strange parents

In addition to "chronic suicidal ideation", I also recently learned about parental estrangement from a blog! Parental estrangement is not so much a psychological defect or condition (unless you're coming from the specific perspective of either the parent or child in the arrangement, and it's always the other that has it), but rather seems to be a phenomenon that mental health experts observe and explain to parents who experience it and describe it during therapy. 

I, of course, am not on the receiving end of parental estrangement, but rather the giver, the creator, the . . . disher of it. It's interesting to read about a parent (one in my age range no less) on the receiving end, although any parent who blogs about it is already cooler and perhaps less deserving of it than one who is clueless and feels indignant self-pity when a child finally says, "fuh dis shit, later for you". 

I'm not judging, but the author of the linked post seems halfway in between. She's aware and funny with the "slap her upside her head and tell her to call her mother" line, which seems to be the type that would make me roll my eyes and call, but she also admits to red lines crossed that if you don't recognize are intolerable it's hard to gain sympathy regarding whatever reaction manifests and you might never understand it to your own detriment (i.e., you may be smart and funny, but you still crazy (or in adult language, you don't respect what they want respected)). 

I'd also be wary about the estrangement "for no apparent reason" line. My robot vacuum cleaner comes right at me every single time I stop paying attention to it for no apparent reason. I focus on the computer screen for 15 seconds and suddenly it's bumping against my heel. True, I don't know what its childhood trauma is, but I assure you it does this for no apparent reason. Of course the line isn't implying there's no reason, just no apparent reason; a reason indiscernible to a parent. The reason is boldly there right on its face. 

I suppose reading about the phenomena from the "other side" point of view makes me feel the slightest bit of sympathy towards my own mother, but not really. Just the slightest bit. More like "OK there's another side, but I don't really care". Furthermore, I haven't really ghosted my mother, per se. Never when I had a phone did I have a blanket policy of not answering when she called, that's too rude even for me. I had a selective policy of not answering.

It just so happened by total coincidence that a few months after my father died in late 2016, Taiwan discontinued 2G phone service and I simply had no reason or desire to upgrade to 4G, ergo no more phone communication with or phone anything for me. I don't know whether my father's dying had anything to do with my abandoning phone services, I rarely if ever talked to him on the phone. Nevertheless it's possible if not probable, such are the complications of parent-child relations. I consider my parents a single entity and his presence/absence certainly must have had some influence/impact.

Instead she eventually took to sending emails. This part is too fuzzy and convoluted to go into, but email communication between us was just never going to happen. My parents never established that sort of relationship between us and it was just too awkward to react to emails in any other way than to skim in case of anything important and immediately delete them. If something she sent required some direct response, I'd respond with the absolute minimum of what needed to be said. 

It's a reap what you sow thing. We simply effectively have no history of written communication, and she simply doesn't have the English skills for it. I already dumb down my speaking for her, but I wouldn't extend that to writing where I can't get immediate feedback on how much she's not understanding. And when conversations can become infuriating simply by merely brushing a taboo subject (i.e., my life) or questioning what is not in her realm or rights to question (i.e., asking "why?" in response to anything), why prolong them by carrying them out in writing? I may be self-destructive but I'm not masochistic.

This all is perhaps an example of what I meant about "psychological defect or disorder" imputed to the "specific perspective of either parent or child". This is old news and hardly a dear topic, yet I still get sucked into it and go a little crazy just from someone blogging about it as something new to my ears. 

It's an age-old waltz, a futile game of guilt and blame. I purportedly don't feel any guilt regarding my role, but here I am feeling like explaining myself as if I have something to convince. I tell myself I don't blame my parents and would prefer to not carry that karma into future lifetimes, but I obviously haven't released all attachment to the issues. I'm hoping to release the karma partly through intent and reminding myself not to blame anyone for anything, but I probably could do more to manifest it in this present lifetime (i.e., stop carrying it around like a stone by blogging about it). 

Likewise, I don't expect my parents to feel guilty about anything and I have no evidence that they do aside from being unsuccessful in making me become a doctor or lawyer. Whether they blame me for anything is not my business and wouldn't elicit any reaction in me anyway. I don't know what my mother would think about this thing called "parental estrangement", whether she'd feel validated or disassociate from it since it has any relationship with the mental health field. She of course is the model of perfect normalcy for whom the suggestion of therapy is a deep insult. There I go again. And I'm not about to solve or resolve anything for myself or anyone else by writing about it so . . . better to stop while I'm behind.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

I have to say, I'm glad I backtracked (a bit) about the mental health field not being able to effectively deal with "chronic suicidal ideation" and perhaps general accusatory suggestions regarding their prejudices and assumptions. Better to backtrack before being seen as ignorant or outright wrong. When I said I did a search for the term to see if it was really "a thing" and that the jury was still out about it, I actually just plugged the term into a not-Google search engine to see how many exact matches were hit. I probably clicked a few links but nothing bores me more than anything clinical and my reading didn't get very far. 

More recently, recognizing I had been lazy about it, I did what any reasonable lazy person would do next and plugged the term into YouTube where no reading would be required and found a video that was on topic and quite illuminating. I would say a lot of what he describes sounds quite accurate and generously covers a broad spectrum of issues and concerns. 

Among the things that stood out for me (in happy bullet-point fashion):

😀He mentions there's no single agreed-upon definition for the condition (although I thought mine wasn't too bad). I'm not even sure whether the term is established as "chronic suicidal ideation" or "chronic suicidality". All I'd like to point out is that the former describes it quite clearly and satisfactorily with each word contributing meaning towards a definition, while a full one-half of the latter uses a made-up word that isn't really self-explanatory. Of course I'm not a professional and not privy to made-up nomenclature accepted in the field. Like "suicidology".  

😀Treatment for chronic suicidal ideation is qualitatively different from patients who suddenly start talking about suicide as a result of something detrimental happening in their lives. Seems like a no-brainer but worth mentioning. Maybe it's too simplistic to say long-term strategies are more appropriate when it's chronic, but that is an important distinguishing characteristic. Prevention is more important when someone is immediately suicidal, but prevention strategies aren't necessarily applicable or appropriate when it's chronic. Of course the chronic condition can potentially manifest and become immediate at any time. Sucks to be their therapist.

😀A characteristic of chronic suicidal ideation is a balance with life-sustaining motivations! Wut?! People who are suicidal just see one way, ending it all. When it's chronic, however, people feel that way or see themselves like that and want to end it all, but in truth "ending it all" is a secondary motivation behind some primary, life-sustaining excuse to keep living. That is so fucked up, but then I looked in the mirror and it's the story of my life! That's how it's always been and that's how it is right now! It's a good thing that the final and ultimate life-sustaining element in my life, as he tells it, is about to come to an end, and I had planned it that way to eventually be inevitable. Either I'm a genius of suicide or an idiot (or just crazy). But it's still a few months down the line because of life-sustaining excuses and who knows what might happen before then.

😀To his credit, he does mention (briefly at least) some motivations behind chronic suicidality are existential and outside the realm of the mental health field. No amount of talking or therapy is going to change the underlying thesis (it is no longer an underlying mental condition or disorder) that is motivating the suicide, and of course that speaks to me directly. It may speak only to me. 

😀I still note that chronic suicidal ideation is not posited as a primary condition. It's always depression or a disorder that leads to it, and it never exists itself as the cause of depression or a disorder. Maybe there's a reason for that, but it might be interesting to hear that addressed even if ultimately discounted. Maybe they want to study me! Or not.

I have to say, the whole "chronic suicidal ideation" realization has been a bit of a revelation. For the past however many years I've been trying to schluff off ideas about "identity" and superficial things that supposedly identify who I am. I have no career identity as I have no career. Hobby identities have disappeared as I've stopped doing them for various and sundry reasons. Personality identities have been reduced in significance as I've worked on diminishing the primacy of ego-self and subjective absolutes; things that are taught as being the root of our suffering. I say I've worked on it, not saying I've been successful or good at it.

But now here in the 11th hour when I'm supposedly supposed to be about to cross my finished line, the universe plays this one last big joke on me: By the way, this is what you've been your ENTIRE life. I can't get away from it or schluff it off, even this blog is a full-frontal record testimony of it. Whatever I was trying to do with my life at any point, whatever pursuit or aspiration I had, this was always there lurking underneath. Not that I didn't know that, but stamping it on my forehead like an identity-albatross around my neck right at the end is like . . . *boo!* All these years blogging about something unaware it had a name, I dunno, makes me feel like I've been punk'd, bamboozled. By myself.

And it isn't even something mysterious or ineffable or unique. As evidenced in the comments on that video there are plenty of people like this. I thought I was pretty much alone in grappling with this, but it's apparently not uncommon. Not that I was too surprised, mind you, but it was a worldview-changing realization in a minor way. It's hard to describe that kind of 'wow' feeling, when just a little bit of information has a huge effect but little actual impact. 

I felt that maybe I could be an inspiration to these people, that maybe I could make a difference. Maybe if I could successfully commit suicide, they'd see there was hope for them, too! Or . . . NOT, but that's just how weird this all is. And maybe we shouldn't create a support group. But that's only because I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was a place to drink where no one knows who you are. 

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

I've been re-reading "John's 'WTF? I've got cancer?' Blog" for a second time through. My methodology this time (instead of reading by month) was to start at the first entry and then click and read individual posts in sequence, and when I stop reading I'd bookmark the next entry for where to start the next time. His Blogger template is one where links change color after they're clicked, making it easy to know where I'd left off in the archives/entries list on the right. 

The first time I read the blog, it was a first impression thing and I think I made observations that probably don't hold up. Maybe I was nit-picking critical and making unfounded assessments that I'm not feeling this time (except the lack of editing, especially when he writes something had been edited). But if I was unfairly judgy it was probably because of an observation I did make before, which is that a lot of what I read in his personality resonated as being a lot like me. He was hitting too close to home. John, in some aspects, was me. And that bugged me (guess I'm not unique).

I think I made the unfair observation before that maybe he wasn't all that popular or likeable? He got a cat that avoided him far longer than the time it usually takes an adopted pet to adapt (kitty don't like you, holmes*). If I did make any such assessment, that is truly cringe-worthy since I'm very much at the bottom of any barrel of likeability. I'm in no one's consideration to even contact which I think is a fair measure of whether people like you or not.  

* My theory is that animals and babies don't lie. If they don't like you, i.e., you're unlikeable, they'll let you know. They can sense your dark clouds. That's why I stay away from people's pets and babies lest they call out and confirm my unlikeability. The closest I have is a robot vacuum cleaner that hates my guts and never goes where I want it to go or it comes right at me when I'm not looking, the fucker.

It's nice to read it for what it is without being judgy and I'm getting more nuances this time, recognizing when he's covering up freaking out or melting down, and he doesn't always try to cover it up. I probably got how funny he could be as his sense of humor is similar to mine (I'd be surprised if I didn't mention that before), and I still appreciate it. 

More prominent in my reading is the sense that I'm reading the thoughts of someone who is doomed. His uncertainty as to when and moments of hope are profound in light of the terminal diagnosis with a fairly absolute cap on how long he can be expected to live in the best of scenarios. But when hope peeked through, he jumped on the hope. He seemed to be a pessimistic skeptic, but willing to latch onto unlikely hope when it happened to manifest. He wanted to live. 

And he continued to live as much as possible despite being doomed and despite the misery of treatment. He continued to travel and worked on a bucket list. He still engaged with people and worked on projects like fixing up his condo when he could've just said screw this, what's the point? 

Actually it seems that he was cherry-picking his treatment to minimize the misery, even if that meant the treatment was less effectual (advantage: cancer). And even though he declined treatment that would be debilitating or would be so miserable that he couldn't enjoy what little life was left for him to enjoy . . . what he describes still seems pretty miserable to me. It was a very fine line he was delineating. I wouldn't be willing to go through even what he went through. 

I wonder if there are people who wouldn't be willing to go through even what I'm going through. People for whom my life and issues might be purely mental health issues and wouldn't suffer the idiotic, flimsy mind games I play with myself to keep living. They might have taken life more seriously than I do and ended this kind of miserable life long ago as I should have, except . . . I want to live. Don't get me wrong, I also do want to die, I view it as a great adventure that awaits, as moving on. I would even say I'm looking forward to it. But I'm still here, so logically, if not obviously, I want to live; my ego-self is still attached to my life despite how illusory and fleeting I know it is. My life isn't miserable, it's profound! (my god, did he really just say that?😧😒😲)

I also view my life as doomed since I still haven't gone to the bank to try adding funds and still don't plan to. I haven't panicked yet despite seeing the finite and dwindling amount of money I physically have left (actually less than I thought since the remainder is US$ that I have to convert and it just so happens that the NT$ is currently at record strength against the US$, so compared to any other time in history I'm getting the least amount of NT for every dollar I convert. Coincidence?! . . . I think not). However, realizing viscerally what it means I do sometimes feel my gut tighten and a dark cloud in my head and at least briefly question my constitution. Actually I think the amount of time I have left is comparable to the time John had left after totally giving up on treatment. 

I'm not projecting anything as definite. I obviously don't know what I might end up doing. As I've said, I just don't know myself that well. The evidence of my life is that I'll try to continue on, but I've always had the money to continue on. This is the first time the money is really coming to an end. This is looming. It's dire, but it's also great. It's by design, mind you; this is exactly how it was supposed to happen if I didn't end my life in the ideal way, without external pressure. 

Doomed, John slogged on until he couldn't. What else is he supposed to do? Same here, just no travel on my agenda. Forget riding a bike around the island. Not even revisiting old haunts and places I've been to in the Taipei area that surely may have changed. I hear they've started construction on a bridge across the mouth of the Danshui River, an incredible project that I would have thought unthinkable. That's a bridge I'll never cross. I have no bucket list. Suicide is my bucket list. No adopting a cat, I'm allergic anyway. Daily cat YouTube videos, though. 

I finished reading that blog by the person who had terminal cancer, and unfortunately his final post, entitled "My Final Post", was not to report a miracle cure and that the cancer was gone and there was no more need to maintain the blog. I'm sure the hope he was hoping against was more than mine.

All that was done and dusted 3 years ago, and it was still sad when the end came and how. Actually no, it didn't matter how, just that the end came. There was a lot that was left out in his last days, I shouldn't wonder, but he would be forgiven if the pain he was in precluded blogging about it. It's not clear if the cancer killed him or if he "died with dignity", taking the killer drugs that under state law allowed him to end his life himself when the suffering became too great.

Ironically, he created what I think is a valuable document. One of his gripes early on when obsessively researching cancer after he was diagnosed (a quite common reaction), was that all of the testimony regarding treatment and drug therapies were by survivors. People testifying this or that was great or worked, but what about the people for whom those treatments didn't work? His blog now exists as a voice of someone who didn't survive, and even as his was stage 4 terminal cancer with little chance of long-term survival, he voices an experience of the various treatments he underwent, while clearly stating the kind of patient he was: a cancer specialist's nightmare, i.e., one who wasn't willing to sacrifice quality of life. He was willing to forego treatment, i.e., die sooner, if it meant day-to-day present moment pain was more manageable, rather than subject himself to the mercy (or lack thereof) of the medical/big pharma/insurance industry and their mess of a system with whatever treatment they conjure to live longer but in considerably more misery. What's worth what to whom is totally subjective and up to the individual.

And it should not be missed that the big turning point in his decision about continuing treatment, which was to not continue treatment, i.e., give up, i.e., fuckitall, was because of the mental frustrations dealing with the quixotic clown show (or goat rodeo, as he might call it but actually doesn't) of the health care industry and its administrative system (not the hands-on medical professionals trying to treat him).

My personal take from his experience is that I'm pretty confident I'm not fooling myself about my attitude towards death or dying. He would write things distinctly from the perspective of someone facing death, and I would recognize it as the reality-perspective I steep in. To him it was something new he was facing and realizing. It's my normal. Like from his normal, he would forewarn readers when he would be writing about death and dying, assuming it was unpleasant and depressing, but for me that was the stuff I wanted to know. It was my version of what a cancer patient starts researching obsessively once diagnosed. It's the distinction between someone living an ordinary life and suddenly coming to terms that this life must end, and having that as an acknowledged assumption from the start. Am I dying of anything? Not that I know of. Am I dying? We all are, honey.

Another take away from his blog is that personal blogs can endure! It's been almost three years since his last post and still I found his blog and read it and found it meaningful and worthy (even with its shortcomings). I don't remember how I found it. Sometimes after I do a web search I'll do the same search with "blog" added at the end. I think that's how I found his, but I forget the search term and haven't been able to re-create it. And anyway that technique of looking for blogs has become less effective as search engines, especially "evil is OK!" Google, gear and funnel results towards corporate, profitable or trending hits. Web searches are no longer democratic emphasizing the actual search terms (otherwise when you search "patagonia", for example, you'd get the place first, not the company. If someone created a successful company called "Suicide, Inc.", their website would probably end up superseding the topic), and it's almost impossible to find personal blogs worth reading; little voices who are just stating their experience and reality. It was hard enough even when Blogger had a "Next Blog" function that led to a random Blogger blog, but Google removed that citing "lack of use", ensuring absolute "non-use".

A possible good thing about that is that it's more safe to maintain a personal blog because the chances are low that someone they know will randomly find it. A lot of people I knew ended their blogs over concerns about what they were putting out and who might find it and possible unexpected and unpredictable consequences. I was never concerned about that because I never felt anyone would care about anything I put out.

I've been reading through John's "WTF? I've got cancer?" Blog I found by someone with terminal cancer. *spoiler alert* . . . It doesn't end well. At least that's what I'm assuming considering the title of his final post. I haven't read the later posts so I don't yet know how exactly it all ends, because once I read the premise of the blog and then seeing it was quite finite, I decided to go straight to the beginning and read through it chronologically as it chronicles his discovery of the cancer in spring 2014 and goes until his final post in September 2016. 

The reason for reading the whole thing is to see how this one person experiences death impending. In that regard, I'm just a poseur so this gives me a chance to compare and reflect on whether I'm really on that path and realization. I think it's fair to say I keep death and related concepts (dying, dead, mortality, finality, tie-dyeing, existence) front and center of my being, but I don't know if I've really been tested viscerally. Actually, to think about it, that's among the stupidest things I've ever said about myself, but forcing myself to doubt myself is a way of keeping grounded. I'm decidedly not dying of cancer, nor anything like a train arriving at its terminal.

Reading the blog, I remind myself to have sympathy and not lose sight of what he was dealing with, which is not hard to do. But I also have to make an effort to read it just as it is for what it is, and not treat it as an ordinary piece of writing, i.e., not reading it critically or analytically and what it's not or what I want it to be. There are things I couldn't help. I try to suppress my editor habit triggered by the typos, the travelogue portions leave much to be desired, the handyman mundanities are among the curious things he focuses on while undergoing treatment. Nothing egregious.

But I wonder why I attach to this person's blog. There might be plenty of cancer blogs that are well-written and philosophical and that generate genuine sympathy. This person . . . oh. Is a lot like me? Or from what he writes, I interpret him being a lot like me, even if he wasn't. There are aspects about him that I recognize might be similar to aspects of how I am. How's that? 

At one point he said that no one would describe him as "kind". Who describes themselves like that? In my most self-deprecating moments, I think I would be insulting people in my past if I stated none of them would describe me as kind. But that's how he feels or sees himself. And no one in my present tense could describe me as kind, because there isn't anyone here to describe me. Solitary as I am, I don't feel like a kind or generous person. He describes himself as socially avoidant and a loner. He's a divorcé. He adopts a cat that takes almost 4 months to get used to him (animals and babies don't lie in judging character). I don't know what to make of the paucity of comments (maybe meaningful responses happen directly). There's indication he's probably Republican.

Basically the feeling I'm reading – and may easily be completely wrong – is that he's not the most popular or likable person in his social circles? And looking around me, neither am I, and I'm not even Republican. I'm not judging him, I'm just wondering why his blog, with all the problems I have with it, is the one I find worth reading. Maybe if his blog was life-affirming in the face of impending death and deep and profound and touching and sensitive and had trended and had hundreds of thousands of followers and Oprah's attention and comments sections packed with strangers offering support and advice and services and ice cream, I just wouldn't have been interested. That's just me. I'm reading this person's blog. I think maybe we're similarly porcupine-ish with odd quirks and perspectives that other people don't quite get and would prevent trending or Oprah. How's that? And it's not even whether or not he's likable or popular, since how he is socially may basically be his choice.

I'm still reading through the blog, but I am within his last year. I don't know whether it will get impassioned or dramatic towards the end nor whether there will be insights or breakthroughs or crying. I will say that his writing does improve (as do his travelogues) over the course of the blog from being fairly straight-forward utilitarian to becoming even funny and witty (in a grim, dark, morbid way); perhaps a by-product of recognizing his peeps are reading and don't want to be bored to death (misery doesn't necessarily love company when you're dying of cancer?). 

There's really no purpose to this blog anymore. It's just habit. It's just that I have it.

All the reasons why I started it are now null and void. It was supposed to be a record, a last testament, but those things don't matter at all anymore.

I even tried to write an opinion post last month about religious extremists just being criminals and have nothing to do with religion, but even opinions don't matter anymore in a world where everyone can state opinions on the Internet like they mean anything. But millions of people disagreeing in comment sections is not a conversation. It's just idiotic.

So this is just a personal blog for myself. I'm not communicating to anyone, I'm not leaving a record of an invisible life for people who might be curious. There aren't any.

So the year turned. It's been 10 years since Deer Park. Nine years I've been in Taiwan doing nothing of any worth to anyone. Erased my identities. Continued with mindfulness practice. A lazy hermit-with-Internet-and-alcohol practice.

I finally started getting back to the gym in January. Still no cycling. Running on treadmill had been steadily getting back to where I was before I left for that trip to New Jersey; four miles without injury. From there, the idea was to keep working on strength and increasing distance and time.

I almost had a mishap, whereby I found and read a book about the "Pose method" of running. My first time trying out the concepts, I damn near re-injured my Achilles tendon, but fortunately it was nothing major and pain only lasted a week and I feel I'm good to continue with my planned regimen.

I'm not dismissing the Pose method, but it is particularly hard on the Achilles tendon, so with recent injuries, Pose needs to be approached slowly, with patience, and over a long period of time to develop appropriate strength.

The basic principle of Pose running is that running is optimized when developed as a technique, and not just an innate ability. Few other activities assume excellence can be attained without application and practice of technique, so the book says.

Actually, one that comes to mind is sitting meditation, although not excellence but ability perhaps. Practitioners are taught to apply methods and visualizations, blah, blah, blah, but it's a fine line between that and developing a technique.

I don't know if it was a coincidence in timing, but right when I was reading the book on Pose running, I also thought about applying technique to sitting meditation. It's a work in progress that I'm testing out. It may just be another method among the pantheon of existing taught methods.

I'm certainly not an "accomplished" meditator nor have I reached any level of alternate consciousness or understanding of consciousness.

I had what could be described as a normal sleep, it looks normal on paper. Falling asleep took a little time, not right away, but then I slept for four hours before waking and then continued sleeping and waking at intervals until my alarm went off. That's totally acceptable for me. I had gone to the gym yesterday.

I am bracing for the recovery dead sleep. It lurks. It's like a time bomb. Maybe just those two days weren't enough to mess things up that much. I'm not worried, I'm just writing about it to describe it. I have the luxury of being able to take it in stride. If I'm wiped out and zombified for a few days, it doesn't really matter. I'm not doing anything. I don't have to do anything.

Truth to tell I'm forcing myself to continue writing this blog. I really don't want to, don't need to. My relationship with my ego has gotten to a point where I'm sensitive to the fact that writing a blog is an ego feed. There's a lot I haven't mentioned about practice and meditations.

Actually, everything is an ego feed. Any contact with any of the five physical senses feeds the sense of ego, that I am here. It's the most natural thing in the world in terms of human experience, yet Buddhism points it out as a fault, as the first step towards all our suffering. And to pursue non-suffering, Buddhism suggests a path to understand the role of ego and ego-attachment towards suffering and to transform our perspective on it.

But it's like having stopped playing guitar and bass. I still have a guitar and bass and I still take them out and play with them. In the past year, I've even bought a multi-fex gadget that I can plug into and play through headphones or speakers.

But I still consider myself having stopped. I'm not a bassist or any sort of musician. It doesn't feed any ego-identity. It's a karmic skill I've acquired, but I hope I'm not feeding any continuing karmic energy.

As for this blog, it used to be that I wanted the record to exist somewhere of who I was. Now that idea is ridiculous and I couldn't care less. Record for what or whom? My ego, of course. No one cares about it. No one knows about it and I've done everything to hide it that didn't involve actively restricting it through privacy settings. Hiding it in plain sight, that is.

Even as I'm writing this, I'm thinking, "this is so stupid".

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 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.
 

Looks like after 10 years, this year is the year I've posted the least. Kinda makes sense. Not sure what else there is to say. But it's not like there's nothing left to say. I'm still a thinking, breathing, metabolizing entity. I'm not dead yet. On some levels at least.

At the same time I feel my existence, or the relevance of my existence dissipating. Both. There's no point in saying anything. And there is no point in saying anything. But as long as I'm still here, might as well say whatever there is left, right?

I still go about my days. And they're not bereft of meaning worth communicating, although I might doubt the value of what I might communicate.

A ten year old blog, well, well, well.

Obviously there are likely things I posted through the years that I'd be embarrassed about now or might need to qualify or even consider outright wrong. Or not. I can't think of anything offhand that I think I was completely wrong about. Whatever.

Wrap things up? I don't know.

Maybe for starters, for the past two years at least, I've been doing basically the same thing every day. And every day I go out, I look at the people and I wonder "why are they doing what they are doing?", I try to imagine what their motivation is.

Oftentimes I imagine the answer is "because it's their programming". What they do is what they're programmed to do, and they're just running the program. Another possibly more condescending answer is "they don't know why and they don't ask, they don't know what else there is". Another answer is "*belch* why not?".

I'm not satisfied with any of these answers, except maybe the last. I've said this before, but I don't know why people do what they do, nor why I should adopt their motivation to do something, anything.

For the love of god, I have no recollection of publishing the last two posts, much less completing them. Imagine my surprise opening up the post directory and seeing those drafts published and then rushing to check if it wasn't some regrettable drunken mistake.

And they were, no doubt, drunken mistakes, but upon looking them over, I think they're what I was getting at. That's a little comforting. It used to be that drunken blogging led to sober regret and immediate deleting of posts.

So, you see, I have progressed. Now I blog drunkenly and don't remember what I wrote or when I published it and then look at what I posted, and go, "well OK, then".

I did leave out geeking out about that specific ride, which I suppose I would've boringly done if I had the Edge 800 when I was younger. Emphasizing that it was a training ride, 700ft of climbing is not a show-off point, nor an 11mph average.

41 miles is a decent length, but after the short climb, it was all flat and included a snack break in the town of Shenkeng, famous for its stinky tofu. And Shenkeng stinky tofu is the only edible stinky tofu for this foreigner because they slather it in a tasty peanut sauce and stuff it with Korean kimchi.

And a lot of the ride was slow going because we had a typhoon (Saola) last week and the government is still clearing, cleaning and fixing the riverside parks. And I give credit to Taipei for taking the clean-up seriously, they've done a fantastic job, but it takes time to make them sparkly and shiny and there were some sections they were working on that were still caked with mud.

The Edge 800 is turning out to be great. It marks the total time of rides, but it also records the time that you were actually moving. So if you're stopped at a light or taking a break, it doesn't include that.

I probably won't remember publishing this post, either. I so don't remember how my nights end that I've started to record into a micro-cassette recorder I keep on my nightstand what time I turn off the lights and what I had been doing to be turning the lights off that late.

I'm sure I haven't mentioned that I broke my only shot glass (a double) several months ago. Drinking from a shot glass kinda acted as a regulator. I'd drink a shot and then there'd be some lag time until the next one.

But now I'm just drinking out of glasses, so I just fill them up to what may look to some to be an impressive level, and I sip, but there's still more there, and so I just keep drinkin' it and re-fillin' it and all of a sudden I'm thinkin' in a Scottish accent.

You're not really drunk until you're speaking in strange accents. But since I have no one to talk to, it's just thinking in strange accents. Mind you, my kind of drunkenness still entails washing my glasses and brushing my teeth before turning off the lights.

I have noticed that what I've been posting for the past year plus has been a lot of long-winded, boring, highly-detailed, navel-gazing, rambling minutiae. Nothing clever, funny nor particularly interesting, I shouldn't wonder, which is what someone would want to be in a public forum such as the internet.

But as I've said before, this isn't about readership. This blog is just my expression. There's no theme here; I just post about what sparks the neurons, whether it be movies, music, reads, Buddhism, suicide, spirituality, death, religion, mental health or whatever issue I want to spout on about (and believe me I'm leaving out a lot).

It occurs to me that this long-windedness has a lot to do with the isolation I've found myself in. I'm no hermit. I don't think there's any such thing as a "hermit with internet". But isolated I am. Recluse may be a better description of what I'm doing. A hermit is cut off, and that can't happen with internet. A recluse is withdrawn, and that I am.

If social interaction is a release outlet, then I don't have it, and the constant mind-stream of my thoughts is going on and on without outlet, and then when I decide to type something down, it just all trickles out in highly-detailed, rambling minutiae.

But this isolation also emphasizes the mind-stream of thoughts; that it's there. And that in Buddhist practice, that's an aspect that needs to be tackled with the idea of cutting it off. It relates to our ego-selves.

This mind-stream of thoughts is our ego-selves or, if not, is representative of it. And it's that attachment to our ego-selves that keeps us in cyclic samsaric existence, so theory goes.

I remember in early practice coming up with visualizations to break the mind-stream, or at least be mindful of it. Back then it was simply about stopping the mental chatter. Recognize it, and try to return to some mental quiet. Beyond that, I didn't know. But now, years and years later, there's much more urgency to tackling and cutting off the mind-stream once there's a realization of how it's connected to the ego-self.

I would go so far to say that it's a key step towards enlightenment. It's a breaking, smashing of the notion of subjectively conceived reality. And the hardest part of it is that we have this mental structure that perceives reality, and now it's a matter of using that mental structure to disassemble that same mental structure. Maybe that's why enlightenment is so friggin' hard.

I just realized this blog just passed its 10 year anniversary. The first post was February 12, 2002. How many personal blogs have survived this long? All of the bloggers I connected with back then have long since stopped.

The so-called blogosphere has completely changed since then. Now the blogosphere is filled with pundits and opinion-makers. Any buzz in the blogosphere is about news. Back then it was about personal expression. Individuals who just wanted to say something. I suppose that's what this blog continues to try to be.

And how things have changed for me in 10 years. And not. Suicide was my goal long before this blog was created. Now, 10 years later, I feel I'm closer to that goal than ever before. Meaning 10 years ago, I was a lot farther from that goal than I would've admitted at the time.

Foolish. I was still social back then. I was still engaged. I still did things. Now I'm totally isolated and non-social in a foreign land. I've stopped doing all the things that I considered my identity before. I've stopped playing music altogether. I don't run anymore, I don't cycle except to further my next attempt.

I've completely gone on a tangent, immersing myself in Korean entertainment media that no one I know understands, much less shares. I personally think it's the future life resonance that will have me angling for my next life in South Korea.

I do hope this blog will end soon. I don't see any realistic future otherwise. Yet I still have my attachments. Things I'm clinging to, when nothing whatsoever should be clung to.

Bah. I keep forgetting this is MY blog and I can say or geek out about anything I want. This is what's in my head coming out, it's not a conversation or discussion. It's not a free speech zone, comments are moderated. I'm not writing for a readership, nor in reality do I have a readership.

Furthermore, in light of my not posting much lately, I probably should be making more of an effort in shoving whatever's in my head onto these pages. It may be boring as hell (to both you and me), but I should treat it as my last will and testament.

I think there has been a reason why I've been posting less and less. I've been disappearing from all of my web presences because I've more and more come to realize there's no point.

I review my web presences and I understand why I created them, but after time I feel that those things aren't for anonymous public observation. I'm thinking of privatizing them and making them accessible only from this blog.

This blog should, to me, continue to have a point. It's the only portal that should have a point, and any other entry points to who I was shouldn't exist.

I haven't posted to my main fotolog since September because it got boring. Photography got boring. For me, digital is killing photography. Digital is killing seeing in photography. And my foray into digital with my brother's DSLR was boring.

Digital was fine and good for snapshots using point and shoot cameras as far as I was concerned, but DSLRs have leveled the playing field and while when I started learning about photography and using a darkroom, I was the only one I saw regularly walking around with a bulky SLR in hand.

Now you can't not see them with their full kits of lenses and tripods. When I started — and I was among the last generations that didn't have a digital choice I shouldn't wonder — if you saw someone else walking around with an SLR, you knew they were doing it with some sort of art in mind, for the seeing.

Now it's not about seeing. It's about technology and the camera and images that may look good but anyone could take them. People aren't really looking, and they're definitely not seeing. They take pretty photographs somehow thinking what they're capturing is better than the real thing. And we're all to blame for being impressed by that. I know there's another side to it . . .

And of course there are people who are seeing and are thinking and capturing worthwhile images and they know who they are. I'm not criticizing them, and when I come across their images I think, "Holy fucking shit, why can't I see like that?".

So I've been disappearing from the web. There's no point, no worth.

By no worth, it's not a psychological or an esteem issue. It's a realization of the vast machination of globalization through the internet that renders each of our anonymous voices only as significant as we think our egos are.

And as much as ego is a focal point of understanding in Buddhist practice, my decreased web presence has been an expression of recognizing that ego is illusory. It's not that I don't matter. I do matter, and if I wanted to, I could matter even more, but I don't want to.

I've been trying to email my brother for a while but it's the same as this blog, I open the draft and I got nothing. I just have nothing to say, nothing to express. That's not a negative statement. I'm just stuck. I'm not moving forward. But moving forward requires one thing first – next attempt. If the attempt fails, then I'll have to face whatever's next and presumably I'll have found whatever energy is required to go there.

I'm not sure "energy" is the right word there. Desperation maybe. And that is negative. But it's a numb desperation. Like when I left San Francisco after that attempt. I failed, plans to leave were already rolling so I just had to do it. Remembering that and the futility of everything since then points to how I really don't want to fail in the next attempt. It's what I hope to remind myself if I'm standing on the edge and having doubts whether this is going to happen or not.

My path has led me to this point and everything is in place again for a good attempt. What it boils down to is the only reason why I might balk is ego-attachment. This attachment to ME. I'M here. There is no 'no ME'. The universe is here because I'M here. Intellectually that's ridiculous, but perhaps here is where I'm really faced with my attachment to self, which is possibly the biggest obstacle towards true understanding, or liberation, or enlightenment. 

It's all process. Maybe what I'm doing can be described as balking, but maybe I'm just waiting for this understanding to ripen. I go back to what I've posted in the past few years and I have no idea what all that was about. It was process. There were a lot of things I was uncomfortable about regarding negativity that I was processing, and I think there was some degree of success there in that I can't relate to those posts at all now. Even though the karmic imprint is still recognizable, it's not an issue anymore.

And I go back to posts from way long ago, and I feel that this entire blog is unnecessary and irrelevant. But it's so irrelevant that it's not even worth deleting or making private. It's just what it was. I remember at one point in college, a few of my angsty and dramatic dormmates and I decided to ritually burn all our journals up to that point. But even in doing that there was a sense of self-importance. Even throwing our past thoughts and record into the fireplace was a big statement to ourselves. It was something worth it to us to burn it.

The value of maintaining this blog, or discontinuing it, or deleting it, is just . . . not. Nothing. And even that is fierce ego-clinging.

I've even gotten bored of blogging. Actually, a blog I was following and inspired by became private and blocked and I think that may be a reason I haven't felt like writing anything here. That blog made me want to get more stuff out earlier this year, although that mostly meant a lot more random nothing posts.

I know I shouldn't take it personally, but I sorta do. It was a slap in the face after turning the other cheek after the last post before going private, which was a slap in the face to her readership. She sounded like she was starting to melt down anyway, so maybe it's all for the better. 

Oh well, easy come, easy go. Little high, little low. Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me. Tooo meeee. I can stop pretending and get back to my next attempt, which isn't forthcoming but I'm still convinced it's imminent.

My boredom of things I used to be passionate about has been systematic and feels like it's a part of my dying process. I have been dying slowly all along and this boredom may be a sign that it's seriously speeding up. The big thing was a few months ago when I realized I could no longer consider myself a musician. Part of me really felt like it had died. It was something alive or a life energy for my identity or something and then it was gone. And it's not the technique, the being able to pick up an instrument and make a joyful noise. It's still in my hands, but it's gone out of my heart. I get bored quick every time I try now.

My bike hasn't left the apartment for months. Every time I think of it, I just feel a withering emptiness. Physical activity used to represent survival. My mantra to keep going when I was suffering while running was, "you don't stop", á là rap records from the late 80s/early 90s.

My appetite's gone, too. I can only eat one modest meal a day and sometimes I'm not even hungry when I do. Also a lot of things I used to like aren't all that appealing anymore. A lot of this sounds like depression and I'm not going to try to refute that. It may be so. It may be a necessary part of the dying process when the death is a projected suicide. It's a prognosis. Even though depression is not a reason for suicide for me, the symptoms of it may be a necessary part of getting to it. Anyone wanna study me yet?

Morrie was a dying man. Truth to tell, a lot of the insights he offered as he was dying I felt were old hat to me. I think maybe because my goal of suicide means facing my mortality as a dying person would. My life has been a prolonged dying process. At least a facsimile. Truth to tell, I also thought that Morrie's insights would largely fall on deaf ears, despite maybe millions of people being touched by his story. He's right, but they're just pretty expressions about life that don't have any meaningful, long-term effect until you're finally in that position yourself. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Like a dying process, every day is pretty hard for me. Every day is a waste and each wasted day makes it even harder. Aside from watching Korean TV shows, I've been doing a lot of catching up and cramming of Tibetan death theory not only to review, but to see if I can eke out one little bit morsel of insight into what I believe. I'm actually pretty confident about my level of preparedness because when I think about the question of my confidence, there's no other way for me to be. I am what I am and I know what I know. I don't doubt, I'm not afraid.

I run through the trainings, visualizations and meditations and work on insight into the nature of mind and consciousness in a state where there are no physical senses to feed sensory perception for the mind to form concepts, and no physical brain structure to organize the information into the cohesive, ordinary reality we experience every day.

I reject the idea that if there is anything after death, that our consciousness and perception is just like it is when we're alive. Once the physical structures are dead, whatever intangible essence of what we naturally are is unleashed in what I imagine to be quite a storm. But it's a storm that can be prepared for á là the Tibetan teachings and theory.

And if I fail at the attempt? I said before that it looks bad, and it still looks bad. But I'll probably have to decide to head back to New Jersey. New Jersey where my parents will no doubt continue to test my mindfulness training. The optimist in me tells me that I can participate in raising my nephews and nieces and help avoid them getting screwed up. It also sounds like both of my brothers are having issues now. So the sooner this next attempt, the better.

Maybe I should enter a doctoral program in psychiatry and study myself for my thesis.

I've been drifting in a strange place. I actually looked over at my bed yesterday because of a quick wonder if I'd find my body there. That's what it felt like. And through the rest of the day I went about pinpointing incidents that verified I was really here and really alive, and not post-mortem imagining it out of habit.

Still no new laptop, but likely soon. My laptop might cut out at anytime now, and I'm trying to type with the thing balanced and wobbly on top a fan. I wonder if I'd be happy with my last post being my last one ever, and I think I am. Even though I'll likely keep typing as long as I can, I think I've said everything I need to.

I have a plan for my next attempt, and it's not based on 2-month cycles and doesn't involve a bike and is tied to nature, and I'll likely take a pass on the first window of opportunity since it's coming very suddenly. I expect at least 2 or 3 opportunities over the course of the summer. Two or three opportunities to get me to the autumn where I'll likely find myself still alive. :p fucker.

I'm still reading The Lovely Bones, but I'm simultaneously reading Sophie's World, which is just fabulous. Both books centered on 14-year-old girls, although Sophie turns 15 in hers. Both books are establishing my mindset these days.

The gimmick in Lovely Bones is just fascinating me. The girl is dead but she is in a position to reflect on how life continues after her, but she's also telling the story of her whole life and the lives around her and things she wouldn't know if she were alive because now that she's dead, she has more access or insight into other people's lives.

It's a variation of the cliche of seeing one's life flash before one's eyes when they face death. And even though there's a portrayal of "heaven" involved, it's not a hardwired heaven. It's suggested that her heaven is her own creation, and it's there because she herself is wondering about the vacuum created by her absence. It doesn't have to be that way. She chose it.

But it's the stories. What are our lives if not stories? She's telling her story and that's what's so compelling about the book, imagining that she may have been a real person, it could've been a real person. We live our lives and then we die, but what if we haven't left our stories? And in this book are the stories of a fictional life, but it should be all of us, we all should leave our stories, if we want to.

My father doesn't. His story will be forgotten. No one will care. Sad, but it's his choice. I have this blog. No one may care, but I wrote it for anyone who might wonder about the full life of a fictional 14-year-old who was raped and murdered, or a lost and wandering soul-searcher who knew that his life must end in a suicide or it wouldn't have been worth living.

I catch myself in moments when I remember to return to my breath. Anywhere, it could be at home or out walking or reading or studying in the library or an eatery. Something about being "alive", "existing", hits me and I breathe in and out and I savor each breath like it's a sip of the finest wine or Scotch ever. Like a dying person might.

I was asthmatic as a kid, and I remember reflecting on asthma: If you can't take breathing for granted, what can you?

Like a dying person might, I breathe in and out and savor the preciousness of just being able to breathe in and out. But this appreciation is only in contrast of a background of some existential pressure, a facing of one's mortality.

Am I facing my mortality? I pretend that I do, but am I? Am I going to go through with this? And if I don't, then what? I don't advise my line of inquiry to anyone. As human beings, we have to live our lives. To live our lives is to ignore our mortality. You can't live your life whilst pondering over your imminent mortality.

I'm not living a life, my life, any life, therefore I'm free to indulge in contemplating my mortality.

I'm constantly asking why people do what they do. I guess at and make up their answers, but they're incomprehensible to me.

Even the recent spate of blogs I've found written by writers – the only blogs I've found worth my attention – are imbued with existential angst, and as they go about their lives in appreciation and gratitude of the happiness they've found which is what they're blogging about, there still is an undercurrent of angst.

Were my parents actually quite wise that their marriage is not based on love? They've effectively reduced their suffering by not being in love. Whereas all these people getting married for love are kinda fooling themselves, or living on borrowed time or rather just living for the pleasure and desire of a moment, and not considering the big picture that in the end we all lose each other.

No, that's cynicism and sarcasm saying my parents were wise. And there's nothing wrong about people getting married for love. The wisest of whom remain realistic and aware that this kind of happiness is fleeting, and they find a balance between enjoying and appreciating their happiness and being aware that it's temporary, and sickness, aging and death always patiently awaits.

No, my parents are incomplete, deluded people. They are not even individuals. Their relationship is symbiotic and I can't even imagine either of them being able to survive without the other. As they grow old, I'm sure this has crossed their minds, I just have no idea what they thought.

And I'm still thoroughly convinced my death will be ultimately good for them, albeit that not being a reason for dying.

It's been rainy, dreary and cold in Taipei and it could go on for quite a while. I'm not quite sure what drags me out of bed each day, but so far I have continued to drag myself out of bed when it would be so easy to just lie in the warmth and comfort of my bed all day.

Peeing! I need to pee at some point, and that usually does it and I put in my 45 minutes of sitting, then make coffee and, voilà,  I'm up and out of bed.

Loosening things up ... this blog doesn't all have to be gloom and doom. Blog what I want. I don't want to attract any traffic here, which I know is a contradiction because, well, it's a fucking blog! I have a public blog on the internet to which I don't want people to come!

That's actually exactly right. I live in a thin, limbo space where I want to get things out, but I don't necessarily want them received.

I've been blog-surfing masochistically, finding myself on countless mind-numbing family blogs about Christians, kids and cooking, while also realizing the inordinate amount of incomparably boring running blogs on the web that make me want to put my fist through my laptop screen.

My blog isn't a running blog or a cycling blog, it's not a "theme" blog, but I run and ride, and I'll blog about runs and rides, knowing full well the subject matter might be incomparably boring to some.

One blog I found on its most recent pages looked like a running blog, detailing achievement and progress, but at first blush there were also posts that were frank, funny, and crude – instantly promising. I also found his running posts interesting, which gave me hope that maybe my running/cycling posts aren't total snoozers.

And ... I'm faster than him, hehe. At least over 3 miles, up to which we're comparable. Until I stopped running in May because of shin splints, I was pretty sure I could do a 10k at around 7:30 miles, or 45 minutes.

But reading back through his blog, he started it with a different and hilarious premise. It started with family memories based on quotes he and his two brothers remembered their father saying when they were growing up. Their father was no prince of the punks, either. He sounded like a foul-mouthed beer-swilling redneck Texas hick, but raised 3 incredibly sensible, observant and intelligent sons.

As he himself mentions, people seemed more interested in the back stories of the quotes, or his version of the back stories, than his own treatment of them, inserting them into Peanuts comics. And his brothers also offer their takes on his stories in the comments.

I guess the attraction for me is that I think it would be interesting to do that with my brothers. Or not. Because my parents weren't colorful characters, and many memories of growing up that we might have to share couldn't be spun in a humorous manner.

There wasn't anything between us and our parents, like "Don't get yerself killed, boy", that could later be interpreted as the best form of affectionate expression one's father could give. My father taught me to play pool, parallel park, and how to quickly memorize the 9s on the multiplication table. That's it.

And with me and my brothers, it would never be the three of us. I'll discuss the other brother with one of them, but that's it, and mostly to give some other third person a picture of what our upbringing was like, and rarely is there any hilarity involved.

That's also to be buffered by my oldest brother having turned out to be very good-natured, kind, conscientious and likable, and my older brother to previously have been the funniest among us. He could always find the funniest aspect of a story or find a funny way to express it. Not now so much, as he's become boring and complacent in normative family life, but he was naturally funny and that doesn't go away.

In the end, that's it for me. The stories we have, the stories we tell, our memories. Those are the blogs I'm looking for.

When I started blogging, it was so easy to find people who wrote about their lives and ideas and thoughts. They expressed themselves and found a voice in themselves. But apparently it's gotten too risky to do that, basically putting your diary online. But those blogs were also life stories people were writing. At least slices of life stories. It's telling that despite being interesting, that was too risky. But that's also why teenage girls' diaries had locks on them.

Now people just post family or trip pictures or family trip pictures and boring safe stuff to share only with close friends and family – the only people who might (barely) care about the most boring, superficial aspect of their lives.

Now the internet is full of "how to" blogs and theme blogs and the only time blogs are mentioned in media or conversation is when referring to the handful of "professional bloggers" – political commentators, mostly.

That's one reason I've kept this a heart-on-sleeve personal blog – just because everyone else has run away from doing this sort of thing. But everyone has to do their own risk assessment, and my risk is very low. Even people who've known me in the past who inadvertently find this get too freaked out to stay.

For some time now, this has been a pretty internal, navel-gazing blog. I do think that can be attributed to the loss of having a "community" of bloggers, just people doing the same thing that served as an inspiration. There's an analogy to life somewhere in here, I just know it.