My desk set-up, just in case I have to move it all I'll know how to put it back together.

The Five Gospels

Over the past few years, I've been reading a lot on the so-called Christian "Gnostic" Gospels. Not to completely rehash and to oversimplify, they were the doctrinal losing side in the early Jesus movement over the debate about what Jesus taught.

Ultimately when the canon was compiled, these teachings were outlawed and suppressed for 1700 years, but have recently been uncovered with ongoing scholarship being done on them.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene was uncovered in the late 1800s, while the bulk of the writings were uncovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in the late 1940s, and finally the Gospel of Judas, after a long journey which nearly destroyed it, was first published in 2006.

Also to briefly rehash, I might think my interest in the Gnostic Gospels might be part of this future life resonance theory I play with. If I am angling for a rebirth in South Korea, if any at all, I'm confident that even if I'm born in a Christian environment such as South Korea, I will be able to find my way back on my path.

The texts are readily available, along with more and more books being written on them for anyone interested and not in the mind control of the church. Anyone who is intrigued by the question "There's more (than what a Roman emperor endorsed as the official teachings of Jesus)?" can now find and read about the early Jesus movement and the arguments and controversies over the teachings that were raging.

I imagine that even if I were raised as a Christian in a future life (assuming what I shouldn't assume – that reincarnation is linear in time), I would find my way to the Gnostic Gospels. I'm fairly confident it is in my karma to be inquisitive by nature and to be one of the people to ask, "There's more?!".

Me: "Well, what is it?"
Christian: "It's heresy, blasphemy"
"But Jesus taught it?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. Anyway it's wrong"
"Says who?"
"The church fathers"
"Oh. OK. Who were the church fathers?"
"I'm not sure. It has to do something with the Roman emperor Constantine who convened the Nicene Council. You can Google it"
"OK, I will"
"On the other hand, maybe you shouldn't"

Much of the Gnostic Gospels focuses on the hidden, esoteric spiritual interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, as opposed to the moralistic, institutional, authority-driven interpretation of the current canon. Today, as must have been the case in the early Jesus movement, they appeal to a completely different character and psychological/spiritual make-up than those who favored the straight-forward and direct, and even political, nature of what became the canon.

I was surprised recently to realize that I've never actually read the four canonical Gospels except in portions. I only realized it upon finding a book called The Five Gospels.

The Five Gospels was the result of a project in the late 80s/early 90s by a group called the Jesus Seminar, consisting of about 200 biblical scholars who rendered a modern, scholar-friendly translation of the four canonical Gospels from an original Greek manuscript, plus the gnostic Gospel of Thomas from a Coptic translation from Nag Hammadi.

They then set out to present a scholarly consensus over any quote attributed to Jesus and the likelihood that Jesus himself spoke those words. Consensual certainty that he said something is printed in bold red, certainty that he did not is printed in bold black; and pink and grey are used for weighted votes in between relative consensual certainty.

The reason they included the Gospel of Thomas is that it is simply comprised of alleged quotes by Jesus with no narrative context. Since the project was focused on what Jesus likely actually said, they deemed it appropriate to subject Thomas to the test.

I would say it's a flawed work, for sure, but still fascinating. The criteria for putting words into the mouth of Jesus are based on narrow presuppositions imposed by the seminar. The voting method over a period of years also results in inconsistencies, which the authors reveal in the commentary.

Actually, never having read the canonical gospels didn't mean much. Just growing up in the U.S., just about all of the stories were familiar. It doesn't matter if you're Christian or not, if you grow up in the U.S., you're bombarded with Christian references your whole life.

(Even in the subtlest ways. In high school, a group of friends were playing Trivial Pursuit. Two of the participants were brothers, Mark and John Smylie. The question was what are the four gospels of the New Testament. One of the brothers on the other team rattled off "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John", and we were all blown away how they knew that as easily as any of the rest of us could name The Beatles. He casually pointed to his brother, "John", pointed to himself "Mark, and our dad's a pastor, if we had two more brothers, they would have been Matthew and Luke". And that's how I learned the names of the four gospels culturally. The only Luke I knew prior was Skywalker, son of Vader Anakin)

One thing I found fascinating was that just about any familiar quotation, repeated ad infinitum in U.S. culture, was voted black. Jesus likely never said those quotes, but were attributed to him by members of the later movement trying to push their interpretation of what he taught.

This is a good place to note that I realize even though the Gnostic Gospels appeal to me, they also are iterations of positions in a fervent debate. I think they are right and the canon got it completely wrong, but there are billions of Christians who disagree (no doubt Christians who don't even want it discussed or out in the open and would prefer the suppression and censorship to continue).

Also, just reading the red quotations, this Jesus character strikes me as someone enlightened, imparting radical wisdom that was intended to shake the normative sensibilities and mores of the day. I agree with the assessment of scholars that Jesus wasn't into institution building.

That seems to indicate to me that if he were alive today, he would rail against the institution of the Christian church. He would rail against the conformity, control and conservatism of the church. A red quote widely attributed to Jesus can be directed to many Christians today: You point out the sliver in someone else's eye while ignoring the timber in your own.

He wasn't about placating people or making people feel good about being moral and righteous. He was about shaking things up. If you thought something and mindlessly accepted it as the norm, he would say something to disturb you.

Something the Jesus Seminar posits, which I have no comment on whatsoever but think is quite funny, is that he ate well and drank freely. I think they call him a glutton and a drunkard.

To Christians today, those are vices to be eschewed, but they make sense to someone trying to shake the norms of society. I think he did live under Jewish law because that was the water in which he was a fish, but I think he constantly pushed their boundaries to the extent that the law was being abused by temple authorities.

And even if he was glutton and a drunkard, his teachings understood correctly were good. They aimed toward liberation. I'd take a good teaching by a glutton and drunkard over a bad teaching by someone self-professed to be moral and righteous any day. 

It seems to me natural now to be fascinated by Christianity, but it's not. I never was much interested in Christianity until the Gnostic Gospels. The vast majority of my exposure to Christianity was cultural – the devotional side of blind, uncritical faith which never resonated with me.

I did take a course at Oberlin which did critically cover the historical underpinnings of Christianity and I loved that course. Mostly because it didn't deal with the myth of Christianity, which is what most Christians today believe. Myth comprises the reality of most Christians because they for most part reject the scholarship, which aims at getting to the historical realities.

Before the Music Dies

I have a few more cable channels thanks to my landlord upgrading the telecom around here. Shouldn't complicate things too much. I now have an extra Korean entertainment channel, expanded Discovery, news and HBO channels and Sundance Channel.

A primary gain from the extra Korean entertainment channel is a program which highlights working South Korean bands of various genres. With my recent unhealthy and unholy penchant towards K-pop girl groups, this program makes it clear that the Korean music scene is, in fact, more variegated and diverse.

Rock, live music, musicianship and people who are likely not so impressed by the international popularity of K-pop are alive and well in Korea, granted none of the bands on the show, albeit listenable and not terrible, have grabbed me. It's still good to know it's there.

And irony not missed, one of the first films I watched on the Sundance Channel was a documentary called Before the Music Dies, generally about the commercialization of the music industry in the U.S. The important point to me is that everything disparaging that is said or described about how bad music is manufactured in the U.S. is precisely how it's done in Korea.

The difference, I might defensively flail, is that there's no question about the nature of K-pop in Korea. There is no argument about art vs. commerce. I'm a fan of K-pop girl groups and not once has it crossed my mind that this is art or has integrity in any way.

K-pop idols are people who want to be performers, but don't have the artistic inspiration or wherewithal to make it on their own from the ground up. They have talents and are highly trainable. The entertainment agencies aren't interested in art. They're not trying to make good music. They only want to make money.

To the process vs. product argument, by process, K-pop is by definition bad music. As for product, as I've mentioned over and over again, I don't know why I like K-pop and no other manufactured pop from other countries. I put it to better songwriting, but that's hardly quantifiable.

I might mention, if I haven't already, it is essential to my fandom that I can't understand the lyrics, which I'm sure are so banal as to be insulting. That's a given. I'm only a fan because I can't understand the lyrics.

Another given is that if I saw the music collections of the celebrity idols of whom I'm a fan, I would cringe and wilt and scream in anguish to the skies, "whhhhyyyyy?!!!". I'm sure they listen to shit that I despise and would likely not be impressed by my music collection, either.

Mind you that's very different from musicians I genuinely respect. I would want to know their sources and I'd likely listen to and respect, if not personally like, what they listen to. Fuck, I don't even like Eric Clapton, totally overrated, but he's real enough that I'd totally be interested in who his influences were.

This is future life projecting. If the Hinduistic/Buddhistic model of reincarnation is somewhat valid, and if it is Korea to where I'm angling a rebirth, then maybe it's not a place that will be jolting or shocking towards my samsaric karma.

That is to say that if I am reborn in Korea, it would be the result of attachments and not-quite-enlightened views of being that would manifest, but I'd still be OK to find myself on my path. Penchant towards K-pop girl groups notwithstanding.

complicated

When I visited Audrey last Monday in Kaohsiung, she picked me up at the HSR station in a white Lexus that I'd never seen before. Not really a wonder as I hadn't visited in over three years. I got in and also wasn't too surprised at the feeling that technology has left me far behind.

I mean, I could probably drive the car easy enough, but incorporating any technological details would require some degree of learning curve. The dash and the controls would take familiarizing. The rear-view screen when the car is in reverse would no doubt have me bumping into cars first time around. Although I can see the convenience in that technology, I have also always been able to park perfectly well without it.

The Bluetooth phone connection had me shaking my head at how complicated my cousin's life is. And despite her desire to simplify once she moves to the U.S., the fabric of her current life is already complicated and it won't be so easy to break away from habit. I know from experience.

It was my ideal when I moved to Taiwan to live a simple, hermit-like existence, but years later I looked at the clutter of my apartment and wondered "where did all of this stuff come from?!". It was the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month habit of wanting this or that or thinking I needed this or that.

Even with mindfulness practice in place and being watchful of being a consumer animal, one thing always leads to another. Years later I find myself with an apartment full of stuff.

The past few years have been helpful. I think my reaction to the complexity of my cousin's life is a result of my years of not wanting anything or wanting to do anything, even eat. Since the torpor ended, I've been engaged in a slow process of house cleaning and getting rid of the clutter.

But the temptations still arise.

Recently my landlord (Audrey's uncle) upgraded the internet/cable in this property. Simply said, what I had thought were my simple habits regarding watching TV have gotten more nuanced, ergo complicated.

There's good and bad. Complicated is bad just in itself. But the good is the scattering of those simple habits I had come to expect and around which I had come to live my life. I have to let go of those habits and adapt to being technologically upgraded without going overboard. I'll see how well I do with that once he installs a promised (not asked for) flat screen LED TV.

I went down to Kaohsiung on Monday to visit my cousin Audrey.

I was aware even before this visit that I've been understating her. Our relationship while I've been in Taiwan has been muted at best. But when I was trying to figure out what happened at the beginning of October, I did note that phone call to her, right before she left for the U.S.

I think she might be just as important in regard to what happened as what I mentioned in the previous post. I think what I experienced may be closely tied with what Audrey just went through. I don't think I did or can convey what a big deal she has been going through with her husband and deciding to leave the country.

When we met for dinner at the end of October, just after she came back from three weeks in the States, I held back mentioning this to her, but finally decided it was OK and told her that if it were three weeks earlier, I probably wouldn't have wanted to meet.

I told her about the food thing and my general just not wanting to do anything. I had noticed that she only told me about the ordeal after it was over, so maybe she didn't want me to have anything to do with it and so I probably would have weighed that against any request to meet up.

But when I mentioned that we probably couldn't have that meeting three weeks earlier, she also said she probably couldn't have met 3-4 weeks earlier. The point at which she called me to tell me what was happening was really just right after she had an awakening, before which she was something of a nervous wreck and had been for months.

I'm not suggesting anything directly relational happened between us metaphysically. It's more what I mentioned before about being "entangled", and it's more like the concept of entangled particles in quantum physics; a "spooky", seemingly impossible concept that science has accepted as factually real in the quantum realm.

My very basic understanding is that particles that are "entangled" simultaneously exhibit corresponding properties no matter where they are. They can be across the universe from each other, but when a certain property is exhibited in one particle, a certain (other) corresponding property is simultaneously exhibited or known about the other particle.

This flies in the face of classical physics because it suggests information is traveling faster than the speed of light. Despite this paradox, entanglement is an accepted property of quantum mechanics.

It's not like we have some deep meaningful connection. But like entangled particles, we affect each other across space, like what she said, "when I learn, you learn".

I still don't want to make a big deal about it. The distance between us has grown proportionally with any closeness.

We don't want or need anything from each other. But the big change that happened in early October I might call a little bit of a big thing. If so, Audrey should be mentioned. I can never rule out that she's relevant to my journey.

So a major change occurred in early October. That's the what. But why? What happened?

There was a confluence of things that complicates and confuses what may have happened, and I'm deciding that all of the superficial, material things weren't it.

The change was much too sudden for any outside, material influences to be so effective. Including and especially cutting back on alcohol. That effectively happened afterwards; it wasn't it.

I'm tempted to pay attention to those days I thought I had succeeded in sabotaging my health and that liver/kidney failure was imminent, but . . . no. It felt momentous at the time, but maybe only as a superficial marker.

Any "facing my mortality" is not momentous, it's the norm. I didn't face my mortality and something in me changed. That would be sarcasm.

So I'm looking at the fringes.

In early October, I made contact with my cousin the day before she left for the U.S. to figure out where she was going to move with her children. I had known she was planning the trip for about a month, but I called right before she left, not knowing that fact. And she left. We got together the day she returned three weeks later, after the big change in my life had occurred.

Around that time, after my cousin left, I also read one or two chapters in a book that . . . did something. It's a book by a Tibetan lama of his commentary on teachings by one of the "greats" who basically is credited as one of the founders of one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

It doesn't matter what book it was, the commentary doesn't matter, the lineage doesn't necessarily matter. It was just the encountering it after all my years of reading, studying, sitting, searching. It's different for different people, but anyone who stays on the path for however long it takes may encounter it (if one must know, the book for me happened to be Confusion Arises as Wisdom by Ringu Tulku and is his commentary on the teachings of Gampopa, considered a founder of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism).

It was an "I get it" moment. It was a scratching of the surface, nothing deep, I had been exposed to the teaching countless times in countless ways, but it was this time, in this chapter of this book by this author when the "OMG, I get it" moment happened. Reality, or the perception of reality changed.

And it was just the start. I've felt like I've been on a spiritual journey for all these years, but all that was just preparation. I'm just barely reaching the shore now to begin. All those years I thought I had been advancing on the path was just setting up the prep station, the mise en place.

Again, it's not the teaching itself. I can repeat it, I can describe the realization, but it's the same information in countless numbers of books. All you can do is . . . keep practicing. Dedication is a must. Levity is a must, a careful balance between doubt and confidence.

I want to say to be true to oneself and to listen to one's heart, but those are cliched crocks. You can be true to yourself, but if it seems like shooting someone would be true to yourself, I'm not going to recommend being true to yourself, yo'm say'n? You can listen to your heart, but your heart may be telling you some off-the-wall shit.

I'm getting ahead of myself, I still have no idea what happened.

Tie to my cousin? Maybe. We haven't had the greatest relations or communications while I've been in Taiwan. She sure wasn't any help when I needed her most when I first arrived.

But I'm willing to accept that maybe we are "entangled" souls or beings. As she put it, "when I learn, you learn". Our current relationship doesn't mean a whole lot to me now, I'll help as much as I can in these trying times of hers, but the relationship that is important has nothing to do with her and I as we are in this human, corporeal form.

Now that I'm "better":

- I don't feel any need to be "productive", but I'm more inclined to "do stuff". Unlike the past few years, I can get restless now, whereas before at any time I could just lie down, relax and be totally contented. Feeling restless is generally considered to be a negative thing (antsy, anxious), but I just observe the feeling and appreciate it as something I've missed for the past few years.
- I still have no social life, nor want one; but I'm not disinclined to social contact, and have since met up with my old Chinese teacher and cousin.
- I have an appetite and can eat, and it's wonderful and wonderous. I need to maintain mindfulness about consumption, though. Going overboard is not great. Sometimes it's even a good thing to go hungry and appreciate it, having lost it for the past few years.
- Gastronomic/intestinal problems gone.
- Decreased alcohol consumption. Still considerable, but I have limits compared to before.
- Returned to regular morning sitting.
- Back on my bike. I've been riding on most nice days.
- Insomnia and rosacea still around, but not a big deal.

I now consider myself to have been sick for quite some time, finally having come out of it in early October. I've been trying to trace how long I've been sick, and so far I've found a mention of having no appetite in November 2011, so it was probably more or less fully formed by then.

That squares fairly with my memory that I was afflicted for the entirety of 2012 and 2013 until October. It probably started in 2011 sometime after a trip to New Jersey in April of that year.

I'm guessing it didn't suddenly start, but slowly, amorphously manifest through my lifestyle of sitting in front of a computer all day, obsessively watching Korean videos and TV shows, and then getting out for only three or four hours in the evening to read at a library or bookstore and eat if I could manage it.

It manifested through certain symptoms in a way that didn't point to a particular pathology. Actually, in retrospect, if I went to a doctor, I think they would've taken a shortcut diagnosis and labeled it depression.

- I wasn't doing anything productive, nor felt any need to be.
- I had no social life, nor wanted one.
- I had no appetite (but wanted to eat as I also obsessively watched food shows on Travel & Living Channel).
- I had gastronomic or intestinal problems. My stomach wasn't behaving and was a source of daily discomfort.
- alcohol consumption maintained at alcoholic levels and even increased.
- I stopped morning sitting somewhere along the way, as I felt it no longer was contributing to mindfulness practice. There was no difference between sitting and the rest of my day, so I deemed it appropriate to stop.
- I developed rosacea! My parents visited Taiwan in December 2011, and that's when it started since I remember they asked about a pimple on my face. It didn't concern me as pimples go away after a few days, but this went on for 10 months. It resurfaced briefly during Sadie's visit in 2013, and it's been touch and go since then.
- Insomnia has been a constant, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Insomnia and rosacea are probably independent of whatever else was going on symptomatically.
- It became fully formed during this period that I had no interest in doing anything I had done before that established my identity.
- I was fully happy just lying on the bed all day listening to music. Music has constantly and consistently been a source of pleasure.
- Mindfulness reading and practice was continuous all through this. 
- Korea, Korea, Korea. Possible future life resonance possibly continuing, and if it was beckoning, that may be a source of psychic discord (die already so you can be re-born and continue the journey).

The only problem with the depression diagnosis is . . . I was pretty "happy" all through this. I didn't feel depressed at all. I had to take the physical discomfort in stride, but at no time could I say I was "unhappy".

Was I manifesting physiological signs of depression without the emotional or mental baggage? The psychiatric community would have a field day with that suggestion.

Zero hits to this blog since I changed the url! That's success in my book. All of the usual web searches from before still go to the old url, dead blog. It's kinda liberating. I've been feeling this blog has lost the plot, that it's come off the rails, that its wheels have left the road. It's like a conversation with myself that's been lost.

Acquaintances, friends are ongoing conversations. What and how you communicate with different people is sourced in previous conversations and interactions. It's hard to be motivated to instigate contact with people when that conversation is gone or has been disrupted: I think of trying to write to Sadie, Madoka or Delphine, but the conversation between us is just not there. The last thing they said to me doesn't inspire response and any contact would have to be a cold start.

I did meet up with both my cousin Audrey and my old Mandarin teacher recently within a two week period. It's much easier to reestablish a conversation in person. Audrey recently went through a crisis with an end result that she is separating from her husband and taking her kids and moving to California. When she first called to tell me what happened, we couldn't establish a conversation. We couldn't close the distance that way.

My Mandarin teacher also contacted me with an emergency regarding a situation with her Master's program and asked to get together. Although I don't think the urgency was essential to the conversation as was it being in-person to discuss a situation.

I guess the pattern suggests the long-distance conversation is out. The nature of my relationship with people is that there is too much to "not get" over distance. On the "getting" part, Sadie, Madoka and Delphine all don't. And I don't give a crap. That's not a negative not giving a crap, I'm not judging nor have any feeling about it. That's just observation of the way it is.

I guess it's possible to meet up with someone in person and still miss successfully having a "conversation", but my relationship with my cousin and teacher are substantive enough that if we're sitting across from another, it's pretty easy.

Fortunately, I'd say, too.

I've never taken my health for granted. Even while trying to destroy it with alcohol, I've been mindful to be grateful for what I've still been able to do and appreciate because my health remained relatively good.

But I have to admit that after the way I've felt for the past several years, it does feel like a great weight has been lifted with the disappearance of those symptoms. I want to be careful about this, though. I don't want to say I was unhappy because of those symptoms, and that I'm happy now that they're gone.

I think I've been pretty happy for a while. The health issues were a bummer and reduced quality of life, but if asked, I don't think at any point I would say I was unhappy. And with the issues abated (mind you I don't know if this is temporary), I'm experiencing pleasure in being able to eat and in the motivation to get out more, but that doesn't mean I'm any "happier" than before.

Taking pleasure is different from happiness. If the symptoms come back, the pleasure will be gone and it'll be a bummer again, but from how I've defined my happiness, that shouldn't be affected. If my happiness depended on my pleasure, that would suck.

Something changed three weeks ago. I have it marked because I wrote about it but didn't post it, because I didn't know for sure.

OK, I was having persistent hiccups, and when I have those hiccups, I consider myself sick. I made that call a few months ago, and I know it's strange because it doesn't have quite the physical symptoms of an illness, but the psychic effect is one of an illness. But the illness also has a timer on it. I can be over 90% certain that within 48 hours, it will be over.

That's the background. I was sick. But I was also looking up symptoms for alcoholic liver disease and several pages completely matched what I was experiencing as being close to the final stages of alcoholic liver disease. I didn't have the final final stage symptoms, and I didn't have jaundice or yellowing of the skin, but I'm Asian, so who could tell, yo'm sayn'?

Anyway, I was convinced that this was the last tip of the edge before heading down that slippery slope. I was definitely going to die sometime soon. My plan had worked: if I wasn't able to die on my own accord, then alcohol would finish me off.

I went about for two days thoroughly convinced it was mission accomplished. I came to terms with it and was glad to have the finish line in sight. I started looking around my apartment and preparing to get rid of as much of the crap I've accumulated so that someone else didn't have to do it. They could just deal with the quality stuff.

Then suddenly everything just turned around. Just about overnight.

Not only did most of the symptoms go away, but the long-term things I've been feeling for the past year and a half or more also disappeared. Most notably was the lack of appetite. The ennui was also gone; I was no longer perfectly happy lying about listening to music all day. Intestinal problems were gone. Insomnia abated for a while, but now it's back, but I don't consider that a problem anymore.

But the appetite is the big thing. It was a bit of torment to not be hungry at all, and when I would convince myself I was hungry and get something to eat, I'd take a bite and immediately regret it, feeling immediately full and that finishing what I had would be miserable.

I don't know what the hell is going on. Since then I've rolled back on alcohol and I've been getting out and about more than I have in the past two years. I've started riding again, getting my road bike out of the apartment for an unprecedented three days in a row, only to be stopped by more than a week of rainy weather.

There's actually some overlap there. I started forcing myself to get out and farther away everyday before three weeks ago in an attempt to not drown in a full torpor. Getting on my road bike was a result of the aftermath. 

Rolling back on alcohol was planned since the incident. When I thought I was going to die, I wondered whether I could stop drinking if I tried, and I told myself 'probably not'. But if I was going to die, I didn't want to die feeling like crap, and I did realize that drinking made me feel like crap and I still pushed myself to drink ridiculous amounts.

So I eased off the drinking, although I still drink enough to put me at a level where doctors would say I'm at risk for long-term health risks. Long-term health risks? I've been drinking like this for over 20 years. The point is that I'm monitoring how I feel about it and if I don't feel like having a drink, I won't; or if I feel it'll make me feel like crap, I won't. There's just a point later on approaching bedtime when I'll let go and throw back a few.

I changed the url of this blog!

I'm not sure, but I think that means this blog as identified by the old url no longer exists. I think it now looks like a deleted blog. It may look like I deleted the blog. That's brilliant. I'm off the grid! It's not like I had regular or periodic visitors, but if I did, they're gone.

And I hated that old url. Pfft: suicideblog.blogspot. whatev.

This blog has also stagnated and gotten painfully boring. Mind you, I'm not saying that's going to change. But I was stuck and didn't know where to go, and with a new url I guess I could try to start anew.

Or not. Part of why I stopped posting is because I've mentally gotten to a place where it really doesn't matter anymore. I'm not the same person I was when I started this blog, and I just don't feel the need to have my thoughts "out there". I don't need to express anything. I don't need to plant a flag of my existence.

The initial idea was to just have the record, but even that's not important anymore. I did consider deleting the blog fer reals, but even deleting it wasn't important. Even deleting it felt like an ego attachment or that it was significant enough to delete.

I don't know if I'll continue, but maybe I will. I do look back to past entries to see what I was doing years ago, and I am in a totally different place now. And if it is just for the record, and the past record doesn't reflect the present, might as well try to say something about the present also just for the record.
 

These days, every day I tell myself tomorrow I'm going to do something different. I tell myself with conviction that I'm going to do something different. Every day I end up doing the same old nothing I did yesterday.

I'm still considering the effect Sadie has had by coming here. Really, there should be none. Really, there inevitably is.

So far we've been maintaining communications more frequently than before, but her way of communicating has become totally foreign to me. Before, we had normal email communications, albeit at times a lot of time would pass between them. Not abnormal.

"Normal" communications being something letter like. You write about something, they respond and bring up some other thing, you respond. Her communications are more often a barrage of scattershot, in-the-moment snippets that I can't even tell if I'm supposed to respond or not. A lot of questions I ask go unanswered. We do not communicate in the same way over long-distance.

It's not the connection like we had when together, either here or over nine years ago in San Francisco. But this all makes sense, because we're not supposed to be trying to "connect" any more than we just generally do. We had a moment, and it was a special moment, but certain fundamentals remain the same. Striving for some connection or even substance between us different from what we always have been is silly.

And as my lifestyle has sunk back into its morass (unfortunately not more ass (sorry, bad obvious joke)), it's gotten even worse, possibly even getting to my physical health. It's hard to tell because my physical health isn't supposed to be that good as I've been trying to sabotage it for years. More and more symptoms to match alcoholic liver disease.

And I find I'm not just cruising in a bearable, hazy ennui as I have been for the past two or three years. I'm starting to get tired of it, irritated by it, but still zero motivation or ambition to do anything. I still maintain that nothing is going to change without a next sincere attempt. A lot of indicators that I should be angling towards that.

So Sadie came and went. I'm still processing her visit. I'm not sure if I'm being too subtle about any subtexts, or not subtle enough. Or whether I should be subtle or not. There's a certain word without which you can't spell "subtext". Real subtle there.

She initially came to visit for three weeks and then extended her stay for another three weeks, sex weeks total, until she really needed to go back. That means she was having a good enough time after three weeks to extend as long as possible.

All in all, I think it was a brilliant visit. We had a lot of fun, lots of laughs and definite connection. On the other hand there were tensions that can be expected from six weeks of near daily exposure. There were things I wish I did better.

I suppose the thing I don't want to downplay is how well we connected. We got each other. Even in our worst moments, there was always movement towards or with each other, and rarely, if not none, where we encountered a negative situation or mindset and mentally or emotionally headed off in divergent directions.

And 97% of her visit wasn't even near those worst moments. Mostly it was brilliant, hilarious, unabashed, affectionate connection. We challenged each other, just about anything went, and it still mostly ended up hilarious. Not all, but mostly.

Some lines were crossed and quickly forgiven (I knew I'd pay for any gender stereotyping, even in jest), some lines weren't allowed to be crossed until control was established (she didn't get to see my apartment until her last day here, on the way to the airport).

On the other hand, I don't want to over-emphasize any meaning to this visit. It was assumed to be for a limited time only. In fact, I realized and brought up the discrepancy between my attitude about her visiting before she arrived and my behavior towards her after she was here.

Where did that previous attitude, basically warning her not to visit, go? She arrived and I welcomed her with open arms and spent as much time with her as possible and we talked openly about just about everything. It was for a limited time only. No strings attached.

I think the hardest time for us was when we discussed my not wanting to be here and not wanting to do anything. Communication did break down, although we still stuck together through it. But in that discussion, we didn't even have a common frame of reference or a common language.

I can't even convey what she was trying to convey, because we weren't even speaking the same language. To my ears, she sounded like someone trying to convince a gay person not to be gay. Or a Christian trying to convince someone of the absolute truth of Jesus. She totally refused to get these analogies, nor the significance that I was using analogies of intolerance. 

And she called me stubborn for refusing to even consider something that I feel I have to deal with every moment of my existence. That was pretty damn near offensive, but I sucked it up because I do love her. Always have.

That can't be understated. Even though in the nine years since I left San Francisco, our communications have been friendly and familiar at best with long periods of silence, we almost always had as great of a time together in S.F. as someone could have with someone with a boyfriend (her not me), and saying I've always loved her is easy now, if not a given, now that she doesn't have a boyfriend.

The only reason for the subtexts that easily unfolded between us is because I loved her all along. I wasn't like, "oh, yuck".

Still processing. As I'm sure she is, too. I think the reality of it may be that we affirmed we have a very loving friendship. But maybe not much of anything else will or should change. If we lived in the same city, things may turn out to be very different.

And it also shouldn't be ignored that we both likely sacrificed and endured a lot to make her visit a pleasant one for both of us. At the end of willingness to sacrifice and endure, it probably gets less pleasant.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

Sadie decided during her third week here that she will extend her stay. Now she's going to be here for another three weeks to the limit that she can stay (she has to go back to be at someone's wedding). Most importantly, she booked her stay for the next three weeks at a single airbnb, so no more moving around like in the first three weeks in what were essentially hostels or hotels.

From my point of view, it's been wonderful that she's here. Even if she wishes that I wanted something from life and wanted to live, I've drawn certain lines in the sand that if she were to cross wouldn't make any difference. What and who I am now is deeply ingrained and her hopes otherwise are unlikely to change them.

So we enjoy each others' company and intimacies and share just about everything, including every embarrassing thing from our pasts.

She moved to the airbnb today and I have a set of keys to the apartment, and I don't know why I'm not there now. She decided to stay another three weeks, and I should be taking advantage of and relishing each extra day that she's decided to be here. I'm slow like that.

Maybe just this first day, I wanted her to establish the apartment as her space. And perhaps insomnia being a fear and an issue, as I haven't been able to get much sleep anywhere but my own apartment. Although that hasn't stopped insomnia being an issue at home, either. Generally it's been good, but when it hits, it wipes me out and is a chronic fear.

Well that escalated quickly.

Sadie arrove. Her time in Taipei was planned to be three weeks. The first week was a lot of orientation and navigating Taipei and each others' intimacies. The second week had us ironing out some . . . inconsistencies?

Amongst our having fun spending time with each other, I met up with her one time with alcohol not quite having dissipated from my system, and she took issue with that and, from my point of view, projected some behaviors on me that to me were not at all inconsistent with how I just am. She brought it up as a problem and we discussed it.

If she has back issues with alcohol, I'm willing to accommodate them. But it is patronizing in a way. I don't think I ever show up perceived "drunk", but if I do show up with the smell of alcohol, I give her the option of postponing our meeting a couple hours until she's comfortable. I take no offense.

Personally, I don't give a shit. Generally I'll allocate a drying out period, but those times we met when she knew I had alcohol in my system were specific circumstances. If she wants me to dry out first, I have no problem with that. But under no circumstance, and I think she knows this, am I going to hide that constant drinking, if not alcoholism, call it alcoholism if you want, I don't care, is part of my being.

It seemed that the issue was big enough for her to state that she would be bailing and returning to San Francisco as planned on the 31st. That was a few days ago. I think now she's reconsidering. Makes little difference to me, truth to tell. If she goes home, that's fine, if she decides to extend, glad to have her around.

None of this is to suggest that there are any problems between us or in our friendship/acquaintance/relationship. I told her if she decided to visit, she should come with no expectations, and she has heeded that. She sometimes pushes me towards something she would prefer me to be, but she's very patient and accommodating when I gently suggest nothing of that sort is going to happen.

I do feel I'm too far gone, and any next step I take will be after a next attempt. But short of that, there's still nothing I want to do, and so far there is nothing life can offer that will make me want to "live out my life". That's not the point of my life, I believe.

It's not despondence, I feel vaguely liberated and free. Definitely not in the realm of enlightenment, but I do feel light being the way I am. Not weighed down by mundane concerns of job, making a living, creating a family and all that bullshit.

But there definitely is a path ahead.

We held hands. All the way back to her hostel from Danshui.

Sadie took the day off from work and she woke me up in the morning. I bought some time to get myself collected and suggested some things for her to do, to which she was amenable, basically exploring her surrounding area.

She said I was a good teacher, which I like to think I am. A disadvantage of knowing someone on the ground when visiting a foreign country is that when they guide you around, you miss the figuring out where to go on your own.

For me, when learning about a new place, I like to think navigation is an important part of the memory. So when she first arrived, I gave her a paper map orientation, which I assumed wouldn't stick, but I think it's useful for some people to get it in their mind to go between the map and the experience, and they start putting it all together themselves.

Having sent her solo on the MRT yesterday, I suggested that after she did the local exploring that we meet at Taipei Main Station at a certain exit at a certain time, which is generally how it's done in Taipei, and she took the challenge and we met up no problem (she was duly impressed at the effectiveness of using the MRT stations' numbered exits as meeting places).

We walked around and explored the Taipei Main Station area, which is the original downtown area of Taipei and seat of the national government, and is right next to Ximending where we were last night to help conceptualize how Taipei is oriented.

Afterwards, we headed north on the red MRT line with the idea of being at the end of the line in Danshui to watch the sunset and the off-possibility of catching sight of a comet that might possibly be visible.

We stopped in Xinbeitou on the way, about halfway to Danshui, and spent a pleasant afternoon in that area famous for hot springs, and she mentioned that she heard about the hot springs and had brought a bathing suit should that opportunity arise.

Then we headed up to Danshui, but unfortunately even though it was sunny in Taipei and Xinbeitou, by the time we got to the end of the line, the area was socked in by fog. I walked her through Danshui anyway and we settled in for dinner at Alleycats pizza for several hours (she humored my constant craving for western food even though she's eager to try all things local).

Sadie and I have great chemistry. We rarely ever have bad feelings about each other and our dynamics are generally playful, and we range from dead serious conversations about love, life, work, politics, etc., to cracking ourselves up so much that everyone around us looks at us.

Or perhaps another example of our interaction is that if we have nothing to say, we don't. We just look at each other in the eyes. We don't get uncomfortable or awkward. We just know we don't need to say anything. If it looks like we're getting awkward, we make a joke about it getting awkward, and then go right back doing it.

So perhaps I'd describe our dynamics as a mix of serious intensity and rip-roaring laughter. Which in itself creates a certain dynamic. And by the time we were leaving Alleycats, all I did was say something completely silly and arbitrary that had Sadie laughing hysterically and us suddenly holding hands.

It was generally comfortable all the way back down, both of us having a pretty clear idea where each other stands. Although personally the human contact was perplexing. Like when the Borg Queen attaches the human skin, complete with sensation, onto Data in "Star Trek: First Contact".

I put no emotional attachment to the sensation. It's the same with pain or unpleasant things. Like last night was pretty chilly in Ximending and Sadie asked me if I was cold, and I said yes, but it doesn't bother me. Perhaps for other people, they feel cold and they associate it with unpleasant and associate it with an emotional dislike reaction.

I don't do that last step of making a sensation emotional. A sensation of our physical bodies is in general to me just a sensation to be experienced, and not something on which to put an emotional attachment. Nothing whatsoever should be attached to is the philosophic path to enlightenment with which I agree.

A sensation of pain is not necessarily undesirable, sometimes to me it's fascinating and I'll explore it or meditate on it. A sensation of sensuous human touch is, to me, not something that leads to desire.

I'm not sure what the next few weeks will hold. A lot of unknowns. But I'm confident it will be a positive experience without compromising the general state my life is in, which is I just don't want to do anything. Even Sadie brings up things I could do and I try to remind her of the profundity of I just don't want to do anything. There is no desire here.

I am even aware of the implications of our holding hands so soon after her landing. I don't know where things are going to lead, but I have had the thought that Sadie didn't come all this way just to work and hang out.

So Sadie arrived Saturday night and I met her at the airport. She had booked a hotel room for that night, and I navigated her there.

After the one night at a hotel, her plan was to spend some time in hostels to gauge her experience in them here, or opt for short-term private living spaces that can be found online (called airbnb's). Working spaces are apparently an option for people around the globe who work over the internet.

She arrived without a hitch late Saturday. After we took a bus from the Taoyuan International Airport into Taipei, we walked the entire distance from Taipei's regional airport to her hotel, and everything was fine and dandy and great.

She had no expectations and she knew I was wary of her visit and my ability to interact socially, but interacting socially isn't really my problem. It's processing the social interaction.

On Sunday, I helped get her settled in at a hostel and we located a working space she had found online, and I got her oriented with transportation and the general area in which she was staying, which is around Shida, the first general area in which I stayed when I first arrived.

I got her oriented with the Heping East Road corridor and at the end of the day I gave her an easy task – get us back to the hostel from where we were in the Shida night market (I knew it would be easy for her to make sense of even if she made a mistake).

It wasn't meant to torment her, of course, but to be able to navigate independently. If she was right I'd tell her right away, if she was totally wrong I'd tell her right away, but if she was a little wrong and could figure out that it was wrong, I let her figure out it was wrong on her own, maybe pointing out a hint if there was something that would make things clear in her mind.

Today she tried out the working space but got there in the afternoon. We agreed to meet up in the early evening and get some dinner, and afterwards she could try to put some more hours of work in.

Having gotten her comfortable with her immediate surroundings, I suggested venturing further out and getting her to navigate the MRT. She had heard about the toilet bowl restaurant in Ximending and we decided it was a worthy novelty tourist experience, so we decided to go there, a short trip on MRT, and again I tasked her with getting us there, and she managed it just fine.

After we wandered around Ximending and she felt she should go back and try to work, I asked her if she thought she could make it back solo and she was confident and comfortable that she could, so I sent her on her way and hopped on a bus home.

Sadie arrived in town. Sadie from San Francisco. Sadie who I haven't seen in almost 9 years. Sadie the last person I saw in San Francisco. She hung out with me the night before I left, after my apartment was empty and all my stuff was sitting in a Ryder truck outside.

I think she asked me at some point back then if there wasn't anything she could've said that could have made me stay. I said no, but she could have, but it was just that the time was wrong.

She asked me recently if it was alright if she visited, and I distinctly, resoundingly didn't say yes.

She has a job where she telecommutes, and she realized she could telecommute from anywhere. So she realized she could travel to places and all she had to do was maintain the discipline to work a 40 hour work week and everything was cool and she could experience living in different places.

I didn't say it would be cool to visit me. I didn't say I wanted her to visit me. I did say she couldn't stay with me, as my apartment is inadequate for that. I did remind her of my current state of social isolation and that there were a lot of unknowns involving me suddenly interacting with people.

I did say that if she happened to decide to come to Taipei as a destination to do her work thing, I would make sure she landed on her feet to do her work thing, and that I would make myself available at every possibility to hang out with her and show her my Taipei.

I honestly didn't think she'd come here. All the signs I was giving should have been construed as warnings. I told her she could come but to have no expectations. And she came with no expectations.

She'll be here for three weeks figuring out her own living situation and work situation, and I'll make myself available for her to have a good experience.

She's an old friend now. I love her like I loved her back in San Francisco, and I'm sure she loves me like she loved me back in San Francisco, but we were only good friends then. Now we're old friends, with that much more comfort and weight to our interactions.

I think we'll generally have a great time. I think she'll generally have a great experience. But I really, really, really want to tell her at some point before she leaves that all I want from life now is to experience death, and bringing faith into the picture, to not come back at all (Buddhism is the faith, but the actual "faith" is in the unknowing whether it's a reasonable projection of what else there is beyond our physical lives and reality).

I really feel done with the human experience (for now, perhaps), and nothing is as disheartening as the idea of reincarnation and going through all of something like this again and hoping to be exposed to and re-learn all the stuff (due to karma) that was so inspiring before to get me on the path.

I read Lance Armstrong's "It's Not About the Bike" because I thought it would be an interesting read, taking into consideration his recent admission that he doped for all of his Tour de France wins.

His coming clean didn't really affect my thoughts about him much. Partly because I never thought much of him personally anyway. I followed those Tours de France and was thrilled at his performances, but he never interviewed well. Off the bike, he wasn't all that impressive or even likeable.

Reading the book also confirmed that his personality type is not one that I like. He was a typical jock, basically a selfish, arrogant asshole, which I think kinda goes with the territory at performing at the highest level of the elite.

I don't think it's something he'd deny. Call him a selfish, arrogant asshole and he'd admit he is because that's part of what gives him a competitive edge (but if you said it as an insult, rather than a descriptive, he just might punch you in the face).

So OK, fine, he doped, he cheated. But win or not, he completed seven Tours de France! Holy crap! You're already pretty elite if you can ride even a single stage of the Tour, I reckon. Any major leaguer can hit a baseball out of the park, but doping makes you do it more often. That's cheating.

In an event like the Tour de France, doping might improve performance, but it doesn't mean that you'll win, it doesn't mean that you'll even be able to complete it and it certainly doesn't mean that it's easy. It's already a superhuman feat, and that's part of why I'm still no less impressed by Armstrong's performance.

You can say he doesn't deserve those wins because he cheated, and I have no problem with that, but I also believe the allegations that doping was and is rampant in the sport.

Maybe he doesn't deserve those wins, but who knows who does? I'm curious as to why after Armstrong was stripped of his titles, they didn't go to the second place winners. But who knows? They may have been doping, too, but just didn't come under such intense and sustained scrutiny because they were second place and were not Lance Armstrong.

Doping in cycling and not getting caught is practically a sport in itself. And as often as Armstrong was tested and never tested positive, the USPS team was certainly the best at cheating (OK, maybe that's not quite so impressive).

But the book is mostly about the cancer, which is what prevented me from re-shelving the book in the library under fiction. Only the last part is about his comeback and covers only his first Tour de France win. That's the part where the reader can start reading in a subtext of doping between the lines.

When did they first start planning it? How did they put the whole system into place to not get caught? How did they convince the whole team to go along with it and risk their careers and reputations? Everything he describes about riding that Tour now has a doping subtext.

I had an interesting dream experience; a first for me, I think.

I had a "normal" type of sleep (as opposed to the abnormal, insomaniacal types of sleep I have), whereby I get a sufficient amount of good sleep, and upon waking I go through a period of waking and falling back to sleep multiple times, and having dreams in the shallow sleep periods.

Usually the dreams are unremarkable or I otherwise forget them very quickly after waking. But this time, it was like one, same dream that I kept waking up from and then fading back into. There was continuity, even though much of the contents of a dream are indescribable because too many things kept changing and it would be a disjunct mess to try to explain everything I remember.

The setting was a constant; a small-knit community like a village or school campus. I didn't know most of the people and most of the people were white, which may be strange since I usually don't note the race of people in dreams (they were all very nice and non-threatening).

And for me, whatever was happening, I had this feeling everyone knew what was going on and there were things they were (supposed to be) doing, but I had no clue whatsoever and was constantly trying to figure out who these people were and what they were doing.

I know that may reflect my psyche in this physical perceived reality, but in the dream it was literal. Like an alien plopped on a college campus and has no idea what college is about and trying to figure out why everyone is going about doing what they're doing.

Another constant was that early on in the dream, I had won something and received a certificate. It was some photo thing, but the certificate I received was some arts and crafts thing with my picture on it, and had nothing to do with any photo I took. There was a name for it, but I don't remember it, and it was apparently a big deal because in all periods of the dream, people would walk up and congratulate me.

A lot of the dream, the plot as it were, was trying to figure out that award and why it was such a big deal.

Like I said, the dream was constantly shape-shifting and it'd be nonsensical to describe everything. One notable scene was when I had a dream within the dream.

There was a room, and it was my brother's room and he was there and we had some interaction. At some point he lies down on his bed to take a nap. I go off to another part of the dream, but then I come back and he's still asleep, so I decide to take a nap since he implicitly welcomed me to (I'm uncharacteristically not socially avoidant as I currently am in this physical perceived reality). He has a roommate, but there are three beds, so it's no problem.

So I'm lying on the bed and the roommate comes back and there's a vibe of "what the hell are you doing on my bed?". I don't say anything, assuming everything's cool, then he just accepts it and starts putting stuff on the bed and that's when I look up and notice there are only two beds, and I'm on his.

I get up and want to apologize saying that I had a dream and there were three beds in the dream, so I thought it was alright, but decided not to because of how crazy that would've sounded. That's all I'll say about that even though the scene continues but shape-shifts into something else, including more misunderstanding between this stranger and my brother.

Another section I noted because it involved some woman that involved . . . some woman. I noted it just because of the woman aspect, tapping into the biological fact of human reality. I forget the lead up, but I think it had something to do with the award and something being written down by me or someone else in relation to it.

But then a woman who was there looked at it and discovered it was a code and she was able to break it. It was kind of like a bunch of words, but then if you read just the first letter of each word they make up a sentence. I tried to look at it but didn't see it.

But she said it was a message and that it was time for me to "get together" with Noel. Or Noelle, I suppose is a woman's name. The implication was a relationship, but the woman is a bit of a mystery since I think I had met her before, but she was in another village or another part of the campus. She wasn't easily accessible.

Finally, the last section is notable because I ended up at my uncle's place and it was nearing midnight and I was about to go out and he was under the impression I was leaving that night and he didn't know when we'd see each other again (themes from reality), but I hadn't prepared to leave so I would probably come back and leave in the morning.

And I don't feel like I was lucid dreaming at that point, but I remember thinking "this is the end of the dream, this is the end of the episode". All that up to that point was fiction, and now the credits were about to roll.

I think there was a brief feeling of defiance that this was a dream and I wasn't staying in it for the fucking credits and I do remember forcing myself out of the dream and waking up. I don't know why I didn't try to go back in, but I got up for good. Maybe because sometimes you have to know when it's over.

I don't think I can get through another year like 2012, but lord knows I'll try.

I'm not doing anything, and I'm doing it well. Happy enough that if I died today, I'd die happy.

I frequently counter being neurotic by telling myself, "What the fuck do I care what anyone else thinks?". It pretty much always works whenever I can recall it.

I'm trying to figure out how to put 2012 into perspective. Without boring the fuck out of myself. 2012 was different from the two previous years, but the two years prior were a progression that culminated into the habit of 2012. 

January 2010 was when I stopped working (quit my job at the Post), and that is a defining constant of the past three years, but 2012 was the year I basically lost interest in doing any and everything, and pretty much every single day, with minor variations, was the same idea for the entire year.

The routine was characterized by complete social avoidance. I met up with a total of three people. I also avoid my neighbors who live in the rooms on this same floor. I'm friendly saying 'hi' when I happen to run into one of them, but that's it.

In fact, my daily routine neurotically involved avoiding them by getting out of the apartment in the late afternoon before they started coming home from whatever they did during the day, presumably work. I'd come back after 9 o'clock or so as if I was coming home from . . . something; like somewhere I had to be with something to do. I know, neurotic.

There was some cycling later in the year because of the bike GPS I found, which is different from previous years when either 2010 or 2011 I stopped being able to drag me and my bike out of the apartment. Otherwise, very little sunlight was seen. I don't get direct sunlight in my room.

I constantly tried to turn out the lights and get to bed at or before 3 a.m. That rarely happened. Mostly I was pleased if I could accomplish that by 4. But usually couldn't.

Getting up was an entirely different and varied affair, often depending on insomnia. And my complete lack of interest in wanting to do anything made hours lying in bed listening to music completely reasonable. Even enjoyable.

I guess one affirmative development this past year was not only maintaining quiet sitting for 45 minutes after getting up for most of the year, not every day, but also adding a second 45 minute session afterwards, mostly concentrating on internal energies, inspired by tantra and Dzogchen teachings, which I've apparently been absorbing and integrating for years without even knowing it.

Otherwise, as I've noted before, all of my previous interests that used to identify me were pretty much completely gone. Listening to music has been a singular enjoyment, and a lot of time was spent on things Korea. The possible future life resonance thing.

If I'd been more diligent or efficient in dying like I was supposed to sometime during these past few years, my theory being I was heading for South Korea in my next life, and having failed to accomplish that goal, metaphysical or psychic resonances of that life-to-be have started to inexplicably appear in this life, as I've previously noted that I'd never been particularly interested in Korea despite plenty of exposure to the people and culture.

As for this year, my goal is still the same. Whether I'll accomplish it or not, I have no idea. I'm not going to sweat it. I'm boring the fuck out of myself.