TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

4:45 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Tsunami in Asia 22,000 people dead
It's extraordinary when a natural disaster strikes how much devastation can be caused in just a few minutes. another reminder of how fragile and uncertain our time is here on this planet. reading stories of survivors in the paper this morning, people trapped in rooms underwater who swam out the window, or after being smashed into walls were then washed up on the fourth floor of a building. incredibly sad for all those people who died, and their families left behind searching for them.
reading tuesdays with morrie on a mini-holiday at bronte (couldn't help imagining a wave like that - 10m high moving at hundreds of km an hour - hitting the east coast of sydney - although maybe the bricks would stand up better to the force of the water than those huts and shacks - reminder also of the poverty that so many people live in, when the ocean here is a symbol of wealth and status.) anyway, morrie was saying that when you come to terms with death, you begin to truly know how to live. talking about Buddhist philosophy of asking every day, is this my last, am I living the best life I can, am I being the person I need to be? good exercise, it does help filter some of the unimportant stuff that can take up so much brainspace, energy and time.
And am I? Could I die today?
I'm doing my best. it feels so relentless, trying to achieve all these creative ideas and grand plans, sometimes I would like to turn it down a few notches and just be more present to the everyday. cooking delicious food, being with friends and loved people, not trying to get so far so fast.
Even taking 2 days off over christmas was hard, by monday was ready to get back into it - but a strange lassitude has settled and it's very hard to work up the energy to the same pitch as it was last week. weirdly dizzy all day, but think that's the residue of unwinding stress.
saw a movie today, I heart huckabees. It was interesting and thought provoking, the existential detectives you can hire to help sort out your crisis - and eventually realise that you can't stay in a state of 'pure being' all day, you are always drawn back into human drama and suffering.
of course.