finding my religion?
In the stretch since Thanksgiving, I've come to realize again and again how lucky I am. The more closely I look at the people around me, the more I realize that everyone is a bit broken somehow, and everyone is struggling with something. There is always tough shit to deal with, and my life is not great, but things could easily be worse. I'm still leaning against a burning building, but I can see the way out.
I feel blessed, and it seems silly to use that word, but appropriate. I'm grateful for it all, and I don't want to forget it for a second. This is probably the closest to a religious experience I'll ever have.
On that note, I spent Sunday with a Afghanistan-born German guy I met who was passing through Tokyo. We walked and talked along Ameyoko and went to a Kamakura-era Buddhism exhibit at the National Museum even though neither of us was particularly interested. The conversation was phenomenal, though, and basically didn't end for over three hours.
He thought he was more mature than he was (although he was pretty deep already) and a bit judgmental without realizing it, but talking about people and peace and why we do the things we do and religion and Buddhism and foreign countries was so invigorating. He said that religion is a common denominator as far as humanity goes, and that perhaps we need a common religion to eliminate war. I don't know that this is true, but the idea of needing religion as a human is interesting even if I don't want to believe it.
I want to have more of these conversations! I don't want them to ever end.
As is usual for Europeans and Middle Easterners and basically everyone else in the world, he was pretty hard on Americans but noted that I was pretty outside of what he normally thinks of. This, too, was what I'd wanted by leaving -- public diplomacy, on a one-on-one basis. I have been doing this every step of the way, I know, but it was a particularly notable sense of triumph.
I haven't been writing as much lately, and this makes me sad, but I think so much all of the time and I tweet so much of these thoughts, too. I want them here, centralized, every feeling as I feel it. I'll try to be better about this.
I made tofu/kimchi jjigae tonight in my lazy random way, and it was super delicious. I haven't seriously cooked dinner for a while. Maybe this is a beginning?
I feel blessed, and it seems silly to use that word, but appropriate. I'm grateful for it all, and I don't want to forget it for a second. This is probably the closest to a religious experience I'll ever have.
On that note, I spent Sunday with a Afghanistan-born German guy I met who was passing through Tokyo. We walked and talked along Ameyoko and went to a Kamakura-era Buddhism exhibit at the National Museum even though neither of us was particularly interested. The conversation was phenomenal, though, and basically didn't end for over three hours.
He thought he was more mature than he was (although he was pretty deep already) and a bit judgmental without realizing it, but talking about people and peace and why we do the things we do and religion and Buddhism and foreign countries was so invigorating. He said that religion is a common denominator as far as humanity goes, and that perhaps we need a common religion to eliminate war. I don't know that this is true, but the idea of needing religion as a human is interesting even if I don't want to believe it.
I want to have more of these conversations! I don't want them to ever end.
As is usual for Europeans and Middle Easterners and basically everyone else in the world, he was pretty hard on Americans but noted that I was pretty outside of what he normally thinks of. This, too, was what I'd wanted by leaving -- public diplomacy, on a one-on-one basis. I have been doing this every step of the way, I know, but it was a particularly notable sense of triumph.
I haven't been writing as much lately, and this makes me sad, but I think so much all of the time and I tweet so much of these thoughts, too. I want them here, centralized, every feeling as I feel it. I'll try to be better about this.
I made tofu/kimchi jjigae tonight in my lazy random way, and it was super delicious. I haven't seriously cooked dinner for a while. Maybe this is a beginning?