And finally I have the time to write again... it's been a hellish couple of months, but that's not what's on my mind right now. Looking forwards, and what in 2 days I'll be 24. 3 years after expectations. 3 years after the initial scheme. I've been foolish to think that others could replace it, that things could just become as what I've heard told or retold, not what I'd lated down for myself all those years ago.
The writing is coming, but I've been afraid again, keeping it all in for the right words to flow out. The right voice, the right sound, the right words. And it is coming, like drops out of a faucet, a drip and a drip at a time. But do I have all that to wait, for the little pool to become something on its own. A little collection of words so right for what I need?
Sometimes, when I'm dead drunk or just feel like starting up at something (you can't see the stars in a city like Bangkok) I lie on the tile floor of my bathroom along the gecko and rat shit and stare up at the cracking ceiling, looking for random patterns that might assemble themselves into something, listening to the rats. I like living in this house, my grandpa's house. I've got to admit that condos are more convenient, I'll give it that, but I can't help but think of grandpa in almost everything I see here. He's cobbled most of it together from bits and pieces, like he does with everything. Plastic pipe canes, industrial sinks for basins, cement ponds to block out the water, lamps that never match, sockets that don't work, and a thousand tools mounted on rotting wood and empty cans with the nails still sticking out. He cobbled together something for his children too, while not having an real significant degrees himself my uncles are all lawyers or doctors, and none are or had to be that damn poor to own pieces of plywood tools, or build their own fans, lamps and tables. And all of a sudden I'm back to being 7 years old, building tables with him in the backyard. The tables we still have at our house. With the pieces of scrap wood left I built myself a box car. I remember hammering tails in the side, and sticking in cans in the bottom. I remember getting into it for the first time and seeing all the jagged nails sticking out which I didn't bother to hammer down cause I was so excited to just be in it, even when at that age I knew it would never move. I'd made something, and I didn't really care that it was just a weird box. Grandpa could've probably made me a box chariot, but he just let me keep it that way working on it until I cut myself with the saw, and perhaps that was all for the best.
Now if I could learn to write like that again, like I built the boxcar, like grandpa does with building whatever he had at hand. Despite the mismatch, or maybe because of the mismatch, I can learn to love the wrong words for everything. Like PVC pipe hand canes, plastic bottle lap shades, and aluminium plate clocks.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
This pressure
This pressure. It won't let up. It can't let up until I do something, something important. I write because I can't keep away. A voice keeps nagging me to keep on doing this, to never give up on what I have to say. The censors hanging above always, the ignorance hanging above always. The imago of Thailand in the minds of the rest of the world. We're marketed as an alternative to porn. For the price of a porno mag in the United States you could get a fresh body here, trapped and ignorant.
The cultural project of the SEA isn't what is happening for the people who would be publishing them. What would a young, modern person do with that? What fantasy is this that I'm reading, that has nothing to do with my life. Another preaching tale, and the right, the authority to tell them, to hand them down like gospel. The young, the old, the imaginary pictures of the perfect country side on television and movies. Occasionally they would point at some city offical, but never in name, never in what's really going on. In fact, it's hard to know what's going on when the truth isn't valued, is protected all in all by threats, when whatever you write isn't held up to any kind of accountability, when government officals, teachers, civil servants are never accountable to what they give because to challenge them would be death, censorship, or jail.
How can you truly write, with this hypocritical bubble floating around your head? It's floating around like a giant cloud of pollution, acid rain killing everything.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Speed Writing
I just suddenly realized that the greatest problems came from going too slow. I've set out to write three novels this year, when I should have aimed higher. I just aimed too low, with the speed that I can do. I am going too slow, and that's why I'm bored.
I went outside tonight to the street-lamp lit space underneath the bridge. The place they moved the sorry excuse for a park that they leveled for a show space across the street. Now it double as basketball court, tra-kaw court, a place to dump gym equipment, and do some aerobics sometimes, but they moved that behind my house with the children playground. The orange blow of street light, and me alone in the darkness with a box-cutter. I just watch the cars go by, and then wait for myself to catch up in this place where its quiet.
It's then that I notice that I'm going at a certain speed. A speed that's not quite right for how fast I need to go. Writing is like that sometimes. I've been surprised how much more writing I'm doing now that I have a faster keyboard. On the slower keyboard, writing was a pain unless I'm doing the kind of writing that requires slow thinking. I can still change and hook that thing up if I need to, coffee stains and all, but I prefer this.
I prefer having something that might just be fast enough to catch my thoughts as I abuse it all over.
So now what am I shooting for? Of my high speed education, I'm achieving the workout schedule. No problem, and I'm about a month or two away to lifting my own body weight. Reading books I'm averaging about 3-5 books a week, and I'm blaming that on the World Cup, but I also know can be faster. On the writing well, it's only been when inspiration strikes that I can write with any sort of enthusiasm. Now it's gotten to me; I don't really need that right now to write all the same. I need speed, and not that much precision. I need to keep clubbing the damn muse until it's all soft and I can apply it evenly on the canvas. I just gotta keep writing at a certain speed because my mind just works that way. In editing comes what people call a genius, and I'm no good at that. I'm just the curious guy trying to understand how this all works. So I'm going to speed write a couple of things this week, and now I'm going to aim say, for a novella in 2 weeks, and perhaps a novel a month.
Ambitious, yes? It's only the fear holding you back.
Something for those who know: Sometimes you sleep just because you're afraid of staying awake...
I went outside tonight to the street-lamp lit space underneath the bridge. The place they moved the sorry excuse for a park that they leveled for a show space across the street. Now it double as basketball court, tra-kaw court, a place to dump gym equipment, and do some aerobics sometimes, but they moved that behind my house with the children playground. The orange blow of street light, and me alone in the darkness with a box-cutter. I just watch the cars go by, and then wait for myself to catch up in this place where its quiet.
It's then that I notice that I'm going at a certain speed. A speed that's not quite right for how fast I need to go. Writing is like that sometimes. I've been surprised how much more writing I'm doing now that I have a faster keyboard. On the slower keyboard, writing was a pain unless I'm doing the kind of writing that requires slow thinking. I can still change and hook that thing up if I need to, coffee stains and all, but I prefer this.
I prefer having something that might just be fast enough to catch my thoughts as I abuse it all over.
So now what am I shooting for? Of my high speed education, I'm achieving the workout schedule. No problem, and I'm about a month or two away to lifting my own body weight. Reading books I'm averaging about 3-5 books a week, and I'm blaming that on the World Cup, but I also know can be faster. On the writing well, it's only been when inspiration strikes that I can write with any sort of enthusiasm. Now it's gotten to me; I don't really need that right now to write all the same. I need speed, and not that much precision. I need to keep clubbing the damn muse until it's all soft and I can apply it evenly on the canvas. I just gotta keep writing at a certain speed because my mind just works that way. In editing comes what people call a genius, and I'm no good at that. I'm just the curious guy trying to understand how this all works. So I'm going to speed write a couple of things this week, and now I'm going to aim say, for a novella in 2 weeks, and perhaps a novel a month.
Ambitious, yes? It's only the fear holding you back.
Something for those who know: Sometimes you sleep just because you're afraid of staying awake...
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Type of Artist I Want to Be
Been digging around my hard drive looking for another piece when I found this. The document said it was written on April the 20th of this year. :D
I wish to join in the ranks of great artists whose work expressed their unique individuality, their burning core of creation. Human beings who accepted their authentic vision of beauty come what may. Ruin, or late acclaim or even madness might follow, but I know this; that the voice that compels me to write, compels me to speak, my mind's eye that sees the visions of worlds unknown, those are mine and mine alone. Worlds of beauty and horror to visit and terrify every night, and day dreams that are more real to me than anything I could ever share with anyone. They are mine and mine alone, and the trill of their exploration, the trill of crafting them into words, pictures, voices, thoughts cannot be shared. They cannot be repeated. The ranks are few, and far between, diaries come close, but not always. There's that filter in between the writers and the reader, and the less of that coming the closer I get to my core.
I will write something to make one awaken instead of fall asleep. And see the day for once. To write another novel, another piece where the reader could close the story, feeling happy and fulfilled inside for having witness another perform the task that one essentially understood to be theirs to do. No I seek to jar those with half and eye open to fully witness, to stare upon the fire here, the shadow puppets, and see the light if you dare for yourself.
A sense of life...
Each moment becomes a moment to dream. Where I belong, my own oblivion. I need no one now, can have no one.
This training, this craftsmanship aids in the communication of it, but the beauty of the inner space of the creator is something only he can work on himself. It is the boat from within to without, the link, the communication, but it will not replace a void, a cheap imitator, or a dishonest hack. Those who spend their time singing others song be weary of forgetting your own. When the voice can no longer tell its own from the others, when its vessel would mold itself completely in idol worship of another, then creation is abandoned for ritual, a performance of something past and done.
Creation is active. I must know what I think. I must do what is rare to achieve what is rarer. The truth cannot set you free if you never speak it, or speak it without honesty.
And if the blood falls in between my fingers, to disfigure either of us, I know that it is only an eye on the world that it ever was. You could learn to love a monster. But you must learn to love whatever it is you do first.
Small platitudes. Performance is the order of the day, achieving a sort of 'realism'. It's always a realism never real. A world where you're taught to smile in politeness, smile to hide anger, smile in the face of death, to smile when you don't feel like it so others won't be upset, to smile instead of yawn, to smile at our own ignorance. What then does a smile actually look like? We're taught to act, but not to be. We're told to be free, but never shown. We're made to fear, and feel ashamed when we are.
This utter lie the swallowing of that I weep for. Tricked, lied, and rewarded to act and not cognizant of their hollowness, I see the void that children become. It's ever sad, and constantly said. Children learn ever so well. To learn instead of to grow. At last we are here a spoon fed society. Unable to grow, but constantly willing to learn, to adapt. Unable to live, but fearful of death.
In another life I might have been a serial killer, if I taught others worth killing. Now I wait for my moment, scheming, hoping.
Learning has robbed away the spirits of men. Where the majority subjugate themselves to rules never questioned. Marching in lock step towards individual dreams on hollow grounds. So lost, so trapped, and so unaware. Knowledge is there, but it is never free those whose themselves unfree.
I wish to join in the ranks of great artists whose work expressed their unique individuality, their burning core of creation. Human beings who accepted their authentic vision of beauty come what may. Ruin, or late acclaim or even madness might follow, but I know this; that the voice that compels me to write, compels me to speak, my mind's eye that sees the visions of worlds unknown, those are mine and mine alone. Worlds of beauty and horror to visit and terrify every night, and day dreams that are more real to me than anything I could ever share with anyone. They are mine and mine alone, and the trill of their exploration, the trill of crafting them into words, pictures, voices, thoughts cannot be shared. They cannot be repeated. The ranks are few, and far between, diaries come close, but not always. There's that filter in between the writers and the reader, and the less of that coming the closer I get to my core.
I will write something to make one awaken instead of fall asleep. And see the day for once. To write another novel, another piece where the reader could close the story, feeling happy and fulfilled inside for having witness another perform the task that one essentially understood to be theirs to do. No I seek to jar those with half and eye open to fully witness, to stare upon the fire here, the shadow puppets, and see the light if you dare for yourself.
A sense of life...
Each moment becomes a moment to dream. Where I belong, my own oblivion. I need no one now, can have no one.
This training, this craftsmanship aids in the communication of it, but the beauty of the inner space of the creator is something only he can work on himself. It is the boat from within to without, the link, the communication, but it will not replace a void, a cheap imitator, or a dishonest hack. Those who spend their time singing others song be weary of forgetting your own. When the voice can no longer tell its own from the others, when its vessel would mold itself completely in idol worship of another, then creation is abandoned for ritual, a performance of something past and done.
Creation is active. I must know what I think. I must do what is rare to achieve what is rarer. The truth cannot set you free if you never speak it, or speak it without honesty.
And if the blood falls in between my fingers, to disfigure either of us, I know that it is only an eye on the world that it ever was. You could learn to love a monster. But you must learn to love whatever it is you do first.
Small platitudes. Performance is the order of the day, achieving a sort of 'realism'. It's always a realism never real. A world where you're taught to smile in politeness, smile to hide anger, smile in the face of death, to smile when you don't feel like it so others won't be upset, to smile instead of yawn, to smile at our own ignorance. What then does a smile actually look like? We're taught to act, but not to be. We're told to be free, but never shown. We're made to fear, and feel ashamed when we are.
This utter lie the swallowing of that I weep for. Tricked, lied, and rewarded to act and not cognizant of their hollowness, I see the void that children become. It's ever sad, and constantly said. Children learn ever so well. To learn instead of to grow. At last we are here a spoon fed society. Unable to grow, but constantly willing to learn, to adapt. Unable to live, but fearful of death.
In another life I might have been a serial killer, if I taught others worth killing. Now I wait for my moment, scheming, hoping.
Learning has robbed away the spirits of men. Where the majority subjugate themselves to rules never questioned. Marching in lock step towards individual dreams on hollow grounds. So lost, so trapped, and so unaware. Knowledge is there, but it is never free those whose themselves unfree.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Potential
To accept the heroic
and individual
in oneself.
To express
and experience the uniqueness
of this imagination to the edges
of its own possibility.
And to feel
the struggle and the strain
and the doubt.
Because I bring it on myself.
I bring it on myself.
How else can I own it?
How else can it belong to me?
The crimson seeds sown upon battlefields,
or trees now palisades
to keep the planters alive
were not sacrifices I needed to bear, to understand
How much a burden...
How much a strain...
Did you fight for freedom?
That there more kindness in the youth
who embraces sight
that the old can
no longer see
What a mess....
White clouds riding upon the winds,
may only give shape,
to the one that can see through
these voices that sing mimicry,
and be precious only to those that can paint
against blank skies.
I look upon the eyes of those that aren't my enemy
And quiet respect for the struggle they endure
I wish I could free them from the hands that have them chasing,
laurel leaves they already hold.
Though criminal as that may be,
the worse crime is to deny
thee, thee
I will make them see
I will make them see
There's nothing more precious
than the dying light that is
thee
and individual
in oneself.
To express
and experience the uniqueness
of this imagination to the edges
of its own possibility.
And to feel
the struggle and the strain
and the doubt.
Because I bring it on myself.
I bring it on myself.
How else can I own it?
How else can it belong to me?
The crimson seeds sown upon battlefields,
or trees now palisades
to keep the planters alive
were not sacrifices I needed to bear, to understand
How much a burden...
How much a strain...
Did you fight for freedom?
That there more kindness in the youth
who embraces sight
that the old can
no longer see
What a mess....
White clouds riding upon the winds,
may only give shape,
to the one that can see through
these voices that sing mimicry,
and be precious only to those that can paint
against blank skies.
I look upon the eyes of those that aren't my enemy
And quiet respect for the struggle they endure
I wish I could free them from the hands that have them chasing,
laurel leaves they already hold.
Though criminal as that may be,
the worse crime is to deny
thee, thee
I will make them see
I will make them see
There's nothing more precious
than the dying light that is
thee
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Distractions in the Modern Age
I like Lacan's notion of the Real as being that which returns into place. If I could keep to that distinction between the real, and the unconscious then I would be a much more productive individual able to stand witness to a self-defeating delusion against a tide of unsavory self-hatred.
To be able to write with less distraction. Endless distraction is the reality of modern life, and unavoidable to get into the touch of what is going on inside this technological revolution spiraling into the generation. I can only hope to lessen the distraction enough to get to the core of my writing self. It is a showdown with Truth as I feel it that trickles out of these hands, and if the hands are stained with the blots of the the unsavory dribbling of my soul then so be it. Writing is possibly one of the most democratic art forms there are. This means that there is a lot of crap written all the time, which doesn't make any of it less true. A serial killer can write as much as a rapist, as much as an insurance salesman or arms-dealer.
In terms of distraction, checking email is worse than smoking half a pack of cigarettes. As long as one doesn't go for an extended cigarette break to chat with neighboring balconies, you can be sure to smoke it and get right back on the idea as it's hitting you in front of the screen, or notebook.
One's attitude can be as important as one's words. In this written universe, we can feel the futility of words to other mediums in everday life. We're constantly attempting to use words to 'convey' to 'denote' things like emotions, attitude, intentions, all the things which are so much or expressive and easily available as a human-being through other mediums like facial expressions, or the voice.
Words, words, words.
They rattle off in the mind like the sound of dice falling wherever they may. It's either luck, or some divine monkey on a type-writer keeping me going as I'm barely conscious in this drunken-commando haze. It's hazing, but I seem to do the best writing on the verges of passing out. There's something just so right about not being able to stand it any longer, and succumbing to slumber that makes the whole experience less than self-aggrandizement and murder at the same time.
To be able to write with less distraction. Endless distraction is the reality of modern life, and unavoidable to get into the touch of what is going on inside this technological revolution spiraling into the generation. I can only hope to lessen the distraction enough to get to the core of my writing self. It is a showdown with Truth as I feel it that trickles out of these hands, and if the hands are stained with the blots of the the unsavory dribbling of my soul then so be it. Writing is possibly one of the most democratic art forms there are. This means that there is a lot of crap written all the time, which doesn't make any of it less true. A serial killer can write as much as a rapist, as much as an insurance salesman or arms-dealer.
In terms of distraction, checking email is worse than smoking half a pack of cigarettes. As long as one doesn't go for an extended cigarette break to chat with neighboring balconies, you can be sure to smoke it and get right back on the idea as it's hitting you in front of the screen, or notebook.
One's attitude can be as important as one's words. In this written universe, we can feel the futility of words to other mediums in everday life. We're constantly attempting to use words to 'convey' to 'denote' things like emotions, attitude, intentions, all the things which are so much or expressive and easily available as a human-being through other mediums like facial expressions, or the voice.
Words, words, words.
They rattle off in the mind like the sound of dice falling wherever they may. It's either luck, or some divine monkey on a type-writer keeping me going as I'm barely conscious in this drunken-commando haze. It's hazing, but I seem to do the best writing on the verges of passing out. There's something just so right about not being able to stand it any longer, and succumbing to slumber that makes the whole experience less than self-aggrandizement and murder at the same time.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Writing Early in the Mornings
There is something to be said about writing in the mornings. Surprisingly sleep came early last night towards the break of midnight, and I awoke to the early Chinese (I'm guessing from the way their language sounds, but most likely) joggers in the playground behind the house and of course my friends the rats. While I've thinned their population to say perhaps the last family in the house their complete extermination/removal/relocation has been elusive. They're now wise to my traps and I must change strategy (which gets me thinking why rats aren't symbols of cleverness like foxes; probably bad PR). Any suggestions?
Unfortunately, the early sleep did not yield scribbable dreams. To me this is a night lost. From the dream comes my best work. What is better; waking up tired with ideas but unable to write, or waking up fresh without a idea to begin exploring, but able to write? Perhaps a schedule could be arranged to have both, yet I have a sinking feeling that one is cheating the other.
I finally feel in the right position to be able to discuss certain other books finished, and work on current projects. A nice beginning to another hopefully productive day.
Have we built a life complete for human existence? Have we even built a life sufficient and necessary for ourselves, our individuality?
I don't know why I don't just publish the blog posts the day that I write them. Perhaps I figured that I'll do some editing. Alas there is rarely time for that. The mind moves on, and you can never step in the same river twice. This was a couple of days ago. It's almost been raining every single night.
I don't know why but I seem to write better when there is a thunderstorm on the horizon. Perhaps the weather is appropriating my mood. Or perhaps the prospect of rain in this superheated city has cooled down my body temperature and thus my brain enough for a steady stream of coherence through the voltage storm between these ears. Whatever it is I should waste the feeling.
Reading a narrative fiction which wanders about and rambles on and on, if you do fall in love with the writer's voice then you're sold. It brings a lot of things into perspective with a coherence of vision that is much in lacking in this century of cut-off time. The pause button will be the motif of this generation. We're always in the middle, in between a thing and another while live grows more passive and passive each day. The spectacles are all around, and unbinding me, my thoughts, my dreams, and desire from the simulacra is puzzling. Constantly I am asking myself this: how did I become so fragmented? How did a life once whole, honest, and straight become so twisted in false dichotomies and complications? For my weapons I have my instincts, which in a pure past perspective has guided me better than future projections of failure and disaster of fear of instincts. For one, it has guided me to just the right books that I need to be reading now. And now that I'm reading them I begin to understand that what modern society had fundamentally broken was: life.
I did not understand it fully at first when I read the Elementary Particles, but I got the sense at the end that the author had made us question the possibility of a human existence as we know it (or perhaps a humane existence) at the turn of the 21st century. What do I mean by this? The characters showed fragmentary humans, attempting to find that whole. As if that whole could make their life more complete in a society which had categorized them, marked them, tagged them, and projected their futures all on a time line. All of them could be a statistic. That hollow feeling of fate closing upon the characters felt so inhuman and alien that one wanted to rebel against the character's impending fate. Yet, I the reader derived a satisfaction from witnessing the characters succumb to their fates. I judged it proper, and would have felt cheated if they didn't. That gave the writing a quality of verisimilitude which modern commercial writing so dearly lacks. The characters were driven into the pit of doom by their own hand, their own devices. Their fundamental flaws, despite all abstraction, lead them to their fall. They were not merely foil for the main character to chop away, shoot, or blast with a special effects explosion. There is a logic to them that elevated them from mere puppets on a puppet theater to living, breathing human-beings for moments, more real than social reality. For those of us that live in cities, walking down the glam street (or glam streets as the case may be) we do not live anymore in a human reality but in the belly of a machine. You can feel the edges of this machine on the outskirts, churning away, non-stop, but to be in the middle of it, to see each interaction as income, exchange, output, commodity fetish, etc. to see abstract rational economics conducted by a human hand, a human face, a human voice devalues that of the breathing man and adds to that of abstraction man. But the worst of all is the sense, when watching from the outside, that absolutely nothing of worth is going on in shopping. For the shoppie, dominated in minds, possibilities, dreams, the brain is kept alive on the static glow of remembered advertisements and TV screens. Pictures of products never touched never smelled, never taken in by other sense than the ears and the eyes become… real? The minor of ah-ah of witnessing the phasmagoria in the flesh. But I who does not watch TV, having only perceived this piece for the first time, know it is there, not knowing its qualities and its labels, not understanding why this or that design looks better than this or that see small, same looking bottles, and not understand the difference until I try them. Yet even when I try them there are just things… in others I see their lives have been taken over by the Thing. Everything needs to resolve itself around The Thing. All constructed human conflicts; belonging, lifestyle, choice of mate, presidents all revolve around the acquisition of The Thing. And if we are all just objects swirling around the phallic symbol of The Thing, the indeed the abstraction of it has taken over Life. Hence I finally understand the title of Minimum Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life.
If life, an eventual abstract thing to come into existence can be said to be human then the definition of that, the asking of 'how' questions, and finally and importantly the limits of what constitutes human. A good definition should be; sufficient, and necessary. Therefore, what is the necessary for a life to be human? What sufficiently can we call a human life? These were the questions addressed.
Have we built a life complete for human existence? Have we even built a life sufficient and necessary for ourselves, our individuality?
Thursday, May 20, 2010
May 20-21
The first part is not spell-checked. It was simply written on the spur before passing out. Somehow I like it that way better. The second part is only moments ago. I'm either going to pass out again, or get back into veiling my ideas in their letter body bags.
--
Rage is boiling inside of me at what had happpened yesterday. I'm at a point right now where everything is coming together. I understand now that I'm gong to have to type with my eyes closed to get the world out. I see the visons of this inner world where the stories ring true, but I can't neglect to keep my eye out for this one. This one world this one where the moment can pass ou by just liethat. There's no inifinite time on a plane to be wsting waway getting drunk and hihgh and unreactive. There's been too long that I've just said to myself that I'll take antoehr drink then I'll do it, but then I don't I justkeep watching the next damn thing on TV trying to hide from what I have to do , but no more even if the desire for alcohol take me I'm giong to keep on writing, I'mg going to write no matter what the keep the images moving inside of thi callibir head of mine. I'm going to keep the whole lot from falling with my mind. I'm going to use this vison that I see the vison in the dream.s that come to be from night on to the next to keep guiding me towards the next revolution in rightiong. If I it isn't a revolutonfo or them it is a revolution for me, because I can feel what everyone shall being feeling that alineted from this sense of reality proud nad ostaligic, the mood and lthe listening, it's in the music in is in the underground... am I making the right choices, but I'm only the writing the novel that I can write right now in this moment . I'm only going to use what I know right now tot keep myelf going. I'm going to high speed the hell out of wriitng meocride crap, and keep heading toward the benveable goals. I know what I'm gong to hve to learn to type faster to keep with the flow of my thoughts into language. This lagnuage which spikes and thrills. I 'm wiriting electicity off from my head into my fingers.
2:23: AM Can't sleep. The rats are always knawing at the roof at 3 in the morning and it's too damn hot even with two fans on me. Since I can't sleep I decided to read some of Henry Miller's letters. Now here is a man who knew about making art by writing. Unfortunately I'm almost at the end of the book when I discovered where the injuries foretold in an earlier blue ink warned. The bastard had cut out and stolen most of the last chapters! He's so damn indecent as well to steal the pages after the letters have begun! I'm left hanging... and cursing the bastard who had the gall to call me motherfucker in his note! Whoever you are, I have to say I had been amused reading your note but I want those damn pages back and damn your scrap book or whatever you chicken shit! I can barely read your handwriting, and the sentiment was fine, until you had to insult me, carr.
Well on the bright side it got me back in the new office chair to write. Meditations upon the visions in the back of my eyelids. What is writing? The question simply popped into my mind as I finally got up to drink some water. What is writing? I could ask: What is art? But: What is writing? Is writing some sort of special medium, where working with the very basic tools of language we are sending straight bolts of telepathy hurling into the minds of others? And what constitutes good writing? I know commercial success appears to be what everyone around me is striving for. I'm wondering if we're simply a verbal puppeteer, dragging characters out of the closet to enact our private pains for another audience. What people want to read about are other people, doing human things. That is the sphere of fiction. We have the scientific language which leaves one bored to sleep, maintaining that detached 'objective' perspective. Yet what is 'good writing'? I'm clearly unresolved on the issue.
I dream of a style being variations on a theme. There is the main concept, and then the small parts. Yet to create something totally new, something original, I see that one has to work with the basic colors, the nuts and bolts of the craft. And yes, despite everything being so uncertain there is certainly a craft to doing this.
--
Rage is boiling inside of me at what had happpened yesterday. I'm at a point right now where everything is coming together. I understand now that I'm gong to have to type with my eyes closed to get the world out. I see the visons of this inner world where the stories ring true, but I can't neglect to keep my eye out for this one. This one world this one where the moment can pass ou by just liethat. There's no inifinite time on a plane to be wsting waway getting drunk and hihgh and unreactive. There's been too long that I've just said to myself that I'll take antoehr drink then I'll do it, but then I don't I justkeep watching the next damn thing on TV trying to hide from what I have to do , but no more even if the desire for alcohol take me I'm giong to keep on writing, I'mg going to write no matter what the keep the images moving inside of thi callibir head of mine. I'm going to keep the whole lot from falling with my mind. I'm going to use this vison that I see the vison in the dream.s that come to be from night on to the next to keep guiding me towards the next revolution in rightiong. If I it isn't a revolutonfo or them it is a revolution for me, because I can feel what everyone shall being feeling that alineted from this sense of reality proud nad ostaligic, the mood and lthe listening, it's in the music in is in the underground... am I making the right choices, but I'm only the writing the novel that I can write right now in this moment . I'm only going to use what I know right now tot keep myelf going. I'm going to high speed the hell out of wriitng meocride crap, and keep heading toward the benveable goals. I know what I'm gong to hve to learn to type faster to keep with the flow of my thoughts into language. This lagnuage which spikes and thrills. I 'm wiriting electicity off from my head into my fingers.
2:23: AM Can't sleep. The rats are always knawing at the roof at 3 in the morning and it's too damn hot even with two fans on me. Since I can't sleep I decided to read some of Henry Miller's letters. Now here is a man who knew about making art by writing. Unfortunately I'm almost at the end of the book when I discovered where the injuries foretold in an earlier blue ink warned. The bastard had cut out and stolen most of the last chapters! He's so damn indecent as well to steal the pages after the letters have begun! I'm left hanging... and cursing the bastard who had the gall to call me motherfucker in his note! Whoever you are, I have to say I had been amused reading your note but I want those damn pages back and damn your scrap book or whatever you chicken shit! I can barely read your handwriting, and the sentiment was fine, until you had to insult me, carr.
Well on the bright side it got me back in the new office chair to write. Meditations upon the visions in the back of my eyelids. What is writing? The question simply popped into my mind as I finally got up to drink some water. What is writing? I could ask: What is art? But: What is writing? Is writing some sort of special medium, where working with the very basic tools of language we are sending straight bolts of telepathy hurling into the minds of others? And what constitutes good writing? I know commercial success appears to be what everyone around me is striving for. I'm wondering if we're simply a verbal puppeteer, dragging characters out of the closet to enact our private pains for another audience. What people want to read about are other people, doing human things. That is the sphere of fiction. We have the scientific language which leaves one bored to sleep, maintaining that detached 'objective' perspective. Yet what is 'good writing'? I'm clearly unresolved on the issue.
I dream of a style being variations on a theme. There is the main concept, and then the small parts. Yet to create something totally new, something original, I see that one has to work with the basic colors, the nuts and bolts of the craft. And yes, despite everything being so uncertain there is certainly a craft to doing this.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Brain Cell
You must catch the dream before it's all gone. It's all gone now. Damn it, it was so fresh just a minute ago.
I had a dream of soliders. Of being soliders in an enternal struggle. An ember, and ember what is that? Is that me
Everyline is me burning out another brain-cell.
I had a dream of soliders. Of being soliders in an enternal struggle. An ember, and ember what is that? Is that me
Everyline is me burning out another brain-cell.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
City-Drift, Bangkok (Raw)
Here's a city-drift I did of Bangkok walking home drunk one night. I typed it in a raw text file, to be edited later. Enjoys.
Some people would call this city, the city of Angels. I would call it the city of lies; but then all cities lie. Underneath all the bill boards, LCD screens, and facades, it's a mess of congrete, swet and exploitation. There hasn't been a major city I've been to that isn't built on the backs of provincial indentured servants. Attracted by the lure, the glitter and glamor from the electrotube they come in trains, buses, even sometimes planes. In beat up cars they come, walking in on the mass transits. They walk the street brown skin, and stinking, or sell trinkets on the walk ways in front of department stores.
They are my companions in the night.
Some people try to make it in the city. They say there's more opportunity. This is a city where people who fail come. In Isaan where havest season comes only a year, people move to the city to drive taxis. People will always need a taxi, as they say. Because walking is so passe.
People think it's dangerous to walk at night there. Watching the news, they spread the fear. Yet as cities go this one is quite safe. Of course, that usually a function of how you dress. Black supermarket Tees and my mom's hand me down jeans, a chain for the wallet and a fist full of change. And only fools joj down dark dead-end alleys. It's safe until you meet a police man. After all, you know that one has a gun. There's usually a problem when one man has a gun, and not the other one.
Most of all it's important to smile. Especially to the waiter boys, the flower merchants, to give them a small time, don't wince, but smile. Smile don't say a word. Let the smile say that I know the struggle brother.
But I stand apart.
People have confused selling themselves to art. Its all self-promotion, the propaganda people say. You've got to sell, make money, slave. You don't need that much money to live, you probably need more to die and expect to be burried.
Those that never wrote, and tire of their souls wouldn't know. They wouldn't know, nor taste the bitterness in this, the sweetness in that. Each line a hit of acid, searing away memory, rewriting history. I'm uncovering the secret... my secrets. Those that I hold so dear that I won't let myself know.
You can look at a mirror for your own reflection; but the mirror lies those aren't my eyes. Faded innocence.
Encarta used to call it the city of whores, until the government had it removed. Many things are removed. Like rotting waste food on city streets, or glue bags, child prostitutes. It's all the same really.
I stay up and watch the street clearers wait for the sunrise. They recycle the plastic, the glass. Rubber gloves, and face masks, the brooms, the sweeps. A water truck and gardeners.
The trees can't water themselves, someone has to do it. That someone also had to sleep with another or not get shelter?
But it is a city. For one that barely sleeps, to walk a city that never does, we know the expression is a lie. You and I. It's always you and I. Do we dance to regret?
I dance under the city light post, tracing the shadows with my arms. You could learn to love the spots in the shadows of the canopy.
It's a drug hallucination; charm.
We were built as a fortress.
I refused to work. I don't want exploitation. I come from a cross the river and the cannals. I say. A place far and far away.
I couch surf, and I lie still for days, looking out at parking lots; nursing the drug. The drug that shafts my hands, and burn my eyes.
Some would call it sleep. I call it a compromise.
I'm fighting for this existence, every minute, every hour, ever day. I'm fighting to keep these eyes from shutting. From the dream of being dead and gone, from the dream of being forgotten.
Some people would call this city, the city of Angels. I would call it the city of lies; but then all cities lie. Underneath all the bill boards, LCD screens, and facades, it's a mess of congrete, swet and exploitation. There hasn't been a major city I've been to that isn't built on the backs of provincial indentured servants. Attracted by the lure, the glitter and glamor from the electrotube they come in trains, buses, even sometimes planes. In beat up cars they come, walking in on the mass transits. They walk the street brown skin, and stinking, or sell trinkets on the walk ways in front of department stores.
They are my companions in the night.
Some people try to make it in the city. They say there's more opportunity. This is a city where people who fail come. In Isaan where havest season comes only a year, people move to the city to drive taxis. People will always need a taxi, as they say. Because walking is so passe.
People think it's dangerous to walk at night there. Watching the news, they spread the fear. Yet as cities go this one is quite safe. Of course, that usually a function of how you dress. Black supermarket Tees and my mom's hand me down jeans, a chain for the wallet and a fist full of change. And only fools joj down dark dead-end alleys. It's safe until you meet a police man. After all, you know that one has a gun. There's usually a problem when one man has a gun, and not the other one.
Most of all it's important to smile. Especially to the waiter boys, the flower merchants, to give them a small time, don't wince, but smile. Smile don't say a word. Let the smile say that I know the struggle brother.
But I stand apart.
People have confused selling themselves to art. Its all self-promotion, the propaganda people say. You've got to sell, make money, slave. You don't need that much money to live, you probably need more to die and expect to be burried.
Those that never wrote, and tire of their souls wouldn't know. They wouldn't know, nor taste the bitterness in this, the sweetness in that. Each line a hit of acid, searing away memory, rewriting history. I'm uncovering the secret... my secrets. Those that I hold so dear that I won't let myself know.
You can look at a mirror for your own reflection; but the mirror lies those aren't my eyes. Faded innocence.
Encarta used to call it the city of whores, until the government had it removed. Many things are removed. Like rotting waste food on city streets, or glue bags, child prostitutes. It's all the same really.
I stay up and watch the street clearers wait for the sunrise. They recycle the plastic, the glass. Rubber gloves, and face masks, the brooms, the sweeps. A water truck and gardeners.
The trees can't water themselves, someone has to do it. That someone also had to sleep with another or not get shelter?
But it is a city. For one that barely sleeps, to walk a city that never does, we know the expression is a lie. You and I. It's always you and I. Do we dance to regret?
I dance under the city light post, tracing the shadows with my arms. You could learn to love the spots in the shadows of the canopy.
It's a drug hallucination; charm.
We were built as a fortress.
I refused to work. I don't want exploitation. I come from a cross the river and the cannals. I say. A place far and far away.
I couch surf, and I lie still for days, looking out at parking lots; nursing the drug. The drug that shafts my hands, and burn my eyes.
Some would call it sleep. I call it a compromise.
I'm fighting for this existence, every minute, every hour, ever day. I'm fighting to keep these eyes from shutting. From the dream of being dead and gone, from the dream of being forgotten.
Begining ear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
Wrote this about two weeks ago while reading... well it's in the title ;)
I am sitting here nursing a midnight hangover (don’t ask), trying reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Ah, what a world it must have been to be back there in that age and writing for Rolling Stone magazine! If only these things were possible now a days. It is partly publishing’s fault, though the blame is constantly shifted to ‘the Reading public’. Yet as an unorthodox social scientist in training I can safely say ‘that just ain’t so’.
A word before I start the ritual massacre of modern customs and conventions. We had an interesting discussion at the last Bangkok Writer’s Guild meetup about editors, after the official meeting of course and everyone had had enough wine and food, those that had better places to go went, and those that could stay were really getting into the bare knuckle parts of being a working writer.
We’d somehow gotten onto the topic of Raymond Carver and his editor (his name), and how that heavily influenced his style. I remember window reading up the only copy (no, no I will not blame the reading public) of at the biggest, most modern bookstore which shall remained unnamed (because I refuse to name drop them), at the swankest department store in the capital (I was awaiting a FREE emerging female Japanese directors film festival; now if that doesn’t give it away, then you don’t know our lovely capital. NOTE: Awesome indie films, but the theater location still made me feel guilty) finding that the later stories didn’t seem like the Carver I studied in school. I could think of about a good dozen examples of such editor/mentor figures in the memoirs of great writers, a list which included the likes of Thompson, and Hemingway.
“These days, it’s just not the same,” our guest speaker said, in that pleasant American drawl I associate with being born a generation before my time. “These days’ editors just want to sell what you give them. They’re not interesting in mentoring the young writer anymore.”
“If you look at his earlier work, as compared to his later, even the meaning’s changed.” Phillip said.
“You know, you could try writing a story about that. About trying to find such an editor or agent.”
“Good idea,” I said. “As an idealist young writer fresh outta college I want to develop fast, and I know I’m going to need someone like that if I’m going to get to my goal at the end of the year.”
Very good idea. I thought. Very good idea. I want to learn to not only express myself, but do it good.
“Like in the music industry,” another member said, “you develop talent.”
Catching a cab home (protesters had just bombed the subway that night, so I figured I could justifiably afford a bit for safety) I then thought of those other group of writers though that had their peers acting as mentor and editors, like the Beats, the mud raking Socialists, the post-war Paris Americans, and the even the Auteur in film. Perhaps as a young writer attempting to find the voice to bend into control chaos (your controlled chaos) on that empty canvas, it might not be such a good idea. Hemmingway might bully Fitzgerald into tips about writing, but I bet he would’ve have gotten so insane and great without Zelda, nor Henry Miller without June or Anais. Perhaps where I’m going I can’t ask for traditional mentors, not from the writing world, nor from the ideals of an anti-heroic society. Perhaps where I’m going I need more than just words, thoughts, egotistical rationality, and my dulled senses. In trying to light my own fire I can’t keep looking off at distant flames across mountains for guidance. I’m on a strange mountain of my own shrouded in darkness and immense beauty. Unexplored wonder. Like a pioneer, like an impotent caveman, I’m peering into the mist not knowing what will come next. The voices in my head, my mentor and muse, can only extract me from the mundane into this reality but they cannot help with the exploration. They can help keep me strong, but they can’t learn my dream, nor learn my song for me.
Like an act of faith, I’m stumbling blind into rapture.
Long interlude aside; it’s pleasant to read a mind attempting at grasping something. The author’s note about jettisoning hindsight is a rare gem amongst books written about a subject. Why must people constantly want that 50/50 look at things? Historicism will kill, it has killed. The very notion of comparing past events to predict the future is as good as driving an oil tanker with the rear view mirror that instead of reflecting, is painted of a congealed consensus of all the passengers on board. And people wonder when it hits an iceberg, or runs aground on a reef!
To quote Nassim Nicholas Taleb, ‘We don’t learn that we don’t learn.”
Getting that blow-by-blow account of attempting to understand an event is a better example, perhaps the only true account of what’s actually going on. After years of college I’m tired of arguments, and studying politics, I’m especially tired of arguments over nothing, about nothing, or doing nothing definable. I’m convinced that there are enough experts and talking heads on TV to drive pharmaceutical sales that I’d be quickly out of job if I’d even wanted to join the peanut gallery. They can make a rat-race about anything thanks to those damn people who clap at the wrong moments (refer to Catcher in the Rye, pg. 84), if you know what I mean.
I’m more interested about how one gets the story, and what that speaks about the process. Anyone and everyone with a little bit of fame in the social sciences have written a book whose title could have all been switched to: ‘Where we went wrong’. We’re endlessly discussing problems, and possible solutions, and the problems with those solutions. Meanwhile, actors influence global politics, incompetent politicians are allowed to continue to mumble through their ‘political careers’ while bankrupting countries, and a new generation of young people become zombiefied, raterized, and chop sues and stir fried rice to feed the pigs. The really, really fat pigs.
Side-note: I don’t know why, but CEOs always look like they want to eat you smiling in front of their corporate logos.
And unlike people who speak at air-conditioned, climate change conferences in suits, I’ve neither solutions nor facts to awe nor scare. I’ve got no call to action, and in fact I’m not acting at the moment because I have no life. I don’t know what life is. I do know that it’s not a knowledge problem, though. I don’t know where we went wrong, nor do I particularly care at this point. I don’t even know where we’re going, or where we came from. In a society that denies first-hand experience of self-knowledge, but increasingly manufactures and sells second-hand experiences of it, I’m content to be a little man living under a rock right now to figure out certain things. I’m contended to represent the disunited republic of myself, but I wonder… Am I a toad, or a frog? Are my hallucinations revealing, or are they concealing (please don’t tell me they’re not real; everyone hallucinates, everyday. Read a Zen story.) what I want to know? What do I want to know? Aren’t they just as valid as blue or red for spring fashion? Some wouldn’t like to think so.
Whatever solutions I’ll come up with, I can guarantee this: it won’t be rational. I’m traveling a different path. If like Don Juan reflects, all paths ultimately lead to death, I’m just hoping this path I’m a walking has a heart.
Ah… what is heart?
I am sitting here nursing a midnight hangover (don’t ask), trying reading Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Ah, what a world it must have been to be back there in that age and writing for Rolling Stone magazine! If only these things were possible now a days. It is partly publishing’s fault, though the blame is constantly shifted to ‘the Reading public’. Yet as an unorthodox social scientist in training I can safely say ‘that just ain’t so’.
A word before I start the ritual massacre of modern customs and conventions. We had an interesting discussion at the last Bangkok Writer’s Guild meetup about editors, after the official meeting of course and everyone had had enough wine and food, those that had better places to go went, and those that could stay were really getting into the bare knuckle parts of being a working writer.
We’d somehow gotten onto the topic of Raymond Carver and his editor (his name), and how that heavily influenced his style. I remember window reading up the only copy (no, no I will not blame the reading public) of at the biggest, most modern bookstore which shall remained unnamed (because I refuse to name drop them), at the swankest department store in the capital (I was awaiting a FREE emerging female Japanese directors film festival; now if that doesn’t give it away, then you don’t know our lovely capital. NOTE: Awesome indie films, but the theater location still made me feel guilty) finding that the later stories didn’t seem like the Carver I studied in school. I could think of about a good dozen examples of such editor/mentor figures in the memoirs of great writers, a list which included the likes of Thompson, and Hemingway.
“These days, it’s just not the same,” our guest speaker said, in that pleasant American drawl I associate with being born a generation before my time. “These days’ editors just want to sell what you give them. They’re not interesting in mentoring the young writer anymore.”
“If you look at his earlier work, as compared to his later, even the meaning’s changed.” Phillip said.
“You know, you could try writing a story about that. About trying to find such an editor or agent.”
“Good idea,” I said. “As an idealist young writer fresh outta college I want to develop fast, and I know I’m going to need someone like that if I’m going to get to my goal at the end of the year.”
Very good idea. I thought. Very good idea. I want to learn to not only express myself, but do it good.
“Like in the music industry,” another member said, “you develop talent.”
Catching a cab home (protesters had just bombed the subway that night, so I figured I could justifiably afford a bit for safety) I then thought of those other group of writers though that had their peers acting as mentor and editors, like the Beats, the mud raking Socialists, the post-war Paris Americans, and the even the Auteur in film. Perhaps as a young writer attempting to find the voice to bend into control chaos (your controlled chaos) on that empty canvas, it might not be such a good idea. Hemmingway might bully Fitzgerald into tips about writing, but I bet he would’ve have gotten so insane and great without Zelda, nor Henry Miller without June or Anais. Perhaps where I’m going I can’t ask for traditional mentors, not from the writing world, nor from the ideals of an anti-heroic society. Perhaps where I’m going I need more than just words, thoughts, egotistical rationality, and my dulled senses. In trying to light my own fire I can’t keep looking off at distant flames across mountains for guidance. I’m on a strange mountain of my own shrouded in darkness and immense beauty. Unexplored wonder. Like a pioneer, like an impotent caveman, I’m peering into the mist not knowing what will come next. The voices in my head, my mentor and muse, can only extract me from the mundane into this reality but they cannot help with the exploration. They can help keep me strong, but they can’t learn my dream, nor learn my song for me.
Like an act of faith, I’m stumbling blind into rapture.
Long interlude aside; it’s pleasant to read a mind attempting at grasping something. The author’s note about jettisoning hindsight is a rare gem amongst books written about a subject. Why must people constantly want that 50/50 look at things? Historicism will kill, it has killed. The very notion of comparing past events to predict the future is as good as driving an oil tanker with the rear view mirror that instead of reflecting, is painted of a congealed consensus of all the passengers on board. And people wonder when it hits an iceberg, or runs aground on a reef!
To quote Nassim Nicholas Taleb, ‘We don’t learn that we don’t learn.”
Getting that blow-by-blow account of attempting to understand an event is a better example, perhaps the only true account of what’s actually going on. After years of college I’m tired of arguments, and studying politics, I’m especially tired of arguments over nothing, about nothing, or doing nothing definable. I’m convinced that there are enough experts and talking heads on TV to drive pharmaceutical sales that I’d be quickly out of job if I’d even wanted to join the peanut gallery. They can make a rat-race about anything thanks to those damn people who clap at the wrong moments (refer to Catcher in the Rye, pg. 84), if you know what I mean.
I’m more interested about how one gets the story, and what that speaks about the process. Anyone and everyone with a little bit of fame in the social sciences have written a book whose title could have all been switched to: ‘Where we went wrong’. We’re endlessly discussing problems, and possible solutions, and the problems with those solutions. Meanwhile, actors influence global politics, incompetent politicians are allowed to continue to mumble through their ‘political careers’ while bankrupting countries, and a new generation of young people become zombiefied, raterized, and chop sues and stir fried rice to feed the pigs. The really, really fat pigs.
Side-note: I don’t know why, but CEOs always look like they want to eat you smiling in front of their corporate logos.
And unlike people who speak at air-conditioned, climate change conferences in suits, I’ve neither solutions nor facts to awe nor scare. I’ve got no call to action, and in fact I’m not acting at the moment because I have no life. I don’t know what life is. I do know that it’s not a knowledge problem, though. I don’t know where we went wrong, nor do I particularly care at this point. I don’t even know where we’re going, or where we came from. In a society that denies first-hand experience of self-knowledge, but increasingly manufactures and sells second-hand experiences of it, I’m content to be a little man living under a rock right now to figure out certain things. I’m contended to represent the disunited republic of myself, but I wonder… Am I a toad, or a frog? Are my hallucinations revealing, or are they concealing (please don’t tell me they’re not real; everyone hallucinates, everyday. Read a Zen story.) what I want to know? What do I want to know? Aren’t they just as valid as blue or red for spring fashion? Some wouldn’t like to think so.
Whatever solutions I’ll come up with, I can guarantee this: it won’t be rational. I’m traveling a different path. If like Don Juan reflects, all paths ultimately lead to death, I’m just hoping this path I’m a walking has a heart.
Ah… what is heart?
Monday, May 10, 2010
A month's absence
Well, it's been a month since I wrote last but that's all good. A busy month of traveling, reflecting... and what do you know the writing has improved. Now it's just about forcing myself to get it down on paper. I'm going to make an honest shot of attempting to get this blog to do something again.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wet rag
Ah, food and I'm starting to get back on track again. For the record, attempting to stave off hunger by whiskey does not work. When the meal finally comes your stomach is in no condition to actually take it down. Sure you're not hungry, but whenever you come off it you feel weak from lack of food and still not hungry enough to put something down your stomach. If you're really in a pinch, like you're really on and the voice is yelling and screaming in your head and there's barely white on the note paper in front of you, then yeah maybe... but don't keep it up for more than a day. After more than a day when you're not on a buzz (and even sometimes when you are) your body feels like a wet rag.
It's been getting hotter the past couple of days. Increased traffic jams from protests and the approach of summer has turned me into a swamp of shirt and boxers. Even the baby powder's not keeping my ass dry anymore, and I'm a bunch of rashes where clothing chafes. My shirt feels as if I've been on the treadmill in low all day. Coincidentally, the gym is the only place besides the bus where I'm in air conditioning. Not that I like air conditioning, I like to be dry. Those who like showers have the blessing of taking a quick cool in the rushing water. Those who fight the stickiness of being dirty, with the horror of having to scrape it off yourself while applying chemicals to your body like me (not to mention getting sprayed by water) are left with a constant dilemma: to wear a sweaty wet rag, or be a sweaty wet rag?
And in this case, alcohol is definitely not an answer.
It's been getting hotter the past couple of days. Increased traffic jams from protests and the approach of summer has turned me into a swamp of shirt and boxers. Even the baby powder's not keeping my ass dry anymore, and I'm a bunch of rashes where clothing chafes. My shirt feels as if I've been on the treadmill in low all day. Coincidentally, the gym is the only place besides the bus where I'm in air conditioning. Not that I like air conditioning, I like to be dry. Those who like showers have the blessing of taking a quick cool in the rushing water. Those who fight the stickiness of being dirty, with the horror of having to scrape it off yourself while applying chemicals to your body like me (not to mention getting sprayed by water) are left with a constant dilemma: to wear a sweaty wet rag, or be a sweaty wet rag?
And in this case, alcohol is definitely not an answer.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Human Condition
I just had a good long sleep using delta brainwave technology. After a good evening at my friend's house where I had FOOD. For those who don't know me in real life, I'm quite a thin person though I eat A LOT. My unusual thinness is thus generally attributed to: a) a fast metabolism; b) not eating properly. I like having a), but b) is somewhat deceptive, at least to me. As a semi-workaholic [I spend my free time, reading for my work, taking legal stimulants to keep on working, and in lots of exercise] food is simply something I don't think of on a regular basis. Since I mainly cook at home, this can become a big problem. By the time I'm conscious of that my body needs nutrition (when you're used to staying up for days on nothing but coffee, cigarettes, alcohol and willpower this can come pretty late) I barely have enough energy to make myself a cup of instant noodles, which as soon as I consume realize how empty my stomach is.
In this regard my bad mental habits don't help.
"Just a couple more sentences."
"Another chapter."
"Oh but you're doing so well right now, if you stop it might not come out good tomorrow."
Amongst other things I keep unconsciously saying to myself. Next thing I know it I wake up on the keyboard, and the writing is a disorganized mess. Good ideas; just don't know what order they go into. To illustrate the point, I have on my desk the remain of a pack of anti-acids that I've been chewing on (in semi-spearmint flavor!) to keep the stomach at bay.
Either I'm dedicated, or crazy.
Dread, unlimited.
Remember that loading screen in Baldur's Gate II: "Your characters don't need to eat. You Do! We don't want to lose any dedicated gamers."
I need a sign like that, for writers.
In this regard my bad mental habits don't help.
"Just a couple more sentences."
"Another chapter."
"Oh but you're doing so well right now, if you stop it might not come out good tomorrow."
Amongst other things I keep unconsciously saying to myself. Next thing I know it I wake up on the keyboard, and the writing is a disorganized mess. Good ideas; just don't know what order they go into. To illustrate the point, I have on my desk the remain of a pack of anti-acids that I've been chewing on (in semi-spearmint flavor!) to keep the stomach at bay.
Either I'm dedicated, or crazy.
Dread, unlimited.
Remember that loading screen in Baldur's Gate II: "Your characters don't need to eat. You Do! We don't want to lose any dedicated gamers."
I need a sign like that, for writers.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Attempting a Highspeed education
As if right now it might just be impossible. Perhaps my reading speed is not up to it, nor my writing stamina able to cope with it. As to the workout schedule, that is achieved. So let this be my goal for the end of the year.
Read 2 books a day. One nonfiction, one fiction. [I can do about a half]
Write 6 hours a day.
Exercise 3 hours a day.
Read 2 books a day. One nonfiction, one fiction. [I can do about a half]
Write 6 hours a day.
Exercise 3 hours a day.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wonder Boys by Micheal Chabon
Tried to watch the movie for Wonder Boys (based on the book by Micheal Chabon). There's just so much alternating of the original story I can take when it comes to adapting a book into film, and after the part Trip calls Walter at 8 am to tell him that he's in love with his wife I had it. I switched it off, feeling so glad that I read the book.
I wonder how many books turn into bad movies. What a shame that is. Wonder Boys might be a passable movie, but if anyone got turned off by it and didn't bother with the book that would be a damn shame. Then again, you can't translate a book with such a cleverness with language, references, turns of phrases, description and wit onto a screen.
I must say though that on the whole the novel had more good points than bad. It's a novel that's good, pushing great, but didn't quite get there. That is the best kind of novel for the learning writer to learn from, in my opinion. I learned a lot from this book.
It's good writing, good craft. There's so many nuggets of gold in there for an aspiring writing, and I have a feeling that this being the difficult novel, and the novel before the The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay (Pulitzer) it taught him somethings. As one in our trio reading group aptly said, "The writing is like Hollywood special effects. You're like 'wow, wow, wow' and then it's over, and you're thinking 'that's it? what about the story?" The dazzle of his prose got in the way of the execution of the story and character. You've got to 'kill your darlings' and here his cleverness with words were his.
I love first person narratives, and this one managed to stay in the same POV the entire novel. However, the writing bordered on the style of the the third person too much (the 'special effects'). While clever, the fact of it being 'too clever' at inappropriate places distracted from the situation of the story. I realized what the first person narrative needed most of all: a strong voice. That's essentially what I liked about all the books I read that's written in the first person (for an interesting experience try reading Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City written in second person) from Catcher in the Rye to Henry Miller's Tropics.
I also appreciated the novel not having a standard plot. The characters essentially don't change throughout the entire book. Grady does towards the end, which could qualify it as a maturation plot for both Grady and James Leer, but it's just the barest of changes. This is not bad. Yet a novel without a standard plot is a difficult feat to pull off, and I admire the writer for managing it, especially in a first novel. From what I understood, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh had been Chabon's master's thesis.
We disused universality in our group. One in our group got all the Jewish references, which myself and the other had no clue about. Another referent would be the pot-smoking aspects. If you've never spoked weed, hung around weed-smokers for a long time, had good friends (or spouses) who smoked reefer, then certain parts of the book would definitely get to you. As Grady compounded the problems in his life (and his denial) by smoking and avoiding conflict, each 'shove it under the carpet' scene set up the next. The way these series of effects were connected were masterfully done, but they felt like connecting the dots instead of a resonance. The essence of standard plot are stories which resonate with the unconscious (either that, or we've just been listening to them over and over again from childhood) of a majority of people, and this one perhaps a more niche group.
There are a few other points, but I gleaned one valuable lesson here. The book appeared very autobiographical. All books are, but I got the sense that this book had excellent technical execution also as if it had been a creative writing project that an A+ student wanted to write. 'Write what you know' and all other maxims met. Yet the voice didn't seem to fit or didn't come in at the right time. I saw a writer beginning to understand his craft and style. Perhaps every beginning writer must do this: write an intensely autobiographical novel, just to understand both his voice, his passion, his honesty, and the distinction of that and the story-teller's craft. Every if he/she doesn't show it to anybody, it needs to be written.
So I go to write mine... keeping in mind to kill my darlings.
I wonder how many books turn into bad movies. What a shame that is. Wonder Boys might be a passable movie, but if anyone got turned off by it and didn't bother with the book that would be a damn shame. Then again, you can't translate a book with such a cleverness with language, references, turns of phrases, description and wit onto a screen.
I must say though that on the whole the novel had more good points than bad. It's a novel that's good, pushing great, but didn't quite get there. That is the best kind of novel for the learning writer to learn from, in my opinion. I learned a lot from this book.
It's good writing, good craft. There's so many nuggets of gold in there for an aspiring writing, and I have a feeling that this being the difficult novel, and the novel before the The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay (Pulitzer) it taught him somethings. As one in our trio reading group aptly said, "The writing is like Hollywood special effects. You're like 'wow, wow, wow' and then it's over, and you're thinking 'that's it? what about the story?" The dazzle of his prose got in the way of the execution of the story and character. You've got to 'kill your darlings' and here his cleverness with words were his.
I love first person narratives, and this one managed to stay in the same POV the entire novel. However, the writing bordered on the style of the the third person too much (the 'special effects'). While clever, the fact of it being 'too clever' at inappropriate places distracted from the situation of the story. I realized what the first person narrative needed most of all: a strong voice. That's essentially what I liked about all the books I read that's written in the first person (for an interesting experience try reading Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City written in second person) from Catcher in the Rye to Henry Miller's Tropics.
I also appreciated the novel not having a standard plot. The characters essentially don't change throughout the entire book. Grady does towards the end, which could qualify it as a maturation plot for both Grady and James Leer, but it's just the barest of changes. This is not bad. Yet a novel without a standard plot is a difficult feat to pull off, and I admire the writer for managing it, especially in a first novel. From what I understood, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh had been Chabon's master's thesis.
We disused universality in our group. One in our group got all the Jewish references, which myself and the other had no clue about. Another referent would be the pot-smoking aspects. If you've never spoked weed, hung around weed-smokers for a long time, had good friends (or spouses) who smoked reefer, then certain parts of the book would definitely get to you. As Grady compounded the problems in his life (and his denial) by smoking and avoiding conflict, each 'shove it under the carpet' scene set up the next. The way these series of effects were connected were masterfully done, but they felt like connecting the dots instead of a resonance. The essence of standard plot are stories which resonate with the unconscious (either that, or we've just been listening to them over and over again from childhood) of a majority of people, and this one perhaps a more niche group.
There are a few other points, but I gleaned one valuable lesson here. The book appeared very autobiographical. All books are, but I got the sense that this book had excellent technical execution also as if it had been a creative writing project that an A+ student wanted to write. 'Write what you know' and all other maxims met. Yet the voice didn't seem to fit or didn't come in at the right time. I saw a writer beginning to understand his craft and style. Perhaps every beginning writer must do this: write an intensely autobiographical novel, just to understand both his voice, his passion, his honesty, and the distinction of that and the story-teller's craft. Every if he/she doesn't show it to anybody, it needs to be written.
So I go to write mine... keeping in mind to kill my darlings.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Old 19 year old self-reflection paper
Well... looking for old stuff to sell on my computer has turned up something fun. I wrote this paper for school (Socially Engaged Buddhism field trip) while 'under the influence', but hey it isn't a bad piece for a 19 year old kid (the trip took place in 2006). I've learned a few things since then, so I've got nothing to hide. Enjoy :)
Self-reflection journal no.2: Wat Pa Mahawan.
Sar V.
Socially Engaged Buddhism
Day 1:
7:10: a phone call wakes me up. “Sa!” Robin’s voice startled my semi-conscious.
“Y-yeahh…”
“Are you going on the field-trip?”
“nNahh, It’s been canceled,” I groaned. He woke me up for this?
“What are you talking about? We’re all down in the lobby right now!”
“WhaT!” I literally fell out of bed, cushioned by a heap of dirty laundry beside my bed. “Are you sure?”
“Are you stoned?”
“Nah, nah… oh geez, someone told me it was canceled!” I fumbled to think who it was… oh right; it was the dude with the Mohawk who delivered me that telegram…
“Get down here now!”
“Right… give me 5 minutes!”
I hung up, roused myself to complete awakeness. Things flew in and out of my school bag at light speed, and by the second phone-call I was jamming a sock on my cold feet. Such was my haste I didn’t even kiss my coffee machine goodbye before I was out the door, not bothering to lock the door. The last thing I remember before passing out again in the van was scribbling a note for Sarah at the front desk and leaving behind some rolling tobacco we bought last night.
Someone woke me up as we stopped at a large candy shop in somewhere Phetchaburi. Though I totally wasn’t in the mood for it, I ate. The highlight of that stop was talking to Jeff about what he did during the Vietnam years.
“A rescue service for bad trips on acid?”
“Yeah, we just wanted to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves.”
“Whoa… why the hell wasn’t I born to experience San Francisco in the 70’s! Why?!” I bought two Krong Tips before jumping back in the van for another long nap
Our next pit stop was at a Tesco Lotus somewhere, I wasn’t even sure if it was before or after Bangkok. After some appalling supermarket food (no wonder they were offering a 10 baht refund for every 50 baht return), I had some of Jeff’s left-over ice-cream.
“Come on, I normally wouldn’t do this, but it’s lemon sherbet!” I explained to the people giving me looks.
After everyone left, I asked Chelsea about her trip to Suan Mokkh. It was very interesting, and made me definitely interested in traveling there. It also helped me clarify some key points.
“Did you get to meet Buddhadasa?”
“No. He died, like, 30 (or was it 3) years ago.”
“Oh… err, the articles must’ve been written when he was still alive.”
“Yeah…”
After a couple of smokes I wandered back to the van. Terrell had bought a portable chess-board so we could play chess in the van.
“Are you really to get your ass kicked?”
“Yeah right! We’ll see who’s going to get it!”
We started playing. I attacked very early, as is my usually philosophy of playing chess: ATTACK, ATTACK, and ATTACK! The result was, as usual, a loss of both the queens in less than 10 moves.
“Well, the bitches are dead now,” I smile.
“Yeah, it’s just us men left to fight. Hey, would you mind body-bagging these guys?” He handled me some pieces.
Soon, however, I startled feeling very sick. We were almost evenly matched, but before the game was over I had to forfeit. The headaches were just too much. Robin taunted me as usual for forfeiting, but this time I definitely felt very, very bad physically. After a couple of stops, one where I was so sick I managed to lose my rolling paper somehow, it got worse. At first I thought it was car sickness, but that went away. Then, I thought it was dehydration, so I bought a 15 baht bottle of water and drained it in less than 8 minutes, and that went away again, but I still felt sick. By the time we startled climbing the mountain I felt like throwing up. Talking to Ted, we came up with the most logical, and, as it turned out, correct conclusion: caffeine withdrawal. So, as Ted was checking to get his rabies shot I ran like a mad man desperate to find a store, any store that had coffee.
The merchant must’ve been very surprised, maybe even a little disturbed, when a sweating young man busted into her shop yelling, “Coffee! Caffeine! Kaffae!”
Nevertheless, she got me a can of coffee when I drained in one go after I got back to the van. “Ahhh… that hit the spot!” Terrell and Robin looked up from their chess game, which had been going on for more than 3 hours.
We finally arrived at Wat Pa Mahawan near evening time, and, just in time for dinner. We were met by Phra Paisal himself, who I recognized immediately from photographs Ted showed in the class. I wondered how he was so fair skinned, living a monastic life. After setting up our mosquito nets, we had some free time. I smoked some cigarettes near the vans, watching the butterflies—some people wandered off to smoke some weed. After dinner, and evening chanting, Phra Paisal told us about the forest.
Plu—loung, as the forest was called, is a 1,000 acre forest, one of the only mountains with forests left. There was a logging concession 30 years ago, after which the villagers followed, cutting down more trees for homes and fuel. Surprisingly, the temple was startled only one year before, 1969, the logging concession. I was interested to hear that he was doing forest conservation efforts here, and that there were only 2 monks here besides him, and 2 lay people at this temple.
I wrote down everything he said, finishing off my two already almost filled notebooks…
One the reason why forest temples are good for meditation is fear. When you fear, for example, a tiger or an elephant, the mind tends to look inwards. It tries to not to think about, or focus on the tiger. It focuses on something else, like bowel movements and the breath. It makes it easier then to develop concentration, provided that, unlike most people, you do not run away.
I asked a question, the last one of the night, about conflict. Isn’t some conflict needed to spur development? If there was forever peace, wouldn’t that lead to stagnation? But the ultimate Buddhist goal, then, is peace, therefore, isn’t that counterproductive to development?
Conflict is not bad in itself, but it needs to be transformed conflict. Then it can create positive—good things—and also bring progress. Democracy is a system to transform conflict of ideas into creative dynamisms. Do not suppress conflicting idea—[but] create the third way of synthesis. In Buddhism we learn a lot about suffering—in [and through] suffering we [are] lead to achieve peace. The aim of Buddhism is to learn about suffering…
Unfortunately the questions had to end there, as time was up. Due to having ended my notebook, I forgot to later ask, since he mentioned synthesis, if Phra Paisal had read Hegel. And if he did, what he thought about Hegel’s statement that the mind, mental perception, consciousness, was a negative process. You see only little of the whole reality. However, I did remember to resume the question that begged to be asked: Isn’t conflict the opposite of peace?
The first night sleeping in the big Sala was an experience. I had set up the biggest individual mosquito net that needed readjustment because I had hung it up to high. I had no problem with the hardwood floor; in fact, I thought it was good for my back, seeing as how I have really bad posture. The sound of nature, as well as the open air, helped me fall into a comfortable sleep. Watching the white light from below reflect on the moving mosquito net was like watching a show of silver lights dancing in front of me. All was going good until… I had an unforgettably BAD nightmare.
I woke up sweating like a fiend. The details of the nightmare are too personal to retell, but later on, as I reflect on it, it had an interesting message. It was a message about beauty. As one of my favorite punk songs goes:
Channel surf a sea of static
See the prize
But you can’t have it!
There’s some empty
In a wish…
Fulfilled.
(“Million”, Jawbreaker)
Beauty, as result of desire, of want, of craving, is such an ephemeral thing. Holding on to its evanescence is a very ugly and disturbing thing. The reality behind that grasping onto something that must change, that melts away, is like holding onto liquid lava, it burns you, slipping through your fingers, taking away a part of you. The solids don’t hold. Do they ever?
Waking up the next day, slightly more refreshed, we began the day at 4:30 am with morning chanting. It was before dawn, and surprisingly, I was only slightly sleepy, and my back only felt like I’d fallen off a bike at 25 km/h; versus falling off one, literally, at 80 km/h, last time. Morning chanting brought back memories of elementary school when I used to fall asleep at our Friday afternoon chanting—I was expecting to get whacked on the back of my skull by a sick at any moment. It never came. Meditation came next. For some reason—could it be the darkness the giant candles pillaring a statue of the meditating Buddha, the chanting that came just before, or even the money I had to pay to be there?—the situation seemed appropriate, so I put my effort into following the instructions. Sitting in the cross-legged lotus position like the statue, I first tried without closing my eyes. It was too difficult; the flickering flames of the candles brought into my mind the interplay of light and darkness upon the golden statue, so I closed my eyes. Thoughts floated by, but I was starting to hear the wind, the creaking of the trees, the sounds became more important, thinking was coming to a rest. Then I could feel my chest, breath coming in and out of my nostrils. It was two circular motions on each side of my face; two circular motions in my chest, spiraling into and outside of my space. I felt calm, peaceful even, something akin to the moment of semi or sub-consciousness before you drift to sleep. I started seeing things happening, but always had the image of closing or ending it, and realizing that I was here, sitting, breathing, and meditating. That realization was slightly frightening—it was so empty, and the thought lingered “What am I suppose to do now?” After a while, I started to feel pain in my legs and knees. I tried to suppress it, it didn’t go away, I tried to acknowledge and feel it, but it only became worse, so, as usual I tried to resist it. Resisting it made me wish for the time to meditation to end, I kept thinking “Almost there, just a bit longer.” But I was now constantly aware again, of minutes passing by and counting the time marching forward. I was waiting, waiting for what I want, the “meditation” to end. It didn’t, or not, as fast as I wanted it, so I broke out of the position, feeling the blood flowing back into my feet; a chilling sensation that ruined any thought of concentration in my end. The chilling was almost gone when the lights were switched on again, signaling the end of meditation “time.”
It was time for the alms rounds. As we were putting the straw mats away, some people were talking of sleeping in. I went down for a cup of coffee, fearing another episode of caffeine withdrawal, but wondering how the villagers would react to a caffeine junkie maniac running around. When I got to the meeting point, everyone was there, except Brian. I got handed a one-strap bag, and we started to walk. I was at the very end, at first, because my pants kept falling off due to lack of a good belt. After I fixed the problem, I could focus more on our immediate surroundings. A couple of people in front of me were chanting away, a little quietly at first, but then, seeing how no one was going to punish them, got slightly louder. While conversation was tempting, the natural surroundings caught my attention.
The land felt like my home to the north; the temperature was cool with constantly icy breezes that howl in the hollow of my ears. But the differences very were very clear to me. There were no sounds of animals, except the occasional crow of a chicken, or the mooing of a cow. The mountains seemed desolate, whereas back home they were green and forested. This is not the say that they were clear-cut stubs, they were green, but with grass and sparsely populated by trees, and definitely not forested. It was dryer, as no frogs jumped on our path, even though the dew made things deceptively damp. It was also obvious in the lack of mist, in Chiang Mai at such a temperature, mist was everywhere, fog hung low, and in the city there was often that smog, the rusty smell you cringe to like every time car exhaust blows in your face. The first half of the round was very quite, encouraging thoughts to wander, with only two or three villagers on the path to give the monks some sticky rice. As I child when I used to give alms to the monks with my mother—who is now a Christian—on weekends, we’d have a giant tray, and some people beside us would even have a table set up. People would give many things besides food, like flowers, a candle, and incense, wrapped in a big green leaf, which my mother took pride in growing both the flowers and the leaves, whereas others bought them in the nearby market. Some people would even give leis, powder, or holy water.
People here would only afford to give sticky rice, or maybe a bit of meat, vegetable, fruit, or candy. Yet, since what they were offering, I noticed, is precisely from their own meal, I was impressed they could sacrifice that much—and how much they believed in the protection and good fortune they were to get in return, or if they believe it at all? On our walk back there were more villagers. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I failed to notice at first that the monks were handing Ted whatever they couldn’t carry, and Ted was handing them to us. Those in our groups were busy snapping pictures now of this strange custom to them. I suspect the villagers were use to it by now—one old man was even surprised Terrell could say “Sa-wat-dee, krap.”
As the sun kept on rising, and people started the business of living, the sounds of talk drifted over along with familiar smells (roasted chicken, and burning charcoal, being my preferred things to dwell on) to my senses. I felt myself automatically relaxing. It was comforting to hear a northern dialect, even Loa, spoken again—and I long to be home. The sun reflected on mossy rocks in the distance, and I thought it might look a little like the English country side, from descriptions of it, a long time ago.
Near the last houses before the empty road back to the wat, I little girl was doing the alms for her old grandmother. As everyone was impressed, and touched in that instance, I quietly wondered where her mother was… and hoping it wasn’t what my cynical mind was suggesting to me. The monks, and some of us, took a black truck back to the wat. I decided instantly that I wanted to walk. As we walked, chilling thoughts dawned on me. If we weren’t as fortunate, could my province, my home town, be just like this? If our forests weren’t protected, and our farmers protected, would it be that much harder for people to make enough, to be educated, and protect it? A lot of people come to Chiang Mai for the culture, and the nature; those same people who are responsible for destroying this forest…
Day 2:
For those who walked, we got back just in time for breakfast. After the monks blessed our food, we ate heartily. Every meal had to be made special for Dennis as he could not eat any peanuts. After breakfast we had free-time before we met Phra Paisal again for another Q&A session. I spent some time catching up on some readings as others took a nap or played chess. The butterflies surrounded me. They were little white ones, yellow ones, and white and blue ones. Humorously, I thought of them as like the monks. Refined from wherever they are born, and though metamorphism a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, do caterpillars know they’ll be butterflies? Butterflies can only exist here, in forests, in nature, in only certain conditions. Outside of this temple, there are no butterflies. For anything to exist there has to be the conditions for it to exist—causality. What caused to be a certain way, we are finding out through history, but what are conditions are we forcing to happen? What will be the child of our generation?
At the second round of questions, I asked what had been bothering me from the first found of questions: Isn’t peace and conflict two opposite things? And if the Buddhist goal is to seek complete peace wouldn’t that be detrimental to [creative conflict]? His answer was surprising again.
Yes, Buddhist seeks peace. [It goes against this force] but the first truth of Buddhism is suffering. Both exists, and have to exist… a balance between discipline and creativity—freedom. We need balance between faith and wisdom. Even arahats have conflict; they have different ideas about how the scriptures can be kept, after the Buddha died. It wasn’t about egoism, but about judgment. The Buddha allowed them to drop minor rules. But what are minor rules? In the end, they kept all the rules…
We left in the afternoon into the forest, ascending a long path of jagged stone steps to the hill. Getting deeper and deeper into the forest, the sounds of animals, of wind bending tree branches, and the silent murmur of water, as well as the relentless mosquito attacks, perked at my senses. I got ahead of the line to witness it all, my curiosity famished. A black dog followed us. The monks and the lay people showed us some interesting plants in the forest. The two most curious plants was a spiky large vine, like looked like a crocodile tail. A tea made out of such a plant could cure back pain, as well as act like a Viagra. It was apparently why a lot of people wandered to get into this forest… hmmm, a curious motive. Terrell made up a tune about “the Viagra plant” that made everyone laugh. The other most interesting plant was actually a hair off of a plant. It was said to make women fall obsessively in love with you, and another main reason people come into this forest. A reason for such belief, one person was telling me, was how the hair looked familiar to pubic hair, and the effect of the hair could also be a reason why this hill was called “lost hill”, women might lose themselves here. Even ancient and local people feel sexually dysfunctional, something I wasn’t too surprised to hear; however, I wonder if any of these plants aren’t dangerous, you don’t seem them at the apothecary.
As we went deeper and deeper into the forest, following a rough trail, we passed by several wooden huts. The monks explained that they were shelters for people who decide to meditate in the woods. Would anyone like to stay in one? Only Chelsea and I were interested; she was excited, I was just plainly curious. As I walked through the forest, I found myself getting more and more distant from the people around me. I wasn’t interested in all the petty talk about things here and there from wherever they were from anymore… this forest, and this experience was interesting, and I was slightly annoyed people weren’t contemplating these things. I needed to get away… needed some time to think.
We walked out of the forest into a trail leading towards the top of the hill. It was sparsely forested, but now that we were so close, some of the trees were dauntingly tall. Some forest workers were nearby in a truck. One of them was smoking a roll our own, I got some papers from him. There was a black bird that they had apparently rescued, and now it thinks we are its family. It decided to grab onto Dennis’s jeans, making for a quick photo-op. Thung had cut his foot somehow, so he had to go on the truck, along with a couple of others who didn’t want to walk. As we continued to march up the trail, Phra Paisal, who decided to walk with us, asked me questions in Thai about Chiang Mai, and Webster. I told him the truth: it’s drinking and drugs, at least for me, and those I hang with.
We arrived at a cabin, next to a beautiful natural lake. There, as we seated ourselves at a long wooden table, Phra Paisal started to tell us about the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) and the Buddhist Sangha. We planted trees afterwards. For some, this peaceful work might’ve caused a feeling of satisfaction, of having done some good for the world. I felt futile. This tree will take 50 years to grow, and then, it can be brought down in less than an hour. And, if Phra Paisal was right about the domino effect of bring down trees, all these others around it will be down within an hour, or two. We must stop people who’ll destroy first, before we build… but I guess both needs to be happening, we might only be able to get them to stop, once it is too late.
Coming back, I was unusually quite. A sense of foreboding of the future ahead, there’s too many of those that would love to destroy the trees we’d just planted, and all it stood for, and the things that it is holding up by standing there, like the banyan tree that grew from the top down, and with it came a sense of dread. Instead of taking the truck with most of the people, I and a couple of others decided to take the forest path back. I decided to run, while others walked, and quickly I was alone. After a distance I was tired, and rested on a log, staring up at the canopy, deep in thought.
2,500 people were killed in 2 months in “The War on Drugs”, more than the total American casualties in Iraq. I couple of my friends, some were drug dealers, some weren’t, are in that statistic.
The root of the conflict in the south is discrimination and human-rights violations. In the south the proper judicial procedures are ignored, but the worse is the injustice of officials, due to differences in ethic, language, and religion, 200 years of history of this! When Bangkok conquered the Patani kingdom, they did a lot of damage to that state and not improved it much. In the north, we could care less about the south. When bad things happen, it is somewhere in the south, or the northeast, or in Bangkok, but not to us. Thaksin is from the north, we come from the same home-town. [Thaksin] said publicly that if this province does not choose me than you will get less funding. He said that publicly!
In ancient times there are limitations to how much they [the rich] can show off status to material wealth. They showed their status through generosity. Nowadays they show off their wealth in consuming more…The Buddhist Sangha has lost its dynamism; it lacks the intelligence and wisdom to make people do good…
I arrived back at the wat just as the others arrived by truck. The mae-che was making pineapple shakes; I went out to roll a cigarette. People talked of a bonfire, so I helped gathered firewood. Some people from Bangkok came to inquire about staying at the temple. I smoked and watched them; maybe the message is getting through… The girls had to switch lodgings because ants have spread all over their shelter.
After dinner, evening chanting, and meditation, Chelsea, a monk (who I regretfully forgot his name), and I gathered our stuff and headed for the hill. We arrived at Chelsea’s first, half way up the hill, and I was to stay at a nearby shelter. However, as I walked there with the monk, a tree had fallen over our path, making it impossible for me to stay there. I had to relocate deep within the forest, in the hill.
“Come grab me before you go down, ok?” asked Chelsea, as I left with my pile of mosquito net, pillow, and straw mat.
“Sure.”
It was dark now and all we had to guide our way were our tiny flashlights. The bugs were out, and the wind constantly made the branches creak and moan. One particularly dry, thorny tree on the climb sounded like a roulette wheel with thorns and cones instead of balls. As we were walking, all of a sudden I felt as if I was grabbed by a sharp hand. I couldn’t pull free; I lost my flashlight. The monk came back to help unshackle a giant thorny branch that had grabbed on to my mosquito net, shirt, pants, pockets, and arm. I picked up my flash-light, my senses more sensitive, or more delusional, than before.
After a long walk, almost half way into the forest, we arrived at where I was to stay for the night. I tried to remember the vine-like branches that marked the divergence of the path towards the shelter, and the path deeper into the forest. The shelter obviously hasn’t been used in a while; the floor was littered with things that had blown in. The monk helped sweep the floor for me. I thanked him, and he left. I lit two candles, and began setting up my mosquito net. Just as I shinned my light to the ceiling, my heart missed a beat; wasps! I counted it, one, two, three nests! Deciding what to do, sweat that poured from the trek up here seemed to resume trickling.
I’m not moving. I grabbed some pillows on a stand, but quickly let go, a bunch of bugs were on me, and something squishy was on the pillow! I shined my light on it; winged ants. Good, I thought, nothing poisonous. Finally it was time to hang the last string, the one nearest to the wasp’s nests. I hesitated; then reached up for the fixture. As soon as I poked through, a buzzing sound surrounded me. Two or three wasps surrounded me, one wasp landed on my upper shoulder. I’ve never been bitten by a bee or wasp before, am I allergic? I had a picture of people finding me on the forest path somewhere, cold. I stared at the little tiny large yellow and black stinger, for what must’ve been two minutes; I brushed it aside. Mosquito net finished, I left to go grab Chelsea, and make it to the bonfire.
I parted the door, and let it ajar, hoping nothing will crawl in before the time I get back. The difference in temperature it me fast; faster than the realization that now, I was alone. Instead of being able to think, as I thought I would, I was instead focused upon not thinking about whatever the hell was out there. The wind seemed to have picked up, and the boards on my shelter creaked every so lightly. I retrieved my flash-light, and, after literally falling off the first step, headed for the trail back to Chelsea’s shelter. I judged from my place to hers’ was about twenty minutes in daylight. In the dark, alone, time seemed to move unceasingly slow. My light was small, and I had to keep trying to see where I was going, as well were I was stepping. I kept falling over, and scrapping my feet on the rocks. The noises came from all around me, making me dizzy. The wind howled through the trees, and, once in a while, when my light reflected a plant that was too close, I quickly turned, thinking some one was behind me. It was automatic, my heart pounded. Once in a while, I flashed the light all around, the plants and trees that looked so familiar in the day-light, looked uniform and sickly straggly. I kept walking forward for what seemed like forever—or, twenty minutes—to find that I was completely lost. Where the hell is Chelsea’s shelter? Where am I?
Walking, when you don’t know where you’re going, where you are, but have an idea of where you want to be—where you’d rather be—is an experience. Add the darkness, the animals, the trees, and the creaking of the door of the empty shelter in the front of you, and then you’d be close to where I was at that moment; before I fell over yet another rock, and there goes the light. This isn’t good.
The noises magnified, as my vision stopped. The smell of rotting leaves was a thick fog surrounding me. Luckily a clearing in the trees was behind me, and I could at least see some trees around me, though they looked even bigger, and craggier now than before.
“Fear is good for concentration,” I remembered Phra Paisal telling us the first night, “the mind turns inwards, trying not to think of the source of the fear, it concentrates on something else, like the breath…it is good for developing concentration.” I looked straight down to the tips of my toes; scratched and slightly bruised from stumbling around on the rocky path. That is what I should be focused on, I told myself. Instead of worrying about the endless path ahead, or making sure I wasn’t followed, I should be making sure I wasn’t constantly tripping over.
So, with that in mind, I got down on all fours looking for the flash-light. I was, luckily, caught in some leaves. I switched it back on, a small beam of white, cutting through the path before me… and directed it, down, seeing the jagged rocks in my path, but paying attention, full attention, to them for the first time.
After that, I could suddenly walk better, faster. My attention was no longer scattered in all directions. The forest, unwilling to submit, howled and groaned, but eventually learned to quite as the rocks got bigger, and bolder. I saw a flame light through a screen of tress. The feeling of being lost melted into a hope of finding another person. It’s comforting to have another with you, even when, or especially when, you’re lost. At least the boundary between the two persons are clear, some solid assuredity—a barrier to boundlessness. Scratched off signs hug loosely from trees, their floating in the wind a sigh; epitaphs to what it once said. I continued on the path till a divergence path in the direction of the light opened up.
The light was a way back in the direction I had come. After about another five minutes of walking I arrived at a clearing occupied by a two story wooden house. I removed my shoes, and went up to the second floor. A mixture of curiosity, and fright assured me this wasn’t the right house.
I knocked on the door anyways, “Hello? Chelsea?”
After a moment of silence, and then some scuffling sound, a man in, what I judge to be his thirties, answered in Thai, “Yes, who is it?”
“
Sorry wrong house,” I said apologetically, wondering why I even bothered. Maybe I was looking for trouble, I’d thought such a house, isolated in forest might have something shady going on… but at the same time too frightened, and too tried to fight, if things got into a mess.
Retracing my steps, I wasn’t sure which path to take. Finally, after what seemed like another eternity lost, I saw something. A weight dissolved from my tense body as I recognized the roof of the main sala! I ran for it, and tripped over the edge separating the cement from the forest; separating me from everyone else.
The bon-fire was dying down as I arrived. Everyone was there, including Chelsea. “I decided to go down myself, when you didn’t come back. Where did you go?”
I sat down, and started to roll a cigarette, my hands were shaking. “I got lost…” People started telling ghost stories. I was already took spooked by my experiences—knowing full well I might repeat it, going back there to sleep. I had to wake up at 3:30 AM, judging now that my lodgings are about half-an-hour’s trek from here, longer in the dark…
The hike back up was a lot easier, with my focus on the trail…
Day 3:
3:30 AM—my alarm clock rang. The wind shook my mosquito net, swirling around me; I could hear the slight buzzing of wasps. Luckily, they were still in their nests. It was freezing cold, and having brought only a towel, I was covering myself with my jeans. The black sleep of exhaustion felt all too short. It was too cold to stay in bed, so I made haste to get and back to the warmth of company. I had to cover myself with the towel, as I walked, to keep warm on my trek down. The morning air reminded me of weekends camping in the mountains back home. It would be misty at this time back home. There was no mist here, but you could smell the morning dew, it wetness on the earth, and decomposing leaves. The ants were out, relocating in a massive line.
I was the first to arrive that morning at the main sala. The first monk who appeared must’ve been surprised to see a towel covered figure playing Star Wars with his flash-light so early in the morning. The morning chanting was torturous as I struggled to keep awake during meditation. Trying to stay away while sitting still when you’re tired and sleepy is harder than doing physical labor
I decided to go on the morning alms round again. This time it was only Ted, Nayuki, Chelsea, and I who accompanied the monks; everyone else decided to sleep in. The walk gave me time to think again, with the backdrop of the desolate mountains my muse…
For a country to remain environmentally healthy, according to the UN, 15% of its forest has to be healthy. The method of farming in this area is not sustainable. Tapioca farming leads to soil erosion. After ten years the villagers now have to use chemical fertilizers, and pesticides. The government is now telling them to plant rubber trees; they only care for the short-term profit, but not for the long term, [sustainability]. For the ordinary villagers they have to earn income as wage-laborers in other provinces or in Bangkok to make a living. Tapioca farming is only about 60% of their income.
Villagers are under the materialistic values. When they make merit they only wish for good fortune for gain. So we try to revive the spiritual perspective—when they see the tree, the height, we want them to see the tree’s relationship to ecology, and reflect on the ideals of life. We do tree ordinations to show that the tree deserves respect. It is very important for religion. In the old times people believed that there were sprits in nature. I don’t think it is animism, but a symbol of respect of nature.
The Buddhist response to globalization is a response in term of world-view. In having a harmonious relationship with ourselves, nature, and religion. This holistic perspective is a good start to a grand change. The new world cannot be preached. It has to be integrated into living and society; in social structures of family, neighborhood or civic groups. I think civic groups can be an interesting organization. For example, culture groups, or sport groups. I find that many organizations, NGOs, and people’s groups help in encouraging people into this new world-view. However, social and political structures are the big question because they influence the society the most.
[Being a Buddhist monk helps my social activism by] Making me let of attachment to success. Failure and success are two sides of the same coin. I would’ve burned out without understanding meditation. By emersion into the world of action, my meditating helps me because I can see its impermanence. Sometimes the perpetrator and victim can be the same person.
The nature of a human-being is to have a sense of belonging. Nationalism enables people to find that in a community called nation. That something bigger can help people from being too selfish. If you think of the nation more than yourself, then you have more respect for nature, relationships, and less selfishness. When nationalism becomes exclusive (us vs. them), it becomes negative. Buddhism can remind us that nation is man-made. It is just temporary. This ‘brand’ comes later. We are born human first before are a brand.
I looked up from my thoughts to the children learning to give alms to the monks. I see the expensive plaque, Phra Paisal, explained to us on the second day, in front of the local school. Inside, I know children are rote learning written propaganda. I was convinced Buddhism could fit under Marxism somehow, but now I understood. Marxism, had no strong, or a wrong, idea of what human nature stood for. The ‘subject’ of ideology could only be maintained through closed-minds. Buddhism builds from the ground of its understanding of human-life. Marxism tears apart the system. Workers are alienated from their labor—and themselves, but what is this ‘Self’? In the end, it is the world-view, the Weltanschauung that drives people. People only do what is good, or good for them, and never what they perceive as bad, ultimately, for them, or their interests. It is in defining these values, in teaching them, in preserving them that we must act—in the short-term, as well as ultimately.
The forest is like green-gold. Protecting them can be dangerous. In that way, Phra Paisal’s, and the Wat Pa Mahawan monks’ most direct form of engaging in the suffering of people is by planting trees, and conserving the forest. These forests represent, more than just a watershed, the values of preserving nature. In their blind pursuit of profits, of material goods, people cannot see their effect on the wider scale. Money was invented as a system of measuring value of trade. It is a value system, in itself; not unlike ethics, or morality. For a long time, these value systems existed side-by-side, interacting, or one cutting down the other. Now, money is taking over, the value of worth of trade dominating people’s minds—a price tag on everything…
After the alms, I had to retrieve my stuff from the hill. That utterly drained me, and I was sleep-waking for the rest of the day, until we got back to VIP. As I step off the van, I miss the sound of the wind on the tree branches… and I feel dread.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Another shitty day in paradise
First day where I begin to sober up again. Yesterday was all recovery. After a week of continuous drinking, I had sat having a glass of red wine (donated by my friend Robin) when it hit. The dizziness and wrenching body spasms of sickness when your body starts to reject the alcohol. There I am again leaning over the porcelain goddess again... wow it seems like ages ago old friend. And... nothing. I tried again... nothing. Wait a minute, when was the last time I ate? A day ago, a day and a half? I sunk down and laid on the bathroom floor staring at the crumbling sealing listening to the rats crawling between the floors. And the drainage pipes below. Smelling like piss and booze. You feel like ooze, wanting to flow down there just about now. Not again, forgetting to eat. Forgetting to sleep. Why is it that I feel the most human here, when my mucus covered fingers have nothing better to do than force myself to regurgitate.
Somehow, it felt like writing essays in college. So I laid their scribbling on the ceiling. You never know what you can get from a good dry hangover.
Somehow, it felt like writing essays in college. So I laid their scribbling on the ceiling. You never know what you can get from a good dry hangover.
Monday, February 22, 2010
The start of a blog
Well... I'm going to start using this blog as a blog now that I see there are more options for templates in Blogger than I thought.
So... See this SPACE happen.
So... See this SPACE happen.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Leaving with no more Goodbyes
Death - and time just...
Stops
No more time
To say
Or Do
Things better
To understand
To know
or wish,
or whether,
and to see the future without,
a wall to a fall(ing) out
Nothing more
Cut away
If I had known,
Known not to have known
But perhaps...
To enter,
with no more goodbyes X
no more happenings,
when we forgivers--no more forgiveness
wasted now
each line now significant
Cut away
And now each day
I feel something is missing
And I feel myself breathing....
Copyright 2010 Saranit Vongkiatkajorn
Stops
No more time
To say
Or Do
Things better
To understand
To know
or wish,
or whether,
and to see the future without,
a wall to a fall(ing) out
Nothing more
Cut away
If I had known,
Known not to have known
But perhaps...
To enter,
with no more goodbyes X
no more happenings,
when we forgivers--no more forgiveness
wasted now
each line now significant
Cut away
And now each day
I feel something is missing
And I feel myself breathing....
Copyright 2010 Saranit Vongkiatkajorn
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