Today’s vlog was about the joys of knee pain, and the mindfulness that results. I veer off onto topics such as:
slowing down the internet
empathizing with my grandma
advantages and disadvantages of having an iPhone
In this episode, I recorded with my iPhone, which results in HD video. I tried to look at the lens as I was speaking, which makes the video more personal, I think. I also tried to embrace the pauses, rather than trying to rush through the video to avoid dead air.
I’m grateful for:
My iPhone for giving me another interesting way to express and share with the world.
My knee pain, which has forced me to slow down and live consciously.
Saturday, which means my knee gets to rest!
My dad, who came back tonight looking worried. He said he wanted to spend more time with me before he left.
The random couple who commented on my Vibram FiveFingers. Earlier I walked by as they were locking up shop. The man dropped his lock. I picked it up and gave it back to him. I’m grateful for the opportunity to perform an act of service. I’m also grateful for the amusing conversation where she said she thought I was barefoot.
I bought a lot of pills and powders today: spirulina, MGM (methylsulfonylmethane), and ghee. They’re all very useful for my joints, my left knee being the priority right now. Combined with my existing Maximum Greens vitamins (six pills!) and probiotics, I’m a little overwhelmed by the pills.
I’m still not very comfortable in front of the camera. This time I tried to wing it, rather than writing my blog post first. I’m still experimenting with the world of vlogging.
I’m grateful for:
Nature’s Village, which has all the supplements anyone ever needs for the rest of their life. Except organic spirulina.
Ghee! I’m super skinny, so I need to eat lots of fat to avoid burning muscle. Ghee, which is made of butter, makes everything taste like it’s made from Umami Burger. I miss that place.
Tiana, for not only telling me what pills I need, she hand-drew me a map to Nature’s Village. I got lost. But I eventually found it.
My dad, for washing my underwear. Oh yeah, he’s back!
The secondhand store across the street, which bought my dad’s old and busted laptop for $100HKD. That’s about $12USD. Not a lot. But the screen was not working and neither was the battery. I’m just glad we didn’t have to pay to recycle it.
I’m vlogging now! Or, if you want to be pedantic about it, video blogging. Or if you want to be even worse, video web logging. Or web video logging. Whatever.
A picture’s worth a thousand words, right? At 30 frames a second, I can create 1,800,000 words a minute. As a former computer nerd, the efficiency alone is worth all the bandwidth I will suck up.
I took yesterday off from yoga because of my knee pain, but today I went back. I chatted with Tiana, who gave me a few tips and inspirational stories about her own injuries and road to recovery.
I’m grateful for:
Having the strength to practice pranayama and the primary series today. I was unsure of my knee walking into class, but by the middle I felt far more confident about my body.
Having compassion for my grandma. Today, she yelled at me for being late. Which I was. Then she went on about me not being able to keep a job, constantly moving around because of that, and other untrue things. Instead of arguing with her, I decided to let her say what she needed to say. She just wanted a release, after all.
Having an awesome nap. Yes.
Being able to call the US for free. Thank you, Google!
My knee injury, which is almost an empathetic injury. My grandma can’t walk well. My mom has toe pain. My brother had a torn ligament. I have far more empathy for them, now that I am hurt as well.
As I was walking to meet up with my aunt and uncle, I walked past an old lady pushing a cart full of scrap wood. She was stuck at the incline, which was about 20 degrees. I saw other people, like me, walking by, heads turned, hands in their pockets. I went over and lent a hand. I pushed her cart up the hill. It was surprisingly light, considering she was at a standstill. She thanked me and I walked off, smug that I helped.
Once I met my aunt and uncle, they asked me to help reconnect their TV. They have been doing some renovating, and didn’t know which wire went where. So I went to their place after eating and helped lift the old-school CRT, figured out how to connect the TV, and went on my way.
Both incidents started with an odd resistance. I didn’t really want to help the old lady, I just wanted to walk off and mind my own business. I didn’t want to be roped into being the electronics guy yet again, I just wanted to go home and nap, or whatever.
Yet a part of me knew the right thing to do. A part of me wanted to help make the world a better place. I am able to contribute, and here were two excellent opportunities for me to do so.
I’m glad I helped out.
I’m grateful for:
Opportunities to make a difference.
Probiotics! I’m brewing my very own kefir and kombucha. I would have made some ghee, too, but I don’t have a proper container yet.
Paying bills at the 7-Eleven. It amuses me. Don’t judge me.
The “Ding Ding” (electric tram). Otherwise I would have had a long walk back. I had a sensitive knee today. My neck’s fine, though.
Glass is magically suitable for holding all sorts of liquids, without leeching onto its contents. I’m looking at you, plastic.
I’ve been super busy the past week. Getting the place ready for my uncle, Christmas, teaching yoga, picking up my uncle, hanging out with family…the list goes on.
I’ve been busy. Too busy, in fact, to do the things I need to do: work on my resume, apply for jobs, and making kombucha, kefir, and ghee.
Yet these are the things that are important to me. They are the things I need to do, so instead I use my social engagements as excuses to not complete them. Instead I lie to myself that I’m busy, too busy to do them.
Okay, I see the pattern now. Time to either complete them, or drop them (along with their associated guilt).
I’m grateful for:
Introspective conversations with Phoebe. It’s always nice to have a tiger mom ready to fire her opinion whenever, wherever.
Yummy yogurt my uncle bought. With probiotics!
My iPhone is well designed. I’ve decided to stop obscuring it with a case, which makes it both ugly and uncomfortable. This has the added benefit of forcing me to be mindful when using it.
My knee, which hurts right now, but which has given much service over the years. Snowboarding accidents, running, and poor yoga postures have no doubt weakened it. Hang in there, old pal.
My neck, which hurt during yoga today, but which has given much service over the years. My Nintendo DS Lite and countless hours spent hunched behind a monitor have no doubt weakeend it. Hang in there, old pal.
My uncle, his wife, and their 3-year-old daughter, Emily, arrived today. Emily’s a hoot. She’s a natural performer, always singing, dancing, and smiling. Youth and energy emanates from her very being.
Emily and I have always gotten along, whether I had punk rock hot pink hair, dreadlocks and a beard, or just looked “normal”, she’s always been enthusiastically sharing her toys with me, holding my hand everywhere, and sharing countless stories with me, nonsensical though they may be.
I’m grateful for:
Emily and her parents. It’s always a pleasure to see relatives. It’s even better when they share their My Little Ponies with me.
The delicious dinner we had tonight. Despite being the picky vegetable & fish eater, I still out-ate the omnivores.
The buses that took me to the airport, that were practically waiting for me to board, allowing me to pick up my uncle on time.
Cell phone technology. If not for my iPhone, I might have been waiting at the airport while my uncle sillily went home first.
The security guards downstairs, who worked through Christmas to keep us safe.
I slept so much today. But I managed to do my pranayama and full primary series. In my mind, it is most important to keep up my own practice to teach well, to teach from experience. Otherwise I’d just be a fraud. I’d be doing a disservice to my students.
I am grateful for:
Having the apartment to myself, which is a double-edged sword. I slept all day long, but I was able to practice without distraction as well.
Last week Dad gave me $1,000HKD and said, “Merry Christmas”. I hesitated, then took the bill.
“I don’t want anything. I just want your love.”
Dad was taken aback. He smiled that defensive smile, breaking the tension with a joke. (Guess who I learned that from?) “What do you mean I don’t love you?”
I reciprocated the humorous banter, though of course behind every joke there’s some truth. “I never said that you don’t love me. I just said I want your love. So I have everything I need.” I gave him an out.
Dad smiles. “Son, I…sigh…I…”
Breaking the tension some more (à la mom), I joked, “I…I…I…what? You can’t even finish your sentence!”
Dad laughs. “Sigh, let’s talk another day.”
Dad always gave me money. Whether it was my birthday present, my weekly allowance, or just money to play at the arcades, as early as I could remember, he had given me money, and I loved him for it.
“Money doesn’t represent love.” I was shocked the first time I heard that. Up until I was about seven, I had firmly associated money with love. When I was good, Dad was happy. When Dad was happy, he gave me money. When I had money, I could buy candy, baseball cards, or play games. It was obvious to me, up until then, that money equated love. Yet these words were from Mom, the other absolute authority of truth.
Another time, another place, Dad and I were chatting. I was still young and impressionable. Innocent. I said something along the lines of, “I wish I had all the money in the world.”
“Do you really love money?”
What kind of question was that? “Of course, who doesn’t love money?” Duh.
“Money isn’t most important.”
The man who loved me via money just told me something important, though I couldn’t figure out what. “Money can’t buy air” was the example he gave, and that made logical sense. But there was a deeper fundamental belief that Dad just broke, and without understanding what it was, I remember this conversation to this day.
I still don’t know what broke inside me that day. Was it simply that money wasn’t everyone’s top priority, despite seeing everyone around me scramble to earn, spend (thriftily), and hoard? Or was there a deeper connection between money and paternal love that broke?
Mom rarely gave me money. She was the saver of the family. Still is. Being an accountant helped, but as I later learned, she has a history of being poor.
Mom grew up in Hong Kong. She was the fourth daughter out of eight children. Her dad drank and gave most of his wages to his mom and brother. Grandma couldn’t raise eight kids on her share of Grandpa’s wages, so she worked.
Grandma was a serial entrepreneur. One business was renting comics to kids. Back in the day, Hong Kong people were very poor, and comics were too expensive to be purchased. Instead, kids would go to Grandma and rent them every week, following the adventures of Sun Wukong (孫悟空) and other Chinese legends.
Grandma also sold sugar cane to the locals. Back then, it was popular to grab a sugar cane and chew on it, sucking the sugar water out. Even today it exists, though instead of manually chomping on the cane we have mechanical juicers. Being poor and old enough to help out (four years old!), Mom would be the one slicing the canes as they were sold. She recalls the toughness of the cane as they were chewed: “I can’t believe people’s teeth didn’t chip!” The tough cane was also dangerous: as Mom was slicing the cane one time, her knife slipped and cut deeply into her finger. Hospitals were expensive, so they just poured some “red medicine” onto the wound and wrapped it. Surprisingly she has no visible scar.
When Mom was 20, she went to New York, studying accounting at Hunter College. She had no money, so she worked at a clothing factory. Her day began at 7 a.m.
To be continued…
I’m grateful for:
Opportunities to learn to eat fish and pick their bones out. It’s quite the challenge!
New ideas for teaching yoga. Jessica and I are thinking of doing outdoor classes with groups, perhaps with me just practicing in the open as marketing. Also we’re figuring out how to modify the sequence to be more accessible while retaining its benefits. Good times!
Free printouts at my yoga studio! Which means I get to print the primary series for my own students. Which means my students will have an easier time practicing on their own.
$1 off coupon from the Circle K. I bought two drinks and qualified for a prize drawing. They asked me to hit a number on the keypad. I hit “7″ and won!
The bus driver who drove us to the train station. It’s the people who work in the background who make the world go round.
On my way out of yoga, the doorguy said, “Excuse me!” I immediately thought, “Ugh, I need to meet my grandma, what did I do now?” He handed me a bag of cookies.
At my grandma’s elderly home, I chatted with the caretakers. I gave them the cookies, and said, “Just a little something to show my appreciation for taking care of my grandma.”
At my building, as I passed the security desk, I casually asked, “Did you eat lunch yet?” He said, “No, eating soon.” I happened to have almonds with me, so I offered him some.
It’s amazing how small acts can brighten people up.
I am grateful for:
Sleeping a lot. I overslept self practice. Waking up earlier day after day took its toll. I caught up today, though, sleeping nine hours, then taking a three hour nap in the afternoon.
My aunt’s monitor. My dad’s laptop broke its screen. I wanted to recycle it, but I didn’t know if it had sensitive data on it. With my aunt’s monitor plugged in, I finally wiped the drive and can get it out of here.
Jessica for convincing me to gamble horse races for my grandma again. Sometimes I am too rigid, imposing my own morals onto others.
Kerri, for being the wildest roommate ever.
My new pants, which are as wide as the Request jeans I wore in high school. Ah, the memories of immense lower limb freedom.
In the past few days, I’ve twice predicted the next commercial seconds before it broadcasted. It’s an odd feeling: at the end of one commercial, the next commercial’s song starts playing in my head. Then the TV follows. The first time it happened, I thought I was just fooling myself. Just now, I definitely heard the song in my head seconds before the TV followed.
I wonder if this sense can be developed further. I wonder how far into the future I can hear.
I’m grateful for:
Being able to wake up every morning for yoga. The past three days, I’ve been waking up an hour earlier than the morning before. Today I woke at 5 am. Ever morning I’ve been feeling great and having a wonderful start.
New clothes! I’ve been changing my wardrobe to lighter, earthier tones. More grounded, tranquil.
Dim sum with Grandma! It was great seeing her so active, yelling at people, telling me how to clean the bowls, cups, and utensils.
Hanging out with Jessica, talking about chocolate and yoga. Chocolate yoga!
Having pleasant philosophical discussions with Dad, exploring reality, questioning absolute truths.
Tonight I ate dinner with Dad. Then we went for a walk. Nothing special.
Yet, in those moments, I recognized something special. The fact that there was “nothing special” was, in and of itself, special. We didn’t argue. We didn’t debate. We talked as though we had no history together, just two old chums.
I am grateful for:
The specialness of this ordinary night.
The countless arguments, disagreements, and other confrontations we have gone through to get to this moment.
The multitude skills I’ve learned to get to this moment, including: social, empathy, compassion, acceptance, patience, and love.
My yoga teachers for helping me open my heart via backbends.
Everything that I haven’t mentioned, whether known or unknown. Thank you.
I read an interesting article about a guy who learned to echolocate. I tried to imagine life as a blind person, focusing on my hearing as I walked through the trains of Hong Kong.
What a world I’ve been ignoring! I could distinguish footsteps, direction, distance. I could tell if someone was walking and shuffling their legs against a shopping bag. Obviously I’m no Daredevil, but it’s amazing how much of the world I’d been largely ignoring by focusing on my sight and, while in a meditative state, physical sensations.
It makes me wonder what new worlds would open up if I were to focus on other senses.
My sense of hearing. It’s truly “eye-opening” to “see” in all directions at once.
givemesomethingtoread.com, which pointed me to that article, and many other interesting articles in their 2011 roundup.
Jessica, for being the industrious mouse that she is, even though this means I have homework for Christmas (two essays and two interviews!)
My aunt and uncle, for always providing delicious home-cooked meals. Tonight we had salmon. Yum!
Tiana, for teaching me more about how to do backbends. Today I bent back far lower than I had ever done on my own, and got back up, too! Soon I’ll be dropping up, down, left right.
I forgot to write yesterday, until it was pretty late. I had slept at Jessica’s place, because today I was going to teach my first yoga class in Hong Kong! Naturally I was too excited to sleep. I still tried, though. It’s nice to break old habits.
Today’s class was uneventful. (Which is good.) I focused on getting the basics down for my students, so they would have a good foundation for future classes. I wound up teaching them sun salutations for 30 minutes, leaving not much time for other stuff! That’s okay, though. Next class we can move faster.
Feedback includes:
Music! They weren’t used to a silent yoga class. Maybe I’ll bring some hip hop next time!
Teach about the breath. The breath is an important part of Ashtanga, but I am so used to breathing automatically that I forgot to teach about it. Jessica had trouble remembering to breathe at times, as a result.
Gradual learning curve. I need to learn the beginner modifications and show them first, before showing the advanced postures, for the beginners in my class. It’s better than showing my students how I do it, then showing the modifications.
I had a great time! My students seem an enthusiastic bunch, and I look forward to seeing their progress.
I’m grateful for:
Having the opportunity to teach friends and family. It feels great to pass on this wonderful knowledge and improve people’s lives.
Having loving and supportive family and friends. When I came home, my family was way happier for me than I was for myself. To me, it was an ordinary class. Obviously it wasn’t just “an ordinary class” to them.
Jessica, for making today possible. She’s always so willing to help others and so selfless. I’m lucky to have such awesome people in my life.
My mom, for caring and calling me long distance just to see how I’ve been.
My dad, for telling me to “forget everything”, and that he loves me and just wants me to be happy.
I deleted all my mail from 2010 onward. On the other hand, I’ve been archiving my public work voraciously. “They call that a paradox.” (Frank Costello, The Departed)
I’m grateful for:
A shovel-free Christmas! Though I must admit, I do miss snowboarding. Maybe Korea…
Pzizz Sleep on my iPhone. I listen to it every night as I fall asleep. It works well, but I’ve grown dependent on it. Not sure if that’s good or bad.
My iPhone bumper. I started to think it was extraneous, but Jessica showed me how much I needed it by dropping my phone on the floor.
OmmWriter Dana. Interesting writing app. Not sure if I like it yet, but I like the ambience it creates. Now I need a pair of comfy headphones.
The friendly staff at Harvester, the vegetarian restaurant nearby. I hadn’t gone in a while. Catching up was fun.
I woke up early today, turned on the super-bright artificial sun in my room. I woke up.
Yet today I felt very unproductive. Sluggish. Mud-like. Being aware of my own sluggishness I decided to use the Pomodoro. I didn’t want to force myself to do anything I didn’t want to do (Leo Babuata only does what he wants) so I gave myself a Pomodoro of raylai.com time.
Maybe like the Paradox of Choice, I need to put myself into a fishbowl to really be happy.
Apparently I’m super healthy. The lady whom I lied to earlier had taken my age, height, weight, and other stuff from their omniscient scale. My resting metabolism is 1613, which is apparently great for someone trying to lose weight. (I’m not.) My bone density is great, my hydration is great, my BMI is great, my belly fat (don’t know how they measured that from a scale) is great. They even had a physical-age calculator, which is supposed to show premature aging due to unhealthy lifestyle. I have the body of a 16-year-old. Other than being low-fat, I exceed all their measurements, in a good way.
I am not the best person to sell a weight-loss health shake to.
This just reaffirms what I’ve suspected: I need more ghee in my diet and I need to eat more food, if I am to continue practicing Ashtanga six days a week.
I just lied. I told a sales girl that I didn’t have a phone, but I gave her my email. Then, out of curiosity, I wanted to figure out my weight (61.1kg) in pounds, so I whipped out my iPhone. “I thought you didn’t have a phone!” “I don’t have a SIM card,” I lied. Again.
These reflexive lies, these compulsive lies, are just like bursts of anger. I did it, it’s done, no need to brood over it. But maintaining equanimity, catching that urge to lie before it happens, is the key to maintaining integrity.
I used to be a compulsive liar. I thought of it as an art form. I prided in my ability to spontaneously bullshit people with convincing lies. Now I’m trying to undo that habit.
Being honest is harder than lying. Being honest is being vulnerable.
It sure takes a lot of social awareness to talk to my dad. Last night I finally realized that all my attempts to communicate with him were useless. Instead, what he needed was an audience. He wanted to be heard, to be a dad. He had pent up emotions he needed to release. He didn’t want to understand me, he has his own issues to work out. I disagreed, but I listened.
Ironically, all the “useless” social skills I learned the past three years have been essential to opening up communication between us.
It was just him talking and me nodding, but I made it obvious that I was listening. It’s like I kept sending him ACKs, to keep the packets flowing.
Before I went to Thailand, I had been sleeping a lot and losing weight. Then I went to Thailand, and thanks to the daily delicious buffet, I ballooned up to 132 lbs. I also had more energy in Thailand. Coming back to Hong Kong, I hoped that by eating similar food, I would maintain (or increase) my weight and energy levels.
Instead I am sleeping more and more and lost two pounds. So I’ve been trying to figure out what happened. The differences are: I haven’t had ghee here, I eat less fruit, I stay all day in a dark room (vs. a sunny paradise), and I don’t have a daily schedule.
I bought some unsalted butter to make ghee. I’m trying to eat more fruit. I’ve noticed that turning on the super bright light in my room instantly woke me up. I’m going to try using that as an alarm clock from now on. And I’ve been conscious of my sleep time.
I hope these give me more energy. If not, I might have to move to Thailand. That would be wonderful.
I’m grateful for:
My incredible eyes, which have been 20/20 for many years, despite my many hours playing video games, reading books, and watching TV. They allow me to see my grandma’s smiles.
My ears. They used to be able to hear the high-pitched ring whenever I walked by the point-of-sale at Macy’s, but then I listened to Metallica to drown out the New York City subway. Now I hear a slight high-pitched ring all the time. Nevertheless, they give me the gift of hearing, allowing me to hear excited cheers and mindless chatter with my family.
My tongue, which allows me to taste a world of yumminess. When I’m not eating, I can tell interesting stories about hunting for burgers at night.
My nose, which smells fragrances, trash, fresh food, and fresh incense lit in honor of my grandma.
My skin, which feels smooth skin, rough rock, and fresh grass. Nothing feels quite like affection, though.
I bought horse race betting tickets for my grandma today. I don’t like being her source of gambling. I like having a reason to spend time with her, but I don’t like that gambling is the only way we interact these days. Every time I ask her to come to dim sum, she says it’s cold. It’s not that cold.
I think I’m going to tell her, after this time, that I don’t like gambling and that I don’t want to buy tickets for her anymore.
I’m grateful for:
Having a quickly recovering body, able to practice after slacking off for what seems like forever (in reality more like three days).
Having friends and relatives with yoga mats who are willing to lend their mats for my future students.
Having a loving dad who insists on buying dragon fruit for me because he knows I love them.
Finally finding that hemp nut drink at the Circle K. A good source of protein! Made in Hong Kong!
Sleeping early and waking early, allowing me to practice.
The Pomodoro Technique, which is a productivity technique like Getting Things Done, with an emphasis on learning to focus and manage time. I don’t like living with goals, which this technique seems to promote, but I’m trying it out for the focus and time-management aspects. I’m willing to keep a beginner’s mind.
My dad, who let me practice teaching him yoga. He gave some valid criticisms, as well. My ego suffered, but I pushed it out of the way to listen and be a better teacher.
My nail clippers, which are still my favorite. Sharp & compact!
My MacBook Air, which enables me to do all this reading, writing, and researching.
The Sun Yat-sen Memorial Park, which is a wonderful environment for me and Dad to hang, literally.
I don’t remember the last time I regretted. When something bad happens, I think of the upside. Reality is subjective and thought patterns are malleable. This instills a positive attitude into my brain.
I’ve never made mistakes, only had learning experiences.
Mom played basketball with my dad and brother. In fact, it was a slam dunk contest. I can see her double-dribbling as she stomps toward the basket, leap a few inches off the ground, and toss the ball underneath the basket. The finale, of course, would be her beaming grin, arms up in a giant V for victory, immensely proud of her awesomeness.
Her rambunctious exclamations during mahjong impressed players and spectators alike. If she had good tiles, the table would know. If she had shit tiles, the table would know. When she lost, she shouted, “Ha?!” (Cantonese for “What?!”) She immediately inspected the next few tiles, hunting for the one piece she needed to win, while shouting that she should have tossed this tile or that tile instead. When she won, she’d clap and grin, like it’s her birthday.
The way Kimmy mothered the group over dinner reminds me of Mom. She was so picky about which pot the beef goes vs. which pot the the lamb goes. She was so indignant when criticized about her distinction between beef and lamb. I could almost see Mom, hands at her sides, pouting. And of course, the way she keeps fiddling around and serving everyone out of love.
I’m grateful for:
Black sesame paste with sticky rice balls. Hong Kong people really know how to eat.
Tram rides home. Slow and steady, like a turtle, it makes its way back home. 56 minutes after getting on the tram, I arrive home, and quickly run to the bathroom.
“You remind me of my mother” is the sexiest line ever, NOT, but tonight I’m grateful for the way Kimmy smothered the group, just like Mom.
Being from New York, I’m built for both the cold and the heat. Hong Kong winters aren’t that bad. I miss my ushanka, though.
Having a home both in New York and in Hong Kong. I must have done major good karma—I seem to get everything I want in life (stuff I need, not stuff I want).
I don’t like titles. They are hard to come up with (my shortcoming), give away the rest of the story, grab attention unnecessarily from the rest of the text.
Yet I see its need. Casual readers aren’t expected to commit to reading a thousand-word article without any idea of what they’re getting into. I don’t expect that of myself.
The onus on is me, the creator. Not for the sake of the reader, but for the sake of the writing. If the piece is to be properly evaluated, it should be formally given a name—an identifier aptly representing its soul.
My dad tells me stories from his past. He used to fetch water for the family, carrying up buckets of water up the stairs several times a day. He carried all the water used for bathing, cooking, cleaning, drinking. That’s a lot of water. The clank of an empty bucket drained the blood from his face.
“That’s real suffering. That’s physical suffering right there. What you go through is emotional suffering. Emotions are not real. It’s like the difference between the dream world and the real world.”
The old me, the me a month ago, would have been riled up and defensive. I would have felt daggers in my heart as my dad, once again, completely disregarded my feelings, my emotions, my very existence. I never went through his toils, so my complaints will never be worth a damn.
I observed my own breathing, my heart-rate, my bodily sensations, the words coming out of my mouth, the thoughts running through my head. Curious. Nothing. I waited for my defenses to fire up, to defend my ego, but nothing happened.
Instead, I listened. I listened to my old man as he relieved memories, good and bad. I listened as he released deep emotions about his mom and how he’s going through the same thing with me.
Tonight he was the most important person in the world. Not me.
I’m grateful for:
Being alone with my dad. I don’t remember the last time I felt this way. The last time was probably when I was in elementary school, at least.
My mom. Even in her absence, her outgoing humor provides residual memories for and my dad and I.
Prāṇāyāma (breath regulation), which wakes me up better than coffee (which I despise, bleh!)
Warm water, which keeps me warm (who knew that Hong Kong could be this cold?), hydrates my body, and improves digestion.
The full-length mirror in the apartment, which allows me to see my postures while simultaneously stroking my ego. I am hot.
With slow bandwidth, I could begin a search on the web, knowing full well it’d take some time, and then get back to writing. It kept me away from bandwidth intensive sites like Facebook. And usually when I was trying to do something counter-productive, I found myself getting frustrated with the web, and taking a walk or stretching instead. So at least my counter-productivity was healthy. Even if I did want to check the land of twitter, I’d have to type in the URL, and wait several minutes for the page to load giving me no other choice but to get back to work.
Brilliant! I installed Network Link Conditioner. I’m pulling my hair out, waiting for pages to load. Every second crawls by as I am forced to focus. Instead of mindlessly surfing the web, I’m actually writing and researching for this post.
In college, Wendy and I rented Season 1 of 24. 24 is an action-packed show, with cliffhangers at every commercial break, betrayals at the end of every episode, and non-stop action in-between. At no point in time did we want to pause it and interrupt the flow.
Yet being mere humans, we needed breaks. We had to eat. We had to pee. We had to stretch our legs, see the sun, even gasp sleep! My insatiable curiosity was at war with my bodily needs.
Who wouldn’t ask for more speed and power, though? I’d love to do what I do with no wait and no crashes. Yep, that’s my dream.
What I want and what I need are two different things. I want everything and I want it done yesterday. But I need to be patient. I need to accept things as they are.
In the end, I need…nothing.
Ajahn Brahm taught me a few tricks to increase patience and mindfulness. In some parts of the world, a bell rings every hour, reminding everyone to appreciate the moment. For those without, he suggests that we do the same whenever the phone rings.
In the same spirit, I appreciate walk signals, lines, and commute times. Each time I am forced to wait, I slow down, get out of my head, and appreciate the wonder of life.
I’m grateful for:
Wendy’s Maximum Greens Ultra Mega Green dietary supplements, which make my pee highlighter-yellow.
My extra time, now that my mom is gone and I have retro-internet. I have time to meditate and ponder about what to write!
Being able to take out the battery from the ticking clock in my room.
Today being a moon day, so I can take a break.
Chats with my dad. They just get better every day.
Modern couples wonder if they married the wrong person and contemplate divorce. “Back in the old days”, there was no escape. “‘Til death do us part”. To the modern couple, this may seem like captivity. We will always look to the escape plan every time something goes wrong, as long as the plan exists. Without a plan, the only recourse is acceptance. He is who he is. Let’s build on that.
Perhaps the secret to a lasting, loving relationship (blood, sex, or platonic), is simply mutual acceptance.
I am grateful for:
My dad, who cares if I am wearing too little clothing, even if I just finished exercising.
My mom, who takes care of everyone around her.
My grandma, who missed me lots while I was in Thailand.
My wonderful dinner, which my mom cooked for me (with love!)
My copious spare time, which I manage to use up quickly.
I didn’t practice today. I woke up late. It’s past 2 a.m. My mom’s leaving Thursday, so spending time with her has taken priority over my practice, which I’m confident I’ll resume.
I’m grateful for:
Having loving relatives. Today was the first time I saw my dad’s siblings since I came back from Thailand. I’ve changed. I got along with them better than usual. I was less tense, less inclined to prove myself.
Having a washing machine, so I can finally do laundry after a month. I don’t know how I survived either.
My incredible metabolism, which maintains my body weight of 132 lbs no matter how much I eat, as long as I practice āsana (yoga postures).
My aunt-in-law, who polished my mahjong skills and left me with good luck, allowing me to win about $400HKD. For some reason it feels wrong to gamble. I don’t know what it is. I solved this dilemma by swallowing losses and donating the earnings to my mom.
Yvonne, who lent me Thai Baht so I could pay for stuff in Koh Samui.
I just came back from Thailand yesterday and Wendy’s leaving to New York tomorrow. So we hung out today to catch up. We talked about:
The real victims of spoiling are the kids. Rather than learning to deal with situations, children learn that pouting and throwing tantrums are the way to fulfilling needs.
Stealing is bad for the thief. Regardless of whether it’s a victimless crime, the thief knows they stole. Just as a cheater lives in fear of discovery, it is the thief who ultimately suffers.
It is important to share photos quickly. A backlog of photos rapidly becomes a burden. The longer they stay private, the less relevant they become, and the more difficult it is to revitalize them to their contemporary glory.
Focusing really means removing non-essential tasks. My top priorities are: meditation, yoga, writing, reading, connecting. Anything that’s not on that list, I catch myself doing and I stop it. Further organization can be done, GTD-style.
My goals with this site. I’ve been playing with Path recently, and I love the way it easily allows me to plop stuff down easily. I’d like to have a public path showing all my random crap (a tumblog?), which will serve as inspiration for my longer blog entries, which will serve as raw material for something bigger.
I’m grateful for:
F.lux, which makes my laptop screen much nicer to look at at night.
Mac Screen Rotate, which turns my laptop into an in-bed ebook reader.
The power of walking away, which gives 75% discounts at Lady Street.
I’m home. In Hong Kong, that is. “Home” has been a loosely defined term the past three years, but tonight, it’s Hong Kong.
It feels good to be home. My parents welcomed me with open arms and a home-cooked meal. I explained a lot of what I learned, what I ate, what I did, and other stories to my mom. Then I re-explained it to my dad, who was in the other room and a little deaf. That’s okay, the fact that he was curious meant that he cared.
On my flight home, I sat next to a two parents and their about-three-year-old daughter. The father had a strong Hong Kong vibe, while the mother had a gentle Thai vibe. For the first half of the flight, all I heard from the father was, “Don’t touch the newspaper, it’s dirty. Don’t play with the water. I told you not to play with the water, you’re so bad. You’re all wet.” I wanted to tell the dad, “You don’t want her to do this, don’t want her to do that. How about asking her to do what you want, instead of telling her what she’s forbidden from doing?”
I caught myself projecting my own father issues onto him and held my tongue. Instead, just as I am trying to do with my own father, I observed the man. I watched what he did right. Sure, he’s not the best of communicators—only popping up from reading comics on his iPad to scold his daughter—but he’s teaching her the only way he knows how. And he eventually played some two-player games on his iPad with her.
Even his “bad” behavior could be seen as “good”. From what I know about women, they tend to use their fathers as role models for the men in their lives. So this man was setting the bar: his daughter’s future boyfriends will be able to set boundaries. These men will not be pushovers; perhaps they will even be strong leaders.
I viewed my own father’s strictness in a different light. He’s strict with me, but it’s to make sure I lead a successful life. He’s teaching me values, though he’s also imprinting a lot of fear into me. Perhaps, as one of the men in my old circle said, “Good fathers create a lot of shadows in their sons.” (Shadows are beliefs about ourselves that we hide or suppress, usually like, “I’m useless”, “I’m unlovable”, etc.) Maybe a father, a good father, is supposed to scare the shit out of their son, so that when they face the real world, with real dangers, the son will be ready to tackle these dangers head on.
My mom’s going back to New York in a few days. I’ll be left alone with my dad for a month. There is trepidation. But I also feel hopeful that we can spend some father-son time. Perhaps we’ll hike together. Perhaps he’ll give me fatherly advice. Perhaps I’ll listen, with compassion instead of judgment.
Ram Dass said, “If you think you are so enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents.”
It’s amazingly humbling to be in the presence of my parents. When I’m out with peers, I see all the ways they are controlled by their emotions, unlike me. When I’m at home, my parents remind me, I’m no different.
Of course, I am also humbled by the sheer magnitude of their achievements: coming to the US without any money and unable to speak the language, creating a comfortable life, raising two sons.
Without their sacrifices, I wouldn’t have been able to explore my existential crisis.
After all this time, I still cannot escape my genetic past. “Escape” isn’t the right word. I feel that I should learn and grow from my parents, that’s right. But eventually I should be able to grow beyond the limiting beliefs that have been imposed upon me. I’m impatient. I want to grow strong. I want nothing to stand in my way.
Perhaps I’m viewing this the wrong way. Are my parents in my way? Is anything in my way, or do I have imaginary obstacles that I keep working on overcoming?
The problem with limiting beliefs is that they tend to be invisible to the owner.
I guess this limiting belief, this shadow, would be that I believe I’m weak, and I will do anything to prove that I’m not. I will go as far as creating obstacles to overcome, even if they don’t exist.
I view the fact that my parents can still trigger an emotional reaction out of me as a sign of weakness. If I accept this, I no longer need to overcome it.
I do not accept my own weaknesses. I grew up scared and powerless, trapped in my life’s circumstances (girlfriends, money, parents, jobs, travel). Now that I’ve to overcome some weaknesses, I’m addicted. Whenever I find a weakness, I must squash it.
I can’t swim. I must learn. I’m scared of asking Paul for a job. I forced myself to do it.
There is another way. The middle path—finding balance between two extremes. Instead of suppressing my urge to overcome my fears or succumbing to it, I can observe it. Then, when the urge has lost its grip on my actions, do.
Act with wisdom, not with compulsion.
I recently read the famous quote, “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” So I decided to increase my 750 word minimum to 1,000. One thousand words is a lot. I felt like the last few paragraphs were squeezed out with great effort.
It’s interesting what I squeezed out. Forcing myself to write more and more about one topic gave me different insights into myself.
I was forced to go deep.
I’m grateful for:
Mom’s cooking.
Mom’s hypermobile genes.
The great friends I made in Koh Samui, including the staff who got me a coconut seed. Now if only I had a place to plant a coconut tree!
The stewardess who assembled a vegetarian meal for me on-demand.
Both counter staff who moved my flights ahead, so I could return to Hong Kong earlier.
I was hoping that by the time I finished the teacher training, my back-bending, specifically my drop-backs, would improve. That wasn’t an original goal, but as my time here ran out, I wanted the expert staff to help me with this.
I was hopeful when I first arrived. Sara helped me do my first drop-backs. Then I watched a video of Paul practicing the primary series and was inspired by him floating back and forth, up and down. So I imitated him. A day or two later, my right shoulder and neck said, “No”.
I first became aware of this muscle tension when I was on the Vipassana meditation retreat. The first few days, every time I sat down, the muscle between my right shoulder and neck would hurt. Eventually the meditation relaxed me and I learned to release this muscle. Perhaps with the physical stress and mental stress (due to studying), this muscle tightened up again.
Massaging it didn’t help. Reducing the load helped, but my time here was limited, and I wanted to get back to my normal practice and start developing, rather than being stuck in recovery. Simon helped a lot, cracking my C4 vertebra and performing acupuncture.
Of course, I still took it easy the next few days, after the muscle release, to let it heal. Instead of doing my full practice, I did the beginner’s class. We were supposed to memorize this sequence anyway, so it was a win-win.
Once Paul came back, though, he told everyone to do “full practice, not teaching practice”. That’s when I realized how rusty my backbends became. I couldn’t stay up for long. I used to go for five to seven backbends in the morning, but now I struggled to do three.
To be fair, I only started doing the full primary series less than a month before I arrived here. With less postures to do, I had extra energy for the backbends.
I’m a little disappointed. Aside from opening my hips, backbends are the other major thing I am working on. Opening my hips would allow me to sit in lotus for longer, which is not super practical, more of an ego thing.
Backbends are more practical. Dropping back involves grounding, chest opening, and trust. The latter two are related, and I have issues with both.
Opening the chest is opening the heart. When people are afraid, they quickly curl into a ball, protecting the heart area. I grew up very sheltered, and inherited many fears. The past four years, I’ve been working hard to overcome these limiting beliefs. First with girls, then with travel, then with money, now with family.
In the past it was useful to be paranoid. I was an OpenBSD developer, writing secure code. I locked my windows, my doors, set crazy long passwords, etc.
Slowly I realized that this paranoia trapped my own feelings. I couldn’t share how I felt, even to myself, because of the possible repercussions. What if someone looked down upon me afterward? What if I were judged and mocked? What if I were unlovable?
So, seeking this love, I sought to repress all the “bad” qualities in me: anger, hatred, discrimination, opinion, carelessness, nonchalance, risk-taking. Daring to be happy. Enjoying something unpopular. Loving myself.
Anyway, I’m a much more open person nowadays. I tell my classmates that I used to be very shy but they don’t believe it. I laugh, I share private details, I insult, I joke.
But I know that there’s still that fear in me, that I’m always battling. Today was an example. I can’t swim. I’m afraid of the water. With meditation, yoga, and a habit of facing fears head-on, I went into the pool today, after 28 days of avoiding it. It’s a shallow pool, the water’s about chest-level. With trepidation I learned to doggy-paddle from Peter. My arms were fine, but my legs were basically doing a moon-man walk, slowly (but carefully) leaping around rather than actually kicking the water.
I realized this fear had to do with having my head underwater, so I went under twice. That was enough.
Today, during morning asana (posture) practice, I tried to do some drop-backs by myself. The room has ropes attached to the wall that can be wrapped around my sacrum, holding me securely as I bend backwards and reach for the floor. I tried once or twice. Each time my chest would tremble, my arms wouldn’t reach back, and I’d stand right back up, disappointed and wary of trying again.
So, I see this as a physical manifestation of my trust issues.
As I type this, I struggle to talk about the women in my life, who have betrayed me or been betrayed, limiting my ability to be intimate or to commit, and how I keep women distant to this day.
If I can pry open my heart, maybe I can learn to love.
Tonight I am grateful for:
My fears, which drive me to grow above and beyond the norm.
My awareness, which causes me to be introverted yet think for myself rather than relying on hive logic.
My classmates, who come from varied backgrounds and have shown me many different aspects of life.
The pool, which allowed me to face yet another fear.
The water served here, which is filtered and alkalized. I love drinking.
I’ve noticed I don’t write very long pieces of writing. As a minimalist, Spartan-loving renunciate, expressing myself in short bits of tweet-length sound bites is very appealing. Like lines of the Yoga Sutras, or famous quotes that impact the listener with the force of a sledgehammer and the accuracy of a needle.
Yet I’m finding that I am shying away from writing long pieces, not necessarily because the shorter one communicates better or makes the reader think, but because I’m actually afraid of getting lost in my thoughts. I am unable to write a cohesive essay or story.
So I’d like to change that. Beginning right now. I’d like to start writing pieces more than 750 words, as an exercise for my brain. It should allow me to organize my thoughts better, and handle topics better.
750 words. That’s a lot more writing I have to do until I get to there. And I’ll have to apologize in advance for the crap that the first few pieces will inevitably be. But, as paraphrased from NaNoWriMo, “There will be pages and pages of crap. But there will be diamonds in the rough, too.”
I almost feel like I’m going to have to do stream-of-consciousness stuff for a while, until I get into the groove of things.
One of the challenges I find is that I cannot stay on topic. As I write, I get bored of the topic, and I don’t like what I write when I’m bored. So I usually search for my feelings, search for exactly how I feel, and then pour out onto words. Then I prune, prune, prune, until I get a neatly trimmed bonsai of verbiage, the essence of what I wanted to say.
Unfortunately that usually cuts out all the examples I could give, the entertaining stories I want to fit, the relevance to my life, why it matters to the reader, etc.
This is a perfect example of my writer’s block, also my premature-optimization of the writing. I’m running out of things to write about long pieces. I’m running out of non-redundant stuff, anyway. So instead of writing redundant topics, I halt.
I’ve noticed that I’m also throwing in a lot of fluff words. Adjectives, etc. Totally ignoring “Omit needless words.”
Perhaps one of the reasons I have this issue is because I read Elements of Style. “Omit needless words.” I know how to trim, but how do I grow?
Okay, halfway there.
It’s interesting how I can criticize others’ writing so easily. I see articles written by other people and I judge their writing style, their structure, their dry language, etc. Yet when I try to write something to match merely their length, I’m struggling. I can feel that same critic harshly reading each word I type, asking, “Where is this going?”
I am comforting my ego, “Hey, at least it’s honest.” But I have trouble verifying that one, too.
“Where is this going?” There is no destination. I don’t know. But writing longer pieces is definitely unknown territory for me, at least when it comes to writing for myself. (I’ve had to do this for school, but it was a while ago, and I didn’t have to self-motivate.)
Just like asana practice, I’ll just have to focus and write. Just like balancing on one leg while stretching with my eyes closed, I’ll be shaky and worried the whole time about how it looks, but in the end, it’s the effort that counts. The repeated effort, that is: once isn’t enough. And since I’m done with teacher training, I’ll have plenty of time to write!
I’m reminded of the writing exercises that are floating around the net. Perhaps they would be a good starting point, in the future, for growing words in this garden of…whatever.
750 words is a lot to write.
I haven’t even revised yet. But that’s okay, this post will be perfect as it is. And it is, in a way. But that’s a topic for another post.
Fluff fluff fluff. I’m definitely filling up space to reach that magic number.
Perhaps in the future I should start with a warning: long and incomprehensible.
But hey, this is my site, and to share my life, I am presenting this raw experiment, this raw exercise, in trying to exercise my writing muscle. Hopefully someone out there will be able to take, perhaps not the actual content of this post, but the motivation behind it, the metadata, and be inspired to put in the work to go chase their dreams, reach for higher consciousness, YOU CAN DO IT!
No more homework. No more exams. No more teaching. Totally relaxed, I finished lunch and zoned out surfing the web for a few hours. Suddenly my roommate burst through the door and yelled, “Ray! You missed graduation!”
Tonight I’m grateful for:
Body oil before heading into the herbal sauna
Ghee to plump me up
Candice and Natalia’s blueberry pie
Learning about yoga and business from my roommate Pete
[...] Bikram is more determined than ever to enforce his copyright and trademark rights and protect the certified Bikram yoga studios that are licensed to use his intellectual property and do so according to the rules.
I wanted to read, “Bikram is more determined than ever to help students.”
Someone should write a browser extension that, whenever a link is broken (404 error), it automatically searches archive.org or google’s cache to find a copy.
