow - but not school.
Signing off.
PS. I got a shitty haircut for school. I'm looking forward to growing my hair again until it's thick. Hopefully it'll grow fast.
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