A guide to recognising your saints

i always thought i knew my taste in movies pretty well. they usually extended to period-films (historical), horror, british comedy and teenage R-rated movies. (cheap thrills!) but off late iv realised that a completely new genre of movies has begun to catch my interest. and that is 'poor-urban-culture'. (u've probably not heard of that genre before, but thats because iv just made it up! and haven't found a decent enough title for it yet!) these movies usually center around gang wars and random violence.
For the past couple of months this particular DVD has been catching my eye, but for one reason or another, id never rented it. finally on a particularly boring sunday morning i decided to check it out. the title itself (a guide to recognising your saints) seemed interesting in itself. a movie that would help you recognise what ever your definition of the saints in your life might be. and thats precisely what this movie is about. the entire movie is shot in flash back about the way tito (robert downey jr.) goes back to the bronx, where he grew up, and starts realising that the people whom he ran away from 16 years ago, were in fact the people who framed him for what he was today (a famous novelist). they were people who had stuck with him emotionally and stayed by all those people whom he cared for, during his years of his absence.
for some reason this resonated with me. i hate stories that have morals, or are preachy in some way, but this movie was neither of them. it simply showed one guys (and its a true story) gratitude to the people he had grown up with. because even in the midst of drugs, mindless violence and mechanical sex, in such a 'hostile environment', environments in which every-one-for-themselves is the order of the day, people still look out for one another and genuinely care. it speaks volumes about human nature.

muzzzzzic

music. an apple a day may keep the doctor away, but music keeps the shrinks at bay. have you ever been in a foreign country, or even among people whom you really don't have much to talk with, but the moment music comes up, whether its played or discussed, everyone has an opinion. it can be something as trivial as a washing powder jingle on the radio that can start a heated discussion. and the beauty of these arguments, if you can even call them that, is that they never turn truly ugly. you can hold a grudge against someone on the basis of their political opinions, but to truly despise someone on the grounds of music is bizarre. john mayer quite aptly said 'hit me with music, brutalise me with music'. the statements open to interpretation (and as my friend just said, relevance - he thinks its out of context here! but that just proves what i just said! people can disagree in an unparalleled cordial manner with music! im probably making a big deal about nothing, but for some reason this just struck while listening to john legend! go figure!)

the barking sage

a wise man once told me, no one no knows you better than yourself. scary, isn't it? just stop for a second and actually think about that. think of all those times you asked someone for advice, your best friend, a confidant, someone close, and to then realise that their answer or suggestion or whatever, was probably flawed or maybe even wrong, but you still went along with it. you went along, trusting their decision rather than your own. and then if you look back at those incidents and their eventual outcome, you realise that you were damn lucky you did in fact listen to them, rather then going through with your own decision. so that brings me, in a stupidly round about manner, to the main point of all this: is the wise man barking? or is there something iv been too thick to realise?