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homeostasis

9

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Everything is bal­anc­ing itself out. I’ve stopped try­ing to pre­dict or con­trol my cycles of intro­ver­sion and extro­ver­sion, pro­duc­tiv­ity and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. As Oscar Wilde once said: “The only way to get rid of temp­ta­tion is to yield to it”. By doing what I want when I feel like it, every need is met in turn.

Life doesn’t get more com­fort­able than this. It’s been a great summer.

baby eating on high chair

Now on mashed solids. Ruby at 11 months.

I’m glad I got here by myself, with­out the help of a friend, or lover, or wind­fall. It was some­thing I had to do on my own, so I’ll always know I’m strong enough to pick myself up and con­tinue growing.

The only thing that’s really miss­ing now is another cat (or two), but I already blew my kitty bud­get on Leonard’s vet bills. I’m not at the right place for a new adop­tion any­way, and I’ve decided to wait until my major projects are fin­ished (hope­fully some time around the end of the year) before I take on another life.

father and baby

It’s offi­cial; Kyden has the soft­est, pinchi­est cheeks ever at eight months.

I’ve been back from my trip for about a month and a half, but it feels more like a year. I’m so dif­fer­ent now from the per­son I was before I left. I was dying then, but I’m liv­ing now.

The only way I can tell how quickly time is truly pass­ing is in the faces of my friends’ babies. Each time I see them they’re mak­ing new sounds, say­ing new words, more con­scious and coher­ent. I used to envy the care­free inno­cence they have when run­ning about naked, the single-mindedness they pos­sess when engrossed with a new toy, but now I feel like one of them.

Date  August 5, 2011
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Categories  Daily Life Photos Random

One measures a circle, beginning anywhere

12

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Been liv­ing on too much sin and not enough sleep, though mostly it’s in the form of calo­ries and sugar. Thank god I have an Asian metabolism.

Things are hap­pen­ing so quickly around me. Chris is get­ting seri­ous with his girl. Pat and Jen had their first baby, a boy named Kyden. John’s get­ting mar­ried in April. (What? Yeah. What? Yeah.) Funny how I’m start­ing to feel like the one who’s all settled.

It makes me fan­tas­ti­cally proud to say that I’ll be assum­ing best-man respon­si­bil­i­ties, though I still asked John who he was going appoint cause I never feel like I can take any­thing in our friend­ship for granted. His anger at my hav­ing asked was prob­a­bly the warmest ges­ture I’ve had in a while. That means with the bach­e­lor party, the wed­ding, and another wed­ding I’ve to film, I’ll be dri­ving to Toronto three times between now and spring.

I’ve already lost John to an extent, as he’s only had about two months to plan his wed­ding, and he’s been busy with such. But even though our phone calls were my main form of con­tact with the out­side world, I haven’t noticed their absence, or as much as I thought I would at least. I think I’m get­ting used to being so out-of-touch with peo­ple. There’s so much ful­fill­ment one can find in a book or a movie or an instru­ment, let alone the vast­ness of the internet.

One of my ven­tures was mak­ing a trial World of Warcraft account1, just so I could try being social at a dis­tance, but I still couldn’t bother inter­act­ing with other peo­ple. And since the whole point of pay­ing a monthly fee for an MMORPG is to have that kind of inter­ac­tion, I stopped when I maxed out at level 202 on the third day. Good thing too, because it was the only thing I did for those three days.

I used to feel so guilty about being alone, think­ing I should be tak­ing advan­tage of some oppor­tu­nity to be social. Then I real­ized that if I ever got too uncom­fort­able and lonely, I’d get up and do some­thing about it. I’m too happy and too com­fort­able here right now. I think that’s why I can’t tell if this is where I’m going, or where I already am.

  1. Which I’d pre­vi­ously vowed never to play, know­ing my addic­tive nature to any character-building games, and WoWs never-ending game­play. [↑]
  2. The max level for trial accounts. [↑]
Date  February 15, 2011
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Categories  Daily Life Random

Pacts

5

Bronwen and I agreed to a mar­riage pact, where we would marry each other if we weren’t in a rela­tion­ship by a cer­tain age. The thing is, she’s six years younger than me, so we decided that her expi­ra­tion date is 35, and mine 41, because it’s eas­ier for men to date/marry than women, at an older age.

Note how I didn’t say “easy”. Heaven knows I had a hard enough time with dat­ing in my teens. And twen­ties. And prob­a­bly 30s.

According to her, we also have a sui­cide pact, even though I have no rec­ol­lec­tion of this. The only rea­son I can think of agree­ing to that is if large parts of the world were destroyed by mete­ors, lead­ing to the col­lapse of the eco­nomic sys­tem, cre­at­ing anar­chy, and reduc­ing every­one to hunter-gatherers.

Bronwen and I are most cer­tainly not hunter-gatherers, and we’d prob­a­bly suf­fer unbear­ably just try­ing to sur­vive, or be killed soon after because we’re too naive or com­pas­sion­ate for a dog-eat-dog world. The thing is, if that hap­pened I’d try to join forces with Pat and Jen, because they always have every­thing together1. So maybe if they were also killed by this cos­mic hail­storm, then it would still be an option.

  1. Pat’s the one who believes that at least one per­son should be in con­trol in every group at all times, and that he is this per­son. The only time he was ever ine­bri­ated was for his bach­e­lor party. [↑]
Date  August 27, 2009
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The Appreciation Paradox

9

Often, when some­one thanks me, I find myself say­ing “Don’t men­tion it” or “No need to thank me”. Yet when some­one doesn’t thank me for a favour, I feel like I’m being taken advan­tage of.

It’s a funny thing that I feel like a thank-you is unnec­es­sary only after some­one has said it. Maybe it’s because as long as the per­son appre­ci­ates the favour, that’s all that matters.

It’s sim­i­lar to the way Pat once offered to let me stay with him and Jen if I ever find myself with­out a job and a house. I’d prob­a­bly never take him up on the offer because I never want to be a bur­den any­one. At the same time, he knows this and doesn’t expect me to take him up on it, but he offered any­way because he knows I wouldn’t take it for granted, and would still be happy to take me in if the sit­u­a­tion war­ranted it.

Perhaps such acts become more of an acknowl­edg­ment than a prac­ti­cal ges­ture. As long as I know that some­one is appre­cia­tive and rec­og­nizes a favour, that’s all that mat­ters. But really, isn’t that what a thank you is — an acknowl­edg­ment through thanks? At the same time, with­out a thank you, how would we know that some­one is appre­cia­tive?

It’s like the act itself is simul­ta­ne­ously nec­es­sary and unnecessary.

Date  July 27, 2009
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Categories  Thoughts

Lost Among Friends

9

Wrapping pigs in a blanket

Thumbnail: Washing beaters
Thumbnail: cantaloupe seeds
Thumbnail: Making French toast
Thumbnail: Thick cut maple bacon
Thumbnail: Pouring smoothies
Thumbnail: Cooked waffles
Thumbnail: Cheesecake
Thumbnail: Cooked pigs
Thumbnail: French toast
Thumbnail: Cantaloupe slices
 

Sunday pot luck brunch was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent this week­end; instead of head­ing to Tim’s, I was at Pat and Jen’s. It was col­lec­tion time for a sit-up com­pe­ti­tion (where Julie destroyed every­one in both the largest total sit-ups and most improved over the last two months, win­ning $60), and we decided to get together to see how every­one was feel­ing, per­haps com­pare a six-pack or two.

There were home­made waf­fles, fresh fruit, honey bacon, French toast, pigs in blan­kets, smooth­ies, crois­sants, and cheese­cake. So much deli­cious food that I could eat, now that I’m on med­ica­tion to con­trol food induced flare-ups, and I hap­pily gorged myself.

Waffle with fruit

It was such a lazy Sunday. Long con­ver­sa­tions sit­ting around the table, then hang­ing out and play­ing games for hours while the food digested.

Pat later told me he used to come here and read about what’s hap­pen­ing with me, but has stopped read­ing alto­gether. The rea­son — and he paused as he was telling me this so that I under­stood the grav­ity of it — was that he would rather hear things from me personally.

While this is far from the first time I’ve writ­ten about my friend­ship with him, it still amazes me. We rarely get any one-on-one time, even when I’m over at his house on the week­ends for food and con­ver­sa­tion, unless it’s on the phone.

Pat always takes such a con­cern about what’s going on in my life. He asks all the right ques­tions. He lis­tens whole­heart­edly with­out inter­rupt­ing. He never judges me. He calms me because every­thing he says makes so much sense. Just being able to open up, where I’m vul­ner­a­ble, and have him com­pletely accept what I’m say­ing makes me over­flow with emotion.

Maybe I just need some­one to under­stand me right now.

Self portrait

I think I’m going through a period where I’m not get­ting enough social inter­ac­tion. My friends are too busy, or our sched­ules don’t work out. It’s left me con­fused and disillusioned.

Everyone seems to fit some­where, but I’m not sure where that leaves me. On days like this, when I’m sur­rounded by peo­ple, it makes me think that per­haps I still don’t know where I belong.

Date  March 3, 2009
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

Someone To Take Care Of Me

15

It’s times like this I wish I had some­one to take care of me1, because I’m tired of tak­ing care of myself.

  1. Pat once told me there should be a per­son in every group who’s always con­trolled, calm, and together (in case of emer­gency, or oth­er­wise), and he tries to be this per­son. It must be true, because he’s my rock, the friend who has never let me down. I once asked him if this idea extended to his mar­riage, and he told me that it applied to 90% of the time. But for the other 10%, when he’s tired, unmo­ti­vated, and doesn’t care any­more, Jenny takes over, and he admit­ted to me that he’s become depen­dent on this. [↑]
Date  November 18, 2008
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Categories  Daily Life Random

Worry-Free Friend

7

Pat doesn’t worry about me. At first, I was hurt, but soon I understood.

It’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s that he knows I’ll be alright.

And this is enough to make me believe that I’ll be alright too.

Date  October 30, 2008
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Categories  Random

Long Weekend

0

It’s almost two in the morn­ing. Yet again, I should be sleep­ing, but I’m writ­ing now, not because the inspi­ra­tion is par­tic­u­larly strik­ing, but because I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to write again. So now I’m enjoy­ing my new scented can­dles and the way the apple cin­na­mon aroma mixes with the night air com­ing through my back door.

I needed this long weekend.

Julie and I just got back from Pat and Jen’s one-year anniver­sary party, in which I was finally able to give them the anniver­sary gift I’d been sav­ing since the wed­ding: a col­lec­tion of video mes­sages left by guests dur­ing the recep­tion (recorded on the lap­top I’m using to type this right now, no less).

I also got a chance to try their new Wii Fit, learned how to play Bohnanza (a bean trad­ing game), and pigged out on gigan­tic ham­burg­ers and German potato salad.

Been try­ing to fin­ish my projects and tie up loose ends.

Been try­ing to match sched­ules with peo­ple: next week­end is din­ner with Misun and Frédéric and their two boys (which we’ve been try­ing to coor­di­nate for more than a month now), the week­end after is John’s visit, and the one after that is din­ner, movie, and Cranium with Dan and his family.

Been buy­ing light fix­tures and shelves and can­dles, indulging my obses­sion with frosted glass, and mak­ing minor house upgrades.

Been spend­ing more than I should.

Been in love with her more than I can help.

The week­ends are all I have left. After work­ing 8+ hours dur­ing the week, I don’t feel like doing any­thing but veg­ging out when I get home. So now it’s already Sunday — or Monday morn­ing, I should say — and I feel like I’ve accom­plished noth­ing so far. Not that it’s a bad thing, since I’ve been able to enjoy myself instead of feel­ing guilty that I’m not get­ting enough done. I tell myself that I’ll be pro­duc­tive when I wake up, but who knows.

Sometimes, long week­ends are for catch­ing up on doing noth­ing. And man, am I behind in that.

Date  September 1, 2008
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Categories  Daily Life

The Ardent Friends

4

Sometimes, all I need is a friend to sup­port me.

Even the times when I know I’m stu­pid or illog­i­cal. Especially those times, I just want some­one to lis­ten and agree.

I remem­ber Aaron going through a rough patch a cou­ple years ago. He told me he couldn’t let Rob know, because Rob would have jumped in his car and busted open some heads. Aaron con­fided in me because he needed an objec­tive opin­ion to work through the sit­u­a­tion, whereas Rob may have hurt more than help.

Even though I agreed, I felt like Rob’s ardent per­son­al­ity was a sign of true broth­er­hood. It doesn’t mat­ter what the logic is, it doesn’t mat­ter what the rea­sons are, your ene­mies are his ene­mies. It’s almost like he’s blinded by his love.

And as much as there are times when Aaron doesn’t tell Rob some­thing, I’m sure there are times when doesn’t tell me things either because he needs an fer­vent friend. He needs some­one who will take his side no mat­ter what. I know I do.

Don’t get me wrong; I have plenty of friends I can go to for an hon­est opin­ion. In fact, I go to them more often than not. John’s always there to con­tra­dict me and keep me in check, Pat’s there to ratio­nal­ize the sit­u­a­tion, and Aaron’s there to help me find a solu­tion. But every now and then, the uncon­di­tional sup­port of an ardent friend gives me strength and courage more than any­thing else.

Everyone should have such secu­rity. To be able to call some­one at any time of day who’ll be there in a heart­beat1. Everyone should have a friend like Rob in their lives.

The ardent friends are just as impor­tant as the objec­tive ones.

  1. Of course, you have to earn that kind of respect from Rob, because he doesn’t give it to just any­one. [↑]
Date  January 8, 2008
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Categories  Thoughts

Becoming Pat

5

At the core of our beings, Pat and I are the same person.

What sep­a­rates us is our emo­tion, or lack thereof. Pat’s the log­i­cal one, I’m the emo­tional one. I’ve always looked up to him — his strength, his morals, his per­son­al­ity — with­out really under­stand­ing why.

It’s only in the last year that I’ve come to real­ize Pat is a Taoist. This comes with the real­iza­tion that I’m a Taoist myself, and explains why I try to be more like him.

The inter­est­ing part is that he doesn’t even know that he’s a Taoist — sort of like Winnie the Pooh — which is exactly what makes him a true Taoist.

One of Chuang Tzŭ’s para­bles illus­trates this point. In an abbre­vi­ated ver­sion, Knowledge seeks a con­scious reflec­tion to know the Tao, and asked Silent Do Nothing and Reckless Blurter, before ask­ing The Yellow Emperor (ahhh, the Romantic per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of Chinese fables):

Knowledge said to The Yellow Emperor, “I asked Silent Do Nothing and he kept quiet. Not only didn’t he answer me, but he didn’t even know how to answer. I asked Reckless Blurter, and though he wanted to tell me, he didn’t, and even for­got my ques­tions. Now I’ve asked you, and you know all about it. Why do you say that you’re far from it?”.

The Yellow Emperor said, “Silent Do Nothing was truly right, because he didn’t know any­thing. Reckless Blurter was nearly right, because he’d for­got­ten it. You and I are far from right, because we know far too much”.

The same is true for Tai Chi1, or any mar­tial art for that mat­ter. Dissect it too much, and you lose the mean­ing. Think about it too much, and you don’t react. As Michael Babin wrote in his arti­cle on self-defense train­ing:

It is sad but true that real skill comes from seem­ingly end­less drilling of the basics and then learn­ing how to transcend/forget most of what you have so patiently learned.

In other words, learn­ing struc­ture is essen­tial to learn­ing to react to a com­plete lack of struc­ture (i.e. a real fight); but if you focus on struc­ture for too long it becomes counter-productive to “being with­out struc­ture” in mar­tial terms. One of the many annoy­ing para­doxes in the inter­nal arts.

One of the many para­doxes in the Taoist phi­los­o­phy as well. As much as I try to study it, learn it, and apply it, I find myself think­ing about it too much. As a result, I occa­sion­ally stray from being cen­tered, and lose my balance.

It’s the con­scious reflec­tion which Knowledge is seek­ing that pre­emp­tively dooms his search. This is my prob­lem as well. I buy Taoist books with a thirst for knowl­edge, but they’re all telling me the same thing now. Not that the books haven’t helped at all, but I feel like I’ve reached a limit. Perhaps even the sim­ple act of writ­ing about this is counter-productive.

I have the under­stand­ing, but I can’t apply it with­out think­ing about it first, and it’s the attempt to apply it that ruins the point. I’ve yet to reach a stage of pure reac­tion and spon­tane­ity, like Pat.

But I’m get­ting there.

  1. Yet another exam­ple of how Tai Chi is the phys­i­cal expres­sion of the phi­los­o­phy. Or per­haps this could be reverse-generalized, and said that the Taoist phi­los­o­phy is reflected in every­thing, such as mar­tial arts. [↑]
Date  November 25, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

Pat and Jen's Wedding

10

Thumbnail: Before getting married

Though some­what hec­tic, every­thing worked out in the end for Pat and Jen’s wedding.

Preparations

I missed the wed­ding rehearsal because I had to close the books for the month at work. I didn’t get to Pat’s place until 9:30 that night, which went late into the morn­ing as loose ends were tied up, and Jason and I stayed up until 3:00 am to fin­ish the slide show.

The girls got even less sleep I’m sure; the last I saw them they were gig­gling in bed like a high-school sleepover.

Before leav­ing for Jason’s place to stay the night (leav­ing the house for the girls), Pat gave me God of War 2 and Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal as gifts for being in the wed­ding party.

Thumbnail: Kevin and me in the car
Thumbnail: The edge of downtown
Thumbnail: Groomsmen boutonniere
Thumbnail: Ken pins my boutonniere

In the morn­ing we woke up at seven, had some muffins and cof­fee, dec­o­rated the cars, got dressed, and raced to the church.

Read the rest of this entry »

Date  September 7, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

Pat's Bachelor Party

4

The best part of the bach­e­lor party wasn’t the fact that it was Pat’s first time being drunk1. Or the fact that he was break danc­ing next to street musi­cians down­town (the video of which shall not be shown).

It was the fact that he was com­pletely off his guard, too drunk to remem­ber what hap­pened the next day, but he was the same old Pat: fun, friendly, and con­sid­er­ate2.

Imbibed by the great truth serum, when all the bad and angry thoughts have a chance to come out, we dis­cov­ered that there isn’t a spot of dark­ness in his soul.

He also said two affect­ing things, lucid in his drunken state.

The first, in slurred speech, he advised us bach­e­lors, “Find the right one. Just make sure you find the right one. She might not be the per­fect match, but she is the right one. Just remem­ber that. If you look for your per­fect match all your life, you might not find it. Just find the right one.”

The sec­ond was when he was going around the room, and he came to me: “Jeff, you too. You’re going to live a happy life. Sometimes it’s rough on the edges, but you know what’s good for you. You know what’s good for you, you know peo­ple will take care of you. Don’t worry, man. You’re going to live a happy life.”

“Life is rough on the edges”, he said. Not that my life is par­tic­u­larly bad, I just don’t han­dle things very well, and this is often when I turn to him. It’s nice to hear from some­one — whose opin­ion which I respect greatly — that things are going to be alright for me, that peo­ple will take care of me when things get bad.

Because I knew in my heart that when Pat said “peo­ple”, that included himself.

  1. Not that Pat has any­thing against drink­ing, as he some­times has a beer with din­ner, he sim­ply doesn’t see the point to drink­ing to get drunk [↑]
  2. About throw­ing up on Mike’s “natural-oak, natural-stain lam­i­nate floor”, or “wast­ing money” I spent for his hal­ibut din­ner [↑]
Date  September 4, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

The Tao Tattoo Experience

8

Part of The Tao Tattoo Series

  1. The Meaning
  2. The Experience
  3. The Background
  4. Tattwo

I decided to get my Tao tat­too about a month before I actu­ally had it done. Choosing an artist wasn’t hard. Tiana, who’s awe­some bro­ken argyle tat­too reminds me of insou­ciant kites against a sky, had hers done by Jay at New Moon. After see­ing some more of his work, which fea­tures finely detailed lines sim­i­lar to what I had in mind, I decided to go with him as well.

The appoint­ment was short. A quick check to make sure the posi­tion­ing close to the wrist joint was accept­able, and to leave a deposit.

The recep­tion­ist asked me, “What does the kanji mean?”.

“Kanji?”. I ques­tioned her assump­tion, and she quickly cor­rected her­self. “Sorry, is it Chinese or Japanese or Korean…?”. I explained the char­ac­ter, and how it’s writ­ten the same way in Chinese and Japanese, the cal­lig­ra­phy being in a Chinese style.

Read the rest of this entry »

Date  August 16, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

Pat Doesn't Need Me

5

Sometimes I feel like I don’t offer any­thing to Pat. I call him for advice all the time, ask him to give me rides (gro­ceries, fur­ni­ture, large items on which he bar­gains), vent to him. He grew up rely­ing on nobody but him­self, so he never asks me for any favours, and I sup­pose he has Jen with whom to express his feelings.

Maybe this is the root of my inse­cu­rity. Pat’s friend­ship with me appears diluted. We’d both take a bul­let for our friends, but mine is a far more exclu­sive club than his.

Pat doesn’t need me.

But I need him.

Date  July 26, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

Embracing My Emotional Reactions

5

I laugh when I’m ner­vous. Especially around girls I’m attracted to — total gig­gle­fest. I also laugh uncon­trol­lably around peo­ple I meet for the first time. People lower their guard when there’s laugh­ter, and I sus­pect my mind sub­con­sciously finds humour in every­thing to put peo­ple at ease around me.

Around peo­ple I hate, I’m dead silent. That’s how you know I don’t like you: if I don’t talk. The mere pres­ence of one of these peo­ple forces me to fully con­cen­trate on not drilling a 4-inch hole in my tem­ple with a cord­less DeWalt.

Pat’s dif­fer­ent. He told me once that if you ever see him shake his head and shrug his shoul­ders, you’re in his black­list. In an act of faith, he’ll give every­one respect and will even go so far as to stab you in the front, but he gives up if you cross his line of ethics. He’ll never be involved with any­thing related to you after that. It’s not that he hates these peo­ple, like me, he loses all inter­est. This is prob­a­bly even worse than my reac­tion which, because his is cold. You mean noth­ing to him. I try to let go as well, but I can’t. In the back of my head I cling to the hope that these peo­ple can change. Sometimes I also won­der if these peo­ple ever lis­ten to them­selves and can under­stand exactly why I hate them, because it’s so obvi­ous to me.

I also cry in emo­tional sit­u­a­tions. It doesn’t have to be any­thing par­tic­u­larly sad or happy, just a time when emo­tions are high. Intense sports games, Tim Horton’s com­mer­cials, some­times just because some­one else is cry­ing. I can hide it pretty well though; peo­ple don’t under­stand if you start cry­ing in a seem­ingly innocu­ous situation.

As frus­trat­ing as these emo­tional reac­tions can be, I know they make me who I am.

I used to try des­per­ately to remain cere­bral and log­i­cal — like Pat — but my emo­tions would always get the bet­ter of me. Now I’ve learned to embrace them. I could only do this after accept­ing myself and becom­ing con­tent with who I am. They give me some­thing Pat doesn’t have: intense inspi­ra­tion. That rush, when your stom­ach churns, when your head is burns, when you heart flutters.

They’re a part of me, and they make me who I am.

Date  June 1, 2007
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Categories  Random
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