Tears

The only way to get rid of tears is shedding them.

Why Don't We UNDERSTAND? - A Little Thoughts After Thanksgiving Party

reason, conclusion - emotion, action (Photo credit: Will Lion)

I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner party in one of my students' parents home. It was a nice house (a mansion, I should say), and the family is a three generations of Chinese Americans. The foods were extremely delicious homemade authentic Sichuan foods, and people were all friendly and relaxing. Generally speaking, I had very good time.

However, the first half hour there I had to spend on explaining my health condition, as "grandparents" were both concerned very much and it was almost the first issue they launched right after I sat down. The conversation started from their "kind" encouraging me to go out often, join people, because obviously they already had BELIEF that my lonely lifestyle was the only real cause for every trouble I had. Since they were so sincere, I reacted accordingly, saying that I was happy and content about myself and accepted everything and trying everything I could to get healthy. It was not enough, because they did not understand why I was still not completely recovered, as if as long as what I told them was true, I should be just as healthy as everybody else.

The conversation later on was pretty much just between grandma and me. I somehow could tell, she was not convinced and still believed what she believes. I had just let go, of course, but what I was bugged "a little" is, this kind of "discussion" has been happening since ever, being repeated almost every time when talking to "certain type" of people. I would say, albeit my condition is complicated, the fact is very simple and plain (such as: I had some chronic complicated health issue, doctors could not help me so it takes me some time to help myself), but why people still don't get it? I realized there is just one simple reason: they do not want to challenge their fundamental belief, such as as long as doctors don't find anything wrong with you, your problem is mental; or, as long as people are mentally happy, they should be physically healthy; or single lifestyle is unhealthy, etc.  I also realized, if they found themselves wrong, they seem to be very upset. That's why those conversations always ended somehow awkward: they ran out of counter arguments, still somehow disbelieved what they were told.

It seems to me, for many people, PREMISES - the foundation of our logic reasoning, is more important than FACTS (or worse, is more important than their life). As long as people found one reason can help them understanding something, they take it as ABSOLUTE. Many time when I heard people say, "I just don't get it", I always found the reason often was merely because their premise was wrong.

Taking our idea as "God", is this one of reasons how we humans get into so many troubles? I have very little doubt. The rest of questions is: WHY? Or, instead of trying to "understand", I should just toss this heavy reasoning burden into the air...

Let Life Flows By Itself

River flows (Photo credit: Manu gomi)

Letting life goes with its mysterious flow seems much more interesting than setting up some "life plans" and strictly following them. The reason is simple, mother nature is a much better designer than humans.

Inspiration Vs. "Working Hard"

Hobby (Photo credit: Sergey Yeliseev)

I often don't understand why people complain about "working hard" on their hobbies, such as writing, painting, playing music, gardening, cooking, etc. For what I understand, "working hard" means we are forced to do something we don't enjoy, or something go beyond our energy limit, so it makes us feel more or less suffering, which is just opposite of the purpose of "hobby". I understand that people work hard for their jobs, to survive, because that's something they have to do, regardless they like it or not, but hobbies, if we feel suffering, why don't we just quit?

I grew up with the notion of "working hard". Trust me, the whole mainstream Chinese education to me is all about "working hard". As my father put it, "if you don't work hard, you would never be anything!" I still remember how he interpreted my quick interest shifting as "not capable of working hard". He was right. I am not able to do that, but what he may not know is, not only I am not capable of working hard, but also I dislike doing it, and furthermore, I even "despise" those works done by "hard working".

I think there is a giant difference between "working hard" and "working passionately". For me, the former is suffering, the latter is totally a enjoyment, even both can be sweating - about which many people confused. Maybe the most famous saying about "working hard" is Thomas Edison's quote: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." I CANNOT DISAGREE more. I think it should be 50% and 50%. And among 50% perspiration, there is not a slight amount of suffering. For me, all true masterpieces were done by "inspiration", not by so call "hard working". I like to be a little more "specific" about the difference between these two: "inspiration" for me means a perfect LOVEMAKING between a humans mind and "God" (I am not a believer so "God" here means our "Nature"), and "hard working" means RAPE, committed by an empty human mind to an exhausted human body. So whereas "working hard" is unpleasant, suffering and often futile, the creative process under inspiration is always productive and full of pleasure. No doubt whoever gets inspiration do not mind "working hard!"

Inspiration is a gift. Not everybody has abundant amount of it. So, if we don't get inspired, what do we do? Nothing! I see so many people force themselves working on so call "creative works", but for me, what they were doing is nothing more than pretending to be "creative". I do think, pretending to know things we don't know, to do things we are not capable of, truly is one of the most foolish things humans "committed".

And the thing is, life is so much more than just "being creative", and sometime it does require our absolutely "doing nothing" to see this (probably the most) wonderful part. "Doing nothing and everything is done", lazy Lao Zi got it all.

Stunning Beauty - Johnny Weir

"Until I saw johnny I never knew a man could be so beautiful"
--- A comment from Youtube by "7827melody"

2008 World Championships. Johnny Weir (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For me, to say every man should be like a man, every woman should be like a woman, is almost like to say every Chinese should be good at Kong Fu, every American should be rich. Truth is, the reality often is much more complicated than we humans can categorize it. There are always plenty of exceptions and surprises that break human rules, give this world some diversity, which make this world less boring. Here comes a man, who on ice acts as gracious as some of the most beautiful women. His name is Johnny Weir.

As a figure skater, Johnny Weir struck me first with his natural beauty of feminine. I've seen lots of "feminine" male figure skaters, many of them only appear to be too "soft" to me. Their "softness" seems to be a quality of "less masculine", or "less powerful" than "regular" male skaters' style. But Johnny Weir is different. He is not "less masculine", because that's simply NOT what he is. What he is is FEMININE. He doesn't care about "masculine", instead, he freely expresses his elegant nature without a slight confusion. When you watch his moves on ice, the elegance is totally natural. What's even better, is that Weir's "feminine" quality is rendered by some "muscle power", which means better control on ice, thus as an art form, it is even closer to perfection.

Secondly, Weir impresses me with his artistic style (just like Sasha Cohen!). Different from many skaters who just pose some jumps and required positions, and in between fill with "nothingness", Weir moves along with music, as if his body is charged by melody and rhythm, each move comes with a full "blossom" of life.

Last, probably most importantly to my "philosophical" view, is that all Weir's performance displayed a great confidence. Not only he is naturally feminine, but also he is fully aware of it, and he intends to exhibit it with a giant confidence. I personally do not take this for granted, because for me, it is easier to gain confidence for those popular celebrities who easily receive approval from majority, than for those who are different, especially different by "nature", different from social ideology or "common sense". For the latter, being confident dose take a totally different measure of courage. That's why I have to appreciate Johnny Weir with extra respect.

In 2010 Vancuver Winter Olympics, Johnny Weir finished in the Sixth place. It was a huge controversial. For me, he deserved a silver medal, or at least a bronze. According to some source I read online, the reason he was so underrated was because his "performance score" (aside from "technique score") was marked very low. This obviously shows that judges indeed disliked Weir's style.

I heard Johnny Weir has announced his coming back for 2014 Olympics. He also came out as an openly gay. I am glad, because all these actions showed that he was not discouraged by the mistreatment he received from last Olympics. I wholeheartedly hope he gets what he deserves next year.

Good luck Johnny!

Johnny Weir 2010 winter Olympics FP
Johnny Weir "Dr. Zhivago"

Education, Knowledge and Wisdom

English: Wisdom in Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, 1611 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Education is expensive, knowledge is cheap, wisdom is priceless.