the greatest thing you'll ever learn,
is to love and be loved.
is to love and be loved.
the brave and the very cautious
Tuesday, May 17, 2005 ( 4:01 AM )
Yesterday I was watching the Princess Diaries (the first movie) for like the millionth time again. (I was bored, depressed, I was in desperate need of a feel good movie, and that was the only non-bimbo one available to me) And then Prince Edward or whatver, in his letter to Mia, tells her, “The brave may not live long, but the cautious do not live at all.”
And it really struck me then, that phrase. And it occurred to me that i've been playing cautious all my life. And how true that little quote from Miss Cabot's book is... I don't feel like i've truly lived my life out, at all. Period.
And it really struck me then, that phrase. And it occurred to me that i've been playing cautious all my life. And how true that little quote from Miss Cabot's book is... I don't feel like i've truly lived my life out, at all. Period.
And i think i've made it pretty clear to myself, that i want to be among the brave. Be brave and live with bravery. Sieve the rules out and bend 'em to breaking point, and play safe in the most dangerous manner. SOund's oxymoronic, i know. But it's a start.
But hello, it's notall that easy to change from being a cautious person to a brave one. Easy is as easy does. Haha. Just felt like saying that. Though, of course, I have absolutely no idea what that means.
So anyway. Back to my little snoop into bravado and such. Well, not exactly bravado.
Anyway in case there’re some of you who’ll misread the phrase, it actually means—well, actually, I’m inferring, so.. What I think it means, is that those who live without worrying too much about the consequences or whatever, and just live life how they see it and want to live it, may not be playing safe, and may not live secure lives…Well, these are the brave. And the cautious, well.. they live out their entire lives worrying about this and that and pretty much everything, and this fear and anxiety becomes such a huge part of their lives that it is pretty much all they think about. So although their lives are extremely secure and very safe, they’re not living their lives to the full.
It's just an inference.
it's not gonna be easy to try and switch from cautious to brave. i've been cautious all my life. but it's not what i want.
I saw another phrase in the canteen this morning. (Haha. I’m like pulling phrases outta a hat or something..) It said something like don’t be troubled by your worries or something, because “the sun has a sinking spell every evening and still comes back up the next morning.” I think it was Shakespeare who said that, but I’m not too sure, cos I wasn't close enough to see the fine print. Ha.
Anyway that phrase that made me think deep, again. And I thought,
“PUHHHHLEAASSSSE!”
Come on. It’s easy for a person living a comfortable life to say that. “Oh, don’t worry, it’ll all be just dandy the moment you wake up tomorrow.” I mean, what’d you think this is? A scene from the life of the tooth fairy? Oh yeah, I’m offering you a great deal: pull your tooth out and hurt like hell and bleed to frickin’ half-death now, and tomorrow morning when you wake up, you find a fresh fifty bucks by your pillow, courtesy of me!
Okay. No offense. But I mean, life isn’t that easy or smooth. For some, probably. And you know what, maybe the phrase is true. Maybe there is a rainbow after every storm, and maybe every gray cloud does have a silver lining.
But the process of finding that rainbow, finding that silver lining, finding the solution and door to all your problems? For most that’s the most torturous thing. And I would know. I see my dad, he tells me all his problems. He’s been heavy in financial muck since… well it seems like forever, it’s been that long. I think it’s been seven, eight years, a decade? I don’t know. And even me, the Optimistic, Ever-Hopeful One, am beginning to lose hope.
Look. All I’m saying is… Yes, there’s sunshine after the rain. But to find the sunshine can take so long… So long, and after a long and exhaustingly arduous journey, that we often lose hope and faith and the determination to liberate ourselves. We’ve sunk so far in the pits of bleakness and badness that we don’t know if there actually is just one, just one hopeful ray of real sunshine. We’ve sunk so far in that we don’t know if there’s actually any way else to live other than while wallowing nose-deep in our misery. We’ve just sunk so far that the light seems so far away, so unreachable, that we begin to think we’re seeing things, that there really isn’t a light at all, or is there is, fate isn’t gonna permit us to touch it.
Perhaps the sun does sink and then makes a glorious return the next morning. Perhaps there is sunshine after rain. Perhaps we’ll find the solutions to all our problems and live happy lives one day.
But the night is too long, it’s been raining too long, and we’ve been living with our problems for far too long, to realize that there’s still hope. And we forget that we can survive on hope, and that hope can lead us out of the pouring rain and save us.
We’ve just been living in the darkness and shadow of the night for so long, so long that the idea of light and warmth becomes nothing more than mere fantasy.