I'm surprised that this blog is getting so many views. Thank you Dear Readers (in *Lady Whistledown* voice over), especially to my Singaporean and American readers!
In the past 6 to 7 years, I have lost many family members and relatives. So, this whole topic of 'Bucket List' and the 'Blues' have definitely been a constant force in my mind.
My losses include losing my maternal grandma, a paternal side big aunt, my mother, my father, and my second cat. So Death has been a chronic occurrence.
It's fascinating how my brain is so hardwired to be in 'Living Mode' and not so much naturally wired to be in 'Thinking About Death' mode. I need to make a very concerted effort to keep Death 'alive' in my conscious mind, or it just doesn't happen.
And now that I've head many chances to experience deaths, especially those of my parents, I guess I'm more and more familiar in accepting it and thinking about it. But it still is something I NEED to conscientiously think about.
Reflecting back though, Death was not a REAL thing to me until I lost my high school best friend. Losing her was a shock that lasted 2 full years. My mortality shot through my mind in losing her. The promise we once made to revisit Paris in 1995 or 1996 when we went on our school trip was never going to materialize. And it haunted me that one could die so young. She was only 33 or 34. And so tragic a timing too, as she had just met the love of her life.
Losing my paternal grandfather was perhaps the most natural one. It was the first death and funeral and the first experience of losing someone close to me where there was a long cherished history.
Losing my beagle was the third death I remember next. This one was a kick in my gut. I felt so much physical pain. Unlike the full on grief and cry mode of losing my grandpa, or the haunting feelings that stayed and lingered from losing a best friend... This one was like a real punch I felt everyday for a month. Especially those nights I would hear my neighbor's dog bark upon my arriving home to a dog-less home. I felt such grief that my dog had to die while the neighbor's dog lived.
It's interesting that the human mind is so designed to crave breath, water, air, and nutrition. Even social connection and a lot of ego driven issues and survival issues. But in order to live that Regretless or Regret-Free Life, it doesn't organically happen. One needs to pause these instincts of living; clarify one's values and motivations, and constantly remind oneself that The Days ARE Numbered, that one does not know if this day or the next shall be the one that draws in that last breath.
And with raging wars and territorial disputes across the globe, we're facing a new world order where the past 80 or so years of relative peace and prosperity are no longer sustainable. We've entered back into the Aries/Battle prone era. Our baser instincts and competition for survival have surfaced as the new normal.
For sure, the pandemic phase has ushered us into this new uncertain times and given us some practice run at adaptability. I wonder if these external eruptions actually aid us in gaining more clarity about what makes our lives more complete, fulfilling, and regret free. For me, the Covid lockdown era taught me to really ponder about long term planning and to prioritize health & immune system maintenance.
Now, we're navigating even more complex global geo-political issues. And that sharpens the need for more regular reflection on what makes one's life complete.
To close, I know that Marcus Aurelius is the more popular choice I see online, but I am more impartial to Seneca's quotes. So here are two of them.
And a toast to the sneaky notion of Death & all of its slippery ways that escape my mind.
Lately I have been ruminating on this quote, "How you do anything is how you do everything." This was something I noticed in my business life as being 'very true' and I am seeing how it isn't just in business.
So tonight after driving home from work, I looked up how to 'breathe' and practiced inhaling/exhaling.
The reviews on it are quite divided. But I will give myself 10 minutes more to see if it is any good.
On the work front though, it was very beneficial to practice 'improving' on my managerial and organizational tasks. I got my classroom cleaned up and it felt amazingly powerful, so much so that I feel motivated to something of the same for my home office.
I came across this graph or chart thingy on Facebook today.
It was an article I read a while ago.
But it resonated on a deeper, more concrete level this time.
So, I haven't written much in this blog but this is where my more 'gripping Core Issues' are shared, and I have a need to process my own thinking tonight.
Back on May 2nd, 2015, I was attending my cousin's wedding. I used to be quite close to her in my mid to late 20s, but we had lost touch for several years. I was curious to whom she was getting married to. Especially because she said she wasn't getting married to the guy she had dated who was working in the Middle East.
Well. It was a church wedding, and I was quite blown away by the sermon that day. The pastor was a lady who was very fervent and outspoken. Said a few very radical things. Initially, I thought wow, she must be totally crazy. I mean, she was claiming that most marriages today fail because we are not living accordance with the Bible. The wedding ceremony that day included an exchange of vows which was also very surprising if not impressive. It was the most well articulated promise I had ever seen a man and a woman exchange thus far. The groom vowed to the bride that he will 'Use the Language of Love' and the bride promised the groom to 'Use the Language of Submission.' Submission? Are you crazy? You're saying women should 'Follow the Orders of Her Husband?' as in, like a slave?? I was raised by a semi-feminist Mom who was well educated so this statement was truly offensive to my thinking.
But the sermon continued and she proved her point during a fully 60-80 minute sermon. It was obvious despite her quoting of the bible, she was super insightful about how a Korean marriage is like for the vast marriage of the population. She wasn't just faking knowledge. She knew what a man and a woman is really like in a marriage in 21st century Korea/Seoul. And she cracked a few jokes which surprised me even more.
Anywho. Fastforward a year and 9 months to today, and after attending her church and getting Christened and trained, and participating in daily scriptures studies, and Small Group Sharings... I am at a crossroad contemplating my Choice of Faith.
Since the beginning of January, we have been studying John's Gospel. My initial impulse to leave the church happened September 2015, after all the 'fun stories' ended (Jacob, Joseph, and Juda and Damal) and we went into Acts of Apostles, Romans, and Leviticus. And week after week, the fun died out, less jokes were made, and this got shit-crazy Heavy.
On top of all this, my Anger Gauge was rising. There were these confusing, double-speak stuff going on. And what appeared initially as a coherent and reliable, unified teaching gradually began to show its 'clay feet.'
I don't know, maybe the problem is that I'm way more Fundamentalist than even my Fundamentalist Church. But, the more I tried to follow to the best of my ability what my Church and Scripture Studies proved difficult and impossible to fulfill.
Before I launch into the 'problems' let me assert though that being at this Church had had its merits and there were reasons to give it credence. My family relationship has been restored, a few personal 'mini miracles' have happened. Even my ENTP-ADDness improved as I worked on my daily scripture studies. And a lot of my Intercession prayers for others have come true.
However, (here comes all the good stuff!) as this church is an Evangelical one, the brunt of the authority relies on 'The Word of God.' Which is basically the 2 bibles; Old Testament and the New Testament.
Even though my church was helpful with family life improving, it really became a sore point for me in my career life. Week after week, we hear that our focus should be on the Kingdom of God, and making a Successful Material Life our main focus is basically a 'Sin.' This began to be a bigger problem when the teaching some days focused on denying this material pleasure and focus, with other days preaching to us that we should still be 'good stewards' of God. To me, this was double speak. And my misery grew inside. I grew up with a highly successful father, Industry was probably the only sole value my parents agreed upon. Work ethics was our life. I knew how to live that life. I didn't know what my Church really wanted me to do regarding my career. Do you fucking want me to succeed and have a lucrative business or not? It became clearer as time piled up, the Church has not declared with clarity to what degree they really expected us to follow up on their teachings.
I met with the pastor who was in charge of Youth Sector (even though I'm almost 40, unmarried people get lumped up into this sector unless you specify that you want to join the Professional or Career People Sector). I told him that I am troubled a) I didn't have a real reception of Jesus and not sure what that is supposed to be like, b) it feels to me that Image Consulting is directly against the heart of Christian teaching.
He did a reasonable job defending the Faith, but it didn't solve all of my problems. So that was September, and it is February right now, and I still haven't had a personal 'Reception of Jesus.' I shared this with my Church friends and some had a personal reception, others had not. Most encouraged me that this will 'happen in God's time.'
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Now, here are some of the issues that bothered me about the biblical scriptures that I came across:
#1. Use of Astrology For My Business - I had planned on using Astrology for my Image Consulting Business, and my Church advised me not to. I came across a sermon where my pastor preached about King Saul and how he sought out a Female Astrologer and how we as Christians should not use it. I had to go into research mode why this is. And this sprang up bigger problems for me... the more I knew, the less credible the Bible became as a whole.
#2. Molech - there were some passages where the Bible kept repeating that Baal Worship and Molech Worship are to be avoided at all cost. It was given in such a crude and blunt way, I had to look these up. Seeing this at first glance, I thought, OK, sacrificing babies and putting them in fire, that's just plain wrong. But further research led me to think, wait a minute, didn't Abraham get asked to sacrifice Isaac? So, Old Testament God is allowed to test Abraham's faith by doing something the New Testament God says WE shouldn't do? God, you drunk? There is absolutely no consistency here. On top of which, if Jesus IS the son of God, God himself is acting LIKE Molech. He killed his own son. So yeah, this just doesn't fly. Not to my logical, coherence seeking brain. This is just completely offensive to me and my Intelligence. If this is a higher being than me, God needs to behave better.
#3. Poverty Consciousness - Maybe this is what really bothers me about my Church. As described above, there is an Unclarified view of Money at my church. We are told repeatedly that we should not seek to be 'rich' and 'prosperous' because 'Money Worship' is sinful and offensive to God. This is Idolatry. Worship of anything OTHER THAN God is in fact a sin. And yet, my church has no problem, taking away a tithe of my income. If I followed everything the church tells me to do, I will end up a 'Loser' who doesn't do well in business, who focuses on saving other souls, and basically end up like Jesus's disciples.
#4. Implication of Martyrdom as Our Prize - My cousin listened to me and my issues and her first response was that my nature is highly focused on 'the future.' I guess she's right. The Bible's more revered figures, and this includes Jesus himself - all of them died in SUCH HORRENDOUS WAYS. I have not read all of the Bible but I was raised Catholic, a Sunday Catholic and I know that Peter was hung upside down and was martyred, John's head was cut off and given to Salome on a platter, Jesus was crucified and tortured. And yet, the Church keeps saying, we need to BE MORE LIKE JESUS. And oftentimes, we are told that as Christians we need to be long suffering, and LONGER suffering than our Un-Evangelized brothers and sisters. Because basically, we are loved by Jesus, and we are saved, but they are not. It really sets us up for Spiritual Superiority, and then we are told that we shouldn't be boastful just because we were the first to believe. Hearing these 'Unnatural Demands' makes me feel crazy. It's like a long list of Should's. Whatever Grace was formed in me through this Church, the Church exacerbated my Doubts and Anxieties in multitude. The more I tried to make sense of the whole, the less it made sense to me. There were so many internal inconsistencies and the Church could not help me resolve each of them. They didn't care. Or, all they could say was 'Pray' and 'Wait' until God would reveal it to me. Yeah, right.
#5. Suicide - One of the big no-no's of a Christian Faith is that one should not take their own life. But if Jesus himself WAS God, and God IS omnipotent, isn't allowing himself to be put to death on the cross, even if it is for the sake of our sins, basically a Suicide?
Anyway. So, these were some of the issues I was running into. Where I had to look up sources outside of my Church's teaching.
* * *
My current understanding is that an Evangelical Church is nothing other than a 'Jesus Franchise' for the Socially Minded. I don't think the pastor who set their churches up intended to 'hurt' their followers. But when most scholarly trained pastors and ministers are fully aware of the discrepancies within the Bible, I don't understand how they do not bring this fact up in their ministries.
My Dad told me a decade ago, that there are at least 14 different ways to study the bible. That's how many standard interpretation of bibles there could be. Add to that other flavorings here and there, it is no surprise how diversified and un-unified Churches really are. And that's where the whole Franchise Business idea fits into this scheme.
Here on, I want to include a few of my findings... That puts the Holy Bible, the Word of God in a more historical context. My short conclusion for today is this: each believer and taker of Faith has a different need for a Church and God, and Jesus. Some can believe even though the Bible is faulty and the unreliability within the scriptures does not affect their Faith, solely because they are invested in their 'Personal Relationship with Jesus' whatever that entails. Others though, like me, will have trouble unless they KNOW that the Bible is a credible source, and for us, deconversion is a natural course because Absolute God cannot be constructed upon a Flawed Text. It's in a way, if you're really passionate about it and dig around, you end up finding so many facts that you can't stay Christian; if you're weak in your powers of critiquing and analyzing and happy just gobbling up what your pastor says, yeah, you will stay in the fold a lot longer, perhaps for life.
OK. Here are the sources I liked:
#1. Bible as a Plagiarized Text: Christianity is a Egyptian Myth - Horus=Jesus, Isis=Mary, Osiris=God, Amun=Amen, Apophis=Devil
This shows how Christianity as we know it is a direct copy and paste of ancient religions and mythology. It is a good collection of visuals that makes a singular point! Christianity cannot be a God inspired text, with these many plagiarized and non-Christian sources... The bible is not authentic. Nor is it 'holy' or of a 'monotheistic' God.
#2. A Possible Tracing of Jesus - Jesus: King of Edessa | The TRUE origins of JESUS CHRIST w/ Ralph Ellis
Ralph Ellis though not a scholar, has interesting ideas about whom Jesus might really have been. He has numerous great talks and books and I think a lot of his ideas though not proven fully, makes reasonable claims that a rational thinker could mull over...
#3. New Testament Scholar Leaves His Faith - Top Bible scholar leaves Christianity .. Prof. Bart D. Ehrman reveals the truth about the Bible
Bart Ehrman is probably the most reputable source for a rational thinker who wants to examine the Bible and Early Christianity from an enlightened and realistic perspective. He does not fall into sensationalizing and conspiring ways to prove his points; he sticks to a scholastic examination of the New Testament as a text, without condemning Christianity as a whole. He does state that he is anti-Fundamentalism of any sort, whether it is a Christian one or an Atheist one. What he purposes to do is get people to examine their own beliefs and what it is they are believing.
#4. St. Paul and Josephus Flavius - Actually this was one of the first video that I found in researching the origins of Christianity, which led me to Ralph Ellis. Origin of Christianity - The Piso Flavian Dynasty
It turns out, that many of my Facebook friends who came from a committed Christian background who have read the bible all knew how Paul's Gospels had no bearing on Christ. He never quoted Jesus and he espoused very different views to the traditional views of the Hebrew God. It is no wonder, after seeing the above video as well as Ralph Ellis's video, and Dr Ehrman's talks (he doesn't mention Josephus though for some reason, just that Paul is different from the other Gospels) why the bible has so many unresolved problems.
I got into some conversations on Facebook with some of my friends regarding Christian faith, and one of my friends is an author who has researched this for decades! Here is a link to his blog on the topic of St. Paul...
Glenn Hefley
Here's something I wrote up on Paul if you are interested.
#5. Regarding the Astrology bit and how it's tied to the Christian beliefs...
Here is what I found...
I can't remember exactly which video I saw this on, but it turns out that during the Roman Empire's rule, Jews who lived in Palestine were a bit of a headache for the governing body. Not only that, in the early Christian era, there wasn't just one church of Jesus, there were two big groups. The Jewish people at the time attended the traditional church of Jesus, the Nazarene Church. This group actually practiced Astrology and their synagogues had large images of the zodiac on their floors. (I think it was Ralph Ellis who said this...) But the gentiles who were the newly recruited Christians of that time, were forming a new Church, and these were the Christians that we are familiar with from our Western Christian churches today. Josephus Flavius was a Jewish young man working for the Roman Empire, and he basically IS Paul in the bible... who had a need to appease the two opposing forces, the real Jews and the governing powers of the Roman Empire.
OK folks. That is all I have for tonight.
May we make 'informed decisions' over whom we give our Power to...
I was just listening to Steve Jobs's commencement speech at Stanford on YouTube, and this really stuck with me.
I actually began to LIVE IT though, yesterday.
And boy, what a true gem of a wisdom that one sentence is.
It really made me see how I was accustomed to general "busy-ness" of living, rather than TRULY choosing how to spend the gift of time God has blessedly given to me.
It's really simple, but it has its own gravity, and gives you traction. You will expend your life energy TRULY on what is of utmost important to you.
Try it.
I'm on day 2, and just blown away by its power to channel me to higher purpose and path.
My friend mentioned The Buried Life recently on Facebook. Apparently, she had gone to an event and heard them live! Lucky duck! Well, I checked out their Facebook, their official site, and their Pinterest and here are some inspirational pictures from the wonderful team! :-)
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And here are some more!
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In case you're wondering, this is what they look like...
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This is what their original list of 100 looks like!
I like her suggestions for journaling.
She recommends that you write the events of your day backwards to the moment you awoke. And then you ask yourself three questions.
1. What surprised me today?
2. What touched my heart today?
3. What inspired me today?
I've found that of all the diaries I kept in the past, there were so many of the entries that didn't really seem to matter much after the years had turned to dust.
I wish I could keep a journal that does more than just that!
I am still looking for the right 'frame of mind' or the right 'thread' that pieces my life that'd hold well, when I look back on it.
I found this on Kindle the other night. Ever since my best friend from highschool years passed a way last Winter, I've had this feeling of something 'hanging over me' and I just couldn't quite put a finger on how to deal with it.
This book was a helpful read. It DID get me more into the frame of mind I wanted about Death.
The question here posed, 'What if today were your LAST...?' got me to think also about, 'What if there were NO tomorrow...?' and although they have overlaps I feel that ultimately, they drive different points.
The hardest part though is the other aspect of 'framing' this concept around death, if your mindset REALLY got itself wrapped around the notion of ABSOLUTELY NO TOMORROWS, then each day of your life WILL be focusing on using up or enjoying exactly what is in front of you. BUT if you knew you had 20 days left to live, 12 days, or even 3 days left to live, your 'strategy' and what you choose to go for could be entirely different! For me, at least, this is what is driving me crazy and 'stuck.'
I'll have to experiment I guess. For some, they'd be content focusing on really 1 day at a time. For others, a list like Goddard's might do the trick.
Last night, as I pondered over this, my initial thoughts were to go and buy myself a sewing machine. I thought that my biggest regret would be to not have that experience of a buzzing busy sewing machine.
Now that I am semi-awake now, my mind is perplexed at not knowing how to resolve the 'Accomplishment Issue' and how long it takes to complete things.
OK. Well. Today is Day 12,776 for me.
Anything more than 600 feels like quite a lot to me.
But when I think of sequences, anything more than 9 or 12 is quite a bit of length.
Or if you compared 1 day against 2 days, even that is a huge deal!
I found this video while searching for some motivation to help me declutter. Interestingly, it's really gotten me back to my Bucket-List. :-> Hope this inspires you today!!
Last night, I couldn't get to sleep. That usual sense of *guilt* that I haven't done enough, didn't finish what I was supposed to, or could have done more of was hanging over me. And that feeling just REALLY bothered me.
How is it, that when I am living my own life in my own skin, I can't control this feeling?
Feeling annoyed, wanting to do away with it once and for all, I started searching the words "closure" and "completion" on my Galaxy Tab Kindle. I found one book that merited attention.
I didn't quite finish the book, it was already close to 4am, but I feel I have found a new *mantra* for my predicament. A predicament that's gone on for more than 2 decades now!
You can read the review to the book here. It's called Don't Start What You Can't Finish - The Book Of Completionand written by Morag Campbell. Reading the book, I feel like I have reset my bottomline. So often, I would have these delusional thoughts; thinking I could accomplish a million things all at once. We all know that that is hokum (to quote Sheldon Cooper).
I read somewhere that the best way to feel happy on a daily basis is to live each day and feel that "good tired" feeling at the end of your day.
I just got off the phone with my sister who told me to write out a *realistic* timetable for my day. And see how many free hours I ACTUALLY have. She said hers was at best a 2 hr per day... and that I might have more as I have no kids. She also mentioned that in her experiment to sleep earlier (apparently it helps you lose weight also!) she found that unless there was something fun and enjoyable to do in the morning hours, it was so easy to just go back to sleep after waking up early. So the best way to work this is to a) sleep early, b) watch the fun American TV shows IN THE MORNING. Not at night!
OK. Gotta go now. But I hope this little pebble in the world wide web pond touches upon the lives of other quality-sleep-seekers that come across this post!
OK. So I found something that could give rise to an on-going project for me.
One type is the reader response journal or literature log, in which learners record their responses to readings.
http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-2/journal.htm
The diaries I kept -- sporadically over the years -- relying on the events of my day and also the intensity of my emotions have consistently proven themselves to be unhelpful. They were unbalanced and temporal at best. Hardly the type of record I would like to preserve as a testament to my life and living.
Instead a consistent theme or a question or cluster of issues with attention to some detail might actually prove more valuable as information over time.
It needs to be a documentation and log, rather than an emotional thing.
Some of my most natural habitual activities are... a) dressing my truth, b) shopping to see what's out and what's new, c) books mostly self-help on Kindle, d) American TV shows, e) health and recovery, and f) interior design.
Hmmm... Maybe I'll keep a Response Journal of American TV shows.
Lately I've been giving more thought to what I would really like at the end of my life. The difficulty in establishing exactly what I want out of life springs from all my competing desires. But out of them all, what I would love to be able to look back on is that one Constant, a thing that threads all the days of my life into one cohesive whole.
I wonder what that *glue* or *thread* might be. For some this would be a diary they keep, others might document their life in video or photo format. But whatever it is, I believe it would be some form or variation of *Observation* they made on Earth during their fleeting stay here.
In order to come to a decision, I will have to explore my options and see what some others have done to preserve the days of their lives.
Some very generic answer might be Anne Frank's diary... a lot of writers and photographers or natural scientist or historians works.
But who knows. I might be able to come across something truly unique and extraordinary!
Karol Gajda's book Luxury of Less: The Five Rings of Minimalism does an excellent job of helping you focus on Life's Essentials. There is a monthly challenge for each ring.
Ring 1 : health (and not just physical health). Ring 2 : wealth Ring 3 : relationships Ring 4 : experiences Ring 5 : the Void
I just finished one Writing Prompt which asked me what I would do if there was only one day left to live. And to detail the day from beginning to end.
What became apparent to me was to know what my nature is, and to live, dress, and Express My True Nature.
Right now, I am learning about Dressing Your Truth by Carol Tuttle and her team. So many women have transformed from discovering their true nature. And living and dressing their truth.
I think it would be AWESOME if everyone got to live and dress and Express Their Truth in this lifetime. :-)
So I've been pondering on how I can either choose or frame my "Target Goals" for my Life List or Bucket List. It is a tricky thing though, to craft just exactly WHAT REALLY MATTERS to you in life.
What does Success mean for YOU? or ME?
When I was younger, it was all about *Accomplishment* -- getting good grades, winning the approval of teachers, parents, you-name-it-authority-figures. And I had good reason too, for living that way. It was encouraged by parents, society, school, even church.
But the problem with those goals was that you would invariably end up accomplishing your goal, and then you get a few thrilling moments of Pride and Sense of Completion. Only to realize that you are back to NOT having a goal of that caliber. Then you have to search a new goal that can meet your inner satisfaction and/or some outer form of approved success.
Things took on a turn for me though, when my father who had been pretty much a workaholic almost died when I was in my early 20s. He had lost his work-life balance. And that one experience really made me start to question whether the Strive-For-Accomplishment-Model was really worth anything.
Still, life continued, and I began to search for other more exciting modes of being. But yielded no prominent fruits. Then some time in my mid-20s, I discovered Recovery groups which held a lure over me. I wondered if this would give me something more holistic and worthy. I focused on it and it did give me some very necessary tools for basic self care which I had not known before. But I found it hard to maintain a proper balance between my online and offline existence; and also the gap between my cultural reality of living in Korea versus the more American way of thinking and seeing things that colored the culture of Recovery circles.
OK. So. Those are just some thoughts that I've been pondering in wanting to live a "better" life. Today I found a book in Amazon Kindle Store... that may or may not answer my ruminations on this.
OK. So I am not that hung up on my writing be a bestseller. Just doing it means a heck of a lot more to me than trying to make it this way or that. My job is to get it out of me!
I just bought a nice little book by Bryan Cohen called "1,000 Creative Writing Prompts" for my lovely delightful Kindle.
I just want to keep writing. Writing itself is the goal. I have attempted two NaNoWriMo challenges and ended up miserable both months. Having a time-frame didn't motivate me. I am not motivated by goals. (This was a recent discovery!) So I am just going to enjoy the process.
I feel pretty sure that just getting it out of me would be a good enough first step. If something emerges out of the body of typed up stuff, great. If not, I would still have a lot of fragments to play with and I can live with that.
Aight. Back to the reading table then.
Going to pick one writing prompt for today. See where I land...
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