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| its peculiar, you know.
goals for the remainder of this tragically skimpy year::
--take the LSAT. started studying Sunday afternoon. so far, fascinating. wondering if i should take a class or not. we'll see. --journey to Japan for two weeks with b-bra. bought a japanese dictionary for my ds. absorb the culture with my belly. find my old haunts and relive those ancient emotions. --read norwegian wood in japanese with aforementioned denshi jisho --research a scooter/motorcycle/bicycle for puttputting around the city --start yoga. get to be more bendy and less breathy on ascension of the stair --move to a new apartment/studio where i can hatch a cat --read seminal archetypes of science fiction genres --seek out social activities (nerd alert)
why am i stuck in a society where apathy is desirable? a nonchalant disregard for people, materials, and events. though the complaint is probably just a mirror of my own antisocial behavior. snobbish disregard seems to be the low bar of cool. excitement is so passé. perhaps its akin to the wanting what you can't have. is this why i am instilling a set schedule for my free time? yes, i'm busy at work, but afterwards I drift through a pleasurable haze of leisure. i feel guilty for reading books and taking naps. in professional circles it seems polite to have the work face and the real face. the japanese honne and tatemae. how do you really feel, and how do you come off? i listen to meetings in earnest rapt attention. and one recent work meeting intoned this: perception is reality. If it seems that way to someone, that is their reality of you. simple words, profound consequences. if you seem carefree, you get shoveled more work. is that why we hem and haw and complain about our busy schedule to all those with ears?
i lately attended a non-profit group's business meeting and was just struck by the carelessness and casual attitudes. like an old dinosaur grandmommy now. back in my day, you see--when i was committed to a cause, to a group, i committed all the way and made myself available, and attended events. not only was i living my word, it was fun, or i made it fun, for me. but now i just feel disenchanted with what people do exactly in their every days. when i contemplate the behavior of People, i just want to shirk it all and escape into novels and mental meanderings.
perception...do you ever really know anyone? the best conversations i've had are always just me and (you), two people afloat in a soliptic universe where we justify our existence with the esteem of ideas and the insistence in words. you are you and me is me. all talks all books seek that one-to-one connection where you pluck a heart string and hear it vibrate inside your chest. thats what i really want. probably what everyone wants. a crashing orchestra of pulsing beats that reverberate endlessly and ceaselessly and echo back all the time | | |
| A Fool's LifeRyunosuke Akutagawa
7. Painting All at once he was struck. Standing in front of a bookshop looking at a collection of paintings by Van Gogh, it hit him. This was painting. Of course, these Van Goghs were merely photo reproductions. But even so, he could feel in them a self rising intensely to the surface.
The passion of these paintings renewed his vision. He saw now the undulations of a tree's branching, the curve of a woman's cheek.
One overcast autumn dusk outside the city he had walked through an underpass. There at the far side of the embarkment stood a cart. As he walked by he had the feeling that somebody had passed this way before him. Who?--There was for him no longer need to question. In his twenty-three year old mind, an ear lopped off, a Dutchman, in his mouth a long stemmed pipe, on the sullen landscape set piercing eyes.
17. Butterfly In wind reeking of duckweed, a butterfly flashed. Only for an instant, on his dry lips he felt the touch of the butterfly's wings. But years afterward, on his lips, the wings' imprinted dust still glittered.
34. Color Thirty years old, he had for some time been in love with a vacant lot. A ground of moss, on it broken bricks, fragments of roof tile. But in his eyes a landscape by Cezanne.
He remembered his passions of seven or eight years ago. That seven or eight years ago he hadn't understood color, he realized now.
* * *
it strikes me now, the florid passion i had for japanese literature. secretive almost...the constant joy of rereading these old texts, imagining the faraway life of a pen dripping ink and emotion. the impressions surpass time and language and oceans to be transmitted to my little mind. i still remember clutching my photocopied extracts to my chest, overwhelmed by the inclusive solipsist world whereby history existed for Akutagawa to write, and he wrote this for me to read here and now. and yet such genius always seems to come at a price. Akutagawa committed suicide at the age of 35, after an increasingly severe depression. i wonder what sacrifice is necessary to cultivate such depth.
he captures the shifting dynamics of maturing realization with such pith. the years-lasting moment that is crystallized and replayed not with visual clarity, but emotional memory. a fool's life, an autobiography in 51 minute vignettes. after 35 years, this is what sticks out for him. ah...
will i ever inspire such hushed awe in some person halfway around the world? i think that is the single goal that i hope to aspire to with each breath in and little thought out. clarity brevity acuity. | | |
| sweet maui ocean lean my head on his shoulder simple bliss floats on
:) | | |
| Oda al olor de la leña by Pablo Neruda
Tarde, con las estrellas
abiertas en el frío
abrí la puerta.
El mar
galopaba
en la noche.
Como una mano
de la casa oscura
saliò el aroma
intenso
de la leña guardada.
Visable era el aroma
como
si el árbol
estuviera vivo.
Como si todavía palpitara.
Visible
como una vestidura.
Visible
como una rama rota.
Anduve
adentro
de la casa
rodeado
por aquella balsámica
oscuridad.
Afuera
las puntas
del cielo cintilaban
como piedras magnéticas
y el olor de la leña
me tocaba
el corazòn
como unos dedos,
como un jazmín,
como algunos recuerdos.
No era el olor agudo
de los pinos,
no,
no era
la ruptura en la piel
del eucaliptus,
no eran
tampoco
los perrumes verdes
de la viña,
sino
algo más secreto,
porque aquella fragancia
una sola,
una sola
vez existía,
y allí, de todo lo que vi en el mundo,
en mi propia
casa, de noche, junto al mar de invierno,
allí estaba esperándome
el olor
de la rosa más profunda,
el corazòn cortado de la tierra,
algo
que me invadiò como una ola
desprendida
del tiempo
y se perdiò en mí mismo
cuando yo abrí la puerta
de la noche.
* * *
Neruda and I have known that same memory cherished. those fragrant thoughts of sensual impressions that bear the brunt of recording that moment. when you sniff the air and recall yourself a million miles away, a thousand years ago, and you're right then and there. nighttime jasmine... | | |
| another day, another year.
my wikipedia article (some day) will read how I worked as an engineer for a few years, moved to another country and opened a jazz bar, was wonderfully poor and escaping from the government, wrote a piddling piece for cash and launched myself into a writing career from these inauspicious beginnings at a ripe age of 36.
only a few more years before i disengage from modern reality.
i feel like i'm standing at the edge, holding on, getting ready, repositioning myself, psyching my brain, fidgeting, and then one day i'll just let go, and drift on the winds, the solar rays, the easy waves and float. a feeling of weightlessness will envelop me and i'll be free from the confines of all the sweaty palms holding me back.
i need to remember why i'm here why why here here now and then | | |
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