worth

amy said,
"we care what people think of us, even as children we do."

yeah, i thought. we do.
we were built that way.
to have someone tell us who we are.

what if i lose that?
or rather, if i change
does my worth change?
i was never like this before, ya know.
splotches.
stains.
yuck.
i'm doing my best to let you wash me.
zeal and passion misplaced.
Time thrown away.

i'm ready for you to come and find me.
i'll be right here waiting.
to be found.

change blindness

In any given setting, we choose what's important to remember about our surroundings.  When details we don't think are important change, we often don't notice.  Up to 75% of the time, people don't notice a change to something the believe is unimportant.  I'm a fairly observant person, but it makes me wonder what things have changed in my everyday life while I've been unaware.

to love a person, place

This is from Kathleen Dean Moore's book The Pine Island Paradox.

In one chapter she reflects on these questions, What does it mean to love a person?  What does it mean to love a place?  And she answers the questions thus: "it means at least this: 1. to want to be near it, physically.  2. to want to know everything about it - its story, its mood, what it looks like by moonlight.  3. to rejoice in the fact of it.  4. to fear its loss, and grieve for its injuries.  5. to protect it - fiercely, mindlessly, futilely, and maybe even tragically, but to be helpless to do otherwise.  6. to be transformed in its presence - lifted, lighter on your feet, transparent, open to everything beautiful and new.  7. to want to be joined with it, taken in by it, lost in it.  8. to want the best for it.  9. desperately, and 10. to take responsibility for its well-being."

Dunbar's number

I recently listened to an NPR piece on Dunbar's number.  Essentially Dunbar's number is the number 150, and it represents the number of stable social relationships we can maintain.  For example, when companies have over 150 employees, employees no longer know everyone and can remember them by name.  This is also the number at which smaller hunter-gatherer societies max out, and so on.

When we live and/or work in communities larger than 150 people, there are social consequences.  Listen to the 5 minute NPR piece.  Very interesting!

home

After living in Morocco for two years, I'm finding that I wouldn't be happy staying here forever and I'm not happy to be leaving either.  There are things I love about the culture, but also things I don't like.  I feel the same way about American culture too though.  I'm beginning to think being anywhere is a trade off. 

There isn't really one place, one country, or one culture that feels like home.  Perhaps that's part of the human condition.  Or I haven't looked long enough.  I've found that each place, country, and culture has strengths and weaknesses.  I think it's supposed to be that way.  It keeps us wanting more and keeps us striving for utopia.

I believe that Home isn't a place, person, or group of people you find.  You have to make Home wherever you feel that it should be.  I'm coming to find that my Home is scattered all across the globe.  There's one physical location that feels like home to me, but really my Home is with a small group of individuals that let me put my bags down and find rest in them.  It's where I find peace and strength.  With them I most feel like Me.

passion: let me not beg for the stilling of my pain

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.

Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.

Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield,
but to my own strength.

Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.

Grant that I may not be a coward,
feeling Your mercy in my success alone;

But let me find the grasp of Your hand in my failure.”

by Rabindranath Tagore

percolating thoughts (#9)

['Percolating thoughts' is an on-going collection of quotes I have found and gained wisdom from.  These are the ones that I've recently discovered and that I'm currently sitting with and reflecting on...]

"A person often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it."
-Jean de La Fontaine

“Prayer might not change things, but it will change my perspective of things. Prayer might not change the past, but inevitably, it changes the present.”
-Margaret Feinberg

"Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it."
-Harold S. Kushner


"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you."
-Harold S. Kushner summarizing Viktor Frankl's insight