Chasing After the World's Tail

As I have just stepped into my 40s, I finally, have the chance to know what "an hobby" is, know what "enjoy" means, know how "devoted" feels in my heart.

I followed the ordinary route of finishing a degree, then a graduated degree, then work, none of these brought my heart at home. In fact, the more I followed this path, the less I felt my heart was beating. I once had a small business selling my handmade soaps and skin care, I ended up closing it because I was just... simply chasing after the wind. Make products, make business, and then pay it all to the rent and expenses. Where was joy? No idea, couldn't even think it was possible. Maybe those joyous people I see around are just hypocrites. 

Why soap in the first place? I passed by a bookstore once and saw a book on it, bought it, tried it, then things just ran downhill quickly because I had to make money to pay for rent. You have probably guessed right, I ended up hating making soaps because of this motivation. The un-cured texture of the soap disgusts me. The clean up annoys me. Afterall, how much can you make from selling soaps.

It's funny how, after I have rested enough now, and there is no rent to worry for, this idea of making soap came back to me, naturally. Then, magically, I noticed I can modify my methodology of the soap making process (will share this in another post) that I can get rid of ALL of the facts I hated about soap making. Magically, I got addicted, thinking about soaps and soap making day and night. Wow. Where was I? Was I bind or something? Or, I just didn't have the space in my heart to see things differently.

This methodology creates a rustic look of soap, which is actually what I was after. Dark, earthy colours. Quickly I had ideas after ideas, so I made and made, those are the items currently launched ....... Quietly.... an old friend kicks in. I still have a lot of soaps left on the shelf despite they are on sale, I do get nervous about what to do with all these soap. I want to make more, but what to do with them if people are not even interested. Is it because customers not liking one-colour, rustic looking soaps? Fear of making a new batch.

Due to anxiety, I forced myself to make a batch of soap made with more colours. Didn't like it. So I rebatched it, and I tried with another way, it still didn't turn out the way I wanted. Maybe, there was really nothing wrong with it, just, I wasn't following my heart of how I want my soaps to be. My anxiety, feeling of defeated, disappointment, all of these grew into anger, even bigger fear! Till the point, both my wife and I had major stomach cramps.... I knew something was not right, well obviously, but it had gone way off to the point where there is a storm in the house!

I sat, meditated, released my emotions, cried, cleared up my mind, whatever, that was when I started to notice I was chasing after someone else's tail. Wanted to boost up sales, just like in the old days trying to earn rent. 

"What exactly do you really want in this life?"

"I want to receive love, and I want to give out love."

"Then, let that be the motif of your creations."

"I want to create the soap base on stories, stories I see in my life. I have two bunnies, one loves to see the sky, I want to make a soap for her, as how she sees the sky she loves." So many ideas came rushing to my mind, as if, these souls of my future soaps are all eager to be realized.

My soaps shouldn't be ordinary. They are not the ones that you can pick up from a random market and being forgotten after its last piece is gone. Designing a recipe that meets all the technical qualities is just the introductory stage, randomly doing colour swirls is not my type. I want my soaps to contain stories, and I have lots of them to share. 

So, the next day, instead of rushing to rebatch my disaster, I sat down, designed the look of the sky which I think she is seeing. A patch of white, a patch of pale blue, a patch of darker blue. Well, because I rebatched it with heat, and heat does discolour some of my ingredients, it turned a bit greenish. However, I don't mind it at all because this soap has its story. I wanted to create a sky that my bunny loves to see, maybe with this discolouration, it is the true colours of how she sees the sky, who knows. 

Chasing the tail is just futile. Doesn't matter if it's yours or someone else's. It doesn't bring us any good, but only dehumanize us into zombies. Pause a bit, have some tea, observe what's really going on. Even if you are in the eye of a tornado which you have created for yourself, you can always, always, always fly out of it, then, you will realize it's just a rotating lamp after all.