Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I spent a lot of energy during my trip to Japan musing about Madoka's spiritual state, hoping to give her some encouragement to get out of her rut and some balance in her life. When I got back to Taiwan, I started to spend a lot of energy musing about my cousin's spiritual state, hoping to give her some encouragement to gain some balance, if not peace in her life or her method.

I didn't think of it as energy expenditure until Madoka mentioned it that way in an email. It totally changed the dynamic of what I thought I was doing. I didn't think I was helping them, I don't have anything to offer to help them in their situations, but I did think I was benignly putting out suggestions, one of which might have resonated and been useful to them.

When she described it as "energy", I realized it wasn't benign. I wasn't just floating ideas by like leaves on a stream for them to take or leave. I was shining annoying light into their faces, I was radiating unwanted heat.

So I realized that all that musing was for myself, not for them at all. And with that realization, I thought, "oh, I'm done". I got what I wanted out of it and didn't need to think about their situations anymore. So I'm stopping and getting along with my own life and problems.

Sheesh, who did I think I was after years of virtual absence from both their lives to think I had any clue to offer or suggest them anything? In retrospect, I feel it must have been annoying for Madoka for me to go on and on about nothing I knew anything about. I don't think I reached the point of annoyance with my cousin, who is a lot more tolerant of me and who doesn't need to focus on me while I'm here the way Madoka did.

It's all learning, and naturally it was Madoka who taught me. With ten times more stress in her life than I have in mine, she can still teach me more than I could ever hope to teach her, pouring out my vast wisdom and knowledge, and all she did was make a pithy observation. It doesn't matter whether she was trying to or not, and it's not clear that she wasn't.