At A Certain Age


At a certain age, you’ll stop longing for a companion.

Ishimbay You’ll stop insisting to join a lunch out when you’re not invited or feeling offended over a planned birthday surprise that no one told you about.

You’ll learn not to stress over people and forced relationships. Instead, you’ll start enjoying your own company. You’ll stop feeling awkward over an empty seat in front of you in a café or a large bucket of popcorn all for yourself in a cinema. You’ll choose sleep over an uncommitted conversation, to stay at home and indulge yourself in classic movies than to force yourself to show up in a Friday night party just to blend in. You’ll learn to cross roads alone, take bus rides on your own, witness breathtaking views and enjoy once-in-a-lifetime experiences with yourself.

At a certain age you’ll learn that moments can also be fun and memorable even in your own company. That it’s never sad to explore life’s corners on your own, that’s its actually more fulfilling and freeing. At a certain age you’ll learn that you are not getting any younger and all you can do is to make every moment count. That life is a short but meaningful journey; and to make the most out of it, you have to stop waiting for someone to hold your hand and walk the road with you.

You have to get up and cherish the walk yourself.

Especially in Boogie Shoes


“When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Experience Becoming


In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond – and his response was magnificent:

“Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!”
~Kurt Vonnegut