just minishorts.

While we still live on fortunately solid ground, lucky enough to be able to talk about our own thoughts and busy ourselves with people who have bursted our egos, it doesn't hurt to send a thought and a wish of hope and prayer to friends on the other side of the globe. To victims of Hurricane Katrina and their friends and family, my prayer goes to you.

What everyone ought to try to remember more often is this universal fact:

MOST OF THE TIME, IT PAYS NOT TO BOTHER.

There will be criticisms about you everywhere, those that you are fortunate (or unfortunate, depends on how you'd choose to see it) to hear of, or those that are far worse because you didn't get to hear it. Some just punch you straight in the face, and while it's easy to say that 'I can accept it better simply because I know who's talking about me, rather than anonymous cowards lurking around and dedicating hate stories to me', the fact remains: 'These people do not matter.'

Others choose to say things about you, whether or not they know you as a person. When we judge, we judge people from our own personal point of view, and while the bible says it is wrong to judge, it is also true that we WILL tend to judge regardless of how self-righteous we try to be.

Which renders that right to judge valid as well, so we shouldn't try to defend ourselves so much… nor keep on banking on the same issues over and over again.

As the momentum builds and one moves up the societal ladder, the realization that the whole world doesn't just revolve around oneself ought to become clearer. Not that it's easy to achieve or acquire this realization… but the other truth remains: 'These are strangers and they can say whatever they want.'

After all, this is 'freedom of action' (speech included) metamorphosizing right before our very eyes. In each and every one of us (especially bloggers) the struggle to gain an audience has never been more vigorous.

I am fortunate to be known and to have the luxury of people listening to me. I know that many people want to be here where I am, I call it a strange force of nature, a decision by God and the whirling of destiny's soup ingredients in this cauldron of mixed outcomes. Maybe I took a plunge, and I fell in the 'right place'.

And then I urge you to remember, the word 'right' and its values and definition, lies in the eye of the beholder. For some people this is 'not right', for some people, this is 'admirable'. For me, this is just so. I am going with the flow.

Truth is, it isn't easy to go with the flow. You know that your name is mentioned in efforts to provoke attention, and it happens. You know that your name and those of your friends and families are jested upon in efforts to acquire remarks, and it happens. You know that even in a very normal act of saying 'Yes I feel so today,' and the very normal act of deciding 'You know what, actually I was wrong yesterday, so I'm going to say no I do not feel so today', will gather comments that you are 'contradictory' and etc, etc,.

But at the end of the day, the truth is, again (let me repeat that):

MOST OF THE TIME, IT PAYS NOT TO BOTHER.

I am by nature, an allegorical person. Readers of my blog would have realized this fact very long ago. The style in which I phrase my opinions, by sheer chance, just happens to be multi-faceted and simple. Well, actually, most things that any normal person says would be multi-faceted AND simple at the same time… just that we don't realize when we utter such things.

Which is why it is so important to keep on reminding ourselves to move on and live in the present, not trying to make amends to things past, nor procrastinating the current in order to predict the things to come.