Sojourner adventurer

Backpacking in Europe, India or any place far away is a good experience because it's about discovery and adventure. I did travel during University but not the whirlwind a city a day kind. I preferred to know a place by going back to the cities I liked and wander. I recently got to see India, Korea, China, Turkey and a little of the middle east.

During the recent down years, I stayed put in Hong Kong except to visit family in places I already knew. I guess I forgot about the adventure of traveling. There was depression and sickness involved so I felt kind of trapped. It's easy to continue feeling oppressed and powerless. After all most people just make do and try to be satisfied with their "lot in life". I wonder who decides what to dish out and why we have no say...

Recently I heard about some union jobs that are maintained as bargaining chips but are totally redundant. In other words, you go to work and do nothing. You must show up, stay put and read the newspaper. A recipe for alcoholism for sure. Though this is an extreme case, I think the mind set of feeling unneeded and trapped is very common.

I had it when I simply wake up and just made do everyday. I asked silently what am I going to do today and the day after? Surviving is necessary. But how much of this mind set is solving a real problem? Are we starving if we do not hold on to some job or work? Do I have unfulfilled dreams? Or am I working to put up some front or image I think others want to see? Who trapped me?

If I am my own jailer, then who's stopping me from dreaming, wandering, discovering and living life adventurously? So to solve this real problem, I want to be a visitor, sojourner instead of a permanent resident thinking my house and home are my castle. No castles, no fortresses but an open door to welcome friends.

What about safety? After what I've been through, I am still safe. Risk, winning, losing, running, falling, learning... isn't that the adventure we were born to live? I want to be a sojourner and adventurer.

Allowed to fail

I lamented the effort I make to comfort those around me out of habit. That's what I naturally do. After prison, I tried to comfort my dad saying it was not as bad as they think. He reacted by scolding me for causing them so much worry while I "enjoyed" it. I had to explain they were words of comfort.

Even during sickness I found myself assuring everyone I'm improving to lighten their concern. Who asked me to do that? I see so many just resigning to their condition and rely on the comfort of others. I need to be comforted too and as I lamented my feeling that I am not allowed to fail, I knew I was wrong. I CAN fail!

Be they rich or poor, people cannot find peace, confidence and love by trying to ensure they do not fail. They all draw lines to measure it. The rich have their expensive requirements, usually linked to a self imposed image they must project. Ironically, those with little money often find the same pressure to impress. There is just no peace in this struggle for acceptance.

Love is about surrender. Two way love is even harder to come by. No matter how it comes about, true love passes no judgement on personal performance. There is unconditional acceptance, support and encouragement. It's like being caught as I fall from exhaustion without checking if there is anyone behind me. There is!

Mistaken anxiety

Yes I fear hard times but I just found out I am error-phobic. The first major mistake I remember was sprinting during recess, knocked over a small girl by accident and caused her to have stitches. My conscience kept me up feeling guilty for many nights. I was 10. That same year, I tried in vain to rescue a small sick sparrow who fell into our patio. It didn't fly so I nursed it in vain only to see it die after it's final deep breaths. I cried for hours.

My personality wants to avoid causing more pain than people already have. No I know I can't save any body... just not make mistakes that will make things worse.

As life got more complicated with all the cares that crowd out our dreams, I got more and more anxious that my errors would be too much trouble. I know the intention is good but the phobia I harbor is not. Somehow, I think I'm on the path to finding the right balance here.

Testing damage

So many kids are scheduled to the full in order to achieve not being a kid. We live life based on milestones, tests, awards, ceremonies which are used to measure our achievements. Education is important and we are measured against everyone else. It's hard to escape that reality.

Yet, the milestone or testing mentality can be damaging to relationships. Achievement at work, in clubs and family dominate how many live and this way of looking at life is linked to the testing and comparisons we do everyday.

Of course there is value in "objective tests" because a completely prejudicial judgement from a few people would be worse. To work and live in society, evaluation and classification help choose who to relate to.

But why should the results of these daily test results be the final word about who we are? These often superficial impressions no matter how clever do not begin to touch the humanity that lies within or tap the potential that is in each person. Yet many of us are resigned to the judgement of others.

What is worse is that the most common tests and milestones outside of school have to do with money, sex and power. Life seems simpler when measured by observable results and we admire those who are good at one or more of them. It can be deceiving though. We are made of far greater substance than these.

The point is that money sex and power are only useful in HOW they are deployed. Just because you have them means very little, they are like numbers on a statement. Unused or hoarded money sex and power can be dangerous because the results can ignore any effort to create goodness. Even if you mean well, thoughtless habitual practice of them can be a waste of time and energy because true human value are linked to something else: truth and love.

Any effort to safeguard money sex and power as you would a piece of land misses the point because all of them are ethereal. So to use them as a way to evaluate human value is pointless.

Many seem content with just the shell of existence they seem to provide. After all money buys sex and power right? Could this kind of thinking be the source of evil? Because money used to buy influence and love is actually pretty tasteless and will definitely leave you empty after the thrill of adventure. Emptiness breeds desperation. Hopelessness can lead us down the path of violence, hate and hurt.

A better test is in the loyalty and good will we share with others, which by the way is free but very difficult to see. When you find them though, you become a better human being. At least more fulfilled and happy.

The mystery is that like stagnant water that becomes foul over time, money, sex and power left unused or used to drown people will be ugly, disgusting and will contaminate relationships. So to measure success based on how much you have is like storing up stale water. The wrong test damages life.

Let those who don't really matter judge us according to such empty pursuits. Even pursue them if you must.

Inside though we can live a journey with friends devoid of judgement. Then we might be free to go somewhere.

Man in the mirror

There is a song by this name and this is almost a cliche theme in stories where the main character is trying to find the culprit only to find him/herself. But it's true. I've been complaining about how some close friends are depressed and negative while I've been trying my best to be relaxed and positive during down times. And it is true some are depressed.

But they also reflect me. As I really relaxed and let go of the "outcome of future performance" giving way to enjoying taking each step towards tomorrow, magically my close friends also eased up. This is a hard lesson and very difficult to apply because some feelings and prejudices are so deep, they seem cultural or traditional: something absolute. Surrendering any arbitrary basis for security is both hard and enlightening. I guarantee it makes one feel stupid.

I speak some Western languages, 2 Chinese dialects fluently and want to build on my tourist Japanese. I love getting to know the cultures behind the words, making friends and seeing how diverse we can be in dealing with the same issues in society. Leadership styles, politics, romance, family, power... it's intriguing and liberating but also disarming and makes one restless or insecure. One negative of culture is a collective prejudice and rules that we want everyone to follow in order to belong to a club. (The worst is when it's based on appearance and other genetic outcome.)

To be multicultural as I am, gives choice and dilutes the prejudicial hold of each culture but it also makes me feel less part of each club. Life does not become simpler and marks me as an outsider. I treasure freedom though and I love the bigger and more colorful world the many cultural sensibilities afford me.

I'm learning to see who I am in this maze of cultures I have had the privilege to know deeply. I love the human ingenuity that creates social and philosophical grounds that shape whole countries with both good and bad results. It's just now that I'm seeing myself in the mirrors of these cultures and how to face the man in the mirror. But more important: to see the man inside, the real me.

7 years from a distance

It's 7 years to the day of my arrest and an old colleague whom I hadn't seen for a long time arrived in Hong Kong to mark the memory. Not by design, he was with a new girl friend born in China but emigrated to Japan for 25 years. We discussed the culture and the trends of China. It was refreshing to review it all with those who saw things a little removed from the action of money and crowds spreading from the Middle Kingdom.

This weekend, I had a discussion with another group of friends about the Chinese political psyche which seems to repeat the habit of so many emperors who killed all opponents as the center piece of their rule. A university department head of English was instated by a political slight of hand and is trying to wield power to rid those loyal to the previous head of department by verbal and logical abuse short of physical violence. History does repeat itself.

The point is to learn from stories past but few take the time. Instead, we rely on short term profit and results, power grab, bad mouth those who are popular, change systems to favor those we like, all without regard of those we serve. For whether you are in government, education, professional services, even charity... any position that makes decisions for other people, you are serving or hurting someone.

Over the 7 years of drama which hurt and inspired me to change, I am looking at the past from a distance and learning. One lesson that came back to me happened 31 years ago in Berlin. The wall was still there. It produced real danger and absurdities for Berliners surrounded by a useless wall that was there because of decisions made in Moscow and Washington DC. Everyday you see the watch towers, inspections as the subway passed unused East Berlin stations, huge radar towers, guns, binoculars, gates, inspection, signs warning of danger, graffiti, memorials and the wall itself which was at its most absurd on both sides of a mile long road that led to a tiny village smaller than a soccer field.

My point is that those responsible for these decision created the abnormality of the walled city of Berlin. People were separated and had to live in such strange circumstances. Life does go on but the cost is huge.

I know it's all very complicated because it had to do with so many incidents and decisions that happened after Hitler was defeated. But what it showed me in such stark clear drama is that bad systems and decisions can kill and damage.

Any power must be used with care and designer of management systems (by this I mean any way of running a group of people, from nations to a family, business to charities, classrooms to clubs...) must use all resources wisely to help people or else there will be senseless suffering.

My 7 years of painful lessons, dramatic encounters and learning has freed me to face the future more self aware, treasuring my friends and in a direction that seems so simple and clear.

It's about music and lights in all of life, all we do and with the people who love one another. It's not centered on money, sex or power although they will be used. The focus must be to lift up the weary, give sight to the hopeless and strengthen the downtrodden.

I needed to be down to feel the pain of others and be grateful to my God for today.

Listen eyes closed

I'm swimming for an hour 5 days a week and listen to music on a water proof Walkman to make it more attractive.  It ran out of battery today, so I swam silently fully feeling the water glide over me, felt my body respond to the movement and flow. My healing helped the hour fly by unlike a previous attempt when the fitness results were not as good and it was much more of a stretch. I was eating carbs then which I avoid now but more important, I'm relaxed this time around and in tune with life around me.

To swim non-stop for that long, I listened and felt my body signals. Slowing down sometimes, relaxing certain muscles in between movements and learning to deal with thirst, pain and other feelings. There was a time when I exercised like I was fighting for my life but now it's about enjoying the feeling in the water which is kind of sexy. ;-)

The point is I focused on the experience instead of the prospect of swimming for an hour. I just moved, glided in the water, breathed, enjoyed, felt, responded... not really thinking about the time.

I think that's how I have to work and build relationships using all my senses of the moment, from now on. Direction is important but not micro-managing very detail and a slave to timing. Just watch the path and adjust. I saw this as I swam with eyes closed a lot of the time and just listened.

To be or not to be

My updated version is: to limit or unlimit. When we think about the future, we are afraid of failing without limits. Yet we often blame the limits imposed on us for our current state of failure. No wonder Shakespeare wrote that silly question.

So my response is you're here, deal with it. And since our end is also a certainty, let's unlimit our future. It's much better than questioning why I'm here all the time. What have we to loose if we all die having to leave it all behind?

I question my existence every moment I see life as my right and not a privilege, every moment I'm not grateful for all that is in front of me, and every second I worry about tomorrow and not see the beauty of today.

In view of this futuristic attitude, this song will not seem silly at all.

Is fear contrived?

We don't have to be afraid if nothing "bad" happens. Unlike pain which is a natural warning, fear is more complicated. I always hated wild life shows because of the possibility of seeing a baby animal get hurt or die. They know no fear so I'm afraid for them. Some would call me squeamish or soft.

In the song the choir proclaims "I'm not afraid of the darkness". When I sang this many years ago, I had not experienced real fear so did not know the passionate relief of conquering it.

I won't analyse why we fear because if you feel it (for whatever reason) we have to follow it or overcome it. There is no other choice. After being afraid of just about everything for a long time, I feel this joy of the proclamation. "I'm not afraid anymore".

Maybe if I seek out my fear, face it and walk through it, I'll see it is really nothing of consequence: contrived.

Real dementors

My favourite Harry Potter story is the Prisoner of Azkaban for many reasons but it definitely was not because of the dementor character. This death like thing somehow sucks up good memories and  feelings like "you'll never be happy again". I just realized I experienced this.

It's the collection of voices and actions where people say "you can't do that", talk behind your back to make themselves feel better or come to scare you by wielding temporary power. The moment of my arrest was the "dementor" moment for me. The violence of the attitudes, the absolute nature of the action designed to make you feel weak, oppressed and hopeless.

It worked because I gave up on dreaming and settled to survive a quiet life of decline. I kind of believed I'll never have joy or youth or progress because the scare tactic was so effective.

I know some people are oppressed by such sinful tactics everyday. The mentally challenged, handicapped, orphans, victims or anyone who seems strange or out of place. If you prey on the weak just for kicks, I think you are the dementor for them,

Well, I hope I don't act like that ever. It took 7 years but the horror of giving up hope is finally passing. I'll show you more of the liveliness that is growing inside me like a seeding plant in the Sun.

Someone else's book

There has always been controversy about "God's will". Simply put, we have to work out how much say we have. Arguments boil down to differing degrees of participation: from complete robots of fate to complete free will.

I'll just put it in another way. Am I living out life like reading a book? Waiting for what happens next because the author has written something we like. If we don't like it, we can buy another book. Many love and work like that: in total submission to the other person as if we had no say in the outcome of the relationship. Therefore living out someone else's book.

Reality is more collaborative. We all start on chapter one getting to know one another. This is true in love and work. But the rest of the book can be worked out together. Of course how to love and work with someone else is not easy. Nor is writing a book.

So am I just shopping around for the best life to live like buying someone else's book or writing our own. I know God prefers the latter. Why else would he put up with us?

The real story of "music and lights"

I wrote I was ready for the real story of making music and lights (blog title). Found these funny cartoon porcelains of Mao. I'll not comment on them. He is key to recent history but our culture is hiding from the facts both good and bad. Pity, because we could learn so much about building a stronger more positive society. Short of studying history, art can speak some truth.

We are meant to express ourselves according to our passion. Mine is not Mao. But he inspired someone to make these. I want to express what inspires me now I got my feelings back.

Wired wirelessly

Electricity has changed the world. It brought the industrial and technological age to this point but it is about to hand over its baton of influence to wireless information. We just got started because little portable computers just became the norm all linked by wireless signals.

"Wired" still means powered, connected and on a high. But it's nearly out of sync with reality. More and more work and play without wires on big or small portals of information.

But I feel wired today. Part of it is a buzz from exercise. Chatting and connecting with friends, family and God wirelessly or virtually but nonetheless powerfully and full of life. More so than being linked solely by schedules and obligation.

Ever since we could travel afar, life has been virtual as much as physical. The virtual ways of communicating are no less actual, real or meaningful than physical meetings. They complement each other. Because of the instantaneous links that are possible with our computers, we can have more meetings than before.

So art, friends, work, the world are all linked by a small portal we carry. If you can see that our relationships are as much in our mind as physical, then the virtual is actual and wireless is wired. It could all work together to make our face-to-face meetings mean even more. I'm wired wirelessly for this today.

Rehashing chapter one

I see that my passion has led me to this place in life. Though I lost it for a while because I believed the lies about value and truth. I know different. Don't know if it's better but I see a smoother more enjoyable way. There are those who go after chapter one and stay there. But that is just the hook to the real story.

Chapter one is just the seed for the rest of the book. What I mean is courtship, pregame entertainment, the opening act, the advertisement but where is the real product, the competition, the movie, the real story to be written together through the thick and thin?

I put it bluntly: Chapter one is like having lots love affairs or sex but no real love. Real action in life is never just skin deep because we are more than our exterior. Our souls need the satisfaction of working out what love means. A better future takes its fuel from that. Simply rehashing chapter one in life (no matter how exciting) will leave us empty yearning for the real story. I'm ready for the next chapter.

Useful pain

I'm not a sadomasochist and the title is not encouraging self infliction or seeking painful experiences for enjoyment. I think the feeling of pain was meant to warn us of injury and sickness. There's that cliche "No pain no gain". A movie line even says, "Life is pain. Get used to it"

Given we are not seeking pain as pleasure, suffering can be useful. Songs, books and even scripture tells us hard times can be good for us. The other extreme of sadomasochism is the fear of pain to the extent that it is to be avoided at all costs. Hypochondriacs can be an example of this.

My left foot was hurt from hiking up and down Hong Kong's mid-levels because I got fitter and walked faster. As I was using my foot so much, somehow the pain of pulled ligaments and sprain was numbed. After resting it and wearing a brace, the pain returned and my ankle is getting stronger. Healing was accompanied by pain.

On April 23rd nearly 7 years ago, I was arrested at Pudong airport to be investigated. They isolated me from my colleague, treated us like criminals, interrogated us at 5am without sleep and put us separately in a group cell for 18 days. After posting bail (which felt like ransom), we were to return for reporting and more pressure 5 times. After 6 months, they kept half the money and gave us a letter saying everything is OK. Outwardly it was a relief but despite coping with the "process" as best we could and surviving, I did not know how deep my pain resided.

I realize that this incident, though shocking to honest people, is nothing compared to those who grew up with constant abuse and oppression. My life had been smooth sailing up to that point. And the shock of having no control or knowledge of the process which eluded even our lawyers, the immense psychological pressure of interrogation and threats of long prison hurt me deeply.

Amazingly, my business and life at the time were the most prosperous. Yet I did not know the injury triggered a slow decline in my life that brought me to the hospital 3 years ago followed by a series of mishaps until I ran out of money, could not find work and felt completely depressed.

It is only now that I feel the pain that goes along with the healing of my fear, desperation and hopelessness. I did not know I was discouraged to the core, in my heart, my soul.

Like my ankle is being healed and I feel the nuances of pain while walking with a brace, my heart is feeling the joy of life and childlike dreams that is the essence of living along with the feeling of abandonment and hopelessness.

The hard times got rid of the burdens of bad habits like protecting my lifestyle, level of wealth, career status and my image to my family. Hardship actually freed me to see who are the people that love me, my allies and my friends. I feel the painful healing now.

Most important is that I see that God has been the guide in my life through thick and thin. My security, my hope, my future has been built on his love and word. I am not talking about outward religion but something deep inside me. My heart felt abandoned if not my mind and hurt is here along with the joy of healing. You see in good times I know all this only in my mind which is superficial compared to the heartfelt compassionate knowledge that I have now.

He has been the voice, the hand, the comfort, the peace, the hope of a better future while I learned about friendship. work, cultures, church, society, money, sex, love, hate, truth and lies. In the many places I have been and the many cultures and people whom I've met, he has been the source of  strength and joy. The active constant that lets me be who I am.

I thank God for my pain and for showing me how I have nothing yet have it all. The best things in life really are free! I never would know this if it were not for useful pain.

tell someone who's all that

This is gospel song calls Jesus:  "Burden Bearer, Heavy Load Sharer, Heart Fixer, Mind Regulator, Constant friend, (through) Thick and thin, Comforting keeper, Always be there." A bit corny perhaps and the music is not mainstream.

No matter what your faith (or no faith), I thought everyone wanted this kind of friend. Yet I'm amazed that many don't. Maybe no friend can be all that...

I once found and then lost this kind of friend. And it took a lot of pain, darkness and loneliness to open my eyes to real friendship again that is not about pills, diagnosis, meetings, awakenings or obligation.

It's about being still and not running around. Enjoying a hug more than applause. Peace not fame. Assurance not power. Love not judgement. Seeing not confusion.

Most important it's experienced and cannot be analysed without losing its meaning. Maybe that's why writing this has been difficult... a little like the hard times that bring us to true friends.