Sensibility

"How much I feel the impact of life on who I am" is my personal definition of sensibility. It depends on understanding of both myself and the things that happen. A victim mentality may choose or be addicted to perceiving everything as happening against myself. A conquering personality may choose to overcome instead of submitting to the first response. There are actually infinite number of responses to the same occurrence. This shows the chaos and wonder of humanity, depending on how you see it.

Many people think that only one interpretation is of reality is valid. But it is obvious that we all see the world through complicated filters that they can distort it to our advantage or detriment. This has to do with feelings. They make up who we are and can be mysteriously flighty changing from one moment to the next.

We have devised many ways to numb the effects of "bad feelings" like pain, depression, anger, sadness. Ignoring drugs, we have certain habits that can lift us up out of our lows like exercise, sex, a chat, eating, writing, music, schedules or just keeping busy. To avoid our feeling altogether is just as harmful as being tossed about by them like waves in the ocean.

Making sense of our feelings can be the most important thing we do to get to know our own self. But it is hard because it feels lonely and lack objectivity. For no one really knows how we are feeling except us. And we sometimes cannot express how we feel accurately because we don't ourselves know why we feel good or bad. There are just too many variables.

When I was a kid, it was easier for me to find positives from in all things because not much has happened yet to bring me down. But as I felt like I had been brought to near defeat in just about every area of my life, symbolized by my prison experience, where you are left with your own demons surrounded by negativity all around, with no immediate escape.

In literature to be imprisoned socially or psychologically is a recurring theme. I thought everything would be over upon my release. Yes, it is true that food tastes better, freedom of movement sweeter and you do appreciate the niceties of life much more. I thought that getting back on my feet and getting back to earning a living would mean getting back to normality. After all I was only there 18 days.

But every moment since, seemed to have greater impact me. The ups and downs, hope and hopelessness, happiness and depression.... I tried to get on with life as before enjoying everything more than before but something else changed. I wanted to give up my dreams just to live in peace as I had mentioned often in my blogs, which may have helped weaken my body. But I also gained a new sensitivity that I had lost during many years of "success".

I have changed how I eat, look, see, hear, hope, dream, love, feel..... I feel like a different person today because sensibility is back. But I finally know how to handle them to my advantage. Unlike my youth though, I am able to deal with the dread of the darkest moments.

This is absolutely needed to lead, to create, to chart an new path in life. For no one knows what the next moment will bring. There are few scheduled assignments or preset performance standards. So you cannot know if you are doing well or badly in the grander scheme of things, whose conclusion is unknown without any deadline. It is both freeing and frightening.

So in my preparation I had time to deal with firstly myself and my feelings, those who are close to me and I am free now to seek out new allies on a new journey. It takes time. It's about change, It holds on to hope in all things. And I am psyched to experience each moment the ocean of life will bring.

No wonder I felt like I was in both the desperate almost lifeless calm and the sudden battering or insurmountable waves, that exist in the doldrums of my life. All this is to prepare me for the real thing.

It just took time.

Comment

"Comment" in French means how. They say this instead of "what" when asking you to repeat something. Incidentally, "how" has become the focus of my life because many "whats" that I wanted were withheld. Even the patent pending idea of mine is about how technology is used.

Most of society is still obsessed with what. To be the biggest, richest, most powerful, gold medalist, most popular and so it goes. Some cultures desire something more. And I believe all of us want a change in how we live.

When I studied 20th Century French literature, existentialism was a major theme. The absurdity of established reasons for existing was rejected to live in the moment. Freedom from the past and future that seems non-existent if you focus on the instantaneous present was seen as the only way to avoid the senseless things that bog us down. Of course the meaning of order and responsibility are the issues people use to object to the philosophy. Some even judge the view to be immoral.

Yet the truth that we can't fix the past or ensure our future without living each moment of life at a time is more about HOW. It is no coincidence that the best selling novel associated with existentialism is "the stranger" by Albert Camus that sold 7 million copies in French and translated into 40 languages, was actually not intended to be existentialist. He said he only wanted to write about someone not willing to "play the game". The famous first lines of the novel "Today, mom died. Or was it yesterday. I don't know." speaks for itself.

For me, the sensibility of existentialism is to value and live out each moment to the full. I found it really hard because I was used to tending to all the things "on my plate". Sometimes, the extent I wanted to be prepared is much too large to be practical. That's when the popular quote "Life is what happens when you're making other plans" rings true.

Since so many things have become predictable and timetabled in our industrial age, it is natural to assume that once you have tended to the items waiting for us to complete, be it our job, our relationships and even our children, success is on the way. Fulfillment in completing assignments has become a good drug for satisfaction. It is true to a degree.

Except we are not just creatures of habit. A fire sometimes burns inside. We have something to say, want to reach out to people, create something different, want to tell a story with words, music, sights and sound.... It is what makes us human.

But true to the industrial age, we only look at the end result like a product. Not HOW we lived. But as each moment of our lives can be documented and shared instantly with whoever is interested, HOW is more important than WHAT.

I found it hard to focus on the moment because few things in life reach fruition in an instant. We often don't know why we are doing something driven by our passion. The journey is the point. And the product (if any) is just a way to celebrate the life that brought us there.

So when faced with the turning point of the information age, I can see how being grateful for each moment is the essence of reality. If the past and the future depend only on what we do at any instant, HOW we live is so vital. For it is in being grateful, thankful that I am in tune with myself. Once that happens you can decide how you want to live, with or without a concept of God. Either way, you are the only one qualified to decide how we treat each other.

If all of life is about how we relate to our world instead of making some product... well maybe our products will be love, kindness, healing, growth without sacrificing our world for something we use then discard.

These songs celebrate being grateful and thankful for life. Whether you believe in God or not but we can all agree that each moment is a gift we have.

Destiny

I don't believe in destiny if it is a fixed final outcome in life. The only sure things are that we were born and that we will die. What happens in between should be free for us to pursue, amend and create.

So much of life seems to follow patterns we are kind of trapped by our current habits. The worst habits are addictions to harmful things like drugs or gambling. It's easy to over due even good things and have them take over our lives. There seems to be so many prejudices, assumptions and obligations that crowd us, most of us resign to some pattern we find hard to break.

Because everyone else is living a certain way, we will follow. Out of fun, necessity, pressure... I thought I had to actively resist. But a better way is to know what I want.

It sounds preposterous to believe you can actually get what you want. I was taught to compromise, make do, pay my dues, seek out opportunities and climb up some ladder of leadership. All these are good skills to make a living.

This pic is from the game "Destiny" and I feel like the being in a rising vehicle above the planet

But actual living is about HOW I treat people including myself. We all need to create something. The most natural and popular is children. I love children even though I have none. This is because I am pushed by something else that might change HOW we live and love.

Finally, through all the doubts and fears and personal obstacles that have filtered through my years of relative solitude, silence and outward emptiness, I am filled and motivated by purposeful resilience.

Destiny is the deep passion that I had through out my life. I now see there is a kind of pattern that has to do with me and the way I lived, the people in my life and the vision that pulls me. It took me this long to isolate it and follow it through. The outcome is unknown except that I'll enjoy the discovery in people, in expression until the end.

This song rang in my head during my 18 day sojourn in a Chinese backwater prison 9 years ago. I never really paid attention to it before that. It was my way to overcome the marching music that played everyday. The lyrics about strange unexpected things like "Sun goes round Moon", "the snow comes down in June"... rang true for me: Something that confused and oppressed me is for my good. 

Bare

When I saw this cartoon, I was 5. But I remember how I just wanted to draw something that inspired me as the jungle background was introduced. At that young age, I was mesmerized by the beauty represented by the work and the actual jungle itself. Art.

The story was too long for me so I fell asleep about half way through but not before this song. "Bear Necessity" as a pun for bare necessities of life had to wait until I arrived in the States a few years after that for my appreciation. But the meaning of having the minimum needed to live took nearly another half Century.

I'm just seeing what I really need to live as myself. Being bare is to be naked and that is one of hardest hurdles to self discovery. Even the most beautiful models need to work to look their best and there is no guarantee they themselves feel validated by their outward beauty. All the hard work to look great for that photo shoot is not a guarantee for self fulfillment.

I took getting "naked" in all senses of the word for me to see my bare necessities. And now I see that it is so liberating. I realize the most important things really are free.

Yeah the video looks so grainy and old. But I feel how precious the relationships that have stuck through thick and thin are really really priceless and wonderful. I have seen the soul of another person who loves me back. The surprise is that some of them have been there all along even after time apart. Others are new people who seem to have been waiting to meet.

Although I have always embraced the importance of people as the center of life, I never felt the overwhelming importance these moments are for the time I am by myself, when I am dreaming, planning and creating.

I am not talking about a cartoon but a collection of things I do, say, publish, sing, dance, live. I just want to do it so that at least I am inspired. Then maybe my soul mates will share in the joy too. That is my bear necessity of life.

Compensate

When even a salary can be called compensation, this concept is another very ingrained one that should be re-examined. Employment is still widely viewed as "time served" (even though most people won't use this phrase used for prison sentences) so we need to be compensated for it. This assumes contribution is relative to time regardless of quality or contribution. So there are jobs around that are really unnecessary but are there to keep employment alive.

It is assumed that we need to bear with work we have gotten tired of, or never liked just to pay the bills. This is needed to a point. And the truth of it depends on the world working like a machine that is set to operate at a certain speed. We all should benefit as the economy grows as the machine make goods and services for profit.

As this model becomes outdated because machines can now be reprogrammed to do new work more easily than ever, we are already seeking new ways to live, work and grow. I have rambled on about the paradigm shift happening all around us for a lot of this blog. The title "From Dino's to Birds" is to highlight the depth and breadth of this impending change.

Nature does not really allow for much compensation. If you loose sleep, the price is to your health. The payment cannot be compensated by making up the lost time the next day. We need time for the body to heal from the loss whose negative effects can mount up to cause long term health and psychological problems.

Consumerism is the compensation the industrial age promises us. The goods and services we can buy with our salary (that compensation for our time spent as a cog in the industrial machine) should be able to satisfy the opportunity cost of our time contribution.

Before computers revolutionized mass data in corporations in the 70's, "seniority" was the word for how long a person has worked in a company and should be promoted accordingly. The performance evaluations that became the norm in the 80's are a sign of how information technology has freed management to rationalize performance as the primary factor for promotion.

But with all the focus on quality, it seems "going to work" to gain compensation for time lost is still the cycle for making a living.

Like sleep, if we do something we don't like without any prospect for change, cannot compensate for the potential we may be giving up. The relationships that are hurt, missing out on the lives of our growing children, the revealing experience of caring for aging relatives... it is obvious that these things have nothing to do with the industrial machine and the related monetary compensation.

It is time to put value on personal lives as a way to pay each other. Roles and responsibilities should be revised to reflect how our lives are now growing more like a tapestry of interwoven relationships rather than a hierarchical pyramid. Opportunity cost and return can now be individualized.

Time should be valued and preserved for family and important friendships. We should pay each other to help the helpless, solve problems, create new opportunities for the poor, teach our children, love our elderly.... Leave the mundane jobs for robots and grow the human spirit.

Compensation as a concept should disappear if we are striving to create value together. Men and women need to contribute equally. It seems what I'm saying is really intuitive to most women and takes a lot more convincing for men to see clearly. That's why this song is sung by 3 women.

Chocolate

Everything can be seen as a timetable. Soon after we are born our bodies tell us we need to sleep and eat. Then everything else seems to follow as scheduled priorities in life demand attention. As we grow up, learn and work, more and more things pile up. Everything can overwhelm us or be tools to growth depending on how we react our feelings. To be inundated by life can be like spilling hot chocolate on ourselves causing pain, discomfort and a blemish.

To follow a schedule without regard to how we feel is the path to numbness and being overcome. I always thought I tried successfully to follow how I felt about myself, others and life itself more than the obligations by dealing with them well in advance. So starting in school I always finished what I had to do as quickly as possible so I could do what I really wanted to do: like enjoying a cup of hot chocolate.

But following hard times, I found myself feeling oppressed by all activities. Instead of avoiding them, I exercised, cooked, planned, discussed, searched, ate, changed.... with all my being in all seriousness. I waited for some social-economic climax or even some drastic physical transformation to validate my efforts.

Instead of enjoying them, all activities became obligations because I ignored the feeling of fulfillment in living itself, in order to "achieve" some quantum leap in personal quality or performance. I was running my life against myself without feeling like I would ever reach my goal. It was like a dog chasing its tail.

When I see people in my hurried city or incessant pursuits, running around. I secretly wanted to follow their apparent purposeful drive to scurry around all day and all night.

I have changed.

I have finally started to enjoy each moment, every good or bad feeling and encounter that I have again like everything was new. The truth is that if I look past the timetable, I can see myself and the people for who they are. It is not always encouraging because we all fall prey to out own angst and submit to some obligation. But I feel for them now.

As I was enjoying my music, carrying groceries and enjoyed the rhythm on my way home, a young girl and her mother hurried past in apparent stress. I called out "Calm down". Then felt unsure if I read them unfairly. Perhaps they just enjoyed going from place to place short of jogging speed. But their reaction was one of annoyance, frowning at me several times.... So I guess "calm down" is a negative concept.

It certainly feels slowing down is bad for my many friends who are running around. It's fine because I did that all my life and am the better for the experience.

My point is, did I enjoy it? I have a sneaky feeling any enjoyment has nothing to do with ticking "complete" on all the items on my "to do list" or my schedule.

I never would have faced this modern dilemma so deeply if it weren't for my doldrums. It's like being washed of the stains a spilled cup of hot chocolate left on my clothes. I just enjoy the drink now.

Hyde

"The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a modern story about technology. What we create can take over our lives if we let it. Addiction is the most common example. Besides illegal substances, we are now addicted to sugar, smart phones, TV and the list goes on. So parents sometimes do not allow children some things for fear of addiction. The story has influenced characters like "The Hulk", "The nutty professor" movies and even Tweety Bird.

What drives us to do something over and over again so that we loose control of self preservation? The answer is where we choose to live.

Choose to reside in the technicalities of life, instead of real relationships with ourselves and others, therein lies the cause for addictions and destructive pathways. Technology is just one of newest persuasive ways to get addicted.

To become a Mr. Hyde (the killer that Dr. Jekyll was not) the story goes into a lot of detail about the formula to undo the damage. It actually leaves us hanging if Mr. Hyde won or not. There are so many things to be learned from the allegorical nature of the story.

Drinking the formula is what I will focus on. Internalizing an unknown untried technology has its dangers. That's why there are simulations, tests and prototyping. We can learn from mistakes before they forever change our lives. To completely undo certain errors can be very painful and maybe impossible.

Even if Mr. Hyde takes over so that the Dr. Jekyll no longer exists, is it not possible for the killer to be rescued and reformed personally? Whether he is punished or not, the person of Mr. Hyde could change if he wanted to even if Dr. Jekyll no longer exists.

If technology consists of concepts and things humans made, the same applies to all Art, Science and social-economic institutions (such as government, marriage, religion...): internalizing them as if they were life itself will make the possibility of Mr. Hyde taking over.

Look at any autocratic leader, he/she is protecting some status quo or his/her own opinion above being human. Someone as infamously evil as Adolf Hitler is protecting the Third Reich above all things, even his own humanity. Even if we will not make systematic killing machines like Hitler, we can kill our real self just to protect our "name", save "face", our "status", our "role", when we ignore the voice who cries from inside us when we are all alone.

Leaders who aim to be in touch with their own voice as well as the people they lead will be fulfilling the opportunity that their moment in History affords them. This is the only way to deal with ever present human dilemma that face both people and their leaders. If we want true forgiveness, improvement and progress.

Despite the cheesy lyrics and sexy ladies, the "Power of love" by the late Luther Vandross is to be discovered and expressed.

Light

This pic is how I feel sometimes because I have an idea that few understand at this time. Whether I am correct or not, I feel a passion to work it out and let the idea speak for itself like a work of art. For any artist cannot control the reception of their art. If they do, their passion has been eclipsed by something contrary to what makes their work valuable. 

So to speak out, be put on display and open to be judged about a new idea is scary indeed. I feel alone, battered and could be overwhelmed if my foundation is weak.

There are those nowadays who are speaking out in violence, in rejection and judgement. They act like they are above the law, can judge others and punish them in violence or even death. Yet these very same judges refuse to be judged by their actions quoting some overriding reason that somehow justifies their oppression or destruction of someone else. The worst part is that the judges are saying they themselves are above any similar evaluation that they apply to another. This is called hypocrisy. Hypocrites are saying they are being persecuted for their right to persecute others. And play out the martyr.

Creativity is different. It just shines. Does not judge. Open to criticism. Loves change for themselves and beckons others to follow. No pressure. No pretense. No conditions. Loves. But is strong. Grounded. Looks to the sky, beyond the visible, and unafraid of the unknown all around. 

Stevie Wonder receiving Polar Music prize in Sweden after singing "You are the sunshine of my life"

Groove

I like music with a groove. Those who have seen some of my past music posts all show this side. Even the classical music I like have a strong rhythmic emphasis, like Stravinsky who prefers percussion sounding music for nearly all instruments including voice and piano.

Groove just meant smooth and flowing to me when I was hifi geeky teenager. I made radios and amplifiers and speakers to play the music I like. Portable music has been my friend for over 30 years. It was instrumental in my physical and psychological recover as I worked out and traveled.

Now that vinyl records are just collectors items or limited editions, my misconception that the groove referred to the recording being in the tiny grooves of the record seems silly and outdated. But the origin of the word was in jazz music as a sexual euphemism to describe the successful collaboration between players and the music.

I feel my own life is getting into a groove. Like pieces of a music that combine to inspire, it has to be sexy, attractive, relevant and timely. Discovering who I am is a big part of being in the groove of anything I do because the material and the soul is not in playing the right notes, doing the right thing, in rhythm, in sync...

A creative, expressive and innovative society is about rhythm, not schedules. It is more like a group of musicians improvising based on a common score, like jazz, than making mass recordings. The value is in the each individual performance and not playing the same recording. That is what is happening for all except the most popular musicians. All other artists are making money on tours or regular shows more than selling recordings.

Technology needs to shift from mass communication to courting high value contacts. For it is in small groups that most of life really exist. I'm in the groove of the new paradigms beginnings. And I'm eager to go on tour.

Restless

Something has changed. It's more than improved health. After trying what feels like every path to employment, start-up, career change, NGO, charity, retirement even, the only opening was to invent a new road. I registered a patent with the help of a great lawyer friend and finally began to meet the right people to move forward.

I've always been restless finding something to spark my interest. From hobbies, to clubs, fellowships, jobs, sports, electronics, reading, music, games, cars, photography.... I dive right in and sometimes won't stop until some would call me an expert at it. Most people are satisfied doing a few things well. I always become restless and move on.

A management consultant who schemed to sit next to me on a 12 hour flight just to get my business, thought she had me figured out as someone who couldn't stick with anything. I kind of agreed with her but now know I just did not like maintaining a production line. I yearned to work with people under a more dynamic, organic and competitive way.

That's why I loved programming without a computer science degree. For me the reprogramming is a way of life. So the thought of making some perpetual profit machine is both boring and counter intuitive to me once the possibility of reprogramming any machine became possible.

I played the manufacturing, industrial paradigm game all my life. The suits, meetings, dinners, money, travel, consumerism... I embraced them all. But China, with its race to regain lost time, opportunities, wealth, status with a very industrial focus became the model of the end game of the age. All the short comings and outdated inefficiencies as well as the huge cash piles are manifest as China moved through the many stages of industrial development and decline at lightening speed. Hardware-centered. Software-negligent.

After the research, learning and reprogramming of myself over what appeared to be a drought, I feel a new restlessness. Now I see what I want, I'm finally eager to start. It just seemed to take so long.

This young man does an innovative "Go the distance" from the cartoon Hercules (one of my favorites). This song is really hard to sing because it demands a very specific emotional energy. Acapella singing balances the human emotion with smart musical arrangement to reach it goal.

The perseverance and persistence the song highlights rings true to my personal journey. Finally, I am seeing how the bad times have been training me to deal with my personal demons, fears and hangups. Like a baptism by water and fire, many of these deep psychological obstacles were washed away.

A new sense of peace, purpose and security has arrived without the support of an institutional company, family, church or government. No, I'm not retreating from civilisation but my rest comes from what I new see as life and love. Relationships are the focus. I was distracted by the many things that we "do" or "should do" that I lost my balance when nothing seemed to be going right.

It's hard to tell the whole story because it is like a Russian epic novel: really long, detailed and hard to summarize. This is because you have to be interested in how I felt, how I overcame and how a new light seems to shine. And it just took so so long.

But my restlessness from curiosity, from a yearning to create, to befriend, to discover is back. The cat's out of bag.

Authentic

Authenticity is my passion. I just want to discover what I was born to be, what I can learn, even through failure. What I am can be found when I am alone but also when others allow me the privilege to peek into the window of their soul. When they want to see me for I am. That is love on top for me.

More important then achievement, success, castles, empires because to discover this elusive element in life makes me feel rich and healthy. I am bored with pretense, ostentation, bigotry, ignorance and bragging about what I have, what I want, how I want it. Simply tell me who you are and that is inspiring.

In the past, I have been patient to wait for people in institutions to be themselves. But I have concluded for most people that it is more comfortable just protecting the church, business, family, marriage, club, team, clique whatever than to go through the discomfort of self discovery. Feelings can overwhelm. The paradox is that if you ignore them, we are living in self-defeat. For the person who ignores self-discovery is like sitting inside a vehicle with no interest to drive it.

The context is just like the song. Love on top.

Round

When I studied philosophy, an over simplification was that the East focused on how life is a circle and a linear progression in the West. This is probably valid before the Reformation when the worlds were divided more acutely by geography, language etc so that cultural differences were more entrenched. With the burgeoning availability of communications worldwide over the past Century, there is less need to make such sweeping conclusions.

In fact history moves more like a combination of cycles and progress like a spiral up or down. My own life can be seen to reflect that pattern. So the song that sings "coming around again" rings true. 

My attitude has returned to when I started out on my own learning in University, work, travel, friends, mistakes, success and failure. Only now, I have seen and felt my own reactions to both good and bad times. I know myself and the world around me more.

The knowledge of good and evil almost killed me because I resigned to the "power" existing institutions seemed to have over me. It was more of my submitting than any external change. Physical weakness did not help and nor did putting my trust in the wrong people.

But I've changed. Healed perhaps from my own near sighted knowledge. I'm coming round again to a new innocence of facing the future without the crutches I thought I gained during adulthood and holding on the gems given by those who love me.

I been sitting in the darkness

But the sunlight's creeping in

Now the ice is slowly melting

In my soul and in my skin

All the good times my friend

Are coming around again

.

.

.

I got someone waiting for me

It's been so long since we met

And I may not be your salvation but I'll offer nonetheless

And if like me u wanna take that chance

It's coming around again

Ooh yeah