Stick to the basics

At the hospital the other day, we had lunch at the cafeteria and I saw this again.



I remember the first time I saw it about six years ago or more, I think. I looked it up right away. I think sometimes we forget the BASICS in life. We overanalyze things and forget the things that we learned when we were kids. Sometimes life isn't too hard to navigate as long as we stick to the BASICS.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Robert Fulghum

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup--they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned--the biggest word of all--LOOK.

wipe your tears dry, Stargirl

i just finished two books these past 2 days. yesterday i finished Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. now i want to buy Book 5: The Order of Phoenix. then there's Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. i loved it to pieces: book cover, color scheme, characters, story and all.

Stargirl was enchanting. i wish i could be like her. she had the guts, the power, the enchanting aura that mesmerized people. she lived her life according to her liking without a care in the world. she sort of floated through each day doing her own thing no matter how peculiar they may seem. she dressed differently, she touched lives, she brought smiles to random strangers and lived for others. she felt a lot of things and was open to a lot of emotions. she saw what others didn't see and felt what others didn't feel. but that didn't last long.

people turned away from her just because she wasn't like the others. this happens in real life. just because a person is different, people tend to scrutinize them, they who live their lives differently than the rest. i admire people who are not like the rest of us, the ones who stay themselves no matter how cruel people can be & the ones who are bold enough to be themselves no matter how eccentric society perceive them to be.

remember the theme song of Pocahontas "Colors of the Wind" by Vanessa Williams? remember the lines:

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew.

i, myself, don't like being ordinary. i wish i could be bold and gutsy enough to be different from everybody else. i wish i could drop my being conscious about what people would think. i used to think about them a whole lot and it used to drive me crazy. that was during my angst-ridden years in high school.

i don't like be pushed around. i don't like doing things just because everyone does them. i want to live by my own principles, by my own rules. to hell with societal norms. i used to live by the rules: don't do this because in the unwritten rule book, it's a crime, no one has done it before... don't let yourself be the first... the list goes on. i used to think shallow.

people are different in so many ways. don't judge the angry teenager, she's angry because there is a reason. don't throw dirty looks on the girl who dresses in skimpy outfits. that's her style. that doesn't make her a whore. as cliche as it may sound, the quote "don't judge by a book by its cover" coincides with "each person has a story to tell".

we may be completely different with each other from the outside but what makes us all the same are the stories behind the facade. people wear masks in fear of being misunderstood once the mask comes off.

it doesn't matter if a friend is black, white, pink, green, or yellow. it all boils down to one thing... we feel the same things they feel because we are all human beings. we deserve to be noticed and we have the right to be heard. :)

Archie said to Leo that once in a while, Starpeople come to our lives.

"Star people?" I said. "You're losing me here."

He chuckled. "That's okay. I lose myself. It's just my oddball way of accounting for someone I don't really understand any more than you do."

"So when do stars come in?"

He pointed the pipe stem. "The perfect question. In the beginning, that's where they come in. They supplied the ingredients that became us, the primordial elements. We are star stuff, yes?"

and then archie looked at the puzzled Leo and said...

"And I think every once in a while someone comes along who is a little more primitive than the rest of us, a little closer to our beginnings, a little more in touch with the stuff we're made of."

I hear you, archie.

that was Stargirl. she was untouched by worldly things, she was still in touch with the "real" things that mattered. while reading those lines, i smiled and whispered to myself... I want to be a Starperson. i want to bring sunshine to people's lives, i want to feel a lot of feelings (mine or not), i want to see a lot of things, i want to live and actually feel what it's like to be ALIVE.

Stargirl may not have succeeded in fitting-in at her school even after she tried to blend in with the rest of the student body... but the courage she had to be herself and the way she touched lives doing her little deeds made her more than a winner.