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. 

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middle-age chronicles

Whodda thunk that a simple trip and fall could cause so much pain? It's no surprise that the end of youth brings a loss of resilience and longer recovery times post-workout/physical activity. When you're young, you take a dive and hit the deck and your chums lose their shit and laugh at you and post the video on YouTube, but you get up and dust yourself off. If you see middle-aged people or god forbid elderly go over, there may be a better chance there's significant pain involved. I think maybe the older you get, loss of equilibrium becomes more dire for whatever reason.

Well, I guess it depends on the situation. Before this instance, it wasn't that long ago that I went over like a lead dirigible out in public for no reason and it's true I was in serious pain, but mostly to my pride. I got up quick and dusted my embarrassment off, was thankful no Google Maps car was passing by and continued on my way pretending nothing happened. 

This time I fell walking UP the stairs to my apartment so gravity was even in my favor. I didn't fall as far as that time in public. It was just a stumble that slow motion would reveal how it progressively got worse in microseconds. Multiple impact points, the most obvious and immediate was my right knee that I thought took the brunt of it. My left foot jammed against a step, both palms hit the landing trying to break the fall with my backpack getting tossed over my shoulder. The top side of my left ankle was the only place where a little bit of blood was drawn so that hit something, too. 

But the PAIN. When the fall was over after a second or so, I was shocked, stunned by the full-body pain and had to pause because I couldn't move because of it washing over in waves (mind you, I still had the presence of mind/YouTube awareness to look up and around the stairwell to confirm there was no camera in sight). Not wanting to be seen like this if a neighbor happened to be leaving or coming home just then, I pried myself up and proceeded limping to my room and tended to the knee which looked like there was a major contusion but just turned out to be some dirt and took an Advil for the pain. In short order I determined the fall was nothing and dwelling any more upon it would be symptomatic of chronic hypochondria.

The next part I don't understand. Two full days later (of normal activity) the pain in my left big toe which had jammed against the step in the fall bloömed. The pain and the swelling probably indicating a fracture. If it is a fracture, why would it take two days for the effect to manifest? Psychological? The pain is incredible (befitting a fracture), but why didn't it hurt like this right away? 

I took Advil, first one pill and then two, but the pain didn't go away and if it wasn't going to work I decided to not waste it and not take anymore. Then the next day without Advil the pain was ridiculous, just moving my foot or changing position was excruciating. I tried the Advil again and found that it was working just fine, it's just that the pain was so intense that ibuprofen could only dial it down, not eradicate it. It still hurt, I was still limping on it, but at least I could manage moving around. That was a huge relief. 

With the big toe swollen like a mini sausage, I couldn't wear sneakers for a few days. The first time I tried, I took one step and immediately switched to Birkenstocks. No brainer. Fortunately Taiwan isn't as fashion-forward as the U.S. and there's no career/social life-ending taboo against wearing socks with sandals. Even if I weren't already wearing socks when I switched footwear, I'd rather not have Birkenstock shaped tan lines on my feet. If my fellow Americans are fine with those tan lines, well that's an idiotic look, too, btw. Me, I don't care what anyone thinks about the way I look wearing sandals with socks, but Birkenstock tan lines I'm the one who has to look at and one annoying summer to autumn to winter until they finally faded was enough.

I gotta admit it's annoying and frustrating having to deal with this physical pain at a time when I would prefer to just cruise unperturbed towards the purported end of this life path. It's more annoying than the two incidences of knee pain in the past few months because I don't know what caused that, whereas this was my own unmindful, clumsy undoing. But actually it's a good reminder of how fragile this physical body is and that it's pretty much downhill from here. Actually this is a great reminder of the nature of the body and I should be treating it as part of my path. 

In fact, there have been several things popping up in my daily life recently that I would do well to consider challenges on my path. Not on my path, but as my path. I should consider these as final tests of learning the universe is throwing at me, and taking that view I'm not doing so great; could really be doing better. Maybe not tests because then I'd be failing. More like reviews of what I should have learned and mastered and should continue to try and drive home.

Like little money things. The irony is so rich that I'm finally running out of money and all of a sudden (really!) I'm losing little bits of money right and left on random, trivial things. It's not about amounts (negligible), and the specifics are so random and petty as to be absurd and even embarrassing to mention. But the fact that they're happening and I'm noticing and getting a little bit wtf? annoyed instead of laughing at the big joke means I should probably be paying more attention to something! Come to think of it, the amounts are mostly in the range of what I should be willing to give to panhandlers. And there aren't many panhandlers in Taipei, but I came across one about a month ago and thought about it but ultimately failed to lighten myself of coinage. I don't know if that's it, but why not? That's the path for you.

Other things I've noticed popping up for improvement include being unpleasant or feeling like I'm being unpleasant to random people (lack of compassion); having at least one moment every day that puts me in a bad mood (bad attitude); not being able to smile just because I'm here and breathing without feeling sarcastic. It keeps turning into a smirk or a sneer whenever I try (negativity). If the aim is to be joyful at the end, it's much more convincing if I can learn to be joyful leading up to the end.

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. 

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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 found I can "hijack" hot water for a bit from my neighbor. My room shares a wall with my neighbor's bathroom, so I can hear when water is running in his bathroom. By total coincidence, once when I was washing my hands I suddenly was miraculously getting warm and then hot water! My stars, I was shocked! I didn't know what to make of it or what to do, but when I exited my bathroom I could hear my neighbor's shower running through the wall on the opposite side of the room and started putting it together. Several times thereafter if I heard his shower running, I would go check whether I could get hot water and it worked every time. I began formulating what I could do to exploit this situation.

The hot water doesn't last long enough for a full shower and he takes showers several hours earlier than I do, but just touching, feeling, caressing, . . . light petting the hot water was doing wonders for my psyche. I've therefore decided to bifurcate my showers and rearranged my routine so that during the window of time I expect him to be taking showers, I don't have ear buds jammed in my ears and when I hear his shower running, I go and wash my hair and face with glorious hot water! Only my head gets wet and it takes just a few minutes.

Several hours later when I usually take my showers, I finish off the job under cold water which I can do very quickly. I'm probably under cold water for less than 2 or 3 minutes; head stays dry. I still have the "AUUUGGGHHH!!!!" mentality of jumping into a cold river at first, but I've also started working on transforming any negative, virulent energy into something like loving-kindness. It sucks, it's cold, it's miserable, but instead of reacting negatively emotionally I try focusing on a positive attitude. 

At first I tried focusing the energy as loving-kindness to all humanity as teachings encourage, but I'm not the Dalai Lama and have you seen the news lately? Loving-kindness to all humanity in a sincere manner is honestly just not in my capacity of courage. So then I tried something easier like my cousin Audrey who has been all but useless lately and has made it clear we have no relationship . . . yup, aiming it at her still works. And then my mother who occasionally sends photos with my brother's family in mass emails that I never respond to, but despite being the only person making any kind of contact is the last person I want anything to do with . . . yes, she actually qualifies! Sounds like strange psychology going on but I'm not sure this is psychology as much as dharma, or even karma. It occurred to me and it worked/happened without resistance or disgust. Strange things happen when stripped down to desperation or personally challenging extremes.

I don't know how my neighbor is affected nor if he's getting seriously pissed off nightly when his hot water drops off in the shower. I know nothing about plumbing, but from my experience living here two showers competing for hot water at the same time means everyone's quality and expectations are compromised. Yes, I feel like an asshole knowing my actions are possibly causing him anger, but . . . dude, it's hot water. 

What I don't know is how he'll react as this situation continues. I'd be surprised if he just tolerates it – he's paying rent which implicitly includes hot water and if he's losing hot water during showers, that's a problem. I don't know how he'd be able to figure out I'm the culprit. He might complain to the landlord but I don't know how they'd be able to pinpoint me as the source of his problem. Just testing his water without me running mine and there's no problem. But then they might guess that someone else must be running water at the same time every night and end up knocking on my door and directly asking me, which is a horrifying thought. I don't know how that conversation would go unless my neighbor speaks English, although it might be an opportunity for me to tell someone I have no hot water at all. If they fix that, I stop interfering with his showers and he's happy and I go back to taking hot showers after midnight and I'm happy. 

But that's just wishful thinking. I just have a feeling my hot water-siphoning won't be maintained for the rest of winter and he'll do something to stymie it. And I'll still have no hot water. Why do I think that way? Am I being unreasonably negative? Go ask the universe.

It shoulda been a no-brainer. If the broken space heater was the "actual trigger" for depression, then go buy a new one! The reason it didn't occur to me right away is: a) I've long had a moratorium on buying more stuff, new stuff; anything I bring into my apartment I need to have an idea of how it will exit my apartment, and b) I'm in my last few months of money. What I have left won't see out the summer and the sooner it runs out (if I don't go to the bank), the sooner that's supposedly the end of my life, so don't spend frivolously*. The option of buying a new space heater sat in a total mental blind spot. 

* I am aware of the many layers of contradictions and neurotic nuttiness leading to absurd formulations that just don't make any sense. Yet there they are. Story of my life. And I do find them outrageous, dismaying and infuriating in alternating and varying measure. If you were me, I'd bet you'd want to kill yourself furrow your brow, too.

But I decided under these circumstances whereby the universe isn't playing fair and is maliciously and artificially creating the perfect conditions for my personal misery (no hot water, broken space heater, possible record-breaking brutally cold winter with constant clouds and relentless drear . . . coincidence?! I think not), I felt justified in bypassing my own neurotic rules and at least go and price new space heaters. I went out with the aim of buying the cheapest one possible that will make showers bearable. I got one for a little over US$30 and is less than half the wattage of my previous one, but it'll do. It'll have to. I won't complain and I'm still armed with the attitude of treating the misery as practice. Actually, it's of minimal effect with limited range depending how cold it is, but I don't want to understate the importance of at least being able to take the edge off the chill at key times. 

It's still definitely better than nothing, but I think the most important thing is that I took control of the one thing over which I had control. If I had continued to treat the loss of the space heater like the water, weather and Siberian blast (literally), as something I couldn't do anything about, I could've risked falling into a hole of hopeless, helpless despondency. I'm not so confident about my mindfulness practice being able to ward off despair and realize it's only temporary and will pass. It's possible I would see it as an undeniable disruption of the day-to-day conveyor belt whereby all avenues of coping to maintain a modicum of comfort and stability would be gone. 

And it's only early January; winter is still a long way to get through. I bring myself back to my breath and focus on breathing and calm. It is only a little bit of comfort to see next week's forecast with several days in the 70s and sun. The temperatures then go down again perhaps suggesting a possible rollercoaster of a season. I can't project how my psyche will hold up or whether my resistance and mindfulness practice will fail and accept all my efforts have gotten old and I'm too exhausted to try to maintain them. I'm not that tough. I hope I remember to remember it's all alright. Otherwise it's narcissistic ego-attachment. Let it go.

Whoa, dude, I'm being hit by a nasty bout of depression. I know I've written about experiencing depression in recent memory (meaning a few years) since it's rare by my reckoning. When it happens it's confirmation, to me at least, that I'm generally not depressed. There's a big difference. To me at least, if not how I sound.

To catch things up the past few weeks, my left knee appears to have pretty much mostly healed from whatever that was, but the sciatica still dogs my right leg from time to time; not too bad, doesn't contribute to depression, just a limp. The weather has no doubt been a contributing factor in the depression. There were maybe three days that weren't gloom and drear and with temperatures creeping into the low 70s and pale sunlight fighting a losing battle. But that long-range forecast predicting cold temperatures right around New Year's was not only spot-on, but spot-on with a Siberian vengeance with probably record lows on New Year's Eve. I'd be surprised if records weren't broken or matched. Cold contributes to depression with not a promising forecast.

Contributing factors aside, I'm gonna attribute the actual trigger for the depression being my space heater breaking. A few weeks ago I tried out pointing my space heater into the bathroom during showers and it helped mitigate that misery to the extent that I didn't give a second thought about using it every night since then or what it might be doing to my landlord's energy bill (I don't pay it directly, but I still feel bad since he's my cousin's uncle). Using the space heater made me think I could get through this. Whatever however shit it was to plummet myself under a cold shower, there was that steady flow of warm air making it bearable and which was especially appreciated when I was done and temperatures only rose at that point. The space heater breaking was the universe laughing and telling me to go fucking kill myself already, daring me at this point. The universe has no qualms laughing at the big joke of my life and making it worse in the pettiest ways. So the universe is not so much #worstlandlordever, and more the model of #sadisticthirdworlddictator.

I have no problem putting a theoretical, ideated suicide (i.e., not to be taken seriously) back in the cards on the table, except one principle I hold to is depression can't be a contributing factor towards suicide. If I'm feeling depressed, I'm not going to do it. Clear out the depression and I'm good to go. I am fighting the depression with positive thoughts and energy and happiness-generating meditations. It's all part of mindfulness practice. Ironically, a contributing factor in the depression is feeling that my practice has been going no where, but then countering that by identifying that as subjective with limited validity; don't worry about it, just keep practicing. 

I don't know if it's just me and my personal version of mindfulness practice, but depression can't crush a turnaround in positive mentality and realizing all of these conditioned things shouldn't be taken as real, fact or substantive. Unfortunately, I also think a part of my method is what I mentioned before about getting angry to cope with situations. I recognized getting angry may not be ideal as any sort of weapon, even fighting depression. I'm confusing and conflicting myself now, so I'll stop. I don't have a conclusion to which this train of thought is heading.

I only have reasons to commit suicide and letting go of this life, and nothing but my ego-habit and attachments preventing me. All of those contributing factors towards depression are valid contributing factors towards suicide, except depression itself. Good fucking grief. Why can't I be a normal person and just kill myself if I'm depressed and without all the neurotic conditions I've placed upon suicide? Just take a gun and shoot myself, except this isn't the U.S. and guns are hard to come by. OK, buy a portable barbecue grill and burn charcoal in my bathroom leaving one of the small windows above open to clear out the carbon monoxide so no one else is affected. But I don't want to leave a body. I don't want someone to find me and have to deal with a body. Why? What the hell is wrong with me? But it is absolute, I won't subject anyone to that. 

Oh, Happy New Year, btw! 2021, yay!

I will mention that a superficial way of dealing with depression has been in the mix CDs I've made for every year I've been alive. As geeky and pointless that may seem to anyone else, there's nothing like being able to put on a CD that was personally curated by myself and guarantees every song and segue is an uplifting bop of appreciation of beauty, groove or emotion. I guess it helps that the one enjoyment I have in my life is listening to music. Obviously it wouldn't help anyone who doesn't care much for music. But I highly recommend that sort of project for its therapeutic benefits in both making them and in listening to them in the lowest moments.

Finally, I need to own up to a mistake I made trying to be clever in my previous post. I referenced the song "War" and then thought I was being clever by referencing the song "Low Rider" thinking both songs were by the same artist. They aren't. War is by Edwin Starr and Low Rider is by War. So you can see how I got into trouble; an honest mistake. Why I would think "War" was done by a band called War simply went over my head. Well, Japanese all-girl punk band Shonen Knife wrote a song called "Shonen Knife". That even made it onto my 1991 mix CD.

A year ago I expected hot water. Last winter I demanded hot water. I can't recall ever living in a place that didn't have hot water. I'm a product of the first world and hot water is a hooman and hoowoman right!

I did start to have troubles with hot water last winter and given the above statement, it was perfectly reasonable to run the tap until I got hot water. I demanded hot water. Until last winter, hot water was completely reliable and I'd get it after running the water for just a bit. 

Last winter, for the first time ever there were more than a handful of instances when hot water wasn't forthcoming. It was a new experience, it was perplexing, and my solution was to run the tap until hot water came through, which it always eventually did. Sometimes it took 10 minutes, sometimes 20, once it took nearly an hour that I was wasting perfectly good fresh water down the drain waiting for hot water to come through! There was frustration and anxiety involved, and since I shower closer to lights out than not, it disrupted when I went to sleep. Even though it happened only a few times, every day there was doubt whether I'd get hot water reliably soon or I'd have to run the water for extended periods while going back to my computer and futz around, checking the water status every 5 or 10 minutes. 

As summer faded this year and temperatures started cooling, I just had a feeling remembering last winter, a premonition perhaps, that there would be no hot water when I asked the tap for it. Maybe not a premonition but just the product of my negative mind and pessimism. Whatever, the fact is that my fears have come to pass and I have no hot water. However, I was able to brace for it and change my attitude and assume and accept that I no longer have hot water. 

Going into winter, cold showers are now the expected norm. Granted, Taipei is subtropical and winters are on par with San Francisco, but even in SF I took hot showers in the winter (and summer). It's not like snow-bearing regions like New Jersey, Ohio, Seoul or Tokyo where I suppose cold showers in the winter would range in the realm of howling holy shit 'unbearable'. 

Currently I think of showers as "jump in the river" experiences. You jump in the river and it's shockingly cold, but then you just have to deal with it and endure it. Every night. Or I can recall and emulate the legendary Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi who supposedly stood under freezing cold waterfalls to steel his discipline. Probably not every night. 

Or I can visualize plunging into cold, ocean surf.

Another way of looking at it is from a mindfulness practice perspective. Living life we habituate ourselves for most part to gravitate towards comfort and avoid unpleasantness as much as we can. Yet according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead that attitude may help keep people in the cycle of death and rebirth. In particular during the second death bardo, the bardo of "reality", it is said we are faced with bright, bedazzling, blinding apparitions of colored lights so intense as to be fairly characterized as terrifying, but if we recognize them as the nature of our own minds, that can lead to enlightenment (whatever that means). However if we fear the lights and flee from them (downwards) towards comforting dull lights, we are running towards another rebirth in this world of suffering where we have to go through birth, disease, old age and death anew. The dull lights represent various levels of lives we can live, according to our karma. Going for the comforting dull lights is the natural, habitual tendency of the vast majority who have not been introduced to or trained in the bardo death practices.

I find that certainly applicable. My entire life now is all about maintaining a dull comfort and an uneasy, ultimately untenable, stability. The day-to-day conveyor belt is about comfort. Staying close to my bathroom because of gastro issues is about comfort. Recovering from whatever minor disruptions to my daily routine is just about comfort. This is all fine as I consider my life already over. There's nothing I need to do in life, nothing I want to do, so this is my personal version of palliative care as I wait to die. 

No hot water and cold water showers is not in my control. Apparently I'm the only one affected as no one else has called the landlord to complain about it. Unless . . . they're all like me? If they're all like me, who am I to complain? But as long as it's not in my control and is not a wrist-slicing disturbance, apply it as practice. Cold water showers is looking at and facing the blinding bright colored lights and not wanting hot water, which is the dull comforting lights leading back to rebirth. 

On the other hand, it might get old real fast as temperatures continue to decline. And I have to be honest with myself, cold water showers in cold weather suck. However I choose to cope with them, they're annoying, frustrating and remind me of the big joke that is my life (Really? The Universe can't send me cancer or liver failure and instead turns off my hot water? The Universe is #worstlandlordever). 

It's still unknown whether this will be a moderate winter or particularly cold; either which is possible. If the unpleasantness ranges into first world unbearableness, I might have to resort to setting up my space heater to point into the bathroom during showers. I don't know if that'll work, but at least the air will be warmed after shivering under the cold water is over.

I had a big scare a few days ago that my laptop was about to die, but it turns out the malfunction was just a Windows 10 update forcing itself upon my laptop without consent. I thought updates were supposed to be benign, that they get remotely downloaded to your computer while it's on and you don't even notice until you shut down and you're informed of the update and it prepares to load it the next time you turn it on. It's not supposed to put your computer into what looks like critical condition with everything slowing down to pretty much non-functionality. I was afraid my laptop was having a stroke. 

At points when functionality seemed better I did shut it down and turned it back on and there was never any indication that it was an update. It was so bad that at one point I started emergency back-up of music folders thinking it was about to die. And then during one shut-down, it froze and I decided to do a hard shut-down, convinced that was it and the screen had flickered its last. 

I contemplated the grand scheme of things. I contemplated whether I'd be getting a new computer that day. Laptop or desktop? This laptop hasn't left my apartment in the three years that I've had it. Are monitors required with the purchase of a desktop? I use my flatscreen TV as my monitor so why would I get a monitor if I don't have to. Nah, this flatscreen is a bit dodgy, definitely get the largest monitor possible. Really? New computer? That's a month of living. I live on a thou a month; a third of that is rent, most of the rest is alcohol and food. If I don't extend my funds in June, then I'd have until September instead of October. So I'd be buying a computer to live to September. But then I'd probably extend my funds just because I bought a computer. This is not any consideration.

What am I thinking about new computer and months of living and extending funds? The computer's dead, let my computer days rest in peace. For me, that's it, I'm done, this is the looming I've been waiting for. Fill out the May bi-monthly gas meter form that has already been posted downstairs, wait till the end of the month and pay June's rent, and finally go with Plan A. But wait, if my computer's dead and I disappear, then I won't even be leaving a computer to be investigated regarding my fate.

It's a total conceit to think anyone would bother, but at least leave the option for that one in a thousand dozen chance that months later someone, probably a cousin, will be looking around my apartment after my disappearance has been established as fact (and mystery) and my belongings need to be disposed of, and a flash question in his mind whether there may be any clue on my computer about what happened. Quite honestly, get on my internet browser and this blog is not hard to find unless you don't know what the Brave browser icon or the Blogger icon is or looks like. Actually, knowing my life, it wouldn't matter whether I left a working computer or not. This is just me over-thinking things.

I pressed the power button one last time without any confidence to see what would happen, and a few minutes later the update screen came on. No, it wasn't a stroke, my laptop wasn't dying or in critical condition. Instead it had been violated. It had been taken over by the Windows 10 update and done doggy-style right in front of me. But now it was being updated. I swear there's a lesson or metaphor here somewhere, and I swear it's probably going over my head. Story of my life.

marking time

Taipei sending 2018 off cold, wet and miserable. After an earlier long-range forecast that this winter is expected to be on the mild side, it's already as cold as winters get in Taipei (upper 50s). Cold that in recent years hadn't come until at least a month later. That said, the short-range forecast does see temperatures creeping up through the 60s by degrees until hitting the 70s by the end of the week when it's also expected to dry out.

I shouldn't be surprised by this extended stretch of two weeks of wet weather, after all I did just get back on my bike. Of course it's going to start raining! That's what the weather does. I get off bike for over a year and it's perfect weather for cycling or running like I'd never seen during my time in Taipei! I get on bike and it's back to rainy for weeks at a stretch. It's what I used to call "the big joke" of my life. The universe conspiring to taunt and toy with me to remind me that all I am is the bare butt-end of some divine joke.

Not to contradict that mild winter forecast, though, the week before the wetness was sunny in the upper 70s/low 80s and I did ride four days in a row, racking up 80 miles, even applying sunscreen for the last two days after feeling a slight singe on my arms after the second day. Can't complain. And to put the current cold and wet into perspective, I still haven't switched out the floor fan for the space heater, and heating pad is still stowed. Those come out when the cold is protracted and starts defining misery at home.

On one of those 80 degree days earlier I met up with my old Mandarin teacher for coffee. Thought I should mark that since she informed me we had met up earlier this year. I couldn't remember the last time we met up and thought it was some time last year. So I met up with someone socially twice in 2018. Had email contact twice with my sister-in-law as usual. Got out of Taipei once for a day trip to Kaohsiung for some family issue. And those were the only notable interactions I've had with people in 2018. Hermit w/internet and alcohol. 2019, here we come.

I look back at my life and wonder, 'what was that?' Was that worth living? Whatever. I was born and had to live it. Worth is subjective. It is what it was. Was it worth my while? Did I live up to my potential? How exactly did I spend my time here? What was I? What did it mean to be here?

I was nothing. I made myself nothing intentionally. That was my purpose, so I think I was reasonably successful, flatter myself not. What was the purpose of becoming nothing? Spiritual pursuit, I think it's safe to say. All is vanity. Even becoming nothing is vanity, but that's better, I think, than a foundation of vanity to build a life thinking it's something when it's really just vanity.

I'm just trying to make sense of the whole journey and the whole ego lens with which we go through our lives.

I was nothing very early on. Psychology is in the works here, but it eventually mixes in with the spiritual pursuit thing. Of course that feeling of being nothing starts with my parents in childhood, but that's not to blame them for anything since I have two brothers with the same upbringing who became something. We were all nothing to my parents to the extent that making money was more important to our parents. But since their making money became integral to my brothers' becoming something, the transition was natural.

And once the concept of suicide was introduced to me, I latched onto that as a formulation for my life and I never did get beyond that and only embellished the philosophy and rationale behind it as a goal. I was döömed. That was it. My life in a nutshell was about settling into a pattern of constantly sabotaging anything that people normally live for (I'ma call it identity), realizing it's all vanity.

Identity as vanity. My years of stripping away identity was trying to strip away the vanity. All those things I did along my journey that I tried to base my identity upon were just vanity, things to do. Look at me, I'm this or that and I feel pride about those things. Drummer, bassist, runner, cycling, cutter, alcoholic, English editor, all identities and matters of pride.

In the end because of my impulse to sabotage my life and identity partly by alienating everyone in my life, there was only me left. What use is there of an identity when there's no one there to show it to, to be it? Then I stopped being impressed by myself. There was only me left to tell me I sucked at all those things, and I did suck, and I did finally tell myself as much.

So what was this all worth? Just the fact of it? Maybe. The fact without vanity, without pretension or thinking there was any meaning to it. I was not known, no one knew me. Even being unknown or forgotten is folly and vanity thinking I was anything worth being unknown or forgotten! Not even that. That's a great freedom actually.

People try to be an identity, what they present to the world. People try to be somebody. If people can't be famous and remembered historically, they try to be someone and mean something to their friends and family. But it's all vanity. So you're remembered, people mention tales about you generations down. Tales that even inspire. Yay? Good for you? I don't get it. Just disappearing suits me fine. Which is why I suppose I think of myself as Buddhist (albeit different from how many Buddhists think of themselves, as an identity).

Or the alternate last sentence is: . . . disappearing suits me fine. And yet I have this blog.

I went to the bank recently to add some buffer to time I have left in the form of an undated check. Currently the amount in my account will last me until June, and then I have some emergency reserves I keep in house. This injection would give me about seven months. Buffer.

Lots of psychology going on here. I don't need or want a seven month buffer, I'm hoping I don't even need until June. But there I was in the bank trying to implement this injection only to find it might not even work. Why? Because it involves my parents (even after my father died, I still can't refer to my mother as a singular individual entity). If it involves my parents, it involves chaos. It's natural law, you throw something up, it comes down. OK, maybe there's a tinge of subjective interpretation going on, but I'm working with empirical evidence.

I totally regret going to the bank. It wasn't worth the chaos and I had to implement full mindfulness practice to maintain homeostasis, giving off a general air that I couldn't care less what ultimately happens, which is true. I had prepared everything thoroughly for it to be pretty routine, but because of the chaos caused, I have no idea what's going to happen.

I'm bracing for the consequences. There weren't supposed to be "consequences". The injection was just supposed to happen as calmly as two ships passing in the night. Now there's the threat that people will try to contact me, which may sound like a "poor baby" moment, but is still disturbing and distracting. My strategy will be to smother any consequences and cut off anything anyone might try to do. The worst is anyone thinking I need money, so that's what I'll have to emphatically shut down. Fuggedaboudit, I don't need it.

I'm just really annoyed and disappointed in myself for even trying for the injection. I've been complaining about the day-to-day conveyor belt of my life and its uselessness and banality, and here I go trying to extend it? This is me mocking and making a joke of my own life. This is me insulting everything about me and myself and ascribing me to a new low level of pathetic below rock bottom. That might be magma, but that sounds too cool.

What was I even thinking? It was just a bunch of ordinary factors that fell on one day that made it seem the perfect convenient day. But not knowing there was going to be a problem, I probably would have gone eventually anyway as I watched my account decline every month. So what is the psychology of this adding buffer?

OK, even while I'm saying I "hope I don't even need until June", clearly clearly clearly if the injection went without a hitch, I would have kept on through the seven months because that's how lame I am. I have to accept that as it is. And this check isn't the only undated check I have so I have to assume I would have continued to add buffer if the option was there (they all have the same defect, so the option is gone even if this one injection works). Because that's how lame I am. That's what all the evidence of my behavior suggests. That's how I've even gotten this far in years. It sure hasn't been through hard work and ambition.

If I had known there was going to be a problem, would I have gone to the bank? Giving it a good deal of thought, I'm gonna say probably not. I could take that as a sign and resign myself that what I have left is all I have left. And if this injection doesn't go through and really all I have is until June and change, I'm not going to do anything and accept that this is it. I hope I'll accept that this is it. There is no evidence in my behavior to suggest confidence in that.

I think my hand will need to be "forced", and only then will the suicide option become a reality. This is what I mean when I keep saying I've designed my life with suicide as an end. No matter how much "buffer" I'm able to keep adding to my life, eventually there will be no more and since I don't have the ambition to find independent means to maintain my life (get a job), and do have the idealized goal to commit suicide, well then voilà.

I need to face having no option. I need that experience just as much as I need to actually commit suicide. I need it to LOOM. I need to have the train bearing down on me. I need to be in the death zone on Mt. Everest and realize I'm in serious trouble and not going to make it down. I need to be force marched into the desert by government soldiers who hold more value in toilet paper than in my life. I've pretended to be totally committed to doing it in the past, but there always was the option of coming home. I always had my house keys. Come to think of it, that's not total commitment. This time it won't matter if I take my house keys, there still will be no money if I fail. And then what? I don't even want to think of it. The alternatives in that situation are just as bad or even worse than suicide.

The most sobering part of sobriety may be the clarity. Well, after the not drinking all the time thing.

It's not that I wasn't clear-thinking-ish when constantly drinking. I felt I was thinking clearly, and if I wasn't I was at least subjectively thinking clearly enough. But certainly sense reality as a whole took on a muddled or muted feel, amenable to distraction.

Since cutting back on drinking, I've been trying to alter my daily existence to stop being a distraction-to-distraction conveyor belt from day to day. It's still a work in progress. Can't say a particularly successful one, though.

As a grandmaster of distraction, all I've done so far is switch out my old daily distractions with new ones. That's not a total fail, as I tell myself that at least I wasn't attached to those distractions as a way of being. Also, the changes may be seen as first steps to further changes. Like pulling myself out of quicksand.

Ultimately, I'm trying to get focused on the task at hand; what I want to do, what I keep saying is the purpose of my life and where I've led it. Cutting back on drinking, increased sobriety lead to focus on ending this life, this manifestation. Move on already.

There's a frustration that alcohol has been muting all these years. Drinking less allows me to be more acutely aware of it. So I decide to soberize because I realized drinking isn't going to kill me, and that leads to clarity about the frustration that I'm still alive and the need to focus on suicide as the goal. I can't figure out if that's ironic or logical.

The worst thing the distractions do is fool me into feeling like I'm doing something worthwhile or personally productive. That feeling, for most part, shuttles me from day to day. Laziness contributes, too. Too lazy to commit suicide. Never having encountered the external "unbearable" is also part of it. Nothing particularly or immediately compelling to commit suicide has led to complacency. Never been tested.

So why is it now, this time's newfound clarity that is suddenly compelling? I could rattle off a whole bunch of reasons, but they're the same reasons, I'm sure, that I've been citing for years, if not decades. Actually yes, decades.

I have no reason to believe that I won't be alive in six months' time back to drinking a bottle a day.

And that's the point where I shut up because it becomes a theoretical, abstract stream of thought. I really want to focus this time, I really want to do it, but I've said and done this over and over before. It's an incredibly consistent internal dialogue that has become like a recurring nightmare.

And I want to say something is different this time, but I've said that over and over, too. Something's gotta be different this time. I've probably said that before, too.

Back in Taiwan. Back to reality. Back to my world.

(I - Nov. 25-present)
I got sick while I was in New Jersey. That makes this the third year in a row that I've gone and visited New Jersey and come back sick. Going to New Jersey to visit means getting sick.

It didn't feel too bad, truth to tell. I got it just as I got the house all to myself for the week. It was all just relaxing time. It's not like I had to go to work or tend to a family or raise kids, like my brother and sister-in-law. It felt like a great week. I remember it as a great week. I did what I wanted, ate what I wanted, went over to my brother's for dinner every evening.

Just in time for my flight home, the cold morphed into a nasty cough that at times was like I was either going to cough up a lung or wanted to cough up a lung. Or puke trying. I literally bought maximum strength cough suppressants at the Walgreens at Washington Bridge Plaza before hopping on the shuttle to JFK from there.

(II - Dec. 4-Dec. 6)
Aside from the cough, the flight home couldn't have gone more smoothly. Less than 24 hours from door-to-door. My brother drove me to the shuttle in Fort Lee which was ready to go just after I bought the cough medicine, no traffic to JFK, non-stop 16-hour on-time flight to Taipei, my luggage unbelievably came out almost right away, bus to Taipei proper, MRT to home. I left after dinner on Sunday night, and by the time I got home Tuesday morning here, my brother's family were probably having dinner on Monday evening.

My father on the greatest adventure of them all, godspeed his journey is as smooth.

(III - Dec. 7)
Cough notwithstanding, I wasn't feeling sick anymore otherwise and I went for a three mile run the day after I returned. My left Achilles tendon pulled within 50 meters of the end of the run.

I think that's pretty much it for running. It's over. The frustration of dealing with a running injury is not something I'm going to accommodate or deal with anymore. And it was going so well making it through the entire summer and even improving beating all expectations.

I don't know what that was all about. All that striving, all that nursing. Hopes arising, hopes dashed. Story of my life. Everything I've written about running since June is now simply negated.

(IV Nov. 17-ongoing)
Insomnia kicked in as soon as I got to New Jersey, but it wasn't a bother. Same as being sick. If there's nothing to bother (aside from the sleep itself), then it's not really a bother. Sleep was all bad the whole time I was there. There was a lot of waking up shivering cold soaked in a heat generated sweat.

No jetlag going there or coming back. Insomnia makes jetlag a non-issue, irrelevant. Maybe it's there, but it's completely overshadowed.

(V Dec. 12-13)
As long as everything else is going wacko, why not add a bout of epic hiccups? The most screwball of all the things that could possibly ail me. I know it's a bout of epic hiccups when I can't suppress them right away by my tried and true method of holding my breath.

When it's epic hiccups, I expect them to last for about 48 hours. Fortunately, this bout dwindled after about 40 hours. But what a reminder of how shit things can get. When it's epic hiccups, I consider it being sick. It's a feeling. It feels like something's wrong. It feels like being sick.

(VI - epilogue)
It doesn't bother me that my father died before me. I even think I'm benefiting from the experience. In the past, I maintained that I wanted to die before my parents, but actually it's just my mother. She's the one I think needs to experience the death of a child, not necessarily my father.

I don't mean that callously. It's an old discussion that I don't want to rehash. For some reason it may sound odd that my mother would ultimately benefit from experiencing the death of a child, but in the totality of considerations, it makes perfect sense to me.

I don't think my father would have benefited any from my dying before him. I don't think he would have been affected profoundly by my dying.

On the other hand, I'm glad to experience the death of a parent if only to confirm that I wouldn't get bent out of shape by the death of a parent. I never thought I would be affected by their deaths, and now I know it's true.

There wasn't any big turn around or revelation or realization what I lost or took for granted. Par for the course, dad. He didn't ever do anything to mean anything to me, and when he died, it didn't mean anything to me. It's an intellectual exercise to mull and contemplate.

There's a line in Richard Bach's book Illusions which goes something like, "If you're wondering whether your mission in life is finished, if you're alive, it isn't".

I'm still alive, but I do have a feeling my mission in this life is finished. Actually, I'll prefer to say that I'm at my journey's end, and have been for a while. If life is a path, I'm literally at the end of it, there's no where to go for me from here; from this cruddy little apartment in Taipei.

The physical path has ended, and only the temporal path has been lingering until I decide to have a personal breakthrough regarding existence and reality.

There's nothing I want to do, nowhere I want to go. I'm not going anywhere, not on my own accord. I don't feel bad about it, I feel free, only trapped by my own mind, limitations and neurotic. And I do consider myself very, very fortunate. But I can't even conceive of taking the very first steps to move again, whether to another apartment, to Kaohsiung, or back to the U.S.

If I wanted to, I could continue with a mission. I could become a participant in my young nephews' and nieces' lives, but there's nothing compelling me towards that mission. They'll be fine without me, I shouldn't wonder, and with me there's no establishing they will be better off for it.

My path is just my own path. I decide when the mission is done.

My parents are driving me fucking crazy, but maybe that's what I need and I should start answering their phone calls more than once a week and taking the rubbish they're dishing out. After all, my parents can be said to be a major force in driving me towards my own goal in life.

After I graduated from college and tried to find something in Japan, if they had just let me be, I might have ended up getting married and starting a family and finding a job and completing my language studies.

After they thwarted that and engineered my return to the U.S., they should have just supported me to go out into the world and find a job. I might have found it to be so unbearable that I might have ended up begging them to support me through law school and becoming a public defender in San Francisco.

When I told them I was considering being a monk, if I had gotten support – highly hypothetical, since I didn't need their support, and the kind of support necessary to be beneficial would require at least a mote of spiritual understanding – maybe I'd be a monk now. 

Really?

Under any parental circumstance, can I picture myself married with kids in Japan? Can I imagine myself as an attorney? I tried the simple working for a living thing and even that didn't pan out. Being a monk is the only thing that actually still makes sense, but I stepped off that path on my own for a reason.

Is there any scenario that I could have encountered that would have snuffed out the spark towards suicide that is the hallmark of my life?

No, and any accusative tone I might take towards my parents' disastrous meddling in my life is only seeing things from their point of view. For what they wanted my life to be, they were constantly shooting me in the foot. 

Thanks to my parents relentlessly trying to steer me towards an impossible lifestyle as a doctor, lawyer or in business, my life is the way it is. And there were likely no options they could have supported as hypothetical "good parents" that would have made my path any different.

Suicide was never going to go away. I was never going to be "satisfied" just living a life. So the way my parents are is perfect, almost like they were part of a grand plan to help me towards some perceived, possible spiritual breakthrough. I look down on them, I pity them and wish them the best. I'm separate from them.

But if they were parents who supported me and who I loved and was a part of, this would be even more difficult than it has been, maybe even impossible. I'd probably suffer from depression.

If my thesis is correct, which is a matter of faith – I'm not trying to convince anyone about it, nor do I myself believe there are any universal truths that we can understand involved – then the act of suicide may be the "bigger" worth I would want out of my life. Seeing behind the reality of the "roads of birth and death and earthly desires", as the Lotus Sutra puts it.

And maybe that's why they're my parents. I was pondering before the sense or the karma in having such spiritually bankrupt parents. It would finally make sense if I realized they have been crucial, if not essential, to my goal.

Bonus points for being totally bizarre and self-fulfilling.

Someone I know from a ways back was just in Taipei for a couple days in her January travels of Asia. I took her around to a few places to get a taste of Taipei. Unfortunately, it's been cold and wet and on both days she didn't contact me until we could only meet in the fading remnants of what barely could be called daylight.

We're not friends. We're both from New Jersey. We met in San Francisco through mutual connections online, but the only times we met were one-offs. We never hung out like friends do. We never casually called each other and asked how we're doing. She wasn't like Delphine who I randomly met waiting for a show to begin at Bottom of the Hill and became what I'd call good friends.

Then I left San Francisco and returned to New Jersey. Then she left San Francisco and settled in New York. And we still had one-off meet ups and still never hung out. This time was more of the same.

And we never really connected. The reason we never hung out is because there was never a connection. Just polite acquaintance conversation and I don't mean to be harsh and don't think I am when I say that after a few hours, we were bored of each other. Not that I didn't try, but she just seemed bored of me, and that naturally bored me. But she got bored with me first.

I have almost no contact with personal relations these days, and when I do have one, this is what I get. It's part of what I call the "big joke" that is my life. Also part of the big joke is that I moved to Asia and the only person that objectively may be categorized as a "friend" is a white guy with yellow fever; only into Asian chicks. I wouldn't associate with him at all in the U.S. 

The big joke is God telling me to die already. My life isn't worth living, and as long as I continue to insist on living it, He'll play with me like a ball of yarn. Touché Big Guy.

I, of course, am this God.

I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005) on TV tonight. It's a mainstream Hollywood film several years old, so it's not worth saying too much about it. I enjoyed it enough. It was cute. It was a cute assassin action movie. It's a subtle comedy. Not a bust-out-laughing comedy, but when you do bust out laughing, it's at the oddest and quirkiest things.

No, it's not a great film. You don't watch a movie like this for its plot or whether everything makes sense or not. It's to watch two of Hollywood's A-list actors work their mojo. And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had terrific chemistry. I'm not saying anything good about how the relationship is portrayed, because that would be insisting on something making sense. It was just enjoyable watching them play off each other, and on a subtler level, playing off knowing what we, the audience, are supposed to know.

I generally look down on Hollywood films, which usually means I look down on Hollywood actors, but with maybe the exception of Keanu Reeves, the vast majority of them are either really good actors who put a lot of attention and effort in their craft, or are just very magnetic and charismatic like "personality" actors of old.

I give it a high fresh 8 out of 10 tomatoes for what it is: a light, tasty treat of Hollywood confectionery.

I also recently watched classics All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and Citizen Kane (1941). Both are incredible, amazing films that each get honorary 10 out of 10 fresh tomatoes, but only for a more cultured and sophisticated audience, one with a sense of history, both actual and film.

The title All Quiet on the Western Front has entered the English lexicon as something profound and poetic, calm between storms perhaps, but in the film there was nothing quiet about the Western Front. That title is a rendering from the original German title, which was a much more prosaic and mundane, "No News on the Western Front", which I think referred to the lack of information German soldiers in the trenches received about what was actually going on during World War I. The bulletins they received cynically told them nothing.

I think the film still remains one of the all-time great antiwar war films, the likes of which hadn't been seen since 1930 until Das Boot in the 1980s. I thought there would be aspects of the film that would be dated, and there were especially early on (there weren't, they were accurate depictions of what it was like in European cities leading up to WWI -future ed.), but overall, the impact of the film withstands the test of time.

The term "post traumatic stress disorder" was coined fairly recently in modern times, I think in the 70s or 80s, but this film, from the novel, documents it in German WWI soldiers in 1930! By the end of the film, I stopped thinking there were dated elements in the film because the emotional depths it probes are as sophisticated as anything that came afterwards.

Citizen Kane is considered a masterpiece in cinematography. In the TV series Northern Exposure, aspiring filmmaker Ed Chigliak refers to Citizen Kane as the film where Orson Welles taught filmmakers how to make films. And certainly the brilliance in the film is in how the camera and lights are used to say something substantial about the characters.

About wealth and greatness, Orson Welles himself called the "Rosebud" red herring a "tawdry" trick. Still, I think the values the film explores is relevant to modern times or to any humanity. The film was released in 1941, which makes me think the creation of the story was influenced by the 1929 stock crash and what in our lives is really of value. We chase wealth, we chase fame, but what are we missing in that relentless pursuit?

The impact of finding what "Rosebud" was when the film was first released was certainly greater and more profound back then. I knew what Rosebud was through cultural references long before I saw this film, so that part of the mystery was gone, but I still appreciated what the film was doing and why it is considered one of the greatest films of all time

where I am (I: Isolation)

This is where I've landed my life. What I mentioned before as the result of decisions I've made, the experiences I've had and how I've processed them, the attitude with which I've lived my life, blah, blah, blah, naturally landed me where I am now.

I guess the biggest thing is the utter isolation, no friends, no loved ones, no family, no confidants, few acquaintances. I chase people away, I run away and hide myself. There is no one I consider a friend. I'm a notorious "unfriender" on Facebook. It hasn't always been this way.

Madoka's a mystery. Our relationship started losing steam actually quite a long while ago; towards the beginning of this blog it turns out. I always trusted that it was a momentary skid and it would recover to its former intimacy. It hasn't. It fell into years of no contact, then a recent re-kindling of contact, but no connection.

Then in response to her inquiry into what I described as my "next bold move" (cue Ani DiFranco), I told her what was up in as clear a way as possible without using the word "suicide" (I'll go into that soon and let you decide for yourself (whoops, nope, looks like that email got deleted)), and I got no reaction, no request for clarification, ignored.

Then she went silent again for the past several months, and I thought that was the end of that, but then she emailed recently and I just have no motivation to respond. It was a totally superficial email – hi, how are you? this is what I'm doing, this is what the next few weeks look like.

Sadie was my last friend in San Francisco. We fell out of touch for several years for some reason, then found each other again in email and Facebook contact, and then she told me she had Hepatitis C and might need a liver transplant. I responded with as much support and empathy as I could conjure, which apparently didn't impress and I never heard back from her. End.

Those were the last friendships that could be considered to have been anything. The people I know in Taiwan don't mean anything and are nothing. I can count 5 people right off who always say "Let's get together", but when it comes time to get together, nothing happens. All talk.

Edit: To be fair, an old French classmate who has returned to Taiwan is an exception, as is my old Mandarin teacher, with whom I've started to meet again for language exchange.

There's a ring of extended family who are useless to me and nothing. I'm polite to them, I get along with them, I even love my aunt and uncle, but I project nothing about anything underneath the politeness and formality.

The undercurrent in all this is that I have no more need for human relations. There's nothing anyone could do for me and I have nothing to ask of them. They show no interest in me, and I have no motivation to beg interest.

The idea of a romantic relationship is so gone out of my reality that I don't think of the people around me as romantic people, as people desiring and searching for romantic contact. It's simple fact that no one could possibly find anything attractive in me.

The most recent thing was Hyun Ae, and I read back what I wrote about her, and I'm willing to admit that I was in love with her. I did fall in love with her and enjoyed her presence and company like no one since perhaps Amina. But I would never have gotten into a relationship with her even if she reciprocated, and there were signs of possible reciprocation. But part of what I loved about her was her inaccessibility, and if she did become accessible, I would not have pursued that.

And here's the disclosure: I haven't gone out with anyone since Josephine. We broke up in November 1998. 12 years. More than an entire decade of my life. In my entire working history, in my entire band history, in the entire time most people have known me, I couldn't be associated romantically with someone else.

Can you even imagine that? It's not human to not be in a relationship for that length of time. That's not supposed to happen to a reasonably social being, which I was, without any major hangups or defects, which I was. At some point, someone to whom I send out signals should respond positively, or someone will send signals towards me to which I would respond.

This is not a drought. It's not natural and it's a personal fact. And karmically, it's one that I welcome. Romantic relationships are done. I don't even know what they are anymore and I hope that gets carried over karmically into my next life. No interest.

And where I am is no mistake, either. Isolated here in Taipei where no one has access to me. I run through scenarios in my mind of how things might unfold if I happened to disappear, and it could take months before it becomes clear that something's wrong.

My landlord would be the first to notice, and he would send out inquiries to my cousin, and she would ask her father, and he would ask my mother, but no one would have access to any information, no one would be able to do anything or get any concrete information and it would just get passed off for more weeks of people wondering, waiting to see if I turn up.

Months. You disappear and it's months before bells are ringing loud enough that anyone really tries to do anything or find out some actual information.

More later on where I am now. And where I've been.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

It's Lunar New Year. The official part, which lasts for about 3 or 4 days, is over, and businesses are open again, but the cultural part goes on for like two weeks and then turns into a couple more weeks of the Lantern Festival.

My uncle invited me down because all of his kids, my cousins, are in town, and one has a new baby boy who I haven't met yet. I guess for that reason, I don't regret coming down, it's a nice gesture to represent, but I do regret that I booked my return to Taipei on Monday night, instead of Monday morning, or even Sunday night.

I hate hanging out with family, it's the most boring thing in the world and isolates me and makes me not want to be here even more. It emphasizes my insignificance and represents it on a sublime scale.

I sit here thinking, "What am I doing here with these people? Why did I even come?" and once I get started on those lines, it quickly turns into "What am I doing here at all on this planet? What do I mean to anyone aside from banal, socially constructed ways?"

It's hard enough for me to be social, and coming here makes it worse because it puts me in social situations where I'm not really here at all, and it's alright for me to not be social. Then I go back to situations where there isn't a language barrier, but if at any point I feel like I'm out of the conversation, I'm fully comfortable disengaging, and that's not good.

A bunch of cousins gathered tonight and as they chattered incomprehensibly, I mused about how all of them, except the two youngest ones and me, are all parents now. They're all doing the family thing now, and they're doing a pretty good job of it, I shouldn't wonder. And to them, this path is the most natural thing in the world; it never occurred to any of them not to take this path. It might be a natural human social impulse, but it is definitely part of the Chinese cultural canon.

10:29 p.m. - Three of my cousins on the left. We're all cousins to each other. On the right, a cousin's wife, my aunt and Audrey's daughter, Pie.

They would have done anything to bring this path to fruition. And if I wanted any part of it, then the past 12 years in which I haven't had a mutual attraction with anyone would be a major problem. And believe me, my bar isn't that high, there just haven't been many and the ones who were seemed to be part of God's big joke he's playing on me – "Someone is attracted to me and this is what you send?"

Like the time I was looking for an Asian American drummer to play with and the only response I got was from a Japanese American ex-con who I couldn't get out of my house fast enough?

But I looked upon this group of parents and so thoroughly did not want any part of it, and that said, it includes sex. And I think it's safe to say if you're willing to throw out the sex, you really, really don't want to be a parent. I mean as a starting point. That's a whole 'nother discussion, though, which I haven't thought out.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

I've been dreading this weekend and now it's here, and after waking up with a migraine, I'm now in Kaohsiung, putting my brain into sleep mode cruise control to get me through my cousin's wedding on Sunday, to my parents' departure on Tuesday, so that I can get out of here and back to Taipei. Family from all over are converging here and all my usual comforts coming to Kaohsiung have been thrown out.

I usually have a whole apartment to myself, with my own room, with my own bed. Now I'm stuck on tatami in a little corner of my uncle's apartment, which, mind you, I consider extremely gracious on my aunt's part, but I do feel like an inconvenience, the one who doesn't belong here, the one who no one can talk to, the only one that doesn't fall naturally into some relative order.

With all the people here, my isolation couldn't be more deafening. Yea, I know, this weekend is not about me, it's about my cousin, but I can't even participate in making this weekend about him, which I'd be more than happy to do. I've known him longer than most people in my life. It's only by virtue that he's family, but that's not the point.

Because the moment I open my mouth, if I open my mouth, which I'm not doing, I make it about me. I'm the only one here who only speaks English. So if I speak, it disrupts whatever thread of conversation was going on and makes people struggle because no one else here is a native English speaker. If I open my mouth, I have to be accommodated.

Is there a different way I could be handling this? Or should I succumb once again to being the butt of the big joke of my life. What would be the left turn way of handling this? One of my life lessons is to always take the left turn, always try to do something different, don't be predictable, habitual, caught in cycles and grooves. No, I don't follow this lesson very well.

My tendency, my habit is to try to disappear, sometimes even disappearing. Should I smile? I always smile, I'm sick of smiling, I'm sure it's obvious how fake it is now and it makes my face burn. Should I "just get in there" and mix with people? Even thinking about it fills me with dread and disgust. Don't take the left turn if it's going to make things worse. Sometimes bad is as good as it gets. Voila, two more life lessons!

I can do better being pleasant to my parents. Especially if this is the last time seeing them. They've been pushing me to go back to the U.S. and I don't know how long I can keep nodding and saying, "uh-huh". They mean good, they just don't know.

So this is my weekend of reckoning. This is the weekend I've been waiting for, and yes, waiting for this weekend was the right thing to do. Everyone should be happy for my cousin this weekend. But after this weekend, I have to decide whether to go to the edge again. I have to make it real again. No setting dates. No waiting for anything. It's wide open now, and I have to face what I'm about.