The tools and the ultimate goal
The below reading triggered some thoughts,
「民望」只是工具 「從政理想」才是目的
“駕駛帆船，向目的地進發。
一個投機的政客，他只會按着民意風向走，不負責任的張帆
相反，一個只懂死抱原則、迂腐的從政者，只會按照立場，一早定好方向舵，然後再勇敢、偏執的前進——繼而翻船，沒頂，結果一樣去不了目的地；
一個政治家，則曉得看風把舵，他會參考民調數據，調整方向，以便能夠利用最有利的風向和水流，最快抵達目的地。在外人眼中，他在以鋸齒迂迴的方式前進，但這其實是駕駛帆船最有效的方式。所謂看風把舵，是順勢操作，不是投機倒把。”
I think it’s the same for life and how to live a fruitful life. To live fruitfully is not only about walking the most common path, what society interprets as success (bankers, doctors, lawyers because they earn big money, parents and relatives would be proud).
But it doesn’t mean that we have to be stubborn and only stick to our beliefs, because we are incapable of knowing for sure, what’s the best for us and others. If we don’t, we better not shut our eyes and turn a blind eye on criticisms and differences.
With the limited and unpredictable timeline, we have to know how to use the tools, to listen, to see, to follow our hearts, to write our ideals, to set out directions (objectives to execute in order to reach the ideals/ goals), use the tools to change direction if the current path doesn’t get us to the “destination” (ultimate goals and ideals in life).
The way we relate
The world’s a stage…
We have different roles to play. We are a different self with different people, depending on our relationships and the different roles we are bound to play.
Almost all relationships share the same evolution. Be it parent and child, man and wife, employer/ company and employee, client and agency, brand and consumers, corporate and media, man and environment, etc. The way we relate to people and things, we love->passion->learn->dream->startled->complain->struggle->bored->try to reignite->bored by the comfort->try again->frustrated->indifferent->and onto something new.
We experience these kind of journeys day in day out. Human beings are one of the most interesting species on earth, we try to improve and it’s extremely difficult for us to stick around. We move furniture every now and then, we change jobs, we look for a new camera and mobile phone every 3 months, we search for the meaning of life and look for the ideal life partner all at the same time. These journeys are unavoidable unless you decided you don’t want to be human.
All we can do to stay happy and passionate, is to know where we are heading before we run and search. Try to stay “sober” during the passionate stage, don’t get carried away while you indulge in it. The new is always exotic and good; the old is always frustrating in one way or the other.
Just be honest with yourself while you play your roles, no great expectations, no delusions, plenty of communications, understanding, no guilt, no regret, and don’t think the society/ parents/ employers/ partners/ client/ agency/ the environment owe you in any way. They didn’t try to deceive you, and you don’t need to deceive them. Please don’t think you have to stick around because of guilt.
The world’s a stage, our life is a stage consists of all the roles we play. It’s up to us to perform a great play or a crappy one. Don’t try to be a Shakespeare in your own or other’s life, just follow your heart and play by ears. Be passionate, as responsible as we could be and try to create the same cycle of evolution with the same things, that’s called growth. Move on if we have to, be honest with yourself and don’t look back, without guilt.
Re-ignited
Stepping up, moving on, challenging myself, stretching beyond boundaries. It is a good feeling to get what you want after a series of struggle. It’s great to step outside the comfort zone, so vulnerable yet all the more stronger.
On transition to a new page, a new beginning in 2010.
Seize the day and stop wondering “what if…”
Something to share: On Doubt
I’ve come across a very very interesting play in New York last January, as with all thought provoking literature I came across in life, it changed my life. And here’s the preface of the play that I think everyone should read. Doubt was on the screen last February in Hong Kong.
By John Patrick Shanley
What’s under a play? What holds it up? You might as well ask what’s under me? On what am I built? There’s something silent under every person and under every play. There is something unsaid under any given society as well.
There’s a symptom apparent in America right now. It’s evident in political talk shows, in entertainment coverage, in artistic criticism of every kind, in religious discussion. We are living in a courtroom culture. We were living in a celebrity culture, but that’s dead. Now we’re only interested in celebrities if they’re in court. We are living in a culture of extreme advocacy, of confrontation, of judgment, and of verdict. Discussion has given way to debate. Communication has become a contest of wills. Public talking has become obnoxious and insincere. Why? Maybe it’s because deep down under the chatter we have come to a place where we know that we don’t know… anything. But nobody’s willing to say that.
Let me ask you. Have you ever held a position in an argument past the point of comfort? Have you ever defended a way of life you were on the verge of exhausting? Have you ever given service to a creed you no longer utterly believed? Have you ever told a girl you loved her and felt the faint nausea of eroding conviction? I have. That’s an interesting moment. For a playwright, it’s the beginning of an idea. I saw a piece of real estate on which I might build a play, a play that sat on something silent in my life and in my time. I started with a title: Doubt.
What is Doubt? Each of us is like a planet. There’s the crust, which seems eternal. We are confident about who we are. If you ask, we can readily describe our current state. I know my answers to so many questions, as do you. What was your father like? Do you believe in God? Who’s your best friend? What do you want? Your answers are your current topography, seemingly permanent, but deceptively so. Because under that face of easy response, there is another You. And this wordless Being moves just as the instant moves; it presses upward without explanation, fluid and wordless, until the resisting consciousness has no choice but to give way.
It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man feels unsteady, when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you’ve gone the wrong way and you’re lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.
The play. I’ve set my story in 1964, when not just me, but the whole world seemed to be going through some kind of vast puberty. The old ways were still dominant in behavior, dress, morality, world view, but what had been organic expression had become a dead mask. I was in a Catholic church school in the Bronx, run by the Sisters of Charity. These women dressed in black, believed in Hell, obeyed their male counterparts, and educated us. The faith, which held us together, went beyond the precincts of religion. It was a shared dream we agreed to call Reality. We didn’t know it, but we had a deal, a social contract. We would all believe the same thing. We would all believe.
Looking back, it seems to me, in those schools at that time, we were an ageless unity. We were all adults and we were all children. We had, like many animals, flocked together for warmth and safety. As a result, we were terribly vulnerable to anyone who chose to hunt us. When trust is the order of the day, predators are free to plunder. And plunder they did. As the ever widening Church scandals reveal, the hunters had a field day. And the shepherds, so invested in the surface, sacrificed actual good for perceived virtue.
I have never forgotten the lessons of that era, nor learned them well enough. I still long for a shared certainty, an assumption of safety, the reassurance of believing that others know better than me what’s for the best. But I have been led by the bitter necessities of an interesting life to value that age-old practice of the wise: Doubt.
There is an uneasy time when belief has begun to slip, but hypocrisy has yet to take hold, when the consciousness is disturbed but not yet altered. It is the most dangerous, important, and ongoing experience of life. The beginning of change is the moment of Doubt. It is that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or become a lie.
Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.
John Patrick Shanley
Brooklyn, New York
March 2005
Scattered thoughts: If not, then what?
There are different phases in life: kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools, the university, the work force. On the surface, following the train of thought in my last entry, there are so many certainties in life, I mean, if not, then what? I suppose that’s a million dollar question.
We all understand why our life is phased, programmed by the government/ country in which we live in, and that’s called civilization. Just as we question religion, some of us question the “limitations” of how we live our lives in modern society. Yes, human beings don’t know better, average joes need either god(s) or ideologies (socialism, communism, capitalism etc.) to live their life, something to measure themselves against to.
Most people ended up living pretty much the same lives as the others, else life would be too lonely with no one to compare ourselves with. Friends get together, update each other with this and that. Most cases, old friends talk about the same things over and over again, and then one day, there isn’t anything new to update anymore. Friends become old friends and old friends vanish.
We all try to keep up, but it’s also important to realize that as much as we don’t want to, we live in phases, we move on like it’s the most natural thing in the course of living, and it is. We move on to the next stage, and there comes some new thinking and new beings to sweep you off your feet; to almost put your past into shame as if you haven’t lived before with all those old thinking and behaviors. But we change, we move on. Some people stay, some don’t. However even if it has become history, it’s okay. History is as important as the present, but when it comes to history, change comes to a halt, it ceased growing and it’s okay even if it means that it will decay or vanish.
Come to think of it, regret in life is technically impossible if you recognize history as it is. Regret is only possible if you think that you have a second chance in living, but too bad, we don’t.
when uncertainty meets certainty
This society requires us, sooner or later, to be certain. And we try to be. We go to law school and med school or business school; man and wife get married; newly weds make plans for babies… we know, and we are certain. We try to find logic and reason into what we are so certain about, to validate the action. Some people would even go as far as to be certain about life after death… to heaven or to hell, as if they’ve been to hell for a 5 day 4 night tour and know what hell is like.
But I am pretty certain that we can never be certain and shouldn’t condemn ourselves if we aren’t certain about things, people and ourselves.
I guess the only thing we can be certain in this lifetime, is that we are living, in the moment, and we should live for the moment.
Let’s actively challenge ourselves everyday, surrender ourselves to uncertainty yet at the same time, acknowledge the certainty we have for the moment without romanticizing the present or thinking that we have to stay true to the certainty we had for ourselves in the past moment.
Every moment is new, we just have to stop being lazy in making choices every second as we grow and change, for better or for worse.
Expectations |ˌekspekˈtā sh ən|
Expectations (noun)
- a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future : reality had not lived up to expectations | an expectation that the government will provide the resources | he drilled his men in expectation of a Prussian advance.
- a belief that someone will or should achieve something : students had high expectations for their future.
There is nothing wrong with expectations on the surface. We all have unconscious or conscious expectations for the ones we care for, our family, our friends… We have conscious expectations for our bosses and likewise. I’ve forgotten since when had expectations become a negative noun to me, same as promises.
Mankind has been trying to control the future in centuries and millenniums. Goals were set, plans were written, promises made, expectations go without saying. It is true that if we want to improve, efforts have to be paid for the future. But expectations are different from dreams, there is a certain rigidness about expectations (strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future/ belief that someone will or should achieve something). For me, those who expects too much are trying too hard to play God (if there is one).
Expectations could be dangerous when it’s from one person to another, as common and natural as they are. One can say that expectations are for realists and pragmatists, they plan to make things happen, be it through mind games, direct demands, or upfront requests… Many a time, those who expect think “they know better”, things would become better “if you do this and that, if you become this and that…”, “we would be more happy if you do this and that”, thus the Great Expectation. The best they can do, is to “pretend” that they know better.They could be right, but chances are, they could be wrong too.
Yet, here has to be those who feed on the expectations too. Let’s say, Barack Obama’s promising election. He made all those promises to feed the Great Expectations from the Americans as well as people from around the world, thus he receives all sorts of demands and requests. Those who give promises also tend to play the role of God, giving out promises like prophecies.
However, I don’t have as much issues with those who give promises than those who expects. Sometimes, I think those who have expectations are taking advantage on those who are willing to promise. At least those who promises set out to create demand, but for those who expects (did I ask for such expectations?). I guess there’s no better or worse approach to life for ourselves and others…
Maybe without the pressure that comes with expectations, high hopes, and promises, mankind would have achieved nothing.
But (sounds very Sex and the City), I couldn’t help but wonder, do we really “need” all those “improvements”? Or are they created desires to manipulate behaviors? I know it almost sounds like one of those conspiracy theories, but expectations are such common things in human relationships (how can he/she not do this and that), I think it’s worth doubting.
Starting anew.
Committed to writing quality entries.
This blog is meant to be a time capsule as well as my humble opinion and reflection on life, my own, and others.
