Reflections on A Whole New Mind

Finished reading Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, leaving a trail of thoughts in its wake. Really, without knowing it, I've been practising some of the principles Pink brought up but some of which I've since given up in the name of, yeah you guessed right, L-directed "work".

1. Let mom tell, repeat her stories. Be more patient with her as her snippets (which sometimes can amount to annoyance when I'm in the wrong frame of mind) could provide invaluable holistic understanding of her life back home now that all of us are miles away from her most of the time. Me, the researcher, of all the people, should've comprehended this a long time ago. But I've neglected.

2. Comics!! Though I've only been seriously feeding on comics in the last 5 years or so, it's been an on-off love affair of a lifetime (once in Art class and I was hopeful the teacher would repeat the exercise but tough luck, no ... ). How to integrate this interesting art form (where the readers provide the story - indeed! We can only interpret with our broad imagination what the artist can convey in 4 short frames) into the larger picture of work and life? For a start, I have my daily fix of some of my favourite comics on iGoogle.

3. Hours spent browsing magazines at the bookstore. Oh yes, remember those days when I'd scan most teen and entertainment magazines, keeping tabs on my favourite music personas, events and well, just general trends in the "creative" circle, criticising this and that. Honestly, if it's not a form of release of pent-up frustration, it's a decent training of the critical eye.

4. Volunteering. Back in NUS, I volunteered for 2 years, and then another 2 after graduation but as the complexities of worldly matters caught up, I gave up volunteering. From the experience with the MINDS Guillemard children, I get what Pink had to say about autistic children and those who are L-handicapped. I remember Teck Wee, my charge, unleashing his artistic side when presented with paper and colour. He picked up on origami pretty well too. Now, I'm beginning to wonder where the children - Teck Wee, Weixing and Kunqi - are now? Where will I find them today within the working society?

5. Laugh! Haahaahaaaaaaa ... who'd thought my favourite pastime is actually a great cardiac exercise? To quote: "it takes 10 minutes of rowing on the home exercise machine to reach the heart rate produced by 1 minute of hearty laughter." No wonder laughter is the best medicine.

6. Spirituality. Yes, very important, which is why I, and most other people, are hoping to go to Tibet someday. I ended up in Sichuan this August, in the quest for peace (this was what I told my friend in Chengdu and he replied, what profound meaning. Well, yeah, so I guess it was more meaning than peace, or really both as they are quite inseparable, that I was looking for). Although not quite Tibet, I scaled the Buddhist mountains of Emei and Leshan, had some inner reflections, found some peace and some meaning. It's quite magical, and 2 particular incidents stand out.

First, it's a really bad day when I started climbing Emei - rainy and cold. I'd climbed a long time, the afternoon was quickly disappearing. I was fatigued, was wondering how long more before I would arrive at the next stop to spend the night (there're only 4 stops on this 3,098m mountain). A black dog appeared from (was gonna say nowhere but ...) and walked with me until I was feeling better, happier, stronger.

The second incident was on Leshan when I was heading towards a temple "somewhere up there". There weren't signs. There weren't people so I could be sure there's really civilisation there in the great wilderness. But most importantly, at that time, I was struggling with an emotional tug-of-war - the exact situation I was faced then and there - should I continue or give up and turn back? I chose to continue, and the temple appeared round the next turn.

Hope I'm successful with the "story" part of Pink's 6 Senses albeit not quite in 50 words. I'll keep trying ok! Now onto the game part ... Little Big Planet here I come!

v(^___^*)v