Youth, beautiful youth...
This one is a dialog with a 42-year-old Tokyo woman I recently met online (in my research on the "Online Dating" piece I'm still working on!). Useful?
note: I fixed up a bit of the English...it was really bad before, now it's just ok...
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M:
I am serious think about my future what I have to, want get. Recently I don't have self-confidence a lot when I failed in interview with Japanese. They say I have strong self-confidence, aggressive... I confuse Japanese.....what can I do for them? I have no work here in japan for a year. As you know in Japanese culture nobody is interested in old women working. Someone judge old women is kind of like expiration foods. It is terrible judgment. Unbelievable... So this is our culture, Japanese men don't respect old women. I am so sad and complex a lot but still I am here. I am thinking I have to move back Toronto soon. I believe Canadian respect old women. This is reason I love your country, I don't want life in Japan. M
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Gaga sez:
It's a hard life in many ways (hence the pali term dukkha, or "unsatisfactoriness"). Everything is aimed at young people in most societies, and especially the wealthy ones... the reason is simple...they are not experienced enough to understand most companies aim at them so that they buy things they don't need; kids and parents of kids spend their money on things that make them happy, and everyone and everything seems to be happy. Magazines, advertisements, TV, everything is aimed at the attraction of youth... until you get old and then you spend the rest of your life trying to be young again! Ha.
It's a silly denial of what truly happens. We all get old, get sick, and eventually die. There is no hiding from this reality. We blind ourselves and pretend the only thing important is youth. We live entirely in a sort of denial. Gizzillions of dollars are spent trying to avoid the inevitable...
We change too often in life in so many ways it's just not a good practice to worry about it. I used to worry a lot, but there is no point in worrying. Just breathe. This is reality. The breath is life, everything else is a game of some sort (as Colin Powell pointed out the other day). It's nice to see this wisdom clearly--when I was younger, I couldn't.
So enjoy your life. Who cares what others do or what they think...or even what ideas you think! What matters is not to get too confused by the swirling pressures around us.
This is the most important lesson I am learning. Breathe... feel it, experience all the sensitivity of this body and mind, but always remember: it is dukkha, it is impermanent, and there is no self in any of it.
Gaga | 7:20 PM
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