Drugged

Had a bout of mild shingles a week ago. The doctor prescribed a week's dosage of a strong anti virus medicine which fogged my mind. The effect of this medicine on me is rather frightening because it is not just about being drowsy. For the whole week my mind was in a state of mild confusion and lack of clarity. For example, a few times I had difficulty recalling whether I had taken my medicine at the required time. I had to resort to counting the number of tablets left in each slab to work out the number of dosages I had already taken for the day.

Recently I read an article which described how a change in the brain chemistry can affect one's behaviour. In 2001 some sufferers of Parkinson disease in the US who were given the drug called pramipexole were found to have acquired an excessive gambling addiction. These were people who had never previously gambled in their life. Basically when a person suffers from Parkinson disease he has lost some brain cells which produce a neuro transmitter called dopamine. The function of the drug pramipexole is to impersonate dopamine. However dopamine in itself also performs another function which is to help a person weigh the costs and benefits of his actions,something like a risk audit. Any imbalance of this chemistry will lead to an impairment of this "risk check" function. Other patients who were given this drug were also found to become addicted to sex, drugs and over-eating. When the dosage was reduced their behaviour returned to normal.

I have at last finished the last dose of the prescribed medicine, and the fog also appears to have lifted. The pain in the affected area however still lingers. I would have gone running to the doctor again given my hypochondriac nature; but the fear of being robbed of the clarity in thinking stopped me. More than ever I see the importance for us to maintain good health and keep ouselves drug free. I dread the day when I have to choose between sustaining life and losing my own mind.

Weeding out Bad Faith

Embarking on the 57th year of life I feel the need to be 'wise', meaning to keep on discovering my inner wishes and living them out. Fortunately I have already taken the giant step to abandon a job that had required me to be consistently inauthentic putting on an act to meander around the whims and eccentricities of superiors and a false front towards business associates. Though I still occasionally fantasize about the beautiful holiday home I may be able to enjoy had I continued to draw a good salary, I more often than not feel grateful that I have the means to retire early from corporate life.

By far the biggest satisfaction is the liberated self, ie. being who you want to be. Indeed I want to carry this to a higher level, to avoid as much "bad faith" or self deception as possible.

Existentialists believe that human beings have a tendency to deceive themselves about why they do what they do. "Bad faith" is denying ourselves the freedom to choose and blaming it on external circumstances for not being able to do so. For example a person fears having to choose between being an artist or taking over the helm of the family business. When he convinces himself he has no choice (due to social and family pressure) he is acting in bad faith. These self deceptions can be so deeply ingrained in us that it becomes part of our belief system.

To be truly authentic one must uncover the true intentions behind one's actions and weed out self deceptions. To give a preposterous example, say I discover that I love Chinese calligraphy to a point that I can spend everyday of the week day and night at it and giving up my other commitments. However I deny myself the choice of doing that for fear of being frowned upon by my husband that I am not doing something useful. Hence I choose not to do what I love by convincing myself that I am better say at counselling or investing money which I may not really be.

What I am trying to drive at is that at this juncture of my life, I should continue to discover the things that I really want to do, something true to my nature and weed out self deceptions which create the false "whys" for what I am doing.

Hope

Listened to an interesting forum on the subject of 'hope' over podcast. 'Hope', it appears is not a topic in Buddha's teachings (according to one dharma teacher). It was reasoned that perhaps 'hope' is associated with expectations and may set a person for disappointment. One guy called expectations "premeditated resentment". Another participant apologetically but very bluntly described 'hope' or faith as leaving your brains at the church door.

Two other health care workers however spoke of the importance of 'hope' which helps patients to recover faster and fight terminal diseases. They felt that 'hope' helps to build resilience. Similarly, it was 'hope' and optimism that helped people survived concentration camps as another participant suggested. (I also personally feel that "hope" is a good strategy for counselling). On the other hand, one participant who suffered from cancer related her mental anguish when her open warfare strategy yielded no result. She then adopted an acceptance mode which brought her more peace and which she believed contributed to her remission.

The Dharma teacher felt that for Buddhism, it is more of trust where trust is opening ourselves to what's happening around us instead of creating a story to hide our fears. A participant opined succintly that whilst 'hope' is wishing an external factor will change our life, trust is knowing what we believe to be true and trusting ourselves to change our life with our internal resources.

I relate this interesting discussion to my own experience in counselling. In counselling we try to bring 'hope' by helping the client see the alternative steps that may be taken to alleviate a dire situation or a reframing of the attitude towards an irreparable one.

Something Lost

It was raining at the Tanjong Pagar KTM Railway Station on its last day of operation. I was lucky that morning for shortly after I arrived, a train pulled into the station. As I had been taking pictures at the platform, I was able to take a good shot of the approaching train from the barricade. Only when I turned to look behind did I realize that a crowd had piled upon me with camera held arms stretching high in the air.

The rain had given a grey tinge to the train platforms which enhanced the nostalgia in our hearts. I took a picture of the metal collapsible gate with the arrival sign. I could feel the angst and anxiety of the 15 year old me walking through those gates to join a secondary school in Singapore after years of Malaysian education. From then on until I graduated from University I would pass those gates yearly on my annual pilgrimage home. They were easily 10 hours of watching the plantations, jungle, kampong houses went by to the rhythm of the chugging wheels against the track and the occasional hoot of the horn. Without the help of ipods, handphones or even walkman, reading was the only other pass time. I remembered on one trip I had to hide my tears the whole journey whilst reading “Elephant Man” amidst the stares of other passengers. The stops at small towns provided brief breaks. Watching the passengers alight slowly I tried to imagine their background, the homes they lived in, the families they came from and wondered whether they led happier lives than me (long train journeys often induced moods of excessive reflections).

That same spot was still there that morning just like 40 years ago, at the Departure Platform with its long low metal table for the custom officers to check departing passengers’ bags for taxable items. My mother made regular trips from KL. I could almost see my mother unzipping her luggage bag filled with new fabric, zips and sewing accessories for my father’s tailor shop. The edges of a ten dollar note though lodged in between the folded fabric was visible. It would soon disappear after a few ruffles by the custom officers. Those were tense moments for me as I followed her through those custom checks with her poker face. I think of it now it was more to save the harrassment of having the luggage turned upside down, the custom people needed extras to buy their "kopi" (coffee).

I could have gone on and on reliving those memories but one can not always live in past. Soon I left the station and headed to People’s Park to eat “Xiao Long Bao” from a stall run by Chinese Nationals. The rain had stopped. I had intended to do some shopping but the crowd deterred me. I suppose my mind was still filled with scenes of small town Malaysia. They together with busy People’s Park are part of me but that night after the last train pulled out of Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, I felt as if something in me was lost forever.