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.