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went to the inaugural ici research symposium last week.
during the panel discussion session, erica mcwilliam (education) said, “people don’t want to be creative if that involves letting go of what they have. people are lazy that way.” not her exact words, but something along those lines.
during “consumer cultures” lecture this afternoon, christina spurgeon said, “habit is different from mindlessness.”
i feel the relevance of these ideas more acutely these days than ever before. every time i need to make a decision, or simply to live every moment, i find myself having to re-establish and/or refer to my emotional and conceptual frameworks, and sometimes this process feels extremely limiting, especially when i can see that i’m trying to base the “being” on the ”have been.” it sounds like a natural process but depending on the context, the outcome may be pretty devastating - prejudice, ignorance, anger, and fear. so many things can stem from this ostensibly simple procedure.
to achieve the illusion of the present perfect (have been), i sometimes kid myself with the past simple (was) and frequently insist on the present continuous (am -ing). the result is obvious and simple: i can’t see the truth, or rather, i can’t be true. scattered mind - which leads to a ridiculously high level of 1) rash (and wrong) decisions and/or 2) indecisiveness. either way, it creates bad karma by being ignorant and burdening others with my own responsibilities.
like many others, i wish to be simply happy. i wish for more simplicity in life and in appreciating happiness. i really don’t think that reading Eckhart Tolle (who wrote “the power of now”) will help me. i don’t think that seclusion from society will enlighten me either. and drugs wouldn’t be of much help.
i believe that i need to be stop being lazy. i have been lazy. i let others do my work, as in hoping and trying to persuade others that they should make me happy. i’ve been trying to stick to the past, swimming upstream. i couldn’t let go. my habit of mindless repetition of the past tied me to this poorly cultivated habitus of mine. i don’t respect uncreative minds = i couldn’t respect my mind; not all the time, but sometimes, many times. my own fault. but now i also realise that compunction wouldn’t help.
to be — present simple.
i will try — future can be simple, too.
i am trying – yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
not sure exactly why, but i felt very strongly tonight that i had to think about these and find a way to let creativity flow better. i guess life’s more fun that way; “play” has always been my motto. oh, maybe it’s the ekka. the whole festive air of brisbane ;)
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:14 am
Hi there, I saw your blog and see that we have some similar interests..I’m from Singapore and am hoping to make friends with you…how can i add you to msn?
August 30th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
hi. i sent you a quick email the other day. hope you got it- will write to you properly soon. moving house has changed my life (in so many different ways, one of which is the havoc in my schedule)!
November 8th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
In America, even the people that didn’t like G. I. Joe are well aware of the cartoon and the name. While the cartoon aired in the U. S. A., at the end there would be various safety vignettes. Whatever they were, it was something that informed people about something (often some simple thing about fire safety, for example, since the target audience was young boys), and they would somehow remark about how glad they were to know that or something to that effect. Then, they would, every time, say “And knowing is half the battle.”
Of course, maybe you knew all that. But, when I read what you wrote in this post, I can’t help but think that you’ve managed to account for half the battle already. (That doesn’t mean the rest is easy, but, as was well illustrated in the sci-fi movie “Gattaca”, if you’re more than half-way then there is no point in turning back.)