Monday, June 29, 2015
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
lukewarm poet
21/3/15:
i spent three years being very sad and without knowing i was sad. it sounds strange, i know. 'how can you not know if you're sad?' you're probably thinking. but you can. you can pretend so well and so often that you forget you're pretending. there was one day, about three years ago when i just woke up and stepped into the shower and started crying. i cried for about 10 minutes, and then I got out and got dressed and put on my shoes and left the house. but i still remember - how good it felt. it felt good to cry. that's how you know you're sad.1
---
私は非常に悲しく、私は悲しかった知らなくてもされて3年間を過ごしました。それは奇妙に聞こえる ですね。 「悲しいなら、知らない訳がないじゃん？」っておそらく考えています。しかし、できます。あなたはあなたがふりしていることを忘れていることをとてもよくし、そう頻繁にふりをすることができます。私はちょうど目が覚めた、シャワーに足を踏み入れと泣き始めたときに1日、約3年前にありました。私は約10分間叫んだ、と外に出たし、私の靴を着て、入れてしまって、家を出ました。しかし、まだ覚えている - そんなに気持ちいいかんじました。泣いてた時 ― とても良いと感じました。それから 知ってた ― 悲しかった、僕は。とても悲しかったぞ
---
Uncertainty isn't the mark of a wise man. it doesn't mean you are insightful or attentive or more aware of the complexities and paradoxes and contradictions of the human condition to always mask your thoughts and words in ellipses and parentheses and end every sentence with a question mark. Don't play dumb. It gets old you know, this schtick -- the whole exaggerated shrugging of the shoulders. 'Don't look at me, I don't have all the answers... I'm just wondering out loud... don't mind me.' That thing you do. Acknowledging that you don't know everything is preferable to remaining ignorant of your own ignorance, but one cannot be content to stay there. Wanting never to be wrong isn't a strength if it means never being right either. That's worse than being a pedant. At least the pedant is willing to take a position and will not suffer to sit eternally on the proverbial fence. A man should have conviction - a firm idea of what should and shouldn't be, and learn to stay silent or enquire earnestly on matters he is not familiar with. And then ideally to go away and make up his mind about it. If you wrestle with an idea, press on until you come to a firm conclusion, and don't give up until you do. If you know something, then say what you know. If you don't know, admit to not knowing. If you think you know it, either keep silent or risk being wrong. Don't try and weasel your way out of it. A man should commit, should risk, stake something on his word. And if he is wrong, so be it. There are worse things in life than being wrong. One of them is being a coward. People who never willing to make mistakes will never learn from them. Stop adding 'perhaps', 'maybe', 'more or less', 'if i'm not mistaken' to your sentences as a means of pre-emptive acquittal. when you present an opinion, don't have one foot out the door, ready to escape. don't pretend you're being polite by presenting your conclusions as a suggestion, afraid of imposing on someone else's beliefs. It accomplishes nothing and only obscures your message. A man should be sure, confident, and assurance comes from security, and security comes from knowing, and knowledge comes from being acquainted with truth. A man should be willing to bet his life on the truth.
---
feels weird if no one's told me off in a while // the irony of being rebuked for trying to avoid being rebuked
i spent three years being very sad and without knowing i was sad. it sounds strange, i know. 'how can you not know if you're sad?' you're probably thinking. but you can. you can pretend so well and so often that you forget you're pretending. there was one day, about three years ago when i just woke up and stepped into the shower and started crying. i cried for about 10 minutes, and then I got out and got dressed and put on my shoes and left the house. but i still remember - how good it felt. it felt good to cry. that's how you know you're sad.1
---
私は非常に悲しく、私は悲しかった知らなくてもされて3年間を過ごしました。それは奇妙に聞こえる ですね。 「悲しいなら、知らない訳がないじゃん？」っておそらく考えています。しかし、できます。あなたはあなたがふりしていることを忘れていることをとてもよくし、そう頻繁にふりをすることができます。私はちょうど目が覚めた、シャワーに足を踏み入れと泣き始めたときに1日、約3年前にありました。私は約10分間叫んだ、と外に出たし、私の靴を着て、入れてしまって、家を出ました。しかし、まだ覚えている - そんなに気持ちいいかんじました。泣いてた時 ― とても良いと感じました。それから 知ってた ― 悲しかった、僕は。とても悲しかったぞ
---
Uncertainty isn't the mark of a wise man. it doesn't mean you are insightful or attentive or more aware of the complexities and paradoxes and contradictions of the human condition to always mask your thoughts and words in ellipses and parentheses and end every sentence with a question mark. Don't play dumb. It gets old you know, this schtick -- the whole exaggerated shrugging of the shoulders. 'Don't look at me, I don't have all the answers... I'm just wondering out loud... don't mind me.' That thing you do. Acknowledging that you don't know everything is preferable to remaining ignorant of your own ignorance, but one cannot be content to stay there. Wanting never to be wrong isn't a strength if it means never being right either. That's worse than being a pedant. At least the pedant is willing to take a position and will not suffer to sit eternally on the proverbial fence. A man should have conviction - a firm idea of what should and shouldn't be, and learn to stay silent or enquire earnestly on matters he is not familiar with. And then ideally to go away and make up his mind about it. If you wrestle with an idea, press on until you come to a firm conclusion, and don't give up until you do. If you know something, then say what you know. If you don't know, admit to not knowing. If you think you know it, either keep silent or risk being wrong. Don't try and weasel your way out of it. A man should commit, should risk, stake something on his word. And if he is wrong, so be it. There are worse things in life than being wrong. One of them is being a coward. People who never willing to make mistakes will never learn from them. Stop adding 'perhaps', 'maybe', 'more or less', 'if i'm not mistaken' to your sentences as a means of pre-emptive acquittal. when you present an opinion, don't have one foot out the door, ready to escape. don't pretend you're being polite by presenting your conclusions as a suggestion, afraid of imposing on someone else's beliefs. It accomplishes nothing and only obscures your message. A man should be sure, confident, and assurance comes from security, and security comes from knowing, and knowledge comes from being acquainted with truth. A man should be willing to bet his life on the truth.
---
feels weird if no one's told me off in a while // the irony of being rebuked for trying to avoid being rebuked
Monday, June 15, 2015
count it all joy
some things you only learn by being smart; others, by being hurt
---
---
"I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places."
— Isaiah 45:3
---
Hey, please don't ask me how I am in front of my Brother or what I'm up to.
The answer is, "I don't know"
Thursday, June 11, 2015
rainfall
it is 3:41pm on Thursday the 11th of June 2015. I am standing at the large full length windows of my apartment looking out at the rain.1 It started raining about an hour earlier, quite suddenly - without warning, one minute sunshine and the next a torrent of small droplets falling and crashing onto leaves and pavement. And where before it was reasonably sunny looking now the sky is an off-whitish, very bland and unexciting sort of hue, and the world seems similarly drained of colour from having been deprived of direct sunlight. As if the colour saturation slider of the world's photo editing app had been set to very low. Ah - yes, Grayscale. that's what they call it.
There is a dense mist that obscures the tops of the tall condominiums that surround ours. It is thick as fog, and white like clouds. Thick with condensation. This makes the buildings further away harder to see as well. The buildings as they recede into the distance become fainter, a veil of increasing opacity as they grow further away. beyond the half-erased buildings nothing can be seen except the same featureless shade of off white that reaches into the sky. the effect is surprisingly not dismal, but calming. The streets and leaves are wet, the stone and cement taking on a darker shade and shininess. The cars go up and down the boulevard leading up to the roundabout fountain, with headlights on and wipers on. There is also the speed and velocity at which the rain is falling. It is not fast and heavy like it sometimes is here, where you can hardly see them because they're moving so fast, where all you can feel is the sheer speed and fierce velocity / urgency with which the pellets bombard you / your surroundings. It is also not mild and halting like the drizzling and light showers I've grown accustomed to in the UK. It is falling at what i can only describe as a 'moderate' speed. Unhurried, neither fast nor slow. It falls at the same rate as a small phone if you were to drop it from the top floor of a condominium. There is a cool chill of air-conditioning where I am standing. Rainforest, is the word that comes to mind. There is a bough, shooting upwards vertically outside my window. It is the tallest one of its tree and stands alone, coming up roughly to the level of my chest. It stands 20 feet away, uncrowded by any other vegetation. It looks at once lonely and serene. The leaves are vaguely ovate in shape, but quite thin and dark green, slightly drooping under the pressure of repeated impact, staccato percussion of the raindrops, receiving a hundred tiny blows per second, they look like they are shivering, fluttering like little green wings on a branch.
I can hear thunder, coming it seems from far away. And it is a low grumbling, kind of guttural growl. Not sudden. And it lasts a long time. It reverebrates and echoes, seems to be travelling toward or away. It is not so much a thunderclap but like the sound of one hard, massive rocky thing grinding against another. A little like the sound of how the wheels of a heavy luggage suitcase sounds rolling at speed against the asphalt, but larger and more expansive, spacious. How unless it is right underneath you and makes you jump, we learn to tune out these sounds. The growlings of heaven. Intermittent. Behind and beneath is the noise, faint, barely audible static of rain splashing against the leaves and hard surfaces, railings, balconies, streets. It sounds soft, continuous crashing of surf, - not a pitter patter, because that implies being able to discern discrete rhythm to the noise, but the downpour is just a constant, mixing and mingling coalescing into one long uninterrupted stream of sound. the world outside whispering sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh --
by the time i write all this down it is 4:30 and it has stopped raining. The mist has moved on and the tops of buildings are visible now. The sky is still white and boring but brighter, letting through more light. the sounds of a noisy motorcycle's engine and chirping birds. The ground of the open air public tennis court opposite our condo is made of green clay and drying, slowly regaining its lightness of colour in mottled patches, puddles of water collecting where the ground is uneven and dips in.
1. what made me stare out the window in the first place was the sense that I was missing out on the real world, (#existentialfomo) (I was looking up pictures of Uchida Maaya and watching Donald Glover's comedy central stand up special - which to be honest i can do anytime) my everyday waking life by choosing to forfeit to opt out of participation and enter the pre-made, pre-taped, exit the present and engage in mindless appreciation of online video - letting the moment pass unobserved, unexamined, uncelebrated. seemed like a sin. I look to the window and see that it is raining, and a sense of relief because i'm not missing out on sunshine so it's a kind of relief, minimises the opportunity cost, condone, mitigate the consequences of passivity. but then a voice comes and says, but why should you value the sunshine any more than overcast days, or even the phenomena of rain. Is there nothing for you to admire about it? Is your capacity for wonder and imagination really so limited. So i stood at the window and watched for a while. Trying to take in the moment before it leaves, and record down everything about it that feels real and immediate to me. what it feels exactly to be me and alive and awake at this very minute - so that in the future i can read it and be transported to this very moment in time and feel that it had not passed me by but that i have made the most of it. made the most of each moment and by extension, my life. a way of reliving but also ensuring that i live it the first time. A textural form of redemption ↩
There is a dense mist that obscures the tops of the tall condominiums that surround ours. It is thick as fog, and white like clouds. Thick with condensation. This makes the buildings further away harder to see as well. The buildings as they recede into the distance become fainter, a veil of increasing opacity as they grow further away. beyond the half-erased buildings nothing can be seen except the same featureless shade of off white that reaches into the sky. the effect is surprisingly not dismal, but calming. The streets and leaves are wet, the stone and cement taking on a darker shade and shininess. The cars go up and down the boulevard leading up to the roundabout fountain, with headlights on and wipers on. There is also the speed and velocity at which the rain is falling. It is not fast and heavy like it sometimes is here, where you can hardly see them because they're moving so fast, where all you can feel is the sheer speed and fierce velocity / urgency with which the pellets bombard you / your surroundings. It is also not mild and halting like the drizzling and light showers I've grown accustomed to in the UK. It is falling at what i can only describe as a 'moderate' speed. Unhurried, neither fast nor slow. It falls at the same rate as a small phone if you were to drop it from the top floor of a condominium. There is a cool chill of air-conditioning where I am standing. Rainforest, is the word that comes to mind. There is a bough, shooting upwards vertically outside my window. It is the tallest one of its tree and stands alone, coming up roughly to the level of my chest. It stands 20 feet away, uncrowded by any other vegetation. It looks at once lonely and serene. The leaves are vaguely ovate in shape, but quite thin and dark green, slightly drooping under the pressure of repeated impact, staccato percussion of the raindrops, receiving a hundred tiny blows per second, they look like they are shivering, fluttering like little green wings on a branch.
I can hear thunder, coming it seems from far away. And it is a low grumbling, kind of guttural growl. Not sudden. And it lasts a long time. It reverebrates and echoes, seems to be travelling toward or away. It is not so much a thunderclap but like the sound of one hard, massive rocky thing grinding against another. A little like the sound of how the wheels of a heavy luggage suitcase sounds rolling at speed against the asphalt, but larger and more expansive, spacious. How unless it is right underneath you and makes you jump, we learn to tune out these sounds. The growlings of heaven. Intermittent. Behind and beneath is the noise, faint, barely audible static of rain splashing against the leaves and hard surfaces, railings, balconies, streets. It sounds soft, continuous crashing of surf, - not a pitter patter, because that implies being able to discern discrete rhythm to the noise, but the downpour is just a constant, mixing and mingling coalescing into one long uninterrupted stream of sound. the world outside whispering sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh --
by the time i write all this down it is 4:30 and it has stopped raining. The mist has moved on and the tops of buildings are visible now. The sky is still white and boring but brighter, letting through more light. the sounds of a noisy motorcycle's engine and chirping birds. The ground of the open air public tennis court opposite our condo is made of green clay and drying, slowly regaining its lightness of colour in mottled patches, puddles of water collecting where the ground is uneven and dips in.
1. what made me stare out the window in the first place was the sense that I was missing out on the real world, (#existentialfomo) (I was looking up pictures of Uchida Maaya and watching Donald Glover's comedy central stand up special - which to be honest i can do anytime) my everyday waking life by choosing to forfeit to opt out of participation and enter the pre-made, pre-taped, exit the present and engage in mindless appreciation of online video - letting the moment pass unobserved, unexamined, uncelebrated. seemed like a sin. I look to the window and see that it is raining, and a sense of relief because i'm not missing out on sunshine so it's a kind of relief, minimises the opportunity cost, condone, mitigate the consequences of passivity. but then a voice comes and says, but why should you value the sunshine any more than overcast days, or even the phenomena of rain. Is there nothing for you to admire about it? Is your capacity for wonder and imagination really so limited. So i stood at the window and watched for a while. Trying to take in the moment before it leaves, and record down everything about it that feels real and immediate to me. what it feels exactly to be me and alive and awake at this very minute - so that in the future i can read it and be transported to this very moment in time and feel that it had not passed me by but that i have made the most of it. made the most of each moment and by extension, my life. a way of reliving but also ensuring that i live it the first time. A textural form of redemption ↩
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
literary suicide
You are, unfortunately, a fiction writer. You are attempting a cycle of very short belletristic pieces, pieces which as it happens are not contes philosophiques and not vignettes or scenarios or allegories or fables, exactly, though neither are they really qualifiable as ‘short stories’ (not even as those upscale microbrewed Flash Fictions that have become so popular in recent years–even though these belletristic pieces are really short, they just don’t work like Flash Fictions are supposed to). How exactly the cycle’s short pieces are supposed to work is hard to describe. Maybe say they’re supposed to compose a sort of ‘interrogation’ of the person reading them, somehow–i.e. palpations, feelers into the interstices of her sense of something, etc. . . . though what that ‘something’ is remains maddeningly hard to pin down, even just for yourself as you’re working on the pieces (pieces that are taking a truly grotesque amount of time, by the way, far more time than they ought to vis a vis their length and aesthetic ‘weight,’ etc.
[...]
[A] chance to salvage the potential fiasco of you feeling that the 2+(2(1)) pieces add up to something urgent and humand and the reader not feeling that way at all. Because now it occurs to you that you could simply ask her. The reader. That you could poke your nose out of the mural hole that ‘6 isn’t working as a Pop Quiz’ and ‘Here’s another shot at it’ etc. have already made adnd address the reader directly and ask her straight out whether she’s feeling anything like what you feel.
[...]
You’d have to be 100% honest. Meaning not just sincere but almost naked. Worse than naked–more like unarmed. Defenseless. ‘This thing I feel, I can’t name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?–this sort of direct question is not for the squeamish. For one thing, it’s perilously close to [...]
— David Foster Wallace, Octet (excerpts)
---
do you see what he is doing? what the gesture is?
---
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
— Philippians 2:7-8
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
when did this city get so pretty
- what about here?
- no, this place is not beautiful
- what makes it beautiful?
- how much you miss it
- no, this place is not beautiful
- what makes it beautiful?
- how much you miss it
Sunday, June 7, 2015
将来の彼女へ / girl who can sing a little bit
i want to hear you singing
in the morning
from a faraway room
as i lean just outside your door
a cloth in hand
wiping the dust off something
just listening to you croon
i want to slow dance with you
to jazz in a foreign language
eyes closed
i want to hold you
and sway the way breathing is
easy and natural
and slow and deep
and precious and
essential
i want to twirl you round
and watch you spin like the sun
rising into view
and nestling into my arms
soft and blossoming flower
i want to be good
to everyone
but especially
to you
in the morning
from a faraway room
as i lean just outside your door
a cloth in hand
wiping the dust off something
just listening to you croon
i want to slow dance with you
to jazz in a foreign language
eyes closed
i want to hold you
and sway the way breathing is
easy and natural
and slow and deep
and precious and
essential
i want to twirl you round
and watch you spin like the sun
rising into view
and nestling into my arms
soft and blossoming flower
i want to be good
to everyone
but especially
to you
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
The advertisement of a man - the cleverer you become the greater your capacity for (self )deception --- the ability of writing to edit a...
