Posts in category "Thoughts"

To Grow from Yielding

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.

Lessons From a Childhood of Abuse

I often explain to peo­ple that Karaoke to the Chinese is like drink­ing to the British. We don’t pour pints at our par­ties, we sing. It’s part of the cul­ture. The Chinese-Canadian dream is a Toyota in every dri­ve­way and a Karaoke machine in every house.

My dad was no excep­tion. Like all his hob­bies, he took Karaoke seri­ous­ly. He had singing lessons from a famous teacher. Sometimes, he would record him­self and lis­ten to the tapes to ana­lyze his singing when dri­ving me to school. We would nev­er talk on those hour-long rides, I would only hear him singing, some­times along with his record­ed voice, some­times prac­tic­ing the parts that he did­n’t have quite right.

When I was young, about sev­en, I would sing one of the English songs from his col­lec­tion. I could­n’t tell you why. Karaoke did­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est me. Maybe it was a way for me to be a part of his life. He had noth­ing to do with me oth­er­wise.

Continue read­ing “Lessons From a Childhood of Abuse”…

Don't Let Me Lose This Feeling

I still stag­ger and fall. Of course I have that, it hap­pens to me all the time, you just have to get very care­ful about it, because it’s inap­pro­pri­ate for an elder­ly chap to reg­is­ter authen­ti­cal­ly his feel­ings, you know, because they real­ly could be inter­pret­ed, so you real­ly have to get quite covert as you get old­er or you have to find some avun­cu­lar way of respond­ing, but still, you just, real­ly are just, you’re wound­ed, you stag­ger, and you fall.

—Leonard Cohen at 72

In 50 years, will I look at love with the same star­ry-eyed mys­ti­cism as I do now?

Will I be sat­is­fied, hav­ing loved enough, requit­ed and not?

In my dotage, will I be proud to say that I was adored once, too?

When my friends are gone and my hair is grey, and I ache in the places where I used to play, will I still stag­ger?

Will I still fall?

When I Die

When I die, let there be no obit­u­ar­ies or announce­ments, for the ones who should know, would know.

Let there be a gath­er­ing instead of a funer­al, where my friends can relax and speak what they wish.

Let the dress be casu­al, for no one should be any­thing but them­selves around me.

Let there be men­tion of my flaws, for there would be no truth or human­i­ty with­out them.

Let there be humour and laugh­ter, for I love these things in my life.

Let there be no reli­gious ser­vice, for my life has been devoid of reli­gion.

Let there be as much cel­e­bra­tion of my life as there is mourn­ing that it has end­ed.

Let every­one have a copy of Turn On The Bright Lights by which to remem­ber me.

Let my ash­es be scat­tered, for I hope to carve my name on hearts, not mar­ble.

Jealousy As Insecurity As Love

Hey Pat,

I don’t know how seri­ous you thought I was about being the best man or MC if you ever get mar­ried. I know it may sound crazy, but you get­ting mar­ried is as impor­tant to me as it is to you. I love you, and I know I don’t tell you that enough. You are a true friend to me, and you know that I don’t have many.

I see this as a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing for you, because you’ve already done so much for me. Let me take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port you, to be there for you on one of the most impor­tant days of your life. I eas­i­ly put aside the dif­fer­ences I’ve had with any poten­tial peo­ple you may invite (I think that we’re smart enough to be open and dis­cuss this), because it’s about you, not me.

These things are usu­al­ly planned pret­ty well in advance though, so I won’t be sur­prised if you have some­one else in mind. I under­stand that we’re talk­ing about YOUR big day, so you should have the peo­ple YOU want involved in YOUR wed­ding. To be hon­est, I’ll be hap­py with what­ev­er deci­sion you make, because I’m hap­py if you’re hap­py. Bottom line.

In any case, let me know when you pop the ques­tion, and WE WILL FEAST.

  —Jeff

I wrote this two years ago.

Pat pro­posed to Jen a cou­ple of months lat­er. Several months after that, they bought a house, delay­ing the wed­ding until this year.

Last week, Pat asked me to be a grooms­man and co-MC.

When I found out that Jason would be best man (as well as the oth­er MC) there was a tinge of jeal­ousy in my heart, fol­lowed by an over­whelm­ing sense of guilt about this jeal­ousy.

To feel this way was a bit of a sur­prise. Jealously has nev­er been one of my promi­nent emo­tions. It made me real­ize that I’m a lit­tle inse­cure in my rela­tion­ship with Pat. There’s so much good in him, com­pared to the hatred, dark­ness, and weak­ness in me. He’s not my oppo­site, but he’s the per­son I’m con­stant­ly striv­ing to become. Just being around him makes me feel elat­ed and relaxed.

The frus­trat­ing thing is that I know it’s his wed­ding. He should be able to do what­ev­er he wants. There’s no rival­ry between Jason and me. As studi­er of peo­ple, I have every bit of faith in Pat’s deci­sion. The log­ic has final­ly kicked in, and I feel a sense of warmth and secu­ri­ty about being up there with Pat, a group exclu­sive to a hand­ful of peo­ple out of a seem­ing­ly end­less num­ber.

It’s only now that I real­ize how self­ish and inap­pro­pri­ate it was of me to ask. Running around, mak­ing sure every­one is hav­ing a good time, giv­ing toasts, host­ing games, the duty of MC isn’t even some­thing I nor­mal­ly want to do. I only asked because it was a way that I could show how much Pat has done for me, a respon­si­bil­i­ty I’d take on glad­ly.

I’m scared that I made him feel oblig­ed, and I’m ashamed of being jeal­ous for that split-sec­ond.

Maybe that’s what love is.

Unfounded inse­cu­ri­ty. Jealousy with­out rea­son.

A feel­ing that over­whelms log­ic.