New.

I’m home. I’m sure I should write on the change of scenery, but that’s not too important. Culture shock on coming home doesn’t seem to be an issue. I am appeased, and pleased, and so content on my arrival. I wanted to come home, and here I am. The end. Though just about every file I wrote while in China, I just discovered that they have all vanished. I’m not sure if I should feel the sharp pang of loss, grief, maybe even remorse? I don’t really feel any sort of despair. I guess I’m just too renewed by the present.

The past is very much the past. I suppose that’s obvious enough, but even here in my father’s kitchen, there is so sense of regret. I have been redeemed and saved in the eyes of those who judged me, held me under while I scraped and clawed at the surface, reaching towards something greater than myself. Just a breath of air. But I achieved. What I know now is a sense of accomplishment, of capability, of possibility. No longer is it the swell of what is and what will never be, but instead of what is and what will be, who I will become, who I want to become. I can mimic and deflate, or I can be myself and beckon the future. The question is still, though, who am I?

The perks of being a student, that question I’ve realized, is of very little importance. What truly matters is not “who am I” but who I can be, who I want to be. Those little tragedies that plague our consciences, maybe those that even provide comic relief in the face of true turmoil, that incessant honesty is what shapes you into a person worth knowing. The honesty, the trusting of your own calling, and becoming yourself. There is no answer to that silly question, because it will never be the same. We are all in a constant state of change, and disillusion, but that’s ok. That’s life.

Walking onto the steps of the Columbia Library, those massive, rising steps, I looked up, and I couldn’t help but smile. I almost cried, as if I was staring up into the eyes of someone else, someone twinkling, and probably laughing at all my past hardship. I felt strong, and ready. Though it’s easier now to know what I want. I’ve lived on my own, worked for things I’ve known I’ve always deserved, but being there, staring my future straight in the face, and having it smile back with open arms, that is something I will never forget. Why would I want to? Those open arms did not just represent a future, but a promise. A promise of greatness to come, of possibilities and achievements I can and will achieve. My brother Gavin’s very right, though. I watch him push forward, working to achieve, and true accomplishment is no easy feat. There is no open door; you have to make it budge, find the keys, you have to deserve it. I deserved it. I made it.

I received a call today. I’ve been busy migrating between the northeast, Connecticut and Jersey, attempting to complete my array of errands. I’d been waiting to speak to Gavin for awhile, but with all my being supremely busy, hadn’t really gotten around to emailing him back until this morning. Skype seems to provide the best means of communication, and the shrieking ringtone cut through the air up to my pulsating ears. Jogging to my computer, that similar last name appeared and there he was, picture and all. Gavin, I think, is one of the few people who has believed in me all along. His long, lost sister was never truly that far away, merely a bit off track. He pushed me, he helped me and even now, he’s never left my corner. It goes beyond just being a sibling. There’s more to that relation than just blood. We’ve experienced life together. I have a younger brother, too, and maybe it’s a sense of being older that makes you want to look out for those you feel need you. There’s a sense of responsibility and love that mingle together to create something stronger. I couldn’t say what it is. Family?

Anyway, babbling on with my Gavin, spilling all the glory of my recent days. I finally got my schedule, and I’m taking the Anthropology of Estrangement, and oh, how I cannot wait! M. Taussig (according to culpa) is a seriously controversial figure, and estrangement seems to have the ability to go in any direction. Who knows, maybe I’ll learn something…

But just talking with Gavin, my brother never ceases to amaze me. Maybe that’s cliché, or corny, either way, it’s very true. At times, no doubt, we have our qualms, but recently, I’ve realized that I truly can rely on him for anything and everything. That’s not something you can say about just anyone. He looks out for people (me), leads in a way that is more than just schmoozing.  It’s a gift. I listen to him and I am astonished. Even more astonished, because he believes that I can do great things. My art, my music, my words. Who knows if he’s correct or not, but it’s definitely a nice stroke to my ego…

The call ends, and I grab my guitar and run upstairs, feeling inspired. Music is much harder to write than essays. There’s something inhibiting about your own sound. I always feel like its not good enough, but I’m hoping to get over that. I have a lot to say, I always have. I have a lot I can say, and maybe, in time, that will show. My songs seem scattered now, but they’re coming together, piece by piece. I couldn’t ask for more. Here, in my father’s kitchen, back in the US of A, ready to embark on my future. Schooling, arts, and happiness all are feasible. I’ve never been this sure of anything, of myself. I feel whole and real, and monumentally good. I want to be the person I am capable of being within every aspect of myself. I retreat to this blog to bear my soul, not just with words, but with my talents. I can write, maybe. I’ve been trying to write music (it’s much harder than it seems…), but I profess with more than just words, with drawing and songs, and movements. I guess I’m a just a compilation of hipster/emo/whatever else they’re selling these days, but I’m ok with that. Maybe I don’t know who I am, but I definitely know what I’m good at.

Rain

I can’t sleep. Every bit of me feels clustered in this smokescreen brevity, and it gets harder to breathe. My thoughts scream at once and I’m too muddled to focus. I feel as if I’m getting nowhere.

It’s late. So late that drinking coffee is a really stupid endeavor, especially in lieu of all my sleep-deprivation, but I long for it all the same, wanting to relish in the bitter magnificence. I could drift, bring about the factors I want to portray, enter into that unseen world of my perception, but I’m not ready. I feel heavy with what I can’t say, with all the willingness to utter those simple words. I walk down the dark stairs, and fling myself into the swell of the dirty street. Forward march until I reach the bridge. Comfort calls for me.

I arrive just before the downpour. I can hear the rain fall loudly outside, and the wind whisper and whistle across the sky; I hear it through the thin walls. It whispers to me, welcoming me, beckoning me to step back into the street and feel it pour. Someone opens a window, and the cool reaches me, sending shivers up and down my spine. I want to walk outside and open my arms to its wispy embrace, to feel the chilly, swift breeze run its hands through my hair, down my back, to the bruised, complacent arches of my thighs. I want the rain’s caress on my face, heartfelt and smooth, no pang of loss when it’s gone. The smell will linger, the clean, sweet smell only left by hard rain, then I will walk back inside, fresh and unruffled, composed by its long brutal shower.

Lightning awakens the sky, and the world is lit up in a golden background. I gasp at its magnitude, and for a moment, I feel small and feeble in the face of all its power, at its ability to disrupt the stagnant ease of this chaotic world. That kind of ability, to disrupt what’s already disrupted, to plague the icy indifference of this city that seems to thrive off madness. Who can I be amidst all these forces? These loud people crushing my faculties, while Nature herself brightens the world around me, opening her shrewd, angry arms. What have I done to deserve this kind of isolation? Sleep-depraved and saddened, I stare into the wall until I go blind.

Sleep-depraved. I’m wired.

I lie back and close my eyes, trying to drift somewhere far away, but nothing comes. Consciousness hovers around me like a cloud, clawing at my lungs, at my throat, and as if cold water is splashed in my face, my eyes wince and open. I feel dry; my skin cracks. My mouth begs for water every waking moment, an insatiable thirst I cannot appease. I drink and drink, and still gasp and plead for more. It’s too much. The hairs on my arms rise, my nerves tremble, and my eyes flash back and forth looking for more lightning, for the familiarity, the flash of the brilliant apron. Falling deep into the comfort of a cushioned chair, I spill myself onto pages and pages, unconcerned with any farce or obscenity. I whisper my truths, and in return, I feel moments of calm, moments when I might entertain peace, and the cool transition of organized thought. The words position and posture; I breathe easier. The smoke clears slightly, my eyes quiver and split, and a slight tunnel of light blares within my view. Somewhere in the distance, I can see an end.  

…

 Perhaps I’ve addressed nothing in regard to China itself. What is there to say? The life I lead is not even a little bit Chinese. I live amongst people that are themselves completely westernized. All that heightened authenticity, yes they are Chinese, perhaps, but I walk down the street, and there’s 711, and McDonalds winking, smiling, waving. It’s the Chinese NYC, the only real differences are the scenery and the language. WuDaoKou (where I live) is smothered by foreigners, even more so, the universal “college student”, with all its stereotypes and connotations. We’re all the same, really. The same universities promote the same ideation. Money will always be money.

And to clarify the obvious, I don’t think beyond what I think, and it seems no matter where I go, what I think doesn’t change. Like most things, the idea of “who we are” is universal, though we might be affected and changed by our environments, we can only be ourselves. Yes, we might become disheveled or caught up in the novelty of change, but on the return of routine, and normality, the unsettling inhibitions return as well, and we settle back into ourselves.

Within all the boundaries of this inevitable self, the interesting factor is that though you might be aware, all consciousness is always a consciousness of something. You can’t just be aware; you have to be aware of something. It’s incredibly aggravating, if you think about it, because there is really no escaping any of your embedded inhibitions/traditions because you are always yourself, yet within the confines of those traditions, you’re always trying to be something else. There is no escaping your own perception. So I open up the floor for lovely Mr. Edmund Hesserl. Step into the world of phenomenological reduction, the idea being you bracket an experience and describe it, while suspending all presuppositions and assumptions normally made about that experience.

In regard to everything I said before, this is impossible.

In terms of the surrounding world, things don’t exist to just exist, they exist because our perceptions allow them to exist, and the experiences only exist because we provide them with foundation, and meaning. Our perceptions, our emotions, our humane individuality is what brings life to life. Yet within the confines of our own perceptions, there are biases. There is the partiality, and tradition that has become apart of us, yet there are no intransitive mental states, and it is this intentionality that distinguishes consciousness from everything else in the world, this ability to conceive awareness. 

With all this in mind, it seems the one use of the phenomenological reduction is to realize that time and space are really nothing except figments of our consciousness, mere measures for which we just measure experience.  So imagine we were to suspend the belief in clocks, and schedules. We would discover that lived time is always experienced as an eternal now, something so inherently tempered by the memory of earlier nows, yet something that is always rushing into the semiexperiencable, but ultimately nonexperienceable thenness of the future. We realize it is impossible to do something then, yet it seems we’re always planning around the past in order to attain the future. Sadly, in terms of space, you can clearly determine the obvious differences between lived space and mapped space. Lived space is always experienced in terms of a here-there dichotomy. It’s a matter of intensity, of recognition of yourself in terms of what you are and what you are not, and then what you are not in regard to what that is not. It seems knowing is just a matter of being in the world; yet knowing itself is not remotely an intellectual act. We recognize our being in terms of a world that is filled with objects that are there for us, completely ready at hand, yet we often have no care for these objects, they exist because we are so used to their existence. We do not question what is given to us, we just perceive it. Honestly, we hardly question our own perceptions, we just see what we see, what is there in front of us.

Of course, this establishes a base for the abusive nature of our own perceptions in regard to consciousness in regard to progress and all the suppression, repression, and denial that goes with it… but that’s for another day.

So in terms of this consciousness, this inevitable time/space paradigm, and the inability to actually comprehend our being except in regard to what its not, well, I don’t have any supreme epiphany, but perhaps I do recognize an ironic one…

I’m in China, yes? What am I doing in China? I am asked this constantly. Yes, I’m studying Chinese. No, I am not in any programs. No, I’m not sure where I’m going to college. Don’t ask me where I’m from, I really couldn’t tell you. So what am I doing in China? What’s the point? Well it seems I’m just perceiving more; I’m searching for more. Maybe I haven’t addressed any remote differences in regard to the culture, place or time, but I already said I didn’t intend to do this. I don’t really care that much. I say what I see and the most obvious realization is that there really aren’t that many differences.  No, this is not the U.S., so the exact mapped space has changed, obviously, but a bar full of college students is always a bar full of college students. You drink, watch the World Cup, and root for your native team. Your team isn’t on, root for whoever appeals. You’re feeling German? Go Deutschland!  North Korea? Don’t expect Kim Jong-il to shake your hand, but there will be plenty of drunken Koreans around to take part in your newfound glory. This is no “Good Earth”.  There is excessive pollution from too many cars, everyone has a cell phone, the internet, there’s Mexican food, 711, and a McDonalds on every street corner. So yea, what I’m looking for, that whole idealistic home, well, here’s your epiphany. Home has nothing to do with environment, or crowd. Home emerges from the clarity, and clarity emerges from comfort. So I can’t just write with the intention of addressing the time/space materialistic actuality of this Chinese world. It has to be more than that. It has to be my view, my vision, my ability to be conscious of what surrounds you, and my desire to achieve this so-called clarity. The traditions, the differences might alter my singular perception and allow me to hopefully see more clearly… so maybe that’s why I’m here?

And ironically, it could be I’m becoming so contorted by the jumble of too much variation that I’m inevitably becoming blind. It’s quite easy to get caught up in other people, and their worlds.

I guess I’ll never know.

This isn’t to say there aren’t immense differences. The deeper you go into conservatism, into the mainland, the more tradition there is. I don’t want to say ignorance, but it’s just not remotely Western. There’s some of it here, in this hectic cultural melting pot, but its intertwined, mixed in with the immense amount of other cultures. It’s a city, and the Chinese seem to be relatively accepting if you’re white, and want to communicate with them, at least way more accepting then most Americans/Europeans I’ve met. Granted, that’s a huge sweeping generalization. Oh well. I guess generalizations exist for a reason, or maybe you just need to perceive it yourself in order to prove me wrong.

…

For now, I’ll just listen to the rain.

Bright Eyes

I lost my voice.

It became dull and scratchy, slowly consumed by the smog and fever until it was gone. No innate ability to communicate. I could wave my hands and smile my flushed smile, but the voice wasn’t there. No more language. No more words. Just a futile attempt to convey what I was thinking, but nothing made any sense, no one cared to know. Mute.

I feel very on edge— overloaded, unsure, and yet so curious. All the occurrences, but its still so numbing. I’ve spent the whole day wasting away, searching for inspiration, checking my brain, the past week I met some intriguing people, had some intriguing encounters, but none of it seems like enough. I’ve not yet hit full speed, and I’m filled with doubt. My mind seems incapable of thinking in concrete, vivid ideas, so it’s all a juxtaposition of this and that, who and what, pictured fragments of the past, of the indubitable, endless week.

I’ve been listening to the same song on repeat since this morning. The same three minutes have become thirteen hours.

But you,

You write such pretty words, but life’s no storybook… 

Some days it just hurts to be alive. There’s this weight on my shoulders, and I feel so unaccomplished and overwhelmed by the things I have to do, but haven’t done. I want to say something. I want to speak, but its like I’m choking on what isn’t there. It’s ironic, because I can’t actually speak, but it’s more than that. There’s this pang, this loud chaos around me that I want to shut up. I want to shut it away so it stops ringing, stops disrupting my isolation. I want to be alone. I just want to be home. I want to be somewhere I belong, somewhere I feel like I mean something to anyone. I know that exists. I know there are people everywhere I affect and generalize and change, but now, I want someone to affect me.

I need some meaning I can memorize,

The kind I have always seems to slip my mind…

Within all the confines of this language, this begging for disruption and change, the ultimate completion, what if it doesn’t exist? I don’t know if it exists. I don’t know if there is any one thing that could make the array of ups and downs become one final contentment. The same inherent meaning, the ultimate goodness to overlap the numbing desire, the numbing emptiness we all feel. Lacan made it pretty damn clear… It’s inevitable; we’re just always grasping for more, and this desire has to do with nothing more then our inherent inability to label the world around us. Communication breakdown baby.  Words to convey so much and so little, to expedite the unfulfilling end to speaking, writing, explaining. Language makes you numb. So I must ask, if you couldn’t communicate, could you love?   

Loves an excuse to get hurt

Do you like to hurt?

I do, I do—

Then hurt me…

I’ve had all day to sit and write, all day to profess and be efficient, but no efficiency. Sometimes its nice to do nothing. To just sit inside the confines of your head, breathing deep so the thoughts get stuck in your ears, pores, throat, nose, in and out, in and out in that direct, general motion. What is there to breathe anyway? Smog, bullshit, fancy perfume—oxygen’s been corrupted. You could always stop breathing.

I want a lover I don’t have to love. I want a boy who’s so drunk he doesn’t talk…

Yesterday, I sat in a cab, and drank in the world. The city. The air. The complex, angry array of materialism and tradition. Where I go and where I’m going always seem to be such contradictions. I know what I’m supposed to be, who I’m supposed to be, but it seems I am constantly at odds with myself. Everyday it changes, everyday it’s someone else, everyday I’m impressed then disappointed by the same things, the same people, the same perfect inhibitions. Everything is just always changing, always pushing me off the straight line, and back down the rabbit hole, into the deep, dark beckoning well of obtrusive liars and pain. What if I just stopped caring? What if I started acting like other people, forgetting my morals and stepping into a new world of bitchery, fuckery, and putrid indifference, would that make me more productive?  

Bad actors with bad habits,

Some sad singers, they just play tragic

And the phones ringing

And the van’s leaving

Let’s just keep touching

Let’s just keep, keep singing.

Hypothetical Doom or Post-Apocalyptic Revelation?

So I will set aside my morbid curiosity with the mundane and enter into the world of culinary abstractions…

No, really. I mean it.

Alright. One… Two… Three!

I… (sitting on the edge of your seat?)

Am… (YOU better not read ahead!)

A… 

Vegan. (Yea, no exclamation point)

Whew! I’m glad I got that out. (not so exciting…right?)

We all still breathing?

Good. I hope so.

Yes, Veganism. I’m sure that’s not remotely as exciting as what you all were hoping for. No, extremes, I’m just not that interesting. Anyway, thought I’d take a moment out of my day to convey the tragic potency of my seemingly silly life choice… Because! it seems the vast majority of people I talk to in China, the U.S., Spain (Europa) just do not get it. Or at least they immediately assume there is something inherently wrong with me (besides the obvious factors)…

Now, I had an incredibly important/applicable/stupid? conversation with some friends awhile back (yea, because I don’t have friends anymore… *tear*) Ha. Anyway, I was forewarned of the (inevitable?) possibility that we’re all doomed to become cannibalistic zombies, and therefore, being a vegan, I’d be first to go… Now, this theory is taking into account the fact that once we’re all cannibalistic zombies, we actually maintain some kind of humanity, and thus, seemingly, we’re not actually cannibalistic zombies? Makes no sense right, but this is what they told me…

“Em… you do realize that when we’re all zombies, you vegans are gonna be the first to go?” banter. banter. banter.

Well, perhaps, but I can’t help but disagree with this a bit… So ok, say after maneuvering through the stranglehold of every other post-apocalyptic possibility (radiation, evil plants, evil rednecks, the internet, robots, radioactive toxic waste [superpowers!!!], feminists, meteoroids, aliens, nuclear bombs, animal activists, religious fanatics…I’m probably missing a few, please feel free to fill me in…), we do become cannibalistic zombies (see Zombieland, Sean of the Dead, Wrong Turn?). Why exactly would we vegans be first to go?

 “For the record, Emily Dear, being a vegan sucks in any survival situation and most post-apocalyptic situations…” Perhaps. But why is this?

Ok. We’re going to pretend that in lieu of this hypothetical post-apocalyptic situation, all the vegetation is still intact, yes? because, if all the vegetation was destroyed, all vegans would no doubt go hungry (though I’m not sure that in the face of survival/hunger, anyone really holds that firm to their dietary habits/beliefs).  But why is it that veganism always implies some kind of fanatical hippie nature?

Well, let’s make it very clear, guys, I ain’t no fanatical hippie. Yes, I’ve done my fair share of tree-hugging and forest ravaging, but those days are in the past, and I’m now quite certain I am just as technologically abusive as the rest of us. So, well then Ms. Newton-Tanzer… why be vegan at all? Especially, if in the face of this diabolical end, you’re going to have to renounce your beliefs anyway?

Deep Breath! Here goes…

Ok. Though veganism in some cases might imply fanaticism, being unhealthy, stupid, or unaware, extreme mental illness, etc, in my case, I just like it. Granted, I only take it so far as food intake.  My clothes are not made out of hemp. I bathe daily. I mean, come on, I’m living in Beijing, and at home, I drive a gas guzzler. That should paint a vivid picture of the person I am, but primarily, in regard to actual nutritional value, bull shit economics (at least, in the U.S.) , ecological/environmental factors, and the attempt to be relatively efficient and sustainable (at least, to the extent I can) —veganism seemingly is the way to go.

What?! What! I see no proof!

Well, in terms of nutrition, I’m not a doctor (yet), all I can say is that I’ve read books. Anyone’s actually interested in this stuff, email me and we can delve into it, but to put it simply, in terms of being healthy and human, meat is just not viable. In all actuality, people can hardly process it, and LDL cholesterol isn’t so hot, unless you’re prone to heart disease, and that’s only accessible through food products that contain animal by-products. So yea, there’s that. And that’s just one example. The list goes on and on, proof after proof, but I’m not looking to sell anyone. There are some very interesting Docs in the U.S. though, Dean Ornish, T. Colin Campbell. Smart dudes. Practical facts. And they’ve got the MDs.

And honestly, due to all this post-apocalyptic possibility, we might want to start recognizing the facts that we can’t sustain this kind of standard of living, at least in terms of resources. The way I see it, I am very much only one person (the people in my head might say otherwise…) but it seems the most I can do is convey a belief, and abide by it. Really. I’m just some 19 year old girl. So I live a relatively healthy lifestyle, who cares? Like I said before, I’m just one person, but think about it, in terms of all the people in the world, if just a quarter of them decided to do the same, what kind of impact would that have? Weird, right? Weird, and probably ridiculously impractical, but this is how I think. That would make a difference. It’d like pay-it-forward (except not).

So yea, inevitable doom… post-apocalyptic cannibalistic zombies with some innate human nature. I guess vegan cannibalistic zombies could be the next new thing; even zombies need a culture… But I definitely run fast, so I think as long as I can outrun a good portion of the fat/old carnivores and the other vegans/vegetarians, I should be set. So what would that make me, second or third wave of people to go? I mean, we’d have to take into account whether we all just inherently become zombies or we don’t become zombies until we’re bitten… That would add a whole new factor, because as long as I’m human, my legs aren’t broken, and the vegetation is in tact, I should be pretty fine.  You know it could be (ironically) that meat itself turns people into zombies, so inevitably vegans WOULD be screwed, as they’d be the only humans left. Well, vegans and vegetarians, but vegetarians ingest eggs and milk and the mutant zombie hormone could definitely take place there.  That or the excessive proteins from animal byproducts that would lead to some zombie cancer/tumor. Again, vegans screwed, yet, ironically, still intact…  

Anyway. I’m not sure if this post accomplished anything except to affirm and reiterate that I’m a bit off (due to veganism?) But, in regard to this irrefutable argument and all the extreme scientific evidence that we’re all doomed to perhaps this hypothetical post apocalypse, if not another, it would seem that unless you want to be a cannibalistic zombie, you might want to consider being a vegan. So take heed…if you happen to notice yourself salivating at some incessantly unattractive person, you might want to start buying into it… ? This ain’t no joke… hehe

Oh, and no, I am not going hungry in China. Veganism in China is perfection.

Ultimatum?

This blog doesn’t say anything. I don’t think I’ve really said anything in the last week, its all just been a mesh, a compilation of psycho babbling. Anyway, bear with me.

I’ve been writing a lot lately, though. And I mean a freakin lot. I’ve decided to turn these arbitrary life questions into a book, hopefully, one I can finish by the time I get home. Oh, commitment.

Writing isn’t as easy as it might seem. There’s something incredibly mentally draining about typing words, about organizing your thoughts in terms you hope people might want to read. I hope people actually read this, though I could never expect them to. More psycho babbling. I go on and on about life, but am I actually living? I guess not. I’ll have to delve into that, the whole idea of actual living, for it seems, yea I’ve acknowledged a reason to live, but no actual ideology or acknowledgement of what living is. I did go out last night. That was interesting…

I was talking to a friend of mine on Skype, telling him about this new ultimatum, and he just laughed.

“You need more friends.” He smirked. I didn’t get it at first.

Then it sort of hit me. I spend hours in my cramped headspace, writing. Inherently, talking to myself, going in circles, wondering about other people, when I hardly interact with them. I mean, yea, I interact with them daily. I’m by no means a hermit, but I just want to get all these ideas out. I’ve spent so many years interacting, all I want to do now is explain. I want it all down on paper so that in twenty years I can look back and laugh at who I was. So I can remember who I was, and who knows, maybe I won’t look back and think I was a total idiot.

At the same time, there’s something unbelievably profound about writing, something so indefinably gratifying. I feel resolute and strong in my affirmations, when I’m really not doing anything. I sit here and type about impracticalities, but for some reason, they feel more real this way, as if putting my scattered thoughts into words allows me to translate more then just the arbitrary feelings. The thoughts turn into actual proficient terms, and reasons. There’s something to be defined and when I can’t define, something to be explained in emotive, archaic language. My mind becomes a livid language, one, I realized, can be determined and understood. It’s no longer a matter of looking for myself; I can sort through the questions and ultimately decipher what I truly mean.

I can’t say I’ve ever really felt like this, as if I actually maintain a kind of purpose outside the confines of regularity. These are my reasonings, my thoughts, all those realities I designate to the world in terms of my own awareness. There’s something beautiful about that. Something untouched and unyielding that shakes me like a tree until I drop every unknown, every realization I never before realized. Its like writing itself has awakened me, brought me to life, and I’ve become something I’m actually ok with. It’s a strange acknowledgment, when you actually look yourself in the mirror and accept yourself for what you are. Without any witness, or general consensus, you breathe yourself in and the simplifications spew, and you just are. There’s no mask, no need for acceptance, no underlying twitch that whispers you’re wrong. No. This is you, in all your glory, beautiful and stagnant in your own prose. It’s beyond other people. Life becomes authentic and real, your own transcendental meditation.

But all the while, I feel like I’m missing something. Like there should be more to it, more that I haven’t said, more to be said. Of course, there is. In lieu of this query, I’ve taken it upon myself to write a book, or at least to try, all on the same grounds of this blog. I am by no means a writer or a philosopher. I maintain no proper education or formal training in regard to the goal I intend to accomplish, but inherently, that doesn’t change anything. I do not intend to write some unchartered manifesto, but a teenage girls recognition on the universal values of life. That’s really all I can say, as I’m not sure I’m actually experienced enough in anything else but life. I’ve lived a long enough to know my own thoughts, but that’s all. I don’t plan to put words in anyone’s mouth, or pretend I’m more knowledgeable than I am about the ways of the world. This is no screened biography; it’s not my life, but life itself. Life experienced, life portrayed, life perceived. That’s it. I’m in goddamn China. Seriously, it needs to be documented. There really is just that much to say that has nothing to do with government, or the news, economics, or any textbook generalization. This is about the actual nature, the actual being, the life inside this pulsing, vibrant place, and the unbelievable contrast to my own home. All those contradicting values intertwined within that beautiful, stark reservoir of human ambivalence. It’s all there, beckoning me to tap that untamed, wild energy, and condense it into language. Condense all those vivid beliefs and arbitrary natures in terms people can understand. I want to show people how I see them, because in all honesty, I am just always at such odds with myself, I could never take it upon myself to actually talk to people

There is probably more to then that, more to it that I’m acknowledging, or that I don’t understand. Of course, part of me wants to come to terms with everything I believe, as I’m not sure I truly understand myself, or half the things that come out of my mouth either. But really, I just want to understand the world around me. I want to understand all these damn people, because I feel like I can watch, and watch, and become one with all these commonalities, but there are just no exact specifics. There’s just too much to acknowledge, and I’m not smart enough to remember it all. And what’s the point of keeping it to myself? Isn’t that in itself the beauty of life, that it can be shared and communicated? Why not take it upon myself to write, and profess and try to teach people something I genuinely think they’re missing, or at least the vast majority? I don’t want to be a bystander. If there’s some lone college student out there, someone in the exact same position as me, why shouldn’t I reach out to them?

I just don’t know.

Falling…

Falling can be murky terrain, and the rabbit hole a dark, dreary, unforgiving place. You open your eyes for direction, and see only darkness, and beckoning paths, and all awareness drops down below your feet ahead of you. Its then you know you’ve lost, the unfulfillment is stifling, and you hold your breath, afraid to breathe. Afraid to lose what you’ve begun, afraid to question what you’ve already questioned, afraid to look yourself in the mirror to get lost in the cracks. What you’ve found is irresolute, unbearable, and unachievable, but there it stands all the same, looming and horrifying, a monster in your wake. What you’ve discovered is something breakable, but unbreakable, the indefinable characteristics of yourself, of those around you, of this so called life. The things that echo deep in the corners of your soul, and outline the contours of your being, the unmasked, unveiled, the vast, irresolute, unattainable flashing before your eyes, but as you reach, so close to grasping that flickering treasure, you find your endeavor impossible. You’ve reached an end to a pursuit, but the end marks the beginning, and you realize you’re running in circles. There is no end that is not the beginning, there is no marker for where you left off, the rabbit hole continues on, and you’re too caught in so-called being to escape. The falling lasts forever, that is, until you hit the ground and snap.

So I ran. All these thoughts cascading through my head. It took me a while to realize I was completely breathless, and outraged, overwhelmed by this horrid contemplation, about everything and nothing all at once. What I want to say has no resolution, only more questions, and I feel so uneasy, so lost in the pursuit of the indefinable realm of the abstract. The dissatisfaction, the urgency, the want for the irrational to become rational, but ultimately, the recognition that this desire is impossible, so there can be no actuality, no promised truth, no reason. I sit here, typing, and the words become vague, and blurred, and I feel my mind racing a billion miles a second. All the concrete notions I held fast have dissolved and I feel so unfulfilled, so lost for words, so inconsequential, so ultimately forgotten, and left behind. I spent hours contemplating, searching, begging for some kind of answer, but the truth is, there are no answers, there are only questions. There is only the abstract, for our actual beliefs have no grounding, except in the abstract. It doesn’t matter what it is, scientific or romantic, it is all maintained within the confines of our mind, and the matter that surrounds us. So where are we left, but back where we started, in the attempt to define that which we live in, that which surrounds us, that which can never be truly defined.

Still running. Thoughts menacing. My sanity pulsating, pushing me to the edge, beckoning to jump when I’m already falling. How do you define something in a world of limited language, of limited emotion, limited continuity? How can you be sure? How can you be resolute without any resolution? I had so much to say, but now it seems futile, and diminished. It seems empty and vapid, and vain. I feel the urgency, the need to write, because otherwise, I will go insane, and lose my mind to this endless array of abstract ideals. Philosophy itself constitutes no grounding for life, for it is merely a compilation of abstractions, of ideas, of irrational means for satisfaction. I cannot philosophize, because there is no ending, no ultimatum, no goal. I am left with the dull, aching feeling, an emptiness that resounds and leaves no meaning for life itself. How do you live a life that has no meaning? How do trust yourself enough to become someone worthy of meaning? Where does that meaning actually lie? Within the pursuit of goodness? Happiness? Love? Success? What is it? I sit here, in my aching hostility, with my unwarranted revulsion, and it is pointed at no other person except myself. My throbbing frustration is bent towards my own putrid disgust at my inability to quell my own hypothetical dilemmas. I cannot fulfill life in this shrill, cramped writing style, this is not life, these are words, tools used to define something I’ve already claimed is indefinable. So why do it? Why do I sit here in wonder, as time flows, and I become elapsed, and unquestioned, unanswered, and unfulfilled. I become broken by my own inabilities, my own insecurities, for isn’t that all this really is? An insecurity? A misery?

No, I will not submit to being miserable. It is not a misery. It’s an awareness.

A little while ago, I was accused by someone I hold very close that I have nothing more to write about then my own suffering, this classified misery. I can’t say that I firmly hold this be true, though it does profess a small quantity of viable fact. Yes, my writing, especially this genre of writing, is in terms of how I feel, how I view and thus receive the world around me. If I’m miserable in lieu of the world around me, obviously it will be portrayed in my writing, and if I maintain any remote writing ability, hopefully, I will be able to reveal these hollowed drifts that resound through my soul.  Perhaps I’m miserable, but I don’t think so. It’s not depression; it’s just a desire for truth. I want to know, trust, and teach something feasible in terms of universal human nature. No philosophy, or esthetics, no abstractions or ultimatums, no judgmental bigotry, or biased belief, just truth, real, unadulterated, pure truth. That’s all I want. Of course, that’s everything, and probably unattainable. And perhaps all those things I don’t hold as truth, are in fact truth.

So I keep looking.

“Being miserable is part of your identity” he said. Ha. I found this amusing. But no, I don’t consider being miserable as a part of my identity. This might profess a kind of Keatsian dilemma, and the irrefutable transitory nature of human emotion, but there will always be an inextricable link between melancholy and joy. However, this does not entail that one is primarily miserable, at least the way he was accusing me of being. I am frustrated, and I think he was just attempting to accuse me of something he himself feels. Misery and frustration are very different things, for misery seems to be in terms of renouncing life, while frustration depicts a feeling of fulfilling it. Truth and misery are not one in the same and being overwhelmed and lonely does not entail that you are depressed. It does entail frustration, but misery suggests some kind of inherent loss. Misery in terms of depression, I think, requires some kind of futile fear. It requires unawareness, a desire to be unaware, and to sulk and rot, and be inhibited by ones fear of getting better, or becoming. No, I am not remotely the product of such a selfish, disgusting waste of life. I am the product of my own need to be to aware. My misery (frustration) is the product of my desire for truth, not my desire to succumb to nothingness.  Its overwhelming nature might in fact make me miserable, but this does not result in a desire to give up, but a desire to push on. Ultimately, this misery allows me to never lose sight of who I am because I am almost incapable of giving up. The desire to know pushes me on, forces me to continue my search, my quest for an answer. Actual misery in depression can be linked only to that kind of feigned indifference, the pretense of “not caring”. If anything, I care too much, and thus I am frustrated at the difficult nature of my cause, but I am not lost, for I still maintain a purpose, and thus I am not miserable. I care about myself and those around me, so my misery is not a function of depression, or giving up, but a function of wanting to better my life and the life of those I love.  Thus it is not misery at all, as none of that has any concrete basis in misery. It is instead a quest for truth. A battered attempt to be fulfilled, to know, to decide, and to live. We will all, at some point, be miserable, but it seems that misery in the pursuit of truth and misery in the pursuit of succumbing to an end, an end that entails giving up on life and those around you, are entirely different forms of emotion. And this inherently depicts the problem with language; it limits ones ability to profess truth.

All of this, seems very strange to me, as I felt so sure this morning. I had intended to write something different, but instead, here I am, frustrated, lost for words, angry at my lucid inabilities. I wrote an entry this morning, one that cast a completely unrelated kind of tone, but it just doesn’t seem sound enough now…

I think everyone’s afraid. And it’s that fear that really inhibits us from becoming anything, in terms of other people or ourselves. We’re all afraid to never be enough, to not be, in all actuality, good enough. So what defines good enough? Of course, this brings up the idea of Quality, and faith in the abstract, but its more then that. This is not just philosophical theories, or existentialism, its actual life. It goes beyond books and follows through into actual living. We move past ourselves and into other people, and fall into the ebb and flow of emotion, into the deep swell of life. But are we all fated to drown, or do we learn how to swim?

I guess this is personal choice. There will always be followers and leaders, always be people who know what to make of themselves, and those that don’t. In terms of my own life, well, I don’t know who I am going to be in forty years, but there are certain constants I recognize. This pursuit, this idea, well, it will always remain. I can’t really entail how exactly I know that, but it’s a feeling. It goes beyond actual words, so yes, tell me its not real, tell me I’m stupid or irrational, but that won’t change anything. The feeling itself will still remain, and I’ll just sit back and laugh at you fall over yourself in your attempt to define your stifled little life, so living actually makes sense. But isn’t this exactly what I’m trying to do? I’ve turned myself into a hypocrite.

ACCEPT IT! Life does not make a bit of sense. I don’t care who you are, what you are, where you are, you will never know why exactly you’re here, you can only know the direction you want to go in, and on a certain level, doubtless of how depressed or lost you feel, we all know that, because it has everything to do with Quality itself. In the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (yes, we’re back there), Pirsig dives into this concept, and in order to convey the existence of Quality, portrays a world that is deprived of Quality. In simple terms, it would be like 1984 twenty-six years later… Sorry, I couldn’t’ help myself. No, but really, there would just be nothing. No coffee or tea, because we wouldn’t know the difference, no art, music, culinary expertise, clothing, clothing designers, homes, suburbia, cities, and yes, this can go on forever. Honestly, it seems in a lot of ways, the things that make us primarily human would disappear, so we wouldn’t really be human anymore. We’d cease to feel. We wouldn’t even be animals, because even animals can sense the difference between rotten and viable food, kindness, and abuse, and so on. Quality is, in a way, what allows us to grow into ourselves, so no one can tell me they don’t know what they want, because its just a simple matter of, well… Would you rather eat rotten veggies, or delicious veggies? This is a direction. It’s a sense of self, doubtless of how inconsequential it seems. We could all be put in that position one day, and its following through with those simple questions that leads you anywhere. If you want to attain Quality, you have to try. And we all want to attain Quality, in whatever aspect we deem fit. Its human nature.

Its just not enough. I don’t know why. I’ve become like two different people, and I can’t yet explain it. But its not enough. I can just feel it.

I need a break. I’ll be back later.

Oh, Alice.

It seems the last few days, I have been at a loss for words. My brain feels clogged, and soggy—oversaturated like a wet, dirty sponge.  It’s not the language.  I can sense the contrast of the simplicity of study to the strange weight of this unknown burden. It feels heavy and fracturing, completely unrendering, and the familiarity of its presence shakes me with unwarranted revulsion. My thoughts become choppy and dispersed. My sentences don’t flow. I fall into a gimmick, sloshing through the ebony white of the Beijing sunset, swimming through the array of the smokescreen mask that disguises my world in an uncouth light. Have I found an answer thus far? To intrigue and mannerism, I slap the words hard to make them speak, but they say nothing. Just whisper lightly, and laugh at my desperation. Snickering under their shielded eyes, you still know nothing.  They scorn, and the reminder burns. I can taste the memories; taste the calm tranquility of hatred— soft and metallic and brutal. Swallowed. Enveloped. I become nothing until the day feeds and I can disappear into sleep; cease consciousness to the torturous sensibility of overlapping time as minutes fold, and hours become days, and my skin stretches across my bones, tighter and tighter until there’s nothing left to hide. Waxen figure. I’ve become everything and nothing, and something in anything, all at once, sitting in my tiny, cramped womb, relishing in the aftermath of Lolita as it still stings my eyes. Those words, that broken story ringing through time, up to my eyes, to my ears, deep into my thoughts, to cascade into a world of nothingness. To be remembered to be forgotten, to be unleashed to be aglow, and thus again remembered. The faraway stares me down grimacing, the vacant usernames, haughty charades for friendships, spit in my face, and glare. Should I glare back? As the world sleeps, should I shudder or smile? Should I pretend I feel a thing as the day wears on and my cell phone creaks repeatedly, brimming with the misdemeanors of normal conduct—How to react? How to fulfill? How to become? How to allow the array of suitors to click off and leave me in my uneasy desire to be alone? The cool antiquity of velveteen remorse enraptures me. Down the rabbit hole I fall.

Act II: The Waltz Must Go On!

How much I would love to delve into the deep pool of contemplation in regard to esthetics, but that can’t be today’s task. I have other priorities, and I have to do as I promised; try to achieve those unattainable answers.

I’m not sure if this applies but I had an interesting encounter today, perhaps he’s even reading this now, and laughing at the inclusion. Either way, it wasn’t the actual encounter itself, but the encounter’s encounter with my brother that resonated. I was asked to have an interview. At first, I was slightly skeptical. He was an older man, a “writer”, curious about some young, foreign girl. Yea, that could be taken the wrong way, but once I relaxed a bit, I really sensed no intrusion, no negative intentions, it was just an interview. He seemed inherently interested in what he was writing about (foreign immersion in China) and I have to say, I think it’s a brilliant, untouched topic.

My brother, however, did not. I proceeded to go along with this interview, and honestly, there was really nothing to hold back. I have nothing to hide, I am who I am, and I don’t really care who knows it. No, I didn’t jump into any horrific, vivid memories of my past, but I’ve lead a relatively adventurous life, and it seemed he had as well. All of that mixed in with Chinese culture and western philosophy, well it made for interesting conversation, and I left feeling the need to write.

Towards the end of the interview, I had called my brother over to say hello to the interviewer. I almost knew how he would react, and it was as if I wanted an outsiders opinion on just how different he and I are. I wanted someone (someone who seemed to have lived similarly to the way I want to live) to provide a view of my brother. I needed an answer. I know what I think of him, and of course, I love him, but that doesn’t mean I want to be him. This is especially palpable in terms of my relationship with my father, who is incapable of recognizing the differences between my brother and I. My dad is is so convinced that I’m a flake with no sense of direction, or even capability, that the second something gets difficult I will just give up and become my mother. I don’t know how to show him who I am, and still, at the same time, be accepted. It’s a strange dilemma, one I will probably be fishing through until I’m out of college, but anyway, in this situation, I did receive the end result I was looking for.

My brother protruded in his way, butting in on the conversation, searching for the man’s credentials, connections, and past employment. He was searching for the things he sees as the valuable attributes in a person, things that generally have nothing to do with who the person actually is. At least, in terms of how I see people. I’ve discussed this, gone over it, professed my view on the arbitrary nature of judging human worth and value, and well everyone has their purpose, and reason. I can judge myself, and expect things of myself, but I can never really expect anything from another person. It has to be their decision, always their decision, but the interviewer seemed a bit sardonic towards my brother, the way I sometimes see him. Like you’re talking to someone who is speaking a completely different language, not even language, someone who is interested in a completely different world, a completely different life, and its just offensive to have them push their demeanor onto your solitude. Yea, he can be a bit obtrusive and overwhelming at times.

Anyway, I got what I was looking for. The man looked at my brother and me, and recognized how truly different we are. I was pleased. I’m not the only one.

It was interesting, as my brother walked away, he kept making ridiculous hand gestures behind the man’s back, trying to pull me away from the conversation. When he realized I wasn’t interested in his opinion, I got a nasty text insulting my discretion and judgment of character. I responded smugly, “Ok”, and let it go. Its that kind of thing that is not worth getting worked up over. I love my brother for who he is, and that’s that. I want nothing more, nothing less. I can be who I am, and he will always be who he is, and it is my job, as someone who loves him, to accept as he is, for all he is and wishes to be.

Which leads into my answer:

It would seem from such encounters that it would be unnecessary to love people that are outside your own realm of thought, people that exist to exist, but don’t exist within your own world. I can’t say I just love my brother because he is my brother. Blood, of course, plays a factor, for if it weren’t for blood, I doubt I would ever even acknowledge him, but then, once you get past the biological aspect, there is a need to belong. You will always belong to your family doubtless of who they are, what they do, or how they isolate you because they are your blood. It’s a completely animalistic/instinctual need, like maternal instinct, or attraction. Its part of who you are and rejecting part of yourself seems like the quickest way to succumb to a dead life. So in a sense, family members are slightly exempt from this discussion. In many ways, however, they very much apply.

It seems my main query is, can love itself be wrong? We’ve all loved someone who has hurt, or betrayed us, rejected us, and all that cliché crap Hollywood makes so much money off of. But it just brings into question, are all people capable of love and if only some are capable of love, are those who are incapable worthy of love, and thus forgiveness? I do not mean forgiveness in a religious sense, just to make that very clear. Forgiveness can be applied to anything, especially in regard to betrayal we’ve all felt by a loved one, that’s what I’m referring to. It seems this topic is inextricably linked to the idea of human worth but of course, none of us are perfect, and thus none of us are completely humane.

Just to portray this a little more clearly, I found myself in a sticky situation a few days ago. I’ve deemed my primary goal in life is the pursuit of goodness and love, and yet I feel like I committed the most sinister of acts the other day and I feel the utmost guilt, when I didn’t inherently do anything. I was walking down a crowded street in Wudaokou, a place littered with rabid amounts of people, bicycles, venders, and of course, there are beggars that speckle the streets in tune with the rest of the madness. Some them perform to try and earn more money, and normally, I’ll drop a yen, or whatever, and think nothing of it, most of them have the same routine, etc. But on this particular day, it was different. I walked past a man sitting on an amplifier, and then my eyes turned to the small child sitting on a dirty blanket, playing with some kind of toy. The child’s hair was mostly fallen out, and he had some sort of disease/rash so that his scalp itself was red and peeling, and looked almost ridged, and where the ridges met, there were puffy yellow/white lines. His arms and legs were mainly covered by clothes, but his forearms showed similar signs of the disease. Once I got past his primary appearance, his mannerism was what scared me the most. He looked sick. He wasn’t playing with his toy, he was clutching it. Holding it fast against him, as if it was some kind of keepsake of life. I wondered if he was dying and if he was dying, if he knew he was dying. I felt my eyes widen in horror, and turned back to the father, or who I presumed to be the father, and realized he was just as plagued as his ward. I felt sickened, and I sped up to be rid of them, of the sight of them, that blemish on my everyday pleasant monotony. It wasn’t until later that I felt sick with guilt– and wonder. How much I wanted to reach out to those people, but how afraid I was to actually risk myself. Does this make me selfish? Or just unaware? I went back later and dropped all the money I had in the basket. I guess that could be deemed a stupid action, but oh well. It really didn’t do anything for my conscience. The whole scenario still upsets me, I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because I really have no power to do anything, yet at the same time, I have all the power in the world. And there are just so many people that need help, and I don’t know how to save them.

This event made me think, made me think a lot. More so than usual. It seemed interesting that if we were all equal, evolution would be impossible, it just wouldn’t exist. Of course, there are those who think evolution is a farce, but thats not the point. Anyway, when it comes down to it, and those sick people on the street, we are NOT all biologically equal. I was not born with AIDS or cancer, while no doubt, some person with the same birthday as me, from the same hospital is already dead from some awful plague. In this sense, biology and genetic makeup deem the next generations, but its also seemingly linked to the idea that love itself, or love of someone unworthy inherently inhibits us just as much. In a sense, I don’t think this is true, or at least I think its capable of being overcome.

There are countless people (we all know them), who commit acts of goodness in order to appease their own conscience or to seek some kind of appreciation, or commencement. I am convinced we are all supposed to maintain a certain level of self-love, one that allows us to function in the manner we deem permissible, but at the same, it would seem that to commit an act of selflessness in order to be gratified by acknowledgement is very not a selfless act, but a selfish one. There’s a personal goal at the end; self-gratificiation. I think love itself is meant to be selfless, and thus the idea of self-love can not be contradicted by loving a selfish person. Loving a person does not entail they love you back. As I said before, you can only expect anything from yourself, hopefully the best you have to offer, and thus the love you perform can only be as true as you allow it to be. It has nothing to do with the other person’s faults or actions. People will always be selfish, its human nature. It’s pulling away from that faculty that actually allows you to trust someone, to love someone, to live life.  Selfishness only inhibits you, love itself, acceptance allows you to grow.

The problem is that there is not exact definition for love (as I said before). We can’t deem what is inherently irrational to truly exist in a rational world, so how do we know the feelings we perceive are actually love? Well, my only answer to this is that language itself is limiting, and it seems the human mind is limited (in a sense of communication) as to what we can profess in words, and there are only so many words. Poetry itself seems to be the closest form of actual profession of emotion into human language, as it is often impossible to truly define. Poetry provides lyrical emotion, literate emotion that can be sensed, felt, and experienced in ways that regular language, literature cannot. It also seems that imitation itself has to be broken before the actual goal can be achieved or performed. In this society, it is impossible to not be affected by the chaotic world surrounding us, and thus create an idea of what life and love should look like. We get stuck inside Nietzsche’s traditional lying, without even awareness that we’re doing it. We think we’re pulling out of this global box, when in fact we’re just committing the same crime as the previous person, going in a similar direction, the safe direction.

Well, for me at least, this was an extreme light bulb, because this predicament implies that the only way to actually know love is to trust yourself, something so opposed and berated out of us by modern society. We are expected not to be ourselves even if we know what we want, just being around other people, being pulled into their standards and sanctions, we get pulled away from our own directions. We lose sight of ourselves as other people, laws, guidance, medication, all the derogatory, negative aspects of life beat us down, until we are so worn out, you can no longer trust yourself to be yourself, because it is so much safer to be someone else. This is incredibly ironic for me, being here, in this “Communist” society that inherently renounces all the actual beliefs that Marx tried to convey (I have no doubt he’s turning in his grave…). Ha, I find it unbelievably amusing in a way.

So, I suppose this is my answer. I maintain that same inner voice whispering to me not to fret, to trust my own judgment and be strong in my criticism of life itself. It is up to every person to judge who in fact is worthy of their love, their time, their life. Randomly, I heard a heart-wrenching story today from the most random person on earth, and all it made me feel was utter gratitude for the people I do have in my life, the people I can cherish. Mayhap I have experienced severe heartache, mayhap not, but it is my growth from those experiences, however I deem them, however they affected me, and in turn how I allowed myself to grow and heal from them. Its realization from this growth that lets you realize nothings really changed. It’s the goal to live in the Sartrean “good faith”, and to recognize life for its possibilities and not its hardships. The love I felt did not die, it’s still very much alive inside me, in my mind, heart, wherever it is emotion actually takes place. So I will continue to live this ideal, to trust myself, and therefore trust those I deem worthy of trust. To expect the highest I can from myself, and hopefully, inherently, affect those around me in a way that will be ultimately good.

And so I close. I read a long time ago Into the Wild, the story of Christopher McCandless, and his beautiful/terrifying journey to and through the Alaskan territory. Sadly, McCandless died very young, and even more so, he died alone. It seemed his whole life he lived for the pursuit of solitude and isolation, like Thoreau or even Byron, but it is McCandless’s acknowledgement at the time of his death that makes him so worthy of notice. “Happiness is meant to be shared”, he wrote, and in a sense, its ironic (yet very fitting) that a man so set on isolation can only realize at the time of his death the true purpose of life. I suppose its hard to truly recognize what you need until you’ve lost it. Hopefully, we might all learn from this realization, and recognize happiness can be achieved. Maybe it can even be achieved in solitude, but the concept of solitude itself is sad. Life is meant to be shared, happiness is meant to be shared, and these two concepts only coincide in love, love for others, and the world around us. Being alone is a very horrible, lonely fate, one I would not wish on anyone. Rilke, more so than anyone, seemed to be the only writer I have acknowledged that recognized the need for support in one’s personal isolation. We all need our introverted speculation, but it is when you escape from your isolation in the familiarity of those around you that you truly know you are loved. To honor someones isolation, and need for solitude, loving the actual distance. I guess this is a relatively different topic.

Anyway, there’s my answer. For now, at least.

The Psychotic Waltz

I recall all the dinners I’ve had to sit through with my brother (yea, and it’s only been two weeks), the “business dinners”. The incredible amount of bull shitting, the constant pretense, all the damn smiling, playing coy. I became nauseous. I remember so fervently wanting to escape everyone, even the overwhelming presence of my brother. Is that wrong? It seems possible there is something very wrong with me. No doubt, I should be on unfathomable doses of medication, and succumb to a life of monotony, and normality. I guess we can’t have everything…

I read this book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s good once you get past Pirsig’s self-commending tactics (as the majority of what he says was already written during the nineteenth century…). Some of the questions he brought up struck a severe chord in my mind, and all I can focus on is that unceasing, painful echo. His arrogance does promote a slight issue, though. Hume insisted that when people (men) are “most sure and arrogant, they are commonly mistaken”. Well, I disagree with some of our Mr. Pirsig’s queries but it’s also been said its only arrogance if you’re wrong, and who the hell knows wrong from right? I guess those statements go hand in hand. At any rate, I think the book applies. Just a vibe.

Doubtless of all my negative faculties, I really think fear of ignorance is the worst. I could never live that monotonous life, and be content with myself. Its like I take the word why and apply it to everything. I don’t even wish to be that person. I don’t want to be blind to realities, or even to unacknowledged realities. I want to be aware. I possess no fear of life, or death, or even mediocrity, just unawareness… though it seems impossible to be mediocre and be aware of it at the same time, whiich inherently brings up the idea of Quality (also addressed in Pirsig’s book) but thats for another day. Instead, this leads to my current contemplation (and the topic of my last two posts)– Are some people truly worth more than others?

I can’t help but wonder if there’s some underlying scale to judge the value of a human being, and yes I’ve made multiple attempts at quelling this monster, but its like a permanent rock in my shoe, and it just won’t stop knawing at my heel. It won’t goddamn go away, and all my theories now seem so unsteady. It could be me, but lately I’ve become such an OCD fanatic that I just can’t function around people. Or if I’m around people, yea, I can deal, and smile and play the part, but my skin crawls and I have the most incredible urge to runaway. And the moment I runaway, my mind starts to race. Why? Why am I like this? Why are they the way they are? No, I’m not socially inept, but at the same time, I feel uncomfortable in society, and if I deem life as a flux of relationships and love, I’ve inevitably left a huge gaping hole in my philosophical web, and I have to do all I can to tie it back together.

In a sense, I am still honoring my theory. I am fulfilling Kant’s categorical imperative, yet pulling away from it by abiding by my own emotion. I want to be good, I want to be able to function in society, but maybe that’s not my role. Maybe I am just not a sociable person, and that really doesn’t reflect negatively on my character, at least I don’t think so. I used to think that in order to be a content person, I had to be liked, and successful, and achieve the “ideal”. I had to be my brother. But in a sense, this ideal is just another form of traditional lying, and practicing unbelievable self-deception by denying yourself the life you actually deem worthy. If I am uncomfortable around others, maybe it’s because I like to be alone. No that’s not it either. Yes, I like to be alone at times, but certain people I miss, I want around, I want to be with unconditionally. Maybe I like to be around certain people? This is obvious enough, but it also suggests some unadulterated mysticism, and I’m not sure I feel like being labeled a mystic. Yet, I do believe some people in my life I met for a reason, even beyond the coincidental, arbitrary nature of our encounters, it’s the feeling itself. There is a sense of belonging, a sense of caring, of feeling protective/safe, feeling love. If anything else, the idea of love exists only in our minds like every other abstract concept, so could it be there can be no universal definition for love? And here comes the contradiction. The problem is that ultimately defining something as indefinable is irrational, and thus there is no way of actually knowing it exists. Pirsig brings this up in his novel, committing the same crime towards the idea of Quality, and he says, “If you can’t define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists. Neither can you really tell anyone else what it is” (207). Well, this sucks. Ultimately, irrationality is just another form of stupidity, so where does that lead us? If we can’t prove something exists outside the confines of our minds, if we can’t communicate or convey it to others, why does it actually exist? What is the point? Is it even there? I suppose the most obvious answer is that beliefs in abstract concepts are the notions of idiots, so inherently we’re all stupid.

Help! Someone please prove me wrong! I’ve hit a wall!

I’m not afraid of these questions, doubtless of how it might appear. In a very obvious way, I isolate myself from other people so I never have to get attached to them. Yes, I’ve been shrinked before. But at the same time, I’ve been so caught up with this “stupid” theory/question that I can think about anything else. This morning, I was sitting in my café, waiting for my tutor, and I began to unravel in my head. I’ve clearly dictated a way of life that is to love those around you as you love yourself, blah blah blah. One questionable fault is (though not my main query), what if you don’t love yourself? Well, it seems that those who truly do not love themselves (I do not mean arrogance) would commit suicide or start to completely rot, ignoring everyday human functions (bathing, eating, breathing… etc) . We all like to be treated well, its human nature, so you act the way you want to be treated, imitation is the highest form of flattery, do unto others… yea, all this crap! It just sounds wrong, and I don’t think it’s what I mean. It’s not meant to be in terms of just good and bad, but what is morally human (at least, to the extent of our progress), we recognize that it is wrong to kill other people, the way it’s wrong for them to kill us. In this nature, Kant’s universal concept is brilliant, but at the same time, its not just dignity you need to honor, its other people’s emotions as well. In a sense, they’re completely tied together, because a person’s emotions are completely dependent on their dignity, and feelings of self-worth. Anyway, this is not my worst dilemma. What I can’t decipher is how do you actually deem someone worthy of love? Like your specific, unadulterated attention; What makes somone deserving? And what if they’re not? Can you still love someone who is unworthy of love? And if they’re unworthy of love, what are they worthy of?

Like I said, more questions for questions. Anyway, I have a notebook full of scribbles, and I’ll throw out my answer on the morrow. For now, delve into my impossible contemplation. Someone try, give me an answer. Please?

Avid Procrastination and Ornery, Old Men

Its relatively early morning, and I’ve already been awake for too long. No jetlag, but the sun sprays itself across my room and I wake up and the four walls of my apartment spit me out into the street. Then starts my day. I spend so much time at this café, The Bridge (it seems like almost all my time). It’s only been a week, and I’ve already become one of the regulars (I know all the servers and they can even guess the tea I’m going to order) …I’m not sure if thats pathetic or not… During the week, I can attempt to stay relatively busy, as I have tutoring until the late afternoon. The problem today is its the weekend, and without any set plans, I have entertain myself for an actual day. This seems to be my biggest problem, because even in my free time during the week, I don’t know what to do with myself. Part of me just doesn’t want to do anything, and I wish the time would just fly by so I can come home and start life. The other part of me (the responsible part) wants to be productive, but there are only so many books I can read, only so much TV I can watch, and only so many stores I can peruse without going completely insane. And perusing Chinese shops is not remotely like shopping in the states (and trust me, the novelty wears off quite quickly). Here, the salesclerks run by commission, so the moment you walk into a store with your FOREIGN tattoo stamped across your forehead, you’re swarmed by a fleet of bored, Chinese worker bees. And they don’t just hover; they follow you around the store, buzzing, grabbing, pushing and worst of all, watching with the worst kind of intense, judgmental stare.  I can always feel their eyes on me, trying to calculate how much money I have, how much they can throw at me until I actually buy something; so I find myself clutching my belongings, and my small, stifled dignity and shuffling out of the store as inconspicuously as possible. This inconspicuous nature is really an art form in itself, you see, because if you somehow draw more attention to yourself as you’re leaving, you’ll be followed out, perhaps even down the street, by some pushy, overly-charismatic Chinese trying to sell you something in butchered English. Anyway, there’s really only so much of that I can take.

So, if I don’t want to read, watch TV, talk to people, or study, well, I’m a bit screwed.  I’m keep waiting for some gripping, innovative idea to throw itself into my head (blogging), but maybe I’m just attracted to boredom. I guess I could go find some friends, but it’s just so much effort to put on that whole charade of thoughtfulness. I just don’t feel like pretending to be interested in other people’s monotonous lives. I really just don’t care that much. I’d rather be by myself then go through all the steps of friendship, and I’m not remotely attracted to the idea of going out to some club, getting wasted and participating in the hunt for random, dirty, meaningless sex, which seems to be the primary aspiration of most people here, even the Chinese.   

“Where are you from?”

“[Insert country here]”

“You?”

“[Country…]”

“You in school?”

And so on… Yea, it gets old fast. 

I can only imagine how I must appear, describing myself in this selfish, confused, whiney manner. I’m fortunate, I know. No need to reiterate. I’m in freaking China, how many people get to do that. But at the same time, I think I partially got pushed into being here.  I think there were other things I definitely wanted to accomplish, but I guess that doesn’t mean I still can’t accomplish them.  The Chinese language is legitimately important though, I’m not naïve enough to not recognize that.  Also, I recognize nothing I could be doing is particularly demanding, but I almost feel as if my abilities are being suffocated by boredom. I’ve spent the last week frivolously studying my ass off, reading books, and attempting to speak to locals, and all I want is something to make the time go by faster. I want it to be August and I want to be coming home. Not exactly in a sense that I don’t like it here, but I just want to start life. I’ve been so caught up in the horrific, floaty nature of community college, and upset transition is demanding; forcing yourself to actually make an effort is demanding, especially when you know your future depends on it. Its strange not having any actual set responsibilities while I’m here.  I mean, yea, learn Chinese. That’s a bit looming. 

Ironically, I think the best aspect of being here is that I have so much time to just think. I get time to write, and read, and live my whole philosophical ideal. There are just so many people, and that’s part of the reason I don’t want to get involved with any of them.  I just like watching them, seeing them, reading them and applying them to my theories. Its weird, I have to isolate myself to actually recognize and see life. Maybe I should be caught up in living life, but I think part of my job here is to recognize myself in terms of how I see other people. I’ve decided that other people are really just mirrors for our own faults and desires, but this theory cannot solely be taken at face value, for its not just a matter of recognition, but a matter of application in terms of self-discovery. In many ways, this is most apparent in regard to loved ones. In order for love to not solely be a pretense, you need to see (in terms of recognition) and love our loved ones for who and what they are, for all their faults and perfections. No person can ever directly change another person; people change themselves. You can sympathize and push, and demand, but in the end, the act of acknowledgement of one’s nature, and thus the desire to be different is a form of caring. If people care enough about one particular direction, they’ll be capable of change; of choosing whether or not to change, depending on what’s important to them. But you can’t expect people to change for you, and that’s partially what this statement doesn’t fully profess. However, also as you can’t expect other people to change for you, other people can’t directly expect you to change for them. It has to be a personal choice based on your own personal ideals, and beliefs. You have to live in terms of how you want to live, in terms of who you want to be and how to want to be perceived, and obviously this is undoubtedly related to those we love. If we truly love someone, we’ll want to change for them, because we’ll want to make them happy, and thus make ourselves happy. We perceive ourselves in terms of how we perceive other people, and thus other people clearly reflect the good and bad attributes we want to portray. We all have the ability to recognize moral grounding (the abstract vision of good and bad) and that’s because its part of being human. Because we recognize those attributes in other people, and thus want to mirror them.  

Thus this leads to the conclusion that you can really only expect things of yourself. Other people provide a perspective of the world, and human nature, but when it comes to actually living, you have to guide yourself in the direction in which you want to go. You have to trust yourself to actually be alive for a particular purpose, otherwise, what’s the point of being alive? We were all given life for some sort of reason, whatever applies/appeals to your particular set of beliefs, but in that same sense of appeal, we need to live our lives in accordance to those same beliefs. There are very few things that make me inherently happy. Maybe I’m just a slightly introverted person, maybe I have high standards, but in a lot of ways, I really haven’t changed all that much from who I was 10 years ago. And yes, I do remember. For me, in particular, as I can’t vouch honestly for what exactly makes other people happy, well, I like to make people happy. I like to make people I care about happy. It took me awhile to realize this, and it really wasn’t until I lost something very, very dear to me that I recognized how true this is. But at the same time, this recognition allowed me to realize that I don’t need the things/people I love to be around (in terms of location/physicality) in order to love them. Honestly, think, we all just need to trust ourselves to be ourselves, and thus inherently make the right decisions for ourselves in order to lead life in the ways that we all deem (personally) worthy of our lives.  On a side note, I think actual true love for another person needs to be selfless in a sense that both happinesses, yours and theirs, are mutually dependent on one another, and thus no one can be taken advantage of. Obviously, this is an ideal situation, but it does seem acheievable, but that explains why this can’t really be applied to serial killers and psychomaniacs bent on destruction, or in terms of hurting people, because destroying life is not worthy of life, nor is it in accordance with true love. In order to be worthy of life, you inherently have to be worthy of life from all peoples. You can’t kill someone and then expect to be worthy of their love. It becomes a universal concept, to value those around you, and thus inherently value yourself.

Well, the main reason this came to mind was because yesterday I was sitting in this same café with my tutor, when I heard this aggressive, clearly American voice brutally puncture the peaceful bustle of my routine.

            “What the hell is taking so long? Why does it take fifteen minutes to get a goddamn cup of coffee? (Damn Damn, Shit Shit, Fuck Fuck, etc…)” I was immediately on edge. I do have a relatively short fuse for assholes (especially when they start dampening my space with negative, unnecessary bull shit), but anyway, I look over to the direction of the voice, and see this knarled, nasty old man with the most bitter, cynical look on his face. If the Scrooge, Cruella Devil, and the Grinch got together and had a love child, well, it would be this guy. And of course, he deemed it necessary to fly over to China, situate himself in my tranquility and upset my vibe.  You have to also be aware that absolutely none of the waiters in this café speak English, and at the same time, that this is one of the best cafés I’ve ever been to, in terms of service, cleanliness, food, etc. Almost all the waiters here are always incredibly nice/polite, they always help me with my Chinese and they just straight up work their asses off.

            “I sorry, sir. Very busy. Ka Fei coming,” one of the waiters attempted to calm him, but he only seemed to get more pissed off, and I couldn’t peel my eyes awayfrom him, and all the tiny hairs on my arms started to prickle and stand straight. Angry Emmy… Ooooo, Angry Emmy…

            “What are you goddamn babbling about? Busy? There are more goddamn waiters here then customers! Just get me my damn coffee!” I seethed. He really needed to swear at them? I looked at my tutor to see if her reaction was similar to mine, but she seemed intent on ignoring him. I clenched my teeth, knowing I should keep my mouth shut, but come on! I just couldn’t handle this kind of aggressive, awful abuse towards these undeserving, well-intentioned people. He was giving the rest of us FOREIGNERS a bad name; a worse name…

            “Hey, they don’t speak English, and if you haven’t noticed there are tons of people. I’m sure you can wait five more minutes for your coffee.” I don’t know why this man pissed me off so much, but I had to really attempt to keep my language clean and not spit the words at him.

            “Busy? Are you kidding? I see 1…2…3…4…. 5 people, and tons of waiters?”

            “There’s another room, and two other floors. Why don’t you go back and count those too? I’m sure by the time you’re done, your coffee will be here.” He gave me the worst look of indignation, but I could see he was beginning to be unsure of himself. He didn’t expect anyone to interfere with his disgusting, arbitrary bullying.

            “Welcome to China!” He spit

            “What, so because you’re in China, you get to treat people like dirt?” I glared at him. My tutor looked a bit shocked at me. My hands were clenched.

           “Go back home, girl. Go home.” He muttered, “You must be from California.” As if this had anything to do with anything…?

            “Just because I’m humane doesn’t mean I’m from California. But I would suggest, if you don’t want people spitting in your food, to start acting like a person.” He didn’t respond, but just looked down at his loaded plate. Typical American breakfast at this not-so-typical Americanized/Euro café. A waitress brought his coffee, and he hunched over and began to sip. Later, he made a show of getting up and filling his water glass, but he didn’t say anything, just strut back to his table, and dropped his wrinkly ass into his chair. I could hardly focus on my book I was so mad. My tutor smirked.

I don’t know why I got so worked up by this whole ordeal. It took me awhile to realize that I was shaking and sputtering my words so much I could hardly focus on the Chinese at hand. I guess it could be the fact that I’ve worked in a similar environment, and nobody likes to be shit on. It could be that I am genuinely fond of the people that work here, and it seemed unfair to allow someone to dehumanize them because of the language barrier. It makes me sick to think about, honestly. These people are so good, and they really don’t seem to have any malignant intention at heart. They’re so easy to please, they love to help and serve, and it just seemed to horrible to take advantage of their easy, good nature. But mainly, it just seems to bring up the same universal concept of honoring yourself by honoring other people. I think the only real way to see yourself is through the way you’re perceived by other people, because doubtless of who you think you are, you will always be perceived and received in a different manner. Yet goodness is universal, and respect and polite mannerisms will always be received positively if they are performed with good intentions, it doesn’t matter what the culture is. A smile is a smile, and thank you is thank you. Rudeness is just disgusting and unnecessary, and is just a universal form of bigotry to life itself, because it doesn’t honor life, yours or anyone else’s and thus, its not worthy of life. It’s a waste of life, a waste of energy, and I despise it.

I have no doubt that someone who reads this (whether a person who knows me or someone who doesn’t), will accuse me of preaching some kind of high and mighty, perhaps metaphysical, and self-indulgent theory, and thus insulting their way of life. Well, just to be straight up and address this accusation before it arises, that’s not remotely my intention. A short time ago, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to live a certain way, following a few, simple guidelines that allow my life to maintain a slightly more meaningful, truthful aptitude. All I express here are some, if not all, of those philosophies I intend to live by. I want to love my life. I want to be the same age as that horrible, old man and instead of looking at life as some purgatory for death, I want to be laughing, smiling and most of all, I want to know that everything I achieved, every person I met, every action I committed was fulfilled in truth and love for myself and for those around me. I have no doubt that I sound like some lucid hippy, and/or some maniacal, religious fanatic. Well I’m neither, but hey, either way, people are who they are and they what they want, thats life. Deal with it.