The first time we born into this world, we don’t have anything in our memories. It’s just like a book with white blank pages inside.

How old are you now?

What memories do you have until now?

In real life, we can always erase the unwanted part of the book, but also in real life no matter how hard we try it’s impossible to erase unwanted memories.

If that happen, then what should we do?

Should we just throw away the book like the way we throw away our life when we’re completely screwed up?

It’s almost impossible to write a perfect life from the start. There are always times when we make some mistake that affect our course of life. Throwing our life just because the flaw we made to our life is also not a wise decision.

Perfection can never be achieved this world , because we all stand on unstable foundation.

You will not be able to win the game if you do not know what part you’re in and how the game played.

So making mistake is just normal, because it will always be a part of the game. It was the lesson that learned during our life.
Our lives can not contain all the happy stories because such things only exists in fairy tales.

How should we write our book of life?

We start by making some errors. And then, we learned something from the mistake. We may take wrong lessons, but learning process never stops.
If the same error keeps recurring, even though we’ve been trying to learn from past mistakes, then maybe there is something wrong with us, with our way of thinking.
In order to learn to become a better person, we can not only see the faults of others without realizing our own mistakes.
If we want to improve ourselves, we must willing to let go of our ego. This is how learning process  supposed to be.

At the end there are winners and losers. Losers still have long way to go, and winners should not be complacent.

August 2, 2011
— Hardy’s Note

‘Change’ is inevitable,
that’s why…

-The real happiness is not the exact opposite of suffering.-

To see the real one, you can’t wear any kind of glasses that will manipulate your sight.

Some people surrounded by problems thus looking for a way out, but they seems unable to find a way out.
Why?
Because their mind has already set boundaries that should not be crossed under any circumstances.
They are trapped in their self-made prison.
They live behind the bar and doesn’t even realize that the bar isn’t really exist.
…
…

You must set your vision further in order to understand how things works.
Fail to do so, you will just live in ordinary life, vulnerable to suffering and sorrow of the world.

Let’s see at my friend case. He is currently having disagreement with his lover. It’s seem that his lover no longer believe in him, stating that he’s the man with no future.

Simply said, they are breaking up.
My friend is absolutely upset with that, and the fact said it all that he was fed with anger that time.
He said that he know that he’s not a very capable man but in this world one must treasure love more than anything else.
He also said that if he is on that girl position, he won’t do something cruel like that.
Yes. He is right, but that girl is not him, and he can’t force his way to be like her, in order to understand and feel how she think and feel.
You can’t expect that everyone will think and feel like you did, likewise. Everyone is simply unique.

We can’t blame that girl. She use her own logic more than her feeling (although could be flawed), and actually she’s not doing anything bad but inconsiderate.

My friend is losing his willpower. He no longer have any reason to keep moving on.

That’s sad.
The fact is anyone has the right to lose faith on him, but he can’t lose faith on himself.
That girl may think that my friend’s future would not be bright, but she’s not a fortuneteller.
Future is not lies within someone’s words.

If she can really foresee the future, she won’t end up making mistake dating my friend. She’s just trying to take ‘safe trip to heaven’., which is practically ‘almost’ impossible.

Anyway, we all have the right to choose and make our own decision, so instead of lashing out the bad of the his ex-lover, it would be better if he can give her support on decision she made.
Maybe he has a lot of thing need to be conveyed, but to think that everything has developed into this point, there is no point to keep tension of trying to persuade that girl to change her mind.
I think that in this world there are a lot of possibility. We can’t be sure that what’s bad right now will turn out to be worst somehow.
It’s bad to feel bad,.it’s good to feel good. Something isn’t always bad because it’s bad, sometimes it’s about the way we think and respond to the situation that make it bad or even worse.

Difficulties, hardship are common – nothing extraordinary.
Overcoming all the hardships is also ordinary, it’s become extraordinary only because everyone else think that it’s something extraordinary, or maybe we can say that some of us need it to be extraordinary for us to gain some motivation.

But the fact is, what happened to us, whether good or bad things is the result of our own doings.

To see the big picture just in front of your own eyes is almost impossible if you have only tiny eyes to catch the reflexion of big-giant things.
So, you can’t just rely on your eyes, nor your ear, nor your nose, nor your own mind. You must take all into account and make wise decision about how to react and respond.
Responding with rage, or any other negative feeling is sure bad for your health, and it won’t bring any good to your personality. Instead, watch and learn by not dependent on only one point of view. Always clear about what you think and get rid of all negative things surrounding your feeling, because it only infect your healthy mind.
I’m sure in the end you’ll get on the right place unattainable by merely reacting ordinarily based on standard point of view.

If it hurts, then just let it go, don’t ever think about it anymore.
Well, it’s much more easy to said than to be done.

How can you let go? The question is : you can’t or you aren’t willing to?

If you love someone, and that person hurt you, can you just let it go? If you really love that person, that won’t be easy.
You’re clinging on your suffering because you’re hoping for something from that person, which is unlikely to happen ‘yet’. (There’s a probability here)

Love is really such a strange thing.
You can feel happiness because of it, but you can also down into sadness because what you hoped from love is not ‘yet’ to be happen.

When you love someone, but that person don’t love you back, you feel like you’re left behind, alone. You still worry about that person, though, but at the same time you keep hurting yourself.

I hate to say this but this kind of love is not pure. I once have this kind of feeling too. I drowned into illutionary feeling at the beginning and by time I was filled with disappointment, and sometimes it became hatred.

Well, that’s not good.
So, just forget about it and start over again.
Start from scratch, see thing clearly – I mean not by eyes but with a better perception about things.

First, see your own. What have you done? What mistake committed?
Then some regret comes in. Let it come. Contemplate.
Then you may think, “can I do something to fix it?”
If you can, then go for it.
But if that’s not possible, then forgive yourself.
The one that was hurt because of you may not forgive you, but you should give forgiveness to yourself, with fond intention not to repeat the same mistake.

What’s next?
There’s no need to think about ‘next’.
No need to rush. Give yourself a break. Contemplate, watch feeling come and go.

Sometimes the feeling come and go – fast like tsunamis, sometimes it slow like a gentle breeze.
Just watch and don’t involved in it. Be amazed but don’t get carried away. Eventually, you will feel the joy. Something uncommon that may not happened to you before.

If, and only if – somebody suddenly come and scold you for a reason, and destroy the mood – don’t get irritated.
Saying simple sorry is enough and take action to settle the problems, calmly, with cool head and steady stance.

If somebody suddenly come and give you praises, be thankful and then just forget it. Never ever think about it for more than one minute. It’s a temporary thing – let it go and you may get another one another day.

Remember that happiness is not in here, in Jakarta, Medan, Singapore, or even in Africa.
Happiness is something you create by assistance of perception and valuation of gain and loss.
Don’t get youself stained with wrong conception. Be gentle, be calm, open your hand for things to come and also let it go when the time come.

Happiness is also not living in the future nor the past. It lives here, in the moment of present. You just need to create space for it to live.

GANBATTE @you, LC, CW, P, SWT, IH.

Tokyo Pop is closing down. Don’t send any of your artworks again. Below’s article is only for archiving purposes.

Got this email from tokyopop. I couldn’t found any webpage contain this info, so I decided to write it on my blog.

Hope all of you who have talent in drawing would send some of your artwork. I do know someone. He is great.
Hey…. do you hear me !! LoL

March 18, 2011 – Stu Levy

Completely destroyed cars as far as the eye can see, on the way to Sendai.

Hi everyone!

As you all know, Japan is going through a very challenging time. The 9.0 earthquake last week and the resulting tsunami caused significant damage to coastal towns throughout Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. The quake rattled and rocked us in Tokyo as well, resulting in food and gas shortages, electricity blackouts and transportation problems.

But the people north of Tokyo (in Miyagi and Iwate) have been living a nightmare. Over 400,000 victims have had their homes destroyed – and are now living in emergency shelters. Many have lost friends and family, as well as most of their worldly possessions.

This week I visited one of those shelters to deliver food, fuel and other provisions. The shelter is a junior high school in a harbor area of Sendai, Miyagi. The school (and neighborhood) is called Rikuzen-Takasago, shortened to TAKASAGO. There are over 1000 victims living in this shelter.

For the first few days after the earthquake, they had so little food that they had literally only one potato chip per person for the entire day. Two nights ago we prepared their first hot bowl of rice for them from the provisions we delivered. They still do not have electricity or heat, and when I was up there it was freezing cold and snowing. 30-80 people are scrunched into each classroom, sleeping on the floor with one or two blankets each. The victims are of all ages – and everyone is urgently cleaning the tsunami mud from the school so that disease doesn’t spread.

Even in those circumstances, the victims are working hard as a team. They are cleaning together, cooking together, carrying the provisions, helping each other out – it’s truly inspiring to see them fighting so hard to survive and overcome this tragedy.

What really stood out to me the most was the energy and spirit of the Takasago students. When we were building an outdoor cooking facility, they all labored on various tasks we assigned them – sweeping, washing, carrying gas tanks, laying down temporary flooring, and more. We worked as a team and I could tell how excited they were to be involved – they took a lot of pride in their hard work.

On the way home, I was listening to Japanese radio while taking turns driving the truck. The radio’s DJ was reading letters from people throughout Japan who are cheering on the victims. It is very moving to hear these letters, but I realized that none of the victims can actually hear these messages because the shelters don’t have electricity – so no radio.

That’s when it dawned on me what WE can do together as the TOKYOPOP community. I remembered the students’ excitement when they practiced some of their English phrases for me and when I taught them some of our American handshake styles (we have so many, after all). They laughed and jumped around trying to high-five each other in the “American” styles.

So, I thought, what if I gather letters from our community and deliver those letters to them? They can’t read much English but so many of you can draw beautifully as well as write poems, simple letters, and even some decorative Japanese phrases. Maybe you can include a photo of yourself and friends (cosplay!) – or something about you. Anything to let the Takasago students know that you are cheering them on – and to put a smile on their face.

Of course, the food, fuel and blankets are
top priority but so many people are now pitching in that I anticipate that problem will be resolved in the next week. The real issue is how long the victims will have to live in these shelters – it could be months. So many of these shelters are schools and the schools need to start teaching. The students will have bright futures if they can make it through this trauma, not only physically but also emotionally. That’s why your letters and drawings will mean so much. It will help heal the deep scars this disaster has caused, and ease the pain of the trauma.

So, here is my plea to you:

PLEASE SEND YOUR WORDS, ART, MANGA AND PICTURES!

We can’t do this digitally because there’s no electricity, so we have to go old school: paper! Also, I want to bring up a huge box on my next provisions trip, so please send them directly to my office in Tokyo. I know the postage is a bit more expensive, but it will save precious time to not go through our LA office.

Of course donations to the various non-profit funds are critical but this is something that will cost you almost no money (just postage) – and it is something very special. My hope is that I can learn more about the Takasago students and introduce them to you guys next – through photos and letters from them back. For now, here’s a photo I took in the shelter’s kitchen. It’s a group of some of the students – you can see the joy and love in their faces. Your letters will guarantee many more smiles over the hard months ahead.

Please send them to:

Students of Takasago
c/o Stu Levy
Tokyo Towers, Mid-Tower 4918
6-3-2 Kachidoki, Chuo-ku
Tokyo, Japan 104-0054

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I can’t talk about my problem to anyone else, for they will only have a pity on me. I don’t want to worry anyone, or begging for their kindness. First reason is because I still have pride (one of the source of my difficulties).
Second reason is because I really don’t want to make them worry because of me and of course I know that the one who can help me is me, myself.

And then, in the middle of despair feeling, I found a little paper clip just in front of my eyes. You may not understand why just a paper clip would worth mentioned in here.
Before I made that decision, in which become the cause of my despairness, I’m trying to find this paper clip because I need it, but I can’t find it. I feel agitated..
But now, when what left is only an empty gaze, suddenly the paper clip showed up in front of my eyes.
I took it and I looked at it for a time being. Why can’t I find it that time?
I’m too confused that I missed it?

That brought me to realize that sometimes, we just need to take more attention to everything around us.
Sometimes what we need is not far away, sometimes it’s near. What we need is to pay more attention. Sometimes we don’t even have to try so hard, eventually we’ll find what we searching for.

I’m still contemplating.
But I can’t just forget everything else… Time to get back to work.
C ya.

It feel like shit. !

Yeah, you can tell that I’m exaggerated things, but in reality I feel like useless person.
And when things become complicated my only refuge is by meditating.

I don’t know whether I’m meditating just for the purpose to hide/runaway from reality or I really meditate for peace.

I don’t even see a slight difference of it.

Yes, maybe my mind is covered in dirt shit that I can’t clearly see what’s my real motivation.

No matter what, I’m brokenhearted.
Feels like I better die because I feel like I don’t have anything to cling on this world.
All the happiness and the joy that I feel last night, disappear without a single trace.

What the heck. !?
Sometimes I can easily give advice to people about how to live this life, but at other times, I can’t even handle my own problem properly.

I’m complaining but still can’t find any real solution.

It looks like I have to sort out my own problem, starting to think like I’m not the victim, just an observer.
After that, I have to see inside myself. What’s actually the source of the problem ?

It’s the expectation, wrong expectation, self-centered expectation that give a pain in my heart.

I should stop expect too much from the outside, and also from the inside.

The teacher once told me indirectly : true refuge is the trained mind. So, I think this is what I’ll do.
Remove all trash that stayed inside my mind. Learn to accept things. Learn to enjoy the flow. Learn to rest.

Yes. Resting is what I need right now. Leave all worries for the future me. Haha.

Great. !