We've grown totally apart, not only in distance

In your latest email response, you always say sorry for not writing...

I kinda felt you always wronged me...

nobody says sorry for not writing...it just is... and i've grown to understand that's who you are, just as i dont reply right away to text messages of my friends--which really do at times drive them crazy (but i dont intend it--it just is)

I'm glad you're home in your Mongolian countryside now...taking time.

You will be off to Russia and I will be off to Dubai. More changes--good changes...

I will be working again. I cant wait...

I wish i could talk to you like good old friends would talk to each other after a long time of absence. its strange actually...

Uncle Iroh explains the 4 elements to Prince Zuko....

Fire - Fire is the element of power. the people of the fire nation have desire and will, and the energy and drive to achieve what they want.

Earth - Earth is the element of substance. the people of the earth kingdom--adverse and strong, they are persistent and enduring.

Air - Air is the element of freedom. the air nomads detach themseves from worldly concerns and found peace and freedom.

Water - Water is the element of change. the people of the water tribe are capabale of adapting to many things. they have a deep sense of community and love that holds them together through anything.

He ends by saying, we must be able to draw wisdom from all things.

--- Avatar

i see reminders all around... i saw your name on a board today.

i thought i'll get over you. yet its been over a year now and i'm still waiting for that day to come. when i can finally say that.

i still think graciously about you and wonder how you are and where you are now.

i hope the sun shines in your part of the world and warm your days...

i miss you dear

it tears my heart when i hear you cry. i feel so helpless and so far away. i wish i can make it all better. i wish i can come running by your side and hold your hand and tell you that it's going to be all right.

i broke out in tears infront of them yesterday, relating what happened to you.

some people, even those that we love, would sometimes choose not to understand us. we dont really have to explain ourselves to them because even if we do, they always choose not to hear us anyway. there is no use. we will be wasting our energy and effort. like you said, it is never enough.

we dont need to deal with more bullshit from other people. we already get that, all on our own.

yet we dont hate them. we love and respect them still. it is because of this that we find it hard to understand why they choose not to enlighten themselves and take wisdom from us.

and for me, compassion is a gift. this maybe immature but just because a person has, cancer for example, that person can just get away with anything they say or do--no matter what. I dont buy it.

shun yourself away from all that crap. nothing good will ever come out of it. it is going to pull us down and i dont want that for you. you dont deserve it.

there are unwanted things and situations that happen to us that we dont deserve. it is not a punishment. i dont believe there is such a thing. it is because other people will for that to happen to us. other people cause these things to happen. and as you may well know, not everything that happens in our life is 'up to us'...we have no full control, but we can always deal with it and move on, move forward.  

'...like water. nothing is softer than water yet it can withstand rock...it flows through its opponent...' (-forbidden kingdom) 

I think one has no control over anything in this world. one co-exists with everything and everyone else.

Control is exercised in decisions that we make. these decisions are highly influenced by so many factors that help shape the kind of person and character that we are.

if we isolate ourselves by becoming a hermit for example, one chooses to live only with a limited reality. I cannot understand how peace is achieved there. Changing one's surrounding and environment is only temporary. I suppose stillness is better achieved when there are limited distractions and noise. But that would mean denying the glory of our world and society. We change and we become more complicated by the minute. Shunning one's self from all that, is to me, cowardly.

I think everyone can benefit well from retreats and finding quite moments, from time to time. it slows us down a bit and brings us back to a balance in a place of chaos and noise, to a place of calmness (yin and yang). But choosing to live in one place is neither healthy. Our life is short change if we hang on to what is comfortable all the time. Everyone must have to put up with everything and everyone else in this world. 

Think for example that we are all in one boat and everyone of us has a paddle. Because we make decisions and we want to control where the boat and our lives are heading, we steer. But everyone else is also doing the same thing. So we really have to learn to compromise or we're not going to get to anywhere at all.

So control must be seen in the light of our interconnectedness with the world. It is something that we cannot master. It is always relative.

Things happen not because we made it happen and all the credit is ours. No. It happened because the world worked with you. This is the humbling realization.