Je me souviens

Loves

I heard Ray Bradbury speak once. "You have to have loves," he insisted. "It doesn't matter what they are, but you have to have them."

I have thought about this statement a lot the past few days. I realized that it is very easy to betray your loves. Your own passions never seem as interesting as the passions of the people you admire, and they certainly don't compare well to the passions of the people you resent. Regular life gets you so used to yourself that you have a hard time even being able to recognize--let alone articulate and appreciate--the things you dedicate your life to. They feel too normal to be exciting, too banal to be compelling.

It occured to me that this is a real waste--being dispassionate about one's own loves is really a minor tragedy. So, I've resolved to be more passionate about my loves, to refuse to downplay or discount them, to have a quick answer to the "what do you do in your spare time" question. I'm no longer going to worry if my loves seem prosaic or if I'm not internationally ranked in the competition associated with each one. In the local parlance, I'm going to stop ninja dating my loves and start going public.

The Title of My Memoirs

This Land is My Land: Finding a Final Resting Place

May Day is Lei Day