A Mirror in Camp

         Recently I just attended a camp/ rehearsal of my university's Chinese Music Group. I had a pretty good time, and our rehearsal there was the most productive one so far. Although I only spent one night at the tranquil camp site of Campedown, and I went there only with the intentions of rehearsing and having fun, I have discovered quite a bit more about myself.
 
       First, I realised that I still have quite a long way to go in my quest for universal love. I realised this when I met this guy. He was small in built, short in height, very knowledgable, very sociable, seemed to be very helpful towards others, had a cute girlfriend, and liked by everyone... everyone except me. Disliking him is an understatement. I think I actually found him rather repugnant. He complemented on my jacket, and I said thanks without smiling or even looking at him. But why? I hardly even know this guy. How can I dislike someone whom I don't know? Was I judging a person too quickly again? I sat away from the crowd, found some silence within me, and tried to squeeze out some spiritual washing-liquid to cleanse this stain of hatred from me.
 
        To eradicate the effect he is having on me, I first had to find the cause. Why did I find him so repugnant? Several reasons came up. This guy seemed to be going the distance to make everybody happy. He was flaunting his knowledge, his dance moves, trying to "help" us with our dance steps, and showing off whatever he could to impress people. Perhaps that reminded me of the part of myself that I am trying to get rid of. I too used to go the distance to impress people, make people laugh, and make people like me. I still do it once in a while, but I stop myself when I become mindful of my actions, because I came to realise that this form of popularity is just a secondary perk that comes from being truly sincere in wanting to help people and wanting to make people happier. So I guess that I despise this guy because I despise what I see in the reflection of a mirror in the form of this shorty.
 
         Another cause could be that I feel a little inadequate with him around. Everyone just loved him. Everyone welcomes him into conversations. Everyone smiles when he comes. The amount of attention that he can command is really impressive. I guess I just can't help but give him the label of "born leader". Now when I think about it, it seems to me that I still crave that kind of attention. There is this ego within me that is hungry, that wants to be fed with the "ooo's" and "ah's" and "wow's" and "haha's" of people. At one point in my life, I believed that I was made for that purpose. But at a later point in my life, I decided that this is a weakness that has almost led me to do stupid things, stopped me from doing smart things, and I had to stop feeding the blob of pride. Now, like a drug addict under rehabilitation with a poppy-filled syringe in front of him, I am tempted to regress into my old habits, and I am just hating the person who is tempting me.
 
          With him around, I also start to question my role in life again. I always thought that I had the capabilities to assume the leader role, and thought of getting into a field involving such capabilities. But after looking at him, I started to doubt that I had it within me. During the camp, my presence did not make people smile, did not make people happy, and I could not command as much attention as he could. He could get people to start playing pretty stupid looking but fun games, and he could get people to listen to what he has to say. I always had trouble doing such things in the past, but heck, leaders come in different shapes and sizes, with all kinds of abilities. He has the quality to entertain people, and I believe that I have others. All it takes is a challenge to present itself.
 
          There wasn't much fun in this camp. There never is much fun in discovering the dark-side of oneself. There is even less fun in rectifying it. It's hard to clear the clouds of my sky, and it's hard to let go of such burdens caused by certain desires. But the clear blue view and the lightness of releasing a sack is always worth the effort. Guess I have to thank this guy for letting me despise him.  

That Sacred Place

I love Frank Miller's Sin City. Almost every episode of these comics will captivate me to the very end and after. It's not your usual super-hero fantasy comic. This is comic-noir, with black and white pictures, with black, white and lots of gray story telling. I read most of them at my Uni's Rowden White library which is mostly for leisure purposes, cool eh? Once I bought one of them and brought it home. Despite it's darkness and its highly risque content, both my mom and dad who came across it seemed to like it. I guess there is a need to connect with the dark side within all of us.

I am currently reading the episode entitled Hell and Back. The hero is an ex-navy SEAL officer (otherwise, how is he supposed to kick ass?) who is currently a struggling artist. One day, he comes across a perfect-bodied ethnic beauty who was trying to jump off a cliff. He saves her, they chat, finds out that she was really artsy, and despite of, or because of her mysterious back ground, falls for her, and then comes the kiss. At that time, he got knocked out by tranqulizers, she got kidnapped, and he got battered and imprisoned by cops for being accused of taking drugs.

The greatest thing about Frank Miller's comics is that he describes the psychology of the heroes so well. In this comic, whenever the hero got caught up in distressful situations, he would go "Stay calm, stay cool. Ignore the surroundings. Go back to that private place in your mind. It has saved your life many times before. It is always waiting for you." And then there will be the picture of him meditating in some forest of New England. How often do you get a hero like that?

My question to myself after that was, if I got into a distressful situation, is there that private place in my mind that will always be waiting for me? A place that I can seek solace in? A place which might save my life some day? I thought pretty hard, and couldn't come up with anything. Perhaps I will be screwed in a distressful situation. Or maybe I need to be in a distressful situation to find that place.

Instead of getting into a distressful situation, I got into a small depressing situation. Right now, during the winter holidays, most of my friends have either gone to their home countries, or gone off for holidays. Apart from that, my I am a person who clings quite alot to social circles. So lonliness was inevitable. But I grew over it quite quickly, thanks to a really corny phrase: " No matter where I am, you will always be a part of me".

In fact, a farewell card I wrote to my friend Dave was based upon that phrase. The cure to loneliness was something I knew all along. I believe that what we are now is the result of the many forces that has shaped us. Most of these forces are the people we meet in our lives. All these people are part of us, and although some fade into the depths of our mind, they will always be somewhere inside. When I got lonely, I would think of the people whom I carry with me wherever I go: Hsu, Hendry, Wayne, Ruth, Gad, Sara, Ve Leong, Yanky, Dan Seet, Quek, Cindy, Dave, Liz, Liu Jing, Rui Jian, Tse Chuen, Dan Ding, Gen, Taka, Eun Yeung, Yeung Joo, Ga Ye, Shi Zheng, Sharlene, Khai Lee, the recently met Alice, Sin Sin, Si Shan, Tomoko and never forgetting family, Ed, Jean, Mom, Pops, Dex, Mei and Fei. I dare say that some of them are the loves of my life. With them in mind, there is always an ever-present home that I can go to, an everlasting source of warmth, a permanent sense of wholeness.

Now, it seems that I have found that private place in my mind, and I don't think I will ever be lonely again.

Seeing Universal Love

Universal love. I used to be sceptical about the possibility of adopting that attitude. Buddhism encourages it, Christianity preaches it, but can we do it? Do we need to have it? I am glad that I now can answer those questions as my heart slowly opens and radiates its energy.

I have talked about hatred in one of my previous posts and how it slowly consumed me. Well, it seems to me now that love will indeed save the day. I decided that the best way to eradicate hatred from within me is by replacing it with something else, something on the other end of the spectrum. Slowly, I realised that it faded away.

I used to be extremely judgemental towards the people I meet. When I thought that someone looked like a bimbo, or someone looked like an "Ah Beng" or "Ah Lian" , I will keep a ten-meters away from them because I hated them. When I do see them from that far, I would put on a plastic smile. Now I judge much less, and empathize and understand more. I realised that what people are now is the result of a thousand forces that molded them in the past, so I can't be pissed about something that isn't exactly their doing. Also, if I only got to know the people who were really appealing to me, my views of life might be constricted because the views of those are probably the same as mine. Now, I feel more free from the shackles of judgement. Now, everyone who crosses my path has the potential to be my friend. Now, the smiles I give people are truly smiles from the heart.

Righteous anger? Righteous hatred? Is there such a thing? Is it neccesary? What is considered as righteous anger and hatred? Because a person has no morals, or has acted immorally? My friend Dave once asked me do I think that there are any morals which are inherent in humans. I thought about it, and I said no. Were we born knowing not to steal? No, we learned it. Were we born knowing not to kill? No, we learned it. How did we learn it? Probably by two ways: One is that society does not accept these acts and we will be punished if we perform them. Another is by the saying " Thou shalt not do unto others what you will not have done unto you". In other words, empathy has instilled these morals within us. Are we borned with empathy? Perhaps. But according to Daniel Goleman in his Emotional Intelligence, the feeling that criminals of the most atrocious of crimes lack is empathy. He also came to some conclusion that this was caused by the neglection of their parents.

So do we hate these, in a sense, "underpriviledged" people? I feel that hating them is like hating the disabled or hating the starving children of underdeveloped countries. Because of that, I have made the choice not to righteously hate them, but instead, pity them and have compassion for them. Punishing them and treating them with contempt, I believe, is the easy way out. It is healing that takes effort and time, and effort and time is something that many people of today's society just do not have, especially for criminals. So powerful is the act of opening ones arms and offering those who have done severe "wrongs" a second chance.

What about the people who have done me wrong? When that happens, anger seems inevitable. It just oozes out like lava from a volcano, without anything that can be done. If we do not douse it, it will burn us and perhaps our surroundings. How do we douse it? For me, its forgivness and again, empathy, which I believe are two fundamental components of love, or tools to achieve love. When we see things from another point of view, the lava will seem to cool. Once it is cool, we can find from within ourselves to forgive the person. If we cannot, then we can find it in confrontation, peaceful confrontation. If that too does not work, perhaps we must realise that such people are as unavoidable as lightning and storm.

Crap, that was a bad answer. It seems that I have only touched the tip of universal love. There is still much to learn about it. But now that I see it, I seem to want it more because I know that it is achievable, and that it is a wondrously beautiful liberation. The clouds of life have cleared a little bit now. Hopefully I will see the blue sky in time. And if universal love is achievable, what about universal unconditional love? Well, that is a discovery of another day.