Imbalance My Life

"Imbalance creates direction and forward motion and progress." - James John Hollandworth

Moving forward is not as easy as it sounds. There are many directions, so which one is forward? And how do we measure progress?

Reflecting on the transition to the new year, I join people around the world to ponder these questions during the last days of 2010. What did we learn, what progress did we make? What will we do different in the new year? The window for reflection is now − soon we will become busy again, and our new year's resolutions may fade from memory.

From experience over the past years, I discovered that moving into the new year is not so much about what we will do and won't do. What counts more is our attitude and our thoughts, since these are the drivers. To make a good transition into 2011, the best we can do might be to reflect on who we are and how well we are living, and to decide how we will live better next year.

During my stay in Ubud, Bali, three reflections on better living have floated to the surface, like croaking frogs in a pond during a rainy night.

1. Bigger than me

The first is that living better is about something much bigger than the current 'me.' It's about being part of something that wants to come and become. It's about expanding my consciousness, yet in a way that includes all I have experienced so far. It's about growing in all dimensions, including cognitive, spiritual, musical, ethical and other lines.

I am using the transition to the new year to remind myself to expand my consciousness and 'claim my space.' It feels like climbing up a ladder to get a better view of the world around me. And while climbing, it is important not to leave any less evolved part of me behind. That would start pulling on the rest of me and slow my progress.

2. Imbalance my life

My second reflection is that balance has proved to be elusive. The pursuit of balance has felt like a search for the holy grail. I found that I am usually out of balance, one way or another. The important question is, in what direction? I discovered I have to lean into my strengths, for a healthy imbalance.

Hollandworth reminds us that "a ball on a perfectly flat surface doesn’t go anywhere, but a ball on the top of a mountain will start rolling down, picking up more speed and more defined direction as it moves."

What I need in the new year is to accelerate progress to my life goals, not just to act on a few new year's resolutions. My choice is now to intentionally imbalance my life toward my strengths, to lean into them, and let them create momentum in my life.

3. Ready to be used

My third reflection builds on the first and second. We live in a dynamic world where change is constant and where new connections are made all the time. Claiming my space in this interdependent universe means that I announce that I can be used, that I can add value, that I can contribute. This can happen in planned and unplanned ways.

I also realized in the past months that my readiness can be extended to involve partners in exciting areas of my life. Mastermind alliances can help me grow toward my life goals by working together with partners.

Being ready to be used in unexpected ways seems the most exciting. Opportunities abound, yet I can only see a small part of the web I live in. If I cultivate a beginner's mind, if I 'show up' and have my antennas switched on as much as possible, if I 'touch' daily what's important in my life, and if I care to share and work in mastermind alliances, I am ready to be used for positive results in the new year.

Ubud Mood

I feel blessed to spend the last days of the year again in Bali, my future home. I have been enriched by meeting lots of interesting people who are travelling, searching, building, making a living, helping others, or just taking a rest.

I rediscovered how Bali is a great place for me to retreat, to review the past year, to inspect the man in the mirror and his habits, to see what needs carving out or changing, and to get inspired for my next steps on the road forward, with a healthy imbalance towards my strengths.

Happy New Year 2011!

Photograph: Festive decorations in an Ubud home.

Art Matters

"A life without boundaries, that's what art offers. That's why art matters."
- Santi Bose

I found him on the 3rd level in the cone-shaped building of the Yuchengco Museum. His voice sounded animated yet shy, filling the space from the computer speakers of the Remixed, Revisited, Remembered exhibit.

Bose passed on in 2002, and his life and work continues to puzzle and inspire many: Espiritu Santi: the strange life and even stranger legacy of Santi Bose.

He is quoted to have said that he didn't mind his art being re-used by others. He did not feel as if he owned his art, and was happy to contribute his knowledge to young artists.

He wouldn't have minded this remixing of his work by his fellows. I could imagine him sitting in that green upholstered carabao chair in his studio, now a part of the exhibit, and watching how visitors reviewed his remixed work.

That evening, my good friend and I watched the 1996 Broadway musical Rent played by Manila's 9 Works Theatrical group. Rent is based on Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème, which was artfully transposed to a cold Christmas Eve on the lower East side of New York City.

The story depicts a group of young bohemians squatting at a cavernous loft at a time when AIDS was making an entrance. Through a series of crises and discoveries, the group wakes up to their connectedness, and they come to realize and affirm that "there is no day but today" before parting ways to continue their lives in pairs and alone.

That no boundaries theme was also explored by Ken Wilber in a book by the same title. Wilber posed that boundaries are not realities but figments of our own imagination.

Years earlier, Einstein and other quantum physicists had come to the same conclusion when they discovered that we are all connected energy fields. This awareness is now spread by modern-day gurus like Deepak Chopra.

More than half a century ago, Krishnamurti made very similar points in his sharply illuminating speeches in California, preceding the flowering of the new age and self-development genres in the decades to follow.

Yet how far have we understood and taken this no boundaries message? Where are we today?

Looking around, we cannot but observe that people individually and in groups are still spending much of their time and energy creating, maintaining, and fighting over boundaries that cause separation rather than synergy, hurt rather than healing.

Standing before Santi Bose's altar and studio, I realized that if art can help us see a life without boundaries, we had better let the artist in each of us come out of hiding.

No boundaries, that is why art matters.

Photograph: Trees on Pasay Road beyond the boundary.

Year of Ganesha

The happy start of 2010 finds me in Ubud still, writing my journal and scribbling intentions with the help of my nifty new sidekick called Attractor Genie, who joined me since yesterday to help me in my transition to achieving bigger things in the new year.

During this visit to the cultural hub of Bali, several new things got attracted into my life. My project to develop a home here took several paces forward. My circle of Ubud friends became significantly larger. And my understanding of how things work here got a bit deeper, as it has done during each visit.

I might have gained a world record too, for collecting the largest number of Ganesha images in two weeks. This friendly Hindu god was attracted big time into my life during this visit. Unlike the others god in the Hindu pantheon, he appears in all sorts of different forms. Dancing, reclining, standing and sitting in different positions, made from limestone and bronze in different finishes, and coming in various sizes, each image of the Lord of Thresholds and Remover of Obstacles is attractive to me in its own way.

It struck me that Ganesha's demeanor is quite similar to Osho's notion of Zorba the Buddha, which I had become familiar with in earlier years and have applied in my own life. Osho liked to match the life enjoying and street-smart Zorba the Greek with the spiritual qualities of the Buddha, implying that people need a combination of both of these outlooks to live a good life.

I found that Ganesha's popularity over the centuries may well have something to do with his powers to project similarly complementing qualities into people's lives, from big-picture spirituality for life to the enjoyment of living wisely in the moment, and seeing new doors open every day. Of course Ganesha, like other gods, is really a dimension of my own spiritual reality created in my mind, to help to guide and nurture my soul on its path.

In dynamic Bali, where Ganesha images can be found anywhere and anytime, I observed during this visit that the people I met all seemed to be adept at sharing something, whether it was news, information, services, and products, and more often all of these. People seem to enjoy engaging in different activities simultaneously, and many are happily multi-tasking their way through life.

One person I met is a part-time curator for exhibitions, writer for a newspaper, and translator in literary gatherings and in court cases. Another is a master photographer and head of the rental department of a real estate agency. A third person I observed owns a famous restaurant and enjoys standing in a market stall during weekends to cook well-known delicacies by hand for regulars and tourists alike.

While such multi-tasking may for some be explained by practical needs to make ends meet, for others it's not primarily a matter of income, and friends shared with me that Bali's society can offer people more flexibility to pursue different interests, passions and hobbies in parallel, which might be more difficult for people with full-time jobs in other places in the world.

So Bali can be seen as a conducive place for people to explore their dreams and attract the necessary changes into their lives to realize them. And the great thing is that there are so many other people around who are doing the same thing, thereby providing more inspiration. No wonder there are so many Ganeshas in Bali observing how good intentions are attracted and manifested in people's lives.

Photograph: Ganesha and Attractor Genie.