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.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
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
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
Thursday, July 30, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sine qua non
First, some thoughts on the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine. No, I'm not going to actually talk about the movie, but there was a scene in particular that got me thinking. This isn't going to be much of a spoiler, but if you absolutely want to know nothing about the movie before going into it...tough.
After making his escape from the evil, manipulative government organization, Logan stays the night with an elderly couple at their rural home. During his entire time there, the couple call Logan "son", an innocuous acknowledgment of his status as their junior. The first few times they do this, the audience doesn't blink - obviously they're the elderly couple and he's the strapping, misguided youth out for revenge. And yet we are then given a scene at the dinner table where Logan mentions that his favorite make of motorcycle is a 1948 something or another, and the old man exclaims that Logan was extremely young to know or appreciate such an old motorcycle. Obviously, Logan seems to be a relatively young man, but as he blushes from across the table at the man's comment, suddenly we remember that Logan was more than a century old in 1948. In all likelihood, Logan is several times the old man's age. How strange that the other man still played the role of the old, fatherly sage to Logan's brooding youth when in actuality it would seem more likely for Logan to be sharing his more than a century's worth of life lessons to the old man. But no, the traditional roles are maintained, and never again in the movie are we reminded of his age. Instead he simply falls into the role of the hero with a troubled past, without the length or significance of that past playing any apparent role in his life as we are given to see on screen. Shouldn't he be wiser than we see him? After more than a hundred years of life, shouldn't he be acting less like a testosterone junkie and more like the kind old man who took him in and chided his lack of perspective on the tragedy that had befallen him?
I suppose action heroes can't be too worldly and wise or it wouldn't be a good action flick, but it raised a question.
This is my question: What would growing old be like if you never aged? What effect does physical aging have on the psyche, on one's conception of themselves? Is our confrontation of our mortality necessary for growth, or is simply garnering life experience enough to make us wise?
I suppose this is another indication of my concern for my own mortality. I want to do more with my limited time in this life, but I feel woefully ignorant of what I want out of life. I feel like I've elevated the importance of every moment to such a level that perhaps I only stand to be disappointed. Or maybe I really do need to completely change the life I've been living. Perhaps, like everything else, it's neither one nor the other but both, and likely many other things as well.
I had an idea a couple nights ago: within three years of leaving school, I want to pack up and move with whoever will go with me to another city somewhere else in the world. While there, we would support ourselves by whatever means we could find, learn the language, and really attempt to make that place home for however long we stayed. Like coming to New York for school, living in these different places would hopefully provide different perspectives on life, and at least remind us of the vastness of possible experiences. I hope very much that my friends come with me, but as long as I am able, I think I will do this by myself if I have to. And maybe I do have to.
I wonder how I will feel after going to those places, and when I will want to settle down. I wonder what, and who, I would miss and perhaps be unable to do without, even if I were to live forever.
I think the Jedi were wise to caution against emotional attachments. Pain leads to anger, etc, and nothing stings quite like emotional attachments...
After making his escape from the evil, manipulative government organization, Logan stays the night with an elderly couple at their rural home. During his entire time there, the couple call Logan "son", an innocuous acknowledgment of his status as their junior. The first few times they do this, the audience doesn't blink - obviously they're the elderly couple and he's the strapping, misguided youth out for revenge. And yet we are then given a scene at the dinner table where Logan mentions that his favorite make of motorcycle is a 1948 something or another, and the old man exclaims that Logan was extremely young to know or appreciate such an old motorcycle. Obviously, Logan seems to be a relatively young man, but as he blushes from across the table at the man's comment, suddenly we remember that Logan was more than a century old in 1948. In all likelihood, Logan is several times the old man's age. How strange that the other man still played the role of the old, fatherly sage to Logan's brooding youth when in actuality it would seem more likely for Logan to be sharing his more than a century's worth of life lessons to the old man. But no, the traditional roles are maintained, and never again in the movie are we reminded of his age. Instead he simply falls into the role of the hero with a troubled past, without the length or significance of that past playing any apparent role in his life as we are given to see on screen. Shouldn't he be wiser than we see him? After more than a hundred years of life, shouldn't he be acting less like a testosterone junkie and more like the kind old man who took him in and chided his lack of perspective on the tragedy that had befallen him?
I suppose action heroes can't be too worldly and wise or it wouldn't be a good action flick, but it raised a question.
This is my question: What would growing old be like if you never aged? What effect does physical aging have on the psyche, on one's conception of themselves? Is our confrontation of our mortality necessary for growth, or is simply garnering life experience enough to make us wise?
I suppose this is another indication of my concern for my own mortality. I want to do more with my limited time in this life, but I feel woefully ignorant of what I want out of life. I feel like I've elevated the importance of every moment to such a level that perhaps I only stand to be disappointed. Or maybe I really do need to completely change the life I've been living. Perhaps, like everything else, it's neither one nor the other but both, and likely many other things as well.
I had an idea a couple nights ago: within three years of leaving school, I want to pack up and move with whoever will go with me to another city somewhere else in the world. While there, we would support ourselves by whatever means we could find, learn the language, and really attempt to make that place home for however long we stayed. Like coming to New York for school, living in these different places would hopefully provide different perspectives on life, and at least remind us of the vastness of possible experiences. I hope very much that my friends come with me, but as long as I am able, I think I will do this by myself if I have to. And maybe I do have to.
I wonder how I will feel after going to those places, and when I will want to settle down. I wonder what, and who, I would miss and perhaps be unable to do without, even if I were to live forever.
I think the Jedi were wise to caution against emotional attachments. Pain leads to anger, etc, and nothing stings quite like emotional attachments...
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