June 2010

There were 18 posts published in June 2010 (this is page 2 of 3).

Letting go of things you own (Day 11)

One thing I want to do during the period of this 30 day blogging challenge. I want to get rid of some of the things I own. Those ones that I don’t really need … or to be precise, those things that don’t belong to myself in an ideal lifestyle of mine.

At this stage, I’m drawn towards a lifestyle of a vagabond. A minimalistic lifestyle, that is. Ideally, I want to be able to carry everything I need in a 40l backpack. When it comes to the clothing department, I’m rather fine. I could have only a few clothes and be fine about it.

What I find most difficult is books. I always liked reading books. When I was a little kid, I would put my favorite books around my pillow before going to bed. In fact, I still do that, although I hardly put a pile of books around my pillow anymore. Now it’s just one or two.

I wonder what makes it difficult for me to let go of those books. I’d definitely need some of them for reference, like most of my philosophy books. There are some other books that I got a number of inspirations from; these ones are harder to let go. There are books I feel as if I would reread at a later stage of my life.

This attachment to material objects.

But then, in most cases, what I really want to keep is the content of those books rather than physical copies of those books. Perhaps it’s not so much about letting go of material objects that holds us back, but it’s the fear of forgetting what we’ve learnt or experienced through reading those books. This seems to apply to other objects like clothes or photos. It’s not really about those objects, but the memories we associate with them that matter.

Memories. There’s something about memories that I want to talk about more. I’ll save this topic for another day.

In any case, this post will serve me as a public statement of my intention to get rid of unnecesarry things I still own. It’s a small step I take towards this goal. So, let’s see what happens.

What matters in this competition on Sunday (Day 10)

I’ll participate in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competition this Sunday. I’ll be fighting in two divisions: the -70kg division and the open weight division.

On one hand, I can look at the competition this way. I’m confident that I can beat everyone in my own weight category. The open weight division will be more difficult, and I’ll have to work harder. But, it’s achievable. I desire to win and by ‘winning’ I mean beating everyone I fight against.

On the other hand, I can look at it another way. What really matters to me in this competition is to show up as who I am. If I can move just as in daily training sessions, then that’s great–indeed, that’s what I’m after. Whether I beat my opponent or not is not what matters. I still desire to win, but the criterion for winning is different in this case. With this one, whether I win or not is totally dependent on me.

I do want to be a champion, and while that does require me to beat everyone in those divisions, it’s clear to me that the second way of thinking is more important to me.

It’s great to be aware that I’m on my path to excellence, where I measure my success by the way I put myself forward into the world. Winning by points is not what I’m after. Winning by submission. That’s what I want.

Reading the morning pages (Day 9)

I started reading my morning pages today.

During the course of the Artist’s Way, you are not meant to read your morning pages after writing them except when there’s an instruction to do so later in the course.

The last time I read my morning pages was the last time I worked on Week 9 of the Artist’s Way. That’s about 3 months ago. 2 notebooks and half a notebook make 3 months of my morning pages.

Since I wrote them by hand and right after I woke up, most of the pages are rather hard to read if not unreadable at all. But they give me a pleasant surprise. For example, I wrote that I would work on a certain project. After writing about it, I happened to find someone to collaborate with for that project, though I didn’t realize I had written about it when I actually started working on it. Another example is Spanish. I decided to learn Spanish recently-or so I thought. But in my morning pages from 3 months ago, I did write that I wanted to learn Spanish. What does this mean?

My interpretation is this. By writing morning pages, we can make small choices that slowly create shifts in our perspective. Sure, there are some fancy, folk theories that say things along this line… and I like simpler explanations than those fancy ones. So, the point is that if we become aware of what we are curious about and know that it’s okay to go along that curiosity, we start spotting what we want and move towards it, provided that we make deliberate choices to act and do act indeed.

I haven’t finished reading every bit of my morning pages yet. One thing that particularly caught my attention is a question I wrote-what will I be like in 3 months? That was a question from my self as of 3 months ago to my current self. This is a hard question to answer, especially when I feel I’ve been continuously me for the last 3 months.

Can you remember what you were like 3 months ago?

Blue, orange, red, dark blue, and black (Day 8)

The sunset was amazing here today. This photo taken with iPhone [*Too bad, when I migrated this blog into another directory, the picture mentioned here got lost!] doesn’t represent the actual sunset I saw with my eyes, but it does serve as a sketch of what I saw.

The thought I had from seeing this sunset was pretty simple. Blue turned into orange, then orange turned into red, and then it will turn into dark blue and then black. That’s exactly what I was thinking, and this thought made me nostalgic somehow. Changes of colour. I have no idea what that implies, but the sunset lets me enjoy nostalgic feelings anyway.

I’m glad I was open to this experience. Of course, this beautiful sunset would catch my attention anytime. But then, being able to notice things like this is a good indication that I can stop to experience things around me. I’ll keep myself open towards these beautiful moments, small or big.

If you’re constantly looking for and aware of such moments, they’ll come to you.

Let there be more romantic and beautiful moments (Day 7)

If you ask me what I want to do to the world these days, it’s very likely that I say this: I want to let there be more romances and beautiful moments of every kind without them being delusional. While there are many other things I want to pursue, this one is probably the one that’s occupying a huge part of my mind now. It’s also concerned with the world as a whole and not just me. I’m even tempted to write on romances and beautiful moments as a main theme for this blog.

A relatively easier way of making the world more romantic and beautiful is to become the romance you want to see in the world. Yes, I did rip that one off from Gandhi. The change you want to see or the romance you want to see. The same deal.

One thing I want to be cautious about is not to become delusional. It seems to me that some people who constantly talk about such things as romance and beauty are delusional and living in their own head. That’s not the way I want it to happen. In fact, if romances and beautiful moments are stuck in delusions, or in someone else’s imaginary world, then they haven’t really happened in this world. I want to see them happen in this world where we live and interact with one another.

I have no formal definition of romance I’m talking about here, but what I have in mind is fairly simple: whatever that you experience in beautiful moments. Beautiful moments are such moments when you feel so happy and warm that you want to stop the time. I want the world to be filled these feelings, moments, and romances. Since these things are experienced by us human beings-I suppose, in order to make my dream come true, I need to do something for the people of this world.

Would you be interested in reading posts about these topics?

Sharpening awareness through meditating by hand (Day 6)

One of the basic tools of the Artist’s Way is the morning pages.

Every morning, you write down by hand whatever thoughts or emotions occuring to you at the time of writing. The minimal amount you’re expected to write is 3 pages. For me, it takes about 30 mins to do the morning pages. Since the morning pages are only for yourself, you’re encouraged to write anything you want to write. There’s no need to self-edit your thoughts as well.

One of the benefits of the morning pages is that you can train your muscle for listening to yourself. I bet you have some negative noises that you had to adapt as you grew up as well as your positive voice that cheers you up. That sounds pretty much like a folk explanation and nothing solid, but I believe you get the picture. Working on the morning pages lets you cultivate your awareness more.

Having sharp awareness is useful in any area. For example, I think it’s no exaggeration to say that awareness I developed through the morning pages helped me get better at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The reason is that now I’m more aware of what I want to do, am trying to do and am doing. Once you become aware of these things, it will be easier to improve your game. Similarly, better awareness helps you deal with your negative noises as well as listen carefully to your positive voice. Being able to note these things is the first step and that’s exactly what the morning pages help you achieve. Even if you have no intention to work on the Artist’s Way, try doing the morning pages for 30 days. Or even a week. See how that makes a difference in your daily life.

Once you’ve tried that or you’ve already been doing, come back here and tell me what your experiences were like!