Birthday Boy #3

I started this blog a little more than a year ago. I have already posted a hundred entries - two were about the respective birthdays of the two very important men in my life - my father and my favorite teacher. Today, I'm writing a short one about the third. And he has absolutely no idea of the magnitude of his influence on me. I doubt if this would even be a big deal. Borrowing the words of Emily Dickinson, "He fumbles at my senses, like players at the keys. Before he plays full music on, he stuns me by degrees."

Today is the 36th birthday of the most amazing and unlikely personality that I was given the good fortune to meet. Ridiculous as it may sound, he found me in the most absurd manner - Friendster (which explains why I keep mum over these internet sites even if I'm really not a big fan), and because of the craziest of reasons (The Beatles, who would have guessed). And now, five years later, when Friendster is no longer hip and our life stories have greatly changed, it still escapes my reasoning how we are still so much around, no matter how evanescent, how unpredictable, how illogical.

This man taught me to travel, to go beyond my comfort zones and explore what he calls the "Edge of Civilization". In his usual laconic manner, he has uttered statements that made me brave, realize my errors, and see beyond what is apparent. Unknowingly, he pushed me off my boat, to start walking on water. Not only that, he made me jump off a cliff and surrender myself to gravity even if it turned out to be an infinite fall.

I've always believed that it doesn't really matter who we meet. What matters is who we get to keep. But perhaps the value of some people lies in their being fleeting. Fleeting but constant. Unexplained but tangible. Illogical but real.

To my good friend J, who's getting a year older today making him my oldest good friend, who started out as my diary, eventually becoming my best beer buddy, my travel buddy, my favorite patient, my best conversation whoring customer, thank you for being the fleeting but constant, unexplained but tangible, illogical but real phenomenon in my so-called life. In the end, everything may turn out to be nothing. But you must know I'm grateful.