This music video is a direct cross cultural reference to American society from a modern Japanese point of view.
– In this music video she sleeps with eight different men as a diamond ring flashes in the background.
– It is a cross reference to her personal life whereby she has gone through a divorce with an American, as some of the sentimental lyrics are the words she wants to say to her former lover.
– This is probably the most intimate music video that features her on a bed 80% of the time with different men, which is a statement by itself to the casual nature that people treat relationships. Gone are the days that diamonds are forever.
– The diamond mask and paper fortress are actually symbolic of the superficial levels of American society, that diamonds are actually worthless in value but inflated by advertising. The paper fortress represents paper currency, which in essence is “fake” as intrinsically, America is in debt.
– A wild galloping stallion in the background is the symbol of female empowerment, and it represents Ayumi Hamasaki as herself in the image of a wild stallion. That she is pretty much free to transverse different landscapes and sleep with whoever she wants.
– This music video is in essence about the freedom of the female sexuality, portrayed by a Japanese woman with contemporary American symbols.
– It may be a statement that the freedom of the female sexuality should be limitless across all cultures.
Elon Musk could have retired on $180 million with the sale of PayPal but he built a billion dollar company with SpaceX and Tesla with the intention to colonise Mars. He has married and divorced three times and five kids via IVF. He truly is unstoppable and my inspiration when times are bleak in my life.
To dream that one day my books will be made into movies based on the blueprint of my short film doesn’t seem far-fetched if humans could colonisé mars with relaunchable rockets.
I believe that colonizing outer space has the potential to bring unified peace and a central world government on earth to end hunger and wars. The discovery of an alien race could bring a new level of spiritual awareness. I am exploring on these themes in my new book series.
The true nature of entrepreneurship is to serve humanity by introducing efficient processes to achieve equilibrium in supply and demand. By reducing wastage of resources, improving technological processes, modes of distribution channels, resources could be allocated to where it is needed most.
The capitalist then decides how to best use profits to reallocate into foundations and non-profit organisations. Or, start another legacy level project. After all, it would be nearly impossible to spend ones billion dollar wealth in their lifetime.
The limitless nature of being human is that we can define “who we are” on a daily basis. We are not a fixed object, like a chair, but a continuously evolving being that moves fluidly from one place to the next. In fact, when we dance it is a movement from point A to point B. When we speak, it is the completion of the start of one word to formulate a sentence. However, when we do not complete our dance or sentences, we will be stuck in a stage called the “midpoint.” At the midpoint, it is a state of limbo where nothing happens and we are left waiting. But there is a start and end to every song and dance. When the dance has to stop halfway, we could say, “thank you, I need a break.” In relationships, sometimes when two people are not on the same paths, they will diverge, and maybe, meet again in the next intersection.
As it is with being human, there are no limitations except for the limitation we impose on ourselves based on pre-existing constructs. A friend asked what should he do for a living if he loses his job, he won’t be able to meet his basic needs. I said, well, it depends on what you eat. It is entirely possible to survive on bread and milk to tide through tough times. It is possible to sleep on a sofa. It is possible to find another job, do something else that may generate more revenue than the one he existing does. Most entrepreneurs are in debt, they don’t own what they have, they are highly leveraged on loans. In the movie, The Greatest Showman (2017), the entrepreneur loses his home as collateral the moment his theatre got burnt down. But it is the highest risks that pay off the highest rewards.
In the new book by Nicholas Taleb, Skin In The Game (2018), “What matters isn’t what a person has or doesn’t have; it is what he or she is afraid of losing.” The state of being antifragile is the state of willing to lose it all to gain it all. And even at the state of losing everything, the person is still left pretty much untouched. The illusion of material needs and wants clouds the state of antifragile, which is related to as the zanshin or lkigai state.
At the stage of mastery over oneself, it is entirely possible to be limitless. As there is no existence of the emotion of fear, or loss, or any forces that could stop an individual from believing in an impossible dream for it could not be actually defined in the current context. We live day by day in a context of content, stability and comfort. But to step out of the paradigm and do something great or magnificent requires one to put skin in the game and redefine their reality. They may or may not emerge victoriously, but it is the act of trying that is the difference between extraordinary or ordinary. It is not the mundane excuses of life, “I have a toothache” that stops us from achieving our goals but it is sheer will, determination and grit that gets us to the end of the journey.
Greatness is for the few who choose to be limitless, where else, limitations are self-imposed by mediocracy. The state of lkigai is self-defined and from within. The need for external validation or approval is only a “mission” or “vocation”. The true limitless self-emerges the moment we transcend and go beyond the limits of being reasonable. At the centre of the universe, one can be an author and achieve mastery over their identity, language and reality.
Mastery Level
YOU = CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE = CAUSE OF THE MATTER = IKIGAI ZEN MODE Legacy Level
YOU = DISAPPEAR = Your physical self exist in the universe without you being physically alive.
“When you possess great riches within you, seldom are you believed.” The Alchemist
Sometimes I think
That maybe, long before we were born
We shared
One life
Because even when our bodies are apart
It feels like our hearts are side by side
There is a line of thought that we have a soul mate – we shared one body and spirit before reincarnation on earth and that body split into two – male and female. As soulmates belong to the same body in their previous life, and in meeting in this life the affinity and connection feel like “hearts are side by side.” Physically, soul mates can be apart and still feel each other heartbeats. In this line of thought, it is stating that love and affinity can transcend distance and time.
I always, always
Hear
A voice calling my name, my name
Please don’t cry anymore
I can feel your love
There is another thought – which is we can hear our soul mate from a distance. In their distress, we have a sense that we need to be there for them. It is unspoken communication beyond the physical, going into the spiritual. It is almost telepathic. I had experienced this level of affinity with my best friend, and we are telepathic in our communication. That by being deeply connected and bonded with a person, you know what the person moods and emotions are even from a distance.
At some point I realised
That we were born apart
And because of that
We probably feel incomplete
As we pray for the same happiness
We’re carving the same wounds into our hearts
The key lyrics here is “carving the same wounds into our hearts.” What does that mean? There are opposite ends of emotions – happiness and sadness, pain and pleasure, love and hate. With intense love, comes intense loathing. This is the price of love, that there will be arguments, there will be wounds, there will be scars. It is all in the pursuit of happiness. When things are not right – there will be incompletions. I had mentioned in my previous post that in ancient China, the belief is that reincarnated lovers are those who had incompletions in their past life to be reincarnated into this life to face the same tribunals to make things right or they will be reincarnated again in a karmic cycle.
I’ll keep, keep calling
So that you never, never
Forget
Please don’t cry anymore
I won’t leave you alone or anything
I always, always
Hear
A voice calling my name, my name
Please don’t cry anymore
I can feel your love
I’ll love you
Forever, forever
I love you, you
Even if time
Changes everything
I’ll still love you
Sometimes I think
That maybe if we’re reborn
We’ll share
One life…
Interestingly the end of the song lyrics, she mentions being reborn by sharing “one life”. Which means two souls meet again and form a bond to become one complete whole in their next life. This song is a beautiful portrayal of what a soulmate means in the metaphorical sense. It is not physical to us to see our souls, or feel souls or even prove or quantify love, but the very emotion and affinity that is there between lovers could very well transcend the physical in the literary sense is what makes love beautiful to seek for.
Pole Digital Art – Pole Dancing Abstract by Manos Kolaras
I watched a movie scene about a mafia boss who owns a nightclub and was talking to a visitor in a VIP room overlooking the main event hall. He told the visitor to look at one of the pole dancers. He confessed that pole dancer is his daughter. She got down the poles and went up to a man to ask if he would like a lap dance. The mafia boss, wearing a gold necklace and Rolex watch, was looking at the whole scene, smiling in joy. I could never understand why he was happy that his own daughter was trading her flesh for cash. Why wouldn’t he support her financially as a rich mafia boss so she could pursue a decent job? The movie disturbed me for many years before I slept each night, I would think back on that scene and his half sinister half overjoyed smile. It is the smile a father gives when his child gives him a birthday card.
I wondered if my father would ever put me into the flesh trade, and be overjoyed if I am stripping and doing a lap dance for a stranger. It was an underground world unknown to me. For all I knew in the first eighteen years of my life is that I got everything I wanted. My father never said no to any toy or request. As the only child, I was spoiled silly and lavished with attention from my extended family. I was treasured as the firstborn of the 28th generation on my mom’s side of the family, and the only descendant left with the surname on my dad’s side by my grandmother. My father never had a son, so he treated me like one and taught me chess, poker, and how to game the casino. His biggest unfulfilled dream is to write a book, and he never succeeded doing so. He is proud that I chose to become a novelist and he is overjoyed when I publish my books. I told my parents recently I want to perform on stage as I missed that so much. They are supportive of my artistic development and they give me free rein to do whatever I want, no matter what with unconditional love.
In perspective, if my dad was a mafia boss, he would want me to take over his mafia business as his only daughter. From a mafia boss point of view, his daughter has to learn the trade from bottom up. Where else is a better way to start than to be a stripper (in perspective it is like being a waiter of a restaurant if he owns a restaurant). If she does well as a popular stripper, gets contacts from clients, and clients come back for more, it brings in business. In this perspective, I finally understood why the mafia boss gave an overjoyed smile when his daughter managed to convince a client for a lap dance. It was part of the trade, and his wish for his daughter to continue his legacy to take over the nightclub (since he doesn’t have a son).
In this video, the butterfly is eaten by a praying mantis, that is turn eaten by a serpent. The serpent dies and flowers bloom from it’s decay. The world is filled with beauty once more.
The butterfly (woman) and praying mantis (man) meets in the serpent’s body (joined as one entity). The flowers bloom (beauty reasonates from their union in the decay of the serpent) fills the world with their love.
Such is a love that contributes love, beauty and knowledge to the world over.
The lyrics of this song is magical on many levels. It speaks about a love that is beyond time distance and form, flowing through different timelines, different reincarnations, the seasons and the wind and the sun. It speaks of a love that transcends all reasons and it is held in the heart of her palm.
I have admittedly, shamefully, been unable to write about love or analyse love stories of any kind for ten years. I am able to do so now, as I finally forgave and accepted my past. There is a profoundness in acceptance that love is there, beyond physicality and through different reincarnations. For this, I am able to analyse this love song.
“My left-hand holds an empty heart. My right palm holds a heart entrenched in love. My fingers interlock to hold prisoner the essence of the heart. The sacrifice of our love is embedded deeply in my bones.”
These lines mean that her left hand is holding an “empty heart”. Which means the love has not been returned. But she is holding faith by using her right palm to “hold prisoner the essence of the heart.” That the love is embedded deeply in her bones is a symbolisation that she will never forget the love that is there.
“After seven reincarnations, we must wait another hundred years.”
There is a Chinese belief that if we do not resolve or said what there is to say in this lifetime, it will bring forward to the next life due to incompletions. It will flow to our next life, to the next till it reaches a resolution, a clear ending. If we deny the truth, the truth will follow us till the next life, where we will meet the exact same situation again, and we are given an opportunity to choose to complete the ending. If we do not choose to complete, it will flow to the next life and the next.
“You are fate. You are thundering hoofbeats. Being the passion of my love, you chased me through the icy sky and snowy ground.”
These lyrics symbolises admiration of her lover, that he is her fate. He had chased her to the ends of the earth, and she had loved him passionately through these moments. It is believed in ancient Chinese culture that we will only meet this kind of love rarely in our lifetime, and if it reaches to the point of ecstasy, it is due to a reincarnation from the past that overflows to this life.
“Until a thousand arrows pierce my heart, my heart will only give up then.”
It is believed that love dies when the heart dies, that even with 999 arrows, she will not give up her love, till her heart dies in a metaphorical sense.
“If it is all possible I will use my life to save yours.”
In this profound ending of the song – she is in full knowledge that she is willing to die for her lover and give her heart to him to save him. With this full knowledge of the fact she will wait 100 years for the next reincarnation to repeat this love story and hopefully, they will be together in that lifetime.
The Amercian Dream – the wealth, the women and all the world has to provide for a man. Men would spend their whole lives pursuing the idealism of what it is to be socially accepted in the environment they are in. To get that woman of their dreams, and provide her with everything her heart desires, to be accepted by society as the epitome of success.
Breaking that illusion is that, maybe, it is not it. Maybe it is not about pursuing a woman. Maybe it is not about acquiring all the wealth in the world. Maybe it is just by being true to your heart, being true to who you are, being true to yourself. By answering and being honest with your feelings, by making a simple declaration of love. For all the wealth can’t be bought to the grave. All the hard work it takes to get there – it may be a waste of effort itself. For it is of utmost importance that one dedicates fully themselves to another – without the need for any form of external validation.
Even doing everything it takes to pleases someone may not be the conclusion of the ultimate goal of life to propagate one’s genes to the next generation. It may or may not happen. It could be keeping to life simple pleasures is the answer and solution to what we truly desire. That the desire for the company of a person you love keeps the demons at bay, gives you the reason for existence itself, the air that you breathe and the purposefulness and fulfilment of life.
That it could be that person may or may not be with you physically, but that person could reside in a place in your heart that will last the test of time. That our ego wants what we can’t have, for love is the ultimate service to others, for when we are lost in others, that we find ourselves again. By finding ourselves in the eyes of others, that we can truly discover what is our happiness. That love that is selfish, will lead to pain and suffering, and only by letting go that true love arises.
In the Amercian Dream, that what we desire may be illusions and all it is there to be is to be true to our hearts and honour ourselves for who we are. The past will be in the past, and it will not resurface once it is long gone. We can try to recreate the past, but it will never be in the future. For love resides in a place unseen, and there is no physicality to love itself.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” The Great Gatsby
