the gaze of the other paralyzes.  that is its nature.  in the face of the other, we shrink, we shirk...  in darkness, we grow unbounded by our limits, but within light, in the eyes of the other, we suddenly have a finitude, and, in fact, we shrink away from our potentialities.

***

i felt a tension...  i feel a tension.

there is a state of being broken.  of feeling on edge.  and accompanying it is a perpetual tension...  i am not certain why this is so.

to clarify: i have been paying attention to my different modes.  one involves drifting comfortably over surfaces.  another, which oftentimes closely approximates or mimics the first, and in fact, probably depends on the first (or supports the first) involves "putting everything in its right place."  with regards to this second mode, i recall times when i was in elementary school when i would arrange all of my pencils in my school box just so, and would even be frustrated when the natural jostling about would disturb their perfect symmetry...  related to this: once, in college, when a woman walked across campus to "study" with me, and lay on my bed talking about how "tired" she was, all i could do was continue my studies, because that was what i was supposed to do.  it was an opportunity that i honestly didn't see or even think of capitalizing on at that time.  again, it all has to do with this second mentality or mode, which crystallizes me in a prison of steel.

a third mode involves the poetic existence, or at least, my approximation of it.  it has a certain attitude to it, and, as i mentioned, a certain tension.  it involves brokenness: wearing clothes that have holes in them, wearing an expression that has a near sneer on it...  speaking obtusely and frankly...  there is a rebelliousness implicit in it, as though the second mode has highlighted the contradictions implicit in all existence, and that i am forced to take this stance, because to be "artistic" and true automatically requires a kind of ejection and rejection...

i don't know if there are other modes of existence, but those are a few that i can categorize.  i have drifted in the first two modes for a long time.  it is rare (and probably not sustainable) for me to exist in the third.  the third, by the way, contains or allows passion.  TRUE passion, not the routinized passion that i embody today.  true passion in the sense that it is destructive, nonsystematic, perhaps anti systematic.  it doesn't give a fuck about tomorrow, or reasons why; it simply is, and does.

***

i'm trying to understand these, and also the way my mind/heart remember (or fail to remember).  i suppose this relates to my modes of being too.  the systematic mode sometimes remembers (although oftentimes memory does not play into the "system" because so much of what occurs in life is nonassimilable, or irrelevant); but even when it remembers, it does so sketchily, it mutated the memory to fit into a container.  the anti-systematic mode sometimes remembers, although because it is so thoroughly unsystematic, it only remembers "surfaces" and impressions.  i don't know how or why i cannot reconcile the two, but my relationship with my past is often- problematic.  i either don't recall, or i can't feel.  or both.

so, while i have been consistently "practice-writing" per natalie goldberg (yes, i'm on that track again), as before, i find that sort of writing is not fit for any sort of publication or even re-reading by myself.  it is mostly stream-of-consciousness stuff.  it rarely gets deeper than any momentary and fragmentary thought that passes into my head.  this always inspires frustration in me, and reflects a general problem in my life: this idea that there IS no story "existent" within me, that there is no shape or landscape that i can "express."  this means that any narrative that i construct would be wholly contrived, and what i've found is that i am not a good "contriver."  as it is, writing stories is an artificial process, and produces an artificial construct; how then, if there is no skeleton, no core, upon which to hang these rags and curtains?

ANYWAY, i figure that blogging is a good intermediary step.  while probably NO ONE reads this, there is this idea that someone does, or that potentially someone could.  and with the introduction of even the possibility of another, there is an immediate imposition of structure to my words.  i used to write about this sort of thing back in college.  i always wondered about the "ordering" of the world, not just the real world, but also the world of consciousness.  i (like many philosophers) primarily were motivated to understand this point because of their frustration with the world-as-ordered, especially because it came with a lot of existential guilt.  understanding how the conscious world-as-ordered formed would, they believed, help to free them from this guilt.

ANYWAY (as i have a tendency here to go off on large tangents)...  that's what i'm trying to do here.

***

i watched a great movie yesterday.  it was called "a monster calls."  it's about a young, imaginative, artistic boy (or should i say adolescent, not a boy, not a man) with a mother dying of cancer.  it deals with a lot of the anger and frustration and grief and, most importantly, guilt, that lies festering within him.  he calls out to a "monster", a giant humanoid that springs out of a yew tree that the boy can see atop a high field (graveyard, actually).  the monster visits him at 12:07 (i still almost come up with reasons for that particular number) and tells him paradoxical, ambiguous stories that have muddled (and multi-layered) interpretations.

it was a great, wise, touching movie.  most notably, i loved the use of the stories, which the boy (and the viewers) interpret on the surface; various interpretations, including how to deal with an imposing grandmother, or a "good start bad finish" father.  ultimately, though, the monster, like a zen master, is using the stories to point to the boy's own unresolved issues, particularly his guilt.  this guilt comes out when the boy is forced by the monster to tell the fourth story: his own particular nightmare.

***

i often wonder if there is a secret wound within me.  i seek it out.  i debase myself continually (because i do think that there is a lot of hate within me).  but there is a point where i lose focus.  and nothing comes up.  that is the key: that the "answer" wells up something within you, something forgotten, perhaps, or denied.  i don't think (or know) if i deny much of anything.  there are things i've realized about myself that i won't even disclose here, to this "fictional audience."  things that i was at first ashamed of, but slowly started to understand were just necessary parts of my being.

humans are complicated creatures, after all.  (this is something the monster says).  we are not all good or all evil, but mostly something in between.  i am so.  there are evils within me too.  but, (and this is something that the monster also says) what is important is what we do.

NEVERTHELESS, even though it is important what we do, we still need to face and confront and set free all of the contradictions within us.  if we don't, it's as though we are tethered to the ground, with a hefty knot holding us back from everything.

i have always felt confined.  i want liberation.  writing, drawing, everything are means to that end.  THIS is a means to that end.

there is an ancient, nameless guilt  it has pursued me across space and time, and still manages to find me...

i kept hearing the words (or rather the tune) to that song by the weekend...  and it morphed to other songs, like the one from arianna grande...  whoa, i am dating myself, because later when i read this, i will look back with sadness upon what has passed.  what used to be quaint, the background, is now irretrievably gone.

there is a critique from certain people, a judgment.  and the judgment imposes a slick, sheer silver wall that is impossible to climb or influence.  you will NEVER measure up.  in the face of that, i fall apart, i doubt myself.  there are so many things which i neglect, simply by existing, and this makes me feel like that...  then, in my mind, i run through a checklist...  i suppose that my son worries me the most.  but last night, i ran with him, and we sort of had a heart to heart.  he is so open and positive when i speak to him.  i love that within him.  sure, he has worries and anxieties, but he still paints them with such brashness...  in this, he is unlike me, who am simply a mass of worries, a ball on wound up tension.  when he spoke of becoming a teacher, there was a feeling of reassurance within me.

i have wondered, perhaps since the beginning, at the irony...  of how we can be so cruel to ourselves, so judgmental, and yet, extend such warmth and mercy to others.  it's not, and it never has been, about them "measuring up".  i suppose that i have ALWAYS held that misgiving within myself...  but my son proves me wrong: how he unabashedly moves out into the world, mess or no mess, incomplete or no...  he has a bravery that i admire.  and people (including me) seem to like that.  i love that.  why is that?  why is that allowed (thankfully!) but it can never apply to me?

is there someone that acknowledges everything?  i used to think of this as a lover, but there is no lover with the patience and space within their heart to accommodate all the shit that i have to offer.  that's something i realized real quick.  a lover comes to you with their own needs and wants, and it is simply a happy coincidence that those are met, temporarily, and imperfectly, within each other...  and you still have to be strong enough to stand, with all of your own internal contradictions...

i am sad, crying on the inside.  there is no true comfort in this world.  everything passes away.  nothing meets the ideal that you, fleetingly, set for it.  everything falls apart...  in such a world, to stand.  that is the miracle.  in this moment, i love my son, for what he can do.  i will support him, as best as i can.

Hi, it's been a while.

I had a dream tonight.  I was doing some work in the library, perhaps as a supplement to a lesson or something.  Or maybe it was the cafeteria, I'm not too sure.  Anyway, there was a woman there, a somewhat plump blonde woman, who was the acting principal.  She didn't look like anyone I knew in real life, unless it happened to be that lady that works as registrar at ICAOM or something.  Anyway, there was a point in which she made a statement or something, and I for some reason stood up for myself, saying something to the effect that I was an exemplary teacher or something.  And then she totally shot me down with a flat, "No you aren't."  And I struggled to come up with a response.  I recall other teachers being around (because, for some reason, they had suddenly appeared), including a somewhat twiggy, bespeckled teacher that reminded me of Doogey Houser or something.  And they didn't come to my defense, in fact, they seemed to tacitly agree with what that lady was saying.  And I remember actually getting furious because of my helplessness, almost crushing papers and throwing a tantrum- and realizing that everything I was doing was being witnessed by everyone, I calmed down, I told them I'm sorry, I need to calm down, and instead of finding sympathy in anyone, it seemed as though they were all looking at me with bemused expressions...

I think I'm returning to the old conflict.  I understand a bit about why I don't have sympathy with certain people... or certain things.  I can't.  There is a part of me that I call "reality" that never had sympathy with me...  In many ways, it was my teacher.  It pushed me to just sit there and do shit.  Do the shit that no one else would do, or dream of doing...  It pushed me beyond my complacency...  I did stuff because it was necessary, no one else would do it, no one else would even tell me to do it.  I did it because I realized I needed to be humble, I was not hot shit, I was absolutely nothing, maybe less than nothing, and I just needed to get it in gear...  There was no sympathy deserved.  I was not a human being, I was just something desperately climbing up the sheer metal wall of judgment.

And failing.

It reminds me of times with Iris, frankly.

I don't know what is good or bad.  I like to think I have come a long way with my teaching, that I am more confident and whatever.  I like to think I have come a long way with life, too.  But then, things like this come around and force me to question everything that I am, and I mean everything: my voice, my life.  And the thing is, maybe it's a good thing.  Because it gets me to work, gets me to be desperate to validate myself...  Failing that, maybe I WOULD fall into complete complacency.

So: I'm not sure what the enemy is, or what I should do.  Because on the one hand, it gets me to move my ass, to haul it.  But on the other hand, it keeps me from ever feeling any substance in myself, any inner peace...  There is always this perpetual hatred deep within, this restless gnawing hatred, that keeps me from feeling fully happy about anyone or anything.  I remember my old life, or what I thought was my old life, this feeling of being a perpetual refugee, always hunting for what would make that judgmental side of me (which I confounded with "reality at large" or "other people") stop...  Shodo, everyone.  So fucking ashamed of myself.  Never able to make a connection, because I never believed anyone could sympathize with me, never believed there was a bridge of sympathy possible.

And maybe I do that to my son.  How I fail to relate, even with all this time.  I am always pushing him to "be" something...

I blame my brother, I blame a lot of people, but actually maybe it was myself all along.  But to say it was myself doesn't make it any easier...  How do you relate to others when it is impossible or seems impossible to relate?  Humor?  In this world, I deal with people like a machine, with steel parts to steel parts.  I understand that, even if I fail to do it sometimes...  There is no feeling allowed.  Even when I serve out of compassion...  there is no feeling allowed.  Confined to roles.

i woke tonight with a feeling of deep sadness. depression, perhaps. i realized that the last time i had been in japan was about 19 or 20 years ago. TWENTY YEARS. the memories of that time, which i believe were seminal, seem fresh, and yet in that interval, twenty years have passed. japan was still inscrutable, a country and experience which owned my heart, and yet was something that my heart could never understand or fully belong to. and back then, it inspired certain dreams about life, about purpose... and here i am, twenty years later, and feeling no closer to anything substantial, no different from the child i was so long ago, still duped by the same illusions. nothing seems to have changed.

... of course, things HAVE changed. i am married with two children. i have work that i believe in... but i suppose that in some ways, nothing has changed... i don't know how to put it. i realize that my focus on the present, on immediate purposes, it is basically a way to hide from some fundamental, irreconcilable truths... but in the face of certain things, i justify this reduction of perspective, because, well, i can't deal with that broad perspective- the idea that i can never swallow the world, that time passes quickly and makes our lives irrelevant, that in another few years, my present concerns (which largely revolve around my children) will have died and gone on, and what will i have to live for then?

there was an interpretation i had of martin heidegger's "being and time" which i thought was strongly buddhistic: the notion that a singular awareness of death led one to an epiphany about the purpose of life, and to live/devote oneself to that purpose... it is hard, at times, to believe in that purpose, because death questions all purpose. but we might say as well that death qualifies all purpose as well. what do i live for? and can that purpose survive, even as everything in life passes away? can it inform all of my actions so that they are authentic, and not merely distractions, or means to hide?

have i been hiding all my life? and what alternative is there to hiding?

***

all the lives i've touched. all the lives that have touched me. i'm sorry if i disappoint. death and life erase everything. i'm left an amnesiac (by choice?) every moment, trying to affirm this experience, this life, this world, even as all evidence insists that it is without substance...

i had a dream about professor herbert ganse little. apparently (in the dream), he was an old friend of an npr radio host, from elementary school days, and he was giving a talk on some university campus that i just happened to be wandering through. aside from being a wise teacher, i had felt (and heard) that professor little was someone who was a great friend (professor mark taylor had admitted as much once, and he being such a solitary "difficult" figure).

the funny thing is that i don't remember his actual speech. but i remember standing in line to talk to him, and to get his signature (as if professors have those kinds of fans). i recall that the others in the line seemed so young and enthusiastic, probably present students with so much potential within them. i felt myself tired, and perhaps not a bit of a disappointment. i tried recalling bits of what i had learned in his classes (sociology of religion primarily), things like "es gibt" and weber, but like most things, they were just fragments. i was going to tell him that i was a special education teacher, and that i loved what i did (which was true)...

i have had several "masters," people whom i trusted to look into my soul and grant some sort of approval. i have always been found wanting, whether it was taylor, little, or shodo kawabe. i always left these teachers with this feeling of regret, but following the currents and motivations that were hidden within me, and hidden to even myself, in order to become what was appropriate for the moment. for a while now, i thought i had left these masters behind, and found a life that was authentic and real. it's hard for anyone to question your "motivations" or your "search" when you have a wife and kids... but then again, maybe this dream appeared to reveal how much i have been hiding all these years.

professor little always spoke of "drawing out", "unpacking" things. it wasn't enough to give some glib answer. you had to explain it, pull the truth out of yourself like some magician's handkerchief out of your mouth. only then would you understand something of the truth and of yourself.

life is a drawing out. and it never ends. and similarly, i am always a student. there is no hiding from this role, because life is never something that is mastered. i think mastery is the illusion, the idea that things have died within you, and that there is no going forward. i think the takeaway i had from this dream is that i need to stop hiding in the dead forms and roles of my life, and find that pull within me, the pull to know, the pull to explore, the pull to be something more again.

because (all evidence to the contrary) i am still alive.

when there is no hope, then everything will fall to pieces. entropy and all of that.

the idea put forth by the show "quantum leap," that "another" could jump into your body for a period of time to set things right, it is a premise that i attempt to enact in my daily life. of course, i don't literally believe in or wait for "another" to jump in; however, i have to pretend a fresh perspective day by day, and oftentimes moment by moment, in order to go on. because i know at times that life can seem screwed up, problem-riddled, and if i don't believe in this "fresh pair of eyes" that comes in to save things, then i might as well let everything go to shit. because it will.