Human Conversation

My lover is a very good observer that he often points out something that people do not notice. Affected by him, I start observing some pieces that draw my personal interest. One of the things is about our conversation with people.

Many of us, including I myself, often fall into a habit that we repeat what we want to say for couple of times. For instance, if I want to tell my lover that my boss bought me lunch today, I tend to repeat this statement for two to three times. It does not only happen on oral conversation, but also written article. Perhaps I am indeed a very typical example of this - right now I tend to repeatedly highlight this observation. This seems to be an endless repetition.

I suspect such behaviour may be due to the underlying reason that we want to be more convincing, or we fear that our audience do not pay enough attention to what we want to tell, even though most of the time the matter is trivial to others. We just want to share, while very often we do not know how curious our audience are. Maybe they do not wish to know at all, but they choose to listen because they want to be polite. When I come to this point, I believe I am actually the one that is impolite when I repeat, because I am not considerate enough to think deeply whether my words are interesting for others. This happens more on older people, which is why the young always complain the old are clumsy.

How to get away from this bad habit? I guess the only thing I can do is to keep alert about how this behaviour is displeasing.

Le Temps Qui Reste

This evening I watched a poor local film acted by Jacky Cheung and Tang Wei. It is poor because the director, who's also the script writer, fails to reflect her story idea effectively. It looks more like a TV drama than a proper film. There is reason for local film industry being so weak.

I often recall the French film Le Temps Qui Reste, which is about the final time of a man diagnosed with serious disease. I do not remember every part of the film, but what impressed me is that he spent his last moment at a beach facing the sunset - this is how the film ends as well. I still remember I once had a dream at one night, that I knew I was going to die and I was lying on a comfortable beach chair with a glass of fruit punch, facing the sun. In that scene, I was able to see how I was like as I was just watching at my back, but for some reason I knew that was me. That's why I found it kind of shocked when I was watching the last part of the film; and that is why I love the film a lot.

This is not the first time I wrote about this film. It only means I cannot forget my dream.

Signals from the Body

A famous writer once wrote on his column that there is a quota for everything in our life. This happens both physically and mentally One example is that the doctor will tell you on one day sooner or later that you cannot smoke your cigarette anymore, or else it will kill you. Another more relaxed example on himself is that on one day he suddenly cannot write anymore for he has not the least interest nor muse anymore. This is his personal life experience - the over 70-year-old man is on the way to his final life episode.

I recalled this article because recently my stomach always complains. It complains when I eat too much / too late / too early / too less / too oily / too heavy. It also complains when I eat something I has been favour a lot and healthy, like mushrooms. I still like mushrooms a lot, but I cannot have them much anymore. This is a signal from my body that I must control my diet. The time to eat as I wish is gone. I am trying to get used to this.

I can imagine how I will gradually lose the power over my body and my mind. This is a part of the life cycle. Then I shall ask, why do we create so many tasteless hardships ourselves?