“Being obsessed over doing something, and be busy with it day and night, is the only way to live.” My best friend commented, while peering over my shoulder last June. This was the time when I decided to improve my handwriting…

…and filled hundreds and hundreds of pages with calligraphy and lettering styles, using the practice sheets I had designed myself, with lines angled at 17 degrees, and a new book on handwriting, (which I’ve not finished.) Furthermore, I went to countless bookshops and stationary stores, spent days inspecting the shelves of libraries, including the beautiful, BEAUTIFUL, National Library in Vienna, Austria… to dig up official documents and research papers on the official Austrian handwriting style…

…for almost half a year I didn’t do much else, day and night. After all, my forsaken home country is one of the few countries that has such a thing: its own handwriting model, the Austrian Schulschrift, last revised by the Austrian Ministry of Education in 1995. And why not, why not learn to model my own handwriting using the Austrian model? …

…maybe because even the Austrian government keeps saying that it’s just a model, and we shouldn’t aim to copy it perfectly. They are right in that sense, perfection is unattainable… for the Os are unlike the German egg-shaped Os… in the Austrian model they are perfectly elliptical, and that’s something humans just can’t draw.

My friend George, who made that comment, he himself is living the way of passionately being obsessed over something and doing only that, day and night, too—but not as a teacher, like myself, but as a musician. Next to sleeping, there’s hardly anything else he and his fellow musicians do, other than practicing, playing and creating music.

We don’t have much money, but we have purpose. Our obsession with what we think of as our work fills us with that rare, highly saught after, ethereal substance called “purpose.” Purpose, an invisible good that seems to nourish us spiritually, fills our lives with meaning, and aligns all our actions to that purpose. And at least I am lucky enough to have patrons who support me and make my deep dives into my projects possible, my deep dives into whatever seems to be the most important thing to do in this world… and is somehow related to my main profession, being a teacher of Somatic Education, with a background in studying the lessons of Moshé Feldenkrais.

This obsessing over topics doesn’t always yield movement lessons, in the sense of being a teacher of Somatic Education. But for once I can say……for once I can say that I have completely and fully understood what Moshé Feldenkrais meant by saying,

“You learn the official handwriting style first,
and only then you develop your own.”

Up until now this quote was only a toothless paper-tiger to me, a bland quote that has been repeated up and down in any Feldenkrais training ever done, cited without passion, quoted not knowing the obsession and the striving for perfection, joy, and purpose. Maybe that’s why—up until last June—this quote never resonated with me, was never convincing. Baseless, emotionless, irrelevant.

But now I understand. Now I can talk from experience. I had to become 50 years old to undo the damage done to me in public schooling, and learn how to use body, mind, hand and pen, to put ink to paper, beautifully, and with great satisfaction.

Here’s a video from my “beginning days” of handwriting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eNLy-YgsKg

Since October last year I have a new obsession:

Romanised Chinese writing and spelling, with the latin alphabet, to the official standard of the Chinese government, called Hànyǔ Pīnyīn.

It started as a feeling, a desire to do something with lasting effect. Something that’s like putting my foot down, making a dent in history, leaving a legacy, doing something revolutionary, gamechanging, joyful and amazing…

…and quickly, within days after my decision to turn Pīnyīn, the romanized Chinese writing system, into something great in my life, my interest in it turned into my new obsession, leading up to the 12 hour workdays I’m having these days, which always feel too short.

I’m working on a web application as a typing helper (to actually be able to write Pīnyīn,) with a new type of dictionary interface. And a Mac app. I’ve given up on the iPhone app, for now. And now I’m doing research on Pīnyīn input methods, devising new ones, comparing robustness, ease of use and efficiency. And with these tools I’ve already transcribed a few thousand words, every day a few more.

Furthermore, right now I’m writing a book about Pīnyīn spelling according to the Basic rules of the Chinese phonetic alphabet orthography (GB/T 16159-2012), a standard by the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Chinese State Language Commission.

I wake up, usually around 6:30am, I do half an hour of Feldenkrais-inspired exercises (without which I would probably break apart,) shave and shower, and then, for the rest of the day……I work every minute I’ve a chance to. And I go to bed at midnight. Monday through Sunday .And besides that, I try to keep up with my work as a teacher of Feldenkrais. This has been most of my days since the past 3 months already.

“Yes, you’re on the right track,” I hear my friend George saying in my mind; and off he goes to his own practice session.