While looking online for a quote for a work project, I ran into this quote that I’ve always loved:

It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“You are always writing, writing in your notebook. You need to experience. Really experience.” I’m getting every word - “always writing…need to experience,” when the irony dawns on me. I stop writing and look up. I mumble something lame about old habits dying hard. (The Geography of Bliss, E. Weiner)

A few months ago when my friend, Susan, visited during her road trip from San Diego, we had a discussion about keeping a blog. As a photographer, Susan does a great job of sharing what’s going on in her life - not just with her photography business, but also moments that are special to her. I asked her if taking pictures (and the responsibility of posting them) ever got in the way of just experiencing life and enjoying the moment.

The reason I asked was because sometimes I find myself experiencing something and then thinking about what a great blog post it would make. I even find myself coming up with phrases with which to describe the scenario. I know it’s partly because I love writing and sharing experiences with others, but I began to wonder about the whole idea of blogging. I read about one blogger who put herself in new, sometimes awkward, situations simply to have something interesting to blog about. I guess you could describe it as living to blog.

I don’t think I’ve gone quite that far, and as I’ve thought about it more, I think I’m still on the safe side with my blogging habits. I think I feel the need to blog because I have stuff I want to share with others (especially since our family and many friends are not local), and I just love to document experiences - whether through the blog, my own personal paper journal, or through photos. I wrote in my journal the entire time we were in Hong Kong, and because of that, I haven’t felt the urge to “report” on our HK trip on here. The need to document the trip has already been satisfied.

On the flipside, I think there is a benefit to feeling this way. When I come up with phrases to describe scenarios, it makes me more aware of all the details. Today as Matt and I rode bikes along the Burke-Gilman trail, I made a point to take in the Christmas decorations on each house, the squawking birds filling up the branches above us, and the mountain range across the lake. Or when I take pictures, sometimes it does get in the way of enjoying the moment because I want to try to capture the perfect moment or the ideal lighting. But in doing so, I become more aware of the details that otherwise might get overlooked.

This year, I will strive to be more aware of the details…to slow down…to take more time for myself, for my personal projects, whatever they may be. A co-worker passed along a great phrase that has been running through my head since she shared it: Do less, savor more. When I try to do too much, life becomes about thinking ahead and preparing myself for what is to come, rather than enjoying the moment and savoring the details. She also said that people go through seasons - one season may be more outward focused, and the next season may be more inward focused - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

That’s what I want this year to be about, and hopefully, it will become a habit that continues in the years to come.

As someone who excessively dwells on the past, I especially liked this quote:

“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.” (spoken by Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith)

What’s your definition of a Christian? Is it broad enough to encompass the drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and broken people of the world? Jesus said that he came to heal the sick. Drug addicts are messed up, just the same as liars are messed up, just the same as all humans are messed up. We all need Jesus. We all struggle with personal ways in which sin plays itself out in our lives.

What’s worse? To not do dope or to not love your brother? Why do we kick drug users out of church while quietly ignoring those who aren’t dealing with other, equally destructive sins? Why do we reject the loving, self-sacrificing, giving, encouraging, Jesus-pursuing drug addict but recruit the clean, self-interested, gossiping, loveless churchgoer? (”Under the Overpass,” Mike Yankoski)

(Update from January 2010: Mike Yankoski led devos for my team at work! What an unexpected treat! I tried not to act like a weirdo when I told him which part of his story touched me the most.)

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On a book-related note, I just finished “Waiter Rant” by Steve Dublanica (aka The Waiter). I haven’t logged all the books I’ve read between 1997 and now, but of the books that I did enter into my book journal, only three of them have gotten the full “five flower” rating–and “Waiter Rant” is the latest one. Matt was asking me how I rated my books. For example, would a Jane Austen novel be rated on the same criteria as, say, a Harry Potter book (none of which I logged, by the way)? I guess my only rating system is “How much did I enjoy the book?” And “Waiter Rant” was one that I truly enjoyed.

The writer is the author of waiterrant.net, which I had never visited until today. He anonymously blogged about his experiences as a waiter, and eventually got a book deal. Each chapter in his book has a subtle theme, and all of the anecdotes and musings in that chapter tie back into the theme. His anecdotes are entertaining, touching, and brutally honest. His writing style is clever and humorous. He is able to tie the his waiter experiences and lessons into life in general so that anyone could relate. Each chapter is what I strive for in my blog entries–to weave the current events in my life with a theme so that, in the end, whoever is reading my blog hopefully gets something out of it. (Sure, there will be some straight recaps tucked in there, but for the most part, I’d like to post more than just the “Here’s what I’ve been up to” entries.)

I was immersed in the restaurant industry briefly–and even then, just part-time–but even for people who have never donned the black apron and took meal orders, the book is still an entertaining read.

“Love? Beyond the small, intoxicating fury which dies away to leave the body unfettered, the body sweating, the mind appeased, it is perhaps a profound sharing, a feeling of trust, and the same sense of walking toward the same horizon.”

Claude Roy, The Agony of Love

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:9-10 (NIV)

“Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.” Romans 12:9-10 (The Message)

(And for something on the lighter side…TMNT Valentine’s day cards! I actually remember these, specifically the Bebop and Rocksteady one, because I handed them out to friends back in the day.)

Since 1997 (with a hiatus between 1999 and 2003, and sporadic entries during the early 2000s), I’ve been keeping a book journal. Being too cheap to buy a pre-made one at the store, I got a blank notebook and taped in my own section dividers: Books read, Books to read, and Additional comments. The journal begins with an entry for a book titled “Angel flying too close to the ground” by Annie Garrett, and I described it briefly as “a typical fairy-tale love story. Cool cuz (like how I spelled it with a “z”??) one character is a journalist.

As I flip through the journal, I could see the phases that I went through in terms of book subjects. Toward the beginning, I was drawn toward stories of love and idealistic romances (not to be confused with romance novels!), and scribbled down quotes uttered by two people in love. Then I went through a science fiction phase, centered around one particular author who penned a series that I liked. Fast forward to 2007 and later entries when my reading habits picked up speed, which cover books based on real experiences. These stories include an AIDS-infected boy from South Africa who makes history by attending school with other healthy kids; two friends who spend five months being homeless in six American cities; a college-age girl who hides in a bathroom with other women during the Rwandan genocide in 1994; a woman in Iran who writes about her imprisonment; and a man who selflessly gives all he can to build a school in a remote Pakistani village. And consistent themes that are carried throughout the years are writing, traveling, and strong women–sometimes all in the same book.

I just put in a new entry into my journal: The Innocent Man by John Grisham. It’s his first nonfiction work, but, as usual, centers around law. The book covers the unfair trials and unjust imprisonment of two men who are convicted of killing a girl. When I finished entering in my short review of the book, I flipped through the pages of quotes I’ve written down over the years from other books and was reminded of how amazing books are. I love books. So much.

So every so often, I will post a quote or two that is logged in my book journal. Maybe you’ll like it as much as I did. Maybe you won’t. And if you want to share a quote from a book that you’re reading or have read, please do so.

To start off, here is a quote about books. Novels, to be specific. It’s sort of long, so bear with me:

A novel works its magic by putting a reader inside another person’s life. The pace is as slow as life. It’s as detailed as life. It requires you, the reader, to fill in an outline of words with vivid pictures drawn subconsciously from your own life, so that the story feels more personal than the sets designed by someone else and handed over via TV or movies. Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget that you have one of your own.

That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, throwing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up. It’s why you might find yourself crying, even if you aren’t the crying kind.   (High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver)