Fellow Toastmasters, toastees and toastettes, and other fruit spreaders and jammers,
In regard to moving into 2001, I am operating by the Chinese
calendar and the Year of the Dragon will be a dragging on no more. I
am waiting for the Year of the Snake to slither its way in. Although I
would rather delay my comments about 2001 until the real New Year
arrives, in deference to our eminent association, I just have a small
comment: (various irrelevancies rattled off in Cantonese):
All About Nothing (5-7 min)
Well, today I’m talking All About Nothing. I am happy that I’m not
pressured to talk about something significant. I’m grateful that I can
just talk, about myself. in the company of receptive individuals so as
to do without seeing a professional like myself.
You may think that I’m fooling when I say that I’ve spent a lot of
my life trying to be nothing. The problem is that I’ve been too
successful at it.
You could say that it started somewhere in the ?70’s when I was
seduced into the enlightenment gig glamorized by the series of
adventures written by Carlos Castenedas about a Mexican brujo,
sorcerer, named Don Juan, no connection with another hero of mine.
Among various practices that included the use of hallucinogenic plants,
one directive by Don Juan included erasing one’s personal history. I
was particularly dedicated to this back then: I did not want to have
photos taken of myself, I did not want to keep photos taken of myself,
I gave very little attachment to what happened in my life. I watched
my past life just fad away, day to day, and focused on what was
happening now.
Castenedas was later reinforced by the self-styled guru Baba Ram
Dass. Ram Dass, formerly Richard Alpert, was a Harvard psychologist
and comrade to Dr. Timothy Leary. It’s funny that a friend of my
wife’s sent her a tape recently by Ram Dass. I idolized him in the
good old days and I had no trouble digging up some tapes I had of him
from 1976. Funny, in the twenty some years that have passed, he’s
pumping out the same message. I won’t go into all the details, because
this talk is about nothing, but he’d say things like: you and I really
are just empty spacesuits with no one home inside, except we pretend
that someone is in there. His basic message is that we take ourselves
a bit too seriously and that it’s OK to get caught up in the melodrama,
but we must remember the soap opera is a small part of all there is.
What brought things in contrast recently is my reading of Steven
King’s book called "On Writing". It isn’t exactly an autobiography,
but in it, and I haven’t finished it yet, he begins with a series of
vignettes from his life. I can tell you he writes with such detail
that I find it incredible; for example, he remembers where his record
player was sitting in his room in 1968 and which records he listened
to. Compared to his memory and ability to establish an identity of
himself, I am simply Casper the Friendly Ghost pretending to be Dr.
Yuen. I wish I could say I was a regular person, but I guess that is
not my karma.
I have dedicated my life to discover those things that are eternal
and not just ephemeral. They say that change is the only constant, but
I’m not looking at the change, I’m focusing on what that constant is.
It seems that the constant turns out to be "nothing" because it’s not
something that can be talked about easily.
The Tao Te Ching, that famous book by Lao Tze, says that the Tao
that can be told is not the eternal Tao..He who knows does not say..He
who says, does not know..I’m trying to be the guy who doesn’t say..but
as you can see by this speech, I’m not doing a very good job.
What I’d rather do is standup comedy, or at least a humorous speech,
and not say a whole lot of any import. Just getting a laugh would be
sufficient for me. Toastmasters is a great way to do just that.
Aren’t we here to have some fun under the guise of something
purposeful? (clear throat)
Forgive me that I have not been particularly inspired to say
anything with punch in this speech. Maybe it’s a masculine phase I’m
going through, a pause..a man-0-pause. I’m taking a pause from
standing on a soapbox. In the ?80’s, I had created a program called
Natural Success in which I applied 5 Natural Success Principles in 5
Areas of Life. I was giving lectures at a fitness center, 5 X 5, means
about 25 lectures. I suppose I could repeat some of those lectures
with you, but I’d be bored and that’s past and gotta erase personal
history. Anyway Toastmasters is part of my transition from gathering
stuff to say and moving onto to figuring how to say it. What better
theme for this speech than "Show what you mean" because although words
can be associated with body expressions, in themselves, gestures go
beyond words..of course, there’s you (gesture) and me (gesture) and
being together (gesture), and I could throw in a little taichi stuff
(gesture), or I could go free form (gesture). Maybe some of you might
have thought I would take advantage of this chance to talk about
taichi, but I do that all the time and if you want to see taichi, then
please come to my taichi class.
So you see that I have nothing to talk about. As a psychiatrist, we
are traditionally trained not to talk too much about ourselves anyway.
We’re supposed to elicit information about our clients instead. Well,
in the midst of my preparation for this speech, my wife’s uncle dies of
a massive heart attack yesterday. I’m in the middle of getting serious
about Toastmasters and then I’m reminded that maybe there’s something
more important. Nah! nothing’s more important than Toastmasters,
nothing is more important because nothing is the topic of my speech.
I’m worried about getting a reputation in this group for talking about
death and nothingness. I’m trying not to, but feel forced to. But
maybe it’s not about my situation in life. Maybe it’s about all of our
situations in life.
It’s nothing but maybe we could show a little more affection to
those that we love because we may not see them tomorrow. But who am I
to tell you anything, I’m just a nobody.