Today is 29th Feb in a leap year. I do think 29th Feb is a good day to make some resolutions. Annual resolutions often fail because one year is really too quick to make things work, isn't it. The same can not be said for a period of four solid years. If you have just given birth, how you bond with the baby before the next leap year will affect his sense of trust and security. If you have a teenager just entering secondary school you have to become his friend or you will lose him by the next leap year. If you are a freshman in college, you probably need to think about your place in the workforce in the next leap year. If you are just into a relationship, you my need to decide on some form of commitment by the next leap year. And if you are approaching 60 you literally have only a handful of leap years left to live out your dreams (hopefully). So I think making some resolutions on the special day of a leap year is practical and probably more effective.
Now for myself I hope (there I go again just "hoping")rather I will try to achieve the following ("try"...sigh):
1. Acquire more skills to work with children as I find this area very uplifting.
2. Learn and practise meditation to develop a sense of calm and quiet. The ultimate goal is to maintain equanimity in the midst of life’s inevitable turbulence.
3. To expose myself beyond the confines of our city state and its siloed structures. The best outcome would be to live part of each year in another country. This should help in broadening perspectives in how we view things.
And of course there is one or two other quiet resolves that can not be made public for their non accomplishment can be embarrassing. The objective of making known the above 3 resolutions is to corner myself to act on them after having made such public declarations brashly. Well, if I don't expire before the next leap year, I have 4 (not 1) years more to act, haven't I?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Insight into Alzheimer
Caught the movie "Iron Lady" which depicts Margaret Thatcher in her current state afflicted with alzheimer; and with lots of flashbacks about her political career. Whilst Meryl Streep's acting is superb, many people opined that it is distasteful to make a film out of a person's sufferings even whilst the person is alive. Meryl Streep has put up a very strong performance which apparently portrays accurately the typical behaviour of an alzheimer sufferer. I am quite sure people of my age watching this movie will not help but feel a bit fearful of the possibility of ending up like her. Well, even an ex-PM with such a strong will is not spared.
In today's Sunday Times, Sumiko described her experience joining some nurses and care givers in a course on elderly care. They underwent simulated experiences of a person who has failing eyesight, is hard of hearing and is wheel-chaired bound. She walks away feeling more tolerant of the frequent noises coming from a male patient at a nursing home behind her house in the middle of the night.
As for me I do not need simulated experience to know what it means to be frail and old. I am already beginning to relate to some of their experiences. Scenes of the show that particularly draw me in are those when Thatcher feels very upset when she knows people are whispering about her forgetfulness and her loss of mental faculties. I find that I am also very sensitive about comments that may imply my lack of mental alertness. In fact I think it is a common fear amongst senior/pre-senior citizens that their memory and alertness is failing/weakening. In an unfortunate sense they also feel guilty and blame themselves for not keeping up with their mental health or feel somewhat irresponsible. To make matters worse they may also project the fear onto their partners. So it is not uncommon for old couples to call each other "blur" hence reinforcing their own irritation. Although amongst our friends and colleagues we have jokingly agreed to remind each other of weirdness in behaviour as we age, we must be mindful of how we do it given the sensitivity. The surest way to hurt the senior citizens' feelings is to pass frivolous remarks about them being forgetful, blur etc or implying they are useless. Instead we should encourage them to partake in activities that engage their mind.
Though the show "Iron Lady" may seem heartless to some it does give the audience a glimpse into the illness of alzheimer. It draws the audience's empathy and provides an insight into the patients' struggles, reminding us that the illness can afflict any aging person irrespective of gender and status including the "Iron Lady".
In today's Sunday Times, Sumiko described her experience joining some nurses and care givers in a course on elderly care. They underwent simulated experiences of a person who has failing eyesight, is hard of hearing and is wheel-chaired bound. She walks away feeling more tolerant of the frequent noises coming from a male patient at a nursing home behind her house in the middle of the night.
As for me I do not need simulated experience to know what it means to be frail and old. I am already beginning to relate to some of their experiences. Scenes of the show that particularly draw me in are those when Thatcher feels very upset when she knows people are whispering about her forgetfulness and her loss of mental faculties. I find that I am also very sensitive about comments that may imply my lack of mental alertness. In fact I think it is a common fear amongst senior/pre-senior citizens that their memory and alertness is failing/weakening. In an unfortunate sense they also feel guilty and blame themselves for not keeping up with their mental health or feel somewhat irresponsible. To make matters worse they may also project the fear onto their partners. So it is not uncommon for old couples to call each other "blur" hence reinforcing their own irritation. Although amongst our friends and colleagues we have jokingly agreed to remind each other of weirdness in behaviour as we age, we must be mindful of how we do it given the sensitivity. The surest way to hurt the senior citizens' feelings is to pass frivolous remarks about them being forgetful, blur etc or implying they are useless. Instead we should encourage them to partake in activities that engage their mind.
Though the show "Iron Lady" may seem heartless to some it does give the audience a glimpse into the illness of alzheimer. It draws the audience's empathy and provides an insight into the patients' struggles, reminding us that the illness can afflict any aging person irrespective of gender and status including the "Iron Lady".
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Tide of Madness
Carl Jung believed that the psyche always strive towards wholeness and that a union of both the conscious and unconscious is necessary. When a person ignores the unconscious and is completely ruled by the conscious or the ego, the psyche will alert the person of the disharmony through somatic symptoms or some mental disorders eg. depression or anxiety disorders. A person can get in touch with the personal unconscious through dreams, play, artistic, cultural/spiritual expression. As dreams is the means whereby our unconscious conveys messages, it is advisable that we should not deprive ourselves of sleep and also as far as possible try to recollect our dreams.
It is no wonder that children deprived of play or the space/freedom to express their creativity develop some form of disorders like anxiety or panic attack. It has been reported that some Singaporean parents are sending their children to see psychiatrists as the children are not coping with their school work. Some of these children are experiencing mental blocks.
I can't help but feel there is a tide of madness/quirkiness creeping over our society. In today's papers there is report of parents engaging tutors to do their children's tuition homework, mind you not school homework but tuition homework. This is because some prestigious tuition centres demand that the students keep up with the tuition homework or be expelled!!! Imagine the toll on the kids not only to cope with school and tuition curriculum but various enrichment classes as well. Have the parents gone mad?
Then there was the weekend report that civil servants including a vice prinicpal of a popular school are involved in an online prostitution ring. Could the stress from their children's education ontop of their own work stress be the last straw that drives some men to look for avenues for emotional release? There seems to be no stopping of this relentless fear of trailing behind others. The herd instinct is so powerful here that it encroaches all aspects of life. It could be that people feel safe as long as they move with the herd be it at school, at work, at play and at prayer. One takes on a persona most accepted by society and soon believes that persona is the real self whilst one's unconscious and shadow cringe in pain.
It is no wonder that children deprived of play or the space/freedom to express their creativity develop some form of disorders like anxiety or panic attack. It has been reported that some Singaporean parents are sending their children to see psychiatrists as the children are not coping with their school work. Some of these children are experiencing mental blocks.
I can't help but feel there is a tide of madness/quirkiness creeping over our society. In today's papers there is report of parents engaging tutors to do their children's tuition homework, mind you not school homework but tuition homework. This is because some prestigious tuition centres demand that the students keep up with the tuition homework or be expelled!!! Imagine the toll on the kids not only to cope with school and tuition curriculum but various enrichment classes as well. Have the parents gone mad?
Then there was the weekend report that civil servants including a vice prinicpal of a popular school are involved in an online prostitution ring. Could the stress from their children's education ontop of their own work stress be the last straw that drives some men to look for avenues for emotional release? There seems to be no stopping of this relentless fear of trailing behind others. The herd instinct is so powerful here that it encroaches all aspects of life. It could be that people feel safe as long as they move with the herd be it at school, at work, at play and at prayer. One takes on a persona most accepted by society and soon believes that persona is the real self whilst one's unconscious and shadow cringe in pain.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
True Self
When a man acts in accordance with social norm to boost his ego or to gain social standing even though he feels such acts are against his inner nature, he is being egoistic and is moving away from his individuation. Individuation is being the unique individual that one is or in other words being oneself. Carl Jung is of the view that individuation is necessary for the holistic development of a person and to be free from complexes.
"Here one may ask, perhaps, why it is so desirable that a man should be individuated. Not only is it desirable, it is absolutely indispensable, because, through his contamination with others, he falls into situations and commits actions which bring him into disharmony with himself. From all states of unconscious contamination... there is begotten a compulsion to be and to act in a way contrary to one’s own nature. Accordingly a man can neither be at one with himself nor accept responsibility for himself. He feels himself to be in a degrading, unfree, unethical condition. But the disharmony with himself is precisely the neurotic and intolerable condition from which he seeks to be delivered, and deliverance from this condition will come only when he can be and act as he feels is comfortable with his true self. People have a feeling for these things, dim and uncertain at first, but growing ever stronger and clearer with progressive development. When a man can say of his states and actions, ‘As I am, so I act,’ he can be at one with himself, even though it be difficult, and he can accept responsibility for himself even though he struggle against it. We must recognize that nothing is more difficult to bear than oneself."-Carl Jung
The last sentence of the paragraph above connects me to what I read about Kyudo, the Japanese art of archery, "the archer's selfish attachment to the target, which is the source of mental agitation, must be faced squarely and overcome....The confrontation with the target is thus the confrontation with one's own mind".
"It aims at surpassing oneself, the target and the bow in order to reach one's true self".
In my own experience the need for individuation grows stronger towards the second half of one's life although many people do feel the need much earlier in life. It may explain for the discontentment one feels with one's life as if something is missing. This may account for many a mid career change or spiritual pursuits. In the case where such needs are projected onto external objects they may surface in the form of addictions like engagement with fast cars or young sexual partners etc. A therapist was once asked by a prominent client as to whether he should leave his wife and family for a young and vivacious lady he was having an affair with. The therapist suggested that the client reflect upon the characteristics of his mistress which he was in love with; and consider whether the same characteristics may represent some aspects of his inner self which had been suppressed by his ego all those years. Example of such could be the free spiritedness or creativity of youth which were sacrificed for career advancement.
Perhaps one should not wait for the discontentment to snowball to such a magnitude resulting in the need for a radical shift in lifestyle. Acquiring an awareness of one's true nature and aiming to be authentic to one self along the way will guide one to act in such a way as to bring about harmony. For example a person whose circumstances make it impossible for him to pursue an artistic career (which is his innate wish) can pursue art as a hobby and consciously make time to develop it.
A 70 year old lady once lamented that she could not fulfil her lifelong wish to sky dive. Her therapist suggested that she applied her imagination in the form of symbols or looked for a substitute activity that embodied the thrill and risk taking spirit she had so wished but denied. I guess we should not wait till we are 70 to draw a long list of what we have missed in the "unlived life".
"Here one may ask, perhaps, why it is so desirable that a man should be individuated. Not only is it desirable, it is absolutely indispensable, because, through his contamination with others, he falls into situations and commits actions which bring him into disharmony with himself. From all states of unconscious contamination... there is begotten a compulsion to be and to act in a way contrary to one’s own nature. Accordingly a man can neither be at one with himself nor accept responsibility for himself. He feels himself to be in a degrading, unfree, unethical condition. But the disharmony with himself is precisely the neurotic and intolerable condition from which he seeks to be delivered, and deliverance from this condition will come only when he can be and act as he feels is comfortable with his true self. People have a feeling for these things, dim and uncertain at first, but growing ever stronger and clearer with progressive development. When a man can say of his states and actions, ‘As I am, so I act,’ he can be at one with himself, even though it be difficult, and he can accept responsibility for himself even though he struggle against it. We must recognize that nothing is more difficult to bear than oneself."-Carl Jung
The last sentence of the paragraph above connects me to what I read about Kyudo, the Japanese art of archery, "the archer's selfish attachment to the target, which is the source of mental agitation, must be faced squarely and overcome....The confrontation with the target is thus the confrontation with one's own mind".
"It aims at surpassing oneself, the target and the bow in order to reach one's true self".
In my own experience the need for individuation grows stronger towards the second half of one's life although many people do feel the need much earlier in life. It may explain for the discontentment one feels with one's life as if something is missing. This may account for many a mid career change or spiritual pursuits. In the case where such needs are projected onto external objects they may surface in the form of addictions like engagement with fast cars or young sexual partners etc. A therapist was once asked by a prominent client as to whether he should leave his wife and family for a young and vivacious lady he was having an affair with. The therapist suggested that the client reflect upon the characteristics of his mistress which he was in love with; and consider whether the same characteristics may represent some aspects of his inner self which had been suppressed by his ego all those years. Example of such could be the free spiritedness or creativity of youth which were sacrificed for career advancement.
Perhaps one should not wait for the discontentment to snowball to such a magnitude resulting in the need for a radical shift in lifestyle. Acquiring an awareness of one's true nature and aiming to be authentic to one self along the way will guide one to act in such a way as to bring about harmony. For example a person whose circumstances make it impossible for him to pursue an artistic career (which is his innate wish) can pursue art as a hobby and consciously make time to develop it.
A 70 year old lady once lamented that she could not fulfil her lifelong wish to sky dive. Her therapist suggested that she applied her imagination in the form of symbols or looked for a substitute activity that embodied the thrill and risk taking spirit she had so wished but denied. I guess we should not wait till we are 70 to draw a long list of what we have missed in the "unlived life".
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