Did consciousness come to you like a sudden bolt from the heavens or did it ebb in like a rising tide? In my case, it slowly lapped at my feet, its cool water slowly awakening me. My first distinct image was when I was two years old: I had somehow mired my pedal car in what appeared to be an enormous lake of mud and was afraid to exit the vehicle, and step into the abyss. I imagined the murky water surrounding my tiny machine to be tens of meters deep and filled with exotic and carnivorous fish, and other marine creatures: foreboding. Not wanting to swim to the distant shore, I rocked my little metal steed back and forth, back and forth: all to no avail. What to do, what to do? In a young person, time and hunger are twins. The day began to diminish, and the call of my mother’s cooking overwhelming. I opened the door and tentatively stepped out. Suddenly I was like Christ walking on water. My imaginary Sea of Galilee (1) had only just covered the ground: my creation was an illusion. “But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.” (2) Thus I had learned my most valuable lesson of life: imagination is everything!
Brightness
Most colorful, interesting people have many positive qualities; you’ll find they usually have the following in common: “They are curious; they love to discover new ideas, places, people, and interests. They are expressive; they’re not scared to speak their minds and express themselves well. They take initiative; they don’t sit around waiting for permission to do what they want to do, and they like to try new things. They are inventive; they think outside of the box and constantly come up with original ideas and new ways of doing things. They are confident; they are not scared to make mistakes and act like they know what they are doing, even when they don’t.” (1)
Memories
Many people often speak of some past occurrence with either a religious reverence or an eye-wincing distain. This key happening colors their life and subsequent actions. It is a piece of personal trauma that stays with them for the remainder of their physical existence and, ultimately, defines them: think of the writer O. Henry. (1) With that thought in mind, I watched an interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl on YouTube: Finding meaning in difficult times (Interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl). If any human being deserves to be a piece of semi-alive humanity, a shell of his former self, it is this man. Instead, you are presented with a dynamic, wise and warm individual. How is this possible, you may ask? Dr. Frankl tells us that it is about perception, our own brand of hope, if you will. How we see the world, not the circumstance itself, is what defines us. “The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?
Freedom
It is easy as an old man to sit back and pontificate about life, work and freedom. You find yourself very promptly marginalized because the question is succinctly posed: “At almost sixty, what can you possibly know about my life at twenty or twenty-five?” The truth is straightforward: “Nothing!” One of the harshest realizations in life is that you are forced to follow Socrates dictum – to paraphrase: “I know that I know nothing!”
Continue reading Freedom
Emotion
Everyone has experienced disappointment in life. It is the “measure of a man” in how he responds to such an event. The concept of the “heart” has a lot of cachet in English. Historically, the heart was seen as the center of a person’s being: one’s moral character or essence. Many times the concept was seen in political situations when a person’s body and heart were actually buried separately. One of the more famous is Marshal Pilsudski of the Second Polish Republic. (1) His heart is buried in Vilnius, now part of Lithuania and his body is buried in Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, Poland. Here are a few examples of “heart” in common usage:
Real Success
The most difficult thing, I have found, is defining you. Now there is a plethora of people who are ready to tell you who you are – or should be. This leaves very little room for you to negotiate your own reality. Who is in this discussion you may ask? I am not because I am not yet complete. What I am doing is slowly “waking up” and posing those necessary existential questions: Why am “I” here? Where am I going? What should I do with my life? But beware we must be: at this time authority figures, our parents, our friends, our siblings, literally wash over us with advice: all well intentioned, but misplaced. This fills us with yet more questions. It all seems too confusing and, in another way, so pointless. You begin to take special notice of the misanthropes: the broken souls with vacuous eyes. “There is no purpose to life” is an oft recited phrase. But, there is:
Happiness
As the New Year beckons, we are, once again, called upon to make some form of promise: the New Year’s Resolution. I promise to lose weight; I promise to study harder; I promise to make those dramatic life changes: the list goes on and on and, in all fairness, is only limited by our own creativity. The central thrust to all of this, of course, is the basic desire to be happy. Happiness, however, seems to be some primordial construct that eludes most of humanity: why?
家庭 Family
在西方文化，每年後面部分的期間，假期突然出現在我們面前。從黑色星期五到聖誕節，人們被鼓勵不惜任何代價去購買你要給的禮物。據我估計，家庭概念在文化這點有一個幾近荒誕的意含。多年來我最近首次在這個節期參觀北美，我發現在華麗和閃閃發亮的燈光後面，財富及隨處可見的購物袋在擁擠的街道上，潛藏的一些事情相當令人不安。有時在這人海中你會瞥見一雙鬼鬼祟祟的眼精，看起來迷途及驚恐的，這些人是誰？我問我自己，我一直安穩的穿著我昂貴的羊毛外套和鮮豔的圍巾。當然，這些是自由放任資本主義的碎石，可憐的靈魂不夠幸運或不夠聰明（從一個財政的觀點）出現在上面：失敗者們。我要安排他們在我們經濟結構的哪裡？第一個解答是歐洲，其次是北美，亞洲第三。我們以市場為導向的系統沒有誇張地模仿，似乎適當地滿足平民百姓，雖然一些人顯然地比其他人好：思考一下北歐國家。核心問題是我們的生產力模式是極為貧困的。
感謝 Gratitude
在經驗豐富的人面前，我常覺得十分地謙卑。幾天前，我有機會和一群教育者吃午餐，他們有著不同的專長，包含一位數學老師、一位小提琴家、一位英文老師等等，我很自然地開始與語文老師交談，她最近到加爾各答的傳教士慈善團體當義工。德雷莎修女(1910-1997)是創辦人，影響力而後擴展到世界各地。在餐廳，這年輕女士表達極大的感激之情，讓她有機會真正的奉獻她的時間、力量去服務他人，她表達一個獨一無二的感謝形式是知識：感謝是以領悟為基礎，藉由幫助他人而獲得智慧。這個禮物是獨特的，因為純潔必須不依慣例：不求回報。現今在西方國家最重大的疾病不是肺結核或痲瘋病，而是不被需要、不被喜愛、不被關心。我們可以用藥物治療身體的疾病，但只有愛能治癒孤單、絕望。在世界上有很多人死於一塊麵包，但是有更多的人死於一點點愛。在西方國家，貧窮是一個不同種類的貧窮，它不僅缺少孤單，而且缺乏靈性，渴望得到愛如同渴望上帝。在西方國家，我們有一個傾向是以利益為導向，那裡每件事情是根據結果而被測量，而且我們陷入越來越積極產生結果。在東方國家，尤其是印度，我發現人們很滿足的坐在榕樹下閒聊半天，我們西方人也許稱這是浪費時間，但是它是有幫助的。和一些人在一起，沒有時間限制的傾聽以及沒有預期的結果，是在教導我們關於愛。愛的成功是在愛，不是愛的結果。
個人的喜悅 Personal Joy
對我的朋友來說，我似乎是個有點難以取悅的人，我覺得當你到60歲時，這是一個應得的敬語。然而，在我的心中，我是一個愛與和平的人。我比較勇往直前，是對我的行為誤解的處治。在任何特定的情況，我總是期待最糟的結果出現，當然，它從來沒有實現，但是我仍然凖備好了。我總是相信使一個人殘廢，這不是短暫的喜悅，而是長期的疼痛與災難。一些破壞性的失敗，它阻礙你或限制你長期的成功，而你如何戰勝，是最後對你的評量。你必須預料事情發生在生活中，生命是無常的，我仍然無法忘懷乞丐在巴黎地下鐵的影像。作為一個大地的居民，你有權利居住在一個不酗酒的生活，但為什麼你要採取這個選擇呢？沒有簡單的答案。這是一個可以解釋的案例，可能是心理的疾病。然而，在廣大多數的個案，我相信那是單純的缺乏“籌備和再次執行”。我不把這個稱為怠惰，只是心靈的疲憊。