Taiwan is finally getting a taste of the mess much of the rest of the world has been enduring for the past more than a year. When the international press would say that life was more or less normal in Taiwan, they weren't exaggerating. We got off good until now. I mean, to put it in perspective, our numbers are still way lower than some U.S. states are still reporting, but for them the improvement is such that it's probably just such a relief it's getting better and not getting worse. Taiwan is facing disaster (or just joining the party late and forgot to bring a six-pack of vaccine). 

The international press has pointed to complacency as part of the reason for the current outbreak. It took several days for that to sink in, but I don't think that's an inaccurate assessment. In fact I would go one step further and suggest the government may have seriously fucked up and wasn't lucky this time in dodging the bullet. 

We actually had a direct warning a few months ago when there was a cluster outbreak centered around airline employees. All contacts in that case were traced and it was successfully contained. An EVA pilot was fired and the airline heavily fined, but a huge loophole was exposed and I don't know if the government did enough to close it. They should have required all airline personnel to undergo pretty much the standard quarantine procedures if they planned to enter the general populace. 

I haven't been following the news as diligently as before (perhaps a reflection of personal complacency mirroring government complacency), but I think this outbreak started at the airport hotel and infected airline employees were responsible for the flashpoint of the outbreak in Taipei's Wanhua district, famous for "tea houses" (not exactly red light, but not the most reputable adult "entertainment"). I think another government failing is that when it was clear Wanhua was a major hotspot, they didn't lock it down or restrict travel in and out and still haven't, even though it's probably too late now despite most of Taipei's daily cases coming from there. 

I don't know. Before I thought I was pretty in-tune with what was going on, but I haven't heard any discord regarding the government's failure in these regards. I could be flat-out wrong, or as the people get angrier as conditions get worse the government may face a reckoning that will impact politics. 

I also don't know how flat-footed Taiwan was caught regarding obtaining vaccine, pants around our ankles with China already ready to say "bend over" (wouldn't trust their vaccine anyway and I'm pretty sure that's not a needle they want to prick us with). If government complacency mirrors my personal complacency, a few months ago my brother asked about Taiwan's state of vaccine and my reply was somewhat nonchalant, that we didn't have any but the government was taking steps to eventually procure some in case we need it. Hindsight 20-20, Taiwan should've aggressively tried to procure some of the sauce and either have it ready (don't know what its shelf-life is) or start voluntary vaccinations at the very least to test how Taiwanese felt about it. Or at least jab those horny bastards in the airline industry.

The amount and degree of miserableness continues to compound, and it's not even just personal anymore as the CCP pandemic is finally starting to get out of hand in Taiwan and stifling summer heat has arrived early. This is compound misery. 

It's been a long time since I've heard anyone call it anything aside from "Covid-19" since I no longer watch those China-watch YouTube channels (because they turned out to be unabashed pro-Trump conspiracy theorists during the election) which regularly called it the "CCP virus", placing descriptive attribution most accurately where it belonged. Even Taiwan media sometimes calls it "Covid-19" aside from the usual "Wuhan virus" or "coronavirus". That's how thorough Chinese Communist Party brainwashing and propaganda is with the collusion of the WHO. Don't kid yourself, if you call it "Covid-19", you're doing it because of the Chinese government whether that bothers you or not and there's nothing you can do about it. All the variants are named after source locations, i.e., India, South Africa, Brazil, UK variants, but where did the whole thing start? Of course . . . Covid, Estonia (*insert Chinese news source*). 

In a textbook example of "well that escalated quickly", northern Taiwan went straight to Level 3 (out of 4, which is lockdown) in a matter of days late last week. Masks must be worn at all times in public, limits on gatherings, recreation and nightlife shut down, and name and telephone information must be submitted wherever you go in case contact tracing becomes necessary. 

That last one is the point of anxiety for me, ergo misery, since I don't have a phone. I've been using my invalid old phone number just to get by, but that defeats the purpose and eats at my willingness to do my part. My account-less iPhone that my aunt gave me does receive emergency government texts and has a number associated with it, but it doesn't look like a Taiwanese number and I don't know if it can receive calls or texts sent to it. I once wrote down my email address, but even though that is the only way to contact me if my locations are traced, it also may draw unwanted attention and suspicion that might uncover the fact that I don't have a smartphone, which I've mentioned before ordinary people find incomprehensible to the point of being criminal or indicative of insanity. 

Of course, no one in my family has reached out asking how I'm getting by without a phone. I'd have to come to mind first before they reached out. That's all fine, I've given them no reason to come to mind and I'm neither their business nor responsibility and I have no expectations of them either. If they heard the news from northern Taiwan and thought of me, I'd be touched and grateful but contacting me would be unwarranted and likely awkward and uncomfortable and bottom line it's not like they could do anything anyway. 

And it's not like they don't have problems and anxieties of their own. Southern Taiwan is experiencing a crushing drought with water in their reservoirs beyond disturbingly, desperately low. I don't think Kaohsiung quite yet, but other places down south are already having their water turned off two days per week since April. They ironically need a typhoon direct hit which would fill their reservoirs (last year was the first year in about 56 years where Taiwan was not hit by a single typhoon). They need a potential disaster to prevent an impending disaster.

In a contrast in misery, the early arrival of summer heat is more of an ambient misery. Merely existing sucks once out of the constant air stream of a fan. I even turned on the A/C last week way earlier than usual, albeit only long enough to see if it still works and to take the edge off the heat in that moment when it got unbearable. After the no hot water and broken space heater debacle this past winter, I fully expected the A/C to not work and I still expect my fan to break at any moment. 

So many things compound to add to the list affirming "I don't want to be here anymore", but that's a list long in compilation and I'm still here so it can't mean much of anything until it does. But also long in development is that the misery isn't anything negative anymore. There may be an emotional component to it, but it's not dominant. Take away the emotional component and all that's left is the description or the fact of the misery. I'm not sure that makes sense or how it even really works. 

Mindfulness practice triggers a stop, breathe, and investigate the emotion and the rationality behind the negativity caused by misery. There is no rationality for negativity when the whole spectrum of life experiences are taken as having value, which I think might be a Vajrayana approach. It can suck but I don't have to be all negative about it. I do find myself stopping and breathing and investigating emotions quite a lot these days.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

After what I said about not doing email communication with my parents, I'm actually copying and pasting (unedited) an email my mother sent recently that I didn't delete right away as I usual do:

How are you ?Last night I dream about you.You were planning to go out,I asked you that you need money but you didn’t answer, I started to search at master bedroom, I couldn’t find any money for you,Then I thought I could call Dad to help,but when I picked up the phone I found Dad already died in the mean time I waked up. I will send the check to you soon.Stay safe and healthy and happy.

She sent something worth mentioning? 

Well, no, not quite. More as a demonstration of how my mind works, my first thought was she had a premonition of my suicide, lol! The "planning to go out" and "didn't answer" is the symbolism for my leaving this life. Do I really think this is prescience or premonition? No. There are no mystical energy waves she's picking up about what's going on over here (trab pu kcip, trab pu kcip, yenom erom dnes, nemow sdeen sram, sorry my Malay incantations are really rusty). There is no deep mother-child connection giving her insight into something "only a mother would know". To suggest she suddenly is in tune or developed an intuitive *fifth sense* that she's never had before is just pretty funny if not ridiculous. 

So how is she interpreting the dream that she feels the unusual need to tell me about it and send money? I have no idea and can only speculate. It could be pretty mundane. It could be subconscious passive-aggression remnant from the past, not as virulent as it used to be but still part of her habit energies (probably not totally benign, but not at all malicious this late in the game and age). I'm pretty sure there's not a glimmer of thought in her mind that suicide is anywhere in my reality. 

Her automatic reaction to send money would be funny if it weren't just tiresome, and could also suggest possible habitual machinations that are old news and not worth delving into. Or not, I have no idea. I still have a bunch of undated checks from long ago that I decided not to act upon, and she sent something at the turn of the year, presumably a check, that she tried to guilt me for ingratitude because I hadn't acknowledged receiving it and thanking her for it. The truth was she sent it without telling me, and she doesn't know that no one here expects to receive anything through the post so the mailbox is perpetually filled with junkmail that gets cleared out maybe once a month. After I confirmed receiving it and thanked her, I tucked it aside without even opening it. 

So now because of that dream or whatever subconsciously-triggered reason, she's sending more checks and I'll be sure to look out for them this time and acknowledge receipt and thank her; I wasn't committing to suicide in the next week anyway. Anyway at this point, if I went to the bank now to try to execute the overseas transfer of money through a check, it wouldn't go through before my current funds run out, so these checks are monetarily worthless (although I do actually appreciate the gesture). 

If my parents had wanted to be monetarily worth something, they shouldn't have taken back that huge amount they deposited into my bank account many years ago. That's an old story, but a long time ago they sold their stock in my grandfather's bus company or something and had my aunt put the money into my bank account, presumably to avoid taxes. They put it in my account so I simply considered it a huge windfall, but I didn't go crazy and start living a life of luxury or indulge in that Lambo I've always coveted (OK, maybe it wasn't that much money but I didn't even buy a new bike). 

If they had left it there, it was an amount that would have sustained me way beyond their lifetimes, nevermind mine. But it just wasn't in their habitual capitalist character to have a chunk of money laying around somewhere and not have it working for them in some way. It took several years during which I lived off of it, but they eventually took it back, as was their completely fair right to do so, to buy some building of rare family sentimental value in Kaohsiung. I've never known my parents to be sentimental about anything, not even their own lives or history. At the time they talked about what the building was and what it meant to them more extensively than they needed to, as if they were justifying to me why they were taking their money back. They didn't need to justify anything, it was their money! 

I didn't feel anything against them when they took it back and cooperated fully once they made it clear they were removing the money from my account. However, I think it was at that point that I started calculating how much time I had left based on what was left in my bank account (US$1000/NT$30,000 = 1 month). I haven't heard anything about that building since, and the "time I had left" since then has only been extended by their contributions that required me going to the bank and transferring money from the States. I stopped doing that when it became too frustrating and humiliating even for me.

Maybe I'm the one sounding passive-aggressive here, maybe so, but these are also simply my facts as I know them. To the extent I'm being passive-aggressive is just supposed to be ironic and/or sarcastic.

But wow, if they had left the money (or any significant amount) in my account, what a nightmare or personal disaster it would be for me now (no sarcasm here). Well, it's possible I'd just continue cruising along as long as there was money and I wouldn't think of it as a disaster. I would just deal with the total pathetic mess my life appears to be looking around me, falling apart or deteriorating in multiple facets, misery symbolized perhaps by no hot water during the winter and the broken toe (which still hurts three weeks later but is much better, I can even savor this level of pain, thanks for asking). Looking at my life situation that way, running out of money has an aspect of great relief.

As I've opined before, money may karmically not be a consideration in this current lifetime; maybe in the past, maybe in the future but not now. So it's either ironic or poetic that money is the ultimate trigger to bring chronic suicidal ideation to fruition. Well, if it happens. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, I actually still have over US$6,000 cash in hand but it's too old to convert. The cash is inconvertible. It is incontrovertible that the cash is inconvertible! The bills are so old – lacking all the fancy holographic watermarks and colored fibers that make them hard to counterfeit – that banks here won't accept them. Their machines can't count them. They need to go back to where they came from to a bank in the U.S. to be exchanged for new, modern bills. I'll leave a note on the stash to that effect and however whoever wants to handle what happens is otherwise out of my hands. None of my business.

The six grand is useless to me, but that's OK since it's also meaningless. Six grand would've just been more buffer that I neither need nor want. I appreciate that six grand may be a considerable amount for someone just getting by and wants to live, but my history suggests I would not use it nobly nor to the benefit of anyone else, but rather just exhaust it like I have all my funds before it just to live a few months longer only to arrive where I am now. None of my business. 

WordsCharactersReading time

I sometimes pencil in alterations to books I read when I come across something not to my liking. I came across this story in a Buddhist book that I had previously made an alteration to because I didn't like how it ended: 

Saraha was in retreat with his wife, a young woman of awakened insight. At one point, he asked her to make a radish curry. While she was preparing it, he went into an extended samadhi. The radish curry went bad, and his wife threw it out and waited. Saraha remained in samadhi for twelve years. When he finally emerged, he asked his wife, "Where is my radish curry?" She replied, "For twelve years you did not rise from your samadhi. Where did you think it would be? The spring has long since passed, and radishes are no longer in season." 

Saraha retorted, "Fine! Then I will go into the mountains to meditate!" His wife countered, "Mere isolation of the body is not true solitude. Removing oneself from mental concepts and judgments is the highest solitude that one can attain. Although you dwelled in samadhi for twelve years, you have obviously not been able to separate yourself from the mental concept and judgment of 'radish curry.' Since that is the case, what possible benefit could there possibly be in going into the mountains?" 

Upon receiving this instruction from his wife, we are told, Saraha abandoned concepts and judgments and put into practice the primordial nature. In so doing, he attained the supreme siddhi of mahamudra and was able to make himself the most useful to sentient beings delicious radish curry. 

I tell myself these are ancient stories, lore of great value and teaching and I can't just go change them for my own liking. But as humble I try to lower myself, I like my ending better. on multiple levels.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time