Cemetery next to Xinhai MRT station on the brown line. Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super.

I had spotted this cemetery a while ago riding the MRT brown line and made a note of the station to return later to explore it. Wanfang heights in the background.

I'm so sick of the negativity. I'm so sick of the anger, the hatred, the aggression. It comes up and I try to shut it down as fast as possible. I don't want to be this way, I don't want to feel these things. Shut it down, shut it down now, and only behind my eyes hears this.

I also don't want to be a pussy in this country of cultural idiocy, so if I can let out a little expression, a little steam, that what people are doing makes no sense and is indicative of idiocy, I will.

I just want to be me, and when I can, I will.

But basically I just want to shut me down. I'm not impressed by what I've become. And looking at myself as a reflection of people in my life, I'm so not impressed.

I tried riding out to Pinglin (坪林) this morning. I abandoned before I got there because I found a roadside map en route and decided it wasn't going to happen this morning. The map showed an alternate route to cut it short and it turned out to be perfect.

I'm guessing Pinglin is about 18 miles away, shorter than last weekend's ride up to Danshui, but I found that after 2 and a half miles getting out of incorporated Hsindian onto the road to Pinglin, it was all a steady uphill.

I'm not complaining. I complain a lot. And normally complaining would entail griping about how the uphills keep coming and coming, relentless and merciless. And it was all uphill, seriously, but I was able to maintain a 9-10 mph clip without going down to the granny gear, which to me means not a rigorous uphill. Just . . . maybe a little annoying, but I like climbing so the annoyance was only in not knowing when it would end.

But after 10 miles of that, at which point I thought it might be all downhill to Pinglin, I decided I didn't want to risk the downhill, only to have to redo the uphills coming back. So I took the cutoff which turned out to be all mad downhill to make my brake hands sweat, finally placing me in familiar territory.

I shouldn't get down on myself about downhilling poorly. I do remember when I started doing "rides" in the Bay Area, I was pretty bad at downhills, and I remember practicing "getting horizontal" in Golden Gate Park. So after several years of getting rusty at it, I need to develop that skill again.

Another nightmare of a day. I woke up. Have to live my life. Just like any other nightmare of a day.

This pressure to get out. This pressure to see beyond. I don't want to live an ordinary life, but I'm stuck to it like glue. Millions of molecules of concrete suffusing my being, immobilizing me, like Rael in Times Square, hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway.

But there's no wall of surreality coming my way to challenge my meaning. Just bikeways and cameras and drumsticks, and Chinese books. Friggin' 'ell. And Buffy DVDs.

I go through my day with this weight, and it occurs to me that this is not how I-no-I want to be. And I have to shift the perspective like flicking a lightswitch. This is not how I want it to be, this is not how it's supposed to be, and if nothing natural is going to change it through my living of life, I have to artificially do it myself. Life is artificial anyway.

Let the fade of life be the only natural thing.

This is not how I want to be, this is not how I want it to be, and everything must change. Little irritations, big setbacks, all must change, just shift the perspective, change the attitude. Life is too precious to be going through life like this, and everything must change right now, in the moment. I'm sure I'll be exhausted.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 26, 1:37 p.m. - Danshui River, Guangdu Bridge, Guanyin Mountain.

1:45 p.m. - Canal from the bikeway that goes all the way to Danshui.

I had the hiccups four times in one month. Doesn't sound like something to write home about, but if you've been around me long enough (and no one has been around me long enough), then you know my hiccups are serious business. They usually don't last for less than 24 hours, often lasting up to 48 hours, sometimes longer.

They're manageable, depending on your definition of manageable. Only a few times have I come close to totally losing it. You know, going ape-shit at myself. But even I consider that an overly extreme reaction to what is essentially just severe discomfort and annoyance.

But they wear you out. You get exhausted. And when they keep going it becomes like tunnel-vision. You can lose perspective.

But here's where I make it something weird.

In my most recent read-through of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, there's one chapter that talks about "consciousness transference". It's in one of the chapters that I read with a grain of salt. It's kind of esoteric and it doesn't resonate with my experience or understanding, but I do read it. It's not totally out there.

There are two or three chapters that I don't read at all for various reasons, the least of all for seeming too superstitious for me and anachronistic in light of modern medicine.

But this consciousness transference practice is something to be done in preparation for the time of death, and one component of this practice is something I never quite understood, which is performing "hi-ka" gasps, whereby internal energies are manipulated through body channels.

"Hi-ka" gasps? Hiccups? Anyway, one way I'm dealing with these incessant hiccups is marrying these two ideas. I don't know really about internal energies or body channels mentioned in Tibetan texts, but I just try to visualize them as something I might know, or should know.

Do I know about them? Am I trying to tell myself something? Maybe I wrote the damn chapter?! Like I've mentioned before, sometimes it seems that all my lifetimes are for exploring the death betweens.

I won't take this too far, but it rings uncanny the timing of the latest publication of the full cycle of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (now in paperback). I've known about this so-called "Tibetan Book of the Dead" for years, maybe since college, but for some reason I never picked it up, even though it seems exactly the topic matter I would pick up. Then just after I finally did get into it several years ago through the Thurman translation of Chapter 11, the full cycle is translated. Just for me!

Just for me?

Well, it's not like I can read Tibetan!

Oy. Pathetic.

I think fotolog is currently my most extensive social network. That's so sad. It's not a very impressive social network.

In general, whoever adds me as a friend/favorite on fotolog, I add back. Many times I wonder who the hell are these people I'm adding. What value are they adding to my life? What images of quality are they showing me? Seriously, I can be adding anyone just by their adding me.

I've been retrospecting my black and white archives for almost two years now, and I think that's the permanent nature of that main fotolog now. Especially since I created a new "daily life" fotolog since coming to Taiwan. Which is what my main fotolog started off as (not that there was any concept to it way back then).

I'm glad those old photos are there, though, since many of them were wiped out in a computer crash. I'm grateful to fotolog for that. I miss those San Francisco folk, even though I only met them a few months before leaving San Francisco.

I'm left plotting the path of how I got here from there. And again it's who the hell are these new people on my f/f list? Who the hell are these new people in my life? Who the hell is anyone in my life or in my memory?

It's the same thing over and over again these days. This struggle against negativity that comes into my mind is maddening. Just stop. Negative thoughts, hateful thoughts. They have nothing to do with the outside, they have nothing to do with the outside stimulus – what I blame for the negativity.

It's all just me, it's all just reflections of my own mind.

It's killing me, and I don't even care that it's killing me, it just has to stop.

Meh, nothing's gonna lighten up this post. That's what it's all about these days. Lightening things up. I wouldn't mind being struck by lightening. Inshah'allah.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 7:58 a.m. - Southwest from my window. Really? A typhoon is approaching Taiwan? Actually that may explain the rainbow (and the one I shot an hour earlier) when there doesn't appear to be precipitation. I gather typhoons blow water high into the atmosphere and when a typhoon is approaching, it's not unusual to experience showers under completely clear skies.

9:14-9:15 p.m. - Having beer with classmates at Le blé d'or at Xinyi Eslite B1. Really? A typhoon is approaching Taiwan? Yumi from Japan already looks drunk, I hope that's not her first mug. Good lord, the way she's looking at me. Yeah, she's drunk, lol. I swear if she showed the faintest of interest in me (trust me, she didn't), I probably could've fallen for her. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 10:06 a.m. - Typhoon day. Category 5 Typhoon Sepat crossing the middle of Taiwan. We got heavy rains and high winds overnight as expected, but the storm had weakened by landfall.

1:39-1:44 p.m. - By early afternoon conditions were OK to head out and check out the Jingmei River environs. These two are actually perfect reverse angles. The first shows where the second was shot (just beyond Roosevelt Rd on the other side of the river) and the second where the first was shot (blue railing, the bridge I cross everyday).

2:56 p.m. - Water marks show how high the river reached. Jingmeixi Bridge (Rte 106), not a quarter mile upstream from the other pics.  

With every step, the ground beneath my feet turns to sand. The sand spreads out, consuming everything around me. The landscape turns to sand. The incessant rain of Taipei disappears as everything turns to desert. My skin dries, my throat parches as I become part of the landscape.

None of this is real. None of you are real. You turn to sand in my hand. You turn to sand in my mouth. You turn to sand in my mind.

I'm running out of ideas. Running out of future. Ropes that grounded me cut loose. I have to do what? Responsibility what? But in this landscape, there are no shores; there's nothing to do but drown.

At some point in my past this may have been madness, but even madness turns to sand. Even suicide turns to sand. So what is this and how is it different? I can actually enjoy this. I can turn my eyes to the sun directly above, and say, "hey, wow, I must be on the equator". How else is it different? Before it wasn't boring.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 6:21 a.m. - Shots from my apartment window (3).

8:53 a.m.

1:07 p.m. - Apparently I like this skyline detail, I've shot it before.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 7:19 a.m. - Fudekeng cemetery

7:30-7:33 a.m. - Riding down the south side of the mountain from Fudekeng, on the north side of the park with those freaky sculptures I posted last month there is what looks like a Buddhist temple.

Got a message from my brother this morning:

"I don't know if anybody has contacted you yet - so I just wanted to make sure that you were in the loop. A few days ago, dad was diagnosed with a mass in his left kidney (he had blood in his urine). We don't know yet what it is, but it is most likely kidney cancer. He is going to see a oncologic urologist (a urinary system surgeon who specializes in resecting tumors) in the near future, but the standard approach to this situation would be surgery to remove the kidney to see what exactly the tumor is and to help assess how advanced it is. Unfortunately, at this point I have no idea what the prognosis is - could range from pretty good to fairly bad. I'll keep you up to date on what is going on as we get more information."

My relationship with my family isn't as bad as it used to be, but some things don't change unless there is a concerted effort on all parties for change. And just as my parents never had the right to be proud of things I've done, in particular musical achievements, I have no right to assume whatever feelings come out of getting news like this.

The feelings came up, but then I told myself I hadn't earned the right to feel them. Just as they never earned the right to know about anything I did with music, but I've written about that before.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 5:39 p.m. - Rainbow over Taida sports complex. Actually a double rainbow and extra saturation needed to bring it out.

Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super. These photo files are marked "rf", which I think means they are my first use of a red filter. Usually I always have yellow filters on my lenses to darken skies. Red is even more dramatic, but is too dark to keep on all the time. I think you lose almost a stop of light entering the lens, so only for when it's bright outside with plenty of blue sky. I don't think I regularly noted its use after this roll.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 9 - Pavilion in an artificial lake in 2/28 Peace Park in the old city part of Taipei. 

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall before the name change.

I've been implementing a 45 minute rule regarding getting online. When I get home, I start a 45 minute timer, and until it goes off, I can't get online. This is to try to prevent the habit of mindlessly getting home, turning on the computer and getting online. The 45 minute timer is the same I use for morning sitting.

The object now is to not mindlessly get online as soon as the timer goes off.

My mantra these days to combat negativity is "denounce negativity, promote positive". To me, "denounce" is a pretty strong word. Not to be used lightly like the Chinese, for example during the Cultural Revolution when children were encouraged to denounce their parents' counter-revolutionary activity with promises of candy and kiddie Communist Party membership. I digress.

"Denounce" has overtones of "cast thee out", so if used in the wrong context with the wrong subject matter, it becomes dogmatic and self-righteous. So I don't agree with denouncing a legitimate political position, even if it's one I disagree with. Denouncing racism is fine because racism is just such a primitive, uncivil reaction that it just shouldn't exist.

Denouncing negativity is fine. I go about my day telling myself to denounce any negative thoughts that flow into or flow from my head, and then promote positivity to fill in the void. The object now is to have that mantra in place before a negative thought pops up in response to an external circumstance, in hopes of preventing it.

In Taipei, the thought, "What the hell are you doing in my way?!" is not to be considered negative, but rather a natural and expected reaction to the "reality" here. Although if I get to the point where I can stop thinking that, I wouldn't complain.

It's slow going, but progress is definite.

And then there are times I scan the moment and look for the reality in it, in my surroundings; my field of vision like a 360 degree, 3-D plasma screen. The nature of things is not molecules. And then add to that the emotional cacophony of being and consciousness.

STOP!

And the bombs turn into butterflies. Vigilant for signs of failing health in my death symptom watch, there's nothing more important than finding the happiness in right here and now.

Monday, August 6, 7:07 a.m. - Lying on my bed.

I pass moments in my days when my reality around me is like looking at a three dimensional mirror. A reflection of something real, but not real. And the moment that I'm looking at, and each one of them, I swear has all happened before.

I've been spending money with no reservations. I've been spending money with no attachments. I've been spending money like I don't have long to live. And I (wishfully) think I don't. I'm thinking within a year because of health reasons. I'm not thinking of suicide at all anymore. Zilch. Not a mote, not a speck. I mean, I am, but . . . you know what I mean.

No?

Good, you're not supposed to. I don't know what you were thinking when you thought you knew what I meant.

I got back from the U.S. on Wednesday, and I felt like something has changed, but something always feels like it's changed. It's probably really just all made up. Being sick of learning a language with no results has reached a new level.

Going to the U.S. broke the habits I had fallen into, and when I got back, I tried not to fall back into those habits. And then I found myself automatically forming new habits.

These habits are like trying to make life predictable. And life is neither predictable nor permanent. So what I'm trying to do to make life more comfortable by creating habits is going against the very nature of living, which is spontaneous in its formation, creation and destruction.

Slaves of habit, following the clock, and I turn my head and everything is different.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 6:25 a.m. - Right bank of the Xindian River between the Huacui and Wanban bridges with ongoing construction of an elevated freeway in Taipei County.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 6:27 a.m. - Rode up to the Maokong tea growing region in the mountains south of Taipei. Zhinan temple at the right and Taipei 101 at the left (in the same frame!)

6:29 a.m. - Zhinan temple, I did my best to pull this image out of the haze of the morning sun.

6:367 a.m. - On my new bike with a new Cateye computer and old Timex Helix altimeter watch. I was looking for the highest point on these roads. 1,430 ft. for the record.

6:38 a.m. - Tea plantation.

6:59 a.m. - Directory for the various tea houses and places of interest in Maokong. These are new and made in anticipation of an influx of tourists brought by the new cable car. My bike now with an air stick pump and under-seat bag.

7:04 a.m. - Starting my descent on the road east of the Maokong cable car gondola station with the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi building and Yangmingshan in the distance at the left.

7:36 a.m. - Looking back up at the Maokong gondola station. The descending road doubles back under the gondola line. I was taking my time going down.

AUGUST 5, 5:47 a.m. - Actually . . . I have NO IDEA where this was taken so early in the morning. There is nothing recognizable. There are words on the left suggesting that may be Xindian on the left. The sun suggests this is shooting west/north-ish as a wide range. I'm on a fairly high bridge. It looks more like the Xindian River rather than the Jingmei; could be either but I'm pressed to pinpoint where the Jingmei is this wide. Nothing else was shot on any camera to indicate where I was or went. It's obviously not a place I frequented but I rarely shoot so little in a new place. No bridge on Google Maps matches this scene. I hate unsolved mysteries in my own photographic record.