Another late evening tonight. More info than usual to process this day. Mind you, doesn't take that much more before I declare it 'more info' than usual if your mind's doesn't operate with the gears fully engaged most of the time! They call it 'off with fairies' in the old days. These days it might be ADHD. Who knows...? :)
The nude Madonna shots at Seven Dials was interesting, although was expecting more of them. She looked so young. She was only 20 then, not a singer yet, and was paid US$30 for three hours of posing in the nude for a photography class (so she could pay for a dance class). Some were full frontal but after the last couple of decades of exposure, not terribly shocking to see. 3k pounds for a decent sized print, or 1.50 pounds for a set of 4 postcards of her nude shots. No prizes for guessing which ones we opted for. This particular photo is the one I like best but UNFORTUNATELY they didn't have that one in postcard size.
When I said I was a person 'easily pleased', I wasn't joking was I? The brief trip to Chinatown was very nice. Cham, red bean pau, char ko and chicken veggie springroll was heavenly (but nowhere as delicious as Nim's sambal ikan bilis!!!). Bless her for going through all that trouble of cooking lunch. That lunch will keep me going for another six months!
Oh my God... Barney is asleep on the couch next to me and he's actually snoring! Well, not snoring, but sort of sighing in his sleep.
So why do things happen that don't make sense at all? Well, Eckhart Tolle has a theory. When I first read his book (started with 'A New Earth' first, then picked up 'The Power of Now'), 95% of what he discussed in the book just made sense to me. It was a strange, almost eerie, experience reading 'A New Earth'. Then moved on to the series of web casts available through Oprah's website. And in between there was neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor's 'A Stroke of Insight'. At that point I felt I was taking in quite a load of 'touchy feely' stuff / info, and that left me feeling something else is missing, something more 'factual', more 'provable'. God knows how I finally came across JB Taylor - was a through a search on Google or did I hear/read about her book somewhere? When I visited Borders perhaps?). But anyway, her book provided me with some 'quantifiable' / scientific perspective of the topic of 'enlightenment'. The whole thing ceased to be simply 'touchy feely'. And again, it JUST MADE SENSE to me.
The momentum of my 'new discovery' eventually led me to Thich Nhat Hanh and his book 'The Miracle of Mindfulness'.I really hate to use cliches, but it really was a bit of a funny path I went on. Well maybe not THAT funny - after all I've always felt attracted to things like meditation and yoga. It just felt kinda natural. I have a few of his books and if I had my way, I'd probably have all of his books by now. But I soon realised that I was buying books faster than I could read them. Still haven't finished reading two of his books that I read (oh yes, through all of this, I was reading more than one book at a time, alternating between the two and halfway through, adding a third, etc). (Note to self: ask Mike to bring these over here.)
What WAS funny was where all this eventually landed me. I figured, if I'm going to be on this 'soul-searching' path right now, then I may as well cover ALL bases. So I ended up buying a tidy little pocket-sized holy Quran translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. I've had a normal sized (read: LARGE) translation by Abdullah which I got years ago, but I never managed to finish reading it. So it was really quite funny that my second bout of 'soul searching' (ugh, that sounds cheesy) took me back to it. The advantage of the pocket-sized one is that I can put it by my beside and every night before I go to sleep, I'd pick it up and read a few lines or passages from it. You know, like how some people have pocket-sized Bibles (of which, btw, I own one as well) by their bedside. It's fantastically convenient. And guess what? This time around, I actually completed reading the entire Quran.
The long and short of it is, misfortune befall us in order to nudge us towards something, to bring our attention to something we may not realise. I dare say I'm 99.99% certain that 'things happen for a reason'. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we eventually 'figure out' and understand the reason for it. But in many instances, we never do. There were many threads I saw, which cross-crossed all the different sources I had access to, all these different books, personalities and experiences. And all these have led me to a good place, a good way of being. But it does take practice to STAY there.
Well, for all I know all this may just boil down to AGE! Maybe it's just a case of becoming wiser with age and experience... who knows, really? But whatever it is, I'm grateful that I experienced (and am still experiencing) it and hope to continue for many years to come.
1.15am. Bedtime. Thank you for today. Nite nite. :)
The nude Madonna shots at Seven Dials was interesting, although was expecting more of them. She looked so young. She was only 20 then, not a singer yet, and was paid US$30 for three hours of posing in the nude for a photography class (so she could pay for a dance class). Some were full frontal but after the last couple of decades of exposure, not terribly shocking to see. 3k pounds for a decent sized print, or 1.50 pounds for a set of 4 postcards of her nude shots. No prizes for guessing which ones we opted for. This particular photo is the one I like best but UNFORTUNATELY they didn't have that one in postcard size.When I said I was a person 'easily pleased', I wasn't joking was I? The brief trip to Chinatown was very nice. Cham, red bean pau, char ko and chicken veggie springroll was heavenly (but nowhere as delicious as Nim's sambal ikan bilis!!!). Bless her for going through all that trouble of cooking lunch. That lunch will keep me going for another six months!
Oh my God... Barney is asleep on the couch next to me and he's actually snoring! Well, not snoring, but sort of sighing in his sleep.
So why do things happen that don't make sense at all? Well, Eckhart Tolle has a theory. When I first read his book (started with 'A New Earth' first, then picked up 'The Power of Now'), 95% of what he discussed in the book just made sense to me. It was a strange, almost eerie, experience reading 'A New Earth'. Then moved on to the series of web casts available through Oprah's website. And in between there was neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor's 'A Stroke of Insight'. At that point I felt I was taking in quite a load of 'touchy feely' stuff / info, and that left me feeling something else is missing, something more 'factual', more 'provable'. God knows how I finally came across JB Taylor - was a through a search on Google or did I hear/read about her book somewhere? When I visited Borders perhaps?). But anyway, her book provided me with some 'quantifiable' / scientific perspective of the topic of 'enlightenment'. The whole thing ceased to be simply 'touchy feely'. And again, it JUST MADE SENSE to me. 
The momentum of my 'new discovery' eventually led me to Thich Nhat Hanh and his book 'The Miracle of Mindfulness'.I really hate to use cliches, but it really was a bit of a funny path I went on. Well maybe not THAT funny - after all I've always felt attracted to things like meditation and yoga. It just felt kinda natural. I have a few of his books and if I had my way, I'd probably have all of his books by now. But I soon realised that I was buying books faster than I could read them. Still haven't finished reading two of his books that I read (oh yes, through all of this, I was reading more than one book at a time, alternating between the two and halfway through, adding a third, etc). (Note to self: ask Mike to bring these over here.)What WAS funny was where all this eventually landed me. I figured, if I'm going to be on this 'soul-searching' path right now, then I may as well cover ALL bases. So I ended up buying a tidy little pocket-sized holy Quran translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. I've had a normal sized (read: LARGE) translation by Abdullah which I got years ago, but I never managed to finish reading it. So it was really quite funny that my second bout of 'soul searching' (ugh, that sounds cheesy) took me back to it. The advantage of the pocket-sized one is that I can put it by my beside and every night before I go to sleep, I'd pick it up and read a few lines or passages from it. You know, like how some people have pocket-sized Bibles (of which, btw, I own one as well) by their bedside. It's fantastically convenient. And guess what? This time around, I actually completed reading the entire Quran.
The long and short of it is, misfortune befall us in order to nudge us towards something, to bring our attention to something we may not realise. I dare say I'm 99.99% certain that 'things happen for a reason'. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we eventually 'figure out' and understand the reason for it. But in many instances, we never do. There were many threads I saw, which cross-crossed all the different sources I had access to, all these different books, personalities and experiences. And all these have led me to a good place, a good way of being. But it does take practice to STAY there.
Well, for all I know all this may just boil down to AGE! Maybe it's just a case of becoming wiser with age and experience... who knows, really? But whatever it is, I'm grateful that I experienced (and am still experiencing) it and hope to continue for many years to come.
1.15am. Bedtime. Thank you for today. Nite nite. :)
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