After one day trying to record myself and stick with Youtube Channel only, I decided to crawl my way back to Periscope.  I realized there’s many aspects that I prefer Periscope than recording for Youtube.  Disregard the easy-to-upload and compressed Periscope file vs HD file that require editing before I could upload to Youtube (or wait for a 2 hours upload without editing).  What I like the most is actually the fact that Periscope is live and does not offer me a re-do-my-mistake option.   If I make a mistake or mispronounce a word, I would not even consider re-doing it again, I would simply correct myself right then, or make a mental note to not making the same mistake again.  As for recording by myself, I’d always want to record it over and over just because it is or could be an option.  In result of that, I wasted too much time doing the same thing. (and you guys all know what a Time OCD I am.  ;p)  I guess what I am trying to say is that I actually like my mistake.  Mistake makes me a better person next time.  If I were not given an option to re-do my mistake and stuck in the illution believing that I could do better (since I probably won’t), then I would only have future to look forward to and I can only focus on how to make it better in the future, instead of hanging on to the mistake I made before, right?

Ep. 35. Language limits the growth of wisdom

Remember I said that my spirit guide loves to throw various concepts to me, so I can think about it?  Here’s a concept that he gave me in the earlier stage of my journey that took me quite a long time to figure out.  (Now I think of it, it seems like most of concepts were given to me in the earlier stage of my journey.  Either I’d learned to block him out of my mind, or he’d decided to give up on me because it always take me so long to learn one concept.  ;p)

I moved to Canada in my early 20.  Without many chances to practice my Chinese, my Chinese had slowly gone downhill while my English is really not going anywhere either.  At that time, I was quite frustrated with the feeling that there’s a lot of thing that I’d want to say, but so little words I’d known how to say it.  Especially when it comes to spirituality, I was basically illiterate.  Not only I did not know more than 1/5 of Buddism spiritual terms, there are new religions that I encountered that the new vocabulary just keep building on like it would never end.  Feeling frustrated by how little words I know to describe what I feel, that’s when my spirit guide told me, “language limits the growth of wisdom’.

I did not understand what he meant by that, so I questioned, “I don’t understand.  In order for me to express how I feel or what I know, I would need more vocabulary, don’t I?  Otherwise, how do I make people know?”  So he calmly expressed, “in old time, imagine in caveman time, people do not have many word with their language, but they were more connect with the universe and more aware with what’s going on around them because they use more with their sensation, expression and feelings.  So if they would like to express how much they love someone, instead of using words to describe that feeling, they would simply go give that someone a hug, hoping that feeling and sensation could pass on to that someone so he or she would know how much they love him/her, don’t you think?”  (As I said, my spirit guide really like me to ‘think’ ;p)  He wanted me to study how universe communicate with one another, other than human being.  To my surprise, it seemed that everything in the universe does have a way to communite with one another other than human being.  While we believe that we are so sophisticated and capable to communicate the best, we seemed to disconnect ourself with the nature, the world and the universe.  But we’ve all lived in this society too long that we believe that language is the only way to communicate.  We were so trapped by the language we know that we started to believe that anything language could not describe simply doesn’t exist.  We gave up our feeling and sensation without considering that there are existence that word simply could not describe.  Language no longer is a tool to help us communicate with one another, but the only way we know how.

We all have that moment, right?  A feeling so strong that we simply could not find an appropriate word to describe it.  The more you look into that, the more you would be amazed how often that moment happens in our life.  So it started make me question; maybe this is the way universe functions, maybe we have a way to communicate with one another that is beyond language.  Maybe our being is actually greater than what language could possibly describe…

It was then I realized how much I can express with my language no longer matter to me any more.  Because I started to believe what Einstein once said, “if you cannot explain it to a six year old, you don’t know it yourself.”  It seems to me that children have a way to communicate with the nature/animal when neither of them knows any spiritual terms or complicated language.  So why are we human so limited by the language we know, but not the feeling we own?   I started to believe it’s not what we say, but how we say it and express ourself that makes the difference.

My spirit guide said that language limits the growth of wisdom.  In order to communicate with anything and everything, I came down to the simply fact that I do not need tons of vocabulary to describe what I feel (I cannot deny that it does come in handy and make the job easier sometimes. ;p), but how I can express it in a way that people can overlook the language barrier, but still understand what it is that I was trying to describe.  It all come down to how your heart feel.  When your heart had something to say, the universe would know.

 

So here is a side joke for you:

I have a friend who has a nice heart, but the word she use could be mean and hurtful as hell. So my biggest question to her is why she always chose the most hurtful words while speaking to her husband.

In her defense, she said the words she used merely reflect the pain he causes her. As if it were me speaking Chinese, I would probably have the most tactical way to hurt someone.

I agreed, so I suggest: so why don’t you train yourself to speak Cantonese whenever you are upset with him? That way, you won’t be able to hurt him as much as you did in English. Then he would be able to see that you are really making an effort… 

After I posted this on my facebook, some of my followers joked: so we should all go study a second language now.  And I laughed, ‘that’s exactly what I meant’.   When you feel like hurting someone next time, try use your second language (if you know any), then you will realize you can actually hurt that someone less.  It does pull you back a little and rethink your intention.  So if you were really pissed off at them, try the third.  XD