What a resounding "no" I'm met with.
Luciano Pavorotti dies, and I'm not a fan of opera at all, I never followed what he was doing. I don't know anything about him, I don't know his faults (except an Italian audience once brutally booed him when his voice cracked on a high note), or any pointed criticisms about him or his person.
But I don't think there's any question about his greatness and his contribution to 20th Century world or Western culture. Even people who aren't fans of opera can get a sense of his greatness by looking at the faces of people who are fans watching him sing.
His ability to move people is luminously reflected in the faces of the people who are moved, and in the end, I think the people who have something good to say about him far outweigh the people who don't.
So as his image scrolls across the news reports, the feeling in my heart is gratitude, thank you. Thank you, Luciano.
It's a total foreign concept to me here to garner that kind of idea, even in the smallest terms. For what little I'm doing, being, contributing, there's not a friend, not an acquaintance who would think anything of my being here or not being here.
When I left Deer Park, Norman publicly thanked me and complimented me for leaving it a better place than I found it. Such a compliment I don't think I deserved, but was moved by it nonetheless. And nonetheless, that's a really good goal on our micro life scale.
Leave the place better than you found it.
Who left me better than they found me? Amina easily, is my immediate response. Perhaps by no doing of her own, it was her effect. It's totally fantastical now and has no bearing on reality, but my worst days with her were still better than my best days without her. And our worst days were pretty worse.
Sadie? Almost. I don't think our friendship developed as fully as it could have, but I don't think her priorities, me being low among them, could have had her leave me better than when she found me. Not saying she didn't try, though.
I think Josephine left me worse than when she found me. No wonder I barely mention her.
Shiho, I don't think the idea of leaving someone better than she found them would even cross her mind. So no, definitely not.
Madoka, I begrudgingly say yes. In the end, our friendship was in shambles, and the last time I visited her I think she did her best to not show how much I was annoying her, and I would have appreciated her even telling me I was annoying her. But looking at all our years of friendship, I can't deny that she contributed a lot to me, and at least I still have an unassailable love towards her beyond circumstances.
The monks at Deer Park left me a better person than they found me, but that's a no-brainer. That's their job, hahaha! But it went beyond the monks. Everyone I met was part of that process, part of that being, so everyone left me better than they found me, and vice versa. That was the nature of the place, our nature.
Bah, this is an old discussion of people who have meant something to me and probably mean nothing to me now.
Do I even want to make the effort now? I'm at the age when people stop trying to change the world and become more selfish and concentrate on their own lives and raising families – the next step in the life program. I'm at that age, but I'm not doing any of that. I'm still living like people who want to change the world. So I'm somewhere in between. Story of my life. Just as it is.
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| TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 8:06 a.m. - Rush hour out my window, Xindian. |
