W is for Wittaya

W is for Wittaya

"Looking back, it was clear that his father had used him. If he needed somewhere to sleep he would plead on Wittaya’s behalf, tapping into the sympathy generated by the sight of a helpless  baby, or a young child. The women especially were horrified at the idea that Wittaya’s father should be dragging him all over the city from place to place. They would keep him and try to persuade his father that Wittaya was better off with them, but he always refused. There were even women who offered themselves to him, and volunteered to care for both Wittaya and his father. These acts of kindness were politely refused. His father also used him to stay out of jail. 

No doubt he loved Wittaya in his own way, but in later years, as Wittaya grew up alone in various orphanages and foster homes, he realized his father had not really known how to love him any differently. If nothing else, at least he had delivered him safely to Australia. He died three months after they arrived from tuberculosis."

From chapter 4, Ashmore Grief

Some people, like Senator Wittaya Keawwanna, rise from the ashes of disadvantage and tragedy, and succeed. They trample obstacles as they strive to reach their goals. Rather than view their misfortune as an excuse for failure or a reason not to attempt anything, they use it as inspiration. And these people inspire us. We love ‘rags to riches’ stories, we delight in tales of lives afflicted with suffering in which the sufferers overcome, we marvel at people who rise above their circumstances.

What about those who don’t? What about those who are trapped in miserable cycles of depression, violence, addiction and self destruction? What’s the difference? Is it the person? Other people in their lives? Other external circumstances? Why do some people do well in life and others don’t? If life seems harsh and unjust, it’s because sometimes it is. Sometimes, I just want to go home to Heaven.

Obsession

Last night I finally watched Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby. I say finally, because I tend to resist much hyped films, and also because in this case I had to overcome anti Baz Luhrmansim. While Australia was okay, Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet are two of the worst films I have ever had to endure. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, I elected not to endure. However I digress. I liked The Great Gatsby even though I felt it was marred by excessive theatricality. The film is a tragic tale of obsession, and it got me thinking about how a person's thoughts can be dominated by a persistent idea, image or desire. And I wondered whether obsession could be a good thing, when typically it is perceived as a negative characteristic.

J. Gatsby was obsessed with a woman. Nothing new there. Men have been losing their heads over women, and vice-verca, since the Fall of Man. He built an empire via nefarious means all for the benefit of crowning the incarnation of his vision with the woman of his dreams. This one compulsion drove him through five years of struggle and intense loneliness. His ambition made him wealthy and famous, but did it deliver him the object of his obsession?

Is obsession the only way to success? In order to achieve your dreams, do you have to forego attention to everything else in order to completely focus on doing whatever it takes to get whatever it is that you want. Persistence, dedication and commitment are good qualities which the obsessed may have, but there is a tipping point. When ambition or even just excessive interest in a particular thing runs off the rails of rationality."Clinical psychologists think of obsessions as unhealthy fixations with objects, people, or activities. They are abnormal because they impair our capacity to love and work." Obsessions throw our lives out of whack. Obsession causes us to lose perspective, and to make decisions which provide instant gratification but may not be in the long term best interests of others or ourselves.

The word obsession is inextricably burdened by negative connotations, yet who could argue that the achievement of success, the realization of one's dreams, requires at least some degree of those qualities which are embodied by that very word.

What do you think? Is obsession a good or bad thing? When have you been obsessed? Personally, I am moderately obsessed with the acquisition of a vast number of devotees of my work. Thanks for reading and please leave a comment.

Further reading:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mr-personality/201107/what-makes-your-obsession-healthy-or-unhealthy-is-your-personality
http://thoughtcatalog.com/madison-moore/2013/07/obsession-the-key-to-success/
Photo source.
http://www.retailprophet.com/blog/obsession-and-conflict-the-essence-of-extraordinary-brands/

The Struggle Within

With apologies to Metallica for stealing their song title, I want to start by saying that I am not too hard on myself. People who know me often think that is the case when I start talking about my faults. The truth is that I have a totally realistic view of myself based on all the available evidence. I neither think too highly, nor too lowly of myself. I am honest with myself about myself.

Ironically that is part of the problem I want to write about. I spend a lot of time deep in thought. You could describe me as introspective but that is only one piece of the puzzle that is me. I also ponder other people and other situations. I analyze and mentally investigate life, and the way people interact with it and with each other. It's entirely possible that I spend too much time thinking but that is not a flaw or an excuse for inaction. It is merely a product of my life. I have time to think, so I do.

When I returned to work from long service leave, I realized that I had become excessively results driven. Overly achievement oriented. That is not necessarily a bad thing unless any lack of success, either perceived or actual, begins to cripple you and deter you from action. I am not easily put off. If I believe something is worth pursuing then I invest in the chase. I run. I hunt. Stubborn resolve comes easily to me but I am not very single minded. Sometimes I want the gold without having to dig for it.

People who achieve success in their chosen endeavours are single minded. They make tremendous sacrifices to get the results they want. Consider the discipline required by elite athletes. They compete to win and that takes dedication and discipline. It also takes confidence and ability and for most, assistance of some sort. Take these five ingredients and combine them in a bowl. Forty minutes in the oven and you have a Victory Cake. As a beaten egg binds the other ingredients of a regular edible cake together, so does single mindedness bind the ingredients of the Victory Cake. I want to eat the Victory Cake but soomtimes I can't be bothered following the recipe.

That's why I am not very successful. Even as I write this I am thinking about other things that I should be doing. The laundry, for example, is a short walk from me and at the end of a typically busy week for my family, is in desperate need of attention. It's messed up. Thinking about that makes it hard for me to write this because I am not totally focussed on the task.

The Struggle Within is the battle that rages constantly in my mind between what I am doing and what I would either like to be doing, or what I should be doing. It is also the fight between what I am thinking about and what I should be thinking about. I am acutely aware of this conflict and it is not an imagined one. It is real, and it is really tiring.

The funny thing is, I like the way I operate because I think it demonstrates balance. I am not so completely intent on any one thing that other important things in my life get ignored. I take care of my responsibilities before I pamper to my sensibilities. I do the 'have-to' before the 'want to'. Business before pleasure. Duty before delight. Work comes before play.

And now I come at long last to the point. I have a dream: a fantasy which involves the abolition of the distinctions mentioned above. In the film Parenthood, Karen and Gill Buckman have a heated argument one afternoon when she reveals she's pregnant with their fourth child and he announces that he has quit his job. Finally he says he has to go and take his son to baseball practice. The discussion has resolved nothing, achieved nothing except to get both Karen and Gill even more upset than they were, so she wants him to stay and talk some more. She wants to sort it out. It's important to her and its important to Gill also but he has something else important to do. A competing responsibility. Gill says 'I have to go.' Karen replies with a question, 'Do you have to?' Gill says, 'My whole life is have to.'

There it is. My whole life is 'have to'. I sqeeze in a few 'want tos' here and there but I am driven by my responsibilities. For me this is a huge problem because I am not enjoying it. I don't want to ditch my responsibilities but I would like to enjoy them more. I wouldn't mind having some fun.

The solution is simple, at least theoretically. I must convert all the 'have tos' in my life into 'want tos'. That is my dream: the obliteration of the division between what I have to do and what I want to do. I don't even know if it's possible but I'm going to try.