Old patterns

Old patterns have started appearing in my life again. It is as if I have regressed to the period of 2002 where I am on the computer daily, chatting with friends over MSN, surfing the net, reading blogs, writing blogs, checking things out.

Currently I am feeling a little disappointed with myself. This is a pattern I have took time to break out of, so that I could spend more time with friends and family. At the same time, I think that it could be family that pushes me back into this pattern.

Will need to sort this out. It is an unhealthy cycle of not connecting with people, and maintaining the sanity with reality.

Not liking Chinese New Year

I still have the irks for Chinese New Year. It is a time of visiting relatives and paying respects in the traditional customary way. It is a time where we receive red packets of cash, while our parents and married couples present red packets to unmarried people.

What irks me about Chinese New Year is the travelling. Meeting the relatives may be lukewarm, but it’s the car ride and conversations that happen in the family that irks me. All families have their nasty secrets, mine is the same. We treat each other quite rottenly. We know we love each other, YET we hurl sarcasm at each other, yet we throw shit at each other. It is quite amazingly appalling.

Then a virtual friend says,

“it’s juz us being our ugly actual self, no need for pretenses, but it IS indicative of their unique positions in our lives, such that we can be totally unpretentious esp when we’re upset with them”

Ouch man. I have to remember this

Judgementalism

“Stated simply, judgmental thinking is addicted to other people’s faults or destructive behavior. Judgmentalism finds its identity in what it is not.”

Another ouch statement for me. Ouch! Guilty as charged. One step closer to healing. Cheers!

Being ethical vs. being moralistic

“While an ethicist creates space for others to reason, draw their own conclusions, and make their own decisions, a moralist is one who attempts to impose his or her beliefs upon others.”

Reading this definitely helps me lay out my thoughts and my wrong beliefs. I have always thought that going by my values, my ethics, and my morals was always about being a moralist. And I really did not like being labeled as one, much less functioning as one.

This statement helps me uncover that I sometimes do impose my values, and sometimes I do allow the space for my friends to decide for themselves. I am thinking of putting this idea into my work as well, so that my customers will never feel threatened and they have an ‘empowering’ time with me. That way, service is always almost satisfactory.

Words kinda guy

I guess I have always been a words-kinda guy. The kind of person who is garrulous and very happy to be given the chance to express himself. I like words. They can induce sensations, and create meaning, they can evoke terror, or produce fantasy. Maybe that’s why I subscribe so much to psychotherapy.

Now, I am in the process of changing from a ‘words kinda guy’ to a ‘experience kinda guy’. Now I got a counterpart to help me in managing one of the groups. Phew. He is definitely more ‘real’ than I am.

Writing as a therapeutic tool

I find writing very therapeutic. Too many times I have too many things floating in my head. Writing it down expands it, and anchors it. When it is written down, I can see for myself the folly of my ideas, or the brilliance of my ideas.

When I am stressed, like I have been in the past week, I felt excellent despite still being in contact with the stress. Writing the feelings and the fears that I have is like a burden off my chest. Now I am able to incorporate what I have been reading about ‘what I am doing wrong’ to do it properly.

Will do more writing, less formal nonsense like, “Thou art beautiful” nonsense.

Basically, I am allowing myself to make as many errors as I need to on this blog, this written piece of internet space. I need to learn to make errors and live with them, erm, actually its more like I need to learn to live with the errors I make. Always comes out wrong, no wonder people call me ‘cocky’, and its not because I can play “Little Red Rooster” on the harmonica.

Need to get out more and learn to be.

Dualism

The interest in analysis is always fascinating. While trying to convince my colleague about the fallacy of dualism, he explained his understanding of dualism with regards to the philosphical approach that he learnt when he was back in varsity. What alarmed me about this conversation was that much of my thinking is always about a duality principle. What is right, and what is not right is wrong.

We could go on all day to discuss about grey areas, but that is not the point of this blog entry.
Growing from a Buddhist background helped me see duality of the human nature, sort of the yin and yang, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. I think I have reached a newer level in understanding this duality nature.

While seeing through the lens of duality is an excellent way to analyse and figure stuff out, its main limitation is that of practical applicability. Life does not function in duality. Life is a mash up of experiences, everything influencing everything else. How do you separate one from the other? Truth is that I cannot.

So is duality wrong? I do not think so either. Duality is probably a good means to re-examine patterns and help in sorting out meshed ideas. Duality is a good tool in other words. However, like every concept used to describe and create understanding of life, it is only a tool, and should not go beyond description. Life is the vast richness of experiences.

Oh dear, did I just use another concept to describe life and make it a personal philosophy?