Trust

This is a priceless commodity; rare and ignored in this money-fame-sex obsessed tide of crowd behavior. Not that any of that is intrinsically bad. But they cloud and fog up our vision.

Rich and poor will not see the heart that waits (including our own) if the focus is on money, sex and power.

For we can only trust the heart. Using the 3 commodities cannot see or change the heart; just manipulate. Buying trust is cheap just like buying sex. Think about it and it will appear repulsive.

But trust based on acceptance and love can use money, sex and power to build life, forgive and multiply.

And it takes a ton of trust to wait for someone.

Wait

It all restarted with the Latin Expectans Expectavi (2nd movement of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms) which implies longing, thirst and want so deep you are willing to wait.

It's just we are so used to waiting for things we don't really want. So we buy things we never use and the most extreme is having children we avoid. In between we make do with jobs we hate in the name of providing for our family we may secretly despise.

I know I'm talking about extreme cases. Or am I?  Only our heart knows.

But I learned to wait for the life that was there all along. I looked for help, jobs, money, friends, just an understanding ear to no avail only to find that like a pop song lyric "Sometimes the thing you're looking for is the one thing you can't see".

And I learned to wait instead of running around even though I may be busy. For I'm talking about waiting on my heat and soul. Something this World War One poem echos.

Expectans Expectavi
By Charles Hamilton Sorley   

FROM morn to midnight, all day through,
I laugh and play as others do,
I sin and chatter, just the same
As others with a different name.  

And all year long upon the stage,        5
I dance and tumble and do rage
So vehemently, I scarcely see
The inner and eternal me.  

I have a temple I do not
Visit, a heart I have forgot,        10
A self that I have never met,
A secret shrine—and yet, and yet  

This sanctuary of my soul
Unwitting I keep white and whole,
Unlatched and lit, if Thou should’st care        15
To enter or to tarry there.  

With parted lips and outstretched hands
And listening ears Thy servant stands,
Call Thou early, call Thou late,
To Thy great service dedicate. 

May, 1915

Quest

I always loved this geeky word. There was a cartoon I watched when I was 5 called Johnny Quest. Star Trek was about a quest. The Bible talks about seeking God. Everyone is looking for something.

I realise I began my journey when I became a teenager. Becoming an adult is exciting dramatic even traumatic. The biggest mistake is to want the seeking the growing the journey the quest to end on some finish line.

Anyone, any group, any effort to tell people they have arrived, this is the promised land, you've found it, in order to retire... I think it's the beginning of dying. Living is to seek.

I almost gave up because so many voices said I was not good enough. What if the truth is we were always good enough to become ourselves. And this self never stops growing healing and seeking.

Unfortunately many stop looking. After achieving success in money, family, ownership, popularity, beauty, even fitness... If the journey ends so does life.

False starts, missed targets, failed attempts, rejection, pointless oppression... All tried to thwart my quest. I consigned myself to long for stability and a way to live out my days in peace. Because of it or inspite of it, my body and soul rebeled. I got sick and began to heal. It still continues but I thought there would be some great celebration or event that would tell me I've arrived. I waited for a magnificent ending.

Instead I founded my friends, my love, hope, joy, peace and my quest which is life itself.

Pretentious

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" (John Lennon). And one of the worst waste of time is pretending and arranging your life to impress a crowd (even a small crowd like an extended family or your office).

There is nothing wrong with achieving, working, buying, selling, saving, building, procreating, nurturing, educating, learning, investing, hedging, gaming, gambling and any way of living that will definitely be invented. In and out of religion, anything that helps us find God and our true self is great.

Yet, any activity and the result cannot fulfill us. For our fulfillment is either there or not. Most people have this in reverse, thinking that achievement can define us. I have learned that who I am, defines my work, love, life and what I create.

So if all the nice things we buy, the beautiful children we were given, the work we have done and the safety we have built become our only pride of life, the foundation is like sand. For all of this will disappear one day. Who I am is there until I die.

Life happens inside. And what is there expresses the image we show to the world. Ignore the feeling our body, mind and soul tell us each day, we really will miss out on what we actually value most.

I realize what I have written and the thinking behind it will not be popular. The trend is just to take words at their most common and often superficial meaning. To use words to imply, reflect, create new meaning is really not that common. We have no time for anything but instant gratification. A movie line actually pokes fun at this: "instant gratification takes too long".

Yet one of the greatest novelist in French literature (some think of all time) is Marcel Proust in "À la recherche du temps perdu." Inadequately translated as "remembrance of things past" or "in search of lost time". When I read it 30 years ago, I was bored by the train of thought and the lack of intrigue or Hollywood or even Shakespearean plots. Yet the images and thinking continue to reflect truth to this day. But I doubt if many will be able to get through it. He actually questions the reality behind the aristocratic life which we all seem to want. The main character married a woman because of the ambiance created by the elegant music, the decor, and others who surrounded her at their first encounter. 

To over simplify, it is an exploration of pretension at it's most extreme 100 years ago.   

And this is so with pretension which is the fad in Hong Kong (and most of the world). It seems enough to have a job, home, religion, family, a schedule, money so we can be somebody. Like I said, all this is OK. But let them become who we are ignoring the real person inside, more like the child we once were, and it is nothing more than being pretentious. Another movie line "an ounce of pretension is worth an ounce of manure."