Actions and interactions

Our outer life is lived in actions and interactions with perhaps a partner (or partners), an opponent (or opponents), or some random stranger (or strangers).

Interactions also occur with inanimate objects such as a guitar or a car or anything else.

In other words, interactions exist at all levels and in all areas in the outer life.

Every action and interaction has three basic components—execution, results, and consequences.

First, execution.

The focus in execution is on efficiency, and getting the task done with minimal effort and energy, and with spectacular results.

(Spectacular results is part of living life to the fullest and an important component of virtuosity, so minimal effort does not mean half hearted measures or sloppy work.)

Why is minimal effort an important part of the equation?

So we can conserve energy to apply to other areas of life, so we can live a full life.

The key in execution is to achieve virtuosity.

This is skill and knowledge and complete mastery of the task.

To attain this level of knowledge and mastery requires uncommon love and dedication.

This is all self-evident.

Virtuosity is first and foremost, a state of mind.

The state of mind automatically produces the skill and knowledge and mastery, not the other way round.

For example, if you possess a mindset of overcomplicating things. Everything you do, you get into all kinds of unnecessary steps and details.

The end result is inefficiency. You waste a lot of time with unnecessary stuff.

But if, on the other hand, you possess a mindset of directness.

You have no time for unnecessary stuff. Rules, complicated routines, conventions—you see them only as impediments to your task.

So you get rid of them and you get rid of anything that gets in the way.

And because you get directly to the point, to getting the task done, you develop a super efficient technique and you’re able to get things done faster.

To use another analogy.

If you’re traveling down the road and you’re strapped with a chain on your back and irons on your feet, you wouldn’t be able to move as fast as someone who is not similarly burdened.

That is the difference between a non virtuoso mindset and a virtuoso mindset.

A virtuoso mindset is one of freedom, of not being hampered by anything, of focusing on results and moving directly to your goals.

So execution and results are tightly bound together.

But consequences are something else altogether.

Consequences are the unintended, the unforeseen, the unexpected long term impact of your actions.

Consequences have a way of shattering our inner world, which is why we have to take them seriously and focus on actions that produce good consequences.

Luckily, this is not so hard to do at all, because there is only one thing you need to know—people just want to be loved.

This is the most basic need of human beings.

If you shower them with love, they will return it in kind.

(This principle works across the board, not just to human beings. You probably already know this if you have pets.)

If you focus on actions that spread warmth and love to them, one day that love and warmth will come back to you in many positive consequences.

They may not occur immediately, and that’s the thing about consequences.

They are long term so you can’t perform an action and expect the consequences to happen tomorrow.

In fact, you should do what you do with no expectations of a payback (immediate or otherwise), because you will be disappointed.

One of the most important things about actions and interactions is to look at the big picture.

Don’t try to win every battle, focus on winning the war instead.

In other words, sometimes, it’s good to let other people win.

I learned this principle from my mother—she would always tell us not to drive a hard bargain all the time. Sometimes, let the other guy win.

So if you go to this store, and you always want the cheapest prices. Well, if you always get the cheapest prices, one day, the shopkeeper might just close shop because he couldn’t make any money.

Which means you wouldn’t have a shop to go to. Without the shop, where are you going to buy your stuff?

So let him make a profit and in the end, he wins and you win.

The thing about actions and interactions is, always think about how it’s going to impact your inner life.

Is it going to enrich it or is it going to shatter it?

And act accordingly.

The outer life

Our outer life is the façade others know us by as well as all our interactions with other elements in the world.

First, the façade.

In the outer life, we are constantly modifying and making adjustments to our façade according to the demands of the situation.

Most of the time, it’s just social norms and customs.

For example, we might have a façade for formal occasions and another for casual interactions.

That’s a fact of life. It’s like dressing for the occasion.

It’s acceptable to have a few different facades in life, but it’s important not to overdo it and to try to keep the inner and outer consistent.

In other words, to try to make the outer life a reflection of the inner.

If there’s too great an inconsistency between inner and outer, it could lead to confusion and potential problems in all areas of life.

The best reason for consistency is to build trust.

If your inner and outer life are too out of sync, the result is the perception of insincerity, which could lead to a loss of trust.

Trust is the only real currency in life. If you lose it with others, it would be very hard to gain it back.

And this is the problem. Some people see the outer life as a game where they play different roles in front of different people.

The unscrupulous among them will even do it to carry out unscrupulous actions.

Sometimes they think they’re being smart, but in the end, they all get caught.

Because it’s easy to tell a lie but maintaining it is hard. One lie always leads to another and at the end, the lies will all get entangled in a web.

At the most extreme, when the outer bears no relationship to the inner, that’s when you enter into the realm of fakery.

These days, most furniture are made of manufactured wood.

It’s glossy and shiny outside, but if you were to chip away at the exterior, you’ll find it’s just sawdust or even worse, trash inside.

But a piece of furniture that’s made of real wood, it may have a few knots and imperfections, but when you chip at it, it’s still wood underneath.

The difference is not just in substance but also in function.

A bookshelf made of manufactured wood will start sagging in time because it’s just sawdust and glue–it does not have the strength to carry the weight.

But a shelf made of real wood will be able to take any amount of weight and still stay straight.

That’s the difference between fake and real, between an inner that is inconsistent with the outer, and one that is consistent throughout.

Next, our actions and interactions.

The inner life

Despite the seeming complexity of life, we all live in a few basic layers (or dimensions) of life.

The first dimension is our inner life.

This is our private space, where our thoughts, our dreams, our worries, our plans, our fears, our insecurities, and yes, also our personal demons reside.

Our inner life is unknown to others.

It is in essence, our sacred space, where we are totally naked with ourselves—no pretense, no BS, no ego, a space where we know and see ourselves as we truly are.

It is here in this private space that genius and enlightenment can grow. It is also here where rationalizations and evil can also run amok.

I’ve found the key to a good life is to work on this inner space.

To fill it with beauty and warmth and love and music and song.

In other words, it’s like a home where you want to feel comfortable and completely at ease.

And if anything should try to intrude into this space, also have the means to deflect whatever it may be and keep it from entering.

How do you achieve this?

First with positivity. Positivity produces all the good things of life.

It has a self fulfilling function.

If you feel positive about yourself, you will have more self confidence, if you feel positive about the future, you will work harder. If you feel positive about others, you will have more friends. The list goes on.

Fill your inner space with positivity and it will become a place of warmth and comfort.

Next, find things of beauty and fill your inner life with it.

Beauty is all around us. By sensitizing yourself to the beauty around you, you will fill your inner life with purpose and meaning.

For example, experiencing a beautiful mountain scene, or a hike through a jungle, or a mist covered beach.

Especially fill your life with the beauty of art and of music.

Music has a profound effect on our senses and our moods. Find music that uplifts you and makes you happy, a soundtrack for your life.

And change it as you evolve through life.

Third, protect your inner sanctum and do not allow any trash or dirt or negativity or anything that would defile it to enter it.

This means avoiding all sources of conflict and of evil and negativity.

If this means cutting off the sources, so be it.

Fourth, and this is the most important, dig deep into your subconscious, into your spirit.

A strong sense of spirituality is like a rock that will help you weather the roughest storm.

This is spirituality, not as in organized religion, but as in a belief in a higher power.

And placing your trust in this higher power when times get rough.

This higher power is whatever you want it to be, it doesn’t matter what name you give it.

No matter who you are, what you believe, no matter how strong you think you are, we are all ultimately at the mercy of the higher power.

But this is no scheming, jealous, avenging, higher power as some religions might try to portray it to be. Those are just human attributes that small minded people have tried to project onto it.

No, as the Tao noted, the higher power does not operate in human terms. It does not think like humans and it is so far outside our reality, we would never be able to figure it out.

Pride, ego, false bravado, hubris—they have no place in the inner life.

Because ultimately we are nothing and we own nothing, because this higher power can take it all away in one stroke.

Humility and awareness and gratitude are three ways to keep us focused on the goodness of the higher power and keep us strong and focused in our inner life.

Next, the outer life.

The dimensions

I started writing (or tried to write) my magnum opus, the Art of Virtuosity in 2003.

I found I was totally unprepared for the task.

It’s one thing writing scholarly papers but another thing trying to write about abstract concepts like rhythm and fluidity.

It took me four years before I felt it was good enough to publish, and another five years before I settled on a ‘final version.’

The final version is still waiting for one more (or maybe two) do over before I feel it is really ready.

In the process of writing the book, I went through many phases and angles of enquiries.

One of the angles I explored is that of the different dimensions in our existence.

I just found my notes from those explorations and decided to share them, or at least get them typed before I consign them to the recycling bin.

These are slightly edited and amended as my thoughts on the subject have moved on since then.

Next, the first dimension, inner life.

December

There was a time when I listened to this album everyday, but I haven’t heard it in quite a while. Today, thanks again to youtube, it brought back quite a few memories.

One day, I was googling Karl Herreshoff, my teacher from NZ, when I found a concert program on Winston’s site where he listed Karl as one of his inspirations. Small world.

I have always found it interesting.

Elsewhere, he had also listed John Fahey and Bola Sete as his influences but I could never find any connection in their music to his save for the fact that they’re all solo artists prone to long extended improvisations.

George Winston’s music has a magic that is a miracle in itself. Combine that with his ultra sensitive playing and it is music for the soul.

Here’s December:

Swallowed a fly

I’m quite squeamish about insects so you can imagine how I felt yesterday when I actually swallowed a fly.

The good thing was, I didn’t know I had swallowed it.

That is, until the evening time, when the fly came out the other end.

I did have my suspicions though.

The fly had come into the house a few days before when I opened the back door to hang out the laundry.

For two days, it would find a way to perch on my coffee cup when I wasn’t looking. It’s definitely another coffee connoisseur.

And each time I had to wipe the rim of the cup carefully before I drank the coffee again.

Yes, I’m squeamish but I don’t want to waste good coffee.

Then the temperature dropped. For two days, we were hovering around freezing.

During those two days, the fly was nowhere to be found. I thought it had died from the cold.

But the weather warmed up again and I decided to do my laundry again. As I opened the back door, I found it hiding behind the curtain.

I had my hands full so I did not bother about it.

After the laundry was all on the rack, I went back to finish my coffee.

I took a sip and I felt something going down my throat with the coffee.

My first thought was, it can’t be.

But it was too late. The coffee was already in my stomach with whatever that thing might be.

The whole day, I did not see the fly but I was still unconcerned. Probably hiding somewhere. I began to forget the whole thing.

Until the evening when it was time to do my thing.

As is my habit, I would pull the lever before I get up.

So I pulled the lever and stood up. For some reason, I happened to glance down and that’s when I saw the fly floating among the debris.

It can’t be.

I bent down to get a closer look at the cascading water and managed to get a good look before it vanished from view.

Yes, it was the darned thing alright.

How it stayed the whole day in my gut without being digested is beyond my comprehension.

Of course I had to google if flies have any parasites, and I found that yes, they do play host to a bunch of them.

I’ll find out the next few days if they have any brain eating bacteria or amoeba.

The moral of this whole saga of course is, always look into your coffee cup before you take a sip. You never know what may be in it.

Another Sunday

Another Sunday, another sermon from Pastor Andy Stanley.

This time, it looks like it’s a new sermon. He’s been recycling his sermons on Daystar, which is ok because a message is a message recycled or not.

But it’s always good to hear a fresh one from the pastor.

The central message today is the foundation of our faith is Jesus, not the 66 books of the bible.

In Pastor Stanley’s words, we follow Jesus not ‘because it is written’ but because ‘something happened.’

This is revolutionary.

To untether Christianity from the entire bible, because it is full of problems especially the Old Testament.

But there’re two problems.

First, the entire argument is predicated on one event, the resurrection.

I’ve written about this before.

Why base your faith on a miracle? (That’s what the resurrection is, the ultimate miracle.)

Miracles are cheap. Especially if the so-called miracle is only based on hearsay and not on verifiable fact.

We all know in these days of endless conspiracy theories and outright lies, that anyone can say or write anything but that doesn’t make it true.

The second problem is, what does the resurrection (assuming it did happen) have anything to do with being a good person and living a good life?

The only thing the ‘resurrection’ does is claim Jesus’ ‘divinity.’

This is the old Thomasian approach to faith.

Show me a miracle (your wounds) and I’ll believe you.

If miracles are all we need to believe, I’ve seen many unbelievable feats of levitation on youtube. I think David Blaine was the first to do it on the street.

I still don’t understand how he does it although some people claim that they use magnets.

Of course, the trick of levitation is often practiced by the holy men of India. They apparently used a hidden stick to prop them up.

No, miracles are cheap and they do not prove that a man is good or worthy of following.

The real miracle of Jesus is how did a carpenter’s son, living in the desert in the first century become so enlightened?

Where did he get his revolutionary ideas of love and compassion from?

Unlike the so-called resurrection, his teachings have a real impact on lives and on making the world a better place.

He doesn’t have to prove he’s divine, nor do we need to elevate him to godhood to believe in his teachings.

His teachings speak for themselves.

A super enlightened teacher who (apparently) died (this is not unique, all revolutionaries have to die because they pose a threat to the status quo) to ‘save’ us from a life of pain and mediocrity.

Imagination and limitations

I found this on a scrap piece of paper. It sounds familiar. I think I might have included it in one of my writings. But no matter. I like the directness of the notes.

—

I’ve never believed in limitations.

Only in possibilities.

I always start out with an idea—a dream you might say.

Then I find ways to realize the dream.

Perhaps it’s a new CD of some music that’s never been played before.

I would hear the whole album in my mind before I could play a note.

All I have to do is write it down, practice it and if the technique is not up to the demands, I would come up with new techniques.

It’s often been said—we are limited only by our imagination.

That’s true.

It’s not just feelgood philosophy.

It really works.

If you can’t imagine it, you wouldn’t know what you’re looking for.

In this sense, imagination is a way of leaping across the void to some unknown destination, a place never before glimpsed.

Once you make the leap and see it, the rest is easy.

Again, you can’t reach a destination if you don’t know what it is.

So the key to extraordinary is imagination.

Do whatever you can to enrich your experience, broaden your mind.

So that your imagination can be that much more richer and inspired(?) (illegible  word).

—probably 2012

Old notes – SIA

I’m constantly scribbling. It’s a force of habit.

There’re bits and pieces of paper everywhere in my house—notepads, hotel scrap paper, all with mostly illegible scriggly pen and pencil markings.

One such piece of paper caught my eye today, (I’m in the middle of some long overdue spring cleaning) and I decided to try to decipher what I had written.

It turned out to be something I had scribbled on a Singapore Airlines notepad on one of my unexpected trips back to Borneo in 2009.

Here’s my transcription (slightly edited where text is illegible).

—

On the flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong, I was sitting in my seat when I experienced an unusual epiphany.

I was thinking about imperfections—about how imperfect we are.

And a thought occurred to me.

I started thinking of the Lord’s Prayer.

I’m not the most religious person but for some reason it occurred to me what a special prayer it is.

We have many prayers but the ‘Our Father’ is the only prayer taught by Jesus. It summarizes all his teachings in a few simple words.

The most amazing thing is its humanity.

It’s not about God or heaven or hell or threatening us with eternal damnation.

It’s a prayer that reflects our humanity.

Most prayers are in the form of sycophantic supplications to God.

For example, ‘Glory to God,’ ‘Hail Mary,’ ‘Glory be,’ etc.

The Creed in particular—its lengthy attempts to cover every detail of doctrine and dogma show that it is clearly the work of a committee.

Here’s my interpretation.

Our Father – Or creator, the one who makes everything possible, the source of all things.

Who art in heaven – Not of this world, in a dimension above our small reality.

Hallowed be thy name – Pure and goodness.

Thy Kingdom come – bring us into your light, your garden. Let us experience some of your goodness.

Thy will be done – (But) whatever you do, we accept it.

On earth as it is in heaven – in our small reality, and throughout the universe.

Give us this day our daily bread – provide for us our daily sustenance.

And forgive us our trespasses – overlook our weaknesses and our transgressions.

As we forgive those who trespass against us – we’ll let go, forgive those who….

(Here the notepaper ends. To be updated if the second sheet shows up.)

Sensitivity

I’ve noticed that different people respond differently to things and events.

One person can see a sunset and be overcome with emotion by its beauty.

Another can be totally unmoved—it’s just another sunset.

In music too, I’ve noticed one person can hear a beautiful melody and be overwhelmed by it.

While another person would barely notice it.

It comes down to sensitivity; some people are just more sensitive than others.

Sensitivity is the key to experiencing life at its fullest.

It’s like eating a wonderful dish bursting with flavors.

If you’re not sensitive to all the flavors, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it as much as someone who does.

And so it is too with human emotions.

Some people feel things deeply; others would not even notice anything.

Perhaps this is what’s meant by being thin-skinned and thick-skinned.

There are certain advantages with being thick-skinned. You would not be so much affected by the blows and tribulations of life, because you would barely notice them.

The trade off is that you would also never experience the highs and lows of life.

Life becomes just one long mundane existence.

Whereas someone who feels things deeply, someone who’s thin-skinned will feel and experience life more fully.

So what’s better?

In music, I’ve known musicians who are never nervous, they’re cool as a cucumber when they play, but the problem is, their music sounds equally cool and detached and uninspiring.

And another person would be racked with nerves, but their music would be soaring with expression and emotion.

That’s why there’s beauty in melancholy.

Melancholy is a product of an extra sensitive disposition.

It’s this sensitivity that enables a person to experience life at a deep level, the same kind of sensitivity that enables a person to fully experience a sunset or a thunderstorm.

And in the process experience beauty.