2015 mix CD, part two

As anticipated, the second 2015 mix CD (of my vanity project of creating mix CDs for every year I've been alive) wasn't easy to put together. The first CD came together surprisingly fast and easily, and that probably caused most of the difficulty with the second disc. My satisfaction with it locked in the track list and didn't give me flexibility to move things around between the two discs. 

So that's how not to make a double-disc mix. Collecting songs for 2016, I am already playing with song order, but I'm doing both discs simultaneously to avoid limiting options later.

I found it hard recognizing the segues, which shouldn't be hard. Also elusive was identifying placing of songs, either beginning, middle or end, which also shouldn't be hard. Probably a case of thinking too much.

This mix largely came together by finding two or three song segues by similar type and then jigsaw puzzling them together in a way that flowed. In the end, the final track list does succeed with satisfactory segues and song placings that I hadn't been able to see initially.

The biggest thorns were finding the opener and closer. There was a parade of songs that became final candidates for those positions, only to be ultimately rejected; almost all of them having not been considered for the mix at all, and then not staying on the mix when rejected.

2015 mix CD, part two:

1. Warm Hole (Brown Eyed Girls)
2. Drama (Nine Muses)
3. Joker (Dal Shabet)

4. Not an Easy Girl (Lizzie (After School))
5. Twenty-Three (IU)
6. Radio (Baechigi) (audio only)
7. Don't Be Such a Baby (Sistar)
8. Just for One Day (JeA (Brown Eyed Girls))
9. Oh Boy (Red Velvet) (lyric video) (official audio)
10. Traveler (f(x)) (lyric video) (official audio)

11. Like Ooh-Ahh (Twice) (full stage camcorder)
12. Vibrato (Stellar)
13. Sorry (Park Bo Ram)
14. Please Just Go (feat. Whee In (Mamamoo)) (Louie (Geeks)) (lyric video) (audio only)
15. I'm Ill (Hello Venus)
16. Five More Minutes (Hyosung (Secret)) (audio only)
17. Dice Play (Brown Eyed Girls) (official audio)
18. Don't U Wait No More (Red Velvet) (official audio) (music students react)
19. Skip (Tahiti)
20. You and Me (Kisum)
21. Give It a Little Shake (High Soul x KissN)
22. Sleepless Night (Nine Muses)
23. Can You Feel It? (feat. Youngji (Kara)) (Goo Hara (Kara))
24. Only You (miss A)

2015 mix CD, part one (audio files uploaded for zip download)

My brother offered me a slice of pizza.

My dreams are just going haywire! There is no consistency nor any indication of anything except total chaos; full metal subconscious implosion. After months of whenever my brothers appeared in dreams, it was confrontational, lukewarm or cold at best, and then one of them is offering me pizza?! The greatest offering of all?! Am I a king, a god?!

"Hey, you want a slice?", lifting a slice out of the pizza box for me.

I've been hampered by several days of full-blown insomnia which hasn't happened in a while. Insomnia has been recurrent, but not this bad. Mostly one- or two-offs and then a period of recovery. Even one night of insomnia hits hard and despite full nights of sleep following, waking up and days are still rough. This recent bout might be a real mess.

I try to force myself down into a dream state during insomnia, and when I do: a) it doesn't last long before I wake up again; and b) the dreams are nothing, they make no sense; they're like flipping through radio stations driving through a foreign country. If dreams are the antennae of our subconscious, I'm picking up random shit from wherever.

If that hasn't been brutal enough, Taipei's summer heat is out of control. Summer months used to be prime riding season despite summer heat. I like hot weather. I usually thrive in hot weather and San Francisco was lame for its cold summers.

Two summers ago, I still went riding during the summer, but I felt the heat and noted it. Then last year; I looked at my GPS records of riding last year and wondered why I stopped riding after a spring that looked like I was gearing up for the bigger climbs.

It took a while to figure out it was the heat that stopped me. About May or June, it came to pass that I would try to take my bike out and was met with a wave of heat that said, "hell no". Going outside was like stepping in front of a blast furnace, and if it felt like that just outside I figured any kind of ride would be nothing short of masochistic. Same thing happened this year.

The few people I've spoken to have agreed that Taipei has been getting hotter just these past few years. It's unbearable to stay outside for any extended period of time. Going outside means going from one air-conditioned space to another.

I have started jogging after my gym membership ran out in June. Looking back, what a useless thing that gym membership was. I'd never do anything like that again. Within a week, I was going out in the evening for jogs and I've been going for jogs about five days a week since then.

It's not running, I go too slow to call it running. I'd say to call it running, I'd have to be doing 8:30 miles at slowest, maybe 8:45, and I've touched on that, but mostly I've been going upward 9 minute miles, which is a solid jog. Anything slower than 10 minute miles is a plod. I've gone plodding a few times.

And short. Three miles is the usual, with four mile jogs thrown in one or two times a week. I've plodded five miles once and hope to do more of those, but only once it starts getting cooler. But I'm not going to be ambitious at all. My age prevents that, as well as bad nutrition and lots of alcohol.

Twenty years ago, my goal was 7:30 miles over 4 or 5 miles, with reality more like anything under 8 minute miles. These days going slow as comfortable is fine and preventing injury is priority, although since it's me, some problem is always going to come up.

addendum 2:  I don't know if there's any connection between my dreams and efforts to generate compassion, but in a strange turn-around I had a full night sleep with positive feel-good dreams. That's strange because this is insomnia recovery sleep, which should be dead sleep with no dream recollection.

The two dreams I remembered were love related, both involved women I can't identify and were probably just archetypes; one or both may have been K-pop idols as the archetypes.

One was in a college dorm room-like setting, clean (in contrast to recent dream patterns) and there were other people there. I was lying in a bed when a woman crawled in basically saying she had gotten hints that I had feelings for her and she knew what her feelings were for me and she wanted to make things clear. That's it.

The other dream was like a date in an urban setting, a feel like Philadelphia, and the feelings were more ambiguous. We were on a date, buying tickets for something but she insisting on going dutch and not allowing me to cover, so there was no feeling of commitment or that she even liked me. It's just that it was a date.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I have no desire for love or to have or pursue any "love interest". Dreams involving love I think are more a product of a basic human desire to be loved. I imagine on a basic level there is not a human being, however self-hating or cynical but without psychopathic pathologies, that doesn't mind being loved.

And I'm not that self-hating or cynical. It's just that on a practical level, it's not something I desire nor something I'd pursue or succumb to as an attachment. I accept and don't reject that love is a very important and powerful human component, including on spiritual and psychological levels.

So if there's a subconscious, psychological battle going on regarding compassion and manifesting in my dreams, I'd say my mind is fairly equivocal and flexible. Dreams can be hostile or they can be pleasant; either can manifest from trying to engage compassion. And considering my psychology, that makes perfect sense.

About cultivating compassion, the only interaction I have with other people is when I'm out and about in public. The only direct contact I have with people is when ordering food or buying something at a convenient store.

I don't have friends, I don't work, I only know one person in Taipei with whom I meet about three or four times per year for coffee or a hike. I don't have to deal with any interpersonal conflicts at all.

Virtually all my interactions with other people are indirect and abstract. When I'm out and about in public, I'm always listening to music (I turn it off when I interact directly with people). It is with these people that I gauge my ability to cultivate compassion.

What does it mean to cultivate compassion? First of all, it doesn't come naturally for me. I'm quick to judge (which is bad) and quick to be critical (which is bad). Since it's not natural, it's not visceral but more intellectual.

But that's not even right. When I say it doesn't come naturally for me, that's the result of current situation and experience and the cynicism that comes with experience. I look at my behavior and attitudes when I was younger, and I think it's fair to say I had a natural compassion towards people. I even used to consider myself a romantic, just to emphasize how much I've changed.

In my current situation, cultivating compassion is to look inside myself and locate and examine the energies of how I feel towards other people, and bending them towards the positive. To not be hostile, to want non-harm towards other people; to not be an agent of negativity in other people's interactions.

I've found that cultivating compassion is also key towards loosening my grip on my own ego and sense of the importance of myself. It's kind of embarrassing noting that this is something I struggle with when for many people it's natural and obvious.

Very important to the cultivation of compassion is recognizing emotions as energies within our bodies. That's also part of mindfulness training. When you feel an emotion, locate and identify it as an internal energy that is just as real as heartbeats, blood flowing and breathing in and out.

Once you do that, you can put a rein on emotions and not let them control behavior. It's no longer a matter of feeling anger or any emotion and accepting the emotion for what it feels like and reacting no matter how irrationally.

When you recognize it as energy, you can think of it as E. As in the equivalent of mass times the speed of light squared. How emotions fit in with Einstein's equation may make no sense, and that's fine. It kinda doesn't. But if you can visualize emotions as energy and abstractly consider it against E=mc², then you can start processing it as a physical property of the universe, as something controllable and not so mysterious.

According to the equation, a small amount of mass transferred into energy yields a huge amount of energy. So thinking of emotions as energy, that can be looked upon as a huge amount of energy. None of this to be taken literally, just to think about.

Full insomnia last night. I stopped posting about insomnia because I thought what I had posted already got the point across. It has never stopped and has been recurrent (and likely a continued detriment to any employment). What was different about this bout is that in the few times I slipped into dreams, the dreams were particularly brutal.

I mention this in conjunction with my previous post where I mentioned dreams having become unpleasant and distasteful. This time they felt downright persecutorial and hostile, like my mind conspiring against me and attacking me.

I don't know if there's any relationship with the compassion meditation I recently employed, whereby I go about trying to generate compassion in any, even the most superficial, interaction with people when I go out. The meditation is even preemptive, trying to anticipate a normally negative reaction and steeling myself to be compassionate (not hostile) no matter what happens.

I found it feels great! I'm still forcing it as a meditation, where my normal, natural psychological state would be negative. But really, it feels so much better to force myself to generate compassion than to naturally accept being negative.

(I have a feeling if I looked far back into the archives of this blog, I'll find that I've already posted something pretty much exactly like this before).

It just seems suspect that I experience unpleasant dreams that prompt me to want to develop more compassion, only to be followed by overtly hostile dreams. Maybe it's a psychological, subconscious battle going on. That would be interesting. As it is, I'll stick to compassion and if it's my subconscious reacting against it, I'll give it time to get used to it.

addendum: Maybe I couldn't control irritability as a result of the insomnia, but on this day the attempt at compassion/non-hostility was a total fail. Impatience, intolerance, self-righteousness ruled. Not that anyone noticed, it's not like anyone turned and looked at me like "what an asshole", but I noticed.

I've noticed common themes in my dreams lately. Like messy living quarters, even bordering on squalid. Disgusting floors, old buildings. Internal conflicts with other people in the dream that aren't confronted or resolved. General dissonance, chaos, mess. Dissonance with my environs. Dissonance with the absence of people in my life.

One recent morning, the feeling from the dreams was so distasteful that when I awoke, I finally didn't try to push myself back into a dream state even though I was having trouble sleeping. I was like, "fuck it, I'm not going back into that", and got up.

That's what I do when I have trouble staying asleep in the morning; when I can't just fall back to sleep and it's pretty much back-end insomnia. I can force my consciousness back down into a dream state, which is and isn't the same as getting back to sleep. When I wake up again, it seems like I was asleep, but it's not to be mistaken with restful sleep. It's very shallow and dominated by the dream state.

The nature of these dreams suggest that I'm obviously still disturbed by many things on unconscious levels despite mindfulness training and striving for Buddhist ideals of cultivating wisdom and compassion. No surprise there, since despite trying to cultivate transformation, I clearly cling to many negative conceptions and habits (karma).

I can still resort to being an asshole. Or if not overtly exhibiting asshole behavior, I act in a way that makes me feel like I was being an asshole. I was thinking like an asshole. I judge people by their behavior. In my mind I impose how I feel people should behave in this world on other people. Even giving someone a cold, judgmental stare is no good. And I did that recently.

I connect this with the dissonance in my subconscious. This outward hostility and judgment has very much to do with all the subtler levels of mind and stains them and makes them ugly. I need to make compassion and kindness more of a daily mindfulness meditation.

It has to be happening at every moment every day when I have to interact with other people even in the most superficial way. At every moment when I'm out, I have to be generating compassion to any and everyone around me. There can be no let up, even when I'm not interacting with anyone.

It's not easy. In the past, I've justified aggressive and asshole behavior by thinking of it as a "fierce" element which can be compassionate, especially when safety is involved. Sometimes being mean or presenting an illusion of danger alerts people of the need to pay attention, the theory goes.

But maybe that was just an excuse to allow primitive anger emotions to arise, despite being mindful of my emotions and claiming to myself I wasn't being angry. So many complex levels of conceptual thinking may be preventing progress. However I justify negative behavior, the bottom line is those excuses aren't in my job description.

My dreams are telling me something. I can't fool myself with sitting meditation and mindfulness practice and think there isn't a lot of ugliness in my karma that I can't work on. Even with limited time in my life, even with the implicit negativity of placing a limit on the time in my life, I can work on the ugliness and put compassion and positivity as a foremost meditation in my daily life.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the most recent interactions with my cousin have ended in disappointment. She leaves for Switzerland next week and we're not going to meet up before then. Shortly after my last posts in June, she left the country for the U.S. to her previous home in Sedona to do whatever she needed to do.

Ironically, after all that talk about helping and being there, nothing came out of my asking her to help me get my computer fixed. She mentioned her brother could definitely help me with that, but she didn't do anything to further that. She didn't jump at the chance to help me in the rare occurrence of me asking for help when in a disadvantageous situation (mind you, it's not the first time).

In July, the problem had grown to the point that I was asking her when she'd be back, leading off with whether she could help me get my computer fixed. We had a short exchange, during which she never mentioned helping me with my computer, and the content of our exchange had me calling her out that she didn't want to help, so nevermind.

Her then saying she'd help was the most insincere offer to help imaginable. It was so insincere that I can't even call it begrudging. A begrudging offer to help is more sincere than what she offered. A begrudging offer to help is sucking it up and realizing one has to do something.

Her saying she'd help was more like "uh yeah, whatever". I didn't even want her help after that and my former Chinese teacher hooked me up in two days with a repair shop that was half a block away from me. I pass it just about every day.

That was just coincidence. She knows what neighborhood I live in, but she doesn't know my address and didn't know the shop she called was so close to me. But that coincidence seems to underscore how useless my cousin was in this matter. Even if she tried, she couldn't do better than my Chinese teacher did without even trying.

My cousin contacted me two weeks after she said she'd be returning to Taiwan, long after my computer was fixed, giving me her brother's number and saying he was available to help me with my computer. She could have done that from Sedona in June, she didn't need to wait to come back to Taiwan if she wanted to help me.

I'm not close or in contact with her brother, but we're on good terms. There's no awkwardness between us. Even though I posit my relationship with him through her, he's still my cousin and we've never had trouble relating as such. If she sent me the same message in June, I'd have called him.

Needless to say, I blew my cousin off. I was disappointed in her. I wouldn't be surprised if she is disappointed in me for whatever reason. For blowing her off. For just responding, "That's OK, I got it fixed already. Look me up if you're in town". No, we weren't going to meet up before she left.

Mind you, we've disappointed each other in the past and we've always gotten over it. It doesn't directly affect any future contact we have, although I have doubts about whether we will have any future contact.

My funds won't last beyond next May and I doubt she'll visit before then. I have some reserve, but I don't plan to exhaust every penny, and I want to leave a certain sum for my landlord, her uncle, to make up for any expenses resulting from my disappearance, if it comes to that.

Basically I don't hold anything against my cousin for not wanting to help. In this matter, that is. She has been helpful in the past, in matters more convenient for her I suppose. If I profess to hope to cut karmic connections between us, then of course I can't hold anything against her. She did me a favor by not helping by . . . just lessening.

If she eagerly and effectively helped, I would have been happy and satisfied and thought of her in a certain positive, possibly attached, light. As she did it, I realize I can be just kind of "meh" about her despite our past closeness.

Reassessing what happened with my cousin last week.

At the time, to me it sounded like she was saying that I was always there for her, but I never relied on her with my problems, maybe implying that she would have been willing to be available for me and to help me when I needed it.

I realize now that's totally bogus. She was implying no such thing. That was not her point and I was just reading into it, and that is what caused my reaction. Truth to tell, she never made herself available to me. The nature of our relationship is that I was willing to be there when she needed me, but the reciprocal not so much (which is fine).

I forget how it was before she had kids, but how it was after she had kids may have been a magnification of what it was like before. Since she's had kids, I've always been in the periphery, and properly so. In no bizarro world would I think I took priority over anyone's kids. Of course, what it was magnifying from before is another story.

And as her kids grew and matured, she never made any effort to help me have a relationship with them. I never really fit in and they just did what they did and I just floated about doing my own thing. The result is that things have subsequently been awkward and uncomfortable, despite my memories of playing with them when they were younger.

If I was supposedly important to her (I'm not assuming I am), it was never important that her kids knew, remembered or liked me. Not like that was her responsibility. It says more about my personality faults when it comes to kids, but I certainly got no assistance.

Another indication of the nature of our relationship was when we were in their hotel room and her kids were doing their own thing. I was asking questions about what was going on with her cheating husband and what her assessment of things was. I was interested in her situation and wanted to know.

But at some point when there was a lull, she said, "Any more questions?", like I was being intrusive or that all I was doing was asking questions and it was starting to annoy her. The nature of our relationship is that I ask about her situation to know more about her, but she never asks about me.

If you want to get to know someone, you observe, you ask and you listen. She's not interested, and that's just fine. I don't know what I would do if she were interested. But let there be no suggestion that she's ever been interested, much less available, to offer help or support. We talk sometimes, we have good conversations, but she doesn't delve.

(Since our relationship is long-standing and varied, it's not as simple as that. For example I've never liked vinegar, but adopted a taste for it a few years ago. This is not important, this is not something everybody or anybody knows. But we were having dumplings once and I reached for the vinegar and she was surprised. She's not disinterested or non-observant, and she does remember a lot of things about me through the years. Even small things shows she cares.)

But, truth to tell, she never has even been capable of offering help or support. She simply could not handle my issues. In my previous post, that wasn't a trifle when she assumed, practically under her breath, that I would never consider suicide and brushing it away like a mosquito without even asking or clarifying. When it comes to death, that defined her.

She has never handled death well. That's an understatement. No one can ever be blamed for not handling death well. But she gets overwhelmed and falls apart. She becomes unrecognizable. She is so beyond consolable that when her maternal grandmother died, I was completely at a loss how to even approach her.

I was telling her in my duplicitous, upbeat way how I was perfectly happy where I was in life because the whole point of my life was to drive it into a dead end, which is where I am. I was telling her this because it's just the truth. That's about all there is to say about my life and basically I'm just waiting to die, and laughed it off.

My laughing it off was her out. It was a joke and she didn't have to inquire further. If it was me, I wouldn't have let it pass. I would have asked what that meant. What do you mean your life is a dead end? What do you mean you're just waiting to die? I would've annoyed the hell out of me, which is why I'm glad I don't have to be friends with myself.

I would have recognized the dissonance and wanted to know more. And further, she knows about my bank account . . . issues. I'm guessing it was her step-mom, my aunt, who told her what my parents did with the money that was in my account.

She didn't ask how much I have left or if I was worried about it or what I was going to do. I also told her about my probable glaucoma and the blindness that comes with not getting it treated, and she laughed it off all on her own. I'm guessing it was an uncomfortable laugh at not wanting to know too much.

We've known each other a long time. She knows more about me than she's willing to admit, more than she probably wants to know; meaning there's a lot she chooses to ignore. When you've known me as long as she has, there are things that I can't hide, things that just have to come out.

She can feign ignorance about what most people would regard as self-destructive tendencies, but in her it's denial. As much as she's been exposed to through the years, it's ridiculous to look at the whole picture and think, "oh there's nothing wrong there, he'll be fine".

It's not like our relationship is complicated, but there are a lot of threads and tendrils sticking out and going no where. Lots of contradictions and I can't say anything definitive about us without constantly reassessing and taking things back.

I retract things in my last post regarding my cousin. They were immediate impressions and observations, perhaps frustration, but they miss our long-standing past and connection.

She came up to Taipei again without her kids and we got together just she and I, and everything was different. She ended up shaking the foundation of my existence in a way few have done before. She didn't mean to, she wasn't trying to. It's a specific chord that she managed to hit by accident.

She still doesn't know what chord she hit. I don't know if she saw my hand shaking or if she knew I sat back in my chair and froze because if I didn't I wouldn't be able to hold back tears. Or a tear. There may have been only one. But she noticed something and stopped and let me get composed.

We were talking about our relationship through the years and how I'd always been there for her when she needed me. But when her husband admitted he was having an affair, she didn't come to me. She didn't call, she didn't tell me.

I knew that when she finally did tell me, I had asked her why she didn't call me and I remember that she gave me a satisfactory answer, but I couldn't remember it this time and planned to ask her again. Fortunately I didn't need to admit that I forgot what she said before because she brought it up herself. 

She said she didn't want to depend on me as she had in the past. She knew she could always depend on me for support and to be on her side, but she felt that was not what she needed. She needed to get through it without me for her own strength and independence. 

She outlined all the times before when she went through problems and came to me and I was always there for her. During her good times, we fell out of contact because she didn't need me, and I was fine with that. I didn't need to always be in her life. I didn't even go to her wedding. But if she needed me, I was always there.

But she noticed that I never needed her. I never went to her when I was in crisis. She was never there when I needed help. And that was it. She touched something she wasn't supposed to. She noticed. I couldn't articulate what it was, but the conversation stopped and she sensed to stop.

She doesn't know that if anything, my life is one big crisis, basically all the time. She doesn't know how conflicted I am about needing help or accepting help. Even defining what it means to need help or to even want it.

Even just the suggestion of recognizing I may have needed help sent me into emotional shock. You have no idea. You're not supposed to have any idea. But to even indirectly suggest that she might have been someone I might have gone to in times of need was . . . too much.

She placed a loving hand on a wall that is built with bricks of silence and suicide. But what she touched was a breach. No one goes there. No one wants to go there. No one wants me to depend on them. It would be a disaster. And I told her as much.

It occurs to me that she has never seen me vulnerable. This was the first time she ever even scratched the surface, and she got in accidentally through the back door. It's not like I have to be "strong" for her. In our spiritual relationship, we are not only equal but I posit myself below her in many respects. Respect, gratitude, love, intimacy.

But, wow, the things she doesn't know. She doesn't know about suicide; she freely talked about contemplating suicide when she found out about her husband, but in passing she tossed out the assumption that suicide is impossible for me. She assumed it, she didn't even pause and ask, "right?" (I had admitted that in my current life, I'm pretty much just waiting to die).

She doesn't know about the alcoholism, even though every time we meet she mentions that I've been drinking because she can smell it (she's one of those annoying people who can smell alcohol on someone hours and hours later). She doesn't know about the insomnia.

She knows about the past cutting, but she went into denial about it before and that's probably the status quo. I haven't done that in years, but she hasn't followed up or checked that I still do or don't, even as a joke. I understand it's hard. Even Sadie, who had noticed scars and assumed it was cutting, was surprised at the extent of it when she saw it all. I've long stopped trying to hide it.

So Audrey hit an emotional chord. And then she backed off. As she should have as far as I was concerned. She mentioned several times over the rest of the evening how I would hit her emotional chords and keep poking at them. Maybe she was pointing out how I wasn't letting her keep poking. And maybe that's so, but that's what I'm imposing on her. She doesn't want me to depend on her, trust me, it would be ruinous, disaster.

Suicide has been a part of my resonant mental fabric since an early age, and I've learned through the years that I can't trust to tell anything I consider my truth to other people. Layers and layers have been laid so that when my cousin lovingly suggests that maybe I can tell her? Not a chance. Thank you, but no way.

People trying to get to know me, getting under my skin. Remnants of people trying to care. But these are my issues alone. As Audrey tried to grasp what had happened, I even invoked why I ultimately didn't ordain as a monk at Plum Village.

She had previously hijacked my attempt to explain it during her prior visit, but I was finally able to impose it on her this time. One of the reasons I didn't ordain (or more specifically engineered my aspirancy to be questioned), was partly because of one important discussion with the monks about having to deal with issues.

It was suggested to me that personal issues would have to be dealt with as part of the spiritual path. And for me, mine is not a path that anyone else has to deal with whether they want to help or not. If the monks saw I needed help, they would be available to help. Audrey, I'm sure, would be willing to "help" if I asked for it and explained how.

But it's not "help" I want or need. It's the howling abyss I need to face and plunge into willingly and fearlessly to see what it is and put it into my karmic experience.

Walking with her back to Taipei Main Station where she was going to meet her brother to go back to Kaohsiung, she started to flirt with me (she had a glass of plum wine). She thought it was hilarious that when she would hook her arm into mine, I would stiffen and become visibly uncomfortable.

My reactions were purely visceral. I also review them as funny, but . . . different places, different progressions. And I don't see that sort of reticence as permanent. She can flirt, she can be intimate in the future and, well, we have long-standing past and connection.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

My cousin is currently in country. I don't have a lot to say about this. She's one of the last few people with whom I'm in contact. I had been looking forward to her coming up to Taipei for a few days, or even longer as she suggested was possible.

But after initial catching up, we ended up boring each other to death. She came up with her kids and of course they are her priority. I have no problem with them. I've known each of them since they were little mites and adore them in my own way*. But they have no recollection of me and naturally no interest and I admit I have no rapport with children.

In trying to converse with my cousin, there were times I'd start saying something with a point to make, but she would interrupt and hijack it and after that I felt there was no more need to try to make my point. She had her own point; no need to hear mine or for me to impose mine. She's preoccupied with her own situation and struggles with her estranged husband.

Nothing unpleasant, nothing negative, just blah; no connection. No effort or desire to meet up every chance possible.

So yea, I hope I can throw that connection away, which is certainly no revelation. If possible, I hope to cut karmic connections with anyone I've known or met (karmically) in this lifetime, and that has always included her (even if that's even possible or if I can be successful, it likely does nothing with karmic connections with people I haven't met in this lifetime, but still are connected to).

She did help me get my TV remote control issues fixed. Not in the way I hoped, but in the end it had to be done the way it was. But she didn't even try to respect how I wanted to go about it, which says something. Hopefully the past two months without a remote have sufficiently changed my habits so that I don't waste so much time channel surfing.

I don't know if she'll contact me again or whether we'll get together again before she leaves the country, but if she does I'll milk it to see if she can help me get my computer fan replaced. Temperatures in Taiwan are rising going into summer and as my laptop tries to cool itself down, it exacerbates the broken fan issue.

So I no longer consider my cousin a contact, someone with whom I can communicate. Madoka, no. Family, no. I don't expect to hear from my brothers ever again. Maybe my parents might try to call and I might take the call, but that would probably be an accident. If I suspect it's them, I won't take it.

The only person left is the casual acquaintance of my previous Mandarin teacher here in Taipei. We get in contact every several months and meet for coffee or go for a hike. It's just for several superficial hours that I can manage. That's my last human contact in this life.

I've taken cursory looks at my remaining bank account and calculate that I might have enough to make it to sometime next year. Do I want to even if I can? I'm really kind of tired of this all. I'm pretty much done. It's not depression. I don't have a reason (which is the only good reason to abandon a lifetime). But I have nothing left to offer to this life, and this life has nothing left to offer to me.

Eyesight is noticeably declining. I don't know for sure if it's glaucoma, but from computer screen to readings to general environment, it has become a consideration, i.e., not something to take for granted.

* The oldest, Pie (12), has overcome a karmic weight of childhood rage and lashing out, but under my cousin's care and upbringing has become stable and responsible. Gracie (10), my favorite, has always been a delightful, playful pixie and when I hear her speak now reminds me that years ago when she was beginning to talk she had the cutest squeaky voice. Eddie (8), has always resembled the Korean cartoon character Mashimaro and still does. He's a little buddha and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be an incarnation of some past great Tibetan master.

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Since I nominally "cut back on drinking" over a month ago, things have been pretty smooth. Maybe alcohol is, in fact, the root of all my petty grievances. Again, just by the numbers, I haven't cut back that much. Two to four drinks less per day, but still averaging around 12 over the course of the whole day. All I know is that I haven't been feeling like death daily, good enough for me.

I don't know if it's related, but I've since been getting to the gym ahead of my membership expiring in June, and getting out on bike weather permitting. I think I even rode over 200 miles total, a monthly benchmark, in April. Performance is still way down, but so are expectations. Don't have to worry about failure when just doing something is the goal.

Sleeping during the past month was fine until yesterday and today when back-end insomnia returned. I'd stopped keeping track of my sleep before then so I can't say if there was any correlation between drinking and insomnia after cutting back. 

I suspected not. Even when I noticed sleeping well after cutting back on drinking, I still expected insomnia to not be affected and to randomly return, and it has. 

During the month of sleeping well, I haven't noticed any dreams, but with insomnia the dream level is so shallow that memory is more possible. Family still making appearances despite my recent realizations that I have nothing to do with them anymore and no reason to ever visit them again. 

I'm not saying I won't, but if they want me to visit, their overtures have to be pretty convincing. As it seems, nobody gives a rat's ass if I ever visit again, and I'm fine with that. 

I also had another Amina dream. Very unusual at this juncture since that is such a far gone part of my life. In the dream, she was deeply in love with and committed to me, but there were forces (she's Muslim) conspiring to keep us apart that we were willing to go against.

In a nutshell, I used to consider her the love of my life, but all of that and any concept related to romantic love has been negated for me. When you negate the concept of romantic love, no individual stands a chance. As an ex, she now rarely comes to mind and never as anything special, but rather even as a lapse.

I suppose there's some subconscious suggestion involved in her still appearing in my dreams, perhaps that it's nice to feel loved. In this life, being involved with her did have a deep experiential impression upon my feeling being loved. Subconscious notwithstanding, in the waking world now it's not anywhere on my radar of what I could possibly want or pursue.

The insomnia did interrupt my morning sitting. Morning sitting has become conceptually the most important thing to do every day. Sometimes I'd wake up and feel like cancelling, but within a few minutes realizing that is not an option. The physical and psychic toll of insomnia beat that.

I wish there were a way to describe the journey of regular sitting over years and years . . . decades, even if it's just 45-50 minutes every morning. But I can't because the experience changes so much. The only thing to do is to do it, understanding that a daily regimen of meditation is a personal journey. The experience varies, but if regular meditation becomes a bug of one's experience, the journey and what one discovers on it is pretty priceless.

I wonder what it would be like if I had found a teacher in this lifetime. I've eschewed teachers and gone at it on my own. The idea of having a teacher never resonated, maybe because of karma. Some teachings describe the teacher as indispensable, and I accept that. Just not for me in this lifetime; that's just instinct.

I do probably need a teacher, but I'm still figuring out teachings I've received in the past, either in this or previous lives, on my own. When I discover the need for a teacher in a future lifetime, I'll go back to seeking one out. When it becomes pressing, I'll do it.

One cable channel I gained at the turn of New Year is called "Eurosport". It seems to be covering almost every major pro cycling event. In all my years of cycling, I've never been able to watch a broadcast of an actual pro cycling event. At most, if lucky I've been able to catch July weekend, half-hour round-ups of the past week of the Tour de France on network TV.

My feelings are divided about this new access to what pro cycling looks like. I've been cycling for about 15 years, and I'm in my twilight. I don't have the drive I had before or any goals that I want to accomplish. I just go on rides and do what I'm able to do. When I was younger, this access to cycling might have been highly inspirational, I shouldn't wonder.

But even now, it's inspirational in its way. I mentioned earlier that I've recently gotten back on my bike and went immediately to 30 mile rides without easing up to that from shorter, easier rides. And I immediately included rudimentary hills, and when you go up, you have to come down.

On the downhills, I noticed an unusual confidence that I usually have to develop into. I attribute all of this to watching these pro cycling events. You watch the pros do it, and then you get on your bike and you go for it to the best of your abilities and limits. You've dealt with fear and doubt vicariously by watching it done on TV.

However, you watch pro cycling and you can be inspired, but you also witness the cost, i.e., crashes. You can never discount hitting the deck, and in fact you should probably expect it to happen at some point. I hit the deck yesterday. Fortunately, it was pretty minor.

It was a low-speed slip of the front tire as I was riding off a bridge onto a ramp to a riverside bikeway, and there was some goo that had been applied at the connecting point for some reason and it was slippery in those conditions and I went over. Not a mistake, not my fault, but one of those unforeseeable factors that, in fact, you should expect to happen at some point.

The immediate noticeable damage was a scraped and bloodied knee. My shoulder also impacted the ground, but there was no breaking of skin. I was already towards the end of the ride, so I decided to abandon and head home, stopping off at a pharmacy to buy necessary first aid I knew I didn't have at home.

My attitude about it was: I've been inspired to ride by watching pro events, I can't be discouraged by downturns that are expected by riding inspired by watching pro events.

However, I didn't look forward to the pain involved with the injury and tending and dressing it. Somewhere along the line, I've become a wimp about pain.

Which is ironic since I used to be a cutter. Pain wasn't an issue when I sliced through my skin, but in the past few years pain has become something to fear and avoid. Suddenly blood arouses fear of infection. Infection?! When the fuck did I start being concerned about infection?!!

But it happened, I hit the deck and had an open wound. I had to deal with it. And actually, my experience as a cutter had to kick in. It's gonna hurt, fucking deal with it. And that's what I did. I got involved in the pain, prepared to embrace the pain. And it's not that bad.

(Ah, it all comes back to me. It was a meditation. Pain, to a certain extent, is just a sensation. It's basically a judgment to dislike it or call it bad or be averse to it. When pain occurs, it's automatic to think "don't want", but it's possible to mentally examine the pain and the negative reaction to it. The pain is a natural consequence of injury, but the reaction can be controlled).

I was exaggerating to myself the extent of the injury, bemoaning the pain of an open wound and the time it would take to heal. I've been babying the wound.

If this happened when I was younger, I would have just ignored it and let it clot over and scrape off the hardened scabs (I used to love to do that) and let it heal by itself. I would have considered this just a scratch.

You wouldn't see me walking down the street with a gleaming white bandage, a dressed wound which makes it look worse than it is. You'd see the raw open wound or the ugly maroon evidence of a recent scrape, and it wouldn't look like anything. What the fuck happened to me?

Turns out I had written a post with almost the exact themes of my previous post way back in late 2013. Well, at least there were similarities, but there were enough differences that alarm bells didn't go off indicating that I was repeating a pattern.

That's one of the stories of my life, repeating patterns; mostly patterns of indecision and not doing anything. If it's a pattern, it's likely something psychological or pathological. Recognizing that, I have to call myself out and state that I'm not immediately dying. I'm not ruining my health. Feeling so bad that I suspect that I'll likely die in the near future is simply alcohol-related hypochondria.

Alcohol is another pattern. I have a theory which prevents me from complaining about any of the things I complain about: Any complaint I have is probably alcohol related. To put an end to whatever it is I'm kvetching about, all I have to do is cut back on drinking. Since I know that, if I don't voluntarily cut back on drinking, then I can't complain. I'm purposely perpetuating a problem.

As I mentioned, I did cut down on drinking. Continuing to keep track, I haven't cut back all that much. I have days where I have 12 drinks. Average, though, is around 10 drinks, which means I've only been cutting back around 3 drinks per day. But apparently it makes a difference.

Important, though, is distribution. A drinking day starts from after morning sitting and is spread out until I wash my shot glass and brush my teeth and lights out. I think something that has made a difference is not drinking too much too early. Resist early drinking and I'm alright. 

And simultaneously with cutting back on drinking, I've pushed to be more active and I've finally been getting to the gym and on my bike, after having believed I was done with both. It doesn't hurt that spring has arrived after a pretty brutal winter. 

It was a mild winter until later in January. It was only a two month period from late January to late March, but I think there was a record number of days that temperatures in Taipei didn't get out of the 50s. Snowflakes even fell in Taipei proper, perhaps for the first time ever. But I saw them. It wasn't a lot, it wasn't a snowfall, just lone snowflakes falling from the sky on one grey Sunday afternoon. 

And around the time I wrote my last post, little niggling things annoyed me to form a cloud of negativity around my head. The remote control for my cable TV box broke. Then my laptop's cooling fan started fritzing out. Things fall apart. By Chinua Achebe. Totally demoralizing winter. I thought I was dying. That was the hope.

The turn-around from just cutting back drinking has been marked. Even my sleeping has been pretty stable. But all of this is a work in progress. I've been getting to the gym, but my endurance and strength are way down. Pathetic even. I've been getting on my bike and immediately went for 30+ mile rides including modest hill training, but I can feel how weak I am. 

I've been turning the broken TV remote into a positive. I had been letting my daily life schedule be ruled by TV. But without the convenience of the remote, my TV habits have been stymied by the limited control buttons on the cable box, I'm using this as an opportunity to break that habit, even dependency, on the TV distraction.

The computer fan problem is ongoing. If my laptop is on long enough, the fan settles and stops making noise. Some days it functions fine from start-up. But even so, it is ailing and needs replacing. Until I figure out how to get that done, it's a practice in patience and not getting annoyed.

So how am I moving forward? I'm not dying. I'm eating. I'm riding and getting to the gym. Positive, it seems. And yet, positive isn't necessarily good or proper for me. Things are still heading into only one direction. These "positive" developments may force me to be more pro-active towards what is proper for me. Take things into my own hands. And when the bank account hits zero, that's it.

I hit a breaking point last week. I had gotten to a point where my appetite was pretty much gone. Even the littlest amount of nibbling or snacking – just because I felt I had to eat something – put me into a near catatonic nausea for hours. I have found indications on the internet that this isn't inconsistent with symptoms of alcohol-related liver disease.

You know, even if I don't mind dying from some alcohol-related disease, I would prefer not to feel like shit getting there. Let death come, but if it's misery without any certainty of death, nein, I say, nyet. Non, non, mon père.

I decided to cut back on drinking and see what happens.

Keeping track over the past month, I've been drinking between 5 and 6 bottles of liquor per week. Also keeping track of how many drinks per day, I consume between 13 and 16. This is likely my life peak. My consumption has progressively increased over the decades since college. There were points where I couldn't imagine my consumption increasing, but apparently I've always underestimated myself.

Just a few days in of cutting back, I'm consuming less than 10 drinks per day. Ten drinks a day is still considered a serious health risk. Whatever, I just don't want to feel like death daily. I'm not saying this can be maintained. I am aware of how insidious alcoholism is and that this scheme can crumble like a house of cards any day.

My technique is pretty simple. If I don't feel like a drink, I pass. If I don't feel all that good (about it), I pass. If I think about it and think I can pass, I pass. It just creates a longer space of time between drinks and that decreases consumption. On the other hand, at the end of days when I'm winding down and looking towards lights out, I can go three sheets to the wind and easily go over 10 drinks.

Already I feel better. Even without a major resumption of appetite, I have been able to eat without feeling too terrible. And yesterday I finally got out to the gym for the first time since early last summer to test my cardio doing the lightest of exercise. If not hunger, I did feel the need for fuel.

But even pushing back against not feeling like crap, I can't deny the direction things are heading. I still face eventual blindness from glaucoma since I'm still not going for treatment. And nothing's stopping my bank account from sinking lower and lower. And that's always something I've accepted as endgame.

And bottom line, just because I'm not drinking so much that I feel like crap any time I try to eat, I'm still probably drinking enough to make my liver eventually crawl up in a little scar-pocked ball of ineffectual tissue. Yay?

So my father had a stroke recently. And my sister-in-law's mother died recently. Illness, old age, death are naturally occurring sufferings in life, all becoming expected if not inevitable by the big bang of birth.

What attachment do I have left with people over there? My sister-in-law at least told me of her mother's death in a mass email. Nothing after that. I've already summed up the state of my relations with my brothers and mother. There's nothing to say about my father. He might die soon, he might recover. I hope he recovers, but that's a generic sentiment; there's no emotion involved in saying that.

I was being literal when I said that I'm just waiting to die, and they know nothing about my health and they're not asking, nor would I tell. I'm still not carrying my ID with me so if I die outside my apartment, no one's going to notice for months, probably long after the authorities require my John Doe (or whatever is the equivalent here) remains be disposed of.

Personally, I just can't bring myself to care about that or any effect my not caring might have on anyone. Part of me feels this exhibits a severe lack in compassion, but even wanting to develop compassion, this isn't something I can force. It's just not there.

There's no reason for me to ever go back to New Jersey. I can't imagine them asking me to come back for some vacation and my agreeing to it.

In fact, recently I've been wondering why I never pulled a Cindy on my parents. Cindy is my sister-in-law's oldest sister. Cindy is a medical doctor, has a supportive and present husband and two sons who seem to be turning out well in a normative way.

As the story goes, several years ago the mother made a comment on Cindy's weight and something just snapped. Mind you, from what I've seen there is no issue regarding Cindy's weight. But at that point, Cindy cut off all ties and communication with her mother. It was over, done. It wasn't about her weight, that was just a trigger for something long built up between them.

My sister-in-law hasn't always been able to stay out of the cross-fire. Not too long ago, there was some celebration for one of her children and she naively invited both her mother and Cindy, who baked a cake (on top of being a doctor, she's amazing in the kitchen). Apparently she was hoping for some rapprochement without any basis for that hope, and it ended badly. Cindy simply left and my sister-in-law went on her shit list.

When my sister-in-law told me the story, I sided with Cindy. What was she thinking? Since then, I've been open about my support for Cindy. Apparently I understood Cindy in a way that the other sisters struggled with. That aforementioned incident was a matter of respect, and my sister-in-law didn't show respect for either her feelings or experience. Cindy did not go to their mother's funeral.

I, however, had my own relationship with their mother, enough to perform a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead for her after I got the news. It's not a reflection of what I think about their relationship. I don't think anything about their relationship, except that I accept Cindy's subjective view of it. I understand Cindy, but I had my own connection with their mother.

I absolutely don't know anything about the relationship between Cindy and her mother or how my relationship with my parents might be parallel or analogous. One thing I would like to point out is that Cindy did owe her education and career, even possibly any social or family status, to her parents' support.

My parents cannot claim even that. The previous blowout over the phone with my parents was partly about that. I had to spell it out to them that going to law school was the worst thing that ever happened to me. In their ultra-materialistic view of the world, they couldn't even grasp that concept.

I did make a principled decision not to blame them for my going to law school and I emphasized that it was the worst decision I ever made. I don't want that blame towards them in my karma. I want it cut if possible. I take full responsibility for my own life and decisions.

I didn't put any responsibility on them that it was something they pushed on me, even though without them I would never have even thought of going to law school. If they want to accept their role, it's up to them, I couldn't care less whether they do or not. It just is what it is.

The trade off is that whatever decisions I make about my own life now, including ever visiting them again or committing suicide, I really couldn't care less about their opinion or feelings about it. People do what they do, and there are always consequences.

Anyway, with no substantive, meaningful relations with people over there, I also have to let go of my relations with myself and my past. I've left my "relics" over there, but what would they care about any of that?

I guess I previously thought of my parents' house as a repository for my past. All the stuff that meant something to me or represented something of me is there. Photographs, CDs, instruments, books. I always assumed I would die before them and what happens to my stuff is not my issue. If they felt anything about me, they could do what they please with what I left behind.

But with my father's stroke, it becomes clear that they are also nearing death, and something is going to have to be done with my "stuff". And if I outlive them, then people are going to ask me what I want to do with my stuff.

Bottom line, it's all headed for the garbage. No legacy, no future influence. No one would care about what I left behind, or wonder what it meant. The instruments wouldn't be something available to the nieces and nephews if they take up any interest in music. No one there cares about my music collection or the books that were my education about the world. And actually, neither do I.

mix CD 2015, part one

The track list for the first 2015 mix CD fell into place ridiculously quick and easily (it was done by year's end). It still may change depending on how the second CD comes together, but this collection is pretty solid. Same as before, 2015 is set to be a double CD collection of predominantly K-pop girl groups.

Compiling the second CD looks like it's going to be a pain. Out of the candidates for the second CD mix, there are very few obvious segues (actually none), and key tracks like opening and closer or even where a lot of the tracks belong on a mix are elusive. Hey, I put a lot of thought into mix CD track order!

At least all but one track of the first CD has a YouTube video that's likely not going to be deleted (no dead links). I'll upload all the audio tracks to the cloud once the second mix is finished.

2015, part one
1. So Crazy (T-ara)
2. Crazy (4minute)
3. Um Oh Ah Yeh (Mamamoo) (adlib compilation)
4. Heart Attack (AoA)
5. Apple (Ga In (Brown Eyed Girls))
6. Like (CLC) (live full stage camcorder)
7. Celepretty (Park Bo Ram)
8. Phone Number (Tahiti)
9. Wiggle Wiggle (Hello Venus)
10. I'm a Woman, Too (Minah (Girl's Day))
11. Yes or No (Nine Muses)
12. You're Pitiful (Fiestar)
13. Into You (Hyosung (Secret)) (unofficial upload) (2020 new choreography)
14. Sugar Sugar (Laboum)
15. Don't Be Shy (feat Choa (AoA), Iron) (Primary)
16. Seductive (feat Jimin (AoA)) (Kang Min Hee)
17. Red Queen (feat Zion T) (IU)
18. Ah Yeah (EXID)
19. Bang Diggy Bang Bang (MFBTY)
20. Touch (Anda)
21. Broken Doll (Miwoo)
22. Get (feat Beenzino) (Urban Zakapa)
23. To.Mom (feat. Insooni) (Kisum) (unofficial upload)
24. Girl Crush (Mamamoo)

2014 mix CDs

I had another odd dream that may suggest that my brothers and I have been siblings in past lives and that I may have been the eldest. The odd part is that instead of a random, unfamiliar setting, this dream was set in this lifetime during the 80s at my parents' house.

Of course, we had our established places at the dinner table. I came down to the dinner table as me, the youngest, and I sat at my oldest brother's place and started eating. Then realizing I was eating my oldest brother's dinner, I felt guilty, faux pas, and slightly panicked at what I should do.

Also interesting about the dream is that there was only one other dinner at the table, not two others. So even though the setting was familiar, it might have been a past life resonance of just two brothers and I was the older one. I was actually eating the right dinner.

My brothers, either one or the other or both, have been appearing in my dreams frequently as of late. Not necessarily with any specific impression that they have anything to do with past lives. However, just that they've been appearing in my dreams may suggest that these dreams may be past life resonances.

Of course, in this lifetime we have no particular affinity towards each other. We grew up fighting like dogs, and when the fighting stopped, the detente has mostly been only cordial, albeit kind and supportive when called for. Not much that can be called close. There has never been any going out of our way to meet up, nor any interaction just because we like each other. Truth to tell, I don't even know if we do.

It might support the suggestion that there is an aspect of karma that is out of our hands. Karmic attachments aren't necessarily a matter of choice, but a matter of course, driven by cause and effect. And in this case, if we are connected by karma, it's not necessarily positive karma. Negative karma often can connect people to each other. Even as little as habit can connect people by karma. Even if the habit is hating each other.

Other than that, something about my dreams I've started to notice, going back for quite a while, is that a subtle focus of a vast majority of them is a domestic scene; my residence, where I'm living. The characters change, the actual domiciles are totally different, and the action in the dreams vary widely, but on a subtle level, there is a focus on the living quarters.

There's always an awareness of the physical space, the rooms, the layout, the construction, the style, the decor. No opinion about them, just awareness of what they are. I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe it's a reflection of the lack of home in my life.

I've never considered Taiwan home. Nor New Jersey, which if it was "home" when I was younger, it was always a hostile place. No people I consider home. I tried for home in San Francisco, but it was always undermined by dissatisfaction and the impulse towards suicide. 

My father apparently suffered a stroke while vacationing in Paris over the New Year. He was hospitalized for several weeks there, and scant information was relayed stateside until he was able to return to the U.S. in January.

It was my second oldest brother who filled me in on his condition; the brother who apparently decided on the cruise last summer that he wanted nothing to do with any distress I might be undergoing, even if it was right next to him.

Not that I want to involve him in any distress I might encounter, but instead of letting me disavow him of any concern, he made the affirmative point himself that no, he didn't give a shit. I don't know the reason he needed to express that so clearly, I don't know if it was the result of something I did or am that offends him. The facts just stand as they are with no analysis or examination.

So it was a surprise to hear the news from him. Our exchange was brief but substantive. I don't know why he took it upon himself to inform me. Someone may have asked him to. That actually makes more sense.

Usually I don't know about "situations" until after they're resolved and my mother calls to tell me and then it's just a discussion of what had happened. It's never a matter of keeping me in the loop of what's going on. My brother writing to me to "keep me in the loop" is not normal.

Him, January 20:

Sorry I haven’t emailed you in a while but I did want to make sure that you were aware of what is going on with dad.

Around Christmas time he and mom went on a trip to France but on their first day there he fell and wound up in the hospital in Paris. They diagnosed a stroke from bleeding in his brain (likely due to high blood pressure). During that time we didn’t have much information because mom’s phone didn’t work in France (I didn’t even hear about it until a week later when Uncle Aki called me). He was in the hospital for almost three weeks and eventually came back to NJ last Friday. He is still weak on his right side. He could walk on his own but was not very steady and his memory/thinking were still impaired. At one point within the first 24-48hrs of being home, he fell off his bed and they had to get Tom to come over to get him back up – so not very functional.

Last week Mom arranged for him to be admitted to a rehabilitation facility in Saddle Brook but after a few days he was admitted to Hackensack Hospital with a urinary tract infection and low blood pressure (urosepsis probably). Hopefully once the infection is under control and his blood pressure improves he will be able to go back to the rehab facility. Although I hope that he improves with his ability to walk/think, I don’t think that he will ever fully get back to his prior state of functioning – though hopefully I will be wrong.

I’ll let you know if there are any changes in the situation.

Take care,

My response, January 22:

Thanks for the update. Mom usually calls about these things after they've resolved, but this sounds a little more serious. It's possible he'll be alright, taking each issue one step at a time, medical issues first and then rehabilitation. It might take mom "bullying" him to both get better and more importantly to want to get things back to normal. He may have had hints of depression or melancholy in the past regarding his physical state. I've always pushed mom to engage his mind and emphasize things that stimulate him mentally. No idea what those things may be.

I expect mom maybe to be somewhat distressed by all this, but she's also a fighter in these situations. And if she can push him to fight, she's the one to do it. I hope everyone else is staying strong and positive. It's all natural, these things happen. It's in the nature of things. Freaking out and getting stressed or despondent doesn't really help. I've been pushing that on Grace regarding her mom for a while. Nature has a course and takes it. 

I guess you've heard about David Bowie. That hit me unusually harder than I would expect of any number of aging rock stars kicking the bucket. Most of the time, including Glen Frey, it's a little sad intellectually, but more of a send off of a great career and contribution, raise a glass, cheers. But Bowie ate at me for a few days. Now I kind of think that's what he wanted. The way it all unfolded was that he sort of made his death into performance art. He knew he was dying but he kept it a secret, then he works on his swan song final album and releases it on his 69th birthday, and then dies two days later. Art is aesthetic and some of the best is meant to jar people, and he did both! "Bowie releases new surprise album on 69th birthday". Two days later, "Bowie Dead". If you think of it as performance art, I'd expect no less from Bowie.

From him, Feb 5:

Just wanted to give you another update or two...

Dad recovered from his urosepsis and has been back at rehab for about a week. He is apparently doing okay although is still not very verbal - they aren't sure (as per mom) if this is because of damage to the language centers of his brain, cognitive issues, or that he is depressed. I think it will be a long road to recovery with persistent limitations. I'm trying to ease mom into the idea that dad will probably not fully recover but still let her have hope that he will improve.

And on another sad note, I don't know if you heard from Grace, but her mother passed away on Tuesday in hospice. She never really recovered from her heart surgery and subsequent multiple hospitalizations for various things. She had recently started dialysis for renal failure and had been progressively dwindling. In the end, she was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and the family decided against continued aggressive medical care. Her funeral is going to be this Saturday.

And my last, Feb 7:

I suppose the tricky part is to "ease mom into the idea that dad will probably not fully recover but still let her have hope he will improve", but that's probably also the best and wisest approach to take. It's the hardest thing to get people to face that most obvious aspect of life, which is that nature takes its course (once it's accepted and understood, it becomes one of the most comforting aspects). 

On the other hand, I think mom isn't oblivious or hoping against hope, and realizes what his age means and what these medical problems mean. She certainly isn't stupid and has shown great adaptability and even wisdom in recent years (in contrast, as smart as dad is, I haven't seen much evidence of either adaptability or wisdom; more stubbornness and selfishness (that's not judgment, just observation)). Mom may just be afraid of any changes and how she's going to get through it. I still think he can improve and be functional, but no one can be certain or over-optimistic.

The verbal issues may be a logical result of the stroke and any cognitive damage. It's positive that he recovered from urosepsis and is back in rehab. Whether the verbal impairment is medical or psychological is anybody's guess. Both should be addressed. I'm sure the medical aspect is, but for the mental aspect, stimulation should be targeted; things that interest him mentally. This may be my own personal projection, but his personal story and recording it might be something to engage him mentally. Mom says he's not interested in his past, but I don't know. It may be a matter of how and who. But if mom's right, so be it.

Grace has kept me in the loop about her mother, and as she was professed Buddhist, I've offered to offer up a ritual afterlife prayer recitation for her (Tibetan Book of the Dead). It isn't lost on me that I can't imagine what Grace and Peggy must be going through emotionally, nor that we might need to be preparing ourselves about dad, regardless of what we are hoping for him. I think I've noticed human mortality has been an interest of yours, and the death experience is something I've gone to lengths to familiarize myself with, but I also know that there's no bracing or preparing for it. When the news comes, it's a sucker punch in the gut. 

I've never quite understood why these topics are so hard to broach. I remember when grandfather got sick a few months after grandmother died in 1993, my first thought was "this is it, he's about to die". So I was shocked when I asked mom whether they would be going to Taiwan and she said no and that he'd be alright. Then of course he died and she wasn't there. That was the whole of our interaction, by the way, as we weren't exactly on conversational terms back then. If our interactions were like they are now, I would have spelled it out just like that, "Go, he's about to die!"

Anyway, thanks for handling whatever you can for them. Tom must be taking the brunt of it, but like I said, I usually only find out about things after mom contacts me after things have settled one way or another. I can't think of a single instance I've contacted mom; that's just how it's always been, the nature and symbol of our relationship. That said, I'll send Tom an email in the next few days and check up on him.

You're probably hearing news about the earthquake in Tainan. It was bad because it was so shallow, but didn't affect Taipei at all and I haven't heard of any impact on Kaohsiung. 

Monday is the start of Lunar New Year, are the kids' schools recognizing it like before? I hear it's the year the of fire-breathing monkey. Tough image to get out of my head.

My mother did call shortly after. It would make sense that she might have asked my brother to email me. It was so by the time we talked, I already knew. It wasn't breaking news, but just something to discuss.

Since that conversation, she called again and got a bug in her about my future, and the one thing that will set me off is if she starts suggesting things about my future. She has simply, as a parent, lost any right to make any suggestion about my future. The call ended badly and I won't be taking her calls for a while. Unless my father dies, then I'll take a call.

I hadn't heard anything from my oldest brother, the one whose mother-in-law died. He also lives in the same town as my parents, so I presumed he was in the thick of two emotional shit storms, on top of raising four kids and maintaining his medical practice.

As my birthday approached, I presumed he'd send me an email as he always does, but I thought I'd take any weight off whether to send a happy or concerned email by sending a preemptive email letting him know I knew what was going on and empathizing with his position. He did send back a message on my birthday, but it was the email equivalent of wet, cold spaghetti. In my hands, no gravy.

My email was to give him space to let me know his space without having to go through what I already knew, and his response was basically "meh". I don't know any other way to put it:

Happy Birthday,

Dad's stroke may be slowly improving or it might be mom's wishful thinking. It's hard to say. I'm not as optimistic as mom. We'll see. Next vacation won't be too far away. Grace is taking things better than Tessa. Hope all is well. Hope to see you later this year.
T

These are the bonds of this family. I'm affixing a tag of "negativity" to this post, but even though it may seem I'm being negative, I don't feel it that way. It's just the way it is. Maybe negative is unfortunately "just the way it is", but I have to let it be as it is.

I see no way to affect change, nor feel any impetus to do so. What do I have to do with any of these people?

As far as I'm concerned, I'm at the end of my life. I'm just waiting to die. I'm waiting to go blind from glaucoma or waiting for my bank account to run out or waiting for my hair to fall out or waiting for liver failure from years of drinking that now equates to just about drinking a bottle a day. Of liquor I mean, not beer.

Last year had that hilarious incident whereby I came across a teaching that implied my parents get credit for supporting a spiritual aspirant's endeavors by dumping all that money in my bank account. That was the only reason I agreed to go on that cruise.

Then between giving them credit and the actual cruise, they took the money back. I still haven't calculated how much I have left to live on, but it's immediately finite. So exactly what credit do they get? What do I owe them? Easily nothing. And I don't expect to go back to visit them this year or ever at all. Why would I? The circumstances will have to be very specific.

I certainly don't owe any of them continuing to live my life. OK, that earns the negativity tag, lol!

I guess I have written quite a bit about the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead. So much so that sometimes I'll think of a new idea during a recitation only to find that I've thought about it before and already written about it.

Something that may really be new is an idea that when doing a recitation, whatever is being recited wouldn't be "heard" in the death betweens like a person sitting next to you hearing you read something. Already I've come across suggestions that in the betweens there aren't barriers of form or language.

Traditionally in Tibet, as I understand, it was ideal if a trained lama did the recitation by the deceased's bedside and it would be recited in Tibetan. But as Tibetan teachings have spread beyond Tibet, ironically spurred by the Red China invasion of Tibet and the ongoing destruction of its culture, there has been recognition that the subtleties of the teachings go beyond "form or language".

Traditionally, these are things that may not have necessarily been considered. But with the spread of Tibetan teachings it's more recognized that the clarity of consciousness in the death betweens transcends language. Language understanding is a trait of concrete human existence, but not of the subtle existence in the betweens as a so-called mental body. And this interpretation is not sourced in the dispersion of Tibetan teachings, but in the work itself.

I'm thinking it's not a matter of language at all. It's not that a recitation can be performed in English and those words can be understood in whatever language the deceased knew. It's not the words that a between being "hears", but impressions, even intentions. It's a mental or emotional communication that is sent as human language, but is "heard" as energy of the intention of the words, not the literal translation of the words.

I don't know what I'm sending out with a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead into an unknown dimension, it might be nothing, it might be fantasy, it might be fiction; or it might just redeem a person that we call a soul.

This idea came about from various specific descriptions of what a between-being may be experiencing, but it's actually a very lightly veiled example of a teaching. I would be wondering why a passage was being presented in this very specific way, clearly a basic teaching.

That led me to think it's not the words that necessarily matter, but reciting the words is sending the teaching as emotion or energy into the unknown and hoping it resonates and leads to something positive. The constant repetition of the deceased's name may attract the consciousness to the recitation, but what's being recited may be received as the deceased's own consciousness, instinct, impression or awareness.

I think maybe the work was composed in a certain culture, whereby the intent was that practitioners could be exposed to the images and guidance as part of practice, and after death when the recitation is done, they would be open to the guidance and recognize the images and remember the teachings and attain liberation.

I think maybe what makes this a sacred work is the template of guidance in the betweens. It doesn't matter that it uses Buddhist/Hindu imagery. If the book is studied and meditated upon, the insights come through and a recitation of it for a between-being may be of benefit.

My sister-in-law's mother died early this month. I've been reciting the Tibetan Book of the Dead (Natural Liberation Through Hearing) for her. It's been almost a year and a half since I've done a recitation, and that's kinda too long.

Not a big deal, but I feel I "got it wrong" by "starting too late". There are preliminary portions that probably should be begun immediately, and there are various prayers that are suggested in the book for this purpose. Which ones get used depends upon the reciter and the deceased. That's not an official teaching, just going on instinct.

I also like to include a description of the "dissolution of elements" that supposedly occurs during the death point between (the first of three death betweens). I'm not sure why it's not included in the Liberation Through Hearing recitation. It seems important.

The description is in a chapter entitled "Signs of Death", which I don't read because it seems heavily based on superstition in light of modern medical perspectives. The difference in the superstition aspect of that chapter and the entire book is that modern medicine has little insight into the after-death experience itself.

There's also a good general point in time to get into the thick of the recitation, about 3-4 days after death. That's in the book and I have no instinct on that matter. When I say maybe there is no real "getting it wrong" or "starting too late", it's because those are just . . . concepts.

The recitation itself is a matter of faith. Being of scientific bent, I'm not putting any great meaning into the recitation. Maybe it's something, maybe it's not. But whatever is occurring to a person after death according to Tibetan Buddhism (science has nothing), it's still something very amorphous and inexact and the living's strictures on time may not apply. Whether someone is receptive to someone doing a recitation on their behalf is probably a shot in the dark. But if there is even a moment of recognition, the benefits may be great, so might as well.

Something different about this recitation is that it's for someone I actually knew and who knew me, and someone who professed herself as being Buddhist and knew at one point I was considering becoming a monk.

Perhaps at a theoretical worst, she won't recognize the recitation, but will be reborn open to it in her next life. Maybe that's what happened to me (or maybe I was well-versed in it, I don't have to be modest about what I can't know).

The last time I read through it, I recognized parts that seemed out of place. I had taken on an analytical perspective that some human being, a person, compiled this work in a social, cultural, historical context and so it is fair game to be analyzed and critiqued.

So I am reading through the work and rearranging portions to make more chronological sense to me. I'm keeping an eye on things that don't make sense where they are, and even written in a tense that doesn't make sense where it is. If something feels wrong or is facially inconsistent, it may have been human error.

I'm also going through both translations I have with me here. I'm only using the 2005 Gyurme Dorje translation for the recitation. The earlier Robert Thurman translation was the first one I was exposed to, and I think I did read/study it fairly intently and got a lot of great ideas from it.

The 2005 complete translation is clearly the superior translation. I think Robert Thurman was doing something specific in his translation. It's more academic and ecumenical and still a very valuable piece of scholarship that would interest people who might not necessarily get hooked by the 2005 translation.

There are various tweaks in the recitation I put in of my own. Like terminology for the six classes of beings. There is a class that Thurman calls "titans" and the 2005 translation calls "anti-gods", but those terms don't quite describe anything. My own term is "aggressive gods", meaning they are elevated beings, but they are driven by strong ambition and desire for power (politicians, military leaders, CEOs).

And another class that Thurman calls "pretans" and the 2005 calls "anguished spirits"; neither of those are descriptively as helpful as "hungry ghosts". Thurman does explain why he doesn't like to call them ghosts, because ghosts are a completely different thing, but I think it captures the concept well. Beings who have insatiable hungers for something they constantly pursue in futility. I believe my parents, or at least my mother was born in this realm. Her insatiable hunger is for money and material wealth. Even in retirement, she's still chasing how to get more out of what she has.

The 2005 translation also assumes only Buddhists are reading the book because it mentions things like the "three precious jewels" and the "six syllables" without clarifying that they are the Buddha, the dharma and the sangha; and om mani padme hum, respectively.

I suppose the important thing is that it's not taboo to change things around. It's a sacred work, but not in the Western sense that it's perfect and can't be messed with (which to me is more an imposition of power). With something so varied, important and personal as human experience, spirituality should be flexible and accommodating.

I had a second dream about my brothers and I having been siblings before in a past life. The first dream was a while ago, I can't remember when or whether I mentioned it, but in that dream, I felt I was the oldest and had the most power, and may not have been particularly liked because of that.

The dream I had this morning was more impressionistic. It required post-wakem interpretation to think it had anything to do with a past life. What was happening in the dream was more about how I was feeling, rather than any visuals.

My interpretation was that I was very sick, possibly about to die. I was on medication. Walking was very difficult and precarious. And I was on a ventilator.

The on medication part I got from an early part of the dream where I was floating. This part may have been a semi-conscious dream that I had some control of and was struggling not to come out of. Actually, it may have started as a full dream.

The dream started in what felt like San Francisco, Richmond District, and might have involved a police car chase coming right off the Golden Gate Bridge and turning left. It didn't look like any of that (except the left turn), it just felt like that.

And there wasn't any real chase, it was rushing down a straight, grey, concrete, fluorescent-lit industrial corridor that felt like Clement or California Street, one of those long streets that run the length of the Richmond.

I was hanging off the side of the car, or it may have been a medical cart, hoping not to get slammed against the wall or by the swinging doors it was crashing through. When it stopped, that's when the semi-conscious floating part began, me trying to navigate back up through the corridor without waking up.

The next part was full dream. There was an image, perhaps a still image, of me and my brothers as children sitting in the back seat of our parents' car back in the 70s. There was some panning and recognition of who would be who of these children. The outside of the car looked like New York City.

The dream then switched to like a construction or demolition site (a pile of rubble) that was in the side of a building. It wasn't a restricted site as other people were making their way through and there were construction workers. My brothers and I were navigating our way through, I was having difficulty with my footing. This is the metaphor of a medical patient having difficulty walking.

My brothers were simultaneously helping me and getting frustrated at my inability. I remember a huge gloop of snot dripping out of my nose and trying to maintain my dignity. That's the first suggestion that I was ill.

The dream ended with me noticing a package of tissue on some rubble and trying to get a tissue to wipe my nose, but for some reason I couldn't do it. I kept getting thwarted or the tissue turned into something else and I actually got frustrated. All through this later part of the dream, and this was something I noticed semi-consciously, that my breathing was heavily labored and loud like trying to breathe through mucous, and that's where I get the ventilator part from.

When I woke up, I could still hear that raspy, labored breathing.

It's all interpretation. None of the imagery was about sickness, but after I woke up, that's the first thing that came to mind and that's how I put it together and tied it to my previous dream that suggested that my brothers and I were siblings in a past life.