When The Giant Comes To Town

Just last month a giant came to town.

No, I’m not joking. For three days, Limerick was taken over by a 25 foot giant granny which is a marionette of sorts. Very impressive – especially with the state-of-the-art mechanism that allowed the Royal de luxe Granny to walk, sleep, talk , or sit in a very life-like way. The spectacle attracted more than 230,000 tourists and left children and adults alike with a huge sense of awe.

That got me thinking about giants, not that I have not thought about giants since Jack and the Beanstalk. There are fictional giants and metaphorical giants.

Fictional giants are those portrayed in storybooks. They normally have a foul dispensation and are monsters associated with chaos. They are the regular antagonists with the exception of The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) by Roald Dahl.

Metaphorical giants are symbols of strength. Such are the giants in the sporting arena. We have the San Francisco Giants,  a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California that plays in the National League West Division. The New York Giants on the other hand are a professional American football team located in the New York metropolitan area.

Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.’ These giants are the pillars of society, the embodiment of all that is powerful and impressive beyond that of the average and ordinary person.

As far as the mind can recall somewhere along the line, we have encountered giants who have impacted us -  the parent, the teacher, the leader, the influencer. These are the ones we look up too, the ones we want to emulate. We render our devoted admiration to these pillars of society and woe be to them should they stumble or make mistakes. In our dogged perception of bigger-than-life characters, we forget that they can be human too.

Metaphorical giants are also symbols of the battles that we face. These giants enslave us. They take the form of the oppressor, the bully, the corrupt or the wicked. They are the problems, pressures, pains, and persecutions that we will have to deal with from time to time   They are the unpleasant traits such as pride, hatred and unforgiveness  that prevent us from moving forward.

Such giants become even bigger when we focus on them. The more we are afraid or anxious about a giant in our lives, the more powerful he becomes. It becomes worse when we think we are fighting the giant alone. Of late, I have met with many people who are very insecure. People, both young and old, who think they are not good enough and have a low self image of themselves. Whatever you say to them, the reply is always in the negative. It is not uncommon to hear them say, ‘I cannot do this, I cannot go there or I cannot wear this’. There could be many reasons that have caused them to behave in this way – the society, their beliefs, their upbringing and the people they regularly hang out with.

It takes another person, maybe a good friend, to make some time for them, to take them out, to listen to them and help them see that the sun is still shining.

Confronting the giant is the beginning of victory. Then comes regained confidence and the courage to see that no giant has the right to defeat us unless we allow it to happen. We forget that we are made of amazing stuff and there is a deep well of strength within and without that we can draw upon.

Like any giant who is here today and gone tomorrow, the Limerick Giant Granny has left the city after her three day walkabout. Being the most amiable giant I have ever met, she has left a huge impact especially in the memories of children and we were sorry to see her go. But with the other unfavourable giants in our lives, it is up to us to chase them out because they have outlived their stay of welcome.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/44288

Who is your neighbour?

Source: VOX magazine (Ireland) Issue 24/ October-December 2014

Eccentricity or Creativity?

Recently I was facilitating a discussion on the blueprint of our lives. To make the discussion interesting, I created a giant film roll out of an oatmeal canister and embedded a long written message inside the canister for the participants to pull out of the canister. 

To mirror the actual film, the embedded message was divided into frames. As the film roll took shape, the seconds became minutes and the minutes became hours and before I knew it, it was 3 in the morning.

That state mirrors Dr.Seuss’ lament - ‘How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon?’

So call it eccentricity or creativity but when the brain goes into active mode and the more ideas are being churned, the more satisfaction it derives. Period.

Seemingly  creative writers like Mary Shelley and Ernest Hemingway, composers Irving Berlin and Sergey Rachmninoff, painters Paul Gauguin and Jackson Pollock are all a bit eccentric. When Lord Byron, a Romantic poet was prevented from having a dog as a pet in a dormitory in Cambridge, he got round the rules by having a bear instead, complete with leash. Then we have Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician with all his absurdities – my favourite being ‘smooth out all bodily indents on pillows and/or beds’

We have our own level of oddities that we are comfortable with which others might perceive that we have gone off our rocker. I think this level is proportional  with age – the older we get, the braver and the more unfazed we are about  being labelled as ‘odd’. And so we become the eccentric person that lives down the road. (usually with a cat)

Interestingly enough a google search on the word eccentric renders the Medieval Latin word eccentricus, derived from Greek ekkentros, meaning "out of the centre". So, my contention is what is so wrong about being out of the centre?  Edith Sitwell, a poet wrote that eccentrics are “entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd"

In fact, the people who stand out in my memory are those who are a tad different from the rest – that quirky lecturer who teaches from the heart, that student who produces the zaniest project or that whimsical child who lives in his happy bubble.

Creative difference is good.

It is a breath of fresh air, a departure from the same old, same old. Now this is different from mental illness.  Psychologist Dr David Weeks says that there are distinct characteristics of an eccentric, the top five being: having a nonconforming attitude, creative, intensely curious, idealistic and being happily obsessed with a hobby or hobbies.

Take painting on a canvas for example. Painting is a unique activity that is not associated with other routine activities. When we paint, we become immerse in the activity itself and when we paint on a regular basis, this becomes a repetitive action which is very enjoyable indeed.

So I decided to get a side of the wall painted with black magnetic chalk paint which allows me to stick magnets as well as doodle on it with bright fluorescent liquid chalk. There is nothing wrong with black except that we do not usually equate walls with the colour black.   Again, doing that took me way past midnight because I just had to finish it.

Apparently creative difference is triggered by uniqueness and emotional intensity. The black magnetic wall has evolved into quite a conversation piece indeed.

And the last time I heard, someone else is going to paint her wall black as well.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/node/40111