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it was new year’s eve, and i had fried rice sort of the way my family does it, with tofu and wantons and curry and tangyuen and this is not quite the same chinese new year meal i’ve had in the past, but these are various family dishes of people (temporarily) without one and for one night we are a family whole and complete in its fragmentation.
now is new year’s morning, the night is silent, there is no tv programme of cheesy chinese countdown shows playing, no revelry downstairs by the pool (of the home that i am not at), no father and mother curled up in bed with you complaining about the awful styling the celebrities have used this year. the room i’m in is not pink, the air seems far too cold, but i will curl up on familiar sheets (with unfamiliar washing powder smells) in a hwa chong t-shirt and hwa chong shorts, and i will for this night only, dream this room pink.
5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. … 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
– Colossians 3:5-14
it feels apt that yesterday’s sinfest strip was this.
(i have to stop being a nutjob, really, i must.)
as a sidenote, attn: the man other than the man– do you own If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! or any of sheldon kopp’s other books?
i suppose there’s a lesson in all of this, to be alone for ten awful days, to deal with the problem of solitude. and to know that at least when you don’t have human contact, you won’t have to deal with the pettiness and the messiness and nasty squelchy feelings that complicate life incessantly and at least in the silence there is nothing that is going to let you down.
i suppose all this is horribly memememisery, but you can’t help feeling a bit depressed about the whole thing. maybe this is the point where i’m supposed to cry but i can’t anymore, i think. maybe there isn’t any real sadness in this anymore, just anger, and this anger is the sort of black blank rage of yesteryear where you didn’t really care anymore (or to be precise, didn’t want to care and wished you didn’t) and you want to hurl things and yell but they don’t make the tears come out any better. it’s a silent silent wail that’s building up in your ear that makes you want to tear out the floorboards, and yell “here lies his hideous beating heart!” but the noise is, of course, coming from you. and you know it.
and that’s why you can’t make it stop.
i should really be asleep now, but i feel i need to work this out slowly:
1) you’re not all that special. it’s not all about you. it’s not all about attention or popularity or fame (hurhur)
2) you don’t need to compare yourself with other people. they don’t matter. they have their own path, and you have yours and you should stop trying to compete with others because a) you can’t always win, and b) it’s apples and oranges
3) you will stop overthinking how people judge you. they don’t matter. as long as you know you have not done anything less than honourable , or nasty, or mean… you are not defined by how other people view you
4) you will submit
5) and stop throwing tantrums
i don’t know what happened, and i can’t put my finger on it, but maybe something’s died in the course of things, and everything is broken, irreparably so and nothing can quite piece it back together again. it’s been a good ride, but i suppose there had to come a time when bye bye became the new hello.
everything on this blog has become about ends and conclusions lately, and it’s not a good or a bad thing, just a sad thing. everything finishes everything horribly mutable and fragile and transient and it will all end everything everything it just depends on who walks out on who first.
once again, it looks so simple and obvious what this blog entry is about, but don’t jump to conclusions, we don’t want you to hit your head.
[/cryptic]
perhaps sometimes the con job is getting too big, and all these pretences, they don’t mean anything anymore. there used to be a thrill, a buzz, knowing that they believed and that meant that maybe you could believe too because they made it real. but that’s the problem now, isn’t it? it’s real, and you can’t walk away from it anymore even when you know that all these worries and lead weights and frets and problems and happiness are just fictions. all pretence, all a meta-spectacle. but what to do now? they’ve believed you so far, you can’t let them down, the job has gotten too big for any of you to handle. you can’t stop the denouement anymore, all you can do is just take your place in the machinery spinning the same old lies, and when it all falls apart you will take the winnings and you will run away from their silks and their petty lines till they are a nothing to you either. and then, then you can finally step-
-off.
i don’t want to say what i really feel because saying it makes it real and definite and unescapable and then there’ll be no turning back from it but there’s a slight twinge (just maybe tangible enough for it to leave that slight sour taste on the back of the tongue) and sometimes i don’t know what i really want or perhaps, what i really need. maybe all this in this place 6700 miles away from home has been pretence, i am not this person, and i never will be, no matter what any of you think.
[/cryptic] and i know it seems like it’s obvious what it’s about… but it’s really not.
on other news, just heard from my mom that a family friend’s blood vessel just burst and he’s now brain dead. the doctors have given up doing anything.
strange thing, isn’t it, this life?
hey all! am connected, but in vienna right now, and new year’s here is absolutely amazing. :) at the stroke of midnight, they started playing the blue danube and everyone just spontaneously waltzed in the streets. there were also ‘waltzing areas’ which played waltzes non-stop and people could just pop in to dance. it’s really cool :D
i suppose i should post some looking back on 2005 post now, but i have no time to sit down and slowly word a heavy post like that. i’d like to say that i’ll be able to type one when i get back, but by then the new year won’t be new and clean and fresh anymore so there won’t really be a point anymore, eh? just… i suppose 2005 has been a year of change and upheaval and like what cui says, so much has happened you can’t believe it all happened in one single year. there are events that seem like they took place so long ago, even though it’s only been a few months. i made some choices this year, and good or bad or horrifyingly terrible i have to live with them no matter what and that is the price of free will, is it not?
a happy new year to all. -hugs-
