xin nian kuai le!  happy year of the dog!

The sign of the dog is known, not surprisingly, for loyalty and generosity. Need to spill a secret? Seek out one of these honest souls and bend that expert listening ear. While Dogs themselves may be reluctant to place their trust in just anyone, once they do, members of this sign can make the best business partners and leaders. And while Dogs might enjoy life more by relaxing their exacting standards from time to time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better or more faithful friend.

So what can we expect from the upcoming year? The Dog is an ethical and idealistic sign, and the year that bears its name will also bring increased social awareness and interest in society's less powerful members. Any tendencies to take, take, take will be replaced by a widespread sentiment of generosity and selflessness. In general, we will all be imbued with the Dog's keen sense of right and wrong.

and, appropriately enough, i had been planning to put up a quote that discussed something similar... 

"The Master said, Even when walking in a party of no more than three I can always be certain of learning from those I am with.  There will be good qualities that I can select for imitation and bad ones that will teach me what requires correction of myself."
--The Analects of Confucius, Trans. Arthur Waley

i don't know exactly why but lately i've been thinking a lot about fate.  it's probably due to a number of circumstances, not all of which are about me but are things that i have observed.  so i thought i'd put in my two cents about the matter.  first of all, i don't know if i believe in fate, signs, destiny, or any of that sort of thing.  i mean, to quote dragonlance by margaret weis and tracy hickman, "glorious destinies lead to glorious funerals."  i don't think that we should walk around with all these images of towering grandeur, thinking that every little thing is a sign or an indicator that something will happen in the foreseeable future.  foreseers like to think that they can predict what will happen, but if you look at all the very well-acclaimed prophecies, you'll notice they're all very vague and left to interpretation, meaning that they may have well been fit to the situation rather than vice versa.  if anyone knew precisely what would happen in the future, what a terrible curse that would be.  to them, there would be no sense of having a choice; the very concept of hope would be meaningless. 

so then, why do we keep trying to interpret what we see as an omen or foretelling of the future?  why do we constantly cast ourselves into hypothetical situations, each no more certain of coming true than the next?  i think it's, in the end, a way to give us a sense of control over our lives.  to help us to think that we are indeed in charge of how things will turn out, and that our lives are not so subject to chance happenings.  we are conscious beings, who are capable of making fully rational decisions; but the problem is, the world is not always rational.  there is not always a black and white, but a lot of gray in between.  and that's where our actions, our choices and decisions, matter.  what we do affects those around us in ways that we cannot predict from any signs or foretellings.  sometimes those things we do turn out well, and sometimes we fumble.  but the important thing is to keep struggling, to keep trying.  things work out in the end because we make them work out in the end, not because we sit around and wait for fate or destiny to be fulfilled.  if we don't take the first step, how can anyone, be it God or a really good friend, help teach and guide us and show us where to walk?  we cannot sit around forever waiting; each of us must make an effort and try.

   "Either selfishness or selflessness will destroy a person.  If a soul is too selfish, thinking only of personal ends and desires, and should she live long enough, none will support her and many will try to tear her down.  To survive, one must become so strong and so heartless that neither love nor affection could or would desire to reach such a person.  And in the end, such a being is no longer a person, but a soulless machine.
   "A person who is too selfless is blown hither and yon in the gusts of others' needs, for there are always more needs than even the most charitable of humans can address.  Should a person be strong enough to address the most worthy and pressing of needs, then she will either bleed to death from the demands upon her or lose all warmth in a mechanical quest to fulfill the world's needs.  Then she becomes so selfless that she, too, is no more than a selfish soul in the quest of selflessness.
   "Thus, a person who would live a meaningful life must always struggle between selfishness and selflessness, always questioning.  When she gives up the struggle, she allows others to determine the meaning of her life."
--The Order War, L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

in the end, all things in life are a matter of balance.