I believe in the transformative power of cinema. It is only through this shared dream-experience that we can transcend the oppressive minutiae of daily existence and find some spiritual connection in the deeper reality of our mutual desire. -- Daniel Clowes

There are feelings which words cannot describe, brushes cannot paint, melodies cannot express, but can somehow be shared. 


And that is enough.

You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one. -- Imagine (John Lennon)

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them -- Albert Einstein

My yoga teacher always says in class that each posture should just be enough to keep it interesting, but not fascinating. At first I was bemused and intrigued by this style of teaching, shouldn't we always aim for the perfect extension to achieve the maximum stretch so we can look and feel the best we possibly can?

According to her, each posture should provide just the right amount of sensation and tension to keep us stimulated, but not to the extent to have us completely immersed in pain or disharmony. 

In truth, no one knows about our own bodies better than ourselves. However sometime we forget and let our ego selves take over to dictate our actions, we become to think that we are superior if we look the best in the eyes of others. Therefore, the takeaway for me from this is to acknowledge and respect my own limitations sometime. This realisation is profound and it may be applied to other areas in life as well.  

When I first started this blog, I expected myself to be inspired and producing 24/7, not surprisingly later on I became disappointed as I gradually discovered that it isn't always the case. I remember others comforting me by telling me to take it easy. Then I also remember telling the same people to take it easy on themselves when they become too stressed about a situation whether it is related to work, buying a property or something else. Sadly, we don't always listen or follow the same advice we give to others. There seems to be at least an area in which we feel compulsive towards, as a result, defensive mechanisms are devised via the form of overcompensating to avoid us feeling inferior. 

Yoga is an experience that connects the body, mind and spirit to attain peacefulness and tranquility through the balance of the outer and inner. Although setting goals and achieving them is healthy for growth and development, but if we become too attached to the outcomes or solely seek reflections of ourselves in the external, imbalance is then created and no matter how much has been succeeded, our appetite will always grow bigger and bigger for the next best experience to bring the 100% fulfilment that it can never deliver.    

I stumbled across My Best Friend's Wedding on TV tonight. I don't know how many times I have watched this but it still made me laugh, cry and laugh and cry all at the same time. Julianne (Julia Robert's character) is portrayed as far as from being perfect but I still adored her simply because she is real. Rarely do we find ourselves liking someone because they are the smartest, the best looking or the wealthiest, we like them despite of their flaws and quirks, we feel compassion towards their limitations and we like them more for the courage and humility they show facing their own imperfections. 

If these are some of the qualities we admire in others, then we must able to find them already in us waiting to be discovered. Light cannot exist without darkness. If we can readily accept the limitations of other people's, wouldn't it be nice if we can also do the same for ourselves?

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new path. -- Walt Disney

Since that I have lately discovered this new found passion for cooking, I decide it is only appropriate to create a separate blog to dedicate to this food expedition experience. In this way, it will help with alleviating random distractions and maintain the theme and focus of this current blog. Hang on, who am I to talk about focus and can someone remind me of the purpose of this blog again? :P


So... If you simply happen to enjoy food or have this insatiable appetite for something new, I invite you to check out this new blog: 
www.thereisahungrymouth.blogspot.com

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Spotted the creation from a fellow stick figure addict this morning. What a way to start the day!

Reciprocally for dinner I decided on creating 

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Jacinta's Stick Figure オムライス / Omu-rice

What a way to end the night!

Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions. -- Agatha Christie

I have been charged guilty of neglecting the blog for the past few weeks. However, in my defence (and a good one!), this is all a result of my current preoccupation with the pursuit and mastery of a new found impetus - cooking. 


Surely enough, dinning out and sampling assorted food offered by various restaurants is undoubtedly an enjoyable experience. But to put yourself through the sweat, blood and tears in order to plate up something that is merely edible? It turns out to be an equally enjoyable experience in its own right. I guess we should never entirely dismiss or discount any old sayings such as this one -- You never know (what you can do) till you try. :)


Strangely enough, I catch myself approaching all new recipe with great enthusiasm and optimism without the slightest hint of reservation or hesitation. Somehow it must turn out alright, in the end, the food must turn out fantastic. Therefore unsurprisingly, blind confidence in the ability to improvise mixed with a lack of knowledge have led to a mini disaster tonight. And the verdict? One hour of 'community' cleanup in the kitchen. 


Well, it was not all that bad. 


The instinctual drive that unconsciously impels one as suggested by Sigmund Freud (the inventor of psychoanalysis), manifested itself tonight in a precipitate manner. Although arguable to however Freud originally conjectured it, in my case, this drive was simply just pure hunger at 9PM. The result this time? My second attempt at it produced gold, and this all came about in 5 minutes.

Jacinta's fast and furious seafood pasta

So what was the lesson learnt from this? Similarly, old sayings and proverbs again hold virtue and value -- If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. 

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries. -- Carl Gustav Jung

The desire to write has departed me unexpectedly and is instead substituted with an eagerness to draw as an alternative mode for self expression. Unprecedentedly, I felt impelled to sketch out these diagrams without having had a central theme in mind at that time, so now, a story must be constructed to conceive the meanings behind them in order to fill the void. (<- This could be all just a subconscious denial of an addiction to stick figures!)


I presuppose that we are not entirely unfamiliar with the concept and classification of the four elements, being FIRE, AIR, WATER and EARTH. Each element represents a certain type of consciousness and consequently an attunement to a specific field of life experience. In a nutshell, the elements symbolise different realms of being and experience: 


Fire is connected with enthusiasm, motivation and spirituality
Air is correlated with abstract thought patterns of the universal mind 
Water is dominated by intense yearnings, feeling reactions and compelling desires  
Earth is concerned with physical senses and material forms   


If a keyword is to be assigned to each of the elements, then Fire would be associated with inspiration, Air would correspond to rationalisation, Water would exemplify emotion and lastly Earth would be motivated by sensation. And please don't think of these in terms of which one being better or worse than the other as there are only neutral connotations and ramifications linked to them. The elements simply indicate distinctly separate orientations.


To elaborate further using astrology, the twelve zodiac signs can be divided precisely amongst the four elements:
Fire - Aries, Leo and Sagittarius
Air - Gemini, Libra and Aquarius
Water - Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces
Earth - Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn


Carl Jung was one of the pioneers to recognise the value of applying astrology in the field of psychology and psychoanalysis, and in association with the principal of archetypes proposed by him, Jung attributed each of the above elements respectively to the following psychological types: Intuition, Thinking, Feeling and Sensation. Each of the types is also modified by the two attitude types: extraversion and introversion. 


Is this all beginning to sound too familiar? Yes, Jung established the earlier foundation for the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (a world-wide renowned psychometric questionnaire used for the assessment of a person's psychological perception). The different preferences and combinations from MBTI were extrapolated from the typological theories purported by Carl Jung. 


Based on each individual's predisposition and predominant emphasis, they tend to have an inclination towards one or two preferred elements for exhibiting the effects of spontaneous manifestations. In Jung's terminology, each of us therefore is inherently adept with certain qualities which we can always rely on, and these contribute to superior functions. In contrast, the qualities which we feel less comfortable with are suggested to be our inferior functions but are equally crucial if not more in the sense that they operate as a hidden drive towards attaining full consciousness and integration.


Without further adieu, let me summarise (excuse me for generalising) how each element naturally demonstrates care and nurturing by introducing back our favourite Stick Figures:


FIRE: displays affection through grand gestures 

AIR: driven by communication and the need to understand and make sense of things

WATER: values building emotional rapport and creating intimacy

EARTH: displays affection by being reliable and offering material support

If Jung is correct in postulating that the drive for human development is the process of individuation through striving for unity and wholeness, then we can understand why we both attract people who bring out the best and the worst in us. We will continue to meet people and circumstances that push us to realise our unique identities through the experiences they provide for us,    until we are able to comprehend and merge the opposite polarities.


It is not hard to see that we are all different in our own ways and sometime we run into conflicts and distress because other people are 'incompatible' with us. So what can be the best method to reconcile these differences?


We say: "It is not about WHAT you say, but HOW you say it." But sometimes if we are willing to perceive beyond the facade, we may realise in the end that we do all have one thing at least in common

So maybe it is important to share with an open heart, and maybe intentions should be looked at with the most interest. If we all somehow learn to skew more towards the WHAT and less towards the HOW, we may truly begin to apprehend and appreciate the essence of our seemingly different languages.