been here before - de ja vue ?

.....how come I love the messy shops, the lively raucaus restaurants, the worn outness of buildings, narrow winding streets so much ? - I've just arrived in Macau, 29Aug09 at 22:30 
If I was ever  going to talk about having lived in a place in another lifetime, and I had to pick a place, this would be one of them for sure.
I feel at home here straight after arriving at  10:30pm via Kuala Lumpur and an 11 hour stopover. 
I surprise myself with the confidence with which I lounge in the corner of  a restaurant, order stuff, get served by guys without shirts wearing old shorts, because its clean-up and close-up time but the white gringo wanted some of the last bits of food in the trays before they got cleaned  away.

There is another city that affected me like this as well: I mean the impression of having lived there before, a kind of deja vue. The place is Tangier, it also has lots  of narrow winding  streets, hot climate, but is very different.
      Thinnking about this a bit, I've found that it is not the logic of philosophical arguments that convince people of a philosopy, but how well those philosophies describe the feelings within them.
      In my case: I would never ever in a million years have given any consideration to the idea of other lifetimes, - but because  of various  experiences such as these (visiting places I feel I'm sure I've been to before)  make me consider it.
      Why consider it ? simply  because it is the currently best explanation I can come up with for myself, it covers my PERSONAL experiences in the best way and it explains it in a way I like. I notice the addition of the word  'like'. Because there are hundreds of other logical alternative explanations to any experience. 
          Thus it seems to me that it is not logic that decides the type of explanation we choose but our 'liking' - even if it is carefully hidden from ourselves,---- by logic.
         I could explain it all in social theories, evolution, chemistry, and other ways that to ME make it all so tawdry and boring and dull and make me feel like an impersonal blob.
     I *prefer* the idea that I'm in a schoolroom, in the University of life.
     In this I am following my 'hero'and mentor in metaphysics
George MacDonald (1824-1905) who said something akin to: änything is believabble which is morally believable and enobling"  :-) .



More on travel in Macau here.

 

'dance me to the children who are asking to be born....'  - Leonard Cohen

Haiko's - blog list here or direct: life42  or backpacking or  stories. --> Risks of being alive & Media :-)

I walk with her, and I hear the gentle beating of mighty wings....
I hear the sound of her wings.... and the darkness lifts from my soul...

Aikido - a simple code VS 1000's of rules....

Another example: 

I just bought a book chapter on "Macau" from the Lonely Planet Guide Book: I like the paragraph below, because it is so commonsense: pages and pages of legal stuff put into a few lines:

•  (c) Lonely Planet Publications. To make it easier for you to use, access to this chapter is not digitally restricted. In return, we think it's fair to ask you to use it for personal, no commercial purposes only. In other words, please don't upload this chapter to a peer to peer site, mass email it to everyone you know, or resell it. See the terms and conditions on our site for a longer way of saying the above. - "do the right thing with our content."
  

- From the Lonely Planet digital chapter on Macau (you can buy just a book chapter, and don't have to pay for the whole book in paper format)

- I appreciate simplicity like that. Digital rights and encryption never deters the determined people, and annoys and frustrates the average user.

you create your reality... really ?

"Your create your own reality"

I hear this a lot these days and it did not really make sense until I thought about it a bit deeper.

On the surface it sounds silly: Ok let me think about being wildly successful and rich, - kapow... I wave my 'you create your own reality' wand and there I am, a famous author, speaking around the world, writing books, giving workshops etc.... .

Well not quite. Because deep down I don't believe that kind of scenario. It simply does not feel right, does not 'gell' for me. Similarly all those 'think rich and you'll be rich' things, they might be right for others, but they don't resonate with me, deep deep down I feel I'm just faking it.

But then when I took it a few levels deeper it seemed to make more sense.
When I look back on my life I find that I somehow seem to end up in the same - or similar - situations. I don't mean to do it deliberately, but it kind of just turns out that way.

In my case I tend to be the 'outsider' the 'maverick' the 'clever-and-knowledgeable-dude-who-is-treated-unjustly'.

After a bit more introspection and soul searching I realized, that on some deep level I felt more at home in that role. I felt this was my place, the place I belonged, where I would naturally gravitate towards.
In other words: my Core Being was calling out and magnetically aligning the iron filings of my life to cast me into the role i was most comfortable in.

At that level, I can accept that i DO create my life situation (lessons).
It also shows me just how powerful the Core of me Being really is.

But that deep Core Being inside me, I cannot simply change it at a whim. It is strong, deep, heavy, and powerful.
My momentary, mental whim is but a small aspect of the core. It would be like trying to change the path of the Earth by jumping up and down.

So how do i change it ?
Just by trying ? - well yea, that's a good start, but not enough.
Then I remembered all the books I'd read, the long conversations I'd had about 'inner work'.
Ok now I get it.
To change my Core Being I need to work at the level of the Core Being.
The Core Being is ME, is the CORE of ME.
The only way I can see to change that, to change myself, is to grow, to evolve, to transform, to take the next steps from within the Core Being and move forward.

This is very much how a seed grows. You can't change the acorn seed into an Oak tree by force of will or decision, you let it unfold its own inner Core Being, its very essence and nature.
And then you get an Oak Tree.

This is a slow, long process.

I've not made any great changes yet.
But it is a lifetime's work.... step by step by step, by step, by ste..., be st...., by s....., by ......, .b......, ....... ;


5Aug09

Schoolroom of University of life - an Engineer's perspective

"Life is a schoolroom, it is a place to learn lessons."
I hear this a lot.
It's a good analogy.

"Ok, Mr University teacher, what would it mean ?"

Well it would mean that the lessons are going to have to pitched at the 'right' level for the students.
If my students could do all the lessons perfectly and they never stumbled, then the lessons are too easy.

If my students hardly got any of my lessons right, the course would be too hard.

"Correct"

But there is gem hidden in all this isn't there ?

"Yes"

Students would have to get some lessons right, and some lessons they would have to redo, and try at a number of times.
That would be a good school and a good course.
Which means: that when I look down on myself, and others, for NOT getting their life into perfect order it is actually a silly thing to do.

The school of life is designed so that we will stumble and fall sometimes. It is in the nature of a 'school', in the nature of all learning.

That is the gem isn't it ? I don't have to be down on myself for not getting a perfect life together, because I have a real life in the University of life.

And it means: what I have called 'failure' in my life, is simply: a lesson, something to learn and do better in a new way next time... hmm... I like that perspective.
It is like saying ' do this one again, you didn't get the right answer here'.
It is a gentle, strong gentle way to see it.

"Yes, it IS a good way to look at it :-) ".

In Engineering the best energy transfer for heat is when half the heat is lost and half is passed on. So it is with the lessons, it may not be 'half' but there is a balance for the right number of lessons.

Everyone gets the right difficulty served up.
Every lesson CAN be passed.
Every lesson can be passed at the lowest, middle, highest level.

what if life were "perfect" ?

Cycling to Westgarth the other night:
What if all my life was indeed "perfect" ?

If I had no problems, no fears, no pains, nothing unpleasant.
How would I react ?

I think I might feel internal stuff come up inside me and melt me down from within. I would look for internal problems and they would bubble up.

Sometimes it feels as though the life energy bubbles up from within, and if it has nothing to 'chew' on, nothing to 'wrestle' with, it makes up stuff, anything. A little like the theory of allergies that says the immune system turns on itself because it does not have enough real world stuff to fight.
If that is true, it would mean that if I don't direct my creative flow into positive directions, it will flow anyway, but the direction would not be positive.
Hmm.... .
Since we are all born to a purpose, that purpose will bubble out of my core... and I would be well off to direct it in the best way I can...

All people and creatures are born to a purpose - just flow with life, and you will achieve that which you were born to do. Have faith, for faith is 'the KEY in the doorway of tomorrow'.
- Chiron, John of Aesce - 'Wounded Healer, July 2009'.