nondescriptman

[nondescriptman]

I lost my post

So I have to start over and tell myself that I’ve been bored at work today. I struggle with this from time to time. I’m disengaged today and that’s ok. I just read one article telling me so, so it must be true.

So what should I do to occupy my time? I am writing to remind myself what I need to do:

- Organize HK/China trip. Where is my Octopus card? How much HK dollars and Chinese Yuan should I bring?

- Organize my emails some more. Save important ones somewhere.

- Drink some coffee.

- Look for a realtor in Vancouver.

- 

“For philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, boredom was evidence of the meaninglessness of life; because, if life were intrinsically meaningful or fulfilling, there could be no such thing as boredom.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/hide-and-seek/201407/the-surprising-benefits-boredom 

Ah, so am I not doing anything meaningful in my life right now? I think that my work is meaningful. I want it to be more meaningful. I don’t know how I go about doing that. I will take some time to think about it. Meditate instead of browsing IG.

[nondescriptman]

Good stress and bad stress

Work is often stressful but I find that when I’m in the midst of solving an issue, the stress brings me some calm and alleviates my boredom. I think that as good stress because I feel that I’m connecting new neuro-pathways to develop my brain further.

Speaking of brains, a friend of mine had a brain tumor removed recently and the anxiety and stress from that is probably considered bad stress. I managed to learn something from it - it’s really better to leave the world smiling and leave those around you smiling at the end of the day. To put someone in a position that is negative does not increase your own happiness one bit.

That said, I was not very kind to my colleagues today at work due to the, you know, stress.

[nondescriptman]

Jitterbug Perfume

There seems to be a lack of excitement in my life these days. I read about adventures here and there but I am not feeling the depth of experience I had in the past with reading and adventuring. Have I gone and experienced too much that I have acclimatized to excitement? Do I need more and more each time or can I function at this point in a lower excited state?

I reflect now on my “favourite” book, Jitterbug Perfume. I have read this book 3 or 4 times in the last decade. I don’t usually re-read books because I already know the spoilers but there is always some wisdom I need to seek in reading Jitterbug. At my ripe old age of 37, about Alobar’s age when he set off from Aelfric, I feel my energy sapping away from me. The activities I used to enjoy are not as interesting anymore. It could signify a shift in my interests and the daily trudge through routine after routine is looking more and more attractive than the confusion of constant new experiences.

Is my brain telling me something? I felt more alive when I experienced new things but now I don’t feel alive nor dead. I am merely being but not in the sense of being that yogis go on about; not in the being that Buddhists exalt. I read my older posts and there are sparks there. Where are my sparks now?

The question is do I keep looking on living as Alobar desires or do I settle for a bit like Kudra, dematerialize for a few years, and re-materialize when I’ve had enough of “settling down”.

This is the exile that Jerry Zaslove was talking about. This empty space in between finishing a goal and trying to start a new one. I used to be less choosy about my experiences but as time vanishes and death creeps closer, I have to be more choosy with my experiences. What is it that I want to achieve at the end of it all? Will this blog be my only mark on the world?

[nondescriptman]

Finally finished another book

My reading has gone down so bad. I can't read as fast and I have never been able to write. This last novel was The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I don't know what I learned from it. It felt like any other Eastern European, post Communism era novel about life and the political interferences that get in the way of life. It did not provide a path to eudaimonia, it did not give me closure; it gave me heartache. I want to talk to someone about this book. I want to engage my mind but I also feel I'm losing my ability to retain my science. Much likr Tomas, who took a holiday from medicine to wash windows and then to be on a farm, only to die, crushed by weight. His mistress, Sabina, cremated and scattered in Lightness. So what is better, to be light or to be weighted? Beethoven's Es muss sein reverberates throughout the novel. It must be. Who else said this? An Epicurean? A stoic? Plato? Aristotle? Was it all the way with Confucius or was it the words of Krishna? You must do what you must. Only action is available to you and only action then is available to me. I find myself thinking about the living arrangement of Tomas and Thereza. I have a Theresa in my home now. Am I Tomas? No, I longed to be weighted and I loved to be light. Free and ready for change. I'm afraid that if I'm weighted and hardened, change will be a shock and I won't be able to come to terms with the change. It's all a lie. The last change, in my lightness and fluidity, still managed to bring me down to the lowest level. It rocked me and changed me. I am not sure I recovered. I have moved on but I am a different person than the last time I changed. So maybe I am resilient. I didn't end my life as intended. I grew and molded into society again. I have turned myself into a different ideal. Is it for the best or is it just where I'm going now? As with Siddhartha, the river eventually returns to it's source. I will have to travel on this path until I find my source again.

[nondescriptman]

Judgment

I find myself judging others more than I have in the past. I am wondering how it is affecting my mood and my view of the world. I am missing my colleagues in GLS. I think I need to get together with them at some point and talk about things again.

I want to blame another person for my change in attitude but I am not sure if it is this person or if it is the weather. We are deep into mid-May and the weather is still very rainy and cold. The weather can have a terrible effect on a person.

I write in silence because I have no one to share my ideas with. I feel always locked away in my own mind because while I care for those around me, I never seem to be with someone who is intimately involved in my desires. I don’t think it’ll ever be possible to be that connected to anyone. There is always something missing.

So how do I fill the void of what is missing? My life, I promised myself, would be full again. I do not want to hide and lose sight of what makes me happy so that someone else will be happy in my presence. Yet I still try to establish a life that is conventional and laid out in front of me. I resist this with my soul.

As I write further, I notice that my spiritual balance is off. I am completing empty actions that make my life more comfortable but less fulfilling. Again, I seek to establish what it is I am looking to balance with what it is I am hoping to see when I am about to leave. I don’t want to live my life full of regrets.

While I worry about judging others, I am judging myself. Am I too weak to seek advice outside? Who do I turn to? Why are we not talking? Who is it that makes me laugh? My daily life versus the life I envisioned are not aligning and this is the cause of my tension. I wish to be a better writer but I write garbage like this whenever work is slow. I gotta pick up the garbage and try again.

I’m not in the mood to write more.

[nondescriptman]

On getting older

Today marks another anniversary of my birth. It’s been a pretty great 37 years on this planet and I am still in love with living. This is an achievement for me since I was in a downward spiral a few short years ago. I wasn’t so in love with the idea of living since living didn’t seem to be that interesting anymore. Yet, every year I am alive, I think about how lucky I am to experience something.

Take this weekend. I went out to Victoria to have a change of scenery. I went to locations I didn’t know existed, just a few steps from my usual Victoria tourist spots. It was a lot of castles and gardens this weekend and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Spring is popping out here and there

On experiencing somethings, I find that as I have gotten older, I appreciate more of every experience. I’m no longer too concerned about stability because I have that. I am not concerned about partying hard because I have done that. I am less worried and anxious about the unknown because I have experienced a culmination of unknowable events in my life time. There’s still so much more to unknow! I don’t want to waste time thinking about how to stop the unknowable from coming up.

Sure, I have to be with other people. Many people are concerned with getting to know something and I’m leaning away from that towards getting to a place of unpredictability. I am lucky that I can go there. I don’t have to worry about what might happen if something bad happens. Whatever it is that’s bad, it has not been as bad as never wanting to have experiences ever again. I would never want to put myself into that state of mind again. What’s interesting to me now is being able to reflect back and think, “Boy, those were some bad times. I was really down and I hated myself and everyone.” Imagine not being able to experience the other side of suicide because you were successful.

Have I ruined some relationships? Have I withdrawn from the world a little bit? Yes, I have but I am looking forward to a summer of adventures where I can cast my previous shell off and come back renewed. I need that pilgrimage of the self from time to time. I’m so lucky I can do this.

I watched Hector and the Search for Happiness recently and found that I really enjoyed his journey. It was very simple and I think critics had a problem of the basic nature of the story. I think sometimes re-telling of stories is valuable. I don’t remember every tale anymore and I don’t remember all the lessons. As an EAP counsellor once told me, we all need a refresher on how to be. We can be stuck on doing and nothing being.

For this weekend, I spoke to a friend about re-reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Ten years ago, I read this book and enjoyed the idea of being light and unbound to anyone. I didn’t want to just be disconnected from the relationships I had, I wanted to be disconnected with my physical place in the world. I wanted to travel and experience all kinds of love with various people. As long as I kept moving, the love and place that I was in could not become stale and so it could not hurt me. I took no pleasure in the anxiety of waiting for my girlfriend to leave me or for the bank to take away my home or my boss to take away my work. If I controlled how long I stayed, how deeply I committed to a person or task, I could escape the disappointment of having it all be taken away. I wanted to be light.

What I have found now in my older age is the lack of understanding of what it means to be weighted. If I am all for experiencing as much as I can before I enter oblivion, shouldn’t I take the risk and become part of something and commit to being weighed down by responsibility and consideration of the other? I’m investigating this notion. It’s very scary for me but I tend to make decisions on things that may bring about new experiences rather rashly.

So here I am at 37 years of age, embarking on a shared co-habitation arrangement with a woman I want to know more and more as we age, however long that lasts. I want to witness her changing and I want her to witness me changing. That seems pretty nice and not weighty at all.

[nondescriptman]

Raincity

Surprise! I’m tired of the rain. I feel uneasy and less compassionate. I don’t know if it’s the weather that’s making me dislike people or if I’m in a constant negative head space. I have definitely noticed my lack of compassion and surprise at the joys of being surrounded by people. I would like to change that.

I was reflecting on Rumi’s “Guest House”. I haven’t read the poem in a few months. I want to invite my feelings into the living room to have a conversation. I’ve been busy with life. I really want to slow down but it seems that the world has me moving faster. I saw a comic today about how we notice only when things go wrong and we fail to notice when things are exactly as they should be. We fail to notice all the good things. I think I’m going to focus on noticing again, as I had done in my enlightenment course.

What do I notice now in my body? My neck is sore. My stomach is a little rumbly. My left quad is tight as usual and I have some gas. My breathing is fine and my face is relaxed. The sun is peaking out of the clouds. I see blue sky and the streets are quieter. I’m noticing stillness.

I paused.

The frantic day seems to suddenly melt away. I have to pee. That’s good, right?

[nondescriptman]

Something to write home about

“There is nothing to write. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Ernest Hemmingway.

Could it be that this concept and the idea of Hemmingway has lead me to believe that my best writing can only take place in times of great sadness?

[nondescriptman]

Things I forgot to post so here’s a dump

Feb. 17, 2016 I've given myself five minutes to capture some of my main feelings about Bahktin's Rabelais and His World. I had a hard time grasping this book. Bahktin is not a great writer and without knowing a thing about Rabelais, the context of this book is lost on me. Through the study of laughter and a long trip through Wikipedia, I discovered that Rabelais is known for writing Gargantua and Pantagruel, a story of the giant Gargantua and his son, Pantagruel. These names I have heard many times in my life in various forms. Rabelais' work was written in the 16th Century and has been about humour, grostequeness, scat, "material body lower stratum", carnival, jesters, and all things seen as "low humour" or "low brow". Having some knowledge that this is what Bahktin is trying to describe, I find it ironic that the text is inaccessible to a regular person while the subject matter was to be presented to the commoners of society. The images that come to mind thinking about humour and the grotesque are The Joker (and every Batman villain, including Batman), Kefka, Hisoka, Resident Evil/Half-Life, pretty much any anime/video game/movie where there are experimentations that warp the human body, showcase something gross, or present it in a humourous way. Takeshi Miike also comes to mind and his level of gore that's so ridiculous it becomes funny. Tim Burton is also high up there with this. What I like about this level of humour is that it is accessible for all. It's not pleasant and it can sound very rude, but life isn't always pleasant. A little rude awakening can help. Certainly, when compared to the gore presented in the Iliad, I think a fart joke is nothing. Well, 5 minutes is up. I'll write more tomorrow.March 1, 2016 It has been a couple of weeks since I wrote anymore information about Rabelais. The more I think about what Bahktin was trying to say, the more I want to hear about it. I wish we spent more time in class on Rabelais because there is something in the way Bahktin describes the work that has gotten a hold of me and I want to read on. I'm surprised that I might find that Bahktin and Rabelais being the book I will take with me to exile. Dostoyevsky is the cause of my desire to unpack Bahktin further. Bahktin is impossible for me to read. I do not understand it and I think he is (maybe it's the translator) a terrible writer. He does not write so that the information is easy to digest. This is a problem. Dostoyevsky can be the same way but when his characters really go inside themselves and expose their thoughts and feelings, I relate to them. The connection with Bahktin is the realism both authors bring to the world. It is something I discovered with the Iliad too. I have spent most of my GLS education on looking for the ideal way to life. I wanted to find eudaimonia, enlightenment, the good life, how to become bamboo, and how to cultivate the seed of compassion. I forgot why I was interested in looking for these things. It is because I think that most days, life is dull and uneventful. As I write this, I don't know if I should be happy or glad that life is uneventful. The question I want to ask myself is: Do I want to be a great man so that many people will know and acknowledge me, or do I want to be a minor player, a extra and obscured? Do I want my voice heard or do I want to keep it silent and save it for those close to me? Epicureans might want the latter - be happy with those around you and live a simple life - that is how to obtain happiness. Maybe it is contentment. Is that so wrong? I have a desire to be better and great also. I want to be the hero of my own story or maybe the hero in others people's stories. I don't know how I intend to do that. The closest I came was when I was working with other people. I thrive on that work; it gives me so much energy to build and be more. My current life is quieter and I want to know if I can become great. This is an opposing view. Which one should I aim for and do I have time to do either? Should that be the goal of life to try anyway, even if I run out of time? The week that I am writing this, I am reading Van Gogh's letters. They show a person who is feeling the same. He wants art to be his passion and is working desperately to get there and get approval, mostly from his brother, Theo. He works tirelessly and is grateful for his brother's help and is looking somewhat on the approval from his brother too. I like these letters. I like looking into the hearts of the artists to know that they suffer a little bit too. These days, social media only shows happiness. We escape into each others' highlights and we forget how to manage the lowlights. I am waiting for some highlights right now. There is a meme online of Bob Ross. It is a quote of his that goes, "Gotta have opposites dark and light, light and dark in painting. It's like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come. I'm waiting on the good times now." The problem is when the darkness, the sadness seems unending to the point where your loved ones are too tired to see you hurt that they leave you. Who will be there to pull me out of the dark? That is where I think Bahktin's interpretation comes into play. Rabelais wrote in dark times. The world he lived in was plagued by the Black Death. Humans were coming slowly out of the dark ages (I need to make sure my historical references are accurate) yet Bahktin says there was room for fun and laughter. People knew that life was rough and Rabelais showed that they were still able to make the best of it. We are not so grateful these days. Victor Frankl speaks of his experiences with the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors. The ones who made it out were about to make the best of it and enjoy life when possible. Not true for those in Vietnam and for all soldiers living with PSTD. Jonathan Shay gives a good account of this. (Find the images of the lighters from Vietnam). The soldiers' stories were intense but maybe there was some joy and laughter too in the bad situation (will confirm when I read it or talk about it). Freud notes that we need to cope with this trauma and create narratives to survive (research this). So, this interest in Rabelais is about finding joy while living in the shit. Some New Ager might want to say that it's mindfulness and awareness. We are coping and managing our auras or some other kind of nonsense. I want to believe that we have the ability to change that but since I am in the shit, I want to go back to it and find what's funny. I really don't care if it is vulgar. I want to decide whether the grotesque is adequate in describing my conundrum, my situation. I'm so surprised that I am going back to the book I least enjoyed reading. March 17, 2016 The last few weeks in class has been tough. I'm not enjoying the works of Virginia Woolf or Margaret Buber-Neumann's Milena. I could not identify with either story and I don't think class discussions has brought me into the fold. I simply don't understand the context of these narratives. I do not have family who were rich Victorians or Holocaust survivors. I'm from a peasant-middle class family. We never tried to bring in memory into our lives. I suppose the greatest source of memory is the Book of Names that my father treasures, a list, almost like a poem of the names of my ancestors. In relation to the books we've read in this class, it is reminiscent to the names associated with the 'heroes' of the Iliad. I am from a long line of other Chinese sons that go back to the 1600s. I am weary of my role in the establishment of traditions too. Do I keep them or break them? I am the only son of the only son left in this line. I should be having another generation follow me. My mind has been pre-occupied with the continuation of this legacy and I wonder if my future partner will understand the significance to my desire to maintain tradition or will I have to abandon ship and enter a progressive relationship where the woman has an equal say in the traditional upbringing of a child. So my mind is a little split on this. I am looking for a new relationship since the old one seems to have faded and ended, as far as I can tell. I have no desire to return to her and yet I am stuck with strings still attached. Maybe those kinds of love attachments never go away but the pain and sharpness does. Is it so wrong to have that kind of feeling linger? The current crop of women I have gone on dates with seem to think that's a problem but I only recall Mary Wollstonecraft's second husband, William Godwin, who seemed to not be worried that Wollstonecraft had lingering feelings for Imlay, or others who had multiple affairs and recollections and helped bring about the story of their past lovers. Even Buber-Neumann accepts Milena's past attachments to her lovers. What is it about the modern world now that considers these memories as "baggage" that needs to be released before entering into a new life? It only seems to apply to men, but single mothers have children that are attachments to the past, yet I don't think that's looked at as a bad thing. My writing is failing me. I'm reading Kafka's Blue Octavo Notebooks, published after his death. I like his writing process, much like I enjoyed Van Gogh's painting process. I write and think in this way. It is not exactly creative but it allows for ideas to escape from my mind, where they are twisting and swirling. They don't go anywhere but now they are free to be. Sometimes I return to my thoughts and wonder what was going on in my mind at the time of writing. I am sure I will do that here too. The process of writing, getting words down on the page is important to me. I am often neglecting this wonderful transition from the internal to the external. My Grade 9 English teacher, Mr. Miller, made us write in journals as soon as we got into class. For the first ten minutes, we would sit and write. He never read what we wrote, rarely if at all. At first, I was very annoyed. I didn't understand the process so for the first few months, I wrote angrily. I wrote with so much anger and hatred and this waste of time exercise. My memory isn't so clear from that age, but I think I stopped being angry after a few weeks. I might as well write my feelings, anything that I was feeling. I liked doing that so much I continued throughout most of my high school life and undergraduate degree. I continued when I graduated and moved to Japan. My entire year there is captured and easily recalled. People ask me why my memory of the past was so strong; it is because I wrote about it constantly. It was a drive I could not contain. Nowadays, I write occasionally for school. I don't write as often. I consider myself to be too busy to write. I keep everything locked away in my mind where they can transform. A good thought can brood inside and turn into anxiety, fear, anger, hatred. I tried to speak about it but no one understands. I am better writing than speaking. I forget that about myself. An example of my brooding. On Monday, I met a young woman for dinner. I have seen her once before and I have been anxious to see her again. She is very attractive; beautiful. We talked but we didn't really laugh. Maybe we did. I can't remember because I only remember how I didn't laugh at everything, didn't try to make her laugh. I was so nervous to talk to her. I was surprised she wanted to meet again because it seemed like she didn't want to meet. She does not use her phone to text and her life seems pretty complete and busy. Yet, at the end of the night, she leaned in and kissed me. I liked it. I think she liked it. Here's my problem: "I think she liked it." I wasn't present in the moment so I couldn't feel her and I'm usually very good with that. I wonder now if that means she couldn't feel me either. Without that spark of the first kiss, we don't have a chance of getting any closer. But maybe I'm thinking about this too much? How do I stop? Her lips were very soft. Now, she's busy again for another week or two. Will I see her again? I don't know. As Roland Barthes say, "I'm the one who waits." So I wait and I wonder. I try to distract myself so I don't become anxious. I try to focus on other tasks. They don't work. But writing! Writing seems to work well. My distractions are coming up to meet me now. I must end this writing section again. Where will I go with my final paper for GLS? April 7, 2016 The last two books of this semester were Fred Wah's Diamond Grill and Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam. Both books were great for their own respective reasons. I liked Diamond Grill because there are many parallels with the Wah's trip through immigration in Canada and my own family history in Canada. My family history is very short. I don't really understand my cousins' view of living in Canada. I'm sure it's hard to be mentally challenged (is that the correct political label - why do we care so much that our words no longer offend? Whatever happened to Rabelais' vulgar, grotesque, carnival, spectacle that is what it is to be human? Why are we so focused on being clean and safe? Have we gone too far or do we need to keep going to find those limits?) or homosexual as the first set of immigrants from my family to be hard. I'm not better - a 36 year old unmarried bachelor - something my parents were not expecting when they came to Canada. They make it obvious that I should have had children by now, settled down, not focused on my dreams (if I knew what my dreams were, I would definitely have followed them - it's the problem with being an immigrant child - where do we get our dreams if they were not forced upon us by our traditional families? I don't know that I have actualized my potential and become my own self or I'm still split between the multiple selves with attached responsibilities from my immediate family to my distant ancestors. The whole filial piety thing is difficult for me to comprehend and put into practice. It pulls me in from time to time, when I see my father with a head of white hair, when my mother asks for help to lift a heavy object. My sister is there but she's not the one responsible, or shouldn't be, but has become de facto caretaker of my parents because I'm the older fairy child with one foot in reality, a foot, sword, bow, shield, aura in fantasy. I never want to leave that fantasy world; I'm afraid of reality and facing it. It's much easier to see it play out in someone else, learn the lesson from their trials, and incorporate the learnings in me. That's why we read, right? I need to come up with a way to express my choice of exile. I like the writing style of Kafka's Octavo Notebooks and Fred Wah's vivid detail of his childhood as a homage to his father. I want to provide some kind of legacy and record of my family history. It will have to change since our family history has been documented in Chinese and I'm finally regretting not learning the language in my youth. It is hard to read and write Chinese as an adult. I don't have a lack of motivation. I am incapable of memorizing new information easily. I always feel lazy, like I'm not doing enough. Life is about opportunities for experience. I am forcing myself to experience positive things, all things. I realize that I cannot possibly do this. Those who have children seem to comment on how children change their focus and purpose in life. I wonder how much of that is reflected in Diamond Grill. Wah doesn't speak much about his children. There is some two way communication between him being a son and him being a father. He plays with language so well I can't tell which way his address is heading. Shay's book is very intense and I'm interested in it because it brings me back to the fantasy world. Wah's book is real. Shay's book is meant to be real but I can't experience it other than through stories which seem to always glorify battle, even if it's meant to provoke compassion, sadness, or some other sombre emotion. The text is heavy. I feel for the Vietnam veterans. It is much easier to think about the Iliad because I can think of the soldiers as mythology and not real people. I have met a real soldier but he was young. His eyes were not young but he liked me and his platoon liked me and I felt like I was part of their brotherhood. There's something there that is not love, it's not caring, and he was their commander and it was definitely like being a mother. He talked about going berserk. His name was Sparta. I can't believe I didn't bring him up in class. Maybe I should write something about it in an email. yes, I'll do that and share my thoughts.

[nondescriptman]

Reflections of 2016

It is improper grammar to start a sentence with a number so this sentence is here instead to remind you that 2016 was a tumultuous year full of celebrity deaths, right up to the end. (Carrie Fisher, her mother Debbie Reynolds, and Tyrus Wong, artist for Bambi) It was a downhill slide into the widely publicized deaths after David Bowie in early January 2016. Harambe seemed to break the camel’s back and Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton was a phenomenal end to civilization as we know it.

There were some great things about 2016 too. I finished my Master’s. I think I got over my anger and insecurities, finally - although I am insecure that they are actually gone or if I just hid them with more distractions. I lost 10lbs in the last 2 months of 2016, at the height of the season of indulgence! But really, that end to the Masters probably means I won’t be writing much about my feelings about the books I read. I should, though. Perhaps that will be my 2017 resolution: to continue to write my thoughts and feelings with the books I will still read. It will be a way to keep up with the Reason and Passion project that this Master’s program has started within me.

So I am in the process of re-reading a book right now. It is Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. I am not sure how I feel about it a second time. I am quite annoyed at the way the neo-Victorians speak. It is too “mi’lady” like. Instead of thinking of the characters as having stronger moral character and politeness, I find their round about conversation to get in the way of the conversation. It is a part of me that I find I need improving so to read characters who are acting in the way I dislike about myself is difficult. I also really get a bad “nerd-stink” vibe from the neo-Victorians. I might remember that Hacksworth eventually become a patchouli-smelling hippie in Cascadia but that could be a different book too. Maybe Stephenson wants us to dislike the neo-Victorians. It is clear that the protagonist is Nell, who learns through the Primer, to be a strong direct queen?

I think the steampunk sub-culture isn’t for me, that’s all. Still, I want to read about Nell’s adventures again. I want to see if I can pick up little tidbits like Hacksworth was able to pick up Wordsworth through Finkle-McGraw’s recitation of poetry. I actually haven’t read Wordsworth. I will add that to my list of new things to read.

[nondescriptman]

Derrida: On Cosmopolitanism and On Forgiveness

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/167498.On_Cosmopolitanism_and_Forgiveness" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness" src="https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1348638384m/167498.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/167498.On_Cosmopolitanism_and_Forgiveness">On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4132.Jacques_Derrida">Jacques Derrida</a><br/> My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1757153334">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /> The problem of reading this book for school is I took 4 days to try to absorb it. I don't know what deconstructionism is, I don't know any other aspect of Derrida's philosophy, and I usually don't care about world affairs. It's mostly because I don't think anyone really listens to philosophers in their political games.<br><br>On Cosmopolitanism would be a great read again for those in Europe currently facing the challenge of accommodating millions of Syrian refugees. The whole issue with Syria is so challenging. If we become hospitable to refugees, do we follow Mencius, let Syria fall to pieces, while the culture of the people remain intact in other countries? How does one maintain their own culture in a country with its own culture? Europe is not like North America where we have had a few hundred years to adjust to being new to the continent (yet we still have a need to reconcile with taking up indigenous lands to do so...).<br><br>On Forgiveness - what is pure forgiveness in Derrida's mind? It is to forgive the unforgivable. I don't really get this because how can you negate something that is impossible to negate? The very idea of forgiveness means that we don't ever really forgive. Can we move on? Is that enough? I don't know if he says that we can have reconciliation, punishment, repentance, etc. He says those aren't forgiveness but the process of forgiveness. We have to forgive in the moment. Does that mean that if I'm being hurt, that I should be able to forgive my attacker as it's happening?<br><br>I suppose I have met people like that. They do not see the pain being inflicted on them as an attack that requires retribution, vengeance, or justice. They see only the good intentions coming out of whatever is happening and forgive in the moment. I do not get along with those people. I don't understand what's inside them that makes it so easy to forgive, so easy to push anger, hurt, fear, out of the way. Maybe only Buddha can do this. <br/><br/> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/14340133-david">View all my reviews</a>

[nondescriptman]

Modern Romance

This is a really funny book. I spent last semester reading up on PSTD and Holocaust survivors so it was great to start reading a light book about a topic I struggle with. I went from being in a committed relationship to being single again. During the time of my relationship, Tinder became a thing and texting vs. calling became a hotly discussed topic among my single friends. Now that I'm single, I wanted to know how to navigate this world. The few dates I've been on have been great, using OKCupid as the "online introduction service". The world has changed a bit. It's becoming harder to go up to someone and ask them out because it's suddenly creepy (at least in Vancouver) yet women want men who are confident and forward but do it too much and you're a creep. Anyway, Modern Romance sheds light on the challenges and opportunities presented to us at this stage in our evolution. My parents are high school sweethearts. I can't say that I know what that's like but they grew together and built a life together and are very happy. I think I only remember a short time in my life where they weren't happy together, and it was shortly after arriving in Canada. It seems not everyone is that lucky (including me). Maybe I gotta be like Tom and be optimistic about everything, all the time.

[nondescriptman]

Here I am again

It’s been so long since I’ve written in tumblr. This site is so weird. I am a teenager again, ready to destroy the world. I hate my life and I’m too scared to kill myself. I’m only going to do it so my girlfriend can suffer but she’s strong so she will recover. Maybe I want a murder suicide. I don’t know, do mods ever flag this kind of thing? How do I do it without being messy?

I actually don’t want to do those things but I’m afraid that when I get stressed out, I won’t be able to stop myself. I’m writing it out so that it’s out of me and out into some other place. No one really follows my post and it won’t go viral so I don’t have to worry that anyone will take this seriously. I’m supposed to be an adult and I can’t handle my life at all right now.

Maybe I should take a step back. I say “maybe” a lot because I don’t have confidence in any direction I’m headed. She told me that the help I was getting was wrong and something is missing so to me, that means my therapy isn’t working. What a waste of time and money.

I need to call the crisis line.

[nondescriptman]

What to write about for this semester?

So much stuff has happened to me this summer that I can’t even comprehend it’s too crazy.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the readings:

I'm reading about Joseph Banks and his journals about traveling to Tahiti. He talks about the Tahitians and there wonderfully non-smelly bodies with no hair because they save most of their hair off and bathe in the river 3 times a day. It must be nice to have lived in the 18th century in some other part of the world that hasn't been tainted by European yet. And now we fully integrated into Canada but there's still lots of wild left. It's important for all of us to protect it. I never got the chance to do that as a child, I just didn't know because my family doesn't know. Where they come from, the natural world has been shaped and reshaped and controlled for thousands of years. Still, there's some spirituality in the land that can't be by Western influence. I wish I could feel the connection to the land here in Canada the way First do. It must be tough for them to know that they need to make money to feed their family because we're destroying the environment that gives them food and shelter, laughter and joy.

I'm 100 pages into Age of Wonder and it's so amazing. The author researched his material and wrote in little tidbits of information. For example, I am reading about William Herschel and his development of telescopes and the discovery of Uranus (which he called Georgium Sidus, or "George's Star" for King George II since the English were so nice to this German guy). His younger sister was also an amazing astronomer who also helped him around the house while Herschel built giant telescopes. The next chapter is about weather balloons and the people who inspired Around the World in 80 Days.

[nondescriptman]

Sleepytime reminiscence

I'm really hoping that Google Voice will do me a favor and record what I want to say to myself as I've tried to sleep. I spent the last hour watching. Interesting show that I wasn't sure I was wanting to watch. And when I feel that it has given me really weird reaction to myself and I see myself. I guess it's about time that I do something that I haven't done in the last 2 years which is just too working myself it more than I thought I really spent a lot of time on mine mind and I'm not sure Thats Its really the only avenue of self-improvement . I think I've just been a little to a focused on being a smart person than I I kind of forgot that I also enjoy having some kind of order. Someone who is well put together. And it's not something that I miss doing but it is definitely something but I feel that I would only enhance feeling of comfort. It's nice to be uncomfortable but uncomfort Hamid like to be able to continue doing that. Google Voice is really making my words difficult because I don't know what I'm actually saying. I have to be a little slow a little fast someone like talking like Captain Kirk in order for Google Voice to catch up when I'm speaking into the phone. Double face I don't know how to hit return. Enter nice exclamation.! If I try to talk really loud all I have to do is say! I like to learn about the different ways to use this machine. But that's not the point of this conversation I'm having with myself. I don't know tumblr is the best place to be but I actually feel that because I spend most of my time focused on my own feelings the tumbler is the perfect place to be because that's how the people in time there seemed to be. I just don't want to be available as part of weird internet meme of what time there is a place where or something really radical ideas floating around and more of an independent thinker even then that seems to be exactly what time there is. Oh God, I'm not any better than. I am exactly the same and they are right The best thing to do to try to meditate and when I only speak I'd like to see where my life takes me now are you tired question mark? By the way and really should not have spent the evening Eclipse and shows with Karen Gillan.

[nondescriptman]

Focus on Love

I have an idea to write a great piece of prose on something. I do not know what that something is because I invariably find the subject through the act of writing itself. I want to start by talking about Rousseau's Noble Savage and figure out where to go from there.

Rousseau believed that the happiest point in human history was during our pre-civilization days where the Noble Savage was free to do as he pleased, swinging from tree to tree, investigating this or that, and sleeping in the trees when he required rest. He had nothing and did not want anything. Whatever he needs and desires, they were met and given to him by the abundance of the natural world. There was no fear because the Noble Savage was strong and fit, not lazy and fat like us moderns. He had that Epicurean life of being alive and present in the world without worry. Death was always close but not close enough to need immediate attention. Even companionship wasn't a necessary thing for our ancestor.

There are many days I feel that this life is also the best life. There are days when I feel that I should withdraw from society, be on my own and conduct my own affairs. I think that this will make me the happiest because I don't have to rely on others and others don't have to rely on me. I am not bound by social conventions or etiquette. I am free. If I hurt myself, it is my fault; and I can't hurt others because I won't be doing anything that will affect other people. I am also very safe from being hurt by others. I am very, very safe and it is very comfortable. But I could be missing out on so many things!

I wonder if the Noble Savage enjoys laughter with his companions, surprise from acquaintances, and has moments of bliss with total strangers. Today, I felt that kind of bliss. I didn't start the day feeling that way but the day continued to surprise me, especially after I was told that I could focus on love instead of whatever it is the city is feeling right now. Just focus on love and be myself and genuine. The connections to others will follow, shouldn't it?

So it got me thinking that I could instead be kind and caring and let my compassion radiate out of me. I won't wait for it to come to me. I could wait, but I don't know who I would need to reach out to in order to fill the void. We have the ability to do this. We grew up with love. Even if we think there is no love to be had, the world loves us. We breathe clean air because the world loves us. We drink fresh water and eat nourishing food because the world loves us. We just have to love it back and love each other.

When we love each other, we don't even need to worry about the love being reciprocated. It may not affect the person we are aiming that love towards. I learned from a crash course on energy that we can have this energy linger and spread to others. The person we wanted to shoot with love may not feel it, but that energy may travel to a person close by to feel it. Just think of this black mass of indifference and apathy start to fade away with light from a single point. 

In Chinese philosophy (probably other Eastern philosophies), there is a balance of light and dark. That is okay but too much of either is no good. What fun is the world without darkness? Humans love mystery and solving puzzles. There needs to be dark for that. Humans love each other; I don't think we want to be in the dark about each other. Let's look at truly dark things and make them light. But humans are not the darkness we should be concerned about. Save ourselves and our friends on this giant spaceship from the darkness. Create darkness for fun (like puzzles and hidden meanings in paintings and exercising to get our bodies used to managing darkness) and not darkness for darkness. There is enough of that right now.

Focus on love and light.

Merry Christmas.

[nondescriptman]

In service of others?

A while back, I was speaking to my girlfriend about our jobs and how our jobs are related to service even though it doesn't seem like that for me. She is a counselor so her role is in direct service to someone else. She helps, or facilitates, her clients to discover the root of their angst or anxiety, what steps her clients can take themselves to overcome. It is emotional, it is practical and it gives the tools for the client to move forward and live life. Otherwise, they can feel stuck in one place and humans are not very good at being stuck in one place, especially if that place is toxic and uncomfortable; even if we get used to the uncomfortable-ness. She provides service to others.

In my case, I am a public servant. I am supposed to be providing a service to Canadians and it is really hard to see some days how I am directly connected to the individuals on the street. What is it that I'm doing that another Canadian cannot do? What service am I providing that is directly related to my friends and other Canadians? How do I write an email that would translate to service to Canadians?

I want to list what services I think I offer but before that, I want to describe what I think service means and why it's important. Service is easy to describe, maybe. It is the act of doing something for another person. Service in a restaurant is a waiter taking your instruction to the chef about what you would like to eat. My mother, when she cooks for me, is both waiter and chef although I'm often just grateful for the chef part. A mechanic fixes my car and that is a service. The bus driver gets me to and from work and home; that is service. The woman in China who sewed together my clothes; is that service? The farmer who grew and picked the cotton for my clothes? The designer who designed my clothes? What about the municipal government entity that supplies drinking water for me and my toilet? The oil rig worker who helps bring the oil up from the ground and into my throw-away plastic-lined Starbucks cup? What about the oil executive whose decisions make their way down to my car? What about the service of the farmers that supply the food to the oil executive, even though the oil fields have just taken over agricultural land?

Maybe defining service isn't so easy. There are some clear paths where service is noted and paths that are harder to distinguish. It is hard to see the link and the links between services go both ways. It's not a top down approach like Ayn Rand would have us believe that the tops of industry lead the rest of the world. Even without industry, we would still need a water supply, we would still need food, and we would still need clothes (curse our hairlessness!).Industrial leaders do not determine the fate of our food supply, the farmers do and they are losing because they make less money than industrial leaders and serve more people, or a broader range of people. Gosh, I just had the most communist thought I've ever had! Like, farmers should be at the top and industry should be somewhere in the middle? I don't really want to go there. I should slow down my thoughts. I am looking for some middle ground where we appreciate and value those who provide services that we really need and then branch out to services that we can use because we have that luxury to do so. I want a world that values more deeply. I want us to understand where the things we enjoy come from and at what cost to our neighbours, our other family members. I want to know that I am doing a service to someone because I can't live in a selfish world. I am not built for selfishness, no matter how hard I try.

What services do I offer to my fellow humans during the 9 to 5 of my life?

I engage in the process of decision-making in the most bureaucratically designed process I have ever worked with for decision-making. I am the middle person who seeks input from scientists to deliver their message to decision-makers. Without me, the decision-makers and proponents will have to engage the scientists directly, who are apparently incapable of keeping track of their own workloads. I try my best to give the scientists focused work so that they don't have to sort through thousands of pages of information they don't need to know; I make their work more efficient. In this way, I provide a service to the scientists and provide a service to the decision-makers. The scientists get to come in and then out of the process, provide their input and leave. The decision-makers get a nicely compiled document that lists all our recommendations, in plain language, so that they can make a decision. Then, Canadians know that we have done the best we can with the information we have to make informed choices for them. In between all of this is fielding questions and concerns from the public about whether we are actually doing this, to the point that I am now spending the MAJORITY of my time focused on this task of proving to Canadians that we are doing this work instead of spending the majority of my time actually doing this work. This goes for the scientists and decision-makers too. We are not considered competent enough to do our jobs as professionals. We are scared of Canadians. We are scared to make a mistake and to take risks. What we end up having to do is provide a service for unseen mistakes, to document before we make a mistake so that we can make a mistake documenting our mistakes instead of trying to just do our job.

In short, I think I am losing my ability to tell whether or not I am providing a service and who I'm providing a service to. It seems that more and more that all I'm doing is making sure the government isn't being sued and that is not the right approach to public service. It would require the public to trust the government just a little bit and for the government to trust its employees just a little bit. At this point, I feel like I can't make any mistakes or even try to do the right thing because I have the public and employer telling me that everything I'm doing is wrong. It's best that I don't do anything then except the bare minimum.

It's a good thing no one reads this blog.