Posts made in September, 2009
Whatever Works
Today has been a little messy. My mind was a badly run metro station with trains of thoughts colliding into one another – the Isetan project, ACIM Day 1, creativity and match.com. I was literally switching between tabs on a browser every other minute. Nothing significant came through.
Ordo ab chaos.
That’s latin for ‘order from chaos’.
I wonder what should the end be. Greek philosophers would say Order, but seriously, what’s wrong with pure chaos? Isn’t there beauty in chaos too? Chaos, like what went on in my mind today.
OK, order sounds good. But if everything eventually ends up in order, what would the world be like? Would we all wake up at the same time, eat the same breakfast, do the same thing, hold the same conversations and die the same way? If you take order to its ultimate end game, it doesn’t sound so pretty either.
I think the saying is misleading. An improvement would read ‘ordo ab chaos ab ordo ad infinitum”. This, at least, reflects our human condition more truthfully.
What if both ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ are just illusions. A pseudo-understanding of the world taught to us to keep us running in circles. A veil of sorts. The blue pill.
What if everything is just the way it is now, in this very moment; and whatever combination of ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ you might misunderstanding there to be, that it is really all the beauty that the world has to offer to you, right here, right now?
In Woody Allen’s latest movie ‘Whatever Works’, the ingenious, morbid, insensitive and suicidal Boris Yellnikoff (played by who else but Larry David) is not anything else but himself. Obtuse – yes, but that’s him. And being true to his essence, life, unfolding to him within Woody’s script, would reward him with finding his true love. And under the most unexpected and unusual circumstance.
There is light beyond this infinite cycle of life.
With this, I close the day with a can of Sapporo’s best and a new lesson learnt.
Read MoreJogging, once again
How shall I tell the story? Hmmm, let’s start with a little bit about myself – I don’t like to jog, period. In the 40 years that I have lived, I dread the day when I had to run, you know, PE lessons in school, Basic Military Training, jogging dates. You see, I just don’t get it, you put on some gear, put one foot in front of the other and repeat 50,000 times. It doesn’t sound like the kind of activity I would put what could be productive time into.
I would, for instance, put my time into playing mahjong. With mahjong, one is entertained, fires up a couple of million brain synapses in a game of guessing which of the 144 tiles will be drawn next, and potentially even get paid for it in the end!
It started yesterday when a dear old friend called to organize one such ‘productive’ session. I hadn’t done it for a while and obliged. It was a good group of four and I was looking forward to an evening of good laughs and strategic tinkering of the bakelite tiles.
Two rounds into the game, I realize this was going to be one of those special nights which I enjoyed the most. It doesn’t matter what random set of 13 tiles I would start with, as the game progresses, I would draw perfectly complementary tiles before laying the final winning call to the rest. This is what mahjong players would call “wind”. At the end of my “wind”, I was called many names, and had raked in over $400 worth of winnings. A rare occurrence given the low bet value of our game.
I knew something was up.
The following day, I bought my colleagues lunch – it is my custom to ‘share’ winnings with friends in this manner. We decided to go to Samy’s, an Indian bryani restaurant just minutes from the office. After a hearty serving of yellow-spiced rice, papadum, mutton curry and an after-meal Dunhill frost-stick, I settled down with a cup of teh-tarik and listened to the conversation.
As usual, it revolved around Samson’s bunked weight-loss attempts, HK’s upcoming wedding and Jogger Tan’s still-born blog. It was pretty much what we talked about every lunch, and I had to steer it away. So, I blurted out how Bowser (my 6-month-old golden retriever) started dashing during his walks and I could perhaps start running along. I am sure I was just trying to change the topic – and asked Jogger about the Nike-ipod (you see, we’re a bunch of techies so gadget-chat always works). Handsome (but quiet) Jay leaped in and showed us RunKeeper, a free iPhone app that essentially does what the $100+ branded alternative does. That piqued my interest, as anything that’s free and runs on the iPhone always do.
What made this register was that Handsome Jay was due to go on leave the very next day. And I just happen to have a couple of extra $50-notes in my pocket. I said to myself “why not” and continued to Queensway Shopping Center after dropping them off. Now, this is the place to get all your sports supplies in Singapore, and it’s also minutes from the office. I parked, browsed and got everything I need under 20 minutes: a pair of New Balance running shoes, a quick-dry micro-fiber top and an iLuv iPhone arm band.
Now I’m ready to jog.
But, probably not tonight. It’s beer night with Jogger and HK. We do this once a month – down some beer, chill and talk. Tonight’s topic meandered into Intention and Ego, heavy stuff which I enjoyed. The part about the Ego revolved around how this inner nemesis fights for its ‘life’ by making its host fail in life. I thought about it and saw how my Ego tried to pull a fast one over my eyes. Who said that you cannot run after beer? Jogger then concurs that one can easily overcome the diuretic effects of beer by drinking a couple liters of water.
Now I’m ready to jog, again.
On the walk back home, I came across a woman in jogging attire, this was somewhat out of the ordinary given Holland Village’s night scene. It was a gentle reminder to cheer me on to my earlier conclusion.
When I got back, Bowser went into a frenzy of short sprints, something he hasn’t done before. Looking at him, I concluded this was yet another reminder.
At this point, I knew that my jogging is not going to start any other day, but tonight.
The mahjong session, the lunch, Handsome Jay’s just-in-time RunKeeper recommendation, the beer-chat about Ego, the out-of-place jogger and Bowser, has all been orchestrated into a seamless play-by-play to get me to start running.
So I did it. With Bowser. And it was an evening jog that is nothing short of a miracle.
Read MoreMen’s Best Friend
It’s been awhile since I wrote on this blog. I haven’t stopped writing though, it’s just that I thought the stuff I went through in the past year would not be relevant to you.
So here I am, sitting by the harbor front at a Starbucks (where else, haha), writing this. Oh yes, I have a new companion now – his name is Bowser and he’s a 6-month-old golden retriever. Save for a few tense moments in the car on route to our destination (he gets car sick), Bowser is really the perfect company for me – he keeps to himself, doesn’t bark and is not easily aroused – as I could write on my outings with him.
So I have a pet now, but I only got Bowser towards the end of the hiatus, perhaps as a milestone or a reward of some kind. Much has happened on this journey. I have learned many lessons and I will be sharing some of them here. The end of that ‘journey’ doesn’t mean that the learning stops, in fact, a new chapter of my learning has commenced, and from here, I will have much more to share on this blog.
Today, I shall tell you the story of how Bowser and I met.
I had dogs before but they were never really mine. If you were to ask anybody who knows me, they will tell you how unlikely is it for me to own a pet, much more so, to own a pet when I’m living alone. It’s simply not me to go into a situation like this. I mean, I love animals, but to have to pick up their poo and wipe their ass everyday is something else.
It all started with “Marley and Me”. No, the movie didn’t get to me, but it sure got to Madeleine (my 10-year-old daughter), who then started chatting me on Facebook every other day to ask me to get a dog. She will bombard me with questions like “why don’t you get a dog, it’s the best companion” or “what percentage chance are you at right now on getting a dog”. At the same time, she will send me pictures of puppies, dog keeping articles, books, etc.
I was resilient at first. But when the gentle reminders turns into desperate cries, I had to give her something. I responded with numbers: initially “40%”, then “50%”, and eventually “70%”. I never moved beyond 70% and explained to Madeleine that the remaining 30% is really up to the dog.
Frankly, I am not entirely against the idea of keeping a dog. There are many a times when I’m alone and thought that having someone around is, well, nice.
So, I decided to give it a shot, just one. It’s going to be a one time thing: I would make an inquiry and that’s it. So I picked one of the many forum threads of dog owners selling puppies Madeleine sent me. I made one enquiry. One, that that got me one response to set up one meet.
On the day itself, I cleared my schedules, did nothing that could potentially throw me off. I made that day special – I believe in subtle energies and wanted my ‘waves’ to be as uncluttered and true as possible. You see, I am letting the puppies pick their master. It is really up to them now. Them, or whoever is guiding them.
I reached the breeder’s place early, calm my thoughts and as I walked to the door. It was ajar and I could see the breeder mopping the floor while three golden retrievers were seated obediently on the wooden couch. They were well-trained. But when I came into their sights, one of them started fidgeting and attempted to leap off the couch. The breeder cracked a command but to no avail. Bowser is now on the floor and running towards me. What can I say, he has chosen me and I know he is going to be my dog. The moment is now 100%.
As it turns out, Bowser is the perfect companion for me. On the first day home, he instinctively knew to take his business to the lawn. He would let out a groan in the mornings and whenever he has to go. He understood what “naughty boy” meant the very first time he heard it. He rarely barks and is very friendly with human, especially little children.
You wouldn’t believe how glad I am to have been chosen, Bowser’s nothing like Marley in the movie. Sometimes, it’s good to let go of ego and control and leave some things to Spirit.
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