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The Empty Man (movie review)
While browsing YouTube, I watched Chris Stuckmann’s review of The Empty Man. One point that stuck out was how he was convincing people to go watch this film because it looks to be turning into a cult classic. After watching the film, I couldn’t agree more.
I could see why the film did not do well, and really, it was due to superficial reasons. The actors were not that well known. Perhaps it was marketed as a typical horror film, which it IS NOT. Misleading people who are not into horror immediately skipping it. I almost did. Perhaps it was because cinemas were shut down and perhaps the film was not released on Netflix or streamed online. All these were the reasons why the film did not do well.
But guess what? The story is on point. The production and editing was with a big budget. This film has the psychological element and the spiritual element and the metaphysical element in spades. Fortunately I was able to appreciate the movie better because of I have previous knowledge of certain metaphysical concepts. Before watching the film, it helps if viewers understand the idea of how thoughts are believed to be able to manifest a Tulpa being. The other abstract elements like transmitting or receiving thoughts or frequencies, how the cult operates, etc. do not contribute as centrally to the plot as the concept of what a Tulpa being is.
The first half of the film, or perhaps the first one-third (I was not keeping score) of the film is the horror film as it had been marketed in the trailers. And I could see why it had been marketed under the horror genre. The ending would have been spoiled if they went too deep into what the cult was doing. Viewers are encouraged to be kept in the dark until the end. The only prior knowledge that viewers need would be that of knowing the Tulpa being concept.
Hmm, as to what is the Empty Man? Good question. If I can summarize, the Empty Man is only an entity in the earlier parts of the film so that the horror segment has an antagonist. In the latter part of the film however, the Empty Man is not so much of an entity but more of a plot device. Or more accurately, a phenomenon where thoughts of cult members can combine to create unity, singularity, or even manifest itself into a living entity in the form of a spirit or perhaps even flesh.
If viewers like me just want to enjoy the film and not delve too deep into abstract concepts, relegating the Empty Man into nothing more than a plot device is good enough. If viewers like this sort of abstract stuff, like how thoughts of cult members can combine to create unity, singularity, or even manifest itself into a something more, I would recommend they watch Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. No, not the Scarlet Johansson movie. No, not the season on Netflix. The anime series Stand Alone Complex kind of gave me a headache with philosophical concepts of who the Laughing Man is. Oh, is the Laughing Man no one? Is he an entity, etc. If this kind of philosophical thing is up their alley, viewers should catch both seasons. Japanese with subs or they can catch the English dub.
I absolutely love how the structure of the movie segments itself into the different acts that seemingly have no connection. And that viewers have to learn and connect the dots along the way. Do not worry, the plot and concepts are not beyond most viewers.
I liked how this film is a gem. Great film that not many people have watched.
The Eagle Revisited
I have a friend who is a Scorpio and at 25 has made so much progress in her life. She is successful in her career, but has still a long way to go in maturity and being professional at work. Having came from a less developed country, she sought work overseas and her skills as well as luck has gotten her here.
Having written a prior blog entry about the sign of Scorpio, I wanted to see which stage (Scorpion/Eagle/Phoenix) -or- phase she is in. I placed her at the Lizard phase because of her mellowness, significant absence of negative Scorpio traits. But a while ago she posted a short video clip of an eagle in its nest. That got me thinking about what I have earlier wrote about the Eagle-stage for Scorpio.
In my prior blog entry I included Endnotes at the end to consolidate my thoughts on the Eagle-stage. I have since cropped out that section, revised it and added it to here. Many Scorpios believe that they have reached a significant level of spiritual growth but I am skeptical about their claims. Therefore I put a hard criterion that to have reached the Eagle-stage, people born with the Sun sign of Scorpio should have a successful career, be in charge of people, be at a certain level in their socio-economic status. I still believe that. Rather than those claims that could be made by any Scorpio, who claim that they are/have evolved.
Here was what I wrote in that earlier blog entry:
Eventually we get to the Eagle stage. Wow, congrats to the Scorpios who made it here. For the tendencies that Scorpios have, their emotions, all the self-destructiveness and risky temptations, for Scorpio individuals to get to this point, I must say I am impressed with them. I should give each of them a medal. Because they really deserve it. Wolves who have managed to create strong careers for themselves evolve into the Eagle stage.
The Eagle soars above. But does not mean it is detached. The Eagle cannot be easily attacked, nor presents any obvious areas of vulnerability, with it being high up in the sky. The Eagle’s eyes watch from above. Similar to the Wolf, the Eagle has its nest to build, children to raise. Although the Eagles who they are now could be spiritual at any of the earlier phases of the Scorpion, I would imagine that success and heavy manifestations are a greater thing in the Eagle stage. Which has the Eagle stage set apart from the Scorpion stage.
And here are my explanations:
Formerly the Endnotes from an older blog post.
A few clarifications regarding my stand on why career is so big a thing to the Eagle-stage and why I focus so much on this.
Consider this: how about Scorpios who are heightened and successful in their own right, like a distinguished healer and clairvoyant, apparently evolved, but yet without any of those blessings manifested in a career so they don’t meet the conditions for the Eagle-stage? Would they skip the Eagle-stage entirely? Seems like they have even achieved Dove consciousness. Well in that case, I believe the Wolf-phase is reserved for those with the highest evolved psychic abilities plus maturity plus healing powers to others. Since they continue helping others and possess a lot of wisdom.
Here’s my justification. A career is the most tangible measure of growth, yet I would also agree that the absence of a tangible measure does not mean that growth is not there. However, I personally believe that we are born into our social-economic status based on the evolution of our higher selves. If people were born into poverty, I believe it means the higher self has not reached a particular level of growth which is why their life of poverty was the intended lesson for their soul growth. Despite what mainstream religion teaches about any virtue associated with poverty.
Going along this logical line, we see that in addition to a successful career, the Eagle-stage requires a certain level of social-economic status, gently put.
Now on to another reason why the focus on career is needed. Besides career being a tangible measure of growth, just having something tangible means that you will be unlikely to make mistakes, bad decisions, or be tempted by unnecessary risks that cause you to lose what had been achieved. Having a lack of wealth and success in life also causes people to make riskier decisions despite all their psychic abilities and helping of others. All of that again some indicator on where the growth of the higher self is at. And to come back one full circle, if a certain level of social-economic status is needed, then by extension it will not come as a surprise that qualifying to be at the Eagle-stage requires massive manifestation in the form of tangible wealth and success.
Of course, in some cases, there are exceptions. Like if someone came from a very humble background like some poorer country and migrated to find work for a better future. Then I would not place heavy expectation on them to be a manager at some bigger firm. But by virtue of just being able to make so much progress, as compared to their earlier state of life, that will be enough proof for me to justify their spiritual progress. By comparative standards, how far they’ve come, that should be how we can see the amount/level of transformation that had taken place. However, there are so many Scorpios who from time to time post online comments that they are in the Eagle-stage or even Phoenix-stage and then I look at their age, and read their life stories, I grow skeptical. Yes, there will be many Scorpios who believe they’ve evolved. There’s also another reason why I am skeptical. Progress and transformation is not complete unless there is almost no chance to “re-offend” (crudely put but sums it up).
And yes, to repeat my personal opinion, every Scorpio at the Dove ultimate would have had “passed the Eagle” before in order to get there. I understand these may be hard truths to swallow, and I would admit they even give me reservations agreeing with myself. But guess what? If any evolved Scorpio is indeed at where they believe themselves to be, be it Eagle and above, then it should not come as too difficult a challenge to prove the chance to show what they’re made of. I’m pretty sure manifestations are abound if only the heart, mind and energy is put to action.
Interim
I’ve completed a life milestone recently, having completed higher education, like truly the full course. I don’t really see how my learning journey stops there, as the journey continues into the next phase. Which is working in an area related to my studies. My plan is on track. And now it is just an interim period as I rest at home and wait to take up a job offer. For a while I thought of writing a new blog entry, mainly reviewing what has happened over the past few months. But something stopped me.
Usually I would be restless and itching to start something. But the past 5 papers I had to prepare and sit for has left me in a burnout state. I didn’t realize I was burned out until one of my peers was hit with depression and had to seek medical help. He was starting out the course, while I was finishing the course, but we took the same 2 classes (I know, the timeline is messy) which was how we knew each other.
Being in a burnout state was what made me hesitate about starting a new blog entry, made me struggle to get busy with my tasks, and made me think twice about hanging out with some of my soul tribe, or even being active in our group chat.
Recognizing depression and other symptoms of a dip in mental well-being does not come easy. Signs of depression and depression awareness is something I wanted to quickly go over in this blog entry. And do a self-check. The list is not comprehensive, but here are 8 signs.
#1 Hopeless outlook. I can see how this can sap your energy and makes it difficult to stay positive. Hmm, I would say it takes really dire situations to take me there, but I don’t have this symptom. I don’t have a hopeless outlook. More accurately, I do find it hard to stay positive sometimes though, especially after interviews where the interviewers were negative people who don’t see value in others’ achievements and don’t have a growth mindset. Their lack of positivity is infectious. I usually take hours to a day to cleanse and rid myself of their negative energy.
#2 Lost of interest. I have cut down on a lot of my hobbies but that was because I was busy cramming my studies. I still do get distracted and do take time off to unwind. I do exercise lesser now but that’s only partly due to a decrease in energy levels from my burnout. Going out with friends — yes I kind of lost interest there, somewhat. When I met up with them, I had this constant worry of my studies looming above that I had to get back to. And now that I have time for them, I ask myself how I can further improve their lives and contribute to their growth. I began to think and worry too much about how I can add value to their lives. The source I am referencing the symptoms also talk about loss of libido and impotence. Well, that I can say it is harder to meet people of the opposite sex and interact due to the current global situation, but I do feel a dip somewhat. Oh no, it’s more like a block and detachment. I find that while I have no problems with physical arousal, my mind has detached from any joy from pleasure. Made me understood what they meant by “achieving Tao“. There’s a wiki page from where I read about how eastern and oriental beliefs in Taoism viewed sexual health.
#3 Increased fatigue and sleep problems. Not that I know of. They say a major symptom of depression is finding it hard to get out of bed. Finding it hard to start the day. Excessive sleeping. I’ve only experienced those in my early teens. The depression was caused by common teen issues.
#4 Anxiety. Don’t know how this links to depression, because anxiety is very, very common. I do get anxious and in naïve years, I used to link anxiety with psychic feeling, like premonitions. I’ve learned that anxiety is just a normal thing until it gets too common. Staying off caffeine HELPS. A LOT. At least for me.
#5 Irritability. In men or women. I had that in my college days, due to life problems in my late teens. The irritability did not hamper my normal life, it just made it hard for me to achieve and success, because it was such a drag. My college performance was not as great as it could have been.
#6 Uncontrollable emotions. Funny thing is that I do experience outbursts of emotion but just as quickly, and easily, manage to let it out real slowly and in controlled amounts. The emotion is there, but I’d never. lose. control. Had this also in my late teens due to life problems.
#7 Changes in appetite and weight. My appetite is pretty much stable. Which means that if I am a big eater, I’m always a big eater, and if I’m a small eater, always a small eater. Nothing here. My weight… if I quickly lost weight, it was due to skipping breakfast, over exercise, skipping meals in general, or dehydration. I’d quickly recover my weight after that. I guess my weight fluctuates whenever I do not stick to routine and habit. No issues here… just stick to routine and I’m fine.
#8 Looking at death. Well, never. Like never. The closest is when I play some video games, get into fantasy mode, imagine I’m some assassin or undead warrior and go, “I am death”. That’s not the same thing!
Writing this blog entry was in a way therapeutic. Taking a look at myself and seeing if I have any symptoms of depression. I should ask some people I know to hang out. Like if not possible in person, then at least online.
The Mysterious Sign
I had to write this while taking a mental break from my work. I started reading about natal charts a year back and a book mentioned that Scorpio has a second symbol — that of an eagle. The mysterious sign of Scorpio also has 2 ruling planets, Mars and Pluto. Used to be Mars to describe a fiery nature and Pluto to describe death — which is not the end for Scorpios but a process necessary for their rebirth.
The mysterious sign would be discussed in this blog post, based on encounters with some Scorpios in my life now and some from the past.
Now reading up more on Scorpio allowed me to shed my misconceptions and better understand this astrological sign, beyond the superficial descriptions from magazines and websites. The common superficial understanding is misguided. Scorpios are not all about sex. Sure they have a charm going on. Scorpios are not all vengeful. Sure they harbor thoughts of vengeance but vengefulness requires acting out these thoughts. Scorpios are great at keeping secrets. Sure Scorpios live and breathe secrets, they are surrounded by secrets, but I wouldn’t make a sweeping statement that they are great at keeping secrets. Scorpios dig out secrets. Sure, they tend to stumble across secrets but why would a Scorpio go nosing around unless they have nothing better to do? I knew a Scorpio ex-coworker who snoops around but giving the benefit of the doubt, I’d say some people tend to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. These are all just to say that even among Scorpios, each of them have different personalities and sometimes even go against what are typical Scorpio traits. We just have to understand why? Because Scorpios have different symbols. Scorpios transform. I’ll get to that.
Multiple Symbols
Yes, Scorpios have multiple symbols. I will attempt to organize them here. We have 3 main Stages — the Scorpion, Eagle, and Phoenix.
But we can’t just stop there. Of these 3 stages, the Scorpion has multiple mini-levels or phases within itself. How typical to see guides claiming they can condense the entirety of Scorpio’s various forms into just 3 objects. It is optimistic, but mistaken to take the first sign of Scorpio transformation to mean that a person has risen above the Scorpion and has reached the stage of the Eagle. It is similarly optimistic, but mistaken to then eagerly take the next transformation to mean a person has surpassed the Eagle and reached the Phoenix-stage. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The people who authored these condensed guides are kidding themselves and kidding readers. The Scorpion-stage itself contains the Scorpion and various higher forms like the Lizard, the Serpent, the Wolf, and finally a lower form, which I will term the sub-Scorpion. The Eagle-stage only contains the Eagle. Not because the Eagle is special, surely it is, but the Eagle stands alone after most of the extra animal symbols have been shoeboxed, not shoehorned mind you, into the Scorpion-stage. The Phoenix-stage contains the Phoenix and the Dove.
So glossary and terms. I try to avoid the word “level” here. There are 3 “stages”. Each stage can be divided into “phases”.
Scorpion-Stage contains: phase 1 of Sub-Scorpion, phase 2 of Scorpion, phase 3 of Lizard, phase 4 of Serpent, phase 5 of Wolf.
Intermediate Eagle-Stage: Only contains the phase of Eagle.
Ultimate Phoenix-Stage: No phases. Just the ultimate zenith. The Phoenix just renews itself into another Phoenix. There are possibly certain old and wizened Scorpios who heal others and become a sub-type or variant known as the Dove.
Let’s begin with the Scorpion-stage. Phase 1 being the Sub-Scorpion.
Phase 1: The Sub-Scorpion
The lowest rung of the ladder. The Sub-Scorpion. I did not give this phase a proper name, but used an extinct creature as a symbol. Could be any extinct creature, like prehistoric sea scorpions. Depicted here is a prehistoric creature somewhat like a spider but with the primitive beginning of a scorpion tail and stinger. The Sub-Scorpion. Guides would tell you that stunned childhood development leaves many Scorpios stuck at this phase. As even adults do not evolve past this phase. Spoiled, mean, throwing tantrums, and the trademark manipulative nature. Have I encountered this kind of person? Yes. Some sources will say criminals belong here, but again to clarify such a sweeping statement, I’ll say the criminals those sources refer to indeed have stunned childhood development shared by these Sub-Scorpions, but in reality these criminals can belong to any star sign. And likewise the worst criminals are the worst not because of the Scorpio sign, but the stunned childhood development, upbringing, environment.
Phase 2: The Scorpion
The Scorpion-phase is itself named after the entire Scorpion-stage. The Scorpion is not much better than the Sub-Scorpion, at least to me. I cannot really distinctly differentiate the 2. But others might. Perhaps the Scorpions are slightly more subtle in how they operate. The child-like Sub-Scorpion above is not able to mask the flaws while the Scorpion here is able to. Keeping stuff under the surface. Perhaps Scorpions have only half the immaturity of the lowest-rung Sub-Scorpions. To me they’re both not unalike. But to others, they might find Scorpions a huge improvement from the lowest-rung Sub-Scorpions.
Phase 3: The Lizard
The most interesting phase in my opinion. The Lizard-phase marks the very first time a Scorpio is able to transcend basic instincts and suppress the negative emotions. Total control is not yet achieved, and Lizards are still able to lash out, but inside, most of the fire has been subdued. Why? Let’s look at it. Several circumstances can lead to the evolution to the Lizard. One is possibly guilt for all the damage caused to others and to themselves, that happened in the Sub-Scorpion and/or Scorpion phases. Possibly someone or a group of people ganged up and taught them a painful lesson and showed them their place. Another could be a health issue. Possibly anxiety attacks. Swallowing problems. Mental health. Stress. Allergy. Acne. Loss of appetite. Just a few examples. Something happened and this is no simple transformation. For a Scorpio to undergo much change, you’d think that it will take a lot, or some traumatic event to bring about this.
Forget everything you knew of Scorpio. This Lizard is passive, and does not exemplify typical Scorpio traits because it has no fire to do so, or it wants to distance itself from the shame and guilt of the past. Not wanting to return to any of that. When cornered, they would still be the Scorpios they are, and temporarily revert to what was before, though that is not really what they are inside. While they have changed, as a defence or survival mechanism they might temporarily revert back, if you get what I’m saying? The best thing about the Lizard, in my opinion, is their humility. They’re humbled and subdued. Even mellow. The Lizard has the good, which I’ve mentioned above. Now comes the bad. The Lizard would still harbor thoughts of revenge, although most of it is unrealized and not acted out. Leading to a bottling up inside. The Lizard might be currently at this phase because of health issues, like I’m mentioned. How can you lash out and be a meanie when you have, say, some sort of anxiety or panic attack, or nausea that makes you believe you are going to experience something bad? It’s not so easy to do without the fire, right? Another bad thing about the Lizard is that bad stuff seems to be happening to them. There’s this lack in their lives. Things do not go as planned. But that is essentially the catalyst for the next phase of evolution.
Phase 4: The Serpent
Stable environments can lead to Lizards staying as Lizards forever. It takes some time, but when enough of the bad stuff happening to Lizards pile up over time, leading to a crescendo built up… evolution! The Lizard realizes it cannot stay weak forever, health problems or not. It needs to evolve. And here we get to the Serpent.
On the move. Smooth. About action. The Serpent and snake are not much different, only that the Serpent more closely refers to the creature in the Garden of Eden as opposed to a common snake. The Serpent is a witty creature with a sentient mind that does not simply behave based on animalistic instincts. A Serpent is essentially a smart brain with the body of a snake.
The Serpent has some of the fire and vigor returned to it, unlike the earlier Lizard who is weak. The Serpent balances out the mellowness of the Lizard and the stinginess from the pre-Lizard era. Perhaps now with control, both sides are honed so while the Serpent is now able to strike harder and faster and to multiple targets, it is able to wear a more unassuming and convincing exterior that it learned from the Lizard-era. Even pretending to be cornered in a cul-de-sac only to execute a hat-trick coup de grâce. You get the drift?
The Serpent does not want to fight and moves away from a situation unless important interests are being threatened. But the way it initiates a fight could be that it instigates by not instigating. It could just be around and provoke the other party to initiate the battle so the other party looks like the instigator. Speaking of venom, it is not the Serpent that lends its venom to Scorpios. Every Scorpio “stage” and “phase” has venom of some sort. Don’t fool yourself. So don’t only think that a Scorpio needs to be at the Serpent-phase to use venom. But if you play your cards right and are just behaving as a kind person, there’s no need to worry about venom, or for that matter, people hurting you, Scorpio and other signs included.
The bad thing with the Serpent is temptation. I will focus here on self-temptation. Serpents are fluid and flexible. The lines between good and bad blurred and mixed. They are good at synergizing which is good but also bad. Serpents are distracted by vices and dangerous activities. While they are good at controlling and managing this temptation, dancing and straddling the middle fence, without getting tempted, it also says something about their risk-taking. In life, risks are risks. When you play with danger, you get burned. And Serpents tend to burn themselves with the risks they take, when they could be spending their energy on self-development. We are slowly leading up to the next evolution.
Scorpios are instinctive. So they tend to over-rely on their instincts. I’ve seen people who are overconfident in their gut feel. Even non-Scorpios. And you know what? They fail hard. Gut feel can be so off. So why think you are smart when you use your gut instead of your brain? Ironic logic and even insane, that I think about it. There comes a time when the Serpent world comes crashing down. The Serpent’s risk-taking activities, coupled with the revelation that many things their instincts tell them are inaccurate, and the need to reinvent themselves in self-development, or to summarize, some form of self-existential crisis. This leads to evolution! The self-existential crisis could stem from the fact that as Scorpios they are supposed to have powerful psychic abilities and are good at sussing out the truth, but that the truth can change and they need to update information and it’s hard to take that in. People can change. Judgements made about others should go. Revolution!
Phase 5: The Wolf
To recap, a Serpent faced a self-existential crisis. It needed to 1) stop judging people; 2) gather information and make proper inferences and update these inferences; 3) stop flirting with danger, risks, temptation, leading to time wastage; 4) stop picking unnecessary battles; 5) start developing the self and reinvent.
So the Serpent turns into the Wolf, who now finds itself in its rotting old nest of a self-existential crisis. The Wolf has to prepare a new nest. In order to build and prepare a nest, a Wolf has to leave some sort of stability, to shake things up, to leave its old nest. To start off anew.
The Wolf is the highest and last phase in the Scorpion stage. Though far from being an Eagle, the Wolf is going to raise the young Eagle which explains why the nest motif will keep recurring. To nurse and raise a baby-Eagle, the Wolf prepares a nest. The Wolf is building a future, a tomorrow. The new nest is the Wolf’s attempt to build a future and something more stable and longer lasting than anything before.
The Wolf has reached a significant level of maturity. With it comes wisdom. And strength. If strength is lacking, the Wolf seeks out ways to acquire the strength. The Wolf is protective of its nest like it is protective of its home and its young. Not to say that at this age in life, Scorpios at the Wolf-phase have babies or young children, but they are of that age. The nest refers more to a career. The Eagle is marked and characterized and identified with a very strong career and it all came from the preparation work and tilling of the soil and sowing of the seeds done in the Wolf-phase.
Now here I am going to make a stand. I know I have been against sweeping statements and refrain from pegging phases with age and perhaps career. But from here on, the Wolf phase and anything above will be identified with age and career. The Wolf phase can only refer to Scorpio individuals who are of child-bearing age. The Eagle stage can only refer to Scorpio individuals who have strong careers and who are put in charge of people. It is a hard prerequisite. And hard words they may be, but a Scorpio’s development HAS to be intertwined with career and success, raising a family. Else all that intensity, hard work, skills that Scorpios possess, are nothing but fluff if they don’t materialize into tangible results. What else could they manifest into?
Intermediate Stage: The Eagle
Eventually we get to the Eagle stage. Wow, congrats to the Scorpios who made it here. For the tendencies that Scorpios have, their emotions, all the self-destructiveness and risky temptations, for Scorpio individuals to get to this point, I must say I am impressed with them. I should give each of them a medal. Because they really deserve it. Wolves who have managed to create strong careers for themselves evolve into the Eagle stage.
The Eagle soars above. But does not mean it is detached. The Eagle cannot be easily attacked, nor presents any obvious areas of vulnerability, with it being high up in the sky. The Eagle’s eyes watch from above. Similar to the Wolf, the Eagle has its nest to build, children to raise. Although the Eagles who they are now could be spiritual at any of the earlier phases of the Scorpion, I would imagine that success and heavy manifestations are a greater thing in the Eagle stage. Which has the Eagle stage set apart from the Scorpion stage.
How does the Eagle evolve into the Phoenix? A mythical creature, not many Scorpios will reach the Phoenix level. But retirement, or simply leaving the limelight to focus on family, toning down on career, being older and wizened, leads us to the Dove.
Ultimate Stage: Dove
The Dove has mystical powers of coming into people’s lives and healing them. I meant mystical as in appearing at the right place and at the right time. And guiding and healing people. That kind of mystical.
The Dove has mystical powers of coming into people’s lives and healing them. I don’t think it’s as simple to say these are Scorpio individuals who work in the social service and are counselling people. That’s misguided. I also don’t think it’s as simple as a friend who listens to your problems and who empathizes with you, and being around them makes you feel better. That’s over-simplifying things. I also don’t think it means a Scorpio individual going through hardship, then experiencing a spiritual clarity and healing process, then thinking they’ve risen from the Phoenix’s ashes and achieved the Dove consciousness. Then going through more of life and reverting back to some lower form. NO! After the Eagle, phases have no more meaning. This is the ultimate stage. There is no more regressing. The powerful Scorpio at the highest stage self-renews into a greater form each time, never regressing.
If the Phoenix is mythical and does not have a tangible form in our world, the Dove is the next closest thing and is the tangible manifestation of an evolved Scorpio.
I know many people who still hold on to the misguided preconception of Scorpios having negative traits will not believe Scorpios will ever be at their Dove ultimate. I have not met one myself. Does not mean they don’t exist.
The Ultimate: Phoenix
??? If I have not met a Scorpio individual at the Dove ultimate, it does not mean that such individuals don’t exist. Speaking about not existing, or existing, we next come to the Phoenix ultimate. The Phoenix is mythical. Many guides will say people who are Scorpio individuals can actually reach this stage. But out of reverence and to give the Phoenix an air of mystery, I have taken the liberty to instead refer to the Phoenix as the higher self of Scorpio individuals.
The higher self of Scorpio individuals that watches over their ascension process.
Other Symbols
There is also the Spider, the Otter, the Monkey, and the Rabbit. I don’t think these symbols fit any stage or phase, and are there more for the qualities which they lend to Scorpios.
The Spider lends its sixth-sense and represents the psychic abilities of Scorpio. Some guides put the Spider in the Sub-Scorpion stage but it does not mean that Scopios who have a prominent Spider-vibe are in the Sub-Scorpion level.
Spiders are feared by many but also respected for their “sixth sense”. It is true that spiders have the uncanny ability to sense in advance an event before it happens. This is why characters like the mythical Spiderman have been created. Scorpios are known for their uncanny ability to tap into psychic skill sets and intrinsically know what another will say or do before it happens. If you have always wondered where these abilities come from, think of the spider (arachnid).
– Aaron Mcbride
The Otter lends its playfulness and is the “child” of the Scorpio mind. Very likely that a person in the sub-Scorpion stage has a dominant Otter-vibe. Does not mean that higher Scorpio forms can’t be playful.
The otter represents the Scorpio’s playfulness and fun spirit. Otters are also symbolic of childhood defiance. If you are wondering where you get your sense of playfulness from or your stubbornness, look at the otters. These loveable, fun and furry animals bring out the joy in people. They also happen to be highly autonomous and march to the beat of their own drummer. Some people consider this symbol to be the “child” of the Scorpio mind.
– Aaron McBride
The Monkey tinkers around. Curious, inquisitive, logical. Those are a few of the attributes that the Monkey symbol lends to Scorpio. Scorpios are far distant from and unalike Monkeys, for sure. The current Scorpios in my life exude this characteristic. A lady who I leave together with after the day because we take the sub is a Scorpio. She has this intensity even though she’s quiet. It’s as if she’s waiting for me to start a conversation or divulge information carelessly. I get that vibe from her. And that she does not reveal much. And that lady is suffocating in the way she looks at me. Perhaps half looking for attention, half observing me. Where I look, which lady am I checking out, who I’m flirting with, etc. These kind of Monkey-vibe Scorpios in my life are highly intellectual and are in some form of career change. If they revealed anything about themselves, it’s usually along the lines of some cunning trick they did on their employer or something-something-exploit. Often looking for a smarter way, looking for more refusing to sacrifice or to give up and give in.
Then the Rabbit. I don’t really get why the Rabbit has to be here, only to reinforce the misconceptions of Scorpio that they’re a lot about sex. Please. Logic would tell you otherwise. Can a Scorpio not be a celibate nun or priest? Pretty sure there are. Please throw out the misconceptions and sweeping statements. Only then can we dissect and begin to understand Scorpios. Our misconceptions are preventing us from understanding them deeper. And then we lament on how they’re mysterious. If only we had started on the right footing, that won’t be the case.
College Life
I was thinking back upon my college days. Particularly the types of professors whose classes I’ve had the honor of attending. Adding up the time spent in grad school, I’ve seen quite many types of professors. Not stereotyping anyone here, these are my experiences. While they might not be intended advice for anyone about to attend higher education in future, those who have been there, done that, might have their share of similar experiences and some of the points may resonate with them.
The Butler
This professor initiates the whole course. Teaches the introductory class that you might either hate or love. If you love it, you tend to feel entranced by their unique style of teaching and the way they are able to engage and captivate. Often, this happens and you choose to continue the course. That happened to me, of course, for my college degree. Well. However, in grad school, I studied night classes after work so I didn’t spend as much time in my studies. While the grad school professor was still engaging and fun, behind the scenes, his personality was too colorful. I found him forceful, creative, unforgiving, different colors all at once. He passed me, but my poor grade makes me shudder at memories of his class.
The Generous Philanthropist
A rare gem. This professor kind of goes against the institution and decides he wants to give out A-grades like throwing cash on the streets of Gotham, with a Prince soundtrack in the background. With fanfare and hot air balloons. The real-life person is a fun guy and I fondly remember him wanting to dance during a farewell session.
The Executioner
Of course, I’ve heard of the opposite, aptly named The Executioner, who fails the whole class. Though I never took the class of The Executioner, I collaborated with the real-life person on some side project.
The Secret Villain
This professor raises no alarm bells up till the end. And though these professors can hide their cold gaze and you can shake their hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense your lifestyles are probably comparable… You simply need to watch for the twist at the end.
If your course has a rigorous assessment, and you were expecting a tough finals, sure. I have sat through finals which were impossible even for the brightest and best of us. But you know what’s the deal with The Secret Villain? The twist at the end. A regular module with a regular finals with regular difficulty you were expecting could be turned into a minefield. Reading the questions, I wasn’t lost. I could see how he meticulously planned out the solution and the booby traps he laid. I just did not have the time to navigate the labyrinth he set. Each trap was designed to incapacitate. Each contraption was specifically crafted to drag out time so you will never complete the paper. Each missing detail was to omitted so as to put the onus on you to create your own assumption(s) in order to continue the question. Compare that to what was covered in class and the midterms. A world of difference. It was betrayal. Plain and simple. And he was good at hiding it, he played it very well.
The G.O.A.T.
I thought I could name one professor who I thought was the greatest of all the ones I know. I’ve already decided she was the one. Yes, I briefly mentioned her in other blog posts. Imagine The Initiator but teaching a higher and more advanced course, where the stakes are higher. And this is usually where you expect the teaching quality to drop. As the administration in most places would put the best teachers in the early first year courses. So as to keep up a good image and branding for the program.
I thought I could name one professor who I thought was the greatest at teaching of all the ones I know. But now there are two of them. This is getting out of hand…
They are the GOATs. Even more so because their classes are reputably the hardest in the program. Yet they are able to simplify (summarizing really well), engage you, aid and facilitate your self-learning. Combining different pedagogical techniques.
The Chill Pill
Aptly named because these professors feel like they want to be your friend. And they are teach in a smooth, cool way. I was a little surprised the grad school professor read up our bios before the term so he could find topics to randomly start a conversation with us, if we came early before class started. A pleasant surprise. He even broached on personal topics like attending past students’ weddings and keeping in touch. And offered to write testimonials. I did not take up the offer though. Chill dude. Nice person.
The Part-Timers
Ever had professors who were part-timers? Now, I don’t want to stereotype, but were their teaching aids a tad bit bare and plain? If you thought the days of transparency slides and dusty bulb-lit projectors were over… Well that happened in a class I took in my college degree. So back in the day, that might still be acceptable. I’ve mentioned him in another blog post. He’s an old fellow too. God bless him.
Now this takes the cake. A professor who had to teach a rigorous fact-based class went against the grain. By bringing nothing but himself. And occasionally a few newspaper clippings for case studies. He comes out with whatever he wanted to say on the spot. No hard materials. And no, this is not a course on exploring yourself or finding Zen. But it became a course of exploring the subject and finding out you had to go find and gather the study materials yourself. He took “empty your cup” to the next level.
We had to do presentations, and those presentations were the real lessons. I researched on my topic with my partner, and we both taught our peers the lesson proper for that week. With Powerpoint slides, like we were lecturers for the week. It sounds far-fetched… so I’d throw in another detail, not that it will make a difference. The course outline is a few pages long document that basically details what will be covered in the course. What the lecturer did was to take a copy of that, or borrowed it from someone on the weeks where he brought in only himself, then reading the document’s bullet points, conjure out what he deemed needed to be said that week.
My appraisal for his teaching was heavily moderated. I simply focused on whatever good points he had. I went back to edit the appraisal several rounds so it sounded better. Because I couldn’t imagine what the other students would write.
The Guru
Because the real-life person is a guru. Except this guru teaches you relevant skills in life, instead of exploring yourself and finding Zen. His powerful seminars look and sound and feel like self-help and self-empowerment talks. But you realize that is because this guru helps you excel in the topic, and in this way indirectly leads you to success manifestation and realization. Why is he not the 3rd GOAT? That’s because his area does not have the same technicality as the others. The bar is set differently. Instead of technicality, this area is more on the side of common sense, with a bit of math now and then.
Parting Thoughts
I think all in all, college life is tough. Even if it is not tough now, life will get tough if your choice of major does not push you enough. Or your choice of major does not utilize and ignite the skills and potential in you. Choosing a major that is relevant and allows you mobility in your career by opening up options seems like common sense, right? Well, I think there is no right major, as people lead different lives and walk different paths. I can go on and give college advice only this much, to those looking to embark on a journey in future, but ultimately it is your life, your choice. Just be informed when you jump into anything, and stay positive.
Protecting Your Dream
A little girl dreams of flying. It’s the year 2020.
She relishes the adrenaline of takeoff. The drone of engines. Her world lifting off the ground. The trees below shrinking smaller and growing distant. The clouds above growing nearer enough for her to touch.
Maybe when she grows up, the little girl wishes she can be a trained professional pilot.
A dream requires planning. Studying. Hard work. Luck. Passion. Encouragement. Inspiration. Understanding of the industry, practices, climate. Maybe more. And at certain points in history, not saying 2020 in particular, awareness of the global economic situation.
I’ve never said the little girl dreams of flying in a plane. A little girl dreams of flying in an airship. It’s the year 2020.
A dream requires a key ingredient — positivity. In order for a person to manifest the dream.
The positivity within also allows a person to better internalize the negativity from other people. Every dream has setbacks and challenges — no one needs to be told to know. But it’s good to be reminded. It’s good to be aware. It’s not good, however, to be affected by the negativity.
What about cutting off the negativity?
Answer: Once a person is positive within, cutting off negativity is the least of concerns.
That is where many people get confused. Cutting off negativity was never the solution. Never will be. I do know someone who recognizes negativity from others affecting him. Driving him further from his dream. But the reason is himself, has always been — he was never positive to begin with. Apparently recognizing the source of negativity is easy, but what is hard — is recognizing the correct solution <is equals to> having an inner positive mindset. Converting someone who is internally negative to be internally positive is hard — can it be done overnight?
It is easy to blame others for affecting one’s dreams. While it is hard to blame oneself for being unable to convert oneself’s own mindset.
It is in the mind! So to recap. Cutting off negativity is not the solution. Turning oneself to be internally positive and having a positive mindset is the solution.
But getting from point A to B is hard. However, there are some lifehacks. These are temporary solutions. The middle way. Let us set up camp along the way whilst we climb up the mountain. Let us makeshift our way to the summit by creating checkpoints. To slowly make tiny steps of progress while we try to create a positive mindset.
Now the internet contains many tricks to create a positive mindset. My dear readers can sign up for a seminar. Take up classes. Watch YouTube videos. Go on ahead. My dear readers can stop reading at this point. Because what I will suggest next are my personal lifehacks.
If my personal lifehacks were more commonly known, they wouldn’t be lifehacks anymore. If they can be found on the internet with a simple google search, if they were conventional methods, then they wouldn’t be called lifehacks. Disclaimer: these are not proven to work, do not try them. The only reason they exist — is because changing one’s mindset to become positive is a lot of effort. And anything that is a long arduous journey requiring strength and self-awareness — definitely has shortcuts. Getting from point A to B is hard. And any long journey is bound to have shortcuts.
Disclaimer: these are not proven to work.
Lifehack #1:
Limit and withhold information. Train in secret.
The secret does not seem too technically deep. In fact, what I am going to say will sound a lot like:
Why telling people your goals is a fatal mistake
But the motivations and nuances are different. I’ve put in a different flavor, different dosage, totally different motivation. While they talk about losing motivation, my spin to it revolves around denying fodder for negative people. By withholding information, negative people lack the fuel for their negative imaginations. They will go on to talk about politics or their colleagues instead, rather than about your dreams!
Training in secret is the next part. How to keep things under wraps.
The scary part was when I was having an occasional eat-out dinner with family (this was before 2020 and before any global crisis) while the topic suddenly became about going back to school and taking up courses. And changing careers. And coincidentally the conversation derailed and my dad mentioned in particular [xyz] which is my discipline I’ve not told him about, my secret training. Like I said, it was a coincidence. My dad was just speaking his mind about why would people study a course in [xyz]. He did not believe in it.
Imagine if I had let him in on the fact I was in a course in [xyz]? I guess only 1 person has been told my full plan and she is the only one who has an idea of the bigger picture. Even then there were no details because back when she and I were talking, the secret training had not even started. At that early point in time, details had not even been finalized. Interestingly this person also happens to be the brainchild of Lifehack #1. Besides her, 2 or 3 other friends know of my plan, well at least sizeable snippets of it plus details, only because they were in my class. Or because they shared and partook in my journey and helped me out.
Lifehack #2:
Invest in yourself, not others. Look inward. Learn about yourself.
I wanted to include loving yourself. But self-love is on the same bar as changing into a positive mindset. With similarly heavier requirements.
Investing in yourself here is less of spending money and indulging in oneself. Investing in yourself here is more of channeling energy and channeling thoughts inward to benefit oneself. It’s not equal to self-love yet, it’s not giving yourself a treat, it’s in a direction towards self-centeredness but far from self-centeredness. If there is a crude description it would be “healthy selfishness”. I didn’t want to use the word “selfishness” as it has nothing to do with selfishness, but to some people, only this crude description will make sense to them. Because of how some people are wired. If my dear readers do not need this crude description to grasp the concept, then they can disregard it — others need this crude description to internalize this abstract concept.
After all, if ideas here were not controversial, then they wouldn’t be lifehacks anymore. These lifehacks are written for people with exceptional difficulty towards positivity and they might need crude language like “healthy selfishness” only they can resonate with.
Investing in yourself here is more of channeling energy and channeling thoughts inward to benefit oneself. This can be done via affirmations. Praying for yourself. If you happen to be in a job you are changing out from, learn and ascertain where and when you stop investing in the company and start investing in your dream, or the part-time course you are enrolled in to get there. This naturally requires sacrifice unfortunately. You are going to let people down. Your teamwork contribution is going to drop. You are going to feel bad for using the company resources and the company’s time. You are going to be irresponsible. These are facts. The hard truth is this — that all these will happen. But the catch here, is that they don’t have to happen immediately. You don’t have to start right away. This is how you should time your resignation: recognize that you will resign. That day will come. From now till that happens, roughly create a schedule. Break it down into months. Time and pace your contributions to your team, or that company you are leaving eventually. Slowly let go.
And while all that is happening, importantly, practice Lifehack #1: Limit and withhold information. Train in secret.
All these advice from Lifehack #2 sounds unethical but if you practice it tactfully, you will see things fall into place, it balances itself, and it works. Why? Because some people over-invest outside of themselves. They care too much what their team, what the company thinks of them. It’s funny when you think about it, that they are going to leave the job anyway while still holding on to useless stuff like the valuation of other people. People have trouble letting go. And this is how people allow things to work against their dreams. Letting that sink in for a moment… Second point is that you control the timeline. I practically said you create a schedule and slowly let go of things. If you chose to value your work and your soon-to-be ex-company, then that is your choice. Then you would work for the company to your best till your last day, and if that makes you feel that — by investing in the company you are also investing in yourself, then good for you.
From experience I found it hard to let go. Even after practicing Lifehack #2 of dwindling my contribution over months. I found it hard to forget people. The good people and the bad. The next time when I had to go through similar, I found things easier. I disappointed people but the increased energy and focus I was able to gain for myself and for my goals far outweighed that.
The last part, “looking inward and learning about yourself”, results from the barriers standing in your way to your goals. The team, the workload from your soon-to-be ex-company will only work against you and your goals. Not for. The onus is on you to tell yourself your goals are more important. You are more important.
The onus is on you to allow what happens to you.
The more these forces work against you and goals, the more difficult decisions you have to make. Resistance is natural.
And this is where you learn about yourself.
How you handle the resistance. Your reactions. Did you counter negativity with even more negativity? Did you come out of the battle feeling more positive? Do you finally see how these negative people have no hold over you? Do you see how these negative people are stuck in life because of their mindsets?
You learn about yourself. Sometimes observing about others you also learn the negative patterns and frequencies. Just to come out of it feeling more aware. Awareness helps.
As an example, how things worked out for me:
I would first and foremost admit that I am weak. If giving a choice, I wouldn’t quit any job so eagerly. I like the status quo. Lifehack #2 came into play and helped me in this regard. By slowly withdrawing my energy from my work in office and by slowly withdrawing my contribution to my team, I was able to attrition the sustained pressure and attack on my dream. Recognizing I only had so much energy and so much time in a day for my part-time course, I learned quickly the only way forward for me was to prioritize.
If you showed the Universe how hungry you are for your dream, the resistance put up by both people and events, towards to your dreams, will gradually yield. Things will gradually go your way.
Without giving away too much details, what happened was that 2020 brought on a slew of events which threw a spanner in the works. Suddenly my part-time course was barely saved from the brink of suspension stasis. It was only thanks to Lifehack #2 that I was able to re-prioritize my course and double-down. Saving my dream. Things literally fell into place. Had I not practiced Lifehack #2, there would have been no double-down possible, no double-down option available. I literally unlocked hidden options for myself I probably knew existed but would never have considered. How did this happen? The Universe has seen where I have been investing my energy. The Universe provided thus. All it takes to achieve one’s dream is positivity. With a couple of lifehacks for that much needed boost during hard times.
Youth and Honesty
There’s a saying that goes, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart”. There’s another saying that goes, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Youth
It’s a dear sight to see young people caring for what they believe in. When the older people with more power and resources to evoke changes instead resigning to things the way they are. Even more heartening when you think of it.
It’s a perfect picture. Well, almost. There’s a reason why I shared the quotes. While being honest to one’s beliefs, one should also have the situational awareness to see the reactions that they might invoke from people. For the entirety of the discussion, I’m going to limit the scope down to the workplace and workplace politics. If you want to be listened to, will it help to be screaming into a loudhailer? If you want change from people, does it help if you start off by offending them first in order to get their attention? And who’s job is it to usually evoke changes?
If one wants to evoke changes in the workplace, the usual way to go about it is to win hearts and minds. A personality counts as well. Someone who goes about putting on airs would simply be offending people and would be the last person anyone would listen to. I would imagine that they would have a hard time pushing their ideas and getting people behind their ideas.
Young people in my opinion, need that situational awareness. They need to know when nobody in the workplace wants change and when it is time to quit. They need to know who to support and who not to offend. Sometimes in the workplace, there is clearly a divisive character whose pride and narcissistic tendencies (as typically the case) made them unpopular. Certain melodramatic people, they need not be narcissists, tend to drive a wedge between people. Young people should not take sides (although it is in their nature to do so anyway). When factions exist, young people should learn not to take sides. But knowing the spirit of youth, they strongly believe in something and will take sides anyway. So situational awareness kicks in again: don’t side with the divisive character, don’t make the atmosphere even more toxic than the divisive character has already made so. Don’t take part in the fight of the older folks and seed the flames in the office environment. Many of such advice is reasonable, logical, clearly beneficial. But the spirit of youth is hard to tame. Maybe another person might instead say that the stubbornness of age is hard to tame. They really are both sides of the same coin, right?
Honesty
My own problem with honesty is that I can’t tell a good joke or a spin a story. To do that you need to tell a lie, and I’m not good at this.
The youth’s problem with honesty is that they don’t know how to wear a mask. Or cover their raging hard ons for that matter. It’s a metaphor I’ve used to describe the strong beliefs that youths have. Like hard ons. Healthy and normal to have. But you don’t have to push it against me when we’re just talking. Thanks. Disagreeing with someone does not mean you have to craft up a passionate retort or show it on your face you are not moving an inch from your beliefs.
It’s not in everyone’s capacity to see the wider picture and from various perspectives. That honor goes to only a few. But if you can’t see another perspective, the nest wisest thing to do is to take a step back. And not develop an argument. For the sake of it. Being more confrontational than the other party does not make your truth more right. It only shows how little you grasp the truth because the only truth you see is your own side of the story.
I do believe that many people could have been friends. Or would have stayed friends if not for clashing beliefs. While misunderstandings can be quickly realized, handled or not handled, then go away, clashing beliefs are another thing. They are there. They stay there. As the office environment is just a place we go to work at and draw our salary, we should not go to work to start or carry on heated internet discussions and bring them from the net into the real world. We should focus on our work and responsibilities. We should treat social exchanges tactfully, give and take.
Esoteric
Messages from above can be extremely helpful and meaningful when they are relevant and when I am able to find the message. To digress, I first heard the term “scarcity mentality” used in a video by YouTuber Erika Elmuts. While the “scarcity mentality” mentioned in her video might not be fitting in context to the infographic in this other blog post, it did made me pause to read up about what it meant before sharing and briefly going through that infographic. Anyway, back to Erika Elmuts. Her YouTube channel should be checked out for those who are keen in esoteric messages from above. Erika’s style does not attempt to interpret everything from Spirit but leaves a gap for the audience to fill themselves. This means many of the messages are left open-ended.
I have ever advised someone, another blogger, not to follow gurus but stick instead with their messages so that is what I’m doing. I’m sticking to the esoteric messages from above and not whoever is reading the messages from cards. I think the point is not how or when the messages arrived but from where that is important.
Esoteric messages are intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest — according to a quick google search on what “esoteric” entails. I don’t claim to be able to fully and accurately interpret the messages or whether they were meant for me, but as with messages from above, I followed my heart and listened to my instincts.
What I got from the “reading” was about a brand new beginning for me that is free of those energies that have held me back. And I know what these are. Lack of confidence, immaturity, procrastination, making rash gambles, not having a practical plan, etc. All those are left in the past, I’ve moved on since.
What also resonated with me from the “reading” was how I used to live a life less than what I know I’m here to do. Yes, I’ve spent my time in college wondering what to do, knowing I was meant for more but the life I’m living in front of me not apparently not leading me toward that path. I took up difficult modules containing knowledge I felt was not easily accessible to most people because I felt the need to be better than most and because I was overcompensating for what was really the emptiness within. I was definitely meant for more, but that was definitely not the way to go about it.
The reading also talked about “connecting with my manifestation energy” which was what happened. I had been stuck in my career till events happened that changed who I was inside. When I changed, when I transformed, I was able to successfully change my career. I met my Soul Tribe. I recognized my Twin Flame. Not in any order but several things happened within a short time. Now that I know about my connection with manifestation energy, I will continue my climb up the ladder towards my Pinnacle — it’s a term meaning the best person I can be in this lifetime. For lack of a better word. When I was 17, I used to think I knew who I wanted to be, but I really only thought I knew who I wanted to be. I was rather limited in my thinking. But now I have the ability to create and make things happen with my life.
I used to have regrets, but now I see that everything has lined up the way it has in order to reveal my truth, my path. I see it for what it is, it’s not mistakes anymore, it’s not regrets anymore. I wished it didn’t have to be this way but I needed that growth — now I wish it had happened sooner and faster and I yearn for it. I have appreciation for the path I have walked thus far. I don’t feel that I’ve lost out — I trust in the infinite nature of abundance. I’m no longer believing in the scarcity mentality.
esoteric | a brand new beginning that is free of those energies that have held me back | living a life less than what I know I’m here to do | connecting with my manifestation energy | my ability to create and make things happen with my life | everything has lined up the way it has in order to reveal my truth my path | I see it for what it is it’s not mistakes anymore it’s not regrets anymore | I have an appreciation for the path I have walked thus far | trusting in the infinite nature of abundance | no longer believing in scarcity mentality | let go of the belief in scarcity and the fear of intimacy | going into the new territory | trusting the messages I receive from my heart | it was all in the mind fear of intimacy scarcity mentality
Scarcity Mentality
I hope readers will benefit from the infographic shared above. I have been guilty of many of the pointers in the scarcity mindset column, but now that I’m from a position of abundance, I’m better at not repeating them. Still, I find one pointer problematic and that is “talk about people”. There are unavoidable scenarios at the workplace where there are problems related to coworkers and these problems have to be talked about. Apart from that, I am very careful not to get too embroiled when “talking about people”. A good example is politics. I know there will be haters, but it never ends well if we get so engrossed in what is going on in the news and get caught up in toxic discussions. I don’t wish to elaborate but readers here know just what I’m talking about. A second pointer which I find contentious is “horde information and data”. Now, sometimes we work with confidential stuff and other times we are working in competitive environments so while sharing is good, prudence should be exercised when is the right time and when is not the right time to share. The rest of the infographic I whole-heartedly agree with.
Korean Movies
The 56th Baeksang Arts Awards took place recently and for the past month I have been watching Korean movies with the time I could spare. Korean movies have that unique appeal about them. Here, I’ll talk about 4 films I have watched: The Handmaiden (2016), Parasite (2019), The Wailing (2016), Burning (2018). Disclaimer: we have spoilers.
Before we proceed, a few things to note. These won’t be reviews proper. But discussion on the films and my personal take. A couple of films were ambiguously written, leaving viewers to interpret and complete the stories themselves. It’s not the sex in the films that will be disturbing to some readers, but the lack of morals of the film characters. I might be using offensive manners of speech, as we need to leave our morals and integrity at the door when delving into the dark minds of these characters in order to understand their motivations. Just wanna set things straight, because a few folks might get offended.
Now, I loved all 4 movies and thought they were good. Still certain things didn’t sit right with me. There are just too many good things to talk about the 4 movies so I won’t dwell on them. I’ll head straight to the stuff that might not have worked for me. Again a few folks might get this wrong. I’m not dissing the 4 films, I only want to take out and bring to light some issues with them, even though I enjoyed all 4 films.
The Handmaiden is organized into 3 parts or so. It involved an orphanage masquerading as a training school for charlatans of all sorts — thieves, pickpockets, lock-pickers, impersonators, con artists, honey trappers, spies, etc. The only thing they don’t do is they don’t kill nor torture nor resort to violence. Everyone there is one big family and everyone there has a role and are focused on the benefit, welfare, and survival of their family. While they might have personal and selfish pursuits, I don’t think anyone would sell out the only family they ever knew.
The Korean orphanage had a leader of sorts, a con artist specializing in counterfeiting artwork. He has been in league with a rich Japanese man who is a pervert grooming his niece to become his young wife. In order to takeover her inheritance via marriage. The catch is that he’s not even Japanese to begin with, but Korean, only to have naturalized into Japanese society over the decades. Worked his way up from nothing. Rags to riches story.
The con artist leader has been helping the Japanese counterfeit artwork and rare books. He hatched a plan to elope with the niece and inherit her fortune. His plan involved help from the orphanage, in the form of a servant girl who would serve as a handmaiden to the niece. Now here is when we have to understand the motivation of the con artist. It is not about love. Not even lust. He only cares about the fortune, not the niece. He is also a Casanova, himself popular with women. The niece, she’s not his type — he finds her cold like a fish. In this particular universe, Korea has a sexually progressive underground. This niece is lesbian and though she might still be in the closet, it’s pretty clear to her uncle and the con artist that she is not into men. This particular thing — the con artist’s motivation and knowledge of the niece’s sexual orientation — would be what almost turned me off because of how he went out of character in the end. (EDIT: Here I got ahead of myself and earlier said it broke the film for me, but what I really meant was that it almost turned me off. It’s a great film.) He made an unconvincing 180 degrees, unconvincingly on the part of the acting of the actor himself as well as logic in the writing. This 180 degrees broke the film for me, but was exactly what was needed to bring the story into another direction.
My headcanon was that his con was successful and he ultimately won. In fact in the story he did, but as soon as he got what he wanted, he broke character. He threw away everything he got, just to go chase waterfalls. Love was never in the cards for a rotten scum like himself. He didn’t believe in love himself! He certainly won’t change overnight. She wasn’t into men. All these were established earlier on. But the writer wanted to bring the story into a radical direction by bulldozing these established truths. In the end we got a happy ending with the niece and her female lover. And the fortune. Well, for that to happen the writers needed to topple over their own story. It was literary demolition and rebuilding of the story from scratch. A very forced abrupt change of direction that didn’t work for me. But we got a happy ending so no complains? ~Shrugs~
Parasite involved another family of charlatans. In the same way we have another 180 degrees change of character motivations and story writing in order to shift the story into a depressing ending. Innocent people got murdered. The plan here almost worked. They just had to not let the previous housekeeper back into the house.
The sick twist was a good one — the previous housekeeper was housing the parasite, namesake of the film. The audience might have thought the charlatan family was sucking off the rich household but they’re out-classed by the literal parasite, a homeless person who actually lives in the basement.
If they hadn’t let the previous housekeeper back in to feed the parasite, he’d just die in the basement with no one ever knowing his existence, the charlatan family wouldn’t get busted, the plan would have reached fruition. The son might even get to eventually marry the young teen daughter of the rich family.
But they got ahead of themselves and decided to camp in that house while the household went for a camping trip. For a family who had planned every step of the way and even rehearsed their lines, only to break character and do something like that, was exactly what happened in The Handmaiden. At the earliest sign of impending rain, the charlatan family should have packed up and got their asses out of there. Because it was possible that due to the impending rain, the household could be forced to return prematurely from their camping trip. They already knew the kitchen led into the garage, so they could have evaded the previous housekeeper. In such a big house probably a 3rd exit like a side gate existed even. Easy peasy. Lemon squeezy.
Why was this called The Wailing? Despite what you might think, there aren’t ghosts in this horror film nor was the wailing in the film that scary. The wailing came from the suffering little girl who was possessed? cursed? And her condition made to worsen because the family wrongly believed that the friendly shaman was working against the devil and exorcising her.
This film is heavily Christian themed. My gripe is that it wasn’t explained what the angel was doing for the whole film. What the angel’s motivations were. That part about there being an angel in the film even flew over my head. Which was why I couldn’t understand the ending without googling. My problem was the entire way the angel was ambiguously written. I thought that she was The Ghost in the film. That was how my first viewing went. This horror film had only 1 ghost. About 5 zombies. 1 devil. 1 priest. 1 shaman. Ok, I roughly knew who was bad and who was good but couldn’t fully appreciate the whole bigger picture till someone pointed out the film also had 1 angel. The entire part I missed — I had wrongly thought that was a ghost.
The film’s not hard to understand after you have gotten around the idea of what the angel was doing. And that someone was pretending to help but actually in league with the devil.
This film here, is a masterpiece. It’s a new style I was introduced to. You are given an ambiguously written film for you to flesh out the details on your own, connect the dots on your own, make your own interpretation, write and complete the story on your own.
Wow.
The film is deceptively simple. You are given a slow pace story. You take it all in and go, ok. What could be complicated about this. Boy, you are in for a treat. It only took me rounds of reading online theories and interpretations that I realize that this movie opens up a universe of possible endings.
My problem with the film? I didn’t understand the ending which was out of character with the whole film. The whole film was mostly slow till the last part where the protagonist turned into the villain. But in reality, if you endorsed his actions, thought that he was exercising social justice by putting away Ben, a possible serial killer / human trafficker, I can only say to you: you have walked into the trap. The villain is you. That’s right. The viewers ARE the villains. You have turned a possibly innocent Ben into a villain. The viewers empathized with the protagonist’s desperation with love / lust and his frustration with the rich. And my dear friends, that is exactly what politics is capable of turning people into. I get it that we band together against a wrong, but the news, mainstream media, exactly paints a picture for us to see. We don’t know the truth and have to admit it — that we don’t know the truth. It is only arrogant to be so certain of the the truth. Exacting justice only makes us the villains.
And the writer alluded to in the film? Did you really think the protagonist was the only writer? The writer refers to us, the audience! We have to finish the story on our own! What happened to Hae-mi takes the film on different paths! Oh my God.
If you thought she was murdered, the film takes you down the path that Ben was a serial killer, the burning of abandoned greenhouses was merely a metaphor.
If you thought Ben assisted women in committing suicide, the film takes you down another path. Ben applies makeup to his girls just before he assisted them in suicide. Like preparing an offering to the gods. As alluded to in the film when he was making pasta for his friends and cooking in general. I would venture to say that the form of suicide was probably with them being doused in kerosene in an abandoned greenhouse.
If you thought Ben trafficked the girls, the film takes you down yet another path. This was where Ben was getting his income from. This was his illegal business. It was flesh trade.
Any of the above scenarios have 1 flaw. Ben would have directly known Hae-mi’s fate hence his final meeting with the protagonist made no sense. I believe Ben to truly be innocent. The motivations are a hard part to grasp that’s why. That was the point — Ben was written to be eccentric.
Hae-mi here is the key. Her fate is the key. Her motivation to disappear rested mainly on that part where the protagonist chastised her for what he called acting like a whore. But I completely understood that as an act of love. He had started to love her, and that’s what love did to him. He has started to want to control her, keep her, get her away from Ben. People online judged the protagonist too harshly. If you were ready to settle down and loved the person, some of us would want to change that person. I’ve always thought marriage or relationships in general rest on the fundamental premise of settling down, stopping insane behavior, being domesticated and homely, not seeing other people. That’s the whole idea which I got behind. Now let’s get back to Hae-mi.
If you thought Hae-mi ran away, the film takes you down another path. Problem is that she would have brought her suitcase. Yes, it is possible she was letting her old self fade away and starting afresh, a new slate. No suitcase. We don’t know, this is a possibility.
If you thought Hae-mi committed suicide, the film takes you down another path. Did you really know her? Remember her, and who she was. Her zest for life. Her thirst for the meaning of life. The Great Hunger. I know, given her crushing debt, but is Hae-mi someone to commit suicide? Was that one discouraging remark from the protagonist enough to make her lose meaning of life and make her abandon the Great Hunger? I feel the possibility in one paragraph above is more likely — that she had ran away. It was an apparent suicide or she wanted it to seem that way. The old Hae-mi died, her messy room even had to be tidied up so there was no longer any trace of the old her. The old Hae-mi died and she was indeed starting afresh. She ran away.
Interesting last note. Did you think the stabbing really took place? I thought it did until someone online pushed forward a theory that despite being so convinced against Ben, the protagonist could never have killed him in person. He resorted to killing Ben in his fiction, his writing. He took up writing for good and came up with a plot that involved Ben’s murder. Upon reading this my mind was blown. This is too good. This, my dear friends, only made the movie even better! This theory made the ending even more epic than if it had really taken place.
Enjoying The Fruits Of My Labor
One of my 2020 resolutions was to score good grades. I’m thankful I have done just that. It’s a good time here to stop for a while and be grateful that my hard work has paid off. To celebrate and relax during the long term break. I starting trying to enjoy the simple pleasures of life again, and I had lapsed a little. Old habits return. Actually the lapses started way before, sometime like 2 weeks before the first exam. I started drinking again.
Thanks to my Twin Flame, I abstained from drinking alcohol. I only aspired to quit drinking because I found out during my time with her that she herself doesn’t drink. She has strict dietary restrictions and one of them being that she does not drink. She also seemed disdainful towards alcohol consumption. Abstaining from alcohol consumption became a way for me to cherish her memory because of a spiritually symbolic goodbye where every memory of her served to remind me of the lessons and good habits she taught. But 2 weeks or so before my first exam of 2020, I had too much till I puked. It was my first hangover. It was an accident rather. I have a usual high alcohol tolerance and have drank similar amounts of red wine before. But that day, the white wine was only about 12.5 or 13%. I must have lost my alcohol tolerance.
I’ve been focusing a lot on my studies. And was forced into a more sedentary way of living. I didn’t train or exercise as much for months because I simply devoted more time and energy on studying. And also because of that day job which I juggled. Along the way I must have lost a lot. Included was my usually high alcohol tolerance.
But what I had lost also meant I had gained other fringe benefits along the way. Knowing myself. Growing as a person. I found that as my hard work paid off and translated into success, the success changed me. I became fixated on the A grade. To the extent that every A-minus felt like a slap to the face. It changes people.
To gun for the A grade often meant you had to “create a distance” from the normal students, you had to be the best. Statistically on a bell-curve system used in higher education. You had to be a sigma or two above the normal. You had to be a statistical outlier.
The focus on being better than others is a toxic culture that breeds arrogance. Being better than others doesn’t translate to arrogance. It inadvertently leads to arrogance whether you like it or not. I wasn’t always this way. I am a modest person for the most part.
It builds up to the point where every A-minus feels like a slap on the face because of two reasons. First, the self-entitlement. I toiled so hard therefore I deserve that A grade. Second, the arrogance. I need to be better than others so that I will get the A grade, and rearranged backwards, I am better than others therefore I get the A. That goes the thought process. It doesn’t work that way for another two reasons. First, it is up to the Professor’s discretion. Sad but true. Hard efforts DO NOT automatically translate to the A grade. That is because of moderation. If for example, in the project component, the Professor decides to practice moderating students’ performances, it means that he will refuse to give the hardest effort full marks. And also he will keep the marks close so the differentiation between the lowest, middle, and highest would be tightly clustered. Second, as I found out first hand, being the best does not get you the A. It’s having a perfect score. My first exam, the one where I had too much to drink a week or so before, was probably a near perfect score. I could do every question. I remembered after that exam, thinking, if everyone else also scored perfectly, how would they grade us? And became worried. In that module, I only scored 50% for my midterms when a vast majority had perfect scores. It was daunting for me, to say the least. I clearly wasn’t the best! After the exam, my final grade for that module was above an A. I was stunned initially. I was going to work harder and replicate success. And it did boost my self esteem.
As I was about to begin this blog post to be thankful for my achievements for 2020, I somehow felt that giving it the title Achievement felt a little like a déjà vu. As I had already a previous blog post in 2019 identically titled. So this harkens back to those days where my sweat and effort paid off. I hadn’t really thought about that, which is why it’s always a good thing to stop and be thankful for each progress made.
On the other hand, I do want my Twin Flame to do well. It dawned on me that in my over-concern for her, I became too fixated on her downward spiral. Which I can only stand on the side and which I cannot prevent. That I forgot to believe in her. As she fights her battles.
I know stuff about her situation via our spiritual connection. And also because we have sat down together some time back and went through her plans together. She strongly believes in what she is doing. Even though I admit I was skeptical. She does not exactly have lofty ambitions, but she does dream, and she dreams big. Her plans involve huge leaps in faith and belief. Well, the downward spiral I mentioned earlier was not so much because of the misalignment between how the real world works and how she believes the real world will bend to her will, as she manifests her success. The downward spiral I mentioned was more to do with her spiritual growth and her journey in knowing herself. Which is something she struggles with.
From my perspective, her success requires more than manifestation and hard work. It requires spiritual growth, knowing herself, not resisting the signs that are leading her to something deeper, listening to her higher self, and doing the inner work. Given that 2020 is a strange time, which I take to be spiritually symbolic, for her reflection and introspection. It would lead her to higher truths and she most needs that. I still want her to do well and I will try to remember to believe in her more. As she fights her battles.
Belonging
For years I have been trying to change my career so that I could learn new things, meet new people, grow. And to build something that will last. As well as make backup plans along the way, that I could fall back upon. To prevent myself from being a one-trick pony. To work in multiple industries, the idea being that late in my career I would have several areas of experience to be more hireable at more places.
Aviation was one of these places. A first-cousin was a flight steward who knew of my situation back then, of being stuck in my career and he suggested aviation. If I had gone down that path though, things wouldn’t be good. Global pandemic crashed that industry.
Why did I have to follow his advice, though? I have my life, he has his. Oh right. I didn’t know what to do. I was strong in many areas, I am a quick study, but lacked interest, motivation, effort. I was not always this lazy, but my stagnating career which I’ve since left had made me retreat into this shell… All those years had eaten away at my potential and left me a husk of my true self. Why did I have to follow his advice, though? I was feeling lost. What else was there to do? I needed to find my direction.
In fact direction was the missing ingredient. If I had found my direction, then I wouldn’t have needed any advice. No advice was going to unstuck me or give me my direction. I had to find my direction by myself, on my own. I had to march to the beat of my own drum.
I dreamed of my Twin Flame a couple of nights ago. We were headed home on an afternoon. I caught up to her but before I could say hi, she spun around and started getting friendly with me, and there she started to try selling something to me. We sat down near the public table and bench at our neighborhood and she began explaining her insurance products. I know, my dreams get detailed. Let me cut some parts and jump ahead. As we talked more, I realized she does not even remember me. And it was surreal how I know her. But I am just another client to her she wants to build a working relationship with. She held a second job of sorts on the side helping in donations which she receives a salary for. Depending on how many donations she had brought in. I don’t know how charity organizations pay commission, but ok, it’s just a dream anyway.
Well, I could say that dreaming of her was what inspired me to start another blog post, but that’s not it. I felt I needed to anyway as it had been some time. I wanted to talk about belonging. My Twin Flame does not belong. She does not fit. Imagine some patient who visits several doctors and every doctor knows her symptoms but none of the medications work on her. In my Twin Flame’s case, none of the good advice from anyone works on her. She has a life path, and I know this, that is radically different from anyone’s. This is slightly alluding to my case earlier when my first-cousin’s advice for me to join aviation (and many other advice from others) did not work on me. Except this one was different. Because of her being so radically different from others. It makes it difficult for anyone to help her. And I’ve tried to, during my time with her. I’ve worked with her on her mental issues and also her career. My advice to her did not focus on her direction or what she should be doing, should not be doing. I was focused instead of walking her through her path, on her making the best decisions along the way. She will do what she will do, I won’t be discouraging her, but supporting her. I taught her how to make backups and optimize every single step of the way. There were plot-line holes with her plan I tried to help fill in. Even back then, before the global pandemic, her choice of that particular line of work was difficult to break into. That line of work could be found across a few industries, but to be hired required different requirements for the different industries applied for, requirements mainly dealing with industrial relevance. And prior knowledge of that industry, in addition to her acquired skills. That which she is sorely? gravely? lacking in and needed more time to acquire. I let her know that the longer she dawdles in academia, the less she’d be able to pick up on that missing piece and fill that skill-gap. It was strong medicine I gave. Just that none of the medications work. If even your Twin Flame couldn’t help you, then you know you had blockages and had to best go seek help from a therapist and better go de-clutter. Perhaps it works step by step. It can be done, just that mental issues will always rear its ugly head. Something will always keep eating away at the efforts if not dealt with promptly.
For myself? My catalyst Twin. A mature lady. The skills I am currently picking up are the same ones my mature lady had acquired over… a decade? or so? Except I went straight for expert mode… intense courses. This is here where I wanted to talk about a classmate… he’s been mentioned in a previous blog post. He “does not belong”… with belonging being the topic of this blog post. Age-wise he’s older than everyone and has served in the military more than anyone. Him “not belonging” is because he seems to be from a different world. His motivations are different, his prior experiences are different from others. And you might have experienced this yourself when you have that one outspoken person in the class who tends to say things that people don’t really connect with or relate to. He’s not doing the course for a future career like us younger ones. He’s doing it for enrichment. On the surface this is not a problem, but it gets more unusual the more you look into it. I think I won’t go in that deep end. It just messes with the mind. I brought him up because in particular he was being disruptive to the collaborative community I’ve been building. In short, we are both “team leaders” or your so-called “leaders of the pack” and he has been poaching my teammates. I won’t call him my rival, because technically every student in the course are competing rivals if you want to get there. He just gets in the way of my plans. He has his own teammates but they are graduating from the course earlier so he needs to find his replacement army. I’ve observed his leadership over the terms and we’ve worked with some common teammates. I noticed he’s more motivated than anyone and this pushes over the lazier people. My style is more accommodating and I’m able to get even the lazy people behind ideas. His style is more of quickly securing objectives whereas my style is more of complementing weaknesses and working layer upon layer to flesh up the skeleton of the projects. I’ve held the opinion that I’m better at utilizing resources whereas he’s a better student overall and more hardworking than I am. Ironic since he’s served as an officer in the military and I’d expected him to have leadership ability in spades. I guess the military taught him to quickly secure objectives so his projects and presentations always feel soul-less. I wouldn’t dare say I’m better at connecting with others but I’d say I do a good job acting like I belong and getting people behind common goals. I feel like most of the time, he’s getting people behind his goals, and that’s what you get when you have outspoken leadership… there’s less room for discussion, people over-rely on you and think you’ve got this. I like to leave room for emergencies so my people are always on their feet when I remind them our areas that have not been covered. I like to get my people on Easter egg hunts where they will not leave any stone unturned. It grows on them. I have this thing of tickling the OCD within them. I’m looking at further honing my leadership abilities but acknowledge I’m still a lazy student at the core. And have stuff to learn from him. He’s bright. He’s sharp and his mind is quick. But he tends to ask bizarre questions, due to him overthinking things… and also because his prior experience is radically different from the rest. I aspire to learn from him. I’ve juggled studies and work. But this guy has a wife and kid(s) to boot. And he juggles better than me. I’ll give him that.
My Twin Flame is academically inclined and hardworking. I have no doubt she’ll do well in her studies. Just that life is not always about books. There are projects too. And the bigger projects, whaddya call them? cornerstone, keystone, yes capstone projects require more from you than just being exam-savvy. And even within projects you’d want your selected topics to be something more industry related, as opposed to being academia-inclined with limited applications. Life is not always about exams and projects. Getting hired is a different ball game. And involves more variables. There are factors in play like how good your school’s career services are, how well people perceive you, hence whether you belong or not. And finally your individual capability and achievements. To belong is something I aspire to. It’s a skill, it’s a quality, and no matter how silly it sounds, it’s more than whether you hang around with people and more than whether you do the same things they do. Belonging is so much more than that. And I’m only starting to learn.
So to end this blog post I’ll leave a quote about belonging:
How Twin Flames Help You Find Your Way Back
“I don’t go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.” In the book Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter says this.
This is for people who are actively looking for meaning, people who are searching for love, people who want to know what meeting one’s Twin Flame feels like.
It seems pretty fun to seek for a thrill, especially when we hear stories of others and their life-changing encounters. And wonder ourselves how it will be like. Normalcy in life gets mundane, wouldn’t it be great to look for adventure?
Let me give my personal experience. I met my Twin Flame in strange circumstances. My life wasn’t in order. I was walking off the beaten track. I was essentially living an adventure, instead of carrying on with a normal career and doing what I should be rightfully doing with my skills and academic achievements. How would a good analogy sound like? I don’t have one, but I’ll give it a shot. Imagine Harry Potter got the better of himself and decided to abandon his dharma… that is, to fight evil. Harry Potter decided that he crushes at Quidditch those few times and got the wrong impression that his life path was to be a professional Quidditch player. He’d be a total chad, getting all the witches, more than he could handle. Something like that.
Yeah, I was great at something. Twice or thrice. Not the best, but at times I crushed the game. I thought I’d go for it. The people who were working at this area were somewhat hippies… liberal, philosophical, strange. I felt they were challenging the norm and were kinda cool. Not at all how they’re usually portrayed.
Being an impressionable young man, I took in the various cliché “life advice”, some of which the readers might have heard of. “Follow your dream”, “Do what you love”, “Find your passion” as well as folks who said that one’s career often wasn’t related to one’s major in college. But those advice came from experienced people who’ve walked the beaten path. They’ve led normal lives and got tired of it then quit to set up their own business or pursue their hobbies. I’ve learned that it doesn’t apply to the young. The young should invest their energy into an industrious lifestyle working hard… Ok, maybe not to the extent of being so square, I mean, one should have a level of dependability and responsibility. These small good habits pile up over time and serve you well later in life. Any interests which do not strongly contribute to a career could be pursued on the side.
And one’s major in college, while not necessarily determining one’s eventual career, has to still at least be palatable enough to hiring managers. What may look impressive to many may not be something which works in the system. I don’t know if this is a good illustration but take Actuarial Science for example. It’s impressive. Check. Pretty and flashy career. But not many roles available. If your state or city hires only dozens of them, chances are nobody leaves or retires and it is difficult to break into this line. Best to check how your seniors are doing. Ugh, something I should have done more in hindsight. As a matter of fact, I wanted to get into Actuarial Science. But there were no schools offering such courses in my city back then.
Maybe now that I am a much less impressionable young man, I can reword my advice to others as, “prioritize a base, then pursue your interest on the side and build your passion around your base”. This base here means a basic career which you can always rely on. This base could be different for different people. For David who’s into fashion, being a makeup artist is his passion but he should really look at building his passion around his base, for instance, say, programming. Because David is a programmer by day and his college major is in Computer Science. Whereas for Maria, her base could be just that… being a makeup artist. And her passion is bouldering. Maybe because Maria came from a family of makeup artists, and it’s a family trade. So Maria could choose to be a part-time bouldering instructor.
Not for me though. I’ve took wrong turns and now I’m in the process of changing my base.
Life took a weird turn for me. Like when Harry Potter chose to become a professional Quidditch player in another timeline. There has always been a gnawing feeling that I was supposed to go back and do the right thing. I roughly knew what the right thing was. In fact it was my first choice for my college major. Which I never got around to revisiting. And why was that? I knew pals who were in that line and they mostly weren’t doing well. They were overworked and underpaid. Seems like it would have been a mistake for me to follow them. But things weren’t so straightforward. It took me some time before I found the missing piece of the puzzle — my pals working in that line shared a similarity. No, that similarity wasn’t bad grades or that their schools weren’t prestigious enough. But once I found the missing piece of the puzzle I was quickly able to justify going back to college to complete my training.
But my search for truth had not been easy. I admit it couldn’t have been done without meeting my Twin Flame. Us being in each others’ lives was what brought clarity to the truth to things, before this we could never see by ourselves. It wasn’t perfect clarity however, but it was enough to nudge us in the right directions in our lives. Which was not necessarily back into each others’ lives. We had to go separate ways. In a way, moving in the right direction means we were inadvertently moving away from each other. But not necessarily moving away from Sacred Union. Twin Flames teach each other and show each other the way. If I had a choice, I would have chosen to be on the right path all along, even if it meant never meeting my Twin Flame.
And that’s what I am getting at. For those who don’t know who their Twin Flames are and for those who are trying to meet their Twin Flames. Don’t go looking. Like the quote at the beginning… It is trying to say that the Twin Flame experience will find you instead. If you need it. If your life isn’t in order like mine was, and if you couldn’t see a way out, a way back to the right path… Your Twin Flame will find you and teach you.
Movie Review of Knight of Cups (2015)
Did anyone get this movie?
I first got introduced to Knight of Cups (2015) thanks to a discussion about the new Thor movie where Bale was to be a villain and which Portman is also starring in. Someone posted this strange foot scene.
You could get away by saying that this movie is art. Yes, it obviously is abstract. Yes, the movie is obviously is trying to prove a point. That which does not matter. There’s no plot. There’s roughly a little tarot message strewn in there, interspersed with poetic verses, then sewn up with your imagination.
I’m going to offer another point of view. The movie is filmed in a video game style. Have you heard of the company Valve? Which developed the Source 3D physics engine? And a zombie game like Left 4 Dead? The Source engine allows you to recreate people characters and populate a map with them. Sort of like a virtual reality.
That’s how the movie scenes feel like. Sterile. Quoting from another movie review below. They said the movie felt sterile and I agreed. Basically it shows you the beauty of Hollywood and LA. The real estate, the beaches, the people. The director films these events and mellows out the cacophony background sounds. Where there are voices of people speaking directly in front of our character Bale, the voices feel muted off and distant. As though the experiences are not real. As seen through 3rd person viewer in a video game.
If you wanted to squeeze in a message or plot, there isn’t one. The joke’s on you if you try. And the more desperate you are, the deeper the hole. We’ve been conditioned to think all movies have plots. All movies have messages. No, they don’t have to.
The movie is simply scenes stitched together. You could practically draw any plot you want. Many say that the women in Bale’s character’s life act as symbols. You could say the character is a womanizer, having too many in and out of his life and never settling. You could say the character is trying to find love to fill a void which he can never fill.
I will stick to my angle and say the film is a rebellious message to deconstruct or go against the grain of what makes a normal movie.
References:
Receiving Love
I’ve been thinking about someone. She loved me during a rather dark time in my life. In my late-teens I had a depression phase that subsided after more than a year, thankfully. But I was never the same after that. The self-destructive behaviors. The impulsive and dangerous decisions I made because something in my inner psyche had been affected. Subsiding was just 50% of the battle won. The real healing only took place during my early adult years, which I spent, of course, making more mistakes.
I know. I don’t live in the past. This blog post is meant more for the reader. I don’t like to talk about my dark days. But I know that part of facing my dark days is acceptance and talking about it.
She loved me. Why did she love me? I don’t know. I wasn’t very proud of myself back then. I don’t even remember flirting with her. Around her I was just being myself. But boy, we did spend a little too much time together, I think. We talked a little too much I think. Because I needed someone to talk to. She’s 6 years older than I. I was then sort of like a lowly temp staff while she’s sort of like a management trainee. It’s hard to reveal the details, but it’s like we’re both from 2 different castes, she being from the top and I being from the lowest. I didn’t know why she loved me. Well, we are intellectually compatible. Had long talks and shared a love for movies.
I wondered how she’s doing. Heard that she’s still working at the same organization. Although in the years that has passed, she has not really risen in ranks. I feel bad for her. The structure over the years has changed so much I’m not even sure if it is accurate to say she’s been working at the same organization with the same rank for all these years. Several transfers later, new departments being created, different types of positions and nifty-sounding specializations opened, that things are far too different today to make any comparison.
I don’t know why I’m thinking of her recently. And thinking of her reminded me of those dark days.
I hurt her. When we had to say goodbye, she asked me if she’ll ever see me again. I think not. To see her again meant going back to that place of gloom. It didn’t matter what I said as the outcome would not differ. Still I could have answered her better.
It had nothing to do with age. Though she being 6 years older. It had nothing to do with her higher position compared to mine, since we could have dated outside of work. And I did leave that place of gloom, didn’t it? I am so sorry I could not love her back before. The way I would be able to love her back now. It was bad timing. I was in a depression phase. And other stuff that made the hole go even deeper and deeper into the dark abyss.
If we had worked, she could have saved me. We could have gotten married. I mean it’s possible now of course. But back then, I would have freaked out at the idea of getting married before graduating from college. Just my personal beliefs, your mileage might vary.
I feel even more sorry if she’s single all these years because of waiting or thinking of me. I don’t want to say any further.
My Flame
Then we come next to my Twin Flame. Hmm, ironically she isn’t my type. Perhaps she has no type of guy either, instead relying on her intuition when it comes to choosing someone. Not that she gets to pick and choose. She’s sort of “out of commission” at the moment. If there was a way to describe her state, yes, that’s how I’d describe my Twin Flame’s current situation.
My Twin Flame has only begun to realize and recognize bits of her personal truth. Here and there. Now and then. It isn’t much but I’m glad that all the love I’ve sent her, my prayers for her and well-wishes amounted to something. I want her to awaken. I’ve also learned my personal truth: I used to be vindictive as in wanting wrong-doers to get their retribution. I was arguably vengeful and petty. But to the people who have done me wrong the past 10 months, I’ve handled our conflicts with understanding. And feel sorry for them, having to be the way they are and also feeling sorry for how things between us turned out. And feeling positive about it all. Within the time I’ve grown, I’ve changed. I hope my progress makes her grow and change too.
In my opinion, my Twin Flame doesn’t have the qualities to make a good partner in marriage? That’s an open question. Perhaps time may change her? Now on to her good points. She’s a good person. My Twin Flame can be a great person, but only to her close person. She was a great person when with me. But still not enough to make a good partner in marriage? Another good point she has is that she’s not confrontational. But as a consequence, things do not get solved because of her bottling things up. She could have told me about her mental health condition, rather than me playing detective and having myself to match her symptoms to her diagnosis. Another of her strength would lie in her hospitality. Which was probably bred into her, but also very likely to be in her very nature. I know I have earlier mentioned that my Twin Flame wouldn’t make a good partner. However, that’s on the whole. I’m saying that, aside from that, assuming a relationship worked, she would have made a loyal girlfriend and wife, faithful to boot. I cherish that. I won’t take her faithfulness for granted. I have told myself I’ll never betray my Twin Flame. Thinking of her and telling her higher-self that too. I know I may sound harsh when describing her or even casually talking about her, but that’s really the way things are. Still, this is pretty normal and common, with many people continue loving the person despite seeing the flaws of the one they love.
When I considered being with her, it was truthfully only after concessions made. I set aside resources to help her. If I were to live with my Twin Flame and spend my life with her. But things were not so bad that I’d have to get myself accustomed to anything. We talked about children. She wasn’t keen but that could change? About stuff like sex, it wouldn’t have needed much discussion as there’re bigger things than the libido, we didn’t realize then we are Twin Flames and how intense unions can be, plus other reasons like how some things for us both are too telepathically obvious for us that they don’t need to be talked about. Stuff like that were too far into the future to dream about now, “now” which meant back then. Sacrifices needed to be made for some people to love. Sacrifices needed to be made for some people to get together. Some couples are luckier perhaps. Of course there’s a school of thought that would recommend looking elsewhere for someone else so sacrifices needn’t be made and of course who wouldn’t? That’s the point of sacrifices, when there are other ways out there, sticking to sacrifices is the whole point. It does not apply to everyone though.
My Lecturer
I’m not thinking of my lecturer, but I thought of bringing her up. Because she’s very friendly to me. I’m thinking more of aceing her module. Initially I was apprehensive towards her because of how over-friendly she was being with me. I was at the course orientation and out of nowhere she came over to sit beside me.
I have social anxiety to some degree. In my early adult years I went through a period of healing. In my early adult years I also spent time at some place which had about a couple dozen strange and weird people whose negative influence over me brought out my social anxiety. When I’m alone, I’m a confident man. My social anxiety kicked in when the lecturer came over and sat beside me and her vibes caused some apprehension within me. So she sat down beside me and did not talk much to anyone else. I was only noticing for most of the time her attention guided towards me.
We talked about careers because the course was supposed to open up opportunities. Well, I learned that I could have picked a better topic because people in academia tend to not be updated with the working world outside the walls of academia. She could not help much with career advice. However she tried.
I’m still going on and on about her vibes. She feels like the right person at the right time and even more uncannily at the right place. I never met her before this and she just happened to appear out of nowhere. Now, I’ve attended an info-session and never saw her. In the selection interview she wasn’t in the panel. In fact she does not even teach my intake. We’d have no other way of meeting other than that course orientation. But through her interaction with me I could tell that she has been waiting so long to meet me. And it kind of freaked me out. To put it truthfully.
And you know what else? Circumstances changed that made me having to apply to take her class. Go figure. And I knew it had to do with something more than meets the eye. The first session we had, she was facing my part of the class maybe 70% of the time, and of that time, 80% of it was making eye contact with me. I simply appeared attentive and made sure I didn’t appear rude. I was only slightly relieved when I spotted a ring on her fourth finger. So I assumed her to be married. You know, because if she were single I was afraid she’d start making bolder moves.
I won’t take advantage of this situation. I want to think she’s very friendly and return in kind politely. She’s presentable and someone whom I can respect. Under different circumstances we could grow closer and resonate with each other. I feel a kindred spirit with her.
My Message
Perhaps my blog post is about learning how to accept love from somebody. And how to give love. And not just giving and receiving love, but kindness too.
Reunion
I would be going to meet up with some friends soon. They are just completing their internship and I’m waiting to hear from them. Is this a good industry? Will they stay on or return to their previous lines of work? Can we not be so skeptical and negative? Having forged ahead and blazed the trail months in advance, I was hired to do what we were being taught in the course. And I did it my way, side-stepping the internship to get into a full time role that itself provided additional training. With full time benefits. I would meet up with my friends soon and give them all the encouragement they need to transition into their careers after their internship.
While I was coming up with this blog post, I was looking around the net for power team pictures and saw BlackPink theory + 4 elements. Because at our reunion there would be 4 of us. A power team. Like BlackPink. No, of course we aren’t BlackPink. But perhaps we share some similarities with BlackPink.
Soul Tribe
These friends I’m having a reunion with, they aren’t normal people. They are my heroes! As I am theirs.
We’ve always got each other’s back. This extraordinary pair of men, plus one woman, are members of my Soul Tribe I have mentioned in other blog posts. I thought we’d have drifted apart after this whole while! We’d exchange texts and keep in touch, but things with these people aren’t the same as with others. We share a bond. That is why we never drifted apart despite all this time spent in our separate ways. We were a close-knit fighting unit during our course together. Or at least how I turned our team into a close-knit fighting unit during my time there.
No matter how we thought we’d never see each other again, still life would find a way to make us see each other again. And this is further made profound and even spiritual because of how we met, and not just how we met but especially when in our lives we met. We met when all of us were past young adults. Well, we still look like young adults. I’d like to believe. But the point I’m making here is that we met at a time in our lives where many people find it difficult to make friends (even those who go clubbing). And yet we managed around this to form a bond so close. We’re business partners who’re not in business together. But business partners because we have a common objective. We are building something together. Yet we are operating independently from each other. We feel we each have a stake in this. We want each other to grow. We want each other to do well. We are a power team.
That’s how friendships in one’s adult years ought to be. That’s how friendships in one’s adult years are not like because in reality people drift apart.
College Friends
In fact, I’ve drifted so far apart from my college friends that at the housewarming where us college friends met, previously close buddies had their wives and I couldn’t even find something common to talk about. In reality it wasn’t as bad as being no longer on talking terms, as we’d acknowledge each other, then fumble around with an inner conflict within due to the stress of thinking what to talk about next.
My college buddy motivated me to study and introduced crazy innovative ways for studying like going to a smaller town where an airfield was at. It simply had an ambiance because that airfield has ongoing renovations over the years to attract tourists. My college buddy moved on to do very different stuff than what he studied. We drifted apart despite meeting up over the years. I didn’t attend his wedding because by then we’d become different people and back during that month I was working very long nights on my future career change. From here on, are mainly my incomplete knowledge and speculation. I know for sure he met his wife on Tinder. I cannot confirm but I’ve always thought they didn’t share much topics and their time together was just spent touching. That’s the image they portray in public. I cannot confirm but I’ve always thought their chemistry was physical and their bond was forged mainly on a physical level. Which is what Tinder is intended for. That last bit I know for sure. If I married a Ukrainian bride, with a workable level of conversational English, that’s how I’d imagine my marriage to be like? That is perhaps a poor comparison but my attempt at one?
The Opposite of Reunion
I had just recently given an advice to someone over her blog. Well, assumed her to be female. Her blog post alluded to a disconnect she feels with people. It made her think that the problem lies in herself. Well, yes and no. And it got me thinking about how people have been growing disconnected.
The problem for that blog writer lies on both ends. On one end, yes the blog writer herself. On the other end, people. People are growing disconnected because of 1) some reason for unhappiness and 2) some reason of lack. Among other reasons. Like perhaps social media and violent video games. Ok, the last part is a lie. I think social media and violent video games are only symptoms, not the root cause.
I spent some time understanding this reason for the disconnect and I arrived at the root cause as being 1) some reason for unhappiness and 2) some reason of lack. For now. My theory might change but this is a temporary and working model, an abstraction to help explain the disconnect. I reviewed my life and looked for the times when people just seem to be connected. As in, there were times in my life where there seemed to be little conflict and people were connected. And it coincided with times when people were happy. Also times when people were not feeling any lack within themselves. Like everything has been provided for and there is no worry for the future. Does that sound like school, for some of you?
Recall that the problem for that blog writer lies on both ends. What about the blog writer herself? And what can be done about this? Felt unhappy at some point. Check. Feels a reason of lack. Referred by her in her words as the ‘black lack’. Check. What the blog writer had in common with other disconnected people are these exact 2 items.
So this person whose blog I commented on really needed a wider perspective.
Connecting
Now we come to what could be done about this? The blog writer simply hung out with the wrong groups, I feel. When people are unhappy and feel a lack in their lives, and then you put them together, there will be no connection. Superficial connection at best. The blog writer could have worked on self-improvement. But specifically self-improvement which targets the lack in her life. It could be career. Perhaps now is the time that the blog writer should be taking a course or doing something equivalent that strengthens and builds her résumé. Not socializing with those people who are not doing anything with their lives. You see, perhaps the Universe wants the blog writer to do this so that in the future, with a new job and career, she will then get to meet and know “her people”. Just like how I met my Soul Tribe. When I did my thing, when I get into my element, that’s when magic happens and things fall into place. So the blog writer shouldn’t have been worried in the present tense about not being able to connect to people at all. Perhaps “her people” are there in the future “waiting” for her? To enter their lives?
What else could be done about it? The blog writer also mentioned that she has cut ties with people. At first glance, I don’t know how this is even a remedy to amend her disconnect with others. Sounds like worsening the situation or even self-sabotage. I don’t know her situation, but the she perhaps had her reasons to feel compelled to cut ties. She called this “taking stock”. Although she did not provide the whole picture, I am speculating that, in her life, the blog writer must have had met “her people” or even “her person” and she cut them off. Due to some reason. You see, I have this theory. There is a limit. There are only so many people that will come into our lives and that the Universe will put into our way. Good or bad, people teach us lessons. Doing something like cutting ties, in addition to not remedying the blog writer’s disconnect, also exhausts or depletes her Universal limit (my theory). As well as remove all her opportunities for her to learn and grow, as I’ve said, people carry messages and encounters contain lessons. What the blog writer could do right now, or even for this year 2020, would be to find at least one person. Ok, maybe at most one person. There is probably more than one helpful person she could have cut ties with, but just one person might do the trick. Somebody who perhaps has only wanted the best for her? Wanted her to do well? Like the members of my Soul Tribe. Somebody who accepts her unlike the rest? Somebody who has never hurt her? Perhaps who loves her? Well, I think everyone is loved. It need not be romantic. Just that we either don’t appreciate it or if it were romantic love, that we don’t return in kind. The blog writer exuded a vibe of apprehensiveness. Perhaps she was too closed-up and apprehensive towards romantic advances that she cut them off? It’s common, I struggle with fear of intimacy and I admit it. Perhaps in her apprehensiveness for learning lessons, the blog writer might have cut ties with someone because the person was too overbearing to have her to learn? For her own good?
I’m side-tracking here, but there were people like that in my life. They were overbearing for they wanted me to learn my lessons. I did not cut ties with them. I was aware of their intentions.
What Reunions Do
Taken from Psychology Today.
They are emotional nourishment. They are physical. Although we have many ways to communicate online, there is no proper substitute for spending time physically together. It make take some time warming up, but small talk and mundane conversation with the right people eventually lead to deeper level communication.
Even a mundane dinner can stimulate our friends and us to reminisce feelings and thoughts about the past. Maybe not the past that was spent together, but instead the past which was spent apart. To catch up on what happened in that time we did not see each other. All this beyond a superficial level, even though it started out on a mundane premise.
The perspective of long-time friends can be very enlightening. It may not only reveal information about us and how we have changed, but also similar information about our friends. Discussing and knowing this can lead to greater intimacy and respect for one another.
– Psychology Today
Movie Review of 4 Films: Escape Room
Spoilers Ahead.
The 4 movie reviews would be in no particular order: No Escape Room (2018), Escape Room (2017), Escape Room (2017), Escape Room (2019). Or to be clearer, I’ll base them on their premises. Respectively, Film #1 (Road Trip), Film #2 (Kidnapping), Film #3 (Horror), Film #4 (Experiment).
How does one tell the movies apart?
In my blog post I will include screen stills and posters for the 4 films, so there is NO WAY of confusing the 4. I hope they help in distinguishing the films. The 4 films have different actors and different stories.
I recommend watching all 4 films. Haha, that way you’ll be able to tell which-film-is-which after completing at least 2 films, namely the both that came out in 2017. Film #1 (Road Trip) deals with a dad and teenage daughter on a road trip to horse-back riding. It’s the oddest one out, at least to me. You won’t mix up No Escape Room (2018) with the others. Film #2 (Kidnapping) deals with a group of friends partying and ends with a blonde lady locked in a cage.
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Film #3 (Horror) deals with a demonically possessed scissors killer. It’s the one with the worst acting and worst production. Ironically having major stars in the film like Sean Young and Skeet Ulrich. Who stood out from the film, well because they are stars who acted in bigger and better films. And that they seem pretty out of place with the entire production. Almost as if they played cameos in a student-made film project. It is horror, or at least intends to be horror. The film has issues, but we’ll get to that proper.
Film #4 (Experiment) deals with a mega corporation which conceptualizes, tests, create mega escape rooms. It has the grandest scale of the 4 films. It is close in vibe to Cube (1997) and Fermat’s Room (2007). It’s not horror. It’s meant to be intellectual in theme.
Movie Review: Film #1
Let’s begin with the review of Film #1 (Road Trip). A father and a daughter travels on a road trip to bond. The daughter’s played by Jeni Ross, below.
Wow. Imo, the best film of the lot. Even though it only has a tomato rating of 45% from the audience score. And have I mentioned already that it’s the oddest one out? At least to me. You won’t mix up No Escape Room (2018) with the others.
The film has the car breaking down during the road trip, so the father and daughter had to get it towed to the nearest town. There they decided to sign up for an escape room held at a house a short drive away from the diner. But that part of town was supposedly rumored to trap people who never return or are heard from ever again.
The ending was the best of the 4. It’s so good I don’t even want to spoil the ending.
The way the movie twists from a simple road trip, to an escape room, then back to a road trip after their escape, wow. Just wow.
The whole time things get trippy. And no, it’s not the work of the tea served at the beginning by Josie. And no, although it was close to getting drugged and being on acid, no, it wasn’t acid. Nor drugs. The reason for the experiences the trapped victims feel in that house have a more abstract and supernatural explanation I will give further below.
Who’s the villain in this film? Hmm, that’s a tough call. Half the time you can’t tell if the villain only exists in their minds. They don’t kill each other but each character are killed by the rooms or in accidents. The villain has no face, but that’s not a problem. The villains are not people. Hmm, neither were there demons. Nor evil forces at play. It’s strange but in a way that I like. No, there’s also no curse going around here. Ok, ok, since I’m into the metaphysical, I should be able to put this into words. There were forces trapping people in, ok, if they ever enter that part of town, as warned by the lady at the diner, Betsy. Forces trapping people into time and space. Ok? There’s no evil, no malice, no ghost, no demon, just forces with no form and no face that trap people in time and space. I know it’s a little hard to visualize something non-sentient and abstract that has no form.
Yup, the escape room and the theme of the inventor was just a façade for these supernatural forces. A front that has been put up to trap people, but these forces do not necessarily require to have an escape room for that purpose of trapping people. And yes, this kind of thing is right up my alley. Like Inception. I love it! Why is this film not ever mentioned by the other reviews when they are comparing escape room movies? Oh right, yes. It’s the oddest one out.
In order of watching the movies, don’t start with this one. It’s heavier. Belongs up there with the label “mindfuckery”, “what just happened”, “trippy”. Ah, this film surpassed my expectations for a TV movie. The production was ok. The writing was just great. Those twists!
Movie Review: Film #2
We next move on to the review of Film #2 (Kidnapping).
The premise is that it has a group of 7 friends partying. Well, out there, other reviews often talk about sex and drinking, alluding to irresponsibility and youth. No, there’s no sex in the film nor were the characters irresponsible. Nor were the characters that young and immature. They’re in their 30s and in love, and 1 of the couples were married, but having problems. This is the film very often compared to Film #4 (Experiment), with reviews saying just to give this film a miss and watch Film #4 (Experiment) instead. True, but I’ll personally recommend watching all 4 films. This film is also compared to Film #3 (Horror) because both came out in 2017. So they both get mentioned together in that context so people would be able to distinguish the 2. Film #3 (Horror) is related to horror and the supernatural, however this film is not. In fact, this film lacks a motivation. We never got to know why the friends were kidnapped. It seems random. The villain’s face was never shown. He cyber-stalks mainly the female lead Christen, who’s the blonde lady locked in the cage. It was the female lead that got her friends into the escape room after their dinner night out.
It’s never shown in the opening scene how the female lead Christen was related to the deaths of the group before. Only when the last fellow of the group before had his hand pricked by a poison needle and fell, the female lead’s name Christen was shown on the screen. Falsely putting up a connection when there was none to be made. Bad directing.
Problems with this film. Lack of motivation of the villain. He does not even seem to be enjoying tormenting the group. He’s only shown at the end. The whole film sets up Christen locked in the cage watching her friends solve the rooms and die. The pace is slow and not smooth. There were bad acting especially with the sexual tension, sharing this same problem with Film #3 (Horror). Badly done sexual tension. Lukewarm chemistry between the couples. And it wasn’t explained what was with that masked kinky party at the end of the film that appeared to have the 7th person of that night who did not join them for the escape room. But somehow the villain has footage of that kinky party? Loose strings. There were loose strings left hanging. The ending was abrupt.
Strengths with the film. There is a better interaction between the characters compared to Film #3 (Horror). The acting is also better, the characters better written than Film #3 (Horror). There were no annoying characters here, unlike in Film #3 (Horror). You feel for each character more. The production quality is also better than Film #3 (Horror). Heck, this film even has more backstories than Film #3 (Horror). The married couple quarrels and are cold toward each other. The wife having a thing for the birthday boy male lead. The male lead going crazy and paranoid thinking that Christen got them all into this mess. And blaming her for the deaths. The male lead sacrificing the other character’s forearm (she lives) to become the last one to escape the room.
If I can understand why other reviews bomb this film, it has to be the first reason I gave, lack of motivation of the villain. Or story. He just cameos at the end. And he’s a one man show. What, one guy? Sets up the rooms and runs the whole thing by himself? And the ending was very abrupt. The villain packs up and leaves. The end. Leaving an empty feeling for the audience. It’s as though the movie itself couldn’t wait to end and put itself out of the misery, not even entertaining the thought of a sequel.
I felt really sorry for Elisabeth Hower’s character who was stripped naked and locked in a cage. Christen. Having escaped and making her way naked to a phone booth to call for help. That was a traumatic kidnapping experience for her. Watching her friends’ demises and all. Well, one didn’t die, just had her forearm crushed and broken. And Christen must have felt terrible causing all this because she fell prey to a scam.
Movie Review: Film #3
Film #3 is horror, but what was so distracting was the bad acting, weak production, poor chemistry and poor interactions between only 4 main leads. The other movie, Film #2 (Kidnapping) had 7 people in the dinner scene and fared better than this film which had only 4 people to work with! The film was so bad, it distracts and made me forget this was even supposed to be horror.
The leads became annoying to a point where I wanted to feel for their deaths and the feeling came out, but then it went back in. Then I forced the feeling to come out again to feel sorry for the brutal scissors killings. Then the scene jumps to that annoying secretary and the game master who refuses to stop the game despite the props failing — my feeling sorry for the deaths of the leads had to go back in again. I was forced by the writing of the film to accept their deaths. It’s like they were inevitably meant to die because it was written like that — game master refuses to end the game. Game master makes bad decision after bad decision. He cares more about the faulty props than the possibility that the people inside could be facing trouble, since there was no more security footage.
It was especially painful to watch the idiocy going on. Not calling 911, but calling up the security cam maintenance? It was painful watching that secretary character. The main leads interacted as though they were in an audition. I felt like I was watching an audition. Christine Donlon’s character was high at the start and only behaved more normally as any person would as the game progressed with the increased stakes.
Ashley Gallegos’ character was robotic and seemed to be trying hard to remember what’s her next line. Her character eventually went into shock after the boyfriend’s death and the plot gave her a merciful exit before that character could do any further damage to the film. I feel sorry more for the actress who’s really the victim of poor character writing.
The film’s pacing got slightly better after Ashley Gallegos’ character died. Not because of Ashley Gallegos’ character but because of how the villain was growing stronger by the minute. But then the film kept jumping back to scenes which had that annoying secretary.
The premise is better than Film #2 (Kidnapping) and even the motivation of the villain was there. The demonically possessed killer acted better than the worst actors in this film despite given no lines. The motivation of the game master was weak. Impulsive guy only caring for himself and the dying business. Skeet Ulrich unfortunately got to play a badly written character. With cringey interaction with the secretary.
Having more takes would have improved the film. It’s like the director didn’t bother to smoothen out the robotic acting and poor interactions.
The ending was ok. Better done than the other 2 but not better than the mindfuckery of Film #1.
Movie Review: Film #4
This movie makes you feel for the characters.
Characters here are better written. Amanda the Iraqi vet, Danny Khan the escape room enthusiast, Mike the truck driver (if I recalled right), Jason the corporate banker, Zoey the college whiz, and Ben the regular young man who does the right thing. I root for Ben.
The jokes toward that geeky smart Danny Khan character were overboard. The condescending-ness of the main characters towards his nerdiness, sad to watch. And I thought that the corporate banker Jason was the only asshole character in the film. It’s as though society wants to be dumb and celebrates ignorance and hates knowledgeable people like Danny Khan.
Who might even be the one saving their asses. The one guy who knows his shit about escape rooms and this was how the other characters treat him.
The movie’s starting scene was criticized for being a spoiler for who makes it to the last room. And to think that the 2017-released Film #2 (Kidnapping) which was 2 years before did that one right. That starting scene had a similar premise of showing how the last survivor in the last room died, but that last survivor being from the previous escape room group.
I particularly resonated with this character:
Because he’s empathetic. Wholesome. Stuck in a blue-collar job. Law abiding. Enjoys a drink and his cigarette — simple pleasures. Normal fellow. Simple guy in society who manages to survive despite screwing up his life and having no real strengths. That’s because he belongs. He’s the common folk. One like the rest of everyone else. The person who’s least to be an outlier — even a scene highlights that very point. Reminds me of someone who taught me major life lessons: That I missed out on a lot in life trying to grow stronger and being different and standing out. When I should have just learned to be simple. Learned to bleed like everyone else. Ok, the last one was an analogy for how out-of-touch I am by always needing to be up there at the top.
The film suffered from a bad ending. Film #4 really sabotaged itself by being a great film but ending was too desperate. To hard sell. For a sequel.
I personally didn’t like the plot device of the Quantum Zeno Effect. I hate physics because of how lame science fiction makes it look. But that hasn’t always been the case. I’m more into metaphysical stuff, because they deal with people and their lives. A school subject like physics isn’t relevant to me unless it can be turned into a career. But I’m digressing.
I don’t really have anything much to add for Film #4. What can be gained from this film can be found in Cube (1997) and Fermat’s Room (2007), only that those 2 films have it done better. Many people love this film, but I’ve already seen it all from Cube (1997) and Fermat’s Room (2007). So while I’m lukewarm about this film, I still highly recommend it.
Just go watch Film #4.
Last Notes
If it matters, this was the order I watched the films. Film #4 (Experiment) was the one I watched first, then Film #3 (Horror), Film #2 (Kidnapping) , Film #1 (Road Trip).
Finding Love
I’ve been needing to write about this topic for some time. Am I hoping to seek and find love?
I don’t want to be a hypocrite. To say I’m not finding love. I’m just not actively doing so. This year for me is imbued with Chariot energy and I’ve to focus on my studies which leads to my career goals. That’s my pursuit. To actively go finding love would disperse that Chariot energy. If love comes, then love comes for me.
More like it that the one looking for love is my Twin Flame. It doesn’t mean that if I’m not actively finding love, then I wouldn’t have to think of the subject. According to the mirror concept, Twin Flames help us see the sides of ourselves we don’t get to see just by looking at our halves of the full story. A more complicated explanation can be read here. So more like it that the one hoping to find love is her. Hence making it equally important for me to look into myself, and ask if I should be doing the same. Like a naturally mirror. That should be likewise something important to me. Using the mirror concept, I can then pose the question: what if I had been the one instead who is actively looking for love?
I wouldn’t normally be making this kind of reflection or confession. What if I were actively looking for love? Let’s see. I’ll first take a look at my problems. Most of it has to do with conditioning. Bad experiences, good experiences, they condition us to behave the way we do. I wouldn’t normally say ‘hi’ to a stranger. I’ve been conditioned not to. I saw a blond lady with her hands full with her stuff trip on stairs. She looked fine and was able to carry on. But in that time I could have had asked if she was alright and interacted with her some. I didn’t. My conditioning told me she might lash out at me as she blamed my presence for making her fall. I saw my type finish her evening run and was pretty drenched with sweat, face rosy, and as we approached a narrow bend opposite each other I gave way to her. We made eye contact. The sincere sort. What does that even mean? Some people divert their gazes the moment eye contact is made because they feel inadequate about themselves or had a bad day. They have no intention of talking to strangers. At least this is what I think, according to my conditioning. So this lady who’s my type, drenched with sweat was across me and we could have said ‘hi’. I didn’t. I saw another lady digging her arm into a trash bin as though she accidentally threw something away. My conditioning told me she looked distressed and my conditioning told me it was the wrong time and that she would even lash out at me if I offered to help. I didn’t say a thing. I could have comforted her if she had indeed threw something away. The thought even crept into my mind to offer to buy her a replacement! But my conditioning said no to talking to her.
Importantly, why aren’t I actively finding love? Am I going to blame my conditioning again? Assuming I’m not on this journey nor working on my studies? Where I could fully utilize the Chariot energy I’ve been imbued with for this year to find love? I think (at least) if there were things holding me back from actively finding love, that would be because of these few reasons:
(This is hypothetical. I might be actively finding love and not facing any problems at all.)
Firstly, I’ve long since reached a point where I’m complete as I am. Even when I’m completely by myself alone. Yes, this I’ve noticed. My friends and peers would be actively seeking love and I’ll be like at my corner and chill. Secondly, I’ve been approached by potential mates, gone on dates, attended networking. And I believe I’ve pretty much ticked off the boxes on the list of core activities that a normal person should at least be doing, when it comes to love. What is acceptably healthy for an individual’s needs pertaining to finding love. And yet I don’t feel the need to select and settle on someone.
But if I have learned anything at all, from her, I should start somewhere.
Making Sense Of Your Twin Flame Journey ~ December 29, 2019
Originally titled: A Personal Touch to What Some May Experience As A Journey Towards Something More ~ December 29, 2019
Tanuki Bruh is the name of the blog. I’m cyampagn. This is about my Twin Flame journey.
I’ve started this sometime in the middle of 2019 and have been writing blog posts to share some amazing stuff that has happened over the year. With my Twin Flame journey.
I found peace, direction, purpose, and meaning. I know the role of setbacks and how obstacles come into play to help me to grow. I know how a simple and ordinary friendship with a person who I won’t see again — meant more. The hours we sat together and talked. Our cordial interactions and having to behave with boundaries because we were back then judged by people. These were simple stuff in the 3 dimensional world that are now simply nothing more than trivial memories. They may one day be lost forever. Like tears. In rain. But then good stuff started happening. Months after we parted ways to go back to school to do our degrees. The good stuff happens in the 5D world.
How can you as the reader benefit from reading the Tanuki Bruh blog?
How can I use this blog?
I’ve talked at length about my manifestations and journey. Whereas online, when people talk about their Twin Flames, it’s often about the signs they receive from the Universe. The intense feelings driving them insane. The longing. Hoping to reunite with that someone. What’s missing is the recognition that they have to do the inner work. To grow. Instead when someone goes online and reads up on Twin Flames, they’ll read about how to recognize their Twin Flame, what are Twin Flames. Impersonal stuff. The material seems geared towards people who haven’t met their Twin Flames and may even seed into their mind that they might have met their Twin Flame already or are going to. Once you’ve been awakened and are trying to make sense of the connection, then it would greatly help to read up on the topic. Otherwise it simply sounds like a hype. People do not understand what they don’t experience.
But behind the impersonal stuff, what goes on behind the scenes? If you have met your Twin Flame and are looking for others who have met theirs so you can hear from their experience, you might go to internet discussion forums, see people talk about the personal stuff and would even find it difficult to sieve though the static noise to obtain some insight. You’ll tend to empathize with the longing that people are going through. And probably won’t want to go on a Twin Flame journey yourself. Some even want to shut it out. But a real Twin Flame connection would not be gone just because someone decides to shut themselves off. This isn’t something by choice.
How do I use the pain for something more?
That’s how I see it. People abruptly stop. The story abruptly ends. So, I met someone. They leave. I’m hurt. They come back again and leave again. This is the usual refrain. And the typical plot for a Twin Flame story. But what does one do about it? The pain?
My Twin Flame never upset me up till towards the end. When I experienced the first few incidences where my Twin Flame could have hurt me, should have hurt me, I saw a few moves ahead and knew she was a plot device inserted into my story to make me grow. Why would this girl keep coming up to me for small talk, invite me out to lunch, share with me her problems, share with me her food, and drink out from my Toyogo® when she could get her own? Then this same girl was hopelessly desperate for finding love? From elsewhere but her mirror Twin? Not that she was ready for a relationship anyway, the hard evidence shows. It was ridiculous enough that I had to pull away to take a better perspective of the situation: for me to see what it really meant between the lines. I was glad I could already guess the punchline of the joke within the first lines. That’s aside from her mental issues which I have been sorting out with her, being more than helpful with. Well, I’m not without my own issues myself. So for her, I gave free therapy consultations. Not that I was qualified.
Damage control. No issue.
It was meant to hurt me. Yes, that is true from outer appearances. But it was really meant to drive me into a journey of growth. It also made me reassess spirituality. The thing about fate? Seeking for signs and trying to interpret meaning out from signs? Listening for the voice of God? I have formed new ideas about these. But let’s not digress.
What did my Twin Flame teach me?
A few things. Positivity. I realized in the bustle of life in order to survive the times I had become too negative. Positive scripting involves positive train of thoughts. Better posture. Something to laugh at but something simple like that. Every little thing she taught me, I treat them all seriously. She taught me to have better posture only because she was overdoing it. She would arch her lower spine till her butt protruded out sharply and it looked funny when she walked. That trick actually worked for 2 other ways. Arching my lower spine backward unexpectedly relieves tension in the neck. It’s as if, the spine is only so long that if you stretched one segment, another segment elsewhere gets stretched as well. One other time I had nerve compression which comes now and then due to early degenerated and dehydrated spinal discs. Arching my lower spine backward while sitting down relieved the nerve compression! Because the lower spine is short and the discs are clustered closely together, the segment of the spine is stiff. It took a while for me to force the discs to arch back, slowly feeling as the nerve compression disappeared. Temporarily. For me to move. The pain before was enough to make standing up painful after a while of sitting. Moving around hurt! But with this trick I could stand up less painfully. My nerve compression greatly subsided in a week. And it got less and less till now it’s gone again for now.
It seems like positivity and good posture are 2 trivial things my Twin Flame has taught me. There was surely more, was there? Well, most of the time, I was teaching her instead. I was never really the student here. No. I realized I have forgotten to work on my romantic life. Again, that she taught me to find love only because she had been overdoing it. She was so desperate for love. That was where she was expending her energy. When it was a crucial time for her to look for a course of study in order to change her career. In that particular year, her year was represented by Chariot energy, according to numerology. It means that someone whose year has Chariot energy should focus with direction in their singular pursuit, not disperse their energy in multiple areas. 2020 would be a year with Chariot energy for me. According to numerology. I won’t be making that same mistake. Hmm, I guess that’s another thing she has taught me. Still around me, I see. After all these months.
Where is the future headed for the connection between my Twin Flame and I?
I added this portion because I forgot to add it in. It was supposed to be included.
I posed this question to a Tarot deck my in a group reading of trainee Tarot readers. They chipped in and gave their insights. I told them that it does not have to be romantic, since unlike many others, my Twin Flame dynamic was built and centered on support, trust, career planning, grounded energy, rather than intense feelings like in the typical Twin Flame dynamic. We were supposed to grow together and make it big in life and career, then be together! And have babies together and more once things have settled. This reading was done sometime around December 2019, in an earlier and separate session a couple of weeks before my meeting with my seer. The first card represents the past, the middle card represents the present, the third card represents the future. The past is gone and done, the card is there to reaffirm the accuracy of the reading. The cards were all opened upright, and the first card drawn had been 5 of Wands, as far as I can remember. In 1 sentence, it means there is currently a decision to be made, and in the future moderation pays off. The leader of the group gave an alternate interpretation to Temperance. Instead of moderation and testing the waters, he recommended going for a different approach. Different energy, perspective, action plan. To approach my Twin Flame as a different and changed man.
I posed this question to a Tarot deck my seer does readings with, sometime around the same month of December 2019. The first card represents the past, the middle card represents the present, the third card represents the future. The past is gone and done, the card is there to reaffirm the accuracy of the reading. The cards were all opened upright, not that it mattered since my seer does not read reversed cards. In 1 sentence, it means there is giving to be made, and in the future hard work pays off.
What do I wish for my Twin Flame in 2020?
I really pray for her. I hope she finds her path. May she awaken and may her blockages be opened.
Achievement
Disclaimer: Possible unpopular opinion.
2019 brought massive manifestations, all which I am grateful for. 2019 has also brought opportunities for growth, tiny challenges that help me in my transformation. Transforming not just my mindset but my future. In my ongoing quest where I reset my career.
I had another difficult exam like the one in Obligations. Results were released and I was short of an A grade, not only due to the difficult exam where there was not enough time but also because of my midterms. Every tiny momentum counts. That’s what I ought to know from the start, but it only sank in really late. Oh, and that. I had a full time job in the day that made it difficult to study on a given weekday.
This blog post is about achievement. I’ve achieved plenty in 2019. How do I go about achieving more? By fighting for it.
There is a time to fight for something. And then there is a time to let go of something. Recognizing when to fight for something is the hard part.
Kelvin is a fellow classmate in my course. He is hardworking, unlike me, or rather more hardworking than me, and how I’d like to be. He’s also working in a day job. He’s fighting for something he doesn’t really need. He seems to be groomed on a path in his career that does not require him to take and complete the course. It’s complicated to explain but in my world, the high flyers don’t exactly need to know their job or do their job well. They simply need to farm certs to make themselves look better and (of course) have connections. And also get someone else to do the work. Unpopular opinion disclaimer! Ok, I know, it sounds salty and even dystopian but who can dispute this? Just take it from me that this is how my world operates. And besides, if I had to dispute the practice of farming certs anyway, I’d say that the cert does not equate practical domain knowledge and practical experience. But if taking shortcuts allow people to breach the glass ceiling by this manner, then more power to them!
Like Kelvin, there are other classmates in the course who are not really doing the course for a career change. There’s a lady older than us who I must say is the best student in our class. That is aside from grades. But her age makes it difficult for her to re-enter the workforce in the junior roles we’re competing with her for. And also, she relocated from Hong Kong because of the unrest happening there. My only guess is that she took the course due to difficulty in gaining employment here and using the cert (and spectacular grades) to fortify her résumé. She’ll likely return to the same line of work. I commend her for her fighting spirit.
Still speaking of fighting for something and knowing when to fight for it, I thought of the time when I was first selecting my major for college. If I haven’t already mentioned in previous blog posts, I was not selected to take up my first choice. I naturally got into my second choice. And I just allowed fate to do its thing. This led me down an alternative life path for 10 years.
Living in an alternative life path was not totally bad. I had my fun, I had my joy, but reality caught up. I was living in the wrong body. Living someone else’s life. And because of that, imagine — just imagine a lucid dream or playing a video game avatar. I was aware I’m in an alternative life path. I knew it led nowhere and had no future. Which meant that the consequences were not as — consequential? I’m sorry I ran out of words and ran a loop. Success and failure didn’t matter because nothing I achieved then amounted to anything and my transgressions (metaphorically) likewise didn’t impact my career standing. Things were back then in a pretty lawless state. Not that I am doing anything unlawful but my point was that the stakes were low in these places I’ve been. The people didn’t take things seriously and you can say I was guilty of that too.
I could have fought for it. I could have chosen then not to accept my fate and reapply to another college. As a matter of fact, I only applied to one college. I’d admit I was pretty lazy back then. On hindsight it sounds ridiculous and a far cry of what my 2019 self would have done if he were there and then to call the shots.
It took a lot to finally awaken and take control of my life. To pull away from the sweet but poisonous nectar beguiling me to spend decades there in that old place and rot my life away. It was thanks to my Twin Flame who helped me to awaken.
Where’s my Twin Flame at? She helped me but I couldn’t help her. Though I tried. How do you help somebody who’s clouded in judgement? I know 2 people who’s somewhat on her path. Both way ahead compared to her. One of them being a Muslim girl who had completed her Bachelors and Masters. She’s all set for an awesome career ahead. And I’ve just texted her to ask her to sell me her used textbook. Also on the path, but 2 to 3 years on the job is of course my seer, and career counsellor. I’ve mentioned him in the blog post Embracing Change. I’ll be meeting him soon and might be having my Tarot reading as well. As for my Twin Flame, I’ll always be around the corner if she needs me.
Tanuki Bruh 