a garden of purpose

My sister and I got our hair cut yesterday but because her cut was followed by a four-hour treatment, I went to the bookstore to pick up something to read quickly while waiting. Candide was not an easy afternoon story.

The horror stories of rape, pillage and plunder were difficult to plow through and I couldn't help but feel the bite of Voltaire's attack against the optimist. I thought I had long abandoned the thought that everything happens for a reason, but the jabs from Candide still found an easy target in me.

I don't know if Voltaire meant to get this message across, but I took from the book that even if all evidence point to the contrary that evil exists for no good reason at all, we as reasoning human beings can create meaning and purpose out of the life that we are left with once the sufferings have past. Is this not what Candide does for his garden?

And thus, reading this only strengthened my conviction, that gardening is a highly noble cause indeed.

long walk on the beach

Today I went on a very long walk on a beach that couldn't quite decide whether to be rocky (sometimes smooth, sometimes razor-sharp) or sandy (sometimes fine, sometimes grainy), that went up and down and across, on an afternoon that was both hot and cold, with the sun playing hide and seek.

Today I fell in love with El Nido - for the beach's identity crisis, an easy metaphor for oneself, and for its beauty that requires work and perseverance to behold, a perfect metaphor for life.

It was a full kilometer of beach before I spotted someone, and beyond that there was no one else.

unphotographable

Can I store in my mind's eye, in the stores of happy memories in my heart, all the peace and beauty I experienced here? Will there be a time just like this again in my future?

Nearing the end of it I feel that I should have written more, done more, thought more of everything that I felt. Then I think, in a way, it was a whole month of quiet, tranquil meditation. Not really a time for thinking but just for stopping. Not for acquiring but just cleansing. I got to be one with the the waves and the wind, fleeting, coming and going, rising and crashing, holding nothing, always ready to let go.

At times I find myself searching for big lessons, opportunities for great deeds wondering if to find naught would be a waste. I am still uncertain but at the same time not worried.

farm-lab

Tomorrow will be the culmination (first peak) of this year's research project when we finally present it to a panel of judges and to the rest of our class. To the scientific community, this work is probably far from groundbreaking. Yet to me it has been a source of many important lessons on patience, perseverance and acceptance. It has also brought me closer to some of the best people of class 2014.

Like for chicken C, featured in the video above, I think all the waiting, the pushing and the pain brings forth something that can nourish all of us.

to live again

To mark Easter 2010, I am reviving my blog.

It has been an incredible year. In twelve months, I wrapped up my work in Ankara, bid goodbye to some of the best people I have ever met, flew home to start medical school, met new faces, made new friends and fought new battles. I have even started driving! After a whirlwind of events, the dust begins to settle.

Safe from the tumult of emotions afforded by the distance of memories, I can reflect calmly on the past. It was a time for mastering the art of taming the heart, which yearns and frets and rages. It was a time for waiting, for stillness and breathing.