Hello, what's your name?
Stephen.
Ah! Welcome to Korea. Where are you from?
America.
USA! Do you swim here every day?
Not every day. Three times per week.
Three times, one week. Yes. Are you a good swimmer?
I'm okay.
Have you mastered the four swimming styles?
I never learned the butterfly stroke.
Butterfly stroke?
Like this (make motion).
Ah! Butterfly stroke. Why?
Because it's stupid.
I feel myself becoming more and more detached from the present, as though it is merely a passageway between my beginning and whatever I'm heading towards. My life is so much more habitual than it ever has been. I just lift my head from time to time to make sure I'm doing whatever it was I decided months ago was important for me to do.
I am teaching.
I am showering.
I am at the pool.
I am drinking coffee.
I am going to sleep.
I am waking up.
Everything else is all blurs. Colored ribbons of light an motion that guide my way. I dare not even name them. I am waiting for the future to land on top of this present and squash it dead. In the meantime...
I am going to sleep.
21.3.11
A Gentle Cup of Mutual Surrender (It's from a song)
The rain seems to drive certain things out of people. I myself have an affinity for coffee shops and sitting indoors, watching the people outside, shielded from the whining midmorning sky by their individual canopies; inclined to share the translucent gleam of their world with anyone for whom there is the slightest recollection, so close. Would their bodies touch up against each other, and does that make them smile?
Everyone?
Even the elderly, who have experienced touch in every form? Does the body ever tire of warm living thing pressed up against warm living thing, with no answer to the question of repetition? Is the world a romantic?
The sky.
It seems like she is crying for the love inexperienced, for the one umbrella per person, negating the outward necessity for warm against warm. But, we are all filled with the same as rain on the inside, and our bodies will be cold at the end.
It's raining here, in this place that will always be the other side of the world, though that is impossible. I do not grow tired of seeing small umbrellas, two underneath, without enough room to stand apart.
Everyone?
Even the elderly, who have experienced touch in every form? Does the body ever tire of warm living thing pressed up against warm living thing, with no answer to the question of repetition? Is the world a romantic?
The sky.
It seems like she is crying for the love inexperienced, for the one umbrella per person, negating the outward necessity for warm against warm. But, we are all filled with the same as rain on the inside, and our bodies will be cold at the end.
It's raining here, in this place that will always be the other side of the world, though that is impossible. I do not grow tired of seeing small umbrellas, two underneath, without enough room to stand apart.
20.3.11
The Checking Habit
I didn't weigh myself at the pool today. They have a fancy scale in the locker room right after the showers, and you can stand naked on it, because everyone in the locker room is naked. That way you don't have to feel guilty about the wieght from wearing clothes.
Clothes don't count anyway. Everyone knows we have skin underneath.
I wanted to weigh myself, but I didn't. Sometimes I think progress comes faster when you keep checking back. Sometimes I check my Facebook more than 10 times a day, just to see if anyone has told me that I'm brilliant yet.
But I've only checked it 4 times today. Maybe I should check again.
Today, I didn't weigh myself. Tomorrow I won't find out if I'm brilliant. I've just got to trust when I say that it doesn't make anything go faster, besides my patience. I've got to trust before they put me on pills or lock me up somewhere there isn't anything to check up on.
I feel like my good friend Vincent O'Brien. I like to pretend that I'm good friends with fictional characters. It makes me feel like I'm friends with more important people. I think the imaginary people are some of the most important ones. I worry sometimes that I know too many of them.
I wonder also, if I'll ever be able to write without being depressed first. When was the last thing I wrote?
3 months ago.
Sounds about right.
Progress. Checking won't make it faster.
I hope I get myself together soon.
Clothes don't count anyway. Everyone knows we have skin underneath.
I wanted to weigh myself, but I didn't. Sometimes I think progress comes faster when you keep checking back. Sometimes I check my Facebook more than 10 times a day, just to see if anyone has told me that I'm brilliant yet.
But I've only checked it 4 times today. Maybe I should check again.
Today, I didn't weigh myself. Tomorrow I won't find out if I'm brilliant. I've just got to trust when I say that it doesn't make anything go faster, besides my patience. I've got to trust before they put me on pills or lock me up somewhere there isn't anything to check up on.
I feel like my good friend Vincent O'Brien. I like to pretend that I'm good friends with fictional characters. It makes me feel like I'm friends with more important people. I think the imaginary people are some of the most important ones. I worry sometimes that I know too many of them.
I wonder also, if I'll ever be able to write without being depressed first. When was the last thing I wrote?
3 months ago.
Sounds about right.
Progress. Checking won't make it faster.
I hope I get myself together soon.
Spring Cleaning
Hello, my lovely reader(s?). I have been away for a while. I promise, for those of you who really enjoy me unloading all my personal junk in public, I am not done. I've been journalling (they have this new thing called paper, it's weird) and I'm going to upload some stuff more often. Then you will be able to look at my life, and my attitude about said life, and you will be filled with an infinite sense of gratitude that you are not me :)
Coming soon...
Coming soon...
16.1.11
13.1.11
Conspiracy to Suicide
I'm pretty sure my email address is going to kill me.
Not because it's based on a name I gave myself in high school when I used to make things out of duct tape with Devin and Jensen, which may or may not have included a full super hero costume with a logo I emblazoned upon the chest in sharpie.
It's not that.
(perhaps I should forget about "may or may not." There's summer camp video footage floating around somewhere...)
The reason that my email address is going to kill me is because it, along with my Facebook profile, Youtube account, Hulu (before it was blocked in S. Korea), Blogger account (who said that?) and the complete series of Arrested Development that I now own, exists as part of a unified battalion with only two perogatives:
1. Soak up 24 hours.
2. Convince me that I will need them again tomorrow.
Now, I am completely convinced that some form of my subconscious is in league with them to destroy me. You can call me crazy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not right. They are going to wreak havoc on my body, pillage my home, and I'm the one who left the front door unlocked.
Distractions are far more deadly than we give them credit for. I realize that now. I have wasted hours that have become days, that have become weeks, that have become months, that have become years. My entire life is the only thing they have left to take.
I allowed this to happen.
Perhps it's new years that made me aware of what I do with my time. For the last two years, I have made a tradition of evaluating myself and asking where I want to be by the time this year is up. I try to keep my goals reasonable, but it's such an empowering thing to have goals, and I'm usually not near my computer when I do this, so I forget that I am subconsciously conspiring with my massive array of distracting shit to keep me from being effective at anything. This year's goals were lofty, and twice as long as last year's goals because they included all the stuff I never got done from last year. I don't want to list them, because I think that will make me feel accomplished, when in fact, I am not.
The really sad thing is, I really think it is possible to accomplish all of the things I want to accomplish this year, if I can stay focused. In fact, I think it is possible to do even more than what I have in mind. The problem is, it's all a shallow dream if I'm not willing to put in the work that needs to be done.
...and I think I'm not.
I have no idea how many times I check my email in one day. I have a routine. It goes like this.
(1.) Email. look at stuff, respond to a few things, "remember" to go back and finish with the rest.
(2.) Facebook. See if there are any new reminders/postings/comments for me. If not, see what everyone else is doing. Notice that (name of cute girl or old friend) is online. Consider chatting with them. Chicken out.
(3.) Youtube. start with the recommendations. Move on to links in the sidebars of said recommendations. Look up music videos to old songs that I don't really even like enough to own, but just remember from High school.
(4.) Back to Facebook. Post links from said music videos to friend's profiles. Eagerly wait for return comments.
(5.) Email again. Suddenly remember all the emails I have to respond to but forgot. Get new messages. Briefly consider doing something important, like getting some exercize (I put on 2 kg over vacation) or working on that book (I'm supposed to be a brilliant novelist by now) or spending some time reflecting on the Scriptures. Chicken out. Back to number (1).
I have spent days doing this, over and over. That line about reflecting on the scriptures really hit me hard. Is it strange that I call myself Christian while doing nothing to study and understand the life of Christ? I seem to think I know a lot about him, but it's been a while since we've talked.
All the while, I've spent hours that become days, checking and going back, and checking and going back. Evenings reach puberty and become weeks, and gradute into months, and settle down into years, and I'm just praying that I will accomplish an honest days work before retirement.
These things look small and harmless, but they are death, as I understand death to be nothing more than the taking of a life.
And I have conspired to kill myself with them. To fill the room with emptyness, only to be strangled by the hands of nothing. The only thing remaining would be a lifetime of lists: all the things I wanted to be.
The judge will rule not guilty.
Surely it was consentual.
Not because it's based on a name I gave myself in high school when I used to make things out of duct tape with Devin and Jensen, which may or may not have included a full super hero costume with a logo I emblazoned upon the chest in sharpie.
It's not that.
(perhaps I should forget about "may or may not." There's summer camp video footage floating around somewhere...)
The reason that my email address is going to kill me is because it, along with my Facebook profile, Youtube account, Hulu (before it was blocked in S. Korea), Blogger account (who said that?) and the complete series of Arrested Development that I now own, exists as part of a unified battalion with only two perogatives:
1. Soak up 24 hours.
2. Convince me that I will need them again tomorrow.
Now, I am completely convinced that some form of my subconscious is in league with them to destroy me. You can call me crazy, but that doesn't mean that I'm not right. They are going to wreak havoc on my body, pillage my home, and I'm the one who left the front door unlocked.
Distractions are far more deadly than we give them credit for. I realize that now. I have wasted hours that have become days, that have become weeks, that have become months, that have become years. My entire life is the only thing they have left to take.
I allowed this to happen.
Perhps it's new years that made me aware of what I do with my time. For the last two years, I have made a tradition of evaluating myself and asking where I want to be by the time this year is up. I try to keep my goals reasonable, but it's such an empowering thing to have goals, and I'm usually not near my computer when I do this, so I forget that I am subconsciously conspiring with my massive array of distracting shit to keep me from being effective at anything. This year's goals were lofty, and twice as long as last year's goals because they included all the stuff I never got done from last year. I don't want to list them, because I think that will make me feel accomplished, when in fact, I am not.
The really sad thing is, I really think it is possible to accomplish all of the things I want to accomplish this year, if I can stay focused. In fact, I think it is possible to do even more than what I have in mind. The problem is, it's all a shallow dream if I'm not willing to put in the work that needs to be done.
...and I think I'm not.
I have no idea how many times I check my email in one day. I have a routine. It goes like this.
(1.) Email. look at stuff, respond to a few things, "remember" to go back and finish with the rest.
(2.) Facebook. See if there are any new reminders/postings/comments for me. If not, see what everyone else is doing. Notice that (name of cute girl or old friend) is online. Consider chatting with them. Chicken out.
(3.) Youtube. start with the recommendations. Move on to links in the sidebars of said recommendations. Look up music videos to old songs that I don't really even like enough to own, but just remember from High school.
(4.) Back to Facebook. Post links from said music videos to friend's profiles. Eagerly wait for return comments.
(5.) Email again. Suddenly remember all the emails I have to respond to but forgot. Get new messages. Briefly consider doing something important, like getting some exercize (I put on 2 kg over vacation) or working on that book (I'm supposed to be a brilliant novelist by now) or spending some time reflecting on the Scriptures. Chicken out. Back to number (1).
I have spent days doing this, over and over. That line about reflecting on the scriptures really hit me hard. Is it strange that I call myself Christian while doing nothing to study and understand the life of Christ? I seem to think I know a lot about him, but it's been a while since we've talked.
All the while, I've spent hours that become days, checking and going back, and checking and going back. Evenings reach puberty and become weeks, and gradute into months, and settle down into years, and I'm just praying that I will accomplish an honest days work before retirement.
These things look small and harmless, but they are death, as I understand death to be nothing more than the taking of a life.
And I have conspired to kill myself with them. To fill the room with emptyness, only to be strangled by the hands of nothing. The only thing remaining would be a lifetime of lists: all the things I wanted to be.
The judge will rule not guilty.
Surely it was consentual.
10.1.11
Quick and Deep
I'll avoid the obvious "that's what she said" joke, because I think my mom reads my blog now...
Why do I fail?
Is it because I am weak?
quick to regret?
slow to reply?
perhaps, but...
Failure is not
a stumbling block,
sign to stop,
beginning of saying
"I guess I'd be better off..."
Failure is a sign.
Not a red octagon
but a yellow painted
arrowed line.
I fail because I continue
to try.
(how could I possibly fail otherwise?)
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