I sat again in the café at Lipsius and read and wrote. And drank too much coffee! Haha.The café was pretty crowded, so I shared my table with three other men. We started chatting, in Dutch. One was a Persian studies professor, one was an economist (not a professor, I think he might have said he worked for some ministry or the other. I don't know; it was in Dutch.) and the third was what we would consider a bum (poofy beard, Jamaican hat, funny smell.) The four of us had a great conversation! We talked about the current economic crisis, and we talked about whether the Egyptian concept of Ma'at influenced Sufi writings! We talked about life in your twenties and the good and the bad times. They all said that they all look back on that time and remember mostly the good things, but if they're honest, it was a really hard time. Beautiful! This café just keeps bringing interesting (and completely strange) things my way!
I skipped Tai Chi tonight and got my life organized. To Do lists and everything. Tied up some loose ends. You know, busy work.
Wushu was wonderful though. Dani, the teacher on Tuesdays, kept telling me to go lower, so now my thighs hurt. I talked with Jansen, and Jonathan, and two others whose names I never caught, and we all laughed and laughed. Jonathan is now calling me the Skorgolian Storm. I told him I once had a Gatorade and the flavor was Skorgolian Storm. We laughed at the strangeness of it. Now it's my nickname! Apparently, I'm the only Skorgolian in the Netherlands. I ran into Lucas and Jan Claus. Life is just too good.
Moment of Zen: The Buddha said "Do not chase after the past, or place expectations on the future. What is past is left behind. The future is as yet unreached. Whatever quality is present, you clearly see right there, right there. Not taken in, unshaken, that's how you develop the heart. Ardently doing what should be done today, for who knows what tomorrow brings. It might bring death."
Another Zen Moment: (Icelandic Old People's War!)
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