“Show me, Lord, my life’s end

and the number of my days;

let me know how fleeting my life is.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;

the span of my years is as nothing before you.

Everyone is but a breath,

even those who seem secure.

“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom;

in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth

without knowing whose it will finally be.

“But now, Lord, what do I look for?

My hope is in you."

— Psalm 39:4-7

THE GREAT GATSBY

"He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was....”

"'I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past.' 'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'"

"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart."

“It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.”

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

CONVERSATIONS WITH A WORKAHOLIC

“Is this the craziest time in my life?” [Marc] Jacobs asked. “Yes, it is. But there’s always a reason why any given moment is the craziest moment in my life. That’s just how it is. Always a fresh hell. Which is fine. So long as it’s a fresh hell, and not the same old hell, you know?” With that, he smiled, his shoulders loosening. “The same old hell, now that would just be boring.”

— Excerpt from "Re-Making His Marc" by David Amsden, W Magazine (Feb 6, 2014)

CONFESSIONS OF A WORKAHOLIC

"I have an iron will, and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. . . I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being, and then I get to another stage and think I'm mediocre and uninteresting. . . . Again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that's always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I've become Somebody, I still have to prove I'm Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will."

— Madonna, Interview for Vanity Fair (1991)

Five years ago, in my last semester at Parsons, I wrote a blog entry (click here) of my journey in my academics sided by this nagging, insatiable hunger to keep going in my specific industry, with every gift and skill set afforded me, until I found myself satisfied professionally. In coming across this quote by Madonna, not for the first time but currently very timely, I'm reminded again of the life I could've drowned in had Christ not saved me from the black hole of my potential ego. I respect what she said because it comes from a heart of extreme self-awareness, something I believe not everyone has. And yet, as clearly as I can relate, I'm glad those words are not my own, and never will be. Lord, I thank you for every step, every opportunity, every experience you've ever supplied me with and will continue to provide. Be glorified in my joy, my reach, my deeper satisfaction in You.