Contentment

It has been a long absence.

Today, I came across a thoughtful and beautiful passage.

“One interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction, the irony is that even after obtaining the object of your desire, you are still not satisfied.  The true antidote of greed is contentment.  If you have a strong sense of contentment, it doesn’t matter whether you obtain the object or not, either way, you are still content.

So how can we achieve inner contentment?  There are two methods.  One method is to obtain everything that we want and desire – all the money, houses, and cars; the perfect mate; and the perfect body.  The Dalai Lama has already pointed out the disadvantage of this approach; if our wants and desires remain unchecked, sooner or later we will run up against something that we want but can’t have.  The second, and more reliable, method is not to have what we want, but rather to want and appreciate what we have.” -- The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler.

How true!  It’s an arrow that pierces to the heart of the matter, and diagnose what I am going through, and what I suspect many of us who are immersed in the Insta-culture.  Dream big.  Live your bliss.  In a certain sense, “living your bliss” can be a wake up call to the material culture.  However, “living your bliss” also runs the risks of creating a kind of spiritual materialism.  The things that we want may look different, but they are still pursued for the same reason.

It is not bad to want things.  And it is not bad to want to change one’s life situation.  But if we can start from a starting point of contentment, we can always be – well, content.  But if we start from a point of deprivation, we will suffer before we get that thing, have a moment of satisfaction, and then continue to suffer as we strive for the next thing.

And this reminds me of this passage:
"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."  Philippians 4:11-12.

A New (Liturgical) Year

Wow, a lot of life has happened.  Apparently so much so that it has been close to a year -- give or take a month -- since my last minimalist entry.

People who are close to me know that I am drawn to think of life in seasons and rhythms and themes.  And as I typed the last sentence I remembered that we are about to enter a new liturgical year!  I hate making New Year's resolutions.  It's so easy to be so grand and grandiose in the excitement of the moment.  The realist and moderate parts in me much rather reflect on the past year and cast a vision for the new year.  And doing it in a setting like a liturgical year lightens the pressure.  I like the idea of a new year.  I suspect most of us like the new year because it is a new beginning.  It is a fresh start.  It is filled with hope.  It raises our vision just a bit higher, and that can be the difference between looking at the red tail-lights packed together like sardines and the city scape at dusk.

I am ready for a fresh start.  There were definitely battle wounds and travel fatigue from the past year.  But there are also moments of utter joy.  And at the end of the day, or should I say year, I am still me, but a me that is a little wiser, a little more mature.  And a little weaker and a day closer to death.  Gosh, do I sound balanced?  How very ecclesiastes-cal.

One of the small gems I found online by following a rabbit trail is the graduation speech given by Amie Wilkinson to the UC Berkeley Math Department.  (A pdf link can be found here.)  She seems to have great psychological awareness for a profession that draws more than its share of people further along the autism spectrum.  She exhorts the audience to do something that they are not good at.  Why?  So we can better acknowledge our weak side.

I will end this blogpost with one of my favorite quote from her speech:

Why push yourself like this? Because the hard-won traits can be the
most gratifying. And because all of this exercise – and that’s what it is –
keeps you young. You also can’t escape learning how to work with yourself,
especially with what you might have once regarded as a terrible flaw in your
personality.

Happy New Year!

Like a Rock

God is like a rock.
As in solid ground,
not in between it and a hard place.

The Beauty of Mystery

I was going through my wedding photos, and saw this picture.  I was drawn to it. This simple picture conveys a sense of mystery to me.

I like the depth of field of this picture, where some of the cupcakes are in clear focus and others are not.  Isn't this a bit like a mystery?  There are things that we see clearly.  We can tell that there are more cupcakes that are hidden from view, and our imagination can fill in the colors and flavors.  Our eyes see only parts, but our heart know there is so much more.  Maybe faith is little like this.

The Origin Story -- Part III

[An on going series on how I started to dance.  Here is Part I and Part II.]

At the end of Part II, I was making my way to Angell Hall at the University of Michigan, with the intention of trying out the tango dancing class.  However, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I decided to jump ship and try out swing dancing, because it seemed less scary and less morally ambiguous.  So I crossed State Street and went from Angell Hall to the Michigan Union.

Just like there were iconic tango videos that I kept going back to watch on youtube, there were iconic swing dancing videos that fascinated and inspired me.

Here is one that combines science and swing dancing that fascinated me to no end.  In this video, the woman choreographed the swing dancing routine to illustrate her Ph.D. thesis.  Brilliant!



One of the coolest part of the dance is when she danced solo by herself in the middle of the choreography.  The way she stretched out her arms is both awe inspiring and courageous.  I know those are strong words for extending one's arms, but I bet for most people, it is incredibly scary for them to express themselves in this way.  To extent one's arms like this requires being willing to be vulnerable.

While I'm showing youtube clips, here is another all time favorite swing dancing routine by Dax Hock and Alice Mei, whom I had a secret crush on.  I know this is a bit naive, but I imagine that if the whole world can dance like this, then we will have world peace.




Even though swing dancing didn't trigger the morality alarm in me like tango dancing did, I was still extremely anxious.  There is a part of me that is like Chicken Little, thinking there is moral danger around every corner.  At the same time, I love to explore and try out new things.  I don't know why God has given me these two personality traits at the same time.  He must have a sense of humor.

I was nervous after the first class, but the instructors encouraged us to stay for social dancing, saying that is the best way to learn, especially for beginners.  Being the good student that I am, I just started dancing with people with the few moves that I learned that night: basic triple step, inside turn, and outside turn.  It boosted my ego and gave me more confidence when a few women complimented me on how well I was dancing for a beginner.  I didn't have all the moves, but apparently I have a very intuitive understanding of the music and that I danced to the music.  This is one of the complements that I have received down the road in other kinds of dancing.  I treasure these compliments.

The principle of learning, revisiting and mastering the basics is a theme that have cropped up again and again in my life.  When things get confusing and rough in life, this is one of the small rules that I can return to and find refuge and peace.

New Adventures of Old John

It's been a long, hectic, and busy month of October.  Yet in the midst of it all, I have tried my hand at commuting to work by bike.  Maybe it is just my imagination, but I think wearing cycling pants automatically get you two sexy points or something like that.  Maybe cycling pants is the yoga pants equivalent for men.

And speaking of tight clothing, I also dipped my toe in the ocean and started to surf again.  Before this year, I tried surfing twice.  The first time was ten years ago, and afterwards I had skin issues that prevented me from surfing.  I tried again three years ago when I came back to California, and I tweaked my shoulder from being squeezed into a too skinny wet suit.  This time, I think it is going to stick!

I wish I had taken more time to document my adventures, but remember, it's been a long, hectic, and busy month.  But I have compiled a list of youtube videos that are worth watching.

First, check out this beautiful duet:



It has just the right amount of cutsie-ness (though it does pushed the edge at times).

And the beauty of youtube is to explore the different takes on the same song.  My favorite song version goes to Jane Monheit:




Someone mentioned that this would be a great father-daughter dance song at a wedding.  I agree, though one would have to overlook a line in the lyric.

And speaking of dancing, and Jane Monheit, it led to the discovery of the following




and makes one nostalgic for the fifties




which makes one yearn for an even earlier time and ragtime




Yes, a blog named only the lover sings should have more music and dancing!

And back to this new wedding dance genre, dance battles!

Jesus, the Samaritan Woman at the Well, and Pope Francis

In college, one of my favorite type of results are impossibility results.  In Economics, there is Arrow's Impossibility Theorem that states that there is no rank order voting system that can aggregate people's preferences into a "sensible" community-wide consensus.  In Computer Science, there is the NP-Complete complexity class of decision problems that says there are problems that are really, really hard to compute.  I guess it is no wonder that when it comes to looking at the world in general, I also tend to look at the limitations of things and ideas.  I have learned that I like limitations because limitations are freeing.  Acknowledging limitations free me from doing the impossible!

On and off, I like to contemplate the stories of Jesus.  I love to place myself at the scene, and to be able to look at Jesus, and to look at the person that Jesus is talking to, and try to imagine what is in Jesus' heart, and what is in the heart of the other person.  I've been contemplating about the woman at the well.  The gist of the story is that Jesus asked a Samaritan woman for water, and the woman is shocked that someone who is a Jew would ask her.  Then there is some back and forth discussion about water that culminates in a discussion about having living water that will lead to eternal life.  The story could have stopped there, but it goes on.  Jesus and the Samaritan woman go on to a conversation where Jesus points out her moral fault.

The main surprise of the story is the Samaritan woman seems to be okay with Jesus pointing her fault out.  She was surprised that he knew, but she was not angry.  If I were her, I would have been pissed that someone would point out my fault.  I would have wondered:  Who are you to tell me who I am?  So I wonder, was there something in how Jesus approached the woman way that made her feel not judged?  In fact, she went around town and say "hey, someone pointed out my faults to me, he may be the Messiah!"

A lot of exciting and heated discussion has come from Pope Francis' interview in the Jesuit magazine America.  One of the controversy is around the idea that Catholics may do better to focus first on evangelization, in sharing the good news of Jesus, than to start by focusing on a particular set of moral issues.  Could he be following the example of Jesus in how he interacted with the Samaritan woman?