Hope & Yin-Yang to Creativity

The Cantonese words for “hope” is 希望 or “hei mong.” I used to think it meant to look up to the heavens, like in prayer. It’s so poetic to me—I want to stick to this translation. I am no expert, and my native dialect is fading slowly into my past. Cantonese is the dialect spoken in the Guangdong Province of China, and it borders Hong Kong where many Cantonese refugees settled during the Cultural Revolution. It was where my father reinvented his life, and the place of my birth.

I think being born into a family whose only means of survival was to leave everything behind changes you. I never really looked at it that way before and the sacrifices my parents endured. Many first generation Chinese American children are prodigies of war and immigration. We came to America only to face segregation, but we look to hope and what this very act means to our future. To hope for something we cannot know is the definition of hope itself. All we possess is the memory of our culture, and human strength to shape our future.

Every year that passes, especially these last two Covid years, shifting into different directions felt necessary. Can reinvention be a DNA trait? Could I have inherited this from my father? I hope so. He had to become whoever necessary to survive. He was a soldier, a gambler, a recovered opium addict, a father, and a healer. It’s an unusual list of traits, and to this day, I have never met anyone like him. Remembering these things about my father gives me hope.

I spent this week cleaning and organizing. Accumulation overwhelmed me to a breaking point where “stuff” became chaos. Can you relate to this feeling? My stash for X project, Y project, and UFO projects multiplied like gerbils. I asked myself, “Why don’t I ever put my beads back into its storage drawers, or why I felt I needed five boxes to hold identical things? Why do I need 30-plus grocery bags?” I now have a growing assembly of boxes filled with things slated for Goodwill. It’s hard to believe there was ever a supply-chain shortage in my house.

The main teaching of the Tao is about balancing the ever growing and dying of all things. Elimination creates space for new. We could apply this concept to just about everything, especially my clutter. The balancing act is the answer to creativity. I am guaranteed new ideas as soon as I clear my desk.

So what was the first thing that happened as I decluttered? I found ways to up cycle or recycle dead projects. I saw a way to give birth to something new after death. Now that’s Yin and Yang working perfectly.