bizarre, disturbing...

as expected, the publisher that i emailed responded with a curt reply: "sorry, but we don't work with self-published books."

to be honest, i'm half hoping the wave of the future will be self-publishing. it would be a repetition of what's happening in the recording industry, or even with television, or journalism. certainly, there's a kind of comfort in having "someone" be an arbiter and judge of "good taste," who will repackage and promote material to the greater public. it makes it much easier for the average consumer to get a pulse on what's "popular" (i.e, top sellers, whatever). but then again, publishers really haven't the patience to look at anything new or unique; they're too busy watching the bottom line. and oftentimes, as in much popular media (music, movies) that means reproducing something formulaic, something that has a proven track record. for example, i can't tell you how many comic book characters or fantasy books have been translated to the big screen; it's as though the movie making machine is mechanically churning out every possible tangent to previous "success."

when i emailed a message over to this publisher, i was asked to mention who my market was, and any other books that were similar to my own. again, it's all about what will sell. the first query is concerned with the size of the appeal pool, and the second, with demonstrated public interest...

i can't blame publishers. i have a feeling, though, that it will only get harder for them to survive. "taste" is splintering, as is society, in a certain sense...

***

interestingly enough, i heard a related story on npr. no, it wasn't about the publishing industry. but it was about how the eye and ear of society was no longer focused upon general shared social experiences. for example, no single show really captures the popular attention any more. in the earlier part of the decade, seinfeld might have served this role, and the day after the airing of any episode, everyone (who's not under a rock) would be talking about "yadayadayada" or "no soup for you" or whatever. it was a shared cultural experience. nowadays, even american idol only commands 16% of popular audience attention, so you're excused for not knowing who's the next favorite or whatever (i certainly don't).

television is no longer a small set of channels; it has exploded to, at the minimum, 60 channels. and it competes with the internet. people are finding their niches, and sticking to them.

there's a concern over this, particularly with regards to news. people who lean to the right will watch fox news, and stick around in that echo chamber, cultivating their own perspective on "reality," while generally left leaning individuals might listen more to npr or the daily show... more choices in the media results in a fragmented (or, to put it positively, prismatic) social consciousness.

blogging, self-publishing, etc. leads to a democratization in the "printed" media. this can be a good thing, in that it allows for more voices. on the flip side, publishers and other arbiters of "taste" (those who propose and establish literary canons, for example) will complain of the cacophany of "letting anyone and everyone into the party."

i don't really take sides on this. to me, it's a general historical trend, and as far as i can see, an irreversible one. i self-publish. whether i'm just adding to the cacophany, or i have a relevant and important thing to say, well, that's for someone else to decide.

most publishers (like the one i just submitted to) have already made up their minds.

as for me, what the hell. i never imagined writing was a meal ticket. and i wasn't precisely writing for a "popular audience" anyway. i write for me, and the projected and idealized (perhaps nonexistent) reader within me. i say, as long as i stay true to that, without straying into self-delusion or solipsism, then... what the hell.

the problem with motion is it stops eventually. the friction of our attachments gradually heats us up with our passing, until we rest in quiescence for a time.

the problem with stillness is it can't stop moving. within the most stable element, the atoms are quivering and blurring. it is only a matter of time until, like billiard balls, they shake us into our restless wandering again.

an uncomfortable outcast and nomad, to shift from place to place... that's all that we are...

***

it's funny. i once commented to a roommate: life is just moving in or moving out. it's either unpacking, or packing up.

when we're unpacking, we want to "make a home," take out all of our shit, and arrange it on the walls and floors to make things look attractive and alive. and we are so excited to be here...

when we're packing up, whether moving due to choice or circumstance, there's a certain repugnance to the earth, we gather everything of our own up, and cast off what we deem unnecessary, or inessential. we are paring down, reducing to a minimum, carrying only what matters. there's a restlessness for the road, and the road requires a streamlining of everything, a certain kind of efficiency...

and there's perhaps a promise of the end of the road, a someplace better, where we will unpack again, and make a new home.

we are always oscillating between these two extremes, whether it is with our literal home, or with our home in others, or in activities, or in anything else.

packing, unpacking.

***

travelers understand the game better. it becomes a routine. a religion...

***

today, i posted 7 entries on craigslist to sell some of my father-in-law's furniture. and within a few hours, i managed to sell 4 items. it's pretty amazing.

i also found a posting from mckenna publishing, looking for writers. i sent a message about marsilani 4. it would be nice to hear something from someone, though i won't get my hopes up. as things are, i'm content. sort of. it just would be nice to get a bit more exposure. i guess.

***

i'm kind of touched, but a few interns would really like me to supervise this upcoming semester, even though i really didn't think i could, what with my increased student teaching schedule. but since there are furlough fridays, and since the school created a friday shift, perhaps i can accommodate.

supervising is great, but it's also taxing. it is a negotiation between myself, the intern, and the patient. obviously, the patient's needs come first, but there are many interpretations over what is going on with the patient, and these have to play out. i have to take into consideration what an intern is willing to perceive, their comfort level, and together with him/her create a treatment that "makes sense" to everyone.

there really is no one way to do anything in acupuncture. different traditions, different interpretations within traditions, different ways of executing. i preach clarity and simplicity and gentleness, even when i know that the seas are roiling and rough with contradictions, vagaries... this much is true: the actual treatment, the actual doing of anything, is a performative act. and during the performance, you cannot second guess yourself. you just have to DO...

***

i must get some sleep...

devotchka's "till the end of time"

much of what is good in me is a consequence of the bad that's happened to me.

this is the paradox that i have come to realize as a parent.

sometimes, it is the suffering or privation that parents/guardians can't protect a child from that teaches that child a fundamental value or lesson...

the mad rush of christmas is winding down... yesterday, lynn and i sat down to compile our christmas card/christmas letter/present lists, and planned everything out. we were actually further ahead of the game than i thought, thanks to lynn's foresight and preparation. she had shopped for kids' clothing months in advance. i was actually worried that i would have to shop for game/toy ideas to match up each individual kid on our list... while i'm sure the kids won't be as happy to receive clothes (i recall, as a kid, how i'd have to feign JOY at receiving some new stuffy set of clothes that i'd have to immediately try on... gee, THANKS... :P), at least it is something substantial to appease the obligatory gift-giving. (<-- geez, do i sound like an ebenezer or what).

i sent out a big pile of christmas letter/cards out, dragged the kids along to delivery errands and a treatment and my taiji class... and then scrambled over to a family dinner over at the hawaii prince hotel... (aiden and lynn couldn't come because aiden developed a sudden fever...)

***

during taiji class, one of the students came up with an interesting observation. we had practiced the first form (which actually is the standardized 24-form, not particular to any one style). we did it twice, first at a very slow pace, and the second time slightly faster. one student noted that the first one felt "concentrated," but during the second, her mind really wandered and lost focus.

i likened taiji practice to carrying a large bowl filled nearly to the brim with water. if you practice slowly, with awareness, then none of the water spills, and there is a clarity to the water because of the relative absence of ripples. if, however, you practice swiftly, then there is a tendency to cause spillage and ripples in the mind. the mind truly reflects the body; the faster and more "automatic" (i.e. thoughtless and "stereotyped") the movements, the more the mind wanders off on tangents...

this is one reason for the slow practice of taijiquan. it is a practice that emphasizes the stillness and awareness of the mind. it requires a clarity of all levels of being, participating in one action. most other hurried motion implies a division of the self into fragments, into the "automatic" or unconscious mind that accomplishes the task, and the "floating" thinking mind that is liberated from the actual labor, and can actually dissociate itself from present circumstances...

i realize that i need to return to the stillness practices, to zazen meditation, to zhan zhuang. i think i'm losing my temper, my patience, my focus, my self...

the strength of someone who meditates and is at one with all levels of himself is like the power/energy of a wave formed in the deep sea, with an amplitude (oftentimes hidden) as high as a mountain... compare this to someone who is restless, and thus accomplishes only what bare ripples do...

***

i keep thinking about population issues. we are losing resources fast, we are destroying the environment irreversibly. the world was not meant to support so many hungry and polluting humans... something has got to give. human beings must learn to put limits on their proliferation, on their behavior... and yet, when i look at copenhagen, or even within our own divided nation, i think, sadly, that even when the truth of issues stares us in the face, we as a species cannot unite to do what needs to be done... people always only think of their own personal interests... no one sees, or acts on, the big picture.

(and why should they?)

in apocalyptic movies, like "war of the worlds" (the more recent version, directed by steven spielberg), the survivors definitely act only on self-interest. of course! self-interest, which compromises all morality. perhaps morality is contextual and nothing more than a social agreement anyway... perhaps there are situations where we learn what illusions "society" imposes upon us. i think, i fear, that we are headed for such apocalyptic circumstances in coming decades... when we realize what a fiction our civilization is, how it fails to take into account the consequences of our way of life... i fear we will witness such a situation, a situation where the "moral majority" suddenly murders or pillages, convictions abandoned in the face of extinction and hunger...

honestly, faced with the death of you and yours, what would you do?

grim thoughts, truly, but they preoccupy me, and (i suspect) people are thinking about such things more and more, deep in the repressed parts of their minds... we are approaching capacity, we are near the ceiling... and we don't know what's going to happen next...

i fear for my children. i will teach them how to be good. how to be ethical. and i will hope that, when they are faced with the difficult choices of the future, they will find a way to survive, but more importantly, they will find a way to do so while retaining their humanity...

***

but then, all of these concerns are but ripples. i must be still, even if the world ends, i must be still, and learn to see the death of all things (including me and my own) with acceptance, with peace. the living react to death, to fear, and divide themselves into hopes and fears. if i look upon everything with equanimity, and without turning away, then perhaps i can become one with the end of the world...

2009 crappy holiday song remakes

HOLIDAY ANTHEMS TO PROFOUND LAZINESS AND STUPOR
1) “I need to get back into fitness” (sung to “I’m dreaming of a white christmas”)
i need to get back into fitness
my waist’s continuing to grow
gotta quit my bitchin’
get the sweat to glisten,
and give malasadas a furlough.

i need to get back into fitness
maybe i’ll even start tonight
until then, i’ll try to feel contrite
about giving that gingerbread a bite.

i need to get back into fitness
maybe i’ll even start tonight
until then, i’ll try to feel contrite
about giving that gingerbread a bite.

2) “Let it grow!” (sung to “Let it Snow”)
oh the grass outside is frightful
it’s been growing day and nightful
and since i don’t want to mow
let it grow, let it grow, let it grow

it doesn’t show signs of stopping
even though their bangs needs cropping
and since i’m a lazy schmoe
let it grow, let it grow, let it grow

when you finally assert your might
and kick me out on the yard
i’ll be napping and out of sight
hardly working, not working hard!

i’m a schmuck, there’s no denying
and the grass is still up-high-ing
but as long as you love me so
let it grow, let it grow, let it grow!

restoration

i've imported the old entries (from 2007-2008) again. primary reason for this is that a few taijiquan students are learning the third form (aka "chiu style taijiquan") and wanted to view the video of me doing it. a lot of stories, poems, etc. are now accessible... not that anybody does...

regret is a red planet

regret is a red planet
and here we are,
on the planet of blue
looking around for something to do.

and something to see.
on worlds in space,
of ice, a trace
in mounts, a face

we are so afraid of being alone

the life we lead
bound by ozone and
concealed, in turn,
by car and office,
home and sighs,
circumstance and lidded eyes,
the compromise of
a million imperfect lies

we are so afraid of being alone

there must be life somewhere
in a canal perhaps
dug as much by lost hopes
as by some alien hand

regret is a red planet-
and will be until we land.

at 3 am in the morning, i typically wake up feeling haunted.

there's a lot to worry about. there are the immediate practicalities, like money and my studies and my responsibilities. and then there are increasing circles of concern over ever vaguer issues: my children (particularly aiden), my sister, my parents, my nieces and nephews, the cohesion of my family in general, my energy and environmental footprint, global warming, terrorism, overpopulation, non-sustainable lifestyles and practices, the end of the world.

actually, when i articulate it as a list, it all doesn't seem so bad, even the end of the world stuff. i mean, not to say that it really isn't happening, and people aren't stopping their mad rush to deplete any and everything, but let's face it- people have faced the end of the world before, and somehow, it keeps going: let's think about the middle ages (which was probably pretty mad max beyond thunderdome if you ask me), or the warring states period, or other chaotic times in various places around the world and throughout time... i have to believe that there is a capacity in the human spirit to look at all of that and somehow have faith in "everything," and maintain awareness and the practice of kindness...

if nothing else, bodhisattvas will work onwards, even when there is no (objective) hope.

***

but there's always a danger in "thinking" about problems. sometimes i think there's a disturbance of energy that wakes me up. something is trying to tell me something. and to "comfort" myself in waking thoughts, in the cold and clear analysis of things, somehow escapes the problem.

it is the same thing with death, i suppose. death is literally all around us. and yet, when we "think" about death (or "don't think" about it), it becomes a non-issue, even a comforting thing. but as soon as we deal only with the "thought" of death, we avoid the issue itself. there are many ways we can dress up our thoughts. we can think of "good endings" only, like the nice, warm ending of a full day when all business has been taken care of, endings that have closure and control, for instance- and think that death is always like that (which it is not)...

that's not necessarily "our own inescapably personal death" which we can NEVER know. i suppose that that never knowing is the real hard part of swallowing death. we and our need to cognitively master everything. death is the supreme not knowing, the supreme powerlessness...

and to even conceive of this 3am feeling as only being about "death"... well, it isn't.

many authors have wrestled with what is conveniently called an "anxiety," a fear of something which isn't particular, an unnamed and unnameable fear. it spawns all sorts of scaffolding to conceal it, to manage it, but at its heart, it calls into question all of our structures, all of our "management."

it is trying to tell us something (<-- itself a cognitive management).

***

some people wonder why it is necessary to go into the dark jungle naked of guns and company. it is because we need to confront the thing which most haunts us. we need to confront it, face to face, and see it, and be seen by it. what happens after that, i can't say...

"if you're slow," he said carefully, looking me in the eye, "they'll walk all over you."

i couldn't hold the pressure of those eyes, staring at me from beneath a mask of filth. i turned away, muttered "yeah" primarily out of politeness. liberated momentarily, gazing at some innocent gutter a safe distance away, my mouth started to work, disconnected. "like snails underfoot, shells cracking and snapping."

the boy tossed the cardboard sign away, actually stood up, the aura of his stench rising with him. "you know then," he said, reaching a dirty finger-nailed hand up. "you get it."

i stepped away, nervous. "get what?"

relentlessly, those penetrating eyes searched me out, pinned me down. "you know what happened," he whispered raspy. "you know what's going to happen."

walking in the dead
blades folding fast underfoot
so quiet, so quiet
i could hear my breath

i crossed paths
i should have seen its silver steps
but instead broke the air
with a crack like thunder

i could swear i heard a scream
in eggshells and yolk

i could swear i heard a scream
in sticky wounds exposed
and evaporating

but the night wears a mantle
heavy and apathetic
and i, painting death beneath my soles,
walked on.

i have been watching mad max beyond thunderdome for the past half hour... funny. has it been two years? yes, during one of my early blog entries, i recall typing as i looked over my shoulder at the second floor television playing this very movie. and in that entry, i remarked about how nostalgic the movie was, and how it reminded me of my 13th birthday, when we rented it and showed it at my party... time is funny in that way. it keeps winking deja vus at us, but to what purpose? is it to wake us up, or is it to give us the feeling that everything, every so-called waking moment, is just another spin on the turntable?

lightning is flashing in the distance, like periodic flash photography, or a broken intermittent strobe light. now, lying on the second floor bed, with the windows open, the air hangs still. and i can hear a low rumbling in the distance that seems to shake my very gut, the thundering of something unsettled...

are you listening to it too?

i wander the dark unlit hallways of my home, creep into the bedrooms, listen to the even snores, trace the expressions of peace in the sleepers into my mind. i am so thankful, so very thankful, for my wife and my children. they are my tether to this world. i think that, without them, i would have floated off so long ago, a bubble boy adrift in a solipsistic heady ufo-shaped balloon... with no one knowing that i was trapped in the attic...

***

lately, i have nothing to write, nothing to say. i am so beyond lacking motivation. i am drifting over my world, tracing its forms.

i listen to music, the same old radiohead songs, but now i am no longer passive as a listener, i deconstruct everything, i wonder where thom yorke sings from, i piece out the bass from the piano from the guitar, i try to analyze how the synthesizers produce the sounds that they do...

there is no innocence in art. everything has a purpose and an intent. when you get to understanding this, there's wonder, yes, but there's also a kind of grim awareness. it's as though you've seen what's in the magician's hat. magic still exists, there is still the illusion, and the intake of breath of the audience... but behind it all is a machine.

do you understand this?

***

the rumbling is getting closer, and louder. i can feel it within me now. i am hoping that it will summon rain, that the heavens will fall so loud that this empty hanging silence will be replaced by white noise, comforting white noise, the voice of billions of raindrops all shouting at me "SHHHH!" to be quiet...

***

someone next door is talking loud.

***

we found an envelope sent by my grandmother to willow for her birthday. strange, we never got around to opening it. it contains $70, and although my mom wrote the bland "happy birthday" message, i almost felt touched from wherever she is... it's strange, my grandmother was so much a part of my life, and now that she's gone, i continue to function. why is that? why is it that i only think of her in odd moments nowadays?

i haven't gone to her house in ewa beach. i've no reason to. and besides, i couldn't get in if i could... what would i find there, i wonder? an old house thick with dust and memories... a voice that i would long to hear. perhaps i would walk in the door and find myself following old patterns, like a ghost. i'd walk over to the refrigerator, peruse the contents, withdraw a coke, sit at the dining room table... maybe hear the tinny strains coming from the radio, some stupid show about "sokka gakkai." and i'd watch my grandma's back as she chopped something at the cutting board, the hot clean air coming in through the slants of the window louvers... and there would be a face turning to look at me, a face so warm and comforting that i would take it for granted.

would take it for granted.

***

why am i like this? i am immiscible. i could probably survive anything. like a cockroach. nothing breaks me up, shatters me. i only contain nostalgia like dead echoes in steel.

i once remarked that that was how my name originated. "rand" means "shield," and perhaps came from the sound of metal ringing on metal... i have a name, and i am someone, only when i impact/touch the world... but when "left to my own devices," i will sleep and dream the reverberations of purposeless steel...

steel an identity...

i think
(i think)
an artist or a poe

before the sun dies
in its last and sputtering death throes
and coronas
i will walk the halls
and bid each fitful sleeper
a quiet kiss
and turn their dreams away
from what will
what must
come.

and the world
and the world
will spin on in its orbit
its boundary of love and fear
as it has always done
and promise and pretend
an "as it always shall be."

sometimes we keep our mouth shut. the hurt done by others may have been intentional, even, but we still don't speak, because what good would it do? to wage war, to be motivated by the insult or the injury, only makes matters worse. i know my mouth bears fangs when i speak from that place, and i can't abide the apologies and the sight of blood afterwards. and besides, i will have to file down my teeth to keep from cutting myself when i speak again.

people misunderstand this gesture. so many people prop themselves up with conflict, that they don't understand what you are doing when you withdraw from the game. they call it "impotent passivity" or even "irresponsibility." why don't they understand? why can't people stand up by themselves and not just for themselves? why do people need to push off to stay up?

show offs, braggarts, all... each in his own manner and fashion. i get tired of it.

i suppose i have this disease myself, perhaps i have it in an even more virulent state... but it just seems as though the machinations of others seem so obvious and hurtful. obvious. child's play...

it's funny. i idealize the purity of childhood, and have a cynical view of the "maturity" of adults... and yet, i also shy away from the "pure" energy and the obvious aggression, calling it "child's play." i suppose i can't have it both ways... i suppose i don't want to answer any contradictions or inconsistencies anyway.

i just want to go away.

***

i'm tired. i suppose people like me don't really have a strong sense of justice in them. i mean, i will defend a weak child to my death if need be. but in the contradictions of "normal life," i'm not so clear or determined. there is no "principle" that i would, without hesitation, raise above the heads of others to beat them. i have the eyes of a sponge, and i "see" everyone's perspective given even a short amount of time... and like some sort of reverse osmosis, conviction in any single viewpoint leaks out of me...

yes, maybe i don't have a backbone.

all i ever wanted was for everyone to be okay. (this is like the question max asks bob and ted in "where the wild things are." 7 words. "how do i make everyone o k?") i don't believe in a right that makes someone wrong (except in certain obvious instances). and i never wanted to hurt anyone.

i am in a situation right now that demands a change and a rippling of circumstances. and there will be tearing and trauma no matter what. it is all for the best, i suppose, but by nature, something in me resists... i keep leaking, my will is squeezing out of me...

***

take the position of the least among you. if nothing else, it is a safe and true position, because it is so close to the ground.

don't just take this as a platitude. understand it. live it. not in its superficialities, but in its spirit.

i think if you are humble, you can appreciate the universe. it will speak to you, and share its secrets, because it will think it is talking to itself, or, to be more precise, it is talking to nobody at all.

i haven't the foggiest: garage band cover of radiohead's "fog"

kindness

the irony of kindness is that, if it's capital, then once you spend it, no matter on what little trifle you betray it on, it's gone forever.

if you are kind, then to maintain it, like a perpetual motion machine, you must be kind forever.

kindness is based upon a kind of trust. the trust that you are gentle, and would never introduce anything of force or edge to the situation. that you are a friend. a smiley face.

the danger of kindness, of course, is that you are taken for granted. and, in certain situations, that you will not only be at the bottom of a pile of bodies, but that you will be disrespected, nay, even hated for this.

it is only with children and animals that kindness seems to work in its unadulterated state. "adults" are a different matter entirely, and run on a strange mixture (the "unleaded version") of cruelty and morality.

i tend not to understand adults, even though i am one. they are either totalizing, future-extending, or whiny... and they never pay attention. and, by the way- case in point- they are hopeless hippo-crits.

i would run with the children, if they only knew where they were heading (that is, despite it all, to adulthood).

radiohead's "fog"

i love this song. will attempt to "garage band" it... can't do a live record, cuz my camcorder's got lockjaw... and we can't operate.

and he cried, "help me, would you? help me find a way out, would you?"

but they all walked around the pit, heads turned away, ears deaf to him.

and who could blame them?

it was he who had dug the trap. and what's more, they all knew: his dark secret eyes held the power of a gorgon; his voice could summon forth fatal maledictions and unfortunate storms; and his touch could roll heads as easily as dice. even if they could see that behind all of these things, he was a kind and well-intentioned soul, they dared not approach: they were all too afraid.

and so, he was alone in the pit, in the center of a crowd that drifted around him like an uncertain river. and in time, his voice grew hoarse, and he gave up calling altogether, and the reaching out slowly turned into a reaching in. and it was not a pleasant reaching in. for his hands, as i've said, even the figurative ones, were viciously cruel in shape, and what they touched, they cut and scarred and bled deep. every face of innocence that healed over his heart like a scab, he peeled off again, so that the raw edges could feel the air, and feeling could flow again, flow and pulse like an angry red star and its wavering corona. and when the sensation dulled, and the scabs stopped forming, and the bloody feelings stopped being deceived into emerging again, only then did he stop everything, both the reaching out and the reaching in.

and that is when he turned into the stone of the world, and its deepest and most secret heart. a thing frozen and unknowing, secrets buried within secrets, darkness tumbled over in darkness.

and for a time, he knew a measure of peace, or, to be more precise, he didn't know anything... didn't know anything at all.

misunderstanding.

a loss of motivation.

the doors are swinging constantly, like shifting reeds in a restless eddy.

the difference between the possible and impossible is only a matter of time, and in a matter of time, the span to freedom is gone again.

one fish of two has imbibed this truth, and sits back, back, back watching with unclosing eyes the way of this world, laughing resignedly, desperately, at it all. the other fish, tied to its twin by an invisible cord, sleeplessly monitors the shifts of the current, always pushing forward, always pushing forwards, for a way out.

neither has an absolutely convincing argument that it knows the universe.

and so, it continues, a stillness and a motion, a drift and a flutter... the fish all the while little suspecting the whirlpool forming around this inconstant but constant struggle may find its source in their own irreconcilability.

---

"little baby's eyes, eyes, eyes."

---

you should respect all aspects of yourself, if at all possible. a person, unfortunately, is rarely a unified thing. a person is a constant working out of shifting forces. like dreams, we work out something presentable to the eyes and the mind, a narrative that, even in a very rudimentary sense, can be discerned and followed. but ultimately, honestly, none of it really makes sense, and the more authentic we are, the more we come to understand this fact.

i think the more honest we are, the more we realize how impossible it is to be honest...

why do we call an adult "an adult"? it is because the adult is adulterated, impure. not necessarily because the adult "becomes" impure (although some may argue this point, particularly some daoists), but because understanding and knowledge of the way of the world has, let us say, become more complex, subtle, and "mature."

the difference between what a child sees and what an adult sees is not the difference of right and wrong, but of simple and complex. we would like to maintain the force or verve or passion of the good and the true in the child, but it is the adult appreciation of the complexities that tempers our full or one-sided advocacy of anything. "that would be idealistic..."

---

i have been thinking of things in terms of pressure gradients. things like hope and passion (and even the social collective effervescence) operate according to the dictates of pressure. if the walls of circumstance, like the walls of a balloon, say, suddenly withdraw, and we are "given too much space," then hope/passion/motivation tend to diminish. as dr. mcdougall would say, there is a negative correlation (inverse relationship) between the amount of "space/freedom/ease" and the intensity of hope/passion/motivation. if circumstances become pressing (but not CRUSHING), then hope/passion/motivation take on a commensurate, even desperate, force, working towards particular ends...

this would be the apparent perspective on these things. and yet, i feel, taijiquan person that i would like to be, that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressureless force... with a kind of ease in my heart and mind, to have the capacity to allow hope and love to flow in vague but effective ways...

me playing karma police

hopeless musings

if a gen ed teacher doesn't want to work with a specific child (for various reasons), then he will paint the child's performance in consistently negative terms, and possibly not work to construct real solutions (i.e., "she's hopeless... i think your child should be pulled out of my class... she's too much to handle, she shouldn't be MY responsibility."). if the same teacher thinks that that same child has nowhere else to go (i.e, "the buck stops here") and he has to make the best of a perhaps nonideal situation, then he will be far more invested in working on a solution.

what i'm trying to say is: hopelessness (of escape) is the authentic crucible for the creation of hope. hope (as escapism, as some vague "other person, other answer somewhere out there") is abdication, and true hopelessness.

***

as an educator, i've realized that the biggest tool i have to work with is hope. hope is what i have to cultivate within me, and it is what i have to ignite my students with: hope that they can do something challenging, hope that they aren't limited to what people say they are, hope that their lives can be fulfilling and that they are in control of its direction.

like water, or any medium that functions to pass from areas of high concentration to lower concentration, hope is most effective when "pressurized" and then released in specific streams, to specific purpose. when hope is vague and diffuse, then it is like the faintest of drizzles: you can't feel it, and it might as well be not raining...

in order to "pressurize" hope, a person HAS to accept a certain amount of responsibility for the moment. and it's not an "active responsibility" (or it doesn't have to be). it's more of an openness, a realization that you are connected with everything, and that the suffering of one (particularly with regards to the feeling of hopelessness) is intimately tied to YOUR suffering. once you accept this responsibility, then you really have no choice but to help the person who is ostensibly "hopeless."

that's why it is never "good practice" to describe a student as "hopeless." to do so is to cut the tether or lifeline from the student. to do so is to say as much about your power and passion as an educator as it is to say anything about the student.

there is always hope. there must be. the work of an educator, again, is to deal in hope. it's not to fill a student's head with such-and-such information to pass the hsa test; it's not even to make him/her an "independent" or "complex thinker." i mean that it is this, and it isn't. these things are just the branches, the leaves. the real root we need to nourish is the child's hope: hope in the self, hope in the teacher, hope in all relationships, hope in the world, hope for a place in that world.

***

i'm a parent as well as a teacher. i once mused that, in order for parents to be good parents, and teachers to be good teachers, parents must be more like teachers, and teachers must be more like parents. just so i'm not misconstrued:

"parents must be more like teachers": i think that parents are, ultimately, the child's teachers. unfortunately, i think that some parents are not fully aware or conscious that they are playing this role. especially when it comes to academics, many parents (including me, unfortunately) tend to think that the child will "figure things out" independently, or at least eventually at school ("that's what the teachers are paid for"). in other words, parents don't take FULL RESPONSIBILITY for the performance of their child.

this is one thing i have realized. you can't necessarily count on the child to "realize" things on their time table. i was once a heavy proponent for what is called the constructivist model of education, the "if you build it, then the child will learn" philosophy. i still believe in many of its tenets, but i don't hold to it exclusively any more. sure, you can surround a child with great books to read and art supplies and whatever, but there are many children who will NOT spontaneously develop an interest in literature or painting or whatever just because the materials are there. SOMEONE has to explicitly teach, and yes, at times PUSH the child to do something, to learn something. as we often mentioned in religion class, "nothing gives," i.e., nothing happens on its own.

you also can't rely on the school or teachers. heck, they are overworked and underpaid. how are they supposed to know the specific needs of your child, and address them one on one? they CAN'T. if they are good teachers, then they may be better at this, but they only have a small amount of time with your child. ultimately, you as the parent are responsible for this. the parent is, IN A VERY REAL SENSE, a child's first and primary teacher. accept the role. embody the role.

parents should know what a child's strengths and weaknesses are, and do as much as possible to bolster those weaknesses... whether it is "encouraging" reading, restricting access to mind numbing television or nintendo dsi or wii, etc.

okay. "teachers should be more like parents." i debated this one for a while. at one interview, i carefully delineated the two roles, basically saying that teachers don't and shouldn't share the same sort of responsibility that parents do. now, i realize that things aren't and shouldn't be so clear cut. teachers ARE the student's parents- in the context of school, and for the period of the school day. (oftentimes beyond).

it would be nice and convenient if the work of a teacher were limited to passing on the curriculum. i suppose in higher education, this is the case, and it is as it should be, because we are presumably dealing with responsible adults. but in truth, no matter what we are teaching, we can never limit what we teach to the syllabus. we are dealing with people. we are, in essence, responsible for people, in the same way that parents are "tied to" their children. our students, and the performance of our students, represent us, just as much as they represent their parents.

if teachers truly feel this (often painful) responsibility, then they may despair (like many parents do), but they will be far more invested in making the child a better person (they HAVE to). but then again, this makes a great teacher: someone who REALLY cares for the child, who advocates for him/her, etc.

the sign of a poor teacher, or at least one who is nonideal for a child, who will not ultimately help a child grow, is one that throws up his hands and says, "i give up on this child... she is just plain stupid/unfocused/incorrigible. her test results shouldn't reflect upon my performance. she is just a bad seed. she is... HOPELESS."

***

here's another piece of advice: when you communicate bad news that is potentially damaging to a person's self-esteem (criticism), as much as possible, you should always sandwich it in positive statements. you should also be sensitive to timing, to setting, etc. also, if you do have a criticism, you should offer a possible solution. otherwise, you leave the recipient feeling wounded and hopeless...

i wish a few layoffs would have been delivered with more sensitivity...

preparing the space

there is a voice in the weariness and despair. it calls you to return, and to die (both are the same thing). you can't resurrect yourself without surrendering completely and senselessly first. the phoenix must be immolated without a trace before its ashes can remember how to return to life...

the world is not only productive and positivistic, much as we would like it to be. in fact, in its truest sense, the world and the real is precisely what resists us, resists all of our efforts at sequestration, at control ( i believe that one of the best definitions of "the real" is found in its resistance)... to surrender, on the one hand, can appear to be the gesture of abdication and failure (which it often is), but it can also be the most beautiful and effective thing in the world... to spread oneself upon the winds of fate.

yes, i believe in fate. perhaps it's a cop-out. i like to think of it more as a survival mechanism. if i didn't believe in fate, then i would never give myself over to the chance that perhaps the world is larger than i am, and works by rules and whims that have little to do with what i would will. if i didn't believe in fate, then i couldn't accept god, or love, or any of the greater swells and ebbs of the universe...

right now, despite my best efforts to make my life a "productive force," i keep returning to this truth of truths, the lie within all truths, that there is nothing underlying this edifice we have built, and we are all subject to the tides and the storms. i cannot concentrate, there is no will left to resist the wind of the world. i am a useless thing, a scarecrow blown away, fragmenting and tossed... beautifully mad and dizzy upon dreams that have nowhere to "go to," dreams that are merely the surging blindly, attempted resolutions of unresolvable conflicts...

***

distract. attention slack.
the world hangs loose
in an empty noose.

the wind is sliding through the leaves of trees behind my house, pulling them with whispers. at times, it touches the flat glass windowpanes, with a strange tapping sound. objectively, the noise is caused by the glass rattling gently in its housing, but quite honestly, it seems sometimes as though someone or something were gently knock-knocking with a cold ephemeral fingertip. i half expect to look at the window, and see some floating cloud-like face gazing in upon me...

i can't sleep. i was exhausted earlier, and collapsed at around 9 or 10... but now i am awake, and can't sink back into dead dreams... i walked over to the kids' rooms, stirred them in their dreams with whispers of "i love you," and wrapped their blankets around their shifting bodies like clouds... i think love, especially parental love, is like that: a soft and warm enveloping, especially when your eyes are closed and you aren't aware... i wish such love would come back to me, encase me like another womb, so i can dream the lightning and mist of some wonderful stratosphere again- instead of being the only waking soul in a cold and window-rattled house...

***

i speak to my grandmother, as i speak to god, in these empty moments, and in the moments that seem to drag and pull at me with an insistent despair. sometimes, many times, i feel so inadequate. my past, a disappointment, and the future, a long "green mile" of imprisonment and futility... i am filled with good intentions, and perhaps my grandma saw that in me, and believed in that within me... but now i am on my own, and good intentions count for little if they do not bear fruit. there is nothing worse than a broken promise...

so i speak to grandmother, and god, and i talk about my feelings, just as i would on hot afternoons, across from her at her dining table, with some aloha iced tea sweating in a can, and some unagi over stale rice that she hadn't eaten... funny. i believe in ghosts more than most people, but the spirits of ancestors never speak to me as they do others, never fill me with comfort or teach me lessons... or maybe i'm just too blind and stupid to see...

***

the morning paper is slapping on the pavements of nearby houses... i really must sleep.

i wish, at times, i could end these empty moments... or, failing that, make them last forever, without time interrupting with each new glaring tomorrow...

i felt tired and somewhat overwhelmed this afternoon/evening... when i get this way, the best thing is to go with it, and get some rest. i usually regroup in the wee hours of the morning (or i try to), and have either an action plan to address my worries, or some platitude/philosophical outlook to help me accept circumstances...

we are living in hard times. i am an insular individual, but in my heart, i try to reach out and help others. oftentimes, i feel ineffectual to change the circumstances around me, but i believe in the effort, the constant unrelenting effort. i take some small comfort in hearing the words of people actively engaged in helping others. this afternoon, on this npr show called "human kind" (i think), there was a segment about some guy who has been involved in helping out his community (sorry, can't be more specific). he mentioned something i thought was so true: "you can't keep people from doing wrong, and you can't make people do right." on the one hand, this can be a statement of despair. you essentially can't change anything substantial in the world. but he continued by saying that "you just have to continue spreading the seeds..."

***

i am thinking of ways to help some of the students i worked with today... my mentor teacher is excellent, btw; very systematic, very caring... i hope i can fulfill my duties as effectively...

***

i had an idea to start selling my book, and having the proceeds go to various charities/events, perhaps by month, but 1) i think it would be perceived as self aggrandizement, and 2) nobody buys it anyway... but if i could, it would give me a way to monetarily contribute to some of the things/people i believe in. example, shari tamashiro's chimagukuru (sp?) event, coming up in october... or mililani ike's fundraising shortfalls...

there is a strange tapping coming from the rain drainage gutters on the house. it sounds like some animal is tapping in its sleep or something. occasionally, a nightbird squeaks in its dreams, hidden somewhere in the shadowed bower of a tree.

i am awake, but tired, anxious about yet another tomorrow. there is always so much to do.

i once wrote that, in the primordial situation, man, represented by sisyphus, confronts the boulder of the world, and is essentially equal to it. he in other words has as much sense as the boulder, resisting the inertia of it with his own being, and then helpless to counter its momentum as it rolls down the hill. with the advent of the word, man creates imbalance, and thereby asserts his own existence: the word is the lever that allows man to separate the primordial border from mother earth. the word, in essence, makes man "bolder" than the boulder. it frees the boulder, and it frees man for other things...

but there are other dangers, dangers beyond falling back into the smothering non-existence of primordial sisyphian existence. the modern dilemma is the nano-machine repetition of that original act of separating the boulder from its housing... the boulder, transfigured by the word, fragments repetitively, into successively grainier detail, until man no longer makes contact, or is even able to make contact with the world. words fall apart, over and over and over again...

the task of an individual trying to change the world is similar. the world resists, certainly, by its very inertia, like the primordial boulder... but there is an equal danger in man's "divisive" labors, his language, his organizing mind, his midas touch... the world and its tasks repeatedly fall apart right before his eyes, and right beneath his fingertips... the end, which once seemed conceptually so simple, withdraws, turns corners, dizzyingly disappearing, until man no longer knows who he is, or what his purpose was...

there is a reason why taoism favors the yin, and the simple. to follow the way of the world is to instantly fall apart into the ten thousand things... true taoists look stupid, but it is only because they understand that the only way to stay together is to follow simplicity, to hold to the origin via a second return to innocence...

***

i want a dream again. i want to feel my life, my waking life, to be like the flat thing it is, afloat upon a monstrous surge, upon the back of some leviathan mistaken for a wave. an unthinking thing, without purpose, but filled to bursting with the plenitude of the abyss and the depths... ALIVE.

i dream of the sea and the waters in all its incarnations. last night i dreamt of crossing the ocean on a decaying bridge with my father... someday, in my dreams, i will walk on water, unafraid and alone.

or else, i will become the waters themselves.

red dawn dream

this red morning, i woke up from a dream... apparently, i had won some sort of strange contest after writing/drawing stories for some book. i was to train in a pagoda of some sort. the pagoda had to be reached by crossing an old bridge across a very busy harbor/sea. the bridge consisted of ropes and wooden planks. i was with my father. we proceeded halfway across the bridge, when my father noted how old some of the planks were- and lo and behold, as we were walking on it, the bridge seemed to dissolve before my very eyes! not only were the planks old, there were some portions where there were no planks at all! eventually, we found ourselves holding on to one railing rope and essentially tightrope walking across the roiling busy harbor. and then, my father suggested i let go and hold on to him, something about how our combined volume would make the trip easier. i begged to differ, but dream logic doesn't seem to work that way. so i held on to my father. suddenly, the wind picked up, and it actually blew us upwards into the sky, holding the rope of the bridge as a kind of tether. i could see the pagoda and the waters of the sea hover below us, wavering madly. after that, we decided to give up, and find another way...

back on the other side, we discovered that the only way to gain access across the bridge was to meet with the tulku (he looked like a buddhist abbott) named kuul. "cool!" my grandfather cried (for suddenly, he was with us as well, bouncing up and down, and looking and acting just like aiden). we waited as another party paid proper respects to kuul and his elderly family (apparently his whole family joined him on these meetings). my grandfather jumped ahead excitedly, shouting "cool!", and i had to hold him back...

that was the end of the dream...

behind it, there was a feeling of expectation... as though i had to do something...

in any case, the whole adventure with my father was the coolest... hanging onto the bridge for dear life, i had no fear of death- it was just my dad and i, laughing like kites.

oh yes, there is also a fragment about some great violin performance that was to take place in the tenth floor auditorium... and i took my daughter and son (and someone else) to go see it, only we were in an adjacent building. sounds strange, but we went up to the tenth floor of our building, and through the windows (giant and clear), we could see the violinists in the next building as though we were right next to them... i do remember that part...

seasonal entrapment

i think people are trapped in specific seasons, even in seasonless hawaii. some people view the winter of things, preferring to feel the still and the quiet, and the way everything settles to its death and rest and quiescence. other people are perpetually in spring, seeing in each moment and in each passing stranger a bud of hope and opportunity just waiting to blossom. others are in autumn, a strange mixture of meditative solemnity and the giddiness of the harvest moon. and some, as the season is presently, prefer the lazy sexuality of summer.

myself, i'm a winter person. sleepy, perpetually being mistaken for a sadsack, or chronically depressed... in all the other seasons, and confronted with all other possibilities, the winter personality perceives the ultimate ending, the consequence, the path of settling. the skeletal web of time, frozen in a visible pattern of frost.

no other season, i think, values life more than the season of death. to understand how fragile all the seemingly virile expressions of life truly are, how tomorrow will take, gradually or suddenly, irretrievably away. it is to know life for what it is, just a season, and just a moment, a flash of light refracted in a single aspect of a snowflake...

***

i am trying to remember what it felt like to be alive.

the past is a stranger to me. i know what must have happened, because somehow i have arrived here, and i have a scrambled resume and a box of photographs and letters, but it seems to all have happened to someone else, someone who passed away a long long time ago, without a word.

hope, love, fear, sadness. i know these things now. but i also knew them before (i must have!), all of these things, wearing different faces, different masks. how could i have distanced myself, exploded so far away from who i used to be, to confront the artifacts and remnants of yesterday, as though an archaeologist, unearthing an alien civilization?

... there is a pulse quality in chinese medicine denoted as "scattered." in kiiko matsumoto's style, it goes by the somewhat more awkward description of a pulse lacking in stomach qi. in any case, the pulse in chinese medicine is palpated at the radial artery at the wrist, and is felt (on each side) in three positions, the cun, the guan, and the chi. in otherwise normal pulses, a consistent wave can be felt pushing through each of these positions, like a tsunami lifting and settling equidistant buoys successively. in a scattered pulse, however, there is no sense of continuity between the positions. as it is so eloquently described, the scattered pulse feels like "three birds pecking."

my life is like a scattered pulse. i am the third bird, the triplet to the wind-up bird, and the mejiro that taps at the morning reflection. i am pecking away at the circumstances of my reality, at the core of my understanding... but i am hopelessly trapped within my own moment, even with these wings with which i could fly (icarus style). i am scattered.

like a leaf without a wind.

***

am i hunting myself in the dream? or is the dream hunting me?

two birds

we have strange animals in our neighborhood.

every night, at around 1 or 2 in the morning, there is a raucous night bird which i have called the "wind up bird." i originally began hearing it not long after my grandmother died, when i would stay up long into the night, contemplating nothing and everything... this bird would start singing loudly in the valley behind our house, apparently completely unaware that it was supposed to be sleeping and dreaming. it actually has a large repertoire of songs, but the one it keeps returning to (and the reason i call it the "wind up bird") are a three tone question: "are [middle] you [low] awake [high]?" it sings this over and over and over again, as though trying to echo-locate its lost partner, its nightowl paramour...

every morning, at around 7 or 8 in the morning, there is a tapping on our downstairs bathroom window. this window has a light reflective tint on it, so if you are on the outside, it will look like you are seeing a dull reflection of yourself. anyway, there's a mejiro (japanese rice eye, a small green bird with a bit of yellow at its throat and a white underbelly, and characteristic white rings around its eyes) that is convinced that it is seeing another mejiro, and repeatedly tap tap taps against the window, as though trying to kiss it, or perhaps free it from its wall of glass...

strange. two different birds at two different times of the day, but both seem to follow the same pattern: lonely, calling out, tapping the unresponsive walls for some kind of response. reminds me of soul asylum lyrics:

"cuz i want somebody to shove
i need somebody to shove
i want somebody to shove me."

if only they could somehow find each other. but they are different species, living on different bus schedules...

"the family"

"the family" or "the foundation..."

i listened to an interesting interview on "fresh air" today about a "secret" religious organization called "the family." it is a very influential christian political organization. unlike most evangelical organizations, it does not cater to the masses, and, since about 1960 or so, has kept a very low profile. "the family" is meant to provide spiritual guidance to the wealthy and powerful, the elites. "the family" believes that god chooses powerful individuals, that His will is made manifest through the whims of the powerful. originally, it appears to have been founded to provide religious justification and support for anti-union efforts (presumably, the wealthy leaders of business were god's chosen ones, who paternalistically did what was best for their workers). today, it largely coincides with aspects of the republican agenda, notably the staunch belief in free (unregulated) markets.

mark sanford is a member of the "family." interestingly, despite all of his apologizing, despite all of his recent concessions for "crossing the line" of marital fidelity, he refuses to step down as governor. one of his justifications is the biblical figure of king david. for those of you who (like me) are not really up on the bible: king david was the same david from the david and goliath story. in his later years, he was both an adulterer and a murderer. his one redeeming quality (if you can call it this) is the fact that he was "chosen" by god. supposedly, according to "family principles," if you are chosen by god (i.e., if you have a position of power or authority), then you are somehow above morality. thus, governor sanborn should remain governor because he was chosen by god.

this sort of argument is old. it's hard to believe that there are still idiots who buy into it. i suppose if you are in power, it's a comforting fairy tale to tell yourself that you are where you are because you are "chosen." it removes all the complicating variables, like fairness, or struggle, or justice.

this is the mentality of some of our figures in power. it would be interesting to expose all those who have some affiliation with "the family." i'm sure it would be fodder for those across the partisan divide; but it would also be shocking to christians in general, to see how their religion is misappropriated and misinterpreted to support fundamentally immoral activities. (note: the "family" was also a big supporter of suharto, the dictator who supposedly was responsible for the death of 1 million "communists." a far cry from christian compassion, wouldn't you say?).

i definitely don't mean this entry to be anti-christian or anti-religion in any way. i am saddened and angered that there are those who can mutilate messages of peace and love and turn them to their own ends, furtherance of self-centered interests...

i've been having a streak of bad luck.

i don't know if i'll survive it.

if there's one good thing about bad luck, though; you kinda stop resisting it after a while. when it happens, it's like, "oh, so you're gonna throw that wrench into my engine? well, okay. what do i do next?" i'm just in reaction mode, dealing with each new impossible threat. forget about breathing space, and sky...

i keep thinking about lynn, willow, aiden... i have to keep a smile on my face for them. and a space in my heart. literally. when they speak to me, when they want to play, i inhale, and "create" time for them. in my senior religion seminar on "time," my professor kept going on and on about how time as subjectively experienced could be endlessly distended. i think he was trying to show how we don't need gravity wells and such to demonstrate the folding and stretching of time and space; we each contain and experience time within ourselves differently, truncating it, unpacking it... anyway, to get back to the point: with those i love, i must clear a space and clear a moment. it is the most fundamental form of love and generosity.

i am tired though. concerns have crowded me in. it's not enough in this world to try to be a good person. you have to actually BE one. and even then, your survival, and the survival of those you love, is not guaranteed...

... in fact, perhaps, being good is the same as assuring your extinction.

***

i heard on last week's science friday that, according to calculations, wind power could supply all of our energy needs. of course, it has a substantial start-up and maintenance cost... but there is no carbon cost to it. and, what's more, the use of so many windmills would alter the weather- but in a good way. it would actually serve to disperse excess heat in the atmosphere...

on some other radio show this afternoon (don't know what it was called), there was a discussion on carbon sequestration. while it has its advocates (mainly those who are desperate to support coal), one of the speakers said, quite frankly, that it was the dumbest idea he's ever heard. this speaker mentioned that coal production will exhaust key reserves in twenty years at most, so even if the u.s. did develop and implement carbon sequestration technology, it would be a moot issue in a couple of decades. the speaker also mentioned that carbon sequestration would only take care of the combustion aspect of coal, and not deal with all the sins involved in the mining... some of those sins, he described in detail. coal towns are generally the poorest places in the nation, with substantial health issues. by some statistical analysis, the speaker said that the costs (in terms of overall casualties, along with some other figures) far outweighed the benefits in coal production...

maybe we will be living in a world that is similar to laputa (a hayao miyazaki film which i never saw in its entirety, but which did envision a whole lot of windmills)...

***

please, everyone. no matter how desperate things get in the next few years, please remember to keep your cool. be kind and be human. this will be our only way to combat the effects of "economic" global warming...

a couple of dreams

i had a dream about attempting to scale my way out of a well of sorts, behind a selfish older man. the well was used to dump corpses. somehow i and the other man had been dumped to the bottom alive, and had to "swim" our way up through bodies in varying states of decay. the older man then preceded me in painstakingly using hands and feet against the circular walls of the well to slowly scale upwards. somehow, there were corpses "stuck" up above in the well, awkwardly lodged. in any case, at one point, as the older man neared the top, he thoughtlessly (or perhaps on purpose) dislodged a full-bodied corpse, such that it fell a distance onto me, deep in the darkness. i warned him not to do it. but all of a sudden, i was slammed full on by a falling body, and this caused me to in turn fall all the way back into the pool of corpses below...

i also had a dream about following a magical shoreline, accompanied (sort of) by some older woman tourist. i pointed out the rich sealife that i could see: colorful fish and anemones. it was beautiful and peaceful. somehow, as the waters grew deeper, we entered an indoor place with smooth square tiles at shifting angles over the floors. the slope of the tiles rose and sank in waves. we scaled each wave with difficulty, and then slid down, only to face the next wave. it was difficult, and at times even precarious, but the old woman seemed generally encouraging. we eventually reached a dead end wall, and realized we had to go back...

an inspirational article: about brian kajiyama

PAGE 8 TASH CONNECTIONS, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
“Dream It, See It,
Do It!”
BY BRIAN KAJIYAMA

Brian Kajiyama holds a Bachelor of
Arts degree and is currently a candidate
for Masters Degree in Counseling
Education at the University of Hawai‘i
in Honolulu.
Comments about this article may be
directed to Mr. Kajiyama at
kajiyama@hawaii.edu

On a sunny afternoon in Kailua,
Hawai‘i, I sat in my high school
history class listening to my
teacher talk about the importance of taking
school seriously if we planned to move
onto a college. I thought to myself, ‘Don’t
worry, I’ve been working towards that goal
ever since I was a kid in elementary school.’
The groundwork had been set from an
early age to help me navigate my journey
from high school to postsecondary
education. My experiences through the
infant stimulation program at Easter Seals,
coupled with the emphasis that my family
placed on education, all contributed to my
chosen educational path. There are four
main components that I feel contributed to
my progression to college from high school
(and receiving special education supports
during that time). Self-determination, self-
advocacy, empowerment, and support
systems are all integral pieces that allowed
for a successful transition.

Self-Determination
When I was a youngster attending elemen-
tary school, people would often ask me,
‘Brian, what do you want to do when you
grow up?’ My response would consistently
be, ‘I’m going to attend the University of
Hawai`i (UH) and play sports for them.’
(Most see someone who has a severe form
of cerebral palsy and uses a motorized
wheelchair as not your typical athletic type.)

Perhaps this mindset enabled me to
develop self-determination. I had
established a dream, to attend college. As I
got older, I soon found out what I needed
to do to make my dream become a reality.
Getting to college would not be easy; I
would need to deal with physical and
attitudinal barriers. I quickly learned that I
would need to work extremely hard, if not
harder than the next person.

However, I could clearly see myself
attending college at UH. I knew that I was
capable of working hard and could control
how much effort I put into reaching my
goal; I could either slack off or work really
hard. The choice was mine. Once I
pictured myself attending college, the next
stage of the process was to do everything I
could to make my dream a reality. This
image fostered the sense of self-determina-
tion that I would need in order to place
myself in a better position to fulfill my
goal.

I view self-determination as an internal
desire to accomplish a goal and doing
everything you can to persevere over any
obstacles that might hinder your progress.
Prior to the start of my junior year of high
school, I underwent back surgery to correct
the scoliosis that I had developed. This
surgical procedure entailed the insertion of
steel rods along my entire spine to
straighten it out -- a major undertaking to
say the least!. I anticipated missing only a
couple weeks of school. The best laid
plans often never go smoothly, thus you
always must prepare for anything. But, I
don’t think I could have prepared for what
was to come.

Due to complications as a result of the
surgery, I was unable to eat any food orally,
and had to be fed via a nasal-gastro (NG)
tube. For a 16-year old, this was an
extremely trying and traumatizing experi-
ence to go through. There I was, lying in
bed with the constant thought, inspite of
that NG, ‘I could eat an entire pizza! Give
me anything to eat!’

Each time I attempted to eat, I would
vomit, thus the NG tube became a
necessity if I was to receive any form of
nutrition. What happened was that my
intestines became stretched as I literally
grew a few inches after my spine was
straightened, so there was not enough space
for the food to pass through. The only
solution was to allow my intestines to open
up and this would be achieved through my
gaining weight. Any degree of weight gain
takes a really long time if it needs to be
done via a NG tube.

I was unable to eat for about two months,
but I always kept going to college at UH in
mind. I would attend classes at the
hospital, trying to keep up with the material
I was missing. Studying and learning is
made difficult when you’re not feeling your
best; but I was determined to keep up with
my peers. I knew I could not afford to let
an entire semester go to waste. By this
time, I had missed nearly an entire quarter
of high school.

Despite my absence from school, I
managed to keep up and turned in assign-
ments as best I could. As soon as my
intestines opened up enough to allow food
to pass through, the doctors had me eat a
lot of food. They wanted me to gain
enough weight to ensure that my intestine
would not close up again, so I vividly recall
eating ice cream sandwiches every hour for
days on end. That was the one and only
time that I could have been considered
heavy (normally I’m very thin), but I did
what I needed to do in order to get better.

I returned to school approximately two
weeks before the first quarter was to end. I
had lots of make up work to do, despite
attending the hospital’s school. Shriner’s
Hospital had their own school, and I
received services as detailed in my IEP.
There was no pressure from my teachers;
they did not lay down any ultimatums. In
their eyes, if I passed great, if not, I would
need to do remedial work. I knew I wanted
to graduate on time with all of my friends.
I also knew that I had college waiting in the
wings! I did everything I could to absorb
as much of the information that I needed
to within those two weeks. I had exams to
take and pass.

I passed all of my classes. That feeling was
so rewarding because I knew that my hard
work paid off, and I was well on my way to
achieving my goal of attending college.
Along this journey to college, I encoun-
tered other obstacles. These obstacles
required me to speak up for myself and
take on the role of a self-advocate.

Self-Advocacy
The ability to speak up for yourself when
needs arise can be referred to as self-
advocacy. This is definitely not an easy
characteristic to develop, as it forces you to
take risks and step out of your comfort
zone. I was not an outspoken person at all
in high school. In fact, I still would
consider myself to be more on the shy side
of the spectrum of personalities.

Although I had many teachers in high
school who were very supportive and
accommodating to ensure that I had all of
the tools and help to succeed, there were a
few instances where this was not the case.
My biology teacher during my sophomore
year of high school was nice, but not very
accommodating. A lot of material was
presented in class using an overhead
projector. As fast as I tried to write all of
the information down in my notebook, I
would miss key points. This had a direct
impact on my ability to excel on examina-
tions and quizzes. I was struggling.

I took the initiative to approach my teacher
to ask if I could receive copies of the
overheads. Her reply was simply, ‘No, this
is a college-prep course and college
professors won’t xerox things for you, so I
won’t.’ I found this response a bit upset-
ting, but I continued to strive to do my
best. I still was not doing well in this class,
even despite attending tutoring sessions
during recess.

Finally, I realized that I needed additional
support, so I consulted with my special
education resource teacher and explained
the situation. I concluded this discussion
by requesting a note taker. The next week,
I had a note taker and I began to slowly
grasp concepts more effectively and began
to do significantly better on my quizzes.
This example illustrates a form of self-
advocacy. I recognized a genuine need and
asked for appropriate support. I did
inform my parents, but they did not take
matters into their own hands and allowed
me to resolve the matter on my own.
However, I had the confidence and
comfort in knowing that I had their full
support should I require any assistance. I
took pride in knowing that I had a note
taker in my class due to the actions I
took! This incident led me to another
realization -- empowerment.

Empowerment
Despite having a significant disability, I
possessed a significant amount of power.
By simply speaking out for myself and
informing people of my needs, I was able
to receive the support I required to allow
me to succeed to my highest potential.
This feeling is referred to as “empower-
ment.”

Empowerment refers to the idea of
allowing people more responsibility to act
for themselves in order to achieve a goal.
Rather than placing control in the hands of
others, the locus of control is placed with
the individual. By demonstrating confi-
dence in someone, you empower. By
allowing someone to do a task on their
own, you empower. By allowing someone
to take risks by exploring new avenues or
opportunities, you empower.

I was fortunate that I was empowered
throughout high school. My special
education resource teacher, therapists, and
parents allowed me to control my own
destiny. If I chose not to study, they would
remind me that I had studies to do, but
they would not force me to study. I would
quickly find out that if I did not study, I
would suffer the consequences; in this case,
the consequence would be a less-than-
stellar grade. I knew full well that I needed
to maintain good grades if I was to
accomplish my goal of attending college. I
was also empowered by receiving appropri-
ate support services.

A fine line exists between receiving
adequate support and receiving too much
support. Receiving too much support
might seem great at the time. You might
be able to get away without working as hard
as you need to, but ultimately this ‘babying’
of sorts will hurt your chances of success.
You’ll expect these supports to be there all
the way through, when in reality you might
not really need them. Thus, it is extremely
important to be honest with yourself and
ask only for what you truly need.

At the same time, empowerment comes
through receiving adequate supports. My
parents empowered me by providing me
with a computer at home that I would use
to type my papers and communicate with
friends via e-mail. My therapists
empowered me by ensuring that my body
was strong enough and my muscles
maintained a good range of motion so I
would not become overly tight; I could sit
comfortably in class, which enhanced my
ability to learn. My doctors empowered me
by making sure I was healthy and received
whatever medication I needed to ensure
that I could attend school and be a
productive student. Empowerment
demonstrates how important a quality
support system can be. I was extremely
fortunate to have a fabulous support
system.

Support System
My main source of support came from
within my family. They helped me keep my
dream alive when I would go through
periods of doubt. ‘You can get through
this, Brian. We know you can!’ This is an
example of the type of positive reinforce-
ment that my parents would provide me.
This type of support was extremely
instrumental, especially when you were well
aware of societal perceptions that you
would not be able to transition into college
successfully because you have a significant
disability.

Through positive reinforcement, I was able
to develop a strong sense of self and
maintained a positive self-image. I never
doubted my abilities for long. I would catch
myself going off course and would tell
myself, ‘Brian, you will attend college. Just
keep working hard.’ This type of positive
self-talk might seem silly, but it’s really
effective, particularly during periods where
you might hear negative comments directed
toward you.

The therapists who worked with me,
including physical and occupational
therapists, were very helpful, as well. They
worked with me to figure out the best way
to make any accommodations I might need
for classes, whether it was adapting
materials to allow me to participate or by
suggesting a peer-support system whereby a
classmate might help me in the classroom.

All of these ideas were influential in
allowing me to maximize my potential as a
student.

During my senior year of high school, I
took the college entrance examination and
did not score as high as I would have liked,
so I took it a second time. My second
score was high enough to allow me to apply
to the University of Hawai‘i, and my strong
academic record helped to seal my dream
that I would attend college! I can vividly
recall receiving my acceptance letter from
UH.

It was at that point that I realized that I had
accomplished achieving my dream by first
visualizing it and then setting out to do
everything I needed to do to allow me to
be in the best possible position to make the
dream a reality. I’m living out my dream by
attending UH, and instead of being an
athlete I’m a very loyal fan. We must
dream big and not view altering our goals
as failing, but rather utilizing our unique
abilities in the best way possible. Dream it,
see it, and do it!”

willow's first real golf lesson

willow and a few other kids from mililani ike won a special prize: a free lesson under ken terao over at kapolei golf course! ken really went all out, and gave the kids a four hour lesson. willow really had a lot of fun.

my half hour cover of portishead's "the rip"

the chords are actually simple to figure out. the hard thing about arpeggi's is keeping them regular (which i can't do, even when i'm not singing). i also wish i had more lung capacity and range. but hell, it's for fun.

i read a short story by neil gaiman (in the collection, "fragile things") called "october in the chair." it is similar to what i'd like to write for the story "amphibious" in that it is about the relationship (brief though it may have been) between a living (and unwanted) boy and a dead boy ("dearly" from "dearly departed"). there is a moment in the story that is particularly eloquent and apt for me: after playing with the dead boy for a whole evening, the living boy (nicknamed "the runt") contemplates his prospects: he imagines following a river to see the sea, which he has never seen before; but then, he realizes that what will really happen is that he will be found by his family, and, far from missing him and appreciating him, things will be exactly the same as they were, only worse.

there is a strange abandoned farmhouse nearby, one which "dearly" says has no living thing, but is not necessarily empty. at the end of the story (told by the month of october), the "runt" makes a fateful choice and enters the house...

i am unabashed in admitting that i admired the simplicity of the story. my encounter with it seemed serendipitous. i think i will emulate its spirit, if not its form. the problem with my story is that it is a bit more ambiguous; while the elder brother can be cruel, there is something ultimately good and redeeming about him, and so, the protagonist (my "runt") will have to come to that realization somehow. like "october in the chair," my story does use, as a sort of surrogate brother, a supernatural creature: the kappa. i have debated with myself on the nature and motives of such a creature; would he have a sinister heart, and only help the protagonist to ensure his ultimate downfall, or would he be, like the protagonist, a misunderstood but ultimately good creature?

the use of a supernatural creature is another convenient literary device; conversations with it are candid, and can reveal the "heart" of the protagonist, and, ultimately, the shape of the story. the spirit of the creature determines, in large part, the spirit of the story; is it a tale of paranoia and fear and despair, or is it one of hidden hope?

***

yesterday, when i took the kids to swim at the pool, i pointed out the thin crescent moon to aiden. he said, "grandma mitakara is smiling at us."

***

i have survived 6 days of p90x. i still have my "pouch," but i swear that it's smaller. in any case, i am enjoying the program. it's an extreme program, but it's well-designed, and exercises the body in a variety of ways, ultimately balancing development. i thoroughly "enjoyed" all of them. i actually feel like i'm missing out if i don't do the workout every day.

***

i am exploring quantum touch. it's an energetic healing system. i've been hearing a bit about it from my patients. to me, energy is still a vague and nebulous thing. i've explored aspects of it, and am pretty well known by now for my very warm hands (when working on people). but i haven't really used it in a healing setting with any degree of consciousness or awareness, and i'd like to do that. i'd also like to explore the use of energy with acupuncture. funny, we're supposed to be manipulating qi with needles, but there is little if nothing taught about how this is done, as "energy" experience is such a vague and nebulous topic. for the most part, it is assumed that the mechanical act of needling accomplishes the energy modulation, but i'm not certain this is true. in any case, i'd like to find out more...

***

i thought about michael jackson's death and the irony of death in general. a couple days ago, if you mentioned michael jackson, then the media, and, i daresay, most people would think only of "wacko jacko." they would think of all the weird things he had done.

all of a sudden, now that he's dead, people are so sad. sure, the media still looks upon the outlandish things he did, but their focus now is upon understanding his life, upon putting some kind of capstone (or headstone) on the arc of his tale, so that he may be better "seen" and loved.

tell me, where was all of this concern and sympathy a couple of days ago? are people at all sorry that they made so much fun of him? why is it that it is only when people die that we try to understand and forgive them their little quirks and idiosyncracies? why is it that it is only when people die that we learn to appreciate the good that they have brought to the world?

i'm not pretending to be "holier than thou," because i too thought he was "messed up." but i just think it odd how death seems like an on off switch that suddenly changes people from cruel and insulting to sad and forgiving and understanding.

why can't we look at the living in the same way that we look at the dead?

***

i kind of thought about this in other senses... like songs on the oldies station. the classics. listen to some of them, and you can tell that they were super scandalous and "dirty" in their time. and yet, somehow, like wine, they seem to become an accepted and acceptable part of the culture, cutesy even... something for connoisseurs.

i think when some songs first came out, they weren't received with such fanfare, they were scandalous.

what happens to a song when it becomes an "oldie but goodie?" suddenly, time makes the song safe and good and cute and true. even if the song was about some pretty racy stuff.

it's almost as though sex and death and stuff in the present are all too raw to be processed; we can only begin to digest things after they are long dead. the feelings of the past seem somehow "safe," even though they may have been just as fear-filled and violent and apocalyptic as anything we know today.

there's an irony in that.

i don't know if this insight is actionable. is it possible to look on the present as though it were just something happening again, as though it were just a "golden oldie?" is it possible to look at the past with the realization that it was once an uncertain and fresh present? hard, but i think if i could, i would somehow understand something about life and time. and the hypocrisy of human attention.

more random curds

this is the ideology of beginnings. to make everything compact and cool and be prepared... bullshit.

in the fray... it becomes a matter of expedience... and you start focusing on little goals to get you a breather, a breathing space... a moment alone to nurse your tired little desires, to pretend that a part of you is still alive beneath all of the daily routines... and the struggle to prove that you can live up to all the promises you had in the beginning... the struggle to be a stereotype... and the struggle to shirk the stereotype all at the same time... and how no one sees this, and they only see you as being silly on the one hand, or irresistably boring on the other... no one sees people as people... feeling beings.

***

people will not mourn when you pass, and then they will give passing curiosity to your words, words you wrote while alive, but only when you are dead and safely gone will they read them, because you suddenly become like the oldies station, and all your scandals are cutesy, because you can no longer stalk their living daughters... it’s funny, it’s silly, really. people are constantly trying to scream their being into the universe. and by the time we hear them, the sound is all muted, and all we see of their supernova is a star which we might happen to notice if we had our telescopic lenses focused on our obscure corner of the universe... mute mute mute...

***

and the centipede that was so angry at being caught in a jar, and oscillating threateningly all the way up to the lip of the jar, trying to find a handhold to bite me... so angry. so frightening even in the jar... and how i could feel all of those needle like legs tapping hammering into the glass... vibrations of a life i could never understand, and would ultimately destroy in disgust... unrelating to the unsympathetic to its struggle. it’s you or me...

***

and thinking of creating craters in the mud... trying to get mud to be the right consistency, to match the pictures in the book. i wanted to experience book adventures, i wanted to live a life that was defined by clean cut boys from the 50’s when everything seemed contained, and right, and explainable... and how you could sit and watch sci fi movies that only pretended to be scary, and were actually a joy to watch, with special effects that almost made you laugh... and nights where you could dance with people to the monster mash... that kind of funny. i wanted that... even ghost stories from that age, with pictures in black and white. with pictures that didn’t look out at you, and want to eat you up, and disembowel you... i was trying to conquer ghosts, by making them ancient and 2 dimensional... no horror in my life... no surprises please... i will master fear by looking at old fears... and how they were done away with... they were written about... they were drawn up. and quartered...

***

and thinking of sad one million dollar mansions from the last few decades, and how having a house decked out in all the latest accoutrements will only succeed in being an investment in poor taste eventually... the dim lights... the soft 60’s music blaring over the outdated honky speakers... the light as seen through stained glass...

random fruits of antilabor

"the homeless, prostitutes and whores
side by side round the garbage cooking smores."

***

the connected and the disconnected

you can get wifi here
and privately hear itunes scream in your ear
updated facebook stream on your screen
and twitter clever haikus about last night's dream.

the world is wireless
(and it's nearly desireless!
at least until the next update launch).

i had a question
nagging question
distracting me from my webbed attentions.
i followed my standard protocol and googled it
and found a dozen unrelated things to talk about;
posted them on my facebook wall
to send ripples out to the all
and soon forgot what my original query had been.
it couldn't have been important;
no one had answered it before
(at least not in the top 20 search results).

oh neat,
someone did a re-tweet
and linked to one of my post.
i'll sit for a minute in pleased repose.

i had a question
nagging question
trivial question
but it must not been important.

***

bluetooth, and unhappiness. the unhappy and pretentious doctor. i feel sorry for him. but no one opens up to him. no one opens up to him because ultimately he is not there for them... he is not a good listener. he is someone who boxes up their wounds for them... wraps them up like christmas presents... nothing to offer but bows and ribbons and pretty bandaids... their words were meant to howl in the emptiness... and you haven't a bedside ear...

***

how to make sense of it all. how to find a pattern in all of this. and whether it is all a waste of time. these are all questions of the ego, of the one who wants to make worth out of nothing, through sequestering and lassoing air and space... boxes... remembering the secret of resonance chambers... perhaps a whole room... these are all empty rooms... and they don’t lead anywhere. and they don’t contain anything... but when the wind blows across the mouth of them, then there is a deep sound. and you can feel it all within you... you become one with a vibration... a secret... a deep secret...

***

the heart. the hurt. the art... a mix between hurt and art...

***

outstrip and outlast and speed past the ego, break through the speed of sound and the sound barrier, the barrier of the ego, if you can write fast enough perhaps you can find that place where no word has ever been, and no sound could reach you... and there will be a thundering, not unlike the buddha’s lion roar, the roar of silence, the place where the air wakes, and finds its own absence, and collapses in on itself in sheer disbelief...

***

and how i want to add disturbance to their comfortable facades... send a ripple across your face. please ripple across your face... worry. worry super scurry.

i am seeking to build a rocket that will traverse, that will span the abyss, to you. to who? who is reading this? this mythical reader i have invented...

i am pyongyang and i am firing a missile in your direction to catch your eyes. but with my limited technology, i will miss you by 500 miles, and be shot down. and then you will bring hell to my impoverished people...

pattern-ity

okay. so i have established somewhat a pattern to all of my narratives. i think, what i seek to express, via narrative form, is a feeling/sense of depth and its associated resonance. so here's how this is accomplished (over and over) in my stories. it is a secret i stole from many other narratives, but most clearly from haruki murakami's "hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world."

create two storylines. the storylines should have some metaphorical tie to each other, but this is not necessary. in fact, at the outset, it is possible to utilize two strangers living two strange lives. the point is that each storyline has its own desired goal, and each protagonist within each storyline attempts to reach that goal through their own means; there is no direct recourse of one storyline to the other.

the storylines play off each other, often in subtle ways. for example, one memorable detail i recall from murakami's story was this: the librarian (the more poetic existence) sees the changing autumn leaves; and the "encoder" (the more "real" external existence) sees a poster advertising a certain region in japan, with leaves turning red in the fall...

the artful way (and the biggest complexity of writing such a tail) demands that the overall storyline and plot progress through the "bouncing off" and "informing" of one storyline to the other. it is not that you are creating simple vertiginous vertical ties ("moments of vertigo") between two parallel storylines... this is simply straightforward metaphor. you have to somehow add time to the element, so that as one storyline comes to a realization, or a small progression of the plot, this effortlessly reveals something for the alternate storyline...

the conclusion involves the two storylines colliding with and consuming and destroying each other; or, to put it in simple terms, two storylines enter, one storyline leaves. this is a structural necessity, i feel...

all of my stories have this general form. even those which ostensibly have a single storyline actually have an additional "layer" (this is usually provided through the incorporation of "dreams.").

i think of late i have been overly dependent upon dreams. dreams are a convenient narrative device, in that they can express the inexpressible, they can reveal symbolic ties, that you can't state overtly in normal "waking" reality. but dreams, at least in the narrative context, do have an end goal; like any storyline, they need to achieve resolution, which in the case of dreams, usually is the realization of their hidden meaning...

***

i'm having a hard time actually jumping in and writing. and for some reason, i feel an increasing reticence to speak. my opinions (my "mind") always seems to provoke reactions in strangers. like always. i'm not trying to be provocative... i wish people would see that i'm just a lost fish in a big sea; and that everyone is just a lost fish in a big sea. and if that's really true, then no one is really lost after all. the founding fathers who build pretend islands are the ones who should be drowned, not me.

drowning a fish is redundant. and fruitless.