Little Things

Life, at times, chokes one with its wonders, particularly gigantic wonders – tallest tower, highest summit, smartest phone, etc. There is a lot to take in and appreciate that we often lose the pleasure we once derived from a stranger’s smile or the lost dime we noticed by the traffic light as we waited patiently to cross the street. Inattentional blindness – it is not our choice anymore – to turn our eyes away from little things that have once given us pure joy – it is rather that our eyes, even when confronted by the most innocent and noteworthy of gestures and actions, cannot perceive them.

I set out to try to be fully attentive to little things around me: from words, pictures and things that required a 180 degree head turn or two feet bend-down, to situations that involved awkwardly taking photos of seemingly trivial objects in public. It was rather interesting, beautifully significant, and effortlessly thought-provoking all of that which managed to present itself to my consciousness.

1. Honest, beautiful, but repetitive remarks:

• Mom & Dad: “Girls, you get prettier by the day. And we’re not saying that just because you’re our children”. Me: “Mom, Dad – all parents say that to their children, and by that I mean: all parents say “we’re not saying you’re pretty just because you’re our children.”” But thank you. Just another laugh we’re to remember years down the road.

2. Societal consolations:

• When you’re ambitious, people say “dream big, you can do whatever you want in this life.” But when your dreams don’t come true and your hopes come crashing down, people say “well, you know, dreams die.”
• Life is ups and downs, when you’re up, you’re a sinless saint, when you’re down “everybody makes mistakes.” Maybe being straightforward or avoiding such things as white lies is what we hope for, but what we really need is consolation, even when it conveys the silliest and most contradictory of remarks.

3. At the mall:

• Looking at the mall map, trying to find direction to the bookstore, then someone from behind rudely exclaims “excuse me!” and pushes herself forwards to read the map – in my mind, “dude, can’t you freakin’ see that I’m using the damn thing?!” But no. I apologize politely and walk away, having barely satisfied my need of finding the store.
• You make your way out to the parking lot and see a huge box for book-donations, and you think “there’s still some good left in this world”.

4. At the counter:

• You’re 50 cents short of total payment in a supermarket, the cashier asks you to give up one of your groceries. You say goodbye to your favorite chocolate bar and move on in life. Yet, when the cashier owes you some coins and is desperately looking for change in the counter to give it to you, it makes you feel good to whole-heartedly say “it’s ok, keep the change”.
• Naïve – yet when your change contains the brightest, newly-made coin that is mirror-like in clarity, you put it on the shelf and decide to never spend it.

• Impatiently waiting to buy your stuff, and instead of looking at your phone pretending to be busy, you decided to notice the few toys and souvenirs  around. It reads “Microwaveable Hottie” and you think to yourself “Daf*q?”. But then you realize that, in reality, “Hot Hugs” are much needed, because the world has gone cold, and stuffed animals whose tummy can be microwaved are more humane than humans themselves.

Maybe waiting at the payment counter gives you the chance to think about the meaning of life.

• You’re out to buy a birthday present for a loved one when an expensive kitchen-tools’ shop catches your eyes. You enter to see the cute little baking utensils, and you look upwards to see the most magnificent and creatively-made chandelier you have ever seen, only to truly wonder “who thought of designing that?”

I don’t know about you, but thinking back to the events and people I encountered, and randomly checking the photos I took on my phone, instagraming them to give them that extra glow to shape a pleasant memory, is pleasurable. Writing this post is also pleasurable – a good exercise and an effort to understand the workings of my mind and the workings of the world. Even my typing in long, fragmented sentences involves the intention of making you think “she’s complicated.”

The headlines in the news, the fancy cars, and skyscrapers never cease to amaze me, but they have equally mastered the art of distracting me from the here and now – from the little things that truly give meaning to life, from the little observations that provoke thinking about the complexity of our world, our society, our failures, our successes, and our short-comings.

Boredom is an illusion – you cannot be bored. There are just so many things around waiting to be noticed and waiting to impact you in some way. Just over seventeen years on Earth, and it is only now that I made such realizations. Some are over 70, and still fail to integrate meaning into life.

It’s simple: look around, and pay attention.

…from The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, is by far the most fascinating novel I’ve ever read. I see it as a beautiful marriage of almost all elements of life. Here are some quotes that I believe convey pure, conflicting, and baffling thoughts.

On philosophy and psychology:

To be good is to be in harmony with oneself.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Real beauty ends when the intellectual expression begins.

Anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often.

I never approve or disapprove of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and thinks too much to be beautiful.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

He felt keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment. He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual mysteries to reveal.

Knowledge would be fatal. It is uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.

Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

When the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates  nature, every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm.

Sin is the only real colour element left in modern life.

On life and the self:

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.

[Hedonism’s aim] is to teach man to concentrate on himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment.

[People] have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself.

To get back one’s youth, one has merely to repeat one’s follies.

Human life – [… is] the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it, there was nothing of any value.

He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.

Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was that one had to pay so often for a single fault.

To influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural desires. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.

On love and marriage:

I don’t think I am likely to marry, I am too much in love.

To see him is to worship him, to know him is to trust him.

The people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people.

When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.

The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality.

Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.

Whatever [women] ask for they had first given to us. They create love in our natures. They have the right to demand it back.

Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect – simply a confession of failure.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls Romance.

Perhaps one should never put one’s worship into words.

On people:

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good character, and my enemies for their good intellects.

Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

In art, as in politics, les grandpères ont toujours tort.

One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.

There are only two kinds of people in the world who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.

Other:

You must not think I don’t like good music. I adore it, but I’m afraid of it. It makes me too romantic.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

The advantage of emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of Science is that it is not emotional.

I can sympathise with everything, except suffering.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Water: The Nietzschean Drink

I’m the kind of person who’s overly obsessed with her hour-to-hour, day-to-day, week-to-week psychological and emotional states. It is a rather subconscious obligation that I conform to, because, quite naturally, I do like to give a truthful answer when I ask myself “how are you today?” – I want to ‘be at’ or ‘be working towards’ the Feel Good state of being at all times.

It became a habit to take note of the kinds of snacks I eat throughout the day, whether be it ice-cream, chocolate, juice, potato chips – you name it. Most of them are high in sugar, true. Take chocolate, my used-to-be favourite bite: as most of you might know, chocolate consumption has been associated with the release of neurotransmitters including serotonin, endorphins and dopamine. These neurotransmitters activate specific neural circuits in the brain that are associated with mood regulation, feelings, motivation, pain.. etc. From personal observations, I noticed that I only really craved chocolate when I suffered decreased levels of these neurotransmitters. How do I know? Behaviour. I turned to chocolate when I felt slightly depressed, overwhelmed with workload, or simply when I wasn’t at a desired state of well-being.

That’s when I realised that I don’t intrinsically love chocolate, or chocolate ice-cream. They still do taste yummy to me, it’s just that I don’t find myself craving them as often anymore.

What happened?

It’s really simple. I couldn’t allow myself to rely on something extrinsic to solve my intrinsic problems. Personality? Perhaps. Life premise? Most probably. Whatever it is, I ain’t taking no shortcuts. My conscience said no – I said, as you please.

What I did was that, whenever I found myself swinging below my happiness set-point, I would retreat and introspect to detailed events of my day to figure out just what went wrong – and solve it. Sometimes, this is too simple. But at other times it’s like I seriously don’t know why I am feeling the way I am. Basically, the answer changed from ‘chocolate’ to ‘introspection’.

This week, our fridge had a couple of Lindor chocolate bars that I happened to pass by several times a day, and walk away from just as peacefully. I guess it became a habit –  resolving daily hassles from the core helped me realise that I had mistakenly fell in love with certain things.

Life without chocolate can be boring. Not! It might sound odd to reveal my new favourite snack, but yes I’m willing to taste a bit of embarrassment: water – in a fancy glass, with a straw. At times with ice cubes – well, that would be like icing on a cake. Needless to mention its having zero calories. It’s perfect.

Nietzsche believed that to anyone with the slightest interest in being happy, water always suffices. It’s amazing how you can derive genuine pleasure from simple, simple things.

Overused => Meaningless

Words may be puppets on strings. Limited and often empty. They mean absolutely nothing unless we make that extra move to make them come to life. I’m often bombarded by our lazy nature to use the simplest, most tedious words to describe something as intimate as how we feel. Just as how thought shapes language, language also shapes thought. Simple words are often monotonous because they’ve been stripped of their significance due to overuse. So you can be sure that using clichéd words is only going to make your life dull and hollow. No you can’t write a poem for every situation you go through. But I know for my part that choosing colourful and vibrant words only transfers my sincerity. And for your part, it only makes me sense your heartfelt or empty thoughts.

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein