i haven't been writing journal entries for a while now. i suppose my life has been pretty eventless. i can't even quite remember when i last wrote on this blog about what's been going on in the real world (as opposed to just recording dreams).

i changed schools. i used to teach at wahiawa el, and last year, i decided to switch over to wheeler middle. the decision was kind of on a whim. i mean, there were reasons why i switched, but most of it had to do with the sense that it was time for a change. this last year has, for the most part, been good. but it has involved a lot of busy-ness, and whenever work gets demanding, a lot of the other aspects of my life get put on hold...

this summer was just a continuation of the busy-ness. i basically worked non-stop from the formal end of instruction of the 2022-2023 school year. i taught summer hub, and i also did the gencyber camp. i continued to teach classes at the acupuncture school. when some of those things started to end, then i had a lot of other responsibilities at home, things i had to repair. like i fixed the garage door opener, when the gear axle snapped. and i also repaired a leak in the second floor bathroom, as well as the collateral damage, which was the ceiling and part of the wall in the garage. i also worked a lot in the yard. i weeded everything (pretty much), and recreated the two hugulkultur planter boxes, and chopped down one tree near to the ground, and chopped another quite a ways. i also chopped out some of the long-standing roots in the back yard. i'm not done yet, but i feel relatively content that i've tried my best to get the yard under control, in the time that i've had...

now i'm at the point where a lot of things are done, or i am reaching my limit in so far as completing things... and i'm seeing the emptiness of life beneath it all. so i'm trying to return to the idea of doing routines, of pursuing a variety of interests, of keeping my life active and alive... i've also confronted the idea of desire, which is always in some sort of tension with death, and with the question of the purpose and point of life... at some level, there has to be an acknowledgement that there really is no ultimate point or purpose to doing anything, and yet, we must continue to do things if we are to survive and be vital... i don't do anything that contradicts my oaths and my loyalty to my family; but i understand the restlessness within me must be acknowledged... i cannot deny that certain desires exist within me. i can't pretend the ocean within me is still...

at the same time that i acknowledge this, i must admit that i feel distant from everything; from the world, from my heart. one of the reasons i feel compelled to record my dreams is that they seem unforced, and therefore authentic. they are traces of who i am, beneath the machinations of my thoughts, which are hungry and totalitarian. maybe even this current attempt to routinize things, etc., is a way to smother out the chaotic stirrings of my heart... i must maintain a semblance of order and progress at all times, it seems. no wandering about. never getting lost...

i have always had a longing. but even if the person/idea that i long for is purely fictitious, and impossible, i can't just rationalize and get rid of it... even if it's too late for me, even if it can never happen, a stupid and stubborn part of me still strays and wanders... i hate this, at times, but it is what i am. i cannot pretend that i am not chained to this...

i am tired. (i think i have always been tired) but i am functional. and for me, that is good. being functional and purposeful is good in my book... i only wish that i could be this AND be authentic, whatever that means. being authentic is difficult for me, not so much that i am afraid to show myself, but more because i don't even know who i am, i can't feel anything strongly me that i would dare to express... this makes me wonder whether i have a soul or a heart at all.