ready when i am

we like things to move at our pace, our priorities.

sometimes, they're waiting for us and we're not ready.

when we're ready, we are strangely surprised and annoyed that they aren't.

先生，支持下。。。

people asking for donations on the street always bother me. i just don't know how to respond. i feel bad if i turn away. i feel too uneasy to give generously.

i was watching how people purposely walked to the side, to avoid this lady carrying one of those plastic donation boxes - people are in a rush, they don't want to be guilted into something, and they don't want to be bothered.

even though, they're usually only asking for HK$20, maybe HK$50 at most?

so, it's not very effective. unless you're really pretty, look like you really need help, very old, or very young. anything in between is not going to work. what do you do instead? direct mail? start a social network? do the "give you something for free and hope they return the favor"?

but then... are these kinds of things more for the volunteer to feel that they've done something, more than actual "results"?

perhaps a tribe of like-minded people at the end of the day is the only true answer. what if i'm not rich and i'm nobody, and nobody cares about what i think? aren't there other people like me? easier to find them than to try to get in some rich circle, right?

the people who are already doing something, they have too much to do already. the people who aren't doing anything aren't really inclined to, or they simply lack the time and resources to.

dharma mittra

attempting to write another version of a piece i did a year ago.

writing anything somehow takes me forever...

in any case, the original version here.

life of a yogi with dharma mittra

potential train wrecks

the temptation to not be good anymore is sometimes pretty large. there's the spur-of-the-moment desire for that immediate satisfaction, and there's the more well thought out i-could-get-away-with-this type.

the actions are always well justified, and everything else, the big picture, careers, reputation, family, all fade into the background.

we've all seen abundant examples of really smart people doing really stupid things.

some of them are blinded by their own successes and hold themselves to a different moral standard, using some form of justification along the lines of i-deserve-this. others simply can't beat it back and go in fully assuming they could well one day really eat shit and be throughly destroyed. yet, they appear to be powerless to stop themselves, even in the face of an impending train wreck.

and they say, if you haven't been there, you just don't know how it's like.

does everyone get their own potential train wrecks, just in different forms?

are we, whether as individuals, or a community, or a society, already are on some trains crossing some shaky bridges, and we just think we're going to be fine? until that one time it isn't?

memories of kindness

i like analyzing things, rather than telling stories, but am coming to realize that stories are a much better way to convey things. so, thought i would try to locate my earliest memory of random acts of kindness.

and i've been sitting and trying to remember, and strangely, though i am sure there were many, few come to mind before my teenage years. so that seems to be more a reflection of i) i was not exposed to many strangers, or ii) i simply paid little attention to things and took things for granted.

after thirteen, when i went to the US for high school, the memories are a little clearer.

i remember the older hong kong students at my high school who gave lots of helpful advice on how to survive there.

i have lots of memories of my dormmates re-writing my english papers, re-programming my entire computer science project, feeding me their food brought from home, to name a few.

i am sure there were people who helped a kid wandering around looking lost at the airport, but i can't remember what the instances were. i do recall receiving a copy of the bhagavad gita - before the hare krishnas were banned from the airports. i don't remember if i actually donated anything though, and if i just took a copy and thanked them.

man. my memory is really not so good.

obsession with most

how do i best organize my day to use my time most effectively?

what is the most beneficial move i should take at this time?

what is the cheapest deal i can get on this?

what are the most inspiring books? the most enjoyable movies? funniest blogs?

how do i become the best at what i do?

competition and advancement seems to be pretty deeply ingrained, and seeking improvement seems to be a generally good thing. on one hand, in the business world, being the best at a particular thing garners a lot of benefits. on the other, there is only one "the best" in each category. not to mention there's only a brief moment, before getting usurped soon after. and if only "the best" makes me happy, chances are i will be a pretty unhappy person.

still, "good enough" sounds like settling, compromising.

perhaps, to strive for the best in certain things - for others things, live calmly with what i have, as the world is not going to end even when i don't get the best?

and the things to strive for are? do i strive for goals or processes, and more to-do's?

identity crisis

there does seem to be a difference between an existential crisis and an identity crisis.

the former is basically "why do i exist, and why do humans, or anything else for that matter, bother to exist?"

the latter, seems to be more of a "who am i? am i a different and unique individual? can i be special and fit in the rest of the crowd at the same time? what does everyone else think of me anyway?"

apparently most people go through a bit of an identity crisis throughout their teenage years, grow out of it, and is usually no longer an issue for the rest of their lives.

maybe, as we grow older, we realize, we may be somewhat special to a very few people, and very unspecial to everyone else. and since sitting around bemoaning what people think of us isn't very constructive, we stop really worrying about it.

but maybe i've only partially outgrown it.

people listen to you when

people seem to listen and pay attention because you are ...

famous?

popular?

rich?

wise?

they can extract some benefit from you?

went through a death-defying experience?

actually dying?

getting what i am owed

that client owes me for all the time i spent helping his business.

that company owes me money, and i even have it in black and white.

that guy owes me a favor for that one time i went out of the way to help him.

that friend owes me big time, for that huge cover-up.

well...

i owe a lot of different people for getting me through tough times.

i owe a lot of colleagues for opportunities, both given and taken away.

i owe a lot of strangers for their writings, videos, pictures, all for free on the web, that have entertained, educated, and inspired me.

or...

the world is out to get me anyway, and i don't owe the world a damn thing.

maybe it can be something other than what might be actually true and fair.

maybe it can be about which viewpoint to take that would feel most right, or, the least worst.

not enough time

i remember the quote:

when you have enough time, you don't have enough money.

when you have money, you don't have enough time.

it seems i never have enough of both, which is, of course, kind of ridiculous actually. i'm luckier than i don't know, probably 99% of the population on earth, but i still have this nagging feeling that i don't have enough to be truly comfortable.

on one hand, relatively speaking, i have a manageable demand for material goods. on the other, the list of things i want to do seems just to keep growing, and growing.

a long way of telling myself that i need to focus on a couple of things. maybe, five things max.

drawing a circle

hard as we try, we'll never draw the perfect circle - the perfect circle doesn't really exist other than a mathematical construct.

and even the people who draw near perfect circles, they might tell us the techniques to do so, but no matter how much we read and analyze it, if we don't practice it, we'll simply never even get close.

so... what is the circle-equivalent in my life?

opportunities

this morning, i walked away from something quite nice - an interesting job that i could probably do rather well.

it was tough.

it's the fear of losing out, perhaps the opposite of buyer's remorse - if i walk away now a similar opportunity won't come up again. what if this company turns into the next big thing? what if i never get hired again, or won't find a job for months or more?

well...

um... well. no matter.

there are so many missed opportunities that never crossed my path anyway. time to think about what kinds of opportunities really matter, and to look for those instead.

and perhaps, find time to create opportunities for those that never had even one opportunity in the first place.

how much are you worth?

the bigger question, of course, is how to go about valuing a person?

amount of assets?

the number of business connections?

the number of people who will do your bidding?

the experience and knowledge that you have?

or, is it the number of people that you serve?

the amount that you have given away? (this is a bit tricky in fact - if i have lots of materials to give away, then i devoted a lot of time to accumulate such materials in the first place)

the experience and knowledge that you have shared?

some combination of the above?

the even greater question is, why am i inquiring about value and worth in the first place? because i'm addicted to the feeling of being valuable, being worthy of something, being unique and irreplaceable in some respect?

being a valuable member of society doesn't seem like a terrible thing. perhaps the problem is whether i get attached to whether i am considered by others to be a valuable member of society - overly caring about what others think is perhaps one of the greatest sources of suffering in the first place?

second time around

once in a while, there are second chances for some things. an ex-boss, an ex-gf/bf, an estranged family member, a second shot at something i didn't get the first time.

when it's a 50/50 thing, how to decide, whether to give it another go? or just move on and not look back? without a strong sense of intuition or "what feels right", i get stuck quite a bit. some random list of pros and cons can only go so far.

what would the person i respect the most do? what would the person i least respect do?

what would the most generous person i know do? what would the most selfish person i know do?

since i probably lie somewhere in that wide spectrum, it might help shed a little light on how to decide. perhaps. perhaps i could even try this on things the first time around.

or just flip a coin, and while it's in the air, see how i actually wished for it to land?

ah, now i remember

not too long ago, i was wondering why we generally did not seem to expend much time or energy wondering about, you know, meaning-of-life type questions. i mean, people, this is the very core of our existence! but... somehow we'd rather go about our daily lives and just keep doing whatever it is we were doing, and what everyone else is doing, since we can't really go wrong doing that?

now work is piling up. meetings, calls, emails, memos, contracts. things that demand my immediate attention, or else, well... not-so-good things will happen.

so now, i remember why again.

plenty of people are asking me to do various things (work or otherwise), while no one is demanding me to figure the larger questions out. arguably, it has little relevance to my daily life. and the thinking is simply exhausting, and i often wonder when my brain will actually explode.

it's much easier to take care of the things that are screaming for my attention - the unread email, the facebook notification, and the thousands of other things that i could be doing that is actually physically visible and tangible.

in my world of limited time and unlimited distractions, instant gratification simply works rather well.

i came across a friend who quoted edward stanley: "those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness".

does the corollary hold true - those who think they have no time for self-reflection will sooner or later have to find time for mental anguish?

locating the meaning in life

so, assuming locating the meaning in our particular lives is of paramount importance, in order to lead a fulfilling and content existence, how do we go about doing it? how do we determine this particular thing or cause is the thing we should live for, rather than some other thing? don't these things change all the time, according to our moods, time of day, stage in life?

perhaps - the point is to find meaning in whatever it is we do, and not get tripped up by the meaning in life, rather we should refer it as a generally meaningful life?

or perhaps, we need some kind of ultimate meaningful thing as a distant goal to keep us going?

or, do a bunch of what i would consider meaningful things and see where it goes from there? and what precisely are those things?

meaning of life vs meaning in life

why do i exist vs what do i exist for?

a minor but not unimportant distinction.

the former, we'll generally never agree on and no particular theory or belief can be absolutely proved or disproved.

the latter, we can all generally agree that each of us has to find and tread our own specific path.

four types of aspirations

abandoning notions of selflessness for a moment...

type A: totally unreachable, so distant i don't usually even think about them at all. a world class athlete, discoverer of some new scientific breakthrough, creator of a great, life-changing movie.

type B: one in a million winning-the-lottery kind. best selling author, an extremely wealthy philanthropist, and well, winning the lottery.

type C: possibly achievable if i devote an incredible amount of time and sacrifice. completing a screenplay, writing a book, finishing an ironman race, travelling all over west china and south america, some kind of extended humanitarian adventure in a distressed region.

type D: doable but needs very strict discipline. sub-18 trailwalker, sub-4 marathon, become decent at teaching yoga. blogging every day might fall into this category as well.

we can't be "everything" we want to be, we're pretty lucky if we somehow manage to do even one of the things we wanted to.

and it seems to me now that such aspirations are kind of a selfish luxury?

i will never

i will never be a world class athlete.

i will never blog like seth godin.

i will never practice and teach yoga like dharma mittra.

i will never be the modern day don juan.

i will never make so much money that i no longer have to worry.

right, that much is obvious.

the usual responses are: i) focus on the possible, not the impossible; or ii) if you say you never can, then you never will. so aim high; or iii) if you aspire to be someone else, you will never find your own destiny; or iv) it's the process, not the goal; or v) perhaps you have already in your past life, or you will in your future life.

ok, two things.

- think in a five year time scale. there are lots of things that i will never do, but in five years, there are probably some things i will be able to do that i previously thought were impossible.

- there are things other people are never able to do, the things i do and take for granted every day. seriously.

oneness with everything

there are a few phrases in new age books that make me cringe for some odd reason, and "oneness with everything" is one of them. (though daoism, though saying something similar, strangely does not have that effect on me)

according to science textbooks, we're all made of matter and atoms, so yes of course, we are all "one" in theory. yes, the atoms themselves are vibrating, hence the sound of "om", is a representation of the atoms within every piece of matter. so when yogis "om", we are connecting our energies to the universe's hum.

many people regard this as one of the few absolute truths about our world, that we have a common denominator after all, at the atomic level. and that this realization in turn provides them with a sense of spiritual fulfillment - a sense of immensity and interconnectedness.

why does a a basic scientific fact need some sort of greater spiritual component?

so why does it bother me so much?

because i see it as a tenuous connection and a forced marriage of scientific knowledge with ancient traditions?

or is it just a matter of semantics or my discomfort with the language, since i don't have any issues with the tenets of daoism?

ignorance is bliss

is it really?

taking eating as an example - i recall seeing the book "eating animals" in the bookstore - it is this green book with loud letters splashed across. i read how it turned natalie portman from a vegetarian to a vegan. i was not (and am not) even a full vegetarian yet.

i picked up the book, and put it back down. the book was scary. i had some inkling of what it would tell me - most people have some idea that they don't really want to find out where their food comes from (which is logically insane - this is very stuff we are made out of. but anyway). perhaps the author just made shit up to scare people to better sell his book. maybe he had been brainwashed by a treehugging cult and just trying to convert everyone.

i wasn't ready for it. when will i be ready? when i've had my share of juicy kobe beef and mouth-melting foie gras direct from france? when i've tasted all the good things in life and no longer have an urge to try them? when i have a kid and will actually care what he/she eats?

i have a general urge to get to the bottom of things, that much i know: though i haven't really thought of whether knowledge is inherently good. didn't adam and eve get kicked out from eden because they ate the apple from the tree of knowledge? so the biblical god doesn't approve of knowledge anyway? or, maybe there's a "healthy limit" of knowledge and we're supposed to only learn and know so much - and beyond that is not a good thing (and dead animals would fall in this "too much knowledge" category)?

perhaps... ignorance is bliss, an infant-like bliss, one that is so fleeting it is practically meaningless, since we weren't aware of it anyway. and perhaps great wisdom is true, long-lasting bliss? is that another meaning for 大智若愚?

bottomless pits

so, here i am, the day after - so now i know that someone else other than myself has read these words, and nothing awful seems to have happened, and strangely, i am still alive.

i am already wondering what the big deal was. it's just a random blog afterall...

things are usually a really big deal before i do them for the first time. taking a leap into the unknown, not knowing if i am going to land feet first, head first, or it's a bottomless pit and i'll keep on falling forever. things actually don't normally turn out to be bottomless pits. even failures have endings.

so the question now is, where do i leap? take one for the sake of taking one? do what i always do, analyze the crap out of it first (perhaps this blog is doing just that)?

what about not having some concrete target and "thing" to achieve? could i possibly focus on things i enjoy the process of - reading, writing, photography - rather than some end goal that i try to attain? or is this being irresponsible and simply laziness about preparing for my future? could i do this kind of leap? 

today is the day

today, is the day i tell the first person about this blog. i'm terrified.

trying to figure all this out is a pretty personal thing for me. i prefer to maintain a generally nice, semi-detached, normal, fit-in kind of public persona.

i hate being judged. i hate being laughed at. i don't want to be weird, on the fringe, out of touch, unbusiness-like, sucked into new-agey crap.

i would rather have my blog be about my latest and greatest, the incredible life i have, and how awesome i am. i would like to be admired, with tons of comments telling me how exceptional i am.

of course, this is simply feeding the beast called ego. it might not be an inherently bad thing, other than the fact that the beast is never satisfied. never. i stop writing to figure out things, and i start writing to try to be popular.

there are also more than a hundred million other blogs out there. not to count the number of great books that dissect goodness, happiness, and the meaning of life, and everything in-between. so, nothing i have thought of here is going to be original. so why am i reinventing the wheel here? well, probably because i don't know how to build a wheel yet. (very few people do, actually). so, perhaps writing about these things can help. it's an experiment.

so, all that doesn't answer the question of "why share"? given all my fears?

because, i think contemplating all of this is important. i think being good is important.

because if somehow, someone out there reading this ends up being a slightly better and more thoughtful person, or is comforted to know that they're not the only person in the world struggling with these matters... that seems like it would be a good thing.

the really cynical view

there are at least 7 reasons i shouldn't waste further time on this...

1. there is no ultimate question, no final answer. deal with it.

2. life is about enjoying it, and the freedom to do whatever we feel like. stop trying to intellectualize the shit out of it.

3. don't you have better things to do? like actually constructive things, rather than fruitless imaginations in your head?

4. you don't need a meaningful life to be happy. my life can be absolutely meaningless, with no purpose whatsoever, and i feel pretty good about it. feeling good comes from doing things, achieving things, rather than thinking things.

5. even if what you are thinking is along the right lines, shouldn't you use this time to make more money (and gain more power, fame), so you can actually influence more people later in your life, to do whatever it is you would like to do to promote the meaning of life?

6. i am having enough trouble making mortgage payments, raising a kid, paying off my student debt. i don't have time to sleep. is the meaning of life going to solve any of my problems? impractical pondering metaphysical matters are for idle people, and i don't have that luxury.

7. life is pointless. billions of people have come and gone. billions and billions of other animals have come and gone. life as we know it is simply a manifestation of the laws of physics that exist for reasons we will never find out. enjoy life and forget your problems.

moving goal posts

thing is, we do this to ourselves.

sometimes, we actually get what we want. x amount of money. that yoga pose. that trip i longed for.

now, with that done, should i just roll over and die? well, no, no plans on that, so i suppose i should find another goal. i'm always setting goals. is that a good thing? does that make me feel better? that i have something to do? can i be goal-less? wouldn't that make me a worse person?

what is the location of the final goal post? what is the final answer? 42?

ok, so now i've realized making more and more money is no longer the answer. what about understanding? aren't questions about the meaning of life similar - and they are inherently inexplicable, and any intellectual pursuit for more and more understanding, will be ultimately futile? (or maybe we get there when we are totally satisfied with the futility of such?)

six levels

i like roadmaps. to see where i possibly might go. i have a general feel for the destination, but the interim stops are every bit as important - a single-minded focus on the end is simply the wrong path to take sometimes. everyone's definition is going to be different, so here's a stab at it.

level 1: helping the old lady cross the street, casual monetary donations.

level 2: casual vegetarian. exploring altruism, moral progress, realizing there may be a way of life other than a pure pursuit of self-interest. being helpful to people even though it may cause me trouble.

level 3: weekday vegetarian. regular voluntary work. regular sharing of findings. come to terms with more money really doesn't matter. helping people with truly no expectation of return favors.

level 4: vegetarian. at least 50% of time is doing things that have a more direct benefit on others.

level 5: vegan. working in non-profit, majority of life dedicated to non-self interest issues.

level 6: true selflessness. devotion to mankind. everything i have is yours.

so is this going to make me feel better? or one day on the path, i will think, all of this pain and goody goody doing for naught? i get nothing in return, and the world hasn't changed an inch?

what is the first first step?

if one so wishes to go on this path of trying to contemplate such things, i think at least some of the following might be necessary:

the desire to be happy. (you could argue this might not even be necessary - happiness are chemical reactions in our bodies, at the end of the day)

a sense of fairness is a good thing. (this is weird, isn't it. but we like things fair. but we also like being superior. you can't please us all)

ability to empathize. (can you have compassion without empathy?)

the curiosity to find out, to question according to human logic until you reach and recognize it is a dead-end. (as in who created the creator? and the creator's creator? and the creator's creator's creator? in theory it could be a failure of human logic rather than a failure of the universe's laws)

the desire to find a solution, figuring out what the constraints are - including situation, our personal abilities, (and realizing there sometimes no solutions, not at this point anyway. is it still worth trying then?)

there's no compelling reason for...

changing our life and beliefs, for the most part. most of the time, we're fine the way we are, really. change is not so fun. voluntary change goes against everything that seems to make sense.

people change usually because of big shocks. people who suddenly find spiritualism in their lives usually encounter great tragedy, great loss, or perhaps a near-death experience. faced with some form of an existential crisis (there's even a wiki entry on this), they suddenly question their priorities in life, when they take a step back and take the proverbial look at the man-in-the-mirror.

we all know really bad things will happen to us eventually. or at least, things we generally regard as really bad or tragic. shouldn't we change our perception on lives in anticipation, so it doesn't hit us like a ton of bricks? or at least, re-prioritize while we can think logically?

but i suppose it doesn't really work that way. we're simply not very good at figuring out what really matters until we're forced to do so. especially when i) our current lives are fine or ii) we have trouble putting food on the table so got no time to do anything other than trying to get my family the basic necessities or iii) it takes too much energy to think about it and since i don't know where the tragedy is coming from (and perhaps it will never come), i might as well deal with it then.

so, spiritualism is almost another word for "rationalizing/dealing with shit in my life"? (suffering is the more appropriate word but "shit" seems more to the point...)

where is the self?

perhaps when we find the self within ourselves, we might then acquire self-knowledge?

what is self-knowledge?

how does one describe self-knowledge?

first of all, what type of knowledge is it?

is it the "knowing through experience" type, along the lines of trying to describe color to a congenitally blind person?

or is it "learn, analyze, research, question, repeat" type, along the lines of mastering basic math and finally advanced physics to understand the laws of the universe?

or is it some combination of both?

self-knowledge seems to be: a knowledge of who we are, what we are doing existing in this world, how we fit in the grand scheme of things.

and why is this important?

why is understanding all "this" important? what am i? does "i" constitute my brain or my ethereal soul? why do i exist? to what end? maybe it is just some evolutionary human trait to seek explanations for everything (which seems to have served us well, generally speaking). well, i.e. curiosity. i simply feel unsatisfied when i don't identify a answer that makes sense. so maybe i will be satisfied when all this is answered. at least to a degree i'm happy with.

because all the other answers can be eventually found. when our basic needs are satisfied, eventually, one day, we wonder about our existence. and that is why self-knowledge is important. when that question is answered, all other questions become trivial.

i think.

all these cycles

we've all heard of vicious cycles - on human levels, that usually involve something along the lines of feel bad, engage in stupid/destructive behavior, feel worse, repeat.

virtuous cycles - feel good, do better things, feel even more awesome, repeat.

the second one is way, way harder. doing more awesome things gets increasingly hard. doing more destructive things is rather easy.

in economies, bubbles get inflated in virtuous cycles. when things come crashing down, they crash down really, really hard.

buddha tells us the way is to simply get the heck out of the cycle. are there bubbles that still get inflated? are there things that might get a buddhist come crashing all down? a discovery that's there's no reincarnation? there's no karma? buddha never existed? or that the buddhist way is somehow "proven" not to be the ultimate reality, and was in fact harmful?

but then... you can't actually "disprove" buddhism (or any other deity/religion for that matter).

some big categories

this entry a day is really incredibly taxing. i know i'm doing this, at least for 2010, but already i'm wondering what to do with it. possibly getting ahead of myself, we're only in march, but maybe a tad of planning is not such a bad thing.

given the plethora of websites and books on everything under the sun, doing this with the aim of writing a book is probably not a smart thing. but let's say i have the raw material (and yes it is very raw) - would it be possible to condense this into 36 questions and answers? this would imply 1 out of 10 entries would be somewhat meaningful. don't quite know about that.

are there large categories that i'd like to address? in no particular order...

the point of it all

existence

the meaning of life

the meaning of meaning

what we value as valuable - material goods, relationships, health

altruism and fairness

moral truth, moral clarity, moral progress

spiritualism/religion and humanism

reality, illusion, and perception

where to we go from here

there - ten categories, kind of.

or is everything linked together?