Want to find a place with fewer mosquitos? It appears to me places with big night/day temperature differences are good choices. For other places, here is my secret of minimizing mosquito disturbance of sleep. No, I don’t want to use the chemical mosquito repellents.

In the morning, exit the bedroom, keep the door open, and don’t open the bedroom windows unless you have screens. Except at bedtime at night, stay out of the bedroom. In the evening, keep the lights in the bedroom off and turn on the lights elsewhere in the house or where your are (in the livingroom for instance). At bedtime, shut the lights (optional for you) and go quickly to the bedroom and close the door behind. One last ceremony before sleep, turn on lights in the bedroom, have a good search on the walls or ceiling and so on for the few mosquitos that might just love the room, and use a swatter to rid them.

Well, what does it have to do with life under spotlight? I know you might be disappointed as spotlights are more associated with glory, not mosquitos.

OK, one night, the electricity ran out due to a storm, so I used a flashlight to search mosquitos in the bedroom. I found when I had the flashlight focused on a mosquito on the wall it was much easier for me to swat it, than under normal lights. It had a harder time to see and react. This reminds me of childhood experiences or some nature episodes on TV where various animals (chickens, rats etc.) behaved inertly or sluggishly under flashlights.

I also had experiences myself playing music or giving speeches on stage under the spotlight. I don’t know about the experience of sluggishness as I had’t been swatted, but the sense of losing the sight (not being able to see well the crowds down stage) made me feel the numbness, emptiness, and somewhat senselessness. Everything appeared abnormal. This may also have to do with stage fright, but could the loss of senses contribute to stage fright?

It is true that after numerous stage adventures, one’s senses change. I later experienced, instead of the numbness or stage fright, some kind of stage excitement, where I felt excited, a bit high, at what I was doing. But that was not the normal me, shall we call it a different framing of myself? I surely performed well on the task at hand, but was I short-circuited from my other senses or abilities? I can’t answer, but I am sure I was abnormal there too.

These are about the physical spotlights. It’s not hard for one to reflect or imagine situations where one is under the mental or spiritual spotlight. This is where one is at the center of attentions of everyone in the surrounding. There are two cases here.

a) One is under the scrutiny of everyone like a suspect of a crime. Here anything one does brings in only all kinds of oppositions, disbeliefs and questionings. One can ignore these if one is capable and the situation allows, in which case one detaches himself from the surrounding and faces loneliness. Otherwise, one has to go great length in constantly defending himself. Or one is forced to give in and change his position.

b) one is praised by everyone like a god. One constantly hears only “Yes Sir, you are absolutely correct”, “Sir you always make great decisions”, “Sir I will do anything you say”, “Sir you are a genius”, “Sir you are a wonderful leader”, and so on. If one is truly great, one doesn’t listen to all these crap, in which case, one faces alienation from the crowds and possible danger. Or one falls into the trap in believing one is truly the ultimate being, in which cases one is highly likely to get a swat at some point.

In either case, one’s sensory system or mind are largely distorted. Sometimes, the distortion is good for one to handle the situation at hand (one excels), whereby it’s quite possible one loses his functionalities in other things in life. In most other cases, the distortion is harmful for one to carry along, causing one to fail at some point.

In any case, being in the spotlight should be regarded as a glory. It means one has achieved or is achieving some type of greatness. We all understand that greatness does not come free, it means one has had some great striving. But one also needs to understand that greatness comes with some consequences. Being great means one is no longer a normal person as everyone else, and we know it is mostly hard for normal persons to accept an outlier where being great belongs.

Cheers! Santé! Prost!