I'm Here (II)

Continuing from my previous post!

Recently I've been thinking about finding this "middle ground" in life. For example as it goes in my previous post, how I feel like somedays life feels like a struggle between telling yourself that you're here for a reason, and there's no reason for you to be here. As a human being who's caught in the never ending search for the meaning of life, I've always been intrigued with this question. 

Like why are we here? Or is there no reason for me to be here? But then again I tell myself, perhaps we don't need to find a reason to be here. And neither do we need life to give us a reason to be here. Perhaps, I just need to tell myself "I'm Here". That is all. 

And recently last week, there were so many things happening at the same time that I ask myself why are things all happening at the wrong timing? But then again I ask myself, what if they are all happening at the right timing. We just don't know yet. There's a recent video from Einzelganger about when things are falling apart, they're actually falling into place (I'll write another post about this!). And then I wonder if things are truly falling into place for me, despite them being so chaotic.

Then... I tell myself again. Perhaps I just need to tell myself that "Things happen". Regardless whether they are happening at the wrong time, right time or not. But they happen. And I also realise most of these things are beyond my control. It's not that I make these things happen too me.

After all these questions, I am suddenly remembered one of my favourite quotes from Rumi. 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there"

This question of mine is answered somewhat by this quote. This "field" that Rumi is talking about probably talks about this middle ground I'm looking for. Between existing for a reason and having no reason to be here, between telling yourself things are happening at the right timing or wrong timing, and so on and forth, there is a field that signifies all of this. And we ought to be there. You know.

So yeah perhaps we should see things in a broader perspective. Not just one, especially one that is created by our mind, even though we don't know its truth or significance yet. Or most importantly we should see things happening as they are. And then learn what we can take from these things.

Perhaps this is the beautiful struggle people are talking about in life?

I'm Here

Somedays, life feels like a struggle between telling yourself you're here for a reason and there's no reason for you to be here. Perhaps we don't need to find a reason to be here. And neither do we need life to give us a reason to be here. Perhaps we just need to tell ourselves I'm here. That's all.

Happy Chinese 牛 Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! :)

Hello everyone! First of all just wishing everyone a Happy Chinese 牛 Year! Yes I waited 12 years to say this again hahaha. Since this year is the year of the metal ox! I wish everyone great health, happiness and prosperity. And may the year of the ox be a better year than the previous year of the rat. Which I'm pretty sure was a _____ year for us. 祝大家牛新年快乐，身体健康，万事如意，心想事成!

Anyway I'm pretty sure we can all agree that this year's CNY felt a bit off. Personally for me, we don't have a full reunion this year. Usually my aunts, uncle and cousins would gather in CNY eve midnight but this year we don't do that. Just my family and my aunt who's staying with us. Apart from the usual CNY eve lunch (which is also not attended fully by everyone, the rest was pretty different.

I even went to the temple on CNY eve and... It was empty. The main doors of the temple are actually closed except for the side door. I even thought it was closed but the caretaker told me they're opened, they just only let devotees pray and not the general public. At the time of visit (7:30 PM), my temple would usually be filled with people. Devotees praying, curious onlookers and so on. The inside of the temple would be filled with smoke from burning incense. Now, it's just empty. Like a normal day.

But as you can see from the photo above, the temple is also glittered with candle lights. 

I see it as a symbol. That although the temple is void of people, it has candle lights flickering inside. In this seemingly unwholesome Lunar New Year, there still remain hope flickering brightly. That one day we will reunite again like the good old days. And this darkness will soon disappear, replaced by light.

Well yes it's been a weird CNY for us. But I hope you still have a great time with your loved ones. And please stay safe and healthy wherever you all are. Happy Chinese 牛 Year once again! :)

Letting Go Is True Wealth (II)

Right, continuing from my previous post, this is why I share the same sentiment with the video!

I think I've talked about this before in a previous post. But yes as I grow older, growing materialistically has never been a goal of mine. I'm not interested to be rich. Or to own big houses, expensive cars and so on. Also ever since I decided to become a minimalist back in 2017, and I think I'm quite successful in doing this cause in my yearly spring cleaning, my room doesn't seem to have new things inside. Except for one thing: my vinyl records haha. I still collect them so yeah they're growing in number.

I think the older I get, the more I understand the value of things. Like I don't really want to grow materialistically to be honest. Instead of wanting big houses, I want a small sized one that is enough to function well, and enough for me to live comfortably in. To sum things up - I want to be enough. Be it in the materials I posses and also the person I want to become. I find pointless reasons to why I should own many things and big things and so on, when I can be happy with less.

As the Dhammapada said, the greatest wealth is contentment. This to me is one of the biggest takeaway and realisation in life. Because as I have reckoned, nobody has ever felt enough in the lives. Okay or should I say very very very little people feel like they are enough, and/or they have enough. But humans, in most cases, are greedy bastards who never feel like they have enough haha.

I am no longer enticed in this capitalist world we're living in. Where the media seems to endlessly tell us that we don't have enough. Every month we have an offer made by online shopping giants, sort of encouraging us to buy more and more things. But do we really need them? Or are we just falling into a trap of this insufficiency that we're made to feel? When can we realise that we have enough.

I'm not saying that we should just let go of everything that we have to be happy. Perhaps we need to let go of this desire and baseless fear that we can never be/have enough. To be content with who we are and to just spend money on things that are really necessary, for our survival and life. Well once in a while it's fine to pamper ourselves. But don't do it on a daily basis eh.

Alright that's all from me now. All in all, yep. Letting go is perhaps true wealth.

Letting Go Is True Wealth

 

One of my favourite YouTube channels just uploaded this video recently and it's such a cool video! I'd like to quote a passage from the video that resonates with me a lot.

"The basic ideology of consumerist culture we live in is that "less is less and more is more". This has everything to do with how we collectively value social status, and that social status isn't measured by one's virtue or spirituality but by the car one drives, the house one lives in, the furniture one possesses and the clothes one wears. What we have seems to determine our place in the dominant hierarchy. So in a society in which holiness is wealth, the church is the shopping mall, and prayer is consumption, those who dare reject these sacred elements will be regarded as blasphemers."

I'm a proud blasphemer! Haha. Okay more about this on a separate post. Talk to you soon!

New Stuff

Hello again! Whew I've been wanting to blog but as usual life happens haha. Anyway I'm not gonna talk about my new year resolutions and goals here. I've done that in my journal :P But I want to talk about something else; new blogging habit! Okay not exactly new but there are some stuff that I want to do differently in this year. And nope I'm not going to blog a hundred posts again or something heh.

So firstly yes I will not set any goals again for my blogs. No number of posts, nothing. But I want to do something more - and that is talk about the happenings in my life more frequently! And this is of course, only if there's something exciting happening haha. Not gonna blog about the boring stuff. 

I realised that I mostly blog (and journal) about my thoughts, and feelings, and topics that I want to talk about. But pretty rarely blog about the happenings in my life. And it's quite hmm, sad. I mean sure there aren't many interesting things that happen in my life. That's the main reason to why I don't blog about it. But also I feel that my blog should be a place where I can look back and reminisce on the different events that are happening in my life. And not only on a personal level, but global level too.

I was inspired by my journals actually. Back in my poly days when I started journaling, I journaled a lot about the daily happening in school. Well not everyday but you know the random stuff happening. And it brings back pretty good memories and feelings. And so yes I hope to do that in my blog too. So that in the future I can look back on my posts and happily reminisce. Not just read about my thoughts.

I don't know, perhaps it can be small things like birthdays, or events, or when I try some good food. 

Which brings me to my next point. I think more photographs! Usually, and also weirdly, I try not to post just photos. Cause to me a post should be filled with words, and not photos. Like maybe... I should create a special blog for my photos. But no, I don't have time for that. So yeah maybe more photos entries. Random sky, random food, random whatever. I think it's gonna make my blog more interesting.

Last but not least, prompts. So as mentioned last year, I joined a group on Facebook called The Isolation Journal which was created by Suleika Jaouad. We receive prompts to our email and some of the prompts are pretty interesting. Some are pretty personal questions and I don't feel comfortable sharing it here in the blog, so I write it down in my journal. Prompt is a good method to keep the creative juices flowing. I think I can do more of this. to keep this blog alive heh.

Alright I guess that's all for now. Here's to more writing in this blog. Stay safe and healthy!

Happy New Year 2021!

Hello hello, first of all just wishing you a happy new year 2021! Here we are on a brand new year after such a crazy 2020. The pandemic isn't over yet. We shouldn't let our guard down. But I think it's fair to say we have a bit of hope in this brand new chapter. Vaccines are rolling out as I'm typing this. Indonesia is going to begin vaccinating health professionals next week (even though we don't know the efficacy of the Sinovac vaccine, yet). But please stay safe and healthy everyone.

As usual, as seen from my 2020, I'm not going to set any blogging goals for this year heh. It was expected of me to blog less than a hundred posts last year mwahaha. And it's kinda nice. I didn't feel pressurised to blog a certain number of posts. But as always, I'm going to continue blogging. Even if it's just one post a month. Hopefully not haha. And I might be doing some new stuff!

Alright this is just a real short post. I'm going to continue on another night about my plans. Have a great 2021 ahead everyone. Stay safe and take care as always.