THURSDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2005
Several thoughts on 2006 (and the rest of my future) come down to one principle: You can use your imagination and your intellect to achieve a better life.
FRIDAY, 23 DECEMBER 2005
My whole began to disintegrate twelve, thirteen years ago.* Since then I have been working hard at putting the pieces together again in such a way that I can stand back and say, “That’s good. It works. I understand … not everything, but I understand enough to function.”
* Christian worldview: everyone and everything has a place, a role, a purpose, a story, and a specific value. This one said what? It’s because he is X. That one said something else? No wonder. She is …
I had arranged and lived my entire life according to this worldview, but then the explanations and answers started getting thinner and thinner, and I increasingly recognised the hand of humans in their development.
SATURDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2005
On the way back from the Carrefour, I realised: Exactly ten years have passed since my Christmas of macaroni boiled in a kettle, cheap cheese sauce from the convenience store, and a two-litre bottle of powder mix beverage – oh yes, and a tube of garlic polony.
The climb from that point has been tough. And although the summit is still some distance away, I am much, much closer.
MONDAY, 26 DECEMBER 2005
12:20
The playing field can never be the same for everyone. The struggle should be to make it more equal than it is now.
17:47
Years ago I asked: How can I follow my own passions and interests and pursue my own agenda, and still stay alive, afford a place to live, pay bills, and so on. My first answer was simple: You become rich. Then you buy a house, furniture, a TV and a computer and a stove and a washing machine and a refrigerator, and you continue working on whatever you want to work on. Later I reckoned you need a trade of some sorts, something you can do or something that you can produce for which there is a market, from which you can then generate an income without undermining your main job too much.
This afternoon I thought of another possibility: undemanding work. You can pursue your own agenda by earning money in a job that is not too demanding, something that does not take up too much of your time, something you can do while your attention is still more or less on your agenda work – like me writing this note, and formulating this idea while I am earning money teaching an English class in Taiwan.
TUESDAY, 27 DECEMBER 2005
Inside every person is the seed of life, and every person carries the seed of death. Each person can be an agent of life. Likewise, every person is a potential agent of death.
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