tonight, lynn and i went to eat at "lucky belly", a ramen sort of place (but upscale, and, what's the word, haute couture, only with regards to eating and restaurants). it's on smith street in downtown chinatown... back in the day, when i used to have an office and residence on bishop street, lynn and i used to frequent a lot of these restaurants in town. of course, we left before the whole renewal of the chinatown area, what with all the galleries and first fridays and such. so there are a lot of new chic restaurants to try out now (not that we ever really get a chance to go)...
i ordered the "beast bowl". it was good. (i'm not going to pretend to be some kind of connoisure (sp!?) and give you the run down of what exactly i ate, and struggle to describe the precise flavoring, etc., like everyone nowadays seems to do. not to be cynical [which means precisely to be cynical], but i can't stand it when i see people break out their iphones to take pictures of their food. just eat the damn thing! yet another reason why i chose to leave facebook [for a time?]. i can't stand being a voyeur at people's dinner tables. and i hate that tendency to catalogue everything in my life in me... huh. exactly what i'm doing here, huh? but at least here, i can PRETEND it's just a journal. :P)
afterwards, with lynn slightly tipsy from the wine, we went over to ala moana to do a bit of christmas shopping. went to coach, whereupon i sat and stared unobtrusively at mirrors, hands "akimbo" across my chest. man, they have a lot of workers standing around and doing nothing! after that, we went over to crazy shirts, for another drop-off of cash...
and home again.
***
my wife is my best and perhaps only real friend.
i know she doesn't like to hear me be negative, which i have been lately. i like to tell her i'm just "venting" or "processing" things, and that i don't do that with anyone else (wow, such a privilege...). but bottom line is, she doesn't like to hear it. i know she goes through a lot of stress in her own day, so she deserves something better.
it's funny, though, that i don't have anything on my mind other than this current issue... but then, when i'm with her, it's okay. things kind of float into consciousness, and i mention them. and we laugh about it, or whatever. and underneath it all, she reaches for my hand, or i reach for hers, and there is this connection that i can believe in...
i know i'm lucky in this. i never ever forget that. i know i'm a hard person to get to know, or to be friends with (evidenced by my lack of friends :) ). so my wife was a godsend... is a godsend every day and every night. to understand, even or especially as i forget (just as i forget the wonder of my own hand being connected to my own self) that there is someone in this world that chooses to be bound to me and my destiny... it's truly wonderful...
in fact, while i'm here... there was a moment last night, when we were all lying down in the art room (my wife, my kids and i) and laughing. it was a spontaneous thing, but it was clear to me, and to all parties involved, that for the four of us, there was nowhere else to be, and no one else that we loved more than each other.
i am thankful for my family.
***
i know the choice to deactivate my facebook account was a double-edged sword. there really are a lot of wonderful people out there. despite my cynicism, i do like every one of my fb friends. but i needed time off from that distraction, from the incessant pull of other timelines, and the minutiae of other lives. and also, i needed time to just get some stuff off my chest, and it was a lot of stuff that wasn't appropriate for that medium, so i needed to remove the temptation... the temptation of writing vague, self-pitying remarks that would only solicit comments like, "is everything ok?" so i would (pseudo-reluctantly) begin my soliloquy about my pathetique situation... at least here, i feel i can write whatever the hell i want.
i can write specific self-pitying remarks, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
***
going back to sleep.
g'night.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
i treated my father today, finally, for his shingles. i used the richard tan method of using 12 needles, one for each channel, along the four segments, taking care to incorporate those points which traditional acupuncture would assign for his condition: sj 5, gb 41, etc. i think it was a good treatment, in that it allowed him to rest for about an hour. i also dabbed some st. john's wort onto the affected area, in the hopes that it would alleviate some of the pain and itching.
while my father was resting, i tried to clean up the house. my parents are taking care of 3 little pigpens! and, whether out of weariness or apathy, there are certain issues of basic upkeep that have been neglected for a long time- to the point where it could become a health issue. so i was cleaning, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming... until i had to take out my father's needles, and until the rest of the family came home...
***
i hate thinking about other people and their opinion of me. but i think (as mentioned earlier) it is a conditioned response, a kind of fundamental need for acknowledgment of some sort... i HATE that i need this. i wish i could just be doing what is right, instead of needing to think about what so and so would think of this, and would this garner anyone's respect? this very blog, although i am pretty certain no one really reads this crap, is perhaps a hidden (but no less ugly) attempt to get someone's approval... maybe even more so, because in its "journal"-like nature, it seems innocent, and undirected...
why do we do what we do? out of fear? out of obligation? out of a need to feel- what? i want to eliminate that gap. i want to be so empathic that i do things out of this fundamental connection, and out of a natural flowing of the "will of heaven." i don't want to do anything for anyone's approval. especially not god's. "god willing", i would do the right thing because it was always already in my nature to do so.
***
in fact: i was thinking about the notions in chinese thought of the different grades of rulers or emperors. the lowest grade of ruler is both despised and impotent. the next grade rules through fear, even though everyone despises him. the next type of ruler is both feared and loved. (i think). but the highest grade of ruler is not known at all; he does nothing, and yet everything gets accomplished. this is the expression of wuwei, or nonaction.
i was thinking whether or not the highest ruler REALLY does nothing, as in just sits there? or is it that he allows nature to take its course? which means, also, allowing it to take its course within himself as well? in the west, we have this assumption that someone who does nothing stands outside of everything, in a kind of stillpoint. but i think it is more appropriate to understand wuwei in the context of a universe in flux. to "do nothing" does not mean to hold to a fixed point, like an opihi in a wave; it is rather to move with the universe. a ruler does what is right, by following the dictates of what is natural and appropriate. and in so doing, the world follows its course as well...
***
at the moment, the afternoon sunlight is diffracted by clouds and vog, making the sky seem a hazy white, and making time seem vague. i am a bit tired from cleaning the awful mess of my parents' house. the kids are with aunty joan or the in-laws, so i've all this empty time to fill with stupid deeds. i feel hatred (again) for someone, and for the collective eyes of the world, and for the collective (derisive) opinion of the world... and it hurts to hate, it makes me so weary... but i feel (or i like to think) that this is all a part of the processing of this wound that that certain someone has laid bare. i note the hatred, like the vog and clouds in the sky, and move on. one day, the hate (and the vog) will be gone. or it won't. doesn't really matter...
while my father was resting, i tried to clean up the house. my parents are taking care of 3 little pigpens! and, whether out of weariness or apathy, there are certain issues of basic upkeep that have been neglected for a long time- to the point where it could become a health issue. so i was cleaning, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming... until i had to take out my father's needles, and until the rest of the family came home...
***
i hate thinking about other people and their opinion of me. but i think (as mentioned earlier) it is a conditioned response, a kind of fundamental need for acknowledgment of some sort... i HATE that i need this. i wish i could just be doing what is right, instead of needing to think about what so and so would think of this, and would this garner anyone's respect? this very blog, although i am pretty certain no one really reads this crap, is perhaps a hidden (but no less ugly) attempt to get someone's approval... maybe even more so, because in its "journal"-like nature, it seems innocent, and undirected...
why do we do what we do? out of fear? out of obligation? out of a need to feel- what? i want to eliminate that gap. i want to be so empathic that i do things out of this fundamental connection, and out of a natural flowing of the "will of heaven." i don't want to do anything for anyone's approval. especially not god's. "god willing", i would do the right thing because it was always already in my nature to do so.
***
in fact: i was thinking about the notions in chinese thought of the different grades of rulers or emperors. the lowest grade of ruler is both despised and impotent. the next grade rules through fear, even though everyone despises him. the next type of ruler is both feared and loved. (i think). but the highest grade of ruler is not known at all; he does nothing, and yet everything gets accomplished. this is the expression of wuwei, or nonaction.
i was thinking whether or not the highest ruler REALLY does nothing, as in just sits there? or is it that he allows nature to take its course? which means, also, allowing it to take its course within himself as well? in the west, we have this assumption that someone who does nothing stands outside of everything, in a kind of stillpoint. but i think it is more appropriate to understand wuwei in the context of a universe in flux. to "do nothing" does not mean to hold to a fixed point, like an opihi in a wave; it is rather to move with the universe. a ruler does what is right, by following the dictates of what is natural and appropriate. and in so doing, the world follows its course as well...
***
at the moment, the afternoon sunlight is diffracted by clouds and vog, making the sky seem a hazy white, and making time seem vague. i am a bit tired from cleaning the awful mess of my parents' house. the kids are with aunty joan or the in-laws, so i've all this empty time to fill with stupid deeds. i feel hatred (again) for someone, and for the collective eyes of the world, and for the collective (derisive) opinion of the world... and it hurts to hate, it makes me so weary... but i feel (or i like to think) that this is all a part of the processing of this wound that that certain someone has laid bare. i note the hatred, like the vog and clouds in the sky, and move on. one day, the hate (and the vog) will be gone. or it won't. doesn't really matter...
Friday, December 7, 2012
i was watching snatches of inception this evening. it was the movie i saw just before starting my job over at wahiawa el. i remember it being a favorite, for a time... for the span of a dream. characters who had a grasp of reality, even with all of its shifts. i envy that...
certain things fascinate me. the gestures of control employed by keanu reeves in that movie johnny mnemonic... the use of a symbolic totem in inception... these are strategies of control and centering. they define a sacred space... i think i used a ritual every time i felt broken and shit upon, and needed a restart... everything, everything would be innocent, in its own skin (yes, i've repeated this image countless times)... there would be a tension in me, a gritting of the teeth, a spasming to briefly fulfill the anger or hurt i would feel. kind of a whimpering, on occasion... buying into a fiction that i was, at that moment, innocent, and compelled by a force, by a fate... because, perhaps, in that moment, that is exactly what i wanted. to repossess my own narrative. in the beginning of the story, even in in medias res, there is always an innocence to the protagonist, he is being written in, he is being moved by forces introduced into him or around him. there is a cleanliness in that... i suppose that is what i wanted, what i want. 1) cleanliness and 2) belonging to a story greater than myself...
i have this image of my senior year in college. one day when i felt it. that old hatred and pain build up. i took some cds and shattered them in my hands, allowing the edges to cut into my palms... and out of the fragments building a kind of shape on the floor of my room... for a time walking, as in a daze, speaking to no one. but from that, everything for a time returned into its own skin. everything became itself again...
no one helps you when it is just you and that hate. perhaps no one can help you.
now, when i think of the imagery of the skin, etc. and my habitual ritual, i wonder about the pericardium... and how it protects the heart from pain. but sometimes in so doing, it keeps the old pain within, continually recycling it, until it colors the narrative with its poison interpretations... i wonder, in light of my reflections of this individual that i hate, and what he has done to others in my family, whether there is something in my past that i must somehow remember, through all the pain.
i cannot stop at my ritual to reestablish a skin. somehow i have to go deeper, and remember what, if anything, was the original trauma...
---
yet another reason why i distrust any totalizing narrative is in its fundamental hypocrisy... and fuck it, the world is so blind. people LOVE him. and who am i, this pathetic piece of shit that he has discredited, who am i to shed the light upon his crimes? YOU want to believe in him, god bless you. god, who allowed all of this to happen. the right hand and all of that, forever and ever amen.
i choose to bend sinister. i think things are truer here. people think this is darkness, and evil, but if you have a heart to see things as they really are, you would see how ass backwards the world is... those who speak. those who judge. i don't believe in any of them. any more.
---
box within box within box...
certain things fascinate me. the gestures of control employed by keanu reeves in that movie johnny mnemonic... the use of a symbolic totem in inception... these are strategies of control and centering. they define a sacred space... i think i used a ritual every time i felt broken and shit upon, and needed a restart... everything, everything would be innocent, in its own skin (yes, i've repeated this image countless times)... there would be a tension in me, a gritting of the teeth, a spasming to briefly fulfill the anger or hurt i would feel. kind of a whimpering, on occasion... buying into a fiction that i was, at that moment, innocent, and compelled by a force, by a fate... because, perhaps, in that moment, that is exactly what i wanted. to repossess my own narrative. in the beginning of the story, even in in medias res, there is always an innocence to the protagonist, he is being written in, he is being moved by forces introduced into him or around him. there is a cleanliness in that... i suppose that is what i wanted, what i want. 1) cleanliness and 2) belonging to a story greater than myself...
i have this image of my senior year in college. one day when i felt it. that old hatred and pain build up. i took some cds and shattered them in my hands, allowing the edges to cut into my palms... and out of the fragments building a kind of shape on the floor of my room... for a time walking, as in a daze, speaking to no one. but from that, everything for a time returned into its own skin. everything became itself again...
no one helps you when it is just you and that hate. perhaps no one can help you.
now, when i think of the imagery of the skin, etc. and my habitual ritual, i wonder about the pericardium... and how it protects the heart from pain. but sometimes in so doing, it keeps the old pain within, continually recycling it, until it colors the narrative with its poison interpretations... i wonder, in light of my reflections of this individual that i hate, and what he has done to others in my family, whether there is something in my past that i must somehow remember, through all the pain.
i cannot stop at my ritual to reestablish a skin. somehow i have to go deeper, and remember what, if anything, was the original trauma...
---
yet another reason why i distrust any totalizing narrative is in its fundamental hypocrisy... and fuck it, the world is so blind. people LOVE him. and who am i, this pathetic piece of shit that he has discredited, who am i to shed the light upon his crimes? YOU want to believe in him, god bless you. god, who allowed all of this to happen. the right hand and all of that, forever and ever amen.
i choose to bend sinister. i think things are truer here. people think this is darkness, and evil, but if you have a heart to see things as they really are, you would see how ass backwards the world is... those who speak. those who judge. i don't believe in any of them. any more.
---
box within box within box...
the return to the pericardium
i have always been fascinated by the pericardium, or "heart protector" (xin bao). every organ is said to play a role in the "government" of the body. the pericardium is the envoy (sometimes represented as the prime minister), who alone communicates with the heart, that secret emperor. it is through the pericardium that information is passed in and out of the secret chamber of the emperor within his forbidden city. the pericardium is, in essence, the story teller, the most masterful story teller of all, for it is through his words that the fate of the kingdom is determined.
before i settled on "mid error" as my monicker (a play on the "mid air" and "in the midst of errors"; also an anagram of "mirrored", as one of my earliest stories was a play on the situation of the reflection in a mirror; note the metal reference), before "mid error", i used to be "pericarpediem," which was a play on the "pericardium", the membrane surrounding the heart, and "peri-carpe-diem", that which surrounds (and therefore hesitates in the face of) the philosophy of carpe diem, of grasping the moment... it was meant to connote an interruption or delay in the interface between the self and the world, or the self and the other... because, at that time (and actually, on into today), i have always felt that i was that gap, that interruption, that discontinuity within the flow...
so, in truth, the pericardium and i are old friends. in my recent investigations to try to understand my pathology, this is what i read with regards to the pericardium (or heart protector). i quote this in full because i feel it resonates: (from "Nourishing Destiny" by Lonny Jarrett)
Irony: Heart Protector- Strength and Openness
The irony that lies thematically at the center of the life of the heart protector constitution is that true intimacy is empowered by strength. Habitually driven to avoid pain, the mind of the heart protector strives to the point of weariness in its attempt to avoid the pain it associates with intimacy. Internally, the heart protector keeps painful events from consciousness, and externally the habitual mind either shuns connection with others or leads us into relationships where there is no real chance of intimate connection. The habituated mind tells us we are being strong by either avoiding or pursuing relationships with others. Behavior predicated on ignorance, however, always leads our heart to a state of being unfulfilled. Ironically, whether engaged in relationship or not, our sorrow grows for lack of the meaningful connection that nourishes the heart. True strength implies the ability to remain in the presence of pain resulting from both past and present relationships without letting it dictate our course of action. Only in finding the courage to rectify the relationship between our heart and mind can the destiny of the heart protector ever be truly fulfilled.
***
btw, in chinese medicine, the fire element is actually shared by four channels/organs, instead of the normal two (all the other elements are associated with a yin organ and a yang organ). the element fire is composed of a pair of imperial fire organs: the heart and small intestine; and a pair of ministerial fire organs: the pericardium and the triple warmer. all share the same general thesis of control vs. intimacy, and communication, but in different aspects...
before i settled on "mid error" as my monicker (a play on the "mid air" and "in the midst of errors"; also an anagram of "mirrored", as one of my earliest stories was a play on the situation of the reflection in a mirror; note the metal reference), before "mid error", i used to be "pericarpediem," which was a play on the "pericardium", the membrane surrounding the heart, and "peri-carpe-diem", that which surrounds (and therefore hesitates in the face of) the philosophy of carpe diem, of grasping the moment... it was meant to connote an interruption or delay in the interface between the self and the world, or the self and the other... because, at that time (and actually, on into today), i have always felt that i was that gap, that interruption, that discontinuity within the flow...
so, in truth, the pericardium and i are old friends. in my recent investigations to try to understand my pathology, this is what i read with regards to the pericardium (or heart protector). i quote this in full because i feel it resonates: (from "Nourishing Destiny" by Lonny Jarrett)
Irony: Heart Protector- Strength and Openness
The irony that lies thematically at the center of the life of the heart protector constitution is that true intimacy is empowered by strength. Habitually driven to avoid pain, the mind of the heart protector strives to the point of weariness in its attempt to avoid the pain it associates with intimacy. Internally, the heart protector keeps painful events from consciousness, and externally the habitual mind either shuns connection with others or leads us into relationships where there is no real chance of intimate connection. The habituated mind tells us we are being strong by either avoiding or pursuing relationships with others. Behavior predicated on ignorance, however, always leads our heart to a state of being unfulfilled. Ironically, whether engaged in relationship or not, our sorrow grows for lack of the meaningful connection that nourishes the heart. True strength implies the ability to remain in the presence of pain resulting from both past and present relationships without letting it dictate our course of action. Only in finding the courage to rectify the relationship between our heart and mind can the destiny of the heart protector ever be truly fulfilled.
***
btw, in chinese medicine, the fire element is actually shared by four channels/organs, instead of the normal two (all the other elements are associated with a yin organ and a yang organ). the element fire is composed of a pair of imperial fire organs: the heart and small intestine; and a pair of ministerial fire organs: the pericardium and the triple warmer. all share the same general thesis of control vs. intimacy, and communication, but in different aspects...
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...
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...
Thursday, December 6, 2012
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?
***
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.
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.
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