Dream

I dream often. As a psychology major, I have been always interested in how dream works and fascinated by hearing what the other people think about their dreams. I have encountered two different types of people before; those who think dreams are just random thoughts and those ones like Carl Jung who say dreams are our unconsciousness that is trying to tell us something. I believe I am the latter one.  However, the more I tried to understand what my dream means or trying to tell me, the more I got confused.

I always had hard time remembering the dream. I don’t know if it is because my dreams are not one story but rather bits pieces of different stories. Time and places are very random. I could be in Japan hanging out with my old friends and the next second I could be at the beach surfing. Nevertheless, my dreams always give me this familiar feeling that is not totally new but more somehow nostalgic. When I wake up, I know what happened in my head but I just cannot verbalize it. Once I start telling it to someone, I doubt if what I am saying is really the dream I had and I feel like it is not true anymore. One day, my friend told me to start writing down the dream right when I wake up so that I will be able to remember it more accurately.  That is when I started my dream daily.  I try to put into words most of the time but whenever I have hard time writing it down I draw pictures.

I recently successfully found out the meaning of one of my dreams. I had this dream fairly often where the time goes back all the way to when I was in kindergarten. Nothing really happens in the dream but it’s always lunch time.  It happened last summer. I was looking at some old pictures with my mom and we came across one picture where I was having lunch with my friends in kindergarten. What I saw in our hands in the picture was cheeseburgers. That explained everything why I never ever want to eat cheeseburgers nowadays. Every time I see someone eating a cheeseburger, I never want it. I just didn’t know why because I like both cheese and burgers but not cheeseburger. I did not remember at all but my mom told me that our kindergarten provided a cheeseburger for lunch every Wednesday for all three years I went there.

There is another dream I have so often. I clearly remember what happens in the dream because it only last for a few minutes or so and the dream itself is not a pleasant one but pretty scary that I sometimes have to wake up middle of the night. The more I see that dream, the more I feel obligated to find out the meanings behind it.  I always knew this is something I have to do in order to overcome the fear I have both in my dream and in reality also. I would rather spend some more time thinking about this dream and take this chance to bring back my unconsciousness to the conscious mind as a creative project that I get to do for final.

The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. - William Wordsworth

Have you ever seen a book falling off on the floor and pretend that you didn’t see and didn’t pick it up? I wonder if it was because no one was watching you or because you thought you don’t get anything out of it by doing so. I like Daru in the story The Guest by Albert Camus because of the way he treated the Arab prisoner in a fair and equal manner. Even knowing what the authority wanted him to do and the fact that he was not going to get recognition, Daru chose to take care of the prisoner as one human being by giving the same food he eats and sleeping in the same room.  Anyone can be or at least pretend to be nice to someone while others in presence because we all want to be seen as a good person. However, I believe true genuineness comes when one wants to help or be nice to people from his heart as human nature even knowing that he would not get any return. Getting recognition is not the point but doing good for others is also for one’s self as well. Even though no one recognizes his behavior, at least he himself knows it.

Don't expect love in return.

Before I moved up to San Francisco about a year and half ago, I used to work at a hair salon back home in Orange County. It was right in front of the beach, Newport Beach. If you have seen the MTV reality show, you get the idea how it is like there; the people with flip-flops all year around, the sun and the palm tree all over the place. 

Not only I was a receptionist who had to take care of almost everything from answering the phone for booking appointments to cleaning up the mess, it was such a busy and trendy hair salon where one has to wait for two months just to get a haircut. Those people who come there do not care about the cost but have very high expectation of beauty. It is not the service they are getting makes them happy but the fact that they can come to the salon where everyone desperately wants to go.  So the question is what if they cannot do what they used to anymore?

It happened when one woman called in for an appointment around 5pm when I was already worn out from the work. She asked for a haircut in three weeks from that day.  There was no way. We already had full appointments booked till a month and half away.  So I had to inform her politely that there is not enough space for her at this moment. Then I heard her heavy breathe and deep sigh. I knew she did it on purpose so that I feel bad for her. So I apologized for the inconvenience. My apology did not satisfy her. Even over the phone, I could feel that she was still mad and disappointed.

We were in silence for some time. I was so tired and just wanted to hang up on her. But then I thought what if I were her, how do I feel? I had to let my mind open and think about how she was feeling at that moment even though she was not being nice to me. So I decided to be nice and told her that I can call her back if there are any cancellations. There was no need for me to do that. I could just tell her to wait for a month and end the call. But I didn’t because I just did not see the point of doing so. Moreover, it was my responsibility to take care of the customer. However, it did not satisfy her either. She went on and on saying that I should find a way to squeeze her in and even ended up saying what kind of training I am getting from my boss. Eventually she had to talk to my boss, hairstylist, directly and made a deal coming in at 6am in the morning a week from that day.

What I learned from this experience is that how important it is to take a step back and see things as what it is. When I am in the moment, I am so caught up and seeing only the part of it. I could see the woman just as a rude customer but also I could also think that she might have had some reasons to be that way. She might have had really a bad day or so tired like I was. By putting myself in someone’s situation, it lets myself be more objective and have empathy toward other people.  I tend to forget those things especially when I am with my family or close friends. I feel like I know what they are thinking and how they feel about things. In fact, I need to pay more attention because they are the ones I care the most.

I also learned that there is no need to be nice to someone who is not nice to me but also there is no need to be rude to him/her either. Especially if the person is a stranger, I am more willing to be nice.  Even though I will not see him/her ever again, if my act of being nice could make his day, I choose to do so because for me, the only way to be happy is by making someone else happy. It goes the same for love. I want to make someone feel loved so that I can feel love from them. I am not looking for any return. That is not the point. Though I believe it just happens naturally when I give something to someone even not all the time.

Life flows within you and without you

I still remember the very first time I listened to this song, within you without you. It was a late Friday night when my friends and I were in the car on our way to dell taco to satisfy our midnight munchies after having a crazy time at a house party.  I had listened to many Beatle’s songs before but this one was just not nearly the same as the other ones.  As soon as the song started, my mind was blown away. The sound which is a combination of beautiful Indian music and the Beatle’s was so shocking and outrageous that I could not explain it in words. There I was, sitting in the backseat of the car, in a trance that felt so unreal, as if I was disconnected from my physical surroundings.  The sound had absolutely stunned me the first time that I barely heard the lyrics which later became my motto of my life.

After that extreme experience, I became addicted to this song and listened to it almost every day, twenty four seven. It still amazes me every time, the same as it did four years ago.  Music is always in my life whether I am having a bad day or at my most happiest. However, this particular song provides a solution to any problems I have encountered and has an answer to almost every question I could not answer for myself.

The lyrics are simple and very straight forward. However, its deep meaning is so profound that it can be taken in various ways by depending on the listener. In my opinion, the main statement George Harrison tried to explain in the song is that everything in our lives is happening to us and we are the ones who control it. Realizing the fact that things are all within us or not is up to individuals themselves.  Life will go on without one realizing it. I tend to listen to this song when I am stressed out about something. It loosens my tension very nicely and put me in a different world where I do not care in the world. Sometimes I ask myself “why I am stressing out?” Most of the time, the answer is because things are not going as the way I want them to. For instances, school and relationship are the most common stress factors in my life right now. I did not do well on the exam than I expected or my boyfriend whom I want the most is so far away in New York.  If I start listing, there will be no end.  Sometimes, there are factors involved which I cannot control.

We can do almost anything in our lives. At the same time there is nothing we HAVE to do.  If I don’t want to go to school, I don’t have to. If I want to move to New York to live with my boyfriend, I can move. Then why don’t I do so? It is because there is something holds me back from doing what I really want to do. As Alan Watt said in a video Music and Life, I am always forced to focus on the next stop towards the end which was thought to be the success and not this particular moment in my life. It is almost like I am not in my present life but only in the future or the past. Being so busy working towards getting to the next step such as working toward graduation, I sometime forget the reason why I am doing what I am doing right now.  George Harrison writes, “We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people, Who gain the world and lose their soul-They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?”  This illustrates exactly what I just explained. The time we live right now at this moment is so precious. It is good to ask ourselves sometimes, what if there was no tomorrow, what would you do?  What within you without you taught me is that I should do all that I can do with whatever I have in the time that I have in the place where I am right now. There is no end in our life.  Life flows on within you without you.




Within You Without You by the Beatles

We were talking-about the space between us all
And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth-then it's far too late-when they pass away.
We were talking-about the love we all could share-when we find it
To try our best to hold it there-with our love
With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew.
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.
We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul-
They don't know-they can't see-are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself-then you may find, peace of mind,
Is waiting there-
And the time will come when you see
we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso

Not only music but any kind of art such as writing novels or photography is a way for people to express their ideas and emotions. Everyone has their own ways of expressing themselves. I, as a piano player who is not so good at putting my feelings into words, I appreciate the way I can play the piano depending on my mood at the time and what is going on in my life. When I am not having a good day, I obviously do not choose to play waltz or something up tempo.

DJ shadow says in the beginning of the song building steam with a grain of salt how he is a student of the drums but at the same time he is a teacher of the drum too. In the process of practicing the piano, I teach myself and learn from it also. This is why I prefer not taking piano lessons from someone anymore. Except learning the skills, how can someone tell me how I should play the piece? I am sure there are some intentions that the composer wanted to tell us but the way we play is totally up to us. I believe there is no right way of doing anything in art because everyone has different perceptions of beauty. Therefore I also think that anyone who loves art is or can be an artist.

I once had a conversation with a mother whose daughter loves painting so much that she does not do anything but paint.  From mother’s viewpoint, she wants her daughter to study hard not only to paint because there are only a few people in the world who can make money by pursuing art. So I asked her if she can give me any evidence that shows me her daughter cannot be like Picasso. She could not answer. What she was doing was building up a wall of convictions without any concrete evidence against her. While she has this wall within herself, it is not possible to truly appreciate the art.

Realization

I found the moment on the second day when Phil starts realizing something is wrong very interesting. I think realization is the catalyst which motives us to create change in our life. Before getting out of our own cave, one has to know that they are in the cave. Of course, the path escaping from the cave is difficult. But if there was no realization, nothing is going to change. There is no end if there is no start. In comparison to my experience where I was trapped in my own false sense of reality and did not know the truth about my friend, Phil’s first realization was a bit easier to see, since he was experiencing the exact same events every day and it was not something that should be real.

Even though Phil recognized what was wrong with him, he struggled for a while until he realized that being self-centered was not going to help him in any way. There was another realization there. I liked when he finally understood that he had to be the one to make a change instead of trying to change the people around him. As I wrote in my last blog, it had to be that realized what I was seeing was not the truth, not being told by someone else, but self-discovery. It takes time to find out and accept the facts that what we experience and see they are not necessary always right. We need to take the reality and start trying to change, because in the end there is always a path leading out from ones own cave.

We don't know that we don't know.

To know the truth, one has to be willing to know the truth. However, we often don’t even know that we don’t know the truth. It is very easy to become stuck in our own cave, like that of Plato, and not to see the world around us. How can we find the real truth when we already think what we know now is the truth? We must at some point come to terms with the fact that what we think we know might not actually be the truth. One must realize, and accept that fact.

There was this one particular girl in my high school that I just could not get along with for a very long time. She was also Japanese like me, but much more physically attractive and smarter than I was. Regardless, even with her attractive appearance and the number of friends she had, there were some people who did not like to be around her. Those were the people who happened to be my friends. High school was all about who we did or didn’t like. The more I heard rumors about her from those people, the more I disliked her. Once someone had told me she that said she didn’t like me either. Now I was my own slave who did not know the truth but only rumors about her bad reputations from other people. To my shame, those rumors became the truth in my mind and I felt like I knew all about her.


However, I started wondering if she was actually the evil person that my friends described to me. Rather, it was my ego that wanted her to be the evil person that I built up in my mind. I was the vicious one who was so envious of everything she had; her skinny long legs, big cute smile, and good friends whom adored her all. All the things I thought I knew about her were in actuality only what I wanted to believe to be true.


If I wanted to know the truth about her, I had to get rid of all the insecurities, shadows, I had. I feared knowing the real truth and the possibility that I could ruin relationships I had with my friends if I found out the truth. I had to do it, and risk of losing my friends. The truth was what I was looking for, not my friends’ reputations. Life is about taking risks and having the courage to do so, and standing up for one’s personal moral code. There are some things one cannot gain without taking risks. Sometimes someone gives us an opportunity to see an entirely new world, one which we never had imagined.


Eventually I spoke to her. We began to know and learn about each other little by little. I cannot describe how embarrassed I felt when I found out something I thought it was true, actually wasn’t. As I expected, there were some friends who did not like that I became friends with her. They just didn’t realize that what they thought to be the truth actually wasn’t. They in a sense will be stuck in their own cave until they realize it. I did not even bother trying to tell them the truth. I knew that they had to want to find out the truth on their own.