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= to listen to and talk with a girlfriend till the waiters politely bring you the bill and you realise you’ve been there for four hours being fully in another person’s presence
= to return home to cards with thoughts of love waiting on the bed
= to watch a plant blossoming each day when leaving and each night when returning, the tender buds, flowers, leaves just coming into being
this, is all love.
this is a backposting about a wonderful community singing night i attended a few weeks ago, inspired by a mini jam i had a friend’s house yesterday.
edo and jo are two incredibly beautiful and talented kirtan singers who held a gathering when they were passing through singapore. community singing itself is already powerful, where people can reclaim their voices and sing without fear or self-imposed shame. where these people are friends along this journey of life makes the singing a lesson in the complexity and closeness of human-ness, in which touch and proximity are important, though often forgotten essentials in the soothing of our soul. where the songs we sing are in worship of the divine makes the singing profound. when we were singing a song for ganesha, i saw an image of an elephant in a forest, charging towards the light, felling trees in its wake, clearing a path for me to follow – akin to the dissolution of our fear-based ego and its replacement with love. suspended in the absence of fear and self-scrutiny, it’s possible to taste this elusive and fleeting feeling of what it truly means to love with your hands open. it’s like feeling the breeze on your face in that moment, not possessing, not grasping, just smiling.
yesterday was another instance of connecting through music. i had just met a, a few hours before, and invited her to come along to c&z’s house. at the end, after the guests began to filter off, the few of us sat around the dining table singing. where the tunes were forgotten, we burst out laughing; where we sang in tune, there was a sense of wonder that even across the oceans we grew up listening to the same music. in that moment, it felt like we had known each other from many moons before.
music, and its power to connect, both within and with others is increasingly finding its way into my life, and for that, i’m grateful.
it’s quite ironic that i’m posting this here, given the content and the medium which i’m using. but hopefully this will help me to unpack the many thoughts i’ve had about the book “alone together” by sherry turkle which i’ve been reading. it’s a fairly long book, and explores the impact of increasingly sophisticated robots and technologies on how we function in the real, physical world. as someone who has spent more than half my life in the embrace of the internet, where one of my best friends is someone i met on irc, where i chose where to go to school by looking at their website, where i learn about new eateries through online portals, where i stay in touch with my small circle of friends who have a knack of moving to far-flung and exotic locales, where i journal my thoughts here (!), this is clearly something that is close to my heart.
i quote liberally and unabashedly from her book, because i think she puts things across so succintly i’m not going to attempt to better her writing. first, on the shift towards texting rather than calling, she says that “today, our machine dream is to be never alone but always in control. this can’t happen when one is face-to-face with a person…we can have connection when and where we want or need it, and we can easily make it go away…when you cultivate this sensibility, a telephone call can seem fearsome because it reveals too much”. as someone who has always valued time to myself, i wonder whether or not the technological changes have just cemented my pre-disposition too rigidly. because it is true, the appeal of texting lies in the non-immediacy of needing to reply, not needing to look someone squarely in the eye and tell them you just didn’t feel up to meeting. but this texting comes with a certain nagging sense of throwing these words out into space, not knowing if they are even being read. also knowing worse still, that they might be read, but not responded to. we learn that texting is our way of keeping our contact with someone more succinctly and that somehow this is accompanied by lower expectations on both ends to reply, to engage. in so doing, perhaps we know that every time we choose to send or receive a text, there’s an acknowledgement that maybe “i don’t matter enough” or “he/she doesn’t matter enough”. non-face to face interactions make us unable to accurately ascertain the other’s feelings and ultimately can leave us to feeling unsure about ourselves and the friendships we keep.
second, on oversimplifying life with technology. as she says so well, “our devices keep us distracted, providing the sense of safety in a place excluding conversation. some call it the “zone” in which a person is fully immersed in an activity with focus, often only possible with clear expectations and attainable goals- you concentrate on a limited field so that anxiety dissipates and you feel fully present”. this zone isn’t limited to technology, though i think the sheer pace of technology can enable us easy access to this “zone”, starting with the lure of online shopping, in particular for well-designed sites such as etsy.com, etc. presented in this way, i can see how it may even be a cop-out on our potential to navigate a world of complex problems. these are all essentially distractions the mind engineers to avoid the elephant in the room, of life.
third, and most importantly, on the need for community to grow. the sense that we can be independent and self-sufficient is an attractive one, and certainly valuable, but only to a certain point. when it becomes an act of the ego to be entirely in control, this likely stems from the fear of being completely lost in the moment, of being made vulnerable in front of another. as the book says, “dependence on a robot presents itself as risk free. but when one becomes accustomed to “companionship” without demands, life with people may seem overwhelming. dependence on a person is risky- it makes us subject to rejection – but it also opens us to deeply knowing another. robotic companionship may seem like a sweet deal, but it consigns us to a closed world- the loveable as safe and made to measure”. instead, while it is possible for us to share our thoughts and feelings openly with sociable robotics, which are expressly designed to evoke a sense of being “human” by way of their facial expressions and body language responses, this is just an act of “telling secrets”. there is no real “push back” to help the person work through their issues.
so, while we search inwards and if we know to look, we can acknowledge how the seemingly outward relationships bring us back to that same point within.
there was a candlelight vigil at hong lim park the other day in remembrance of the girl who was brutally raped in delhi.
to be in the company of a collective of people who are pausing, to look inside, and also to sympathise outside, is a moving affair. there was an acoustic set playing as the evening breeze picked up, candle flames dancing against the grass.
the men who attended the event mostly had on sarongs over their pants bottoms, as a show of solidarity for the event, as a way of perhaps acknowledging that it doesn’t matter, male or female, the perpetration of such an act is just inhumane.
so, it was fitting that one man took to the stage to share his thoughts, which i was deeply touched by. he spoke of how we have the masculine, and the feminine. the energy of driving and action, and the element of receiving and softness, but how in our choice to move in tandem with a fast-paced society of grasping and running, we have neglected the feminine within each of us. the absence and ache of not nourishing this feminine side with beauty, love, creativity and expression has resulted in a deep hunger for beauty, but also a resentment at not having it. this can drive one to first want to own and then destroy beauty when it is encountered.
it’s an unusual way of framing the idea of beauty and how essential it is for us to create and appreciate it to fully acknowledge us being human. a reminder to all of us to slow down, spend time in the heart and feed the feminine with art, dance, music and words.
i was on the train today, and caught sight of a guy sitting opposite me staring intently at a little girl seated a few seats away. after watching him for a while, i realised he was sketching her, and the black cloth bound book he was holding was not a bible, but his book of doodles. realising this made me smile.
it also got me thinking about all the possible things one can do on the train, other than play with your smartphone. i’ve done all of the following before:
1) play a game with yourself where you pretend to be a tree, your legs being the roots that anchor you firmly into the ground, even as the train is moving. good for building up your balance and core strength.
2) chant a mantra of your choice inwardly to provide a point of quiet focus amidst the jostling.
3) knit something. the downside is people think you’re a bit strange. the upside is that you get lots of room around you, especially when you use big needles, and get to create something in the process.
4) do a self-massage to get the blood and lymph circulating through the system to ward off the various bugs you could catch on board.
5) when all else fails, people watch. for better or worse, you see all manner of personalities, fashion and behaviours on the train!
i read an article recently and really appreciated the point that the author was making- that we seem to have gotten too wrapped up in our own rhetoric about meritocracy. in sum, that while the philosophical intent behind it makes sense, the realities are that we all start at a different base, which necessarily means that the hurdles to cross for each vary. the likely outcome of this is that, save a few, such a system will continue to perpetuate the dominance of those who are more privileged.
what struck even more of a chord for me, was the alain de botton TED talk that was embedded. in it, alain questions our obsession with meritocracy and makes the point that we need to cut others and ourselves some slack for where we end up. that as much as we would like to view ourselves as masters of our own lives, where we have control over all outcomes, the truth (which we all know but mostly pretend to ignore) is that there is much that is reliant on chance and randomness. and that with an acknowledgement of this, one would hope that instead of pre-judging someone who is out of work/committed a crime/earning little/etc we should instead recognise that we could well be him.
in particular, the line that made me pause was that “he may have lost, but he is not a loser”. so much is captured in this one line. what is it that we think he has lost and whose definition are we using for what worth is? how much do we currently define ourselves and others by what they have achieved, rather than who they are, stripped away from where they have been? isn’t failure (just like success) a part of life, and that we can’t possibly be successful in every single thing we do? spending some time watching what reactions this statement provokes within you can be quite telling i think, about the judgements we make in split seconds, about ourselves and the people we meet.
i was reading about this interesting designer based in the uk, woyan up, who has proposed using food waste to make fashionwear. i’m not sure whether this is a student project, capsule collection or a full line that she has released, but i’m really liking the textured look of her work.
it makes me wonder whether or not this can be an unusual but viable option for countries or cities with a (relatively) low volume of food waste, but with not much of an agricultural industry or interest in gardening for composting (read: singapore). if you don’t know what to do with it, why not just make buttons out of your extra pasta. different- yes, crazy- no.
perhaps if her works catch on, we might see the spawning of a new way to recycle food waste- sorting by colour :}
i just saw this great story this morning, about a man who straps on his snow boots, grabs measuring tape and a compass before heading out onto frozen lakes and snowy plains to create snow mandalas with his feet.
it makes me wonder sometimes whether or not the perpetuity of our seasons, or perhaps almost the subtleness of the changes that come in our climate, stop us from pausing and seeing more. it’s not the sharp shift between sun and snow- it’s more the difference between a fine rain and a full-blown tropical thunderstorm. and as long as we’re not out there splashing about in puddles but are instead walking gopher-like within underground linkways from station to building to home, it’s not a difference we’re likely to notice.
a few years ago, i was a do-stuff junkie. my weekday nights were filled with arts openings and bars to check out, my weekends were occupied with classes and meals. it was great, hurtling through life, egged on too by friends who would look at me a little incredulously and say what a full life i was leading. but that pace of living begins to creep its way into everything that you say and do. it’s quite insidious and before you can catch yourself, you realise that life has acquired a certain speed and that even though what’s slated is supposedly fun, life has become a checklist to tick off.
as life took its own turns, i decided to stop and free up my time. leaving empty slots open for unknowns, for possibilities. and life has a funny way of collaborating. a friend who lives in the west and rarely see randomly asks to meet for lunch near me in the east; i read about an interesting event in the newspapers taking place just later that afternoon; i laze about at home and take a much needed nap despite my general inability to. and it reminds me of a phrase that i heard someone say before, but has really stuck with me: “we only know the things we already love, but have yet to know the things we don’t know we love yet. and how can we find out about them if we don’t give them an opportunity to show up?”
today was a reminder about the beauty of making space. i met with a friend, k (another one of the out-of-towners) for what was just meant to be tea at an old coffeeshop. as conversation meandered into the realm of favourite buildings and we were close by enough, i brought him to see what i was raving about. but along the way, we got sidetracked by my weakness for chinese dessert and landed up in another old eatery. the sky was threatening as we made our way to the said building, and as we reached it, the rain began to fall in sheets. with one small foldable umbrella between two full-sized people, we decided to wait it out, sitting and talking till the winds blew rain across our cheeks and we had to take cover. but lucky for me, the building’s atrium was so porous anyway that wherever we tried to duck, the winds found us. lucky because it’s beautiful to be reminded of nature and its power, because it feels alive to have the cold on your skin, rain in your hair, laughter in your cheeks.
a supposedly two hour tea morphed into a seven hour wander, and i think we were both the happier for it :}
january is the month of the jet plane. current count of friends who have come back to/left singapore to date (and we’re not even in the middle of the month yet!) is six. i’ve gotten a lot better at the saying goodbyes than i used to, but perhaps it’s the knowing that especially with the ones dearer to me, i carry them in my heart, to paraphrase ee cummings. i’ve always been drawn to that sentence, but over the years, i feel what that sentence is more and more. a full moon on a breezy night reminds me of a and his light; the sea in its vastness reminds me of m; small cafes with good music remind me of m; laughter reminds me of a. so when i see, it is with our eyes and our ears that i take in what is. so we share it all, even apart.
random.acts.of.wonder 