Unhappiness Around Us 1

These days, so many people it seems are unhappy, or remain unhappy, throughout a majority part of their lifes. If given a chance to do an audit, most people should have a score that reflects unhappiness, taking up a majority of the pie.

Walking down the streets, one will see people with tense faces, racing around sidewalks rushing for time and deadlines. Tired and worn-out faces on the trains, almost everyone in a daze, lost in thoughts, some asleep, some attempting to sleep their way through, some intending to keep asleep and never awake. Complaining voices and perturbed souls, firing away on their mobile phones.

It seems to be really difficult to find somebody that is genuinely happy, well watered, contented and hopeful of what the future will present. Nobody on the train, on the rushing sidewalks, in the unfriendly office blocks, in the freezing malls, posting a real smile that warms the heart, breaking into genuinely laughter that tells of hope arriving in the coming seasons.

But what exactly is - to be happy? We can attempt to answer this by trying to define the opposite, to be unhappy. Negativity seems to be easier to be defined rather than its opposite. When one is unhappy, one may be experiencing the followings :

• Anxiety, expectation, feeling of anxiousness over something, someone, some events that is upcoming.
• Sorrow, lost of something dear, something precious, some opportunity that may not back come again.
• Loneliness, feeling of dispair, sour feeling in the heart, feeling that nobody will ever notice you, even if you were to depart this world, nobody really cares or even took notice.
• Depression, dispair, sense of sorrow. Sorrow about life. Life's negative points are magnified greatly and look bigger than it actually is. Whereas the positive points seems to be drowned out by the negativity.
• Loss of direction, boredom, feeling that life is empty, life offers one an empty white plate. There is nothing to look forward to in life, nothing cute to amuse, nothing big to amaze, nothing captivating to belong to. Don't really know where to go.
• Overwhelmed. Over taken by events, people, expectation. So many expectation to address to, so many people to pleased and kept satisfied.

What can't people be say, by default, happy? Could it be our world? Our time-lacking, hard deadlines, expectations to be expected and met, environment? Or could it be that we are taught, or even trained, to incorporate a larger portion of negativity and sense of gloom into our daily emotions, from young, by our careless society? Believing that it is better and more appropriate to be negative and to almost always forcast a conservative gloomy outlook in one's life, and deciding to act that way, since our society, the general herd that is, seems to be moving in that way. In a way, I noticed that everybody is influenced by one another. If one is unhappy, pretty soon the rest of the souls in the barrel will be damaged.

But how should we address this? We can look at this point by point, one by one, and try to trace and route the unhappiness to the source or the cause. As in traditional Chinese medicine, going for the source will be for effective for identifying and discerning the actual causes and frustrations, before marrying any plans with some follow-on actions.

We shall look at some of the possible unhappiness that most people are facing in the next post.

Old with New

This is a finest example of how traditional musical instruments can be used to complement and support modern songs.

Rimi Natsukawa performance

I have always liked traditional instruments. Chinese, South-east Asian, Irish, Japanese, etc.
What provides them with a new lease of life is to adopt and embedded such instruments into some of the modern songs.

This is a very nice piece. Enjoy.

Boom goes your chair

This is really funny. Especially the last guy on the rocket chair.



The japanese are really crazy.

The Wedding Banquet

Wow wedding is really tiring. Moving around, to and fro between my house and her house, for the entire early half of the day, till late afternoon,... eventually dashing to the hotel for a quick bathe and change of clothes, follow by a series of dry runs, briefings, and coordinating with the other helpers for the wedding banquet. Wow... One maintains a attitude of high tempo and high energy, picking on everything and all things, checking on this schedule and that detail, to ensure that nothing will go wrong for the wedding banquet, and before you know it, the first guests starts to streak in.


The Typical Wedding Banquet

I had always attended wedding dinners and to a certain extend, felt that wedding dinners comprises of a lot of waiting. Arriving at the scene, one's first mission is normally to scout for friends or other "not that familar but still can strike a conversation with" people to group and start conversations with. Nobody will ever want to be caught in a situation whereby the poor person arrives too early and ends up as the only lonely soul sitting at the assigned table, sipping wine or tea alone, while eagering awaiting for some fellow table mates to arrive and blend in with. No way.

Then it is the long long wait for the wedding couple to march in, and finally, ah... one can open the flood gates and let off the much deprived gastric juices and go all out for the opening dishes. Normally the timing of the first few dishes seems to be quite well spaced out.

By the time of the 2nd march in by the wedding couple, the guests should be pretty well familarised with the other familar, and unfamilar, faces sitting at the same table. At that moment of the 2nd march in and toast to the couple, the attendant should be serving either the 4th or the 5th dish, depending on the speed of the banquet. The tempo of the wedding dinner will by then, slow down considerably. And most of the guest's appettite should be satisfied to a certain extend by then. Not so much for me actually. By that time, normally my apettite should be just kicking into the 4th gear.

And by the time of the 2nd last dish or the last dish, everybody would have turned rowdy, "social ettitque" or table manners (if there is any to begin with) will by then, be reduced to a small puddle that one can hid under the tea cup. Nobody will be worrying about saying the wrong things or yelling at the top of their voices, cracking hoarse jokes about each other, or toasting each other in a never to be seen manner. There shall be napkins on the floor, and beer and wine splashes all over the place. Somebody from every table will be trying to toast the couple with all sorts of mixed up liquor cocontion when they turned up at the table with the normally, highly experienced photographer, for their pitiful turn to take a photo shot with the guests at the table. The highly experienced photographer shall by then de able to detect any traces of danger coming from the guests from the next table and initiate a flanking maneuver to another route.

Such is the familar ritual that I had gone through for countless times, at some other people's wedding.


On the Other End

And I finally have a chance to savour the once-in-a-lifetime chance to sit on the other end, playing the role of the much tire-out couple. We were kind of worned out by the time of the banquet, but nevertheless we still enjoy ourselves pretty much.

When you are the one doing the planning and rehearsals, time seemed to fly by pretty fast, and before I had the time to turned around for a sip of refreshment to calm my nerves, the first stream of guests starts to arrive.

Entertaining the guests is quite a memorial experience. You get so happy and excited to see your friends and relatives coming in and sharing your big day with you. Naturally, the parents and the in-laws were pretty hyped up and excited as well, and everybody played the host pretty well that day. :) Coordination between everybody was superb.

It seems so fast, but halfway through entertaining the guests and friends, I received the prompting from the banquet manager, 90% of the guest are here. Time to get started. Wow! Time really flies. I went up to fetch the bride and we stand by the door, and got ready for the march in....



We were so happy that day.

Wedding Video

This is one of my Wedding Video.



You can find the link here as well. Celebration of Love Video

Yes, I am getting married soon. Next week to be exact. :)