Bit by bit they pour in,
The stories of the world.
Trapped in the dichotomy
Of zeroes and ones,
They paint a world
That’s anything but binary.
Author: Luc Page 1 of 7
n and counting
The following is a copy of the farewell email I sent to my friends and colleagues at my last employer.
Hello!
I’ve read a ton of farewell messages here and in the companies before. Some I read carefully and let myself wallow in their poignant undercurrent, some I just glance over quickly and bid a mental ‘all the best’.
Yet some I read and wonder who this guy even is. But now that it’s my time to be that guy, I can only offer my sincere apologies if you don’t know me, or barely know me, or didn’t care if I resigned, got abducted by aliens or was turned into a werewolf.
And I wanted to apologize to the people that I know well if I didn’t tell you already in person about this (I tried my best catching up with as many as possible) instead of this last hour email.
And while I wanted to avoid the clichéd motifs you see in all farewell messages, I can’t seem to produce anything but that. After all, how original can a farewell be? No matter how you put it, a bye is a bye.
Or not.
I mean, sometimes when you say bye, you mean ‘please go jump off a cliff and never come back’ but sometimes when you say bye, you mean ‘until next time’ and wishes that your paths cross again.
So my bye is of the latter kind – I sincerely wish that our paths cross again.
And I wanted to thank all of you for touching my life over the last 4 years in many pleasant ways. To my friends, I value your friendship, to my colleagues, I value your association and if we barely knew each other, I certainly wanted to get to know you better. And I wish all the very best for you.
So, until next time, good bye.
Luc
Debates are useless unless all the participants can be objective about the topic, which almost is never the case and especially so if there is an audience watching. Once you start a debate, then the objective is to win and everything else loses focus. To defend your side, you need conviction that you are right and in doing so, you close yourself to being educated to anything that contradicts it. You don’t change anyone else’s opinion and nobody else changes yours either. The only chance for a debate to have an educational effect is if you defend the side which you are against. The only person you can hope to educate is yourself.
Love is like a firefly. Instead of reflecting light, it makes light of its own. It fills your crystal jar heart with delight and wonderment. But every once in a while, what looks to be a firefly, will turn out to be a wildfire. And if you try to catch a wildfire in your crystal heart, you will only end up burning to char.
The ones that survive become diamonds. They shine like the fire they are born of, and cut like a blade of all the pain in the world.
I never congratulate people when they tell me that they had a baby. I mean, come on, you got married, had sex, this was bound to happen, right? That's the natural progression of things, not an achievement. Now congratulating someone on getting married, that's sensible. You actually found someone who's actually willing to to marry you! Now that's an achievement.
But congratulating for making a baby? It reminds me of the emails I receive on work anniversaries. "Congratulations on successfully completing 3 years at XYZ". Oh gee, thanks, I totally did it myself. When somebody congrats me on a work anniversary, what I imagine they actually mean is, "Congrats for not getting fired this year", or, "Yet another year and you still couldn't find a better job, SHAME ON YOU!"
You are unique. You are different. And the number of fucks anyone gives is zero.
I get why you feel like brandishing your uniqueness. You think being different puts you in the minority, which makes you feel special. You are indeed unique, different, special, limited edition, I agree, I’m too. The only problem is that everyone else is unique and different too.
Forget the round pegs and square holes stories you’ve been fed with. Stop caring about being different. Just do your thing.
You kept me up at nights
Luc
and got me through my days,
but all I now have left
are these circles under eyes.
(Just a piece that fell off from this)
