depth

depth. looks like death. looks like one of those words where you stare too long at it and it becomes something else. words words words, all what we make of them. manifestations of thought, mirrors of our minds.

roller

roller. rollercoasters and steamrollers. rolling as a motion, one of a vast set we are capable of. rolling, lolling, body as form and function, but also as art.

chained

chained. to a stone. like...prometheus? to have his liver torn out over and over again. metal and stone. great textures there - solid and immovable.

president

president. from preside, perhaps? to preside at the head. commander and chief. like many things, it's just a word, with it's own history as a word, but with all of the history behind it, it accrues power that it never had to begin with. such is the power of titles.

detour

detour. first thought: my whole life has been a detour so far. which of course implies a destination. interesting, if life is what happens when you're making other plans, and your plans are the destination, then life is necessarily a detour. it's the unexpected flow of your experience, driving you down blind alleys. no one can fight it.

industry

industry. reigniting the fires of industry. is this a fundamental aspect of human society, that we must be productive? Are we inherently technological people? i suppose it speaks to an innate curiosity and creativity which might be considered flattering, despite the things we've done in its name.

dolls

dolls. the dollhouse. it was a good show, with interesting ideas at least, despite the poor execution. reminds me of ghost in the shell too, where the director held up dolls alongside dogs as two things/entities that we project ourselves onto, yet have very different kinds of life from us. Dolls are imitation life.

bongos

bongos. certainly conjures an air of the foreign, the mysterious, the exotic. maybe something like orientalism, preying on the ignorance of an audience to produce such a feeling of mystery. it matters who the audience is in this case, because all the bongo players in the room are not impressed.

New Year

I've stopped being surprised at the regularity with which this blog falls by the wayside, but to be fair, it seemed like less of a priority this semester. Of course, that's another concern in itself, the ease with which I seem to dispense with my higher order functions and simply batten down the hatches. Such behavior should be reserved for only the direst necessities, or life just becomes a string of days spent coping with an exaggerated threat, constantly deferring the things that really make life great. I will try to remember this.

However, there's also another, more tangible reason for this blog's recent barrenness. I started this blog intending for it to serve the purpose that my written reflections once served - to provide a place to write out my thoughts without judgment in order to review them and possibly gain insight into my own psyche. It had helped in the past, allowed me to look at my thoughts calmly and gain a little perspective beyond the momentary intensity that always accompanied them when they were rattling around in my head. However I've recently decided that I cannot be fully open with myself if I'm also writing for the public, and so I've started writing out my thoughts for myself alone, with pen and paper as a sort of meditation. I decided that I want to hold something solid in my hands, a tangible product of my imagination and psyche that I can look back through and consider.

I'll still try to keep this blog updated obviously, and I still intend to link to the interesting things I come across, and if I write anything worth sharing, or that can be shared, I'm sure I will.

So, the new year.

I spent this new year's eve in much the same way I've spend the previous several by going to the Green Gulch Zen Center. Regardless of my feelings about Buddhism, either in itself or how it is practiced at this particular place (just like anything else, at times it seems like just another show, an act for its own end), I enjoy the sincerity of the new year's celebration they hold, which (at least for me) consists simply of walking into a wooded valley in the middle of the night guided down a path of lanterns, assisting a monk in ringing a large bell, and standing around a bonfire with cider. It seems to me to be the perfect end and beginning of a year, to return to the primordial darkness and the human community united in silence around a fire (at least it's usually silent, this year not so much...but the significance I associate with the event was undiminished), with only a bell to mark the passing from one year to another. Despite the simplicity of the event, it always has a profound effect on me for reasons I haven't been able to fully apprehend, I think partly because I always seem to return to the temple in entirely different states of mind from year to year. Each year, I interpret these simple rituals differently, look back with different eyes on not only the past year but the entire story of my life as I've lived it so far. Each year I'm a new person, but I walk into that valley each time carrying the weight of the past year in order to put it to rest there and walk out unburdened to begin another year-long journey.

Many things are changing. It's hard to recall a time in my past when things seemed so unclear, both regarding my external circumstances as well as my inner character, and so it seemed more important than ever to leave my burdens in the valley and truly let go of the debilitating desire for control. Choices will have to be made, but the strength to make them will come from the knowledge that I've already come a long way, seen and done many things, and that life will go on, and there is much more to see yet. Life isn't neat, and sometimes it's painful, but its beauty lies in the rough edges and the parts that don't fit. I will embrace this fact, leave my heart open to the truth of things and not hide behind my own urge to make sense of it all.

I know this: I have felt many things, and they have left their mark on me. This has been a year of tremendous emotional upheaval, and I am not unscarred, but I have also grown enough to know that it has been worth it, and that's a big step. The next step is a big one too:

I will need to have a little faith.

Aw hell, it's 11/9/09

So it's the final rundown to my thesis draft due date. I will be doing little else this week other than maintaining my bodily functions in order to finish the draft on time, which I keep making more difficult by changing the topic. The conclusions I've reached stay much the same, and now I'm basically just changing the questions to fit the answers. I'm hoping that by really nailing the topic, the actual writing of the thing will be easier and faster. We'll see how true that is...

On the party/social front, I'm dealing with the same issues I've been having since at least last year, which is that I don't enjoy a lot of the parties here, yet at the same time I feel like I need to get to know more quality people and bring them into my life. The party I was at last night seemed more like an exercise in making small talk with strangers than anything that could produce real camaraderie. I have therefore decided that I need more video games in my life, to share pursuits with like-minded people. That always seemed to be the way to happiness and friendship before, so I'm not quite sure why I forgot. To this end, I'm thinking seriously about bringing World of Warcraft back into my life - a dangerous idea to be sure. We shall see...

It was actually the music from Blizzard that got me thinking seriously about WoW again. I've put it up in the public folder. Have at it.

Here we stand, on 10/26/09, feet on the ground, facing forward

Hey friends. Looks like I'm gonna have to switch around the daily update thing, since I've already failed to keep up with it. I think I'll try for Sunday - Wednesday, since weekend nights have a habit of leaving me occupied or incapacitated when I would usually be writing these.

Fun events from the weekend:
A friend of Alison's came to visit, and hanging out with him was fun but not without its complications. He also has the strange power, like our friend Zach from back home, of attracting the attention of every female in every room he entered. One can only marvel. And roll their eyes.

On Saturday I went to practice at my Kendo teacher's dojo. For the first hour, my teacher taught myself and a 60 year old gentleman how to do Iaido (居合道, roughly translated it seems to mean "the way of acting in harmony with being"), which put simply is the art of drawing the sword in response to a surprise attack. From what I can tell, Iaido is to Battoujutsu as Kendo is to Kenjutsu - Kendo is derived from fighting forms using an already drawn sword, while Iaido is an art derived from techniques starting and ending with a sheathed sword. Unlike Kendo, Iaido is not competitive and is considered to be an art that is necessarily individual. From what I've read and heard about it, and based on the interpretation of the name, it's supposed to be a very personal exercise, as much about cultivating internal awareness as external technique. For this reason, some people refer to it as "moving Zen". Anyways, it's amazingly cool to watch, and I enjoyed what little I did immensely. Hopefully I can scrape together enough money to buy a sword sometime soon(Iaido is practiced with real, though usually blunt, swords), but in the meantime I plan on going every week with my wooden sword to practice.

After an hour of that came an additional 3 hours of Kendo practice, by the end of which I literally couldn't speak above a whisper from shouting so much. It was a lot of fun, even the part where I had my back to the wall and was getting hit by my teacher faster than I could follow with my eyes. I think the most important implication of this development in my practice of Kendo (and the beginning of my Iaido practice) is that it represents an endeavor that I've excelled at, really enjoy and respect, and can happily incorporate into my identity. I think I generally try to avoid making my identity about anything other than what goes on in my head, but perhaps that's why I feel so adrift so often. Maybe I can take this accomplishment of mine, which I'm really proud of, and hang some weight on it so to speak. Instead of having my identity inform every single thing I do, maybe I can relax a bit and let this pursuit of mine influence my identity a little bit.

Yeah, I'm a swordsman. What of it?

Just the thought makes me feel calm.

Websites:

Iaido

Seven questions that keep physicists up at night:

Music:

Been listening to Laura Veirs, who opened for the Decemberists when Borge and I went to see them last month. Posted a track called "John Henry Lives".

Peace Friends

Look around, it's 10/20/09

Today I resolve to be an unstoppable juggernaut of self-confidence.

I think I have the intellectual capacity to understand, and possibly even excel, at whatever I put my mind to, and therefore the only impediments to achieving everything I can reasonably desire to achieve are time and my own character faults. As to the latter, I intend to identify and eradicate them to the best of my ability. I will identify what I want and then use my reason and intellect as a vantage point both to survey the best way to attain it and circumvent my own weaknesses. I'm gonna win this thing dammit.

I also need to figure out how best to simultaneously and effectively continue my study of music, programming, and astronomy after school. Perhaps I can become one of those brilliant shiny people that's good at everything and seemingly never sleeps...

Site of the day:
http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1792544

Song of the day (up at public folder):
I've wanted to post this one for a while but it's kept slipping my mind. How sad it was that we could not believe...

Hallelujah, by the Helio Sequence

Daily Wave - 10/19

Ok let's play a new game.

In addition to longer entries, which I intent to write soon, every day I'm going to post things I run across or thoughts that I have or things that I'm listening to. It'll be something like this:

Astronomy is becoming a bigger and bigger fascination for me, and this week I've been treated to news stories and pictures regarding planets and moons within our own solar system. In particular, I've read about how Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus both (almost certainly) have vast underground oceans, possibly capable of supporting life (either ours in the long run, or life that might already be there that we don't know about). Anyways, in Saturn news, there's this site:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/saturn_at_equinox.html

which I've shared with most of you already probably. The site is just generally awesome so you all should keep it bookmarked, rssed, whatever.

A thought provoking article about flu vaccinations:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200911/brownlee-h1n1

Been listening to a bunch of random stuff recently, from Bach to Tchaikovsky to Arvo Part to Massive Attack etc., but I think I'll make the song of the day: Small Time Shoot 'em Up by Massive Attack. It'll be up on the public folder.

Thought of the day: How do you beat yourself?

So. Pictures, websites, music of interest, daily.

Let's see how long I keep this up...

We carry each other

My friend posted this, and for some strange reason I couldn't reply on the blog directly, so I'm going to do it here. He wrote:

"
I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me.
.
..
...

That is really all that need be said, but I suppose for lack of anything else to do in this hotel room, I'll pontificate. Briefly.

The matrix it turns out was right about everything as the quote above would seem to indicate. Also matrices are bad as is clearly indicated by a) the movies and b) mo-mor-puggers.

Sigh, I feel so damn emo right now. I really don't want to turn this into a rant. I do want to shape my feelings into arguments, mold my convictions into unwavering logic that would solve all the problems before me, and convert the non-believers to my manifest conclusions ( also possibly converting them into radioactive vapor).

Maybe I just deal poorly with change. I had this naive theory that we would all live together at some point. This theory is clearly flawed in its assumptions that this would be plausible. I don't know.

Coherence. I crave the ability to extract from my imagination the wisp of an idea and brand it into form. A form like prose. This would be most useful. If only I was an artist.
"

My reply:

Funny, you sound like someone I know...but I would reply with the words of a great friend of mine:

"You just gotta belieeeeeeeeeve."

I think I've been down this same road you seem to be describing far, far too often, and it doesn't really even go anywhere. As much as I want to be able to get a grip on my life, to really decide how I'm going to approach every day based on my convictions, it seems the harder you try to hold on to anything, the more easily it slips by. Again, as you told me, our best hope seems to be in possibility - allowing for it and embracing it. And even though the greatest challenge might be relinquishing the desire for this control, or even the desire for any of this to MEAN anything, ultimately I think we'll be happier when we can finally let go...

I had that dream too, and just as you do I feel it slipping away, but it's not the end of the story. I think we still have a greater dream that the world and all the convoluted shifts in circumstance can't take from us, and that is to keep our eyes open and see what there is to take from this life. Our greatest triumph is yet to come, and it'll take more than this to stop us. Paul isn't leaving us, not in the really important ways, and I don't think he'll ever lose what it is that ties him to us. I can't say what exactly that is, but I think it's there, and I think it'll hold us together even when we don't know how things are going to work out. It's part of who we are, and the people we have made ourselves and each other into.

I had a funny thought yesterday as I was carrying the piano keyboard back to my dorm. It was all boxed up in cardboard and tape, and as I was carrying it on my shoulder, it felt to me like I was a pallbearer carrying a casket. I tried to shake off the thought, but it makes a weird kind of sense. We're always carrying our life, and in turn our death, around with us. We are the keepers of our life story, and we carry it with us everywhere, and so too do we carry our friends with us. After all, they're a part of our lives too. As I said before, we've made each other this way, and just like how we are never without our home, so too are we never without each other. Even when we're alone, we all carry each other. It is the reason for our strength, and there is no greater honor.

Dig

We all have a weakness

But some of ours are easy to identify.

Look me in the eye and ask for forgiveness;

We'll make a pact to never speak that word again

Yes you are my friend.


We all have something that digs at us,

At least we dig each other

So when weakness turns my ego up

I know you'll count on the me from yesterday



If I turn into another

Dig me up from under what is covering

The better part of me

Sing this song

Remind me that we'll always have each other

When everything else is gone.



We all have a sickness

That cleverly attaches and multiplies

No matter how we try.



We all have someone that digs at us,

At least we dig each other

So when sickness turns my ego up

I know you'll act as a clever medicine.



If I turn into another

Dig me up from under what is covering

The better part of me.

Sing this song!

Remind me that we'll always have each other


When everything else is gone.




Thanks everyone. See you soon.

Reflections 8/7

They speak another language. I speak their language. I am from an other country. But I am here. I live here. I live in this moment. I am here. I AM!

My own waggling fingers are so alien to me. I wonder if I tell enough people that my stories will be famous that they will believe me. I wonder if I will believe me. The raindrops fall on my face - they know me better than I do.

I hope you'll call me in the morning.

Maybe you'll be the one to wake me up.

New Developments

I've decided I need to move forward on many fronts. I've stagnated too long, and have spent too much time thinking and waiting, rather than learning, doing, and getting all the crap in my head out into the light where I can do something creative with it. I keep having the urge to develop my creative abilities, without really knowing what purpose it will serve. I enjoy writing, just like I enjoy music, but I don't know if I like those things for their own merits, or if I'm trying to use them as tools to figure out another problem. I worry that if it's the latter case, I won't be able to stick with it long enough to really create anything of value, but I think I still have to try. I'm paying more attention to my writing - amount, frequency, and quality. Yesterday afternoon I started writing what may be a long term project. I'm not quite sure what it is yet, but it's grounded in my own experience and will likely be largely autobiographical. While I want to tell some kind of story, calling it fiction would be a stretch. I've never approached a major project like this before, and I think I need to spend some time in developing my ideas for characters and story - really decide what I'm writing, and maybe more importantly, why.

On the music front I'm considering taking some classes when I get back to school, probably some kind of composition class along with regular musical theory. I'll also probably find some way to take piano lessons, and hopefully bring the keyboard from home to New York.

I'm going to use my time to create things.

I'm tempted to post what I've written so far, but I'm going to refrain and actually take this thing to a conclusion and polish it first. If it ends up being multiple chapters, maybe I'll post as I go. I'm still working through basically everything about this story - I really have no idea what I'm doing. At the moment I want to just see where my ideas take me and pass judgment later, but it's extremely slow going without really knowing what or why I'm writing. I think I will work on character development first. I wrote two things about the main character at the end of the page, and I think I'll see if I can find more things about him that will flesh out his character. Though honestly, I may just write it as if he is me, or hell, just write it from first person. Dunno yet, but here's what I wrote:

- He has conversations with himself. Whether there are people around or no, it's a rare thing when he isn't talking with himself.
- He creates symbols, and he knows it.

Anyways, time to call it a night. Got silly Chinese class to go to. Funny how I always end up trivializing where I am, even in freakin' China.

One more thing. I'm thinking the time has come for me to speak to a counselor of some sort, maybe seek some sort of medical help for what I've finally admitted is likely clinical depression. I don't know exactly how I feel about all of this yet, but I've acknowledged the fact that I refuse to have another semester or year like the last one, and something needs to be done, even if that something requires more than just my personal effort.

I'd welcome all of your thoughts.

- Bryan

China, Part 2

It just started pouring. I'm going to miss this weather.

Moments like these, when I feel truly aware of what's going on around me, are really the only souvenirs I take from places, times, and people. It's become a matter of some concern for me - memories fade, and in my crusade against sentimentalism I may not be holding onto enough important things in my life. These moments pass, and I fear I don't carve enough nicks and crevices into my life to really get my hands around it and hold on. Everything I hold dear is so insubstantial, my connection with my own life and experience so tenuous. Ideas and perceptions, every moment just passing through. A contemplative life like this, with few attachments, can have its uses, I suppose. Sometimes I think shedding as much human artifice as possible and completely immersing oneself in the sensation of being is as sincere and noble a life as anyone could possibly hope for - an experience closest to the truth of our human condition. Life is an exercise in being, but we can easily forget this and have our lives, our existence, be a means to some other end. It's all a means of comfort I suppose, since dwelling on the abyss too long is dangerous. But too often I have to ask myself "How did I get here? Where did the time go", and sometimes simple recollection isn't enough to make it feel substantial, like it had actually happened.

It's really raining now, and the thunder's started.

I'd like someone to hold on to.

China, Part 1

Hey friends, I want to write something. Probably should be sleeping, but what the hell - can't always do the smart thing. Shouldn't always do the smart thing. That's strangely reassuring.

I've once again run into the problem of having a lot to say and not knowing where to start. It's too bad my last post was so hastily written and posted, despite how genuine it was at the time. The truth is that there are glaring similarities between this big city and the other big cities I've been to in the West. I think we can chalk that one up to globalization and "modernity". But the truth is that there are a multitude of differences, and I've found many of them to be extremely endearing. There's a kind of energy here I don't come across often in other places, the willingness to simply be out in the street and bustling around without necessarily having a place to go. Even more than New York or especially Los Angeles, there are always people out on the street. Morning, noon, and night I hear voices coming up from the street, and, every once in a while, music played by a passing vendor. Of course, the sounds of car horns reach me just as easily, and from what I can tell Beijingers all love their car horns. I suppose it goes in tandem with the fact that cars, bikes, and pedestrians do whatever they want on the road whenenever they feel like it, damn the torpedos. It's a kind of sincere self interest which has been at times both endearing and irritating: people generally handle their business with not a whole lot of concern for what else is going on, possibly as a result of having to constantly contend with many many other people. It could be taken as impolite, but even since I've been here I've come to appreciate the necessity of being able to drown other people out for a while. And their car horns. Seriously, at least in the case of traffic everyone simultaneously tries to go where they want to go - only to find everyone else doing the same thing. Cue the horns. I'm not sure if they are surprised to be constantly confronted by this situation, or if they just like honking the horns.

Anyways.

Every few days there are thunderstorms. I'm writing this in the dark, and about once every minute a flash lights up the room. Sometimes it rains too, and I can hear it blown against the windows of my tenth floor room.

Last week was vacation week. The few plans I started to make up in my head were all unsatisfactory - nothing short of completely unscheduled travel alone would suffice, and as a result I ended up staying in Beijing for lack of train tickets and a nod toward my safety. It certainly wasn't a waste, since I got to see many different parts of the city on my own, which I find to be the most fulfilling part of traveling anyways. I would much rather try to experience some approximation of ordinary life in a place rather than seeing all the famous sites. Maybe I simply lack the imagination, but I'm hard pressed to find a lot of meaning from monuments or ruins, or at least not when I can't see them for all the teeming crowds in the way. I hear the Summer Palace is gorgeous, but I wouldn't really know for all the tour groups between me and the scenery. Made Disneyland look empty. But another interesting aspect of the break was that everyone else who I've been spending my time with here had left to travel, either to other parts of China or to other countries, leaving me absolutely alone for about 6 days. In that time, I did not see or speak to a single person who's name I knew, at least not in the flesh. I've never really known what that was like.

I wrote this on the tail end of it:

--

Why do I write? And what do I write? And, while I’m thinking about it, who’s even writing? Who’s the author here? Who’s the me inside all the flesh and appendages, wiggly fingers in the wind? I can’t see with bad eyes, but my mind seems so clear. My. Me. Reduce reduce reduce, looks like reproduce. How clever.

So where is the me? Oh please don’t say we’re one and the same, I would hate to agree with you, this time. You can be so obtuse.

--

Well, it's getting late. I've got more to say, so I'll write it out tomorrow.

Vitriol Breaks the Silence

I just want to be a fucking artist.

I mean, here I am, with all this raw feeling, pure stinging emotion, boiling up from every glance and thought, driving me day and night, moment to moment from comfort toward something...other, and I still can’t come up with a poetic, thought provoking quotable to save my life. Hell, I’ve crossed the whole fucking world, gone from big fish in little pond to tiny little hors d’oeuvre in the People’s Republic, and all I’ve got is this stupid money with Mao’s face on it to show for it. Not like it’s any different from the green backs I’m used to. IT BUYS BEER JUST AS WELL, LET ME TELL YOU. But GOD DAMN if these people aren’t trying their damndest to be just like us and every other western ORIFICE of youth culture. Ha. I’ve crossed half the world only to show up at another damn bar and club scene, imagine my surprise if you please. And it’s only those little girls, those three little girls who came to tell me wo de yanjing hen piaoliang that keeps me from condemning everything that’s ever touched the West, including this whole damn country. I guess people my age are idiots no matter where you go.

Edit: So this was written in about...a minute several nights ago after I'd come back from a rather lonely night drinking in a particularly Western oriented district of the city...so the vitriol might have been a bit over the top. While I stand by what I said, and it's certainly a perspective that's been troubling me since I've gotten here, it's not the whole story. That story would take much longer to tell, and now that I've got unimpeded access to my blog, I'll get around to telling it soon.