Every Age

Weren't you ever afraid to grow old? I asked.

'Mitch, I embrace aging.'

Embrace it?

'It's very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.'

Yes, I said, but if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, 'Oh, if I were young again.' You never hear people say, 'I wish I were sixty-five.'

He smiled. 'You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five.
...
'The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a three-year old, I'm a five year old, I'm a thrity-seven-year-old, I'm a fifty-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own. Do you understand?'

- Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom.

Frailty Of Humanity

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, &c. The result would be an Encyclopaedia of Error. They would assert Slavery, Socialism, Persecution, Divine Right, military despotism, the reign of force, the supremacy of the executive over legislation and justice, purchase in the magistracy, the abolition of credit, the limitation of laws to nineteen years, &c. If you were to read Walter Scott's pamphlets, Southey's Colloquies, Ellenborough's Diary, Wellington's Despatches - distrust of the select few, of the chosen leaders of the community, would displace the dread of the masses. The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

- John Dalberg-Acton, 1881.

John

Children, don't do what I have done
I couldn't walk and I try to run
So I, I just gotta tell you
Goodbye... goodbye.

If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out!

Harold, everyone has the right to make an arse out of themselves, you can't let the world judge you too much.

Revelation

The template of the taste of most tinned kari ayam is that of chicken vindaloo.

If nothing else, studying here has turned me into a curry connoisseur.

Accountability

How easy it is to say, I'll do it, when all your life you have had things done for you.

You live your life as if the roof over your head, the food on your belly and the money in your pocket are your God-given rights.

You make extravagant promises and you forget them after a while. You get angry when people remind you. You think they're asking for too much.

You screw up every time and you expect people to bail you out with a smile, because you think you deserve a second chance. How many chances have been wasted on you?

You think people make a fanfare of your mistakes - well, they're the ones always ending up cleaning up the mess you made, don't you think they have every right to do so?