Catharsis and Enlightment

"Do you have the time...
to listen to me whine...
about nothing and everything all at once?"

--Green Day





Saturday, March 21, 2009
7:55 AM

Here I am, fallen apart and picking up pieces.
What am I dealing with?

My body is fragile due to age, genetics, hereditary reasons... whatever the cause, it sucks! And though my mind is tough, it doesn’t make up. It doesn't. I try to work my way thru it, but am learning the emotional toll can be more taxing than the physical one. And I understand it is my own INTENSE determination that kills me. I know I need to relax and adapt to my physical limitations. I do as much as I can, but it is discouraging when every joint aches and I can’t do things the way I used to. I have High Standards for myself, and when I fall short of MY high standards, my spirit dies a little. It doesn’t matter to me that I have weak joints. I still expect myself to perform at a higher level.

My heart, my spirit wants to put in the work, so I can perform at that Higher Level that I aspire to, BUT my injuries keep me from fully engaging. I worry about my ankles, wrists, shoulders, hips, knees. But when I'm training, I put that out of my mind, yet on a SUB-conscious level, I'm wondering if I’m going to further injure myself, so though my conscious mind is willing, my body hesitates because of that sub-conscious shit!

And here’s the thing, I spend more time adapting to the multiple ailments than actually practicing skills. I do learn and understand the skills theoretically, but can not do the mass repetition needed to develop the muscle memory. I hate this.

I want to be MORE THAN the guy with the “always going forward” aggressive style, a mean right cross and a concrete chin. There is no skill involved in that! There's no art. I want to develop skills, but my body limits me from developing the muscle memory, proper technique, the agility and so I fall back to being a slugger. All heart, no skill.

OK, I should stop being so hard on myself (But that IS WHO I AM) So let me do something about it. OK, since I can’t develop speed, cuz my joints won’t let me, I can practice timing, that is striking at the right, opportune moment to compensate for my lack of speed. Yeah, I can do that. And I can think of others ways to adapt, too, but this takes a lot of time, effort and energy. So I would like to live the art, the martial arts way of life, but what of my other passions?


I am a Student of various disciplines, and I attempt to put my ALL into each, 100%.

100% into writing
100% into martial arts
100% into the art of teaching
100% into surfing


400%, it is not humanly possible and even attempting to, I’ve learned is INSANE!

I could do 25% for each discipline, but then I do NOT fully embrace any one of them. I do not accomplish what I could have I had put in 100%.

This is killing me!
My love is divided.

These are the passions of my life,

and I can not live them, I can not embrace them.

I'm so instense about this stuff and maybe it's because I've put of thinking about it for a long time. Denial, maybe, or just too busy to reflect on it. And so the pressure built up and finally exploded! CATHARSIS

I've notice this is the way I do things. I operate in extremes; I’m either on or off. I’m trying to stay in the middle, to stop the pendulum from swinging so violently, and jarring my soul.

I am trying to find a way to better maneuver thru my life with this intense personality. Instense, as in intensely laid back, care free or (BIG SWING!)intensely high strung, purpose driven, hyper-organized. Let me take ownership of it all!

Maybe it’s because I try to live by other peoples’ standards. I mean, people have their own standards for themselves, and they don’t necessarily place them on me, but I do. I put it on myself, when I should be living by MY standards which should be suited to my personality. But then... I don’t want to be self righteous, and arrogant! But I also don’t want to be a people pleaser unable to live my truth. Well, I am conscious of it all, so that’s a start.

I want to take the time to do things right. To focus on myself, understand myself, again! I always do this. Assess self in relation to society. Well, having gone through thru this process many times over, makes it easier, doing it again.

And that’s MY life. That’s who I am and that’s what I do. I’m on, I’m off, I’m a flickering light. . .

There. Right there. I am at peace now. A sudden awareness, a calm... has fallen upon me. I have conquered myself (for the time being) and am now starting to look outside of myself, to look at those around me more intently ...

and my point is that i don't have one

unedited, poorly written, underdeveloped ranting....


The New Professionalism (well maybe just philip's profressionalism)

Professionalism. I don’t aspire to be a “professional.” I am quite happy being an amateur. I can act like a professional, and maybe that’s what professionalism is, a front- “look we’re polite, we act a certain way” FAKE, just saving face. Ya’ll worried about your reps. Well your rep is that you a sheep, if that’s what you are, that’s you; It’s all good. But me, I’d rather be myself, friendly most of the time, and if something’s bothering me, Ima let you know! Not like professionals do they do some process that’s usually non-confrontational and doesn’t really get the heart of the conflict out in the open. Instead they talk shit behind ya back. Why not just get it out and in the open, bring the drama, but then after… it’s squashed.

Ima change the world, by changing myself, I’m not trying to fit in when it doesn’t jive with me. We scared to stand out, we fear.

We prescribe to rules of social conduct, because we don’t know how to handle some “touchy” situations. We can’t figure it our ourselves. I say, go through the uncomfortable situation and learn how to deal with it, your own way. A lot of prescribed social conduct is based on avoidance. And NOT dealing with the conflict. So the conflict is hardly solved. Heated arguing IS communication. Honest exchanges. We trained to internalize the shit, and it trickles in the rest of our life. Why are we frustrated, isolated? Cuz we don’t communicate candidly with one another. We keep it in and it brews a toxic emotional stew. Why not speak it when it comes. You’ll be free-er, you’ll be honest with your feelings and frustrations that you have towards anyone. And when voiced, you are free of it.
Now “the professionals” look down on the open and expressive folk. They consider them uncivilized, don’t know how to act in public. Well may be the public needs to change the rules and be more inclusive rather than exclusive.

But we can’t handle that. Well, some people do, they are the outspoken criticized ones, they are the happy ones. They are brave enough to be themselves, they don’t hide from conflict.

Peace without justice is hypocrisy. Peace: no conflicts (externally at least). Justice: conflicts resolved fairly. Peace with out justice is hypocrisy.

And maybe I’m just a guy with a big mouth that wants others to speak out more, so I don’t stand out so much. I want others to conform to my way. I don’t want to conform to social pressure.

Ideally, we all meet somewhere between. I am unhappy when I don’t speak my mind. So all this is just me working through my shit!


Haha, you know I’m not tryin to change the people, I ‘m just being me. And you just be yourselve, even if it’s quiet and non-confrontational. It adds to the diversity of the world.

First Asian Boy

Check this out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CqbZNHaf1o

This made my day! Yes, I am an Asian Boy. haha

I Know What Time It Is!

brainstorming...

It's like I tell my students, sometimes you don't know what you want to say until you start saying it...

and so in the early stages of writing an essay, I'll encourage them to just talk to me about their ideas aloud and it is while they are talking that they often figure out something to say, a point to make, or a question to explore. Just gotta get the ball rolling and not be so fixated on the presentation and "fancy" phrasing of it. Just get it out! You can refine it later! Granted, this does not always work, sometimes we talk in circles or hit mental road blocks.

So now I am taking my own advice...I am brainstorming!

In the last couple weeks, I've realized I am out of practice. I forgot how to write! Funny that I help students with their writing, but have done very little writing of my own this year. And I am really rusty!

Right now, I have no idea what I'm saying, but hopefully by the end I'll have said something meaningful.

So hmm... what's going on?

Well, I woke up at 4am this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. So here I am writing cause...I dont really know!? I thought about going for an early morning run, but my ankles are shot. I'm thinking about maybe surfing before work, hmmm... maybe. Or I could do some reading to prep for the classes I'm working with today, but I don't want to "work" right now. I could cook; I could clean, I could...

Aha! And now I know what it is I'm saying. My point is this: These past two (or few) months I've been so wrapped up in a busy, hectic lifestyle: training for a fight, while working, while applying to grad school, and being sick most of that time... (so busy I forget to finish sentences!)

And now, with all that done, completed and behind me, I don't know what to do with myself!

There's all this free time that I didn't have before, and it's nice, but it's also unfamiliar. I'm used to being high strung and having almost every hour of my day planned out. I'm using to NOT having time to do it all. I'm used to feeling overhwelmed. And now I'm under-whelmed! haha

So that's what I'm saying, that's where I am at.

So where do I go now?

I don't know exactly where I'm going to go, but I feel good that I have time to think about it and time to NOT think about it. I have time. I DON'T have to plan every second of my life. freedom...

I know what time it is! It's early that's what time it is...

Rhythm means that though you're moving forward, you are also coming back to that first beat...

This is almost 2 years old, but it still resonates with me.

It's like...

Musically speaking... imagine a sheet of music, in say, 4/4 time, see the staves, see the notes. It's like coming to the next bar, hitting the 1st beat again, but holding a whole note, moving into the second beat, rather than a quick 1/4 note and at a higher key cuz you're in a different mood at this point in the piece.

Like if you're doing laps around a track, on the second lap, instead of sprinting the straightaways and jogging the curves, you switch it up. Reaching the same place, but doing something different because YOU are different.

So I read the following dusty old blog, and see I am different in some ways from the person I was when I wrote it, but I am still hitting that same beat, touching that same place.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007
9:58 PM

What is it that we want out of life? You know “we,” we as a people, we as a society, we as individuals that share some innate need to …

I think the real question that I AM asking is: what is it that I want out of life. And to find that answer, I look out to the world, to “WE,” to those who live in it, who have lived in it, the people that I encounter in books and television: such fantastic, remarkable characters and monumental historical figures, these people are.

I also observe with a keen eye: the common folk you see out in restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters, at the park, at the beach, at the gym, at gas stations, on the street, sitting next to you on an airplane, driving in cars on the freeway. I try to imagine where these people have been, what lives have THEY live(d), AND I wonder if it might be something I want to experience in MY life.

Then I think I should look inside myself to understand what it is that I want out of my life.

It is a loaded question, really it is. What do you want out of life?

So I struggle with myself and find some half-ass answer and leave it at that; I travel on, move forward. So time passes and months later, I roll the question around in my mind again. And the thing is, I always find myself going back where I started, contemplative and asking the question. And I know THAT is the answer. THAT is what I want out of life, to move back and forth between ideas, movement, MOVEMENT.

But I always find myself wanting a more definite, concrete answer. I always want more. Chalk it up to humanity, the need to explore and find out more, to go further, challenge the establishment, to make things new, to create something, to make life more than a definition... So naturally a declaration like: what we want out of life is to simply to ask the question again and again and again. THAT is not enough, but maybe I’ll learn that IT IS enough.

And maybe rather than changing the answer, I will change MYSELF.

And as someone new, the answer will be different for the new person I become.

Who knows what we really want?

I scratch my head with a puzzled look of happiness and am content that I am simply able to experience this journey, to climb into darkness.

And the beat hits gain.

damn pretty circles

If you live in the SF Bay Area you know it's been raining the past few days. This morning it was still raining. At about 8am, I was drinking my morning cup of joe outside my front door "out among the elements", but sheltered from the drops of rain by the flat over-hanging edge of roof just above the front door.

I was attempting to collect my thoughts on life, contemplating --if I had and if so what-- my own personal life philosophy. Too much to think about this early in the day, so I "just" observed my surroundings, took in the sights. A large pine tree rooted in the grass plot in front of my apartment towers over my unit and archs over the driveway. In the driveway, a puddle had formed in the depressed crease in the pavement. The sky softly drizzled tiny drops of water onto the surface of this puddle. From the water soaked branches of the pine tree, heavier drops travelled a shorter distance, hitting the puddle with much more mass and force. This created on the surface of the puddle some damn pretty circles.

Many many circles scattered all over a liquid canvas, these circles growing into varying sizes, growing at different speeds, some tiny pin points and others growing enourmously, but ever so slowly. Circles that emanated from deeper in the puddle and also the soft drizzle that merely agitated the skin of the puddle. all these circles growing and more circles, and more circles, running into each other. And it kept raining and the puddle, it kept changing. It was like a painting that moves.

This was something you have to watch, not see. You see stills (photographs), but this was something you watch in those artsy films where there some emotional argument between two lovers or a character just died and then all of a sudden it cuts to this puddle with pitter PATTER circles forming on it. And it symbolizes "something" deep.

I haven't had time to think of what this beautiful image might symbolize in my life but...Damn pretty... that's all I can say. damn pretty circles. Alas, words fail... my description does not even begin to show... this, this ________ (words failing, so why try? haha). but though words fail... there all we have.... that's Hegel. So there! haha

So now that I think of it, I DO have a life philosophy.
Ok, are you ready for some deep ass sh*t?

Naw...I don't think you're ready.

Ok, ok I'll lay it on ya.

Here's is the meaning of life the way I see it:

pretty circles!
pretty circles!
pretty circles!

Gotcha! hahaha

Psyche!

You just got punk'd!