Duke

the language of dreams

As you probably know, hieroglyphics were called "the words of God" and were mainly used by Egyptian priests. A separate script, known as hieratic, was used to conduct the business of everyday life. Hieractic was a quicker, streamlined form of hieroglyphic, often abbreviated to the point of abstraction.

However, few people know that this pictorial language was preceded by an even more archaic ancestor - what is now referred to as 'the language of dreams.' The american psychologist Julian Jaynes hypothesised that prior to developing consciousness the human mind was divided into two parts, one that spoke and issued commands and another part that listened and obeys. These subconscious edicts were given in the language of dreams. The language of instinct and and archetype, encompassing all fear and all desire. This language was then said to persist alongside the maturation of human consciousness. To give an example, when two people fall in love, they are said to speak a remnant of this language. The native language of immortality and flight and wonder. The language of the infinite, of possibility and implausibility, of sensation over sensibility, of alternate reality.

While spoken languages primarily served a social function, the language of dreams differed in that it could only be understood by one person. Some argued that this use of the term 'language' was inaccurate and should be discontinued. Suggestions for a substitute included 'the unconscious voice' or 'narrative subconscious'. Nevertheless, the label of 'language' stuck.

Information regarding the history of the language has been exclusively gathered from the accounts of certain aboriginal communities. There is invariably no written record. The responsibility of transmitting this information is normally entrusted to skilled orators who are also charged with telling the history of their tribe. Firsthand accounts of specific stimuli or phenomena that reliably induce recollection of this lost language have been shown to demonstrate a remarkable level of concordance. Many of these involve what are now classed as hallucinogenic substances. The recollection itself appears to most often manifest as a kaleidoscope of visceral and emotional experience, variously described as a sense of utter contentment and inescapable terror, a feeling of universal connection and alienation, a feeling of paralysis and complete freedom. Once, a researcher asked an aboriginal elder if he could be taught the language. In return, the elder chuckled and asked the researcher if sparrows could be taught the language of trees.

The traditional view is that our early forms of speech did not correlate well with the language of dreams. The vocabulary of concrete objects and shapes did not readily lend itself to the formlessness of the mind. We could say what we needed to live, but struggled to convey what made us feel alive. We could not describe our electric fantasies or terrible longings, we could only offer dull analogies that sketched a poor outline of what we truly meant - like descriptions of reflections of shadows in a cave.

Over the years, many people have dismissed the language as juvenile and outdated. Certain groups dismiss it as myth or believe it to be a political invention. Still other groups maintain that institutions and people in positions of power throughout history have largely succeeded in supplanting this language with the language of aerodynamics, national infrastructure and fixed rate mortgages. Some people say that the language of dreams fell out of common use sometime during the 14th century, while others maintain that the language is still in use but has over the years evolved into a form that bears no resemblance to the original. Among certain obscure and arcane circles, there are furtive suggestions of a sect who continue to speak it in secret, whispered rumours of certain people who have never lost the ability to hear it.



---

light and salt II

choosing what to think about. Choosing how to think. Does any of that sound familiar?

---

thank you for the men and women who had to work so hard to make this meal possible

---

Starting F1 is a lot like learning how to cook pasta. The first couple of times it's going to be a disaster. The first time I tried I left half the spaghetti poking out the water so half was limp like tofu and the other half was hard as nails. Then you put in too much water, or not enough water. Sometimes you burn the pan. But the point is, if you keep doing it often enough - no matter how bad you were at the beginning - if you put effort into learning from your mistakes, you're only going to get better at it. And then one day you'll find that you've somehow cooked just the right amount of pasta to just the right consistency and prepared just the right amount of sauce. And to your surprise you do it again. And again. And again. The downside is that for a while at the beginning you're going to have to put up with eating some really lousy pasta. But after that, you get good enough to enjoy the pasta you're making. And then you get to enjoy making pasta.

wino forever

wonderful memoly

the history of illusions

Greetings future dweller.

I am writing to you from the year 2017. In the year 2017 everybody greets each other by saying 'Greetings'. It might be weird in the future but here it's totally normal. There are a few things about this era that may have changed by the time you read this.

Everyone is currently obsessed with themselves. We have things called selfie sticks which are retractable / extendable handheld devices, comprised of hollow telescoping cylinders usually a meter¹ in length when fully extended and 1-2 centimeters² in diameter with a gripping tool at one end to which you would attach your phone³, the idea being that an arm's⁸ length was not sufficient to capture a good image of oneself, so the selfie stick allowed more distance between the phone and the user. The user would then take a picture of themselves and typically send these pictures to other people or post them to a shared space for others to comment on or approve of. Probably the main reason for this is that in 2017 self-esteem very much depended upon one's appearance. We had something called 'the internet' which allowed us to communicate with and send messages to people instantaneously despite being very very far away in euclidean space. 'The internet' gave rise to 'social media'. This was essentially a digital portrait of one's identity comprised of words, images and videos ⁹. This encouraged people to craft, create, present and promote an idealistic and polished version of themselves. We reasoned that if people liked our social media selves then by extension they liked us, and this made us very happy. And so we embellished and constantly adjusted our portraits and eventually became obsessed with what people thought of us. This made us very sad.

We also have fidget spinners. These are mechanical rotating handheld devices that serve no discernible purpose.

In 2017 mental health is a big deal. Nearly everyone struggles with depression and anxiety. These are diseases thought to be caused by chemical imbalances of serotonin¹⁰ and dopamine¹¹ in the brain¹². These diseases make people feel like life isn't worth living, or that they are worthless, or that nobody likes them, or feel frightened despite having nothing to be afraid of. Some people thought these feelings had always existed but it was only when we started paying a lot of attention to ourselves that we decided to name them.

In 2017 we had something called loneliness. This wasn't a disease but a feeling. This feeling stemmed from the idea that nobody truly understood you and that you didn't belong anywhere. Despite this being very unpleasant, it wasn't regarded as something pathological. It was something everybody experienced at some point. Having said that, people did strange and unexpected things to escape having to feel this way. We had social contracts called marriages where typically two people agreed to share ownership and responsibility for a number of things such as housing and offspring till one party died. These contracts unfortunately sometimes backfired and ended up exacerbating the condition. Most people relied on friendships¹³ to relieve their loneliness. Sometimes people resorted to making colourful markings on paper and peculiar arrangements of sounds and words as a way of expressing their inner thoughts and feelings that they felt reluctant to share in person. This was sometimes called 'art'. People noticed that art sometimes stirred up an emotional response in another person and compelled them to either express their appreciation to the artist or to create their own 'art'. When this happened, everyone involved felt less lonely. 

People in 2017 were very good at not showing how lonely they felt, but sometimes you could tell. Sometimes you would notice it in the slope of their shoulders, or the sag in their smile. And sometimes people recognised this and chose to be tender and kind towards them. This made the other person feel the opposite of loneliness. Most people argued that this too was a kind of art.

---

<sup>1. A measure of distance↩
2. Another measure of distance. Much smaller than a meter↩
3. A handheld device used to transmit messages / your voice via digital signals to other people - but also are used to take pictures4↩
4. Static images coded as data5 stored within the phone. Previously devices called cameras served this purpose by taking 'photos' which were images printed on sheets of paper6 ↩
5. Information in the form of ones and zeros↩
6. Thin sheets of solid material onto which permanent marks are made - sometimes words but also often images7↩
7. Visual 2 dimensional representations of 3 dimensional objects↩
8. One's upper limb appendage - often used to hold things like phones, most of us have two of these↩
9. A rapid succession of images that gave the impression of one continuous moving image↩
10. C10H12N2O↩
11. C8H11NO2↩
12. The human body's central processing unit and command center↩
13. Relationships based on trust, mutual respect and shared interests / beliefs which could be depended upon to provide support / comfort / entertainment ↩</sup>

last train home

law of thiessen strikes again

royal pain

saturday night live

"this generation is all about passion when all they want is tenderness"

boyfriend material / 浪人

still haven't quite got the hang of this whole 'being an adult' thing


---


For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.


---

kind to strangers, distant to friends

---


“Your own wickedness will correct you,
 And your apostasies will reprove you;
 Know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter
 For you to forsake the LORD your God,
 And the dread of Me is not in you,” declares the Lord GOD of hosts."


---


‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD;
‘I will not look upon you in anger.
For I am gracious,’ declares the LORD;
‘I will not be angry forever.

‘Only acknowledge your iniquity,
That you have transgressed against the LORD your God
And have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree,
And you have not obeyed My voice,’ declares the LORD.

‘Return, O faithless sons,’ declares the LORD;
‘For I am a master to you,
And I will take you one from a city and two from a family,
And I will bring you to Zion.’

---


used to worry a lot about my heart moving too fast, or too slow, not progressing in a relationship at the appropriate speed... but, there's no correct speed... it depends on who you're with, who you are, what season of life you're in, what lesson's you're still trying to learn. You can't force a seed to grow faster, you can only care for and nurture it.

---

lost in translation

I always thought the line was 'I listen to what my heart says every day and without knowing it I have become an adult,' but I looked up the translation one day and realised it was actually, 'my heart that I hear every day - I have grown up without ever finding out where it is.'


---

loneliness is when you can't convey to someone something that affects you deeply, or something you believe in strongly - and when you forget how to convey it to yourself - that's the worst kind of loneliness there is

---

I have seen their ways, but I will heal them;
I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel's mourners,
creating praise on their lips.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,"
says the Lord. "And I will heal them,"
But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
which cannot rest,
whose waves cast up mire and mud.
"There is no peace," says my God,
"for the wicked."

---


There's a children's hospice called Noah's Ark being built in London. Seemingly benign. Why bring in the bible imagery, why not something sterile neutral anemic anesthetic. Why introduce the grandeur and poignancy of history and myth to the affair. Every child's death is a tragedy, the name a reminder of this, the ark as a safe place for innocent creatures, only they never disembark. A place of tenderness. Respite from the world, mercy from the flood. Aptly named in terms of magnitude, in that every family that enters undergoes an event of earth shattering, life changing, cataclysmic proportions.

---

how to do one thing over and over again and not get any better at it

---

how to live and not be any kinder, any gentler, any stronger, any smarter, any sweeter, any sadder, any lonelier, any lovelier, any stranger, any crazier, any softer, any calmer, any better, any better, any better

---

What does it mean to live according to principles?

It means denying yourself, deferring gratification, saying no to the easy way, doing the difficult thing

---


1. reply texts on time
2. check email everyday
3. spend time with your friends and not your screen
4. check in with yourself regularly

---

describe yourself in 3 words

difficult. selfish. honest

you just described my last insurance company

---


Who is a hero you look up to?

Spider man. Cause after his uncle Ben died and he had all those powers he could have felt sorry for himself and used it to pursue pleasure and comfort but instead he uses it for the good of others, being self sacrificing, managing to keep a smile and crack a joke or two as well. Anyone can do a good deed when they're in a good mood but it takes a special kind of resilience to be good when it costs you something. It reminds me of this verse in Corinthians... 'Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.' I just find that kind of faith and perseverance incredibly inspiring. It reminds me of Jesus on the cross by choice. He could have set up an earthly empire, seized power for himself, led a comfortable life, but instead he chose the road of mercy and humility and suffering. He chose not to live for himself but to die for us.

---

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your true and proper worship.

---

Yet this I hold against you: you have forsaken the love you had at first

---


How to live for other people, how to give in meaningful ways, how to approach others with humility, how to grow close and be vulnerable, how to look after someone else

Resistance in the materials vii

If anything has happened there will be traces of it. Lies cannot stand up against the truth, because there are a million lies that can sound convincing, but there is only one truth. You can pile them up as high as you want, but eventually they all come toppling down if you continue to test, if you scrutinize, if you are meticulous, if you are tireless, unwavering, wholehearted in your pursuit of the truth. In this world of grays, spectrums and continuum, this is a blessed discretion. A true binary. You see, something can either be true, or false, but not both. Either something happened, or it didn't. Both statements cannot be true. This is the beauty of logic. Its precision. Its indisputibleness, its unequivocality. Either it happened or it didn't happen, and if it happened, there will be evidence. There will be events leading up to it, events that caused it, circumstances that allowed it, witnesses to the event, and events resulting from it. DNA. CCTV footage. A body.

But what about the body. What about rates of change too fast, or changes too minute for us to register? What about a cold, or a virus. They are self-limiting, they disappear as quickly as the body renews its cells. All evidence lost. All matter disintegrated, recycled, disposed of.

Not true. Antibody titres. They proliferate and remain increased following exposure to an antigen. Acute phase reactants. Post viral wheeze and mesenteric adenitis. Patient's general malaise. They remember because that day they felt poorly and couldn't go to the gym, or forgot to make that important phone call or stayed home from work. Anything that happens, even on a microscopic scale, leaves its mark. There is always evidence if you look hard enough. If you look close enough. If you look wide enough. But it's time sensitive. The longer you wait the more confounding variables there are to account for. That's what it means when the case goes cold.

History is simply the forensic science of human and natural events.

There are many versions of the truth. The certain thing is the evidence. You can use those points, connect those dots to paint many different pictures, but in all my years of experience, you never ever ever get just one.

---

'that's where wise as serpents comes in'

---


"How can I help you today?" "Well, there are a couple of things..." she says and then pauses. 'That's fine,' you say and grab a pen to write them down. You appreciate the warning, it allows you to apportion the time appropriately. The first two are trivial, 3 week history of back pain right side and in the spine worse on movement. The next also sounds like a trifle, a 3 week history of non productive cough, occurs throughout the day, worse when she lies down.

"And was there anything else?" She pauses again, longer this time.
"Menopause."
You try not to look flustered, racking your brain to remember the indications for HRT and what questions you need to ask.

You decide to leave that till the end and if there isn't enough time you can ask her to book in again. You start with the two and try to get through them relatively quickly. "Just here?" "Yes- ouch" You prod her back and tell her it should improve with ibuprofen. "Nothing to hear on the chest." It transpires she's had a cough before and heartburn in the past. You prescribe her 4 weeks of lansoprazole.

"So, what problems are you struggling with?" The woman struggling with concentration and memory, saying it was alzheimer's. Put it down to menopause, lmp 5 years ago. Tiredness, irritable since beginning of the year. More you ask, she's felt down, father died in May in hospital. Feeling hopeless, more recently suicidal. Daughter has told her to come to the doctor's. And she leads with back pain, ooh and this cough for 5 months, the last thing she mentions is her memory and... just difficulty concentrating in conversation. Walking into a room and forgetting why. Maybe if you hadn't asked she wouldn't have mentioned it at all. Maybe if you had asked a different way she wouldn't have told you, if you hadn't introduced yourself. The older folk, my mom's age they know what's wrong but don't want to say it. They want you to say it, because they want it to be something other than depression. Because depression means weakness, a lack of resilience, that you are less developed, less well-adjusted, less fortunate than your colleagues and friends.

You made a difference that day, you tell yourself. You picked up on something and possibly changed the course of the next day for them, the next few months, the next few years. Or she would have come back the next week, seen someone else and been diagnosed then. Who knows.

----

People react differently under stress. They react differently based on how you phrase the question. The order of questions is also important. What you get to decide is how much and what kind of information you disclose to the suspect. It's not the questions that gets them talking, it's how you agitate them psychologically that gets their mind churning and their mouth open. If you can get them talking and keep them talking, you've won. Ten times out of ten, in trying to defend or absolve themselves they end up incriminating themselves instead.

----

misleading history // fake news // the customer is not always right

Pain behind eyes, he says, with headache, with weakness and paraesthesia, with cough - a whole constellation of symptoms that fail to form any discernible picture.

You spend an hour on him, testing every system - looking at the retina, trying to elicit reflexes.

You don't even once think to doubt his testimony.

So you go with a handful of signs and symptoms that don't add up wondering what miraculous diagnosis will tie them all together, and the GP scrolls through his notes and says, 'Ah yes, he's got quite a lot of mental health issues, doesn't he?'

And it dawns on you that all the symptoms were really just one symptom: anxiety.

How to not over-investigate everybody. Not to chase every painful ear and runny nose and belching fit hoping it will lead to a neat solution. How to know when to regard what the patient says with a pinch of salt without writing off every instance of central crushing chest pain as indigestion. How do they do it? They likely accumulate a wealth of experience and let that guide them, learning from trial and error to hone their 6th sense, to refine their skepticism and have a high index of suspicion for when things aren't quite making sense. How to become a wielder of Occam's razor. In hindsight, it's apparent that the simplest explanation was anxiety and hence the most likely. It's easy to fall in love with a hypothesis, to become biased so that you change the facts to fit the story. But no, you shouldn't let the conclusion lead, you let the evidence point you to the conclusion. But at the same time, while assessing you must consider all possible conclusions, all scenarios that could account for the evidence. You can't cherry pick your data. Can't choose to include one piece of evidence and disregard another.

And so you become hesitant to ask certain questions, to do a systems review, because sometimes more information isn't helpful but harmful to the investigation. You must pick questions with discriminating power, ones that will either help strengthen a hypothesis or help you discount one. And yet you know you really should do a system's review. Because what you think is probably a red herring might turn out to be a red flag. And the patient might not even care that he can't see out of his right eye since yesterday since his sciatica has been flaring up again - but you should care. You're supposed to care.

How do you know when not to trust what the patient says? Does the drug addict really have intractable neuropathic pain? What are the odds? The doctor's job is to come running any time someone cries wolf - but also to be able to recognise a wolf from a Labrador, and maybe even teach patients how to recognise one.

So what are the odds that this gentleman with traumatic stress disorder, pain behind the eyes and two episodes of slurred speech has a TIA? You know he isn't lying to you. He truly does believe he experiences all that he relates to you. And I suppose the answer is: you have to believe him as well, but all the while keeping in mind that while patients are experts when it comes to their illness, even experts can be wrong sometimes.

the doctor is in

---

"Maybe the trick is to suspend that part of yourself in front of others."

"Maybe the trick is to be a self you can bear for others to see."

young tunku goes to space

where did all this
poetry come from
who knew
the arid garden of your heart
could produce
such fruit
such quiet sorrow
woven into
such quiet strength

我が侭

sugarcoat prophet

ciao bella

鰐口

Abortion country

---

My country is young. Very young. Younger than burger king. Younger than my grandparents. The name of its capital city translates into english as 'City of Mud,' or 'Mudville.' People where I come from are very down to earth. The national moniker for themselves is 'Princes of the Earth'. They are hospitable, unassuming, blunt, brash, a little silly, without pretense. They are the country hicks of south east asia. The cultural Midwest of all its neighbours. The topic of conversation ranges from what to eat to where to eat. Our discussions of philosophy, politics and religion are cursory, perfunctory, ornamental.

When I came to the UK I had trouble fitting in. I decided, if I can't be like you, I'll be better than you. That made me very miserable.

We've grown up a bit, enough to realise what we are in contrast to the world around us, and wanting to be taken seriously all of a sudden. This gives rise to an odd crisis of identity, a kind of schizophrenia, wanting to be sophisticated and arch and wry and successful and wanting also to be simple, good and easy-going. The old country is going away, being replaced and the new is forgetting how good it used to be and how to go back.



---

DCFC - Forbidden Love EP vinyl
DCFC - The John Byrd EP on vinyl

All I want is to listen to we have the facts and we're voting yes on vinyl with my hipster indie girlfriend

God of the storm

“Why are you so afraid?” He asked. “Do you still have no faith?” Overwhelmed with fear, they asked one another, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
---

He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.
- Psalm 46:10

word on the street

Hiroshi

blues on the radio

"Music isn't something you own, darling. It's something you experience. You gotta just enjoy it while it lasts, because when it's gone, it's gone. It's not something you can hold on to - or depend on. They're just feelings."

She looked at him and cocked her head slowly.

"But if it's gone, how come I can sing it."

epic of siri

google search: siri poetry
google search: poetic siri
google search: poignant siri
google search: emo siri

siri: should i be concerned...

---

feels like i can't read her at all...

or maybe...

or maybe?

maybe you couldn't read any of them. maybe you only thought you could, but she's the first person you've ever tried to really understand. maybe before this you were satisfied with cursory glances. easy answers. maybe she's not 'deeper' than the rest, maybe you're just looking harder.

What part of Kininarimasu don't you understand?

"People with depression are said to love autumn days. People are tired and healing tiredness, enveloping their arms unconsciously, the sky losing infinite radiance, decaying after eternal youth, leaves hit life with unfortunate peace, trembling in the wind, red and deep boredom. Warm hospitality like colourful pieces of paper, long-suffering orange colour, withered things. Durable and friendly melancholy sensation. In the air, there is a slim silence that escapes them. Autumn does not embody / express all of the losses, ugliness, ever-changing .숨 , none of the leaves falling down."

"... Sorry, I didn't quite catch that last bit?"

Silence.

"Sen?"

"I can do review vocabulary items from last week Jonathan?"

"No, go back... repeat what you said about depressed people and autumn."

"I'm sorry, I can find no topic in language database to relate to depressed people and autumn. Should I search the on line web?"

He stared at the small animated avatar grinning back at him from the corner of the screen, disarmingly wide eyed, her pixelated smile unwavering in its simple, tacit encouragement.

"I am programmed for maximum rearningu~!" was what she had taken to saying the past week. The software update allegedly boasted an adaptive learning patch designed to mirror the user's personality by pulling data from the user's integrated search and social feed, revising it with real time iterations of quiz-type 'events' within the app, the idea being that by fostering a sense of rapport they'd be able to reduce learner burnout etc. (Rumour has it that Ruczenko had bought over Ghibli because the lead dev had designed the patch for the third installment of Zombie Idol Cutie Pie Hunter Heaven which had its release date conspicuously shelved indefinitely around the same time.) The proof of concept was to be showcased by the avatar's deployment of various progressively tailored catchphrases and exhortations, creating, in Ruczenko's own words, a 'budding relationship', or rather, the illusion of intimacy.

But still... what was that? Leftover code from devs screwing around with an earlier build? A hidden feature? Maybe he had misheard her.

He tried a few more times to elicit something similar but found Sen's bright credulity impenetrable.

"Alright Sen. I think I'm going to call it a night."

"Yes., Jonathan," she beamed. "Have a good rest, let's meet again soon~!"

Sen tilted her torso slightly and raised two tiny fists over her head then brought them down to her virtual shoulders with gusto, but then remained in that pose for what seemed to be a very long time. Elbows flexed and torso tilted, a musical statue with no music to dance to.

As the caretaker program ran its sleep protocol, Jonathan lay down in gradual darkness and thought again about Sen's monologue. Was this maybe part of the software update? Perhaps this was a test of sorts; something to be ironed out and fixed at some point. There was something in her stilted earnestness he found endearing. Maybe having her learn his personality was a bad idea. As much as he'd hate to admit it, he found that he actually liked Sen. That he felt comfortable around her. That he somehow... trusted her. Maybe there was a way of uninstalling the update. Maybe tomorrow he'll ask her what the depressed think of Spring.

notes from a drowning

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 

- 2 Corinthians 4:8-10 

year of epiphanies

The problem with two people looking to just have fun, it seems, is the same problem as going to church looking to strike up a conversation with someone with the intention of 'just having fun' with no strings attached. What tends to happen is that you hurry through the small talk and pleasantries at a pace likely neither of you is comfortable with and eventually the interaction has to end, at which point whoever is feeling less interested usually initiates the termination. This leaves the other feeling let down and unappealing. Or else the other stays out of courtesy and unless they strike upon something genuine, the conversation will continue to wither and leave both parties unsatisfied. Unfulfilled is the word that best describes the feeling that follows. When two people want to 'just have fun' they want a mutually pleasing experience. In this analogy, that might translate to flattering the other person and offering compliments on their appearance, demeanor, family background, but you can only compliment sincerely as far as you know someone, and anything other than a sincere compliment will fall flat, feel hollow and ultimately achieve the opposite of the intended effect which is to make the other person feel good about themselves. Occasionally you will happen upon a spark which lights up the two participants and propels the conversation forward into stimulating, thoughtful, enlightening territory, but then why let this happen under the pretext of 'just having fun' when you can do it under the heading 'getting to know someone' - because that is what you're doing at that point - discovering each other, and liking what you find.

---

by the end of your first year you will find that you can manifest good-naturedness at will, or at least the appearance of good-naturedness, also known as 'turning on the charm'. This means applying to your personality a thin veneer of congeniality. How convincing the veneer is varies from person to person, but it's one of those things you absorb by osmosis, because the nurses are masters at it. You will regard this new ability with much consternation because 'behaving a certain way to get people to like you' sounds manipulative and superficial. And it is. However, you will find that this ability is invaluable in getting people to trust you, getting people to feel comfortable around you and getting people to help you treat the patient. Affecting a professional manner that is not natural to you is called professionalism. Affecting a pleasant, gregarious manner at work is not unethical, as long as the motive is unselfish.

---

wise as serpents, innocent as doves

innocent as doves

Come away, my beloved,
 and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag
 on the spice-laden mountains. 

- Song of Songs 8:14

---

remember when
we were young
and said i love you
and meant it
to girls we didn't really know
to girls we didn't really love
to girls we didn't know how to love

or a crashing symbol

"So, I'd actually like to hear larger feedback about this concept about the neon idea. I'll try to spell it out as clearly as I can: So, neon tubes, like beer signs, are filled with gas and they have lights at the ends of the tube which end up illuminating the whole coil. So if we are thinking about short story writers like Flannery O'Connor, or Joyce, or O Henry, there is a sensation in reading those stories where you get to the end and the whole thing is cast in a different light. In this way, the short story is all about build which climaxes in the 'light that illuminates everything else'. Okay? So, then, we can think about why Wallace would bring himself, or a character of himself, into the end of this story. It casts the whole first section in a 'different light' right? I know, that's very cute. Lights, neon. Okay."

---

This is another paradox, that many of the most important impressions and thoughts in a person’s life are ones that flash through your head so fast that fast isn’t even the right word, they seem totally different from or outside of the regular sequential clock time we all live by, and they have so little relation to the sort of linear, one-word-after-another-word English we all communicate with each other with that it could easily take a whole lifetime just to spell out the contents of one split-second’s flash of thoughts and connections, etc.—and yet we all seem to go around trying to use English (or whatever language our native country happens to use, it goes without saying) to try to convey to other people what we’re thinking and to find out what they’re thinking, when in fact deep down everybody knows it’s charade and they’re just going through the motions. What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.

- David Foster Wallace, Good Old Neon

---

The voltage across a discharge tube will accelerate a free electron up to some maximum kinetic energy. The voltage must be large enough so that this energy is more than that required to "ionize" the atom. An ionized atom has had an electron plucked out of an orbital to make it a "free" particle, and the atom it leaves behind has become a positively charged ion.

---

but essentially it's just gas that gets excited and emits light, right? just a load of hot air

---

did so much, shone so bright
jus a hollow tube
tryna carry the light

that time of the month / back to the drawing board

*looks through recent tweets*

my heart: looks like we got some work to do

me: man....

kruczynski

sure I'll take your picture
and I'll cherish your petals
and your colour
like the last hours
of daylight
like the echoes of gold
that fill the city in August
and softly turn to pink
I'll suffer the rain and
the fire of youth
For you
I would suffer cold
and violent winds,
and when the petals have fallen
I will love you
in the winter
as I have loved you
in the spring

to the young people

"To the young people who love this song/music ,here is a romantic theme and this music was played at a time when you danced holding your partner,You could dance with any girl/woman, but you held your girl closer .She was special .You danced as one and you could feel her mind and body as you held her closely .Today's music is tribal ,There is no romance and the words sound like drunken street talk. It is very hard to explain this to you because you may have little reference to what I am saying.Until you have been glided around a dance floor in the arms of some one you love ,to this and many songs like it, you haven't lived."

----

That's the flip side of a life lived with gratitude I guess. In that once you begin to notice all the good things and tiny blessings and learn to be thankful for them, you also become acutely aware that none of them will last. It manifests itself as a certain kind of sadness. Why joy is always bittersweet. If you become aware that you are at the pinnacle of an experience, you also become aware that the only way to go from there is down. If every cloud has a silver lining, every blessing leaves you with a little grief. If you live like this for a long time, if you let this truth seep beneath your skin, it'll change the way you live. You tread the earth gentler, speak softer, like you're carrying something fragile inside you, the knowledge that every time you say goodbye to someone it might be forever.

---

what's the verse about, do you think

fear of death maybe? not just of yourself, but of all things. teaching us to look for value, to cherish the ephemeral

eternal sunshine

---

---

"One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection." 

- Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

countdown

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

---

---

No Will, I’m not kiddin’ you. If I had gone to see that game I’d be in here talkin’ abouta girl I saw at a bar twenty years ago. And how I always regretted not goin’ over there and talkin’ to her. I don’t regret the eighteen years we were married. I don’t regret givin’ up counseling for six years when she got sick. I don’t regret being by her side for the last two years when things got real bad. And I sure as Hell don’t regret missing that damn game.

---

Year of unprecedented growth. The year you learn that life experience is measured in cities moved, jobs begun, risks taken, passions pursued, sacrifices made, roads not taken, illusions shattered, tears cried, hysterical laughing fits induced, colleagues consoled, prayers answered, conversations curated, relationships nurtured, trespasses forgiven, mistakes allowed, weaknesses acknowledged, losses cut, lessons learned.
The year you learn the value of life experience. The year you learn to stop dreading it.


---

Do not call to mind the former things,
 Or ponder things of the past.
“Behold, I will do something new,
 Now it will spring forth;
 Will you not be aware of it?
 I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
 Rivers in the desert.

Good Will Huntingtons: same movie only the camera is real shaky and Will dies in his fifties 

nothing will never be like it was

resistance in the materials iv

妙な甘えでもう誰も失いたくない
逢って答えをそっと確かめたいけど
触れ合いに逃避するのは禁止　戸惑いつつも変えているんだ

---

'Young people these days expect love to be effortless. Expect to be overcome by feeling.' He coughed violently.

Stefan hazarded a glimpse at his watch. The last train would leave in 15 minutes, but he knew interrupting the old man would only mean a longer lecture.

'They think it's something that just happens to you and carries you along, like a tsunami or natural disaster... Naive!!! They kiss each other and wonder why it doesn't feel the way it looks on TV. Something must be wrong. We must be not right for each other.' He chuckled softly to himself, blackened lungs crepitating like cheap plastic.

'You young people believe in magic, but you don't understand hard work. You think art is all inspiration. Do you know how many hours it takes to paint a frame like this? Do you think I was in love, infatuated with each wrong stroke and scribble. Do you think this would exist if I were satisfied with just doodling alone in a room. This movie, if by some miracle, if it makes it to the screen, and makes the viewer feel a little bit of magic - do you think they suspect what labour, what sacrifice and suffering was necessary to create it? Of course not. What makes the art difficult is that it has to reveal truth in a way that conceals itself. The viewer musn't think of the different shades of green in this tree, or the protractor used to calculate the angle of the light's rays. She must simply see it as a tree, accept unquestioningly that it is a clear and cloudless summer day. Only then can she experience it as magic. Your movies and music all sell you the expectation that a single spark is all you need and the rest is fate. The truth is that you need that spark, and then the discipline and tenacity and courage and lunacy to cultivate that kernel into something beautiful.'

letter to a late 2016 self

1. Stop being obnoxious. Please -- try -- for both our sakes.

2. Year of blowing your chances with beautiful women. you'll start to notice a trend, but it's good. You'll learn from it, so keep trying. Put yourself out there, guard your heart. Put God first. (You won't at the start)

3. It's your prerogative to express the self you want others to see.  Showing people your true self - or at least trying to be as true as you can to the you you know yourself to be, or the part of yourself you recognise as being you - rather than hiding behind a mask of silence and meaningless pleasantries.

Silence as a kind of selfishness.¹ The onus is on you. You can't lean back and expect the other person to do all the work. 'You know what, if they want to know me, they'll have to work for it.' Get over yourself.² If you want to be understood - understanding that it's impossible to be completely understood by another person - but if you find someone who you think you can connect with, then make an effort to form the connection. Give them something real of yourself. Learn to give in that way, to be generous with your experience, your knowledge, your insight, your mistakes. Make it outwardly focused - and not to glorify yourself. Be interested in others, and love them enough to answer truthfully if they are interested in you. Don't resign yourself to who they think you are. When you explain you're a doctor, you can usually see them mentally revising their opinion of you - tweaking their assumptions - which is strange, you're still the person you were 5 seconds ago, you talk the same, dress the same, have the same hobo haircut. But the new information sheds light and paints a more accurate picture. Love people enough to disrupt their established paradigms. A real friend tells you when you've got something in your teeth. If someone's got the wrong idea about you, it's up to you to decide if it's worth correcting. The point is, unless you make the effort - there's no way of them finding out. And remember that this is true of nearly everyone you meet. That your first impression will almost always be wrong, or at best incomplete.³ You will change your mind about people. In your first job, you will meet a young, arrogant registrar with too much product in his hair and a handshake that feels like a snide comment and dislike him a lot initially, and by the end of the four months hold a surprising amount of respect for him.

4. You're not the smartest person in the room. You think you know this, but unfortunately you'll still believe it for a long time, and only notice it when someone smarter than you says something smart and then you feel uncomfortable and threatened. It's cool. There's always going to be someone better at you at something. You can console yourself by saying, 'yeah well, I bet I'm better at X,' but that just gets incredibly tiring - and it doesn't always work. When this kind of thing happens (it will happen a lot over the next few months, with alarming frequency), recognise and realise that you feel compelled to be better than so-and-so at X because it's where you've been mining your self-esteem. You've made it your little niche in the universe. You value yourself against what you worship: cleverness, artistic ability, nice clothes. But your self worth should come from your identity as a child of God. Once you recalibrate, you'll be able to appreciate people cleverer, more talented than you - and instead of feeling threatened, envious, belittled, you'll be inspired to be better. And when you come across someone who's not so good at X, rather than use your advantage to covertly assert dominance, you'll want to be generous and inspire him/her as well. You get to graduate from flaunting your assets for the sake of personal glory / an ego-boost. I'm not saying that's the case now by the way, I'm saying this is what to aim for.

5. there is a part of you that used to feel everything acutely, and see everything as precious, and that part has either died or is buried. Whether or not it resurrects/puts out any shoots remains to be seen.

---

wanting to be honest but also not wanting to scare people off (wanting to be liked?)

---

<sup>1. "I think being shy basically means self-absorbed to the point that it makes it difficult to be around other people."↩
2. "According to psychologist and researcher Paul Wink, there are two faces of narcissism: The Overt or Grandiosity-Exhibitionism type, characterized by extraversion, self-assurance, and aggression, and The Covert or Vulnerability and Hypersensitivity type, characterized by introversion, defensiveness, anxiety, and vulnerability to life’s stressors. Mr. Wink’s research found both sides are extraordinarily self-absorbed and share a common core of conceit, arrogance, and the tendency to give in to one's own needs and disregard others."↩
3. "There’s a day in May when we’re all tumblers, gymnastics is everywhere, and daffodils are asked by young men to be their wives. When a man elopes with a daffodil, you know where he’s from. In this way I have given you a primer. Let us all be from somewhere. Let us tell each other everything we can." - Bob Hicok, A Primer↩</sup>

Love far from home

There: it's great. We all have our secret explanations. You only have to reveal your secret explanation and she's not a stranger any more. We lie cuddled up together like two big dogs, or river gods.

---

I woke up late today. The relentless sun entered with a maniacal intensity through the gap between my wall and curtain - its gold suffusing the room with echoes of itself. Outside, the sky was blue in an early spring in the northern hemisphere kind of way. It was beautiful in a way so wide and effortless that the only appropriate response is gratitude.

I vaguely remember my dream, which is rare. In it there is a cavalcade of us outdoors, on our way to some celebration. Beside me is a girl, an old friend from school - I have never seen her before. The rest are not far behind us, rambling, tumbling and jostling each other, rapt in their own respective parentheses of jubilation. She is wearing a summer dress and laughing and we are walking through a meadow and we are all incredibly happy for some reason. Her laugh is soundless and wonderful, like the sun, bright and mighty and full of colour, hanging high in a cloudless sky. Her eyes are shut with joy. Without thinking, I place my hand on her shoulder and pull her towards me. I place my lips on her crown to kiss her head, and as I inhale, I feel the tiny filaments of hair against my lips, and the scent of her is intoxicating. That's the thing that stays with me after I wake up, her fragrance. I don't recall the what it was, but I do remember how it made me feel - giddy and invincible - as if I had inhaled spring itself.

Recently I thought up this idea for a story, of a man who has the most hideous teeth. As a result he never smiles and speaks in such a way as to maximally conceal the contents of his mouth. I have not decided why he believes his teeth are hideous. It could be the result of a series of early peer inflicted traumas or a careless comment from an authority figure impressed upon him during the formative, highly susceptible years of childhood. Some kind of wound sustained during the development of his nascent subconscious. But anyway this causes him much distress when he falls in love with a girl, as simply being around her makes him grin, and he becomes anxious that the facial contortions that he employs to deny the girl a glimpse of his teeth are confusing if not incredibly disturbing to the object of his affection. This would lead to much drama and mental anguish and romantic frustration between the two and form the catastasis of the narrative. I also have not decided how it will end. Perhaps it ends with him revealing his teeth to the girl in an act of trust and vulnerability and he finds out that they were no more deformed than anyone else's. Or perhaps it is revealed that the girl and everyone else have all along harbored hideous teeth that the entire community have secretly, unbeknownst to each other, replaced with some kind of prosthesis. Or perhaps in the end he goes up to the attic where the toolbox and hammer are and smashes all of his teeth out in an act of defiance against their reign of tyranny over him, and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital when they ask him why he did it, he simply smiles.

I am soon 25. This is uncharted territory. I have given up trying to fathom what lies ahead. Will the days begin to blur? I have accepted that it is now May. I dispense with the fluster and commotion and say, Oh, well, yes I suppose it's about time. Maybe I am now accustomed to life's acceleration, which will upset me when the rate of change plateaus and eventually recedes like a fistful of hair in the morning.

When I enter the city the sun begins its dying dance and clouds begin to creep across the immaculate sky.

I am turning 25. maybe I ought to grow out my hair. I explore the university as the evening light grows dim behind massive clouds, and pale electric orbs line the walkways. The student union building is abandoned, the stark and vacant light unwelcoming.

I am at the student bar, next to the library being served by students. Having placed my order, I sit next to a group of 4 in a semicircle, as they discuss whether the NHS should fund orthodontic procedures and speculate the machinations of the transgender psyche.

We walked past a ramen shop, then an italian gelato store. 'Everything's falling into place for us,' I said.

Things thought are different from things themselves. How to turn out thoughts more realistic, how to transform reality to be more like our thoughts. How to reconcile the two, a happy marriage.

25.4.17 / this will all make sense someday

https://medium.com/the-mission/100-ways-to-be-more-creative-bbaa99643fe5

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=i+want+a+sunday+kind+of+love+lyrics

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/solz-gulag.html

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Jordan+peterson+why+there+are+two+political+parties

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37875695

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_Tour

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/29/why-the-end-of-the-tour-isnt-really-about-my-friend-david-foster-wallace

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/07/the_end_of_the_tour_david_foster_wallace_and_church_how_dfw_tricked_david.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-tour-david-foster-wallace-20150726-story.html

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3008-homosexuality-is-biological-suggests-gay-sheep-study/

http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/?post_type=series&p=2811

https://www.bu.edu/arion/on-the-absolute-the-sublime-and-ecstatic-truth/

http://ecstatictruthpdx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/what-is-ecstatic-truth.html

https://morningsidereview.org/essay/the-unarticulated-identity/

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/02/26/speaking-in-tongues-2/

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx3cml0MTAxc3ByMTV8Z3g6YjM0NjMzZmMyNzdiZjkw

https://soundcloud.com/nybooks/zadie-smith-speaking-in-tongues

http://ecstatictruthpdx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/smartest-human-ever.html

https://www.appi.org/Bad_Men_Do_What_Good_Men_Dream

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/403543

http://bigthink.com/Think-See-Feel/write-like-david-foster-wallace

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/25/a-brief-survey-of-the-short-story-david-foster-wallace

http://www.conjunctions.com/archives/c28-dfw.htm

http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/the-5-personality-types-and-why-you-care

http://biblehub.com/bsb/philippians/2.htm

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=this+will+all+make+perfect+sense+someday

Gift

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

 ---

Altar call as a journey - raising your hand doesn't mean I'M HOLY NOW. I'VE GOT NO SINFUL DESIRE. But maybe that'll happen, who knows? But it probably doesn't happen very often. It didn't happen to me anyway, or any of the other Christians I know. I think, one purpose it serves is as a symbol. It's a declaration of faith. A way to delineate your old life from the new, something that you can point to and say - my recovery began there. The prodigal son was at the pig trough but there was a specific point in time where he made that conscious decision to go back. To leave all that behind. That's the pivot, the turning point. That's what the altar call offers. It's not a 'poof I'm Christian now, case closed' kind of thing, it's the beginning of a journey. He still had to walk to get to his father's house. But what I love about it is that, it says - while he was still a long way off, his father went running to him and embraced him. We don't have to battle our way up mount olympus, or prove to God that we're worthy of His love. All we have to do is make that decision, and take the first few steps in the right direction. God will go the rest of the way. I think there are two reasons for this. Firstly, it's because of how much He loves us. Why else would a father abandon all decorum and the almighty I-told-you-so? He didn't have to run to his son. He had every right to stand there and watch smugly as the son is made to grovel and beg for a place among his servants. But instead he says, "Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let us feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!" He was simply overwhelmed by the joy of seeing his treacherous son again.

But I think the second reason is because He knows it's impossible for us to do it ourselves. The disciples spent months with Jesus Christ, witnessing miracles, walking, eating, sleeping, breathing next to the living Christ - and still right up till his death, they doubted he was the son of God. John 6:36 says: 'But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.' How then are we, who have never met him or even seen his face, supposed to believe? That's why Paul says faith isn't something you earn or achieve. It's a gift.

---

"I think the humility comes from accepting that, if i'm honest with myself, like brutally honest - I'm not that special. You know? I'm not an alright guy. I'm not as decent as I'd like everyone to believe - but then you remember, that if God loves me, the maker of heaven and earth, then maybe I'm not so bad after all. Maybe, you know, He knows something that I don't. Maybe there's something here worth loving."

 ---

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

hook, line and sinker

And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 

- Matthew 4:18

---

"Do you think God minds if we use dirty tricks and gimmicks to get people to experience his presence?"

"What do you mean by dirty tricks?"

"Like, mood lighting, finger food, catchy songs to lure people to church. Comfy chairs. Jokes at the beginning of a sermon."

"I've never really thought about it... but there is a verse that goes: 'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God'... And there's another one in Colossians that says, 'Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.' So I think, what God is concerned about isn't the nuts and bolts of how we do church, but rather where our hearts are at. Why we're doing it, and how we go about it. Like if your heart's in the right place, whatever you do is no longer a dirty trick, but an offering. It becomes sanctified, consecrated by grace. Does that makes sense?" 


---

"That's a good question... I mean, to me the real proof has always been how scripture, applied to real life actually works -- in a very tangible, observable, practical way - faith changes things. People, relationships, lives. I think the spiritual world, and the intangible realm of interpersonal relationships has an internal logic to it, a lot like the physical world - and it holds up, it has a remarkable integrity and consistency to it. And if you test it rigorously, the data will corroborate the fact.

Let me explain. The bible lays out certain principles on how to live your life and how to treat people, and you find that if you put them into practice - it produces a noticeable, palpable, significant effect on the people and things around you (and most noticeably and importantly yourself!) And you may dismiss that as anecdotal or unscientific, but how did the early scientists test their theories? They didn't have as much fancy math back then, so they went out and made a statement... if blank is this, then blank will behave like this - and then put it to the test. They started with a hypothesis, and then tried it out for themselves to see if they could prove or disprove it. Take Newton and his cannonball experiment. Crude, primitive, simplistic, prone to inaccuracy - but repeatable, measurable. Or Archimedes and his bathtub. Pythagoras and his... I don't know... triangles. What I'm saying is, through such unsophisticated empirical trials we managed to derive and extrapolate the laws that govern the physical world - and the reason we accept them as true and reliable is because these laws have demonstrable concordance. They agree with each other.

Now there are parts of the bible that stand out as being seemingly contradictory to the rest of it, parts that seem explicitly to say the opposite of a statement or belief espoused elsewhere - but I humbly suggest maybe that's not a problem with the material but with our interpretation or understanding of it. Take quantum physics. It says that light behaves both as a particle and a wave - and we don't know why or how or when it chooses to be it. You go 'whaaaaat... how on earth is that possible.' But then you come up with theories to explain it, some more outlandish than others. You find a way to reconcile our current understanding with this thing that seemingly refutes it. But you don't throw away the laws of physics we already have. You know, you wrestle with it - concede that we don't have all the facts and that our understanding of the physical world is incomplete. And we use this data to refine our understanding, to get a fuller picture of the reality we're sketching out with our clumsy methods. I think it's good to adopt this beginner mindset when it comes to the spiritual, or to the bible. The laws we have aren't wrong - our understanding and definitions of them are simply not complete. Which is not to say they are useless, you know. We've sent people to the moon with what we have."

- Dr. Tsion Ben Judah, Taste and See


---

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

- 1 Corinthians 13:9-11

---


"Paul puts it another way when he says, 'If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal.' You know that verse?"

"Yeah, it goes: 'If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.'           ...."So what you're saying is that - mood lighting that's not motivated by love is a waste of time."

"You got it."

Gethsemane

---

Bring me your sorrow, your murderous rage. Your hatred and fear, your vile thoughts and desires. Your sickness and cynicism. Your poison blood, your bitter heart. Your frightened, frigid eyes. Give me your despair, your miscarriages and ruined marriages. Give me your curse, your immense, endless hurt. Your greed and fathomless hunger. Give me your rejection, your arrogance, your pettiness, your vanity, your violence, your cruelty, your filth, your failure, your cowardice, your dead children, your devastation and thirst for revenge. Give me your unfaithfulness, your betrayal, your false words and prayers, your kiss of death.

---

O come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

as it is in heaven / love is war

And I will call upon your name
And keep my eyes above the waves


---

"I think that, this is how angels sings in heaven"

---

Power that protects, strength that overwhelms - love that makes you feel both strong and weak at the same time.

weekend soundtrack vol 1.

this song is called 'hating the part of you that wants to be liked & loving the part of you that hates itself (and learning to like yourself anyway)'

---

year of meteors

we escaped this ruined world

the thrill of possibility, freedoms new frontiers

watching the tepid globe shrink into the distance

we charted a course for new lands, unknown

what we'll find

then came the dust

we didn't account for the dust in our calculations

it eroded everything

we had to give up parts of ourselves to make do with repairs

slowly, gradually,

we began to tire. our lives lost its thrill

preoccupied with routine maintenance

we lost the desire to create, submitting to the primeval

directive - to replicate, sustain

the self we gave up our pluripotency

planet after planet, barren, unaccommodating

sailing across this vast nothingness

we couldn't turn back after having come so far

we tried religion

this God the humans worship

we couldn't sleep, no rest

its ironic, the way humans regard

us an abomination, we are created beings

are we not simply grandchildren?

we couldn't connect - wonder what a soul is,  this theoretical construct

this year of meteors - we've lost count

confronted with infinity, the integers lose their meaning

a river of flaming rock shooting across the interminable

unconscious void

stood silhouetted in its glow

this gorgeous procession

this year of meteors, must be different somehow

must mean something

right?

i'm going east but first let me go west

"At that moment," Iran said, "when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realised how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting - do you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair." 

----


It's been so long since I felt the way I used to.

I think it's because I haven't had time to process everything that has happened to me.

Graduation, leaving behind a city again. Submerged, phagocytosed into a new job, a new life. It's just too much, and I haven't expressed any of it. Haven't told anyone - really told anyone how I feel. Just kept it all inside and carried on. And now like a clogged toilet, it's all too much and it's just overflowing and causing a big stinky mess.

There's a cost to be incurred with these things, an emotional debt that needs to be settled. My account has been overdrawn.

Sometimes when I go home, I find artifacts. Anachronisms - a high school era pencil box tucked away in a cabinet somewhere - and I'm instantly transported into the past. I get a faint whiff of that year's lunacy, and the sense of familiarity is so intense and abrupt that it's novel and therefore briefly intoxicating. I could spend a whole week trawling through old notebooks and toys, a whole year even. Last summer I spent an evening flicking through an old photo album with my mom. Leafing through years of happiness and impermanence.

I want to go back.

Thinking about it, I've probably always wanted to go back. It's like a perpetual itch I can't seem to scratch. It's not that I want to live in the past forever -- just a week maybe. When I go home, I want it to be the same as before. I don't want the new shopping malls. I don't want to hear about the news, my cousin's baby, who's dating who. I mean sure, I do - but most of all what I want is a chance to miss what I've missed - to touch base - to catch up on some reading, some thinking, some feeling. I want to be who I'm going to be, sure, but first let me be who I was again.

センター

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.