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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

there is nothing to say
anyway.

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

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

***

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

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

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

PULL me up and out.  and at em.

ha.

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

***

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

***

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

i have learned to hate someone.

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

breath.

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

***

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

[got to go.]

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

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

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

***

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

***

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

***

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

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

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

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