Tonight, I listened to this talk by Brene Brown, recommended by a friend. I've mentioned her book a couple of posts ago, and what I didn't like in the book, I didn't like in her talk. Frankly speaking, I think she tends to dramatize her so-called breakdown. But maybe that's just because I'm Japanese and sometimes every sentence spoken by an American can sound exaggerated (no offense; it's just a cultural difference). Either way, that's not what I want to write about. Below is breifly what she says (for people like me who aren't really interested in her personal stories but still want to know the essence of her talk in five minutes):
We all live for connection, but there's an obstacle called shame.
Shame = fear of disconnection.
"Is there something about me that if people know or see it they would think I'm not worthy of connection?" The feeling of "I'm not smart/thin/pretty/promoted enough."
But in order to let connection happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen.
People who have a strong sense of love and belonging have a strong sense of worthiness -- they think they are worthy of connection. These people have
1. courage = the ability to tell the story of who they are with all their heart; the courage to be imperfect
2. compassion = the ability to be kind to themseves because we can't practice compassion with others if you can't treat yourself kindly
3. authenticity = the willingness to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they are
Connection is the result of the above three. Those people with a sense of worthiness embrace vulnerability and believe that what make them vulnerable make them beautiful. They know the necessity of the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees.
The world we live in is a vulnerable world. So we numb vulnerability with addiction and whatnot. But we can't selectively numb feelings without numbing other emotions so we end up numbing joy, gratitude, happiness, everything. We struggle to make the uncertain certain, to perfect ourselves and our children (when in fact, they are wired for struggle when they get here and our role is to tell them they are worthy of love and belonging despite their imperfection), and to pretend that what we do doesn't affect others.
Instead, what we should do is to let ourselves be deeply and vulnerably seen, which means
1. to love with our whole hearts even if there's no guarantee
2. to practice gratitude and lean into joy in those moments when we're wondering: Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this so passionately? Can I be this firece about this? -- just to be able to stop and instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say I'm just so grateful, because to feel so vulnerable means I'm alive.
3. to believe that we're enough. Not when we're perfect, but just the way we are.
...So how do we believe that we're enough? I get it that if we feel worthy, we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable and hence find connection. But how do we believe we're worthy? This was the question I was left with.
The word worthiness hit me strong because the moment I heard it, I knew it was exactly what I lacked when I did what I most regret in my life: sleeping with someone I didn't even like. It was just once, but the regret has haunted me for years. I knew a guy was drooling over me, thought I could use him to make myself feel worthy, and ended up feeling used, probably because I let it happen when deep down my mind was actually saying no. It's the most foolish thing I've ever done, and one of the saddest stories I've ever known -- I was not brought up by parents who loved me only when I was perfect. They always, always loved me, no matter what, and still, I took their love for granted and thought I was not worthy of anyone else's love.
I don't think about it anymore, but when I do the pain is excruciating -- my imperfection regarding this mistake is almost unacceptable, though at some point I realized there was no other choice but to accept it and move on.
As a result, I no longer suffer to find the reason of my worthiness, but I still think it's impossible to love myself unconditionally. I mean, you can't just sleep all day, do whatever you like, and say, well, that's me, I love who I am! I know all I can do is to do what I can, keep doing what I must do to accomplish my dreams, however small or big they may be, and just do my best every day, because that's the only way for me to feel worthy. At least, that was how I lived my life when I was still very young and never knew what it was like to hate myself.
2014年5月9日金曜日
2014年5月5日月曜日
no need to give up
Where there's a will, there's a way
When I was around twenty, I was invited over to my friend's place where she homestayed for just over a year. The hostparents were a young couple with two little kids. They -- especially the father -- didn't hide his strong interest in me when we met. Knowing where I went to school and hearing my English (my friend was American), he seemed to see me as an ideal daughter he wished his own daughter to grow up to be like. When I said I wanted to become a fiction writer, he said it was もったいない meaning "You would be wasting your talents." It gave me a brief shock, because at that time, I was almost willing to give up everything else if I could support myself as a professional writer. It never occured to me that I would be wasting something -- losing other opportunities -- to spend my life (not necessarily my whole life but even part of it) on writing. During the following years, I thought I started seeing what he meant.
While studying to become a doctor can be sometimes tedious, I never feel like I'm wasting my time. If I only help one patient after I become a doctor, that probably wouldn't matter. I studied all this time, just for him. Writing and other artistic jobs, on the other hand, can be more difficult to measure their value. I still sometimes wonder if I'm just wasting my time when I practice my guitar for more than two hours. There's a limit to what you can do in a lifetime. Since you never know if you're going to be good enough, you might as well give up on art altogether unless that's all you can do, just like the father implied. Really?
I came across an inspiring interview today with Ryu Goto, a classical violinist who was known as a prodigy. Does he still play the violin because that's his only choice? No. He holds a Harvard degree as well as a black belt in karate. He tells us all that it's okay to be (overly) ambitious. You don't have to choose one thing and stick only to that (you can listen to the interview here though it's unfortunately in Japanese):
今の時代の我々は、夢を一つもギブアップしなくていい。ちゃんとプランニングをすると、後回しにしないといけないこともあるけれど、ギブアップはしなくていいんだと思う。夢はいろいろあって、どれ一つとしてあきらめたくなかったので、一つ一つこなしていくことにした。０．０１％でも前進していればいつかは夢にたどり着く。死ぬまでに夢を成し遂げることができるのかと疑問に思うこともあったけれど、今のテクノロジーの進歩を考えたら、まぁいいやと思った。夢は僕にとっては夢ではない。夢はいつか起きること。ただ起きるだけ。100％起きる。夢を信じきっているので、何があってもそれはすべて夢への過程。全体像を見ると、すべては肥やしになっている。何があっても前に進んでいる。＜中略＞意志さえあれば方法はあると考えて、時間はかかってもあきらめなくてもいいわけだから、とにかくいつかはそれが完成するので、それまで毎日ただ少しずつ頑張るだけ。
"A dream, to me, is not a dream. It's something that happens. No matter how long it takes -- some things you might have to put on the back burner for a long time -- but as long as you take one step at a time, it's eventually going to happen. You don't have to give up."
When I was around twenty, I was invited over to my friend's place where she homestayed for just over a year. The hostparents were a young couple with two little kids. They -- especially the father -- didn't hide his strong interest in me when we met. Knowing where I went to school and hearing my English (my friend was American), he seemed to see me as an ideal daughter he wished his own daughter to grow up to be like. When I said I wanted to become a fiction writer, he said it was もったいない meaning "You would be wasting your talents." It gave me a brief shock, because at that time, I was almost willing to give up everything else if I could support myself as a professional writer. It never occured to me that I would be wasting something -- losing other opportunities -- to spend my life (not necessarily my whole life but even part of it) on writing. During the following years, I thought I started seeing what he meant.
While studying to become a doctor can be sometimes tedious, I never feel like I'm wasting my time. If I only help one patient after I become a doctor, that probably wouldn't matter. I studied all this time, just for him. Writing and other artistic jobs, on the other hand, can be more difficult to measure their value. I still sometimes wonder if I'm just wasting my time when I practice my guitar for more than two hours. There's a limit to what you can do in a lifetime. Since you never know if you're going to be good enough, you might as well give up on art altogether unless that's all you can do, just like the father implied. Really?
I came across an inspiring interview today with Ryu Goto, a classical violinist who was known as a prodigy. Does he still play the violin because that's his only choice? No. He holds a Harvard degree as well as a black belt in karate. He tells us all that it's okay to be (overly) ambitious. You don't have to choose one thing and stick only to that (you can listen to the interview here though it's unfortunately in Japanese):
今の時代の我々は、夢を一つもギブアップしなくていい。ちゃんとプランニングをすると、後回しにしないといけないこともあるけれど、ギブアップはしなくていいんだと思う。夢はいろいろあって、どれ一つとしてあきらめたくなかったので、一つ一つこなしていくことにした。０．０１％でも前進していればいつかは夢にたどり着く。死ぬまでに夢を成し遂げることができるのかと疑問に思うこともあったけれど、今のテクノロジーの進歩を考えたら、まぁいいやと思った。夢は僕にとっては夢ではない。夢はいつか起きること。ただ起きるだけ。100％起きる。夢を信じきっているので、何があってもそれはすべて夢への過程。全体像を見ると、すべては肥やしになっている。何があっても前に進んでいる。＜中略＞意志さえあれば方法はあると考えて、時間はかかってもあきらめなくてもいいわけだから、とにかくいつかはそれが完成するので、それまで毎日ただ少しずつ頑張るだけ。
"A dream, to me, is not a dream. It's something that happens. No matter how long it takes -- some things you might have to put on the back burner for a long time -- but as long as you take one step at a time, it's eventually going to happen. You don't have to give up."
2014年4月27日日曜日
iron will
"That's not your duty. That's your ambition."
Tonight, I watched The Iron Lady, the movie about Margaret Thatcher. I thought its main focus would be on what she accomplished as a prime minister but it was more about her as also a mother and a wife -- a normal fragile human being with regrets and fears and pain.
The film surely tells us that her priority had always been public service. She always knew what the nation needed, and she had strong faith in what she was doing. No critisizm wavered her courage. She was always correct and brave and just perfect. Regret and fear seemed like the last thing she would feel. But as she suffers dementia and has conversations with her dead husband in her hallucinations, she feels the weight of the sacrifices she had made in order to pursue her career, and also remembers the pain she had to go through when resigning.
Earlier this evening, I had a call from a friend and during the conversation she told me what she felt about med students in general -- they had too much pride and were too cold and superficial. She had a problem with a certain guy in particular who tried to look good in front of everyone. I don't know him in person, but from what I heard from her, it seemed like he didn't have his own mind. He lacked confidence. He reminded me that not knowing what is truly important to you really makes your life complicated and painful.
Thatcher never lacked confidence. She knew what was important to her, to her nation and the people. She acted faithfully to her own principles and still, she faced (at least in the movie) the pain caused by her own choices. After all, being a prime minister was not her duty; it was her ambition. And as satisfied as she was while being in the position, she wonders what all the painful decision-making had been for when she nears the end of her life. All her past accomplishments seemed to fade away before her current regret towards her family (or husband in particular).
The Iron Lady reminded me of another movie about another female political leader -- The Lady (about Aung San Suu Kyi), and I think both women share the same kind of regrets resulting from their iron will. Correct decisions so often seem almost like a mistake in hindsight.
So life is painful either way -- with or without confidence and convictions. If one is destined to regret, probably anyone would rather regret a decision made according to his own principles. But if that means sacrificing the people he loves, perhaps not everyone can be as strong as the two women.
Tonight, I watched The Iron Lady, the movie about Margaret Thatcher. I thought its main focus would be on what she accomplished as a prime minister but it was more about her as also a mother and a wife -- a normal fragile human being with regrets and fears and pain.
The film surely tells us that her priority had always been public service. She always knew what the nation needed, and she had strong faith in what she was doing. No critisizm wavered her courage. She was always correct and brave and just perfect. Regret and fear seemed like the last thing she would feel. But as she suffers dementia and has conversations with her dead husband in her hallucinations, she feels the weight of the sacrifices she had made in order to pursue her career, and also remembers the pain she had to go through when resigning.
Earlier this evening, I had a call from a friend and during the conversation she told me what she felt about med students in general -- they had too much pride and were too cold and superficial. She had a problem with a certain guy in particular who tried to look good in front of everyone. I don't know him in person, but from what I heard from her, it seemed like he didn't have his own mind. He lacked confidence. He reminded me that not knowing what is truly important to you really makes your life complicated and painful.
Thatcher never lacked confidence. She knew what was important to her, to her nation and the people. She acted faithfully to her own principles and still, she faced (at least in the movie) the pain caused by her own choices. After all, being a prime minister was not her duty; it was her ambition. And as satisfied as she was while being in the position, she wonders what all the painful decision-making had been for when she nears the end of her life. All her past accomplishments seemed to fade away before her current regret towards her family (or husband in particular).
The Iron Lady reminded me of another movie about another female political leader -- The Lady (about Aung San Suu Kyi), and I think both women share the same kind of regrets resulting from their iron will. Correct decisions so often seem almost like a mistake in hindsight.
So life is painful either way -- with or without confidence and convictions. If one is destined to regret, probably anyone would rather regret a decision made according to his own principles. But if that means sacrificing the people he loves, perhaps not everyone can be as strong as the two women.
2014年4月19日土曜日
the aesthetics of life
...It was a work of art and it was beautiful because he alone knew of its existence and with his death it would at once cease to be.
- W. Somerset Maugham
April's half way gone and this is my first post of the month. The reason I haven't been writing is simply because I didn't have anything I wanted to write about -- probably because I was busy not only studying neurology but also practicing the guitar.
Surprisingly, this may be the first time I mention my guitar in this blog. Music, for the most part, has always been a big element in my life. The piano was the first thing I said I wanted to take lessons for. I was four years old then, and took lessons till seventeen. I never had any questions about it. It wasn't always fun but I did it because I liked it. I started the guitar a few years before I stopped taking piano lessons. I couldn't bring my piano with me when I moved away from home for university, so I mainly practiced the guitar from then on.
But I was never passionate about it as much as the piano. Maybe because I wasn't so passionate about music itself anymore by the time I graduated high school. Now that I think about it, the reason is pretty clear: I started playing the guitar under the influence of a friend whose music abilities kept reminding me of my own limitations. I just knew I could never be like her. It was not a matter of effort. I didn't have her ears. After ten years, I can now tell the chords if I hear a song, but I can never learn a whole guitar piece by ear. Nor do I have any creativity.
When I realized that, a question that had never bugged me started to raise its head: What's the whole point? If I can play Chopin's Ballad No.1, that's great, but a bunch of other people can play it. They would play it much better than me. So why go through the trouble of learning twenty pages of music? What do I gain? What do I create? What is there to be left if I die tomorrow?
I never put my question into words, but this feeling was probably what drove me away from music and pulled me towards writing instead. When I was writing, I was sometimes intoxicated with my words -- no matter how useless they were, I was creating something and they would still be there if I died tomorrow. I was looking for a meaning in life, meaning of my own existence, meaning for everything. I was almost breathing to explain why I was breathing.
Tonight, as I went through the music sheets with frustration, the same question popped in mind. More clearly than ever. Why do I have to play this when so many other people can do it better? Isn't it just another waste of time? And of course, this question leads me to the ultimate question: why am I living my life? So many people can do so many things better than me. What's the point in me doing it? Can I leave anything behind when I die?
I still have no answer. But right now I don't think it's important anyway. One day, the sun is going to burst and everything will disappear. Or at least, everything will cease to be the way it is today. Nothing is permanent. So what does it matter if I leave nothing behind? The obvious fact is that all we have is this moment. Who cares if a billion other people can play the guitar better than me? I pluck the strings because I want to. It fills my heart with joy and lets me appreciate the moment for what it is. No past, no future. No greed or anxiety. Isn't that enough?
Now I think the aesthetic nature of music also lies in that when the last note turns to silence, the whole piece disappears, leaving nothing solid behind, just like every moment of my life will cease to be with my last breath.
- W. Somerset Maugham
April's half way gone and this is my first post of the month. The reason I haven't been writing is simply because I didn't have anything I wanted to write about -- probably because I was busy not only studying neurology but also practicing the guitar.
Surprisingly, this may be the first time I mention my guitar in this blog. Music, for the most part, has always been a big element in my life. The piano was the first thing I said I wanted to take lessons for. I was four years old then, and took lessons till seventeen. I never had any questions about it. It wasn't always fun but I did it because I liked it. I started the guitar a few years before I stopped taking piano lessons. I couldn't bring my piano with me when I moved away from home for university, so I mainly practiced the guitar from then on.
But I was never passionate about it as much as the piano. Maybe because I wasn't so passionate about music itself anymore by the time I graduated high school. Now that I think about it, the reason is pretty clear: I started playing the guitar under the influence of a friend whose music abilities kept reminding me of my own limitations. I just knew I could never be like her. It was not a matter of effort. I didn't have her ears. After ten years, I can now tell the chords if I hear a song, but I can never learn a whole guitar piece by ear. Nor do I have any creativity.
When I realized that, a question that had never bugged me started to raise its head: What's the whole point? If I can play Chopin's Ballad No.1, that's great, but a bunch of other people can play it. They would play it much better than me. So why go through the trouble of learning twenty pages of music? What do I gain? What do I create? What is there to be left if I die tomorrow?
I never put my question into words, but this feeling was probably what drove me away from music and pulled me towards writing instead. When I was writing, I was sometimes intoxicated with my words -- no matter how useless they were, I was creating something and they would still be there if I died tomorrow. I was looking for a meaning in life, meaning of my own existence, meaning for everything. I was almost breathing to explain why I was breathing.
Tonight, as I went through the music sheets with frustration, the same question popped in mind. More clearly than ever. Why do I have to play this when so many other people can do it better? Isn't it just another waste of time? And of course, this question leads me to the ultimate question: why am I living my life? So many people can do so many things better than me. What's the point in me doing it? Can I leave anything behind when I die?
I still have no answer. But right now I don't think it's important anyway. One day, the sun is going to burst and everything will disappear. Or at least, everything will cease to be the way it is today. Nothing is permanent. So what does it matter if I leave nothing behind? The obvious fact is that all we have is this moment. Who cares if a billion other people can play the guitar better than me? I pluck the strings because I want to. It fills my heart with joy and lets me appreciate the moment for what it is. No past, no future. No greed or anxiety. Isn't that enough?
Now I think the aesthetic nature of music also lies in that when the last note turns to silence, the whole piece disappears, leaving nothing solid behind, just like every moment of my life will cease to be with my last breath.
2014年3月29日土曜日
mistakes done
"What do you really want?"
After two days of sewing blood vessels together under the microscope, I didn't feel like doing anything today so I watched a movie: The Words. My father had told me I would like it, and he was right.
The story is like looking at someone in the mirror looking at someone in the mirror looking at someone in the mirror; it's about a writer (Clay) delivering a story about a writer (Rory) who stole a story from another writer (the old man).
When he is still young, the old man loses his daughter to illness, and the relationship between him and his wife starts to fall apart. He endures the lifetime pain by writing about it. He gives the writing to his wife to read but she ends up losing it. The old man loved the words he had written so much he had to end the relationship with his wife, the very person who had inspired him to write in the first place. He sees her once again years later with another man and their child and that's the end of his story until many more years later when he finds his words published under the name of another young man.
Rory, when he finds the story in an antique briefcase he had bought in Paris, is suddenly terrified that he will never become what he wants to be. The story hits him with such great power that he is forced to accept his limitations. After he meets the old man (the old man had followed him to tell him "the truth"), he wants to take his name off the book and "put everything right", but is told to live with the choice he has made. He stole a part of the old man's life; now he has to live with the pain, even if that destroys his most precious things. "We all make our choices. The hard part is living with them."
The ending suggests that Clay is Rory, but we never know. The movie ends almost abruptly with a female student (who Clay has invited over to his place) asking Clay what he really wants (when he tells her to leave soon after they start making out). I don't think it was only me who felt like being thrown into a deep well.
The theme is sort of the same as Crime and Punishment, but I could relate so much more to this story. Mistakes sometimes sting so badly. But you can't always make the right decision. Life comes with life changing mistakes you can't undo. Maybe the only thing that can make us feel better is that we're not alone. We all live with a bit of dark shadow in our hearts.
After two days of sewing blood vessels together under the microscope, I didn't feel like doing anything today so I watched a movie: The Words. My father had told me I would like it, and he was right.
The story is like looking at someone in the mirror looking at someone in the mirror looking at someone in the mirror; it's about a writer (Clay) delivering a story about a writer (Rory) who stole a story from another writer (the old man).
When he is still young, the old man loses his daughter to illness, and the relationship between him and his wife starts to fall apart. He endures the lifetime pain by writing about it. He gives the writing to his wife to read but she ends up losing it. The old man loved the words he had written so much he had to end the relationship with his wife, the very person who had inspired him to write in the first place. He sees her once again years later with another man and their child and that's the end of his story until many more years later when he finds his words published under the name of another young man.
Rory, when he finds the story in an antique briefcase he had bought in Paris, is suddenly terrified that he will never become what he wants to be. The story hits him with such great power that he is forced to accept his limitations. After he meets the old man (the old man had followed him to tell him "the truth"), he wants to take his name off the book and "put everything right", but is told to live with the choice he has made. He stole a part of the old man's life; now he has to live with the pain, even if that destroys his most precious things. "We all make our choices. The hard part is living with them."
The ending suggests that Clay is Rory, but we never know. The movie ends almost abruptly with a female student (who Clay has invited over to his place) asking Clay what he really wants (when he tells her to leave soon after they start making out). I don't think it was only me who felt like being thrown into a deep well.
The theme is sort of the same as Crime and Punishment, but I could relate so much more to this story. Mistakes sometimes sting so badly. But you can't always make the right decision. Life comes with life changing mistakes you can't undo. Maybe the only thing that can make us feel better is that we're not alone. We all live with a bit of dark shadow in our hearts.
2014年3月24日月曜日
wholehearted living
Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth.
- Mark Twain
Today I read The Gifts of Imperfection (by Brene Brown). I know a lot of people like this book and say it changed their lives; that's exactly why I decided to read it. Halfway through the book though, I wondered if it was worth finishing. I'm going to be honest about it because the book talks so much about how important it is to be true to yourself rather than to seek approval of others and fitting in.
To me, the book was abstract (despite the fact that it had a fair amount of examples drawn from the author's experience; unfortunately I couldn't really relate to them), there were too many definitions (though I understood the importance of them), and it just didn't speak to my heart. Maybe I've read too many self-help materials that I've become numb. Maybe my expectaion was too much. Maybe people like me don't read self-help books in the first place. At any rate, I wouldn't have bothered to leave a note about it if it hadn't been for the last chapter where she talks about dancing:
...there is no form of self-expression that makes us feel more vulnerable than dancing. It's literally full-body vulnerability. ...(but) you can see this desire to move in children. Until we teach our children that they need to be concerned with how they look and what other people think, they dance. They even dance naked. Not always gracefully or with the beat, but always with joy and pleasure.
As a kid, I loved dancing. I took ballet lessons and I remember being comfortable enough to dance in front of my classmates at least up till seven. Now I never dance. One reason is that dancing is not prevalent in the Japanese culture. Schools never have dancing parties. The Japanese in general are not used to expressing themselves through dancing and I am no exception. But there was a time in my life when I was not embarrassed at all. So I must have changed, no matter how much I claim that I usually don't care too much about what people think about me. And if that -- measuring my worth on the scale of others -- is getting in the way of leading a wholehearted life, I will probably go back to the book again someday when I really realize that. Right now, I have a vague feeling that my problem (if there is any) lies somewhere else.
As I was talking to my mother about the book though (I thought about the problems she was facing while reading the book), I came up with a single idea that seemed very convincing. I've been struggling to find some comforting words the past couple of months, resulting in some pretty nasty fights every time my mother dwelled upon the fact that her life seemed so meaningless. I thought: well, that's what life is; it's meaningless and it's painful and empty but you live it because that's life. But today, as I was talking to her, I said something I might want to say to my future self when I hit my own mid life crisis:
Now that you look at how your picture has turned out to look like, you might be depressed to find out that it doesn't look at all like the picture you had in mind or the ideal picture you've suddenly created in your head, but when you were painting the picture, you probably always chose the best color and the best brush every time you added a stroke. It was always the best stroke. Even if it seems like a mistake now, it doesn't change the fact that it was the best in that moment, no matter the reason. There was a meaning back then, and if you can't find it now, it doesn't matter. Love your picture as it is because it's the best picture you could've painted. It may not be perfect but there is no such thing as perfect -- if your "perfect picture" had been the reality you would've found that imperfect anyway. All we can do is live in the moment. You can't really control the ultimate outcome (in many cases it will not fit your ideal image) but it's still something worth loving because it's the result of those moments you lived that you could not have lived better, no matter what you think of them now or what you thought of them then.
In short, maybe it's almost like the mere fact that you made a certain choice makes that choice good enough -- if that makes any sense.
- Mark Twain
Today I read The Gifts of Imperfection (by Brene Brown). I know a lot of people like this book and say it changed their lives; that's exactly why I decided to read it. Halfway through the book though, I wondered if it was worth finishing. I'm going to be honest about it because the book talks so much about how important it is to be true to yourself rather than to seek approval of others and fitting in.
To me, the book was abstract (despite the fact that it had a fair amount of examples drawn from the author's experience; unfortunately I couldn't really relate to them), there were too many definitions (though I understood the importance of them), and it just didn't speak to my heart. Maybe I've read too many self-help materials that I've become numb. Maybe my expectaion was too much. Maybe people like me don't read self-help books in the first place. At any rate, I wouldn't have bothered to leave a note about it if it hadn't been for the last chapter where she talks about dancing:
...there is no form of self-expression that makes us feel more vulnerable than dancing. It's literally full-body vulnerability. ...(but) you can see this desire to move in children. Until we teach our children that they need to be concerned with how they look and what other people think, they dance. They even dance naked. Not always gracefully or with the beat, but always with joy and pleasure.
As a kid, I loved dancing. I took ballet lessons and I remember being comfortable enough to dance in front of my classmates at least up till seven. Now I never dance. One reason is that dancing is not prevalent in the Japanese culture. Schools never have dancing parties. The Japanese in general are not used to expressing themselves through dancing and I am no exception. But there was a time in my life when I was not embarrassed at all. So I must have changed, no matter how much I claim that I usually don't care too much about what people think about me. And if that -- measuring my worth on the scale of others -- is getting in the way of leading a wholehearted life, I will probably go back to the book again someday when I really realize that. Right now, I have a vague feeling that my problem (if there is any) lies somewhere else.
As I was talking to my mother about the book though (I thought about the problems she was facing while reading the book), I came up with a single idea that seemed very convincing. I've been struggling to find some comforting words the past couple of months, resulting in some pretty nasty fights every time my mother dwelled upon the fact that her life seemed so meaningless. I thought: well, that's what life is; it's meaningless and it's painful and empty but you live it because that's life. But today, as I was talking to her, I said something I might want to say to my future self when I hit my own mid life crisis:
Now that you look at how your picture has turned out to look like, you might be depressed to find out that it doesn't look at all like the picture you had in mind or the ideal picture you've suddenly created in your head, but when you were painting the picture, you probably always chose the best color and the best brush every time you added a stroke. It was always the best stroke. Even if it seems like a mistake now, it doesn't change the fact that it was the best in that moment, no matter the reason. There was a meaning back then, and if you can't find it now, it doesn't matter. Love your picture as it is because it's the best picture you could've painted. It may not be perfect but there is no such thing as perfect -- if your "perfect picture" had been the reality you would've found that imperfect anyway. All we can do is live in the moment. You can't really control the ultimate outcome (in many cases it will not fit your ideal image) but it's still something worth loving because it's the result of those moments you lived that you could not have lived better, no matter what you think of them now or what you thought of them then.
In short, maybe it's almost like the mere fact that you made a certain choice makes that choice good enough -- if that makes any sense.
2014年3月23日日曜日
of human bondage
It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
A quick note since I just finished the book: Life has no meaning; it's just like a pattern of a Persian rug woven for no end but the pleasure of the weaver's aesthetic sense. Anticipation of an ideal pattern, untamed passion beyond reason, sense of shame, severe poverty all become bondages -- obstacles that prevent you from weaving your own "perfect rug".
The protagonist's morbid obsession towards his unrequited love seems to emphasize the human nature of having to live under lack of satisfaction. Current unhappiness is always unconsciously ignored because the future by definition is bright -- there is a perfect pattern somewhere, waiting to be woven. The empty cup is always waiting to be filled. Anticipation builds. Except that that future never comes.
It's always now or never. What you should do to weave and complete your ideal pattern (which in fact may be designed by thoughts instilled in you by other people) is not important. What matters is what your own heart desires now. Now is the only time you can liberate yourself from all bondage and be free. And if you can find happiness there and then, if you can allow yourself to do that, the rug you're weaving is better than any other rug you pictured with your lofty ideals.
I think it was one of the best books I've ever read. I had so many parts I could relate to that it was almost like reading my own thoughts and following the path I've been walking for the past decade. I'm glad I read it now and not sooner or later in my life.
A quick note since I just finished the book: Life has no meaning; it's just like a pattern of a Persian rug woven for no end but the pleasure of the weaver's aesthetic sense. Anticipation of an ideal pattern, untamed passion beyond reason, sense of shame, severe poverty all become bondages -- obstacles that prevent you from weaving your own "perfect rug".
The protagonist's morbid obsession towards his unrequited love seems to emphasize the human nature of having to live under lack of satisfaction. Current unhappiness is always unconsciously ignored because the future by definition is bright -- there is a perfect pattern somewhere, waiting to be woven. The empty cup is always waiting to be filled. Anticipation builds. Except that that future never comes.
It's always now or never. What you should do to weave and complete your ideal pattern (which in fact may be designed by thoughts instilled in you by other people) is not important. What matters is what your own heart desires now. Now is the only time you can liberate yourself from all bondage and be free. And if you can find happiness there and then, if you can allow yourself to do that, the rug you're weaving is better than any other rug you pictured with your lofty ideals.
I think it was one of the best books I've ever read. I had so many parts I could relate to that it was almost like reading my own thoughts and following the path I've been walking for the past decade. I'm glad I read it now and not sooner or later in my life.
On a side note, I realize the title was taken from Spinoza's Ethics but I'm wondering why the Japanese title means human bond instead of human bondage. I'd appreciate it if anyone could give me some insight.
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