They said you were handsome

And I said, “wish I were rich and successful.”

And the deeper part of me said, “understand that rich people would wish to be handsome but they can’t. Even plastic surgery has its limits. Just be grateful.”

I don’t know if I attract depressed people, vulnerability, or that people judged that they should feel comfortable telling their darkest low towards me. Or it’s just a fact that people are being stressed more easily nowadays. Maybe life pressure is higher now, or that mental strength is weakening.

Sometimes I feel like maybe my role is a healer, but I don’t seem like it. I’m not really healing. I never feel like I heal someone. Although I do hope my presence at least could become a temporary pain reliever.

So for you, for those people whom somehow are unfortunate enough to know me. Here is what I want you to know. Something that I hope can heal you.

First of all,

Accept.

Your pain and your suffering. It exists.

Then, watch it. Watch your pain and suffering. Where does it come from? It never comes in your bodily senses. It comes from your brain. Most pain that I know come from regretting the past or worrying about the future. You live now. You breathe now. You are always safe in the present. Be in the present.

Now while you are in the present. Imagine you have no memory of the past, and no imagination about the future. You exist only in this time, the current time, together with the walls around you, with the phone you are holding, with the people you are with.

Third, make yourself busy. Nothing to do is a friend to mind wandering. Because what is the easiest thing to do when my arms and legs are not moving?

Fourth, let go. By understanding the misery of dwelling in past memories and worrying about the future. One realizes that it’s of no use and unproductive. Therefore they stop doing it. Everytime his mind wanders, there’s a brake to stop doing it.

Fifth, breathe, feel the air you are breathing. Your body that accepts the air. That’s all that matters. Throughout all the misfortunes you may have experienced. You are lucky. You are loved. This can be planned or not planned but please do believe that everything that has happened, it’s because you are loved.

A lion asking for forgiveness is humility, because he doesn’t have to do it, yet he chooses to do it.

A deer asking forgiveness is just natural, because she has no choice.

We’re all a part of the same source (atoms).

So that’s why whether we’re rich or poor, able or disabled, we should be kind, always.

I keep telling myself that.

But what about autistic children? Who fail to understand what’s right and what’s wrong.

What about man eating tribes?

What about Netanyahu?

I still can’t answer that.

Hatred is bad, I know that.

But sometimes through hatred towards right people, people as a collective can be benefited.

Is life not about benefiting more people?

Ah yes. Maybe it’s true.

Now I imagine the sacrifice the minorities have to endure, to “benefit” more people.

Maybe benefit and cost are only illusory concept. Made by humans to determine their own interest.

Maybe Earth heating up is not bad like they say.

Earth cooling down was definitely bad (remember ice age?).

believe that you’re full of blessing even though you’re in the worst situation.

A few months ago, my employee’s daughter was in an accident. A truck hit her motorcycle, breaking the vehicle, and left her leg with scratches.

Considering the other alternative of what might have happened, I said she was so lucky.

My employee said, “yes, but the motorcycle..”

Then just today, I brought that said employee to an office and the topic about her daughter was brought up again.

Then I was reminded that she was actually very lucky.

She could have died.

Among crashes involving trucks, fatality often happens.

But yes, the other alternative was that she never got hit at all. But having that kind of view will not leave you with grateful feeling. Feeling grateful is what makes you happy with few things in life.

Without gratitude, this world is basically hell. Imagine you experience something, be it good or bad, but you cannot find the things you are grateful for.

Gratitude makes this world a heaven.

Why did I say it takes a certain kind of intelligence?

For me myself, because nothing in this world actually matters.

In the vastness of universe, you’ll realize you’re just like an ant you maybe just crushed while walking.

If nothing matters in this world, then what are we here for?

Nothing.

That’s why we should enjoy every moment.

Find happiness in a very short time you have now. If you’re lucky, you will get old, and you’ll realize life is like a blink of an eye. For me myself, I would say “thank you for the experience.”

When I said to find happiness. Just be careful that the happiness you are searching doesn’t come from dopamine, that’s an instant, short lived ones, and when it dies down, it leaves you with craving, the source of unhappiness. What you’re looking for is serotonine, the long-lasting ones. Therefore you also have to be responsible and get along with fellow human beings. Because we humans are programmed for happiness if we feel a sense belonging to fellow humans.

10 years ago, I decided to cut my friend off because he was proud of taking advantage of his employer. Not a direct cut off, instead it was something like slowly drifting away.

I found that his value was troubling, and by doing so, he could have taken advantage of his friends and felt nothing, which I actually still believe.

But right now with my security about myself. I realized I shouldn’t be so judgy. After all, he was a good friend whom I shared so many similarities with.

In life I should become like a father. Forgiving. Accomodating. Self-sacrificing. Reliable.

If I deep dived about what’s going on inside my mind then, it was that I wasn’t going to let anyone become a threat to me. I needed to be safe. So I avoided potential dangers.

But it’s a little different to my schizophrenic friend. I cut him off because of his tendency to hurt himself. And a few times he had an emotional breakdown and smashing nearby things. If he can hurt himself, what’s stopping him from hurting other people? Well for this case, I’m still the same. Something in me tells me to back away. I hope he can survive it though.

I know this is of course not true. They are not more dangerous than normal people. But the scary thing is, they’re not in control.

Why should we be so miserable?

Imagine this era if it’s being written 2000 years later.

Out of 8 billion people, only a handful selected people would be written.

Try to read history 2000 years back, how many names are gonna be recorded? Even in a span of 100 years, 1000 names are gonna be too many.

So forget about making names of yourself. In this world, nothing matters, really. Your disappointment, your hatred, anger, greed, they don’t matter.

Live, for the sake of living! Make enough for yourself. Every passing moment is an opportunity to learn. After all, aren’t we born not knowing anything?

We are born for the purpose to enjoy and experience this life. Savor each present moment. When you laugh, savor the laughter. When you have a conversation, be present in that conversation. Feel the presence of your counterpart. And when you love, feel the blooming sensation of the heart.

When I’m riding motorcycle,

sometimes I am lost in my thoughts,

sometimes I look at my surroundings,

sometimes I just enjoy the breeze of wind,

and sometimes I awe myself with the sunset.

Just now, when I was looking at my surrounding, I caught an eye with a random stranger who was on the road side. Then suddenly I had a few thoughts in an instant:

1. How you look at someone can determine whether you’re hostile or not. There really is a wrong way to look at someone.
2. I remembered in one of a book I read that Mikhail Gorbachev had a piercing eye contact. The author said that it captivated him through eye contact.
3. Then I remembered that I read the book during my university years, basically during a time of identity searching, still researching about this world, what works and what doesn’t work, how I should best behave, how someone works in a society.
4. When I read that book, I thought, “Oh, so someone should have a good strong eye contact to leave a good impression.”
5. But now looking back at what I thought then, it was ridiculous, and very superficial.
6. Keeping eye contact is apparently a western thing, the reason why keeping eye contact feels unnatural to me is because it is unnatural. For me, it feels hostile.
7. Furthermore, there are a lot of things about a person rather than eye contact. Eye contact is not important at all. Elon musk still speaks stutteringly but people respect him all the same because of his money.
8. So in the end, if you want status, money is the definite everything.

when there are bad rumors about someone, and if a friend of this someone are asked to confirm about this, he says,

“As far as I know, he’s not that kind of person.”

I am now thinking about that time I lost my key and the finder sent it back to me.

How good my life is to be surrounded by good people.

But how can you say that?

How about those people who are misfortunate?

Those who always seem to have a bad luck?

Well this is what I say.

I do not care about them, truly.

I can’t care about them.

I shouldn’t care about them.

Otherwise, it’s a betrayal to the giver of fortune, if you do not cherish the fortune you are given, instead you think about the people who experience misfortunes.

It’s the way life is.

After all, aren’t fortunes and misfortunes the same? It depends on how the subject experiences. A situation is just a situation. If it is a fortune or a misfortune is the freedom of its subject. Even death can be a fortune in a certain situation.

If I care about those who find themselves misfortunate, I’m gonna spend every day mourning some subject’s judgement about a situation. Unnecessary. Unproductive. Useless. Lastly, stupid.