thoughts&
observations

Last weekend was quite interesting. I attended and volunteered for Lee Wen’s performance art workshop in the Singapore Arts museum. You have no idea how enriching the experience is!

It was a treasure trove of interesting learnings, which was so impactful. We were truly lucky to be around such an iconic artist – someone who has changed the face and tried to put Singapore in the map of modern art.

He tried to share as much as he could, despite having Parkinsons disease. He spoke about the nuances of performance art – about the lyricism of using the body as a means of expression, about the difference of performance art and theatre, about why Americans tend to be quite loud during performances (due to the nature of their understanding of an audience, vs that of spectatorship).

He recalled stories of living in an artist village back in the 80’s, being heavily influenced by Surrealists and the Dada movement – trying to carve out meaning, expressing himself through various changes in society.

Several times through the talk, he referred to other artists from the world over: From Jackson Pollock to that Belgian performance artist who refused to be found inside the museum. He spoke about transformation of the message as expressed through different media (ie photographs).

After the talk, he got the whole group doing some performance exercises to flex their creative muscles. He asked the group to walk carefully, like as though you’re treading ground for the very first time. I found this fascinating – because I really rarely put much thought into walking. We always take these things for granted.

The group was also split into two, then one side went through a mad rush to meet the other – inches away, face to face. They also went outdoors, expressed themselves with the use of a prop – a box. They climbed in, danced with, carried up, the whole box around the doorway. Quite fun!

Incidentally, I also met another Filipino volunteer who shared the same family name as myself. Quite funny to think about it – What are the odds!! Maybe a long lost cousin of sorts. Maybe a stroke of odd luck.

In other news, I’m also profoundly fascinated by the book entitled “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. She’s an interesting character – known for her poetry and her intense suicide; however, the one and only novel recovered after her death proves that she’s so much more than what you see in the surface. We’ll see how it goes – Right now it’s only unfolding to a rich tapestry of 1960’s/1970’s New York city environment.

I’ve been reading this book by Gretchen Rubin entitled “The Happiness Project”.
Since I’ve heard about the buzz for some time now ( a coupla years) I finally decided to get it on my Kindle and read the full story. I thought, yeah , maybe it’s an interesting read: How one woman’s journey to test various happiness recipes and aim to concoct a formula for her life.

I’m currently mid way – and all I can say is this: There is no f***ing formula. When it comes to happiness, I believe that there are no shortcuts. It is built over time, and people’s versions of happiness highly differ from each individual. I wouldn’t go to the extent that she has : Which is to build happiness commandments, and live life accordingly. It made me feel at times, that it would drive me nuts. It’s kind of having your own internal life coach nagging at you.

What I applaud the author for, however – is her desire to make a conscious effort about all of these things. What I learned is that most of happiness patterns that I’ve gathered from basic psychology books and various research, as well as human insights from Buddhist thought and various faith all eventually intersect. There IS a need to be conscious of our actions and our decisions, to savour, anticipate, and cherish happiness in our lives.

Midway through the book, I feel like most of her themes intersect unknowingly, thereby lacking this formal need for structure. I find myself craving for a narrative; craving for some answers – answers that not even an accomplished mother of 2, from NYC can provide.

Happiness highly differs amongst individuals.

To me, I find myself real happiness when I’m closer to nature, and when I’m stripped off consumerist chains. My friend Jessette & I vowed to shop LESS this 2012 – and though, it’s such a simple resolution, it has given me more inner peace than other resolutions combined. It’s like saying “YEAH, i’m smarter than those people who tried to glamourise and sell me things, because deep down inside, I’m one of you, and I’m not one to stroke your insecurity! ” – This, really, gives me delight.

Happiness is finding really good coffee on a Monday morning. Happiness is having to hold someones hand in a movie theatre. Happiness is traveling to new places. Happiness is …. Taking goofy pictures of tree hugging or kissing statues of things. Happiness is going to the gym and having quiet time to think about the day that has passed (or the day that awaits).

I’m not the happiest person on earth, but surely, I try. And trying is a big part of it.

Mementos and old treasures are a real joy to stumble upon. Sometimes, we change so fast, that we often forget the old selves cooped up somewhere.

Because modern living has changed everything – from old notebooks, to scrapbooks, to collecting plane tickets to save as bookmarks – we often forget who we once were, and what our thoughts were like.

I happened to stumble upon an old notebook, with love letters for later. My idea was to write myself honest, no holds – barred, kick in the butt letters to manage my fears and anxiety. Also, as a reminder to myself for future reference.

What I gained back from this was the realization that I was living a very inspired life before.
Some of the snippets I gained were

• Ritualize gratitude
• Appreciate mistakes
• Open up yourself to possibilities, open yourself up to the universe, so it may roll at ecstasy on your feet
• Letting go is a more enticing thought than holding on.

I don’t know what I was on, or why I wrote these down, but perhaps it was written for good reason: To remind myself, that no matter what stresses come our way, we have lots of things to be thankful for. We do our best, and we let it go.
I think I’m mostly in my “element” when I’m out travelling, when my mind has been exposed to the vastness that this world has to offer. But also when I’m reminded that we just have to do our best in whatever challenges that comes.

On a sidenote, I also stumbled upon this clipping I had of a quote that came from Toni Morrison. Her thoughts about getting inspiration, starting with an image (even if she doesn’t know what to do with it yet) – rekindles my belief in good humanity.And great work.
If Malcolm Gladwell was right, and the 10,000 hour rule applies  to all trades – This definitely resonates as sound truth. Most people would deprive themselves of food and rest just to satiate their hunger for practice.

Gladwell explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Rule, which he considers the key to success in any field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years. He also notes that he himself took exactly 10 years to meet the 10,000-Hour Rule, during his brief tenure at The American Spectator and his more recent job at The Washington Post.[

And I think that is genius – It’s not about being “clever” or immediately smart – but it’s about having the resilience to trudge back on, and clock in your hours.

…As Carl glanced around, he recognized people from the office converging upon the building, but nobody he cared to talk to.
Directly to his right, something curious was going on. Two men in tan uniforms were hosing down the alleyway–a small dead-end loading dock between our building and the one next to it. Carl watched them at their work. White water shot from their hoses. They moved the spray around the asphalt. The pressure looked mighty, for the men gripped their slender black guns, the kind seen at a manual car wash, with both hands. They lifted the guns up and sprayed the Dumpster and the brick walls as well. They spot cleaned, they moved refuse around with the stream. For all intents and purposes, they were cleaning an alleyway. An alleyway! Cleaning it! Carl was mesmerized. It was the sort of thing, six months ago, that would have sent him right over the edge, seeing these men, these first-generation Americans without much choice in the matter, spend their morning in the dark recess of a loading dock, power-spraying the asphalt and the Dumpster–good god, was work so meaningless? Was life so meaningless? It reminded him of when an ad got watered down by a client, and watered down, until everything interesting about the ad disappeared. Carl still had to write the copy for it. The art director still had to put the drop shadow where the drop shadow belonged and the logo in its proper place. That was the process known as polishing the turd. Those two poor saps hosing down the alleyway were just doing the same thing. All over America, in fact, people were up and out of their beds today in a continuing effort to polish turds. Sure, for the sake of survival, but more immediately, for the sake of some sadistic manager or shit-brained client whose small imagination and numbingly dumb ideas were bleaching the world of all relevancy and hope.

Ferris, Joshua. Then We Came to the End. NY: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company. 2007.

Note: I haven’t actually bought the book  yet. But this is definitely next on my reading list. Let me just finish my Dharma Bums first.