2/28/2021

i liked david mamet's class. i'm almost at the end of it. i like how he asks, "so you want to be a writer, what's stopping you?" and how he says that "if you want to be a writer, you figure it out." a lot of being a writer, being anything, involves a kind of commitment. it involves just being willing to sit there and face your shit, the doubt within you, the ugliness you produce... and just making an effort to work it out. i also like how he says that, every day, you do two things: one for your business, and one for your art. i think this is true...

the thing is that there are many things that i want to do, many things that i feel almost compelled to do in order to stay active, and stay alive. and because there are so many things, it is very difficult for me to do "everything" "every day." moreover, there are a lot of things in work, and my present circumstances, that impose themselves upon me. also, my respondibilities to my children, to my wife... to others, in short. i do realize that i tend to be a very self-serving individual in that respect. i just want to improve, or produce. that is what i long for. the feeling of accomplishment. because it replaces the disappointment that always underlies everything...

*****

when you ask yourself "why" you want to do anything... what serves as the basis or critereon for a valid answer? i think, for a long time, that i was convinced of a utilitarian basis... that is, what "use" accomplishing something had. and i think that that is the basis for a lot of people. parents. me, as a parent. that we should only encourage activities that have some kind of payback. i think i look at myself a lot like that still. why do i do anything? why do i want to do it? i think nowadays a lot of what justifies things is that it confers some kind of power. some kind of interest. like playing the piano... but then again, what's wrong with that? i think the "why" question ends up being like sitting in an interrogation chair and trying to provide reasons that people want to hear, reasons that are acceptable. what if you just want to do things because they make you feel "cool"? i think of dancing, for example, dancing in certain ways... what's wrong with it? maybe there will never be an opportunity for them, and maybe there will never be eyes to see them... so what's wrong with that? movement. feeling. does it need a purpose, or an audience?

*****

i think i have gotten over some of the myth of "starting over." maybe this is the longest streak i have maintained, on this routine. i feel that there is power in this, in keeping to things. and i will keep to this as long as i am able to. i'm sure the routine will change, but the promise i have kept with myself will remain. and i hope that, if nothing else, my ability to "sit" with myself and finish things will only grow stronger. for i think, as mamet says, that that is the true secret to things. too many times, we are trying to find the "easy way out," and think that we're not on the right path so long as things remain difficult. but most of the time, it is simply a matter of sticking with the difficulty, with "figuring it out."

so i hope... i hope that i stay with things, i hope i can "figure" my life out...

2/25/2021

the stretches in between get longer and longer... life has become such a pain. my mom (who's into real estate; bless her heart) is trying to help me to get a property so that i can get some rental income from it, since my wife is out of work, and my daughter is getting ready to go to college. so i've had to go through a lot of paperwork, in order to get a prequal letter from the bank. and we've had to visit a bunch of properties (all townhouses), mostly on the west side of the island. if you're not from here, you wouldn't believe how expensive some of these places are. they are just townhouse units, nowhere near complete "homes" in the traditional sense, but they are going for half a million dollars. my own home, a two story house in mililani, i believe we got for 300,000. and in the 17 years since, the value of our home has appreciated to close to a million. and now, crappy townhouse units go for more than two story houses in upscale mililani. imagine that. i suppose real estate really is the way to go. it seems to appreciate fast...

the thing is, i've been really stressed out by all the goings on at work, and it tires me out that i have to do all this financial stuff and real estate stuff afterwards too. it really isn't a lot, and it's out of the kindness of my mom's heart that she helps me out, so i really have no right to complain... but i'm still complaining. because a part of me just wants to curl up in a ball and dream. i feel like i haven't had a really good rest in a long time... a really good reset.

there've been things that really upset me recently... like my son's performance in school (since my outburst, things seem to have gotten a bit better...) or the fact that my wife's car (actually, it WAS mine, but as has become the pattern, she "adopts" the newer car, and i start driving the older one) just got the catalytic converter stolen in broad daylight over at the parking lot of the mall where she used to work... things like that. pain in the ass things. things costing time and money and attention. all of which are in short supply within me...

*****

my story... i have tried to keep this pattern of writing 4 pages... but honestly, i kind of got lost. i think that this is a good thing, in a way, in that i'm not just writing from my conscious mind, the mind that is redundant and keeps restating the obvious. in a sense, it may be good to get lost. the trouble is finding your way out again, and not sounding like you completely don't know where you're going with your stupid story... i divided the narrative, and then divided it again... and now, i have these intimations or inspirations that somehow the main character will break free of the pattern of the story he's trapped in (because if you follow the five chinese brothers, there are FOUR methods of execution, FOUR (i'm practically yawning) that you would have to go through if you followed the pattern of that story)... so maybe he would break free, maybe there would be some sort of shocking event that allowed him to slip out, and then he would (perhaps guided by yagoro, the deviant kappa) be able to see the processing of someone else, just to show that it is an entire operation, not just something focused on he alone... and in that, there would be a bit more clarity as to the history of the kappa, their struggle, their hatred, their lowliness... something like that. at the same time, owlie and kendall (one of my brother's friends), in trying to find their way to randy, could have some kind of discussion about the nature of dreams, and hypotheses about the dreamer. who is it, how does this elaborate dream serve him? things like that... i had some kind of vague idea about dd getting beheaded... or something like that. something that i'd hope would prove to be endearing... but then again, i'm not sure i'm ready to eject that character yet, as i feel that he has so much more to offer and say... anyway, a lot of random thoughts, random strings...

a part of me has been feeling this pressure to produce these stories, to complete them, to complete a few others, and then put them all in a book to sell. and promote the book so that i could earn enough money to fund my daughter's college. but it just frustrates me, because, again, i have all this other shit that preoccupies my time, and draws me away, away, away... and the story itself keeps slipping away from me, becoming more and more ephemeral...

2/15/2021

i have had to work on some applications for willow's financial aid. one thing that became clear was that i haven't been tracking our financial situation enough. i realize that my retirement, for one thing, is laughable. or cryable.

i realize that i'm in a mode now where i do things incrementally. i call it "organic." i.e., a natural approach. one that does not impinge too heavily upon me... why? i find that sudden change, imposed order... it tends to make me feel guilty. it is almost as though i were a kappa, with a bowl of water upon my head. to move too rapidly disturbs and threatens the water within my head... yes, there is a guilt, a kind of self-recriminization... that occurs when i "force" issues too much, when i use a heavy hand. i appreciate when things are "complete," and "harmonious," but i have found that if i pursue things too much, or focus too exclusively on "completion," then i tend to lose a sense of myself, and of balance. hence, this pretended "innocence." this pretended "ignorance." because the alternative would hurt too much...

i would prefer to be a sphere. a smooth sided object that rolls across reality. if i were to push too heavily in one direction, i would no longer be a sphere, no longer have the equanimity of the sphere. i would start to become lop-sided. and that would force me to take a stance, a position, on the world...

is this wrong? maybe this is the big difference between myself and my brother. my brother pushes his own interests, and he pushes them hard. he doesn't care who he hurts or has to push aside. that is his strength, and his failing. i mean, when he is pushing for himself, there is a certain clarity to it all, and it feels as though (when you are in alignment with him) that there is some noble cause, and you are a part of it... but if you are on the other side of it, or if you are not directly involved in his cause, then you feel pretty much like shit. and he, unlike me, does not feel the guilt. he does not self-reflect as i do...

i look upon this as the contrast between sudden and gradual enlightenment. and the same arguments for and against both sides apply here. the push for sudden enlightenment has always been seen as potentially problematic, in that the exclusive "push" to answer a koan could lead to altered states of consciousness, a sort of penchant for obsession... it is like creating a tidal wave. yes, it may sweep the landscape clean. but it can also be destructive... and it can be hard to return to normal reality...

the path of gradual enlightenment is more like a gentle acid, eating away at the hollowness of things. or a gradual shift in perspective... i feel as though this is more authentic, although more vague... maybe it feels like watching paint dry. the progression is so gradual that it may feel as though you are not moving... and that in itself can lead to a kind of despair, as though you are not going anywhere... there is a kind of luxury in inventing a destination and arriving there. it makes you feel as though you have actually changed. the despair of the follower of gradual enlightenment is that it is a slippery slope to the "place before," which is always a place of self-hatred and recrimination...

*****

i am tired. but i think i have to make a go at certain things. i think i have to finish writing my play. i have dreams of making a book out of my writings, and pushing to sell them in order to help me fund my daughter's college. i have ideas of helping my son become an asl interpretor. and maybe myself learning how to become an interpretor myself... because it would provide an alternate source of income, while allowing us to help another segment of the community. i want to really grow vegetables in my yard, make it very productive (speaking of which, i think i've killed my worm community... maybe fed it something bad, or didn't drain the water, or used newspaper with toxic ink or something...).

some things we do for a purpose. some things we do just because. we are not always rational beings. but that's okay. we follow our internal yearnings, and find the reasons later. as long as our heart is good, and i trust mine, for the most part, then i feel no guilt for what i do, or what i say. i DO feel guilt for what i neglect. it is hard to live in this world without neglecting something... i feel i have neglected my larger family. i need to reconnect with my sister, mostly. and with my parents, who live near by but who i hardly ever see, unless they ask me for help (like snaking the toilet). i need to normalize relations. my brother, i feel, is a lost cause. if he came to me to ask for help, i would help him. but i think he is caught up in his own drama, and will always be. and i can't help him with that, especially if he thinks i'm not worthy of the stage.

2/11/2021

continually oscillating. i have been rereading the portions that i have been writing in my long ass epic "kappa noodle..." it's becoming a long ass epic, because the narrative keeps splitting and dividing, and i keep having to think up new characters, new motivations, etc., and then ponder how everything will fit together again. humpty dumpty and all that. we break the egg to make things interesting, but then we have to always figure out how everything fit together. it is the logical/rational, coming up against the irrational/true. i don't know how people do it. i admire narratives that are simple and raw and true... but what i write is never that. my writing tends to be mimetic, tends to be metaphorical, tends to garner its strength (if any) from the subtle (?) repetition of images or ideas, all in different forms, all slightly out of sync. if the reader doesn't struggle to put it together, and only focuses on the moment at hand, then it becomes, i guess, this tiresome piece... the trick i think is to make each moment compelling in its own right, while speaking on something larger... it's always this chameleon-eye struggle (chameleons have the ability to have truly bifocal vision, in the sense that one eye can focus on one area, while the other focuses on something completely different). to hold two things in one's consciousness at one time. this is either a recipe for attention deficiency... or it is the path to expanded (broken) consciousness...

at the moment, again... i'm thinking that my writing is becoming too pedantic.

when i listen to mamet, he speaks of actors, and how they can be prophetic. and the truly prophetic ("art") actors are those that have no technique to speak of, but are conduits for something great, and greater than themselves... i would like to think that he is also speaking of writers. but i don't know... at least with an actor, the endpoints of the span over infinite are defined, in some sense, by the writer... it is just the job ("just the job") of the actor to physically throw him/herself across that span, that infinite gap. writing, in this sense, then, is more like engineering. meaning planning. thinking. things only work if they are planned. and therein lies the crux. i hate planning. i would rather have some moment, luminous in its sensuality of its passion or its feeling, and just let it flow. but that moment needs a context, and that moment only arises out of a situation, and finds itself only on the continuum of some plotline. in other words, the "thinking." the inescapable thinking...

*****

well... i'm thinking of approaching the next 4 page segment (because i have, in my routine, been writing about 4 pages into my play each time)... more as a freewriting exercise. more as an exercise similar to the writing workshop i participated in... namely: begin with a prompt, and just let everything flow from there. be possessed by the spirit. don't censor. it's irresponsible work. but maybe it leads to the unforeseen. and even better, the true...

*****

okay. so i also have news regarding my brother. i'm not going to report it here. but there's a funny thing about my brother. i mentioned it in my writing class via this line that would never be spoken by a seven year old, but which is nevertheless true: "he decides the world." currently, i couldn't care less about him; i have hardened my heart to him. but if he were to suddenly approach me with a need, or whatever, i would be there for him. it's frustrating. it makes me feel like some sort of "door." i swing open, i swing closed. but i have no fixed stance. i don't "stand for anything." that makes me both "forgiving" and "open" as well as, to some eyes, a "pushover." i hate that. i don't know why i hate that so much. i guess i have this idea that the world misunderstands me. so in that sense i hate the world. i hate the way that it can look at two people and completely misjudge them. that it can look at my brother as some squeaky clean, compassionate guy. and that it can look at my sister and see a lying nothing. and look at me and think of me as "weak." i hate that about the world. not that it makes any difference anyway. i just wish... it were possible for truth to be revealed. but i guess that's like god and revelations, and shit like that. we wait for end times, but they'll never come... at least not on our schedule, and not within our reckoning...

i suppose it's just like these stupid stories that swim in my head. most of the people that i'd most like to hear or read them, well, they're gone, or they're disappearing. all the judges you wanted to prove yourself too... well, they up and die. and if there's no one left to impress, then what are you left with? are you still going to do it? what's the point then?

2/7/2021

i just listened to david mamet. i had heard rumblings of how his views might not be entirely kosher (?). maybe in this class, i hear some of his own personal leanings... ideas like how college (for 17-21 year olds) may not be ideal, because it may radicalize them... ideas like how it's better for kids that age to go into the military... not sure if i entirely agree with all of that. i think, if anything, nowadays, it is military culture (fed on fox news and gop bullshit) that has created radical insurgents... also, this idea going against pc culture. i'm not sure i agree with the full consequences of pc culture, but i do think it has its place; if nothing else, it makes people consider different contexts. it makes people- if not exactly walking on eggshells- at least cognisant of their audience...

so, yes. i don't always agree with what he's saying. i think he does have some insights as to writing... and i take all of that with a grain of salt.

*****

i'm trying to do little jobs in the yard. i need to cut down a few trees, 3 precisely, and they are monsters. they are ficus trees, two of the dark green variety, and one with a lighter green foliage. they have grown very tall, and some of the boughs are actually reaching the eaves of the house. i need to cut them down simply because they've grown too big for their own good. and i need to cut them down so that my backyard gets more sunlight, and i can grow edible crops there...

*****

every time i ask my friend about my brother (because he still sees him, on a regular basis), i get more and more disgusted. he's still a trump supporter. i asked my friend, so, does he support insurgency? is he fine with jan. 6? of course, my friend (who happens to be far more rational) deigns to respond...

*****

welp. sorry, i don't have all that much to write about today... oh yes, with regards to my story. i did add another twist. i decided to have one of the brother's friends awaken, along with owlie. so now there is a further separation of the plot line... and we have another wildcard character whom i have yet to put a voice to... i think there are other possibilities for getting this message across, the message of antagonism, and of other, alternative paths... i have also written about how the main protagonist is actually already dead... just some random shit.

i think, in writing and drawing, it's a good idea to sketch out an outline first. then you get the proportions right. if you just jump in and "write from the ground up", sometimes you get so obsessed with the finer points of action, that you don't write "proportionately," that is, you make little things big, while glossing over big things... at the same time, the "ground" is where it's at, and it can also inform the narrative. for example, the idea of having the brother's friend awaken, well, that only originated as i was working on the dialogue ("ground up")... that's what makes writing so frustrating, and yet so possibly liberating. it can flow from both view points... it can free itself through either viewpoint.

dream 2/6/2021

amidst the cold of last night, i had a strange series of dreams. i recall in my head this pattern of two continuities... something within the golden (or copper bowl), and another reality, maybe more digital... either a continuation of the first continuity, or a representation of it...

the temporality or sequence of dreams always confuses me. because how do you fake that? it seems some things in a dream happened before other things, but then, they seem to snake back into each other like some kind of ouroborus. i also imagined that recounting a dream is like retracting a frog's tongue, with all the random bits of earth and fly attached, in no particular order,

but in any case... there was something about tenrikyo. like they had some sort of event or something. i remember there being a kwonset hut painted clumsily, that housed some sort of environmental stuff that a member had been interested in. i recall imagining that large guy that was a student of christopher lee matsuo, a bagua practitioner. somehow he was involved in it. i don't recall actually going inside the kwonset hut, but the image of the exterior and my impressions of it remained...

there was a little cottage to the side of the church, and i seemed to be wandering through it. i saw a little child, a toddler... and i believe i communicated with him for a bit... and then i ran into the mother (a teacher at my school) and her daughter(s)... and everyone was friendly. i recall purchasing something for the daughters at the garage sale like thing going on at the church. and then, oddly, in going to tell the mother, we found her asleep in bed...

there was this junk heap of a car that i had to drive home or something. and for some reason, the land that i had to traverse was not just pothole-ridden; it was particularly catastrophic. the ground rose at these impossible angles... there was asphalt, but it had been placed on land so sloped as to run down it into darkness... i was attempting to choose my path through this catastrophic landscape (it somehow reminded me of an old waipahu, all dirty and country), and i noticed this underground passage. i saw what appeared to be rudimentary stairs cut into the far side, but because of the intervening land, i couldn't tell if they continued on to the other side. in any case, i did go down them, and found a way out...

it seemed as though i had this pos car, salvaged (?) from the junkyard, and i had parked it on the street. just then, this family of what i thought were samoan people, but turned out to have nightmarish faces... well, they started to mistake my car for one of the samoan girls's, and began to load things into the trunk. i objected... their heads were huge, and pale, and otherworldly. but they realized their mistake...

*****

i don't know what any of it meant. i do feel there is significance in the bowl. it's been something i've been thinking of with regards to my story. i also have returned with the insight that it's best not to structure the "dream" sequence too much, and to allow it to flow through, in the true manner of dreams...

2/5/2021

it's been a while since i last wrote. the weeks seem to be exhausting to me, no, every single day seems to be exhausting. i wake up tired. it is always so cold (we're being relative here), and it is always so dark in the morning. i don't want to get out of bed. i want to lie down and fall asleep and dream (or not) forever. but instead, at a certain point, i buck up. i make a choice to open my eyes and keep them open. there is a kind of wrenching, blurring sensation, as one eye or the other will start to buckle under the tremendous pressure. but then there is a moment of decision. it is always a kind of blind moment. it's funny how the only way we move is when we don't look. (i guess that's why it's "look before you leap." because if you looked while you leapt, well, you wouldn't leap). anyway, that blind moment gets me out of bed, nude, in the freezing cold, and somehow has me stumbling to the toilet, to the shower. there is the flipping of the light switch, and the sudden adjustment of my eyes to the waking world, the world of surfaces and colors. the antithesis of the dreaming world, which, while pretending surfaces and colors, is really just the dark undulating movements of vast undersea creatures of little substance. but enormous appetite.

i make my way through my day. i enjoy keeping busy. as soon as my kids start showing up (and they have a habit of showing up from very early to very late), i engage them, whether they like it or not. i start working one on one with them. i have to pack every day with these moments of engagement, and the sooner i start, the better. today happened to be pretty chaotic. we've been having the full complement show up (eventually), and they have a habit of demanding attention ("help") at every moment; sometimes, i can barely complete a thought or sentence with one particular student before two more are lining up with inquiries...

i haven't been keeping up... or rather, i have been just doing things very slowly... i feel particularly guilty about my taijiquan practice. i had been getting up very early (3 or 4) to do the full complement of exercises, the standing exercises and such... but again, with it getting cold, and with things getting busy, i've kind of foregone some of those things... and just slept in until as late as i possibly could. coming back home early hasn't helped either... i would usually collapse on the sofa, listening to the news on msnbc, still some salacious outrage about the booby traps of the trump administration... somehow the stories of competence coming from the present administration seem to draw my attention less than the utter ridiculousness and daily deluge of horseshit from the previous administration...

*****

i still have recurrences of "hope," of somehow returning to, or realizing, some great glory. it fuels some random endeavor in me, until the daily cycle just starts drowning it in me again. the routine keeps me tethered to life, somehow. it is like a backbone. it allows me enough structure to pretend a semblance of form... otherwise, i would just be tossed on the currents. a jellyfish. a man o' war.

*****

i listened to david mamet again, this time, talking about lies and truth. and the admonition to "never tell lies" and to "find the truth." yes, writing has become, in its own fashion, an attempt to discover the truth. i realize that my story has always been about my brother and me. there were these things that i could not write about clearly, and simply kept out. but now, i feel murmurings, the hints of possible dialogues... of course, not with my actual asshole brother... but with the brother that i confront within my head. i find myself (the fictional me in the story) saying my feelings directly, and that other brother within me answering... and the dialogue revealing the conflict and relationship more clearly than any "symbolic" whatever- construct- that i had been elaborately trying to fly... i had intimations of him talking about the "monster" within us all- "and where's your fucking monster?" and me, lacking it, wanting to be "clean." but the monster is within me too. in fact, it is the most monstrous monster. its baleful eye, staring up from the depths, encompasses the entirety of the horizon and the midnight sky.

i have also had thoughts about the dragon... about the river-goddess/dragon king, which i intend to encapsulate within one figure... zennyo or something or other. an ambiguous figure. it is believed that it became feminine in japanese consciousness only because of a mistaken character (kanji)... in any case, that ambiguity allows me to simultaneously embody the twin aspects, these two mysterious figures that seem to pop up into the kappa story, the "mother" and "father" so to speak, within one being... and i intend, or have intimations, of tying that dragon to my sister... and have her/his speech be about "lying." to breathe mists constantly, obfuscations... and to tell the tale about why the old system, the old matri/patriarchical system of river-goddess and dragon king, no longer worked with the kappas... and why the kappas struck out on their own and created their own "enterprise." it has to do something with an imperfect wish, struck upon the accumulated pile of shirikodama (souls)/wish-granting jewels... anyway, these are the random thoughts i've come up with...

i have been watching videos of people with tourette's... and aside from this notion that people with tourette's tend not to tic during sex... but only "good sex"... there was this idle comment that tourette's might be tied to a copper imbalance in the brain. which led me to google about the importance of copper in brain function. copper, particularly in enzymes, but even in free-floating form, is important to assist in the oxidation processes that go on in the brain... but too much copper can lead to neurodegeneration... don't know how i could tie that stuff in, but it's food for thought. or thought for food.

ANYWAY. i feel i have to work again, to find my "truth."