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?
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Thursday, February 16, 2017
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.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Thursday, December 1, 2016
力 / how to become yourself in 365 simple steps
i tried being an ear for a while, but couldn't quite hack it.
---
"Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink."
- Daniel 1:12
---
1. 1 hour bible study 7am
2. 2 hours medicine 8pm
3. run 30 minutes a week
4. language study 1 hour
5. english / writing 2 hours
6. music 45 minutes
7. game dev 1 hour
8. admin 9am - 9.30am
9. fiction 1 hour
10. news 30 min
11. non-fiction 1 hour
---
a foot desperately trying to become an eye
---
how to stop growing
---
Their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak; They have eyes, but they cannot see; They have ears, but they cannot hear; They have noses, but they cannot smell They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk; They cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
- Psalm 115:4-8
---
... when you reach an age and realise, 'shit there's very little room to change what you are. you're no longer the age where you can differentiate into all kinds of cells. You've lost that pluripotency. That's what it means to invest in yourself. You have to study the market and pick your stock wisely. Time is the currency of life. You know the parable about sowing seed, it's not only about sowing into others. Being ready for the harvest means being prepared, being practical minded, pragmatic, conscientious. God doesn't want lousy stewards. He's not interested in bad businessmen. That's why the parable of the talents scares you.
---
Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.
- Isaiah 2:8
---
what does the word 'sincere' mean to you? what does it mean to work with sincerity. andd integrity.
People will bear weakness, but halfheartedness is not an excuse. How to work wholeheartedly - how to be sincere in your work and give it your all. This is something I have to learn.
Sincerity is about doing the hard work when nobody is looking.
---
how to stop worrying about not being what you're not or what you are and instead focus on becoming what you want to be
---
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
---
to pursue.
follow or chase (someone or something). "the officer pursued the van" synonyms: go after, run after, follow, chase, give chase to
---
how to be a go-getter
---
I just finished an on call with Mr M. Mr M is one of the colorectal consultants and a bloody good doctor. Every so often in your career you meet these paragons of excellence, and you go 'wow... how does someone become that good?' When I grow up I'd be lucky to be even half the doctor he is. That's when it hit me - that's what discipleship is. Holding such a strong admiration for someone that you want to become them. The word disciple isn't used much nowadays - it's been supplanted by 'fan' or 'student', but if you want to be a good doctor, you have to be a disciple first, and choose a good master. Medicine is still an apprenticeship. You do the laundry and housekeeping for the privilege of observing them and assimilating their excellence by osmosis. How to be teachable - involves humbling yourself. Content yourself to writing their words down. That's how you know the mind of a man. By copying, appropriating, possessing his words. The system works. Mr Miyagi, the karate kid. All that cliche truism turns out to be true. Giving 110%. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. It's all true. That there is virtue in the platitude. That sometimes repetition and rote memorisation come before understanding. The concept is as obvious and unpalatable as Donald Trump running for president, and because it's so blatant and patently unappealing we make light of it, brush it off, deny it until it's too late.
---
That's what separates the cream from the rest - some try and do it all on their own strength, and get impressively far - but the best have learned how to learn from others. How to tune out the mesmer of the internal monologue and tune into and understand another person. How to follow someone, instead of trying to lead all the time.
---
Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you refuse to serve my gods or to worship the gold statue I have set up?
- Daniel 3:14
---
"holiness is more than just focusing on other people's pain"
---
but let patience have her perfect work
---
'You'd better leave. You won't make it if you're going to continue like that.'
---
how to take a punch (and then get up again)
---
'that's a cool tattoo'
'Oh god. Please don't tell me it means chicken rice or something like that.'
'It actually means to be patient. Or to endure. See, that one means 'blade', and that one means 'heart' and together it means to persevere.'
---
"Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink."
- Daniel 1:12
---
1. 1 hour bible study 7am
2. 2 hours medicine 8pm
3. run 30 minutes a week
4. language study 1 hour
5. english / writing 2 hours
6. music 45 minutes
7. game dev 1 hour
8. admin 9am - 9.30am
9. fiction 1 hour
10. news 30 min
11. non-fiction 1 hour
---
a foot desperately trying to become an eye
---
how to stop growing
---
Their idols are silver and gold, The work of man's hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak; They have eyes, but they cannot see; They have ears, but they cannot hear; They have noses, but they cannot smell They have hands, but they cannot feel; They have feet, but they cannot walk; They cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
- Psalm 115:4-8
---
... when you reach an age and realise, 'shit there's very little room to change what you are. you're no longer the age where you can differentiate into all kinds of cells. You've lost that pluripotency. That's what it means to invest in yourself. You have to study the market and pick your stock wisely. Time is the currency of life. You know the parable about sowing seed, it's not only about sowing into others. Being ready for the harvest means being prepared, being practical minded, pragmatic, conscientious. God doesn't want lousy stewards. He's not interested in bad businessmen. That's why the parable of the talents scares you.
---
Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.
- Isaiah 2:8
---
what does the word 'sincere' mean to you? what does it mean to work with sincerity. andd integrity.
People will bear weakness, but halfheartedness is not an excuse. How to work wholeheartedly - how to be sincere in your work and give it your all. This is something I have to learn.
Sincerity is about doing the hard work when nobody is looking.
---
how to stop worrying about not being what you're not or what you are and instead focus on becoming what you want to be
---
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
---
to pursue.
follow or chase (someone or something). "the officer pursued the van" synonyms: go after, run after, follow, chase, give chase to
---
how to be a go-getter
---
I just finished an on call with Mr M. Mr M is one of the colorectal consultants and a bloody good doctor. Every so often in your career you meet these paragons of excellence, and you go 'wow... how does someone become that good?' When I grow up I'd be lucky to be even half the doctor he is. That's when it hit me - that's what discipleship is. Holding such a strong admiration for someone that you want to become them. The word disciple isn't used much nowadays - it's been supplanted by 'fan' or 'student', but if you want to be a good doctor, you have to be a disciple first, and choose a good master. Medicine is still an apprenticeship. You do the laundry and housekeeping for the privilege of observing them and assimilating their excellence by osmosis. How to be teachable - involves humbling yourself. Content yourself to writing their words down. That's how you know the mind of a man. By copying, appropriating, possessing his words. The system works. Mr Miyagi, the karate kid. All that cliche truism turns out to be true. Giving 110%. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. It's all true. That there is virtue in the platitude. That sometimes repetition and rote memorisation come before understanding. The concept is as obvious and unpalatable as Donald Trump running for president, and because it's so blatant and patently unappealing we make light of it, brush it off, deny it until it's too late.
---
That's what separates the cream from the rest - some try and do it all on their own strength, and get impressively far - but the best have learned how to learn from others. How to tune out the mesmer of the internal monologue and tune into and understand another person. How to follow someone, instead of trying to lead all the time.
---
Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you refuse to serve my gods or to worship the gold statue I have set up?
- Daniel 3:14
---
"holiness is more than just focusing on other people's pain"
---
but let patience have her perfect work
---
'You'd better leave. You won't make it if you're going to continue like that.'
---
how to take a punch (and then get up again)
---
'that's a cool tattoo'
'Oh god. Please don't tell me it means chicken rice or something like that.'
'It actually means to be patient. Or to endure. See, that one means 'blade', and that one means 'heart' and together it means to persevere.'
hocus pocus
Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
- C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns
---
to think that the darkness you harbor is deeper and darker than anyone else's is an inverted, perverse kind of pride, because if you can't be better than everyone else then at least you get to be superlative in your inferiority
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