Princess Long Legs 2.0

http://princesslonglegs.blogspot.com/

What a blog should be.

I came across this blog and it's everything I wish my blog could be - food, photography, travel and life in general... and a owner who likes to take pictures of her own pretty self is always a bonus...

http://www.storyofbing.com/

She also had this quote in her profile that said, "Start doing things that you love, stop over-analyzing. Life is simple"

Is it really? Perhaps so... maybe I just haven't developed the fore/hind-sight to realize that? Over-analyzing makes me fickle and then I procrastinate.

Though I've been blogging on and off for years, my blog has always been self-centric - it's not about readership, because I know only people who know me personally will be interested to read my blog. It's somehow like a peephole into my private world, possibly things I won't tell my mum or I have trouble expressing to my BFF, but I choose to expose in this blog, things I find hard to verbalize to a real friend - I post here. It's not unlike gossiping with a close gf in a public toilet (like many girls do), usually a way to clear our head of thoughts that are all jumbled-up, but also risking these private thought being overheard by someone... We can't control who is in the next toilet cubicle, like we can't control who reads our blog in the vast cyber universe.

But as I get older, I'd like to think I have less angst, less things to rant about... yet no less things on my mind. In fact, I agreed with a colleague who was turning 30, that our memory seems to be declining - sometimes unable to recall a mental note to self made 30 seconds ago. I want to blame it on work stress, too much work info taking up bandwidth in my grey matter, but it could really just be age, no? So the blog will serve as a space I exercise... train my wit, my creative writing skills, an avenue for me to post pictures that I've taken (hopefully), but basically one place I can use my brain on creative work outside of my real work.

Someone I know wanted to use his blog as an outlet for the side of his brain he can't use much at work, for me I guess, my blog is just a place for me to remind myself, that side of my brain still exists.

And one day when I have some time, I really want to revamp this blog... the dark colors are starting to look dreary.

the blog has moved...

to girletheart.blogspot.com!!

if there's such a thing...

as being passionate for passion, I think I can be the poster child.

I find myself restless again, it's been 2 years and 9 months in this job... 1 year and 3 months in this marriage... 6 months in this house...

And I find myself thinking, there MUST be more than this... and to it, I hear no answers... just echoes repeating in agreement.

Life was more fulfilling when I was earning less, when I went on mission trips instead of holidays, when I had less programs and more problems, and now... I have a job, a husband, a house and I still find myself seeking... "a void that God will fill if I ask" I hear that model answer surfacing in my head.

IF I ask. I prayed and asked Him what more is there, why others has more prayers answered than me. He replied because they have more prayer needs than you. So is fulfillment a blessing? Or a curse? I don't know.

But life is about to change. New job and hopefully new plans... New things excite me, I like things that are new, is that right? I don't really care. I want a new blog, new photos, new books, most of all... new inspirations... not something that's passed down and second-hand, or something imitated and adapted... No... something original, something inspiring, something that is heard without having to shout.

I found this when looking for CS Lewis quotes online, and it got me... so here,

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

Iron sharpens iron - TED.com

I heard about TED.com during a training at work that I just attended, the refreshing idea of an annual conference by a NPO as a platform for sharing ideas on Technology (T), Entertainment (E) and Design (D) lured me to check out the website and after my first visit, I'm intrigued!

The first clip I found happens to be a 20-minute talk on Creativity by Elizabeth Gilbert, writer of Eat Pray Love, a book I am reading (and struggling to finish). Her beliefs in both the book and this speech sometimes hints of controversial New Age - not something that goes down well the churchie conservative in me, but I can't help but see parallels between the "inspiration" moments she describes as "genius" from an external source (an idea from ancient Greek/Roman paganism) instead of the ability/competence of the human writer/artist/artisan. Therefore no need for the creative worker to go through the stress that will more often than not suck them down the dark whirlpool of self-destruction and manic depression out of fear that a work will not turn out to be as brilliant as it should. The naming of that "moment of genius" as a "glimpse of God" and feeling like being a channel through which divinity has communed with man - lit a lightbulb in my head.

In the book, Liz has her moments of brilliance, and the simplicity of her spirit is what attracts people to read and identify with her work. Some parts bore me to tears but others grab my attention for a pretty long time after I've put the book down.

Anyway this post is not about Elizabeth Gilbert totally, but what a great source TED could be, and I regret not knowing it earlier but a platform where "iron sharpens iron".