On a Slow Boat

I’m going to write more publicly here, but am still keeping this blog for more personal things.

Life takes time to live.

It unfolds at its own pace. And as I often have to remind myself many times, it’s generally slower than my overactive mind. But slower isn’t necessarily bad. Neither is it good. It’s just the difference between my expectations and reality.

So these days when I catch myself hurrying and wishing for the future to come sooner (trust me, it happens a lot), I ask: “What is so bad about the present that I need to rush forward?“

99% of the time the answer is: “Nothing, I’m just impatient and prefer to live in the imaginary future.”

Lately a phrase entered my subconscious:

Be ruthlessly generous

But what does that mean? To be ruthlessly generous?

Is it the same as being generously ruthless? Am I supposed to be more mean, more assertive, more ruthless?

Ik ben niet mezelf in het Nederlands;
kan niet zeggen wat ik wil.
Altijd sprakeloos, drie stappen achter.

"Wat zeg je?" vraag ik.
Maar de antwoord maakt niks.
We nog klikken niet.

Ik ben letterlijk verloren in vertaling.
Dus de snel verstand, scherpdenkende, soepel sprekende persoon is niet daar.

Althans, niet in het Nederlands. 

(Utrecht, 2 Nov 2021)

I am not myself in Dutch,
can’t say what I want to say.
Always tongue-tied, three steps behind.

‘What did you say,’ I ask.
But the answer doesn’t matter.
We just haven’t understood each other.

I am literally lost in translation.
The quick-witted, sharp-thinking, smooth-talking
person,
is not there.

At least, not in Dutch.

There’s no straight line in nature, or symmetry. Leaves, you said? Take another look. Pay close attention to each side and really look. Are the two halves truly identical?

Tree trunks are never perfectly straight. Water surface is not perfectly still. There are always ripples somewhere in the surface. There are no such thing as perfectly flat ground either. The latter will be familiar to anyone who’s ever camped in the wilderness or tried to build a house.

In fact if you want to know what’s man made. Find the straight line and the right angles and the symmetry. The man-made perfection.