Sunday, April 27, 2008

widening perspectives



On Thursday night I visited, along with my freind Colleen, a friend of ours, another foreign teacher who out of the blue found out she has a brain tumour last Sunday. It was an incredibly inspiring experience, because her attitude was so positive and graceful , and her smile was so bright and she also was so open. Her vibe was so uplifting. Another freind kept asking about her condition, and she didnt want to go into it, but finally she said that the surgery is incredibly dangerous, the tumor has spread into the inside of her brain, and she also can no longer drain spinal fluid from her brain. So the situation doesnt look good, but she said finally, she is able to focus and appreciate the present moment. She said she is the kind of person who is always worrying about hte future, or about the past and never ever feel in touch with the present moment. She said this situation allowed her to appreciate this feeling that she never could, and it seemed like it gave her such a wider perspective of life, I was really moved and touched by this experience. The following night I had a profound discussion with my freind Oliver about death. He says that he thinks it is a positive thing becuase it allows one to move onto a bigger thing than all the petty worries and entanglements that burden our daily existence and produce so much suffering. Death allows us to move onto a bigger thing becuase we are part of something here, something that must be cosmic since we are of the same basic substance as the milky way and beyond. He said that the positive thing about death provides release from our tiny perspective, almost like the parable of Plato's cave. I have spent the weekend digesting these thoughts, and I really wanted to write them down. I hope I didnt freak out anybody with such morbid ramblings, but I really wanted to share them with my fellow terrestrial cosmic life travelers.
Anyway yesterday I had to sub a class in the afternoon, then I went to my french freind Olivers for some wonderful conversation, and barbecue on his rooftop becuase it was such beautiful weather, sunny and in the 80s, a real rarity on this subtropical island. Then we went to a progressive house dance party at a japanese club that my coworker's freind DJ'ed so had guest passes and got in free. There wasnt many people there becuase the music was a little too sophisticated for most Taipei clubgoers, who usually groove to Hip Hop, but there were some alternative people like me. I even saw one taiwanese guy in a tye dye which was refreshing. Today I went to a skatepark near my girlfreinds house, I picked up a board becuase there are a bunch of skateparks around here which set me craving to carve concrete. I met some Taiwanese skaters whjo are always really cool and freindly. Then I met with my girlfreind and we discussed Chinese poetry because I picked up a book of 100 T'ang dynasty poems, which are so beautiful.

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