Tag / observe

by Eileen 配仪

挤眉弄眼

On a whim I recorded myself on a call. I imagined myself a dull stone faced worker droning on in rapid mode. I tend to speed along in chaired meetings because I don’t like having meetings but being sandwiched between a rock and a difficult place I have to communicate.

I played back and found everything about myself strange. The way I pulled down on the corners of my mouth to the multitude of facial expressions I pull.

I started my working life as a call centre worker and it is almost as if I never left that first job. Still in a head set after 27 years.

by Eileen 配仪

Notes: Freedom within boundaries

A retirement advice thrown about is one needs to retire to something.

From Will Storr’s book, The Status Game:  Kids, raised by parents who treat their kids as precious and equals of themselves, lack sense of security, respect, humility and were delicate and fragile.

Sole proprietors tell me that it is hard to be self disciplined and structure your day. Self studying is harder because of the lack of discipline.

In my own parenting experience, too much freedom from expectations creates bad behaviours in my kids. 

Creativity and innovation is a response to boundary testing. Structure in our lives is a type of boundary. Is boundary what we crave? 

by Eileen 配仪

Dwelling on status

A status non winner – by that I mean average persons who wins some and lose others – may deal with the whole thing in a sour grape manner: “Not playing that particular game because it not my kind of game.”

A status winner will strive for greater grandiosity to elevate his or her position from the other winners. Their requirements of others and themselves get more and more specific bordering on ridiculousness. He also includes religion as a status game which makes sense from his perspective since his belief appear to be just status games.

I don’t know. His view he paints is strangely depressing.

The players of status game also never ever feels satiated by the amount of status earned which sounds a lot to me like plain ol’ suffering. The kind of suffering that is depicted in Haw Par Villa, of neverending hunger.

by Eileen 配仪

Is that really science? Andrew Huberman morning rituals for well-being and personal developement. 

Lately I have encountered youtube pushing something call non sleep deep relaxation by Andrew Huberman after playing to some sleep related content. I tried it once and felt asleep promptly so I have been using NSDR for sleeping. I soon saw multiple youtube content on his morning rituals claiming to make people better at everything.

 He speaks charismatically and communicates well with public. However, a tiny bit of me wonders if he actually picked these some of these TCM practices to talk about. There is a huge area on  TCM practices for well being and Mediacorp Ch8 often discusses these with a western medicine trained doctor on a show,

I am astonished by how much his ritual sounds like TCM advice for well being that my husband practices.  Sufficient sleep , starting out in the morning to do some relaxation, exercising, showering with cold water while not looking through the phone. (My husband gargles with salt water instead of straight up drinking it.) There are lots of others as well – why didn’t he pick these up?

  • Avoiding cold drinks and food
  • drying hair well before sleep time, eating well before sleep time.
  • going to bed at 10pm (because various organs start their repair at different times of the night)
  • keeping feet warm with socks or warm soaks
  • nourishing soups to supplement health
  • Drinking warm tea or other plain beverages

It’s not only him. There is a huge beauty guru industry  towards traditional practices for great skin. Eg, guasha, jade rollers, staying out of the sun, consuming beauty supplements, etc.

TCM methods are not intellectually protected and therefore cheap. I can see why it is easy to pick it up and run with it. To be frank, the  typical over-educated plumpy/skinny white haired ladies or balding pot bellied finger wagging men is not going to be able sell it as well as good looking, well spoken young people who look like affluent bank sales men.        

by Eileen 配仪

Googling myself on the wayback machine

I was watching a Chinese variety program 50公里桃花屋 (titled Wonderland in English) and there was a ‘game’ where the celebs went to speak in a mic at the open sea in Hainan. What is acceptable in chinese culture is a little strange in the more westernised programs. In variety shows like this, it appears that to encourage strong emotions, especially crying or wailing, is more than acceptable – it drives up the viewership. This explains a bit why 琼瑶 films make consistent appearance during the 80s. Every reality show or competition based program will have a segment to encourage high emotions. However, since the reality program has a number of celebs who won’t talk about their boyfriends/girlfriends, can’t talk about their friends who might be in the same industry, can only talk about their parents. It seemed very acceptable to create high emotions when speaking of their parents and their sacrifices. It is ok to speak of the difficult childhood but the appearance of filial piety win much more acceptance. This is in deep contrast to online chatter in Singapore. There is a lot of angst around narcissistic parents or emotionally unavailable parents so much so that one would have thought a generation of orphans abandoned to grandparents or maids, or being abused on a daily basis.  In all societies, there will be parents who are unable to parent – however the magnitude of such conversation online does not match up to the kind of parenting I have observed in everday life. At most, the feeling of being overwhelmed by parents is likely caused by a lack of space and distance due to geog.

I wondered after turning off the television – more accurately youtube – if I felt sorry for myself, or my upbringing. I have always felt that my friends and my husband had a childhood. I only remembered beatings and piano lessons and homework. Older, I remember the favouritism that my parents practiced. I remember them but it is now so far away I don’t remember those feelings I felt when I was a child. It is as if I am watching someone else’s reel and it is not incredibly interesting. A friend of mine has always complained how robotic I am, and sometimes when she explains how much feelings she has, I am so surprised that there are so much emotions bubbling within a person.  My feelings when they present themselves, are not layered and conflicted but exist the way a primary school child might describe them in a 500 word composition. I am not made of stone, I will often times complain but it sounds like a complain I’ve overheard on a train from a stranger to the friend. Nothing creative or new.