what do you want to do?

the more appropriate question for myself is, what is it that i would like to do, at the expense of the myriad of other things that i could do?

bets have to be placed. there will be things that get sacrificed.

as they say, we might be able to do anything in life, but definitely not everything in life.

giving vs thinking

this article reminded me that: "giving is easy. thinking can be a lot harder."

giving doesn't require me to think much - there's a crisis, i react to it. i make a nice donation, conscience problem solved. doesn't take much effort.

thinking is exhausting. might not get anywhere. opened up to criticism. that's why other people are doing it.

just like that, the distribution and efficiency problem gets swept under the table...

back to earth

those painful, tedious things that will simply not go away, no matter what the future holds, no matter if i get enlightened, no matter if i win the lottery?

those to-dos that will still be there after i've cleared my mailbox, reorganized my room, thrown away tons of useless crap?

it's time to do them.

trailwalker 2010

another year, another trailwalker, another 100km of blisters and cramps!

(oh yes, and another birthday today too. yet another year older, but not wiser)

in light of this fact, i decided to look around for stuff relating to oxfam trailwalker's efforts against poverty. so, i came across a statistic that 22,000 kids die every day from poverty and hunger, far removed from the attention of the world. and frankly, in today's world of desensitizing stats, even this no longer seems to be eye-catching news.

but using my trusty excel spreadsheet, i quickly calculated that out of these 22,000 kids, assuming things average out, 60 of these kids are having their birthdays today too, just like me.

i paused, for once. i mean, it's their birthday today!!

but these kids are dying... on their birthdays.

****

the world poverty problem is not going to be easily solved. there's not even a way to find out who these 60 kids are. but still, the trailwalker, once a year, allows me a little time to think about the good fortune i'm enjoying.

i do hope you will support oxfam's efforts to reduce poverty around the world by sponsoring our team!

a big THANK YOU in advance!

purity of intention

for almost anything i do, i can't help myself considering my various ulterior intentions. i wonder what i will personally gain from it. will this help me land a better job in future? will this make me a cooler person? will i have a better next-life?

the truly authentic people out there, how do they manage to do things simply for the sake of doing? where does their pure, unadulterated intention come from?

i think at my current stage, for the things i wish to really be selfless about, the only thing i can do is to make it as hard as possible for myself to gain anything, to be as anonymous as possible. to hopefully at least make my intentions a little less murky.

why would anyone read this?

if this was written by someone random, would i personally read it?

probably not.

i can't imagine being interested in someone's random and inconclusive musings on random topics. i definitely don't need anyone tell me what to think, what to question, how to be happy, how to be a good person. i know already. i don't have the time to do it, but i certainly could if i wanted to.

there are enough idealistic, self-righteous and wannabe spiritualists around. good job. thanks, but no thanks. i live in the real world. it sure isn't an illusion to me.

for all my intentions of summarizing this in a more readable format to possibly share with more people, it doesn't matter, since i, like all people, only read what i like to read. even attempting to imagine myself as some third person audience is bordering on impossible, since i, as an objective observer, just probably wouldn't be interested.

what if i lost my memory and had to re-start my life? at whatever age i woke up at, can i re-read my blog (or the to-be-created summarized version), knowing that in some distant past, i had written it as truthfully as i could to myself?

in the hope that this no-memory me might tread through life with a little less pain and suffering?

probable destiny

if quantum physics are to be referenced, our lives are probably governed by probabilities rather than absolutes. i know where i'll end (as dust), how i get there is difficult to say. or perhaps impossible, even by the machine will be able to reproduce every atom.

yet, knowledge about the inherent probabilities, crude as they maybe, changes the pathways too.

so can i change my destiny?

or, rather, is the appropriate question, can i change the probabilities of my destiny by learning more about the probabilities themselves?

this time it's different

the cycles never cease, but my memories of them fade away.

analysis vs impulse

what do i regret more: things that go bad after careful thought, or on pure impulse?

what do i enjoy more: things that go right after careful thought, or on pure impulse?

after careful analysis, i should be able come up with a number of bad scenarios, and hence lessen the negative emotional impact when things go south. but since i can somewhat expect things (and they might appear to be more under my control), both the level of regret and enjoyment would seem to be on a smaller scale.

consequences of impulse seem to feel either damn good or damn bad.

of course, not that we can ever tell how things will go. when things go bad, i could have, would have, and should have.

the answer grid

i think, to any tough question, there are a few types of answers.

e.g., how do you find meaning in life?

short level 1 - they exhort me to take a certain attitude/action and i will figure it out through this attitude/action. e.g., meaning comes from compassion.

short level 2 - they sound really deep, or simple, or useless, all at once. when i locate my true self, i will locate my purpose and meaning in life.

short level 3 - they might sound depressing but they're actually true. e.g. meaning is an illusion. deal with it.

long level 1 - an extended list of stories and things to do at the practical level. the emphasis is on action, and less so on too much thinking.

long level 2 - an exploration of the myriad of possibilities, the number of paths, loops, dead-ends might even become overwhelming. this is the great fog before next level. so easy to get lost here.

long level 3 - the answers are in some ways unexplainable via words, and the only way is to "feel" the answers. we need all these little stories and analogies to indirectly remind ourselves, or perhaps, to create an illusion on top of an illusion.

and of course, we don't get to choose which level we're at. i go up sometimes, i crash down a lot of times.

change really is hard

even on a practical level, the real change is knowledge and wisdom. i can only change what people know, not what people do.

even when i know, i might not do.

and on top, i often forget what i already knew.

those small things

those small things for me, at least. for now. and don't know why either, it just kind of happened via this overall process. and subject to change or regress any time, as i often find out.

- life seems more colorful, more vivid.

- bad emotions seem to go away a lot quicker than before.

- fear is becoming a rare emotion.

- i don't know if i'm happier, but that doesn't bother me much anymore.

- a little less affected by things i can't control.

- a little better at being grateful for the things i appear to control.

one of the harder things to do now is continuing to believe in my own willpower. which i know is extremely useful, yet, getting chipped away by all this realization. fortunately, it can be nicely replaced by fearlessness. of course, i still have to be careful, and i need to somehow trick myself about somethings to fear and somethings not to fear.

is it obvious?

isn't it obvious? that our reality is a particular illusion perceived by us? and we have no clue what the underlying reality is, except it's definitely not this one?

is it already obvious to everyone, but since we can't do anything about it, we just revert to our usual lives? shouldn't some small things change, at the very least?

maybe the illusion is obvious only when i think about it. otherwise, i will simply forget. the illusion is too strong and too comfortable most of the time. and it is important to remember, since knowing it offers a bit more peace of mind than not knowing it.

which is why i still need to somehow draw up a map for myself, so i can remember the path through this mind mess i have been wading through.

it's all been done before

of course.

it's just that i haven't done it yet.

the future me is different

because i will have become rich, i can do the things i really want to do.

because i will have bought this nice shirt/gadget/apartment, i will enjoy every day more.

because i will have finished this blog, i will be a reasonably good and happy person.

because i will be dead, i won't be much concerned with anything at all.

the trick, of course, is to self-generate the delusion, referencing the appropriate time-frame, that is just good enough so i can get through my present.

meaning of meaning?

a lot of times, i seem to be drowning in a maelstrom of contradictions. i seem to have thought so much about things, but am no closer, and perhaps only realize how far i am. there doesn't seem to be a good way to even coherently outline what i have learned about the big questions.

meaning, in a way, is very human issue. why? but why ask? because, there's something i thought of, and i don't know the answer to. there's a gap in my knowledge, and i won't be comfortable until i find out.

discovering meaning, perhaps, is a tool for us to feel good. our search for meaning (general or specific) is involuntary, coded in our genes. it goes away sometimes, but if we're not satisfied with the answer, it always comes back.

finding meaning, in the specific sense, is something we are familiar with. we want to know why the sun rises in the east, we locate the explanation, then we get the "aha" feeling of understanding the issue, the puzzle. we now know - an emotional response we know so intimately.

finding meaning, in the general sense, is considerably more difficult. it simply does not come in a nicely-wrapped package. the deeper we dig, the more confusion and emptiness we find. one man's meaningful life could be another's wasted one. and unlike questions of sunrise, there is no philosophical agreement out there on the meaning of life.

what i forget, is that finding meaning is an emotional desire, and what we wish for is the "aha". but it is an emergent sensation, and will never come a single, digestible definition. the real task is to get the conditions to be right, rather than to fall too deep into an intellectual labyrinth.

not enough old ladies who cross the street

everyday kindness is hard. sometimes there don't seem to be that many old ladies crossing the streets anymore.

perhaps, lowering standards by a tad, can i at least, try to make someone, random or otherwise, have an unexpected smile? so, i might be able to have one myself?

paying attention

just now, i was reminded of one small act, meaning nothing to me almost twenty years ago, had somehow stuck in the mind of a friend. fortunately, it was an inadvertent act of kindness, rather than some typical teenage careless insult. i wonder, if blackberries or iphones existed then, and they had been randomly buzzing, whether i would have given the same undivided attention to her plight.

i don't know. but i do know that i'm diseased with short attention spans, multi-tasking tendencies, and an unsatiable approval-seeking ego (truly a sad state of things when they seem to somehow come in the form of likes and comments).

but i do need to pay attention. not just cursory politeness. not only to close friends and family, but to every person that i interact with, and as much as possible. despite the deluge of everything in our lives, genuine care stands out like a beacon. when we really listen, we understand things we may not otherwise understand. it is different, and people will be better for it, whether we know it now or later.

as said by one of my favorite teachers, "paying attention is enormous. not only does it have a profound effect now, but an enduring effect on a once-upon-a-time teenager who recalls what you did years later."

what for?

so, what is this blog for? what am i for? what is anything for?

almost all people that i know...

get through life fine, without having to ponder whether life has a meaning.

find plenty of joy and happiness in their lives, without having to mull over human nature, freewill and destiny.

are reasonably happy as it is, quickly get over temporary moments of dissatisfaction, without having to determine if we have a higher soul or if we are just an animated jumble of neurons.

sure there's some pain and suffering in the world, but life goes on, and perhaps there's really not as much pain and suffering as i imagine there might be. human beings are remarkably adaptive, after a while, things become ok one way or another.

so why the heck am i devoting this inordinate time towards writing this blog? to stick to this random little goal i set out for myself, to do 365 entries this year?

with ninety-nine entries left to write, am i a slightly better person, as per my initial premise? am i a slightly happier person? am i being ridiculous in trying so hard, going to such extremes? shouldn't it come naturally? just "be" happy? i mean, most of my friends cannot even fathom why i would be interested in such unsolvable philosophical questions. sure, good for you, but i have better things to do.

i'm certainly writing this for myself. yet sometimes, i need to imagine that i'm writing this for someone else out there, just to keep going. but, the moment i feel like i am writing for an audience, i involuntarily close up, changing the nature of my thoughts. i wish it were easier.

maybe, when i approach the limits of my understanding and knowledge (which in theory can be extended, but surely not indefinitely), doubt gets replaced by a certain calmness. (doubt is a luxury of a sort, if we have no time to think, then there's no time to doubt). since i don't have the ability to will away doubt, my solution is to analyze it away. of course uncertainty remains, but perhaps, when i have no doubt that it's uncertain, it's good enough for me.

so, perhaps for now, i have some clue about the nagging "what for?" that sometimes permeates every pore in life. i'm certainly not happy all the time (that would be disturbing), but i'm starting to be better at remembering why i shouldn't be unhappy. re-reading my own words seem weirdly more authoritative (of course, another sign of my still large ego).

so, what is this blog for?

... for its simply stated title.

... for figuring the "what-fors". and a little bit of self-referencing fun.

under- things

for some reason, everyone seems to be under-appreciated, under-respected, under-loved. we try to be unselfish, we try to do all these things for others, but no one seems to care. actually, at best, no one even notices. at worst, people think we're being unnecessary and annoying.

well, at least i feel that way. sometimes. definitely more times than i would care to admit.

of course i'm telling myself that self-respect and self-love (but not to the point of narcissism) is the true point. as usual, i can't control what others think of and feel about me, so i have to work on inner happiness, do the thing that seems most right, and in fact all the more appreciate/respect/love the people around me, etc etc.

perhaps, simply consider it a small test to see how much ego i still have.

autumn

i really am not trying to wax poetic about the changing of the seasons, but every year, since i have been back in hong kong, autumn gives me the strangest of feelings. today, the weather has noticeably cooled, possibly the coolest day since summer.

a good bit of warmth and energy seems to have suddenly evaporated, leaving behind this slightly melancholic calmness. the streets seem more subdued, and i wonder to myself if that one added layer of clothes somehow muffles the noises of the city.

there's the familiar autumnal crispness in the air, tinged with this finality, that summer really is gone. another summer over, and it's not coming back, ever.

inevitably, i get the strange sensation that i have been somehow transported back to my school days, fall in new england. it's not even that particular memories flow back - i just feel like i'm walking down a street in new hampshire, even though hong kong and my little high school town could not be more different.

perhaps, october was the month when i had settled back in the routine of school. when i'm no longer fretting about which classroom to go to, no longer worrying how i'll survive yet another school year. october was when i could leisurely walk across campus, taking in the breezes, the colors, the smells.

or maybe, i have watched too many movies relating winter to darkness and death, and autumn to its foreboding prelude. it might feel nice right now, but very soon, too soon, the cold, dark days are here. and i'm subconsciously morose about things coming to an end. spring is too far away to think about, and winter is right around the corner.

at the same time, autumn signalled the "new" year in my life for so many years, it's possible i still have not gotten over the feeling that autumn's the time when the fun and games and real work starts. we had become more senior students, there were underclassmen to boss around, and there were all these possibilities in the new school year. so maybe, even though summer holidays and school year beginnings no longer exist in my life, the weird mix of anxiety and anticipation remains.

but i really don't know. it's such a strange mixture of sensations i cannot put my finger on it. it's neither a good nor bad feeling, but it comes around every year.

i almost always try to shake off these feelings as soon as they come about, either overthinking them or living in the past is generally not a good thing.

but maybe once in a while, a little reminiscing can be a little enjoyable.

no compromise

when i'm telling myself "no compromise", i'm in effect sacrificing some other thing - perhaps now, perhaps down the road.

from another perspective, i have to give up something else, in order to achieve "no compromise".

to state the obvious, life is almost all compromises and sacrifices.

in a way, those things that we never compromise on, that other people may never comprehend, define how we see ourselves.

procrastination

i know it's bad, everyone know it's bad, but i'm so good at it. i will put off all these things i'm supposed to do until it's too late.

but really, perhaps self-binding is the only real way.

like the piece says, "as the present gets closer, short term considerations overwhelm long term goals". sure, there are sometimes questionable long term goals, but there are plenty of long term goals i simply should stick to, no matter what.

time to stop using malleable long term goals as a procrastination excuse.

mind shit

to answer my own previously posed question is whether i will relapse into despair, discouragement, selfishness, the answer is an unequivocal yes. it's not very difficult as it turns out.

all it takes is a mix of: a general lack of direction, a low sense of self worth, and some things that don't go my way. then i conveniently forget all that i have learned, and even matters that i had spent considerable time writing and mulling about.

i wish there was a magic pill to deal with all these things that simply don't feel good. so i can get out of this mind bog, and get back on with life. such a magic pill is like a lottery ticket. when i get a large bill from out of nowhere, i wish i'd win the lottery so my bill will go away. nope, it's not going to happen. it's coming out of my savings account, and i have better been saving.

well, the same goes for the shit that happens in life. of course it happens. this magic pill/lottery ticket to make all the bad things go away. in fact, i'm not even so greedy as to hope for good things to happen - i just need to be rid of these detrimental emotions. (it's pretty strange and somewhat annoying that i can't simply "will" my confusion away, even though i'm fully cognizant of the fact that the longer i feel confused, the less i can do to address the underlying problem).

all i can do is build up my mental savings account, mind muscle, or whatever analogy that will not sound too corny. put in the mental effort when things are going ok. work on the mind, so when mind shit happens, i might realize, well, it's only mind shit that's happening.

i forget

am i really ready to accept that, i truly have no freewill? i have not done anything myself, by the traditional definitions of "myself"?

that all i have supposedly accomplished and achieved, has nothing to do with my own abilities, willpower or perseverance? these personal traits i am so proud of? well, they do, but fate (or more precisely the structure of the universe and the laws of physics that govern it) determined that i had that certain amount of ability, willpower and perseverance already?

i am but a peculiarly arranged glob in the vastness of space and time, a collection of particles reacting to other random particles, a deterministic-matter that has the curious property of believing it controls its own destiny despite all evidence to the contrary?

again, how does that lead me from a place of utter discouragement to the theoretical place of liberation? didn't i already figure this out?

you don't know what i'm thinking

i am only myself, and no matter how hard i might try, i can never really, truly, understand what another person is thinking and feeling.

isn't it obvious? we each have our unique set of neurons. unless a future machine is able to replicate every atom in our individual brains, of course we are going to be only thinking our own thoughts.

even the virtue of compassion - we're imagining ourselves as others to feel what they might be feeling. we project, assume we understand for practical purposes, but we simply don't know. sometimes, we think we're closer, and suddenly, we find we are as far away as ever.

yet, despite the urge to give up on an unattainable goal, all the scriptures of the world indicate that we should keep trying. we need to see the world from other people's eyes, to cultivate compassion, to empathize.

well, do i really, truly understand what i am thinking and feeling?

(how can i not understand? i am the only person doing my personal thinking and feeling?)

or do i only think i understand? or is there no "understanding" involved, only that i know what i am thinking and feeling? and because only i alone know this, i can thus decide on the best course of action for myself? and who can argue with that?

reclimbing things

it's always frustrating. for whatever reason, there are times when i fall back a few steps, or sometimes many steps, and i try to get back to where i was. in my yoga, in my fitness, in my career, in my relationships.

it was so hard to get to climb to those particular levels already - reclimbing them somehow seem to be all the more impossible, as if i have exhausted my motivation reserves already. it almost seems to be better to devote my energies towards something else.

perhaps, rather, i could be thankful i get to retrace my steps again. perhaps enjoy the scenery a bit more this time. aren't these levels neverending anyway? so why the rush?

best work vs most useful work

what is my best work? what is my most useful work? do i already know deep down that my best work does not equate my most useful work? because of my definition of my "best work"?

so, to look from whose perspective?

my ego?

my bank account?

my family and friends?

the companies i work for, and particular business goals i've achieved for them?

the rare and random person i have offered a hand to?

my higher/inner self, whatever that may be?

the larger world, in this day and age?

the larger world, over the course of a few millenium?

so given my current abilities, what am i best at and what am i most useful at?

so given the universe of possibilities, over the next ten years, would i rather do my best work or my most useful work?

it doesn't get easier, and it hurts just as much

i tend to forget 100km races never get easier. i tend to forget how much the training sucks. i tend to forget even though it's something i've done, each time, it will hurt like hell. to improve on my time, i have to push myself every bit as hard as i did as in my first time.

it doesn't get easier, and it hurts just as much.

the physical pain is here to stay, no doubt. no matter how much faster i get, to improve, i will need to cause myself greater pain.

the only thing standing between perseverance and collapse is our mental strength. so ethereal and insubstantial, yet stronger than any muscle in our body.

the nature of kicking things

it sometimes is necessary to kick my own ass, so i don't have to be kicking myself in future.

random topics

is there a god?

is there fate?

what is the meaning of life?

where am i supposed to go from here?

how do i prioritize my life? what should i focus on?

how do i decide between truly tough choices?

am i supposed to pursue my dreams or should i be realistic? what if i don't have dreams?

how much of myself should i be sacrificing for others? how much sacrifice should others make for me?

why does my life suck?

how do i get some peace of mind?

how much does goodness really matter?

how much is enough?

is there a point to it all?

doorways out of nowhere

for some things, we have a vast array of choices.

for some other things, we don't have a choice.

for still some other things, out of nowhere, choices seem to appear. perhaps, we weren't even aware that choices existed. and perhaps, we have no idea when they'll disappear. but at certain moments in time, certain possibilities, impossible as they had seemed, open up. like a secret doorway unhidden by a nondescript rock in an indiana jones movie, we have no idea where these tunnels will lead us, and at just this moment, they beckon.

these unexpected doorways seem to particularly cause me a bit of angst.

i still won't know which path will lead to the treasure chests, and which one will lead to the den of snakes, or even if the treasure chests exist at all. i simply won't know.

all i can do is to pick a path, then walk it fearlessly.

freewill is an illusion

but there are still consequences.

both good and bad.

short, medium, or long term?

since i don't know when i run out of money, when i lose my job, when i get sick, when i run into a string of general bad luck, and when i die (and the equivalent for family)... how do i plan my life?

is my current trajectory based on thinking that's too short term? too long term? too medium term?

what if i actually knew these things? i.e., how much i needed over the course of my future years? the magnitude of my ups and downs? the time of death? how would i plan things?

doesn't take much to make up some assumptions.

do i still drift through life and see what it brings me? or should i at least pretend that i have a plan (or two)?

or at the very least, contemplate how my short term goals conflict with my long term goals? and realize choices need to be made?

the nature of reminders

my little training hike reminded me just how tough the trailwalker is going to be. burning lungs. helpless legs. screaming kneecaps.

just a quick reminder that mountains really don't give a crap how much i have trained or haven't trained. it doesn't matter that i was busy, doesn't matter that all my excuses are legitimate, the mountain's not going to be giving me feedback. (i don't think).

i wonder why these reminders didn't come a bit earlier, when i was feeling incredibly lazy and just decided things could wait. oh, now i remember. i chose not to remember.

reminders seem to have a habit of reminding us at the inopportune times.

lethargy

i wonder if i can meditate my way out of lethargy.

i.e., i am so lethargic and my mind is so blank, i might as well meditate.

probably not the kind meditation masters would approve of, but, perhaps, it's still a way.

a minority of a minority

most people don't have time as it is already, only a small portion of people actually read.

most people who read don't have time as it is already, a small portion of people reflect on what they've read and digest.

most people who've had the chance to digest don't have time as it is already, an even smaller portion of people actually act on it.

the last step is certainly the most important one - and equally certainly, the least taken one.

unrelatedness

to even have a chance of locating the meaning of life, we have to take a shot of doing some meaningful things.

and, what exactly are those?

to get started, at least, try out the ones that seem to be generally accepted as meaningful. they most probably are completely unrelated to our jobs, and will do nothing for our career advancement.

in fact, the more unrelated, the better. stripped of all possible ulterior motives, meaning, if any, emerges - and we can suddenly see it, bare and alone.

the more i know, the less i know

i don't know enough. i haven't read enough. i haven't digested enough. i don't reflect enough. i didn't take one single philosophy class my entire education career. i don't do most of the good things that good people do. i've never been involuntarily hungry. i've never known poverty. i don't know what it's like to stare at a bottomless pit, and only to see an avalanche of burdens when looking up.

in short, i am painfully aware that i am woefully inadequate to talk about, well, anything at all. there are much smarter, wiser, just generally better people out there. there are better written blogs, articles, books.

i seem to need to constantly remind myself that in trying to be reasonably better, the only worthwhile measuring stick is myself. other people are nice to have, but in the end, it truly does not matter what others think.

can i live with myself?

am i moving towards a place where i can better live with myself?

when i close my eyes for the final time, can my last thought be a sigh of relief?

darkness, revisited

three years ago, i did a night run and decided that i wouldn't be doing any more night runs. to be honest, it scared the shit out of me. things just seemed to be lurking in the ominous shadows and the whole time i was looking over my shoulder to see if someone would run up and stab me in my ass.

last night, starting my run around dusk, and as darkness fell, i suddenly realized running in the dark was almost comforting.

in the darkness, with my vision muted, all i could really do was hear was my own breath and my footsteps. the rare runner along the way was simply another shadow blending into the darkness. and all the while, i could safely jog along without paying attention to anything else, or worry that anyone else was watching me. darkness, this time around, seemed to be almost a place of refuge, though i wasn't quite sure what i could possibly be taking refuge from.

perhaps, after six weeks in places where streetlights are a rarity and darkness is the norm, i finally realized there really is nothing to fear about random dancing shadows.

perhaps, when i fully accept that known things are a rarity and uncertainty is the norm, i will truly realize that there is nothing to fear about the unknown.

usual reality

once in a while, there are places and times, where things seem to be suspended in mid-air.

then, suddenly, i've left and have returned to my usual life, my usual reality.

funny, these times make up such a small portion of our usual realities, but somehow, they sometimes come to define our future realities.

and sometimes, they don't, depending on the choices i make.

staring blankly

i wonder, if i could one day tally up the amount of time i spend staring blankly at the screen.

i wonder, if this happens to other people who try to write something every day, or otherwise try to create things.

i wonder, what happens to the time that seems just to be wasted away, with nothing to show for.

maybe, it's a good time to realize the only thing remaining is the belief that something will eventually come.

meaning, significance, purpose

What is the meaning of life?
What is the significance of life?
What is the purpose of life?
What is the meaning of my life?
What is the significance of my life?
What is the purpose of my life?

Pretty different questions but somehow they get bunched under the grand umbrella of “what is the meaning of life?”

when i look hard enough

when i look hard enough at the things in my mind, the questions beneath the fog crystallize but i realize they have tied themselves up into crazy knots, all interlinked with each other.

now, the question is, if persistence will eventually dissolve them, into...

no backup

when was the last time i was truly alone, with no help nearby? where there is no safety net, no backup? completely at the mercy of the gods, fate, destiny?

i fear and love these moments. (more fear than love though).

i think, in those moments, and even short as they maybe for most of us, bring about a kind of wisdom that words can never describe.

learning aimlessness?

strangely, i almost feel pressured by myself that i'm supposed to write something a bit different - afterall, this is a bit of a different experience. i'm by myself, in a dimly-lit guesthouse, in the middle of lhasa, thousands of miles away from the nearest person i know.

but, really not much is coming to mind. my pre-trip angst seems to be eons ago. only a few days ago, i was fretting and agonizing over the smallest details.

so there is this certain calmness washing over, a realization that i have no real plan for the next day. perhaps there's also a bit of boredom and some uneasiness that i am supposed to be finding something to do. but perhaps, it really is ok if i don't find that "something" to do. perhaps.

it is a feeling i really am unaccustomed to. no meal appointment. no yoga timetable to check. no business contact to get in touch with. tomorrow, all day, i can wander around aimlessly. i can think aimlessly. i can be aimless.

perhaps when i am aimless long enough, i end up finding something a bit more about myself. but perhaps, truly, there's nothing to be learned from it, and i am looking too much into it. it's simply a state of mind, just like all other states of minds?

will i get inspired?

(i'm not even sure if this is going to work)

i've had a lot of friends telling me to get inspired on this trip - which, frankly, i never had in mind. it really is a journey to a place that seems extreme, difficult, and forbidding, and that in itself was already good enough.

that being said, i wouldn't mind being inspired, since writing hasn't gotten any easier.

will try to open up my brain, my heart, my soul, my consciousness, my neurons, and see what kind of things float in...

plans do change

oh, yes they do.

the perfect trip

there is no perfect trip. it's not possible. i need to remember to be glad that i even have this chance...

the road paved with good intentions

good intentions are nice, but never enough.

sweating the small stuff

i was explaining to my colleague that now she had been promoted to a manager, she had to step away from the small things that used to concern her, to start looking at the bigger picture - there were just as many things to do and to worry about, but the priorities would change.

of course, small details were still important, but now, overall strategy and direction would take on much greater importance, and often, at the expense of other things, the day-to-day operations, and we had to, to a large extent, place our faith in others we had hired to do their jobs. we need to check on them from time to time, but we really have to be spending our time on "higher level" things.

a bit like any journey of spiritual progress. a lot of people are very satisfied at the material level, once in a while, they yearn for something a bit more, but we'd rather pre-occupy ourselves with day-to-day real things of the world.

if i'm serious about another level (it's probably neither up nor down - just different), i have to spend my time on self-reflection, at the expense of things at the material level.

i have to stop sweating the small stuff.

peace of mind

at the end of the day, whatever it is i'm doing, is it going to help move in the direction of having the peace of mind?

even if

even if, even if, i could do anything i could, there is still the constraint of my time here (and with that the usual uncertainty of its length).

so, at the risk of stating the very obvious and sounding silly and greedy, i can't have everything. there's still a matter of where the time goes, as even in the unrealistic hypothetical situation, there is still the limitation of time.

if i devote more time and energy to something, something else is going to get less attention. over the course of five, ten years, the difference is going to be tremendous. the question is, how much will that difference matter to me?

strength of a belief

sometimes, i wonder how strong a belief has to be, for us to fully trust that things happen for a reason, and there is supposedly always a non-negative perspective to be taken.

afterall, i really know nothing

there is sometimes the sobering realization that i've moved away from certain people: certain friends, former teachers, people who i used to think the world of. i no longer see things the way they do, and there's a sudden sense of alienation with my former self. it almost seems that i may have changed enough that i no longer recognize some of the core things about myself.

i'm not them, and i can never really know or even imagine the trials and tribulations they faced in their lives, but sometimes there's just the feeling they could be happier, if they were not still stuck - stuck doing the things, repeating the same mistakes, they have been doing for five, ten, twenty years. perhaps the longer a person's stuck, the longer one will go on remaining stuck.

yet, i know, it's not my place to say anything. who am i to tell someone "if you do this, you will lead a better life?" everything i've gone through, they probably have, multiple times even, and perhaps one day, there will be some young guy who thinks he's figured out everything, and tells me smugly that "if only" i would change a particular habit, my life would be turned around. and i'd just laugh.

in almost all cases, it's better to stay quiet. afterall, i really know nothing. my life "experience" is pretty laughable. so, the only thing to do is to make the times together with them as enjoyable for them as possible.

the view from the bottom

i always thought, the view from the top is much more scarier than the view from the bottom.

(well, i'm scared of heights too.)

when everything is going smoothly my way, i know i) it's not going to last, or that ii) i'm in the wrong lane. i'm never very good at dealing with the sense of impending doom.

when everything is at its absolute worst, while i don't know if it will get even worse, i also know i) it's not going to last, or that ii) even if it lasts, the human mind has proved itself time and again to be remarkably adaptable.

but, what about the feather that breaks the camel's back?

all the more fun to see what exactly that breaking point is, and to see if those stories about human resilience are actually true. if it does get broken, then, we get to see it if there's either a comeback story, or a cautionary tale. it will probably still be of some use.

where does the bigger picture start?

one of the current issues in physics is where classical physics ends and transitions into quantum physics. the rules change dramatically, and everything we thought we understood no longer holds true.

in this entry Gleiser uses the sand dune analogy - look at if from afar, we see the flowing patterns, that are still visible as we look closer. when we look close enough, suddenly the individual grains of sand appear. yet, as the viewer, there will be a range of distances where we can switch between the two views - depending on how we're focusing our eyes.

when do we rise above our day-to-day dilemmas and focus on the larger ebbs and flows of the humanity?

we are merely grains of sand (if even that), but i think, there is definitely another level of beauty. once in a while, when we're lucky enough, we transcend our mundane existence and manage to have a peek.

delayed satisfaction

i'm all for delayed satisfaction, but what if there's only the neverending delay, without the satisfaction?

will i be kicking myself for not doing something else? for not cashing in earlier?

how bad is the delayed part of the delayed satisfaction? can i get used to it? will i grow to enjoy it? can it eventually become satisfaction in itself?

the problem with faith

every now and then, i see a version of this story either forwarded around or posted in blogs - "malice of absence" - the story where a religious student goes up against an atheist professor and outargues him.

the crux of the argument is even for the atheist, it is necessary to take science on faith, as it is impossible to know and prove everything. we are placing faith in scientists that we will never meet, so why should we take issue with the religious who are placing faith in a god that no one can prove or disprove?

the most significant difference is that the god-faith is unchanging - the holy books are not going to be re-written. the interpretation of such are based on the religious leaders in power, and one only hopes they have the best interests of humanity in mind. science, on the other hand, does change all the time. every few decades, a major scientific "truth" gets overturned. science-faith is not absolute and is evolving all the time.

faith is often so badly abused today, and self-reflection drowned under a sea of noise. faith is precious, and should be used sparingly and in special occasions, rather than a safety blanket for us to wrap ourselves around.

zero wins

to this day, i wonder why i ever wrestled in school.

my earliest memory is my dormmate jeremy jumping up and down on the black wrestling mat, yelling "come on!". we were taught some very rudimentary rules and told to simply go at it. neither of us knew what the hell we were doing, and we were simply flailing about and exerting a lot of effort pushing against each other. but i remember thinking it was pretty fun, and in particular i enjoyed the fact that i was competing against someone my size. and i vaguely (and quite possibly mistakenly) recall that i had held my own.

this memory stuck, and in my second year of high school, i tried out out for the team. wrestling was one of the few official team sports that did not require prior experience - any other skill sport, my classmates had been practicing for years and i did not stand a chance. moreover, the coach informed us that the simple rule was that if you didn't quit, you made the team. i couldn't believe my luck, and perhaps because of that simple rule, i "made the team" for the remaining three years of my high school.

but, it was not that easy. in fact, i often wonder why i lasted more than one season, and still came back. i was truly a terrible wrestler. i had no sense of how leverage and control should work. my first year, i must have wrestled in perhaps ten or fifteen matches, and i won exactly zero matches. zero. every time i went out, i took a beating. even today, i can't fathom what had been going through my mind and why i kept going. perhaps i couldn't bear the indignity of quitting? but wasn't getting beat down every single time worse? wasn't it unbearable to be known as probably the worst wrestler on the entire team? i really have no clue.

losing in wrestling isn't like losing in any other sport. as the loser, i got my face dragged across the mat, my body twisted into positions that my yoga teachers would have trouble imitating. all this, in front of tons of people. sometimes a few dozen, sometimes a couple hundred. the loser doesn't just hit a lot of missed balls or runs a bit slower than the other guy. the loser in a wrestling match is at the receiving end of a very public beatdown, and gets physically abused.

there is nothing quite like it - two boys, in skimpy singlets, crouched in a wrestling stance, standing toe-to-toe in the middle of seemingly giant circle. you know all the eyes are on you, and there's me, the mat, and my opponent. there's no one to save me. there's no backup plan. shit's happening right now.

(the first win, did come, finally, in my second year. i was terrible, but i suppose there were even more terrible wrestlers out there. more interesting things later in my short-lived wrestling career, but more on this in future.)

so yes, i kept at it, even when i had zero wins. it might be something to laugh about now, but it was no trivial matter then. it totally sucked. losing was the worst feeling ever, and losing in such spectacular and humbling manner that was simply part of the sport.

and damn am i glad i kept at it. wrestling has taught me more things than i could ever list. it wasn't even that hard work pays off, because it didn't. it was that failure really was ok. sure, losing a bunch of wrestling matches is incredibly silly compared to any real life challenge, but to a fifteen year old, having zero wins seemed like the end of the world, but look, the world actually did not end.

and now i think about it, that was perhaps the first time i realized that what other people thought of me was probably less important than what i thought of myself.

rain or shine

usually, deterioration creeps up on us and it's already too late.

on extremely rare occasions, improvement creeps up on us, after we've kept at something for a while, rain or shine.

consistency is boring, painful, demoralizing, but one of the trusty methods that actually work.

there's always wastage

i'm deathly frightened of wastage. if i had the choice, i'd try to make every minute of my life productive, by my traditional definitions anyway. being productive involves doing things. sitting around, meditating, day dreaming, or staring at my laptop for hours would not fit in this productivity definition.

i just don't want to fall behind in life. fall behind who? my millionaire banker friends? my ultra-smart friends who are on the cutting edge of researching the cosmos? my spiritual friends who have realized the nature of the universe?

of course, no matter how fast i race ahead or how far i fall behind, we do end up the same place eventually.

but the nature of the current quest necessarily means there will be lots of hours spent staring blankly into space, getting caught in looping dead-end unconclusions. it's a cost of cajoling things out of apparent nothingness, a cost of doing business with the mind.

litany against fear

from one of my all-time favorite novels, Dune:

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

seriously? believing in myself?

one thing that is not lacking in the world is information, and with that conflicting opinions and data. even if we can agree on the end goal, getting there faces the same myriad of choices. go hard, go soft, stand firm on principles, be flexible when the situation calls for it.

advice is always nice, and people who care about me will be offering lots (just like i love offering mine). there is no easy conclusion and all the options sound equally bad (or good). if there was an easy conclusion i wouldn't need advice in the first place. in these instances, well, not doing anything sounds like a fine idea.

sometimes, to remain sane... there's no choice. i simply have to believe in myself.

yes, it's the standard line proclaimed from every self-help book and i don't believe in believing in myself. but at times, it's the only way to stay sane. this is not even about achieving some impossible goal, not even about going against any odds, but just to function somewhat normally, without going in the death spiral of paralyzing self-doubt.

seriously? what if my actions run the risk of hurting someone, knowingly or unknowingly? well, yes, still. because i will never know if i'm avoiding hurting them in the short term and harming them long term. or hurting them in the short term and helping them in the long term.

morning, no excuses

if i really want to do something, i have to do it in the morning.

if i'm serious enough about it, there's just no excuse.

things will always come up at inopportune times.

greatness

for all the economic and evolutionary assumptions about self-interest and selfishness, people still yearn for something higher, something to transcend, something intangible and beyond whatever it is that we understand.

those singular moments of greatness - when suddenly something in us gets moved - great beauty, great love, great selflessness - we know there is something that is beyond logic.

nevermind that it maybe evolutionary beneficial, nevermind it may one day be replicable by computer algorithms - i know it's something that has no bearing on my material life and yet, nothing in life could be greater than those moments.

no fail, no win

if i take a thousand pictures, some of them will turn out ok.

if i kick up into handstand a thousand times, a few of those times i'll be able to hold it.

if i write a thousand blog posts (which i can't even imagine at the moment, since i'm running out of things already), a few of those posts will actually mean something.

but the increments every time, every drip, are so infinitesimally small they're actually invisible. and i won't ever know when the nice picture/handstand/post will come. but over a thousand times, they will come, since, well, statistically, they have to. and i'm not even talking about the outliers, i'm just referring those singular personal wtf moments we strive for. all but the most enlightened have a complete disregard for winning, so let's stay at the mortal level at the moment.

no fail, no win.

of course, the moral of the story isn't to mindlessly fail, as sheer effort without thought makes our progress really, really slow. however, sheer thought without effort goes absolutely nowhere.

the moral is remembering to fail. and, that's the nice thing about many things now. i can fail, fail often, even fail anonymously if i so prefer. the tools are generally damn easy to find now. the only hard thing is finding the fortitude to fail, and the determination to live through a thousand of them.

authenticity

true authenticity physically, mentally, and spiritually is probably one of the hardest things, ever.

and we're always looking for those truly authentic people, especially the ones who are truly thoughtful - who are authentic because of the deep thought they've given to choose live their life they're living, and have examined every angle in depth.

and there are so, so few in the world.

so why aren't more people authentic? perhaps simply because it's not convenient?

why am i not authentic, in the sense i'm unable to fully follow all the things i believe in?

five years

if you do something long enough, suddenly, something people thought you had no business doing, or simply not qualified to do, suddenly, it becomes very normal that you're doing it. in fact, people start assuming you're an expert.

interestingly, when you started, everyone just gave you really funny looks (and sometimes demoralizing comments).

five years of dedication might be a reasonable time frame to become reasonably knowledgeable about something. i don't have a lot of five-years left, but there still are a few. still have time to acquire a deeper knowledge in a couple more new things.

perhaps one more thing to remember is the beginner's mentality - having the curiosity to find out more about the things we already think we're experts in.

digestability

the hard task now is to recreate the building blocks, step by step.

when faced with an issue now, the temptation is great to simply rely on big all-encompassing explanations of karma, everything happens for a reason, the universe works in mysterious ways. the problem is like the mother teresa effect: "if i look at the masses, i will never act. if i look at one, i will."

if i ever want to communicate any of these things i have somehow understood, i have to break these massive principles down into digestible morsels, little stories that will somehow make people think.

i have to start somewhere. what are some instances today? i chatted with my friend dave whose dad slipped on some steps when he was hiking half a year ago, and has since been paralyzed shoulder down. walking across a bridge in central, i wondered if i'd see the beggar i had seen perhaps a year ago. looking at the new ferry terminal, i wondered when it would itself be considered a piece of relic.

the struggle

at times, everything can be summed up as the constant struggle between self-interest and higher ideals.

where did it come from?

a lot of realities are just not fun. poverty, injustice, unfairness in the human society; factory farming; destruction of natural beauty to feed the world's need for resources.

but i'm not exactly thinking about poverty when i'm devising a plan to make my rich client even richer. i'm creating wealth, and one, we're born to be self-interested entities, and secondly, by creating wealth i'm creating more job opportunities, and also more wealth to give to the needy for that matter.

and i'm not exactly thinking about the steroid-juiced cows howling for dear life when i'm enjoying that perfectly marbled steak. i am at the top of the food chain after all, and i'm allowed to eat anything i want. and the animals were long dead before they arrived on my plate.

and i'm definitely not thinking of oil spills, leveled forests, giant mines amidst pristine wilderness when i'm playing with the latest i-thing from apple. just because i don't use or buy that new thing isn't going to change a single thing.

i'd like to think we're not quite as extreme in defending our views, but i'm pretty sure we don't have the mental capacity to spend every waking moment understanding the impact of our every action. take my cellphone - is it even possible to trace how each component came into being? who assembled it, was he/she exposed to all sorts of pollutants? were any rare earths used, did they have to uproot entire villages and blast ugly giant holes to obtain those?

can the starting question be as simple as, where did it come from?

surely, there will be many out there who have no sense of curiosity and will simply consume and simply not care. but i think, with information just a couple clicks away, there may be enough curiosity out there to do some digging, to solve that little mystery.

but perhaps that's one way to start thinking. take our favorite possession. how much do we know about it? how did it come into existence? where did they get the raw materials? at the expense of what? are we ok with it?

either obvious or nor worth thinking about

i wonder, if i will ever reach a point, where things are either "intuitively obvious or not worth thinking about".

strangely, by repeatedly pushing myself to understand things, and to explain them back to myself to the best of my abilities, i suspect i am beginning to understand a bit more about intuition. i remain of the opinion that trustworthy intuition are heuristic shortcuts that have been honed over trial and error.

sixty seconds

if there really were sixty seconds left, what would i be thinking? for a moment, imagining i'm just lying down, waiting for the painless end. (a luxury that is pretty unlikely for anyone, but well, i can dream)

there would be nothing left to analyze, nothing left to remember, nothing left to look forward to. there might be a lot of things that i'm still supposed to do, but there's simply no time now.

if the sixty second limit is a certainty, then, there's no point not to try to enjoy these sixty seconds. nothing matters afterwards anyway, and by extension, whatever i think in these sixty seconds won't matter in the least.

perhaps... i would simply marvel at the fact that i was ever conscious of being alive in the first place.

funny, if it was any longer than sixty seconds, things actually get a lot more complicated.