As to my wanting admirers, I think it's just a harmless personal trait in me. Getting positive feedback is one part of my "work" effort to connect with people. When people connect with me, they tell me so in letters, and I feel my work is not wasted. It's different from "working" for the purpose of praises. I think there are two different levels of wanting attention or recognition here. One level is to want people to pay attention to Ah-San the person who writes, and another level is to want people to pay attention to me (Ah-San) who is behind and inside of Ah-San the writer. The one inside is the one who walks on the earth to leave marks for others, and the one outside is the one who writes and interacts with others and reacts to feedbacks. When the outside Ah-San accomplishes and is happy, the inside Ah-San smiles. The problem is, most of the time the outside Ah-San is too noisy and the voice of the inside Ah-San cannot be heard. The good wise words I write/say are from the inside Ah-San who takes the wisdom from that ocean of Truth. Only when the outside Ah-San also listens, can the whole Ah-San be in the state of harmony. Anyway, I think it's not true that I depend my happiness or contentment on the outside world. It's the outside Ah-San that are easily affected, but the inside one understands and knows how to hold still.

Feels so good to hear my inner voice again... Must learn to listen to ourselves. The Self knows all and can always guide us back to the spiritual level of existence.
Happy to share...

-- email excerpt to m

When I say you are weak, you take it as a great insult. It should not be. One of your problems is that you take the meanings of words from the society's common standard as your own. When I say "weak", it has a much deeper meaning than its common sense meaning. (I just checked the dictionary. The meaning that's closet to what I mean is, "not able to resist external force or withstand attack", which is quite true in your case.) So, if we want to understand the deep root of things, we have to go to the root of everything first. You really need to develop your own understanding and definition of meanings of words, or otherwise you are always subject to the confusion of ideas, and be "weak".

For example, we have discussed the issue of infidelity. At first you simply think infidelity means sleeping with someone other than the spouse. When we explore it further, you exclude the case when the other spouse knows and agrees of the sleeping event. And later you decide it's OK to sleep with someone of the same gender but not OK with opposite gender. As we continue, your definition changes, and now it only includes the cases when the sleeping with an opposite gender hurts the other spouse. What do you mean by hurting? Intentionally or unintentionally? You say any sleeping should count as intentional, because you know it hurts you. I say it does not hurt me if you sleep with someone else, and therefore what you do I do not count as infidelity. So your definition for infidelity has to revise again. You say it hurts you because of the possibility that I will leave you for the one I sleep with, but then on the other hand it does not apply to you because you will never cheat on me and you will never leave me. That sounds like double standard first of all, and further confuses our effort to definte infidelity. We have to explore it even further. In the end you will realize that your understanding and definition of infidelity does not really exist like you previously thought! You have simply adopted the meaning from the society without ever questioning it, probably from when you were a teenager. So it is time for you to learn to not take anything for granted, even the meanings of words. You need to make up your own mind of what each concept means, and decide for yourself what you want or not want.

Incidentally, one of the dictionary definition of infidelity says, "unfaithfulness to a moral obligation". So two people does not share the same moral ideas, the unfaithfulness cannot be decided. I, for one, do not consider sleeping around to be breaking any moral obligation, so my definition of infidelity is different from yours.

When I say you are weak, you need to ask yourself, what do I mean by "weak". Only after you have done this exercise with all words, you will realize that weakness might not be such a bad word. Also, remember, words only mean what they mean to mean. Words are only pointers to the truth they try to represent.

You are still so confused. I don't know if this is a good start....

Everything I say (or anyone says) is only an interpretation, and we all try our best to pass along some messages we receive.... The next step after receiving messages is to learn to pass them on as accurately and effectively as we can. When some serious religious people (like St. Francis of Assisi) say that they are "instrument" of god's love, perhaps they mean similar things. To be a good instrument is to play the music of the composer (god or nature or whatever) the way it is intended so they listeners and the composer connect. There are many ways of being a good instrument or messenger, and I would like to work on two: learn to express accurately and effectively (through writing and interaction with people), and demonstrate by my own action (being a good person; also through work effort--this I really need to work on). Everyone is in some extent a messenger, but a lot of people don't know that yet, and some even fight against it (the instinct) and go toward the darkness and the un-natural.

I don't know what I'm talking about here. Sometimes I wish I could be more coherent and pick a set of language and terminology to use. Right now I am just borrowing concepts from different religions and spiritual teachings....

I found corresponding with F- stimulating--he seemed to have a lot of well-thought wisdom, and then he put it in such funny ways. I don't know how to quote anything he wrote to me, because I don't know which are original and which are paraphrasing and which are just plain plagiarizing. I just say that I once heard someone saying such and such....

I will have lots to say about that 6 human natures analysis. Last year F- told me about this method to analyze people, to relate to people, to understand the self, and to learn to be balance; it was really inspiring. The main point of this "method" is, there are 6 dimensions of human character, and everyone has some of everything, but some people are stronger in one area than another. The goal is to become balance in all 6 areas.

For me, I am mostly feeling and dreaming, and lots of playing and risk taking; sometimes I use facts and good/bad, especially when I am with people strong in these two areas.

Sometimes I enjoy my own conceitedness. I don't think it's conceitedness though. I have lived most of my life feeling very inferior and humble and inadequate. Being humble is no good to oneself, and being arrogant is no good to others in addition to oneself. It's more important to be accurate about one's self assessment, to understand one's true worth, strengths, weakness, and to know one's place in the world. This step is the most difficult for many people, because nowadays people tend to place too much emphasis on the outside world and they have not enough introspection to balance the feedbacks one gets from others. Of course one almost never knows the whole truth about oneself or about anything (unless when one is in an enlightened state), and trying to learn about the self and about the reality is a lifelong journey. If we work at it, we can get closer and closer to the truth. That being said, I know sometimes I give people the impression of being conceited, but I am just trying to speak of the truth as I know it. I am not proud of the wisdom I "claim" to possess, because all wisdom comes from Nature (or God or the Ocean or Whatever), and I am just blessed to be able to be shown. I am just an agent; for once felt I was a messenger of "Gods". If my seemingly arrogant attitude does not make people comfortable, maybe I can learn to be more "humble" when dealing with people. Most of the time when I am with people, I like to appear to be humble and non-intimidating, and I try to match their own level of confidence (and wisdom). With people I know well and in my own writings (blogs etc.), I am more relaxed and speak of the truth as I know of it. If you consider that I am an agent of god when I try to speak of wisdom, then you won't feel threatened or uncomfortable when I appear to be preachy or arrogant or conceited. Just assume that sometimes I am possessed with strange spirits and it's not me who is wise (unless I am not with Truth, then it is all my fault).

edited e-mail excerpts:

It's true that my passion lies entirely in music, literature, metaphysics and such, and while I have strong analytical skills, I don't care much for that. If I get to discuss about math and science and technologies and anything that can be right or wrong, I have little patience and interest.

I hope one day soon we all know our true self and be content with our talents and strengths and make the best out of them.

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I do have a pretty high confidence level in my believes or otherwise I do not utter any words. This comes as a habit because I had grown up avoiding being "wrong". But then I do know that you can view me the same and opposite way, and I have already internally acknowledged that in my belief too (I think). You probably know me by now that I try to be this generalest generalist who can covers all grounds. I understand this can be frustrating to you or seem to be arrogant to others, but then this is how I am in my natural state and what I feel comfortable when interacting with others. It's really just about me and not about you or others. So, don't take anything personally! Remember laid-back!

Don't you feel one is vulnerable to criticism for bad writing in the same way that one can be wrong in science, or math? Sure you can say that you write for yourself, and care not what the public thinks, but then why look to others for tips on "good" writing? Isn't your heart the only judge of that?

I agree that one is vulnerable to criticism for bad writing but then it is more a matter of skills and tastes. In arts one can be good or bad, but not right or wrong. I care deeply what other think of my writing or my opinion of writings or arts many a time. This is why I feel especially close when I feel I can share my writing with someone and get criticism that encourages my own growth to become a "better" ah-san writer, not "better" to please the public but "better" to be me. OK, I might feel good about my writing writings but I sure don't feel good about my explanation writings, so if you don't know what I am saying here then it's just my bad....

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I feel bad about abandoning planetary science, but more and more I realize my passion lies elsewhere (not sure where). I like the idea of science but I don't like doing it personally on a daily basis. I am only afraid I would be bored with the new ventures I pick....