Viewing entries tagged with "writing"   //
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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.

Date  December 12, 2007
Tags 
Categories  Daily Life

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. [↑]
Date  December 11, 2007
Tags 
Categories  Random

This Was Written On A Saturday Night

4

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.

Date  July 15, 2007
Tags 
Categories  Random

Words From One Who Cannot Write

10

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.

Date  April 25, 2007
Tags 
Categories  Random

The Diary Under The Bed

10

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.

Date  November 24, 2006
Tags 
Categories  Daily Life Thoughts

What Can I Say?

3

Things have changed.

I don’t write the same any­more, or about the same things. I’ve lost my fer­vent ver­bosity. Every time I sit at my com­puter, my mind blanks. Writing has become a chore. Even this entry has taken me days to think through. I find myself writ­ing and rewrit­ing every point, every paragraph.

In the begin­ning, blog­ging was a form of cathar­sis. Developing cog­ni­tively beyond my ado­les­cence was an emo­tional period, filled with con­fu­sion and grow­ing pains. The only way I could make sense of it all was to write out my thoughts, forc­ing myself to reflect and learn from every challenge.

It was also a use­ful tool in fig­ur­ing myself out, as a part of my life where I could approach things with the con­vic­tion that I lacked in the rest of my life. Now that I’ve gained enough con­fi­dence, it doesn’t seem so nec­es­sary to prove myself with words any­more. It would seem that I’ve become a vic­tim of my own self-assuredness.

I could fill this blog with entries, find­ing solace in the writ­ten word, when I was going through some­thing as sim­ple as a bad day. As time has passed, I’ve elim­i­nated most of the things that bother me enough to turn to this medium. It was a slow and sys­tem­atic process, both inter­nal and exter­nal. My new-found seren­ity has left me with lit­tle rage. I’m hap­pier now, and hap­pi­ness is too hard to write.

It would seem that I’ve run out of things to say.

There have been few epipha­nies, and even less inspi­ra­tion, in the last while. Maybe it’s because I’m in the mid­dle of a tran­si­tion. It takes a foun­da­tion of sta­bil­ity, some­thing I haven’t had in months, to grow. My life hasn’t quite set­tled yet.

Writer’s block is a sign that I’ve stopped grow­ing, a tes­ta­ment to what and how much I’ve been through.

But more impor­tantly, it’s a sign that I’m approach­ing where I want to go in my life.

Date  August 11, 2006
Tags 
Categories  Thoughts

The Return (Hiatus 1: Octave)

0

We move in cir­cles
Balanced all the while
On a gleam­ing razor’s edge

A per­fect sphere
Colliding with our fate
This story ends where it began

—Dream Theater, Octavarium

Back to this.

So much has passed, yet noth­ing seems to have changed. I’ve never gone this long with­out writ­ing an entry. For a while there, I didn’t mind. Didn’t mind not forc­ing myself to sit and write at every free moment. Didn’t mind my life not being taken over by this.

Now it feels like I’m in the mid­dle of a tran­si­tion. So much is hap­pen­ing around me, with so much to do, while my emo­tions remain neu­tral as if I don’t know what to think. There’s hasn’t been enough sta­bil­ity yet, or per­haps I haven’t been able to sit down to write and think about what’s going on. I’m ready now.

It’s been 33 days.

I def­i­nitely missed this.

Date  February 24, 2006
Tags 
Categories  Thoughts

The Next Level, Part 2

0

It’s get­ting eas­ier to write again. Ideas are com­ing a lit­tle more flu­idly, and aren’t quite as strain­ing to develop any­more. Perhaps there’s been an excess of inspi­ra­tion in the last while, from the music that keeps me mov­ing, to the peo­ple I inter­act with, to the tem­per­a­ture of the sea­son, to the words in the books that I’ve been read­ing with relish.

Life is a series of sen­sa­tions that gal­va­nize, encour­age, pro­voke, and teach.

I can never seem to get it all down.

Date  July 26, 2005
Tags 
Categories  Thoughts

Switching Books

0

Over the week­end, with the cozy com­fort of my duvet, I fin­ished read­ing the Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. The story took me by sur­prise. I had no prior knowl­edge of the plot, char­ac­ters, or themes, so I had the lux­ury of read­ing with­out the taint of another opin­ion. Even as a teenager, Duddy has the ambi­tion to pur­sue his dream of own­ing a huge plot of land before he’s even legally allowed to own it, but he loses his human­ity in the process. It was a fairly gal­va­niz­ing story, some­thing I’m not sure I could say if I knew more about the book before read­ing it. It’s his drive, his ini­tia­tive that I admire.

Yesterday, I started The Republic of Love (on the rec­om­men­da­tion of Karen) by Carol Shields. Even though I’m only through the first chap­ter, I can already tell that Shields knows what she’s talk­ing about. She knows how rela­tion­ships dis­in­te­grate, knows how peo­ple think, knows how our daily lives are a reflec­tion of the moods we have and mind­sets we wear. I’m reminded of Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese philoso­pher and author of The Prophet who wrote as if he under­stood love and the spirit on a com­pletely dif­fer­ent level. Even though he never met the love of his life face-to-face (they knew each other through pub­li­ca­tions), their col­lec­tion of love let­ters shows an under­stand­ing and har­mony deeper than any other two peo­ple I can think of.

It always makes me won­der: how much of an author’s writ­ing is from expe­ri­ence and how much is from imag­i­na­tion? The details, sub­tleties, thor­ough­ness of the char­ac­ters they develop, expressed in the inge­nu­ity of the words they use must be from more than mere under­stand­ing. Would Frost have been able to write his rural poetry with­out mov­ing to New Hampshire, spend­ing his time there as a cob­bler, farmer, and teacher? Would Irving have been able to write from the per­spec­tive of a teacher at Bishop Strachan, with­out first watch­ing the girls in their plaid skirts being picked up by their wealthy par­ents? Even in the pref­ace to A Hero Of Our Time, Lermontov admits, “oth­ers del­i­cately hinted that the author had drawn por­traits of him­self and his acquain­tances” and brushes this off as a “thread­bare wit­ti­cism”, but could he really have cre­ated such an amoral anti-hero with­out a lump of burn­ing indif­fer­ence in his chest?

Date  July 20, 2005
Tags 
Categories  Random Thoughts

Getting Easier To Write Again

3

It’s not that I haven’t had time to write lately, it’s that every time I sit down and set myself on writ­ing, I can’t fol­low through on any of my ideas. I blame the close prox­im­ity of my house to my job. For years, going to uni­ver­sity and going to work on the bus would force me to sit pas­sively, while some­one would take me to my des­ti­na­tion. I didn’t have to think about any­thing, so my mind would drift about ran­dom things, like my friends, my rela­tion­ships, and my life. Back then, my entries were thor­ough and bet­ter developed.

It’s slowly get­ting eas­ier to write again. I don’t have to force myself as much.

Date  June 15, 2005
Tags 
Categories  Daily Life
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