Medley

Shit. Relating working now with working back then, it's really the same pointless, absurd same thing. Relating band now with band back then is even worse.

Playing in this cover band is totally stifling. In one sense it is making me a better drummer in terms of basics, but on another hand it's also preventing me from progressing. I'm a better drummer than they know or appreciate because . . . it's a cover band. Playing in this band is good because it makes money, but it's an obligation - my gratitude for letting me in, but when I feel the obligation has been paid, I will definitely quit.

This work thing isn't flying, which leaves me wondering . . . then what? It's true, I had trouble sleeping in San Francisco, and it was a big problem. My sleep problems now is existentially work-related and is also a big problem.

I'm so counting on having a tumor. Please god let me have a tumor. GOD: It's not a tuumaa.

Since February, before starting work, I've gotten extended hiccups 3 times a month. This is not normal. I really think I have something seriously wrong with my health. Which is right and proper, since that's my intention. If my drinking isn't ruining my health, then why the hell am I drinking?

Still, the joy-generation meditation. I have instinct, and then I have consciousness. My instinct is negativity, hostility, mired down, angry. My consciousness kicks in joy-generation: be happy now because it's not worth it not to be happy now. I don't know if it's because I did it before, but it really works. Happiness is not a dependent thing. It can happen by ourselves, just by ourselves.

The joy-generation meditation is helped by a further meditation on what I think should be considered absolute truth. I wish good and happiness upon all people. I wish all people do good to other people and to have good done to them. Even those suffering, wanting suffering, I wish upon them the suffering they want so they can progress. Sometimes we need suffering.

And always death as a focus. Focus on death to maintain these philosophies. We all have to die. What is the purpose?

Maishuai Bridge #1. Pentax ZX-5n, Kodak BW400CN.

SUNDAY, MAY 25, 4:46 p.m. - Another gig at Le Mer in Qianshuiwan.

Trying to remember the feeling why I quit my job back in San Francisco. And relating it to why I'm back at work now, in Taipei. I'm sitting in my apartment in front of a computer and there's a big animated question mark above my head.

Already I'm feeling my practice suffer. Sleeping problems are back, I had those when I was working in San Francisco. I don't think I had them in the interim. I think part of the problem is the stress to get sleep backfires.

The quality of morning sitting has declined.

Not that any of this is bad. It's just another aspect of practice. If I want an ideal setting for the ideal practice, I should have entered the monastery. The reason why I didn't was to slog it out in the outside world. This is just fine.

And then there's always the unbearable. I remember cryptically asking Sadie about the 'unbearable', and she answered like she knew what she was talking about, before realizing she didn't, but she did. But I do think her unbearable is different from mine.

My unbearable is existence. This crude existence. One of the reasons I know I'll never have children is because it's just unbearable thinking about making a life to go through this. If I can't empathize with existence, how can I impose it on another living being, even though I know another living being might think it's great, and might find me terrific as a parent?

I look at people all around me at all different stages of life, and I find it unbearable. Especially the children. I imagine what they'll go through in life, for what purpose, to end how, and it's unbearable. I project myself onto people at different ages, and it's unbearable. Especially the ages I already know about.

I look at human beings, I look at humanity, I look at what we're doing to the planet and the legacy we're leaving our children, and it's unbearable. It's not necessarily rational, I know, there's still a lot of good in the world, there's still a lot to discover, to change.

What am I missing?

I had this thought tonight at work of going to China and join a construction crew to help reconstruct the quake-stricken areas. Help build, do something positive. I'll consider it again a year from now after I feel my current commitments to the band and work are cleared. That's a cop-out, though, as I know my situation in a year can completely change, and I'll abandon the idea.

What on Earth Have I Done Wrong? 情非得已之生存之道 (Taiwan, 2007)
Rating: Fresh 8 out of 10 tomatoes.

I don't know what to say about this unconventional film. I saw it in a theater, so it at least got a local theatrical release. Such low budget endeavors such as this probably don't deserve this high of a rating, but something about it worked for me.

It's a local Taiwanese "mockumentary", mocking the director's own life. It's a fake documentary about the director trying to make a film but hits so many personal and professional roadblocks that he turns the project into a fake documentary about how the documentary came about. The documentary, which is fake. Yea, I'm still trying to figure it out, and that's part of the cleverness of this film.

All the characters are playing themselves, but every scene is on a set. Aside from that technical question, the film is about the seriously flawed director and how he comes to grip with his flaws and how they lead to a cathartic revelation about happiness and what kind of person to be to be happy. The dramatic catharses along with the sophomoric ruminations on happiness actually work to make this film poignant and memorable.

I saw a movie recently with musings about happiness. It made me muse about happiness.

For me, there is no objective standard for happiness. Happiness doesn't happen because of some objective thing, some objective other thing happening. There is no road to happiness, nothing leads to happiness.

I think happiness is often confused with desire, when people think if they get some object of desire, they will be happy, but in truth, when people get the object they desire, they desire more and remain unhappy.

But I think there is some validity in that idea of happiness. Happiness is a state, that is, there is such thing as happiness, I think. Happiness has meaning. Remove desire from that equation, and that is something closer to what happiness is.

Oh wait, I've been through all this before with the "happiness generation meditations" I used to do. The idea was to do these meditations where I just generate happiness within myself, not attached to anything outside, no object of desire. Just create joy within myself. And I remember it working, that it is possible.

For me, that's the most important aspect of being happy. It has to come from within, it has to be a being. It can't rely on something else. If you want to be happy, just be happy. Don't look for it down some path, don't expect it to be a result of some other thing. And if you're unhappy, then choose it; realize you're choosing it. I'm sure I've written this before.

May 11-17

Nearby Keelung riverside park photostroll, Pentax ZX-5n, Ilford XP2 Super:

Intersection of Tayou, Nanjing E., Keelung Rds. & Maishuai Bridge #1.

Raohe St. with numbered stall markers for when Raohe Night Market sets up.

Rainbow Bridge by Raohe Night Market.

Cut-off, roll-ending frame 37.

SUNDAY, MAY 11, 5:11 p.m. - Qianshuiwan, Taiwan north coast.

5:12 p.m. - La Mer bar & restaurant back porch, Qianshuiwan.

5:17 p.m. - Qianshuiwan is on Rte. 2 out of Danshui and almost to the next township of Sanzhi on the north coast. The band got a gig to play at La Mer in the evening.

FRIDAY, MAY 16, 4:28 p.m. - Riding east (looking west) up the right bank of the Keelung River.

4:54 p.m. - Taipei Military Cemetery in Nangang District, the eastern-most part of Taipei.

5:25 p.m. - Fudekeng Cemetery, still pretty accessible by bike from my new place.

MAY 17, 3:36 p.m. - Same photostroll as the black & whites. 

3:38 p.m. - Shots from Rainbow Bridge. Bottom pic taken with Ricoh Caplio R4.

Speaking of Buffy season six, coming back after being off the web for two months is a little like dying and then being brought back to life, ripped out of heaven by friends using magiks. OK, not that last part, but it is disorienting.

Like, what am I doing here and why? I drag myself through my days by constantly reminding myself I'm going to die sooner or later, probably sooner because thinking 'later' would be even more unbearable than the being here right now, and whatever problems or issues come up, it's just not worth it not to tell myself to just be happy right here and now.

Work can get tense and stressful as we're rushing to send the last pages to the printers, but once the heat is off, it's not worth it to let it linger. Swoosh, let it go, done, gone, off.

When the chief editor starts raising his voice and getting angry or frustrated, I don't take it personally. In fact, I start feeling sorry for him because I know he doesn't mean it personally, either. He's just getting caught up in it, and once the paper's out, we don't linger on it.

Work, band. Am I doing anything different from San Francisco? In San Francisco, I had work and I had a band. In Taipei, I have work and a band. Why didn't I stay in San Francisco. Right, because I wanted to die in San Francisco.

So in another way my life, for lack of a better word, has been resurrected. But it is different. In between I had the monastic experience, albeit short, to get things re-aligned. Death as a focus is still here but slightly reconfigured. And I work but also see so many aspects of doing this thing as absurd. Same with the band.

The work here and the band here are relatively jokes compared to the "real" job I had in San Francisco and the "real" band I had in San Francisco. I can't take these things seriously anymore. It's just a change in attitude. And in general I look at my whole life, for lack of a better word, and the absurdity of it all is so underwhelming.

The mindfulness/meditation practice is still the most important thing. Oh, I guess I can add that to the things I've been doing that I've found absurd.

I started hanging out with some people associated with a meditation group affiliated with one of the four major Buddhist institutions in Taiwan. I've broken it off since I've started working since I really don't have time for it. I really did join them just for the social aspect. The Saturday afternoon group practice was not necessary compared to my daily sitting habit.

I guess they were mostly cool, I'm just thinking of a few people, and only one with whom I have a major beef. And the major beef is a relative thing because she thinks she's so clued into the practice when she's just the Buddhist equivalent of a Jesus freak. The other "few people" are just tripping along on the path, just as we all are, and I actually do like them.

Then I think the rest of them I was associating with really get it. We get it because we don't need to talk about it.

The practice is the one thing that isn't absurd. So I guess my aim is to find out how to make it absurd.

Northern Exposure quote of the day:
"I'm no rabbi, but it seems to me the purpose of saying Kaddish is to be with your community. And what I realized this week is that, well, you're my community" - Joel

WordsCharactersReading time

Holy fuckin' shit I'm back.

Damn it took a long time to get internet installed. I've missed two months of posting deep and important personal revelations.

Pink Floyd's "Young Lust" sounds better when you're listening to it walking through a New Jersey mall.

"Buffy" season six is the only season that is incredible from start to finish.

SATURDAY, MAY 3 - Dajia riverside park with Taipei Grand Hotel, Dazhi Bridge, Nat'l Freeway #1, and airport weather radar visible. Pentax ZX-5n (panorama mode), Ilford XP2 Super.