Category: Weekly state (Page 29 of 30)

Weekly review 9.

December 25, 2022 / A metaphysical entity

Festivities, celebration!

It is that time of the year again, the time that randomly has been chosen to bring light into our winter. Well, if you are lucky to live in a place where it is warm during these months, feel blessed. It is a time to sit back, relax, breathe and unwind. At least that’s how it should be. If it is not, don’t worry! Papa Shanghai has got you covered with this very special weekly review for Christmas 2022! So just leave wherever you are and find a spot with yourself or your loved one. Maybe it’s just you, maybe with your partner in crime, maybe with your pet. But for sure, I’ll be here, preaching, hot from the Wok of my mind. Here we go!

You did a lot, how much, only you can know. You have rewarded yourself, punished yourself as well. Loved and lived, cried and slept. Oh what a rollercoaster it has been. Sometimes I am thinking about myself, floating above my physical form. Isn’t it funny how we look? Don’t take yourself so seriously, we are just fleshy buildings that roam this planet!

I know that you are there, reading this. I hope you are cozy. Tug yourself in, hug yourself! Hug your partner in crime or your pet. Hug a grandma, most of them deserve it! Embrace life for a moment, see how you breathe and read and react. Think of me writing this, connecting us just now! Isn’t it funny how we act?

I know that this time period is busy so I don’t want to take up too much space in your plans. First of all, I would like to thank you for reading. Second, I hope that reading gave you pleasure or a chuckle. I will be here for some time, rest assured! So let’s do something fun together. Ready? Do it as long as you have time. Maybe use some headphones or blast it through the speakers, your choice!

So you see this link here? That’s where music is stored. But not just any music. It’s a tune we will remotely dance to, together! Ready? Grab your whoever is there, or just hug yourself and feel the music. Feel it in your toes, your fingers and your hair. Truly, listen. I wish you a happy festive period. See you soon. Love

Go!

Weekly review 8.

December 18, 2022 / A metaphysical entity

Winter has come and my toes are cold.

It has been, without a doubt, a cold week. Hardship and reluctance were dominant, as astrologists would say. Maybe they would throw in a planetary constellation to just make it sound more reasonable. But I am not here to tell you the future, I am here to tell you the past. You know why? Because I think you are not reviewing your week enough. I actually think you don’t even review your last hour.

This is indeed a good exercise. Because, similarly to those asking star-sign-interpreting prophets, you might look here to find a closer insight into your week, my week, or even ours altogether! So my toes were freezing, how are yours? (Just kidding, I know you can’t answer). I’ll just spit out what happened.

“So hardship and reluctance you say?”, my beloved reader shouts through the aether.

I am thinking and I have to admit that it was not fair for me to say that. Reluctance, yes. But it was the same reluctance for when you have delicious leftovers from Society’s takeout, leaving them for tomorrow only to come back at 3 AM to stuff your brain with it. Believe me, I have been there.

And hardship? That too might have been, how some people say, “click bait”. I deeply regret my choice of words here and I apologise for fooling you. My hardship has been indeed comparable to the hardship of knowing that you need a delicious coffee but you know that it requires movement and sometimes even a trip to the supermarket.

So no, winter is here, my toes are freezing, but I am alright. Maybe there is a lesson here coming from all this nonsense. I will try to distill it.

Look back, see your last day, the past hour. Maybe even the week if you feel bold. Then think about, what was a thing you would first describe with, excuse my poor choice of words, “click bait”, that was not so terrible after all?

May your toes live warm and prosper!

Weekly review 7.

December 11, 2022 / A metaphysical entity

“The reason I stopped is not important in this context”

“I do believe that it is, though. I mean, why would anyone start something if there was not intention of finishing? I mean, even life, which by the way is given to us involuntarily, has a finite number of days. Eternal life is yet to be discovered! So why would you think that it’s not important to reflect on the very reason you stopped doing something?”

Such is the way things roll around sometimes, my dear friends of the takeout. Often, we reflect on reasons. Try to make sense of something, give meaning to another things. Justify, deflect, accept, deny, reminisce. So what if me and you just do not find a reason right this moment. Why you are reading this very text? Doesn’t matter. Why I wrote it? Even less important!

Maybe, if the impetus of a motivation or reasoning behind something is missing, we truly let creativity unleash. Maybe we would just stare blankly into the room. Maybe we fall asleep? What an exciting exercise. As a matter of fact, I am trying the exact same thing now.

Last week I have learned something.

(What a stylistic caesura by the way)

When following a certain motivation of an action, we sometimes get lost in our way of doing it. True freedom only takes over when the task or whatever is there to be done is, at least, treated equally. More specifically, the task (or whatever) is given agency. What if we were to give it full agency?

As it is late Sunday and I have eager audience waiting, I’ll leave you with a mental exercise of sorts. So my dear friends of Papa Shanghai, in the name of all-organic weirdness, think of this:

How would the plates liked to be washed?

How does the laundry want to be folded?

How does the onion want to be cut?

Weekly review 6.

December 4, 2022 / A metaphysical entity

I have recently parted. Life has a strange way of making connections only to disolve them later on. As buddhist philosophy would say, everything is only on the surface of this earth for a while. Further, it would add that the attachment and denial of said fact is indeed the cause of suffering. For many, detachment is a hard thing to do, myself included. If that were to be different, we would all have achieved buddhahood.

So while I am reflecting on my parting, I reminisce and think about what has been attached to me and how I got attached to it. I see situations, small gestures. A peculiar way of talking, a laugh. Maybe it is a way of lighting a cigarette, maybe just the way someone stirs their coffee with a spoon. It all counts for something, not just attachment. So when I am thinking about this, am I attached? Well, I would argue, for the sake of reaching a higher level of enlightenment, that I am indeed not attached. Am I guilty of being trapped in the pitfall of the three noble truths?

As I go about my daily life, I am surprised. For the first time, I am seeing mirages, a Fata Morgana of sorts. Just in passing, I am remined of that laugh, that one beanie. It is a strange feeling to realise departure, even more so, when it involves a whole social circle. But analogous to buddhist mentality of passing thoughts during meditation, I too see, accept and agree to the passing. Is this not what it should be about?

So, for old times sake, wherever you are, light that cigarette your way, wear the beanie, laugh one more time, walk your own walk and talk the way you do. Maybe it will reach me, maybe not. Maybe it will reach the next person, one will never know. I will see you soon.

Weekly review 4.

November 20, 2022 / A metaphysical entity

The walls are green and I feel golden.

What time has brought to me in the form of gratitude has finally established as a clear thought: I love Prague. Yes; this is the first time your very own Papa Shanghai is disclosing a location but it is just too much to pass up on. Also, you still won’t find me here. Maybe I am the waiter, maybe the bouncer.

The subliminal message that is spread over this city is filled with history, culture and longing. Longing for independence, longing for its place in the world. It has faced many struggles and you can see that. Just as every single thing on this planet, Prague has been shaped by its environment.

I am becoming cheerfully melancholic when I sit and soak in to this adopted place of home. As in many cases, facing challenges is easier together, even just connecting passively. Feeling that we are all struggling at it. Struggling with our place in life, the inevitability of failure or finding connections.

So let Prague pierce through the thick skin you have built up, sit in a coffee house, Café, see how people are struggling, celebrating, suffering, winning. Just like you. You are welcome.

The Coffee Houses are the living rooms of this city.