For one human being to love another:
that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,
the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work
is but preparation.

-- Rilke

He describes the flow state as an 

"unbelievable lucidity, instant recall, 

the capacity to explain what you're feeling and thinking effortlessly".

I felt like I needed to blog tonight, but I feel like for the moment, this little post suffices; because I haven't built up that flow state Jason Silva describes, and that's the thing that keeps me writing on my blog, honestly. The years and years of repeated reflective flow states are what makes me put words on this page; and as I've said before, and here corroborated by Mr Silva, it's not about planning what to put into a words. It's the timing; a build-up of thoughts and feelings over a time period, and then culminating in a ready, serendipitous moment, to be unleashed via my fingers tapping on the keyboard. I feel like for me, this is a necessary creative release.

Tonight I'm feeling tired -- from a highly productive day though, I must say.
(I always hit more than a 10, 000 steps a day when I have 4 cases to run)
My blogging moments will hopefully surface another time.


But before I go off to sleep, perhaps earlier than I have in months (or years), because suddenly YJ telling us on groupchat that she's going to bed at 10.30 is creating a positive influence --

can I be a fangirl and declare my favouritest songs from BTS's latest and final installment of their Love Yourself? Right now, it's Epiphany, Serendipity, Answer: Love Myself, and Euphoria.

They are beautiful to listen to, and to ponder on.

But did I fall so that I could be hit by those countless stars?

I'm the only target to the thousand of those radiant arrows.

Why do you keep wanting to hide inside your mask

Even the scars that were formed from my mistakes

are my very own constellations

Oh, and this vid has been on my mind for a while too,

hm.....

Friends huddle together to keep from being buffeted by the wind,

Spiritual partners want to know where the winds come from.

Friends don't want to rock the boat,

Spiritual partners love to swim.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

oh this is so good

and I love BTS-ARMY so much.

name me a more awesome fandom at the moment

(and omg, David is wearing a Love Yourself sweatshirt; I want one!)

on other matters,

work is crazy busy now, 

and I've been trying to be more organized 

with all the happenings and errands in my life;

and discovering calendar-blocking as an organization and planning technique --

it's kinda making me freak out cause I can really see how little time there is, always.

at the same time,

still discovering and learning these interesting, life-changing stuff.

I don't know if I maybe live my life by themes, but this love yourself business

is really pervading a lot of my daily experiences.

At times, I used to wonder if loving yourself meant arrogance and pride,

but as someone mentioned in this video, that's really not it.

Arrogance has its root in dysfunctional self-esteem, really.

But recognizing one's self-worth is the basis for true generosity and kindness,

I am learning.

I'm still reading up a lot on pride, arrogance, and gratitude in Islam,
to see where the connections are in all of this...
hmmmmmm.

ja!

ohmygod this is too cute!

William, Bentley, and Sam came to Singapore

and had our standard kaya toast and egg set!

I love how this family eats.

I was having therapy this morning with my LSEd V (i.e. Learning Support Educator) and little boy A, and then I noticed I was getting blood onto the picture cards as I passed him the animals he named. It took me a stunned moment to realise that I was bleeding from my nose! I quietly swiped it up with my fingers and what little tissue I had, until my little boy A cried, "Why, why your hand got blood!" Haha, busted.

I went to bed last night nursing a sore throat and trudged out to work this morning anyways; been feeling woozier by the hour though. And I've just been wondering if my poor emotional state is really starting to impact my physical health once again. I've had a good stretch since early this year, but now I feel like I need to hold on tight against any relapse. Is this a teething process perhaps? I've said how these recent years and months have brought on a huge psychological change for me; and I do feel there has been a lot of internal struggle and effort expended. Many times I've wished I could be more emotionally flat because it's so hard to live like a sensitive wire; trying to embrace this for the super-skill that it may be instead of just burying it and then having to fight fires when it inevitably surfaces at intermittent times, is the teething process I'm referring to. To reign it in, manage it, and control it, for when it's only needed, takes so much internal muscle, I just feel really, really tired and raw. I cannot wait for my getaway in October; just imagining soaking in the hot onsen and letting go of that reign for the moment, to sink into quiet bliss.

My head and heart also keep going back to East of Eden; I love it so much. I've been telling my friends how it's possibly the best novel I've read in my life thus far. Perhaps it's me always finding meaning in the vaguest of events, but this book, more than any other before, spoke so serendipitously and so directly to my heart and my present need in this time of life.

I keep thinking of Lee, Cal, and Sam Hamilton. And then Cathy. How unfair it appears at times, that some people are expected to be good despite horrid circumstances, and others are admired for being good but not having to put in an ounce of effort. But I suppose it's like every other thing in life we have been bestowed or alternately deprived of. They're just our test papers in life, aren't they? Whatever the combination of cards we've been given in life, that's the one you've got to play with, and still play it well. A bad deal doesn't give you license to cheat or foul, does it? But damn, if it doesn't piss people off, when those dealt with better cards feel a smugness, as though their good fortune was anything of their own doing. (For reference of how real this is, watch this TED talk about an experiment proving just how smug people get about what was arbitrarily given to them.) That's basically what privilege is. I feel that recognising the good hand you've been given is the start of virtue for those with good hands. And those given a bad hand -- what's their start to virtue? Perhaps it is to recognize that the bad hand doesn't give one license to lash out, and to slowly learn the wisdom of the hand you've been given: you have a choice, a hard one though it may be. And what a bigger triumph it is to succeed with a bad hand.

When I think of Lee, and his personal history, I think how valid his anger would be against a society so prejudiced against him as an individual. And yet, he showed such equanimity and goodwill. He then becomes a force of good. I keep wishing I had my own Lee. What's especially hard is trying so hard against your bad hand, hoping desperately for scraps of reward, and not have any support or quarter -- would Cal have made a turn for the better without Lee? Lee, who saw Cal grow up and struggle against his bad hand and the endless comparison with his shiny, beautiful brother. If I work so hard at this, this life, and project all my energy towards goodness and selflessness, would anyone recognize how hard I've worked against the bad hand I've felt I've been given -- this is the basis of good, isn't it? And don't we all battle this at least a little bit? If one believes in an afterlife, God is the way we validate this struggle, and reward is in the concept of heaven. But to sustain this battle with the self without human support seems torturous, if not impossible, to me. It makes me feel sad, because Lees and Sam Hamiltons and perhaps a future-grown-up-Cal are so rare.

I want my Lee. (I'd say I have one friend who may be my Lee, since I feel we're so open with each other about our deepest struggles and we are on the same page about a lot of things -- that's you, E, sorry if such fuzzy feelings make you feel weird, haha.) But I'd love to live among Lees. Have a partner who's my closest Lee (see why I'm so obsessed about the concept of true love?).

May we all be given our versions of Lee. May God give us friends and partners who love us not despite our faults, but because of them, and help us tread evermore the uphill climb.

Amin!


Also a related poem I've posted before on this blog years back,
but now deserves a re-post (I pasted this on my clinic desk back at KK):

The Fear of God by Robert Frost

If you should rise from Nowhere up to Somewhere,
From being No one up to being Someone,
Be sure to keep repeating to yourself
You owe it to an arbitrary god
Whose mercy to you rather than to others
Won't bear to critical examination.
Stay unassuming. If for lack of license
To wear the uniform of who you are,
You should be tempted to make up for it
In a subordinating look or tone,
Beware of coming too much to the surface
And using for apparel what was meant
To be the curtain of the inmost soul.

timshel-- thou mayest

The past week, book club finished and discussed East of Eden, by John Steinbeck.

I feel an overwhelming awe and appreciation for this book; it is so good.

(spoilerssss!)

I struggle to say what about it is so good; the careful nuance depicting good and evil? What is goodness? What is evil? When do we decide someone is evil and when do we empathise and understand there was a hurt? How do we fight against the evil within ourselves when we are hurt? At the end of the day, the message appears to be, no matter how hard your challenge in life, no matter how so very very hard it is, and how much you've been hurt, you have a choice. timshel-- thou mayest.

One of my strongest images from the book is Lee, 

discreetly telling a quietly-seething Caleb, "Don't do it."

There are people in this world who crash and burn against you,

and then think nothing of it, and you seethe and seethe,

and that's the kind of thing that generates the hate that generates evil.

And the worse if you're a generally clever person, for then

you can become a sharp tool of wickedness, if you don't make the harder choice.

After a time his breathing steadied and he watched his brain go to work slyly, quietly. He fought the quiet hateful brain down and it slipped aside and went about its work. He fought it more weakly, for hate was seeping all through his body, poisoning every nerve. He could feel himself losing control.

Then there came a point where the control and the fear were gone and his brain cried out in an aching triumph. His hand went to a pencil and he drew tight little spirals one after another on his blotting pad. When Lee came in an hour later there were hundreds of spirals, and they had become smaller and smaller. He did not look up.

Lee closed the door gently. "I brought you some coffee," he said.

"I don't want it-- yes, I do. Why, thank you, Lee. It's kind of you to think of it."

Lee said, "Stop it! Stop it, I tell you!"

"Stop what? What do you want me to stop?"

Lee said uneasily, "I told you once when you asked me that it was all in yourself. I told you you could control it -- if you wanted."

"Control what? I don't know what you're talking about."

Lee said, "Can't you hear me? Can't I get through to you? Cal, don't you know what I'm saying?"

"I hear you, Lee. What are you saying?"

"He couldn't help it, Cal. That's his nature. It was the only way he knew. He didn't have any choice. But you have. Don't you hear me? You have a choice."

---

And this simple yet beautiful exchange almost choked me up; it's the understated honest moments in life that grabs at your heart, and changes you.

"Wait-- let me get it all out. Aron didn't grow up. Maybe he never will. He wanted the story and he wanted it to come out his way. He couldn't stand to have it come out any other way."

"How about you?"

"I don't want to know how it comes out. I only want to be there while it's going on. And Cal-- we were kind of strangers. We kept it going because we were used to it. But I didn't believe the story any more."

"How about Aron?"

"He was going to have it come out his way if he had to tear the world up by the roots."

Cal stood looking at the ground.

Abra said, "Do you believe me?"

"I'm trying to study it out."

"When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to. But when you grow up you take your place and you're your own size and shape. Things go out of you to others and come in from other people. It's worse, but it's much better too. I'm glad you told me about Aron."

"Why?"

"Because now I know I didn't make it all up. He couldn't stand to know about his mother because that's not how he wanted the story to go-- and he wouldn't have any other story. So he tore up the world. It's the same way he tore me up -- Abra -- when he wanted to be a priest."

Cal said, "I'll have to think."

"Give me my books," she said. "Tell Lee I'll come. I feel free now. I want to think too. I think I love you, Cal."

"I'm not good."

"Because you're not good."

💚💔😭

The real value is someone, having faced his own darkness and all his flaws and faults, struggles to live and make the right choices. That's life; that's life, deshou. That's being human, and being worthy of love.

I really like Cal. He was so real.

And ganbatte, S! You have a choice.

it's a week to BTS comeback;

and I'm marveling at how amazing this ARMY-BTS dynamic is.

here's someone Korean explaining Ddaeng in detail

so we non-Koreans can also appreciate the stunning wordplay in this.

is it a surprise the appreciation and love for BTS keeps growing.

This past few weeks have messed with my fragile routine;
while my psyche has a complete overhaul,
real life schedules take a backseat.
This is a pattern I've noticed.
I maybe need to schedule in regular and good proper downtime for psyche revamps
to buffer for such situations.

Cause when I return to physical and external life,
suddenly I'm overwhelmed,
and my deadlines are about to bowl me over.

Not usually my thing but I've had to back out from planned friend-meets

and just sit with my deadlines.

 

 

 

come on, S, fight the negativity,

forgive yourself,

and ganbatte.

(look at this cute bird trying to karate or something)

everyone's at least a little familiar with this, yes? haha.

one just hopes one doesn't keep floating in the blue there.

Chatting with some friends, not about my problems per se,

but theirs, actually sheds light on my own problems --

and I realise we're all the same to some extent.

We're all struggling about the same stuff.

I wonder if it's my knack of constantly seeing patterns,

or whether it's synchronicity or if that's one and the same thing --

but when I talk with my friends, it really seems like all the same stuff:

are we loved for who we are?

are we then able to love others?

who breaks the cycle of hurt first?

I will try my very, very best-est not to think negatively of anyone, ever.

Not to ever let it dash across my mind how I may fare better compared to others.

Someone who's a work-in-progress, is at least progressing,

and will best you in every way, anyway.

also, I think I'm finally understanding the difference between

perfectionism and excellence.

Excellence allows and in fact builds on failure and vulnerability.

Perfectionism is a failed state to begin with.

To think that you'll break apart by exposing your weaknesses and faults 

only hinders your path to excellence.

ganbatte, S!

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
People will do anything,
no matter how absurd,
in order to avoid facing their own soul.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
~ Carl Jung

Why is growing so painful.

I'm thankful though; 

the pain is worth the growth and the light,

and the hope for a better and happier future.

Although when the pain happens,

you wish you could feel anything else but.

---

and omg,
BTS, I love you guys so much for telling amazing stories.

this one seems to fit so well with my life right now.
synchronicity?

I finally realised

so I love me

this was exactly what happened this morning for me,

after hours and hours of tears.

when you truly don't need someone outside of you to approve of you,

you live freer, and you are freer to love truly.

also, like Maya Angelou said,

Don't trust anyone who loves you but doesn't love himself.

You've got to love yourself first, 

for you to be able to love others.

Now that I know better,

I'll do better.

💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

yay omg BTS comeback!

It is one of the turning points in therapy when the patient comes to the emotional insight that all the love she has captured with so much effort and self-denial was not meant for her as she really was, that the admiration for her beauty and achievements was aimed at this beauty and these achievements and not at the child herself. In therapy, the small and lonely child that is hidden behind her achievements wakes up and asks: "What would have happened if I had appeared before you sad, needy, angry, furious? Where would your love have been then? And I was all these things as well. Does this mean that it was not really me you loved, but only what I pretended to be? The well-behaved, reliable, empathic, understanding, and convenient child, who in fact was never a child at all? What became of my childhood? Have I not been cheated out of it? I can never return to it. I can never make up for it. From the beginning I have been a little adult. My abilities -- were they simply misused?"

These questions are accompanied by much grief and pain, but the result is always a new authority that is establishing itself in the patient -- a new empathy with her own fate, born out of mourning. Now the patient does not make light of manifestations of her self anymore, does not so often laugh or jeer at them, even if she still unconsciously passes them over or ignores them, in the same subtle way that her parents dealt with the child before she had any words to express her needs. Even as an older child, she was not allowed to say, or even to think: "I can be sad or happy whenever anything makes me sad or happy; I don't have to look cheerful for someone else, and I don't have to suppress my distress or anxiety to fit other people's needs. I can be angry and no one will die or get a headache because of it. I can rage when you hurt me, without losing you."

In the majority of cases, it is a great relief to a patient to see that she can now recognize and take seriously the things she used to choke off, even if the old patterns come back, again and again, over a long period. But now she begins to understand that this strategy was her only chance to survive. Now, she can realize how she still sometimes tries to persuade herself, when she is scared, that she is not; how she belittles her feelings to protect herself, and either does not become aware of them at all, or does so only several days after they have already passed. Gradually, she realizes how she is forced to look for distraction when she is moved, upset, or sad.

Once the therapeutic process has started, it will continue if it is not interrupted by interpretations or other types of intellectual defense. The suffering person begins to be articulate and breaks with her former compliant attitudes, but because of her early experience she cannot believe she is not incurring mortal danger; she fears rejection and punishment when she defends her rights in the present. The patient is surprised by feelings she would rather not have recognized, but now it is too late: Awareness of her own impulses has already been aroused, and there is no going back.

Now the once intimidated and silenced child can experience herself in a way she had never before thought possible, and afterward she can enjoy the relief of having taken the risk and been true to herself. Whereas she had always despised miserliness, she suddenly catches herself counting up the two minutes lost to her session through a telephone call. Whereas she had previously never made demands herself and had always been tireless in fulfilling the demands of others, now she is suddenly furious that her therapist is again going on vacation. Or she is annoyed to see other people waiting outside the consulting room. What can this be? Surely not jealousy. That is an emotion she does not know! And yet: "What are they doing here? Do others besides me come here?" She hadn't realized that before.

At first it will be mortifying to see that she is not always good, understanding, tolerant, controlled, and above all, without needs, for these have been the basis of her self-respect.

-- The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller

this is such a great thing.

I've seen this guy's TED talk before, on this very subject i.e. toxic masculinity,

and it impresses me that he's doing things beyond just preaching!

ahhhh, respect.

When I think about what makes a man,

I think... the Prophet s.a.w.?

Generous, kind, merciful, soft, brave, strong, wise, gentle ++

💚

I feel like for Muslim men, at least they have a more obvious example;

for Muslim women, it's even harder, isn't it.

What makes a woman?

Should I be like Sayidatina Aisyah r.a.?

Sayidatina Khadijah, or Fatimah, or Asiah r.a.?

An amalgam of it all?

It occurs to me that an adjective that possibly unites all these revered ladies is strong.

Sayidatina Asiah had a horrid and evil husband who she defied behind his back!

Sayidatina Aisyah was a scholar and had no kids.

Sayidatina Khadijah was a businesswoman boss.

But it's funny what culture does and perpetuates.

People don't think about it, much less discuss it,

so the fact that these men are questioning things,

and trying to get to the truths -- goodness, it gives me hope.

If I work more than I socialise, am I less of a woman?

If I am not married, am I less a woman?

If I do not have children, am I less a woman?

If I don't cook, am I less a woman?

If I don't flaunt physical or sensual beauty, am I less a woman?

You could do the same list for a man, couldn't you? 

With all the attendant cultural expectations of a man.

But are they valid expectations?

Are the things that we generally expect and demand of human beings valid, fair, just?

It's my idealism talking (and why shouldn't it?):

shouldn't we let every human be human.

Shouldn't we refrain from imposing any mould or shape on a yet unmoulded individual,

and let the child flourish beyond the limits we limited adults impose on them?

It's like we're actually passing on our diseases down and down and down to our progeny.

Follow the child's lead. That's like therapy 101.

---

In relation...

People generally don't think about it much, 

but how we talk about other people reflects what we think about human nature.

How we think about humans.

Making conclusions about people -- that they're X, Y or Z (pick from your selection of adjectives: selfish, stupid, evil, weak ++) and giving up on them as hopeless cases, without taking into account their entire sociology: what family they were born into, what struggles they had growing up, who they have been encountering their entire lives etc. -- is, to me, a limited and myopic thing to do. Because you don't then get the big picture. You just very easily and simply labeled someone, and simplified your view of the world. It's very easy to do this. Hence, stereotypes. It's harder, when encountering someone who triggers you, to question why they're behaving a certain way, to understand their motivations and impetus for being so, and to react in a more loving and compassionate way, recognising deeply, the possible situations that resulted in the current presentation, and how you would have likely been the very same if you were in their place.

It angers me that we do this to each other.

I hate it; it makes me sick.

When I realise my conversational group is talking negatively about someone else,

it strikes me sooner or later,

goodness, you all probably say or think the same thing about me too!

Then I start to get unhappy. Then I think, we shouldn't make the absent person unhappy either!

Where is our integrity.

That's why backbiting is a sin. In Islam, it is likened to eating the dead flesh of your brother or sister. 

Don't do it, S. Catch yourself. Whatever you think, say, or write, do so as if what is shared will be heard by the party in question. It's certainly heard by God.

E and I were discussing this last night: that we should make the habit of confronting a person directly should that person exert harm in any way to you or others or the surroundings. Instead of just going somewhere else to complain and bitch, do the person a courtesy and ask or request how things should be different. That's called respect. Respect the person and consider that perhaps this person does things unknowingly or unintentionally (or worse, with good intention -- which puts you in hot soup spiritually); allow them the chance to do what would please you instead. Don't condemn others on the basis of your silly and myopic conclusions. I think in most, if not all, cases, your conclusions are wrong.


When asked "Who is the best Muslim?"
Rasulullah s.a.w. said,
"He is the one from whom Muslims are safe from the evil of his tongues and hands."

zennnnnn

So, you know, I thought I was making a lot of headway about sustaining emotional awareness and managing my emotional reactions; the endless, inane type of comments that people make about life  and people and things, that used to just light me up in rage, I feel like I could take better now.

But then, after a whole night (and I'd say several days) of letting inane comments slide, I finally snapped. And it was the contempt I'd heard about someone I cared about, that sent me off kilter. On reflection, I should have stayed calm -- the error I'd made was the expectation, that everyone can come to see what I see, can come to understand what I mean, without already making value judgments. I've come to see that to some people, some things must not be said. They will understand it wrong. They have no patience to see the nuance of what is meant. And when they in turn start making judgments of you, you in anger and thus, in error, start making judgment of them.

Khalas. Disengage, S. I must learn to recognize this. But how? With whom can things be said and questioned and discussed, and with whom must they be withheld?



Open-mindedness is a difficult concept;
most people think they're open-minded, but are they, really?
Am I open-minded?
What is the definition of open-mindedness?

Definition (from here)

Open-mindedness is the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans, or goals, and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available.

Being open-minded does not imply that one is indecisive, wishy-washy, or incapable of thinking for one’s self. After considering various alternatives, an open-minded person can take a firm stand on a position and act accordingly.

The opposite of open-mindedness is what is called the myside bias which refers to the pervasive tendency to search for evidence and evaluate evidence in a way that favors your initial beliefs. Most people show myside bias, but some are more biased than others.

There seems to be a poisonous belief among some Muslims that it is a dangerous thing to be open-minded; but to my mind, this makes utterly no sense. Muslims should be the most open-minded people there are; the Qura'an actively tells you to think, and ponder, and reflect, and says Truth is clear from error.  The very first people who embraced Islam had to be open-minded. The people who believed in the divinity of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., the virgin birth of Prophet Isa a.s., and the ascension to heaven of our Prophet s.a.w. had to be open-minded. Why are you afraid of new information? Keep learning. Keep learning and ask for divine guidance. This is not rebelliousness. This is called learning. Are you stupid that you will believe everything you read wholesale, or are you of a discerning mind, and able to separate falsehoods from kernels of truth? Of course, I am not advocating arrogance; I am advocating a thirst for learning and knowledge, and then a careful understanding and analysis of all the information you gain. Filter all of what you've learned with the opinions of learned scholars. Listen to your heart, the seat of divine guidance, and send prayers upon the Prophet s.a.w.. Then live life better every day.

How can this be wrong, someone please explain.

---