i spoke to my sister this afternoon.  it's become a regular ritual for us, this weekly communicae (sp.).  she tells me about her life, i tell her about mine.  i try to slip in almost subliminal hints about where i stand on things, without actually being confrontational.  here is my stance, to wit: i believe in her right to pursue happiness, whether it's with a woman or a man, it really doesn't matter to me.  however, if my sister wants my parents to help her in any way, then she must abide by their rules, even if this runs counter to her desires.  in fact, in a deeper sense, although i, again, believe in her right to pursue happiness, i think that:

1) her idea of "happiness" is often inauthentic, in that it ignores what, for me, would be most fundamental: reconnection with her own children.  for me, i can honestly say that any "relations" would be secondary to the objective of reuniting with my own kids.  i think that the pursuit of relations after establishing that connection would be fine, but until that happened, i think it would be- i don't know how best to put it- ass backwards to go after someone...

2) as i may have mentioned earlier, i believe it is this very pursuit of happiness that is so problematic.  happiness, when it is an escape from responsibility and moral obligation, can only do harm.  what's more, as my sister often forms relations with people who are in similarly dire straits, well, the odds are stacked doubly so against the relationship being stable, and against either party retaining their stance (inevitably one pulls the other down, cheats on, lies, etc.).  people are not themselves unless they have their feet solidly planted on the ground...

***

i have no answers

oftentimes, i feel so frustrated.

there is no easy answer to reside in. life offers such unbridgeable contradictions, and the only thing i can do is straddle them, or swallow them. i love my sister, who is presently incarcerated. her hopes rest primarily on some long distance (in jail, everything is a long distance) relationship with another incarcerated woman in occc. i'm fine with that, and i can see how vital it is to keep some kind of hope for love or relationship alive in a place that smothers you with drudgery and weighs you down with the inescapable self-recriminations and guilt of what you've done... and yet...

i spoke with my mom this evening. she's a born-again christian (or should i say, born once, because she is a late-in-life convert who used to swear off all religion). she considered assisting my sister when she leaves prison, but she cannot countenance a gay relationship. and, in speaking with my mom, i realize that she's right, if not about her views on homosexuality, then about my sister's cyclical spiraling life. my sister has this pattern, a karma, or innen, as my grandma would have called it. she holds to desperate people, she seeks their love, and as neither she nor the object of her affections is stable, ultimately, inevitably, both tumble down further into the quagmire... to my mom, my sister needs to focus on getting her feet on the ground, caring for herself and her family (especially her kids)...

i can't really say with any finality what the right path is. even if such a path exists, it's hard to guide people to it. i'm not good at leading anyone anywhere; i'm actually quite lost myself. the only thing i can do is create a field within myself, an open space, that allows others to find a voice, and perhaps find themselves... i like to think it's like this zen buddhist idea of control: if you want to control cattle, you don't build fences; instead, you open a space for them, and allow them to govern themselves naturally.

***

people just try their best to get by. i suppose i do too. sometimes it would be nice to have some reassurance that we are doing what we're supposed to.

i don't know. i have no answers.

dialogue

i have been reading a book called "strategies that work". it is about how to teach reading comprehension to children. its key point is that reading has less to do with the mechanics of the process, or answering simple comprehension questions, and more to do with the thinking process, the dialogue with the text, if you will, enacted by the reader. in other words, the text is not some dead thing out there with a static message that is transmitted with fidelity into the mind of the accurate reader. rather, the text is like a statement made by a person in a conversation, and to truly "understand" or "comprehend" it, the recipient of that statement (the reader) must respond to it with his/her own thoughts, feelings, inferences, whatever...

i started an experiment with some of my students. i read parts of "wonder" to them. on the first day, i did a lot of talking about what i was thinking about as i read; it's what they call modeling the internal dialogue, or something or other. on the second day, which was yesterday, i read a paragraph to them, and then had them "respond" to the text by writing something on a single post-it. it could be anything, but it was supposed to be a legitimate response to what they had just heard. i told them, emphasized to them, that it was vital that they "turned their brains on" while they were reading. too often, it seems, my students turn reading into some mechanical task, where their mouths move, but their brains flatline. i was encouraging, forcing them to instead be active participants in the dialogue of reading.

it seemed to work. some students wrote their feelings down. some students wrote i wonders, or their personal inferences or predictions...

a rectangle of sky

this morning, i visited my sister over at the women's correctional facility in kailua. it was good to see her. we spoke about everything, and nothing in particular... a lot of things about family. i got some snatches about life in prison, but all i really needed to do was look up at this rectangle of sky above me, surrounded on all sides by dorms and other buildings, to get this sense of bounded desperation.

my sister seemed a lot more self-aware and strong than before. for one thing, she told me she hardly befriended anyone in prison, at least, not to the point of truly opening up with anyone, because she knew that everyone wanted something from her. she said that it was true of the world outside of the prison as well, but within the confines of the prison fences, that desperation and need was so much more close and obvious... she also spoke about how people in prison tend to do the stupidest things (she was definitely not exempt), that, to put it in her words, "the elevator doesn't go all the way up." she mentioned about how one of the girls in the bridge program (a program where a prisoner can go to work in the outside world, and then check in to prison afterwards) didn't return last night; she only had 2 more months to go, but not returning automatically meant that she would get 5 more years. if it was by choice, it was a pretty stupid choice...

i left feeling kind of blah. i love my sister, even though i don't really show it much. i wish things could be back the way it was... the world looks at my sister and probably doesn't see anything special. but there was a time when we were so close, and there was such a beautiful spirit in her, a strong spirit. i can still see it within her, in the way that she is so open with me... but it is confined by these circumstances, by her bad past choices...

"i'll be the judge of that." really? people are not in any role to judge anything... the world is so- opaque. opaque and transparent at the same time. opaque because everyone has a secret something concealed beneath their faces and their circumstances. transparent because everyone has a secret something concealed beneath their faces and their circumstances. it is not something so positive as hope, but it has something ordinary and natural about it, something which i think is essential to being human. if you feel it, and see it, then you can despair when people turn their backs on it, but you can never deny it... yes, that was one impression i had, the lot of us, visitors and prisoners, all sitting on chairs that lined the edges of this blank rectangle of concrete and asphalt... we looked like we were all there, having some sort of large family gathering or something. when you looked at people, speaking about family, crying, smiling, laughing, hugging, you would not know that you were in a prison. it was just people trying to feel a sense of normalcy again.

sleepless eurydice screams to be heard

in some cornered hour.

i pretend not to hear her.

it was so long ago when

she was a part of my life.

i have other concerns now,

that i straddle like a bridge over a heady height.

no time for faces and ties

that i barely remember,

with a vague nostalgia.

i wonder at this, the deadness of me

and the deadness around everything.

this very world

a restless shifting crust

trying to cover up some

burning insubstantial

with dirt and cracks and landfills-

so deep as to almost not exist-

except as accident and catastrophe.

a murmur, like hate, a railing at

inertia and momentum

the way the world resists a will

to start or stop, or even listen:

something

so vague, so tinny and blurred

i can't tell if orpheus sings to calm the harpies

or my sister screams up her furies

to an uncaring ceiling

lost again to shadows.

blah. required field must not be blank.

i just watched "perks of being a wallflower."  good movie...  if not for the "mix tapes," i would've mistook it for a contemporary film (but then again, i'm out of the loop, fashion-wise...  and maybe teenage angst and reflection are passe, and went out with the breakfast club).  i of course kept springboarding off the movie to my own life as a wallflower (movies put things so well; in reality, they just called me a nerd), but of course, in real life, things are so much more watered down that you can't taste the wine.  i had no intense secret, i had no colorful upperclassmen friends, i had no cool mentor teacher... and, while i did have crushes, they were more pathetic than life-altering.  there's a point where your isolation/madness can define you for good or for evil (or, to put it in less stark, high contrast ways: pathos or pathetic).  i think i fell more into the wastelands, or t.s. eliot's the hollow men; in my highest moments, i was the heighty ambiguity and ambivalence of w.b. yeats's irish airman.  i remember so many times when i went off into the wilderness (kipapa gulch, or, later, into snowy graveyards), there was no one who would find me, and no one who would give enough of a shit to write me into some kind of narrative.

i suppose in that sense, and for a certain kind of story, it is your friends who make you.

***

we put together my son's b-day party this weekend.  he's into minecraft, so i tried to make things minecraft-related.  i drew pictures of different things from the game onto post-its, and put the post-its into black balloons.  then, for one of the games, these kids had to grab the balloons and pop them.  there were scores associated with the different post-its, so the team with the most points won a prize.  i think the kids liked it.  i noticed all the kids (and there was a kind of range of ages) were getting into it.  which was the point.

***

at times, i'm not sure if i know where i'm going.  but i try to assure myself that, at least, my heart is in the right place.

resentment

every morning, to wake to the same nightmare.

***

last night, my wife and i talked about resentment.  she had just learned that a classmate (to be specific, someone a couple of years her senior) had passed away.  now, my wife is a very kind person, but upon hearing this news, she was completely unsympathetic; she had no inclination to attend the funeral, despite urges from her friend, who argued that she (my wife) knew the family.  she told a story about how, on the very first day of high school band, this person (who was a senior at the time) offered my wife a seat he had prepared just for her.  after sitting on it for a few moments, the seat fell apart and collapsed, to the accompaniment of sniggers and laughter from this person and his friends...

after the call, my wife spoke about how she felt guilty for not caring about this person's death.  i thought she was being ridiculous.  the man had painted himself as an ass with that thoughtless act committed so long ago in the past, and whether he had changed or done good things in the meantime, in my wife's understanding, he would always be defined by that act.  it had nothing to do with forgiveness.

i cited people in my past, who had done cruel and judgmental things to me, and how, to me, they had boxed themselves with the shit of their actions, and that the onus of responsibility for their actions lied with them, NOT ME, to redeem them.  i was, quite frankly, surprised at the ferocity of my passion on this issue.  there were/are A LOT of people whom i could cite.  like my wife, middle school was quite a cruel time for me.  in many respects, i still haven't moved on from that time.  it has influenced my outlook on people in general.

to wit: i am no longer surprised (or as surprised) when people are assholes.  in fact, in many cases, it is the baseline expectation.  i have learned to recognize a kind of soul, perhaps someone who is weird or outcast by nature, and see in it a kindred spirit.  i have concurrently learned to (by nature) distrust anyone who is "cool" or "together" or "judgmental" (in any of those combinations), without a touch of understanding...

once there was a boy with a hole in his head. it was not in an obvious place, where everyone would see it. and it did not interfere with his major life functions, like his heartbeat or his breathing. no, it was a rather subtle hole. the boy was not even aware of its existence, until someone (or should i say, something) pointed it out to him. he had, nonetheless, been made aware of its effects. from the beginning, he noticed a difference between himself and everyone around him. for instance, when other children his age were effusive and brimming with life, expressing themselves through their words and actions, he was not. he had no obvious thoughts or feelings about anything. when questions were pointedly directed at him (for there is nothing that makes others so uncomfortable as silence), then he struggled to draw something out from within himself. sometimes, he would succeed in placating his audience by saying some words that he had somehow managed to remember from somewhere else, and on the rare occasion, he would succeed in coming up with something entirely original. but when he was true to himself and to the world, he had to admit, sadly, that he did not know. he did not know a single thing. you see, this hole drained away all of the boy's thoughts and feelings. now, he did not run empty all the time. experiences and words seemed to fill the emptiness within him periodically. but inevitably, inexplicably, these thoughts would seem to dry and dessicate within, leaving empty husks that disintegrated with less than a touch. one might argue (as he had, quite often) that this hole took away his soul. but even he had to admit that it did not, because there was within him something that still stirred and railed at his situation. there was something that made him curse himself, and apologize profusely to others; he was, for all intents and purposes, like a boy beside himself, ...

another day...  last night, after finally replacing a broken garbage disposal unit, i thought of yet another way i fucked up in college...  how, in the fledgeling days of my attempt at starting up a "japan society", i had the bright idea of showing anime, and the movie i chose was "legend of the overfiend", a brutally raunchy film about demons raping women.  i have no idea what was in my head at the time...  i guess my ideas about sexuality, even at that age, were so- naive.  i can think of a few other times when i sort of went off the deep end (or shallow, perhaps, with regards to this topic) about sex.  going to some winter study seminar about, i believe, heroes, and in some obscure discussion, trying to articulate views about how the sex act itself represented the different roles of the sexes (i know, the very description itself sounds misogynistic at the very least)...

i truly don't understand myself...

sometimes i wish i could've given in to advances.  there were a few times that women were (i realize now) practically throwing themselves at me, but for some reason, i couldn't.  i had pretty set ideas about who i would "fall in love with" (jeez, even now, i can't say "fuck"), and the proper order of things.  so, even when a girl asked me, with a lilting tease in her voice, if i wanted her cherry (-while eating ice cream...), or if another girl came to my room to study, but instead only wanted to lie on my bed (-said she was tired after walking across campus), i just sort of played along with the surface interpretation.  didn't go deeper.  honestly (?) didn't see an opportunity.  sometimes i wish i could go back to myself and give myself a flying kick to the head.

it's not that i regret it so much.  the way things turn out is the way things turn out.  it's just that i can't understand it, how i could've been so- such a blockhead...

***

i truly understand, on a daily basis, what a hollow thing life is.  if you are not initiated into the struggle to recreate yourself daily, even moment by moment, not in an idealistic, existential sort of way, but in a desperate sense, to meet basic responsibilities, particularly for the sake of those around you, whom you purport to love with all of your heart...  well, you probably just think what i write about is just pathetic horse shit.  it's reminiscent of discussions surrounding people who are depressed...  when you're in it, it is hard to even explain what a terrible chore it is to even do the simplest things; the way your perspective on life is colored some awful shade that you can't shake; to others around you, out walking on the surface of the so-called real world, you probably look mad, or at the least, pathetic...

i invent things to do.   i guess that's one of my attempts at a feeling of normalcy.  but i move slow.  it is sometimes like i have a bowl of water on my head (cued tie in to kappa!), and i have to keep ripples from disturbing the surface of that water.  i move slow, and ease into tasks...  i hate decisions, especially in rapid succession, i like just following my momentum, and perhaps breaking down obstacles...  things that are clear, the path of least resistance, all of that stuff.  just "being myself" is a myth, or a lie, or something i'm just not sure of, just not sure how to be...  the absolute buddhist perspective would just bracket this self-doubt and say that that is my realized expression of myself.  but, relatively speaking, i'm a bucket of bolts without nuts, rattling loosely, barely held together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp1ZGW9MdbI

it is midnight.

i am an awful father.  my daughter, on her first trip alone (with aunt and uncle) to las vegas, was hysterical off the plane, crying how much she missed us.  i at first tried to be consoling, but as that didn't work (and as she kept saying she couldn't hear me), i started to scold her.  now, i realize what a bad idea it was.  my wife has already talked to her, and given her a more reasoned, compassionate response.  but i am left wondering and worrying.  and thinking: what's wrong with me!?

what if it is the last time i talk to her?

***

frankly, there is something very wrong with me.

i woke up, and my first thought (or one of the first) was that of quantum leap, and how great it would be to be the guy from quantum leap, always redeeming lives... but then, what a sucky thing it was to have a memory, and to always know that your storyline, where you SHOULD be, is where you aren't...  i suppose that is the tension inherent in the story.  you cannot, for the life of you, get rid of that nagging doubt that you aren't doing what you are supposed to.

i then had the thought of a man trapped by a sinister creator.  like, he is in a dark room, and he is missing one of his organs- or better yet, a key piece of his brain, the piece that allows him to be fully thinking or fully human...  he walks and talks like a real person, but when he digs himself out, and tries to operate normally, there is a defect in him that is only apparent to others, but not to himself.  maybe he farts frequently but silently, so that others get paralyzed by his noxious odor, but he himself cannot detect it...  maybe he has some sort of tic, or his eyes do a strange dance without his knowing...  anyway, he is basically the punchline of some cosmic joke.

because that is what i often feel like.  the butt of a joke.

and the very thing that makes the joke perfect is someone who is so earnest, and so well-intentioned, being the punchline.  what better sap?  after all, someone who would wail would just be pathetic; someone who would rail against circumstances would just deliver more punitive measures...  but this guy?  he just pretends nothing is wrong, and tries to go about his business!

... i often feel like this.  i mean, they tell you to pray to god, etc. etc. etc., and in my moments of solitude, i ask him questions, i tell him concerns... i even tell him all the good and wonderful things, what i am grateful for, etc. but it never erases this nagging feeling that keeps me up at night, that there is something fundamentally wrong.  it is a worry.  a doubt...  something that is detectable by all but the person involved.  some brutally funny cosmic joke.

***

i hate judgment, although i probably commit it unawares.  i want to be the one who is patient, who cares... but the world seems to have put me in roles where i cannot necessarily be that...

***

well, to all those i offend, i apologize.  i am working on it.  and i am working on my daily quantum leap, to try to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to do to emerge from this daily trap feeling an inch closer to the feeling of smug self-satisfaction that i believe is my god-given right, the feeling that allows me to sleep through the night, the sleep of the just... instead of always waking up at this time with wasted, vaporous dreams that recycle the endless, purposeless machinations of a mind that is broken?  where are the dreams of possibilities?  of vistas?
***
to my daughter, until i speak to you again, i am so sorry.  i was trying to be expedient, and to help those watching you, by pacifying you in the means that i thought would work.  but i miss you, terribly if i must admit it...  i love you, and i hope you are alright, and happy.  that is what i would wish.  always.  what i would wish for all people, in my world, if it weren't for me getting in the way...

today, in the late afternoon/evening, i had a massive headache as i was sitting in the yard, weeding.  i eventually had to take some ibuprofen and lie in the tub, trying to follow the threads of pain and make everything go vague.  there were waves of nausea (as there always is, particularly after i take any medication for the headache), and bouts of hypersalivation, but fortunately, the medication stayed down.  i went to the couch in the "artroom," and just lay there, waiting for the pain to "go vague."  i didn't eat dinner, and didn't move from the couch until now.

i suppose i eventually slid into a dream, though i can't remember the origin of it.  i was a high school teacher.  i had, it seemed, a lot of assistance.  there was an elderly, wise man who seemed to be my educational assistant, or second in command, it seems.  there was also nana, or irene, my mother-in-law, who stopped by.  the kids themselves seemed pretty compliant, but with kids, particularly that age, it can be a touch-and-go sort of thing.  in fact, sometimes students represent a sort of shifting, mercurial mirror, detecting any insecurity in you and reflecting it back at you...  in any case, i wanted to get across some idea about force and democracy (or something?).  i was using an image about the spanish civil way (which was TOTALLY fabricated; i know absolutely nothing about it!).  in this image, i spoke about some sort of 3-petaled flower, reminiscent of an- get this, iris, or what i conceive of an iris, with purple "petals" ringing a yellow heart.  i have always thought of an iris as a particularly ferocious looking flower, with the petals resembling a tripartite fang arrangement.  in any case, i told the kids that, during the spanish civil war, there was a choice given to the general populace, and the way that they made that choice was buy cooking the petals of this flower in oil, as in tempura, and picking a petal and eating it, designating their vote (kind of reminiscent of the "she loves me, she loves me not" ritual).  ultimately, this process yielded no clarity to the situation, and a war broke out, one which killed not only several people, but ultimately, the whole spirit of a nation...

prior to a recess session, the class was broken inexplicably into 3 groups.  i lectured one (with the whole spanish civil war nonsense), while the other two were meeting in school committees or something.  they were being particularly loud (and one group was being pretty obnoxious), so i had to take recess away from one of them...  during recess, i had the opportunity to speak to one group of bright young kids.  they seemed genuinely interested in me as their teacher (again, the feeling of the fleeting, mercurial interest of kids), and asked me questions about where i was from, etc.  one boy seemed so self-assured and confident, talking about how he had come from africa by way of ...  and in my head, i had an image of st. augustine or something...

***

lately, i have been feeling - i don't know.  i never write, because i have nothing to say.  my day drags between doing little patch-up jobs, and falling into the swamp that is minecraft.  i ostensibly say i am researching using minecraft for my students, but it is a compulsion to order an environment that drags me in.  it is the same as with every video game that i have ever been addicted to; it is all, for me, about imposing my will upon an easier environment.  a more compliant environment...

i notice that i am addicted to the beginning of things.  it is because we all meet the other with innocence at that point: the beginning of stories, the beginning of classrooms at the start of the year, the beginnings of games.  you have a sort of simplicity about you, your past, the ugliness of it, has neither caught up with you nor with the other.  everything is relatively clean.  i suppose that that is why i keep starting things up again and again.  i love, i need, that cleanliness...

but life is complex.  life is dirty.  eventually, everything catches up with you.  i know this for a fact.  it is for this reason that i am skeptical, or perhaps, there is in me an insufferable skeptic.  i look upon all beginnings, within me and without me, with an acid eye.  i am suspicious of the narratives of others, of their motives, etc.  i cannot take people or myself at face value.  as a result, very little begins- we are in a stalemate, a spanish civil war...  and sacrificing a flower, while a pretty method, will hardly yield any victory for one side or the other- and in the end, force, and a grievous sacrifice, must be made.

i want the force of some feeling to compel me to write, but all i have are pretty irises to fill my head with nonsense.  there is no feeling within me, or rather, no feeling that is not tied up within some brutal stalemate.  for example, there is a lot i could write about members of my family.  a lot that is caustic, about hypocrisy, etc.  that is, perhaps, what is most interesting about me.  but i can't.  i have to protect the "good name" of certain people.  so instead, i tend to fabricate other narratives, about people or places that never existed, and try to find the words, try to invent something of interest.  something of interest.

on radiolab, one saturday, it was implied that our idea of the soul or of the self is entirely narratival, and that who we are, or rather, who we think we are, is entirely a process of fabrication, of lying, in order to conceive of an idea of who we are that we can present to the world and to ourselves.   i have always felt this as an implicit truth, even if i never voiced it directly... that the most confident people in the world are the biggest liars...  and it is not a unique insight.  i recall kierkegaard speaking of the hero and the one who loves and writes about the hero; two very different lives and loves.  there is, in the hero, a certain blindness (we could say, a lack of awareness about the fabricated nature of the narrative s/he generates), a certain faith.  and there is in the recounter of the hero, a distinct lack of this blindness; rather, a hungry eye that seeks to account for everything, but cannot account for that very lack, the blindness, the lie, that can by its very nature not be understood, but only experienced.

life as experience.  existentialism.

***

stalemates.  acidic skepticism.  the compulsion of routine.  all these are signs of a dead or dying heart.  an old man am i.  my ties to the world are compulsions, not genuine love.  i think there is a love within me that could be construed as genuine, but it rarely expresses itself as such.  i am only lucky that, like my dream class, those around me ARE loving.  but they rarely-

-there's the rub.  i say the class is mercurial, but a mirror; yet it is only in the negative sense, i.e. as in the loss of control in its awful brooding potentiality.  but it is never a mirror when there are forces of love, of attention, of insight.  i can never believe that positive things stick to me...  maybe partially because of the buddhistic notion that dissolves all good things (i.e., that all good things must die, that change is an immutable law of the world)...  that all good things, by their very nature, are fleeting and must die.  is it that all good things implicitly carry the lie of permanence?

***

i pray to god for a wellspring in my soul.  for a blindness.  if not, i will turn into an old and dusty sage before i can say-

on radiolab today (a show which i have come to despise, due to a past terrible interview with a hmong survivor), the theme was how the soul or self was nothing more than a story told by the brain to allow it to believe in itself as some unchanging entity.  it mentioned, among other things, that what makes human beings unique was the ability to manipulate adjectivals, to mix or match them, as it were, in order to create new and unrealistic combinations and their related mental images...  the implication being that, beyond this sort of "magic show", there really is nothing there.

***

i have distinct fears, most often in my dreams...  the fear of losing control.  not of losing control, as in the control of one self over another, wilder self...  but the fear of actually losing the self.  of being possessed by another, or of forgetting oneself.  the feeling of waking to progressively reduced levels of consciousness, and finding more and more of oneself being taken away.  the feeling of charly in the novel by that name, of falling into a room of darkness, the "return trip" of the platonic voyage out of the cave.  it is the fear of fading into a dream.  it is the fear of allowing all responsibilities to slide.  for, if the self is a narratival entity, then what makes a story real/believable are the consequences and responsibilities of the characters.  if they do not have responsibilities, and if there are no consequences for the characters when they fail at their responsibilities, then -

they might as well not exist.

***

in one dream, i felt as though each choice i made were countermanded by another, a male, a controlling element.  i felt my will, my very desperation, being sucked away by this other.  as i woke from the dream, i wondered at the recent incidents of the women, abducted from their lives to become slaves and worse for a monster.  at the terrible feeling of becoming something so very reduced.  of becoming nothing other than the extension of someone else's will.  and i vowed, as in the famous zen saying, that if i saw the buddha on the road, then i would kill him.

i remember how, periodically, my grandmother would take me to see some monk lady in nuuanu to have her "remove" spirits from me, lost spirits who would cling to me, and attempt to influence my life. as if i needed that narratival excuse for my apathy, my lack of conviction of things...  the "parasite excuse" is so convenient, after all...

***

to wake, and to feel that all that one has struggled with has not addressed the relevant issue.  the true issue.  and that one has basically been wasting one's time.

that is the feeling that i seek to erase.

funeral dream

i had a dream in which i ended up at a dojo that trained in mixed martial arts or something.  there was a monk in charge of the dojo, and his name was Tenzin something.  he was an assistant to the dalai lama, and, in fact, the dalai lama was supposed to live in some of the adjoining rooms.  i was a novice at the dojo, just trying things out for the first time.  for some reason, although everyone else was wearing full sparring gear, i was in robes, and i had to clip (paperclip) the bottom of my robes so that they wouldn't trip me or impair me as i was doing some of the basic techniques.  in any case, the tenzin came up to me at one point (perhaps it was when i was clipping the robes) and asked if i had practiced on both sides equally.  it was a minor interaction, but in that moment, i could feel the tremendous kindness and wisdom of the tenzin.  i remember considering how my "practice" (i.e. spirituality) was going at that point...  not good.  i thought about my writing, and how it was similarly unbalanced...  i made a simple vow to continue.  there was some idea i had about how part of practice was just sort of unloading the self-generated rhetoric of the ego, and it was necessary to break through this in order to come to the truth.  in fact, i had made some sort of similar insight earlier today when i was talking to my wife about the stages of development in writing...

children started to flock into the dojo, and i realized that the dojo space doubled as some sort of afterschool program for children...

***

i believe before that sequence, i was eating a dinner/lunch with my teacher, dr. quach, who was visiting from the mainland, and who had hired what looks like a hangar base to hold this special dinner...

***

it must have been around 1:15 am.  i was sleeping beside my wife.  suddenly, i heard her scream.  it wasn't at all a movie type scream.  it actually sounded quite operatic, as though "the fat lady" (no implications intended at all!  really.) were trying to hold a note at the end of the opera.  and it sounded as though while she held that note, she were falling from some high, far-off place.  her voice started off soft and distant, and rapidly increased in volume, cutting off at the loudest, most fear-ridden point, and ending with an impact that brought the both of us to a disturbed wakefulness.

i held my wife as she whimpered, cried.  "what happened," i murmured...

***

in the silence that ensued, i had my own dark thoughts.  my own selfish thoughts.  something about how people talk about understanding, but when it really comes right down to it, understanding is usually the last thing that people practice when they encounter others.  people run on their own intuitions, which may or may not be correct, but which inevitably-

i like to think that understanding sometimes is a leap of faith.  it is a belief that somewhere deep inside, someone is there, and that someone is a good person, worthy of respect.  there is a whole lot in the way of that, unfortunately.  a whole lot...

in my musings, i thought of one gregarious and sociable person.  in an imaginary conversation, in which she actually would deign to speak to me, she said, in the most honest way, "you know, i meet with so many people in my line of work.  and it's only when i interact with you, that, well, something is wrong."

and of course, there are the rumblings within me, the objections...  they rise briefly, but like an ingrown hair, their direction inevitably turns back in upon their source, digging into me...  "you're right, of course," finally, a defeated confession comes out.  and once again, i walk away, consigned into the darkness...

***

what i fear most is the Sleep.  it is the Sleep which takes my words, the promises of love and everything good i hope to be, or ever was, and it smothers all of these things with its dead, lidded eyes.  it drags its heavy, clinging fingers over me, and turns me into it, so that all of these good intentions are defeated, not in the waking light of day, not in the battlefield of the present, but always before.  and the eyes of the world, the eyes of the ancestors, the eyes of god, they all only see what is revealed.  they cannot see the demon of Sleep dragging me under...

i have been sleeping a lot lately.  not sure why.  i don't feel particularly depressed, or rather, i am not conscious of feeling particularly sad or down.  but physically, i just feel a sort of exhaustion that simply doesn't go away.  after i come home from work, i sort of drift in and out of consciousness for the first few hours until dinner, and not long after that meal, i commit myself to oblivion...  no dreams in particular rise with me, but an occasional restlessness pursues me into waking... though not with the urgency to combat the lethargy, which inevitably pulls me back again...

i've tried to spin it into a positive.  something about listening to the 10 ton bear inside of me.  i do think that i have something like a 10 ton bear within me.  it's big and heavy.  not particularly mean.  but given its size, and strength, well, when it really wants something, it gets what it wants.  most of the time, i live my life in a kind of fiction of groundless ambition, trying to do the impossible.  the bear reminds me, on occasion, that it needs respect too, and fuck the stupid dreams and projects...  there's something liberating, ironically, about having that bear sit on my chest, and force me to hibernate with it...  something akin to discovering, and being one with, the lapping of the sea.

well, speak of the devil.  the bear, the ocean, the drowning sleep, she calls.  good night losers.

hi everyone.

i've been trying to live my life with more integrity...  doing stuff that i'm supposed to.  doing things that are in alignment with what i feel are important things...  reading, writing.  stuff like that.

i've been trying to think about what makes a good story.  what is interesting in a story that interests me? i dabbled into "the girl with the dragon tattoo" today, and i also watched the pilot episode of "breaking bad."  both have elements that i consider essential to a good story.  for instance, one thing i actually enjoy reading are the habits of mind of individuals, their modus operandi, particularly when we get to see them "at work" on a project.  at least, that's what i think i enjoyed when reading "the girl with the dragon tattoo."  i suppose what i enjoyed were the description of blomkvist's (one of the main characters in "the girl with the dragon tattoo") settling in on the island, and how he eased into his task of solving the mystery.  it represents, to me, the same task of a writer: an immersion in a story, and the sifting through of material to find some kernel of truth which can then serve as a seed crystal for the creation of something- interesting...

with regards to "breaking bad," i suppose a big draw is the depiction of compelling characters with clear, simple motivations.  even motivations that take on unexpected directions...

***

i also watched the latest miyazaki film, "from on poppy hill," or something to that effect.  the animation was not as smooth or as convincing as some of the other high production features from studio ghibli, and quite frankly, i think the intended audience was japanese nationals, because it tended to have a sort of preachy nationalistic theme to it (the preservation of a latin quarter building represented a return to the old [i.e. traditional] japanese culture), but all in all, it was a good film.  love, in the face of a mix up of genealogy...

***

well, that's it for now.

periodically, i need a new beginning.  so that's what this is- with the understanding that there's no such thing as a new beginning, and that the creditors will still be able to find your new address- eventually.

i am trying to stay on top of things in my life (as i have always been).  i'm resolving to read more, write more, draw more, master taijiquan, master teaching, master parenting, etc. etc. etc. (as i have always been).  so one might ask, what else is new?

... to which i have no response.

***

i think i have a pretty peaceful energy about me.  most of the time.  i appreciate that, when observers come to my room, they often comment on how peaceful it is.  or that one of the former skills trainers that used to work in my room periodically returns with her new student in order to have him use the clavinova.  and how she mentions that my voice is kind, and that the new student likes it (whether he actually does or not is subject to speculation).

there are things about oneself that require confirmation at times.  even if (or perhaps especially if) they aren't necessarily true.

within myself, i find that there is near constant turmoil.  as i get older, it is primarily a battle between my own inherent inertia, and a restless ambition.  and in the midst of the conflict is a kind of indecisive dissolution, pandered away by "easy projects" like playing diablo 3 or losing braincells on facebook.

i'm only getting older, i'm forgetting who i am day by day...

i at present don't feel or don't care so much about all the hatred around me.  i have my projects and dreams, and, when i'm able to pursue them truly, they are my armor and my shield.

***

well, hate to overstay my welcome.  i'll try to write regularly.  take care.

once again, i woke up at about 2 am. i walked into my children's rooms, hugged each as they were sleeping, and whispered a message into their dreams, something about how much i loved them. i did the same for my wife, although i think she was a bit more conscious when i spoke to her...

this morning, i went to the dentist's office in ala moana. she was a former student of mine in acupuncture. during a cleaning, she asked me about why i went into sped, and how i felt now that i have not been treating people as actively as before. i told her about how i would like to continue treating people, but now that i have a job as a sped teacher, it tends to be hard. each thing, each activity, tends to deconstruct into a thousand other things, such that i tend to get overwhelmed. this was what happened with this whole teaching thing. don't get me wrong. i love teaching, and consider myself a passionate teacher, always trying to improve, so that my students can improve. but there are a lot of things involved in teaching that aren't so easy or fun (as there are in all jobs), and that cannot be neatly bundled up in an 8 or 10 hour work day. that, combined with parenting, which is similarly amorphous and difficult to handle, leads to, well, a loss of something...

in any case, because i am awake at, now, 3 am, i was thinking about what is wrong with me. i do think that i am depressed, and perhaps have been for some time now. but in the background, a part of my mind is always searching for an answer. here are some fragments:

- wife and i saw "the incredible burt wonderstone", which was a movie that left a decidedly bad taste in my spirit... as one reviewer aptly put it, "now you see it, now you wish you hadn't." BUT, one character, an old man in a retirement home, the once beloved magician named halloway, did interest me. it was he who pointed out to the main character, burt wonderstone, that he had lost his love of magic, that he had turned what he loved into the rote and routine. magic was that moment when you saw the wonder in the eyes of a child, and for that moment, anything was possible... i thought about what that moment was for me, in what i do. as an acupuncturist, it was when i could see hope in a patient's eyes, and when there was relief from pain or suffering... as a teacher, it is when i see a child feel inspired and confident in discovering his/her own capabilities. in everything, it is finding purpose in the love i feel for others, a love funneled or focused through a skill set/occupation.

- tonight, we let the kids watch toonami on cartoon network. willow was raptly paying attention to naruto. in the episode, haku, a younger ninja who was in the employ of zabuza, a ruthless killer, told his story to naruto. i honestly never really paid attention to that arc of the storyline, for some reason, so i was half-listening as i passed the room. haku lost both of his parents, and it had something to do with his bloodline limit, a special sort of power that cannot be acquired, as it is "genetic." in any case, haku said that what was the worst thing about his life after that was not that he had lost his parents; it was that he had lost his purpose. he sat bereft of purpose until zabuza, who could perceive the child's hidden power, "rescued" him and gave him a cause to live for... i thought of myself, who oftentimes felt a similar loss of purpose...

- i heard an interview with phillip roth, author of portnoy's complaint and other novels that i have never read. anyway, it was his birthday, and he was talking about how he had officially retired from writing, and what a relief it was, as he could just experience life, and not always think about how he was going to use his experiences to fashion a good story... the interview struck me with the sense of writing as a vocation, not as some frivolous activity.

ANYWAY, i really am thinking about purpose at this moment. i need to return to it, in order to survive.

i wake up early every morning, about 2-4 am, with this feeling of anxiety. i have probably been doing this every day for years now. it makes me feel- ugly. disposessed. as though there is no continuity of hope in my life. it is as though i had been working so hard on something the previous day, and then someone came in while i was sleeping, and destroyed it, and all memory and motivation about it as well. and the feeling- that i have been, that i am, just wasting time.

i have been longing for a dream that would be happy, and just connect me from one day to the next, so that i can believe in something that i do longer than a single day. so that i can, by extension, believe in myself. i oscillate between despair and hope, when i hope there is a haunting sense that i'm being duped, when i despair, there is a haunting sense that i've given up too soon. it is square one.

have you ever felt this way, trapped, as you watch the lives of others who pass you by? and then, to feel this bitterness. and then, to regret feeling the bitterness. and to go on and on this way. others seem to look at you and say, "it's so easy." and, like a parent of some autistic child, you look at the others and repeat, "yes, it's so easy," and you look at your child, and start to shout, "it's so easy, do it," but nothing happens. people laughing. god laughing. it's so easy. bitterness. no-bitterness. repeat. repeat. repeat.

hope. despair. hope. despair. give up. don't give up...

perhaps the only reason i don't give up is that time keeps passing, and i can't. not with my kids, not with my wife. i can't.

i have been reading joseph conrad. i read a long introduction about him and his work, and i came to the conclusion that he was just like me (or i was just like him)... in the sense that he saw the irredeemable and fundamentally chaotic nature of the human soul (and, by extension, the universe, via the second law of thermodynamics), a vision which seriously called into question any and every endeavor towards truth, beauty, morality, etc., and especially those efforts which we deem either salvific or civilizing... and yet, he also believed strongly in a fundamental duty to maintain our human obligations towards each other.

along this vein, amongst the radio shows i have listened to over the past couple of days was one which i heard, an interview of an author/mother about her recent inaugural work about her experiences as the single parent of a child with tay-sachs disease, a rapidly degenerative, and inevitably fatal congenital disorder which afflicts children primarily of a specific jewish subset. i heard about how she turned to the writings of simone weil and zen buddhism and psychoanalysis in order to deal with the catastrophic feelings associated with this experience. but i also learned of her path to liberation of sorts, which involved a minute, day-to-day, moment-by-moment connection to the experiences of her son, comforting him, loving him, learning of the miracle of him. she realized, upon his death, there was no moment of transcendence, no comforting belief that her son had "gone to a better place", along with all the other tay-sachs children perhaps. he was gone, and there was no one and nothing that could console her of her tragic loss. but in the time that he was in this world, he was loved.

i was moved by this interview, as i felt resonance with conrad, because both articulate an understanding of the world that is fundamentally, and of necessity, anti-totalizing, anti-salvific; but far from being the font of some anarchic, do-as-you-please mentality, it calls us to the simple tasks of human love and obligations to each other. i emphasize simple, because we do not do these things for any higher cause, or for any effort to realize some higher purpose... we do these things simply because they are the natural and necessary and obvious and good things to do. compassion, simply because we know suffering when we see it, and we wish the best for those in need, as we feel it... not the concept of compassion, but its direct expression.

***

i have lamented in recent postings (felt sorry for myself) due to several observations of life. i basically had not "gotten my way," and at the same time, i had seen and am seeing those who either have no true moral fiber in them, or, worse, those who THINK they are in the right, the blessed civilizing force of the congo (ala "heart of darkness"), living their blessed lives, as they spit upon others, as they celebrate their apparent pinnacle of success, at their divine right to it in the horizonless future... and i had lamented at this, at me, and those like me, who feel like nothing, who feel as though they had nothing to show for themselves, and for their suffering, nothing that computed in their calculations of success... whose lives, AT BEST, those blessed others would look at, and "console" by saying, "if i were you, i'd probably die."

no.

i think that my life is NOT going anywhere specific. it often feels like the piscean symbol, two fishes spinning in a spiral fast, seeking an opposite, and an end to things, but only perpetrating the conservative force of the universe in the process... no progress. but that does not mean that i am something to be looked down upon. i often think that i care for the world, but not in a way that is "better" than in any way. but it is an honest caring. it is a caring that i feel, when i feel anything, and it is truer than any truism that those blessed others lash out against the world. i don't do what i do for anyone or anything else, for any other purpose. and in this sense, i like to think, i am more "civilized" than the highest of their high-brow supercilious (super silly ass) gazes...

me, and those countless others like me.

i guess i really don't care about most things in this world in their particularity, and so, those things don't care very much about me. they don't speak to me, when i try to summon them and remember details about them. they are barely distinguishable from the sea of everything else, and are always slipping away into anonymity and oblivion. that's why i can't tell a story. i can barely remember anything. i can barely feel anything. and because there is no independent existence, my failure to remember details about the world results in a failure to reconstruct my own identity.

i live in a shadow of dishonor. that's what i call it. it is a place where despised things curl up and mutate, but never die. it is a place of the hated, disgusting things, the things people turn away from reflexively. today, i reflected on why i live here. it is because i have always felt unworthy/worthless in the eyes of the world. ironically, when you carry that feeling within you, you not only ARE that to everyone else, but you are that because you spread that feeling of unworthiness/worthlessness to everyone else. i realize that i do that to people, because, in considering myself beneath contempt, i simultaneously (though unintentionally) make others feel beneath contempt. perhaps they are looking for me to redeem them somehow, to care about them; but because i feel that i am the hated one, and do not look up at them, they feel despised/hated/whatever.

the funny thing is, i find that i really DO NOT care about most people, nor about much of the world. i don't find much of interest in them, and usually when i DO find something interesting, it is so far removed from myself that it might as well exist in another universe or something. there is no communicating between the worthlessness that i am, and anything of real worth in this universe.

i have found a lot of ugliness in the world. i have felt a lot of resentment towards people, and towards "god." and yet, most of that ugliness is a result of me, and my inherent worthlessness, which i cannot blame upon anyone else, and yet, which i cannot seem to change of my own volition. there is goodness in this world, rare though it may be, but it exists in another dimension from me.

in buddhism, in the heart sutra, it is said, "there is no suffering, and there is no escape from suffering." i look at the latter part of that statement, and find, if not hope, then a grim reminder of my path. i hate myself, and i hate my perspective of the world, and i suppose i must say that i hate my world. but i can't escape from who i am. i can't change. i'm sad at that, that i must always be despised by the world, no matter how much i try to be a good person... but no matter what i do, it will never change, the fact of me being in the shadow of dishonor will never change. god and the ancestors and everyone in the world will always consider me a piece of shit, and spit upon my prayers... but that is my lot.

when it was my birthday, i wished my family would come together. since then, my brother has drifted off, his hatred of the family rekindled and renewed. it seems he only tried to reunite (or pretended to) in order to insure that his voice in my parents' will would remain (because i'm sure that's what his wife really wants- the inheritance). as far as my sister, for a time, there was hope that she would be released into supervised custody under my parents; but since then, her sentence seems to have become a minimum of 2-3 years in jail. maybe she won't last that long there. i don't know. and, following my realization of myself, maybe i truly don't care.

my view of the world is fading. i can't hold onto anything. i care about things in simple ways, in ways which appear to me, but the majority of the world, and perhaps vision/truth is a democracy, thinks i am nothing. i bear that burden for the moment, but it etches away at me daily, every moment. in another world, the real people live, and they understand truth, and they build monuments out of their lives to it. i am still always at square one, and always will be here. forget about me please. i have already forgotten about you.

today is sunday, march 10th.

on friday afternoon, there was a brush fire in the gully behind our house. i think i was the first to spot it. i was on the upstairs computer, and i happened to hear a bit of crackling coming from the gully. when i looked that way, i noticed a plume of white smoke coming up, and as i went to the window, i could swear that i heard a bunch of kids running. i called the fire department, and then i went to my backyard to watch the spectacle. the fire was actually quite fast, and in 5-10 minutes, i could see the flames start to lick up the sides of the gully, not far beyond the wall of california grass that lined the rim of the gully. a tree near the edge of the gully ignited. soon, my neighbors and i were spraying the grass with our water hoses, in preparation for the fire's arrival. just about then, the fire department arrived, and drove directly into the canal, and put out the fire from there...

yesterday, there was the whole eat-the-street thing on the street above ours. i was actually looking forward to having a relaxing day at home, and heading up to the event for lunch and for dinner. but it turns out that we were invited to a friend's son's birthday party, and i volunteered myself to help out with games. so for the majority of the morning, i was trying to plan out some last-minute games for the 5-year-olds who would be at the party. most of the games i put together, it turns out, weren't used; the kids were disinterested, and the parents weren't willing to corral the kids (they were just kind of sitting around and eating and talking), so only a few kids did what i had planned anyway. i stayed at the party for pretty much the whole duration, from set up to clean up. not the most relaxing way to spend my day off, but it was for a good friend.

which brings us to today, a rainy sunday. i've got nothing much to report beyond that. sorry.

today was my birthday. i wanted to go hiking this morning, but the weather kind of sucked (or looked like it was going to), and my daughter complained about not wanting to go (to the point of almost crying, even), and so, i got irritated and said that i was going to go off on my own. while driving off, i kind of thought how immature i was being, and by the time i was on the freeway, decided that i would go to mililani mortuary instead, and visit my grandparents. so, i wound up sitting on the grass in front of my grandparents' grave, kind of talking. i had no flowers. i wonder if it's awkward to go to a grave without flowers. i think flowers are your microphone to the spirits. they must have been like, "you never call, and you never bring us FLOWERS!" oh well.

i spoke about the family situations. about how i thought i was trying my best. stuff like that. and then, some lady was parking her car almost exactly where i was (like, she almost drove onto the grass), so i, kind of embarrassed, picked my glasses off the grass, got up creakily, and walked back to the car.

on the way back, i passed some guy whose car had broken down on the side of the road. now, the road to mililani mortuary passes through an offshoot of kipapa gulch (if it isn't a part of kipapa gulch itself), and it's not a good place to have your car break down. he needed a jump. and i thought, why would anyone run out of power (meaning, they had parked) here, of all places? i offered to jump his car, even though he kind of looked like a tweaker (his eyes and face were kind of red, and he looked irritable). but the jumper cables weren't in my trunk. i suppose i had put them in the other car, the car driven by my wife. so i had to apologize, made some vague promise to get the cables and come back (which i fully intended to do), and drove off. when i got home, my wife was gone, so i couldn't help that guy...

i came home, and started working in the yard, finishing off the weeding of my lawn...

***

in the afternoon, i had to pick up my mom and my nephew from behind mililani shopping center. my mom was fuming. apparently, my mom and dad had gotten into an argument after my nephew's soccer game; my dad had told my mom to get out of the car, and my mom had obliged him. my nephew got out to accompany her...

so i picked them up and drove them home. i listened to the situation, said nothing committal, and dropped them off. my mom was steaming, saying she wasn't going to stay at home, that she would go to a hotel... oh great. we were supposed to have a dinner for my b-day, and my estranged brother's family was supposed to come... and it looked like my own parents couldn't get along?

the argument had been about my nephew's soccer. his team has been having a miserable season. i think he's an okay player himself, but there is no teamwork in his team. the players are all disconnected, kicking the ball in the general direction of their goal individually, but no one follows through, the passes don't "arrive." so anyway, i guess my mom was yelling a bit too much at the game (she has that habit), and my dad kind of got annoyed. after all, it's not as though my nephew can save the team on his own... so.

my mom eventually called and said the dinner was still on. but my brother was coming late, and leaving early, which meant he was going to be visiting with us for 30 minutes at best. he said that he had a prior engagement, unspecified- but for the rest of us, it was clear that he didn't want to be with us at all...

my b-day dinner was tense. on the one hand, my parents didn't want to sit together. on the other, when my brother finally did arrive, he was clearly tense. he sat between my parents. his wife sat with her daughter on the childrens' table. she didn't even come over to say hi to my parents or to me. when i tried to break the ice a little by mentioning the basketball team that he was coaching, he said nothing. when my parents tried to ask about little things, he said nothing... it was clear that he had come with a lot on his mind...

of course, i was to blame. i had written a TERRIBLE letter to him. i had intended to hurt him, as he had hurt the family. i knew it would make him so upset that he would "follow through" on the path that he and his family had been traversing for a while, that is, to leave the family completely. after a few days of very bitter messages back and forth, he called late one night. my brother and i had a conversation that night, which i felt was heartfelt and sincere, a conversation in which a lot was explained, and in which both he and i (but mainly he) apologized, and called for reconciliation. there had been some small hope by the end of that conversation...

so that brought us to tonight, to this crappy dinner in which my brother's family made a brief, tense appearance, and vanished to whatever prior commitment had been so very important that it trumped spending time with a family that he had cast off from him for at least half a year, and potentially forever. some "reunion."

***

my wife had to leave for work, which left all the kids, and my parents. i suppose it was kind of a sign when the lighter that the restaurant provided to light the two candles on my cake didn't work. that was sort of how the day had gone...

anyways, after the brief and embarrassing happy b-day song, i had a little talk with my parents. i tried to calm them down, get them to at least be on speaking terms with each other. i said something about how they both were different, and that they both depended on each other for their complimentary natures, and that part of getting along was accepting those differences, and not expecting or demanding each other to be anything other than who they were. i think it helped. they were at least smiling...

***

i cannot put anything back together. i try to hold things in proximity, with duct tape, but it is in the nature of things to fall apart and away. i hardly know what my own path is any more. i hardly care.

i've been thinking about my own oblivion with regards to my life. i can hardly remember people, details from my past, experiences i have had. and i think it's largely because a part of me doesn't really care about anything, about any part of life. and i think it's because i consider myself to be a nothing person to others, and that, whether i like it or not, that mirrors and morphs into thinking of others and the world as a nothing place.

in the present, there is always a concern to keep one preoccupied, there is always something to love and to hate. but beyond the burning moment, there is nothing else, there is no past and no future, no memory and no past. there is no continuity, nothing lasts, it is always just a momentary drama, to be replaced by another momentary drama. i hold to love, i repeat it like a mantra, even as it slips away over and over. perhaps that is life, that is all life is, is this imperfect and incomplete attempt to pretend something better. an illusion of hope.

oh well. ultimately, i am so grateful for my family, broken as it may seem. i love my wife, my kids; my parents, for holding together, and for taking the time to try to have this dinner for me; for my nieces and nephews; for my brother's family; for my sister... i love them all, and have no choice but to love them, no matter what happens. thank you for my family... and thank you for this life, even if i can't help but not care for it at times.

i had a dream... about a buddhist temple... or perhaps it was a school of martial arts... in any case, there was some kind of meeting after practice/service, and although i did not realize it during the practice/service, there was some dissension in the ranks, some kind of fundamental complaint/issue/grievance requiring attention...

oh yes, and immediately before that, there was an issue at my school regarding a student who had done something, similarly requiring immediate attention. and for some reason, i was with said (?) student in the office, and we were looking through files or something, and the student kept picking out words to describe the situation from some box of index cards... and later, i was talking to someone, perhaps my wife, about it; talking quite loudly, in fact, about how that student, despite what he had done, and despite his low aptitude for most things, had demonstrated emotional sensitivity, i.e. how he could sense a situation, sense something in the air, which might indicate that "trouble" had or was occurring, for example, an argument, and adjust his own behavior accordingly. and i said, again, quite loudly, how that was so invaluable, it was a skill that could almost guarantee survival. while my wife (?) looked on dubiously, i had a thought that i should not be talking so loudly about a student, i.e student confidentiality issues, but then i had a second thought that i was saying positive things about this student, and i hadn't mentioned him by name...

i recall bringing out a project of mine, one in which i had actually made a collage of sorts out of actual (real) food, and it was in book form. i recall reading the book to my wife (or whoever was with me), noting that the pepperoni on the pizza was kinda coming off the paper. the last two pages seemed different, and referred to this situation, or whatever, that i mentioned above.

...

anyway, back to what i mentioned originally, about this temple/school or martial arts. after the practice/service, students met informally (or so it seemed; i noticed similar groups of about five apiece congregating outside of the practice/service hall), and talked about their feelings. as in real life, i had been totally oblivious of any of the goings-on, so i had nothing to contribute. i noticed that one of the girls, this one latina girl with really long black hair, was still in the practice/service room talking with someone, so i surmised that whatever had happened was between her and the person-in-charge...

at one point, i looked behind, into a hallway, and saw the head monk (?) storming down the hall with large footsteps, complaining to his "wife" that, after all he had done for some, it still upset him how they always departed and left him (he said "hanarete" which means to leave, fly away)...

***

i felt kind of "storm-rattled" after that dream. outside, the wind was picking up again. i was relieved to note that it was only (?) 1:00; i had a few hours of sleep/procrastination/whatever. i wrote down some of the concerns that have been distantly rattling within me, wrote this message, and... hopefully a few more hours of sleep, along with better, more salvific dreams...

trench warfare is a condition of stalemate. it is a condition of thorough investment ("dug in"), but with little, if any gain. attempts by one side or the other to circumvent this condition often result in horrible casualties on BOTH sides: for example, the usage of chlorine gas.

we think when nothing moves that it is in a zero state, and that the cause of that state is a lack of motive force, one way or the other. but in reality, oftentimes, an immobility is a result of a NET zero gain, a situation where a powerful force for movement is negated almost precisely by a powerful inertia. hence, trench warfare.

life in the trenches is a pitiable thing. what seems like "progress" is akin to an ant digging blindly in soft earth. what is a "promise" is a gain of an inch, taken from questionable, shifting landmarks. the best thing in trench warfare is a moment of uneasy ease, when things apparently (but always only apparently) are going one's way. a shift in the wind, or something equally mysterious, could bring disaster once again.

***

other battlefields hold dramatic, miraculous victories. perhaps with a larger scope and lens, we would see that, in the big picture, these victories, too, are only apparently movements in any given direction, and that "human progress" is hardly progress in the truest sense of the word. those imbued with "faith" and "hope" are simply myopic, though pretending to be the opposite...

... yes, i am being extremely cynical right now. i question everything, including my own existence, which is tied to my purpose for existence, which i still, after so many many years, cannot find. in this moment, i am remembering voices of people who have read my work, and asked me, in all honesty, why i wrote what i did. there was, in their eyes, no worth or redeeming quality in what i said. and i took their question seriously, and asked myself, why do i try to write? what is the "message" i was trying to invest in the work, and by extension, the reader?

i have no overarching vision of the world. my vision is limited to the perspective of worms, or that of men reduced to worms, digging in the earth and cowering from bullet paths. there is no bravery here. there is no change here. i wish there were otherwise. there are half-snatched tales we tell ourselves, just to remember we were something else, or perhaps more properly, just to pretend we were something else. something about open skies, about love, about standing on the ground. something about freedom.

on wednesday or thursday night of last week, my brother called. i had been dreading this call. you see, on sunday night/monday morning, i had let loose with a letter detailing all of the grievances i had against him. i won't go into it here, as some of you may have already read about some of them, and it's all water under the bridge in any case. there were repercussions to my letter, which occurred over the next couple of days... so, what i had been expecting with the phone call was an angry tirade which i would have to endure, and then hang up loudly... instead, my brother had called to apologize and call for renewed attempts to reunite the family- ALL of the family, including my estranged sister. it was quite honestly the best thing that could have happened... i am thankful that my brother chose this pathway.

***

the wind and rain are loud and hard tonight. it has been this way for the past couple of days. i have been very very sleepy this weekend, and this morning, i awoke to a dream of a seashore. large creatures, monstrous creatures, were washing up ashore, to taste the air, and then slithering back into the sea: a basking shark, a tubiferous colony of worms (not sure if tubiferous is a real word, but it was in my dream)... then, later, cracks appeared beneath the sand, and what at first looked like monstrous roots, but in reality were parts of some enormous sea creature, were peeking up from beneath the surface of the world... incidentally, we (my family?) were at first on the sixth floor in some seaside view hotel room, only the glass sliding doors of the room didn't open out onto a lanai or veranda, but opened out directly into a drop to the scene below... later, we (again, my family, with a couple of other snobby white diners) were eating breakfast at some seaside restaurant, with the ocean just below and beyond a rock wall railing. my son aiden fell back and over one of the railings, and entered the sea below with an audible and visible splash. i rolled my eyes and went down to the sandy seashore to save him...

***

it is now the next morning, the morning before work (school) starts again. i just had a dream about a new sci-fi idea (or perhaps an old one). because resources on the earth are scarce, when children want to go to parties, they plug in to some kind of collective dream, not unlike an mmorpg (sp?) like guild wars 2 or something. they are given some kind of nutritional supplement pill so that the "food" that they eat within this dream would be complimented by some actual nourishment. but in the dream, they could travel throughout this prefabricated environment, eat wonderful things, have exciting adventures... and it would be safe, because it would be a dream. but for some reason, there would be a danger if someone were to "pull the plug" while the dream were going on...

my dream skipped to another segment, one were we (my family, meaning me, my brother, and my mom?) were in some kind of culdesac. i wasn't even sure what we were doing there, or what we were waiting for. i was "just there." i recall looking around at all the fenced off yards. the scene was actually nice. from this vantage point, it was possible to look into the oblong and rectangular pools of the rec center (i recall thinking how nice they looked from this angle). and, there was some other house that had a cool pool that we were forbidden from entering, that we could just catch a glimpse of, but which was hidden from sight from this particular vantage point... anyway, my brother and mom were talking, and suddenly i realized what we were waiting for: my dad lived in one of the houses, and my mom had not received any word from him in over a day. i suddenly had a vision that he was in trouble. i thought about how clueless my mom was, and jumped the fence, ran to the house, and started peering in, calling out "dad!?" he answered (with his voice) eventually, and i saw him sitting at the dining room table. at first, i was relieved, but as i kept calling out, he refused to answer, and all i saw was his back, sitting at a lit table... and i guess i had a vision that we were in a dream, and someone was about to pull the plug.

***

yesterday, as we were eating lunch in the food court area of ala moana, i thought about the pathway of eyes. i thought about how my eyes drifted across the sea of people, and seemed to be drawn to certain individuals (of course, women). i saw one woman who resembled, in certain respects, my aunt in japan, only, she never visited hawaii (because of an aversion to planes; her husband died while piloting an experimental air force jet). i saw another woman in the table across from me, perhaps with her extended family (including her parents), sitting across from the husband of her sister. said husband was carrying and feeding a baby. anyway, i thought this woman had pale skin, and rather large breasts for a japanese woman. i wondered at what she felt like, on a trip to hawaii, husbandless, with the rest of her family, her parents, sitting with her. and then, also across from me, but to the right, was a filipino looking woman with her family (husband and son). she looked very fit, and her face was vivacious, and for me, kind of magnetic. there are certain eyes that are kind of charismatic, in that they seem to represent a spirit that is clear about the world...

anyway, as i ate (halfheartedly) my stromboli from sbarro's, next to my two kids, my eyes drifted across to these three women. it reminded me of elementary school or something, when i felt vaguely attracted to various infatuations, and played a sort of game of daring my eyes to rest, like some kind of flitting butterfly, on one or another girls, and then darting away and feigning disinterest whenever my gaze was caught, even incidentally. there was even a method of trying to make my gaze "symmetrical" and fair; if i had been looking at someone far to my right, and i was "caught", i would immediately look far to my left, just to show to the person who had caught me that i had only been in the middle of an equitable survey of the landscape.

i thought about the eyes of the japanese girl, and how, if you caught them at just the right moment, for example, when she was laughing and smiling at the baby across from her, and wiping her mouth with a napkin, her thin eyes could see the whole world, and me besides. i thought about how those eyes were analagous to the eyes of vast sea monsters from my dreams, or the flat eyes of japanese ghosts taken in photographs... how they seemed to see everything, and nothing. and i thought about the fear of love, of those wonderful/terrible eyes, eyes that could swallow the whole world, to not only see the whole world in the vastness of their vision, but to somehow single out one mote, me, as a target, as a reason, as a focus...

***

i was reading a chapter about gestalt therapy. i suppose, at one point, that i had been treating someone, an older gay gentleman, who had some knowledge about gestalt therapy, and who intimated to me some experiences he had had with it. in retrospect, perhaps the only reason he had allowed me to work on him for a few consecutive sessions was that he had been interested in me. in any case, i guess that's what sparked my interest in gestalt.

i think gestalt is a wonderful theory, similar to zen. its practice is less a science than an art. the ability to participate in another's therapy by artistically pointing to the "whole" which is at once the solution (derived via the patient's meaning-discovering self) to the narrative, and an experience of the present now. at some point, i despaired of ever being so free with a patient. i consider myself "easy" with people, but as time passes, i realize it is only because so much of me has been walled off from others (and myself)...

... which brings me to a thought: i think people with pets are similar to people with their libidos, with their subconscious energies... sometimes two people with dogs, well, their dogs will want to hump each other, or kill each other, but their owners will pull them away, oftentimes with an apologetic word or glance. and i think, that's civilization for you. you walk around, and you want to have sex with this person, or you would want to kill that person, but before you get the chance, you pull yourself away, yank that chain against all the panting struggle, apologize perhaps to the other party, as though that dog, that instinct, were not in fact you, and you walk away...

i think, i worry, about how much of me is walled off, walled away. i worry about how my living present is like a patina for all the things i've felt and experienced, and i have a remarkable talent for amnesia, for forgetting all of the energies and experiences of my past in order to allow my functional present to proceed... i'm "good" at that. sometimes when i reach for the past, even for things that should be "real" and significant, everything fades, and there's only this clunking automaton in my head that draws a clumsy map of where things should have been, or when things should have happened... i do not live, really. i was not there, really. i have nothing to bring back from all of the places i have been.

i at times try to fantasize, to create a love story. yes, i am happily married, but sometimes in trying to create a narrative, i try to instill the feeling of being in love when i was young. and i realize that there are holes in the narrative, places that i cannot proceed, things that i cannot feel. when i was young, my "love story" involved me, the harmless stalker type (being honest here) who believed in chivalry and all of that nonsense, somehow finding an opportunity to immolate or otherwise destroy myself, for the sake of this untouchable virgin princess type (who, yes, being honest here, was hardly virginal). in other words, there was never any possibility for true relations, and, in fact, the presence of one required the destruction of the other (me). jeez, i used to get so caught up in that sort of fantasy. doing the actual deed, for some reason, never came into the picture.

now, i can hardly summon the feeling, or the words, or how a relationship should proceed...

with lynn, i'll have to admit, i was kind of not looking for anything. i had walled off my passions, my incessant urges, and had become this nothing sort of person (perhaps the same person i am today). in the process, i made a friend, a dear friend, of her. in many respects, it was as though love happened because i wasn't looking for it. it sort of grew naturally, via getting to know a really wonderful person, who happened to want something of me that i wasn't sure i even had...

again, i am happily married- but sometimes, it saddens me that there isn't more of an "interest" in me that is allowed to surface, a basic interest (even sexual, violent, etc.) in this world. i function. i proceed through tasks, often imperfectly, but i do what i need to do. but then, where, when, who am i? will i remember these countless days of not remembering? the nodes of my existence are those i love and care for, but people change, and perhaps in the future, i will have only been some kind of blind and overlooked karsten thot bridge, only visible when it is closed down and rusted, and nothing can pass over me?

i had a dream just now.

at the end of the dream (for it seemed, as all dreams do, to have many parts), i overheard a discussion between (i believe) two acupuncture students of mine. one was trying to describe a shape. i overheard this description, in which the student really struggled to find the correct words, something about a symbol of archimedes. in my head, in listening to that description, i saw it, and finally interjected, and said, "oh, that's like a pac man, pointing downwards." unfazed, the student continued, and said something about a korean symbol that incorporated a circle, a square, and a triangle. i wasn't sure what it was supposed to symbolize...

i recall musing how i no longer thought like that, no longer struggled with concepts that were larger than myself. i gave up on things like that long ago.

and then sometime later, i think i woke up. somehow i knew it was 3, or around 3, and when i looked at the clock, it was 3:15. i had a thought that this was the time period directly after the time of the rat. the rat is the liver, and the liver is the last channel in the chinese meridian system. in many ways, the transitional time between 1-3 am and 3-5 am is significant, because it occurs at that moment when the energies of the previous day shift into the energies of the next day. sometimes, i believe, when there is a problem at that juncture, you wake up. it is almost as though there is some unfinished business in the previous day (and, if it happens repeatedly, some chronic unfinished business) that leaves you unprepared for the new day.

as i used the bathroom, i had this image for some reason of my older brother calling to make up, or something, and me rushing out the door, and then him shooting off my head with a shotgun. aside from the standard self-pity thoughts, about how regretful (?) some of those gun-toting nra supporters at my school would be, learning about me being shot, i had a thought that this would be the good beginning of a story, i.e., that about the creation of a kappa...

i have been thinking, earlier, that a good story doesn't require a whole lot of explanation. or perhaps, it shouldn't. you only need to situate characters in an unusual "situation" (to sound redundant), and attempt to describe it in the most ordinary way possible, using their ordinary eyes. for example, in watching part of kick ass once again... the internal monologue of the main character is using teenage language, and is not particularly profound, but it is powerful in that it very simply describes his feelings and thoughts, when the character makes an unusual conclusion (i.e. become a superhero).

there is a sadness and a worry deep within me that restarts... an interruption to inner peace. i (as before, as endlessly before) wander the halls upstairs, i mention a mantra of love to those sleeping in rooms... i putz around, and then i struggle to return to bed. there are so many worries, and there is no easy way to assuage them.

***

i think certain people, including my brother, are crazy. in fact, in fact, i try not to think or talk about them at all. i think doing so just spins a narrative, and that spins me into my own "mythology" of hatred. i would rather just say "empty boat" and continue on.

which gets me to thinking (ah, not following my own advice) that the goal of writing stories is antithetical, in many ways, to the goal of meditation (at least in the zen tradition). whereas the one is trying to create an INTERESTING edifice, a "story", the other is trying to short circuit all story processes.

oh well, back to sleep and dreams.

i wish i didn't have a thing to do tomorrow. or the rest of my life, for that matter.

in process.

there is a bowl made of polished sandalwood, and filled nearly to the brim with water. the water within the bowl is so still that its surface resembles a mirror at times. at other times, it is so transparent that there doesn't appear to be anything within the bowl at all. some say that this was the beggar's bowl that the second would-be suitor of kaguya-hime, the moon princess, tried to steal from beneath the ever-watchful eyes of a stone buddha. others, with perhaps a more historical bent, claim that this was the bowl that captured the reflection of a harvest moon, and the attention of a young zen acolyte.

the story of love and hate

the world is filled with hatred. perhaps i am too.

i don't know how to sublimate hatred, and turn it into something positive. i don't know how to forgive, or to "compost". i think i just divide myself up, and try to keep returning to what i term "the task at hand." but in the end, it never works.

i don't know whether hatred comes from within or without any more. in a way, it's comforting to think that it comes from the outside, that somehow people send "hate signals" through the air, and i receive them like physical blows. it's comforting because i can preserve the illusion that i am innocent. but in truth, i know that this is not the case. i think that hatred, in a way, is like a crack in glass. on either side of the crack (and it doesn't matter which side you are on) there is the impression of the same sundering division.

i think hatred is an emptiness, a hollowness, and it pulls in and devours.

***

i am sorry.

i have said it so many times. it doesn't work to say you're sorry. especially when the error is your very substance.

***

the things i want to say, to strike back and lash out against those who hate me, i cannot. i am forbidden to say them, because, although i think no one reads this blog, i suspect that a few do, or might, and i would not want to hurt them in the way that i could. a part of me wants someone to understand my problem, this inability to speak. maybe a part of me just wants some pity. but in the end, i won't talk. i can't.

***

i like to be like water. to flow into the path of least resistance. i do things that are sometimes "irresponsible" in that they are not what i "should" be doing (there are always those things that should be done), but i do them anyway because they don't summon up the bad feelings within me. i have, for example, been trying to care for my garden. my grandfather used to have a green thumb, of sorts, and his backyard was, quite literally, his sanctuary; he would always be doing something there. i think i understand him more as time passes. there is peace in caring for a garden. i like to think that the ceaseless care of weeding and pruning, etc. reflects a work of the heart.

writing in this blog, at this moment, is another "irresponsible" thing. but i woke with a bad feeling, as i have for a long time now, and i felt i needed to do something. there is, actually, much work for me to do, much work that i "should" be doing, and i think that, ultimately, i will do it. but i needed to- i don't know- get things off my chest.

i so want to make things better. i so want to find an answer to this story. but so far, the answers i can conceive of or write about seem- inauthentic. a bad, sad, pathetic story. so i- i think i must disappear for a time- in irresponsible tasks.

i want to say, i love someone, or something. it is a feeling i have. perhaps it is a desperation, a "saving throw." i am not sure of its authenticity any more. but in times like this there is a sort of desperate need to help, to make it better for someone or something else, and that's what my version of love is. that's something natural for me. it's just now, i don't know if that's a weakness, if it's fake any more. but i will say it. i love.

i love.