(no subject)
It's pretty cool to have done something nice for someone in the past and then, once you've completely forgotten about it, have them remind you of it because it still makes them happy. Like last year I won anime trivia and a DBZ keychain which I gave to someone else who loves DBZ much more than I do. He was really happy which made me really happy and he told me today that he still has the keychain, which I had totally forgotten about. I guess that's a form of karma in this lifetime which is possible apparently, especially if you believe that nirvana and samsara can exist on earth. That's like the "Heaven and Hell are right here" saying - it's interesting to think about.
That kind of giving is easy, it's stuff that you're really attached to that makes completely giving to anyone who asks a difficult thing to do. There are a lot of things I could give away in a second, but then there are some that would make me feel lost if I didn't have them anymore. That's not uncommon, but it's hard to think that a person could ever really get over that. We were talking about giving things up last week in class and this guy my age was like, "Well yeah, I don't have a problem with giving, when I was on vacation I gave away this really expensive new surfboard to a kid in Mexico who had just broken his." At first I thought that that was pretty cool but then I was like, "If this kid has a lot of money, which is how it appears from the things he talks about, was it really such a big deal for him to give that surfboard away? He didn't need it desperately and he could have immediately gone out and gotten a new one." I guess giving something is better than giving nothing, but I don't think that that kind of giving counts anywhere near as much in terms of this kind of spiritual growth. Then again, maybe it's all the same, and the concept we have of it is human and flawed.
I had a kind of bad experience this weekend that I couldn't really shake and it ended with me sleeping with two bright lights on on Friday night. That might seem silly and extreme but I was seriously in that kind of place. I was wound up and scared and I was afraid to close my eyes. That morning, I saw that my book that I had put on the corner nearest me when I went to sleep was on the other corner of the table. I knew the book had been there because I took my earring out after I'd put the book down and made sure to put it next to the book so it wouldn't roll off. I also hadn't gotten up in the middle of the night because even when I'm nearly unconscious, I remember getting up. On top of all that, I can't even reach the other side of the table from where I'm in bed and it wouldn't have made any sense for me to lean all the way out of bed and launch the book to the other side of the table.
So yeah, needless to say, I was confused and scared. Neither of my roommates or any of their friends would go in my room, and someone would have actually had to come in while I was sleeping and move my book. And even if someone WAS in my room, why would they just move a book. Which leaves me with two options: the best is that someone came in my room while I was sleeping, and the worst is that I have a poltergeist. It seems silly to type that, but how the hell did my book do that? And I'm terrified of ghosts - I don't know what it is that scares me so much, but I can't get over it. I'm just trying to forget it now but right before I went to bed, Joel and I watched a really scary movie (excellent idea) and I was FREAKED OUT.
I'm weirded out by the fact that I can be that scared about something at this point in my life. Thankfully, the good experiences of watching Dragonball last night and finally finishing Cloud of Sparrows distracted me enough to be able to trust my room not to completely terrify me again. I am a silly goose, but hopefully not a haunted silly goose :)
That kind of giving is easy, it's stuff that you're really attached to that makes completely giving to anyone who asks a difficult thing to do. There are a lot of things I could give away in a second, but then there are some that would make me feel lost if I didn't have them anymore. That's not uncommon, but it's hard to think that a person could ever really get over that. We were talking about giving things up last week in class and this guy my age was like, "Well yeah, I don't have a problem with giving, when I was on vacation I gave away this really expensive new surfboard to a kid in Mexico who had just broken his." At first I thought that that was pretty cool but then I was like, "If this kid has a lot of money, which is how it appears from the things he talks about, was it really such a big deal for him to give that surfboard away? He didn't need it desperately and he could have immediately gone out and gotten a new one." I guess giving something is better than giving nothing, but I don't think that that kind of giving counts anywhere near as much in terms of this kind of spiritual growth. Then again, maybe it's all the same, and the concept we have of it is human and flawed.
I had a kind of bad experience this weekend that I couldn't really shake and it ended with me sleeping with two bright lights on on Friday night. That might seem silly and extreme but I was seriously in that kind of place. I was wound up and scared and I was afraid to close my eyes. That morning, I saw that my book that I had put on the corner nearest me when I went to sleep was on the other corner of the table. I knew the book had been there because I took my earring out after I'd put the book down and made sure to put it next to the book so it wouldn't roll off. I also hadn't gotten up in the middle of the night because even when I'm nearly unconscious, I remember getting up. On top of all that, I can't even reach the other side of the table from where I'm in bed and it wouldn't have made any sense for me to lean all the way out of bed and launch the book to the other side of the table.
So yeah, needless to say, I was confused and scared. Neither of my roommates or any of their friends would go in my room, and someone would have actually had to come in while I was sleeping and move my book. And even if someone WAS in my room, why would they just move a book. Which leaves me with two options: the best is that someone came in my room while I was sleeping, and the worst is that I have a poltergeist. It seems silly to type that, but how the hell did my book do that? And I'm terrified of ghosts - I don't know what it is that scares me so much, but I can't get over it. I'm just trying to forget it now but right before I went to bed, Joel and I watched a really scary movie (excellent idea) and I was FREAKED OUT.
I'm weirded out by the fact that I can be that scared about something at this point in my life. Thankfully, the good experiences of watching Dragonball last night and finally finishing Cloud of Sparrows distracted me enough to be able to trust my room not to completely terrify me again. I am a silly goose, but hopefully not a haunted silly goose :)