a year in review

"Tragedy may be defined, here, as an attempt to 'recover' the distance which exists between man and things as a new value; it would be then a test, an ordeal in which victory would consist in being vanquished. Tragedy therefore appears as the last invention of humanism to permit nothing to escape: since the correspondence between man and things has finally been denounced, the humanist saves his empire by immediately instituting a new form of solidarity, the divorce itself becoming a major path to redemption.

"There is still almost a communion, but a painful one, perpetually in doubt and always deferred, its effectiveness in proportion to its inaccessible character. Divorce-as-a-form-of-marriage is a trap - and it is a falsification.

"We see in effect to what degree such a union is perverted: instead of being the quest for a good, it is now the benediction of an evil. Unhappiness, failure, solitude, guilt, madness - such are the accidents of our existence which we are asked to entertain as the best pledge of our salvation. To entertain, not to accept: it is a matter of feeding them at our expense while continuing to struggle against them. For tragedy involves neither a true acceptance nor a true rejection. It is the sublimation of a difference.

"Let us retrace, as an example, the functioning of 'solitude.' I call out. No one answers me. Instead of concluding that there is no one there - which could be a pure and simple observation, dated and localized in space and time - I decide to act as if there were someone there, but someone who, for one reason or another, will not answer. The silence which follows my outcry is henceforth no longer a true silence; it is charged with a content, a meaning, a depth, a soul - which immediately sends me back to my own. The distance between my cry, to my own ears, and the mute (perhaps deaf) interlocutor to whom it is addressed becomes an anguish, my hope and my despair, a meaning in my life. Henceforth nothing will matter except this false void and the problems it raises for me. Should I call any longer? Should I shout louder? Should I utter different words? I try once again... Very quickly I realize that no one will answer but the invisible presence I continue to create by my call obliges me to hurl my wretched cries into the silence forever. Soon the sound they make begins to stupefy me. As though bewitched, I call again... and again. My solitude, aggravated, is ultimately transmuted into a superior necessity for my alienated consciousness, a promise of my redemption. And I am obliged, if this redemption is to be fulfilled, to persist until my death, crying out for nothing.

"According to the habitual process, my solitude is then no longer an accidental, momentary datum of my existence. It becomes part of me, of the entire world, of all men: it is our nature, once again. It is solitude forever." Alain Robbe-Grillet

* * *

I was planning on writing a recap of the year, but what for? I know the mistakes I've made, and I know the necessary changes in mentality I am taking to fix them; there's no need to enumerate any further, however positive the intent. Anyway, the above says everything I needed to say.

I understand that I will be okay on my own.

* * *

My laptop has been officially pronounced dead. I will continue to sporadically use F's while I'm staying with family. I am a little irked because I had planned on using these two weeks off of work as time for writing (and yes, I sadly need a computer to do so properly), but such will have to wait. Instead I'm reading and taking lots of notes, which I hope to elaborate upon once I acquire a new machine.

MIA

My hard drive crashed. I'm trapped at home (massive flooding) with family sans computer. F worked his magic and recovered all my files, but I still may have to buy a new laptop if the parts in his basement electronics graveyard cannot repair it.

Not sure when I'll be returning to internet land, but luckily I brought lots of books home with me.

Illness Day 7 and the trouble with soup

I have gotten sick more times this year than I have in probably the past decade. My co-worker, who oscillates between calling me the socialist and the watermelon, comes by daily to remind me that I'm only sick because I "don't eat no meat." Over the past month, I had been doing remarkably well defending myself and finally even becoming victorious on a few of our various political debates, but days of incessant coughing and fatigue have left my voice sounding like that of a whining toad, thwarting any defense I try to make against his verbal antics. Mainly he has been alleging that the only effective remedy for my ailment would be the fatty broth of a good chicken noodle soup (and also insisting that the reason I'm getting sick so often is because I've become a vegetarian). Although I do not doubt that my poor nutrition and general disinterest in eating of late is partially at fault, being vegetarian in itself is not the problem but rather my laziness.

This whole week I've been struggling to find foods that are nutritious and simplistic enough for me to prepare in my weakened state. I first went for the canned soup aisle, frustratingly finding that the majority of vegetable soups contain beef or chicken broth. (This delayed revelation is due to the fact that I generally don't drink soup, particularly canned.) I bought a variety, consisting of whichever ones I could find, but found them all rather disagreeable (as my illness got worse, anything with more than a mild taste or smell became noxious) and instead stuck to a diet of plain oatmeal and periodically forced orange juice. Yesterday I again tried Amy's No Chicken Noodle Soup and remembered why I never bought it again after the first time years ago: even after adding water to neutralize its excessive saltiness and thereby disobeying the can's orders, the soggy spaghetti noodles and the tofu chunks, which were supposed to taste like chicken but had the consistency of over-chewed gum, made the soup still too unbearable to swallow.

Today I brought a can of vegetable soup to work for lunch, only to notice during the mid-morning the words "beef broth" on the ingredients list. I tried to trade it with one from my co-worker friend's stock, but all of his were tainted similarly. I left work early and went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients necessary to make my own damn soup and, as simple as it was, it turned out to be the best thing I've eaten all week (see recipe below).

I need to expand my culinary repertoire beyond the ten or so dishes I know how to make from fresh ingredients before I slowly starve myself to death. (I'm not even going to breach the subject of all the toxins that processed foods contain and their damaging effects.) I have a whole stack of untested recipes, so I'll just start working my way through those, tweaking them to taste until I get a feel for what I'm doing, all in the hopes of regaining a little creativity and health in a single activity.

Perhaps I'll continue to post the best recipes here pretending that someone actually has interest in my kitchen endeavors.

Ingredients:
6 tomatillos
1 large onion
1 red pepper
1 jalapeño
3 carrots
1 1/2 cups of elbow pasta
2 cans of white beans
1 small can of diced chilies
4 cans of vegetable broth

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Cut tomatillos, onion, pepper, and jalapeño into large pieces. Line a baking sheet with foil and oil (or non-stick spray) the bottom. Toss vegetables with a little olive oil and spread evenly onto baking sheet. Roast vegetables for about 20min in the oven or until edges are charred a bit. Blend roasted vegetables in a food processor (or blender) for a few turns until diced (not puréed).
Chop carrots into circles and boil until tender.
Cook pasta until al dente.
Boil vegetable broth in a large pot. Add white beans, carrots, roasted vegetables, chilies, and pasta. Cover and let simmer until ready to eat.

currently imbibing...

"They all sound benign and neutral until one asks: Tax who, for what? Appropriate what, for whom? To protect everyone's contracts seems like an act of fairness, of equal treatment, until one considers that contracts made between rich and poor, between employer and employee, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor, generally favor the more powerful of the two parties. Thus, to protect these contracts is to put the great power of the government, its laws, courts, sheriffs, police, on the side of the privileged - and to do it not, as in premodern times, as an exercise of brute force against the weak but as a matter of law." Howard Zinn





"Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags."

the interlude

I have rediscovered tangerines (mmm!!!) and ABBA!



ALL IS WELL ONCE AGAIN!!!!!

notices

I turned my television set on for the first time in exactly one month (to watch a DVD and not to watch actual television).

I spent the majority of this evening reading a book, and with a wondrous jolt, I remembered that words do not only come in electronic form but on paper as well. Yes, months have gone by in which I have been unable to get beyond page ten of anything I try to read.

My last private journal entry is dated August 19th.

The obvious question that comes to mind: what exactly have I been doing in all this time?

My mind seems unwilling to answer its own question. Perhaps a weekend of isolation and toil will shake out more than just evasive quotes and vague utterances.

my lovers have arrived

art and audience

"Art is not a means to an end; it contains its own ends. It is one of the principal means, in our view, by which human beings gain their bearings in the world. It has an objective, truthful content. Profound artistic images reflect the world, in their own manner, just as accurately as scientific axioms. Art grasps the world in the form of images. The present-day postmodernist or left academic dismisses this objective, 'universal' element in favor of a cheap, flabby relativism." David Walsh

* * *

"And it is to be noted that it is the fact that Art is this intense form of Individualism that makes the public try to exercise over it an authority that is as immoral as it is ridiculous, and as corrupting as it is contemptible. It is not quite their fault. The public have always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity. Now Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic." Oscar Wilde

happy thanksgiving

I lay in bed trying to read. My sister, completely nude and jogging in slow-motion, enters: "When am I going to do your dumplings?"
"When you put some f***ing clothes on!"
She laughs her beastly laugh and jogs out to shower.

Five minutes later, F returns home and enters my room. I look at him and say, "Your woman is disgusting."
"Was she exercising in front of you in the nude?"
"How did you know that?"
"She did the same thing to Judy earlier this morning."

I'm ready to go home now.

drinking black tea and excreting a frightful falafel green. how was your day?

Waking up intentionally displaced - a cup of Trix contradicts childhood memories - disappointment in a skip - five hour drive - a quarter of a pumpkin pie a la freezer a la Judy - I feel sick - more time in car - the bickering in lieu of music - notification of probation - the onset of bad television hardly covered by a coat or the need for a haircut.

While bonding (or not rather):

Use Your Illusions - Slavoj Žižek

"The paradigmatic cynic tells you confidentially: ‘But don’t you see that it is all really about money/power/sex, that professions of principle or value are just empty phrases which count for nothing?’ What the cynics don’t see is their own naivety, the naivety of their cynical wisdom which ignores the power of illusions."

A rare 1978 interview with 16 year old Antoine Monnier about his experiences making Robert Bresson's 'The Devil Probably' (1977)

"Death and suffering can be terrible when they are the only way of expressing the strong feelings you have. Bresson does not show all the blood and everything, he tried to reveal beauty. So the death is very pure." Monnier on The Devil, Probably

Kroot orbits Planet Kuchar

Back to Bazin Parts 1, 2, 3

And to make myself thoroughly sick, if not amused, before bed:
80 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena

it is done.

Work can resume now.
Goodies are set to arrive on Tuesday.
In the meantime, I am re-learning how to read.

I miss my cafe.

* * *

"In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners,
it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners. " AC

sifting

"People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have. For example, the freedom of thought. Instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation." SK

potential and apprehension

"A pawn on the political chessboard, his value is in his position; with fair effort, we may soon change him for knight, bishop, or queen, and sweep the board. This position he owes to no merit of his own, but to lives that have roused the nation's conscience, and deeds that have ploughed deep into its heart. Our childish eyes gazed with wonder at Maelzel's chess-player, and the pulse almost stopped when, with the pulling of wires and creaking of wheels, he moved a pawn, and said, 'Check!' Our wiser fathers saw a man in the box." Wendell Phillips

Who will we let that "man in the box" be?

hiatus

No more blogging and stuff until I finish a specific task, which could take few more weeks.

impeding accompaniment

So much for telling my sister. I struggle in a never-ending loop, trying to keep myself motivated but continually allowing myself to be too easily swayed by the opinions and actions of others. I didn't get home from work until 8:30pm, and although being trapped there so late would normally have me feeling beaten and weary, I was filled with rapture because I had spent the last hour there confessing all my ambitions and doubts to a co-worker. I waited until late in the work day to go over to his office and ask if he would write me a recommendation letter for my future plans. Once I had explained everything, I felt so silly for having kept all my thoughts private and I was surprised by how much his encouragement meant to me. He has a daughter only a few years younger than me, and I remember earlier in the year when he was asking me for insight about what she could possibly be thinking by not pursuing a career in her degree and floundering her life away with no prospects or long-term goals. At the time, I was secretly harboring the same desire for exploration and listening to his bafflement was like looking into the possible future and hearing my own father's confused frustration. In fact, his words at that time increased my apprehensions and pulled me back into the mentality that my "goals" were nothing but wayward daydreams. But when I talked to him tonight, he pointed out the differences between the levels of responsibility and maturity that I have versus his own daughter. He continued by expressing his own regrets and the barriers he's both encountered and created over the course of his life with a sincerity that reinforced my belief that taking risks while I'm not tied down to anything is the only way to discover what I really want out of life.

When I got back to my desk, I saw that my sister had called, and by the time I got home, made dinner, and began washing dishes, she was calling again. She started telling me that she couldn't sleep the night after we last spoke and immediately started grilling me about the irrationality of my decision, using my mental and physical health as her key weapons of attack. I couldn't believe how she was using my emotional issues to explicitly insinuate that I'd be better off trying to "talk to someone" than actually trying to change my life. When that tactic didn't work, she began asking about my eye problem, saying that it's something that has to be monitored and that can't just be ignored. I responded by saying that it was ridiculous that she was already trying to stop me from doing something that I hadn't even started yet. She tried to hide behind the cloak of "just trying to look out for you" but I could sense her complete lack of understanding and saw very little point in arguing it further.

I'm not sure how much I can convince her or most other people that the uncertainty of which I want out of life is really my current best option. My sister tries to control the unknown by having a relatively secure job, saving money, and dating a guy who wouldn't leave her no matter how cruelly she treats him at times, but her future isn't all that much more predictable than my own: tragedy and happiness can both strike at random. I don't understand why people can be so apprehensive about faulting their lifestyles for their problems, which could thereby give them the chance to adjust. Perhaps it is justifiable to say that I blame myself for too much, but I personally find that taking credit for the problem gives me more control over the possible solutions.

I spent a good long hour of the midday on company instant messenger, trying to console a friend. She's constantly picking fights with her boyfriend, trying to get him to explicitly tell her why he loves her, and getting mad at him for never giving her the right answer. She questions his feeling for her because he can't/won't vocalize them, despite the fact that he's never acted or spoken in a way that would justify her skepticism. At the same time, she could list numerous detailed reasons for her feelings, but yet she IMed me today upset because the friend she had a crush on when she started dating her boyfriend (a crush she never fully got over), called her up after months of not talking to one another to tell her he's engaged. During the first year of their relationship I kept my mouth shut about a lot of the problems they were having, knowing that the best way for her to learn was on her own, the hard way. But lately I've been more candid when she comes to me for consolation and I've done so not only to be of more assistance but also because honesty is necessary for the sake of our friendship. Today I finally broke it to her clear-cut: she projects onto him her own doubts about both her feelings for him and her own self-worth. She then proceeds to get mad at him for not giving her the boost in confidence that she should already have within herself. I could easily tell that these weren't the answers she wanted to hear, and that I was only further upsetting her, not comforting her the way her other friends do. Though I don't think she liked my responses, she seemed less surprised by the responses themselves than by the fact that I said them and thanked me for being honest. Part of me couldn't believe the level of clear-sightedness my advice had, since I suffer a similar ailment with today being no exception.

I put too much weight on the opinions of others to compensate for my own lack of self-worth. I have far surpassed the point of going to "talk to someone" because I have thought these issues through to near excess. I've known for some time now what I need to do to break this cycle ,and although I feel that the risks that my sister worries about are completely justified, they are risks that I have no other option but to take. In that sense, I'm not worried.

camaraderie

Ugh, how have I lasted this long? For five years I have caged myself into a dead-end life all because I never realized that other ways of living existed. Today at work my cube neighbor, checking to see if I'd watched the video in his latest e-mail forward, stopped by and started chatting about the grind. Although we seemed to agree on the ridiculousness of it, I couldn't help but notice that where my reactions were to roll my eyes in disgust, his were to smile and shrug. Is this why I'm so miserable working a desk job -- because I can't put a self-deluding positive spin on life's little unavoidable quirks? He stood there smiling about how he has to retire soon because he now has grandchildren on both coasts and four weeks of vacation just won't cut it anymore. He continued to boast about how it took him twenty years to earn that allotment and in another fifteen years of dutiful labor I will too! Of course, I'll escape or off myself well before that day ever comes, but I kept that comment to myself.

He was supposed to retire back in May, but since the housing market crashed he hasn't been able to find a buyer for his house here. So he continues to work, joking that as a retiree he can only afford two, not three mortgages. He can afford two other homes and yet he can't afford to retire? Yup, as ridiculous as it sounds, he refuses to sell his house here for less than what he thinks it's worth, even if it means him working another year or two. I can't imagine ever digging myself that deep into dependency where I weigh the pride of my assets' worth higher than that of my leisure time. I watch as friends my own age toil away to make payments on their new homes, new cars, and other items priced in excess, and I can't see why they would drag themselves that willingly into debt: they're at points where they couldn't even quit their jobs even if they grew to hate them, and some already do. Maybe it's just my apprehension for commitment speaking, but to me that sounds like self-induced servitude.

I hear passive complaints all the time at work. They talk about "the wife" wanting to buy a new couch again or "the boy" wanting the new mp3 player all his friends have. Then they talk about the customer wanting some unnecessary accessory added to the product or the higher-up bosses wanting everyone to complete some time-wasting training or recommitment exercise, all accomplishments that look good on paper but serve no other benefit. Together they let out a unified groan or sigh and go along with it. I can only imagine that they do the same at home in response to the demands of "the wife" and "the boy."

WHY? Somehow being in it together makes it all the more bearable, but at the same time never allows them to question why they're bearing it all to begin with. This sort of group-think dumbs the individuals into accepting things they would never agree to if they could see other possibilities. Actually, that late in life, I'm willing to wager that they'd be hostile or dismissive to anyone who chose not to put up with it. I remember one business trip where a middle-aged co-worker got one of many calls from his wife and stepped away to talk to her. I could really tell how much he cared about her by the way he spoke and I couldn't help but smile in hope that feelings for another person could really last that long. My other co-workers didn't feel the same and proceeded in mocking him behind his back, calling him "whipped." But were they mocking him because they thought he was too dependent upon his wife or was it out of spite because their own marriages had turned sour over time?

I see how much my own escape seems completely absurd because I surround myself with people of the same sort of group-think mentality. Today I accidentally blurted out to my sister that I had every intention of quitting my job within the next year. She immediately got on my case about the importance of having a career, health insurance, and savings, and although I don't disagree with her warnings, I'm at a point in my life where I'm willing to risk security for discovery. Today when I tried to express to her in honesty just how miserable I was living inside the system, my confessional was met with an awkward pause, followed by "you're getting weirder and weirder with old age... what's wrong with you?" I attempted to explain further but was cut off by her tirade about how foolish I was thinking, throwing away everything I've worked so hard for. I won't even discuss my decision to do so with my mother because previous meek attempts over the course of my upbringing to question the legitimacy of the professional world were always met with hostility. As so, I grew up genuinely believing that there was nothing special enough about me to deserve such freedom and that I'd only be mooching off of the hard work of other people. I used to wonder how my mother and sister could be so stubborn and bitter, but then I look at how much my sister complains about her life and other people and how my mother does nothing to better her own, and I understand why: all too acceptingly, neither one wants to risk the security of the status quo. Of course I've been just as reluctant, but never with their level of contentment.

As much as I am knocking the group-think mentality, I can't help but feel that what I'm searching for most now are peers. I've outgrown my environment and I'm feeling increasingly alienated from my friends (family, co-workers, etc.) as I try to liberate myself from the lifestyle which they find so little discomfort within. This has been a consistent chagrin in my life as if I've been going through mass choreographed movements, despite their feeling unnatural, all because I can't sense this apprehension in any of those nearest to me. But there's nothing wrong with me: these movements are not the only options. I've gained considerable confidence over the past few years from my private studies and I've been able to discover that the terrain I'm about embark upon is not as untreaded as I once believed. Although currently I can't see anyone ahead, it's likely I'll meet fellow travelers along the way. My mind is still very much within the building stages, and probably always will be, but nevertheless I feel prepared enough to begin to take action.

There are relationships (not just with other people, but with oneself and one's environment) that help to develop and challenge a person, and there are those that cripple a person comfortably into wallowing stagnation. I am searching for the former and weeding out the latter. This doesn't just involve deciding which relationships should be kept and which should be disposed of in a purely binary fashion, but more subtly it's about choosing how I interact with my surroundings.

Imagine how different the world could be if everyone pushed for the same.

I got in an argument this weekend with a friend in which he stated that I defeat my own complaints about all that's wrong with the world by my lack of initiative to change things on a mass scale. Repeatedly, he has suggested politics as the means to do so, but I disagree. Perhaps he regards my disinterest as selfishness, but I believe that a lot can be achieved on the grander scale when an individual takes the inititive to live right within him or herself. I think living out one's ideals, working for truth, and helping others on a smaller, individual scale, speaks louder to people than pontification and policy changes ever could. Restricting people with mandates and regulations only work to alleviate the symptoms of diseased mentalities and do little to treat the causes. In fact, within myself I am learning to abide by this newfound conviction. As excited as I have been to share (if not preach) all that I have learned recently (and frustrated by how little is absorbed or even considered by those I confront), I am learning how to calm down and restrict how much I say when not directly asked; I can say a lot more by how I live. As for my speech and other forms of expression, I'm finding other less aggressive ways to express my ideals.

Despite my bouts of highs and lows, I am always progressing.

work in progress

*deep diving*

to continue

"My one true goal is really to humbly learn the truth, and not at all to convince others I'm right, or that I know more than they do. I learn first, and if I can share it with others, wonderful."

04/09/09

My environment is killing me. I am not this weak by nature.

It is nearly time.

i really wanted to stop...

will write soon, but for now another quote

“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam that flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his own thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a sort of alienated majesty.” Emerson

quote // *** // vague update

"Writing (like all acts of artistic creation) is a process of discovery and the writer must hold him or herself delicately, sensitively open to whatever comes up during that process of exploration, continuously willing to change paths to pursue new material, to go off in a new direction." RC

* * *

I am so frustrated lately. Everything seems to take fives times longer than I plan, and I'm still at a point where I feel like with each step I'm losing more ground than I gaining. I know with persistence this will change, but such knowledge doesn't make my effort any less arduous. It's not helping that lately my body is demanding nine hours of sleep a night versus the typical five that I prefer giving it. Gauging my progress is skewed by how often my feats are internal, and those that aren't, are still very much private. I, among too many others infused with programmed expectations, still struggle to anticipate the future benefits of my current selfishness. If anything, this expanded need for time only makes it all the more obvious and imminent that I eradicate those tasks that take away from my desired pursuits.

nowhere

I'm still wrong.

camel cricket infestation

Ewwwww!!! Those aren't giant jumping spiders.

Someone go get my clothes out of the washing machine downstairs; they're everywhere!

just a peek

I see fear, and where I can't see fear, I see joyous complacency or indifference.

meet ups

I’ve had a number of social awakenings lately. As I have been frustrated with the people around me and my inability to connect with those I desire to befriend, I’ve learned a lot about my own misconceptions on communication. Now I realize that what makes a good friend isn’t having common interests but having and expressing genuine interest in one another. Last weekend I met up with an out-of-town friend. We met in person, at work of all places, about four years ago but soon after then he moved to another city and our correspondences have been primarily through e-mails that at best are daily though sometimes wane to weekly. We grew up in different cultures, have very dissimilar tastes (on music, movies, entertainment, etc.), and our views (on religion, success, art, relationships, etc.) and goals, despite how parallel they run, are actually quite different in practice. But despite our contrasts, over the years we’ve become surprisingly strong inspirations in one another’s lives: as I admire him for his versatility and drive, he admires me for my passion for learning and self-improvement. When we disagree with each other, we never really argue or debate, but just openly share our opinions. We delight in learning about each other because our contrasting views on life give us perspectives we’d otherwise miss out on.

On the other hand, a few years ago I met a guy with very similar tastes and I’ve had a horrible time trying to figure out why we never seemed to click. We met because we kept showing up to the same films and noticing one another in the audience (as movies I go to are very rarely crowded… and by crowded I mean more than fifteen people). We started writing these elaborate e-mails to each other about our mutual passion for cinema, but our personal lives always stayed backseat. Even when we met in person, it would always be to see a film, and if we did anything afterwards our conversations would mostly pertain to discussions on cinema. It wasn’t just an evasion of other subjects, but our complete lack of connection on a more personable level. He would always behave very formal and well-mannered, always shaking hands with people he’d meet, using his full (first and last) name anytime he left a message on my voicemail, and even though I’d be coming from work and he’d be coming from class, our dress would always imply the opposite. When I’d make sarcastic responses in jest, he’d apologize thinking he’d offended me in some way, pinning us in a rather awkward moment. In the whole time that I've known him, I've never once heard him really let out a laugh, and it’s not just some failing on my part; I've never seen him really let loose with his other friends either. Talking about film was the only way we knew how to connect, and I could never figure out how he could act so uptight and well, nerdy, yet enjoy many subversive and transgressive film works as well as being so broadminded. He graduated earlier this year and just recently moved to another city (taking my Bresson book and a handful of my DVDs with him!). I have a feeling we’ll still keep in touch over the years though contact will probably be sporadic and very rare. Even if we lived in the same city though, I doubt anymore would come of us than acquaintanceship.

Of course these two aren’t all-encompassing cases, just recent observations.

I have one more entry left in my lessons on personal communication series and then I’ll move on to other topics. Actually, I have a whole prioritized list of topics I've been really anxious to write about, but my moodiness has been causing them to be on indefinite delay.

and more letters

"Most of us are born clones and only with great difficulty can become ourselves." RC

fine

"Happiness wants to be worked for and earned. But you just want to consume happiness. It runs away from you because it doesn't want to be consumed by you." WR

subtle feats

Sometimes, I have the hardest time talking to this one girl friend of mine. Whenever one of us is doing really poorly, we get along great, giving solid advise, support and humor to one another in turn - bad weather friends I guess you could say - but otherwise we tend to live in such disparate worlds that finding commonality relevant to the moments of our daily lives can be a real strain. I remember one time we were at a bookstore trying to chat, but the conversation was flawed with awkward silences that were only alleviated by a surprise run-in with one of her other friends. The two of them immediately hit it off, chatting and giggling about pajama pants and the anticipation of the primping process for her friend's up-coming first date. I watched my friend’s entire demeanor change from one of lethargy to exuberance upon her entrance. Back and forth they went like two little school girls, as my friend ranted about how she couldn’t believe how ratty and hole-filled her friend’s pajama pants were, and her friend giggled and shouted back about how proud she was of them. On they went, back and forth, and back and forth, with me as the reluctant audience for their two-person farce. I wasn’t amused, but mustered a forced half-smile as I thought to myself that maybe I’m just too serious to enjoy the little things in life. I feigned mild interest, but really was just trying to think up excuses to leave as they started discussing plans for us leaving the bookstore and doing movie night instead.

What are the sources of our awkwardness? Is it genuinely unconquerable differences alone?

Act I. I had just started reading Ulysses. As I began telling her how excited I was with it, she told me how she'd wanted to read it too and now maybe she would, especially since she was going to Ireland soon. I saw her a couple weeks later and again, she asked how my book was going. I got really excited, relaying examples of Joyce's style and telling her how rough it was to get through, but how completely worthwhile of an experience it was becoming. This time her response was to say that she thought she read it back in high school and liked it a lot too. I catch her all the time telling little fibs to either sound like she knows something she doesn't or to get out of something by being polite. I didn't respond to the remark directly. A month or so later I went to pick her and her boyfriend up from the airport after their trip to Ireland. During the car ride, she started telling me how every time she saw something referencing James Joyce or Ulysses, she thought of me. And again, she said that she thought she might have read it in high school but couldn’t remember. Her boyfriend laughed and said that no one who’s actually read Ulysses has forgotten that (s)he’s read it. Now why couldn’t I just say that? I didn’t want to offend her so instead I silently passed judgment, maintaining awkwardness.

Act II. [weeks later] We walked into her apartment and I noticed a copy of Foreign Policy magazine on her coffee table. In a tone that implied my assured doubts, I asked if she subscribed to it. Defensively she said she cared a lot about foreign policy, but again I responded suspiciously, saying I didn’t think that sentiment was strong enough within her to urge actual investment, especially since picking it up revealed a copy of Cosmo beneath it. Curtly she confessed that the top magazine was her roommate’s and then continued defending her shared interest in global issues, all the while giving me the impression that she was trying to convince herself much more so than she thought she was convincing me. I dropped the subject.

Act III. That same day, we got onto the subject of adolescent sexuality and she started telling me about an interview she heard on NPR with the director of Towelhead. I bit my tongue and reframed from sidetracking the issue at hand when she called his film "art" and talked about it with admiration, but instead chose to focus on what bothered me most: she kept using the word “normal” when comparing typical sexual experiences with those less common. Every time she said it I’d interject, reminding her that there is no such standard and that that is just a limiting term used to justify mainstream insularity. She would immediately agree, saying that it was just a bad word choice, only to slip and use the term again a couple sentences later. Long after the conversation had ended, as we were about to part ways for the day, she made a point of reiterating that she didn’t believe that there is such a thing as normal and it really was just a poor word choice. Vaguely, I told her I knew what she said versus what she had meant and left it at that. I don't think she liked my response.

In fact what I meant by such a statement was that I know that she doesn’t want to think in such rigid terms but in actuality she still does. I catch her repeatedly trying to justify herself in front of me, and me repeatedly backing down from creating conflict. Though the progression of these three incidents may be subtle, my mentality and tone changed increasingly in each. Whatever awkwardness we may have comes from me not saying what's on my mind and her knowing me well enough to be suspicious of my thoughts and hence defensive, if not self-righteous.

Is it mean of me to be openly critical? Do I too sometimes fake knowledge and know-how or just plain slip-up and say what I don't mean at times? I think my falsely playing into it or not saying anything at all is even more contemptuous than my speaking out. I prefer my friends pointing out my faults, otherwise I’ll continue fooling myself into thinking I’m something I’m not. At this point if I have to risk my friends thinking that I’m being judgmental, then so what; I’d rather be honest with them in the hopes that they’ll pause for a moment and think about how close their self-perception is to actuality. I’d rather them think I'm condescending or just plain wrong than not think at all. And I very well could be wrong; they’re just open-ended observations. But this is my new way of dealing with people; no more playing into their perceptions, acting as the passive observer, when I knowingly see contradictions.

I think I’ve already pissed off two of my friends now with my not-so-subtle comments. But it's not that I'm being outright confrontational with them because despite what they think, I’m not judging them. I want my friends to be who they are; it’s not my place to tell them what that is. I just think it’s important for people to step back every now and then to make sure that who they think they are is really what they are. And I hope they do the same for me.

looking forward

I’m trying to get my act together by learning focus. I keep forgetting that it’s not a matter of staying on some silly schedule, rushing through things just to check them off, but rather doing what I want, what feels right, and taking the time to do it right. I got sidetracked this year with a lot of my own personal problems and a sudden newfound interest in current events and issues (which in retrospect I think was subconsciously sparked as a diversion for my inability to deal with my own problems, or at the very least, my attempt to put them into the perspective of the bigger picture). When I say “sidetracked” though, I don’t mean it to carry its usual negative connotation as both interests were important and necessary pursuits. And they still are, but just not as explicitly.

After months of telling myself I was going to, I’ve finally started reading Ray Carney’s mailbag from the beginning and I’m slapping myself for not having started it sooner; it’s helping me in exactly the way I thought it would and of which I have been needing for quite some time now. I have been paralyzed this entire summer by an overwhelming sense of loneliness: the more I pursue my interests the further they distance me from everything (and everyone) I know. Reading a good book or watching a good film seemed to only squelch the feeling temporarily before I'd once again return to feeling disillusioned. As much as I knew that I could no longer maintain the life I’m currently living, I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t cut out to take the necessary steps to break away.

But I've found solace in reading about other people struggling similarly in isolation. These past couple weeks, I've come to a number of conclusions, which I am planning on elaborating with specific examples in upcoming entries. I've lost interest in trying to explain or justify myself to anyone and I finally feel comfortable enough within my own endeavors that I no longer feel lonely. Of course, there will be moments of doubt, but overall not only has my mentality changed, but the way I'm dealing with the people around me has as well. I'm doing what I need to do for myself and realizing that I can't help people that don't want to be helped (and yes, I'm aware of how much that's applied to myself from both perspectives).

Most importantly, I'm back into art and learning. I'm no longer treating them as distractions but as genuine pursuits. I've been wasting too much time keeping up with the latest film news and what-not, so I'm going back to the classics and the greats one director at a time (though of course I'll still be watching miscellaneously chosen films along the way). I will be trudging through these works much slower than usual as I'm going to start taking the time to study them, reflect, read about them, and write. As Carney put it, I'm struggling for verbal consciousness. This is my new high priority mission.

There will be a film blog sooooooon. So far it's been rough and extremely frustrating, but I refuse to quit this time.

[This was a useless rant written rather quickly, but various social drama inhibited me from taking the time I had planned for writing today.]

sip, sip

"Though I have a broken heart, I'm too busy to be heart broken."

Southern Comfort

"What a curious thing to be so uptight about. Nature delights in diversity, why don't human beings?"

work

I got yet another bigoted e-mail forward from my co-worker today. This time it was about immigration and how these new immigrants (i.e. Mexicans, though it never explicitly said so) make no attempt to assimilate into American society, how they demand all the perks of native-born citizens but refuse to adapt to the culture or learn the language. Instead they snidely snub the melting pot ideology and cling to their own customs, which the e-mail insisted they were expected to reject the moment they crossed the border (and I suppose a few good Mexican restaurants are all that should be allowed to survive the melting pot's flames). The forward went on about how immigrants in the early 1900s (which it listed explicitly as Irish, Italians, and other European-only nationalities) came to this country and fell to the floors at Ellis Island in gratitude, kissed the concrete and readily tossed aside their heritages to embrace the toil and freedom duality that constituted joining the American working class. And they didn't even whine about the lack of labor laws! ...right. I must have been out sick the day my high school American history teacher went over how Americans-born citizens were lined up on the ports of New York City with welcoming baskets and volunteer sponsors for every new Irish immigrant. I guess I didn't realize that ethnic neighborhoods like Little Italy and Chinatown are only modern tourist attractions and bear no historical relevance of how immigrants in the past tried to preserve their cultural identities as well.

Of course anything political or religious is forbidden to be distributed via company property, but that doesn't stop me getting e-mails listing why it's un-Christian to vote for Obama, why global warming is just another for-profit, liberal hoax, or why Muslims are out for world domination and Christians beware. I'd complain, but a part of me can't help but stutter in shocked curiosity as to what kind of people find such lazy validation for their beliefs by redistributing e-mail forwards of this kind. And although I'm mainly using conservative messages as examples, as these are the only forwards of this type that I ever receive, I highly doubt any group is free from adherers to such propagandist offenses.

I've definitely had enough of my co-workers, but I can't say it hasn't been an enlightening, if not disconcerting, experience. Surrounding oneself with only people of the same opinions can yield a false sense of absolute correctness. I've gained so much insight into all sorts of subcultures and opinions which so much contradict my own and of which I would have never otherwise had such direct exposure to. And since no one contradicts them, they unleash opinions that they would probably never say if they knew they were amid unbelievers. Every now and then I get into arguments with one of them, which I thoroughly enjoy because he generally tears me to pieces. He can throw so many facts and incidents in as evidence for his arguments that my novice knowledge really has to struggle to put up a good fight. I may disagree with most everything he says, but I appreciate how intensely he educates himself, and encourages me to do the same, whereas most people (on both sides) just hold their stubborn opinions in ignorance, relying on cheap-shot e-mails for credibility. Perhaps it has always been so, but I tire of the endless monologues and crave to both listen and participate in genuine discourse between opposing opinions. Instead it's all about picking a side, as if choosing which sports team to root for, and both compromise and understanding are considered forms of defeat.

"i have not the least desire to save my carcase"

"If only oblivion were attainable, if it could last forever, if my eyes as they closed could gently transcend sleep and dissolve into non-being and I should lose consciousness of my existence for all time to come, if it were possible for my being to dissolve in one drop of ink, in one bar of music, in one ray of coloured light, and then these waves and forms were to grow and grow to such infinite size that in the end they faded and disappeared - then I should have attained my desire." SH

over it

I have returned to life, different but always the same. Unlike before, I will no longer lie to appease their deviated truths, but unlike most recently, I will not expect what cannot be. I cannot validate my principles with open disdain. Blatant honesty changes nothing of the outside world: my diatribes yield only fruitless frustration. No one cares. I am making the choice to remain hidden, sharing only pieces and very few. No longer do I wish to delude myself with that disingenuous moment of perceived connection. It never was. I cannot continue to divert my gaze from the solitude that will shadow my life always. I am strongest kept within myself, expecting nothing and ever at a distance.

( )

"All my life has passed within four walls." SH

redecorating

Yup, between oversleeping, exercising, and chit-chatting with various peeps, I didn't get a chance to finish writing what I wanted to post. I'm trying to post daily (yeah, that'll last a week at most), so this goes up instead. I will cover my walls yet!

starting... now!

I use this space for the purpose of venting and self-motivating, though lately it’s been about 90% venting and 10% motivation. In an effort to even this out, I’ll be posting a larger variety of doings and thoughts just to keep me doing and thinking. I can’t imagine many of them will be worthwhile to know for my audience, but again I stress, I’m not writing this with you in mind. So suffer the boredom of my randomness! Well, at least until I figure out what I direction I want to go.

Oh, and I also take requests, so if anyone has anything they want to know or wants me to try, let me know. Though of course, the level of effort I put into it will depend upon how much it interests or challenges me.

no more false dreams

I have a plan. Due to superstitions though, I’m not sharing precise details. Basically I’m giving myself exactly one year to clean up my act and if that goes accordingly, then I will do what I’m planning on doing. Of course all this can be easily tripped up by outside forces. It’s selfish of me to refer to them so coldly, but again, I don’t want to get into it. There will always be stumbling blocks and so long as I keep waiting for them to subside, I will always have a plethora of excuses at my disposal to justify my inactivity. I’m tired of my own excuses. So whether this pans out or not, at least I’m working towards something specific now. I am learning to be content within myself, not to judge others so critically, and not to make such an absurd spectacle of myself. It’s a different way of not needing anyone, one which no longer implies such dismal abandon and isolation.

This lot is life and I will work through it, warmly.

breathe

At two in the morning she lay soaking in the tub, a razor blade on the floor and a book resting on the bath's edge. She chose neither, nor herself. Instead she sat there curled up at first, dripping and impalpably nipped, then stretched out at end, not really crying but then not really not crying either. At last the frantic madness had subsided, and though her face remained marked, the water soothed, camouflaging her bitter defeat. But in her resistance a delicate thought escaped her breath and whispered with illuminating veracity the reasoning with which she had so diligently concealed in stubborn stagnation. Although her repeated failures obviated the infiniteness of her regenerated options, she couldn't help but feel an anti-climactic reluctance to accept a continuance. But now the absurdity of her circumstance stripped her shields bare, and the perhaps ironical conclusion seeped unimpeded into her every warmly opened pore. Yes, finally she understood that the force which so consistently inhibits her pursuit of death is in fact the same one which inhibits her from pursuing life: both the lock she flees from and the one she retreats to require the same key. Each instigation requires a selfishness she cannot bear to wield for her conditioned guilt immobilizes every flinch into futility or submission. So as her beloved escape becomes no more obtainable than that which she fears, the two passageways suddenly appear to be of the same creed. Only by comparing the opposing vastness and emptiness which lie behind each door does the choice become clear. With hesitation, she treads.

and now to introduce my newest friends!

Recently purchased books that perhaps I'll get around to reading (among all sorts of other tasks that I can't seem to get around to accomplishing and which will most likely be further delayed due to the following):

Midnight Movies - Hoberman & Rosenbaum
The Revolution of Every Day Life - Raoul Vanetgem
The Arcades Project - Walter Benjamin
The Films of Mike Leigh - Carney & Quart

The Blind Owl - Sadegh Hedayat
Discovering Orson Welles - Jonathan Rosenbaum
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

(pending submittal...)
History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell
Aurelia & Other Writings - Gerard De Nerval
For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction - Alain Robbe-Grillet

yummy, yum, yum

delay

Between a long weekend with family and Democracy Now!'s extended coverage for the DNC and the RNC, I'm falling behind in writing, online reading, and movie watching.

My writing will pick up again soon.

first, awaken

"If children resist discipline as a part of their playful nature, adults rebel against traffic signs as a symbol of their disrespect and dissatisfaction about the imposed order of a system that is indifferent to them."

balding

So I figured out why my vacuum cleaner doesn't work so good lately.

Maybe I should clean more often.

eww

I found my avacado.

two tampons and no lights

Between PMS, acquisition of the guilt-mobile, and my sister having to euthanize our family's 19-year-old pet cat, I managed to fall back into the slump of which I had being doing so well to evade. I struggle to write this just as much as I've been struggling to do everything recently. In fact, after staring at a partial sentence for over an hour, the only way I've suddenly been able to muster focus now is by turning off all the lights, closing all my open web tabs, looping some Bunyan to keep my thoughts from wandering, and enshrouding my body in an exaggeratedly over-sized flannel hoodie, which belonged to my sister back when she was in junior high and that I have since transmuted into my ragged uniform for pensive days. I latch onto such extreme solutions (though this being the tamer of my otherwise unmentionable antics) as desperate methods of escape from these cyclical autistic fits. Of course the escape itself is an illusion, as such behavior only augments my symptoms further. I am outside myself, both unable to realize the induced distance and maintain the prolonged concentration necessary to regain control.

My manager came over to my desk on Friday to ask how I was doing. I assumed he was referring to my calling in sick on Tuesday and that I have been taking a number of days off lately for doctor appointments and illness without ever explaining to him the reasons. When I made a very brief and mumbled explanation of my ailments, he seemed slightly confused (as he usually is by anything I try to say) and proceeded to tell me that if I needed to talk to him about anything, he was always available. After he walked away, I began questioning if I had answered him correctly as his gestures implied that I hadn't. Then I realized that maybe someone had actually noticed that I'd spent the last two days crying at my desk and had ratted me out.

About a month or two ago, I had crashed so far as to allow myself to be pressured into seeing a shrink. Psychiatry has always seemed like psychological prostitution to me, i.e. paying a professional to listen to one's problems because one either can't, just prefers not to, or is just unsatisfied with discussing them with a friend. I'm not meaning to debunk the profession or the need as a whole so much as say that my personal lack of trust and disinterest in opening up to strangers makes the option rather undesirable and likely to be ineffectual. My negative expectations may have doomed the half-hearted attempted from the get go, if you can call one session, in which I knew from the moment he introduced himself that my being there was a mistake, an attempt. My fluctuating and panicked curiosity in medication was what intrigued me amid that dire time and last week the interest reoccurred. Yet now, I still remain stubbornly reluctant to succumbing to such potentially damaging experimentation. My impatience for such a trial and error, cop-out approach tends to supersede such intrigue, negating the possible drastic consequences of my dismissal.

I don't mind my melancholy. I don't mind my reticence or even my solitude. What frustrates me though is the stagnant lock-down state that periodically engulfs me and that I am incessantly trying to evade. In these moments I completely lose my abilities in both self-expression and social communication. I can't muster an opinion, let alone a complete thought. I can't write. I can't talk. Apathy thwarts my every hopeful inclination and for days, if not weeks, I get nothing done. Every friend I've made in the past two or three years I've now lost because of these fits, and as they become increasingly more frequent, I fear that I'm wearing the patience of those that remain.

There's a boy at work that I like. He's now made numerous attempts to try and talk to me and nearly every time I've manage to briefly amuse him, I then baffle him with my sudden awkward, evasive tactics. Only twice have I taken the initiative myself and both instances were indirect: loaning him music and e-mailing him for advice on something I didn't really need. Both times his responses demonstrated increased interest in communication and both times I did nothing to further it, let alone reciprocate. For indirect attempt number three, I'm enlisting a friend because 1) I don't want him thinking my interests go beyond friendly in nature and 2) only in the presence of someone that I'm comfortable around do I think I stand a chance of being able to act like myself. I don't know if this is ridiculous or just plain pathetic. Either way, it's quite typical.

Although I'm obviously in the process of recuperating from my most recent fit, I still dread to think how long I have until my next one. Will I have enough time to make it worthwhile to start this or that project? Should I attempt planning this or that social activity or should I wait a little longer to make sure I'm past the point of imminent relapse? It is ridiculous: I've put my life on permanent hold for fear of my own instability. One lesson I have learned from this most recent occasion is that I've relied too heavily on unreliable people. I used to always use artistic interests or creations to get myself out of ruts and actually my most prolific periods have always been when I'm either trying to avert an attack or recuperate from one. I'm trying my hand at a number of different methods nows, as not all moods are helped by the same efforts. I'll take my chances this way, rather than agreeing to be sedated.

pause

This place no longer feels safe.
I don't know where to go.

desperation, perhaps

Did I just buy this album?

recovery (again)

Frustratingly, I've been wanting and not wanting to post many things, but I'm too disgusted with everything I try to write to find it worth doing so. So in the meantime, while I continue to get my act together, I figured I'd post my other doings (well, the two that are more earnest of the four); there's generally too much text here anyway.

Click images to enlarge.

slit

Is it better to be hated than to be missed?

*starves*

Why does cereal taste so bad when mixed with water?

mopes

I could read or I could just watch the same film over and over and over and over again.

Update: Okay, I just watched this clip and realized just how shit it looks on youtube, so maybe I shouldn't even be posting it. Avert your eyes, turn off all the lights and submerge yourself into the oneiric and melancholy sound of the accompanying Japanese pop song! *sigh* And now I can't help but swoon at how heightened of an experience it would have been to see this in a theater versus DVD.

fantastic idiots

"It's a diplomatic job now, being the director. The producer makes the picture and the star makes the picture, and in the end you have a very fun industrial product. But it's not deeper. It's an amusing thing. It's like a cigarette, you smoke it, and then you forget it and you have another cigarette. And then you die of cancer. If you see only that kind picture, you end up with spiritual cancer, because they don't help you. But you have a lot of fun." AJ

mired

I keep thinking that if I can just make it through this year, I'll be all the more stronger. But what if things don't get better; what if they just keep compounding and getting worse? I try to seclude myself into more controllable scenarios, but I can't stop (nor give up) life around me. My mentality feels tougher, now more so than ever, to handle what comes my way but still I'm not handling the situations themselves any differently, let alone better. Instead of mustering the desired confrontation, I reflexively distanced myself, becoming increasingly numb with every blow. Although I have been resilient enough lately to avoid complete upheaval of my progressing mentality, the inflicted foreboding sufficiently nurtures my doubts. Perhaps I'm excepting too much too quickly but my current preoccupation is how unshakably my depression persists despite my best efforts; inescapably, it constantly looms over me as an omnipresent threat, mocking my every attempt and seething in my every failure. At my best, I suppress or ignore its presence but never does it wholly go away.

Not that that is excuse enough to discontinue, merely a disenchanting observation.

evening

I'll be using this weekend to catch-up on a list of delayed tasks (yes, I say this a lot) so that on Monday I can begin again somewhat anew (yes, I claim this even more often, but lately such claims have not been false so much as progressive). Mainly, I really need to start sleeping more than five hours a night, eating more than once a day, start exercising more and stop moping into work two hours late every day so that I can actually get out at a decent time. I have to start taking better physical care of myself before these absences become prolonged enough to be damaging.

Expect great things! ...most instances probably won't be perceivable, but rather tasks done in private, which I guess makes this entry useless, if not seemingly redundant.

progress

Over the past few months, my favorite Indian restaurant has been in the process of being remodeled. Each time I walk in it looks less and less like the comfy hole-in-the-wall eatery I first started going to. The first thing to be added was a buffet option. The table started out in various makeshift forms until a permanent fixture was added. Recently though the various changes and additions have sprung up with alarmingly rapidity. The tacky, Nickelodeon-orange, wooden booths in the front area, where orders were placed, were stripped away, as well as the partitioning wall. The once few oversized tables, which accommodated large Indian family gatherings, were replaced with an array of more modest sized ones. White table cloths were added. Plate-glass table tops were added. The eco-unfriendly Styrofoam dinnerware and plastic utensils were replaced with real plates, glasses and silverware. The self-serve water cooler disappeared. The clientele also changed accordingly.

And today to my even further dismay, I walked in to discover that I not only had to wait to be seated but was also given a laminated menu from a waiter(!) instead of just ordering from the counter. The front staff had changed and only when I saw people pop in and out of the kitchen did I recognize a couple faces. I miss the teenage girl who worked the register. She caught on that I was only ordering the buffet if it had mattar paneer, and so whenever I walked in she'd either smile and hand me a plate or give me a pouting face and shake her head so that I knew to order something off the menu instead. In fact, all that remains of the old aesthetic is the once beloved projector which still screens cheesy Indian movies on the back wall to watch while dining, but somehow amid this new sterile ambiance the projected films feel like an awkward relic of an eatery now gone.

random thoughts of recent

should write, don't wanna... *rambles*

The more I sequester myself amid my own interests, the more strange and oddly choreographed the outside world appears. An eerie, unspoken shock paralyzes me whenever I return to this environment, garbed in the conventional facade which I seem so stubborn to discard, and the true absurdity of both my act and theirs reveals itself, amassing obviousness with each further incident. Although I remain unwilling to relinquish the aspiration for uniqueness, I continually combat its adverse condescension and the distance is obviates; I gain contact only with my own will. What was once aspired for now seems just as distant and undesired as what was left behind. Inconsequential, the option of retreat has passed. I hear nothing ahead.

Going through all my notes and what-not, I realize just how much I repeat myself, dwelling endlessly on the same ceaseless drivel without resolution or initiative.

In jest, I let truths slip in as unnoticed self-mockery. Such concealed candor yields the necessary, surreptitious relief.

I'm not sleeping enough, yet I'm not gaining any more time for its lack. Stability regained: implementation required. I have a plan collecting dust as I stall in marginal capacity. These fragments may not be enough.

start

I haven’t been writing here because I’m still not sure what direction I want to take. I am running a series of experiments and I waiver between wanting to document them for the sake of tracking any potential progress and wanting to keep my efforts secret. Of course that isn’t my only excuse. I’ve been in a reading mood lately, as well as occupied with all sorts of miscellaneous social melodrama, so I just haven’t had the necessary time to devote to writing the past month. Starting now though, I’m going to push myself back into the habit of trying to write an entry every other day. They’ll be bad (as in overly self-absorbed) at first since I’m out of practice, but hopefully they’ll get better (as in more interesting to read than just being written for the sake of writing). But enough with my disclaimers and lame-o excuses!

politeness which reeks of lazy condescension

I will make an attempt to pause and think about what I’m saying before I blurt out the expected, amiable cliché response that I don’t even agree with just so I can get away as quickly as possible from whatever person has had the gall to try to speak to me to defer his boredom with himself.

but seriously

I will stop mocking my own interests thinking that that is the only way to make them conversational.

lesson of the year

Better to know than to not know, worry, and make matters worse.

defending my disposition

[a cloaked post revealed]

"Humans are social beings." This is the retort I got to my stubborn, dour outburst. I shy away from interaction whenever I'm in a rut, mainly out of embarrassment but also in self-defense. In such weakened conditions I blurt out all my inner travails, starved for understanding but only receiving pity and skewed pressure. I despise pity and all the wallowing vulnerability it permits; all pity is self-pity. I become defenseless in such instances, unable to resist the obsequious yearning to justify my behavior. But inundated with doubt, the distinction between known faults and perceived abnormalities blurs into a culminating indecision, which yields either paralysis or diversion. The good-intentioned advice I receive only increases my chagrin and leads me further astray. I sequester myself, dealing with my problems privately until I can regain enough composure to be who I am without guilt.

A side note that this leads me to ponder is the absurd perceived abnormality of solitude. In her advice, my friend worries about my "unhealthy" penchant for solitude and the fickleness which I exert when it comes to befriending people. Perhaps I am as overly judgmental as she claims but at the same time, I find nothing wrong with being selective, as I regard my time as precious and my privacy necessary. Again, my defense is weakened by the obviousness of my current misery, but then again, perhaps it is not without warrant as I think my previous plea makes apparent. How so? I tire so easily of constantly trying to justify who I am. Part of this is secrecy mixed with a weariness to perform and part of it is intimidation. I don't find it necessary to reiterate the mundanities of daily life to just anyone: I listen to people tell the same anecdotes over and over to whoever they come across; I listen to the same robotic cliché responses given without thought; I listen to enumerations of the day's completed tasks as if that in itself constitutes conversation; and I listen to know-it-all opinion after opinion on issues that will never be directly acted upon by the interlocutors themselves, as if collocation alone offers any solution but egocentric self-satisfaction. Yes, I'm not unaware of the irony: I hear myself participating in such talk too often, as this type of conversation is passive, unnecessary, and insecure. To this, I prefer silence and solitude.

But my silence in some cases is not spurred by abstinence but rather by intimidation. In these instances I should vocalize; however, such utterances are not desired to be explicit. I merely wish to say enough to be honest and in no way feel it necessary to explain myself beyond the minimum. I was having this discussion with another friend, as he considered it a breech of privacy when a vexing co-worker made the simple inquiry of what he did on that given day. We've discussed further on how promiscuously information is expected to be shared and how we both find it unnecessary to be so forth giving. Somewhat correlated, we also discussed how not already having plans to socialize, doesn't necessarily imply that we're free. Last Friday I was talking to my father on the phone and I found it easier to lie to him and say I had plans to go out with friends than I did to explain that I was choosing to spend the evening alone reading. I remember a few months back when his wife was out of town for a weekend and I had made plans with him to spend a night over at his place. He called me a week in advance to pencil me in so he could book up the rest of his time with lunches and dinners to keep himself occupied with company the entirety of the weekend. When my car ended up breaking down a couple days before and I told him I wouldn't be able to drive up to see him, it became this made rush for him to fill in the time that he had previously reserved for me. I remember talking to him a couple days later and listening to how much he felt he lucked out that one of his friends was free that night to do something, as if a Saturday night to one's self was such a dreadful thing to have.

I don't understand this constant need to fill up time doing things with other people, but yet I can't say that I'm fully exempt from succumbing to it myself. Of course I enjoy companionship and conversation as much as anyone, but I'm not going to spend time with people just for the sake of filling up my time. Even when I do socialize with some friends and family, there's an awkward expectation to be always doing something, as if communicating is only a way to pass the time between actions. Whenever I go home and try to spend the day with my sister she constantly complains about how bored she is and I either end up following her around from one store to the next, shopping, or watching the dreaded E! Channel, when I'd really prefer to just talk upfront with her. Even when I try to go off to my room to do my own thing (and yes, embarrassingly enough I can only tolerate so much E!), she'll barge in at some point and roll around on my bed complaining. I try to talk to her but she just tunes out and whines about how bored she is. I tell her to read a book or something and she says she doesn't have the attention span. I know too many people who bustle around shopping, running errands, organizing, and doing other such busywork all to avoid both serious thought and time alone. I find it is these same people that question the legitimacy of my lifestyle, and although I don't find it necessary to justify or elaborate to them on my choices, I would like to defend those choices enough to not be intimidated into silence and doubt by their expressed judgments.

On a side, side note, I feel a general loss of privacy among people and with it a great loss of solitude, especially with increasing technology. I get disgruntled lectures because I never answer my cell phone because I dislike being so easily reachable and interrupted, yet I carry that cell phone around with me everywhere and check it regularly. I am also prone to such privacy breeches as having myself signed on AIM all day long, posting my private reflections onto a public blog, letting friends see what movies I'm watching on Netflix, and having a MySpace page, so I can't exactly say I'm shunning the loss of privacy either. I am however very selective about which people get to view this private public self as most of these outlets are masked in anonymity. (Yes, I deleted my Facebook account so I'm officially not searchable via the web!)

Amid all this extra communication though, are people gaining any deeper of a connection with one another? Mostly I feel like all the available gadgets are more a waste of time than anything else and I do my best to avoid getting caught up in them. I have friends that can't sit in a car without being on their cell phones, can't be in their houses without the television on in the background, can't travel anywhere without their iPods glued to their ears, and then there's me, addicted to consuming information on the internet instead of going out and gaining knowledge from experience itself. I feel how much technology and fast-paced living increases people's fear of being left alone with their own thoughts. This fear keeps people from thinking for themselves, which makes it easier for the few remaining thinkers to make the decisions for everyone else. We trade in our thoughts for gadgets, privacy for security, individualism for categorization. Will later generations just be empty open books?


Okay, I repeatedly digressed from my original argument (and sub-argument), but I think I made my point, if not a few others.

gingerly...

I'm reopening this space because I don't know what else to do. I need it I guess. Although the entries will not change as I so alluded during its absence, my attitudes have and those shall be reflected in these new texts. I don't expect my readers to see this as I don't think they saw the reasons I shut it down originally. But then, I'm not writing this to be read.

There were numerous entries posted under cloak but then chosen to be removed before its reappearance. Perhaps those shall be posted one at a time as I see fit, or perhaps not.

I don't know what to expect but I'll give it a whirl.

the beginning.

I appear to have gotten nowhere. Plagued with hidden demons, my progress has been dilatory. In what brief moments I do spend conscious of the outside world, I awake to a reality that seems to have created itself around me while I sleepwalked through life. “This can’t be real; this is not the life I would have pursued.” But I can’t seem to stay conscious long enough to change it. My anxiety attacks with debilitating force and I withdraw to the inner realm of my own mind. But even in this internalized world, I find little comfort. In fact I can’t make any progress in reality until I can manage a level of prolonged mental stability, but how? I have been stuck in this stage too long, quiescent, but I am finally weary of wallowing. I don’t expect anyone to believe me in this statement, as I have been suspect to it before, but I know it finally to be truth. An obscene devotion to introspection has enabled me to develop a profound level of self-awareness, which I cherish, but it has also been accompanied by a paralyzing level of realization (and anticipatory acceptance) of my own limitations. Too well I can predict my own shortcomings and this secured doubt has continuously inhibited any potential growth. I drag my feet on every important decision struggling to convince myself that I am capable of whatever change I am hoping to achieve, but when I do make these decisions, I make them for keeps: my stubbornness delays but once I achieve the necessary activation energy, as rare as that may be, it motivates me without regret.

Too long I have allowed my stubbornness and shame to impede me. Beneath layer upon layer of doubt, guilt, and depression, I do know my own right from wrong; however, that conscience rarely ever seeps passed those barriers to the surface of my decisions. Being this weak willed, I start at a tremendous disadvantage, but I need to concentrate less on comparisons and more on optimizing my own continuous progress regardless of its relativity. I realize increasingly more that my expectations for immediacy are inherently counterproductive. I cannot achieve this new beginning overnight; this is something I have to work for with both diligence and ease and not withdraw from so readily in frustration.

And what will my first step be? I am learning to ask for help, not passively though but rather through interaction. I need to start utilizing the resources that are available to me as it has become devastatingly clear that I can’t do this on my own. I am not talking about dependency, which has been my general way of wallowing stagnant, but growth. I am asking myself and those around me for communication, criticism, and challenges. I am finally willing to put forth a level of openness of which I have never done before, but I need to be careful that it does not become as exploitative as it was sinking to so recently. I will try to make the best of the relationships I do have, and learn to take up the initiative to seek out new ones that can be mutually beneficial.

I want failure; I want it because I know it’s inevitable and I need to learn how to take it without scarring my esteem and relapsing at its mere possibility - is my vulnerability inherent or can it be unlearned? If it can’t be unlearned then I embrace my own demise; better that than not trying. I have wasted too much time protecting a life that I have never found worth living; I can’t live like this anymore.

What a difference a day makes.

the imagination and art

"It is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without. It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality. It seems, in the last analysis, to have something to do with our self-preservation; and that, no doubt, is why the expression of it, the sound of its words, helps us to live our lives." W. Stevens

Dewey Dell

“…I would think how words go straight up in a thin line, quick and harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it, so that after a while the two lines are too far apart for the same person to straddle from one to the other; and that sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words.” WF

but at what proportion...

Perception = x Memory + y Senses; 1 = x + y

The end.

indulge

"Such private choices, though technically 'free,' are quite literally dysfunctional with respect to our values and norms. Privatization means the choices we make eventually determine the social outcomes we must suffer together, but which we never directly choose in common.

"This explains how a society without villains or conspirators, composed of good-willed but self-seeking individuals, can produce a culture that so many of its members despise. Consumer capitalism does not operate by fielding self-conscious advocates of duplicity. Rather, it generates thinking on the model of the narcissistic child, infantilizing consumers to the point where puerility is not simply an option; it is a mandate. If the attitudes and behaviors that result turn out to undermine cultural values extraneous to capitalism’s concerns — however deeply relevant they may be to moral and spiritual frameworks and to the shape of an ideal public culture — that is too bad. This ethos does not disdain civilization; it is merely indifferent to it. Consumer capitalism encourages individuals to indulge in behavior — however corrupting to civilization — that is useful to consumerism.

"Even as an ethos of limitless consumption encourages us to regress, privatization compels us to withdraw from our public selves, to secede from the public square and fence ourselves in behind gated communities, where we deploy private resources to turn what were once public goods, such as garbage collection, police protection, and schooling, into private commodities. What we fail to see is that when public goods are privatized, they are subverted. You cannot protect a few in the midst of general insecurity; you cannot educate a few in the midst of societal ignorance."

multitasking... tasklessly

“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time."

"that not privation but luxury is the wolf at the door"

“You should not have too many people waiting on you, you should have to do most things for yourself. Hotel service is embarrassing. Maids, waiters, bellhops, porters and so forth are the most embarrassing people in the world for they continually remind you of inequities which we accept as the proper thing. The sight of an ancient woman, gasping and wheezing as she drags a heavy pail of water down a hotel corridor to mop up the mess of some drunken overprivileged guest, is one that sickens and weighs upon the heart and withers it with shame for this world in which it is not only tolerated but regarded as proof positive that the wheels of Democracy are functioning as they should without interference from above or below.” TW

Poey

"From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw - I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone."

hiatus

Temporarily (?) discontinued.

poof

Maybe this isn’t a breakdown at all; maybe this is an awakening from the breakdown I had six years ago, a return to a self I was too cowardly to explore (or is it too late?). Or maybe instead of retreating into a false state of dull adulthood, this time I’m retreating into a lost state of infantilism. Well regardless of motive, this feels far more natural, more personal than my prior escapist effort. What it means and whether or not it sticks is completely inconsequential.

I dislike my apartment. I purchased all its furnishings during a period in time when I was least acting like myself. Much later, post-change, a friend even remarked that I wasn’t even dressing like myself and that my appearance had become dull and formalized. (In fact I was completely hysterical at the time and doing my best to suppress a breakdown by repressing my own persona… such lovely solutions I come up with!) So as an act of self-rebellion and rejuvenation I’ve been slowly and creatively trashing the place. I always kept my place so clean, not just out of my natural compulsion, but mainly because I’m so secretive. I couldn’t leave stuff just laying around because I didn’t want people snooping at what I was writing or what I was reading. I always made an effort to clean up after myself because I didn’t like people coming over and being able to piece together what I was doing during the day before they arrived. It’s actually quite silly because most of the time my habits are innocuous. I could be doing something as simple as watching a DVD, but I wouldn’t want someone seeing that I had or knowing what I'd watched just by observation; I would want it to be my choice as to whether or not I felt like telling them, and even then I’m highly whimsical about which things I choose to share, especially when it comes to the most mundane of details.

It would probably be rare or at least uncharacteristic for any guest to be snoopish enough to be reading something I had left out, but my paranoia does not require reason. And in reality, it’s not like I had people over that often, but really just one person. [Disclaimer: There wasn’t really a need to be secretive. Things that were intentionally hidden were not really things that needed to be known. There wasn’t even the least bit of suspicion of nosiness, and actually to some dismay the case was quite contrary. My habits were/are secretive purely for the sake of being secretive.] But since I live alone and don’t really have guests over anymore, I find myself oddly letting loose.

I no longer have to clean my bed off every weekend, so it’s become completely littered with books and clothes. I have scraps of papered notes piled up on every table surface, lists all over the place, sorted stacks of DVDs sprawled about the floor, and other disorder and unfinished projects laying in wait. Since I have huge lists of vocabulary words I’m trying to memorize, but never seem to pick up, I’ve decided instead to use tiny Post-it notes and am slowing covering the wall along my bed with vocabulary words (definitions on the back). Now whenever I feel sick of reading or writing in bed I can lay there and relax by scanning my word wall and seeing how many I can add to memory. I hope to cover the entire wall, constantly adding new words and taking some down when I feel I have them memorized long-term. I also have a pile of clothes I’m meaning to give away, stacked-up like an ever-increasing bonfire in the middle of my bedroom. (I tend to wear the same ten or so things over and over so I see no point in having as much, unworn, as I do.) I thought about just throwing away as much as I could of everything, living as austerely as possible, but that seems a bit hasty. I’ve kept a lot of out nostalgia that I no longer think are worth keeping, e.g., I pretty much still have everything I’ve written since I was eleven. I’ve been tempted to throw it all out as a means of purging myself of past selves but since such things take up so little physical space, I have a hard time justifying letting them go. But slowly I am trying to junk a lot of nonessentials one by one, replacing them in lesser quantity with things more inspiring and less wallowing.

Yes, of course I’m not a messy person, and so what I consider chaotic is still quite organized by most people’s standards. Besides, it’s not really a matter of uncontrolled clutter so much as building up a sanctuary instead of the present prison. Perhaps that’s a bit hyperbolic but its induced mentality can make all the difference.