We were just guessing

Authors learn early that they do not need to use many adjectives in order to give a description of someone. Audiences imaginations are so fertile and their preconceptions so strong that they can jump to a conclusion in seconds flat. What they don’t know, they invent and extrapolate.

We all conjure and conjecture and we don’t just do this when we are reading books. We do it when we are dealing with people in real-life situations. Then, suddenly, we realise that we do not know one another as well as we thought we did. We were just guessing.

Life is a trap for logicians

"The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is almost reasonable but not quite; it is usually sensible but occasionally otherwise.

Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden." --- English essayist G. K. Chesterton

Unexpected decisions

I was given pause, however, after I had decided to vamoose from it all, to think that maybe what I was doing wasn't so foolish after all. Someone insisted that I was making a great move. The best decisions she has made in her life, she said, were completely unexpected, the ones that cut against convention.

Then she went even further. She said that every decision she has forced herself to make because it was unexpected had been a good one. It was refreshing to hear a case for unpredictability in this age of careful and meticulous ponderings. It would be nice if it were true.

For truth has fallen in the public squares

No one enters suit justly, no one goes to court honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us.

We grope for the wall like the blind, we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight; among those in full vigor we are like dead men. We all roar like bears, and mourn sore like doves; we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

Judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands afar off; for truth has fallen in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.
--- Isaiah 59: 4, 9-11, 14-15

Because of hope, we wait

How many times had you been made to wait? The countless times standing at bus-stops; the aimless stares at the red traffic lights; the wondering thoughts waiting for the someone(s) (often late) to appear etc. But really, there isn't much we can do about it.

So waiting can indeed be hard, and especially so if one is waiting for something which may potentially never materialise. Like love or luck. It is undeniable that a person who persists in stalking game in a place where there is none may wait forever without finding any success.

It follows that persistence at times is simply not enough. Anticipation will invariable turn into anxiety, and anxiety restlessness. Soon restlessness will become impatience, and impatience a vexing distraction.

Amid such un-graspable uncertainty however, many of us still nonetheless wait. We wait for the red-letter days. We wait for love. And of course, everyone waits for their dreams. But why do we wait? For me, I guess we are all kept ever-waiting in life because of hope. It must be hope, isn't it?

The sprinkles on your ice cream

What sort of a person are you? One who's driven by success? Or one who's pushed on by fear of failure? Maybe most people are a combination of both, are'nt they? Or are you the sort who doesn't really bother with success, but see the occasional success as a pleasant bonus... a surprise... the icing on your fudge cake... the sprinkles on your ice cream...

That one last fragile moment

The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment. To choose something better, to make a difference, as you say. And I intend to do just that. --- J. Michael Straczynski

Unintended consequences

Decisions we make invariably carry with them unintended consequences, i.e. those that cannot be properly anticipated. But quite often, even if the consequences could be predicted, it might still be appropriate to proceed as those consequences would arise only in the future.

Hence, while one particular course of action could be better than another, it does however follows that the optimum applies only to a particular moment of history and what is optimum at one point may cease to be so at the very next.