the voice in your head

you can seek the advice of others, surround yourself with trusted advisers.but in the end, the decision is always yours. and yours alone. And when it's time to act and you are all alone, with your back to the wall, the only voice that matters is the one in your head. the one that telling you what you probably already knew.  the one that is almost always right.

Grey's Anatomy

The Innocent

In “Innocent,” he’s exploring the many ways in which, time after time, we fail to under­stand ourselves, in which we miss or misinterpret the evidence that could tell us who we are. “If we are always a mystery to ourselves,” Anna asks at the end of Sabich’s latest ordeal, “then what is the chance of fully understanding anybody else?” That’s a novelist’s question as much as it is a lawyer’s.

NY Times book review on "The Innocent"


Nat reflects on “the screwy epistemology of the courtroom, where the million daily details of a life suddenly get elevated to evidence of murder,” and in this he may be speaking for Turow himself: a practicing attorney who appears to have become more preoccupied with the ambiguities of the law (which are many) than its certainties (which are few). The effect of spending a lifetime in the halls of justice, his novels suggest, is — or should be — a growing sense of the law’s incapacity to explain anything important about human folly. Justice may not be entirely blind, but it appears to have cataracts. It turns everything fuzzy and dim. Worst of all, it doesn’t know how to tell a story.

And that, in the end, may be the reason Turow continues to write novels, to have his bit on the side while apparently remaining faithful to his long-term relationship with the law. It’s clear in “Innocent” how different young lawyers like Anna and Nat are from older ones, who still have their ambitions but have been relieved of most of their illusions. Legal lifers like Sabich and Molto have seen too much and say, at times, too little. They’ve become cautious, reluctant to speak or act for fear of muddying the truth again. They play everything so close to the vest, keep their own counsel so rigorously, that they’ve become, in a way, strangers to themselves. It’s terribly sad when, at the end of “Innocent,” Sabich begins to speak for himself once more and what he has to say is: “Accepting the truth is often the hardest task human beings face.” (He’s also an epistemologist, of sorts.) By some odd process, Sabich’s repetition compulsion has led him to a kind of rueful clarity about himself, a belated sense of who he is and who, all along, he has been. 

重要

年紀漸長，學到的是:重要的事越來越少，但它們越來越重要。

日日捨

好友發起日日捨活動，清理家裡。我覺得很有趣，加以響應。
不過第三日，我就說了一句名言: 沒東西可丟。

過去21年來，我搬了15.次家。其中三次美國到台灣，二次台灣到美國。另十次則在美國大陸累積哩程。目前，除了日用衣物，廚房浴室裡用品之外，只餘丟了會動搖"人"本的：二箱日記(小學三年級起的作文，週記，及長大後日記)，二箱相本及信件，一箱各類有紀念性小物的雜物箱。
真的，沒太多"留著以後可能會用到，還蠻好的"物件。

想來，我捨物的本事，修得差不多。但盼捨情的功夫，能早日長進。

burning bridges

'There are a great deals of happiness coming from burning bridges.'--- Dan Gilbert

pain

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self, so therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.” - Kahlil Gibran

Courage

‎'Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying," I will try again tomorrow."'

Leap

'The jump is so frightening between where I am and where I want to be... because of all I may become I will close my eyes and Leap!' ---Mary Anne Radmacher

'Chronic pain sufferers often lead empty lives when pain destroys, or all but destroys, any chance for normalcy. Patients' family lives, careers, relationships, and leisure activities become ruled by pain. Some patients are able to rise above the pain and manage to carry on a facade of normal life. Others become vegetables because of medications, and they often lose their ability to be involved with other people and in social activities.'

'sometimes ball just bounces funny'

'sometimes ball just bounces funny'

emptiness

'the anxiety is age old. the fear of being alone. Once you've felt the comfort of society, you worry about losing it. So to remind yourself of how you're connected, you gather things around. And you cling to them, not so you won't lose them, or lose what makes you you, but so you won't lose the connections they represent. The fear is of emptiness — but of emptiness inside us, not of empty rooms.'

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/20/147041182/our-media-ourselves-are-we-headed-for-a-matrix

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/06/augmented-reality-e-m-forster-the-machine-stops-1909/

live as if this is all there is

live with intention.  walk to the edge. 
listen hard. practice wellness. play with abandon. 
laugh 
choose with no regret.
continue to learn.
appreciate your friends. 
do what you love.
live as if this is all there is.    --- Mary Anne Radmacher

no mortal can keep a secret.

“No mortal can keep a secret. If the lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”
― Sigmund Freud

denial

“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.” -----C. Northcote Parkinson

compliment

F: What's he like?
E: He is different. From anybody I know.
F: Different is good. From where I am from. The highest compliment for a person, is to say that they are down to earth, grounded.  I hate it. It drives me nuts.

---The Tourist

The Tourist

Elise: Invite me to dinner, Frank.
Frank: Would you like to join me for dinner?
Elise: Women don't like questions.
Frank: Join me for dinner.
Elise: Too demanding.
Frank: Join me for dinner?
Elise: Another question.
Frank: I am having dinner. If you care to join me. ---- The Tourist

 It's the Roman God Janus. My mother wants to teach me that everyone has two sides, good side and bad side. Past and the future. That we must embrace both in someone we love. And I tried. 

shoes

In fact, sometimes it's hard to walk in single girls shoes.  That's why we need really special ones now and then, to make the walk a little fun.

  -- sex and the city

prayer.

I beg you to hurry, for the sake for my sanity.

In youth, we learn. In age, we understand.  

bottom line

Don't ever show your bottom line. Ever. People are preys.

bridges

the hardest decision in life is which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.

answers

sometimes the answers we are looking for have been hiding just below the surface. Other times, We find the answers we didn't even realize that we were asking the questions. Sometimes, the answers can catch us completely by surprise. And sometimes, even when we find the answer we've been looking for, we are still left with a whole hell of a lot of questions.

--Grey's Anatomy.

destiny

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
by Pastor John

people were endlessly complicated and interesting

Kahneman has written of his experience in Nazi-occupied France, explaining in part why he entered the field of psychology:
Wiki, Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Economics Winner, 2002

It must have been late 1941 or early 1942. Jews were required to wear the Star of David and to obey a 6 p.m. curfew. I had gone to play with a Christian friend and had stayed too late. I turned my brown sweater inside out to walk the few blocks home. As I was walking down an empty street, I saw a German soldier approaching. He was wearing the black uniform that I had been told to fear more than others – the one worn by specially recruited SS soldiers. As I came closer to him, trying to walk fast, I noticed that he was looking at me intently. Then he beckoned me over, picked me up, and hugged me. I was terrified that he would notice the star inside my sweater. He was speaking to me with great emotion, in German. When he put me down, he opened his wallet, showed me a picture of a boy, and gave me some money. I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting (Kahneman, 2003, p. 417).

模糊難辨

 

行為背後的動機和習慣模式，十之八九都是非理性的；我們常常受制於衝動，先入為主的觀念，和連自己都模糊難辨的情緒。


Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart

方式由你決定，而且只有你能決定

 

所有情緒都是柔軟而短暫的，除非我們壓抑或否定這些情緒。如果我們壓抑情緒，情緒就會展開它自己的生命。而我們卻要賠上人生做代價。我們否定或壓制的每一樣東西都會立即影響經絡，最後浮現為我們的感受。

Deep Soul Diving

from the beginning

2011.3.16. 中時嚴選好圖 ( taken at Castlewood State Park, Ballwin, MO)

我們的思緒放在未來，而不夠安住當下。這種不健康的注意力造成壓力，而壓力導致疾病，疲勞和退化。當問題 (挑戰)出現時，我們試圖找出解決之道，卻不去檢視這問題為什麼一開始會存在。只要我們不仔細查看隱藏在表面之下的東西，我們就會強迫自己亂跑，想盡辦法卻無法打敗這些症狀。


摘自"學會情緒平衡的方法2-身心靈全方位療癒" Depp Soul Diving by Ray Martina M.D.

向內

若是每天有一段時間能安住於內心的寂靜而返觀自照，我們將觸碰到內在最真實最可靠，卻總是被忽略而未能開發的部分。面對外境的拉扯，一旦我們能有片刻安住於內，不向外覓求任何填補空虛徎快樂慰藉，我們便能怡然自處，也與一切實相和平共處，時時刻刻。

當下，繁花盛開

念頭的本質就是念頭

禪修並非用更多的思考來改戀你原來的思考，而只是觀照念頭本身。觀照心念而不被拉過去，可從中得到深刻的解脫智慧。幫助你不再被那些思考模式禁錮得那麼森嚴。那些思考模式在內心往往如此強烈，卻常常是狹窄，不精確，自我中心，慣性到囚禁自我的地步，而且甚至根本是全盤皆錯。
持續修習，思考模式會自行改變，變得可以滋養生命中的統合，智慧與慈悲。但這改變不是因為努力以一個更清淨的念頭去取代另一個念頭；相反的是去了解念頭的本質就是念頭。了解我們和念頭的關係，然後使念頭可以為我們所用，而不是反其道而行。

摘自【當下，繁花盛開】
-Wherever You Go, There You Are. Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life.