November 4, 2009

Publishing Necessity

19

John asked me, “Why? Why do you write these things and post them, when it clearly shows that you’re not over things?”.

I told him I’d rather post them now than in a year from now, because they have to come out sooner or later. This has always been nec­es­sary, even if it’s a lit­tle embar­rass­ing at times, and I’ve never cared who reads, and who judges me. It’s my cathar­sis, my way of deal­ing with what can’t be changed. Sometimes, peo­ple find relief in know­ing they’re not alone in hav­ing painful emo­tions, in mak­ing mis­takes, or expe­ri­enc­ing unre­quited love. I don’t write for them, but if they can take some­thing away from my words, then it helps me know I’m not alone as well.

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September 26, 2009

I made too much about you now to lie

2

Sometimes, I write these entries in my head over sev­eral days, but when it comes to get­ting them on the screen, I can’t. Not because I don’t feel like it, but because the words come out with such difficulty.

So I sit in my room with the lights off, hop­ing for some­thing to give me courage, some­thing to move my mute fingers.

Instead, I pro­cras­ti­nate. I buy myself time by play­ing a game on my iPhone, or surf­ing the net. It’s like I’m stalling, I’m build­ing up for a moment that’s no more impor­tant than any other, like a ner­vous school­boy try­ing to ask his crush to the prom; pick­ing up the phone, dial­ing a num­ber, and hang­ing up again.

Maybe if I bury it after a bunch of incon­se­quen­tial thoughts — like how it’s hard for me to write about some­thing — then peo­ple will get bored and won’t bother read­ing the rest. I try to con­vince myself that every­thing will be for­got­ten much quicker than it took for me to write this. Nothing works, when all I’m try­ing to say is that every time I lis­ten to Letter Read by Rachael Yamagata, I imag­ine she’s lis­ten­ing to the same thing at the same time.

So some­times, you just have to say fuck it and write it any­way, even if you’re afraid and you can’t breathe, and put it out of your head that you’re left vul­ner­a­ble, that any­one could read it, that peo­ple know some­thing that you prob­a­bly shouldn’t share, that you’re still think­ing about her when every­one is telling you not to, because none of it mat­ters when it’s the truth, and telling the truth is what makes you you.

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September 18, 2009

Protected: The Continuation of Love and the Letter

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June 4, 2009

Feather Fountain Pen

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Feather fountain pen

Pat and Jen bought me this feather foun­tain pen set from their hon­ey­moon to Europe. It comes from an Italian sculp­ture store, Fabris Giuliana in Venice, Italy.

Feather fountain pen writing

The nib is super fine; I don’t think I’ve ever owned a foun­tain pen with such a small nib, which is per­fect, because I tend to have small hand­writ­ing. You can’t even tell which direc­tion the stroke is going. So far it writes a lit­tle rough and scratchy, but with enough use, the nib will break in to my writ­ing style.

I’ve always enjoyed writ­ing. Not just the con­cept of putting ideas into more a tan­gi­ble medium, but the act of writ­ing itself, whether it’s on a key­board by night, or flow­ing lines on a sheet of paper.

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April 29, 2009

Revealing Words

8

A reader recently sent me an e-mail. This was the last paragraph:

Lastly and please don’t take this as being bold, I want to keep read­ing and one day read that you are noth­ing but happy and ful­filled. I would never post a com­ment because I am too shy and also pretty prone to being embar­rassed by peo­ple who are cooler than me (and I con­sider peo­ple who blog as peo­ple who are cooler then me), but many times when I read your entries I feel like I am watch­ing a pro­tag­o­nist in a favourite movie or re-reading Siddhartha. Does that make any sense to you? I’m cheer­ing you on and I’m in your corner.

It made me won­der: if she wants to read that I’m happy one day, does that mean that I’m not happy now? It forced the real­iza­tion in me that the answer is no. Obviously no. Life isn’t great. But do I only write about the bad stuff? I’ve always believed that you have to suf­fer to cre­ate. I’m one of those, so maybe this is the case. I imag­ine it’s the oppo­site with my Tai Chi or table ten­nis part­ners, who must think my life is per­fect, because of how happy I am when I’m doing those activities.

It also made me won­der how much of myself is revealed here. Someone once told me that she sees two dif­fer­ent sides of me: one who is seri­ous and intim­i­dat­ing from the things I write, and another who is easy-going and relaxed over the phone.

So what comes through in my words? Certainly not every­thing. But it’s the same as any­thing else, because it’s hard to get a total pic­ture of some­one, unless, per­haps, you spend an appro­pri­ately uncom­fort­able amount of time with them.

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April 25, 2009

Jump Right In

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The about sec­tion of my site has always remained some­what spar­tan. Even though blog­ging gurus say you should have a blurb about your­self so your audi­ence can “iden­tify” with you, it’s always seemed point­less to me.

I’ve never been one to describe myself. I pre­fer to let my writ­ings be my descrip­tion, espe­cially since I’m evolv­ing all the time, and it’s reflected even more in the changes to my writ­ing style. In English class, you learn “say, don’t tell”. So instead of writ­ing, “Tim was scared”, write some­thing like “Tim’s fore­head tight­ened as a bead of sweat fell across his trem­bling face”.

About sec­tions are the telling, but entries are all about the say­ing.

I also tend to write with­out explain­ing things. Like the fact that Dolly is my cat (although I don’t think many peo­ple are named Dolores nowa­days), or that John is my best friend. Entries are a stream of thought, instead of stop­ping to make sure that new read­ers are caught up. That means any­one who fol­lows me here is jump­ing right into my life. Sure, it’s prob­a­bly hard to fol­low with­out all the con­text — like try­ing to watch 24 by start­ing in the mid­dle of a sea­son — but I’d rather assume that peo­ple already know what’s going on.

It doesn’t make me very acces­si­ble, but the things I say prob­a­bly aren’t that acces­si­ble to begin with.

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January 27, 2009

To Write And To Remember

8

I admit that I not only save other people’s posts, but entire blogs.

Sometimes, there are entries I like to read over again. Other times, I just like to be reminded of how right I was. But more often than not, it’s the ephemeral nature of blogs in gen­eral, com­bined with the fickle nature of ado­les­cent writ­ers still try­ing to “define them­selves” on a free medium, that gives me the itch to save. So many writ­ers I used to fol­low have changed domain names, started pro­tect­ing their entries, or deleted their blogs.

Some things are garbage and should be for­got­ten or thrown away — but some things deserve to be kept too. Word-for-word, exactly the way it was spo­ken, because that’s the way it was expressed.

Fortunately, or unfor­tu­nately, depend­ing on your point-of-view, our words do last. Just because they aren’t there any­more, doesn’t mean they were never spoken.

There are con­se­quences to the things we write, whether we want them or not.

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October 17, 2008

A Change In Writing

5

There’s so much to say, and not enough time to write. It’s obvi­ous that I haven’t been stick­ing to any kind of post­ing sched­ule lately. The ben­e­fit is that I don’t feel the pres­sure of hav­ing to write some­thing every day, the draw­back being the fact that things I want to get down are often lost. When I do get a chance to write, it’s like I’m per­pet­u­ally writ­ing about thoughts, feel­ings, and events that are a month old.

Perhaps another evo­lu­tion in the way I write.

I used to write my thoughts quite often. Things I had to fig­ure out or get off my chest. Now, it’s mostly things that hap­pen in my daily life, and some­thing ran­dom here and there. It’s like I’m mov­ing beyond my con­fused ado­les­cence into some sort of reflec­tive dotage.

The entries from the first year were writ­ten with so much more fre­quency — roughly three times a day. Then that changed to once a day, then every other day. A few times, I tried to write less fre­quently, with­out a set sched­ule, but that never really worked. The writ­ing itch was always there. At one point I took a month-long hia­tus.

Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m try­ing to say.

The thing I par­tic­u­larly miss are the entries writ­ten late at night. Spilling my soul out in words, with the music, the sky, and the empty streets guid­ing me. As tired as I would be (I swear, some­times it was the exhaus­tion that brought it out in me), I always went to bed after feel­ing satisfied.

Now, I’m not sure what this all is.

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July 24, 2008

Restless Writer

7

I have 106 unpub­lished drafts in my database.

Things I don’t feel like say­ing. Parts of myself I’m not ready to reveal.

The writ­ten word has always been my medium of choice. Photography is only an exten­sion of that, when I need to express myself bet­ter than words can let me, and video goes one step further.

I used to be a ter­ri­ble writer. During a parent-teacher inter­view in grade 10, my his­tory teacher asked my par­ents when we came to Canada. They were quite embar­rassed to tell him that I was born here.

Aside from pick­ing up a use­ful word here and there, I’ve never made a con­scious effort to improve my writ­ing. The things I say are taken from my mem­o­ries, expe­ri­ences, and thoughts. How I say it is inspired by snip­pets of Nabokov (when I’m feel­ing lyri­cal or ver­bose), Cohen (when I’m feel­ing sad or roman­tic), Herbert (when I’m feel­ing dry), or Irving (when I’m feel­ing quirky or hon­est). The only way I’ve been able to gain any sem­blance of a writer is by mim­ic­k­ing to the best of my abil­ity the lyri­cal styles I enjoy the most.

Sometimes I won­der if I’ll ever stop. Writing is often a need, not a want. I do it when I’m feel­ing rest­less, when I have some­thing to say, when things are unset­tled, when I have things to fig­ure out. And the case most often is that life is filled with these moments. Perhaps if I ever find some sort of per­ma­nent seren­ity, I’ll be able to stop.

But I prob­a­bly wouldn’t want to.

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July 17, 2008

Questioning Happiness

9

Last class, Mike asked how I was doing, and as a some­what phatic response, I told him I was doing well.

He told me, with a chuckle, that if he didn’t know me any bet­ter and went only by my writ­ings, he would imag­ine me to be like Joe Btfsplk, with a per­pet­ual rain cloud above my head.

So I went home and read through the last cou­ple pages of my entries, and found that they painted a some­what lugubri­ous picture.

I’ve always con­tended that hap­pi­ness is too hard to write. When I feel like express­ing myself, it’s often because of a prob­lem of some sort, inter­nal or exter­nal, that I need to fig­ure out. Writing has always been a way for me to get my thoughts in line, and off my chest. Not much of a peace­ful, detached, care-free Taoist, am I?

Perhaps I’ll always lead a Cohen-esque life, where love, sex, phi­los­o­phy, and depres­sion are the dom­i­nant themes.

The funny thing is that my life has improved tremen­dously after ther­apy. I used to be a very dark per­son. After gain­ing the sta­bil­ity of a house and a career, along with sep­a­ra­tion from my mother, not much else has changed. I’ve come to real­ize that it’s not so much the things in my life that’s improved in the last few years (aside from the strug­gle with anx­i­ety), as my atti­tude. To be hon­est, I have noth­ing to com­plain about.

That doesn’t change the fact that my entries have been some­what depressing.

Perhaps I’m still not truly happy yet.

Or per­haps I’m still not look­ing at things the right way.

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December 12, 2007

Bittersweet Paradox

2

bit­ing keeps your words at bay
tend­ing to the sores that stay
hap­pi­ness is just a gash away
when i open a famil­iar scar
pain goes shoot­ing like a star
com­fort hasn’t failed to fol­low so far

and you might say it’s self-indulgent
and you might say it’s self-destructive
but, you see, it’s more pro­duc­tive
than if i were to be happy

—The Dresden Dolls, Bad Habit

I was jit­tery and ner­vous all day.

Several new devel­op­ments have left me with a lack of res­o­lu­tion. People to meet, presents to give, pic­tures to take, respon­si­bil­i­ties to ful­fill. And as much as I try not to think about it, it’s in my nature to do so.

I still haven’t got­ten passed this feel­ing. Still don’t know if I want to. Still don’t even know what it is. All I know is that it’s mak­ing me manic.

Until I fig­ure it out, I’ll wal­low in it.

I can only write this at night. When I’m falling asleep and off my guard, sit­ting on my chaise, with the cur­tains drawn and the win­dow open to the win­ter air.

Now I feel like writ­ing, but I don’t even know what to say. Everything’s too jum­bled for me to decide whether I’m happy or sad. Maybe it’s both, maybe it’s one because of the other. Life, at the moment, is so bittersweet.

Wonderfully bit­ter­sweet, that’s what it is.

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December 11, 2007

Pardon My Freedom

5

Oh my God, did I just say that out loud?
Should’ve known this was the kind of place
That that sort of thing just wasn’t allowed
…
And look at me now up here run­ning my mouth
I just open it up and see what comes run­ning out

Well here it comes…

Like I give a fuck, like I give a shit about that fuck
Like I give a fuck, like I give a shit about that fuck
Like I give a fuck about that moth­er­fuck­ing shit
Like I give a fuck
Like I give a fuck
LIKE I GIVE A FUCK
LIKE I GIVE A SHIT
LIKE I GIVE A FUCK

—!!!, Pardon My Freedom

This is me with­out boundaries.

This is the truth. My truth. My hon­esty in it’s purest form, includ­ing my opin­ion and bias.

Often, there are things said that peo­ple don’t want to hear, or don’t want to know. I never apol­o­gize for what I say because my opin­ions are never forced on oth­ers. No one has to come here and read what I say.

There are two rules: I never say any­thing here that I can’t say to someone’s face, and I never give away some­one else’s pri­vate infor­ma­tion.1

Other than that, I’ll never cen­sor myself for the sake of others.

  1. “Private” is to my dis­cre­tion, of course. [↑]
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July 15, 2007

This Was Written On A Saturday Night

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I’m most pro­duc­tive on Saturday nights. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing noth­ing all day and I’m feel­ing guilty. I’ve never been one to work on Saturday after­noons, which were made for relaxation.

The nights are dif­fer­ent though. It’s when I can con­cen­trate on my writ­ing. I’m tired. My guard is down.

The week comes pour­ing out.

This was writ­ten from the heart

With my back against the wall, I sit on the ground next to my back door, open­ing it to let the breeze drift in. Sometimes I turn my head to look out­side and smell the night air. It’s cool, no mat­ter the time of year. The street lamps are soft, and they bathe my back porch in warm light.

One can’t help but feel influ­enced by such serenity.

This was writ­ten out of order

I’ve become a slave to this blog. After some self-evaluation, I’ve come to real­ize that every­thing is inspired but forced. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, no more.

It’s time to start writ­ing when I want.

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April 25, 2007

Words From One Who Cannot Write

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I used to fancy myself a poet. Then I read a series of poems by Susan Musgrave and real­ized how naïve I was to believe such a thing. So I stuck with writ­ing, and fan­cied myself a writer, until I read Aurora’s words, mys­te­ri­ous and res­onat­ing, still bit­ter from the breakup in January.

A while ago, it felt like I ran out of things to say. Now I real­ize that it’s not a lack of sub­ject mat­ter, but a lack of conviction.

The seren­ity, bal­ance, matu­rity I’ve gained has robbed me of the pas­sion that once fueled my writing.

Even as recent as January, Dave Seah, pro­lific cre­ator of the Printable CEO, Procrastinator’s Clock, and fel­low 9ruler, said that I wrote with “literate-yet-conversational inten­sity, the kind of writ­ing that sounds good when spo­ken aloud”. Now my entries are dry and tech­ni­cal, devoid of the inten­sity I used to feel, and I fear that it’s a reflec­tion of myself.

Maybe this is why I’m so quick to embrace my moods and emo­tions. They let me write the way I used to, with the lyri­cal qual­ity and style I once enjoyed.

So I sit here, with the lights out and Leonard Cohen on, the early folk stuff before he went synth in the 80s, songs of love and hate, win­dows open to the night, try­ing to recap­ture the pas­sion that drove me to write when I started this blog.

I’m not a writer. I can’t write.

I’m sim­ply a thinker, with the need to express himself.

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November 24, 2006

The Diary Under The Bed

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On the 25th of September, at 11:04 am, my mom Googled my e-mail address, and found this blog.

She vis­its every day like clock­work; around 8:30 am when she gets into work, and some­times dur­ing lunch around 12:30 pm. Even though I told her never to con­tact me again, she con­tin­ues to check on me.

It’s some­thing I’ve known for a while now.

The exis­tence of this web­site was a secret I kept from my par­ents for as long as I could. I felt like I owed it to them to over­look my child­hood mem­o­ries because they stayed together for my sake, so I never wanted them to know this seem­ingly unrec­on­ciled side of me. When they told me they were get­ting divorced, I wrote an entry (that’s never been pub­lished) about how I stopped car­ing. It was their turn to start car­ing about me.

Of course, this was only true in theory.

To be hon­est, I was dev­as­tated. Bronwen likened it to her mom find­ing her diary under her bed, and I tend to agree with the analogy.

Chinese kids don’t talk to their par­ents about much. Even after being out of touch for a long time, par­ents will only ask whether they have enough money, whether they’re eat­ing enough, and how their marks are in school, if applicable.

The dis­cov­ery must have opened a can of worms. This is where I share my prob­lems. My inse­cu­ri­ties. My sex­ual expe­ri­ences. My past drug use. The bit­ter mem­o­ries of child­hood. On here, I’m no longer the dis­tant son they’ve known for 25 years. I’m open. Naked. Exposed.

Some were sur­prised that my mom would con­tinue read­ing my blog, believ­ing the things I say would be too painful for her to read. It makes sense though. This is the only way she can stay close to me.

So I have to ignore the entries in my server logs that con­stantly remind me of her pres­ence. I can’t let it affect the only place where I can write unre­stricted. I just have to let go, and con­tinue writ­ing. Damn the con­se­quence, as some­one once said. There’s noth­ing else I can do. After all, this is a pub­lic jour­nal. I have no right to com­plain about who comes here.

When you let go, you can write about anything.

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