Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Versions of Reality
“Do you want to go for the Rain Forest Music Festival?” It was at the end of the end, just as we were finishing the buckets of beers, when the prolific painter posted the question. “Good musicians and artists like Anteras will be there. Come on, y’ll. It’s the 10th anniversary.” The thing about me is I am quite a boring person in real life and if I had to be stuck next to someone for 72 hours, it had to be with someone who would understand me enough not to straggle me. Like MiniBoyFriend R. So I sent him a sms asking if he would like to join me for a weekend in the middle of the rain forest. And we could sit in the bathtub sipping vodka like the good old days. What were the good old days? They are so distant that it feels faint. All I have now are good new days. Days that are long but exciting. Days that fill me up with happiness. Days that I have selfishly robbed of my lover and days that I spend happy on my own. To be perfectly honest, I still feel rather vulnerable. Which is why I am not writing much and when I do, the stories are often obscure and light. There are a lot of things going around me at the moment, perhaps moments that I do not wish to bare to the world. It’s easier for me to bare my chicken drumstick thighs than to talk about my private life at the moment. Though there is something that I would like to share and perhaps the story is an indicator of everything that is happening around me. You know the big hoohaa over the film The Secret and the subsequent book of the same title? I have always been weary of sales persons and sales tactics, often thinking that they are insincere and rather gimmicky. On the surface, this Secret seemed like positive thinking repackaged for the 2007 folks. There is no such things as a free lunch, so I do not expect the world achieving peace anytime soon with the release of this book. But like every other sucker out there who is helping the authors get even richer, I bought the book. You have to give credit where it is due. These people conceived the notion of prosperity based on the creation of a book called The Secret. I think they deserve the brand new Jaguar or Aston Martin that they are driving right this moment as I am talking about their book. All of us have 24 hours and they have spent theirs conceiving the book and now reaping the success from their labour. I bought the book during my last date with MiniBoyFriend R. We went for some coffee and I bought the book because it was on the main table in MPH. Did the book choose me or did I choose the book? I am not sure about who chose who – the book choosing me or I chose the book – but what is certain is that the book had its highs and lows. No surprises that the book turned out to be positive thinking, dragged out from the 80s closet and repackaged and renamed. Everything is going retro, so why not positive thinking, eh? It spoke about gratitude and giving, which if you look closely, looked ripped of the pages of the Bible. No surprises there either. What caught me by surprise were some ideas that were suggested within the book. Suddenly I realised that I did a lot of the things that were mentioned in the book, such as visualization exercises. One of my favourite pastime is dreaming up new things – new career, new house, rearranging my dream furniture, what it is like to buy the S40 I saw two weeks ago etc. I call them games and I play them often. And I play them real. If I opened a business in my head, I had business plans and budgets written out. I would research and check for the possibility and viability of the venture. I would calculate even the success/failure rates, what I could do with the profit etc. It’s an elaborate world in my head and in my mind, I have opened boutiques, jewellery stores, franchise chain of my current business, bars and restaurants. This game I play in my head is quite unique to myself. None of my friends visualize ideas and dreams as frequent or detailed as I do. So it is no surprise that I am known as the dreamer among my friends. But these dreams and fantasies I created in my mind are very detailed, including colour schemes, furnishing, budget, price per item and staff. According to the book, one can birth new things in this world by visualizing them. If you want a million, you visualize a million. If you want a slim body, you visualize it into existence. If you want a happy relationship, you imagine how it is like to be in that relationship. The list is endless and limitless. The other thing that is heavily mentioned is life attitude, which is formed by your core beliefs. These are inter-related and affect your life far greater than you think they do. How you approach life and problems will influence your emotions, which in turn sets the tone for how you deal with various aspects of your daily life. Set in a chain of motion, they will influence each other, either making the day better or worse, depending on your outlook in life. It caused me to think of my core beliefs. What I hold true in my heart and what I honestly feel about values. How you set your world is how you will experience it. For example, a woman who believes that mushrooms will give her rashes, mushrooms will. Mushrooms will not give anyone else rashes but her. If a man thinks that eating piping hot fried chicken will give him sore throat, eating piping hot fried chicken will. It would not affect anyone else but him. And for the very same reason, some traditional Chinese will suffer from sore throat when they consume “hot” dishes and coughs from “cold” food. These “laws” do not apply to other races and especially not the Europeans, who find these “laws” alien. So does this mean that you can smoke 2 packs of cigarettes and live till 75, if you visualize it in your mind every morning and night? I am open to the notion, so please drop me an email if you happen to be this 75 year old healthy man or woman who smoked 2 packs of ciggies for the last 30 years of your life, surviving till your ripe age because of great visualization skills… And these are my core beliefs. Read them and perhaps you will understand why I am the way I am.
Everyone believes that they are special. As Freud said, this is the super ego in all of us. But I believe this so strongly that it literally feels as if my whole being is vibrating this frequency. That is the only way I can describe the stirring in my heart. Life is an illusion. You are whatever you dream to be. It exists only in your version of life and perhaps it is not true for others, only for you. But who cares if it’s pertinent to others or real to others. All that matters is you because at the end of the day, you are the only one who will taste the sweetness or bitterness of your life. "Everyone wants to feel important. You must remember that. *** Related Links Labels: life |
but the secret omits God from the equation...somehow creeps me out.
Anon
The book calls Him "the universe". The book mentions visualization and sending out good vibrations. The religious call it prayer. For the non-religious, it's called sending out good vibes or thinking positively. No matter what you call it, it's basically the same concept, taught by most religions and most intellectuals.