my daughter just woke up with a pain in her knee.  i tried to feel the different aspects of her knee to find a region of cramping.  it seemed as though her hamstrings (semitendinosis/semimembranosis) were tighter than the surrounding tissue, and she complained that the pain was worse upon bending, so it made sense.  i held the muscles in question with steady but gentle pressure, and it seemed to calm her down...

while this happened, i had an insight of sorts.  why did i choose acupuncture?  why do i choose special education?  why do i, in short, choose "hopeless situations?"

i was thinking about this, because in the midst of treatment, there is always this feeling of implicit despair and impotence, that i am given basic methods of treatment, but i always wrestle with the fear of nothing working, of having no effective means of addressing the problem...  maybe, maybe i chose these careers because of the implicit gamble associated with it...  and failure would be safe, in the sense that it might reflect the nature of the stacked situation, and not me...

a gamble...

i was thinking about impotence.  about being powerless to affect a situation.  to make a difference.

i was thinking about responsibility.  about being unable to respond...  don't know if i ever mentioned this, but i have always felt an inability to control my voice.  to control spoken language.  with written language, i could see my words, there was a kind of solidity to it that could not be denied...  but with speaking, it seemed as though there was a choking off of the flow, and what's more, a lack of faith that my words would reach others, would ever be heard...

this, in a sense, created a double economy of words, two systems.  in one, the spoken, the more immediate economy, i felt a pauper.  i felt like a non-participant.  i don't know if it was because i was implicitly a non-speaker, or because others around me silenced me, choked my voice off.  but whatever the case, i always felt that speaking was unreliable, a wind that could neither be shaped, nor had the power to bridge distances...  "no one can hear me.  i am powerless to be heard."

in the second economy, in the myriad second economies that exist, i had power.  i found a kind of influence in art, in drawing, in writing, and even in singing.  funny.  these are all economies that work through "impression."  they are not involved in direct linguistic events, the communication of a feeling or thought or direction that changes the course of immediate surroundings.  they CAN, but only through the mediation of a recognition on the part of the listener...  a recognition and acknowledgment...

***

i want to help.  "i want to help" is a statement of intent, on the surface, but it is also implicitly a statement of fundamental impotence...  it also betrays a need to participate, in a muted way, in an economy of power.  it betrays a distrust in a system of those who do NOT want to help, who either actively harm or neglect others...

i say "goodbye" periodically because i want to recoup influence and power ("did you miss me?") through absence...  and one might say that it is also a repetition of the second economies of communication, i.e. writing, communication which is not direct or immediate, which only truly takes effect in one's absence...  it is all about influence, recognition, power...  i hate it, but i must be honest with myself...

the desire to die is largely due to a feeling that i am already dead in the immediate economy of presence/intimacy...  and i want to recoup worth through death, through the indirect mediums of memory and reflection.  like written words, especially with hidden meanings...  read between the lines of my life, and you might find that i was a person of worth...

disgusting.

modus operandi

there is a lot of mass.  with great mass comes increased inertia or, conversely, increased momentum.  it is very hard to get the ball rolling.  and, once it is rolling, it is hard to stop it, or change its direction.

that is "how i roll."  it is unfortunate, but true.  also, with regards to matters, i have a kind of myopic perspective on things.  i can only do what is immediate.  usually, i start with what is easiest, and what is closest, because they "build my confidence," and then i am able to move into the harder stuff...  sounds pretty pathetic, but it's true.

with regards to "infinite tasks," like, for example, gardening (i.e. weeding)...  it would perhaps be nice if i had the time to sit and work on a small section to completion, and move on.  but i don't.  or at least, i don't have the patience.  so i tend to meander as i do things, working on each apparent task as it draws me.

i think, with regards to many things in life, i am kind of cautious about the use of force.  there IS a backlash.  it is sort of akin to moving with some kind of pain or wound.  yes, you could move faster, but you will deal with more pain or damage if you do...  best to move slow.

***

i also do things, or don't do things, in the face of practicality and responsibility.  more often, it's i don't do things.  they hurt too much, or they are too- wearying.  i know i have to do them, but i keep avoiding and burying them until eventually they become monsters that i have to slay.  why is it that i do this?  why can't i be "responsible?"

i almost feel a physical barrier with regards to certain things i have to do.  i feel very very tired.  and scared.  but to not do them, again, it is to allow a small thing to become a terror.  why?  it is so irrational, it is something i cannot explain...

i don't understand why some things are so hard or difficult.  why some things, it seems, i just "don't care about."  it must be that, in my own personal calculus, some things just don't have a net gain in my book...  example: my cell phone.  it is a shitty phone, with low battery life, and my reception is terrible.  i don't change it.  i don't pay for it.  i allow it to lose service.  why?  maybe i don't care so much about hearing from people?!

i almost think that with life, i am afraid of making snap decisions.  anything that forces me to confront my own ignorance, or makes me pay, or whatever...

i make no real plans to address my problems.  i have no plans.  it is more like trench warfare.  an impasse.  with massive casualties.  why!?

i make excuses for myself.  i'm processing something... or whatever.  and something in myself just doesn't care.  it won't let in anything that hurts...  but it all, in the end, just doesn't make sense.  not sound strategy...

it's ironic that i play games of strategy, am almost obsessed with it.  but when it comes down to my life, my own life, i am unable to follow through on any sound plan.  WHY!?

***

i suppose i see the pattern.

in the face of fundamental indebtedness (and much postmodern thought and philosophy suggests that we are born into a situation of indebtedness), the individual can become a slave, or he can rebel.  one form of rebellion is non-participation, non-payment of the debt.  it is a contradictory or paradoxical form of rebellion, because it is one which destroys the individual in rebellion.  but it is a form of rebellion, or protest, nonetheless.

it is interesting, but some of the most effective forms of rebellion/protest involve self-destruction of varying degrees: fasting, immolation, etc.  it is to be unyielding in the face of a system, an economic system, one does not want to participate in.  it is to choke the system.

i articulate this in systemic terms, in terms of economy, because it seems my narrative always tangles a personal hurt with a systemic problem.  i don't single out a person who has hurt me; i cut out the entire human race.  i don't point to a single problem that has affected me, i rebel against the yoke of human existence.  it's really silly when i look at things that way...

but i do think that when someone is in pain, walking with (self-inflicted) wounds, his tolerance for things is reduced, and also very confused.  i make decisions in a very myopic fashion, because i try to reduce the pain in its immediacy.  it's hard to think of the long term "medication" or "working cure" of a problem that is so "in your face."  and in many situations, there is an element of faith in even believing in a cure that will cause some momentary pain for ultimate gain.  so there is a confusion regarding help and harm.

i don't know.  i am just trying to understand things...

feeling tired again.

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...