Most fundamentally, there are two realms of living.

1. I am.
2. I think therefore I am.

For centuries until now, we are actually moving more more toward number 2. Rene Descartes helped to promote and propagate number 2 with his “Cogito ergo sum”.

Genuine living happens by number 1.

Two can be easily mistaken. The difference between the two could be a very fine line yet it represents a world’s difference.

It’s easier by an example.

It’s the difference between talking about the ocean and swimming in the ocean. One can be so eloquent and seemingly so knowledgeable about the ocean yet never had really swim in it while someone who had and is swimming in the ocean, may just have nothing to say, nor will there be enough words for him to describe to others who had never swum in the ocean.

Fools are people who mistaken the eloquent non-swimmer as a swimmer.

“I think I am” is easy…
“I am” is loaded.

It’s that time of the year again. It’s that time of the year where everyone sets grandeur plans and shouts that those plans shall get accomplished. It’s that time of the year where gym is all jammed, albeit temporarily. Oh, new year resolution, allow me to say a few words about how silly that is.

It’s ok to talk and have fun talking about it… it’s still silly though.

Silliness of Emphasis on Weight Loss

As much as we always talk about positive thinking and affirmations and as much as we emphasize aggression in our society, losing weight on the contrary is such a defensive maneuver while positivity in this context implies becoming healthy. Losing weight does not mean becoming healthy.

While losing weight is usually a natural side effect in the process of becoming healthier, the way people lose weight often neglects the restoration of the body to a healthy state and worse yet, they sometimes do things that further undermines health, JUST to lose weight. As such, speaking, we are missing the point logically and pragmatically.

Silliness of Emphasis on New Year Resolution

What I really mean is not that new year resolution is completely and utterly silly. It is symptomatic for the fact that people cannot act or achieve without setting a goal.

I mean that the way we are emphasizing new year resolution is silly because in doing so, we completely neglect to look at our entire life as a complete process. We are treating our lives as a repeated process of going from point A to point B. It is easier to think like that but it is also far from reality. When we get so narrow-minded by goal, it is equivocate to mistaking a tree for the whole forest.

I mean that because, we had so focused on these small steps, milestones, we never get down to thinking about the character that we want to be as a person and what we really want to in life. The importance of character to a person is like what a wine connoisseur called “body” in wine.

So maybe instead of new year resolution, we should have life resolution and that is to an on-going effort to work on our characters.

The difference in questions is “What am I going to do this year?” vs. “What am I going to do with myself in life?” or “What kind of person shall I become?”. Which one is more aspiring?

A more concrete example is the questions “How do I become president?” vs. “How can I serve my fellow citizens?” Note the difference.

Who you are and aspire to be drives your behaviors and habits. You cannot change who you are without first facing who you are, in its entirety, without self-deceit. And then go from there.

Silliness of Rugged Individualism

It is too easy to say it’s all genetics and that we are born and grown up in certain way and that is that. But genetics and conditions only afflict on us a tendency which does not have to be, and to say otherwise, you are surrendering to the belief that there is no free will.

If you had not sit down and take the time and effort to re-examine yourself, you are not going to create any real and permanent change. You’ll forever be a random juxtaposition of concepts and ideas that happened upon or drilled into you. You can enforce short-term change that may work for a little while but never lasts. Change by repression without understanding does not liberate. That’s why there’s what is call the “rebound.”

You cannot change who you are until you see who you are. It sounds simple but what is simple is always most difficult. It boils down to…

(And if you continue living your life without ever done a self-examining process, you will forever be either what others want you to be and/or a pretension of who you THINK you are.)

Rugged individualism – to shout “I am who I am” – without ever first discover who it is that you are, is silly and leads to insecurity in ourselves, and insecurity turns us into sheeps and conformists because we will feel that need to band together (and eliminate those who are different) to feel a bit more secure. And that is the state of affair we are in. And that is what we are teaching the next generation by being great “role models”.

Silliness is that rugged individualism leads to conformity.

Self-Examining

People who rebound had never internalize their change… they didn’t really change in the first place because they had not discover the inner character that drives their behaviors.

Who you are shows. As Emerson once said, “Who you are screams so loudly into my ears that I cannot hear what you say.” That is indeed true that your character will be obvious to someone who pays attention and is aware.

Thus, it is helpful to: Focus not on what you said you will do. Focus not on what you think you did. Focus on observing your own action in various contexts to understand who you really are. Likewise, if you care to observe and understand others.

We, national and global populace (even most of our so-called leaders), are so accustomed to focusing on very short-term and “me-me-me” while I sincerely believe, a complete human being (shall we say an evolved, wise, and intelligent human being?) requires also the ability to think far and wide.

The prediction is: Until we, as individual, as fellow earth dweller, as global citizen, go through a period of self-examination and only after follow with actions that is base on self-understanding and thus also our connection with our surrounding world, the world will continue to get worse, before it gets better. There will still be more and more man-made crisis – be it medical, environmental, financial, etc. – (and probably made even worse by natural phenomena) in the coming years, until we had confronted ourselves. That’s the prediction.

Happy new year and I wish everyone a wonderful, peaceful year ahead/
vs.

Reading through books and articles on the internet that are written nowaday, you will basically find content that addresses largly the “how”.

But I think the biggest, more important questions that we humans, as a race in whole, need to ask ourselves is the “what” and the “why”.

What exactly is it that we REALLY want? That can lead to the question, is economic growth THE MAIN thing that we want?

Why do we want what we want? That can lead to the question, why does economic growth seem to be THE MAIN concern we have, all things aside? Well well, this is a rabbit hole that no one wants to dive in.

Moreover, as a race, where (what direction) are we taking ourself?

Do we even remember why everything started?

Of course, no one really wants to ask these questions. It is MUCH easier to stay the course. To do opposite and ask is to face destruction of a world that exists in our minds, which is great horror and drastic but without any exaggeration.

I find myself isolated in crowds, alone in contemplation. My peers uninterested. Companies grossly negligent. Media talks about anything BUT. Individuals care for the how in the now, mostly quick and dirty ways to get rich. And maybe some decide to look for distraction through sensory stimulation, or simply cover the ears doing “lalala”.

It is not the noise and chaos that is scary.
It is even less the pain and suffering are scary.

Scary is the blatent ignoring, non-interest, non-curiosity that 99.999% of people do.
Scary is the things that are not discussed.
Scary is the lack of thoughts, perceptive, and wisdom that prevails.

Perhaps I have spoken too much. It would’ve been easier if I simply choose to write about the how’s to attract crowds huh.

I had just come back from travelling for two weeks. This is actually my first time travelling outside the country since all the new TSA policy. Needless to say, I learn that, even more so than before, passing through security and all is such a stressful event and such a big turn off for me to do any kind of trips through air.

The worst part of this comes from the returning flight from Hong Kong back to U.S. My niece was so lucky to be picked for the “special inspection” and therefore, EVERYONE’s bags are checked near the gate right before boarding. Comes the most ridiculous part, the TSA there threw away even the new water bottles that we purchased within the restricted area (I like to hydrate myself well and it sucks to keep requesting service on the plane), AND also empty the tiny water bottles that passed the security for my 5 year old niece and 1.5 year old nephew.

They claim that because the plane is going to U.S. yet even in the U.S., you’d be able to buy water within the restricted area and take on the plane, yeah?

Needless to say, it’s all frustrating and very unpleasant and there is absolutely nothing we can do.

It makes me think though. Now that [at least they claim] Osama Bin Laden is dead, they love to proclaim a victory on the war on terrorism. With all the TSA yet-on-going implementation of security and various added/new law/policy created in the name for national security, did we really win? anything at all?

In fact, perhaps in a more abstract way of looking at it, or even just literally, we have lost a great deal. We are living under the shadow of terrorism.

This is not to say I’m against all security measures. I understand that, as long as we are humans, we gotta do something about a problem but we hadn’t really thought out thoroughly what that should be.

If you really think about it, the ONLY perfectly safe state, that which seem to be what we think we want (demonstrated by our own action), is a complete police state.

However, not only does a police state mean we are living under constant terror, a police state also goes against the basis of this country. In the act of fighting a war on terrorism, we are enacting behavior analogous to trying to wash blood with blood — terrorizing ourselves and also trying to stop terrorism by terrorizing others.

This is the absurdity that we enact. I don’t propose to have a solution. But I think a good place to start is being genuinely honest, and thus with great clarity, in understanding the reality in and around ourselves.

But in this day and age… who can set aside religion, ideals, power, and all in all, ego to be able to do that?

We humans tend to think of wisdom as a top-down procedure. A powerful mind gathers information, measures it against the lessons of accumulated experience, and makes a rational decision. But really, wisdom is not a process but an outcome; it’s the ability to live well, to antipicate and be prepared, to avoid disaster, to navigate troubles. It came through experience and pattern recognition or it can come through instinct and feedback loops, as it does with bees. Either way, it’s a process of trial and error, of learning from mistakes. One method emphasizes the individual’s role, while the other relies on genes and evolution. Our species tend to recognize only the former method, but nature seems to favor the latter.
– Rowan Jacobsen