one day, a tennis ball rolled into the gutter.

normally, this wouldn't be a big deal.  but on this particular day, it was, because the older brother's special friend was over, and they were playing some sort of game that required a tennis ball, and that was the last ball that they had.  so, the older brother found a pick axe in a corner of the garage, and, slung over his shoulder, made his way to the lid of the manhole cover nearest to the gutter.  it had a series of concentric circles, and on one of the larger circles was a small hole, a little less than a golf ball.  the older brother put the sharp end of the pickaxe into the hole, and wedged it at an angle.  then, he leaned his weight on the wooden handle to lift the manhole cover out.

he'd seen his father do it before, once, when something precious had fallen in.  he'd forgotten what it was, but he'd remembered how to do it.  with a grating sound that reverberated and came back at them from the mouth of the gutter, the lid shifted, tilted, and scraped its way out of its housing.  displaced, a hole into darkness opened.  the sunlight painted the first rung a burnt orange color.

the older brother had never gone down into the dark place below.  that one time before, the older brother had just sat back and watched as his father disappeared into the cobwebby darkness, to emerge a few moments later, dirtier and sweatier.  looking at the hole now, and standing beside his friend (who was, truth to tell, cooler than he was, and whose respect and approval was worth more than money at his middle school), the older brother was not about to jump in the hole himself, and risk betraying an ounce of dread or hesitation.  in fact, it had never been his intention to go down himself.

the younger brother was sitting and playing in a dirty corner of a nearby planted section of the sidewalk.  the younger brother was perhaps five years old (it was hard to remember the runt's existence, much less the date of his unwanted birth).  the older brother sauntered up to the planter box, the pickaxe slung over his shoulder, the special friend in tow, and purposefully stepped in the hill of dirt that the younger boy had apparently created.  a cloud of red dust rose up.  the younger brother looked up.  not angry.  just intent.

"hey runt," said the older brother.  "i need a favor."  he said the word "favor" in two distinct syllables, the first rising and supportive in tone, and the second dropping away suddenly.  the older brother glanced at his special friend, and the edge of his mouth curved upwards ever-so-slightly.

the younger brother nodded, smiled nervously.  he rose wordlessly, and, wordlessly, followed his older brother and the friend to the open hole in the pavement.

"our tennis ball," said the older brother.  "i want you to fetch it, and throw it out."  just as the younger brother, gazing at the hole, was about to nod, the older brother continued.  "i don't want you to bring me the ball," he said, "because you won't be able to grab the ladder with both hands if you try to come out.  i want you to find the ball, and throw it out.  got it?"

the younger brother nodded, smiled eagerly.

it was rare that his older brother ever even acknowledged his presence.  to be given an important task, and a relatively simple one at that, well, it seemed almost too good to be true.

visitation

a couple of days ago (perhaps it was christmas?), there was a large moth that fluttered against our glass door.  not too long afterwards, there were two.  i have, of late, come to consider the moths as good omens, as visitations by dearly departed spirits.  i have, of late, imagined them as visitations by my grandma (ewa beach), and perhaps others.

***

i'm being asked to call someone.  but i'm tired, and i don't trust myself.  i am by nature so forgiving.  i say things to ameliorate and make things all better.  it's in my nature.  some times i put so many band aid words over wounds that you would assume that nothing was wrong.  but i'm not ready to say "it's okay."

meanwhile, i want to help my parents...  but i'm not sure how, and i think it will destroy my already strained capabilities in the process anyway.

people around me judging me, buzzing like flies.  i find it funny, if it weren't so damned annoying.  i am not a real person to most of the world anyway.  the concerns of ghosts are not of concern to the "real world."  we don't have real feelings.  we aren't solid.  we just repeat our duties to the living, right?

***

the moth is a symbol of multiple interpretations.  i imagine moths symbolize the spirits of the dead, in that they are nocturnal creatures drawn to the light and heat of the living.  the moth also symbolizes transformation (in a way that butterflies do, but in a perhaps less positivistic happy-happy way).  i used this interpretation in a story called "moth-eaten", representing my "moth-eaten" robes as a soul half-eaten by rapacious desires, and the inability to choose between purity and lust/love.  mothra, from the godzilla movies, meanwhile, is supposed to be a god of happiness...

   THE SECOND COMING
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.
    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

this is the poem i was referring to in an earlier post.  far darker than the line i like to steal from it.  the initial line also has resonance, as for a long time (high school and afterwards), i associated myself with a falcon, out of touch with the world.

i think the poem can definitely be read to reflect current politics, especially the lines, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

christmas

merry christmas, whoever you are.  i wish you well: peace, health, happiness, love.

***

we had a nice christmas this year.  i spent some of christmas eve working at my parents' house, deconstructing a bed, cleaning out both of my nieces' rooms, and putting up a god-awful fuchsia curtain.  for the evening, we went out with my wife's friend's family to eat dinner at an izakaya place called gazen.  i thought it was great, and enjoyed most everything offered, from the mochi-cheese wraps to the oxtail to the freshly made tofus.  lynn was a bit more critical, saying that the consistency of the tofus was a bit too watery for her tastes.  the kids ate up.  after gazen, we stopped by a friend's place to drop off presents (during which time, willow's fancy shoes separated at the sole), and got pulled a bit into some of the domestic drama there.  we left, not entirely ameliorating things, but hopefully offering a bit of perspective to the issues, and joined my wife's friend's family again over at the honolulu city lights.  it's kind of a tradition for our family to view the christmas lights on christmas eve.

late that night (or early this morning), "santa" came and set up all the stocking presents.  thankfully, not another creature was stirring...

then, the kids woke up at a god-awful 5:00, and i reluctantly dragged myself out of bed to feign "excitement" and "wonder" as presents were opened.  don't get me wrong, i'm not a scrooge...  but it was a terribly late night for me.

we went over to the oceans restaurant over at the outrigger, and had perhaps the most pleasant breakfast brunch we've ever had, with aunty joan and uncle ferman, gazing out over an overcast and slightly chilly beach...  the rest of the day after that was pretty nondescript, with frequent naps, held beneath the din of the kids' videogames and tv shows...

***

there is a poem by yeats that has the line, "the centre cannot hold."  i thought about it tonight.

there are issues in my family that require attention.  my mother calls me regularly now, requesting this or that kind of assistance, but in general, wanting me to be more involved.  she is particularly worried for my father.  while i have been going to their house to treat him now and then, and while the shingles pain has been reduced to a feeling of mild persistent itching, it seems that my father still exhibits symptoms which worry my mother: a general fatigue, and irritability, as well as an instability when walking.

my mother wants me to take my father out.

let me tell you something about my father.  he is a very active, helpful person, but he is not sociable, and delivers most of his commentary in opaque japanese.  ...  more later (i'm feeling tired)

there is a vision i have (and which i’ve had before) of a heart surrounded by a wall of metal knives.  it is this wall which prevents any sort of intimacy, socialization, or “stopping”...  because the wall maintains a person on a sort of quest of obligation, whether it be protecting others (usually, it is this), or avenging others.  in fact, the entire vengeance plot-line is an accurate representation of the metal element theme.  a loss occurs, and in the face of that loss, an individual stretches his or her entire existence upon redemption and vengeance, forsaking the normalcy of warm social relations.

in the fairy tale, the frog prince (the brothers grimm version), there is this odd reference to a character, i believe his name was iron henry, who was a friend of the prince.  while driving a carriage carrying his friend the prince to his marriage, there is a sound of groaning metal.  when asked what the sound was, iron henry admits that it was the sound of metal bands breaking from around his heart...

***

requisite "skills"

i have been thinking about the five elements again.  although this is not official, i do believe that each of the five elements is associated with a requisite skill or talent (i'm not sure what the best term is).  i think of these with regards to an organization.  but to a certain extent, all of these roles are ideally incorporated within an individual.

metal--> cleanliness (both "physical" and moral)
earth--> order, organization
wood--> assertiveness?  planning?
fire--> warmth?  comfort?
water--> resource management, logistics

when one role breaks down, then the others get burdened, or overburdened, and eventually, they will break down as well.  the key perhaps is developing the one role that is easiest, and working from there to restore the functioning of the organism/organization.

***

it's been a bit tiring the past few days.  my wife has been enduring a very painful recovery from a back injury.  i try to help her in various ways.  meanwhile, due to the consistently bad weather, the kids are cooped up inside, and i guess feeling a bit stir crazy.  i've been trying to have them do activities with their cousins; like yesterday, each of the kids decorated a section of a gingerbread house, and then i put it all together...

i suppose i'm on edge for a few reasons.  i guess i've been teetering on the edge of being irritable and just saying f it to a lot of things and people on the one hand, and just maintaining a kind of openness with regards to things.  this anger about circumstances is sort of like a fulcrum point; it pretends movement, but in the end, it is fixed to the ground.  i want to break away from it, and move on to bigger and better things.  a more open sky.

***

i've thought a bit more about the metal element.  its virtue is righteousness.  when a person inauthentically manifests this virtue, then in his mind and heart, he considers profit and loss.  in true righteousness, there is a sense of the will of heaven- and nothing else.  it is in this sense that "righteousness" corresponds to the central irony of the metal element, i.e. that that which is of most value is also the least substantial.  true righteousness does not deal with the realm of the substantial, material, and tangible- i.e. profit and loss.  it simply knows and obeys what is right.

there is a story of an emperor who approached a zen monk.  the emperor said, "i have built many countless stupas and temples, and donated great sums of money to the monasteries.  what merit will i have attained from the buddha?"  to which the monk replied (in essence), "nothing at all."

we don't do things to attain a reward, or to avoid a punishment.  we do things because they are right.  righteousness, in this sense, is empty.  it is empty of a reason.  it is empty of a motive.

***

acknowledgement and respect- these are compensatory factors for a person who does not trust in his own inherent righteousness.  if a person follows the will of heaven, then there is no need for the acknowledgement or respect of others.  a person just does what is right.

the western mind sees a trap in such thinking: i.e., you are becoming a solipsist, and eclipsing the world outside.  that isn't true.  i think that a person who is righteous (not in the pejorative sense) is open to and grounded in reality, but who opts to always do what heaven (i.e. "objectively") mandates is right...

nothing of import

here's a recent posting by one of my co-workers:

"dear f-ing stoooopid person that i work with.  this one's for you!  sincerely, the pissed off ---"

and there's a picture of a crazy garfield with the quote: "i think you're supposed to be the special education teacher, not be special education."

i see a listing of people who like this comment.  some of these people, i see quite regularly.

***

i sent a message to this person, asking if this post was referring to me.  the poster responded after a few hours: "hahaha...  thanks for asking, but no, it's not you... hahaha."

***

1) i don't believe this person.  i DO think it is referring to me.  when i think of the list of people to whom it could apply, i really don't think anyone of them ... well, let's just say, i've got the short straw in this situation.  i also think it's me, because for about a week's time, i deactivated my fb account, and then suddenly reactivated it as i got used to some of the family issues i was dealing with.  i think the poster, realizing i was no longer a "friend," felt it safe to shoot this out to the public.

2) EVEN if this post did not refer to me... that really doesn't make much of a difference.  the fact that there is this kind of commenting going on really sours the way that i feel about my work place, and the kind of people that work there.  i've seen it before, seen people doing this about other people, and i KNOW some of it, maybe a lot of it, referred to me...  people just generally talking stink about people behind their backs.  it gets to the point where, when i'm walking down the hall, and i see people, and they don't say hi, i wonder what they've been hearing about me... or whether i'm just being paranoid.

i for one have NEVER spoken ill about anyone at my school, even when they have done things to hurt me, or just plain seemed unfriendly.  i guess that's the difference, coming from where i am, and where i've been.  i begin with the assumption that, yes, i'm a screw-up, a nerd, whatever.  if there's a problem, usually i have to learn from it.  maybe i have to do something better...  and i know i am not a very sociable person.  i like to believe in the best of people, whether that is my students, or anyone else.  it makes things simpler when i deal with them.  i don't have to feel like i am "shibai"-ing or dividing my heart in interacting with people.  sure, i know people make mistakes, etc., or that people "are a certain way"; but i never hold it against them.

it hurts because when i see comments like this, it makes me feel that i've done or been so heinous that people have basically given up on me.  and that's a terrible feeling to have; one of being so worthless and incompetent at your job; maybe even less of a person (an issue which i've been wrestling with anyway-- perhaps this is confirmation?)

it hurts because, even if it's not about me, i put myself in that person's shoes, and i know it's not easy to be on the receiving end of that kind of hatred.

***

what's funny is, i still respect this person, as well as all the others.  it just adds to the hesitation and reluctance i normally feel around people; now, i have to distrust a lot of the nice things people say or the way they seem to be.  in fact, i suppose that's been my modus operandi anyway; just assume the worst of people (not of their capabilities, etc.; just their regard of me).  of course, i apologize a lot.  it's really laughable, when i think on it.

i have been trying to figure out what i've done that is so heinously wrong.  but then again, a part of me just shrugs, the seventh-twelfth grader in me just shrugs, and figures, well, it's back to school again, you remember how it is...  don't take it personally, just be good in your heart, just try your best.

the best thing i do is always return to the original inspiration to take this job.  to take the name of a company: "it's all about the kids."  i just focus on them, on helping them to the best of my (admittedly meager, admittedly shaken) abilities...

***

in other news: my wife's back is out.  i've been trying to care for her through massage and whatnot (along with my terrible cooking :P), but it hasn't been working all that well.  i think inside my overall confidence in people and things is shaken, but i try by focusing on the technique...  i want to help out my dad some more by taking all the kids out or treating him or cleaning their house, but now with my wife out of commission, i basically have to keep my own house in order...

a couple of nights ago, when the skies were semi-clear, i saw a crescent moon.  that is my grandmother's moon, because, when she died, someone (was it me?  was it my wife?  was it willow?) said that it looked like her smile.  so whenever i see that moon i think of my grandmother.  i know she wouldn't be happy with the situation my family is in, and how we are scattered.  i tell her that i am trying my best.  there are some things that i still cannot forgive (and besides, how can you bring someone back when they have turned their back on you?  reminiscent of the above work situation), and there are others that i just have to work harder at.  when i have time, i endeavor to visit my sister more.  i really really need to catch up, help her (in some small way) to know that she is loved.  i want to remember, and want her to remember, how the two of us used to be together: best of friends, confidants...

so many things are wrong with this world.  connecticut.  aside from political action, i like to think that this tragedy is a call for people to be kind to one another.  my own arms only have so much reach, my hands (and perhaps my mind) are unskilled, my spirit is somewhat disillusioned and tired... but i endeavor to reach out and help and hold my small circle of the world.  as shodo said (or meant): always return to the question.

    It must have been summer: the sun out and hot, the colors brilliant.  Sky is a blue almost to the point of breaking, clouds have a sheen to them that make you squint.  There are yellow flowers, and green waxy leaves.  Even the dirt seems a rarefied and perfect mixture of browns.
    I am standing in front of him, my older brother.  In my hands, as in his, is a rusty bar of metal.  We don’t know it at the time, but these bars are called re-bars, and are often used to reinforce concrete.  I don’t know why, but at this time, and at this place, there seems to be an abundance of re-bars all over the place, lying around in yards, or even in planter areas in the sidewalks.  In any case, that’s what we’re holding in our hands, my brother and I: re-bars.
    My brother’s face is serious.  He’s getting into the role.  It’s always the same role, the one he always assigns himself.  He is the hero in this drama.  And even if I’m three years his junior, and a weak and depleted version of a five year old at that, I’m supposed to be the dreaded villain.  The bad guy.  In my hands, the re-bar is heavy, and the grid-like pattern in the metal, though not sharp, seems to cut into my cold-sweat palms.
    I don’t want to be here.
    For my parents, this is healthy brotherly play.  And perhaps for my brother, in the interim, during the absence of better playmates, perhaps this is some kind of charitable act, some “bonding time” with the little runt.  But for me, it is something I’m forced into.  It is force that leads me out the door of the house, and puts the re-bar into my reluctant hands.  It is force that brings me here, surrounded by all this heat and color, in front of him.
    I don’t recall any words spoken.  I think we’ve played this “game” so often, that the words are unnecessary.  We know who we are, and what we’re supposed to do.
    The re-bar in my brother’s hands rises effortlessly, and then swings in a dark blur downwards.  An unpredictable angle.  My eyes flutter, scared, but needing to see.  Somehow I lift my re-bar sword up to meet his.  A ringing, teeth-rattling, hands abuzz.  There is barely time to be grateful for the block, though, as my brother’s sword comes again and again, always at a different angle, a different speed.  Ring ring ring-ring-ring.
    “Wait,” I breathe out heavily.  But quietly too.  I smile a smile I imagine to be casual, even though there is no casualness between my brother and I.  “What if- what if the real bad guy, he planted some bombs.”  I look sidelong at the nearby trees, landscaped by the town association, with rough, climbable bark.  “Bombs in the trees.  And we have to work together to get all the bombs.”
    Most of the time, my brother does not even acknowledge that I have spoken.  I’m almost grateful when he responds.  “You’re the only bad guy,” he mutters.  And the re-bar thrusts, a poke for my rib-filled chest.  Not sure how to parry this, my feet backpedal, and I almost fall backwards onto the sidewalk.  The re-bar in my own hands swings wildly, an anchor that doesn’t know where to sink.  In the midst of its wild flails, there is a brief feeling of contact.  I hear my brother shout, and there is a clattering a moment later as his re-bar falls to the sidewalk.
    “You stupid runt!” my brother yells.  He is clutching at his fingers.  I can’t see anything wrong; the fingers are all there, and they seem to be the right color.

connecticut

some might say i'm obsessed.  but i cannot process how i feel about the newtown connecticut shootings.  all i feel is a deep-seated rage that this has happened YET AGAIN, and that, if history is any guide, NOTHING WILL HAVE CHANGED.  there are those in this country who have a stubborn and irrational belief in the second amendment... that, or they are in the pocket of the nra.

let me just say that i have never owned a gun, nor feel any inclination to.  that doesn't mean that i don't believe in the right of others to bear arms, within reason.  for example, i appreciate a hunter's right to bear arms.  i also appreciate the need for certain people to carry concealed weapons for their own protection...  but when assault rifles are allowed on the streets?  tell me, why do civilians need weapons of war!?

there are those who doggedly support the right to bear ALL arms, including assault rifles (and note: the "DEFEND HAWAII" bumper stickers all depict some kind of assault rifle) because they believe in the "red dawn" scenario (perhaps they've seen the movie one too many times), OR because they believe in what i call "seditious patriotism," that is, that in certain situations, it is the right of the populace to bear arms AGAINST the government when that government does not respect their wishes...  (not sure if the founding fathers, in struggling to establish their newfound government, exactly intended that...)

...
...
...

emilie...  just one of the 20 children...  a beautiful child, learning portuguese...  six years old.  children like her...  some of them were shot 10-11 times by an assault rifle (bushmaster).  tell me, TELL ME, you 2nd amendment advocates... explain to me, EXPLAIN TO HER FATHER why your right to have an assault rifle is more important than emilie!?

***

i have promised that i will remain dogged on this issue, repost pictures of the slain, longer than the two week span of this country's collective memory.  i want to push this tragedy in the face of the world, over and over again, until the cost of our complacency with regards to guns shifts.  i will probably be tuned out.  no one likes to hear disturbing news for very long, after all.  but i don't want this to happen EVER AGAIN.  please, god, not again.

that child, those children...  how could we allow it to happen?  how could we not allow it to change us?

please.  don't bury this prematurely.  let it stand in our view, let it reveal to us the ugliness and irrationality of our policies.  let it change us somehow, whether through legislation, or through a shift in our consciousness...  please.

worth

where does worth come from?

i googled this, and got an amusing list on yahoo questions.  check it out.

some of these responses treat it as a semantic issue, which i have always found annoying.  others treat it as something that is "created", via hard work, i.e. doing good deeds, acting decent, whatever.

i can say that i, like many others, believed in the "hard work" response.  perhaps i still do.  but in truth, there is always an inadequacy, a void, that can never be filled by holding that worth comes from hard work.  for one thing, who determines if the work was hard?  who tells you, "good job?"  perhaps no one else.  maybe people look at what you did, and they piss in your face.  so then you say, okay, hard work is not recognized by others, but I know i worked hard...  oh really?  do you?  i have tried to use self-determination to figure out how hard to work, but quite honestly, it never really works.  you either feel like you are being masochistic, or you're flaking out...  either way, you never really feel like you're getting a straight answer with regards to the question of whether or not you're really working hard.

you might then tie "hard work" to results.  perhaps you might tie good work to something completed...  ah, if only everything, every task in this world, were neat and tidy, and "complete-able."  it rarely is.  and even when it is, oh sure, you might feel worthy for the moment after completing one task, but then in each successive moment, you need to maintain that worth by doing something else, and something else, etc.

***

my mom used to show me this book.  it was called "having fun being yourself."  it had a lot of cute pictures in it.  i read parts of this book, and even tried to embody some of its philosophy... there's always this feeling of- i don't know how to describe it- sadness when i read books like this...  it is the same feeling i get sometimes with regards to children.  the feeling that there is this happiness that i will always protect, because i love it, and wish it were real... but it is also something that, in certain senses, is antithetical to me and my reality...  it is a happier brighter reality that inherently exiles me...

in those books, it is a decision.  a conscious decision to say, "i like me!"  even though it sounds childish and vulnerable, when i consider its simplicity and innocence (tied to children), i want to protect it, and i want it to be real...  only, in my heart, i know it is naivette, and doomed to fail...

***

so again, we return to the question: where does worth come from?  or even, what is worth?

emptiness

not long after i had arrived at the temple, i recall a discussion with shodo on some simple characters within the heart sutra.  one character, read as "ku", and written with the same character as that of sky (or "sora"), i initially translated as "emptiness."  but shodo pointed out to me that this "emptiness" was not "empty."  he even drew me a picture of a person in a field beside a tree to depict how "emptiness" was not "empty."

i think conceiving of "emptiness" in any way is a problem.  "emptiness" means without a fixed conception.  it is not a "null" concept, because that in itself is a fixed conception, a stopping point, as it were.  nor is it supposed to be conceived of as the sky, i.e., an "openness", because that too is merely a picture, another stopping point.  in fact, the process of attempting to conceive of "emptiness" is in itself a koan of sorts, an imitation of negative theology, because it is a repetitive movement of the mind to recognize its conception and to release that conception, perhaps ad infinitum.

***

i was thinking of "emptiness" with regards to the metal type constitution.  metal types are concerned with worth and value in the world.  they are also linked to a kind of sadness or poignancy, because of the recognition that nothing of worth or value (or perhaps even the concept of worth or value) in the world remains; everything decays and dies.  the repeated attempt to hold to something "precious" in the world inevitably results in this feeling of loss and sadness.  with regards to the past, one becomes obsessed with what has gone; with regards to the future, one looks upon its distance as through a backwards telescope, "longing" for an unreachable state.

as i may have mentioned, the irony of the metal element is that that which is of most value is the least substantial.  taken to its ultimate conclusion, this means that that which is of most value is empty.  it is in attempting to grasp and hold on to something that we, to couch this in more buddhist terms, "attach", and thus sow the seeds of our own (and perhaps the world's) suffering.  the key to breaking this cycle of suffering is to understand emptiness.

***

for someone with low self-worth, or no self-worth, how does this processing of emptiness help?  i am not sure.  i have been attempting to recognize something good in myself.  it is very very difficult.  i suppose the attempt to recognize worth in oneself mirrors the attempt to recognize worth in others.

although i (sincerely) love children, i have a deeply rooted cynicism with regards to people in general.  it's not that i dislike people; rather, it is that i don't expect much from them.  i think i hold this attitude partially from experience, but also because it allows me to not be upset when they let me down...  and people have let me down, and are constantly belittling me...  (ha, my exaggerations reveal themselves...  i suppose it just makes it easier for me to generalize and exaggerate, than remain in a muddled and ambiguous position...)

so... i can't recognize significant worth in others.

what is worth?

is it like money?  is it like a profit and loss sort of thing?  can worth be counted?

if we cannot understand what worth is, then what sense does it mean to "value" something?  what standard are we referring to when we say something is valuable?  these are questions that found economies, and they are also questions that found self-hood, and self-created economies...

i deeply want to understand where worth comes from, so i can perceive it within myself.  i feel that this may allay some of my incessant repetitions on this issue of low self-worth and self-esteem.  i want to stop feeling so morose about my reality.  i want to be interested in life again...

i am sitting at the head of a class.  before me are the remaining students who are taking my final.  the tension is thick.  i almost regret creating this latest monster of a final for these students.  it is a lot of information that i make them responsible for, and i know this is compounded by the other classes that these "kids" (many of them are my senior) take.  i tried to ease them into it all, but quite frankly, there was no real way to soften the blow...  and anyway, in this school, you have to drown repeatedly in order to make it.  them's the breaks...

***

as i was driving over to the school this evening, i was listening to a show on npr called human kind.  the show is about various aspects of humanity, with an emphasis on instances of kindness and compassion and empathy...  tonight, the featured person was (i believe) donna hicks, a psychologist who has apparently sat in on several talks between irreconciled communities, for example, the palestinian conflict, or south africa after the repeal of apartheid.  in any case, she mentioned that there is always an objective debate (consisting of "hard" demands for territory, reparations, etc.), but beneath that, there is always an underlying fight for and against dignity.  ultimately, her discussions turned to the
issue of self-worth, and how it is vital to protect one's self-worth, and be cognizant of how one addresses the worth of the other.  it seemed very relevant for me.

hicks described bishop desmond tutu, whom she had spent some time with during tape recordings of conflict resolutions.  she mentioned that he was a man with a strong conviction in god, combined with a deep sense of humility; a powerful and paradoxical combination.  his sense of worth was so unshakable; his dignity commanded that of others, so that those who spoke in his presence were automatically held to a higher standard...  everyone, in short, was able to open up and access their higher selves...

***

i think about this person in my life.  i actually fear for him at times, because when things truly hit him, i am not sure how he will ever be able to survive...  i don't think anyone ever "gets away" with doing anything, because, even in the most sociopathic individuals, i believe there is a division against the self, a war within, which some day will out.  and when that day of reckoning comes, watch out!

i suppose i was, probably still am, very angry at him, and through him, the world at large that he represents, because of how he hurt a few of the dear people around me...  i often wrestle with how i SHOULD feel, because more often than not, i "forgive" people, i allow people to be the way that they are...  the thing that hurt, and which still cuts within like a swallowed piece of glass, is this question: when is a deed unforgivable?  when is it alright to feel anger?

... to be honest, the flash of anger is already fading in me.  it gets replaced by this duller, but more peaceful world.  again, people and things fall within their own skins.  i feel i can understand again.  it is tiring to rebel against reality, after all.  at some point, you've just got to face the facts, and face the music.  the world is not ever going to correspond to my vision, but... them's the breaks.

***

donna hicks mentioned something that stuck with me.  people can step on and wound your dignity.  but they can never take your dignity from you.  dignity is something that is implicitly yours, because it is something that you define and contextualize.  again, it can be wounded and damaged, but you can care for it, and seek to restore it.  it can never be taken from you...

i guess i have to repair my dignity, my sense of self-worth.  it has been forgotten for so long.  i've been operating with it in disrepair, focusing my attention on everything around me so that i didn't hear the rattling in my empty heart.  now is the time to rest.  seek a stillpoint.  surrender to the process.

my daughter just woke up with a pain in her knee.  i tried to feel the different aspects of her knee to find a region of cramping.  it seemed as though her hamstrings (semitendinosis/semimembranosis) were tighter than the surrounding tissue, and she complained that the pain was worse upon bending, so it made sense.  i held the muscles in question with steady but gentle pressure, and it seemed to calm her down...

while this happened, i had an insight of sorts.  why did i choose acupuncture?  why do i choose special education?  why do i, in short, choose "hopeless situations?"

i was thinking about this, because in the midst of treatment, there is always this feeling of implicit despair and impotence, that i am given basic methods of treatment, but i always wrestle with the fear of nothing working, of having no effective means of addressing the problem...  maybe, maybe i chose these careers because of the implicit gamble associated with it...  and failure would be safe, in the sense that it might reflect the nature of the stacked situation, and not me...

a gamble...

i was thinking about impotence.  about being powerless to affect a situation.  to make a difference.

i was thinking about responsibility.  about being unable to respond...  don't know if i ever mentioned this, but i have always felt an inability to control my voice.  to control spoken language.  with written language, i could see my words, there was a kind of solidity to it that could not be denied...  but with speaking, it seemed as though there was a choking off of the flow, and what's more, a lack of faith that my words would reach others, would ever be heard...

this, in a sense, created a double economy of words, two systems.  in one, the spoken, the more immediate economy, i felt a pauper.  i felt like a non-participant.  i don't know if it was because i was implicitly a non-speaker, or because others around me silenced me, choked my voice off.  but whatever the case, i always felt that speaking was unreliable, a wind that could neither be shaped, nor had the power to bridge distances...  "no one can hear me.  i am powerless to be heard."

in the second economy, in the myriad second economies that exist, i had power.  i found a kind of influence in art, in drawing, in writing, and even in singing.  funny.  these are all economies that work through "impression."  they are not involved in direct linguistic events, the communication of a feeling or thought or direction that changes the course of immediate surroundings.  they CAN, but only through the mediation of a recognition on the part of the listener...  a recognition and acknowledgment...

***

i want to help.  "i want to help" is a statement of intent, on the surface, but it is also implicitly a statement of fundamental impotence...  it also betrays a need to participate, in a muted way, in an economy of power.  it betrays a distrust in a system of those who do NOT want to help, who either actively harm or neglect others...

i say "goodbye" periodically because i want to recoup influence and power ("did you miss me?") through absence...  and one might say that it is also a repetition of the second economies of communication, i.e. writing, communication which is not direct or immediate, which only truly takes effect in one's absence...  it is all about influence, recognition, power...  i hate it, but i must be honest with myself...

the desire to die is largely due to a feeling that i am already dead in the immediate economy of presence/intimacy...  and i want to recoup worth through death, through the indirect mediums of memory and reflection.  like written words, especially with hidden meanings...  read between the lines of my life, and you might find that i was a person of worth...

disgusting.

modus operandi

there is a lot of mass.  with great mass comes increased inertia or, conversely, increased momentum.  it is very hard to get the ball rolling.  and, once it is rolling, it is hard to stop it, or change its direction.

that is "how i roll."  it is unfortunate, but true.  also, with regards to matters, i have a kind of myopic perspective on things.  i can only do what is immediate.  usually, i start with what is easiest, and what is closest, because they "build my confidence," and then i am able to move into the harder stuff...  sounds pretty pathetic, but it's true.

with regards to "infinite tasks," like, for example, gardening (i.e. weeding)...  it would perhaps be nice if i had the time to sit and work on a small section to completion, and move on.  but i don't.  or at least, i don't have the patience.  so i tend to meander as i do things, working on each apparent task as it draws me.

i think, with regards to many things in life, i am kind of cautious about the use of force.  there IS a backlash.  it is sort of akin to moving with some kind of pain or wound.  yes, you could move faster, but you will deal with more pain or damage if you do...  best to move slow.

***

i also do things, or don't do things, in the face of practicality and responsibility.  more often, it's i don't do things.  they hurt too much, or they are too- wearying.  i know i have to do them, but i keep avoiding and burying them until eventually they become monsters that i have to slay.  why is it that i do this?  why can't i be "responsible?"

i almost feel a physical barrier with regards to certain things i have to do.  i feel very very tired.  and scared.  but to not do them, again, it is to allow a small thing to become a terror.  why?  it is so irrational, it is something i cannot explain...

i don't understand why some things are so hard or difficult.  why some things, it seems, i just "don't care about."  it must be that, in my own personal calculus, some things just don't have a net gain in my book...  example: my cell phone.  it is a shitty phone, with low battery life, and my reception is terrible.  i don't change it.  i don't pay for it.  i allow it to lose service.  why?  maybe i don't care so much about hearing from people?!

i almost think that with life, i am afraid of making snap decisions.  anything that forces me to confront my own ignorance, or makes me pay, or whatever...

i make no real plans to address my problems.  i have no plans.  it is more like trench warfare.  an impasse.  with massive casualties.  why!?

i make excuses for myself.  i'm processing something... or whatever.  and something in myself just doesn't care.  it won't let in anything that hurts...  but it all, in the end, just doesn't make sense.  not sound strategy...

it's ironic that i play games of strategy, am almost obsessed with it.  but when it comes down to my life, my own life, i am unable to follow through on any sound plan.  WHY!?

***

i suppose i see the pattern.

in the face of fundamental indebtedness (and much postmodern thought and philosophy suggests that we are born into a situation of indebtedness), the individual can become a slave, or he can rebel.  one form of rebellion is non-participation, non-payment of the debt.  it is a contradictory or paradoxical form of rebellion, because it is one which destroys the individual in rebellion.  but it is a form of rebellion, or protest, nonetheless.

it is interesting, but some of the most effective forms of rebellion/protest involve self-destruction of varying degrees: fasting, immolation, etc.  it is to be unyielding in the face of a system, an economic system, one does not want to participate in.  it is to choke the system.

i articulate this in systemic terms, in terms of economy, because it seems my narrative always tangles a personal hurt with a systemic problem.  i don't single out a person who has hurt me; i cut out the entire human race.  i don't point to a single problem that has affected me, i rebel against the yoke of human existence.  it's really silly when i look at things that way...

but i do think that when someone is in pain, walking with (self-inflicted) wounds, his tolerance for things is reduced, and also very confused.  i make decisions in a very myopic fashion, because i try to reduce the pain in its immediacy.  it's hard to think of the long term "medication" or "working cure" of a problem that is so "in your face."  and in many situations, there is an element of faith in even believing in a cure that will cause some momentary pain for ultimate gain.  so there is a confusion regarding help and harm.

i don't know.  i am just trying to understand things...

feeling tired again.

tonight, lynn and i went to eat at "lucky belly", a ramen sort of place (but upscale, and, what's the word, haute couture, only with regards to eating and restaurants).  it's on smith street in downtown chinatown...  back in the day, when i used to have an office and residence on bishop street, lynn and i used to frequent a lot of these restaurants in town.  of course, we left before the whole renewal of the chinatown area, what with all the galleries and first fridays and such.  so there are a lot of new chic restaurants to try out now (not that we ever really get a chance to go)...

i ordered the "beast bowl".  it was good.  (i'm not going to pretend to be some kind of connoisure (sp!?) and give you the run down of what exactly i ate, and struggle to describe the precise flavoring, etc., like everyone nowadays seems to do.  not to be cynical [which means precisely to be cynical], but i can't stand it when i see people break out their iphones to take pictures of their food.  just eat the damn thing!  yet another reason why i chose to leave facebook [for a time?].  i can't stand being a voyeur at people's dinner tables.  and i hate that tendency to catalogue everything in my life in me...  huh.  exactly what i'm doing here, huh?  but at least here, i can PRETEND it's just a journal.  :P)

afterwards, with lynn slightly tipsy from the wine, we went over to ala moana to do a bit of christmas shopping.  went to coach, whereupon i sat and stared unobtrusively at mirrors, hands "akimbo" across my chest.  man, they have a lot of workers standing around and doing nothing!  after that, we went over to crazy shirts, for another drop-off of cash...

and home again.

***

my wife is my best and perhaps only real friend.

i know she doesn't like to hear me be negative, which i have been lately.  i like to tell her i'm just "venting" or "processing" things, and that i don't do that with anyone else (wow, such a privilege...).  but bottom line is, she doesn't like to hear it.  i know she goes through a lot of stress in her own day, so she deserves something better.

it's funny, though, that i don't have anything on my mind other than this current issue...  but then, when i'm with her, it's okay.  things kind of float into consciousness, and i mention them.  and we laugh about it, or whatever.  and underneath it all, she reaches for my hand, or i reach for hers, and there is this connection that i can believe in...

i know i'm lucky in this.  i never ever forget that.  i know i'm a hard person to get to know, or to be friends with (evidenced by my lack of friends :) ).  so my wife was a godsend...  is a godsend every day and every night.  to understand, even or especially as i forget (just as i forget the wonder of my own hand being connected to my own self) that there is someone in this world that chooses to be bound to me and my destiny...  it's truly wonderful...

in fact, while i'm here...  there was a moment last night, when we were all lying down in the art room (my wife, my kids and i) and laughing.  it was a spontaneous thing, but it was clear to me, and to all parties involved, that for the four of us, there was nowhere else to be, and no one else that we loved more than each other.

i am thankful for my family.

***

i know the choice to deactivate my facebook account was a double-edged sword.  there really are a lot of wonderful people out there.  despite my cynicism, i do like every one of my fb friends.  but i needed time off from that distraction, from the incessant pull of other timelines, and the minutiae of other lives.  and also, i needed time to just get some stuff off my chest, and it was a lot of stuff that wasn't appropriate for that medium, so i needed to remove the temptation...  the temptation of writing vague, self-pitying remarks that would only solicit comments like, "is everything ok?" so i would (pseudo-reluctantly) begin my soliloquy about my pathetique situation...  at least here, i feel i can write whatever the hell i want.

i can write specific self-pitying remarks, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

***

going back to sleep.

g'night.

i treated my father today, finally, for his shingles.  i used the richard tan method of using 12 needles, one for each channel, along the four segments, taking care to incorporate those points which traditional acupuncture would assign for his condition: sj 5, gb 41, etc.  i think it was a good treatment, in that it allowed him to rest for about an hour.  i also dabbed some st. john's wort onto the affected area, in the hopes that it would alleviate some of the pain and itching.

while my father was resting, i tried to clean up the house.  my parents are taking care of 3 little pigpens!  and, whether out of weariness or apathy, there are certain issues of basic upkeep that have been neglected for a long time- to the point where it could become a health issue.  so i was cleaning, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming... until i had to take out my father's needles, and until the rest of the family came home...

***

i hate thinking about other people and their opinion of me.  but i think (as mentioned earlier) it is a conditioned response, a kind of fundamental need for acknowledgment of some sort...  i HATE that i need this.  i wish i could just be doing what is right, instead of needing to think about what so and so would think of this, and would this garner anyone's respect?  this very blog, although i am pretty certain no one really reads this crap, is perhaps a hidden (but no less ugly) attempt to get someone's approval...  maybe even more so, because in its "journal"-like nature, it seems innocent, and undirected...

why do we do what we do?  out of fear?  out of obligation?  out of a need to feel- what?  i want to eliminate that gap.  i want to be so empathic that i do things out of this fundamental connection, and out of a natural flowing of the "will of heaven."  i don't want to do anything for anyone's approval.  especially not god's.  "god willing", i would do the right thing because it was always already in my nature to do so.

***

in fact: i was thinking about the notions in chinese thought of the different grades of rulers or emperors.  the lowest grade of ruler is both despised and impotent.  the next grade rules through fear, even though everyone despises him.  the next type of ruler is both feared and loved.  (i think).  but the highest grade of ruler is not known at all; he does nothing, and yet everything gets accomplished.  this is the expression of wuwei, or nonaction.

i was thinking whether or not the highest ruler REALLY does nothing, as in just sits there?  or is it that he allows nature to take its course?  which means, also, allowing it to take its course within himself as well?  in the west, we have this assumption that someone who does nothing stands outside of everything, in a kind of stillpoint.  but i think it is more appropriate to understand wuwei in the context of a universe in flux.  to "do nothing" does not mean to hold to a fixed point, like an opihi in a wave; it is rather to move with the universe.  a ruler does what is right, by following the dictates of what is natural and appropriate.  and in so doing, the world follows its course as well...

***

at the moment, the afternoon sunlight is diffracted by clouds and vog, making the sky seem a hazy white, and making time seem vague.  i am a bit tired from cleaning the awful mess of my parents' house.  the kids are with aunty joan or the in-laws, so i've all this empty time to fill with stupid deeds.  i feel hatred (again) for someone, and for the collective eyes of the world, and for the collective (derisive) opinion of the world... and it hurts to hate, it makes me so weary... but i feel (or i like to think) that this is all a part of the processing of this wound that that certain someone has laid bare.  i note the hatred, like the vog and clouds in the sky, and move on.  one day, the hate (and the vog) will be gone.  or it won't.  doesn't really matter...

i was watching snatches of inception this evening.  it was the movie i saw just before starting my job over at wahiawa el.  i remember it being a favorite, for a time...  for the span of a dream.  characters who had a grasp of reality, even with all of its shifts.  i envy that...

certain things fascinate me.  the gestures of control employed by keanu reeves in that movie johnny mnemonic...  the use of a symbolic totem in inception...  these are strategies of control and centering. they define a sacred space...  i think i used a ritual every time i felt broken and shit upon, and needed a restart...  everything, everything would be innocent, in its own skin (yes, i've repeated this image countless times)...  there would be a tension in me, a gritting of the teeth, a spasming to briefly fulfill the anger or hurt i would feel.  kind of a whimpering, on occasion...  buying into a fiction that i was, at that moment, innocent, and compelled by a force, by a fate...  because, perhaps, in that moment, that is exactly what i wanted.  to repossess my own narrative.  in the beginning of the story, even in in medias res, there is always an innocence to the protagonist, he is being written in, he is being moved by forces introduced into him or around him.  there is a cleanliness in that...  i suppose that is what i wanted, what i want.  1) cleanliness and 2) belonging to a story greater than myself...

i have this image of my senior year in college.  one day when i felt it.  that old hatred and pain build up.  i took some cds and shattered them in my hands, allowing the edges to cut into my palms...  and out of the fragments building a kind of shape on the floor of my room...  for a time walking, as in a daze, speaking to no one.  but from that, everything for a time returned into its own skin.  everything became itself again...

no one helps you when it is just you and that hate.  perhaps no one can help you.

now, when i think of the imagery of the skin, etc. and my habitual ritual, i wonder about the pericardium...  and how it protects the heart from pain.  but sometimes in so doing, it keeps the old pain within, continually recycling it, until it colors the narrative with its poison interpretations...  i wonder, in light of my reflections of this individual that i hate, and what he has done to others in my family, whether there is something in my past that i must somehow remember, through all the pain.

i cannot stop at my ritual to reestablish a skin.  somehow i have to go deeper, and remember what, if anything, was the original trauma...

---

yet another reason why i distrust any totalizing narrative is in its fundamental hypocrisy...  and fuck it, the world is so blind.  people LOVE him.  and who am i, this pathetic piece of shit that he has discredited, who am i to shed the light upon his crimes?  YOU want to believe in him, god bless you. god, who allowed all of this to happen.  the right hand and all of that, forever and ever amen.

i choose to bend sinister.  i think things are truer here.  people think this is darkness, and evil, but if you have a heart to see things as they really are, you would see how ass backwards the world is...  those who speak.  those who judge.  i don't believe in any of them.  any more.

---

box within box within box...

the return to the pericardium

i have always been fascinated by the pericardium, or "heart protector" (xin bao).  every organ is said to play a role in the "government" of the body.  the pericardium is the envoy (sometimes represented as the prime minister), who alone communicates with the heart, that secret emperor.  it is through the pericardium that information is passed in and out of the secret chamber of the emperor within his forbidden city.  the pericardium is, in essence, the story teller, the most masterful story teller of all, for it is through his words that the fate of the kingdom is determined.

before i settled on "mid error" as my monicker (a play on the "mid air" and "in the midst of errors"; also an anagram of "mirrored", as one of my earliest stories was a play on the situation of the reflection in a mirror; note the metal reference), before "mid error", i used to be "pericarpediem," which was a play on the "pericardium", the membrane surrounding the heart, and "peri-carpe-diem", that which surrounds (and therefore hesitates in the face of) the philosophy of carpe diem, of grasping the moment...  it was meant to connote an interruption or delay in the interface between the self and the world, or the self and the other...  because, at that time (and actually, on into today), i have always felt that i was that gap, that interruption, that discontinuity within the flow...

so, in truth, the pericardium and i are old friends.  in my recent investigations to try to understand my pathology, this is what i read with regards to the pericardium (or heart protector).  i quote this in full because i feel it resonates: (from "Nourishing Destiny" by Lonny Jarrett)

Irony: Heart Protector- Strength and Openness

The irony that lies thematically at the center of the life of the heart protector constitution is that true intimacy is empowered by strength.  Habitually driven to avoid pain, the mind of the heart protector strives to the point of weariness in its attempt to avoid the pain it associates with intimacy.  Internally, the heart protector keeps painful events from consciousness, and externally the habitual mind either shuns connection with others or leads us into relationships where there is no real chance of intimate connection.  The habituated mind tells us we are being strong by either avoiding or pursuing relationships with others.  Behavior predicated on ignorance, however, always leads our heart to a state of being unfulfilled.  Ironically, whether engaged in relationship or not, our sorrow grows for lack of the meaningful connection that nourishes the heart.  True strength implies the ability to remain in the presence of pain resulting from both past and present relationships without letting it dictate our course of action.  Only in finding the courage to rectify the relationship between our heart and mind can the destiny of the heart protector ever be truly fulfilled.

***

btw, in chinese medicine, the fire element is actually shared by four channels/organs, instead of the normal two (all the other elements are associated with a yin organ and a yang organ).  the element fire is composed of a pair of imperial fire organs: the heart and small intestine; and a pair of ministerial fire organs: the pericardium and the triple warmer.  all share the same general thesis of control vs. intimacy, and communication, but in different aspects...

although there is an element that determines a person's predominant way of interpreting life, there is also, as a result, or perhaps as a hidden cause, another element which may be seen as the fundamental absence or deficiency in a person's life.  for me, that element is fire.  fire occupies the continuum or tension between control and intimacy...

fire and metal do share a controlling relationship...  each element in five element theory generates another element, and also controls yet another element.  metal, for instance, generates water (we say it is the mother of water), and it controls wood (it is the grandmother of wood).  metal, in its turn, is generated by earth, and is controlled by fire...  this sometimes gives a hint as to how to help facilitate the generation or sedation of any given element, as "direct tonification" or "sedation" is actually not ideal strategy...

ANYWAY.  fire is related to intimacy/camaraderie.  yes, in my life, that is a definite lack.  as i mentioned before, i interpret issues in terms of worth/respect.  i feel that that is the only economy that i even have a chance at making anything of myself...  because in the "real economy" of friendship, of being close to people, i don't believe that i can be seen as a participant.

as i mentioned, fire occupies the TENSION between control and intimacy.  these are opposites, in a very real sense.  intimacy is being close to the other, something which we, for the most part, want; but as we approach the other, there is an inevitable loss of control, for we cannot control the reactions of the other.  how do we negotiate that tension?  some people do so through various control mechanisms; the simplest would be to maintain distance ("personal space") so as to eliminate the threat of the other (but also keep intimacy at bay).  on the other hand, some people abdicate all control, and allow the other to invade one's space, or even invite the other in, reminiscent of the strategy of appeasement applied to nazi germany during the second world war...

there are other middle strategies.  i think of fire issue people as being like comedians or hystrionics, those who create other selves in order to garner a measure of intimacy (i.e., they "control" a version of the self in order to get people to like them)...

for myself, there is no sophistication in my "fire" armamentarium.  intimacy is quite literally an on-off switch.  there are those with whom i feel i can "relax" and be myself... and there are others that i must "contextualize" (i.e. share certain specific information with).  yes, it is all about information, more or less...  what people are allowed to know, etc.  it is not about the real "meat" of relationships, the feeling of closeness and laughter...  i can make others laugh, but it is usually at my expense, by belittling myself.  a solicitation, i suppose...

and, at times, i feel closeness with others as a threat.  even, or especially, with others with whom i would like to get to know better, i keep a "polite distance", because... why?  because i feel i may lose it all if i get too close.  because i feel people would not like the real me (if i could even generate a real me from this nothing inside of me)...  because, tying in the metal issue, i feel that people would not respect me if they knew how i really was (as if that wasn't always already apparent)...

***

for fire, the irony is something like: "true control comes from doing nothing."  wuwei.  the principle of non-action...

***

gods, i want to sleep.  really sleep.  i don't care about much of anything any more.  i used to have friends (at least, that's a fiction that i tell myself).  but they bought someone else's story, which might have been true in some sense, but who cares?  it's the fact that they believed someone else, someone who is hateful and judgmental and hypocritical, instead of me with my nonthreatening narrative.  it's that (again returning to metal) they disrespected my truth.  they stonewalled me, like i'm not worth a response or an acknowledgement.

yeah, i think that hurts the most.  look, i KNOW i'm not a friendly person, or the nicest person, or whatever, but to not say anything.  to not give me the scraps of acknowledgement.  that's what hurts.

and so, i go through this pattern of going away and disappearing, and making plans to do something else "helpful", some meager effort to participate in the economy, like some beggar in a slum in mombai.  yes, i don't have any real money/power, but let me recycle this shit for you!  for a low price!

i wish goodbye meant i could just disappear, but time with all of its obligations, its stupid obligations, keeps calling me.  i really want to sleep and forget this stupid world at times...  don't get me wrong, i love my wife and children, and am grateful that for them, at least, well, maybe they've no choice to buy into my fictions, but i think they are the only real things in my world.  the rest?  "nothing personal," but...

i deactivated my facebook account a few minutes ago.  i waste too much time on it.  i guess i expect too much of it, that it will generate some spark in me.  but it only works if you tread light.  if you're like me, and you walk with a too heavy step, then you will inevitably fall through.

***

i was, have been, thinking about the five elements.  each element corresponds to an emotion, and by extension, a need with regards to people.  here are those "needs," as far as i can surmise:

earth --> sympathy
metal --> acknowledgement/respect
water --> reassurance
wood --> perspective
fire --> intimacy/camaraderie

i have been wondering, in my confused way, what it is exactly that i need from other people.  how does one frame one's own pathology?  i think, on an obvious level, that what i want from other people is acknowledgement/respect.  i think i can manage without any of the other things, even the intimacy/camaraderie, which, in my eyes, has always been an insubstantial and false thing anyway...

i always return to this theme of: you can't count on anyone, because they always leave, and are always turning away.  this is the theme of the fall.  the season of reaping, and the harvest.  it is the season on the verge of the death of winter, when everything is dry and leaving.  there is a feeling of poignancy contained in the season, when we feel that everything we have loved is inevitably going to leave us and die...

this seasonal feeling can be internalized to become an entire life perspective.  for me, i have always felt so thoroughly unworthy.  i have always felt as though i never measured up.  my life's quest has been to find a role through which i might "serve" (i.e., be acknowledged as a "good person" who serves a vital role).  the trouble is, most people don't want/need my help.  most of the time, people just want me to go away.  even if i am successful at my role...

for me, the worlds of wood and fire are thorough fictions.  it is a rarefied atmosphere within which i cannot survive.  i look upon the interactions of those who have a "social life", who are able to converse easily, and i feel such falsity within myself, hollowness within myself, that i cannot, dare not speak.  there is no thing, no voice, within me, anyway.  i literally have nothing i can see within me to say.

***

every element has an irony.  the irony of metal is that "that which is of greatest worth in this world is the least substantial."  having a meaning of something like, you can't hold onto anything in this world.  but with regards to myself, who has no sense of self-worth, no sense of intrinsic worth that i can believe in, and hold onto, what does that mean?  ... to trust in the function and pattern of those organs of metal: the lungs, the bellows of intake and exhalation, the performance of the bowels, and their fullness and release.  give and take.  what, of substance, may be found in the continuity of this ribbon of life?

powerless to speak.  speaking is powerless.
no one to hear.
no one to care.
no one could do a thing anyway.

words push us away from each other.
words are a safety net
to keep people from falling
into each other
in their times of need.

there is nothing to say
anyway.

the switches are fixed in two positions
if they're even touched:
bear it
or whine
and no one wants to hear it,
so bear it
so no one sees it.

the current will run
on different paths perhaps
buzzing and pretending life
or pretending death
a live wire waiting
to turn something on.

***

i want to sleep.  i hate, but i can't act on it.  i hate, but i shouldn't speak of it.  i want to be stronger, but i feel so tired.  i feel so uninspired.  i can get by the machinations of life.  i can even, for a moment, pretend i'm flying, on the lilting wave of a brief-lived success.  but inside, i am rotten and gravity-prone.  look out below.

this world is broken [is broken is broken... can you hear the echoes wash over you, so many lost souls have said it before, with perhaps more sincerity and conviction, that it might as well not have been said, by me, at all.]

the ties to love, i still believe in, if i were strong enough.  if i weren't so damned tired.  today, instead of me pulling them, they pull me up (hell, they probably have been my props forever, stupid mannequin that i am, with my faux powerlessness, a condition that i blame upon the one that i hate, but which was probably a decision to be lazy, a stance of rebellion against this world; NOT something innocent and choiceless.).

PULL me up and out.  and at em.

ha.

at the moment, i am SO tired and unmotivated.  i suppose it doesn't seem so, but this whole family thing, and my impotence before it, has really gotten me down.

***

what i said about friends earlier, what i MEANT was this: for me, the truest expression, what allows me to get to the heart of things (or at least, MY heart) involves peeling away and forgetting all expectations people have, all the superficial pictures people have of me, and just saying/doing the truth.  oftentimes i am so smothered by all of this that even I don't know what that truth is until i go through this process.

i believe that the truest art is only found in this process, when one communicates with the silence and the darkness, when one "speaks" with what does not respond, and with what cannot be seen, and with what cannot be conceived.  this conversation, which always occurs in the deepest isolation within oneself, is a conversation with god.

in the end, when you shoulder your burden in life, and you just "do it," there's nothing to be said about it...

***

i recall something (vaguely) that charlotte joko beck once said with regards to suffering.  she tried to say it by referring to the etymology of the word "suffer," and although i can no longer reconstruct that etymology, there have been moments when i definitely understood what she meant.  in "suffering," there is the image of a tremendous burden that one must bear, and in that image is contained all the reluctance and hesitation and pathos that makes suffering a thing to be avoided at all costs.  but there is a moment (if one can find it) when a decision is made, and one becomes "one" with suffering, and then suddenly, it isn't such a big deal, because you ARE it, you're no longer thinking about it.

...well, i wouldn't say that it isn't a big deal, but what i mean, and what i think beck meant, was that in adopting it, in becoming one with it, you are no longer standing outside of your situation judging it; you are it, inescapably it, and that's alright.

escape.  es-cap-e (quoting dory from finding nemo).  it's a paradox, but most of the battle of life involves not escaping it.  the rest is (relatively speaking) easy.  or, rather, for the rest, it doesn't matter if it's easy or hard, because it's you.

***

it's what i have to do.  it's what will happen anyway.

***

thank you, grandmother, and shodo, and everyone (whom i imagine looks out for me; and even if they don't, well, it gives me someone to thank when i am feeling grateful for scraps of understanding)...

i have learned to hate someone.

it is a terrific burden.  but it is a truer better thing than my usual modus operandi, which is to shrug things off, and shoulder what i can.  now, i know that there are times when the hypocrisy of people is sufficient to allow true hatred.  i just have to be careful not to let that one hatred infect others.  because the hypocrisy of this one individual highlights the hypocrisy of many.

breath.

... i need time to forgive and forget.  i always do.  (but then again, perhaps that is my problem.  maybe i SHOULD hate.  maybe i should hold a burning ember in my heart...  there is something paradoxically cleansing in the moment of hate, before it realizes the double edged nature of its momentum...)

***

i try to help my family in meager ways.  i have been trying to take all the kids out (ALL of them, including my nieces and nephew) in order to alleviate the burden on my aging parents.  soon, i am sure, the responsibility of caring for these children will fall upon my wife and i, because no one else will want to take the responsibility.  although my wife is reluctant about it, i feel that she is akin to me in my belief in filial obligations, and basic compassion.  with family, you have no choice... (unless you are someone who thinks that blood is something you can wash your hands of...)

it is sad to me, particularly at this time of year.  my grandmother, whom i loved dearly and still miss, she believed in holding the family together at all costs.  now, perhaps 5 years after her passing, i find that my family has progressively fragmented apart.  in the immediate aftermath of my grandmother's passing, a rivalry between my mother and her siblings sundered relations, such that we have not seen our aunt and uncle (and their families) very often for years.  and now, this fall/winter, i no longer have relations with my brother and my sister.  it is a sad thing, and i feel that i have failed my grandmother, and her aspirations...

...but there is little that i think that i could have done.  at least, there is little i could have done, and remain "in character."  sometimes, i think that it is ironic/paradoxical that the very reason people "get along" with me is because i am unassuming.  and yet, in this season, it is my unassuming nature that prevents me from cajoling a relationship between all disparate parties...  and besides that, my brother has inspired in me a feeling of such intense hatred, that it truly throws me out of balance, and exhausts me in the simple processing of this rage.  there are things i will NEVER forgive about my brother, even if relations will proceed...

(but then again... but then again...  i once chided my mother regarding the sundered relationships with her siblings, saying that it was grandmother's wish that the family hold together, and NOT ONE WEEK after her death, there were attempts to break away.  and at that time i told my mother that she should be bigger than that...  maybe it is the same thing, the very same thing, with me...)

***

i think i am averse to people, in one very fundamental sense.  the realm of people, as represented by "facebook conversations," can be nice, but in most senses, is trivial and superficial (in the worst sense of the word).  it is quite literally a distraction.  i do not operate on that realm, or at least, i do not operate optimally there.  as i may have mentioned, i have always felt that true friendship was like people on isolated, but visible, mesas, living parallel lives, suffering their own trials and tribulations...  a sense of distance was always incorporated into it.  it wasn't because i didn't believe in helping people... but it was more because i felt that, in this world, one didn't and shouldn't and can't EVER count on people.  you can't expect friends to save you (they literally never have).  and to put that expectation upon them is to be unfair to them...

i guess i have issues with "friends."  with "brothers."  with a lot of things.  suffice it to say that i have very few friends who are close, and, let's be honest, none outside of my family that i can hang out with here.

[got to go.]

i got a chance to visit my long lost sister today.  my parents asked if i could deliver her driver's license to her working place.  i didn't expect to actually see her; her instructions were to deposit the license in an envelope on the working place door.  but when i walked up to the place, the door was actually open, and there were people inside.  as i called to the people to signal that i was going to leave the license in the envelope, my sister responded and came out from behind some curtains.

she looked thinner than when i last saw her (that's a good thing), and seemed a lot more alive and active.  at first, i had a hard time registering that this person was actually my sister.  sure, i'd seen her in passing, whenever she stopped by my parents' house to visit her kids.  but this seemed to be the first time in a long while that i'd actually seen her "alive."  her words were colorful and funny, but i couldn't really "hear" them, as my eyes were drinking her in.  i recall one observation i had was that her eyebrows and eyes were really starting to resemble my dad's...  kind of a downward turn that made them look inherently and inescapably sad and distant.

anyway, i told her that her youngest daughter was in the car, as we were planning on taking her and my own kids to some art thing at ala moana.  so she asked to see her.  i led her over to the car where everyone was waiting.  as soon as her daughter saw her, she cried out "mommy!" and ran out of the car to hug and hang onto my sister's leg.  it was touching, and kind of sad...

***

i love my sister, and miss her dearly.  her path has always been a harder one (largely, though not entirely, of her own making).  it doesn't seem so long ago that she was that vivacious kid that used to tag along with me wherever i went.  how our paths have diverged!  i feel a deep sense of loss in the distance that time and experience has put between us.  i hope that on some fundamental level, we are still the siblings that we once were...

***

anyway, nowadays, and at the present moment, i am feeling very very tired.  i sleep a lot more than i can afford to, but i still don't seem to get any real rest.  i still long for something to happen in my sleep, for something to restart within my soul...  i still want to feel clean, restored, and ready to engage with the world.  instead, there is this persistent need to hide away and hibernate...

my hands feel vague and warm.  i think when my heart settles low, as it does when i am in this sort of weary, fixated mood, then the energy tends to flow into my hands...  it tingles.  i like this feeling, though i am not sure how effectual it makes me for anything... 

i've been pretty tired at work...  my mind has been preoccupied with family issues.  there is a deep schism in the family at the moment, and it looks to be permanent.  i, for my part, cannot see any way to resolve it, except to hold to the vague promise of time healing all wounds...

i keep wanting to sleep forever...  it seems like rest doesn't come when the world is unsettled like this.  i feel so sad for my parents, for the crap that they have to put up with...  as my father somewhat snidely remarked: kodomo wa sonna mon da ne...  which roughly translates to: "kids...  what can you do?"  my mother, meanwhile, has clung to her recent (at least in my book) faith.  i'm glad she has that, even if, in my somewhat jaded perspective, it seems kind of like a hypocritical clutch of the good book...  no matter what, my parents deserve to be happy, and, failing that, a modicum of psychological comfort...

***

there are large moths that visit the eaves of our house regularly.  far from a sense of foreboding, i like to think that they are ancestors, come to check on us.  when i am on the verge of sleep, i like to imagine their wings, fluttering the dust of their wisdom upon me.  i like to hope that one of them, my grandmother perhaps, will come to me in my dreams and have a chat with me, as they did when we were all in the same living moment together...

if anything, i need the solidity and comfort of their presence now.

***

winter is coming.  in recent nights, it has gone from cool to cold, and it has become harder and harder to wake up and get the day started.  winter is the season of quiescence and a beckoning kind of sleep...  it is the season of seeds frozen in the hard earth.

i recall the white mantle, how it smothered all time, in other places and other lives.  i recall how it seemed to last forever.  i recall walking cold and empty hallways, hearing the echoes of other lives, occupying the space left behind by other people like air within a frozen bubble, probing the boundaries of myself, yearning to be free...

now in this other life that i now lead, i am undeniably content.  there are real lives that love me, and that fill me up with a gratitude and a sense of connection to this world...  and yet, at odd moments, that old lonely meandering returns, like some ghost restless within an empty husk.

i suppose we cannot entirely kill who we were.  who we are.

there is something within me that cannot be reasoned with.  i can call it madness, but is a heavy boulder mad?  is a wild creature mad?  whatever is in me just doesn't do what it's supposed to.  it is something that doesn't "get with the program."  we take it as a matter of course that there are things in the outside world that resist us.  but what about when it is within us?

religion, dreams, the metronome-like flailing of a soul trapped... these are all my possible reactions against the dead-weight of this thing...

i plead with it.  i deaden my eyes in an attempt to see something that might spark a motivation within it.  i sleep, hoping that on the morrow, it will have diminished, and i can move forward, freed from its burden.  sometimes these techniques work... at other times...

***

again, we refer to religion.  not the dead religions.  not the religion that others have pantomimed over the centuries.

religion is a repetition of the movement of binding back the wordless, the ineffable, only on our terms.  we confront a wordless thing in a wilderness we have set aside within ourselves, and without ourselves; we make ourselves lose all volition and control so that it may speak in a voice that cannot be ourselves, but still must be relevant to ourselves.  and in this way we convince those other wordless things within and without to adopt a sacred constellation, and move forwards towards some vaunted purpose.

in my sacred constellation, there are real people (most now gone), and possibly unreal beings (or possibly real interpretations of unreal beings), and stubborn principles.  my grandmother, my sister, all of the teachers and friends that i have left behind, miki nakayama, the path through the wildnerness, the poverty of the wanderer, the life of "found" art and blessings, ... and an idea of blood and family, and an unspoken oneness with all people and things.

i speak and plead with aspects of this constellation to get myself to move, but there is a part of me that remains unconvinced.  unconvince-able.  invincible.  i am helpless before it.  my recourse is, as always, to be powerless before it...

***

there is a current schism in my family, and i fear that it will be permanent.  perhaps the faults were always already there, and it only took a small trigger to bring those cracks to the surface.  i apparently tried to bridge these fractures, but perhaps i didn't try too hard; and perhaps, deep down, i didn't even really care.

***

i had an insight, perhaps a flash of self-pity.  there are the winners, and there are the losers.  the winners are the ones with the voice and the power.  they steal the voice of the losers, and step on the faces of the losers to keep them downtrodden.  the daily life of the loser is a tragedy, but it is awash in countless days of tragedy.  and the world looks upon the loser, and says, ah, but that is their lot.

so when, on a fluke, the dog has his day, oh what a mournful day it is for the winner, to feel, for a moment, a reversal of fortune!  and how the world mourns with him!  and how the world comes to look upon the loser with contempt, for it is the loser's one day of victory that has brought sorrow upon the winner!

the loser does not want to play the game.  but perhaps the refusal to play is in itself a ploy, predetermined or not.  the loser has become so accustomed to not playing "with heart", that it is difficult to even know if he was a heart left; if he truly cares about something to put himself at stake.  the loser has adopted a wisdom, that there is something in the world more important than being right.  he does not do things to obtain victory over another; he simply wants- what?  and would he fight for it?

***

the flailing is dying down.  a quiescence must fall upon the soul.  it must play possum another night, and perhaps on the morrow find the bonds that resist him loosened or untied.

***

i will love this world.  i will embrace it.  i will hold this moment.  it will burn me away, but i will hold to it.  and perhaps one day, i will disappear.  there will be no me, and no control, and no resistance either.  there will be...

something missing

something missing.

in ruts
there are found pieces
placed or shed or even
violently disavowed
but in not one
what i miss.

eye and tongue
drifts the
flavorless glaze
spread thick
a pushing tick
of time
drags
another identical
interval.

the possibility of beginning again

it hasn't been a pleasant fall break.  on monday and tuesday, my son was sick with a high fever and vomiting.  on wednesday, there was a "true break," and i was able to take my kids and two of the cousins out to fish in the ocean off of heeia pier.  but today, my daughter caught the same cold that my son had, and was in bed all day.  on those days when my kids were sick, i stayed home with them.  i also have been feeling some kind of malaise of late, with frequent bouts of diarrhea (i know, tmi) and a lethargy that i've been finding hard to shake...

there is a kind of despair that you feel when you realize your break is more than half over, and that you haven't taken advantage of it yet.

***

on the way to work this evening (my other teaching job), i realized that i would need to restart my outlook.  i think i have been neglecting to do this lately, partially because it becomes harder and harder to do the more time passes, and your outlook becomes smothered over by the patina of rust and decay and habit that accrues with experience.  but it is vital and necessary; a necessary fiction, if you will.

there is a (cynical) song called "clean" by depeche mode that reflects the conflict between a jaded "knows better" perspective and the need to "start again."  i think the lyrics go something like this:

"clean, you know what i mean, an end to the tears and the in between years and the troubles i've seen."

"white wedding" by billy idol is another song that reflects this feeling, the need for a "fresh" start...

as i've grown older, i've come to realize the fiction of the restart, and no longer commit it with the conviction that i once had.  you can't really escape your mistakes, or, for that matter, the mistakes of others, or even (outside of the realm of "mistakes," which betrays the assumption of a "should" and a volition which may not even exist) just plain circumstances.  you can't escape your obligations, your inescapable debts to the world...  someone will visit you to make the collections, if not tomorrow, then another day...

BUT.  there also comes a point when it is difficult to function without pretending ignorance or oblivion of circumstances.  and at those times, it is vital to practice the skill of forgetting and saying, "once upon a time," with a tacit understanding that that time is now.

the life of an organism is filled with such restarts: sleeping, shitting, bathing...  why is it so strange that the life of the soul, the narrative of the individual, also require such restarts?  do we assume that the self is a smooth evolving, that it too does not require times when it empties itself, or loses its mind, or loses its way?

***

remember this: the capacity to forget is almost more important than the ability to remember...  and it is not that "memory" and "forgetting" are a duality.  rather, it all comes down to how things are "held."  there is a blur between memory and oblivion.  it's not an on-off switch.  in a way, we cannot forget what we remember, and we cannot remember (bring back) what we have forgotten (what has passed on)...  perhaps in this (and i'm not alone in this observation), we come

there is something more important than being right.

***

i don't want to play at this game called life.  it isn't fun.  it's tiresome.

there are people in this world who cannot abide by anyone having fun "at their expense," i.e. winning even once.  if you claim one meager victory at the game, then they will trounce you 10 times in a row to let you know that it was a complete fluke.

someone did this to me throughout my childhood.  and the world let this person do it.  and the world loved this person as he did it.  because that is what the world loves.  a winner.  a go-getter.  i did not hate this person for it.  i, like the rest of the world, admired him...

growing up for me meant that i had to find another game, a secret game, and pretend not to play it.  i always knew that once i started to become good at something, that someone would come along and destroy it, just to show that i didn't deserve it.  this meant, for the most part, that i was a shadow of a person, with glints of genius and creativity (as ALL people have), who kept swallowing and swathing it all in darkness, because i was afraid of being seen.  being seen meant that someone would smother out the little burning embers.  being seen was the end of the world.

i did not know i was wounded.  the world teaches you that you must never speak of your wounds.  the irony was that those who wounded me would complain of pretended offenses, and because their voices were so clear, despite the hypocrisy, they would garner attention and aid.  but whenever i attempted (or even now attempt) to speak of wounds which damaged me so much that my eyes could not see them, nor my voice whisper of them, i am castigated for feeling sorry for myself.  and so, the offenses of the past were buried, as though they never happened, and any attempts to unearth them seemed, in the eyes of the world, self-pity and lies...

another irony was that, in concealing myself, i had in essence become the hater that i sought to escape.  i had swallowed the knife of the one who had wounded me, and cut myself deeper than anyone else could...  thus, in moments when i should have been happy, a part of me, that part of me that i had created, carefully carved out my shins with skilled slices, undermining my own stilted supports...  "i hate myself" replaced "they hate me."

***

i am a shadow person.  the world i live in is occupied by shadows.  my past is a blur of shadows.  muted impressions.  deep within me is a hatred of this life of shadows, a yearning for the clarity that i sense others have.  but at the same time, there is this fear of that clarity, for it would likely destroy everything that i have grown up to be, shade upon shade upon shade...

like a shadow, i derive my form and sustenance from others.  i say i love people and support them, but perhaps what i really mean is that i need to have a role and identity by showing the world i am a good person by helping them.  i am the beetle or centipede beneath the pavement, claiming that i shoulder the burden of it, when in reality, it is my concealment, and it is i who derive all the benefit...  how i hate myself as i realize this!  how i wish someone would smash me out of existence...

writing, a shadow play of words (shades of meaning), is in itself little more than another attempt to garner acceptance through concealment.  it is a longing for a lover/reader who will reconstruct in their mind's eye a real person out of these echoes and whispers and shadows that i write.  "believe in me, help me believe in anything, cause i want to be someone to believe."

***

i say i love people.  i loved my grandmother.  and yet perhaps i did not love her so much.  why then do i not live in the clarity and conviction of the path that she laid out for me?  why do i not honor her wishes?  i continue to live in the shadows, perhaps deeper than before.

i claim i love my sister.  and yet, i allow circumstance and time to dull my memory of her.  perhaps it is all my fault that she has committed yet another crime.  hell, she is hardly even a person to me any more...

***

what is love?

i imagine it to be an invisible embracing of all that is.  i repeatedly cling to this notion that it is blind.  it is blind, not in the sense that it does not see, but in the sense that it does not attach to what it sees; it looks beyond the eyes of the world into the truth of the heart.  deep within that abyss, in a place that no person can see themselves, love can go, and can unlock secrets and redeem everything.  love believes that i am a good person, and that i can do good things, despite everything.  despite the mistakes i've made, and the promises i have not been able to fulfill.

in moments when i am desperate (and they come nowadays, deep in the night, when the footsteps of time echo within me, and I am not certain whether I should panic because I can't settle, or because I always settle too much), i call on, i look for, love.  i find it in fragments of people and time.  in reality, those times may have passed, and those people may have turned away, but i try to remember those moments anyway.  they are all i have to cling to.

god for me is just like me in the sense that s/he has been so shrouded in the shadows and rags of hypocrisy in the eyes of this world, that i almost cannot believe in a fixed, institutionalized vision of him/her any more.  churches have become hypocritical precisely because they think they see god and claim a righteousness based upon that image.  it is in this sense that the dispossessed and downtrodden are closer to god than the church, for their eyes are broken.  god can only be seen and called upon by those who "cannot see" any longer, who cannot believe that any man-made, fixed conception ever is a satisfactory god.  there are too many cracks to slip through, too many ways for a man and a soul to be unacceptable and unforgivable.  if god truly is what s/he is, that which embraces and creates all, then there can never be a way to speak of him/her without limiting him/her, and god's salvific and redemptive power.  you will help him, but not her?  you will love that person, but not this?  you will allow this one to win, and be righteous, and that one to fall away?

NO.

there is something more important (and fundamental) than being right.

***

tonight, in the midst of the hissing winds outside, i will "pray" for shadows to fall away.  i will pray for love to find me, wordless and plain, a good person with a good heart, who can do simple things to uncover the goodness in the world around him...