I went through my old college journal tonight, with actual handwritten entries for the first half. It's amazing how much was forgotten, or suppressed. I was so groundless for a while. The sense of being lost was almost leaping off the page. And I actually felt a kind of anxiety to save that girl from a directionlessness whose magnitude even she did not grasp. It didn't matter that I knew, rationally, that the girl was the one leafing through the pages, and she is fine.
The stickiness and lingering criss-crossing strands between the past and the present have always frustrated me. It would be so much easier if time were discrete, and not continuous, like somehow the artificial units of hours and weeks and time zones we impose upon it actually chopped it up. But I've yet to find anything as unforgiving, unrelenting, and immutable (including my tiger mother) as time.
Yet, seeing as how much I view this past girl as a separate person, it's almost as if time had loosened its iron-grip claws for a second, and the not-so-distant past had broken free. It feels so gratuitous, I hardly know if it is to be believed. Are versions of the self really so easily shed and discarded? Can one slither away unscathed? Or is it a practice only suitable to reptiles, while Eve looks on in jealousy?
**
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
opening closures
I haven't written about graduation yet, in fact, I haven't written much at all lately. I'm just not sure how to approach such a topic, it's too big for my delicate scalpels, usually reserved for surgeries on the tiniest and most useless of organs. They deal with the appendix, not the heart.
College is the school where I've spent more time than any other...coming to this realization during one of my rare, unrushed showers in the last few weeks, I feel ill-prepared for the incoming nostalgia.
I thought the processing would begin with a good cry on graduation day, but no such luck amid the straggling lines, hundreds of mispronounced names, and chilling mist. Something similar happened (or didn't happen) the night when I left China for America, I remember standing motionlessly in front of my cousin. Are you excited? She asked. I said nothing. Not really. I finally offered. And that was that.
We always think these landmarks will open some sort of magical, emotional gate. But we don't live in a Kodak commercial. We don't cry in the tearjerker moments movies have dog-eared for us, but we do for the loss of an old necklace we haven't worn in years, or a picture of a simple bench in a hometown we haven't stepped foot in for a decade, or an honor that passed us by that we didn't even realize we wanted.
The thing about these moments is that they're unexpected. It is not so much like an arrival at a forked road as it is like running smack into an impenetrable wall. Planned goodbyes, organized convocations, event X at time Y, who wastes a tear on them? Someone once said: “Don’t rush or force the ending… All you have to know is the next scene, or the next few scenes.” He meant it as a way of writing. But it is also of life. To write badly is to rush an ending. To write well is to know the next scene. And to write with any conviction of truth, is to first realize you know nothing of what's coming. And so it also is with the rare moments of clarity in life.
If there is one thing the start of closure needs, it is the element of surprise.
**
College is the school where I've spent more time than any other...coming to this realization during one of my rare, unrushed showers in the last few weeks, I feel ill-prepared for the incoming nostalgia.
I thought the processing would begin with a good cry on graduation day, but no such luck amid the straggling lines, hundreds of mispronounced names, and chilling mist. Something similar happened (or didn't happen) the night when I left China for America, I remember standing motionlessly in front of my cousin. Are you excited? She asked. I said nothing. Not really. I finally offered. And that was that.
We always think these landmarks will open some sort of magical, emotional gate. But we don't live in a Kodak commercial. We don't cry in the tearjerker moments movies have dog-eared for us, but we do for the loss of an old necklace we haven't worn in years, or a picture of a simple bench in a hometown we haven't stepped foot in for a decade, or an honor that passed us by that we didn't even realize we wanted.
The thing about these moments is that they're unexpected. It is not so much like an arrival at a forked road as it is like running smack into an impenetrable wall. Planned goodbyes, organized convocations, event X at time Y, who wastes a tear on them? Someone once said: “Don’t rush or force the ending… All you have to know is the next scene, or the next few scenes.” He meant it as a way of writing. But it is also of life. To write badly is to rush an ending. To write well is to know the next scene. And to write with any conviction of truth, is to first realize you know nothing of what's coming. And so it also is with the rare moments of clarity in life.
If there is one thing the start of closure needs, it is the element of surprise.
**
Monday, May 30, 2011
the other side of utopia
There is a great article on nytimes right now about technology, 'liking', and how they are erasing the proper education to 'loving', self-realization, and being human in general. Of the strands in the article (there are many), there is one about pain:
“And yet pain hurts but it doesn’t kill...pain emerges as the natural product and natural indicator of being alive in a resistant world. To go through a life painlessly is to have not lived.”
I can't decide if he is saying something fundamentally true or just short-sighted. Why can't we, armed with technology, create an absolutely resistance-free world, where there is no natural disasters, no murder, no pain? And to mirror such a world, maybe we will also transform from the imperfect, good-evil, yin-yang creatures that we are, to purely content ones, not so ecstatic nor fantastic, but perfectly 'good' nonetheless. We are taught by novels like Brave New World that such utopias are to be rejected and treated with contempt, but might that just be the author's bias for masochism? Might it be simply his own secret addiction to pain that he is imposing on our Old World? If the world can be so changed that Nature no longer bequeaths any misfortunes on humans, isn't it plausible that within such a revolution, humans will evolve as well? Perhaps we will find meaningful ways to live without pain. Let us not bet, prematurely, on our inability to be rid of our evils. As we are eradicating the pain the outside world causes us, perhaps we can eradicate our need for it as well.
The writer of nytimes and Aldous Huxley might call me a coward for attempting to run away from evil altogether. Their arguments are eloquent and convincing, until we consider their underlying assumption that we could not succeed, but what if, in spite of their insistence on the fixed, unevolving nature of humans, we could?
**
“And yet pain hurts but it doesn’t kill...pain emerges as the natural product and natural indicator of being alive in a resistant world. To go through a life painlessly is to have not lived.”
I can't decide if he is saying something fundamentally true or just short-sighted. Why can't we, armed with technology, create an absolutely resistance-free world, where there is no natural disasters, no murder, no pain? And to mirror such a world, maybe we will also transform from the imperfect, good-evil, yin-yang creatures that we are, to purely content ones, not so ecstatic nor fantastic, but perfectly 'good' nonetheless. We are taught by novels like Brave New World that such utopias are to be rejected and treated with contempt, but might that just be the author's bias for masochism? Might it be simply his own secret addiction to pain that he is imposing on our Old World? If the world can be so changed that Nature no longer bequeaths any misfortunes on humans, isn't it plausible that within such a revolution, humans will evolve as well? Perhaps we will find meaningful ways to live without pain. Let us not bet, prematurely, on our inability to be rid of our evils. As we are eradicating the pain the outside world causes us, perhaps we can eradicate our need for it as well.
The writer of nytimes and Aldous Huxley might call me a coward for attempting to run away from evil altogether. Their arguments are eloquent and convincing, until we consider their underlying assumption that we could not succeed, but what if, in spite of their insistence on the fixed, unevolving nature of humans, we could?
**
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
taste test
People have said to me that love is about looking. I assume they're mainly talking about looking at the one you love. But I want to talk about looking at looking. Second-degree looking. Looking Squared, if you will. Here is how it goes: imagine, despite books and films that laud heroic declarations, that you, instead of loving, chose to be loved.
You are in front of the person who loves you. And you're looking. You're looking at someone who’s looking at you. Someone who's looking in that way you've always wanted to be looked at. And you feel that sweet, sweet guilt. Like you're not giving back enough. Like you're cheating somehow. But also like something insanely precious is taking place.
I read somewhere that love is what inspired the term "bittersweet". That the creators put "bitter" first because love is mostly bitter. That love is mostly painful. That love is mostly about wanting something that you don't have. Well, this other form of looking. This looking to the second degree. It's mostly sweet, though less pungent than its counterpart. Along with a faint aftertaste of a guilty conscience. But we needn't wait for that to hit the taste buds. We could skip it altogether, if you wish. We could swallow it whole, no savoring of the alkaline flavor required. Would you think this is better? Or do we simply not have a palette for it?
**
You are in front of the person who loves you. And you're looking. You're looking at someone who’s looking at you. Someone who's looking in that way you've always wanted to be looked at. And you feel that sweet, sweet guilt. Like you're not giving back enough. Like you're cheating somehow. But also like something insanely precious is taking place.
I read somewhere that love is what inspired the term "bittersweet". That the creators put "bitter" first because love is mostly bitter. That love is mostly painful. That love is mostly about wanting something that you don't have. Well, this other form of looking. This looking to the second degree. It's mostly sweet, though less pungent than its counterpart. Along with a faint aftertaste of a guilty conscience. But we needn't wait for that to hit the taste buds. We could skip it altogether, if you wish. We could swallow it whole, no savoring of the alkaline flavor required. Would you think this is better? Or do we simply not have a palette for it?
**
Thursday, May 12, 2011
heart of the matter
This post is going to be really short. I had tons of resentment bubbling up for an hour, which usually sprouts into vague and ambiguous sentences, and then this one person came along and said to me, in four words: don't be so insecure. And that pretty much cut through all the bullshit.
Took all the fun out of it though.
I still like watching Woody Allen films, even though all the neuroses can be solved with 3 minutes, 2 lines, and 1 scotch. Or is that just me?
It's probably just me.
Or is it?
Oh god.
**
Took all the fun out of it though.
I still like watching Woody Allen films, even though all the neuroses can be solved with 3 minutes, 2 lines, and 1 scotch. Or is that just me?
It's probably just me.
Or is it?
Oh god.
**
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
origami
My creative writing teacher told me today that I was a good writer...when it comes to annotations. But the long piece just doesn't work, he says matter of fact-ly. The advice that ensued was supremely vague: Just write like your annotations, he says. But here is the thing:
Annotations are easy, because they are just like blog posts. They are short, free-styled, and need no plot nor arc. Can one say the same for an eight-to-ten page paper that will only garner a coveted A (they were so easy to come by in middle school!) when it's at publishable level? The same problem extends to academic papers: give me two paragraphs, I can write 3 focused pages. Give me an entire work, and tell me to write 10...I'm suddenly left flopping on the page, like a freshly caught silver trout, bouncing high yet going nowhere.
The thing about reflection is...it is just an elegant edit of your streaming thoughts. Streaming. -Ing. -I...n...g. Present Progressive Tense. There is no plot because I haven't seen the ending yet. When I write philosophy papers I write the introduction last. When I write blog posts I come up with a title after I finish. These things give the illusion of an arc. Like I was going somewhere. But how can I do it for an eight-to-ten? Are my reflections supposed to unfold past the length of an internet ramble, but finish with a flourish when the header page number displays '10'? Is the crane's beak always so easily produced as the finishing touch? And what if after you nimbly fold down that delicate, last corner, you realize that the very first crease--on a previously perfectly square, perfectly un-wrinkled sheet of paper--was crooked? What will you do then? Will you take it apart, and start all over again?
But the creases have already been made.
**
Annotations are easy, because they are just like blog posts. They are short, free-styled, and need no plot nor arc. Can one say the same for an eight-to-ten page paper that will only garner a coveted A (they were so easy to come by in middle school!) when it's at publishable level? The same problem extends to academic papers: give me two paragraphs, I can write 3 focused pages. Give me an entire work, and tell me to write 10...I'm suddenly left flopping on the page, like a freshly caught silver trout, bouncing high yet going nowhere.
The thing about reflection is...it is just an elegant edit of your streaming thoughts. Streaming. -Ing. -I...n...g. Present Progressive Tense. There is no plot because I haven't seen the ending yet. When I write philosophy papers I write the introduction last. When I write blog posts I come up with a title after I finish. These things give the illusion of an arc. Like I was going somewhere. But how can I do it for an eight-to-ten? Are my reflections supposed to unfold past the length of an internet ramble, but finish with a flourish when the header page number displays '10'? Is the crane's beak always so easily produced as the finishing touch? And what if after you nimbly fold down that delicate, last corner, you realize that the very first crease--on a previously perfectly square, perfectly un-wrinkled sheet of paper--was crooked? What will you do then? Will you take it apart, and start all over again?
But the creases have already been made.
**
Thursday, May 5, 2011
forever twenty-one
I just read Joan Didion’s Goodbye to All That, where she details a long, consuming, painful disillusion with New York.
I wish Joan had called spoiler alert before she plowed on with her essay, because in a few months I will start a life there, at twenty-one years old, the exact same age Joan started her disastrous love affair with the city. Twenty-one. It’s a special number. Joan was right in picking twenty-one.
Twenty-one is when you are steeped in youth and aware of its fleetingness at the same time. Twenty-one is when your number of romances is still in the single digits, but your number of escapades is sure not to be. Twenty-one is standing on the precipice of a cliff, when all you have known is the arduous and steady hike to get up here—surviving parents and high school—and all you are about to know is a long, suspended freefall, after which you land in a world of bills and mandatory pantyhose.
I supposed this is why New York appeals to the twenty-ones. It doesn’t promise quality living, or good living, or even decent living. It simply promises possibilities. Until one day the tape begins to replay itself. Until the possibilities symbolically run out when you overhear the same man complaining about his same domestic problems with his same damn wife. Then you got yourself a real problem.
You charge into New York and the beginning of the end of your youth, wanting to figure life out. You find so many unknowns you think bare skimming is an acceptable practice. You think that if you come across what you’re looking for, you’ll know and you’ll stop. But what if you reach the end without once having applied the brakes? Somewhere, you had already seen where you were supposed to be, when you were supposed to be there, and what you were supposed to become—it's just that you tossed it before you knew. You look at the piles and think of all the re-cataloguing that need to be done. And you worry that when you finally re-find The Thing, you might be too late, too worn, too old.
Hours. Afternoons. Years. Even while we seem to have it all, their edges already appear in the horizon. And here is what New York represents to those of us who don’t yet know better: permanent youth. New York is twenty-one preserved in a jar. So we pack our bags for New York, hoping its youth serum will diffuse into our skin. But alas! Joan Didion needed only four pages to tell me this is not so. She is right, of course. But I still wish she had called spoiler alert.
**
I wish Joan had called spoiler alert before she plowed on with her essay, because in a few months I will start a life there, at twenty-one years old, the exact same age Joan started her disastrous love affair with the city. Twenty-one. It’s a special number. Joan was right in picking twenty-one.
Twenty-one is when you are steeped in youth and aware of its fleetingness at the same time. Twenty-one is when your number of romances is still in the single digits, but your number of escapades is sure not to be. Twenty-one is standing on the precipice of a cliff, when all you have known is the arduous and steady hike to get up here—surviving parents and high school—and all you are about to know is a long, suspended freefall, after which you land in a world of bills and mandatory pantyhose.
I supposed this is why New York appeals to the twenty-ones. It doesn’t promise quality living, or good living, or even decent living. It simply promises possibilities. Until one day the tape begins to replay itself. Until the possibilities symbolically run out when you overhear the same man complaining about his same domestic problems with his same damn wife. Then you got yourself a real problem.
You charge into New York and the beginning of the end of your youth, wanting to figure life out. You find so many unknowns you think bare skimming is an acceptable practice. You think that if you come across what you’re looking for, you’ll know and you’ll stop. But what if you reach the end without once having applied the brakes? Somewhere, you had already seen where you were supposed to be, when you were supposed to be there, and what you were supposed to become—it's just that you tossed it before you knew. You look at the piles and think of all the re-cataloguing that need to be done. And you worry that when you finally re-find The Thing, you might be too late, too worn, too old.
Hours. Afternoons. Years. Even while we seem to have it all, their edges already appear in the horizon. And here is what New York represents to those of us who don’t yet know better: permanent youth. New York is twenty-one preserved in a jar. So we pack our bags for New York, hoping its youth serum will diffuse into our skin. But alas! Joan Didion needed only four pages to tell me this is not so. She is right, of course. But I still wish she had called spoiler alert.
**
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