Posts tagged with "acceptance"

frame of mine

I’ve made peace with this body. It has­n’t been an easy peace to come by, as I seem to get con­stant reminders about the diminu­tive size of my stature. Most recent­ly, I met an old­er Chinese woman who admit­ted that she thought I looked sick and weak only after she dis­cov­ered I had col­i­tis. It was as if she thought col­i­tis caused some kind of mal­nu­tri­tion that stunt­ed my growth, and she did­n’t want to bring up the fact that I was this size because it would have been too embar­rass­ing unless it was caused by a med­ical con­di­tion.

Asian male self portrait

 

I’ve been deal­ing with all kinds of sim­i­lar com­ments since I was a kid, so when a girl­friend would say that she liked a par­tic­u­lar part or por­tion of my body, I always thought they were just blind­ed by love. Eventually I real­ized that if they could come to love this body, then I could too. It will nev­er look right in any­thing but slim-fit extra smalls from Mexx. It will nev­er be good enough for my par­ents. But it will always be who I am, and I’ve learned to accept that.

Where I Belong

Those who rule in accor­dance with Tao do not use force against the world
For that which is forced is like­ly to return

—Verse 30, Tao Te Ching

I may know bet­ter, I may under­stand what I’m sup­posed to accept, but that does­n’t make it any eas­i­er.

Sometimes the world is crash­ing down around you, and all you can do is watch.

Because you can’t yell at the sky to keep it from falling.

Bachelor

Megalomania is watch­ing a man with a brain in a jar court a woman who laughs like a mule, and believ­ing that it’s the sto­ry of one’s life. Weakness is los­ing a thought to a pret­ty face. Concupiscence is the inter­pre­ta­tion of awk­ward rough­hous­ing as a pre­lude to fuck­ing. Jealousy is won­der­ing why one nev­er had the same oppor­tu­ni­ty, and accep­tance is real­iz­ing that one did.

In the end, it’s not the sit­u­a­tions we relate to, it’s the hope­less­ness of being stuck with the deci­sions we make. Of being caught between the risk of set­tling, and the fear of not doing any bet­ter.

Happiness is free­dom from both.

Ah Mui

I had no idea what I was going to name this entry until I saw Shaolin Soccer again.

I’ve dis­cussed weak­ness in the past, and how it is frus­trat­ing to be a “weak per­son”. Now I real­ize that I’ve con­fused weak­ness with accep­tance, that accep­tance is not a sign of weak­ness but of strength.

It’s not easy to accept some­thing that is imposed. Sometimes it is all that can be done and one must allow a cer­tain dis­com­fort involved to be present. Sometimes accept­ing is the best solu­tion, even though one may not like it. However, it’s easy to be a weak per­son. It’s easy to give in, easy to let things go. The dif­fer­ence lies in how much of our­selves we give up and how much we’re will­ing to give up, and being able to dis­tin­guish the two becomes a task based on expe­ri­ence and the peo­ple involved.

I believe that I’ve been both weak and accept­ing in the past. Both are still pos­si­ble, although I think that I’m more accept­ing now due to an increase in con­fi­dence.

Being able to dis­tin­guish the two in myself has become ever hard­er.