Inimitable Imitation

10 years after its release, people still cannot stop talking about Heath Ledger's Joker in the Dark Knight. One reason we will never forget this version of the archetypal Joker is because it was portrayed in a very uncategorizable and idiosyncratic way. The unique particularity of Heath Ledger's soul deeply internalized, organically expressed, and possessed (or was possessed by) the Joker archetype with Heath's signatured individuality.

And what is deeply internalized in an individual's soul that is organically expressed is not easily forgettable. Like the Heath Ledger Joker, it transcends all conceptual boxes that human minds try to put it in.

Inversely, individuals who are fully possessed to take on the role of the Son of Man in their own idiosyncratic and uncategorizable way leave an unforgettable mark. They allow the unique particularity of their soul to deeply internalize the Son of Man in a version that is unique to them. The substance of the Son of Man is then organically expressed with a signatured individuality of the person that is utterly original and extraordinarily unforgettable.

Like the Son of Man himself, these individuals, such as Dallas Willard the Great, transcend all conceptual boxes that human minds try to put him in.

(This is the most memorable eulogy I've ever heard)

Verbal Bullet Analysis

Much can be learned from a spontaneously fired verbal bullet in a moment of extreme stress

The oral ammunition that was fired in a Freudian-slip like manner at the psychological crime scene of an interpersonal conflict can be studied. It can uncover the psychological fingerprint of what hidden/nonintegrated/shadow part of the person's psyche shot the bullet. Preliminary analysis compares the overall felt sense of the person at the moment of extreme stress compared to the normal unstressed baseline. The disparity is then assessed in light of the person's psychosocial maturation levels to discern what is of the person's maturational developmental process and what is of their unique personality type. The person's style of cognitive processing is then assessed to distinguish how the person's conscious view of the world influences how they unconsciously view themself and others. Finally, the depth personality structure that that contains the person's unconscious focus of attention that unknowingly motivates them is discerned. The appropriate category of deep structured personality is then selected after cross referencing all the data with alternative categories of personality that end up having less coherence and explanatory power for how the verbal bullet got fired. The person's ultimate core fear at the bedrock of their unconscious is then finally discovered when the verbal bullet is psychoanalytically reconstructed.

Then, it's time to suit up to counter that core fear.

Just another day at the therapy office for the psychoanalytic detective.

It all starts in those moments when my heart begins to feel the ripples of the cosmic drum of the universe. As it beats, my body can't help but to start dancing for an infinite Being who vibrates my soul through his celestial soundtrack that powerfully reverberates through the universe around me. As the fibers of my being flex and thrust with rhythm and sweat, my spirit knows that I'm actually dancing in sync with a hundred billion other created beings who are also invigorated by joyfully trying to exert their finite energy to keep up with these cosmic notes that electrify the universe. I'm caught in the divine adrenaline of conforming my dance moves to the heavenly musical energy that bursts through and beyond time and space with an infinite density of creativity, vitality, and life that animates the galaxies.

My spirit loses its breath after a while. Not because of a lack of energy, but because after a moment, it realizes the inexhaustible colour combinations that keep vibrantly painting themselves across the wallpaper of the universe.

If this is what society chooses to label as being "religious", I'll gladly take whatever label they throw on me. As long as I don't miss out on this.

The Mysterious Plot of God

There is a difference between seeing God's mysterious ways as illogical versus nonlinear. Illogical implies incoherence due to a fundamental contradiction. Nonlinear gives room for the possibility of coherence being revealed in a nonsequential manner.

Story lovers rightly complain at a narrative that is finished but illogical in its fundamentally incoherent storyline. On the other hand, they experience narrative excitement in being delightfully outsmarted by the author when a story is finished with a plot twist that restores coherence in a satisfying nonlinear sequence.

Mirages that maintain their deceptive power over society are not dispelled by yelling at them. They are dispelled by verbalized wisdom that is perceptive and discerning.

An effective cultural critic takes her mental bow and arrow, perceptively takes aim, and fires her sharp observations at the Achilles Heel of social frameworks that project shared hallucinations onto society.

The spiritual scientists continue to do spiritual experiments to transmit God's loving energy, showing the reliability of that other world that has extraordinary effects on this one. The best discovery is that although the most Joyous Being in the universe is invisible, he exists and has an infinite amount of fierce selfless affection for each one of us.

Lessons about Spirituality from Humour

Humour can teach us about spirituality.

In the world of humour, like the spiritual world, an alternative type of logic runs through things that is fundamentally different from the logic of rational analysis. Each world spins with a different structure, nature, and set of laws in terms of what will "fly" and "not fly".

In order to be funny and thrive in Humour Land, similar to being spiritual and thriving in Spiritual Land, one needs to grow in intuitively grasping how to run cooperatively with that world's laws, nature, and nuanced intuition which are different from those in Logical Analysis Land. What works in grasping one plane of reality will not, in and of itself, help in grasping the other.

Even if pure motives are present, one cannot use rationality and scientific logic to grasp spiritual logic, let alone humour-logic (or vice versa). In fact, trying to intellectually dissect a joke to understand it is like dissecting a frog. It will kill it in the process. Simiarly, trying to use one's mental hands to tightly grasp something spiritual, like a paradox (e.g. one needs to give up one's life in order to save it), can end up suffocating a first-hand experience of it.

Supernaturally Empowered Street Smarts

My Master on earth was well versed in the drama of out-maneuvering all kinds of devious social traps designed to ruin him. His supernaturally assisted ability to navigate our deceit saturated world was unparalleled. With an upgraded version of Solomon's street smarts (1 Kings 3:16-28), he had the greatest street smarts the human world has ever seen.

His discernment could pierce through the manipulated layers of verbals and nonverbals designed to camouflage the hidden motives of those secretly against him. When he sensed a red light from God, he would submit even though he was fully aware of the totality of manipulative scheming in front of him (John 6:64). When he sensed a green light from God, however, he would execute one of his many social-jiujitsu responses to not only escape a trap laid against him, but end up inverting the original trap to immobilize the trap setter. Observers would be astonished as they repeatedly saw him about to get checkmated, only to reverse-shift the leverage and embarrassingly checkmate his opponents who thought they had the upper hand (Luke 20:19-26). He would do so without having an air of superiority, egotism, or cynicism, but just with an intention to carry out his part in God's redemptive purposes in human history.

If something occurs multiple times in a person's biography, it can be seen as an important part of their life. Although learning from Jesus is more than just learning from his street smarts, it is certainly nothing less than it. His early followers picked up on this (Romans 16:17-19, 2 Timothy 3:13).

Wound Rap Poem

Last fall for one of my counselling courses, we had an assignment where we had to write out a "wound poem" expressing our life-long emotional wounds and their healing. I decided to make a rap song out of it.

Later on, my friend produced a video for it. Big thanks to Huntley Lue for taking the time and effort to visually animate the lyrics!

(There's some psychotherapy references that some may be unfamiliar with. But Google can be of help =o)

*note: I truly love my parents. I'm fully convinced that they loved me the best way they knew how. They're just not perfect, like all parents, and hence couldn't have protected their child from the inevitable wounds in this lifetime*

Having One's Nose in God's Business

Lord, may my mind not be married to whimsical ideologies that come and go but may it always remain engaged with the Ring of Truth.

A Deeper Level of Safety

It is actually unsafe to secretly assume that anyone who disagrees with anything in anyone's lifestyle is automatically unsafe and will make others feel unsafe. Such an unsafe attitude towards safety actually leads anyone who disagrees to feel unsafe and ends up creating an unsafe environment for those who are completely safe but disagree.

On the other hand, the truly safe disagreer always offers unconditional safety even to conditionally safe people who secretly and unfairly judge the truly safe disagreer to be an unsafe person.