the paradox, cont.

Ok, here is something that I desperately needed to learn but only began to realize now: you can’t change people. They are who they are and the only choice you have is whether to love them, or move on.

I used to believe that communication (or demands) can change a person’s behavior, but the crucial—and the only—difference is that now the person will simply tell you what they are, instead of changing it.

I fought against this inevitable truth for a long time, but it’s kind of liberating, in a way, to know that this is your only job. To decide if someone is good for you, if there’s something there worth staying for, or to cut your losses and move on before—as life’s cruelties will inevitably have it—getting hurt.

It’s also kind of sad, with millions of years of human history behind us, with the benefits of progress staring us in the face; we invariably turn our backs to the past, and choose, against all wisdom of our predecessors, to not change. To stand still, stubbornly waiting for someone else to accept our imperfections. And the tragedy here is not our childish tenacity, but the fact that it’s so hard—so hard—to accept someone else’s.

Here is the paradox all over again, the self-loathing mingled with pride. Only this time, the irony weighs heavily upon the world, and becomes universal, too great to laugh at, yet too ordinary to be seen.

**

mirror

Why is it that we can never believe in our potential?

We see so much of it in other people, sometimes exalting in it, sometimes envious of it, sometimes thinking they don't deserve it, but rarely do we see it in ourselves.

And the way we look for validation? From wanting what we can never have, so that we inevitably fail.

Sometimes I think there's so much loneliness in the world, because we look right through what we can have for what we know we cannot.

Sometimes it's a miracle that we get past our egos to form the connections we want at all.

It's such an odd mix, self-disdain and pride.

**

detachment

What is more sad, that fact that there's always a fight close to my departure or the fact that I do not seem to care? I wonder if this is observed by them, and causes a sort of disturbance.

I used to waver between never wanting children, to making detailed notes in my dairy of what not to do when it came to my own daughter. All in fear of becoming my mother. I saw, with trepidation, that parts of my temperament exactly mirrored hers. In ways of destruction, in lashing out at the people around us, in the almost savage enjoyment of shattering everything, and most of all, in our pride. Our unmovable, insurmountable, self-destructive pride, which towered over everything else, and bullied them into obeying its tyrannical will. And what's more, I took from my mother to view anything less with contempt, as weak and pathetic. Usually in the form of my father.

Now that I'm older, I see that I am not exactly like the one before me. That I am made of something more temperate. I came to this understanding with almost unbelieving relief, fearful at any moment that I should discover myself wrong, and back to the chains of blood that runs through my veins, and her veins, and the veins of all the strong, stubborn women before us, capable of great ambition and great ruin. Like the ocean, my mother was never one to be tranquil, she was magnificent in what she could dream of, magnificent in what she achieved, and magnificent in her rage.

But now that I have made my discovery, I could understand, even sympathize with my mother. And I know, (though I don't know how I know), that I could not have done this had I still believed I would turn out to be exactly like her. It is only after I was able to distinguish myself that I could attempt to unveil my prejudice.

This seems distubingly ironic, why is it that I cannot tear my dislike away when I thought myself exactly like the person I had such terrible dislike for? Was it because I saw them in myself that I hated her flaws so much? When I thought of all the anger I felt toward her rage, was it mingled with fear that I myself possessed such a quality?

And most of all, why is it that we can only understand and love a person when we detach her from ourselves? Are we, (am I), so incapable of loving and understanding my own person?

**

Riding beside the pacific

The first few times I went to the ocean, I thought, what's the big deal? This is what everyone talks about?

But the more I come here the more I know. And the more I'm away the more I understand.

**

pause, rewind, please

What the hell is wrong with me?

I can't believe I've never learned.

Why do I go after the people who won't give me what I want, instead of the people who will?

Why do I build up illusions, believe them, and crumple into an insecure mess when they shatter before my eyes?

Why am I so idiotic??????????????????

Why can't I take responsibility for what I do, and what I know I will do? Is there such a disconnection between the present me and the future one?

How can I allow myself to detach like that?

struggles

I'm just going to write, I'm going to write until there's no more in me, and right now, up to this point, there's a lot in me.

I don't know how this quarter reverted back to this dark moodiness. And by reverted, I mean I went back to the introspective period of my life. The first years of high school when I was never more alone, more creative, more observant, more poetic.

Poetic beauty. That's what I thought of when I looked outside the moving bus window shutting to Midway. Through my darkened lenses, it struck me as tragic. But at the same time, there was something new in going backwards, I never considered myself as beautiful the first time around. I never saw it as beauty. Now that I've come out of it, and Now that I've been reminded of what it was like, this is the term that comes to mind. And just to be clear, the beauty refers not to a physical sort, not even an intellectual sort, and perhaps "emotional" does not even cover it, maybe it's of a personal sort, for the lack of a better word.

At the same time, I do not want to revert personally. It was a dark chapter, I refuse, I refuse to go back it. I dragged myself out of it and I refuse to go back in, yes, there is some sort of artistic quality, but I forsake it, I forsake it for the pursuit of happiness. I choose to be fulfilled externally rather than internally. There are some who wish for the opposite, but I always felt like I was settling. Even then, I was not ok on my own, I was settling because there was no other way. And though I reaped some unexpected results from it, it's not a state I wish to go back to.

Writing that, I realize painfully how much it sounds like denial. Is it out of my control? Can I save myself from what I perceive as a whirlpool? Shall I surrender myself to it only to realize it is not as bad as I imagined, but instead a magical place? There was some sort of magic to it, I suppose.

Likewise, there was magic in those careless days, when I plunged into things with reckless abandon, no thoughts attached. My actions hurtled forward, leaving my trailing thoughts choking in dust. Internally, I could not process it all.

Perhaps this is the difference. I was either too slow to process the happenings, or I processed too much. Saw too much in the smallest movements.

I'm very sensitive, not in that easily hurt sense (though certainly in that way too), but I am so easily affected by what sensory details are provided me. The certain note of a familiar melody. The way a forlorn petal crumples on the concrete. The arrangements of clouds in the distance. But at the same time, the innocent use of a word, the careless moment of forgetfulness, the angry words muttered in a fit of rage. These are all engrained. Like the fight I saw when I was little. I can still hear the bowl clashing to the ground. The shouts. See the tears streaming down. The stare. The streams openly flowing. The feeling of whether to do something. Whether to still sit there. What to do. The feeling of hopelessness.

I suppose this is something I must deal with always, and learn to overcome. For I feel many things of the world and cling to them, feel them on my shoulders. Feel my lack of power over any of it. What anyone says of me I swallow up and mold myself to fit it, without consciousness. How is it that I only absorb, without filter, without discrimination, so intellectually able to analyze it all, but so unable to accept them, reject them, change them, learn from them, so unable to take an active part in the process.

I suppose this comes back to the previous point. What is it that I despised so much about that darkened period? It is my passiveness. Everyone loves the rosy petal flowing downstream, but no one wants be it. I want to be the branch that is able to grow that petal, unchanged in its essence when one falls off. I can no longer be satisfied with observing the world as it passes, I must jump into it now.

By doing so, I risk entering subjectivity, prejudices, foolishness, ignorance. But is it better to be wise and on the sidelines or otherwise?

I know my answer. And I must fight for it.

Trailing clouds

I find that whatever pattern that reveals itself in the summer trails into the fall, at least for these past two years.

They all started where it all started for me. A whirlwind in China, a whirlwind in college. Disillusionment a year later, same in Chicago. Whether I'm bolstered or confused by the people who love me the most, the plot takes stage again on chillier opening nights with a different cast.

So I am constanted rooted and un-rooted, I wonder if I'm really so impressionable that whatever the circumstances, these externalities get engrained in me so deeply. You know, for a control freak I'm not very much in control. It's always ironic how that always happens.