My last post was about letting go. If you let go of all requirements and expectations that seem to limit us, you are left with nothing. We need something to hold on to but to what? Or to whom?
Georgia Mass Choir sings "Hold on. Help is on the way" in a matter of fact way. Love this music. I think I wouldn't feel the emotion of it fully without having sung in a good choir or having gone through "fire".
I was holding on to a frame of reference that is incomplete and temporary. After going back to my roots of gratitude, life, love, hope, simplicity, truth and the dignity of humanity as part of the seemingly solitary island of life in a violent Universe... Life seems so valuable like a winning lottery ticket.
Then to discover the value of humanity in creating, finding the solitary soul in those who care to share, augmenting the spirit, loving those who want it and to relax, sing, dance, celebrate as often as I can.
I'm holding on to something new after letting go of what did not work.
Friday 28 February 2014
Thursday 27 February 2014
True forgiveness
This is as mysterious as love and life and God. It simply means there is no more debt of any kind. But generations hold one to past debt be it money, violence, revenge or any way we feel like we need to repay someone for what they did or treated us. This is the real source of guilt, regret and violence. We can only solve this within us.
Letting go should not be difficult because if you take our hand as an example, it takes more effort and energy to hold on than to let go. Yet our minds are strong enough to hold on to a belief so strongly it takes over our lives.
Somehow, holding on, we believe makes us secure. In forgiveness the opposite is true.
Letting go should not be difficult because if you take our hand as an example, it takes more effort and energy to hold on than to let go. Yet our minds are strong enough to hold on to a belief so strongly it takes over our lives.
Somehow, holding on, we believe makes us secure. In forgiveness the opposite is true.
Tuesday 25 February 2014
The healthy geek
When I was a teenager, exercise was seen as a domain "reserved" for sports training and not for everyone. Today, health and exercise are cool, fun and available. The whole approach to fitness has moved from exclusivity to a common denominator for holistic health.
I remember a P.E. teacher extolling his physique without explaining how to get fit except to attend his class. Fitness and nutrition have become well defined and available.
Following my 50 day hospitalization, I walked out with a cane. Today I look and feel much better. Besides the spiritual and psychological foundation which were revived in me, it was the geek in me that helped find the way.
I saw well-being as a system and not just about the body. Understanding and fine tuning elements of how to live under a deep motivation to thrive in all of my life, I have become a healthy geek.
I remember a P.E. teacher extolling his physique without explaining how to get fit except to attend his class. Fitness and nutrition have become well defined and available.
Following my 50 day hospitalization, I walked out with a cane. Today I look and feel much better. Besides the spiritual and psychological foundation which were revived in me, it was the geek in me that helped find the way.
I saw well-being as a system and not just about the body. Understanding and fine tuning elements of how to live under a deep motivation to thrive in all of my life, I have become a healthy geek.
Monday 24 February 2014
Slogans in vain
The first of the biblical 10 commandments is to love God with heart, soul, mind and the third is not to use His name in vain. I want to focus on what love and vanity are. For the topic of God is simple. If you believe he is there, why talk about someone as if he were not. If you don't, well why discuss something that is not there.
Love and vanity are also simple because if love is not there, there is certainly a lot of wasted emotions and effort in a relationship.
Love songs are meaningless if you don't feel love. You can do all the things that refer to love or wish you could love someone through romance, seduction and pursuit but it's hard to tell if love is there especially when hormones take over. At the point you suspect that it's a lie, the most intimate moments that inspired can seem repulsive. So many stories exist about misguided love.
The commonality between love and saying meaningless things is this. Real intimacy and real love are one and the same. Public intimacy cannot by definition exist. Could it be that love (if it is closely related to intimacy) when made public can dilute as well as add value? I think there is more distraction than augmentation.
So to publicly proclaim you love someone cannot be the final test to see if love exists. This applies to our human love as well as our belief in God. Try and systematize, ritualize or dramatize and the act of love can become cheap and fake, fast.
Acting out love is fun. Weddings are many a girl's dream. Sex is perhaps more of an obsession for men. And we are free to have fun.
When you know it is not there but still proclaim you love someone, that is just a slogan. Words used in vain. And so it is with God.
This song "Can't nobody" is a yearning to love and be loved by God whom they call Jesus. Whether this song is meaningful or a slogan depends on what we see and want. How many can truly say "can't nobody do me like Jesus... he's my friend" and not use it like a slogan in vain?
Love and vanity are also simple because if love is not there, there is certainly a lot of wasted emotions and effort in a relationship.
Love songs are meaningless if you don't feel love. You can do all the things that refer to love or wish you could love someone through romance, seduction and pursuit but it's hard to tell if love is there especially when hormones take over. At the point you suspect that it's a lie, the most intimate moments that inspired can seem repulsive. So many stories exist about misguided love.
The commonality between love and saying meaningless things is this. Real intimacy and real love are one and the same. Public intimacy cannot by definition exist. Could it be that love (if it is closely related to intimacy) when made public can dilute as well as add value? I think there is more distraction than augmentation.
So to publicly proclaim you love someone cannot be the final test to see if love exists. This applies to our human love as well as our belief in God. Try and systematize, ritualize or dramatize and the act of love can become cheap and fake, fast.
Acting out love is fun. Weddings are many a girl's dream. Sex is perhaps more of an obsession for men. And we are free to have fun.
When you know it is not there but still proclaim you love someone, that is just a slogan. Words used in vain. And so it is with God.
This song "Can't nobody" is a yearning to love and be loved by God whom they call Jesus. Whether this song is meaningful or a slogan depends on what we see and want. How many can truly say "can't nobody do me like Jesus... he's my friend" and not use it like a slogan in vain?
Wednesday 19 February 2014
Silence
I think we see this similar to darkness. If you are not afraid of the dark, most of us once did. Maybe silence is just as frightening or mysterious or at least something to avoid. Just like waiting, silence can also be a skill because if you think about it and listen to most conversations, there are many wasted words and too much volume.
To put it bluntly, we talk too much. In general I am not known to be talkative. Yet I'm learning how to use silence even when I think I need to persuade or object or react, if for no other reason than not to show my ignorance.
Some like the night life because the world calms down when the sun is shining elsewhere. I like to wake up early and enjoy seeing the world rise up from relative silence. I'm not sure if it's "golden" as in the old folk song but it is definitely more useful and uplifting than idle chatter.
Tuesday 18 February 2014
Shelter
Most people build a life to shelter us from danger. Wise. But fortresses and fixed assets can also keep us from moving forward. I never had an urge to build huge reserves of wealth. Some would say foolishly because when I got sick and could not make money, my life looked pretty precarious from a financial planning point of view.
Some of the most conservative financially people are my own: the Chinese. But they are also the ones who made Macau gambling surpass Las Vegas in a few short years.
Will financial success be it from prudent planning or winning at a bet (even in business) give us shelter? But shelter from what?
Is it risk? People? Failure? Youthful dreams?
Poverty, being a no-body, boredom, incarceration, sickness, slavery are fearful because they limit us. But what if we live to limit ourselves preemptively? Because tomorrow is a forever unknown (as in my last entry), it is tempting to try and limit the unexpected.
To censor our own freedom is like suicide just as the fear of death can kill our spirit.
What I experienced since my 18 day incarceration and the series of unfortunate events that brought me to my recent revival are storms, the feeling of having no exit, completely helplessness, total failure and the worst of all for me is complete silence.
I found shelter. Shelter from drought, from dying before I'm dead, from all the fear of more storms and most of all compassion for those who live in existential silence. Like my first sentence in my last blog posting, it's impossible for those who are blind to see the are blind, the deaf to know they are deaf unless they see and hear (at which point, they are healed).
I do not want shelter from the risk of knowing the truth which can be much more scary than knowing nothing. The shelter I found is from fear because I know what love is more deeply each day.
Some of the most conservative financially people are my own: the Chinese. But they are also the ones who made Macau gambling surpass Las Vegas in a few short years.
Will financial success be it from prudent planning or winning at a bet (even in business) give us shelter? But shelter from what?
Is it risk? People? Failure? Youthful dreams?
Poverty, being a no-body, boredom, incarceration, sickness, slavery are fearful because they limit us. But what if we live to limit ourselves preemptively? Because tomorrow is a forever unknown (as in my last entry), it is tempting to try and limit the unexpected.
To censor our own freedom is like suicide just as the fear of death can kill our spirit.
What I experienced since my 18 day incarceration and the series of unfortunate events that brought me to my recent revival are storms, the feeling of having no exit, completely helplessness, total failure and the worst of all for me is complete silence.
I found shelter. Shelter from drought, from dying before I'm dead, from all the fear of more storms and most of all compassion for those who live in existential silence. Like my first sentence in my last blog posting, it's impossible for those who are blind to see the are blind, the deaf to know they are deaf unless they see and hear (at which point, they are healed).
I do not want shelter from the risk of knowing the truth which can be much more scary than knowing nothing. The shelter I found is from fear because I know what love is more deeply each day.
Sunday 16 February 2014
Foggy clarity
The hard thing about seeing is that you are never convinced about something you do not see at all or see clearly. So you really do not know there is a problem when you don't know what you don't see. (Confusing) It is hard to know what is actually there and how to see clearly when there is so much fog. It happens to be a humid foggy day in Hong Kong Spring weather which makes a dehumidifier a godsend.
The fog I have come to terms with recently is the deception or prejudices we collectively hold. To survive in chaos, human civilization has created artificial order that can allow us to thrive or hide. It's up to us. Look back at history and places during war, feudal times, autocracy and oppression and it's easy to treasure our relatively peaceful participatory world. But keeping the peace at the expense of truth, quality and caring is the fog that exists today.
When information is becoming so easy to find and mostly free, it is amazing how many do not look for anything except instant gratification and security. It is actually easier, safer and faster to find information and knowledge than ever before. But the uncharted future (which is actually a constant state of being) and faster and faster rates of change perhaps is causing many to hide more deeply in entrenched institutions, methods, and ways of thinking.
That's why money has become the sole object of so much work. We need these numbers to exist. But the way to add it is becoming more exclusive instead of inclusive. There is actually enough innovation, work, products in our economy to make life better for everyone than ever before in history.
We know each other better. There is more people working together from many places than ever before but most people feel more depressed and trapped than ever. Perhaps that is why all religions are experiencing unprecedented popularity.
Truth exists but not in any one institution. It is in the simplicity of nature, in our passion for companionship and in our desire to express ourselves. Yet institutions be they companies, clubs, nation states or even a dinner party or a couple in love can be used to suppress the very nature of our humanity.
The foggy clarity is this. If we work to secure some achievement, glory or fulfillment simply to increase the value of something we made in the first place, we forget that life is a gift. Life's value is in its living.
We never will know the future and will never stop discovering who we are. To see that this is the point and not be distracted by achievements is perhaps the best way to see in the fog of tomorrow.
The fog I have come to terms with recently is the deception or prejudices we collectively hold. To survive in chaos, human civilization has created artificial order that can allow us to thrive or hide. It's up to us. Look back at history and places during war, feudal times, autocracy and oppression and it's easy to treasure our relatively peaceful participatory world. But keeping the peace at the expense of truth, quality and caring is the fog that exists today.
When information is becoming so easy to find and mostly free, it is amazing how many do not look for anything except instant gratification and security. It is actually easier, safer and faster to find information and knowledge than ever before. But the uncharted future (which is actually a constant state of being) and faster and faster rates of change perhaps is causing many to hide more deeply in entrenched institutions, methods, and ways of thinking.
That's why money has become the sole object of so much work. We need these numbers to exist. But the way to add it is becoming more exclusive instead of inclusive. There is actually enough innovation, work, products in our economy to make life better for everyone than ever before in history.
We know each other better. There is more people working together from many places than ever before but most people feel more depressed and trapped than ever. Perhaps that is why all religions are experiencing unprecedented popularity.
Truth exists but not in any one institution. It is in the simplicity of nature, in our passion for companionship and in our desire to express ourselves. Yet institutions be they companies, clubs, nation states or even a dinner party or a couple in love can be used to suppress the very nature of our humanity.
The foggy clarity is this. If we work to secure some achievement, glory or fulfillment simply to increase the value of something we made in the first place, we forget that life is a gift. Life's value is in its living.
We never will know the future and will never stop discovering who we are. To see that this is the point and not be distracted by achievements is perhaps the best way to see in the fog of tomorrow.
Monday 10 February 2014
"Can't take this away" revisited
I had this song in my car stereo cassette which played about 5 times before another song. Its much easier with digital memory now. The rhythm and electronic sounds are outdated. Current instruments sound much better and the arrangement is definitely early 90's. But when you get to the celebratory chorus and finale which echo the sassy first line: "this joy I have, the world didn't give it to me and the world can't take it away!" by repeating "it's mine!... mine!... can't take this away!"
The first time I heard it, I danced in my room and today I felt that again. You see, the music I love and listen to over and over are not just admiration or enjoyment, I participate, celebrate, perform, dance, sing deep deep inside me. The matter of fact proclamations from Bebe and Cece (brother and sister) Winans may or may not be the same as what I feel but that's what Art is. It is made by us and then exists on its own. Then it can be relived, reinterpreted and take on more or less meaning as we enjoy it and live it.
Creation is thus.
Oh the song I'm raving about was first posted here.
The first time I heard it, I danced in my room and today I felt that again. You see, the music I love and listen to over and over are not just admiration or enjoyment, I participate, celebrate, perform, dance, sing deep deep inside me. The matter of fact proclamations from Bebe and Cece (brother and sister) Winans may or may not be the same as what I feel but that's what Art is. It is made by us and then exists on its own. Then it can be relived, reinterpreted and take on more or less meaning as we enjoy it and live it.
Creation is thus.
Oh the song I'm raving about was first posted here.
Thursday 6 February 2014
Holla I'm dancing
The name of the group is Trin-i-Tee 5:7
Tuesday 4 February 2014
Fear and parenting
I have no kids but do enjoy them. My visiting niece leaves joyful memories that light up my life. No she, like any person, is not perfect. Yet, I learn about life in its newness seeing her play and connect and not.
There are endless ways to interact with your children but I want to look at fear. I know many adults that fear (?) rejection from parents and live in umbilical dependence until one party dies. This is an artificial or narrow way of fear. It may protect but it also limits.
I have experienced a different way to be reared. Fear is somehow removed and replaced by assurance and love. I had both in my life which I remember to be full of light and enjoyable, eclipsing any negativity, until recent personal history which prompted me to write these blogs.
They are full of my feelings which on the face of it are mundane and common place. Inside, I writhed the pain and fear and disappointment. Loneliness and dusk replaced my good memories. I felt people did not want me and it was hard. Every recourse I have learned seemed to fail. Friends in high places, low places, close places, recruiters, counselors, doctors, lawyers, corporate connections, strangers, investors, relatives etc. from all over the world. I used my languages, my achievements, repackaging myself, the Internet, publications, all kinds of media, free lance, charities, diplomatic circles, past allies, new colleagues.... Yes I'm tired just writing this and it's not finished.
Through all of this doing and searching, I got no response to my fear and loathing until I cried out of my darkness. It is in going through the dread and desperation that I am who I am now. I feel saved and free and bold. And that's perfect parenting.
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