For when the conversation lulls, but you don’t quite want it to stop.
“What’s been on your mind recently?”
“What’s something important to you that most people don’t know about?”
“Do you have any recurring dreams? Why do you think you have them?” (I realise a lot of people find discussing dreams dreadful… but I think they are wonderful.)
“Tell me about something you didn’t like but you are glad happened.”
“Tell me about a person who you only met once, who is not related to you, that left an impact on you or was particularly memorable.”
“If you could be God for a day, what would be the first thing you would do?”
“What’s the best and worst advice you’ve ever received?”
Today I noticed, during my commute home from the hospital, that a bike lane I had cycled down for five years had been smoothed out. Where it was previously a faded pale green, scattered with awkward bumps and potholes, I now found a glossy, black lane of even concrete. As I rode over this new track, feeling unprecedented levels of comfort and safety, I couldn’t help but feel a little grateful for this city. Sure, there were still looming national and global issues to be solved. But for now, my tyres could rest easy and I could enjoy a bumpless ride.
In my happy state, I then looked up and realised that it was a beautiful evening. The air was crisp, the sun was setting, and there was energy in the air. Around me, the noise of chatter, skateboards and the angry bell of a tram made this city feel alive. And then I realised that if not for the bike lanes, I probably wouldn’t have noticed these things. The surprise and subsequent gratitude I felt broadened my view to find other things to be grateful for.
“Every time we decide to be grateful it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for,” Dutch priest Henri Nouwen once wrote. “Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.“
By this time, I was supposed to have done pre-reading for the afternoon’s tutorials, studied 100 Anki cards, replied to a few emails, and have eaten lunch. But I hadn’t done any of this, and my tutorial was very soon.
Instead, for the last few hours I found myself chatting to some friends in the common room. It began innocently enough – a “how’s your day going” here and an odd patient story there – until wings began to sprout and our conversation flew away. The topics we discussed had no bounds and no clear logic connecting them, yet we all seemed to go with the flow. Some topics were solemn and dark, others were ridiculous and free. I suspect we could have chatted until evening until somebody commented that they would be late for their 2pm class, and at last, our reverie was shattered, and we dispersed.
As we left I thought of all the tasks I set out to do that morning, all still there, undone. A pang of guilt began to rise as a protest against this laziness. I was the type to get things done, I thought. I had failed.
But then, as I began to examine the situation, I noticed how full my heart felt. I felt my brain buzzing with fresh ideas and new facts that broadened my world. I felt my jaw hurt from the giggling and hooting from our silliness. I felt, despite my unproductivity, at peace.
It is easy to define our days and our lives by certain parameters. Often, these parameters are set by expectations from those around us: how productive we should be, what our income should be, what our body should look like. If our days fail in these domains, we have wasted our precious time.
But when we step back and ask what this thing called life is about, what we will remember on our deathbeds, what we will be proud of when it’s all over, perhaps our parameters will become less robotic, and more compassionate. We might remember that an unproductive day in one area is a full day in another, and over the span of a lifetime, there is enough time to fill all our days with goodness. We might be reminded of the stories of the Tiger with the Strawberry, or the Mexican Fisherman playing with his children, and find the beauty of simply living each day with gratitude.
And we might be kinder to ourselves, for the saddest kind of person is a perfect one, and it is okay to fail once in a while, provided we fail well.
Tonight I finished rereading The Great Gatsby. The first time I read this was in high school as a compulsory text, the second time was in my undergraduate degree since it was a book that everyone was ‘supposed to read’, but it is only now, in my third reading, that I’ve finally begun to understand its significance.
Gatsby’s purpose is not simply to find Daisy, which is what the book is built around. His true ambition is far deeper: to regain lost time, opportunities that have come and gone, and to make something of himself worthy of being remembered. Daisy is only a small part of this story. When his dream is obliterated, we lose more than just his life and accomplishments: we lose all the what-ifs, the wishes that never transpired, the regrets that were never amended. The ending is not one of celebration, but of pensiveness. It is a tone fit for an unfinished life, one with more sadness than joy, a possibility that runs in us all.
“And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Today, in the spirit of Valentine’s day, I’ve decided to share some quotes that have helped shape my thoughts on love. I don’t claim to be any expert on this topic – it’s one of those things where I wish I could always remain a child – but through observing the world and personal experience, it’s difficult to remain fully naive.
Let’s start with Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, a reminder of the necessity of space between relationships, and the importance of individual flourishing:
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
Here’s Murakami’s Norweigian Wood, revealing that it is often ourselves that prevent others from loving us:
“You don’t get it, do you?” I said. “It’s not a question of ‘what then’. Some people get a kick out of reading railroad timetables and that’s all they do all day. Some people make huge model boats out of matchsticks. So what’s wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?”
From a short poem by Sanober Khan, on the significance small actions have when one is in love:
“your hand touching mine. this is how galaxies collide.”
And finally, here’s Gabriel García Márquez in the nobel-prize winning One Hundred Years of Solitude, an invitation to love fully, each moment, each day.
“If I knew that today would be the last time I’d see you, I would hug you tight and pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul. If I knew that this would be the last time you pass through this door, I’d embrace you, kiss you, and call you back for one more. If I knew that this would be the last time I would hear your voice, I’d take hold of each word to be able to hear it over and over again. If I knew this is the last time I see you, I’d tell you I love you, and would not just assume foolishly you know it already.”
I’ve recently discovered Diaries of Note: a blog that posts a dairy entry from the same month and day as a person’s actual journal. It’s now become a daily routine to read the entry that day to see what another person was doing, in a different time, at a different place. It also shows what journalling can be like – that it doesn’t need to be recounts of the day, or something monotonous – but can be anything you want, in whatever style you want to tell it.
Here’s yesterday’s entry from none other than Queen Elizabeth, written in 1840:
“When day dawned (for we did not sleep much) and I beheld that beautiful angelic face by my side, it was more than I can express! He does look so beautiful in his shirt only, with his beautiful throat seen.
We got up at ¼ p. 8. When I had laced I went to dearest Albert’s room, and we breakfasted together. He had a black velvet jacket on, without any neckcloth on, and looked more beautiful than it is possible for me to say. At 12 I walked out with my precious Angel, all alone—so delightful, on the Terrace and new Walk, arm in arm! Eos [Albert’s greyhound] our only companion. We talked a great deal together. We came home at one, and had luncheon soon after. Poor dear Albert felt sick and uncomfortable, and lay down in my room… He looked so dear, lying there and dozing.”
Last week I found myself walking along the street, with no real agenda on my mind, when I came across a coffee store I had never seen before. It was barely noticeable; the door was narrow and camouflaged with the brick wall, and from within some jazz music played quietly. It had limited seating: three wooden square tables, each with two red chairs: one on each end. Yet something about it sparked my interest: perhaps it was the newness of it, or the odd neon sign above the counter that read COFFEE & BEER, or the cashier that wore a light grey beanie, so I went inside.
Lining up at the counter before me were three people: a rather serious looking man in a suit at the front, and what looked like a father-daughter pair behind him. The serious looking man was on his phone and gave his order without looking up: a large oat flat-white. He paid with his phone.
“Thank you,” the cashier said cheerfully.
Next, the father-daughter couple went up to the counter.
“Hello,” the little girl said. I guessed she was about five or six. “Could I order a small hot chocolate, please.”
The grey beanie smiled and put in the order. “And you, sir?”
“Just a long black, thanks.”
The man paid and stepped aside with the little girl. And where they previously stood, a brilliant ray of sunlight now shone on the coffee machine, painting the room a light yellow. Beside us, the coffee machine whirred, distilling the drink we were all waiting for, and gave a smoky aroma in the air. The cashier with the grey beanie smiled, waiting for an order. But I didn’t want to speak. There was something in this moment. There was magic among us.
Tim Urban from Wait But Why recently shared some of his favourite thoughts of 2022 and 2021 on Twitter. Tim is someone that likes to blend ideas with sketches to make them more accessible and memorable to his audience. And some of them are pretty great: there’s something satisfying in seeing a concept perfectly captured in a simple, occasionally humorous, little drawing.
Here are some of my favourite ideas, accompanied with his characteristic artwork.
1. “We’re wired to care deeply about what other people think of us. Worrying about this can influence our life choices and hold us back from living our best lives. Good continual reminder: everyone’s actually focused on their own lives and not thinking about yours.”
2. “Our brains come preset to look at life up close. Don’t forget to zoom out.”
3. “We wake up every day with 100 ten-minute time blocks at our disposal. If you feel like you’re in a rut, try doing something different than normal with two or three of today’s blocks.”
I was reading The Great Gatsby in the corner of a coffee shop when I felt someone’s eyes on me. I looked up and came face to face with a man. He seemed as though he could be anywhere from 30 to 70 years old; his back was slightly hunched forward and his face showed a few wrinkles, but wore a brilliant head of black hair with no signs of greying. I was sure I had never seen him before. His face was too unique. In our brief moment of eye contact, he pointed at my book, then took out something from his suitcase.
It was an identical copy of The Great Gatsby.
As I stared at him, half in disbelief, half in amazement, he shared with me a little wink. It then occurred to me that I should say something when the barista called out an order: a large long black. The man turned towards the counter, and collected the drink with his free hand. He didn’t even look back as he left the little shop and strolled into the street. As I watched his figure growing smaller and smaller until he was finally engulfed in the sea of Melbourne, I looked back down at the book and remembered that line I had read last week.
“Well, any friend of Gatsby is a friend of mine…””
Sometimes I imagine a sleep deprived, burnt out writer, that on the verge of tears and giving up, finds a copy of a wonderful book like The Little Prince or The Great Gatsby lying around and begins to read. And through it, they rekindle the love they once had for books, stories and beautiful sentences. They notice quirks in a character or flickers in a scene that make their imagination soar and heart race, to which they realise that it was this feeling through reading that inspired them to write in the first place, all those years ago.
I think this is part of the reason why writers read books, musicians watch concerts and painters attend exhibitions. On one practical hand, these activities equip one with the latest trends in literature, music, and painting, that they can use to enhance their craft.
But crucially, these moments of quiet consumption remind one of the beauty in their uncertain craft and rekindle their fire for creating good work. For it is sometimes not enough to work all the time – we forget why we do it in the first place. These moments of respite, in times of confusion and frustration, remind us what it is all about.
