A lot of the things that get into my head make me want to know a bit more (but not really a lot more). I talk to people, hear and read stuff, and if I feel that I want to think and know a little more I write it down, mostly on my Mac. I have a file full of stuff. This article has been sitting in my file for a while. Just in case you can't see this link, it's a newspaper article titled 'Top five regrets of the dying' and I'll list what those five 'popular' regrets are.
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I'll let you decide whether you would want to go into the link (there's one soppy blog link within this link...) and how you interpret them. I had cancer three years ago and I kind of experienced what it is like to face death. In my case it was more of a matter of what I could do before I go because I have a child. It's not like I died once, so I wouldn't really know if I have regrets on my deathbed but I don't think I would have any.
By this I don't mean to say that I didn't do anything wrong or that I didn't do something I should have done. Of course I did or didn't do lots of things. My point here is this - if you imagine that the room you are sitting in now is the whole universe, your existence is like an invisible dust. We are living our lives just the same way as weeds do - no ifs, ands, and buts. Regrets, like "I could have done" or "I shouldn't have done", are irrelevant and insignificant compared with the fact that we are alive and have lived.
We just have to do what we can, not to repeat the same mistakes, to genuinely apologise if we hurt someone. You have to crack on in life. My epitaph, I decided then when I had cancer, is going to be "At least she tried".
Ha! I can delete this item from my Mac file now.
Now the recipe. Gyu (牛meaning ox, cow, or beef) don (丼 - a bowl) is one of the dishes Japanese people (including myself) are just as much proud of as sushi. I just added Korean chilli paste - Gochujang (you can get this in any oriental store) - here, and it's ready in 10 minutes.
Ingredients (for 1 person):
1 portion of cooked rice
100 - 150g beef steak (any cut you like), thinly sliced
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally
1cm cube ginger, chopped very finely
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 egg, beaten in a small bowl
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon saké or dry vermouth
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Gochujang
Heat the oil in a frying pan (or wok if you have one). Add spring onions, ginger, and garlic and fry for one minute. Turn up the heat and add the beef slices (I used a small fillet steak here). When the beef is medium rare add a little salt, Gochujang, saké, sugar, and soy sauce. Stir around a bit, add the beaten egg, and put a lid on the pan. Turn off the heat as soon as you add the egg. It will cook with the heat from the beef and the pan.
Put the beef mixture onto a bowl of hot and fluffy rice.