Acts Of Kindness

I never knew his name. But for a few minutes, he became my favorite person in the world.

The young man was just another face among hundreds to me. Nothing special there at all. I didn't even notice him as I got on the train, making my way home through the underground.

As the train pulled into a station, an old man got on the extremely crowded car I was in.

But then something unexpected happened. The young man took one look at him, and, without a trace of hesitation, got up to give his chair to the old man. He protested, but the young man insisted on this. The old man smiled as he sat down. As soon as he touched the seat, he let out a sigh of relief. He was tired. The look on his face was priceless, for it was worth everything.

Now you may ask what's the big deal. Well, I hardly see these random acts of kindness nowadays. I miss the life I never lived when that was the norm.

Suddenly, everyone disappeared and I could only see that young man. At that instance he had more in common with me than anyone in the world.

He was my personal hero. He was the best thing on the whole train to me.

I never knew his name and as I got off the train, I knew I'll never know it.

But though we might never cross paths again, he will never be forgotten.

Thank you for reminding me of the best of humanity.

Sadness (Friend)

I hate to see you this way my friend. I hate to see you sad.

You have no idea what that does to me. It's just like everything goes out of prospective all of a sudden. Things don't make sense anymore. I really can't bear to see you sad like that.

I wish there was something I can do.

I wish I can just stand up and scream something that would cheer you up.
But I don't know what to do.

Those around me know that my biggest problem is feeling helpless. I just can't bear that feeling. I always want to believe there is something I can do to change things. But right now I feel helpless.

I wish I can cheer you up. I wish I can make things better for you.

Say a word – or just smile, and you can make me the happiest person right now. Because I don't want you to be sad anymore my friend. You are far too precious. That's all I can think of right now.

Maybe I am not so helpless at the end of the day. Maybe there is something to be done. Maybe I just need to lay my fingers on the right thing to do.

I don't want to see you sad my friend. I just want to see you happy and well.
And I will.

Only cuz you are my friend.

Dimmed Star

Why wasn't she shining like the star I knew she was?

That was the question I asked myself as soon as I laid eyes on her. If the star should be dimmed, then what should happen to the moons and planets around it?

Unexpectedly, yet beautifully, she began to unravel to me.

A star shines and burns with dreams. It is the fuel that keeps stars going on and on forever. They thrive on their dreams. They create beauty and perfection through dreams.

But she was being robbed of her dreams. She was being robbed of her shine. She was being dimmed.

Did she even know she was a star? Did she even know her light was fading away? I will never know. The only thing I know – the only thing I'm sure of – is that that should not be happening to her.

Why would someone intentionally rob someone of their dreams and call it love. How can love destroy, rather than create?

If I love someone so much, why would I rob them of the fuel that keeps them going?

Love has nothing to do with taking someone's dreams. Rather, it is all about breathing fire into the flame of dreams. It is all about making the dreams come true. And, ultimately, that is the grandest and most beautiful and complete sacrifice.

That is the essence of loving someone. It is sacrificing ones own needs for the sake of the needs of the person they love. And the beauty of it is that in doing so, one would find the ultimate happiness.

It is about, willingly, giving much much more than you'll ever ask for. And knowing that, in doing this you will receive more than you ever thought you would.

For once the dreams thrive, the star will shine. And her shine will bring beauty to her. It will also bring shine to the moons and planets around her. It will breed perfection and happiness.

To ask for everything is never asking for too much. But letting go of everything is letting go of too much.

May you shine ever brightly with dreams. And, I hope when the time comes, I'm around to smile as you shine brighter than ever. And I hope you shine on me too.

In your happiness those around you will find theirs.

Speak

I was sitting the other day with a thermometer in my mouth when I discovered something amazing. The most important trait of the human race is our ability to express ourselves.

I was sitting with my family and we were watching television. There was a program about a space shuttle that exploded during launch. Everyone was talking and I had the thermometer in my mouth and it was very distressing! I wanted to talk. I wanted to add my input but I couldn't open my mouth.

When I took the thermometer out it was a very liberating feeling. There was so much to say, so many comments that I had kept inside because I could not speak. But there was only one problem. The program was over. The moment to speak was gone. I missed it.

That must be how it feels to not be allowed to speak your mind. That is why it is the cruelest thing to rob that right from people. Humans are created to speak, interact and thus evolve. If you break that link then they merely become another animal gracing the face of the Earth.

Never pass on the chance to express yourself, to say what you need to say. If you learn to just shut up, eventually that becomes who you are. And then, many years later, you'd be willing to give up your whole life to be given the chance to travel back to every time you choose to shut up and to express yourself as an individual, as a human, as the highest creation on the planet.

The moment to act, the moment to speak, is always the "now". If you miss the "now", if you don't open your mouth. The moment passes, never to be regained.

The Symphony

I am in love with everything around me. I've fallen in love with life. I've fallen in love with everything beautiful. I've fallen in love with everything horrible and wicked.

I love the faces I see everyday – even when they are worn or angry. Every places I have visited on Earth has left its mark on my soul, scarring me forever. And I love it.

I love it all because of the harmony that exists in everything. Life – that wild, untamed monster – is so perfectly in harmony that it defies all reason. That is why it is so hard for us to really believe it is in harmony. We tend to think that it is unfair, wicked to some and kind to some. But that is not true. It is perfectly balanced. I'm not going to rant about how each person gets something and loses something – that is not what I am about. Even thinking in terms of humans only is a simplistic and insulting notion.

This is bigger than humans or animals or birds or whatever. This is about everything at the same time. How everything falls together and plays out the same tune.

It is my firm belief that – amidst all the different melodies of life – there exists a symphony. A symphony to bring all the melodies together. A beautiful creation of love, hate and everything else. If we can listen carefully, if we would take the time to listen closely, maybe – just maybe – there is a chance to hear that symphony. And if you ever do hear it, my God it is the most beautiful, liberating, invigorating feeling ever! It is like being reborn. It is the symphony of the harmony of life. It is the most beautiful sound ever created.

It is like finally understanding. It's like all the pieces falling in place at the same time. Everything might be falling around you but it'll still make sense. You would understand that – in everything horrible – there's beauty. And in everything beautiful there is horridness.

Have I ever heard that symphony? No. But I know it exists. And I know it is worth searching for my whole life. I have heard many of the melodies and I know that one day I will hear the symphony too. The question is, are you ready to search?

I would show you everything I know so far – but everything is too extreme. Maybe it is best to wait and see if you are ready or not. After all, the symphony is not going anywhere.

Dreaming

Floating along on a sea of dreams
Tidal waves, never an aim
Never belonging, never understanding
I savor my presence in the dreamscape
Like a god amongst Men
Unscathed in my eternal powers

And when you pass me by
Did you know you're in my dreams?
When I last smiled at you
Did you know you are the dream?

Drink of my blood, share my flesh
Walk into my dreamworld
Come witness the wheel of the world
And reign in lands that'll never be

Welcome in, have a nice day
Hold your head up high
For it's all about you
In ways only you will ever see

Stripped of reality and sanity
Don't dictate to me what I should do
Free of all ties, I finally believe
In my self-created world
I live for the dreams

Life

Good morning Life. How are you doing today?

Today I realized so much about you. I hope you forgive me. Lately I have said some really bad things about you. Though I'm usually not one to admit my mistakes easily, I do right now. I have been wrong about you.

You see, I am young and brash. All I can think about is here and now. Sometimes - at times of my happiness - you brought things down. At times of hardship, you seemed to have an uncanny ability of multiplying the problems. I was quick to judge you and call you mean and cruel. But now I realized - how can I judge that which I cannot see? There's no knowing what the future holds. And as long as it is shrouded in darkness then I'd be unfair to judge you.

I believe you are not cruel Life. I believe you are just honing me and tuning me for the things ahead. It is a case of cruel to me kind.

Thank you Life. I really appreciate everything you go through for me. I only pray that when the time comes, I'd have learned all the lessons you taught me and would be able to put them to good use.

Forgive me once again for how I have treated you. I was not taught the truth about you while growing up. But my promise to you is to teach the truth to anyone who comes seeking it.

May your light shine bright in the hearts of all humans.

The strongest swords are forged in the hottest fires.

The Troll

The only thing the troll ever really wanted was to be a man. He hated being troll.

As he looked at his reflection in the pond, he hated being ugly - he wanted to be a handsome human. He hated how people hated looking at him. He wanted people to love looking at him as he passed down the street.

But he was a troll. And everyone knows that trolls are never handsome.

In spite of that, every creature in the forest loved the troll. He was good to them all. When the residents of the forest gathered to talk, the troll's name always came up with love. They always talked of the goodness in his heart. His parents have raised him up to be very special.

But the troll wanted to be handsome. The troll wanted to be a human.

As the troll walked through the forest one day, he crossed paths with the kingdom's prince.

"oh dear Lord! Go away you ugly monster," said the prince.

The prince of the kingdom was so handsome. Nobody hated looking at him. He was not like the troll.

The troll lowered his head in shame. It was true. He was ugly. He was a monster. He was nothing compared to the incredibly handsome prince.

The prince spat at him and left.

Only a minute later, a hutched witch came out from inbetween the trees. "What do you think of the prince, young troll?" said the old witch.

"He is so handsome. He is - he is human," mumbled the troll.

"What would you give me if I can make you look like the prince?"

The troll's eyes glittered. "I'd give you anything you ever want!" he exclaimed.

"Don't be so hasty, I might ask for that which you cannot give," said the witch. "But I will cut you a deal. I will turn you into the crown prince, everything about you will become him. All I ask in return is 1% of your kingdom. You have 60 days then you must give me the land."

Hastily, the troll agreed to the witch's deal. There was nothing to consider. The deal was too good to be true, it fulfilled every need the troll ever had in his life.

"The deal shall be written in blood young troll. Cut your finger and I'll cut mine. We will mix our bloods. If you ever go back on your promise, I will break the spell and you will become an uglier troll than you already are."

The troll used his claws to cut his little finger and dripped his blood to mix with the old witch's blood.

There was a bright flash of light. Sparks danced everywhere around the troll. The witch disappeared, the trees began to disappear and quickly the ground disappeared.

The troll woke up a few hours later. His legs felt weird. They were all wobbly as he stood up. He looked at his hands and gasped in shock. He had human hands. He had human arms. He quickly ran to the pond that he stared at a million times before but this time it was different. This time, the most handsome face looked back at him.

Unable to contain his happiness, the now-human troll ran to the castle. As he approached the doors the guards bowed and opened the door to him.

"I am the prince!" he exclaimed wildly.

It didn't take too long for the young troll to become the prince. He quickly fell into his new luxurious life. In less than a month he was acting exactly like the prince.

But the days went by, and he didn't keep count. He had all but forgotten his promise to the witch. However, on the 55th day of their deal, the witch showed up to him.

"How are you doing your highness?" she said.

"What brings you here you old hog! And how did you get past the guards?" replied the prince troll angrily.

"Relax" she said. "I can go anywhere I want. Walls and guards don't stop me. I come to remind you of our deal. In five days, if you don't give me 1% of your kingdom and fulfill your deal, you will become an uglier troll than you ever was!"

The prince panicked. He didn't want to go back. He wanted to remain prince!

"But I don't own the kingdom yet. The king - my father - is alive and he owns the kingdom."

"I have spoken, young prince. You have less than a week." Then she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

The prince tried in vain for the next four days to find ways to break the spell. Nobody knew how to break the witch's deal.

The prince sat in his bed on the fourth night. That was his last night as prince. He would do anything to fulfill his promise. He'd even give the witch half the kingdom - if only he owned it.

He quickly lifted his head. If I owned it - he thought.

The prince got up, crept through the corridors to his parent's room. He opened the door gently. He looked down at the king and queen, sleeping peacefully. They have been very good to him ever since he became the prince.

Without a second thought, he pulled out his hunting knife and stubbed the sleeping king and queen. The yelped for help, but no one heard them.

He ran out into the corridor and out through the main gates. He ran into the dark night and the falling rain.

"I am ready to fulfill my debt you wicked witch!" shouted the prince into the night.

The witch limped out from between the trees. "So you are king now? Can I have my 1% of the kingdom?"

"Take it and leave this place and never come to my kingdom again."

"I will young king. You will never see me again. But I do want to ask you something before I leave. You have done all this to escape being a monster.

Who's the monster now? The troll in you, or the prince in you?"

Death

Someone once told me that death is the biggest reality of life. Although this statement had all the hallmarks of depth and wisdom, I don’t agree.

I have several problems with that statement actually.

To begin with, death is not really a reality. A reality is something that has a definite, quantitative value. Yet death is far from that. We view death as the end of life, but there is much we ignore if we stick to this narrow view.

For starters, there are many people who are very much alive physically yet dead emotionally or spiritually. Do you call them alive or dead? Have you ever heard someone say they feel "dead inside"? How do you qualify those?

Then there is the fact that death sometimes heralds the start of things. Where one story ends, another story begins. As a man dies somewhere in the world, the cries of a newborn will ring somewhere else. Sometimes the death of a loved one can shock relatives who have never talked – or people who hated each other – into giving their relationships another chance. Is this death – or is it life?

The second problem I have is the fact that – for some weird reason – we always associate death with life. How can death be the biggest reality of life when the truth is, it is a way of making life cease to have any meaning to most people.

Death is just death. It cannot be quantified but neither can it be seen in relation to life. The biggest reality in life is life itself. The moment of death is irrelevant. It only matters what we did in the years of life we had before death stepped in the picture. It only matters if we made the best of life.

Death is a fleeting moment. A vivid vision that quickly fades away. But life lives on forever. It is the lives of great people that are remembered, not their deaths. That is their greatest reality. Beethoven created some of the best classic music in history even though he was nearly deaf. That is his life – that is his reality.

Shakespeare was the biggest playwright the world has ever seen. The plays that he wrote are his biggest reality as they play out every day all over the world. His death is insignificant. A fleeting moment.

And it was Shakespeare who, in understanding this reality, wrote the best description of death ever conceived. In the final chapter of his play Julius Caesar, he explains it in the simplest of manners – yet the most descriptive of manners.

He simply says "And he died."

That's it.

No splendor, no glory.

The most beautiful description of death ever wrote.