October 2010

There were 12 posts published in October 2010 (this is page 2 of 2).

Letting go of old belongings and creating room for new memories

Taro Okamoto, my favorite artist, believed that life is not about accumulating as many of us tend to think, but it’s about using up what we have. When first I read the very first paragraph of Okamoto’s book Jibun no Naka ni Doku o Mote or Have Poison Inside You in English, which expresses that belief of his, I was impressed and inspired. I think I was 16 year old or so, and I didn’t fully understand… or feel what he meant.

I wish I could say I learnt the idea of using up my life over the last 10 years, but I started getting it only recently. I came to understand this idea deeper and better by working on designing my life. What kind of person do I want to be? What do I want my life to look like? Answering these questions helped me clarify my vision and move towards it, because it tells me what I need to leave behind in order to get to where I want to go.

Some exercises in Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way gave me some initial momentum. You get asked to get rid of your old clothes and what doesn’t belong to your vision. Once you get used to getting rid of some of your old belongings, you’ll get used to making more room for a new stream. At least that was the case for me.

Thankfully, I’m not an accumulative person in general. Even though I didn’t have many clothes, I still could manage to get rid of my old T-shirts that I didn’t wear anymore. I did have some attachments to them, though.

What makes it hard to let go of personal belongings is probably attachment we have for those items. It seems as though they store our memories and throwing them away is almost like erasing those memories. Of course that’s not really the case, although our belongings might function as triggers for our memories. And I can understand that sentiment about letting go of old memories by throwing away old belongings.

But, I decided that I need to make room for new memories anyway. If I end up forgetting those old memories by losing memory triggers, so be it. I trust my brain for keeping what matters to me. In any case, I’m determined to make new, even greater memories.

I’m aiming at becoming minimalistic about my possessions. By ‘minimalistic’, I mean as much as I could pack everything I have in a backpack and be ready to go. It will be really difficult to keep a hundred of books with me given this goal, but I’ll try as much as I can.

Getting rid of clothes was easy for me. I still have some that I could release from my hands, but I guess it’s OK for the time being.

I really don’t have much, apart from CDs and books. I did manage to get rid of most of my CDs – so, what’s left is a pile of books.

Although I cleared some of my books, there are a number of books making towers in my room still. Most of them are specialized books written in English (i.e. philosophy books) and I don’t really want to let them go. In fact, I could, but the problem is that I wouldn’t be able to access to those books at a library in Japan easily. I’ll do something about it though.

Instead of accumulating things in my life, I now want to give and share more. Not necessarily material things, but experiences, feelings and memories. To me, that’s what using up my life means in a nutshell.

On that note, I’ve decided to give away a copy of The Artist’s Way to one lucky person among not-so-many readers of this blog. It’s my copy. If you want to be considered for this give away, please write a comment on this post and tell me your story or tips about letting go of old belongings. I will pick the one lucky person at random on Monday and announce the winner in the next post. In the mean time, have fun letting go of your old belongings…

photo: Magda Sobkowiak

What fascinates me: Hooping tribe

My encounter with hooping was through my rad friend Kristen. I’ve known her since January and we read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way together for 12 weeks. Kristen organizes a monthly hoop gathering “4th Sunday Spin” at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo. That’s where I got my first hooping experience as well. I am fascinated by hooping and hoopers, but what I really want to talk about in this post is… or I should say whom I really want to talk about is… Kristen.

Kristen choreographed a dance for this year’s World Hoop Day – October 10. She made tutorial videos and they look totally fabulous. But what’s more fabulous is that hoopers around the world recorded their World Hoop Day dance and uploaded these recordings online. Correct me if I’m wrong, Kristen, but what’s going to happen is that Kristen will edit those videos and put them together. I think that’s really, really cool.

I guess the reason why I’m fascinated by this whole thing is partly due to the fact that I witnessed how Kristen got rid of her creative blocks by working on The Artist’s Way.

And connecting people with hoops and social media! It’s a great example of sharing your passion with others and creating a tribe… creating a culture.

In fact, it’s so cool that I will quit being an irregular hooper and become a regular hooper. It’s a matter of time, ladies and gentlemen.

I recommend you to pick up a hoop as well! It’s a great way of having fun and doing exercises.

photo: nizzzat

Could there be a romantic monkey?

When I talk about making the world more romantic, I believe that some of you, if not many of you, probably think that I’m talking about what’s often depicted in the main stream media. An example could be a man behaving like a gentleman, caring a woman like a princess, carrying her bag, buying her flowers and chocolates and making everything sweet for her.

You may be glad or disappointed to hear that I’m not talking about romance in that sense. Of course, doing this kind of things is nice and sweet and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do such things under any circumstance. I should let you know where I’m coming from.

I want to tell you a little bit about why the example above doesn’t necessarily fit with my idea of being romantic. If we look at what this man in the example does, we might conclude that he’s a romantic person. But is he really? What if he is simply following an instruction? We could teach a monkey to pass flowers to a woman, but I believe that it doesn’t make this monkey a romantic monkey. The monkey did it, because he was instructed to do so.

We could also look at the man’s intention for doing supposedly romantic things. Why does he do these things? I can’t list every possible reason here, but I know a few that I think are questionable as an intention. For example, he does it because it’s supposed to be romantic. And let’s not stop here. Why does he want to do what’s supposed to be romantic? I guess the major reason could be that he wants to impress the girl in the hope that she will like him.

So, he has an agenda and that’s why he acts that way. He buys flowers for her, because he is trying to make her like him with this gift. In a way, he is changing the way he is according to what she might like in his view. In other words, he is not presenting his authentic self. That doesn’t sound like being open to the world, because if he was open to the world, he wouldn’t have to change the way he is. He would instead choose to see what will happen to them if he shows up as who he really is.

I believe that if he has this attitude of showing up in the world with his authentic self, it will make him more romantic if he hasn’t already been that way.

I hope this entry clarified what I mean by ‘being romantic’. If you like this idea, you can help me make the world more romantic too – all you need to do is to show up and stand on this earth as who you are I don’t know if monkeys could be romantic, but I know you could!

photo: SpiritMama

What would your ideal self do in your current situation?

A while ago, the following question came to my mind. Suppose I achieved what I want to achieve and became the ideal person that I want to be. Suppose further that this ideal self of mine somehow got to experience my current situation. What would he feel? What would he do? How would he behave?

I have a vision of my ideal self and it doesn’t involve concrete achievements or material objects that much. I tend to think of my ideal self in terms of what kind of person he is rather than what he has. So, this question is useful for me, because thinking about what he would feel helps me define and clarify what my ideal self is like, at least my ideal self as considered ideal by me-as-of-now.

So, what would my ideal self do if he was in my current situation? The answer I came up with was this: he would enjoy each and every moment.

But why?

My ideal self may be rich in the conventional sense. But I-as-of-now am not, at least compared to my ideal self. So, if my current self was experiencing my current situation, he wouldn’t be able to use his financial resources to do what he could and would do with those resources. But he wouldn’t be disappointed about that, because what he really wants to do is to have great experiences that his life has to offer and he knows that one can simply enjoy each and every moment of one’s life without spending money.

Every moment is new and unique. Some moments can be ordinary, some can be rough, and some can be amazing. You never know which moment turns out to be beautiful, though you might be able to tell in some cases. You can’t be selective about which moment to experience… that is, you can’t choose not to experience this moment, but choose to experience the moment after that moment. Or perhaps you could, in a way. You could choose to avert your eyes from what’s happening and let go of moments that could turn out to be amazing or average. But again, who knows the moments you thought would be average might turn out to be amazing? I bet the secret to experiencing beautiful moments is to enjoy each and every moment. Being open to these moments will give you many more opportunities. I believe that you will be able to sense potentially-great ones through practicing this openness towards what you experience.

And here’s another thought. There’s no reason why I should put forward enjoying these moments until I become that ideal person. In fact, I believe enjoying these moments is the way to become that ideal person I want to be. The beauty of this all is that I can do what my ideal self would do in my current situation right now and by doing that, I get closer to my ideal self.

What would your ideal self do and feel if your ideal self was in your current situation?

image: Dare Darlington

In search of a nomad cafe

An interesting concept came to my mind during a conversation with a great friend of mine: a nomad cafe. Given how unconventional people operate in the world, I wouldn’t be surprised that there be a vagabonding soul that does what I will describe in the following. I would love to know if there’s such a person. If there is, please let me know.

So, here’s what a nomad cafe involves. Let’s say you run a nomad cafe. What that means is simple: you have cooking skills, you love traveling, you enjoy cooking for other people, and there are people who are willing to have a cafe experience with you. You advertise yourself on your website or other similar platforms and let people know that where you are going to run a nomad cafe next time. People who like to have a cafe experience with you respond to you–some might have a kitchen they can let you use, some might have ingredients they can offer you, or others might simply be happy to pay you for the food and experiences you provide.

This person might sound like a couchsurfer with cooking skills, and essentially, that’s correct. I would add and emphasize social media skills to that description though.

Do you know of anyone that fits the description above? Since I’m interested in becoming a vagabond and traveling around the world, I’m curious about this way of exploring and connecting with the world.

I guess it would be a fun way to fund a travel as you go as well as a great way to make great connections with local people. Food bonds us together.

photo: kamshots

Updates: October 2010

I had been hiding from this blog… again. Here’s a quick highlight of what I had been up to in the past few months.

Ars Amorata

I’ve been following Zan Perrion for a while and appreciate what he teaches. Zan and Hans Comijn started the online version of their program Ars Amorata recently. Ars Amorata is a 90 day transformational program for men. ‘Ars Amorata’ means the art of love and it is oriented towards things related to love and relationship as the name suggests, but what one learns in this program is much bigger than these two areas. I signed up for Ars Amorata in May and completed it. Ars Amorata helped me clarify my vision about where I want to go and what I want to do. I will write more about Ars Amorata in another post. If you are curious about it, check its promotional video and webpage.

Beautiful moments

I want to make the world more romantic. The question I get most often is “How do you do that?”. My answer is simple: I live my life as if it’s a work of art and seek for beautiful moments that contribute to this artwork. That’s what I do. If you like the idea of the world being more romantic, what you can do is to believe in experiencing the beauty that your life offers and to experience it when it’s right in front of you. I want to write more on this topic on this blog and it would be great if I could be of your help. But you can start now without waiting for my stories.

Interviewing professional fighters in Japan

Daniel the MMA photographer had been looking for an interpreter for this project on interviewing fighters in Japan. On twitter, I had been following him and replied to his tweets a few times, and he noticed that I was fluent in both Japanese and English. So he contacted me. I got to interview Megumi Fujii, Yuki Nakai, Tatsuya Onose, Maximo Blanco, and Kazuhiro Nakamura. I had so much fun with this project, because it was inspiring for me to hear from these top fighters in person. I believe the materials recorded for this project will come out as articles and videos in the future. In fact, Matt, one of the project members, wrote an article about our interview with Megumi Fujii. Check it out if you are interested. If you are on twitter and interested in BJJ or MMA, don’t forget to follow Daniel (@DanHerbertson) and Matt (@martialfarts) as well as Dean, who is another project member and likes BJJ and hardcore punk!

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Asian Open Championship in Tokyo

I competed at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Open Championship in Tokyo last month. I came to the 2nd in my division, winning 4 matches by submission. I lost in the final. If you are following me on twitter or Facebook, perhaps you’ve already heard about it. Or perhaps you’ve got an e-mail from me. I will write a post on my fights soon.

Miscellaneous

I’ve been practicing Argentinean Tango since April, and in August, I started practicing for a solo performance, which will happen in November.

I met Rickson Gracie. He published a book in Japan and the publisher organized a meet-and-greet event for those who bought a copy of Rickson’s book at certain bookstores. I learnt a lot from Rickson’s view on life.

I met amazing people in the last few months. I want to meet amazing people more. Suggestions and introductions welcome.

In terms of setting up a location independent business, it’s not happening much. I need to work more on that so I can be a vagabond with location-independent sources of income. Translation, which I do, is such a source, but it’s not quite in line with my vision.

It’s been a year since I came back from Australia.

I’m totally looking forward to how I will evolve in the next few months. Watch out!

photo: geoftheref