Hallucinations

I started blogging because I felt beaten and uncertain. Everything seemed hard and scary as every piece of bad news stuck panic in my core. Although I remained cheerful, damage to my confidence was deep enough to cause depression. It was subtle but relentless.

The picture shows just part of the height I climb everyday just to go out and come home. It used to instill pain every time I go up and down. For so many reasons I often felt too burdened to enjoy rest or even a vacation.

In the last few weeks, I no longer feel so bad. Even though feelings rarely stopped me from much, it was more I had gotten used to panic and to crawling my way out.

While so many of my fears have become milestones of the past, memories can linger and become like hallucinations. Like a mirage, I just have to learn to ignore them and embrace a new freedom.

So now I look up or down the long stairways of the hillside, it's just a way of life. Sometimes tiring, sweaty, but uplifting because my home is on the way. To be enjoyed.

Mirage

A mirage is when the ground becomes so hot, light passing through the less dense rising air effectively curves from the sky reaching our vision. The wavy image of the blue sky and the trees on the hot flat bed, looks a lot like water. If you are thirsty, you'll waste your energy trying to reach non-existent water.

The world is thirsty for the real substance of life. Water is the key element because it is really made up of air (Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms). In Cantonese, a slang for money is water. It acts like water because it must keep flowing to be really useful. Stagnant funds lose value over time like still water that "rots".

In my last post, I said "money is a mirage of success". We need it to live with others, and many measure value purely based on money. This is correct if consumption and real estate actually give us life or true quality in life.

We all know how a home, restaurant, car etc. may look does not guarantee a good time, yet we choose to measure success with accumulation and status. Instead all our most precious memories are made by good relationships enjoying time together.

Love is free. Money and what it can buy is only a mirage of what we really want. Careful what you chase.

Vertigo

The title is wrong because I really meant acrophobia (the fear of heights) which is often misnamed vertigo because of Hitchcock's movie. I believe everyone is afraid of heights but some overcome it.

As with all fears the only way to know you've conquered it is to go through it. But because we are afraid, climbing will be the farthest thing we want to do. So we prefer to stay where we are on the level.

Money is the greatest obstacle to overcoming this fear.  Of course I'm not talking about climbing Everest. The height which scares is to face our potential and passion. Like actually climbing a mountain, people will pour cold water at the mere intention let alone preparing for the journey. The paradox is that although many things require funds, those with a lot of money have more incentive to stay where they are and not climb that personal mountain. 

What if I get there and don't like it. How will I look if I failed? Money is a mirage of success.

The person who'll face personal acrophobia can't ever lose because not climbing towards our passion is where we were all along. Most don't climb so they'll never be afraid.

I guess the easiest sign we are on the way to a higher place in life is fear. Our natural  acrophobia, fear of high places.

Stranger

It's kind of strange that the quote most on my mind lately is "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." For me, this is about not feeling at home when even animals have shelter. It sounds precarious and sad but I'm not.

It all hangs on what is home? Our basic instinct is to be safe. But even my first memories were about restlessness. School, schedules, expectations, responsibility all seemed to conspire to beat all spontaneity out of me, telling me to be safe, to build a hut, then a cottage, then an apartment, then a house, mansion and finally a fortress so I can retire.

What if we don't belong in a fortress or a house. I'm not saying I prefer to live in the street either but I've learned that at least for me, restlessness is my home. And allowing the yearning to seek out answers, companionship, love, truth in an often chaotic cruel world, is where we belong. Shutting it out cannot make us "safe" but we'll never find the answers our soul seems to be born to discover.

The title is in deference to L’étranger by Albert Camus which begins "Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas." Today mama died, or maybe yesterday. I don't know...

Depressing but also true because whether we hold on to mama, miss her or don't care, nothing changes the death. So many try to shake off or escape the sadness that awaits all of us when someone close goes forever. We can have faith we'll see them again but it does not change the departure or how it affects how we feel. 

Feeling like a foreigner and awareness of an impending end of life, is our human condition. It was designed to push us forward, not cause is to retreat of hide. Even if we numb ourselves, the pain of loss always catches up later as the stranger of Albert Camus later shoots a man.

Like the life which we did not have until we were born, this yearning to belong, to share ourselves, to see, to embrace, to learn, to cry out is to overcome our inborn emptiness. We often feel alone. Out of place. Like a stranger.

Finally, I see why this is a good thing to feel out of place. It'll come in very useful for this age of light-speed change to find answers with those who care.

Miracles

So many people think the miracle are the "acts of God", supernatural displays, the Hollywood ending... Even this old cartoon song is correct that any breakthrough is about belief and faith.

In the Israelite Exodus, the people probably did not just get up and leave like the cartoon at the drop of a hat. They were slaves. And it took faith to pack, convince everyone to go and not care about the impending military threat. Moses was a prince but he believed enough to negotiate with Pharaoh, convince his people and prepare for a journey that could have been quite short.

Too much focus is on the esoteric things that are supposed to happen to convince us of change. Miracles for atheists and religious alike is about seeing something most people cannot see and living like the solution has already happened. This is actually called change.

Sugar

Taking a break from swimming got me experimenting my lowest carb limit. It turns out I need some first thing in the morning or else it affects my mood a whole lot.

Like the Mary Poppins song "a spoonful of sugar", I just need a large spoon of oatmeal and I felt so much better. And it's just a daytime thing. A little in the morning and afternoon is all it takes.

I'm almost 52 and still discovering secrets about my body and mood. Discovery is the sugar of life.

Plateau

In the world of IT there's a thing called Moore's law which predicted doubling in speed every 18 months. I'm sure there is much room for progress as new materials and transmission methods will bring back Moore's law. But for now in the consumer space there is enough speed to play, chat, socialize and share with much unused capacity.

Plateaus are good for change because it gives a chance for repose before another round of  metamorphosis.

This is what I feel for myself, the use of technology and even society. Unlike many who keep predicting catastrophe to discourage change, I embrace the upheaval dreams can induce.

Sorry if you want a plateau to be the destination. For even in nature, there are plenty of plains, mountains, valleys... But very few plateaus. It's still nice to take a breath before climbing.

Basic

Gandhi is talking about the basic struggle in any society. What is law? What is justice? What are one's basic rights? 

For many this kind of debate and opposing opinion is confusing and frustrating. It is like a child who has been used to simple black and white answers to life but wakes up to find grey complexities and nuances for them to work alone.

Through many wars and mistakes the world has gone through much. I hope we will never forget hard fought lessons in too much compromise in basic human dignity and too little when it benefits the long term.

Personally I find the learning process beautiful no matter how hard and dissonant like the Third movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in 3 Movements. It was written during world war 2. But I think it applies in our technology infected world.

Yes although I am a geek (one who is technically inclined), I think we are being led by "progress" in technology without enough heed to other sciences. Even music is full of algorithmic research perhaps ignoring social aspects. Statistics have become a tool to guide thesis instead of hypothesis led data gathering using experimentation including statistics. It has become a struggle for human dignity again as money (which is really a mathematical tool to manipulate value in society) is now being managed by machines. I am sure this run away technological focus has rocked the ethical and motivational balance towards irresponsible growth. Greed seems to justify inequality.

Yet, I believe in the instinct to survive, to learn and to thrive in humans. For life on this little blue planet is already an improbability in our hostile empty Universe. And if life found a way for us to be born, I know there is a way to continue. For even the tragedy on the scale of WWI and II, caused our current world order has find some peaceful equilibrium.

But as information and knowledge is so instantly available to anyone with a screen and an Internet line, the equilibrium has been shaken again. Mismanagement, miscalculations, hidden agenda, dishonest views of history and society... all make change so much more painful

It would be beautiful if we saw each other as equal neighbors instead of making power that which values us. I hope the world will continue to learn this lesson. Because not facing our past mistakes, not admitting error and not reducing the risk of repeating bad policy, but just carrying on what has been done for tradition (?), is the greatest obstacle for competitiveness in our youth.

This struggle is evident in Hong Kong. This symphony is relevant to the feelings of tension and beauty of the human spirit. Learning to talk honestly and with dignity is better than propaganda and inciting violence. Yet you can find beauty in what seems to be discord on the surface, both in this symphony and during social discord.

Hunger

I've been a hungry person since infancy as my parents used to tell people my first spoken word was 再 (more in Chinese) after feeding. Now I am eating low carb I am constantly hungry but I've been conditioned to eat at "meal times". So it's easy to ignore the feeling of hunger purely out of habit. It feels like the "right thing" to do. Only now it literally gets me down emotionally. A bite livens up my spirits every few hours.

This echoes the title of this blog where small birds continuously feed more often than huge beasts. Besides the mundane hunger for food, I thought I should stop yearning for knowledge and new vantage points just because I was no longer young. It seemed that like "meal times", learning time is commonly consigned to the young. Many of my peers say they can't learn anything new as they were getting dumber.

Yet these same self-degrading adults may be the first to tell young people they don't know any better, despite implying only the young can learn. Many are telling Hong Kong protesters exactly this.

I don't know the outcome of the protests as I do not know about my own life. But one thing my sickness, depression and subsequent improvement has convinced me is that I am put here to learn about life. 

I hunger for deeper relationship. Not just friendliness though it is better than rudeness. But some rudeness is just honesty among friends who accept each other although it is not a good way to start a friendship. There are so many ways to deal with friendship. It ranges from unchanging friendliness, to overt frankness, to hiding true feelings, to rejecting all deeper relationships... and so many mixtures of them all.

I hunger to embrace cultures, soulful engagement, laughing about life, crying together, finding ways out of self imposed limits... to find freedom from the regret that litters our messy lives.

This hunger is what keeps me going and I am eager to learn what the next moment will reveal.

Weather

I have been under the weather for the last 8 years. For the first time in my relatively smooth life, I felt I could no nothing to fight my circumstances. Even running away would have been useless because the oppression I felt would just go with me. It's been like a drought in my heart despite being all wet.

The weather finally change today in Hong Kong which has been living in higher tension for over 5 weeks of sit-in protests that has divided the city. I have been at the edge of my seat watching moves from protesters, China and Hong Kong's government. What I feared was explosive violence and despair. It has depressed, separated and highlighted our preferences in facing authority, oppression and livelihood. It's been about generation, learning and myopia.

I should be depressed along with much of the city that wishes the tension would just go away. But covering up the differences by ignoring it, suppressing it or forcing it would be an outright betrayal of the future. There is still a danger of further deterioration in this protest.

For some reason, the cloudy cool day did not worsen my worry. I saw beyond the clouds, the tension and my personal drought. For even dark clouds can be welcome when the land is parched and thirsty.

I think for me, the resolution of drought is a welling up of water, life and relief from within. I'm no longer under the weather.

Pity

Compassion is often confused with pity. To over simplify, you pity someone who is beneath you. I try hard to avoid this and definitely don't want to be pitied.

During my personal drought, I wanted compassion from my friends. If they would just ask me how things were going with some sensitivity, I am comforted and feel support. Few did and I'm happy to receive their compassion.

There are times, when I just feel unable to get out a personal funk and call out to people. Yesterday it seemed no one had time to listen even though I asked.

For me, I wanted a pity party for myself because I did not want pity. What kind of psychosis is that? I just wanted someone to share even this pitiful contradiction in myself. It left me lonely and helpless.

Yet, some people remain my friends and when we have time to meet later, that would be compassion enough.

Tribute

Some want to be remembered "forever". My rich grandfather donated money to a school so it carried his name. I remember seeing the model of it when I was little but never felt proud or other strong feeling about it. 20 years after his death, the school is gone along with his name.

Then there are those who want applause, crowd recognition, a prize. I remember a sermon about the reward that awaits in heaven. For some reason, the prospect of this kind of recognition failed to motivate me.

I just wanted to be in the company of someone who accepted me as me no matter how old, ugly, invalid, angry I got. Then all accomplishment is just icing or the cherry on the cake. True substance and fulfillment is simple but costly. For in order for that acceptance to occur, I have to face myself and deal with all the potential for failure. It is painful but worth it.

So I don't need tribute that is designed for public consumption. It's encouraging to get applause, a prize, your name on a sign, it doesn't really matter. But all I really need is to be in the arms of someone who loves the child inside.

Even Michael Bolton manages to scream out this truth in this cartoon song.

Meek

I was taught to be meek. A word hardly used in the overblown world of self promotion, shameless pursuit of wealth and power. Yet "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." I don't think that many preachers believe this, because meekness is humble, submissive, noncompetitive, a push over... How can such a week person inherit the earth?

Power in this world is about force. It is something I resist. For those I love, I only want them to do something because they see me in all my weakness and still want to be there. Otherwise, how different are they from any stranger? For me this link between 2 people is real power. If it is just for money... well it's OK for work but not love.

Meek does not mean week. I'm learning how to remain true to my choice not to impose my will but persuade by example, by walking with people and by holding on to the real power in real relationships. I seek out other meek men and women. Those who think they wield power by competition, wealth, control... well they will appear mighty but are empty unless they are meek with those they love.

Another way to state the counter intuitive beatitude would be "Meekness is power and life."

Haunted

No horror or ghostly tales here. I'm talking about a holistic programming based on love or lack of love. By love I just mean acceptance without question or limits. Sound too good to be true? If so, you are probably holding on to the conditions under which love was allotted to you once upon a time, and it has become normal. We all live conditionally.

Any pain associated with the conditions become buried so deep that it haunts and weighs on everything we see, feel, think and decide. It is a sort of human program we get from Nature, society and our own input. Fear is the basis of any haunting be it supernatural or natural. Whatever we believe, the fear is the same. But anything supernatural is completely subjective so can be super encouraging or super derogatory. 

No wonder Halloween and other tales of the unseen are so intriguing. Some say religion is just another tale. The conditions for acceptance in any religion is just formalized for the view of the unseen spiritual world we prefer. Of course for any group of strong convictions, my last sentence is close to heresy. 

I just want to underline the difference between faith and religion. Faith is personal for no one knows our heart but ourselves and God (defined as the source of Life and the Universe). But religion is a set of beliefs to define God and his relationship with us. We need to formalize Him so we can talk about him and interact with him as a group.

A haunting is about something undesirable and unwanted. If we see God as just as arbitrarily conditional as any random person, no wonder we fear the unknown. But if God who is the source of all of Life, the acceptance was guaranteed when were born, the moment personal life began, there is no haunting; just life.

Somehow, we learn about acceptance dependent on conditions (no matter how liberal or conservative) so early in life that it convinces us our living value is limited. It's about comparing, earning, self assessing...: just a whole lot of work. 

Working hard at something can be liberating or enslaving depending on whether we are haunted by conditional deficiency. If only I were better. If only he/she would accept me. I cannot live without him/her. I'd die to be poor. I'm nothing if it weren't for money. I live for my family. They are OK if they are just goal posts. You can strive for whatever you like in life.

But if they become life itself, that's where the haunting begins. No wonder "perfect love casts out fear".