loneliness will follow

Do you want to go out with us? 

    Not right now. I'm at the bottom of the sea. 

You're under the sea? Then you should stay there a while. Generally humans tend to float. 

    You mean dead bodies float? 

Dead or alive they float, you know. When you're calm, you float. But when you panic and struggle, that's when you sink. So stay there as long as you need to, and when you float back up, I'll take you out somewhere.

---

They say we're all humans. It's not true. Actually, we all come from different planets. So really, it's no wonder we can't understand each other. 

    Even families? What about lovers? What about friends? 

It's no use. You know, it doesn't matter. Because we're all from different planets. Don't you think it makes a lot of sense? 

    We're all aliens. But they must exist somewhere. Some people from my planet. Same as me.

---

My mom died. But.. I felt nothing. No sadness, no regret, no loneliness. Honestly I didn't feel a thing. I didn't cry once. I wonder if you had been my mother, what kind of person I could've become? 

---

So are you thinking of going far away? It's okay. You can stop running away now. No matter how fast you run or how far you go, your loneliness will follow. 

---

From Call Me Chihiro, 2023.

a heavy lid over a well

"I'm not sure if I'll ever truly leave my childhood behind. A sticky fog seems to have descended around me and it obscures all possible paths. I feel discarded, and the awful memories of those early years press down on me like a sheet-metal lid over a well, all weighed down by an enormous boulder, leaving me with no chance of escape. All my shouting and banging from within feels useless. What's the point? No one can hear me. 

It's like I am barely able to tread the water; it rises and soon it will reach the top, to the sheet metal lid. I will begin to gulp down my fear and choke on it until I cease breathing. 

Or maybe somehow the water will swell and blow off the lid that holds my life captive and my fears will overflow and then subside, releasing me."  - from Four Minutes by Nataliya Deleva 

I always say that the best kind of art is the one that makes me feel like I want to make one myself. It's so good and it resonates strongly that it gives you the urge to create one yourself. Four Minutes is a very compelling read about childhood and the harshness of life. It's a short book with short chapters and unique structure inviting people to empathize. It makes me wish that someone would write the stories of my life turning it into a piece of literary writing. Or that I am talented enough to write one myself. Not in a biographical narration but in a lyrical dissection of my darkest thoughts. 

Couple of months ago there's a tweet on my twitter timeline about a mother who was abusing her oldest daughter that was eleven year old in favor of her younger sons. At first I was sympathizing but then it clicked in my head that I was once that daughter. And I laughed. 

It took me a very long time to realized that I was raised in deeply patriarchal household. I didn't realize until a couple of years ago when I was having a conversation with a friend who came from the same cultural background as me that it wasn't how working class households operate universally back in the 1990s. 

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about astrology

"I think we all feel great ambivalence at the sight of our own horoscope. On the one hand we're proud to see that the sky is imprinted on our individual life, like a postmark with a date stamped on a letter - this makes it distinct, one of a kind. But at the same time it's a form of imprisonment in space, like a tattooed prison number. There's no escaping it. I cannot be someone other than I am. How awful. We'd prefer to think we're free, able to reinvent ourselves whenever we choose. This connection with something as great and monumental as the sky makes us feel uncomfortable. We'd rather be small, and then our petty little sins would be forgivable. Therefore I'm convinced that we should get to know our prison very well."


The passage above is taken from Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, best book I've read this year. In the book the protagonist is an old lady who is an amateur astrologer. She uses a lot of terminology of astrology. So in order to really understand the book I started to learn about astrology. Like the true Sagittarian that I am.

I learned how to read birth charts, the twelve houses, the planets, sextile, trine, and all that. Perhaps to no surprise to anybody who had properly tried to learn about astrology, I found the reading of my birth chart to be eerily accurate. I read several of my friends charts and got even more fascinated. About two years ago I had also learn some basic of Chinese astrology, bāzì, which is based on Taoism. Chinese astrology, like the western one, is also based on reading someone's specific birth date and time. I had also found the reading to be accurate.

Now of course we can argue about what accuracy here means. What we tend to do is to ignore the bits we don't identify with and mark the ones we like as accurate. In bāzì, as in Taoism, there are two things that make us who we are, the things that are inherently given to us by the heaven, the universe, and the things that happen to us and what we do on earth. Basically the nature and nurture concept. So in a way I think there's no way a reading can be 100% accurate because of the life that happens to us, but there are certain things that are specifically our given characters. 

I don't agree with all the results but I can tell that my birth chart reading is distinctively mine and the readings of other charts are definitely not me. I found things I had never realised point specifically to me. This is the one important thing I learn from astrology. That people are different. It isn't a new profound thing to discover but it's one thing we often forget. That everyone is wired differently. We can't expect people to have the same mindset as we do. I myself am often disappointed when I find people don't have the same conviction as I do. 

Astrology of course has been trivialised with the popularisation of horoscopes on the golden age of magazines, turning it into the oversimplified twelve zodiac that really doesn't mean anything and therefore became object of mockery. I might sound like I'm taking astrology very seriously, but I really don't. No one claims astrology as science. People who understand the concept of astrology often says that it's very much a self therapy. I think I agree. It helps me understand what ticks me and what fuels me. And why those things don't necessarily work on other people. It is frustrating sometimes that I am frustrated about things that don't frustrate others at all. As Tokarczuk wrote on the quote, our selves are our prisons and whatever helps me understand my prison is welcomed. 

Aside from astrology there has been a lot of efforts to create human classification both psychologically and physically, the MBTI (which I don't care about at all), the enneagram, the blood type psychology, etc. There are also certain classification of body types and colour analysis that classify people based on physical appearance. I found many of these to be helpful. Aside from the physical classification which we can directly see the analysis, I do believe there is a certain order of the universe in which biological and psychological are somehow related. I don't necessarily believe that the planetary alignments in the sky the minute we were born determine who we are. But I am open to the possibility that there are some celestial orders we may never understand. 

the poor doesn't want to sit with the rich either

Some days ago there's one popular tweet asking where your school bully is today. Funny because I had just finished watching The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence and layer after layer of wikipedia pages led me somehow to this particular guy that was my high school bully. My answer to the tweet was that he is now a Komisaris Utama (the chief commissioner holding position higher than the board of directors) of a nationally owned company. A company belongs to his father, of course, one of the powerful oligarchs of this country.

I wasn't bullied physically or verbally assaulted, I was looked down upon by the popular kids because I didn't come from rich family. My parents sent me to expensive private christian junior high and high school with a homogeneous demographic without actually having the ability to pay for it. I was sent to the principal's office every month because my tuition hadn't been paid. One time during physics class I was sent to the principal's office to then got sent back to class to pack up and head home immediately and was told not come back until my tuition and entrance fee were paid off. I skipped school for about a week or so. Apart from these, I didn't look like rich kids, like everyone else. I didn't wear fancy shoes. I didn't have the nicest bag or stationery, like everyone else. I still remember the name of a girl who sneered at me and called me derogatory version of the word "poor" because I didn't own a scientific calculator. I had close friends but it never really was bff kind of thing because I didn't belong to the same class of wealth as they were. I couldn't tell them the causes of my stress was because my parents were poor. I remember one friend being so elated that I finally had my own mobile phone, way after everyone else. Some years later, one of my closest friends from high school ended up threaten to sue me on court by law because of some paranoia that could only exist when your family is so rich.

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lasciami una luce accesa

Posso aiutarti / Manca l’aria qui in città / Sento i tuoi sguardi 

Ma il mio sorriso dove sta? Dove sta? 

La gente dorme, non fa rumore / Ho gli occhi rossi, che presa a male 

Guarda i palazzi coprire il cielo / Faccio promesse che non mantengo 

Conto i miei passi così non penso più / Ho la testa libera 

Come accettarsi non lo sai neanche tu / E questa idea mi soffoca 

Parlo da solo, mi sento un pazzo / Cerco un contatto, voglio un abbraccio 

Per sentirmi vivo restando al centro / Faccio promesse che non mantengo

Sei fermo a metà / Senza una meta / La notte passa / Sento la mia vita appesa 

Guardo di là / Mollo la presa / Dalla finestra / Lasciami una luce accesa 

Lasciami una luce accesa

 

2021

i wonder if 2021 even happened. it passed in a flash while i just stayed stationery. life was dull and uneventful. i don't know how people could keep creating in such uninspiring time, i could barely pick up a pen and cook myself dinner. this is the first time since is started this blog around 14 years ago that i hadn't written anything here. i guess it was in order to prevent myself to completely turn into a potato who consumed to much tv series junks, i read and i read a lot. at least reading is an act of consuming while also at the same time educating ourselves in a way.

i finished a total of about 44ish books and read some parts of another 12ish, i think. it's the most i have ever read in a year, in my entire life. on usual year reading 10ish was considered good enough for me. i guess part of it is because i discovered the joy of using an e-reader. i'm a random reader, i rarely can hold just one book at a time and finish it. i read things based on my mood and it changes all the time. so e-reader accomodate that style of reading for me cause i always carry all my books with me.

i was also reading a lot of new genre that i've never read before like sci-fi, thriller, young adult fantasy, politics. i read a lot of different things this year and i surprised myself when i actually enjoyed most of them.
some of my highlight are:
* The Stranger - Albert Camus. i don't know how nobody has ever recommended Camus to me before. i can relate to this book in a lot of level. and the moment where Mersault grabbed the collar of the priest and yelled at him telling him to shut the fuck up is probably my favorite moment i've read in a book.
* Talking to My Daughter About the Economy - Yanis Varoufakis. i wish this kind of book exists when i was younger instead of rich dad poor dad, which is still popular to this day although the author has clearly declared bankruptcy.
* Animal Farm - George Orwell. i think Animal Farm is somehow overshadowed by 1984. a lot of people i think see this book primarily about stalinism or authoritarianism. but when i read it i can see how much it is relevant to our world this day. how we mostly are all the sheeps which are have no idea about our past histories and have been going along with the status quo for too long.
* The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins. this book opened up a lot of things i have never realized before about how the world works. i can only say that everyone should probably read this and then went on your own further research.
* How Do You Live? - Genzaburo Yoshino. it's a very simple book about humanity. it actually hit me the most when i got to the translator note about the author. it made me respect him and the book even more. i just don't know why every book about the equality of being human needs to be labelled as "marxist". even Sally Rooney's book is described as a story about two "marxist" girls. neither books mention marx even once. they of course carries socialist ideology but i've never heard of other normal books described as "capitalistic".

* other than those, i read a lot of books about Russia and the Soviet Union to the point that i learned how to read cyrillic alphabets. i read a lot of life in communist (totalitarian, to be exact) countries, not about communism itself, and it actually fascinates me but i'll write a lot more about this later. also i read a lot of psychedelics and the ongoing research about it which has been fascinated me for quite a while now. 

let's see if i'd be able to keep up the next year.

set me free

i came to this film expecting a usual coming of age film about a frustrated teenager trying to find his way. the pace is incredibly slow, i didn't watch it in one sitting to be honest. but somewhere along the way i realized i was seeing myself on the screen. what often happened when i watch a film is probably finding characters i can relate to, or characters i would want to be, but in this one, it's like being able to see myself from the perspective of an outsider, as someone who has finally outgrown the darkest and deepest frustration.

films about struggling individuals usually portray the protagonists with strong moral compass for the audience to sympathize. the main character bombarded by the evil things in life still stands strong being the good person he/she is. in reality, most of the time that's not the case. those evil things in life will suck out so much good of you and planted in you the seed of anger and resentment. this is why this particular film speaks to me so profoundly.

here's the thing. as we get older, i think we often see the problems of teenagers as somewhat less significant, as small things, a phase which will eventually pass, especially compared to adults' problems. but this film reminds me how much more significant a frustration in a teenage life actually is. when you're a kid, the safety net to your problems is your family. by default you have a shelter that shield you from the cruel outside world. but when the cruelest of all is actually your own family, with what are you going to shield yourself with? when the people that brought you to existence, that supposed to provide for you turns out to be the people that rob you, that demand so much from you, how are you going to cope? you're lost. at such early age you're lost.

as you grow older, you finally found your own strength, your own independence. free. completely? maybe not, maybe never. for a long time you'd think many things are wrong with yourself. the world convinced you that you're damaged. all these frustration and anger and desperation become the fuel that shaped your character, become the basis on how you navigate through life. it might seems to be okay finally but you'll carry the resentment with you always, like an incurable cancer.

another thing i should note is that this film shows what my therapist told me once, people who went through same circumstances could cope with different mechanism and came out to be totally different type of persons. also, i love how the director chose to close the film in the end. i found myself telling the protagonist, "you're gonna be okay".

the nature of mind

"Despite this massive and nearly all-pervasive denial of its existence, we still sometimes have fleeting glimpse of the nature of mind. These could be inspired by a certain exalting piece of music, by the serene happiness we sometimes feel in nature, or by the most ordinary everyday situation. They could arise simply while watching the snow slowly drifting down, or seeing the sun rising from behind the mountain, or watching a shaft of light falling into a room in a mysteriously moving way. Such moments of illumination, peace, and bliss happen to us all and stay strangely with us. 

I think we do, sometimes, half understand these glimpses, but modern culture gives us no context of framework in which to comprehend them. Worse still, rather than encouraging us to explore these glimpses more deeply and discover where they spring from, we are told in both obvious and subtle way to shut them out. We know that no one will take us seriously if we share them. 

We are so addicted to looking outside ourselves that we have lost access to our inner being almost completely. We are terrified to look inward, because our culture has given us no idea of what we will find. We may even think that if we do we will be in danger of madness." –from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

life is a career

"My philosophy is, 'living is life'. As long as I'm healthy, I am passionate about photography 'til I die. I will be curious 'til I die. No matter who we live with, we should be independent individuals. It's important to not depend on anyone. Running your own life is a career. Living itself is meaningful enough." - Yuriko Takagi
 

it was a sunny spring day in a classroom in a small town in central italy our professor asked us students to name three things that are most important in our life. one guy answered, "potato", which was a witty response that prompted a longer discussion. most others answered, "love" and "family" or something along those two. i, in just mere honesty and not attempting to be intellectual or anything, answered, "works or crafts to dedicate myself to", "a functioning city to live in", and the third one i can't remember.

that was seven years ago. and it still rings true to this day. those two are still what i'm searching for in life. some people are lucky enough to have find their "life", maybe through privilege or through serious hard work. i, on the other hand, am still on the journey of searching. and i don't mind it at all. to me this is life. the most important is never "family" or such thing. my upbringing didn't prompt me towards that trajectory. the third one i'd probably say now is "money", not for the sake of money itself but for the less burden it brings.

i have to say i'm sort of satisfied with the views of life that i have currently reached at this point of my life. they will of course keep growing and changing as life reveals more of itself. people can just judge as they may, heck i judge people in my own way too, but why care at all? the societal and cultural dictation that only allow one way of life over another is ridiculous. allowing ourselves to live in our own rules is surely more rewarding than suffering by succumbing to the expectation of others.

ps. personal relationships are of course important, as they are usually what teach you to be a better person. but relationships come and go, it might bring a deep profound joy one day and and utter sadness or anger the next day. i just don't think it should be the main goal in life, just let it come and let it go as it may. the only thing we can surely hold on to is ourselves.

ps2. remember the beaver.

orbit ever after

"i want more than just safety. i spend my whole life in here just going round and round and nothing ever happens, nothing ever changes. and nobody seems to mind."
 

short films are underrated. it's not every day you get a luxurious two hours of free time to enjoy a good story in a cinematic experience. i love this one particularly for how they put much attention to details on the production design and light. one of the opening scenes reminds me somewhat of the little prince. also, aren't we all constantly craving for that something to keep feeling alive?

let if enfold you

either peace or happiness, let it enfold you

when I was a young man, i felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated. 
i had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing.

i was hard as granite, i leered at the sun.
i trusted no man and especially no woman.

i was living a hell in small rooms,
I broke things, smashed things, walked through glass, cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being evicted, jailed, in and out of fights,
in and out of my mind.

women were something to screw and rail at,
I had no male friends,
I changed jobs and cities,
I hated holidays, babies, history, newspapers, museums, grandmothers, marriage, movies, spiders, garbagemen, english accents, spain, france, italy, walnuts and the color orange. 
algebra angered me, opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a fake and flowers were for pansies.

peace and happiness to me were signs of inferiority,
tenants of the weak and addled mind.

but as i went on with my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through any number of women-
it gradually began to occur to me
that i wasn't different from the others,
i was the same,
they were all fulsome with hatred,
glossed over with petty grievances,
the men i fought in alleys had hearts of stone.

everybody was nudging, inching, cheating for some insignificant advantage,
the lie was the weapon and the plot was empty,
darkness was the dictator.

cautiously, i allowed myself to feel good at times.
i found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser 
or listening to the rain in the dark.
the less I needed the better I felt.

maybe the other life had worn me down.
i no longer found glamour in topping somebody in conversation.
or in mounting the body of some poor drunken female whose life had slipped away into sorrow.

i could never accept life as it was,
i could never gobble down all its poisons
but there were parts, tenuous magic parts open for the asking.
i re formulated i don't know when, date, time, all that but the change occurred. 

something in me relaxed, smoothed out.
i no longer had to prove that i was a man,
i didn't have to prove anything.

i began to see things: coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a cafe.
or a dog walking along a sidewalk.
or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose,
it was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself and its eyes looked at me and they were beautiful.
then- it was gone.

i began to feel good,
i began to feel good in the worst situations and there were plenty of those.

like say, the boss behind his desk, he is going to have to fire me. i've missed too many days.
he is dressed in a suit, necktie, glasses,
he says, 'i am going to have to let you go'
'it's all right' i tell him.
he must do what he must do,
he has a wife, a house, children, expenses, most probably a girlfriend.
i am sorry for him he is caught.

i walk onto the blazing sunshine.
the whole day is mine temporarily, anyhow.

(the whole world is at the throat of the world, everybody feels angry, short-changed, cheated, everybody is despondent, disillusioned)

i welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards of happiness.
i embraced that stuff like the hottest number,
like high heels, breasts, singing, the works.

(don't get me wrong, there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism that overlooks all basic problems just for the sake of itself- this is a shield and a sickness.)

the knife got near my throat again,
i almost turned on the gas again
but when the good moments arrived again i didn't fight them off like an alley adversary.
i let them take me, i luxuriated in them, i made them welcome home.

i even looked into the mirror once having thought myself to be ugly,
i now liked what i saw, almost handsome,
yes, a bit ripped and ragged, scares, lumps, odd turns, but all in all, not too bad, almost handsome, better at least than some of those movie star faces like the cheeks of a baby's butt.

and finally i discovered real feelings of others, unheralded,
like lately, like this morning, as i was leaving, for the track, i saw my wife in bed,
just the shape of her head there
covers pulled high, just the shape of her head there

(not forgetting centuries of the living and the dead and the dying, the pyramids, mozart dead but his music still there in the room, weeds growing, the earth turning, the tote board waiting for me)

i saw the shape of my wife's head, she so still, i ached for her life, just being there under the covers.
i kissed her in the forehead, got down the stairway, got outside, got into my marvelous car, fixed the seatbelt, backed out the drive. feeling warm to the fingertips, down to my foot on the gas pedal, i entered the world once more, drove down the hill past the houses full and empty of people, i saw the mailman, honked, he waved back at me.

poem by charles bukowski, as narrated by timothée chalamet at the end credit of beautiful boy
 

singapore, singapore.

not having serious intention to continue the tradition, somehow i did manage to go to a temple on the first morning of the year. it's been the third consecutive year now. i did have the plan to travel a new country at the end of the year with some friends but we didn't manage because of some reasons. i certainly didn't think i could afford to go anywhere since i was moving which caused me a lot of money and time. but somehow i had the impulsive (but well calculated) idea to buy tickets and fly to singapore. i had an 'epiphany' d minus three days, and bought the tickets the day after. it was of course impulsive but in my head it fit my calculation and scenario. i guess it's how i navigate my life in general. i still have difficulty making plans way ahead of time. mostly because my days are irregular and i have no idea how the next day or month would look like.


anyway. i lived in singapore exactly ten years ago. stayed around five to six months for an internship. it's definitely a memorable period of my life, as it was my first time living and working abroad. i had revisited the country several times since. and i realize that each time i visit, my tendency is always to revisit places i used to spend time at when i lived here, rather than to check out new places. if you know singapore, there are plenty of new must-go places which haven't existed ten years ago. but somehow i never really have the urge to go to those places. the boring looking hdb housing complex in hougang gives me more meaning than the marina bay sands. the mrt rides reminds me of how tiring it could be riding it on daily basis to go to work. certain corner of certain street rolled frames in my head playing the scenes of weekend routines i used to do there with a certain someone.


on my very first trip after i left ten years ago, the purpose of revisiting the nostalgic mundane places was to wonder whether i still have any leftover feeling or nostalgia towards my ex who i was dating when i lived there. i found the answer. but on my last trip, this one, it was more like a visit to my memory. it has been so long that it surprised me how i still remember a lot of things. revisiting the mundane places evoked certain memories which i didn't know still exist there in the corner of my brain. and with it comes certain emotional feelings. i showered myself with nostalgia. it made me think and see how far i have been through in ten years. how i'm still the same person, and at the same time a completely different one.


there's one certain spot i always visit if i go to singapore. it was a particular alley in esplanade, between the main entrance foyer and the other foyer (lounge) where they usually held free concert. there are several small stores line up. there had always been a particular scent if i walk through the alley. i didn't know which store it came from, i never actually care to find out. but that scent has always been the scent that defined singapore to me. and i was really sad when i walked there this time and the scent was no longer there. it's like a certain part of memories finally dies down with it.

despite of whether it's about the place or about a particular person, it makes me wonder whether this is actually what memory is for. to be revisited some time in the future. as something that gives you certain emotional feelings, whether it's joy or sadness. and as something that you can tell stories about.

a small portion of a bigger picture

if there's one thing that 2017 had taught me is that in life it's important not just to be strong but to be adaptive. and it's probably the key to everything. if there's one thing that is certain in life is that things will change. nothing remains forever. and it's your ability to adapt yourself in any kind of situations that will make you survive life.

nothing was certain in my life this year. day by day goes by differently and nothing was going stable for a long run. one day i could wake up with a clear bright mind, the next could be a complete disaster. when i established some routines, they quickly changed beyond my control, so i had to invent another.

i'd like to see this year as a small portion of a bigger picture. it's like a time of pause from a long run to examine the life i've been living in. the time to re-strategize things. the time of going slow to make sure i'll live life the way i want instead of just doing things because everyone else is doing so.

the period around october to november was a turning point. an opportunity showed up and in my strong determination to pursue it despite of clearly knowing that i would fail, which i did, led me to really question everything i had done in my life up until that point. from that moment on i decided to try to drop the old cloak that i've been wearing for more than a decade. and to try to drive my life to a different direction, a little closer to what maybe is what i've been wanting to do. i would probably fail miserably on my way through. but i'd rather be failed trying than living my life in a seemingly comfort zone but maybe has never really been one.

my journey this year was really about focusing on re-finding myself and having peace with it. i tried to understand how the universe really works. how the brain works. how the world works. how love works. most of the times it's a lonely journey. i intentionally shut myself off. i didn't throw myself out there. i lost interest in getting to know new people like i used to. it felt miserable at times. but i know it's something that i have to go through. i was never ever good at being alone for as far as i could remember. but in the process i have to say i'm glad i learnt a lot on how to deal with it. to be comfortable on my own skin. to really not give a fuck of what others think. and in this process i found the freedom of self that really feels liberating. i changed my hair so many times in one year more than i had in the last ten years.

looking back one day it probably would feel like this is the year of no significance. like i didn't do anything remarkable this year. but i know it's gonna be the year i'm grateful for. for the decisions that i made, the guts that i had, and the routes that i chose. :)

minimalism

i lived a life as a nomad in europe for almost two years, moving in and out four different cities. i will have to write more about it sooner. but all i had with me on that period were just one big suitcase, one small suitcase, and a backpack. then three months ago i moved back to my hometown, to my bedroom, and after just a short while i realized how many things i have and how i've been living for two years without needing any of them and i barely have space for all of them.

another thing that i realized was that for the last three months being back in the city, i've been wearing not more than ten pieces of clothing when i go out everyday, rotating just the same pieces over and over without having much worries. well the point of dressing when you go out are just two things, being comfortable and confident. and if you think about it, it actually doesn't really take that much. (ps. it has to be added the fact that i haven't been going out on dates these days. eeps). and i have to say, i'm pretty much doing well with the simplification i've been doing for more than two years now. what this girl has been doing is admirable tho i don't think i can pull it to that extend even if i want to.

on another note, last december was a disaster. worst month of the whole 2016. i've never been in such low state of mind for years for as long as i remember. then on the very last day of the year, i went on a trip to a friend's hometown. it has a completely different vibe with the city i live in. and somehow being there has taught me how peaceful it is leading a life that is modest, being content with what we have, doesn't matter how much or how little money we make. it made me realized how deeply superficial and capitalistic the life in big cities is.

after barely sleeping, on the very first day of the year we drove to the temple for the first sunrise. and although it wasn't ideally the situation we hoped for, it did provide me some good thoughts and good ideas on how i should really start to clear out my thoughts on regular basis. and start to seek out to straighten out my tangled fucked up head more than anything else.

ps. i don't really talk about the documentary itself, but it pretty much resembles the thoughts i'm trying to convey here.

an existentialist.

sartre claimed that a central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for individuals is that they are individuals—independently acting and responsible, conscious beings ("existence")—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individuals fit ("essence"). the actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.

the cord of life

i believe there's a time and a place
to let your mind drift and get out of this place

there's no secret to living, just keep on walking

i believe there's a time when the cord of life should be cut
i'm gonna die in a place that don't know my name



it was just yesterday when i had a talk with a friend about what is it to live. he told me all he wants is to take care of his sisters, until they got married or can managed their lives, then he'd go to a place far away where he doesn't know a single soul and choose to die there. like he wants to have the power to control over how he would end life. like it was his decision. his way. coincidentally today i found this song which sounds exactly like his thoughts, "i believe there's a time when the cord of life should be cut. i'm gonna die in a place that don't know my name." 

death is the topic i write about again and again, being something that no one actually has any idea about. and as someone who is consistently labelled as pessimistic, i am labelled as a very optimistic when it comes to death cause i believe in the afterlife. i always believe there is something greater out there after this one. there has to be. the one that makes all the sufferings and pain in this one make sense.

i ended up falling in love with the song (and the band, which i had listened to some years ago) and played it a little too often, like i always do when i found new songs i enjoy. it pretty much also in a way gives voices to the sound of my head these days.

a dying beaver

some years ago, discussing about what it is to live, someone told me about this story about the beavers. beavers are known as very productive animals. they are known for their natural trait to build dams on streams or rivers. they work with their long teeth which continuously grow so they will not be worn out chewing wood. now up until here the story is factually true. then she continued the story saying that the beavers would die if they don't work because their teeth will keep growing no matter what and they will kill them if they aren't used.

now that last part i'm not sure how true it is. but the story is supposed to be an analogy to what human being is also like. that human being is supposed to be productive.  to produce, to create. that to counter depression, whether it's because of psychological trauma or loneliness, what's needed is to produce. creating something out of yourself will generate the joy and appreciation of yourself and therefore increase the contentment of being oneself. my other friend once sent me a comedy video in which one said, "having children is sort of like a way of achieving something without having any talent". which also explains the producing theory, although jokes aside, i'll leave this sensitive subject out of discussion.

iceland as one of the happiest country on earth is a place where everyone creates something. as kjarri from sigur rós once said in an interview, "I think that people just feel the need to create something, painting, writing a book.. which can be annoying sometimes specially, you know, these days, because if you're not doing something, you're nobody. why, you're not writing a book?". same thing is also mentioned by eric weiner, talking about iceland in his book 'the geography of bliss', where the government gives incentives to writers and artists.

sadly, in the world today, we are mostly driven by consumerism rather than productivity. not just consumerism of materials but also of overly excess informations. we have so many options of online entertainment, social media and such, we spend most of our free time indulge in it.

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insides

"Nothing in life will call upon us to be more courageous than facing the fact that it ends. But on the other side of heartbreak is wisdom." - from wish i was here



i guess the bright side of every heartbreak is always that you learn again to appreciate yourself more, and learn to love yourself more than you love anyone else. to learn again to tell yourself that you are good enough. which, for me is always a rather hard task, being brought up as a person with a very low self esteem. it takes effort.

one of the records that i keep going back to for that effort these days is insides by the mighty jon hopkins. i remember one day it was late at night in milan and i was in a car with a date driving and we were talking about music from electronic to classical music and we agreed that the best kind of music is the one that takes you somewhere else. and that good music is more than just listening to sounds but about an experience. then he mentioned about trying to create electronic music that is well structured and not just random samplings making cool sounds.

insides to me is a perfect example of a well structured one, like you need to listen to it as a whole album, track by track, and not merely just one or two songs. this writer from sputnik music pretty much sums it all up in a very beautiful writing. i think it's equally beautiful that you're able to write about such good music in such good writing describing everything exactly like how you perceived it. i'm always fascinated with good choices of words and writing. like the way he describes one song as "toying with a false sense of security", now that is a talent i wish i have.

in my much younger years i used to listen to hardcore music to find refuge from the harsh reality of life that i was living. but these days i identify myself with these kind of intellectually well structured music. it has a strong disturbing even claustrophobic sense that somehow stimulates your self confidence but it also has the melancholic sides of the classical melody that reminds you of the softer part of yourself.

so in the effort of finding the wisdom and the constant will of finding my own ground, i will keep in my mind what a friend told me a couple of days ago while pointing his finger right at my face, "you know how much i look up to you. and you have to always remind yourself that you worth more than you think you do."

a humble documentary

"i’m a person who like to postpone things. i see no reason for being in a rush."


in this self-centric society today where everyone is trying to get attention to themselves through various kind of social medias and in this fast pace modern day where achievement is seen as everything, watching saul leiter approach to life and to art is very much like an oasis to the soul. seen as one of the pioneer of colored photography in the 50s, he said "i mean i think i’m being sincere when i say that i’ve never been driven. i didn’t walk around feeling that i was an important. i had not spent my life feeling important. what does that mean? i was hoping to be forgotten. i aspired to be unimportant". 

i watched this humble documentary twice to take note and to remind myself to not take things too seriously. "i don’t know. i’m not supposed to worry about it. i’m allowed not to worry". i guess i'm just not the kind of person who is inspired by a 23 year old kid who invent apps and sold it for billions. or a successful architect who built an iconic building reviving a city. or the first woman of minority who won certain kind of award. but i'm more than inspired by people like saul or bill cunningham, who lived their life with such simple attitude, and for the love of what they are doing, they just live to create, not for achievement or recognition. not for other people but for themselves. in the end, what's not to love about a person who described himself as, "a lost and confuse person who sometimes uses camera, with a touch of intelligence, but not so much."

giving up

from the top of the mountain every morning i walk towards the edge and throw little things off / i listen to the sounds they make on their way down / i follow with my eyes 'til they crash / imagine what my body would sound like slamming against those rocks

i go through all this before you wake up / so i can feel happier to be safe up here with you

Björk - Hyperballad

I'm tired of pretending. I guess on my daily basis I am surrounded with "normal" people with "normal" way of thinking and "normal" acceptable behavior, I start to alienate my existence.

Björk. I never really pay attention to Björk since I always thought that she's too twisted. Björk is too twisted I think everyone listening to her songs must also be twisted in a way. But I'm not going to talk it further, I'm going to rant specifically about Hyperballad.

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