Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont

"Have you thought of who would you like to be by your side when that day comes...."

In the end, Mrs Palfrey passed away on the hospital bed, next to her faked grandson, in "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont", a story about the friendship between a 80 year old woman and a young writer. If time flow like water on a river stream, throughout one's life, then at one's old age, one would have reached the ocean as the water gradually flow and ended up. Ocean is deep, accepting and take on anything that eventually reached it. It is only the weather that stirred it up, but its nature is still peaceful, just like Mrs Palfrey.

Mrs Palfrey moved into a retirement hotel, the Claremont in London, just to be nearer to her daughter and grandson, so that she can be in touch with them frequently. One day, on her way back after helping Mrs. Arbuthnot (another hotel resident) to get the book she borrowed from the library, She had a little accident and on that chance encounter, she met Ludovic Meyer, a penniless young writer and struck up a curious friendship. She then  invited Ludovic for dinner at the hotel and they agreed a date, without even taking note of Ludovic's address, Mrs Palfrey left him. Later the day, upon Mrs Palfrey's returns, everyone at the hotel was excited that finally Mrs Palfrey would bring her grandson for a meal and they were all looking forward to that. It gave Mrs Palfrey a little trouble here, as she didn't correct the residents about the mistake they made, and so she asked Ludovic to be the "faked grandson" and the latter agreed! This then led to both opening up to each others about their lives, and a very heart warming friendship developed between them. It also then became clear that the relationship between Mrs Palfrey and her grandson and daughter was "emotionally distant". They hardly return her calls and kept her waiting, but then Ludovic kept her company, which Mrs Palrey was happy about.

The movie was powerful. It's not only about friendship, but what's thought-provoking was the moment of the last day of Mrs Palrey, that adds significance to this friendship with Ludovic. He was by her side, reading her poems day after day till the last. Nowhere can we see the real grandson, only the faked one. I began to wonder, does this matter to anyone at all? if you are on your last day, who do you wish to be by your side?

Actually, Mrs Palrey seemed not too troubled not having her own grandson around, even though it would be the best to have him. There is a certain degree of intellect/openness that allowed Mrs Palrey to engage with people better than others. I am thinking as people of my generation, who are relatively more educated, become old age and ill and laid on the sick bed one day, how would we feel and who would we wish to be by our side on our very last day? Perhaps those who we can connect with would be important to see on those last few days. Those people may or may not be our "closed" family members and it does not matter.

Ludovic narrated the following as the movie came to a close, "There are people that cross our live in tiny fraction of time, in the briefest of encounters, and yet they leave an indelible mark in our hearts, in our minds."  and I guess this summed up everything. Those whom we met and could connect with, may be the people we met only for five minutes. They remained the  most important, especially towards the end of our live, in our old age's days.

Doing "anything" is easy except doing "nothing"

"...... If you know how to do "nothing", one day you would find that you could just do "anything"......"

"How many of us actually sit and do nothing for at least five minutes a day in our daily life?". Natalie asked that in the first session of the meditation course I attended last August. The practice of the Raj Meditation is simply "sit and do nothing and keep a peaceful" mind. It's a very intuitive way to encourage people to start doing some forms of mediating. Since finishing the course last October, I have not been doing much meditation. I made doing "quality" meditation as my new year resolution. Even if we are "doing nothing", the mind may "wander" about and hence need some controls to stay put.

In order to motivate myself to do more meditations, and to remind and assure me of the positive impact, I should practice more often.  I first identified a time that I would need meditations, for example, in between doing two different tasks. Today, I meditated for 10 minutes. When I finished my two hours revision lecture, my lunch and some friendly nice chats with colleagues, you really need to "settle your mind" before the next task, so I switched myself off and "do nothing", just close my eyes and let my mind wander, not necessarily an empty, but peaceful (enough) mind.

I read an article, doing nothing, which says, "...... when doing nothing the prefrontal cortex is quiet…the human brain moves to a deeper state where thoughts and sensations come through without being controlled, judged, or censored" It looks like the state of mind of "doing nothing" is like in a "relaxed" state, where the mind is free of being controlled or judged.. I guess our mind is constantly being processed to think, evaluate, control or judged, simply because of the abundance of information. Therefore when no information are available when "doing nothing" (meditation), the mind becomes restless, instead of "resting". The mind wants to do things, but is finding it hard to "rest" and so end up "busy doing nothing".

I am finding that, though I am not doing a lot of meditation since beginning of the year, the frequent practice does help me develop a habit to remain calm in my mind. Meditation is like an anchor, holding me back and safeguarded me in time of "storm", help me keep calm as best as possible. It certainly needs a lot of practice and should bear fruits some days..

Who need anymore "time"?

"... When the right time is NOW...."

Steven Spielberg once said that, he loved what he do so much he didn't feel like he is "working" a single day. I often wonder what does obstacles mean to him? Has that ever made him think of the future and worry him? But perhaps it is the idea of "living in the NOW" that carried him from one day to the next? The fact that he enjoyed what he do seems to justify that. This interestingly mirrored what was advocated in a book that I recently read, "The Power of NOW" by Eckhart Tolle.What appeals to me in this book is the writing style, the sometimes poetic way to discuss the importance of the awareness of  NOW. I have not finished reading it yet, but I can see what the writer had written so far, was aimed at "describing" the process of living in the NOW, rather than "explaining" the importance to do so.

The author used two time frameworks that human mind adapt in daily life: psychological time frame and clock time. Psychological time is where the human mind brought the thought back to the past or into the future. Clock time is the time indicated by the actual clock time, i.e., the NOW. Explaining the rationale to live in the NOW, the author wrote "... if you no longer want to create pain for yourselves and others, if you do not want to add to the residual of the past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create anymore time...." This implies that the past or the future would cause a stir in your mind and living in the NOW will help you become peaceful and calm. This is not about avoiding the past or the future, just as a mean to see the way forward. Someone who know how to deal with "living in the NOW" should be also able to handle their psychological times as and when they need to

The author also related the issue of  "time" to "death", an issue that I wrote about a few times in my recent blog. He wrote "..... You will know it at the latest when you feel death approaching. Death is the stripping away of all that is NOT you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" - and you find that there is no death..."

The "stripping away" is such that before we die, no matter how rich or poor we are, we are ourselves, we face ourselves, not our possessions, not our  physical self or our friends and relatives, as they are NOT us. At that point, things in our life we genuinely try to avoid or ignore, for example, will come and haunt us. Haunt us because we are reaching our "exit" (i.e., death) and like a huge storm, we will be drown by it totally and so, we will have to face it. It is good to know what these are before we die, so that even if we may not overcome those issues we face, we at least address it. To do that, we need a calm and peaceful mind, to live in the NOW, learn to make sure our past or the future does not disturb us the slightest. That, I think, explains the power of NOW.

Technologically leveraged friendship

"...Be careful what you wish for.."

Talking about being sentimental and age and how this affects one's view of friendship, I am beginning to realise how powerful technology has developed in such a way that it changed the way you see friendship. I am the more conservative type. I don't have lots of friends on facebook, for example, and not intend on increasing too many too soon, and NOT (what a "narrow escape" on facebook, at least I tried) knowing people without first knowing/seeing them in REAL life. I think friendship can be enhanced by technology, but technology cannot totally replaced how one will know a person. Feeling can be wrongly interpreted, words can be misled. People that you don't know (or not seen at all in real life) only get connected to you by common interest, for example, where exchanges of opinions took place and nothing else. Any attempts in this case to try and take things too seriously would only be at one's risk.Yes, it is "superficial" because it cannot get any deeper than the emotional depth, but it serves some purpose. People should really be careful what they wish for. This is  my personal experience and opinion and only apply to some people.

When I was younger, living/working in  a place like Singapore (as least for me) makes one feel a little difficult about establishing good friendship, as in what basis are you "friending" people and what "motives", if it is for business, and if you stripped off the element of "business", what make people connect with people began to be clear and if you are not up for a friendship, then it all fell into pieces. I often have this issue while I was working in the commercial sector, dealing with clients and customers and serving them, and putting my minds making them happy people. I certainly didn't quite understand the sophistication of human relationships. I was also often caught up with not "catching up" with existing friends, as in if you not seen them for a while the friendship will "fade away" and then you feel so weird visiting them on Chinese New Year. You just not sure you visit them for the New Year or because you want to "catch up" with them. When things are not making sense, it lost me altogether.

I often quite fancy a good old fashion long distance friendship. Letter writing is such a sentimental experience, where you put your thoughts and emotion down, putting them in words and expressed them beautifully to your pals. Over time, technology advanced the pace and depth of friendship development. Generally or at least for me, I find people do meet, but maybe not so often, and we should not really bother too much about it, unless if you began to expect a bit more then this way of developing friendship is not for you (or maybe you should find a different type of website or way of communicating with your friends).

In short, in this context of friendship, meeting or no meeting does not matter, it's the quality of friendship that matter. I am enjoying and benefiting from this. My recent chats with friends, whom I last met only one or two years ago have been empowering and reassuring. May this carry on for as long as possible. Of course, people may come or they may just go, still there is no expectation whatsoever, it's really whether your other chat mates share the same belief with you on building friendship this way. I have been lucky to know friends supporting this belief. I would just enjoy the time and the quality that I get from such meaningful interactions, so thanks to GG, YC, George and a few others. Friendship has never been so simple.It's GREAT! :D

Some "friendships" just cannot be forced

"....but some could be so simple that you cannot believe it is happening.."

I had a nice chat with GG the other day on MSN. I have known GG for more than 10 years. I knew her in the third year of my working life while in Singapore. She was one of the Realtors in the company, always bringing clients around for flats viewing. She was friendly, willing to share opinion and open.  I like her because she didn't take herself too seriously and even laugh at herself, down to earth and genuine. GG is one of the very few friends I have known for more than 10 years. She felt exactly the same as more than 10 years back. Time has not changed her. We still talk about the up and down of the property markets and the effects of the economy.

As one aged with time, one becomes better at living with oneself. Probably you may have friends that already settled down with a family, but for you, you just "settled down with yourselves" if you don't have a young family. You also grow more likely to revise expectations about friendship as time gone by, as you become more open-minded and generous and also learn to take things easily. However, it could be harder. If you were younger, as you would tend to be tenderer and vulnerable, not having that friendship that potentially could be "further developed" (whatever that means to you) could be quite hurtful. It takes times for you to realize some friendships just cannot be forced. Some pains just need to let itself out slowly and being angry over it only aggravates matters. As I could remember, those experiences I had only challenge me to build up my composure and made me into a stronger person over time. One just needs to be very patient with oneself and remember to focus on what one have, and not what one doesn't have.

I have different expectation about friendship nowadays, and I treasure this one with GG. There is noting heavy in it. It's amazing how people can attract people, sometimes it could be so simple that you can't believe it is happening.  GG is such good fun. She is not one of those friends that if I didn't visit them when I am back in Singapore, they will take it to heart, though I know some will and make me feel guilty for a long time. GG and I chat on line only about 2 or 3 times a year. I met her maybe one every year or once every two years. She is one of those friends that, when we made jokes and laughed, I can laugh out loud until I cry, it gave me lots of belly pains, but it certainly worth it! We are happy the way it is with no further expectation of each other. Friendship, at this stage of my life, is nothing more than a good company and that matters to me. GG, you are everything that money can't buy! :D