The effect of the darkside 2

Do you have a darkside?
Yes, I do and It only emerged yesterday.

What was that darkside about?
We had a speaker yesterday in the School. That academic happened to be a former student from Aberdeen, whom I found to be a bit pushy and clingy when she was trying to do her PhD. However, she was also very good in getting things her way and get it done in the end, which explain why in the end she funded herself and finished the PhD and get to where she is today.She remains my "darkside" due to those moments where she becomes "clingy" and "pushy" which didn't quite affect me at the time, but it could get worst. She was introduced by other colleagues to give a seminar here. She appears likable, but not someone I like to get any closer.

How do you get over that "darkside"
Well, I didn't deliberately want it to go away. That thought just lingered on in my head. I just didn't feel comfortable seeing her presence around, just a feeling that I don't want to relate to her in any way. Being a host, she was brought around to see our colleagues for friendly introduction. She did came to my office and had a chat. All that we chat about was whatever that happened at Aberdeen. A  bit of a gossipping, which I found fun at times, but not a lot. She did most of the talking, so I just listened. She appeared to be a bit self-pitying over her experience at Aberdeen, and think I may feel the same, but i was not. However, she still not the person I want to relate to too much. At some points in the chat, she was saying about her external examiner for her PhD, mentioned the name, which I  knew already and she said she was working on a paper with him. I said to her, yes good, work with famous people, and I added, perhaps you know this already. Then she went on to say about how nice some of the elderly colleagues, how fatherly they are, etc. On our way out of the office, she was saying about keeping in touch and link and network, which honestly I was not too keen. And she said perhaps I could go to her university to give a paper or something, which I immediately replied I need to write paper, giving her two messages, either I am not free for these meaningless activity or I don't have anything yet to make presentation. Just let her decide which one she want to believe. So in the end, I just deal with the "darkside" naturally, when times come for me to do something, I will do it and hit the right time to "send messages", I will do it.

Are there other darksides?
Yes I do. Those hidden darksides accumulated as you grow older. You met people, you interacted with people, you formed relationship with people, conflicts, communication gaps, misunderstandings all lead you to act or react with unexpected or undesirable consequences. At times, it became too hard to explain or sort it out and when moving forward is the only option, these past experiences spillover to your future encounters in similar fashions. You may be "older" and "wiser", but value judgement could always be biased by the emergence of the darksides. It's the living in the now that matters. It does not mean there won't be any struggle, still it is worth it and It adds meaning to your life

If one has so many issues or darksides, especially if it is dealing with people, how would one ever settle down properly in a relationship or friendship.
Yes, it is hard. Such darksides make you cast doubts with people, I supposed. At times, it becomes even harder when you dealt with them online (people you not seen before or not seen for a while), when you didn't see the facial expression when they type the messages, where, saying one things and meaning another could be likely and may confuse people. The effects of doubts of people on relationship was very well demonstrated in As good as it gets, a  movie which I had written a review. I guess what's different in reality is that, some people become single for the rest of their life due to that. It might not be as bad as it seems. This seems like  seeing the light at "the other" end of the tunnel, but not those in a close relationship (which of course I give my full blessing) could understand.

The effect of the darkside 1

 "... perhaps it's time to seek helps.."

I finally finished watching unriddle 2 (最火搭档II), a Singaporean 20-episode psychological and crime thriller. This is one of the best Singapore-produced dramas I had seen in recent years. It precisely integrated the darkside of human nature into the crime story, even the cops themselves must also deal with their own demon in order to solve mysterious murders. I love the plot simply because it built upon one after another following the death of victims, from one to the next. The 20 episode consists of three different murders all under the plan of the same mastermind. I like the sequence of the events that took place, without giving too much away and then hold the appetite of the viewers, who definitely would want to keep following the story.

There were murderers, rapists, pimp and other "underground" characters in the drama. But, you found they lived "normal" life. Therefore, a rapist could go shopping. Raped victims could face up, be strategic and plan their moves to seek revenge. Being a primp does not necessarily you would be a bad person, you can be kind-hearted too. It seems people we see day in day out, strangers waiting for traffic light or colleagues in the workplace could have their own darkside, their demon to face every minute and second, yet on the surface, they can look so normal. The believability of the characters in the drama is another appeal.

It seems the ways some of the victims dealt with their darkside often leads them to their own death, which is quite sad. There were a brother and his sister both borne to a family of kidnappers in the drama. And they were tortured since young, including raped and beating, very disturbing and even more so when the sister was deaf and mute. This was definitely hard to bear in real life, and supposed this is so, how would one face that. I guess one would either learn to hate or learn to love, as one grew up. The brother often related their present experiences to  their past life and claimed it is a punishment for them by the way they were treated by the parent. True to some extent, but it could not lead to killings of the parent in the end. I can only say it is the emergence of the darksde that took them over, but also the survival instinct. It is, of course, a bit of a dramatisation, but it could also be possible in reality.

How should we deal with our darkside then? I guess the key is to live in the now, a rather cliche way of putting it, but effective one. I love the lead role hu xiaoman, played by Rui En (瑞恩), a cop who was very much disturbed by her problematic father, which often mixed with hatred and anger, leading to her overly reacted to suspects and leading to some deaths among some of them. She showed the struggle to strike a balance between living in the now and the past (i.e., the psychological time) and at times confused her judgements and end up making the wrong decision and causing the death of the suspects. We should be aware about how our darkside could affect us and others that lived with us. I guess if we could not get rid of it and it hocked on us emotionally, then we are being dragged to the past that stucked us in a vicious circles. Then, perhaps that's the time to seek some professional help.

Feed-forward

"It keeps my mind alive..."

A friend on facebook posted an interesting article about "habit, routine and integration" which I had enjoyed reading, and which brought me to think of my experience of developing and keeping good habits in life, such as blogging, which was not doing too well recently. It's been quite empty for a while since the last post beginning of March 2012. I actually evaluated about blogging lately, not that I wanted to give it up, rather seeking an identity to be related and associated with, as in asking again the question, what purpose it served and how it represents me. Yes, this blog is about listing down observation and reflecting about life, but it must be more than that. I supposed I am re-thinking about the motivation of blogging.

I have been observing lately my mentality when I was not blogging. I sense that my observations slowed down and my awareness became weak too. There is of course certain degree of focus when I was at work. But it lacks a degree of continuity after work. It became a bit listless and aimless after hours, as if waiting for tomorrow to come and start my work again.This certainly didn't enrich my life and become meaningless later.

Though i didn't blog as much, I keep up with my meditation's practices, which I found myself to have made some progress. I made a trip down to the Raj Meditation session on Tuesday evening and once again fascinated by Natalie's inspiring speech about keeping calm and peaceful. I then remembered she said before that meditation is sometimes like a re-charge. There must be something one can attain out of meditation and this good feeling feed-forward to our daily life and in turn this supports our meditation practice and make it better for our well-being.

I am beginning to think blogging can bring me this good and yet different impact. Now that I had a chance to "live without blogging for a while", and as I reflected upon the "non-blogging" days, it made sense to see blogging as a form of re-charge too. It is becoming more and more believable. If writing a blog is the outcome of my daily observing and reflecting, then it keeps my mind alive, apart from being peaceful. This certainly has the positive "feed-forward" effect, just like meditation. The mind is a world of its own and certainly it can be enhanced and be enriched, it's the quality of the observing and reflecting, and of course, the blogging that matters. This seemed to make sense.

I am focusing again

".... my mind was wandering all over the place..."

I was not "feeling too well" in the past weeks. Something was "blocking" the way in my thoughts. I could not get rid of it entirely. I was not flowing. It just kept lingering about there in the head. It is not depression. I did feel I can function well and fine. I thought maybe it is work loads, and to be honest, there were some "loads" recently.

I know for sure I will "get there" because I have been there and feel that sense of  "freedom" before. I guess it is a feeling that I lose touch with myself. It felt lost. Work goes on as usual. I felt that I could enjoy a bit more, but I didn't. I still carry out tasks as per normal. My work hours were quite flexible in this second semester, and I only teach 2 hours a week. In fact, I worked from home two times a week.

I swam as usual, but it felt more of a routine than an engagement. The feeling of involvement was not there. I sense that something is missing. I then try and "do nothing", i.e., meditate. My mind was wandering all over the place when I try to do that. After a few practises it comes back to it's "normal behaviour", i.e., it settled down and it began to observe again. I then become more aware of what's in me. It helps me to look into the "issues" more in details. At the end of it, it is still the "focus" issue that haunts me all the time. It seems that it is the workload that is the "root cause". I guess I become a little drained and wanted the pace of work to be a bit slowed down (but thankfully, it is all about research related workload, not teaching) and just felt a little restless, especially having the thoughts of having to do the work over the weekends, it's felt like an daunting tasks.

As I then began to indulge in addictive computer games just to escape those "daunting tasks", which does not help at all on focusing one's attention, it only made matters worse. As I slowly took a step back, I began to see the issues better and have gained baby step success in resolving them. I guess I must now monitor how meditation helps me with my daily life. I may be easily disturbed by external environment, but somehow managed to find my focus back. I am sure this will happen again, but the point is to put meditation in the picture and learnt to see how it helps in the process. I am sure the more I practised "focusing", the more I will carry on meditating or see how this will help me with my  life. Going on at this pattern, hopefully one day, meditation will become integrated into my daily routine and become a very good habit that will come naturally and effortlessly each time I want to do it.