Yin and Yang from Taoism

I have to admit that as I think more and more about the yin and yang principle, I gradually am starting to believe it.  It is a little bit strange because at first, I really did not believe it that much.  It seems that the more that I talk about it, the more that I can see instances of it in the real world, and the more that I do believe in it.  It is a very interesting philosophy.

Basically, Taoism understates that there are two equal but opposing forces termed the yang and the yang forces.  These can also be thought of as the darkness and the light forces.

In every situation or in different circumstances, there are two equal but opposing forces that help to balance the world.  These two forces should be present to help to balance to will the world.

Of course, it’s not just about darkness and light, there are many other instances of opposites in the world such as male and female, good and bad, soft and hard.  I believe that this is similar to the principal moderation where you do need both sides to help you succeed.

The Instant Millionaire also talked about the yang and yang principle in the Golfer and the Millionaire.  The Instant Millionaire suggested that we can’t have just the masculine force present.  Similarly, we cannot have just the feminine force present.  We need both forces present in order for a person to succeed.

I think that Western philosophies traditionally do not emphasize this type of natural order in the world as much as Chinese philosophies do, which is one reason why Chinese philosophies are and have been some of the best philosophies that has the world has ever produced.  This emphasis of an understanding that incorporates the natural world into its philosophy is extremely important for a philosophy to be more well-rounded.

Real Life Stories – Fiction versus Non-Fiction

When I was a kid, I used to love reading fiction.  I also enjoyed watching cartoons.  I never understood why on earth anyone would want to watch something like the news, or read history books.  I also never understood why anyone would want to watch documentaries.

However, as I have grown older, I have found that I do enjoy more and more to learn about reading about and watching real life stories.  For example, in the Up series, we have real life documentaries filmed to take advantage and share with us real people’s lives.  These are not made-up stories.  Instead, these are real stories told by real people.

I really enjoy watching real-life stories now.  I also enjoy watching stories that are based on real life.  An example would be Chariots of Fire.  That film was based on the real lives of two Olympic runners.  For some reason, I now enjoy more and more real-life stories because these are the stories that really make you feel for the people and the characters in the story.  They are really situations that have happened, and you can liken that it could happen to you in the future, or perhaps even have already happened to you.

Therefore, as I have grown older, I have found nonfiction to be more interesting than fiction, and I actually do learn and have learned much more from nonfiction.  This is not to say that fiction is unimportant.  It still is highly important to develop the imagination.  Fiction allows us to do this, but I see this occupying a smaller force in our lives as our society progresses to a more technologically advanced society.

New Concept – Schedule Work Around My Life, Not the Other Way Around

I recently have developed a new concept.  I have discovered that it is important to schedule work around my life, and not the other way around.  It’s kind of like the water and pitcher story.  Basically, you put the important things first.  You put the bigger rocks down at the bottom so that they can go into the pitcher and then some smaller rocks on top.  And you keep adding successively smaller rocks.  Finally, you add the water because the water can actually see in between the spaces of the rocks.

Similarly, in life, it’s important to do the important things first.  And then you will schedule the unimportant things around the important things.  If you were to go the other way around, you would never have time to do the important things in life.  This is a major and radical shift that I have been trying to implement during the past few weeks.  I have achieved a certain degree of success in doing so, so it’s actually much better than previously.  I think that I also feel happier because of this, since I am doing the more important things that are more relevant and really fun for myself first.  I’m putting myself first, instead of putting society first.  In this way, I believe that I can achieve a more well rounded and balanced lifestyle.

One of the TED talks that I have listened to suggested that there are actually three components in life.  These three components are actually love, play, and work.  The speaker suggested that these three elements should be in harmony for the person to feel balanced.

I do agree with it in many respects that we do need love, play, and work in order to feel more holistic.  We shouldn’t get addicted to any one of these aspects, and neglect the other ones.  That’s why it’s always important to aim for calmness.  By being calm, you actually don’t desire or get addicted to any one aspect of life.  By not getting addicted to it, you won’t do it all the time, and you will therefore have time for a more balanced lifestyle and more variety of pursuits.

Dealing with Change

My most recent psychologist has helped me answer and understand one of the most perplexing problems that I have had to deal with.  This problem is that I find it very difficult to deal with change.  I am one of those people who prefer constancy over change.  Of course, sometimes I do enjoy having some change around, but I generally enjoy constancy.  I do enjoy variety once in a while, but I think that I enjoy constancy more.

Therefore, dealing with change is a very difficult concept for me.  I am especially saddened to see people leave.  I am also saddened to have a happy situation end.  I am saddened at the end of a touching movie.  All these things, all these changes in stories and in real life affect me deeply.

My psychologist suggested that there are actually two aspects of a person.  One is the animal side of us.  The animal side of us requires constancy.  This includes sleeping and eating, and the daily mundane tasks that we want to do every day.  They are important to us since we are animals.  On the other hand, there is the human element of us.  That human element desires change.  It desires variety and new situations, ideas, or circumstances.  

That human element would probably not be content if we were to stay in one room or live in that room for the rest of our lives.  That human element of us wants ourselves to grow, and to undergo personal growth.  Therefore, this contrasts with the animal side of us, which wants change.

Therefore, how do we reconcile these two aspects?  Well, the psychologist said that it’s important to recognize that change occurs all around us and all the time.  Change is occurring every second of the day, in every situation.  Everything is changing.

Therefore, what we must do is to try to adapt to change.  We must change ourselves in anticipation of the change.  That’s one aspect.  

The other aspect is that we can also have some aspects where we remain constant.  Therefore, as we move and progress through our lives, we have both a constant element and an element that is changing.  

The constant elements are not always the same, and neither are the changing elements.  However, as we move through life, it is important to have some apsectsof our lives  that are the same and do not change–at least for a while, while other aspects of our lives are changing.  This is important for us to balance our lives.

The Friendship Factor

The Friendship Factor was one of the favorite books that I have ever read.  Previously, I had read Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People, but it did not seem to fill a void in the gap of my understanding on dealing with friends.  The Friendship Factor definitely helped to fill that void.  

The Friendship Factor explains things in a way that was very natural and very reasonable.  I enjoyed and learned from a lot of the concepts that it gave.  It helped me understand why I had failed many friendships.  It also helped me forge new friendships.  The advice in that book is completely sound, and I believe that most people should try to read a copy of it.  Unfortunately, we are not taught these interesting and highly useful principles at school, but the good thing is that we can learn them from reading this book.  It’s definitely one of my favorite books on managing and handling friends.

Amadeus (the movie)

Amadeus was one of the most interesting movies that I watched in high school.  It talked about the life of Mozart, and it did it in a very interesting way.  I was totally fascinated by it.  I had never really known about the life of Mozart in much detail, or least not the character of Mozart.  Perhaps it was not an entirely accurate portrayal of Mozart or of the events that occurred.  However, it was a very absorbing an interesting film to watch.  I think it was a masterpiece because it was uniquely made.

Composing Music

I had a wonderful music theory teacher.  He taught me music harmony and he taught it with a lot of good will.  He was a wonderful and very kind teacher.  However, he was also extremely competent.  

He studied in England, and decided that he would set up his own business and run his own music theory teaching studio.  In that way, he said that he would not need to pay someone else money for his services.  He did not charge a very expensively at all, and his services were well worth the fees that we paid.

I really enjoyed learning harmony both by correspondence and by learning from a teacher.  Music harmony is a form of music theory.  Basically, you learn the harmonic scales of Western music.  

Bach was a major influence on Western music, and much of what we learned was also centered on his music.  We learned how to harmonize music in four parts, and I think that’s very useful to learn.  It may seem a little bit archaic, but once you learn those principles, you can very much vary it to suit your own style.

What I really like about composing music is that it really develops and exercises your mind.  It increases your intelligence by improving your creativity.  

Music composers are such creative people.  They are also highly intelligent, I am sure.  

I also enjoy composing music.  I feel that it expands my creativity, and gives the world something new.  

I have never really sat down for long periods of time to compose music, but I have composed two short little pieces for the Internet.  

I recently bought an electronic piano and also the PrintMusic software, which will allow me to more easily enter notes onto the computer and onto the five-line staff such that I can print out the music or play it back later on.

I have highly admired music harmony in music composition.  I hope that I will be able to make use of some of the musical theory and harmony that I have learned, and perhaps compose some music, or perhaps use what I have learned from the creativity of that process, to improve the lives of other people and myself.

Mary Poppins (Disney)

Mary Poppins was one of those cute little films made by Disney.  It was one of the two films and that starred Julie Andrews in the mid-60s, the other one being the Sound of Music, which I also really liked.

Mary Poppins had an especially deeper meaning for me because it talked a lot about caring and sharing, and for glimpsing into the world to understand some of the more unfortunate people.  It had a lot of deep meaning and feeling, and was very passionate.  It also had many light and comedic aspects.  I really enjoyed the film, which is why, I guess, it has become a classic.

Up Series, Directed by Michael Apted (BBC)

One of the favorite series that I have ever watched was the Up Series, directed by Michael Apted.  It was a real-life documentary that talked about the lives of 14 kids when they were seven years old.  They truly went back every seven years and interviewed them again.  

One of the movie reviews that I read a few years ago said from this movie, we can find that the ordinary is beautiful.  Ordinary lives are just as beautiful as the fancy news stories that surface every day in the news.  In fact, I would say that ordinary life is even more beautiful.  There is beauty in truth.

I learned a lot about life and living in those series.  The reason that I watched it was because I wanted to decide how to live my life.  I believe that by learning how other people live their lives, or how other people suggest that you should live your life, you can learn a great deal.

What I find so completely amazing about this film is that they were able to go back to this project with such dedication every seven years.  It is such a difficult task to do something like even in daily life.  This work will become one of the great historical masterpieces of our time.

I really became immersed in the stories that the characters, or the people in this documentary, told.  I really felt that I was able to go into their hearts deeply.  Michael Apted did such a wonderful job of interviewing them and trying to get them to speak from the heart.

I guess what struck me the most and what was most important to me in the Up Series was the reality, or the trueness, that came out of this series.  It was so real and authentic.  I have really enjoyed watching and following this series.

Being Left Handed

I am actually left-handed in the sense that I use my left hand to write.

There are generally fewer left-handers than right-handers. I believe that the demographics are currently shifting such that there is an increase in left-handed people, that is perhaps a due to society becoming more civilized, allowing people to be able to develop their right brain more fully. Left handedness shows that people have a more fully developed, or perhaps, a more dominant right brain.

This indicates that they have high creativity. Creativity is perhaps a more important trait than reasoning, which is something that’s controlled more by the left brain, and,  therefore, most right-handed people would be more reasoning oriented.

I believe that creativity is valuable because with creativity, you can jump around in you’re thinking. You don’t have to reason your way through it.

Sometimes your reasoning can be faulty, and it’s better just to jump around and do different things through creativity. By trying different approaches creatively, you can actually gain much more than by reasoning your way through different lines of reasoning.

Quite a few successful people were left handed. I believe that Bill Gates, Leonardo da Vinci, and maybe even Einstein were left-handed. Don’t quote me on that, but I think that they were.  In other words, the cream of the crop are also left-handed, indicating that left handedness is a very important trait for high intelligence.

I use my right hand to play racquet sports and shoot with a hockey stick, but I do use my left hand to shoot the basketball. I’m not totally sure if I used my right hand to play racquet sports on purpose just for variety, but I don’t think that it wasn’t on purpose. I think I use my right foot to kick a soccer ball. Therefore, I do think that for some activities, I do use my right-handed side.

Certainly, I am using the mouse with my right hand these days. However, I still try to maintain my left hand to have more activity by pressing the mouse keys on my laptop with my left hand, and the real mouse with my right hand.  

Of course, these days, people can develop their left and right brains more fully by typing on the keyboard.  In the past, I did so by playing piano. These days, people are a little bit luckier in that they can develop both sides of their brain simultaneously by typing.  Still, I have gained very much by learning piano because it forced me to develop both my left and right hands with clarity.  In that sense, playing piano was also an activity that I possessed the foresight to perform, similar to devoting time to writing as a kid.