A great man is one who has not lost his child's heart.
(Mencius)
Self consciousness
Being self conscious is a severe hindrance in tai chi practice.
To perform the system appropriately, you must become lost in the movements.
Worrying about how other people perceive you is a waste of
time.
Once you can relax and just be yourself, the tai chi and life become far easier.
A natural, relaxed person is comfortable with themselves.
They accept their own quirks and imperfections, realising that it is these
very qualities that make them unique.
At the root of self consciousness is fear.
This fear makes a person needy and desperate for attention.
Competition
Needy people are always competing with each other.
They want an audience who will adore them, approve of them and shower
them with affection.
This is a very insecure way to live.
It turns everybody else into a rival and life becomes one intense competition.
Play
Children are unselfconscious.
They do whatever they want without any sense of rules, boundaries, approval or
disapproval.
It is the parent who trains the child to perform for attention, by rewarding
certain behaviour with praise.
A child plays without concern, absorbed in the activity.
They are so engrossed in the 'here and now' that nothing else intrudes.
Courtship
Flirting is a healthy sexual activity that stems from the
desire to procreate.
Humans are genetically inclined to flirt with one
another.
Flirting is a form of courtship.
There are two motives behind flirting:
the desire to be adored
the enjoyment of another
The desire to be adored
This kind of flirting is simply attention-seeking
behaviour designed to gain the interest of somebody else.
A flirt who wants you to adore them has no actual interest in you.
They want you to chase them, to desire them.
The enjoyment of
another
This second type of flirting is more interesting.
It is a condition whereby your attention is captivated by another person
and your thoughts and feelings are turned outward.
In this situation, your behaviour stems
from an enjoyment of the other person.
You do not necessarily want anything from them.
You are not using them.
There is just something about the person that attracts you and you have fun
interacting with them.
Humour, wit and teasing are used to project light-hearted affection.
Flirtation them becomes a form of play in which one person expresses a sexual
interest in another person in a non-threatening way.
You are a child again, free to have fun without responsibility or commitment.
There is no need to further the relationship or imbue it with more meaning than
it has.
It is like a nice meal or a beautiful view; you simply enjoy it for
what it is and do not pine for it once it has passed.
Page created 13 April 2000