Posts tagged with "reflection"

Sleeping Early, And The New Breakfast

I find myself unable to stay up late nowa­days, the time that writ­ing comes eas­i­est to me. I wake up in the mid­dle of these sum­mer nights and can’t fall back asleep. In the end, I regain lost sleep by tak­ing mid-day naps, a habit I’ll have to break once I find a job. My par­ents would ask me whether I slept well, when I was younger, and being a child at the time, knew noth­ing but excep­tion­al slum­ber. “Of course”, I would tell them, with a con­fused look on my face. To me, naps were always a sign of old age, and per­haps I’m get­ting old­er.

I’ve recent­ly switched from hav­ing bacon with egg on toast in the morn­ings to hav­ing a bacon and egg sand­wich. The dif­fer­ence in prepa­ra­tion lies in the style of eggs. Whereas sun­ny-side up com­pli­ments toast with it’s oh-so-dip­pable run­ni­ness, a pair of over-hard eggs go much bet­ter in any hand held meal.

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.

Complacent With Complacency

I was walk­ing through the mall today, when I saw some­one who seemed to be alone. His face was ripe with Down Syndrome, and he moved with a air of emo­tion­al detach­ment, as if he had eas­i­ly accept­ed the cards he’d been dealt.

Of course, I make no assump­tions about his sit­u­a­tion. After all, I know noth­ing about his life, and my pseu­do-con­clu­sions (I almost nev­er make def­i­nite con­clu­sions) based on pure­ly obser­va­tion could be com­plete­ly wrong.

However, it made me real­ize how lucky I am to not only have a cer­tain amount of intel­li­gence, but to have lived the life I have lived. Although I agree that igno­rance is bliss, I have become quite con­tent with the lim­it­ed aware­ness that I pos­sess today. I’m grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have loved and…given up, and to have been loved in return, even if my giv­ing up of such things will mean that I may nev­er love again. I have lived a life of finan­cial secu­ri­ty. I am fair­ly (although not ful­ly) con­tent with the per­son I have been able to become.

What could I pos­si­bly have to com­plain about? Not much. Only about a few things unre­solved, from a past I’m still try­ing to under­stand.

Life, as it were, appears to be good. So why do I not feel as hap­py as I should? Perhaps a chem­i­cal imbal­ance of some sort, although I don’t want to be so arro­gant as to make such a claim with­out more sub­stan­tial symp­toms.

I believe the answer lies in the fact that the last few things in my life which need res­o­lu­tion are major enough to leave me only feel­ing com­pla­cent. The next step, past iden­ti­fy­ing such mat­ters, would be to resolve them.

But per­haps com­pla­cen­cy is the best one can do.

Moving Towards k

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’ve achieved my sta­bil­i­ty. That’s not to say that it won’t dis­ap­pear once a new sit­u­a­tion aris­es, but it seems that my loss of bal­ance has giv­en me prac­tice in regain­ing it.

The future seems so uncer­tain. I don’t have a room­mate for the sum­mer, and I don’t even know if I need one. Everyone is talk­ing about mov­ing in with each oth­er, but none of our leas­es end on the same month. I might not be grad­u­at­ing in a month if I fail any cours­es, a very dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty. That means that my grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny would be delayed, and I would need to reg­is­ter for a sum­mer semes­ter. I don’t even give a shit about the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, but it’s not like I would be going for myself. I don’t even have a job lined up any time soon, some­thing which I am des­per­ate­ly in need/want of.

Yet in the face of such uncer­tain­ty, I have been able to remain rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble. I’m not sure why this is. Possibly, the taste of good liv­ing I had last sum­mer has cre­at­ed a kind of hope in me, a hope with no-strings-attached.

What an odd turn of events, that hav­ing a con­tent sit­u­a­tion (and even los­ing it) has made me “hap­pi­er”. I won­der if it’s just a phase, that I’m still rid­ing off a store of emo­tions, and that once the store in drained, I’ll become a bit­ter per­son. Somehow I doubt it, but one can nev­er tell.

I can now safe­ly say that I am a bet­ter per­son, although if his­to­ry has taught me any­thing, it’s that any­thing can change.

And yet there is still a wish for change.

Occidental Fetish

When I think of the Chinese cul­ture, a very spe­cif­ic image comes into my head, of a father dom­i­nat­ed fam­i­ly, par­ents who don’t know their chil­dren, and closed-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als.

I think my upbring­ing has exposed me to such a one-sided aspect of Chinese life. Almost every Chinese fam­i­ly I’ve met is like this. It would­n’t be so bad if I saw the kids as grow­ing up and sur­pass­ing such lim­it­ed indi­vid­u­al­ism. And yet most of the Chinese peo­ple my age just seem to be falling into the same child­ish mind­set, a prod­uct of parental (mis)guidance, in my hum­ble opin­ion.

It almost makes me sick.

When I read about Chinese his­to­ry, I’m fas­ci­nat­ed about how wis­dom is held in such rev­er­ence, and how schol­ars are so respect­ed. The same virtues seem to hold for Chinese peo­ple today, except that they don’t tru­ly under­stand why aca­d­e­mics are impor­tant, or why one should learn an instru­ment.

I wish I did­n’t have such a lim­it­ed view of a cul­ture with such great his­to­ry. I wish I could be exposed to an amaz­ing Chinese fam­i­ly. I wish some­thing could change my view.

All of this has cre­at­ed such a dis­taste of Asian look­ing girls in me. It’s as if my mind makes an unfair asso­ci­a­tion.

I’m stuck.