I've taken to riding home from work along the riverside bikeways. It's longer, but it's much more pleasant. Quiet, solitary, no traffic, no traffic lights.

November 17, 12:46-12:47 a.m.

Tonight, the Keelung River was still as a mirror reflecting lights on the other side. Reality like fabric unfolded as I moved through it. And nothing was as clear as that I don't want to be here. I don't want to be me. Anyone else, fine. Just not me with these specific blocks and obscurations that prevent me from moving right, moving left, forwards or even backwards.

As someone else, these blocks and obscurations would still exist, but hopefully they wouldn't be set in such perfect resonant circumstances, reinforced by my own arrogance and ego, that I couldn't get desperate, that I couldn't really desire and want so much that I would be willing to do anything to get out in order to get what I want.

I'm not desperate. I'm not hungry. I don't want what I can't have. If I can't have you, I don't want you. Or so I tell myself in my arrogance and ego.

If my parents weren't coming in January for my cousin's wedding, if my cousin weren't getting married in January, would I be willing to go right now? That's rhetorical. Of course, the answer is yes. But my cousin is getting married in January and my parents are coming, and I'm not willing to go right now because of that, so of course the answer is no.

There are a lot of old people in my neighborhood. A lot of old people being wheeled around in wheelchairs by caretakers hired from other southeast asian countries. This is the culmination of all their lives' efforts? Did they foresee this when they were 20, 30, 40, 50? That they would be wheeled around in a playground park with tubes up their noses?

I also see a lot of people in my neighborhood who are 20, 30, 40, 50. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. And less. To me, they're all slices of the same life.

What happens when it's my father who's in the wheelchair? Do I want to see my father in a wheelchair with a tube up his nose, clinging to life because he doesn't know what to do otherwise? Fuckall hell no. Do I want to be the one pushing him around? Why are we doing this?

That isn't rhetorical. There is a reason why we're doing this. And you may have it. Many people have it. I don't.

When I was at the monastery, doubting my monastic aspiration, I had this idea of returning to San Francisco and living a simple hermit-like life. But here in Taiwan, I have the ultimate opportunity to live that kind of life. What am I waiting for?

Why am I so tortured? Why am I so merely unsatisfied? I can live a hermit-like existence, but desire leads me by the nose to do this, desire leads me by the nose to do that. And I'm unhappy about this about the work situation, I'm unhappy about that about the work situation. I'm unhappy about this about the band situation, I'm unhappy about that about the band situation. Social situation, friend situation, family situation, photography situation, music situation, cycling situation, location situation, weather situation, apartment situation, body situation, existence situation. Why can't I just be satisfied?

Why can't I just stop and say . . . I'm satisfied? That I like it in my little motel.