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Psychoanalytic Reflections 01

11

It’s a full seven days between ses­sions, and at this point, my pschol­o­gist is just start­ing to know me. In between, I can never stop reflect­ing. I’ve always believed that I know myself well, but these ses­sions are prob­ing ideas and mem­o­ries I haven’t thought of in a while, and open­ing up com­pletely new areas of reflection.

And while I could write for days about these thoughts and epipha­nies, I sim­ply don’t have the time, so I fig­ured I’d briefly touch on them in point form.

  • I need to respect my psy­chol­o­gist in order to accept help from him. i.e. If he was a Freudian and I was a Jungian, I wouldn’t be able to agree with any of his methods.
  • I get very anx­ious when I’m in his office. This is because I don’t like to admit to myself that something’s wrong with me, but when I’m in there, it’s a very tan­gi­ble reminder that I have men­tal problems.
  • I’m very con­flicted on sev­eral issues.
    • I don’t want to lose my emo­tions because I need to suf­fer to cre­ate. Yet the emo­tions are bad enough that I don’t want to have them any­more (or have them in mod­er­a­tion at least).
    • I want to love and be in a rela­tion­ship, and at the same time I cling to being sin­gle because I’m scared of being hurt (in addi­tion to the fact that the free­dom is intox­i­cat­ing). I do this by push­ing oth­ers away from me or cut­ting them off.
      • This stems from two sig­nif­i­cant child­hood mem­o­ries, where I felt betrayed in friend­ship, as well as my rela­tion­ship with my parents.
    • I want to be set­tled and have some sta­bil­ity (in terms of sched­ule, rela­tion­ships, finances etc.), but the strug­gle to be set­tled is what makes me grow and be stronger.
    • Many of these issues can only be resolved from deci­sions I should make. (i.e. No one else can make the deci­sion for me)
    • Turning to Taoism, which is very para­dox­i­cal in itself, has only helped so much.
  • Without my cre­ativ­ity, or my desire to express myself, I’m nothing.
  • I don’t want to “blame” my par­ents for con­fi­dence prob­lems or per­fec­tion­ist ten­den­cies, but I’m slowly start­ing to find out that they’ve affected me even more than I thought before.
  • As a hedo­nist, my great­est fear is los­ing my joie de vivre. If this hap­pened (and it has once), I would con­sider killing myself. This is because the joys of life bal­ance out all the bad and makes it worth living.
  • I’m depen­dent on other peo­ple for hap­pi­ness. I don’t see my friends often enough for me to be sat­is­fied, and it’s a sim­ple fact of life. They all have sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers, and I’m the only one left sin­gle. I don’t blame them for not spend­ing enough time with me, but it makes me very sad.
Date  February 14, 2008
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Categories  Thoughts

Becoming Pat

5

At the core of our beings, Pat and I are the same person.

What sep­a­rates us is our emo­tion, or lack thereof. Pat’s the log­i­cal one, I’m the emo­tional one. I’ve always looked up to him — his strength, his morals, his per­son­al­ity — with­out really under­stand­ing why.

It’s only in the last year that I’ve come to real­ize Pat is a Taoist. This comes with the real­iza­tion that I’m a Taoist myself, and explains why I try to be more like him.

The inter­est­ing part is that he doesn’t even know that he’s a Taoist — sort of like Winnie the Pooh — which is exactly what makes him a true Taoist.

One of Chuang Tzŭ’s para­bles illus­trates this point. In an abbre­vi­ated ver­sion, Knowledge seeks a con­scious reflec­tion to know the Tao, and asked Silent Do Nothing and Reckless Blurter, before ask­ing The Yellow Emperor (ahhh, the Romantic per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of Chinese fables):

Knowledge said to The Yellow Emperor, “I asked Silent Do Nothing and he kept quiet. Not only didn’t he answer me, but he didn’t even know how to answer. I asked Reckless Blurter, and though he wanted to tell me, he didn’t, and even for­got my ques­tions. Now I’ve asked you, and you know all about it. Why do you say that you’re far from it?”.

The Yellow Emperor said, “Silent Do Nothing was truly right, because he didn’t know any­thing. Reckless Blurter was nearly right, because he’d for­got­ten it. You and I are far from right, because we know far too much”.

The same is true for Tai Chi1, or any mar­tial art for that mat­ter. Dissect it too much, and you lose the mean­ing. Think about it too much, and you don’t react. As Michael Babin wrote in his arti­cle on self-defense train­ing:

It is sad but true that real skill comes from seem­ingly end­less drilling of the basics and then learn­ing how to transcend/forget most of what you have so patiently learned.

In other words, learn­ing struc­ture is essen­tial to learn­ing to react to a com­plete lack of struc­ture (i.e. a real fight); but if you focus on struc­ture for too long it becomes counter-productive to “being with­out struc­ture” in mar­tial terms. One of the many annoy­ing para­doxes in the inter­nal arts.

One of the many para­doxes in the Taoist phi­los­o­phy as well. As much as I try to study it, learn it, and apply it, I find myself think­ing about it too much. As a result, I occa­sion­ally stray from being cen­tered, and lose my balance.

It’s the con­scious reflec­tion which Knowledge is seek­ing that pre­emp­tively dooms his search. This is my prob­lem as well. I buy Taoist books with a thirst for knowl­edge, but they’re all telling me the same thing now. Not that the books haven’t helped at all, but I feel like I’ve reached a limit. Perhaps even the sim­ple act of writ­ing about this is counter-productive.

I have the under­stand­ing, but I can’t apply it with­out think­ing about it first, and it’s the attempt to apply it that ruins the point. I’ve yet to reach a stage of pure reac­tion and spon­tane­ity, like Pat.

But I’m get­ting there.

  1. Yet another exam­ple of how Tai Chi is the phys­i­cal expres­sion of the phi­los­o­phy. Or per­haps this could be reverse-generalized, and said that the Taoist phi­los­o­phy is reflected in every­thing, such as mar­tial arts. [↑]
Date  November 25, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

Privy To All The New Shit

3

I’ve been in the strangest mood lately. Killing my Top Rated playlist every­where I go, yet I skip through 90% of the songs, try­ing to find the right one. Talking to myself. Replaying con­ver­sa­tions in my head.

I don’t quite feel at one with the Tao. I’ve been let­ting small things get to me. It’s as if I’m falling back into my old destruc­tive habits, but upon real­iz­ing this, I fight against it. The strug­gle, when observed objec­tively, is quite amusing.

These are excit­ing times. Along with the excite­ment comes ner­vous­ness. It’s turned me into a jum­ble of emo­tions, bit­ter­sweet, and unlike any­thing I’ve ever expe­ri­enced before.

Wish I could do some­thing with this feeling.

Date  November 9, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

Taoist Hedonism (or Why I Don't Miss Smoking Weed Anymore)

0

One of my daily rit­u­als used to be light­ing a joint when I got home from work, and rid­ing off the weed for the rest of the evening. It was the only thing that could relax me; oth­er­wise, I was tense and uptight. I couldn’t just sit and watch a movie, read a book, lis­ten to an album with­out it because I felt too guilty, as if I wasn’t get­ting enough done.

For the first year that I quit, I missed it ter­ri­bly. Not because I couldn’t sleep, not because food became bland, not because music didn’t sound as good, but because I couldn’t calm down. I was always try­ing to get things done, con­stantly depriv­ing myself of plea­sure to accom­plish things with­out an end.

Following Taoism has changed that. Taoists value becom­ing as a child. Having no extra­ne­ous thoughts, and liv­ing in the now.

Unless stopped by adults, chil­dren live life to the full, whereas for most adults exis­tence seems more of a near-life expe­ri­ence where we resem­ble actors rehears­ing for a play that never quite begins, instead of play­ing fully, as chil­dren do, in a per­for­mance that has no begin­ning or end.

—Mark Forstater, The Tao

In doing so, I’ve begun to live every day as if it was my last. I don’t worry about run­ning out of my good tea any­more, and just drink it. I don’t feel guilty about doing noth­ing, about let­ting my mind wan­der. I do what I feel like, when I feel like it. I’ve been able to let go. I stopped sweat­ing the small stuff, and started enjoy­ing life.

Remember how well you slept as a kid? That’s how I’ve been sleep­ing now.

An ex-smoker once told me that the part he missed the most about smok­ing was the rit­ual. The early-morning-coffee or the after-dinner smoke. He felt a lot bet­ter after quit­ting, but if he found out the world was going to end in a week, the first thing he would do is go to the cor­ner store and buy a pack of smokes. I used to think that I’d do the same with weed. Not so, anymore.

Not that I don’t miss it every now and then. There are cer­tain things that can only be expe­ri­enced through mind-tripping highs. It’s some­thing I’d like to keep for spe­cial occa­sions. When I go to see Darren, or when John comes down, but even those sel­dom times aren’t worth it any­more. I know I’ll never do it again, but I don’t mind because I know I’ve been for­tu­nate enough to expe­ri­ence it already. The impor­tant part is that I’m not depen­dent on it.

Taoist hedo­nism has set me free.

Date  November 4, 2007
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Categories  Random

Hurts So Good

4

I’m exhausted. It’s late. I should be going to bed, but I want to write. Here I am.

Vanilla chai, this time. I never drink this tea, so it seemed some­what appropriate.

My limbs are sore. I’ve been prac­tic­ing my Tai Chi on a reg­u­lar basis, and my under­stand­ing has sur­passed my phys­i­cal abil­ity. I’m start­ing to over-exert myself. I’ve also been using my arms instead of my whole body when advanc­ing in sin­gle push hands, caus­ing my arms to work more than they should. Tonight, it got to the point where they were com­pletely weak. I sus­pect Elizabeth could feel this, and she switched arms before I had the good sense to do it myself.

It’s get­ting cold in the house1. The ther­mo­stat says 20, but it feels more like 18. I stood in the shower for a good 15 min­utes, let­ting my skin burn under the hot water, to the point where I stepped out of the shower into the cold air and started to sweat.

No edit­ing. No back­track­ing. Just type, and publish.

I hap­pened to come across a video today by the Grass Roots.

When I think of all the wor­ries peo­ple seem to find
And how they’re in a hurry to com­pli­cate their minds
By chas­ing after money and dreams that can’t come true
I’m glad that we are dif­fer­ent, we’ve bet­ter things to do
The oth­ers plan their future, I’m busy lov­ing you

One, two, three, four
Sha-la-la-la-la-la live for today.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la live for today.

And don’t worry ’bout tomor­row, hey hey hey hey.

Maybe I’m just read­ing into it, like a born-again, but the lyrics struck me as very Taoist, and the idea of detach­ment in par­tic­u­lar2. Darren jokes that I’ll start preach­ing to him the next time I visit him because our con­ver­sa­tions always stray to Taoism.

I’ve been feel­ing decid­edly dark, decid­edly yin, lately. Not sad or upset, but in an ener­getic way. I’m bouncy. Maybe this is the way my brain adjusts to my pre­vi­ously cheer­ful upswing. The funny thing is that I’m no less cheer­ful, just in a dif­fer­ent way. I feel more bal­anced. It’s as if the mind aches from some unknown force, expressed through an emo­tional state, yet rel­ishes and wal­lows in this.

And I’m lov­ing every minute of it.

  1. I’m try­ing to wait as long as pos­si­ble before turn­ing the heat on [↑]
  2. Something I’ve only recently been able to achieve to any rel­a­tive degree of suc­cess. [↑]
Date  October 16, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

I'm Up

6

Yes, I’m up again. Not even, but up.

I think it’s pretty obvi­ous that I don’t think straight when lack­ing sleep. I get very grumpy, and Bronwen knows not to get in my way when that hap­pens (and not to call me “Mr. Grumpykins”). Still, even with enough sleep, I don’t think it would have changed how I was feeling.

So I picked myself up by read­ing the para­bles of Chuang Tzŭ1. Though it’s still well beyond my grasp, I’m slowly learn­ing how to achieve utter empti­ness and single-minded still­ness.

I like to think that I’m aware enough to know that I’m not delud­ing myself into this state-of-mind.

Sometimes I won­der if I sound like a born-again Christian, only with Taoism. One of those peo­ple who gets preachy, where every­thing they say relates to their new-found faith. It’s as if my brain processes every­thing through a Tao fil­ter, and I see every­thing in a dif­fer­ent way. I try to be con­scious of it in con­ver­sa­tion, to avoid bor­ing some­one who wouldn’t really under­stand any­way, but I can’t help but write about it here.

Nevertheless, I feel enlight­ened, though still human2; I’m not sure if I’ll get the rug pulled out from under me again. It’s a strange feel­ing. In this mind­set, it’s as if noth­ing can stop you. Until some­thing happens.

Part of me wishes I wasn’t feel­ing this high. That I was more even, like Pat. It’s a bal­ance of emo­tion that I seek, not the dra­matic ups and downs. I’ll be con­tent when I can achieve that.

Hence it is para­dox­i­cally said, “Perfect hap­pi­ness is to be with­out hap­pi­ness; the high­est praise is to be with­out praise”.

  1. Dave helped talk some sense into me as well. I think part of my recov­ery was that our dis­cus­sion led me to feel as if he’s a kin­dred spirit. [↑]
  2. When look­ing back on this entry, I real­ized that I wrote about pick­ing myself up twice in one month. I don’t even remem­ber writ­ing it the first time. [↑]
Date  October 4, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

Life Is Full Of Possibilities

6

How sim­ple a thing is hap­pi­ness: a glass of wine, a roast chest­nut, a wretched lit­tle bra­zier, the sound of the sea. All that is required to feel that here and now is hap­pi­ness and a sim­ple, fru­gal heart.

—Zorba the Greek

I feel like writing.

Saturdays are usu­ally reserved for relax­ation, but I mixed it with a few errands through­out the day. Bought extra auburn foliage for one of my pots, and a fun­nel to get fresh-ground pep­per into my new pep­per shaker. Picked up my weekly gro­ceries. Sat down at the pizza par­lor to start Beautiful Losers while my Hawaiian was being baked.

I watched Zorba The Greek tonight, about the adven­tures of an aim­less Englishman who goes to Crete, and the lessons he learns from a man he meets named Zorba.

Thumbnail: Zorba the Greek dances

Thumbnail: The Crete widow from Zorba the Greek

Though gen­er­ally jovial and light­hearted, it was heavy and heavy at times. There’s a scene where a beau­ti­ful widow (the love inter­est of the movie) is rit­u­al­is­ti­cally stoned and killed out of jeal­ousy by the men of the vil­lage, sim­ply because she wouldn’t let any of them have her. The direc­tion is a lit­tle incon­sis­tent, but Anthony Quinn’s por­trayal of the Grecian spirit keeps the movie in tact. Many believe the movie to be an analy­sis of Apollonian vs Dionysian thought, but I saw it as a nod to Taoism as well.

Zorba’s a Taoist, whether he knows it or not. He shuns intel­lec­tual thought and analy­sis, and loves life with bub­bling spon­tane­ity. In the end, the Englishman learns from Zorba, not about life, but how to live it.

And it inspired me. Not just the dia­logue or the play­ful­ness, but the loca­tions too. It made me want to travel, to see new places, to meet more peo­ple, and explore other cultures.

One day. For now, I’ll enjoy the com­fort of my house.

So here I am, stay­ing up late with my back next to the open win­dow, eat­ing but­ter pecan tarts, drink­ing Dragon Well tea, and writ­ing as much as I can.

I think I’ll go prac­tice the form now.

Tomorrow, I have noth­ing to do but live.

Date  September 30, 2007
Tags 
Categories  Daily Life Thoughts

Background on the Tao Tattoo

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Part of The Tao Tattoo Series

  1. The Meaning
  2. The Experience
  3. The Background
  4. Tattwo
Thumbnail: Various ways to write Tao
Thumbnail: Cover of Tao of Pooh

Asian char­ac­ter tat­toos have become some­what of a cliché, but not doing some­thing because it’s trendy is as bad as doing it because it’s trendy. I chose to get a tat­too for myself, which is why I it’s on the inside of my wrist, fac­ing me when I see it. Unfortunately, for­eign lan­guage tat­toos are often wrong and hilar­i­ously bad as well, as if a child had drawn them.

Thumbnail: Laozi getting off his ox
Thumbnail: A painting of the character Tao

So I did my research, and found as many draw­ings of the Tao char­ac­ter as pos­si­ble. At one point I went as far as track­ing down peo­ple who had pur­chased a cer­tain paint­ing with Tao in the title, and call­ing them to ask if they would take a pic­ture and send it to me1. I’m a per­fec­tion­ist in my every­day life, so I was going to be sure about some­thing that would last for the rest of my life.

Read the rest of this entry »

  1. I felt ter­ri­ble when one guy said that the paint­ing was with his ex-girlfriend [↑]
Date  August 22, 2007
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Categories  Random

The Tao Tattoo

15

Part of The Tao Tattoo Series

  1. The Meaning
  2. The Experience
  3. The Background
  4. Tattwo

Thumbnail: The Tao tattoo

Thumbnail: The Tao tattoo macro 

To remind me to keep my chin up.

To remind me not to sweat the small stuff.

To remind me to live in accor­dance with the nature of things.

To remind me to stay balanced.

To remind me to decrease my wants.

To remind me to indulge myself every now and then.

To remind me that every­thing is as it should be.

To remind me to stop com­par­ing myself to others.

To remind me not to use force against the world, and embrace the way of the universe.

To remind me to fol­low my own nature, and not the trap­pings of life.

To remind me that noth­ing really matters.

To remind me to have no claims to life.

To remind me to be spon­ta­neous, delib­er­ate, watch­ful, rev­er­ent, hum­ble, pure, and accepting.

To remind me that heaven is found on earth.

Date  August 13, 2007
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Categories  Photos Random

A Taoist Dilemma

7

Over some cab­bage roll and peach juice, I asked a sage, “Taoism teaches me to accept every­one and cast aside my purist ways. Yet how can I do this if it’s in my nature to refuse to accept people’s flaws? I must accept myself as I accept others”.

He told me, “If you are happy with your­self and the deci­sions you make, then there is noth­ing to worry about”.

Then he took my bowl, washed it, and we played Warcraft III for eleven straight hours.

Date  July 30, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

An Emotional Day, Reminding Me

2

Today I woke up and felt uneasy, remind­ing me that I’m human.

Tonight I read that People who lived through Yenan remem­bered see­ing caves in val­leys crammed with peo­ple, “many of whom had gone mad. Some were laugh­ing wildly, some cry­ing” and I felt dis­il­lu­sioned, remind­ing me that human com­pre­hen­sion is lim­ited by the human mind.

Tonight she put her hands on another man, I was sum­mar­ily dis­missed from the group, and it made me jeal­ous, remind­ing me that I’m alive.

Tonight I sat on a rick­ety wooden bench and fin­gered the yin-yang engraved in the mid­dle, remind­ing me that it’s all part of the Way.

Date  July 24, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

Becoming One With The Tao

6

After 26 years, I’ve real­ized that I’m a Taoist.

I dab­bled in Existentialism (after read­ing Huis Clos, revis­it­ing it when read­ing Thus Spoke Zarathustra), athe­ism (when I was dat­ing an Anglican), agnos­ti­cism (after we broke up), Nihilism (while read­ing sev­eral books of Russian Romantic lit­er­a­ture), Buddhism (in early uni­ver­sity), and Christianity (through­out my life). None of it ever felt complete.

In 2003, I hap­pened to come across a few verses of the Tao Te Ching. The con­cepts were dif­fi­cult to grasp at first1. Eventually, with the guid­ance of some Chinese elders, I came to a solid foun­da­tion of under­stand­ing, then approached it slowly and care­fully. I had put so much hope in find­ing a sys­tem of beliefs in the past, that I was scared of hur­riedly align­ing myself with the first one that bared a pass­ing resem­blance to my own.

More specif­i­cally, I’m a philo­soph­i­cal Taoist. I don’t believe in any poly­the­is­tic aspects of the reli­gious side, the div­ina­tion of the I Ching, or any of the archaic sex­ual prac­tices of ret­ro­grade ejac­u­la­tion and the like.

This doesn’t mean that I’m a per­fect Taoist, inso­far as there are no per­fect Christians, or per­fect peo­ple. The Tao Te Ching is my bible. It guides me on how to live and behave as much as it is a label of my exist­ing beliefs. There are things I have yet to learn, apply, or both.

I think I’ve always been a Taoist. I just never knew it. For as long as I can remem­ber, I’ve lived by the prin­ci­ples of bal­ance, empti­ness (or recep­tive­ness), and strength of flex­i­bil­ity. I’m glad that it’s a part of the cul­ture of my blood. It makes me proud. Understanding Cantonese has cer­tainly helped me appre­ci­ate the beauty of it all.

One doesn’t decide to become a Taoist. The Way is described as hav­ing no begin­ning or end. You must become one with it.

As such, a trav­eler is at his des­ti­na­tion at every part of the journey.

  1. I’ve come to see that the ideas are eas­ily lost in trans­la­tion [↑]
Date  July 13, 2007
Tags 
Categories  Thoughts

To Grow from Yielding

8

The most yield­ing thing in the world
  will over­come the most rigid
The most empty thing in the world
  will over­come the most full
From this comes a les­son —
  Stillness ben­e­fits more than action
  Silence ben­e­fits more than words

—Verse 43, Tao Te Ching

Sometimes, tem­per­ance is the great­est weapon.

When some­one attacks you with words or tries to make you feel any less than your­self, you merely need acquiesce.

In doing so, you dis­arm them. You rob them of their only weapon — anger — and their words lose all mean­ing and significance.

Tai Chi, as the phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of Taoist philoso­phies, fol­lows the same idea.

Then you will under­stand the flow of inter­nal power, and, hav­ing repeat­edly prac­ticed and refined your tech­nique and explored your own aware­ness, you can use and con­trol your inter­nal power at will.

The T’ai Chi prin­ci­ple is as sim­ple as this: yield your­self and fol­low the exter­nal forces.

—Waysun Liao, The Essence of T’ai Chi

When your oppo­nent expands, con­tract. Create a void in your stance, and let them fill that void. By absorb­ing your opponent’s energy, you reduce it to nothing.

No one proves them­selves more inane than one who matches energy with energy, force with force.

I’ve finally come to fully under­stand such an idea. The the­ory made sense, but I never put it in prac­tice, and prac­tice is what makes the under­stand­ing com­plete. It was only recently that I had the chance to apply it. The old me was hot-headed with too much to prove. When faced with insult­ing, patron­iz­ing words, I would have reacted, instead of fol­low­ing the prin­ci­ple of wu wei. The sit­u­a­tion was a test of myself, and I passed.

From this I’ve learned how much I’ve grown.

Date  May 28, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts
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