thekintsukuroikid

[thekintsukuroikid]

Granville and Robson by Fred Herzog, 1959

[thekintsukuroikid]

Vancouver, Photo by Fred Herzog, 1968

[thekintsukuroikid]

“When I was younger, I had dreams of discovering something big.  I’m a historian.  I specialize in the end of the Roman Empire.  And I always wanted to uncover something flashy and exciting that would fascinate people.  I don’t mean that I’d actually dig something out of the ground.  I’m more of a bookworm.  I imagined myself in a reading room of the National Library, stumbling across something that others had overlooked.  But it never happened.  I’m 54 now.  I’m slowing down a bit.  And looking back, I don’t think I was ever a pioneer in anything I did.  I grew to realize that knowledge is a community, and my role would be to add a tiny grain of rice to the pile.  But that was still exciting for me.  Learning new things was the biggest passion of my life.  It was only frustrating when I tried to share that knowledge.  I had to accept that my passion isn’t universal, and in the end my work might only benefit a few people.  But that’s OK.  A few months ago I received a call from a teacher in Italy.  She told me that she’d read all my works.  And that she agreed with my interpretations.  And that she planned to incorporate them into her own work.  It was a wonderful feeling to know that my books weren’t just gathering dust in a library somewhere.  And that even if I didn’t blaze a path, I helped widen it for others” (Madrid, Spain)

[thekintsukuroikid]

What a difference a year makes...

November 12th 2017 4:11am

Tofino is never worrying about  running out of battery life, or the gas tank. Or atm service charges.

It’s is an odd place. Living on the mainland you get hit with the same cold and rain and you learn pretty early on how to shelter yourself in the rat race, to keep busy until the clouds roll through. Tofino is this weird anomalous places where people travel here for the express reason of running headlong into the rainy cold. Duh, the waves are better for surfing and storm watching. It’s weird being this close to the ocean. You’re surrounded by it here, you can hear it from the dead middle of town. It’s dark, cold and can swallow you up, and yet here we are grabbing neon coloured boards and wearing goofy rubber suits and paddling away from shore. Standing up, riding it.  There’s a metaphor there somewhere I think. A really lame one.  Suffice to say Tofino is the setting where I’ve always been most comfortable with entertaining feelings of optimism, they linger in my mind a little bit longer here,  there aren’t a lot of things here that can take them away.

-

A girl bought me a drink and told me how happy she was that everything about this place wasn’t like home.

I agreed.

this trip was really about  running away.

The band getting to create beautiful music for people to enjoy on a Saturday night, Thats pretty amazing right?

I remember how hard learning 3 chords was and thinking how weird it must be to be able to do so much more but the peak of your musical ambition is playing for my drunk ass.

—

I met a girl at the merch table. She was kind and she was pretty and in our conversation about the logistics of fitting a surfboard on a motorcycle I noticed her biting her lip…and looking at mine…and exhibiting every  universal sign I could think of to express a “shut the fuck up and let’s make out already” sentiment–

“All I could do was wonder how much she’d have to know about me, to hate me as much as I do.”

This isn’t me. I’m so tired of this

I’ve been diagnosed with clinical major depression.

atleast I think thats what its called, I kinda zoned out when I hear it.

I’ve known that somethings been wrong forever but I’ve never had it named by someone else before. I’ve never been in a position where I could go out and really do that. I’ve been getting help for months but this  weekend was the first time  I’ve been able to process it all. 2 doctor’s a therapist and a councillor.  4 different opinions.  The same mdi-10 depression index score. How it works is, 20 is dysthemia or mild depression and 25+ is no bueno moderate depression. 30+ is major depression. I figured I’d be around 18-19 with my shiny psych degree and my practicing of mindfullness and understanding of CBT and readings of Dr. Marsha Linehan and Brené Brown.–-

I got a fucking 38.

Of all the fucking tests to ace I sure know how to pick em lol.

Talk therapy’s helped narrowed it down, where In reality I’ve likely been dealing with this for over a decade. I could have and likely should have gotten help when I was in early highschool/late middle school. The fact that I’ve never been on medication pretty deeply concerns my therapist. I still don’t know if I want the pills, I stare at the prescription sometimes and wonder what the sweet fuck I’m going to do. It’s hard to plan things in a pros and con’s type of scenario with brain altering chemicals, like its not like theres a frame of reference or anything.  I’ve always been  getting by with habits and discipline. Reading ahead, doing homework early in case I sleep through my classes again. Never letting anyone get close enough to be in a position to judge you.  Never be vulnerable. You’re not cool enough to have baggage.

It’s not like I’m like this all of the time. I have good days, mostly when I’m around other people, even strangers. It’s when I’m by myself for too long that it starts to creep into my mind, a little voice getting progressively louder and more persuasive. I Have fun by remembering what it’s supposed to feel like and selling it to everyone who can see me. This isn’t the stereotypical 3am negative thoughts, I mean those happen too but its more like 3pm, in the middle of my group of friends laughing, just getting hit with this whole body feeling of dread and trying to crack a joke anyway.  I then follow this with sullen, silent car rides home or 45 minutes sitting on the shower floor wondering if I’ll always feel this numb?

That’s the worst part…the numbness of it all. Losing hours in the day to this thing that I can’t even really describe. I never get mad or sad or happy just attenuated, dulled versions of these emotions.  I’m scared of heights, like really fucking scared of heights but I learned to rock climb because fear hits me in such a meaningless way now. This is such a weirdly strong biological component.  I feel like I can never move forward to create myself because I’m always looking back, trying to get back to how I used to feel. That’s the one thing I know is missing, that sense of self that guides my decision making. I’ve never been able to go with my gut, the kind of spontaneity and passion and creativity that comes with that,  Instead Its always minimize the damage, lower the risk. I feel inadequate in every measurable and measurable way, to the point of it being physically crippling. 

I’ve been really fucking good at hiding this. Its the thing I’m honestly the most proud of, which is a bit counterintuitive.  It’s allowed me to flip something that feels so intrinsically selfish and allowed me to keep focus on the people that are important to me. It’s allowed me to learn some really important lessons about friendships and relationships, coping and empathy, all without the vulnerability of facing those things head on. Depression to me, at least  the way that i’m doing it (which I know is the wrong way to think about it)  is this selfishness I don’t want to indulge.  

There is massive guilt with this. I have so much. I have taken so much time, love, energy, money from the people in my life and I feel like I am and I have so little to show for it. That I am a highlight in every  worst way, of the differences between what is good and what is just nice. but the thing is  I’m starting to realize that this thing, this depression thing it couldn’t give less of a shit about how you rationalize it, its taken better people than me, I’ve seen it first hand.  

For me this thing hits two-fold. Its the physicality of these symptoms I can no longer ignore or fight through.  Messed up eating schedules, sleeping too much or too little,  missing classes, being late to events or appointments and just constantly feeling zoned out, in a daze.

On the mental side of it, its been management. I’ve been in a dark place for a long time and my diminishing ability for me to manage these mental health symptoms means that I feel increasingly less equipped to take on this complete feeling of stagnation. This shit takes work. It’s like im trying to carry a weight with broken arms and no cast. It’s a  feeling that even if I had an opportunity, job or otherwise,  I lack the tools and the self belief to actually be and do what I want. It is such a weird sensation to feel the slide from wondering how to make it by 30…to wondering about making it to 30. 

 I Try to work hard to be grateful and find the joy in things. I spend my days trying to bridge the gap between the humility of recognizing this reality, with the ego of thinking I deserve better.  I mean maybe this is as good as it gets? Maybe some people just spiral. I hope that isn’t me, I don’t want to see how far this rabbit hole goes, I don’t want to become what its trying to make me become, I think thats why I work so hard to keep being extraverted.  I try to be around my friends, especially if I know  that they have it a lot worse or are facing a difficulty. Being empathetic to what they’re dealing with makes you feel like a bit of a daft jerk for dwelling your own bullshit. That used to keep things quiet long enough. Then again you don’t win a fight by closing your eyes.

—

I went to the bar in Tofino where I bought my first legal drink and I  thought about all the drinks I’ve had since then. I got hit with this really intense feeling of dread. Not that I had wasted all that time in those  5 years, Worse still,  That I’ve never truly had the ability to truly appreciate all the amazing things that have happened since then.

Even if I couldn’t feel it I wanted to do the logical work towards getting out of this. I learned really early on  to  focus not on building a resume but on building a eulogy. To live a life well lived. To do things not for the spoils but for the man I’d become in the pursuit.

In the 5 year since I’ve been back to Tofino, I’ve hated that man.  I still hate him. I am so much of what I told myself I’d never be: alone, weak, and of little consequence.  I’ve tried everything to fix that man and I still can’t explain where that process went wrong.  I’ve tried to surround myself with people who I love. But never letting them get close enough love me because of a combination of never feeling like I deserved it and never wanting to be burned or betrayed for being vulnerable.  

I don’t know if I can really get better  I don’t really know what better is. Thats the funniest bit about this, I don’t even think I can really imagine what better would be like, what the absence of all this would feel like.

I just know that there is more than this…that maybe I can be more than this.

I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.— Anaïs Nin, The Diary Of Anais Nin, 

I  want to make all of  this mean something. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. I just know that  I could set myself on fire to keep others warm. If I couldn’t feel wanted, or that I deserved to be wanted I could at least make people comfortable.  I never knew there was a difference between  happiness and the distraction from sadness. I would just connect to benevolence. I’d try volunteering, donating time and money partly because I enjoy those things, but deep down in a small way it was also an attempt to try reconciling the diminishing potential I felt.  If I kept doing the right things, things would turn around, that I could out work this thing I was fighting. It was all just heading to nowhere,  I realized I could get hit by a car tomorrow and nobody would know this truth about me, the uphill clawing. I think now  I want to turn this pain into something tangible for myself and others.If this is rock bottom I want to look around,  I want to carve my name in the rock beneath my feet and remember what this feels like. I never want to know it first hand again.  Maybe this is that first step. Who the hell can see forever but maybe I can just win tomorrow.

— This is the most I’ve ever written about myself and it’s a hell of a lot more than I’ve ever wanted to. Hell it’s the most I’ve ever thought of myself and part of me  feels like this sounds really self obsessed. But I think, at least I hope, it’s just a self awareness that comes from no longer seeing the contrasts in life.

If you are reading this it means that 1) you’ve found this randomly, and in which case… “sup?” or 2) you are one of the maybe 4 people I genuinely trust to tell this too without fear of being treated differently after doing it. If it is option 2…Surprise? I’ve worked extremely hard to make sure you couldn’t have seen this coming. It also means that you’ve shown me love  implicitly in such a way that removes so much doubt, I hope you know how powerful and beautiful that is. 

I don’t know man I think this is all really just about wanting to feel that oneness  with myself again, to finally find peace one day. I don’t have to live, I get to, and I want too. The world is abhorrently beautiful  man. daunting, ridiculous, backbreaking and gorgeous. I want to feel all of it,  I want to find my place in it and I can’t do it alone. Not anymore.  

Happy Birthday to me. ayeee.

[thekintsukuroikid]

November 11th 2018 2:44am: How to say thank you to people who probably won’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

I’ve always hated silence. My first instinct is fill it, to fight it off as best I can. It’s the benefit of the doubt afforded extraversion.When I think about what my mind has taken from me, I remember that it did so in silence. When I wrote a letter on this day last year, I wrote it to myself. I was on a beach at 3am with only the ocean to break the silence I was always so scared of.  Last year I ran away. I had spent the previous 13 years being eaten away by something I couldn’t describe, I needed some me time, I needed to reckon with it. Pain is only worth the words that describe it.  Last year I walked into the bar that I had my first legal drink in at 19 and lamented the life being lived of the man who walked in 5 years later. I started this year empty handed, and full of guilt.

The funny thing about tearing yourself down so much is that building yourself up from scratch isn’t so crazy a proposition. I learned that there are things that are now behind me whether I think I’ve put them there or not.  I know i’ve made steps, I can’t even see all of them, I lose them to the horizon and I know that means a lot of steps.

This was maybe the hardest year of my life, 2017 sucked too, suffice to say its been a rocky stretch.  I wrote my letter last year thinking there was no way things could get worse, I’m hitting rock bottom because I’m aware of it and deciding it’s right here and now. It wasn’t.

It got so much worse and in the silences, there was a small part of me, small but loud that wondered quite honestly if I’d even actually get to this birthday. If things stayed the way they were I don’t know the answer to that. I’d read obituaries sometimes and wondered if anyone still remembered their favourite songs, or their good jeans. I’d watch Parts Unknown, or Good Will Hunting and wonder about inevitability. I’d think of all the ways I’d been hurt and viewed it as the obvious cost of people loving you, that indifference would be so much worse.

I don’t know what I expected. I didn’t know what better looked like or felt like, I still feel like I don’t in a lot of ways, I still feel alone, sometimes lonely.  I know that maybe I’m not living at the speed I wish I was. I know that I still catch myself yearning for things I can’t describe. I also know that I eat pills for breakfast, I reach out a little more now, and  I’m less scared. Less scared of imagining a future and actually being in it.

It’s quiet here now. It’s dark, I’m alone in a hot tub, the porch light, shows the trees around me, and looking into the dark in between them I know I could fill it with anything I wanted.  It’s been a year. and I am exactly where I started. Alone, and in the dark.

I am growing into myself now, and farther and farther away from the person I hid from you. A person you never got to meet, but was me all the same.

I didn’t get fixed because someone held me together long enough for the cracks to fill, even if I wanted someone too.  I pushed myself to get here, but you pushed me too. I know that we’re all on versions of this journey.

When I looked out towards the ocean last year, there was nothing but waves, all the way to the horizon. I didn’t know what any of the next year was going to look like.  I am not out of this completely,  I still have setbacks, there are still things that shake my bones when I face them,There are still some things I can’t scrub off my skin. Things are different now, I look into the dark now and I don’t see the worst of all I am and could be, I don’t feel like running away, Instead I see the glow of houselights through a sliding door and I see home.

[thekintsukuroikid]

A Decorated Car in the Flower Market, Calcutta, 1953. Leo Rubinfien. Chromogenic print

[thekintsukuroikid]

But me, I’m still trapped inside my head, it kinda feel like it’s a purgatory So polite and white, but I got family who would murder for me Think I’m living paradise, what would I have to worry ‘bout? Dealing with these demons, feel the pressure, find the perfect style Making sure my mom and dad are still somewhat in love All these backfires of my experiments with drugs I experience the touch of my epiphany in color form The difference between love and war inform me - I’m above the norm

[thekintsukuroikid]

I still don’t know how to talk about this. I just know its sad. Mac Miller pushed through tough shit to make the music he made. There are so many narratives that go along with a term like substance abuse. Donald Glover said it when he eulogized you that people aren’t narratives, they so so so much more complex. You were good and you were getting better. People could see you growing, your music reflected it.Then this, tragedy and everyone is scrambling to define it, to put words to it. All I know for sure is that we are robbed of what you could have created and that just sucks. It always will. Sometimes you can’t make sense of tragedy, I look at what people are saying about you and wonder if you really knew how loved you were. Does anyone? Maybe people will learn to cherish every positive step and every mistake. Maybe we’ll take better care of each other too. 

One of the greatest. A legend. RIP Mac..

[thekintsukuroikid]

August 15th 2018

In 2009, I turned 16 and wrote a medical school personal statement, a letter that I’ve posted here years ago. It was a way to put into words the committment I had to the career that at the time, was the only thing I could fathom doing. Medicine was like being a mechanic to the worlds most complex and intricate machine, coupled with a meaningful reward no other vocation could match. I never did write a real letter, and in reading that statement now I realize how the most pervasive parts of yourself can change...hopefully for the better.

The goal was always about helping people sure, but in reality  I was envisioning myself accomplishing these grandiose goals  for the wrong reasons.  I needed them to be a way out. I needed them because in my mind those achievements could make my self worth inarguable, unquestionable, irrefutable especially from myself. 

So if 16 year old me is looking at me now, I am the epitome of abject failure. I am elite at nothing, I am currently not enjoying the moral reward of being on the cutting edge of a vocation. This is the least ambitious I have ever been. It is also the most productive. being honest with myself as been a valuable quality, knowing what questions to ask is a skill I never knew I had.  16 year old me was an idiot anyway.

If I had to write that letter over again I wonder how much i’d keep. The why changes the how.  There was one line however that is more true now than it has ever been:

“Not for the spoils, but for the man i’d become in the pursuit.” 

I am trying concertedly to loosen myself from the grip of things I cannot control. Im not always good at it. I still feel isolated and lonely sometimes. Instead though, I choose to ask a simple question whenever I can. 

“How can I let this experience shape me.” 

That question contextualizes every achievement with perspective instead of ego and creates value in failure, all of them ( and there have been many) instead of permanence.  

Those answers help me better contemplate another question. 

“How can I help?”

Its the only thing I ever really wanted to know anyway. 

[thekintsukuroikid]

Novelist Haruki Murakami digging through his vinyl

[thekintsukuroikid]

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

— Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore

[thekintsukuroikid]

[thekintsukuroikid]

from success to significance. 

“I started my career as a teller at a community bank in Florida. I was in my early thirties. At the time I had a young child and I just needed a way to pay my rent and car payment. But I kept moving up. I wouldn’t say I’m overly ambitious. It didn’t come from a place of ‘I need more.’ I just have a lot of energy. And I’d always ask the next question or apply for the next job. So I worked my way up to CEO. It was demanding but I enjoyed the position. I was handling it quite well until a few years ago when my husband passed away. Then my mother. And then my best friend. All of this happened in a single year. I’d never even lived alone before. Suddenly I felt unanchored. I reached this place of ‘what do I do now?’ I couldn’t go back to making more money. So I decided to make a change. I went back to college to get a Master of Public Administration. And right now I’m actually on the lunch hour for my final class. I’ve already got a job waiting on me back home. I’m the new Director of Broward County’s Business Council on Homelessness. We’re working toward getting homeless people into permanent housing. And I’m really excited. I want to do a great job. I’m in a place where I can change some lives. It feels like I’ve moved from success to significance.”

[thekintsukuroikid]

Quote from James Baldwin 

image by Jacob V Joyce 

[thekintsukuroikid]

Harlem, New York, 1948. Photograph by Gordon Parks.

via reddit

[thekintsukuroikid]

“Do you think it’s possible that some people are born to give more love than they will ever get back in return?”

— Tyler Knott Gregson

[thekintsukuroikid]

“I think a lot about killing myself, not like a point on a map but rather like a glowing exit sign at a show that’s never been quite bad enough to make me want to leave. See, when I’m up I don’t kill myself because holy shit, there’s so much left to do! When I’m down I don’t kill myself because then the sadness would be over and the sadness is my old paint under the new, the sadness is the house fire or the broken shoulder: I’d still be me without it, but I’d be so boring.”

— Neil Hilborn ‘The Future’