Humility

As everyone knows, I stumbled upon this course. As in FSV. Yes, I stumbled into it. I had no idea what it was about or what I was going to do with my life after NS. All I know, I didn’t want the pressure of working after NS so I wanted a break. Yes, study.

So anyway, 9 months so far into this course and if there’s one word that I’ve heard countless times, it is “humility“. The seniors said it. The “experts” said it. The professionals said it. Even some fellow coursemates said it. Its nothing much of a complex word.

Humility.

I mean, how hard is it to understand such a word? Right?

Well, get this. Ask yourself this, what does it mean to be humble in this line/industry? If you can think of the answer from your fingertips, please tell me. Because I clearly can’t. Well, technically, I couldn’t. But I got an epiphany a few days ago that led me to my final resolve regarding this issue.

So is humility being quiet? Not being arrogant? Not being boastful? Those are rather vague terms by the way. For example, if someone asked me what I got for one of my modules and I answered him straight out “AD“, am I being arrogant? Truthful?

If an experienced cinematographer made a mistake in his/her lighting, and I suggest to him/her to do it a different way, what am I being? A person who thinks he knows everything? A person who is confident of what he knows? Or just a humble person trying to help make every production a success?

If I know for sure a person is making a mistake and I do not want to tell him because I “might” be wrong (though I did say I’m sure), am I being selfish for not sharing knowledge? Am I being humble for just keeping quiet and letting more experienced people do their job? What do I interpret my actions as? What do others interpret my actions as?

What say you?

Different people would interpret different actions differently. Some might interpret a confident person as arrogant and some might interpret a quiet person as ignorant.

What I have roughly derived from my epiphanies so far, is that, humility is people’s interpretation at the way you speak. If you are a non boastful person, yet you talk loudly when you’re confident of your stuff, people interpret you as somewhat arrogant. They smell the aroma of arrogance. Why? Because of your confidence. On the other hand, if you’re a soft spoken person, who quietly boasts of his achievements to other people, people still regard you as humble because why? Because you don’t use a loudhailer to tell everyone. Nevertheless, you still boast your achievements to everyone else. And still yet, people regard you as humble.

Its hard to change people’s perception to this stereotyped definition of humility. But since everyone in this line said that you have to be humble to succeed, then you jolly well be soft spoken if you want to succeed.

Or you can be like me. And not give two hoots about other people and do things just because.

If you’re confident about something, make it happen. If you’re not, then just shut your trap.

Nevertheless, not being loud and boastful is a good thing because it takes the “annoying” out of you. And people would even regard you as humble! So, why not?

Remember, the question is not about the why, but rather the why-not.

Inner child

I love my childhood. It was filled with much crazy fun in the midst of the ignorance.

In anything you do in life, you’ll always find yourself having much more fun the first time you’re doing it. That is, if you apply the rule of ignorance. When one’s ignorant about something, they’d do a couple of things.

1. They either ask around so as to gain knowledge on that certain subject

2. They make up their own rules and execute the subject

The second option is the one I’m referring to the rule of ignorance. When you try something out for the first time, and you have absolutely no idea what to do, I say you just do it! Let your inner child guide you and have fun!

As we grow older, we tend to lose our innate ability in having fun as a child. We should never lose this as its our inner child that comes up with brilliantly out of this world ideas.
When we started out life, we knew not much of it. We would live it as how we wanted to, though at times, reprimanded for things we ought not to do. After that first reprimand, there’ll be a boundary placed around us. Little by little as we reach teenagehood and then adulthood, that boundary gets smaller and smaller until one day, we’ll reject so many ideas and possibilities. Some people called that being “grown up” or being an “adult”.

I say BULLSHIT.

Your thinking has to mature with regards to certain issues, but the fact that you placed so much boundaries around you due to society’s expectation of you is really stupid. What good does it bring you? That you’d fit well into society? Fuck society! Live your life the way you want it!

Believe in your inner child and have crazy shit ass fun when you need to!

There is a fine line though, between being totally childish, and letting your inner child lead you. That “adulthood” I spoke of earlier? Yeah, when you reach that, you’d be able to distinguish that line.

CHECK IT OUT.

Dreams

I’ve always had this fascination for dreams. I still remember the very first dream I had. Well, not the first dream but rather the very first nightmare.

Here’s how it goes :

I am in my uncle’s house. A big one. I walk around and then I chanced upon an aquarium. I stand in front of it and stare it, awed by the fishes. So I was itchy-fingers and stuck my hand in. And then all of a sudden I hear some thunderous rumbling from outside. When I opened the door nearby, this huge flying creatures swarmed in by the hundreds. They’re like monkeys. Flying monkeys! No wait, you know the wizard of oz kinda flying monkeys? Yeah those are the ones. Pretty much like the image above but it was scarier then. Anyway, so they swarmed in and took my uncle and aunt and just flew off. Like poof! Went in, grab, went out. Then I was left all alone. Its a blurry image but I can only remember the next part was that I was on a beach with someone else. And then pretty much, I woke up.

Oh come on! I was still in kindergarten back then! 5/6 years old. Don’t ask me how or why, I just remember.

Some facts:

• Before the nightmare, I’ve never watched wizard of oz (until years later)
• The uncle/aunt in the story never had an aquarium in their house, ever.
• I hate the beach/sea

Anyway, the images of that nightmare lingered in mind for years to come. Few years back, I started to wonder and ponder and blunder.

Like, why do we dream what we dream? And then there is the idea of deja vu. Why does it happen?

Are dreams supposed to tell us something?

Like..

• Why the monkey?
• Why my uncle/aunt?
• Why an aquarium?
• Why the beach?

Something important about dreams that I like is this :

“The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history – Wiki”

Yes yes, I know wiki cannot be fully trusted, but trust me, when it comes to this kind of information, Wiki suffices. Dreams are never really understood. They are never really thoroughly researched. Why?

Because dreams are immaterial. They are not something which we can hold on to. Something we can see clearly. So they can never really be understood. Scientists try and speculate theories about the framework for dreams but not everyone can actually agree to one.

Now, that’s interesting.

Anyway, so I read up a few books. What I found out (and I believed in) was this.

Dreams are basically the activation of your subconscious mind. The world we’re living in, the world right now, the one of you reading this, is of us using our conscious mind. There lives another part of our mind researchers refer to as the subconscious mind.

A person’s subconscious mind activates whenever he/she does something mundane and repetitive.

The idea between the sub and the conscious mind is a very interesting topic altogether. But to put it in layman terms, your conscious mind is what you can see and accept as reality. Your subconscious is what you push away and reject as fantasies or as we call it, dreams.

Wonder why sometimes you get these awesome epiphanies while bathing? While sleeping? So you get the drift.

Speculation still going on between the meanings behind some dreams. No one really knows. We can all only succumb to theories and speculating.

About the only place where you can see a dream really unfolding in reality, is the big screen. And then you can have like a million viewers all around the world help you decipher the meaning behind the story. The meaning behind your dream.

But why then, don’t dreams happen all the time? Like, how its only some nights where we dream, whereas other nights we just snore?

Frankly, I haven’t a single clue. But if you do find out, please tell me.