Posts in category "Thoughts"

Emotional Cuirass

Yo.

It’s been dif­fi­cult to write late­ly. Sometimes I peruse oth­er peo­ples’ blogs, note their wit and style, and wish I could write as inter­est­ing­ly as they do. Then I remem­ber that I only write for myself any­way and that it does­n’t mat­ter if I sound bor­ing or pre­ten­tious. Nevertheless, my writ­ers’ block has par­tial­ly been due to the fact that I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing some odd mood swings. It’s not even so much due to the ephemer­al nature of my emo­tions, but more relat­ed to the fact that I don’t under­stand what I’m feel­ing.

Some things make me hap­py. Some things make me depressed.

I think I’m most­ly just con­tent, which is a feel­ing I’m not quite used to yet. It’s almost as if I’m float­ing in a pool of luke­warm liq­uid, unsure of what my sens­es tell me. All I know is that my dys­thymic phase has long left me. For now, I have resigned myself to expe­ri­enc­ing such emo­tions with an open mind, with the hope that I will some day under­stand them.

I remem­ber want­i­ng to keep my emo­tions in check a long time ago, want­i­ng to become a com­plete­ly cere­bral per­son. Nowadays, I’m not so sure that this was such a good idea, not that I’ve been able to ful­ly suc­ceed in such a mon­strous task. Perhaps a bal­ance is need­ed in some­thing such as this as well. A lack of emo­tions may cause a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion for the few emo­tions one expe­ri­ences, or vice-ver­sa.

My ratio­nale has changed on this because my expe­ri­ences have changed. Growing up in a chaot­ic world of con­fu­sion and pain, I want­ed an emo­tion­al bar­ri­er to pre­vent any fur­ther men­tal agony. Now, I’ve accom­plished more, loved more, been loved more, and felt more. Perhaps I now feel that hap­pi­ness is worth the pos­si­bil­i­ty of men­tal anguish. Sometimes it feels as if I’m wait­ing for a ter­ri­ble inci­dent to revert my views. Life, how­ev­er, seems to be get­ting bet­ter.

I just wish I knew what I was feel­ing.

Shift

I had the chance to watch Forrest Gump today, and re-expe­ri­ence was an amaz­ing film it was again. I spent many hours as a kid (or, more appro­pri­ate­ly, as a social her­mit) watch­ing it over and over again.

My grade nine his­to­ry class allowed me the priv­i­lege of under­stand­ing the sub­tleties of cer­tain scenes used as a time stamp, such as Governor Wallace protest­ing the deseg­re­ga­tion of the pub­lic school sys­tem, or each war Lieutenant Dan’s ances­tors died in.

It was odd to watch a film I haven’t seen in so long, yet to be able to quote most parts of it word for word, tone for tone, accent for accent. Everything seemed so for­eign yet so famil­iar. Every scene brought an old emo­tion, unfelt since the last time I watched it so long ago.

It was inter­est­ing to under­stand new things about the movie, things which were beyond my com­pre­hen­sion in my youth. It became appar­ent that I learned much since then, and that I was expe­ri­enc­ing the movie in a dif­fer­ent way. As James Cole notes in 12 Monkeys while watch­ing Vertigo, one may watch a film twice, but it may seem dif­fer­ent when the changes are sole­ly in one­self.

I only now under­stand Lt. Dan’s strug­gles with his fate and phi­los­o­phy. I remem­ber being very phys­i­cal­ly attract­ed to Robin Wright, and I guess I sim­ply lost that attrac­tion. I had­n’t ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed the strength of Forest’s moth­er until see­ing it again today. The list goes on.

It must be rare to have some­thing which can be used as a meter or ruler in which one can mea­sure ones progress. I hold self-improve­ment and intel­li­gence as such impor­tant things in my life that I am con­stant­ly try­ing to use one to bet­ter the oth­er, and con­se­quent­ly I may lose sight of how far I’ve gone.

Hopefully there is more to go.

Politics

Camping beach

Trolley shivers

Campfire

I got back from camp­ing on Monday, and had a great time. We went up as a group of 16, divid­ed into three sites. I resumed my role as the token Chinese guy, since I was the only one on the entire camp­ground. The sites were less than a three minute walk away from each oth­er. Activities con­sist­ed of bad­minton, ulti­mate fris­bee, read­ing, or just loung­ing. It was 20 degrees dur­ing the day so a lot of the time was spent in the shade. At night it dropped down to about 8 degrees, leav­ing most peo­ple shiv­er­ing in their sleep­ing bags or hud­dled around a camp­fire.

Some tried to swim, but the water was so cold that they end­ed up wad­ing. There was a com­pe­ti­tion every day to see who could stay neck deep in the water the longest, but they all end­ed in ties when every­one agreed that the idea was sil­ly and that suf­fer­ing through the icy water was not worth the poten­tial brag­ging rights.

camping drinks

Most peo­ple brought quite a bit of alco­hol (Wheaties actu­al­ly got a 2–8 just for him­self), and we were caught twice on the first night for hav­ing open alco­hol con­tain­ers off the sites. Fortunately, it was by two dif­fer­ent groups of rangers, so we got two warn­ings, instead of a warn­ing and then a fine with evic­tion.

Even when relax­ing on the camp­ground, with no time lim­its and no sched­ules, I dis­cov­ered that pol­i­tics had fol­lowed me there, to a place where one is sup­posed to for­get the stress and con­flicts of dai­ly life. It’s such a pity that life can be so com­pli­cat­ed in the midst of such serene sim­plic­i­ty, when the only thing that one should wor­ry about is how much beer one has left or whether a fire will be going in time for din­ner.

Something that I’ve long real­ized is that the pol­i­tics of life are every­where, most­ly preva­lent in uncom­mu­nica­tive or secre­tive sit­u­a­tions. An uncer­tain attrac­tion, a group of peo­ple with mutu­al dis­like for some­one, or per­haps even var­ied appro­pri­ate­ness in var­ied com­pa­ny are all typ­i­cal exam­ples I’ve most com­mon­ly run across and dealt with.

I always try to remain out of such com­plex affairs, in order to sim­pli­fy my life, in order to have clar­i­ty. By doing so, I find that things are much less uncer­tain, and I thus have less to wor­ry about. Of course, life thrusts me into such sit­u­a­tions whether I’m will­ing to par­tic­i­pate or not. After all, peo­ple will for­ev­er be upset by oth­ers. I find that I’ve been able to under­stand and sur­vive these sit­u­a­tions with increas­ing con­sis­ten­cy.

It’s quite a dif­fer­ent sto­ry when I am per­son­al­ly involved.

Fetus

I am usu­al­ly not one who pro­fess­es to know a lot. I’m often fair­ly hum­bled in front of many oth­ers who pos­sess a greater intel­li­gence than me (although I know my fair share of stu­pid peo­ple). I think that intel­li­gence is some­thing about myself that I’ll nev­er be sat­is­fied with. There are too many things to know and learn and improve upon, and the pur­suit of such would take longer than an eter­ni­ty.

Reading back on some of my entries, some­thing which has been hard to do late­ly, I feel like a child again. My entries seem to be filled with such uncere­bral emo­tion some­times. It’s as if I can be great­ly both­ered by things that I should be able to over­come. Of course, it’s writ­ing here which helps me out when I need it, when it feels like no one can under­stand or relate. It all just fills this writ­ten his­to­ry with bias. Nothing can change the fact that I am still a human per­son who has emo­tions, although my life expe­ri­ences have damp­ened them con­sid­er­ably.

I feel young when I real­ize how much these emo­tions can some­times affect me.

I’m still unsure whether it would be bet­ter or worse to feel more. On the one hand, I can keep myself in check and keep my actions con­sis­tent if some­thing hap­pens which might upset me. On the oth­er hand, I feel numb, as if things which should bring me plea­sure end up being noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar.

Balance need­ed in yet some­thing else.

Go

It’s dif­fi­cult for me to imag­ine being done school, that I can start liv­ing as a free per­son. I’ve been in school for so long that I begin to expect anoth­er term in the near future. Yet I’m done (as long as I did­n’t fail any­thing) and I have a great deal of options. But what would I real­ly want to do with my life? A uni­ver­si­ty diplo­ma will only help me get a tiny part of what I want to achieve.

Odd that I live so day-to-day, yet have a few goals planned for decades in advance. Even if I haven’t achieved a sin­gle goal by the time I die, I’ll feel decent­ly sat­is­fied. I enjoy being able to appre­ci­ate every­thing I do each day. A great deal of think­ing needs to be done before I keep going. And while the future seems uncer­tain, while the world seems to be turned upside down, I feel com­fort­ed.

It’s under­stand­ing and real­iza­tion that bind my world togeth­er, that bring mean­ing to any­thing I do.