2018/07/27

討論逐字稿: Connection

Transcript for the connection discussion.
Please note that transcript has only been spell-checked, the grammar has not been edited. Also the transcript may only be for part of the discussion.



—I love this topic so much, finally I found a place, or some people I can talk with.
—It’s all about take a break and do not think about the future or past, focus on the present.
—It’s like being mindful in your present state of mind.
—what surprised me is that she talked about why we are unhappy, because we are self-centric, it’s all about me me me, it seems that we just indulging ourselves so much, that we can’t connect to each other
—before I listened to this speech, I thought if I want to be happy, the first priority is myself, only I am, all my dreams are fulfilled, I can be happy. But after the speech, she says that’s wrong, only focusing on yourself and not connecting to people you focus on, in the end you will be an unhappy person.
—I like how she emphasized that we should focus on the essence, because like the monk, the one is Nomi, is too focused on the rules. Although I believe he is in good mind, he forgot the essence
—her voice has soft powers
—the music is a very good medicine to help people, be calm


—I disagree a little bit about what she said, we should be in a beautiful state, because, like anxiety or pain or depression is functional, they have something to do with our living and reproduction, from an evolutionary perspective, they are functional for our survival.

“Yes, that is true, but I have dropped her half an hour ago, it is you who still carries her.”
—I can understand what she’s trying to express, from this sentence. Because for Yoshi, he lived in the presence that he helped the woman, and then that’s it, it’s just done. And Nomi, after an hour, he’s still stuck with this stuff, why his friend carried this woman, it really annoyed him a lot, but his friend is already released from this even. So that’s why he said, it’s you that still carries her.
—I dot hat a lot
—but this can relate to your personal experience, I also struggled with this problem before, for years, maybe, you did something really wrong, or you were hurt by somebody else, and then either hurt, or something you do wrong, and you keep thinking about why I’ve done this and what if I didn’t do it, and you keep rethinking about it all the time, and you can’t live your present live, you can’t eat and do normal things, you can’t do even very simple things, you’re using all your energy for the past, and you think you can find a way to fix it, but then it’s already gone an din the past. So I stayed in that circle for a long time, finally I told myself, I mean sometimes it takes longer to find you … you have to pull out from the past and face your life right now. You need to practice, you need to take time to practice this exercise, you can tell your mind to not stuck in the past again, and focus on the present
-but it’s hard
—it really hard, because when yore stuck in the past, you’ve already wasted a lot of time, and then you’re anxious about the future, and in the end, I didn’t do anything, and then you’re anxious about the future, and then in that moment you’ve lost the present, and that’s the most precious moment, and you’ve missed it.
—you’ve said it so well

—people always say, we need to learn from history, and from our mistakes. For me, I know I should focus on the present, I should put down the past, but my behavior it’s easily influenced by my past. If I failed in the past, I’ll do something different. But sometimes it’s still a failure, a new failure. So I’m always struggling to get a balance, and learn lessons from past, but now keep in the circle of the past
—balance is a good word for that


—Compromise on the essence of being human
—what is compromise, in this context
—you stand back in order to get a deal with someone, you sacrifice something in order to get a balance.
—it’s also a good thing to sacrifice something, right
—is it?
—it’s about meeting somebody halfway.
—there’s also the compromise that she mentioned
—compromise, it’s the opposite meaning
—to be compromised, to be made less whole.
In the spy situation, originally he’s a whole spy, but when he’s found out to be a spy, he’s less functional as a spy, ‘the asset has been compromised’, it’s not as useful, it’s functionality has been reduced.
—our beingness as a human being has been compromised
—has been reduced

—I feel like what’s happening on the planet right now is a compromise on the collective humanity.
—crises, more than one crisis

Sadly our education, the entire system of our society, our parents, our religion, do not bring sufficient attention to our inner state.
—agree because we don’t have any meditation lessons in school. So how could we deal with so much stressful things, when we finish school
But we learn something, always with others
—always in competition with others
—competition yes
—because the education system, you ‘re selected by your grade, good grades, you go to a good school. It’s when we’re younger, we compete with others on grades and performance. But we also compete on other things, I am prettier, I have a very good boyfriend
—social status
—and it makes it hard to be friends with others, you’re unhappy if sb has something you don’t.
—makes us feel ashamed of being less.
—I never thought about shame in terms of competition before

—how does shame work in Taiwan
—it starts before we’re born, the adults compare each other
—the shame drives competition because we want to cover our shame. Shame is the motivation to compete. Because through the competition we feel better about ourselves
—it takes away the pain of shame
—but you can never be satisfied when you compete with others.
—I’m kind of shameless, so I don’t really care. But I kind of agree what she said about this section. It’s just, when we’re in school, we go through a lot of education, a lot of knowledge, parents and teachers pushing us, get a good job, make a good living etc. But when I was a kid, I didn’t think that much, but when we question them, they’ll just say, you’ll know it when you grow up. But as a kid, I kind of admire kids, they’re always asking the questions we need to think about, that’s the purity of human beings. Why we learn so much but we still have so much problems. We have so much skills and knowledge. But if you go to the root of the problem, it’s the essence of human beings. Even now it bothers me, even though I’ve graduated, I’m working, but if I could go back in time, one of the important things is my education, when I talk about my education it’s not the going to a better school or what, it’s about finding what I really want to know. All these complex knowledge, what we’ve learned, what bout going back to the times when our ancestors develop how these things worked. Like Einstein, or b. Franklin, they figured out the natural phenomenon, or thinking about different ideas, what was their original idea? They developed these theories because they wanted to find out the truth of this knowledge, and that’s the real knowledge, not because ‘you need to work and make money even if you don’t like it.’ and it’s because of this, making a living, how we survive, it becomes competition, and the shame or the guilt or whatever it is. I doubt Edison felt shame about focusing on his science, they just spent time on what they wanted.
—for my opinion, I think we live in a society that is negatively reinforced. What I mean is that if we don’t do something, we will be punished. “if you don’t study hard, you’ll get a bad job, and live in poverty, no house, no car” we’re chased by something, the fear and something. But from Einstein and newton, they’re having their self-actualization, what they want to do. There’s a difference, between those two kind of people.
— and my thinking is why our society doesn’t pay attention to our inner state, it’s because they don’t think we’re unique, they just see us as interchangeable parts. They don’t need to know what we are feeling and thinking. They have no time, it’s sufficient to take care of everyone
—I totally agree with her. I feel like I’m a product,, like I’m grade b, it’s not bad and it’s not good, but I'm competing with upper and lower grade, and it’s not just Taiwan, it’s Korean, it’s Japanese, it’s Asian.. It’s the whole system
—for instance, when I went home, my mother didn’t ask me, are you happy, she said, what did you learn today
—and she said she did it because I love you
—I major in psychology, and from the psych perspective, there’s the ‘worthy condition’ it means that your parents say you have to be a ‘good girl’, to get my love, not hurt your brother
—it’s a threat
—so we get far away from ourselves, so the need for love is bigger than being ourselves. Like when you’re a baby, you cry to get something, but when we’re adults, we can’t do that. We’re far away rom ourselves. If we know what we want, we’re not influenced by the system. But we end up saying, oh, they’re doing it right, I’m probably wrong.
—so you doubt yourself
—right, because it’s not form inner, it’s external

—Connection seems to be the antidote to the problem. 解藥
—in my case, connection can be with ourselves or others, but connect with yourself first, you understand what you can and can’t do, then go to the next step, when you understand yourself more, the capabilities, we will not usually feel frustrated about things, because
—no? Why?
—step one, I see what happened to me, to see the problem first, not just focus
—on the problem
—saying like, ‘why did I do that again?’. Find why you’re doing that. So in this case I disagree with the speaker. I need to focus on me, and find out the problem
—recognize the problem, ok
—so I’m happy every day
[laughter]
—but I agree with him, all negative things can help us a lot, but we can’t think bout them all the time, it will destroy us. But sometimes they help us. Like when we overcome them. Then they can be our strength, but only when you overcome!
—no that’s the truth, you have to over come it
—and I like to challenge myself and learn new things

— I disagree a little bit with what you said. It’s in the past, we can’t change the past. Yes, we should live for right now, but we should solve for ourselves. Otherwise it’s unstable, like in the past, in the present and in the past
—so why are you unhappy every day.
—because I can see where the problem comes from, because I can figure out the why. Like, why have I done this?
—I have a question, after you figure out the problems, what’s the next step? If the problem comes from yourself, it’s easier, but what if the problem comes with other
—solve my problem first, and then observe others, to get more experiences in my data
—examine other’s original cost
—the root of the people
—the essence of the people
—I’m lost
—I’m talking about connection,
—so what is your point
—is connecting with self and others.
—it’s important to connect
—[feelings]

We try replacing inconvenient beliefs stories and ideas with more convenient ones.
—so the complaining to others is the replacing inconvenient beliefs stories and ideas with more convenient ones
—, we live in stressful states
But instead we could consider accept the feelings as they come
—we try to escape stress, we go for the dopamine
—what’s dopamine, it’s a happy chemical
—but instead we could do what?

—life is about solving problems
—so what if the problem comes from others, you just drop it?
—not every problem you can solve, that’s the difficulty of solving problems yourselves. So you have to admit, there’s some things I can’t solve, or at least in this lifetime. So face it, I can’t do anything. But some people can’t, ‘why can’t I solve this problem” but if I keep thinking that way, then I’ll be unhappy.
Everything goes slow in my life
—and people think, their reincarnation, so they say it’s okay, this problem I can’t solve now
—escape!
—I can solve it next life.
—I’m beginning to think that’s the healthy thing
—but I heard in ancient times, stress was about surviving. Without stress, you can’t produce anything. It’s good for people, but too much is not.
—so many things are like that. Chocolate is great, but
—too much is still good!
[laughter]
—I wanna talk about problems come from other people. There’s a podcast Jocko Williams, I kinda follow him, he’s a crazy navy seal, and when people ask him questions about him, he answers them on the podcast, they asked, how he handles stress. Some stress is from other people. And he said, you have to accept your life, and you know those problems exists, you just do your best to prepare, an prepare for the worst, so even if the worst is coming, you know you already did your best, so you won’t feel the unbalance of failing. So even if the problem is other people, you can still do something to influence other people,
—really
—so if you really don’t like sb doing something. The worst situation is it might not work, but you can still try. Like, can you not smoke in here? Like smoking is essential for that person, but others feel uncomfortable, and you make a decision or compromise or something. And you still smoke and you divert it to some other direction. So what if he insists, then you have to use a plan b. Do your best and prepare for the worst.
—maybe you can bring out your baseball bat.

Final Statements:
I learned a lot of tools to feel myself, and to overcome the problems, but it still makes me feel some confusion about what she said, because in the beginning, I mentioned that it surprised me to always not be me me me but also when we discussed the problem, most problems come from others, and some negative feelings comes from we want to fulfill others expectations. So what I’m thinking is that the more we connect to others the more unhappy we’ll be ourselves. The more connection, the more unhappy we will because we want to fulfill their expectations. So maybe we should pay attention more to connection to ourselves. But not only just focus on ourselves. It’s different than just connection and pay attention to ourselves.
—I want to say something before she leaves. She was talking about sometimes you struggle, you want to move forward but you think about your failure. But during these two years I think about this too. There’s this actor, Denzel Washington. He was saying in a graduation speech, fail often, fail big, fail further, keep on trying, fail, it’s okay to fail, fail big, it means your improving
—yes exactly!
—you need to think about the past failure, you learn, do it differently, fail again, learn from the failure, do it again.
—I almost want to cry
—accept your emotion!
—the other is from a navy seal. He said, do something that makes you uncomfortable every day. Like I don’t like math, but I force myself to do it every day, and eventually you get used to it, and you overcome it, then you giver yourself a new challenge
—but that’s the opposite of what she said, to have a state of happy
—but when you achieve the thing, aren’t you happy?
—this is not the only way!
—it’s how you face the failure, become the benefit finder, to see the good sides of the failure, some people are defeated by the failure.
—another person said, when you don’t give up, you cannot fail

Because when we think about a lot of, when she talked about self-centric thinking, it just brings up one of Taiwanese master monks, senyen fashi, xiang yao de tai duo, what you want is too much, but the necessity is not that much. So that’s what makes us suffer and painful, the whole desiring unnecessary things, that kind of feeling makes you depressed and unhappy. That’s what I tried to say today. And another one, it’s about, a Will Smith story, when he’s trying to join the parachute diving, he’s kind of getting influenced by his partners, they’re all going to do it, so I have to do it too. You get affected by your friends and family. Actually from his inner part, he didn’t want to do it, he had a fear of heights. When they get on he airplane, he’s like, oh no, it’s too real. At that moment he’s too afraid. Nobody’s quitting, why am I doing this stupid thing. But jumping out of the plane, he overcame his fear, and the view is so spectacular, and was so playful and fun, and he just wants to keep on doing it. He said the greatest gift is always behind the fear of your inner self. I keep thinking about that. All the challenges, it’s I’m frightening myself, nobody’s doing it to me. I’m scaring my self, and that’s what’s stopping me.


I think from the talk, I can come up with the sentence to sum up this, that give yourself the permission to be human. That’s something maybe against the subtitle of her talk, but I want to say that, anxious, angry or shame, that’s part of our human nature, and that keeps us alive, and kept our ancestors alive, from the old days. And so the group of people, they feel the fear and stress, they live. The people who didn’t feel it, they die
[laughter]
From the evolutionary perspective. And I read a study from Stanford university, it shows when people suppress or avoid their emotion, the power bubbles up from the physical, if you suppressing your psychological angle, it comes out in the physical, your blood pressure goes up. So it’s really bad for people to try to ignore the pain or escape from the feeling, so I think it’s important to accept the feeling, it’s part of us. And I also want to add, if one of your best friends, if they are very sad, if you want to comfort them, but if you feel like you’re a piece of shit, and you self criticize, so you have to be nice to yourself, is to make yourself healthier.


Kind of impressed with the collective knowledge of this group. I often say that this RO studio is about pooling knowledge but in fact today it was really true. So I’m very satisfied with this discussion. About the giving up cannot fail, another way it was put to me recently was that you can lie on the floor and cry, and that hurts, but what’s even more painful is standing up and facing the problems anyways. But that pain is not the pain of defeat but the pain of growth, so it hurts more, but it will get you places. Also, that is the way you grow up.

Satir

No one’s perfect so, as long as we can accept ourselves, because we have strengths and weaknesses, it’s hard to explain how to understand ourselves, including a lot of processing, not just one or two sentences. It’s not possible, well, nothing is impossible! But understanding ourselves, is the same idea, understanding ourselves and others. It’s a long conversation, if we talk everyday, then you can do it. Because there are too many problems

Actually from this discussion, it reminds me why I stay here. I’m not Taiwanese, I’m from s Korea. It’s quite a competitive society compared to Taiwan. The society has certain rules. I can see myself in Nomi, because obsessed with the certain rules, and my country if you are 19 you will go to university, and then 2-3 years later you go abroad, do something, go back, graduate, get a job, if you get a great job, you are a great person, and if you’re not, you’re not. It’s really competitive, and after you get a job, you have to, you HAVE to get married, before 35 preferably, but after 35, you’re a failure. I know it’s not true, because everyone has different time zones, so I know it’s ok, but everyone keeps talking about this, and I’m like Nomi, I stay here in this age, and not marry, and I know it’s not wrong, but people say it’s wrong, you have to come back, and come back to Korea, and do, oh, what my mother said, “come back and get a job and get a man and get married”
—get kids
—and after that if you have any kids until 40, this is problematic family, so there’s a lot of rules in my society. I know there’s rules here, but I’m not Taiwanese, I feel free here. Nomi reminds me of my country, it’s a little bit sad. So we’re talking bout failure but it’s hard because you’re connected by society. But I’m happy too
—no pressure!

Actually, in the Nomi I see myself at some point, because the master says, you can’t touch and carry a woman and you break the rules, so Nomi is obsessed with rules, and he’s not free, so, before I, and the Franciscan guilt, where you can’t do something or you’ll be guilty, you’re catholic right? I’m from the Christian background, you can’t do this and that, so when you break the rules, it really, it’s very complicated, when you break the rules, first you think, I hurt god, I sinned against god, I broke the rules against god, and then I hurt other people, many things together, so I have this fear to break again, I’m fearful to do something wrong again, to hurt myself again, so I have to be very careful to follow the rules. And but it’s a dilemma, it’s paradoxical. I think I desire, the fact is I desire for connection, either with myself or with other people, but then I get hurt from this connection so I become distrustful with connection, but then I still need it. So it’s a dilemma for me. So I think that’s what I need to break through now for me.
—fail more fail big etc.!

This is quite good, this discussion contained a lot of knowledge, and people here are thinking like a lot. I’m not thinking that much to be honest! But in this whole discussion, I agree with everything basically, I couldn’t find anything to disagree with, so I think it’s good. And I’m quite surprised that everyone here’s English is so good, are you actually Taiwanese?