Reserving juice for the the next few hours. We're gonna write a new world now, tucked in the sidelines and dark as hell, but you would recognize it if you saw it in a crowd of train passengers.
Perhaps this is all I am and that's okay. I spent the entire massage session yesterday wide awake, thinking about my life, and somewhere in the middle of it grew tired, spontaneously, like my life was not something of monumental importance.
That's one clue.
The truth is you can't give anything to the world that you're not generating inside yourself. And so perhaps our real work is finding in ourselves that which will make us happy. And then we have the slightest chance.
Showing posts with label studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label studies. Show all posts
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Take the Power Back
Here we are now. I turned thirty. I'm losing my powers. One of my office mates noticed. It's been bothering me.
Yes, I really do mean powers. When I was still quite happy and self-confident, I could often command both the weather and the convenient arrival of taxi cabs to wherever I happened to be standing. Soon after certain realities dawned, all I had was the flimsy ability to zap people with static at the office. And I don't even attribute that to my charming, guileless mess of a person but to my long, unmanaged but manageable hair.
It reflected much.
But yesterday, something snapped. The rains, which only reminded me too well of tragedies that were not really tragedies but spirit-toughening exercises, grew too strong for comfort yesterday. Going home in the cab, in paths that were once alien and hostile during those days of extreme grief, made me hate the fear that would well up inside me when I'd see the raging waters of the hometown river. There now, close to 18.
The thing is, I am a person of faith. Faith in something, that's for sure, faith in the collective desire of people to assert their sovereignty over all forces in the known universe in the face of growing terror. In the end, it is the misplaced arrogance of being the only thinking entities on this planet. But what the hell, I am human. I like being alive.
So when I think back at it now, here's what I recall. I pass by the river, too close for safety, as four wide lanes are now a single passable road, overpowered by the river spilling over onto the concrete. People with umbrellas are actually watching the water rise. Watching for the water level to reach 18 meters, which tells them all hell is about to break loose. Only hell in the form of water, and we all know what that means.
It is 6PM, the water had just hit 17 meters. In the AM radios they say the other dams have started giving out.
When I reach home everything is up at shelves my father made for precisely this purpose. My mother is slicing a hand across her chest, indicating that's how far it went up before, and so we should try and salvage what we could. Ironically, the double deck, my tiny personal space, would probably be the safest place to put important stuff. I try to make light of things. Surely a storm that strong would not happen again in the next ten, twenty years.
Time passes by slowly and quickly, we don't know anymore. We were waiting for we don't know what, really. We analyzed how things felt like the first time, and what should be our signal to evacuate. The rains get stronger. The sound is louder because my father had removed some patches of ceiling for a re-roofing project. There is water inside the house but because of leaks. I wish I could move us to a better-feeling place.
Forced to a standstill, my brother invents good vibes by ordering crispy pata. They would not deliver. I volunteer to get the food with him. We go out to fetch the food and try to ease myself by thinking hey the roads aren't flooded, there's nothing to worry about. But then I remember what flash floods mean and grow somber throughout the trip to the restaurant.
People were singing inside. Some ballad, I don't remember anymore. I happily shell out money the equivalent of three modest meals for a family of five. We return and eat and my brother and I have a laugh about this being very much like our last supper. In any case, we ravaged the poor things.
By 9PM the water was a little past 17.5m. I did a rough calculation and thought, at the rate the water was climbing, it would be at 18m by midnight. And I was growing sleepy. I could not be too sleepy for my impending demise. I struggle to stay awake. The rain grows stronger.
And then there it was, an invitation to pray.
Remember I was no longer doing the things that felt so natural to me a decade ago. I still had the books but more to remind myself that I could go back to it whenever I wanted to. But that they were vestiges of the past, too, and that none of these beliefs had been sturdy enough to sustain me. But I did, mostly because I believed my mother had a secret passcode to the heart of the universe whenever it was crunch time.
And so there, at what could only be at this point a little less than half a metre towards the 18 meter mark, the rain stopped.
Not completely, no, it was still raining intermittently this morning. But it was enough to buy us some reassurance that while we were all going to die some day, it was not going to be this night.
I slept on the sofa just in case.
In the morning, I thought about a lot of things but of one thing in particular. That we do belittle the power we have over this universe. And it is certainly appalling. I finished reading the book I read yesterday and made plans for the future. Stupid plans, really, but goals are at the core of getting anywhere in this world.
Yes, I really do mean powers. When I was still quite happy and self-confident, I could often command both the weather and the convenient arrival of taxi cabs to wherever I happened to be standing. Soon after certain realities dawned, all I had was the flimsy ability to zap people with static at the office. And I don't even attribute that to my charming, guileless mess of a person but to my long, unmanaged but manageable hair.
It reflected much.
But yesterday, something snapped. The rains, which only reminded me too well of tragedies that were not really tragedies but spirit-toughening exercises, grew too strong for comfort yesterday. Going home in the cab, in paths that were once alien and hostile during those days of extreme grief, made me hate the fear that would well up inside me when I'd see the raging waters of the hometown river. There now, close to 18.
The thing is, I am a person of faith. Faith in something, that's for sure, faith in the collective desire of people to assert their sovereignty over all forces in the known universe in the face of growing terror. In the end, it is the misplaced arrogance of being the only thinking entities on this planet. But what the hell, I am human. I like being alive.
So when I think back at it now, here's what I recall. I pass by the river, too close for safety, as four wide lanes are now a single passable road, overpowered by the river spilling over onto the concrete. People with umbrellas are actually watching the water rise. Watching for the water level to reach 18 meters, which tells them all hell is about to break loose. Only hell in the form of water, and we all know what that means.
It is 6PM, the water had just hit 17 meters. In the AM radios they say the other dams have started giving out.
When I reach home everything is up at shelves my father made for precisely this purpose. My mother is slicing a hand across her chest, indicating that's how far it went up before, and so we should try and salvage what we could. Ironically, the double deck, my tiny personal space, would probably be the safest place to put important stuff. I try to make light of things. Surely a storm that strong would not happen again in the next ten, twenty years.
Time passes by slowly and quickly, we don't know anymore. We were waiting for we don't know what, really. We analyzed how things felt like the first time, and what should be our signal to evacuate. The rains get stronger. The sound is louder because my father had removed some patches of ceiling for a re-roofing project. There is water inside the house but because of leaks. I wish I could move us to a better-feeling place.
Forced to a standstill, my brother invents good vibes by ordering crispy pata. They would not deliver. I volunteer to get the food with him. We go out to fetch the food and try to ease myself by thinking hey the roads aren't flooded, there's nothing to worry about. But then I remember what flash floods mean and grow somber throughout the trip to the restaurant.
People were singing inside. Some ballad, I don't remember anymore. I happily shell out money the equivalent of three modest meals for a family of five. We return and eat and my brother and I have a laugh about this being very much like our last supper. In any case, we ravaged the poor things.
By 9PM the water was a little past 17.5m. I did a rough calculation and thought, at the rate the water was climbing, it would be at 18m by midnight. And I was growing sleepy. I could not be too sleepy for my impending demise. I struggle to stay awake. The rain grows stronger.
And then there it was, an invitation to pray.
Remember I was no longer doing the things that felt so natural to me a decade ago. I still had the books but more to remind myself that I could go back to it whenever I wanted to. But that they were vestiges of the past, too, and that none of these beliefs had been sturdy enough to sustain me. But I did, mostly because I believed my mother had a secret passcode to the heart of the universe whenever it was crunch time.
And so there, at what could only be at this point a little less than half a metre towards the 18 meter mark, the rain stopped.
Not completely, no, it was still raining intermittently this morning. But it was enough to buy us some reassurance that while we were all going to die some day, it was not going to be this night.
I slept on the sofa just in case.
In the morning, I thought about a lot of things but of one thing in particular. That we do belittle the power we have over this universe. And it is certainly appalling. I finished reading the book I read yesterday and made plans for the future. Stupid plans, really, but goals are at the core of getting anywhere in this world.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Adventures in Theoretical Physics
You would not believe the things that make me happy. Not the least of which is the brother telling me maybe you should start a blog. I am humbled. Truly blogs are the landmark of arrival.
King said something about size before that never really left my mind. Listening to Greene's Hidden Realities (and perhaps the inappropriate amount of time I spend watching and re-watching Fringe) sometimes brings tears to my eyes. I'm not sure why. There's something majestic about the laws of the universe when seen in the scope of human experience--and by that I don't mean the empirical.
For instance, I believe that pain and joy both summon energy, and therefore mass, not from nowhere, not really, but somewhere, and it doesn't matter where, only that they exist when we say they do. And by "say," I don't mean "say" inasmuch as I mean to "think up," or "give attention to," or "summon from the cosmos."
What of implications? I have them all somewhere inside me, but if forced, I might say that love does breathe life into everything, and that love is space, the space within space, the great animator. And that there is good in pain and in fear, because you know you are creator, you are not here simply to take up precious space. You can feel, you can inspire alternative realities, you can choose to be where you want to be.
It does make me cringe, sometimes. Emotions have no place in the sciences, but I'm the kind of girl who doesn't believe in walls, and separation and division and in not using the principles of one to apply to another.
I can't help writing about myself. I made a deal before I slept last night, to take away someone's pain in exchange for my life. I don't know what it means that I'm alive today, that we're both alive. The truth is you can say both there is no God and that there is a merciful God. And both apply, really and truly, and this makes being here all the more fascinating.
Today I will do secular, domestic things, but that doesn't mean my head's not in the clouds.
King said something about size before that never really left my mind. Listening to Greene's Hidden Realities (and perhaps the inappropriate amount of time I spend watching and re-watching Fringe) sometimes brings tears to my eyes. I'm not sure why. There's something majestic about the laws of the universe when seen in the scope of human experience--and by that I don't mean the empirical.
For instance, I believe that pain and joy both summon energy, and therefore mass, not from nowhere, not really, but somewhere, and it doesn't matter where, only that they exist when we say they do. And by "say," I don't mean "say" inasmuch as I mean to "think up," or "give attention to," or "summon from the cosmos."
What of implications? I have them all somewhere inside me, but if forced, I might say that love does breathe life into everything, and that love is space, the space within space, the great animator. And that there is good in pain and in fear, because you know you are creator, you are not here simply to take up precious space. You can feel, you can inspire alternative realities, you can choose to be where you want to be.
It does make me cringe, sometimes. Emotions have no place in the sciences, but I'm the kind of girl who doesn't believe in walls, and separation and division and in not using the principles of one to apply to another.
I can't help writing about myself. I made a deal before I slept last night, to take away someone's pain in exchange for my life. I don't know what it means that I'm alive today, that we're both alive. The truth is you can say both there is no God and that there is a merciful God. And both apply, really and truly, and this makes being here all the more fascinating.
Today I will do secular, domestic things, but that doesn't mean my head's not in the clouds.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Hello, Fellow Prisoners
We are at war with ourselves everyday. We stare at these walls like they will eat us alive, like they are eating us alive, gnawing at our flesh and feasting on our blood. We feel compelled to fight--how else do you get rid of that almost suffocating restlessness? Move, keep moving, keep punching the walls.
Me and some of the guys, we crept near a corner, the one with a tiny hole. We're not sure how we found the place, you never really look back and check why you are where you are unless you have time or you're bleeding or you're lost. Beyond the hole there were moving creatures, creatures made of light, creatures moving so fast so we couldn't keep up with them, creatures making sounds, sprightly, tinkling sounds, like tiny bells. They were saying, or singing, something, but not one of us understood their language.
You grow tired, sometimes, of clawing out. So sometimes you close your eyes and think of nothing. And in those tiny moments, nothing more than milliseconds, really, the walls disappear.
They do. They become like cotton candy, and then cigarette smoke, and then they disappear. Sometimes when I feel they've disappeared I'd jump from where I was standing and make a break for it, but then the wall is still there and it hurts when you've launched yourself bodily into anything.
I have a sneaking suspicion that that's what the creatures have been saying all along. So I listen to them. I become older, and edgier, and my skin is drier than the prison floor.
When you listen real hard you can figure them out. Really simple things that can rock your world. "The universe is at your side," they say. Or, "Love is the point," and such. I say this to my fellow prisoners and they look at me with pity. I began to feel alienated here. Our main business, to escape from these walls, has become a thing that became less convincing the more time I spend noticing other things.
Like the smell of unwashed hair: unbecoming and old, but human. Like tiny tongues of moss colored green and black, ugly, yes, but so bare-facedly biological you just have to have some respect for them--organisms from a million years back, still alive here in our tiny hell holes. Or my fellow prisoners' light banters suggesting hints of a friendship, a kinship, we are here together and we will keep trying to break free.
And every day, since I started noticing things, the walls start to waver. Not for everyone though, which is why I sometimes think I am making this all up. The walls waver and become pliable, a billion little vertical strings you can part somewhere and climb into and out of.
There was one day, in the middle of a specially difficult day, when I actually broke free. It was beautiful.
Me and some of the guys, we crept near a corner, the one with a tiny hole. We're not sure how we found the place, you never really look back and check why you are where you are unless you have time or you're bleeding or you're lost. Beyond the hole there were moving creatures, creatures made of light, creatures moving so fast so we couldn't keep up with them, creatures making sounds, sprightly, tinkling sounds, like tiny bells. They were saying, or singing, something, but not one of us understood their language.
You grow tired, sometimes, of clawing out. So sometimes you close your eyes and think of nothing. And in those tiny moments, nothing more than milliseconds, really, the walls disappear.
They do. They become like cotton candy, and then cigarette smoke, and then they disappear. Sometimes when I feel they've disappeared I'd jump from where I was standing and make a break for it, but then the wall is still there and it hurts when you've launched yourself bodily into anything.
I have a sneaking suspicion that that's what the creatures have been saying all along. So I listen to them. I become older, and edgier, and my skin is drier than the prison floor.
When you listen real hard you can figure them out. Really simple things that can rock your world. "The universe is at your side," they say. Or, "Love is the point," and such. I say this to my fellow prisoners and they look at me with pity. I began to feel alienated here. Our main business, to escape from these walls, has become a thing that became less convincing the more time I spend noticing other things.
Like the smell of unwashed hair: unbecoming and old, but human. Like tiny tongues of moss colored green and black, ugly, yes, but so bare-facedly biological you just have to have some respect for them--organisms from a million years back, still alive here in our tiny hell holes. Or my fellow prisoners' light banters suggesting hints of a friendship, a kinship, we are here together and we will keep trying to break free.
And every day, since I started noticing things, the walls start to waver. Not for everyone though, which is why I sometimes think I am making this all up. The walls waver and become pliable, a billion little vertical strings you can part somewhere and climb into and out of.
There was one day, in the middle of a specially difficult day, when I actually broke free. It was beautiful.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Plan B
It took us days, days, to assemble the road spikes. We had neutrino bombs waiting at the sidelines, Trojan horses ready with their toothy smiles and sincere crinkles at the edges of their eyes, we rehearsed everything from the approximate blood pressure of the caravan driver at the time of assault to the point-blank plunging of the spear into said driver's chest. Everything.Everything worth thinking about and planning for, we did. Shobashi Wayne, the slit-eyed guy with skin like porcelain, kept coming up with stupid ideas to anticipate: a sudden sandstorm, the president driving, even the spear-bearer developing a brain aneurysm at the last minute.
I obliged, every step of the way, because this day was unlike any other. If this day pans out the way it should, I would have single-handedly brought this entire town to its knees. It was an important milestone, too crucial to leave to chance. I have the patience of a vulture waiting on a lion to finally die. I circle, invisibly, unceasingly, until a clear shot is made available.
It was all going to be beautiful. Except for one thing. The one thing we didn't even have to consider. The one thing we assumed would behave according to plan given the annual recurrence of the caravan arriving on the 20th of January at 3 in the afternoon.
It is this: that the caravan would be a caravan.
When I first heard the helicopter's rotor blades, I simply wanted to die.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Dumas Chang and the Universe
Dumas holds up a hand and stops walking. “Eighty-five. Why do I do what?”
“You leave whatever you happen to be doing every single day at five minutes to eleven to walk in the desert. Why?”
“The last time I answered that question The Cesspool started its nightly ‘Send Dumas Back to Norway’ series.”
The kid laughs, like bells. “Why’d they want to send you back to Norway? Are you from Norway? Where is Norway?”
“I don’t care where I came from, kid, same way you shouldn’t care about your origins. I’m the most normal guy around—”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“—and, the reason I walk is so I can go and play chess with the Friar.”
“The Friar? Is that the old guy with the purple thing over at the guard posts?”
“Yes, and the only one as far as I know.”
“Why?”
“Let’s walk fifteen steps so we can finish our first hundred, okay?”
“Okay.”
They walk fifteen steps out of town and into the desert.
“Okay,” the kid says, stopping.
Dumas stoops with his hands on his knees so he and the kid are at eye-level.
“Okay. The question is why. The answer is: mostly because I can, but also because I’m looking for anchors.”
“What’s an anchor? You mean for ships?”
“Yes, for ships. For my ship.”
“Where’s your ship?”
Dumas straightens himself up and stretches out his arms. “Right here!”
“I’m confused.”
It is Dumas’ turn to laugh. He puts a finger underneath the kid’s chin so the kid is looking up at him.
“You don’t have to have been in the ocean to know what it’s like. You’ve seen it in the movies, in TV shows, in the archives. Imagine that the entire space-time continuum is the ocean. In that ocean, everything flows into everything else: stuff you know because you saw them in the past, stuff you feel you know will happen in the future, stuff that’s happening right now, stuff that should have been, stuff that never was, at least in this version of history.
“In theoretical physics, all possible realities already exist somewhere—and by this I mean whether or not you return that book on time because it says right there,” he says, pointing at the back of the book, “‘Three days for fiction,’ where each decision leads to a different outcome, a different you—it’s just that you can’t get to that single viewing deck where you can see everything because, well, by nature, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because who we are or what we are or why we are would be so closely tied to where or when this event exists that it cannot conceive that the world be something other than what we think it is. We believe we need a body or at least a consciousness to do the observing.”
“Well, we do, don’t we?”
“Well, yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. This world rocks. And it’s more than enough to contain the most compelling and the most meaningful of lifetimes. I’m just saying, that sometimes, when you allow yourself to lose yourself, or you were born without a sense of self, it becomes very hard to function like a normal person.”
“But wouldn’t that be cooler?”
“Of course, you’d think that. But there are too many minds that insist that this plane of reality exist. Including you. And I’m just one guy.”
“So, for you to not get lost in all these shit about the ocean, you need an anchor.”
“Or anchors. I dream big.”
“Have you found any?”
Dumas smiles again. “You ask too many questions. Can we quit this talk until I reach my prime number?”
The kid crosses his arms and grumbles audibly. Nevertheless, they start walking until they reach a tall trailer husk near the guard post at the left of the town’s entrance. At one hundred and thirty, Dumas begins taking bigger steps. The kid accuses him of cheating. He ignores this and lands on one hundred and thirty-nine.
“You leave whatever you happen to be doing every single day at five minutes to eleven to walk in the desert. Why?”
“The last time I answered that question The Cesspool started its nightly ‘Send Dumas Back to Norway’ series.”
The kid laughs, like bells. “Why’d they want to send you back to Norway? Are you from Norway? Where is Norway?”
“I don’t care where I came from, kid, same way you shouldn’t care about your origins. I’m the most normal guy around—”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“—and, the reason I walk is so I can go and play chess with the Friar.”
“The Friar? Is that the old guy with the purple thing over at the guard posts?”
“Yes, and the only one as far as I know.”
“Why?”
“Let’s walk fifteen steps so we can finish our first hundred, okay?”
“Okay.”
They walk fifteen steps out of town and into the desert.
“Okay,” the kid says, stopping.
Dumas stoops with his hands on his knees so he and the kid are at eye-level.
“Okay. The question is why. The answer is: mostly because I can, but also because I’m looking for anchors.”
“What’s an anchor? You mean for ships?”
“Yes, for ships. For my ship.”
“Where’s your ship?”
Dumas straightens himself up and stretches out his arms. “Right here!”
“I’m confused.”
It is Dumas’ turn to laugh. He puts a finger underneath the kid’s chin so the kid is looking up at him.
“You don’t have to have been in the ocean to know what it’s like. You’ve seen it in the movies, in TV shows, in the archives. Imagine that the entire space-time continuum is the ocean. In that ocean, everything flows into everything else: stuff you know because you saw them in the past, stuff you feel you know will happen in the future, stuff that’s happening right now, stuff that should have been, stuff that never was, at least in this version of history.
“In theoretical physics, all possible realities already exist somewhere—and by this I mean whether or not you return that book on time because it says right there,” he says, pointing at the back of the book, “‘Three days for fiction,’ where each decision leads to a different outcome, a different you—it’s just that you can’t get to that single viewing deck where you can see everything because, well, by nature, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because who we are or what we are or why we are would be so closely tied to where or when this event exists that it cannot conceive that the world be something other than what we think it is. We believe we need a body or at least a consciousness to do the observing.”
“Well, we do, don’t we?”
“Well, yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. This world rocks. And it’s more than enough to contain the most compelling and the most meaningful of lifetimes. I’m just saying, that sometimes, when you allow yourself to lose yourself, or you were born without a sense of self, it becomes very hard to function like a normal person.”
“But wouldn’t that be cooler?”
“Of course, you’d think that. But there are too many minds that insist that this plane of reality exist. Including you. And I’m just one guy.”
“So, for you to not get lost in all these shit about the ocean, you need an anchor.”
“Or anchors. I dream big.”
“Have you found any?”
Dumas smiles again. “You ask too many questions. Can we quit this talk until I reach my prime number?”
The kid crosses his arms and grumbles audibly. Nevertheless, they start walking until they reach a tall trailer husk near the guard post at the left of the town’s entrance. At one hundred and thirty, Dumas begins taking bigger steps. The kid accuses him of cheating. He ignores this and lands on one hundred and thirty-nine.
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