Itching to blog

6/8/09

“In Buddhism, they say attachment to anything only leads to suffering. So when we laugh, it's our way of saying, 'I'm unattached to that.' You're tickled by it, it makes your lobes do something on their own. So humor is very important to me. I always take that to the stage first. It originally appeared (in the stage patter) between the songs. Then as the shows got a little longer and my experience in music developed, I found it was just as effective to put the humor into the songs.” – Jason Mraz

“I've had 6-7 roommates since I've lived here. I never charge rent; the only thing you have to do is contribute creatively. Right now, we have a few a really good organic chef and a crazy clown rapper. I'd like to be remembered for my generosity, in hopes that it inspired other people to be generous. What good is anything, if you're not going to share? What are you going to do with it?” – Jason Mraz

I feel like I want to write about so many things, but I can’t write them all at the same time. For example, I want to respond to what Jason said in the two passages I have pasted here, but I also want to continue writing about my summer mini-vacation (not to mention what Daddy told me about – unity in families and the relationship between parents and children). What should I do first? I think I definitely want to do what I feel like doing, and that is responding to what Jason said.

Pertaining to quote #1: I know they say that attachment to anything only leads to suffering, but then the next question is, is that attachment worth it in the end? I think of attachment as in being close to your family. If being close to your family will only lead to suffering (as in when they die), does that mean that you should alienate yourself from your family so as to avoid suffering? I don’t think so. There are some things worth suffering. Your job is to choose which are worth it and which are not. Obviously, for me, material things are not worth it, and for others that is probably the case too. Being close to my family and having a united family is worth the suffering in the end when we leave each other. Laughing is a way of saying I’m unattached to that. Let’s see. How can I make sense of that? I don’t see how that is, but to me, laughter is a medicine, as Jason says. It’s a remedy. Just like chorus class. How so? My friend Jen and I had chorus class at the end of the day – 9th period. We’d tell each other how we had had a rough day and then we go to chorus class to just escape it all – and it was easy. There’s music, learning and laughter. What else do you need? We’d walk in with a bad attitude, acquired frustratingly from a teacher of an earlier class and leave the chorus room in all smiles and a tune on our tongue.

Pertaining to quote #2: How would I like to be remembered? Jason wants to be remembered for generosity. Well, seeing as I want to be a teacher, generosity fits in that category like a glove. I’d be generous by sharing knowledge, a very powerful tool to have handy. But what else would I like to be remembered as? I guess I’d like to be remembered for my creativity in expressions and ability to teach others important values. In a way I guess, I’d like to be remembered for trying my best at contributing to humanity (I explained humanity earlier, in one of my other journal entries). I want to do this through music and literature and possibly film and of course through teaching directly in schools. How would I fit tennis into this? I guess through tennis, I can inspire people to play sports and be active – good for the body, mind and soul, which is the gist of people and the human condition, which is what humanity is. In essence, this can be achieved through generosity, which Jason wants to be remembered for. So, my answer is his answer, but in a different light. I gots to share what I got, and I gots plenty! So now I ask myself this question: who am I writing this for? How am I sharing my writing? I’m not although I invite people to read it. But who would actually go on my laptop, and open this document to read what I have to share? I’ve got a 0.1% chance. Steph and Ate Sherry can read it and possibly Kuya. But no one else. Take-home message: I’m itching to write a blog on the internet.

So I guess these two passages have blown up my mind and revealed some revealing revelations. I’m thankful that I’ve copied and pasted them here – thankful for the instinctive need to post them here and for the ultimate gratifying and eye-opening end result. Perhaps this journal will be printed out some day, and published. Who knows? I don’t, fo sho.