I wrote a rather longish entry before re-reading it, deciding it was the thoughts of a moment of passion ("and the king flew into a passion, demanding that the boy's head be cut off!" as they used to say), and didn't need to be recorded. They were rather harsh, anyways.
So it seems that as of late there's been a bit of a misunderstanding in my evaluation of people, so even though I've written about it before it seems it'd stand to write it again, not only as a means of reaffirming what I've said before but also as a chance to me to hear it again and see if there's something I might've missed in an earlier pass. It's simple, really, so much so that it can be put on one line.
The only thing I ask of someone is to really, truly, try to be better.
Now while it's simple to put into words it's most definitely a different thing to try and make it happen. What was interesting for me to was to come up with this thought sometime towards the end of high school, and then see if expounded and fleshed out in much better detail in Kant's writing (though I have issues regarding the translation, but I suppose that's what happens when you translate texts that were written decades ago). He simply calls it the good will, and the only thing which is unconditionally good.
Of course, there are arguments that go against that, like the classic "The worst actions arise from the best intentions" and such. But even then, you can blame the action all you want and say how horrible it's consequences are, but at the very base of that is a will to truly do good, and you can't blame that (though you sure can blame people for not knowing what's good, or not performing up to par, etc. etc., but that's not the fault of the will).
So all I ask of someone is to try to be better. It doesn't matter if they fail. It doesn't matter if they're a good person or not at the moment. It doesn't matter if they do great (though it certainly is nice when that happens). All that matters is that they try, and keep trying.
I've got a friend who exemplifies this really well, and even though a lot of other people seem to hate on him a lot, I really respect him for his consistency in trying to be better. He's veered off the path from time to time (and that happens), but once he's become aware of it he always, always comes back to trying to be better, and never gives up even when it looks like the whole damn world's against him. Nothing but respect for that friend (not really, there's a few other things mixed in there too, but they're all good things).
As a random aside, down in Orange County there's actually a street called Memory Lane. I happened to drive past it one time when I was lost.
There was this fellow a few(?) years back who wanted to fight me once. Or, at least, he was certainly making remarks that led me to believe that that's what he wanted. So there I was, having a ball getting all excited about it since it'd been so long since I'd had a nice round of violence in my life that anything to break the dry spell would do.
That's when things started falling apart.
First came the "I'm going to trash your car"'s and then came word floating over to me that he was trying to find out where I lived and such. And here all I wanted was a nice one on one fight, duke it out and see who'd come out on top and who'd be lying bruised broken and in a pool of their own blood. Like that line from The Princess Bride about beating each other to death with bare fists like civilized people.
All I want's a nice clean one on one fight. Is that so much to ask for? Why do people always pussy out and want to break inanimate objects which have no chance of fighting back? >:/
Yesterday must have been themed by math.
First I was helping Brett with some algorithmic complexity problems (a big fat smart-sounding way of saying I was helping him crunch numbers), which called up some knowledge of logs and such that hadn't been used in years. Mostly tedious work, but if you don't know the rules of logs then you're royally screwed. A bit of confusion on decimals and powers later, it seems I managed to help him get somewhere (hopefully...but at the least he managed to turn his homework in). Later on, Ria came around with a question on...more logs (natural logs, but logs nonetheless). And to top it all off, some complaints on statistics from another friend. I suppose if I factor in chatting with my roommate about Fourier series and all the fun fun things you can do with DFT's like frequency filtering and such (I'm not quite sure if he followed what I was saying there...I'll have to demonstrate using frequency band equalization sometime, I think that's a good deal easier to understand because you can hear the results in real-time), that makes for a total of four math-related encounters in a single day.
Ahh math, what a love-hate relationship I have with you.
Playing with fire's a thought that's flared up in my mind lately.
Fire makes me think of back in 6th grade when I was at a friend's birthday party (only it wasn't a birthday party because he's a Jehovah's Witness so it was just a "barbecue") and we first tied a Lego man to a stake and then proceeded to light it afire and let him melt to a gooey death. That was then followed by putting an M-80 into a plastic dinosaur's mouth and blowing it clear open (followed shortly after by his uncle threatening to call the cops on us). Or I suppose there was the other time I was at his house for a sleep over around the same age and we were roasting marshmallows...not roasting in that "hey let's eat these in smores or something" roast but in that "hey let's throw these on the fire and watch them burn" sort of way. An otherwise calm and peaceful marshmallow expands into this gigantic black bubbly mess before taking a final form as carbon on...more carbon. There was another time that summer when I was out in the woods in the middle of nowhere (actually it was Yosemite) on a nice fatty week long hiking trip when one night we were gathered around the fire, shooting the breeze for a bit, and one guy had kicked his feet up a little too close to the fire and ended up melting his shoes. Then we threw a few canisters of white gas into the fire and burned an aluminum fold-up chair.
One should always be careful when playing with fire.
Or, perhaps, one should expect to be burned when playing with fire (it's a rather poorly stated sentence, I know, the original thought was that one should have the 覚悟 of getting burned, but I'm not sure how that'd translate into English properly. Realization? Understanding? Eh). It's not really about whether or not it's right to play with fire (I think it's perfectly okay, really, or I wouldn't be doing it), it's simply that one should be prepared to accept the consequences (you reap what you sow...but the meaning of that saying isn't quite right in this case. Oh well).
這麼無聊的事還是不談比較好
I recall saying before:
"You know, I've thought about it, and it really doesn't make any sense. The more I think about it, the more inexplicable it becomes. It defies all my logic and all my reasoning, hell reason and logic actually tell me a lot of reasons NOT to. But you know, despite all that, I still do."
Of course, without context, none of that means anything. It certainly seems context is something that's been missing in my entries of late, but that's simply a result of a dialogue with myself where the context is already given. Kind of like watching something with Biblical references. The context and backdrop is already provided, with simply a twist on old stories.
"Watching you...watching me..."
It's funny how things run full circle, or when situations are juxtaposed. It strikes me as the sense of humor of nature, mildly bitter and just a touch sarcastic, but when you take a step back from it all it is rather funny. Not "haha" funny or the insipid "lol" funny, but the kind of funny that leads to a tugging on the corner of the mouth in the opening movement of a soft, sad smile.
Following through with what you say you'll do tends to be really tough, especially when you're not sure you've made the right decision or not. You're on the spot, in the moment, and you've got to make a decision right then and there so you grab yourself by the seat of your pants and go with what your intuition tells you and make your choice. And in that split second it feels like the right thing to do, but after you've made that decision you've all the time in the world to constantly look back at it, turn it over and look at it from every which way, finding all sorts of cracks and imperfections with your craft. Before you know it, you've spent so much time looking at your decision and pondering it that it seems like it wasn't quite the right thing to do, and you could've done things a little better.
Sometimes you get another chance, sometimes you don't.
And while we'd all like to believe that opportunities always exist, that possibility remains even if nothing else does, and doors are never really fully closed (or, at least, they can be opened again), the fact of the matter is that more often than not, opportunities are missed, possibilities end, and doors stay shut. Of course, it's entirely possible that that comment's simply a result of my current frame of mind and doesn't have much bearing on how I'll feel in a day or few (I'll probably clear my head a bit and come around to saying that I still believe in possibility). And so it seems that it's difficult for people to stay resolute with what they say, to say what they mean and mean what they say.
But that's okay. I can forgive. People are only people.
I remember being told before that I try to live my life by impossible standards. I think back a few years ago I might have agreed as well, but as I look at it now, it doesn't seem so unrealistic. Besides, even if I completely mess up and miss the mark I'll still be doing alright. But I think a fallacy with this sort of life is occasionally forgetting that it's unfair to hold other people to my standard of existence (not because I think mine's particularly great or anything, but simply because imposing my way of life on someone else who's doing fine on their own isn't exactly the nicest or most respectful thing in the world to do). And so it is that I find me reminding myself to let people live by their own standards and do what it is they need to do to be happy.
So. On to future expectations.
Or, more precisely, the lack thereof. It's been another reminder these past few days that holding expectations for people to do certain things is a fallacy, and that I should have been more careful. It's like the whole holding them to my standards thing, it's simply not fair, nor is it right, and it's most definitely not nice.
I suppose that all of this is a really roundabout way for me to say a few simple things (but they've already been said, and hopefully have left enough of an impression to not need repeating). Things happen. People change. There's no blame, no accusation, no anger, no resentment. It's just an unfortunate way for things to turn out, and wish as I might for things to be different, they're not.
Mostly, I just need to come to terms with my decision, because even though it shears and lashes to no end, I know it's the right thing to do. Nobody ever said it'd be easy.
Ask yourself for a moment what it is you believe in. Not simply what you've thought about and have come to conclude, nor what you have an instinctual knowing (for even though that borders on belief, it's somehow so intrinsically bound to us that it's existence is undeniable). Ask yourself, really, what do you believe in?
I sat still for a moment thinking on this today. I was about to give up and simply conclude that I don't believe in anything anymore, that I've given up all faith and all beliefs in anything and everything. But it was then, at that moment when I thought I could sink no further in despair that I found it.
I still believe in hope.
----------------------------
I was biking home today, in a mild hurry because I had told someone I'd be back within about half an hour (I wasn't. It took me closer to 35-40. It doesn't seem like much of a difference, but I think people should say what they mean, and mean what they say when they're serious). As I was biking home, I thought to myself how things used to be, how I would pedal as quickly as I could in a mad dash to try and get home as quickly as I could to spend a happy hour or two just talking, oftentimes about nothing at all. But it's nice to hear her voice.
Today, as I rode along, I got to noticing how I wasn't really biking as quickly as I could've been. Certainly, I wanted to be home soon, so I was still putting in effort; but it was nothing like how things were before. And as I was thinking these thoughts it happened that a huge branch blew off from a tree and landed bare feet in front of me, giving me just enough time to swirve my bike and avoid getting thrown off. It occurred to me, then, that if I had been putting in the energy and effort I had before, I would probably have been struck by it and be dead now.
It has been said before that we are fortunate if we come to meet even one person who really, truly understands us.
It has since occurred to me that my last entry's reference may have been a little too esoteric to follow, so much in the same way that explaining jokes takes away their humor I'm going to (somewhat) elucidate the reference by pointing to the story from which it comes, which (at the time of this writing) can be found here. It's a story by Guy de Maupassant, entitled "Was it a Dream?" It's a short read, only a few pages long, but it's a thumping good read. If you're bored and have time to kill then it comes highly recommended, and will (possibly) make the last entry make a bit more sense (though I haven't been making much sense lately, but that will all be changing soon enough. One must, after all, draw the line somewhere).
turning around
walking away
and it's strange
for a moment I can feel it again
that gentle warmth in the breast
that expanse of calm
peace.
resting in peace
it's easy to rest in peace
there's a grave in my phantasm
it's name was Dream
and it loved, was loved, and died.
so I buried it there, in that otherwordly place
where I put all things which have taken a part of me
so here I am
there was no peace from the outside
the only peace, the only true peace, is from the inside
deep inside
down where this pain and anguish cannot reach
down beyond the joys and laughter of this world
down where it's singularity
it's solitary
untouchable
unbreakable
inhuman
loving and cruel
sweetly hating
gently killing against my silent screams
there is a peace of life and splendor, where you feel flowing within you the heartbeat of the world, connected and in tune with everyone in the world
and there is the peace of unlife and gray, where you no longer feel anything flowing within you, there is no heartbeat, disjoint and out of focus with everything in the world
so here I am, standing before this fork in the road again, and it's always a gamble to see which one has the bear trap that will latch on to me and refuse to let go until I use a dull pocket knife to saw away the thoughts and ideas which have been snared and break apart from it all. and I'll get to live, but a part of me will always be left behind
I suppose this is simply a way for me to bid this part of me goodbye.
You loved, were loved, and died.
I feel like a whore.
A month or two ago this girl that I met here named Ritsuko was telling me that there was this person (I can't remember if she said he or she anymore) at her workplace who was looking for an English tutor and was willing to pay 3000yen/hour (~$30) for me to chat with them. Being the poor and ghetto college student that I am, there's no way I could've turned that down. So after saying that that'd be fine with me (actually much more than fine, it's a pretty sweet deal), Ritsuko said she'd tell that person that I accepted the offer (and seemed pretty glad that I did, maybe I helped preserve her job at that place a bit longer or something...or not).
Earlier today I get an email from said person introducing themself (I still can't tell if it's a guy or a girl from the name, I'm terrible with Japanese names) and going over the specifics of the deal. Somewhere in the midst of all that s/he wrote the following:
"I am wondering if you could sometimes have chat with me in English for about one hour probably once a week, four times a month. I am ready to pay 12,000 yen a month for you. We can talk about anything we want, daily life, Japanese culture, American culture, history, hobby, trips, politics, economics, etc."
My automatic reaction being "Wow I hope I can be interesting enough to keep up my part of the conversation, seeing how they're paying me for my time." And for so trivial a task! Usually I can't get people to sit around long enough to have a conversation with me, let alone have them pay me for it.
I feel like a whore. And it feels good.
So it seems that I'm once again finding myself somewhere between the beginning of a thought and the end of deliberation. Sometimes these things go well and it's just a matter of time before I come to a conclusion, and sometimes (like this time) I find that my intuition and my reason are at odds with each other.
Reason and rationality are pretty clear about which way to go. It's so delightfully simple (but only because all the complexity has already been worked out). But intuition tells me that it's most definitely simple, but that's most definitely not the way to go. And then reason comes in to fight with itself, one side saying that I have done precisely what reason has said is unlikely or impossible and so maybe it's wrong and I should have a bit more faith in the thought that things will work out (and in the past they most always have). But throwing things to faith and patience and perseverence seems so unsatisfactory (but what is worth having is worth working for).
And this is when I'm reminded that in the more important things in my life I've gone with intuition, and thus far it hasn't led me too far astray (though there were a few times where I took the scenic route or had a bit of a detour). Even the voice of reason chimes in and says "If it really matters to you, go with intuition."
And so, despite knowing that this will most likely damn me in the end, I'm going to have to go ahead and do what I feel needs to be done (but that doesn't seem to be saying anything, because I would've done what I felt needed to be done no matter what "needs to be done" happens to be).
I remember in older times, I'd often burn my movies or mp3's or what have you onto CD's for safe keeping. I'd archive them and then clear them off the hard disk so I could fill it with some other movies and songs and whatnot. But then all those CD's which were laboriously burned and labeled and stored end up doing nothing more but collect dust, left to lie not forgotten, but taken for granted because I know they're always there; if I really wanted to reach back for an old song or movie all I'd have to do is walk over and get it...but except for a few rare moments when I'm sto caught up with nostalgia that I break inertia and do it, I don't touch them ever again. And soon, before I know it, the hard disk is getting full again with movies and songs, and it's time to burn CD's and archive them again, thinking how secure I feel knowing I have them carefully put away when it really doesn't matter because in all likeliness I won't touch them again.
It seems this journal kind of functions that way. Put down my thoughts, archive them away, and never worry about them again because I know I could reach back and capture a memory if I really wanted to. But I don't.
And it seems a number of other things in my life tend to work that way. Put something in storage, thinking that if I need it again I can always go back to it and it'll be there for me; and so I don't touch them.
But it's time to realize that there exist some things which aren't going to be there forever. Tools rust. CD's decay. People grow distant.
I've gradually become more aware of an apparent difference in the way people in the states think about relationships versus the way they think about relationships here. It seems a lot of people I know of in the US seem to hold this thought that it should just happen, that there should be that magic that flows between two people and that that's how you know it's for real. That passion. But passion inevitably fades, and all you're left with is a 50% divorce rate that doesn't include people who are "separated" or senior citizens who have essentially become alone. Out here, on the other hand, it seems a number of people I talk to say that relationships are something where if you both try together you can make it. Lately, I find myself migrating from the American state of mind to the Japanese one. Maybe I've just gotten cynical. Maybe I'm just bitter or I've lost the faith. But I still believe in passion, I still believe in love, only now I believe that it takes a good deal of work and perseverange to keep it going.
There's no feeling quite like being in love, and no feeling quite like losing that love. But I've already said that I think that anything worth having is worth working for, and love is most definitely on that list.
I suppose it's a difficult thing, dealing with the gradual fading of passion. But passion is a volatile thing, coming and going, so who knows when it might strike next. But I'd like to believe (and desperately hope that I'm right this time, unlike all the other times when I've desperately hoped I was wrong) that love is more constant, that if you truly love then despite all the roaring enticements of passion you'll be able to keep going strong. Love blinds. Love binds. But it's all a voluntary thing, and if you don't feel like staying on the ride you can always hop off, and it's one hell of a roller coaster so nobody could really blame you for it.
So for all the length and wordiness of this entry (which may or may not have said anything) I suppose what it really comes down to is me dealing with things, wanting to put some thoughts down so I can get it out of my system, and pretend for a moment that somewhere somebody is seeing this and has an idea of what it is that I really, really mean.
Because really, pause is just stop. There's never a guarantee anyone'll hit play again. But in the greater things of life, it seems there's never a guarantee, or a warranty, or a 90 day return policy.
There is no ending for this because it's not quite over yet. Not for me at least.
"You think it's over? We've just started!"
Winter break has come to a close and it seems school is up and running once more. And so on this rather blustery and cold winter morning I pulled myself out of bed and forced myself to class where I proceeded to pretend to listen to the professor (and pretending I could understand) while I spent a bit of time reading the textbook and checking my cell phone every five minutes or so hoping that maybe (just maybe) someone would send me an email while I thought of ways to avoid going to work today (eventually settling on simply not showing up and pretending I wasn't back in Osaka yet) and decided that I'd show up tomorrow and plan for the next week (which unfortunately means I miss out on seeing some cool people I met but maybe we'll run into each other again another time) and also considered how writing run-on sentences might either lead people to become terribly horribly confused (because they can't follow my train of thought) or would make more sense than a structured and ordered break-down into cellular sentences (which seems to be the standard way of writing).
So after class I decided to call it an early day because I felt like getting in some excercise at the park, so I ran to my lab to grab my shoes and biked my way home. As I was nearing my dorm, there was suddenly a curious barrage of small white flecks coming at me, hitting my face and landing on my glasses (I was a bit too lazy to put on contacts this morning). I was thinking to myself "Is someone throwing water at me from one of those windows up there?" and then thought "maybe there are birds flying by that just couldn't hold it anymore" and finally came to realize that the white specks which had collected on my coat were SNOWFLAKES.
And so it was that I found a bit of peace in this endless blue sky, like the oceans and the seas, with the sun radiating it's warmth down upon me, much like an embery log in the fireplace; if only I had chestnuts.
I suppose I could be more bothered by the way things have turned out/are turning out.
I've been listening to a bit more Gridlock lately. There's one track in particular I really like, "Cramp." It's got an ethereal synth pad flowing through most of it in that nebulous outer space-like way such pads tend to do, and driving the song is this harsh drum and bassline that sometimes seems to have a consistancy to it, but at other times seems to be completely chaotic. I'm not sure I particularly care for the lyrics...at least, not all of them.
"It shouldn't be this way."
This track's essentially a musical representation of the thoughts going through my head and the patterns I seem to be exhibiting. That feels like an empty statement, but I suppose it just depends on how much you read into things (and I suppose a mild background on what sort of music I tend to gravitate towards would help, but that's not really necessary). There's this fundamental unease that makes it a bit difficult for me to eat from time to time, or wonder what it is that's motivating me to go from point A to point B. But it won't be long before I'll be brought plenty of work to keep me busy and take my attention away from such thoughts. But that's not solving problems that's just running away from them. But maybe they'll go away by themselves. Or maybe they'll just fester and become worse.
"It's time to sever."
I was told once, a few years ago (it feels like an eternity), that "This is as good as it gets." I imagine the idea was to try to keep me from letting go, to wake up out of an idealistic trance that was constantly looking for that perfection that I could've sworn would be within my reach if only I'd bide my time and look for it. In recent times, I've found myself saying that same line from time to time (sometimes to myself, sometimes to others, sometimes...to no one at all really).
On that day all those years ago, I let go.
And now here I am, faced every day with that decision as I watch a drama unfold (or maybe it's collapsing now) that I could either expend a strenuous amount of effort in influencing or watch idly as it runs it's course. The willingness to go after what you want versus how much confidence you have that it'll turn out well for you. It's not that there's a fear or resistance to expending effort. In matters like these there's never a guarantee that things will work out for you, no matter how much effort you put in. But if you think it's worth it (and I certainly do) then you keep at it, putting in more and more of yourself until you realize you've given everything you have to keep this dream alive (though by this time it's fallen so far short of a dream that it's simply become reality...and it's kind of broken, but still good). Then the realization is that unless you continue to put forth effort into it you'll have made a waste of all you've done so far and you'll wind up with nothing. And the desperation to hope for something will come of your efforts outweighs the dread of knowing that stopping now assures destruction. Self-destruction. And so you keep going, putting in more than you have, until you realize that you no longer exist as a solitary unit, but have become inextricably fused to another.
But these things don't always work both ways, and if things should fall apart then it's not just the things that fall apart but it's you that falls apart. You that crumbles into nothing. You that loses. You that dies.
I suppose I could be more bothered by the way things have turned out/are turning out.