WEEKLY VIGNETTEs
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A Vignette - a brief evocative description, account, or episode
Tips of Icebergs , A sharing of candid reflections during the week that was. Seven births, Seven Days, Seven lifetimes for a mayfly . |
 Focal point : Drawing parallels between piano ( a passion of mine ) and life ( another passion of mine ) Yet another online mentor [ www.pianote.com ] bringing me learning and joy , stoking the fires of musical curiosity and my latent love. Thank you Covid. Without you , these discoveries in isolation might never have occurred. How quaint life is. When I was 5 , I was taught the piano by a middle-aged nun in Kuwait. Sr Gwendolyn . RIP , with your ruler and demotivating criticisms. To her , piano was a strict discipline . Marching orders at 7.00 am before classes. Enjoyment … what’s that ? Isn’t it enough that I teach you the notes , are you supposed to enjoy the half hour as well ?? Duh !! When I am 55 , I am learning piano online from a spirited youngster. Lisa Witt , a qualified , blithe , funny young teacher , associated with Pianote . I have never enjoyed it so much in all my musical years. I can yoga and meditate to the sound of her voice ( bubbly when she speaks , clear when she sings snatches of songs ) , the pretty tinkering of scales early morning right after my affirmations. Bob Baker, you finally have competition ! To me , this is the essence of life. Moving forward . Learning from the next generation. “Life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday” – Khalil Gibran. For the first time , I am considering a totally different dimension of technical work , scale inversions, arpeggios , Hanon exercises .... Musicians out there, you know what I am talking about. Heightened enjoyment & creativity , basking in the resulting combo of sounds and harmonies that I create. Mix and match. Trial and error. Overcoming perfectionist phobias of NOT wanting to hit wrong notes. (( What kind of crazy and unwanted pressure was that back then?? 🤦♀️🤦♀️🎵 )) I have never enjoyed the tough and “boring” side of the instrument as much as I’m doing now. What a gift ! A shift in mindset ! Previously I would attempt only the simpler pieces. Many passages and challenging key signatures were cast aside , deemed to be “too difficult”. But now, I approach them all with a bring-it-on mentality. Hard-Bits-First or Hard-Bits-Early-Morning my cardinal music rule. Deconstruct, break it down , hammer away , challenge yourself and learn Holly. Voila , within days , disjointed sounds come together in delightful harmonies. When I find myself humming these bars in the shower , I know I am finally on my way. So grateful for the opportunity to have learnt a musical instrument. I thank my parents for pushing me , life itself , and even poor Sr Gwendolyn …. I thank Len for the happy accident that brought piano back to me , when I thought it was watered down with raising a family , career and gone forever. Leigh , who guided me through my later years , through examination challenges , developing my love for classical, as well as the keen relationship between Math and Music. Without all of them in my life , I wouldn’t be playing “Thank you the music” and firing up those musical neurons every day. 
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Focal point : Passion as a trigger to vitality & well-being! Some early mornings as I hover over a new page in my journal gazing at virgin white , a solitary word or image sticks with me. Today the word is “PASSION”, as I have been fired up since last evening with that intrinsic enthusiasm , that self-propelling energy & drive. Passion can reach out from a variety of sources and take different forms. 1. Watching a short video clip of Oprah , while working out. She is with a 70-year-old ardent fan who exudes youth & vitality , is in the pink of health , and looks decades younger than her age . (( When pictured with her 50-year-old son , they could be mistaken for partners )) Her secret ? Maintaining a healthy passion for life , living each day enthusiastically , doing things she enjoys. This advice from someone who was pregnant at 20 , divorced at 21 , who shouldered much responsibility singly and had to make it alone. A half-measure attitude gets you half-measure results. Passion and Whole-heartedness are her secrets. (That and frequent “moisturizing”😊 ) 2. An enjoyable night at a small local club , you and I . Pleasure to be in the physical company of friends , something we didn’t appreciate enough in the pre-zoom era. Simple and friendly staff , surrounded by music-loving semicentennials , a live band belting out 60’-80’s pop …. Life is kind. Swaying to the beat. Dance moves that we have perfected over the years. Comforting familiarity. An impromptu kiss that speaks volumes and squeezes my heart . Déjà vu synchronicity. Years of partnership , of quiet kindness and consideration , a different kind of passion ignited by gratitude. 3. The band gathers momentum , and I am thrilled to hear opening bars of “Give me Hope Joanna” by Eddy Grant. The dance floor fills up quickly by music lover who don't want to waste peppy measures. But the absolute star of the evening is the chef that FLIES out of her kitchen , unable to hold back and resist the music !!! She bounds on to the dance floor in uniform, and takes to the beat like one possessed !! A mix of John Travolta’s hands and Michael Jackson’s moonwalking feet rolled into one. Metronomic vibrancy ! Tiredness non-existent even after the efforts of a 150-person buffet dinner. Passion can do that to you sometimes. Her intense energy , her movements , her aura ….. were double amazing. I stared transfixed , and so inspired. Dance like no ones’ watching ? The whole world could have been but she couldn't care less. Totally absorbed in the moment. The epitome of flow. Even the band watched and obliged with an extended version of Joanna , scared to break her spell. A delightful little incident and lesson learnt. Passion can be triggered simply , within and around us . A matter of perspective and choice , that swap between our inherent kinetic and potential energy …… the pendulum effect of whole-hearted passion and purpose that steam rolls into great things ! The universe reminding us to let our hair down and NOT postpone JOY. (( Enjoy another of my related posts on "enthusiasm" enthusiasm.html
From one flow junkie to another ! A delightful 2-minute quiz below for some clever insights ! www.flowgenomeproject.com/dopamine-quiz  Wont bore you with the details of my result , but having a good ponder over some of my "recommendations". So true ... :)
............ (( Quote )) - Go hunt your White Whale. Kick off your Bucket List tomorrow. Do something that scares or thrills you. Don’t postpone joy. (Your day planner will still be there when you get back :) Focal Point : Life lessons & views from actor Mathew McConaughey Autobiographies and interviews impart much knowledge and broaden our outlook. Dad’s words reverberate about the importance of learning from other people’s experience & mistakes and avoiding your own. Eternally grateful for the technology that enables the transfer of this information within minutes across time zones and continents . No horse-backed riders with parchment and arduous steamship journeys , how blessed we are ! At the touch of a button , often within minutes , the “rich, famous and wise” (not necessarily the same person 😊 ) enter our humble homes bearing gifts of new ideas. Of course we cannot assume everything to be true. Social media has proved to be akin to a job interview. The one place where (both) parties bend facts in order to market themselves and entice the other. But over-thinking can be self-defeating. Even if all preached is not practiced …. We can work selectively. A happy compromise is to extract the nuggets of info we want , and move on.  Matthew David McConaughey (born November 4, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He first gained notice for his supporting performance in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused (1993), which was considered by many to be his breakout role. Married to Camila Alves in 2012 , he has 3 pre-teen children . Is he now running for Texas governor too ?? Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. On sale October 2020. “I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud” Comparing life to traffic lights, 🚦🚥🚦 Mathew’s analogy is that we breeze through the green , usually take the smooth highways for granted. The “shoe-less summer walk” in happy abandon. Good times ! Confident times ! Then BAM ! you reach a pothole or a yellow light and have to slow down. Time to pause and survey. Change of tyres ? Oil and filter ? Clean dirty windscreens? Fortify the journey with additional supplies ? Do we then create false trauma for ourselves by magnifying issues ? Do we enact drama making mountains out of molehills ? Or just put that pedal to the metal after suitably scanning the road ahead. The yellow light is where the green light might live , where we could feel the fear and do it anyway. Worse still , it could lead to a RED , those meaningful (red) herrings seen in the rear view mirror of life , where a big pause and major re-alignment is required. A complete change of route ? Its what you do at these yellow or red lights that counts , not how many of them you encounter. 🚥🚦🚥😊 Listening to a few interviews after the release of his book , ( Jennifer Cohen Habits & Hustle , Vishen Lakhiani Mind Valley , Franklin Covey leadership etc ) , Matthew McConaughey strikes me as genial, down-to-earth and grounded. He is a semicentennial too. Just turned 50. In pretty good shape barring a recent knee surgery . Thought he might a touch too preachy at first . However, last week by “happy accident” , an entertaining hour-long interview with Vishen found me , and made me want to explore more. I listened quite captivated and workout time flew by. A sucker for sexy voices , I quite like his Texan drawl and clear diction. Here are some nuggets I thought worth sharing :
 McConaughey outlines a neat “gratitude” flow process in one of his interviews and it stoked my curiosity. He illustrates it with a personal story. As a young boy in Europe he and a couple of close friends set out on a road trip and needed to hire bikes. They approached a bike-vendor who displayed brand-new Ducatti’s, at literally ten times their meagre budget. Totally out of reach and evidently dejected , the boys were zapped when the vendor insisted they “take the bikes” anyway. He said they “needed them” . The boys were incredulous at this offer ! Zapped with kindness ! No hidden catches. They wanted to pay what they could afford , hand in their return air tickets as some small security . His wife was fuming , thought her husband had totally lost it , but the vendor would have none of that. He loaned them the Ducatti’s. (( I had to smile , I would have been the wife in this situation, overcome by scarcity , grabbing on to the air tickets or what security I could. Good mouthful to generous husband later as well ! 😊 )) And so …. the boys set out on this road trip over Europe , created bonds , experiences and friendships for life. One of them even totaled his Ducatti in Italy by accident , only to have the vendor drive up in a truck and replace it !! Just so they could “continue” their trip. A throwback to when he himself was young . Some extreme generosity going on that I cannot even begin to fathom. What an abundant mind ! And so , Mathew left USA a boy , returned a man , discovered self-confidence within , found an agent and went on to become the acclaimed actor and person he is today. I am so taken up with the bike-vendor. How must he feel today knowing that he helped shape an Oscar winning actor’s future , be uplifted and remembered in his autobiography. Often we don’t realise how our little gestures can and do go such a long way. Deconstructing this little flow chart further , some of the biggest leaps we have taken in life are on account of the generosity of others ( whether time , money , teaching …. ) . I might even replace the last word FREEDOM with FULFILLMENT . One is shaped unknowingly. Treasured relationships , mentors , help in dire times , recognition at work , financial support …. Everyone has a personalized list that they can marvel at and plot the road from gratitude to freedom. Matthew’s 10 goals of life (1992)
McConaughey wrote out 10 goals as a youngster , back in 1992 when he was about 24 years old. This was one late evening in his dorm, two weeks into filming Dazed and Confused , one of his earliest films. He says he totally forgot about them , and FOUND them 25 years later , while he was writing the book Green Lights. If this is true , I’m just so amazed by their simplicity , their commonality (tenets we can all aspire to) , the power of the aligned sub conscious mind that pushed him into achieving most/all of them . TEN GOALS OF LIFE (1992)
** Had a bit of difficulty myself with Point 5 , but then he explained further that it's the coming together and evolution of contradictions. It’s a shift in thinking where polarities can actually complement one another instead of being mutually exclusive. The selfish and selfless. The religious and the scientific. The material and the spiritual. Does one NOT lie and cheat because he is “selfless” or because he is totally “selfish” ? because he wants peace of mind and does not want to look behind his back all the time? Similarly by doing what we enjoy … are we serving the ego or putting ourselves in a better mental frame to serve humanity ? Peak performance on the front end might be the Oscar he won for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014 , but at the back end it started with a young man’s enthusiastic desire , single minded focus , core values permeating into all aspects of life , his persistence and grit. “The power of preparation” worked well for Mathew. His motto - Stay in the race , commit to the chase. You never really REACH and how boring would it be if you did. It’s the journey that’s so damn fun and meaningful and enjoyable !!🚥🚦🚥  Thank you Kyle for your big smile and for that simple question a few months ago, which resonates with me daily .
My one word is VALUE-ADDITION , what's yours ? Focal Point : Transient Hypofrontality as a gateway to "flow" - an optimal state of being. What is ? Transient = temporary Hypo = Slower ( as opposed to hyper – more/faster ) Frontality = Prefrontal cortex – portion of the brain Literally means - a temporary slowing down of the prefrontal cortex , the executive seat of our brain. The biological pathway to flow. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) makes humans human. While our base instincts may rave and rant , want to punch the noisy neighbour or the bloke that reversed into your new car , the common-sense PFC mediator convinces us with logic and sense that we shouldn’t.  When the PFC slows down we greatly reduce reasoning , second guessing , weighing options , deciding , planning …. and the present moment takes on a different hue. One of radiance and timelessness. We lose ourselves in what we do , and to me , that is one of the greatest daily experiences. How ? Tapping into altered states of consciousness , albeit “lower” states of consciousness , naturally. ( Lower meaning higher in this case 😊 ) The art of peeling an onion. Removing the unnecessary outer layers. When a ship is sinking , luxury items get jettisoned first. We retain only the essential. No longer having the computational capacity to compute one from the other, we become one with the other. Calm and serenity prevails from being in the here and now. We cease to overthink and worry about the unknown future , things we have no control over. I am personally intrigued with the great contradiction of achieving optimal “flow” and “focus” - Deactivating in order to activate ( the deeper self ) Firing up the motor neurons in order to then sit still and be present. Resorting to routine and pattern recognition to develop automaticity. Silencing the inner critic while developing the sublime. Consulting the instinct more than the intellect. Escaping from the Beta Buzz to the Alpha-Theta zone (more about these in another vignette)  Interruptions are the greatest enemy to flow and focus. Hence uninterrupted time in that inspira-zone is most desirable , as are planned DND sessions during the day or week. Doing away with interruptions , shoring up attention as if it were a precious gem ( which I daresay it is) and not wasting any gold-dust in the form of attention-residue on needless things such as negativity , social media , silly distractions or situations you have no control over. Robin Sharma portrays the concept of Transient Hypofrontality very simply in his book “The 5am Club” (diagram below) with special mention to the magical period between 5-6 am , when the world is either asleep or groggy. Well BEFORE the day’s interruptions , obligations and challenges.  COROLLARY - ACTIVE MEDITATION Used to think that meditation was not for me. In the traditional sense. So wanted to calm my mind but couldn't. Neither those noisy monkeys that chatter and confuse . Nor those highty- flighty butterflies that flit from thought to thought . Unable to sit , lie down, gaze , lotus , ohm , thought-purge ….. I resigned myself into thinking that this was too hard . Total stillness puts a kind of pressure on me. Not sure what or why. (Maybe this too is a discomfort zone I need to visit more often ? ) However when I’m active with simple repetitive tasks (preferably in solitude) – gym routine , walking routine , gardening routine , yoga routine , cooking routine , housework routine …… I find myself quietening down and getting totally “in the zone” . Works so much better than stillness. Remember someone saying that making early morning coffee , watching the kettle boil and the water steam , was her 5 minute morning meditation. And so I stumbled upon my own version of ACTIVE MEDITATION , and came to understand (without even realizing it) that there are varying triggers to calm. Doing anything repetitively builds automaticity , gives way to deep thought and focus that surpasses the ordinary. I’m learning that meditation and peace are not always found in the transcendent , but also in the practical. My own creativity seems to peak around mid day , directly proportional to the degree of solitude and silent activity of the morning . Ideas Flow. I’m ready to write / to learn / to work with keen attention …… A taste of “Transient Hypofrontality” ? Post movement high ? Dopamine OD ? State of flow ? What are your flow triggers ? What gets you in the zone ? A walk in nature ? Extreme sport ? Pumping music? ….. Do more of that. Don’t hesitate to post a sign on your door that says : F*&^ OFF I’M FLOWING for as long as you need it. You’ll feel so great after !  PERFORMANCE VS STRESS GRAPH
Youthful impressions were that climbing the corporate ladder was the primary pathway to success in what seemed a more predictable world . That panic and frazzle represented a productive life . That busyness meant fulfillment. A candle burning at both ends was fashionable. These were some of the perspectives partly dictated by the culture and expatriate norms we lived with , a young family with growing needs in an environment of zero social security. Thank you universe for seeing us through those years . The double edge of technology simplifies some tasks , while accelerating the pace of others e.g. response times , putting tremendous pressure on any workforce. Replies , decisions , actions have to be fast and furious. Wimbledon throughout the day. Looking back as a semi centennial , I understand and appreciate the need for a better balanced approach to life and work , at any stage. Tapping into that unbeatable joy of the present moment . Self care as important as serving others , if not more. It takes a pandemic to make us realize that everything is relative , short lived and subject to change at a moment’s notice. This point was driven home by a graph I came across recently , and have reproduced below. The sweet-spot of optimal performance , growth and fulfillment lies in balance and the MIDDLE road. Focal Point : The unity of creativity and "work" ! The excel sheet that beckons on the square space of my laptop , like a blank canvas. It wants to be productive and populated with neatly aligned numbers , with digits that mean what they say and say what they mean , where there is only black & white , specific answers with minimal subjectivity . The joy and satisfaction that comes from designing and creating MIS (Management Information Systems) . A brush stroke here , a column of relevant data there . A splash of colour on the header , accented sub totals that add clarity. Tables that toggle , that will pirouette, pivot and move . Reports are like pearls of wisdom and insight. They pave the way for that aha moment . They synergize when shared with the right people. They fall like dust on the wayside when reviewed by the ignorant . They mislead to detriment when created carelessly. The new music piece that captivates , like a mathematical puzzle waiting to be solved , a crossword impatient to be completed , a Rubik’s cube uncomfortable until its colours are aligned … Notes dance before eyes and spark familiar neurons in the brain . Combinations of tone and timing in infinite possibility. Crawl – Walk - Run. Lento – Andante – Presto . No hacks to decipher and translate from mind to fingers. A surge of dopamine once the piece becomes familiar , especially sweet victory over the “hard bits” ( a highly technical musical term 😊 ) . Chunked down into mechanical bars , approached dead slow , reviewed at differing times and days to get a fresh perspective on a better solution. New day , new ideas. Just like any other challenge life throws at you. The meticulous meal prep that is an off-shoot of the engineering precision of a trade learnt in school. Tool and die making. Dovetail joints. Male and female moulds. Uniformity and accuracy in slicing and dicing that master-chefs would die for. The discerning eye for a few mm’s out of sync , a slight angle or tilt that is not supposed to be. Minimal waste reveal a mind respectful of hard times . Painstaking work , a token of love and support , unlike the impersonal mass production of modern day kitchen aids. The garden that is no less a legacy than a trust or nominated bank account. Years of nurturing , pruning , digging . All done silently behind-the-scenes. No quick fixes . Strenuous tasks of manuring , daily watering , hitting rock , often battling insects & plant ailments , sometimes burying the dead …. Dig. Water. Wait. Hope. Weather the seasons. Lessons in patience. Resulting tranquility and inspiration one can draw on. Least expected resurrections. No choice but to let each plant, each child, evolve at their own pace. Nurture and coax as best as we can. The satisfaction of watching the “fruit” of your labour grow and bend in the wind. We reach out to touch ART and BEAUTY every single day. Learning itself is a privilege and an evolved art form. Skillsets happily overlap and intermingle as we go about our tasks, often without our realization. Where in fact does “work” end and “art” begin ? Where is the line between your assignment and your masterpiece ? Grateful for the ability to execute small daily works of art and find art in work.  “Work is love made visible” - Khalil Gibran “A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You , the artist or entrepreneur , are pouring love into your work ; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope. The universe responds to this. It has no choice” – Steven Pressfield , Do the Work. |