Several years ago I wondered whether or not I really did have a teacher, a "guru", somewhere out there that I wasn't pursuing in this lifetime as a matter of personal (possibly karmic) choice. So I did what any diligent and hardcore committed practitioner would do and started sending out mental signals to the universe asking whether or not I really did have a teacher, a "guru", somewhere out there for when I was ready to have a teacher again in some future lifetime. 

I didn't really expect any kind of sign or "response", skepticism prevailing, but just a little while later, I think maybe within the month, I got an email from an old college acquaintance I hadn't heard from in years saying she had a flash of intuition that she "needed" to contact me and tell me about her teacher; the Zen teacher she's found in this lifetime (I had no idea that she ended up on the Zen path).

I interpreted that as a response from the universe. Not necessarily that her teacher was my teacher (maybe so, but I still wasn't ready to pursue it), but that's how it would happen. When I was ready for a teacher again, it would just come my way by happenstance. Don't worry about it, it'll happen when I'm ready in a future lifetime (with chronic suicidal ideation the "future" is never in this lifetime). I haven't thought about it since. 

Not having thought about it since, I never gave thought about what type of teacher or what characteristics I would look for in a teacher, what criteria would make me accept a teacher. I guess I just thought it would come down to instinct and I think that was right, the best approach for me.

On February 5, I watched a video that showed up on my YouTube front page by a guru named Sadhguru. I know that was the date because I posted it on Facebook to mark the date I first came across his videos. It was just instinct, something about him, that I thought I should mark the occasion. I still don't know why he stood out that I should click on his video, I generally don't click on any guru-looking video that shows up on my page. 

I've watched a bunch, dozens, of his videos since then (many are in the quickly watchable 10-20 minute range). I don't agree with everything he says, but what's the point of a teacher if you agree with everything he or she says? Might as well be your own guru then (maybe my biggest problem has been that I've been acting like my own guru then). But it's not like I disagree with anything he says, at worst I'm skeptical but still open. Or I just don't know. 

Just about all of his videos, posted and re-posted across various sites (watch one video and recommendations abound thereafter), make me ponder something specific. That's unlike other dharma talks that I'll sometimes listen to just to have the words enter my ears and paying attention is optional. However, the titles indicate such a range of issues that some I'm just not interested in. He covers Buddhism and Gautama just as a small part of larger Hindu spiritual cosmology, perhaps befitting someone truly enlightened and therefore possibly unlimited in range. Nothing he says contradicts anything in Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan iconography even affirms the wider view as represented in Hinduism. The Buddha, Gautama, is represented as the sage of the human realm. 

One thing I like about him are his "twists" on some points. Sort of like plot twists in movies when you realize something you thought was one thing turns out to be something else. And he makes things on the spiritual path seem so simple! And that feeling carries away from his talks, stop making things so complicated, it's really quite simple! Things he says are confounding but in a good way; enlightening in a way of feeling lighter after listening to him. 

When Luyen (pronounced "Lynn", should rhyme with Nguyen) contacted me several years ago, the universe may have been showing me how it would happen when I was ready for a teacher again. I don't think it matters that in a future lifetime I wouldn't recall any particular incidents from this lifetime. I think that's the sort of thing that can carry over as karmic seeds and germinate either as instinct or in response to encouraging conditions or stimuli (I certainly don't know how much of my instinct or experience in this lifetime is the result of karmic seeds from things that occurred in past lifetimes, i.e., to someone else). And coming across Sadhguru so close to what is looking more and more to be the end of my life may be the universe giving me confidence in recognizing a qualified and worthy teacher. 

I even came across a video covering people like me with a dubious relationship with the guru concept and sums up a lot of what I've been struggling with (and like chronic suicidal ideation I'm neither alone nor unique):

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One last dip into winter, nothing unusual. Dreary, rainy, highs in the low 60s (cold for the sub-tropics); if it was like this for a week or more in January or February, it would be winter in all its miserable glory. But after a smoggy but sun-speckled week in the 70s and 80s and later this week rebounding in that direction, this is just a chilly aberration. Refreshing even. As days hint at warm and muggy, nights become indecisive regarding getting under the covers or laying on top, often starting above and then slipping under as the night progresses. These may be the last days of comfortable diving warm and snuggly under the comforter for the night. 

I want my cold water shower certification, I think I've earned it. I'm practically jaded about getting under a cold water shower now. Granted half my showers are still with stolen hot water remnants from my neighbor and the cold half of showers aren't nearly as bad with winter coming to an end. I no longer jump into them screaming like a girl and rush like a flailing cat to get out. I be like yo! I'm bad, just chillin' under cold water. I don't suppose the Boy Scouts have a cold water shower badge. I do suppose we could guess how it would be certified and by whom, those scoutmasting letches. Not Boy Scouts. Unemployed Middle-Age Scouts? Of America.

I had a reoccurrence of the knee problem I had a few months ago, suggesting it may be something chronic. It's a bad enough pain that if I had a longer term outlook on life I'd probably get it checked out medically. I even looked up the kind of doctor I'd probably want to see (骨科 (gu⠂ke) orthopedic) and started keeping an eye out for clinics in my neighborhood with those words, but stopped not seeing any and realizing I don't have a long-term outlook. I was just checking out of habit. If my teeth start bothering me my neighborhood seems to be the epicenter for dentists (牙醫). 

It didn't really bother me this time, knowing it would go away. It was that doubt before that had me freaking out, wondering if it was something permanent. Looking back, why would I think that? I dunno, paranoid pessimism perhaps. This time I even kept track of it for the data. I felt it start to stiffen late Tuesday. Wednesday I couldn't bend my knee enough to even ride my bike, lord knows I tried. Wednesday to Saturday were maximum Advil days (no more than 6 per 24-hour period). Sunday I only took Advil in the morning and after that it still hurt, but the agony requiring Advil was over. This morning I was finally able to force my leg into my usual half-lotus position for sitting (instead of with my left leg hanging off the edge) and now I have full-range of motion with only a very tolerable, lingering pain.

strange parents

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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follow-ups

. . . I had braced myself for a long, cold, bitter winter with actually little evidence or suggestion by meteorologists to justify that expectation. I was just pessimistically bracing for the worst, hoping for better and fortunately after those two cold blasts early in January, at least one of which was Siberian, it hasn't been that bad, spasiba. Daytime highs, which are my standard gauge of the days in general, have been up and down but never as cold and with plenty on the mild side. I looked back at what I'd written about previous winters and this year is no where near as bad as Taipei could get. My nerves and psyche would be shredded catatonic if it was like one of those winters, especially with no hot water. 

. . . I've adapted alright to no hot water, helped by no sustained cold winter temperatures. It's still not pleasant and I still bifurcate my showers, even when I can't siphon hot water from my neighbor, to minimize being under cold water at any one time. When I do tap his hot water, I try minimizing any effect on his showers by waiting until I hear his water turn off. I can still get sufficient hot water for my needs for a short while afterwards. Hopefully there is zero effect on his showers and therefore no reason for him to do anything about it. Interdependence in action perhaps as I'm being considerate towards him but for selfish reasons.

. . . That fine line between "showing restraint" and resisting alcohol consumption became a slippery slope of itself towards resistance and I don't think I've gotten too nutty about it. It's no great achievement, just preferring to lean towards not drinking when it comes to mind. But I'm not that strict about resistance and alcohol levels in bottles still steadily decrease, just not as fast. Under my new regimen of "can I say no to this?" I'm drinking maybe half what I was. It's probably more complicated than that. The effect on my gut was incredibly quick, though, improvement within days and I don't think it just happened out of coincidence. This is attributable to the alcohol drop-off. Do I feel any different otherwise? Not really. Can I fall back into it? Easily, I'm not fooling myself about that. 

. . . I'm willing to backtrack a bit on my disparaging suggestion regarding the mental health industry and their inability to treat something like "chronic suicidal ideation". My inability to even imagine how they would go about treating it is probably more indicative of my lack of imagination (and professional education and training) than their ability to target strategies for treatment for whatever comes their way. 

. . . Still nary a thought of going to the bank. I don't know if I've gone past the point of no return, whereby if I went to the bank today funds would not come through before current remaining funds ran out. I don't care, I'm not thinking about it. I'm assuming I'm past the point. I've been bracing myself mentally and conditioning myself to conjure and maintain cognitive dissonance whenever I feel comfortable on the day-to-day conveyor belt of habit and routine: This is not going to last, everything must and will change. Many elements in my surrounding life have already shaken up senses of perpetual comfort, now it's just me that I have to work on and just keep myself off-balance instead of being complacent about anything. With the external world I keep adapting and coping with disturbances and changes, but internally I have to shake things up myself and there is no adapting or coping, just acceptance. 

Koji's "WTF? I've Got Chronic Suicidal Ideation?" Blog

A couple of posts ago I mentioned I wouldn't be willing to go through even John's mitigated cancer treatment if I were in his shoes, and wondered if there might be anyone who wouldn't be willing to go through my life if in my shoes whereby my supposed suicidal leanings were treated as purely mental health issues. By total coincidence, I found a blog soon after by someone who seems to have a similar baseline regarding suicide and has dealt with it by taking the mental health/psychiatric route. 

Her blog description mentions something called "chronic suicidal ideation" which raised my eyebrows. I never heard of that and did a search to see if that's an actual thing and the jury's still out on that. It never even occurred to me that there might be a clinical term for how I am, and I have to admit that does pretty much describe it. It's just a fancy-schmancy term for "thinking about suicide or committing suicide often, if not all the time", and to me the implication is that it's just there as a condition. In contrast, suicidal ideation that is not chronic is triggered by something, certain conditions in a person's life. 

However, I don't think that's the way the mental health profession sees it. It's not an independent condition that's "just there", that developed as its own pathology, rather it's a symptom of something else, usually depression among other possibilities. So they treat the patient for depression and impress upon the patient as being depressed and if the depression is treated successfully, then the symptom of suicidal ideation will go away. And truth to tell, I can't even imagine how "chronic suicidal ideation" could be treated otherwise, so I'm not faulting the mental health profession. 

That being the case, whatever "chronic suicidal ideation" is clinically would have little to do with me and vice versa since I'm not convinced I'm depressed. I amuse myself with the scenario of mental health professionals trying to convince me I'm depressed because I think of suicide or committing suicide often, if not all the time. That's just the way they think; not wanting to live means you're depressed full stop period enter send like subscribe and leave a comment. Depressed doesn't necessarily mean suicidal, but not wanting to live your life (under any horrific condition) automatically means you're depressed, no separation. John actually covers the absurdity of the mental health profession regarding "dying with dignity" suicide laws and depression.

Not quite so amusing is this blogger who thought of suicide and identified with it at the tender young age of five before all the psychological ramifications could be understood or appreciated from a developmental point of view. I don't know yet what happened after that realization, but perhaps as she got older she was bothered by the thoughts and sought psychiatric counsel who promptly pidgin-holed her as depressed, treated her as depressed, thereby convincing her she was depressed. I have to be careful not to sound too critical or cynical because maybe she is clinically depressed. If an alternative was to turn out like me, I can't really say I'm in favor of that either (except for myself, of course). 

I'm only at the start of this person's blog so I only have a slice, a myopic glimpse of 10+ years of her blogging and I'm not saying anything beyond this little that I've read. Trying to be as safe and objective as possible, no judgments, at the beginning of the blog (2009) among the other things happening in her life: 1) she's seeing a psychiatrist; 2) she regularly takes meds which are constantly being tweaked and dosages adjusted; 3) she sees herself and identifies as mentally ill. She's crazy, and sometimes I have to remind myself to read her through that filter which I hope is not patronizing or condescending. 

I'm not going to comment or suggest anything regarding her condition possibly having been perpetuated by the mental health profession telling her how she should view herself. Oh whoops, I just did. But really I'm not drawing any conclusions and, again, maybe the mental health professionals are right in how to treat her. 

I'm just glad I wasn't shunted into the mental health juggernaut. I'll take my chronic suicidal ideation as it is without the help and hope of recovery through psychoanalysis and a cocktail of big pharma prescription drugs that psychiatrists are probably paid to push, thank you. Help, sure I'm hypothetically open to "help" if chronic suicidal ideation is addressed as the primary condition, but otherwise I'm not willing to submit to their normative formulations that depression has anything to do with it. They'd probably tell me to go back to the monastery then! Fair 'nuff. That's probably the only advice from the psychiatric profession that I'd take seriously.

I wasn't at all serious when I rhetorically pondered someone not willing to go through a lifelong fixation with suicide, implying they would've committed suicide already. And it really was coincidence that I found this person's blog. I'm still trying to make my way through it, but it's a bit of a slog for various reasons. It did, however, answer my rhetorical question. She took the psychiatric path treating chronic suicidal ideation as a purely mental health issue and she didn't commit suicide. She accepted being depressed and being prescribed drugs to deal with it. So is it also safe to say . . . she wants to live? She constantly thinks about suicide, but also wants to live? Or is that me? That's rhetorical, too, since if I wanted to live doesn't matter anymore at this point and I'm fine with that. On the other hand, there still may be people who were not willing to put up with it and did check out early, and not surprisingly there's no testimonial blog to be found. 

I'm trying a new approach to alcohol. For the past three and a half years, I've drunk the same way every day in the name of "cutting back" at the time. I allowed for one-third of a bottle per day (measured out, basically a ration), two beers, and some dipping into reserve bottles after the third of a bottle was done.

The drinking schedule would begin around 10 or 11 at night enjoying a beer, followed by the third of a bottle of gin or vodka. I'd pour into a shot glass and sip it by halves or thirds. By 2 a.m. lights out, I like to have left at least a shot in the bottle for the next day and the satisfaction of showing restraint in not finishing off the ration. The next morning I could have a beer around 11 or noon and then finish the third of a bottle. After that I could dip into reserve bottles (scotch), which would be restricted by my leaving for the afternoon around 1:30 p.m. That would be maybe 2 or 3 shots at most. 

But something I noticed recently was that this strict rationing had also become a license, encouragement even, to drink. Sometimes I'd get to the times when I usually start drinking and I'd start drinking because it was time I could start drinking, not because I necessarily wanted or had the impulse to. And of course once started, it's down the slippery slope. You could sooner stop a fat German boy in lederhosen after shoving strudel in his face or Alice going down the rabbit hole after taking a tab of acid.

So the new approach is if I've been getting along just fine through my night or morning without even thinking about alcohol, don't start just because I can. If I'm fine without, just stay fine until it does beckon and I "really want it". I'm not sure what that means yet. I think if I notice I'm actively resisting, that means I really want it, and I can just go ahead. Resisting like that just creates a mental complex and who needs that? I don't need another thing to be nutty about. It's a fine line between resisting and "showing restraint". 

I wonder about my motivation for doing this and whether it has anything to do with my funds imminently running out, ostensibly ending my life as planned. I wouldn't put it past my thinly-veiled subconscious. Maybe the less I drink, the less I spend money thereby adding a few weeks? I dunno, it's possible but I hope it's not that crass or desperate. I hope I don't hang on spending every penny before I realize what I have to do in accordance with how I've set my life up. It may come down to that knowing me, but I hope not. There is an even worse scenario (accounted in a Buddhist fable) whereby I run out of money and still can't do it but that's another story, nevermind. 

Another possible subconscious motivation is accepting that alcohol has decidedly failed to kill me (unlike before where it failed to kill me but there's still hope!), so . . . may as well cut down even further? That sounds weaker than the money theory. If the drinking schedule isn't making me miserable and is manageable, why change it? Or maybe I'm testing mindfulness practice as a tool for tackling alcoholism? Sorry, "alcohol use disorder" I think they're calling it these days, good grief (*insert facepalm emoji*). I've always held the belief that I could stop drinking if I wanted to just through mindfulness practice. But no, if this were the case it wouldn't be a subconscious motivation but a conscious decision. 

Actually that "why change it?" question may be more onto something. And that's the wrong question, rather why not change it? If I'm really facing the end of my life with the end of finances within a few months, everything's changing! My conscious mind wants to maintain normality and keep the day-to-day conveyor belt going, but that's a reality that is untenable. My subconscious mind (i.e., the "universe") may be telling me to shake things up and get rid of ideas of normalcy and stability for my own good. That does make a lot more sense. It's not just alcohol, but other things in my habits and routine and even external life and health have been getting shook lately and it's always off-putting or annoying and requires adjustment. I don't like it, and that's the point. I don't like it when the conveyor belt gets disrupted, but that's where a wrench needs to be thrown.

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.

There's nothing like an infirmity to make you feel old, but those kinds of reminders are simply natural occurrences that come with age and everyone eventually experiences them. More relevant to my situation is that there's nothing like an infirmity to disrupt the conveyor belt of routine that gets me from day to habit-defined day. 

What I think is sciatica in my right leg has been behaving as expected, sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's a low-grade dull pain, sometimes it's an exhausting, distracting sharp pain. Sometimes it feels like a nut, sometimes it don't. It's annoying, but in terms of degree of pain it's nothing compared to whatever's going on with my left knee, often overshadowed by it. The knee will hurt so much that sometimes I'd look to see if my right leg hurts and with a bit of concentrating, yup, there it is. 

Mind you, these are two different pains in either leg, making for two different types of limp if they occurred individually. When the pain in my right leg is just dull, that just slows me down. When it's sharp it causes a severe limp. The knee is mostly problematic when I have to bend it, so on stairs or anything even slightly uneven. At first it was so bad that in getting dressed I had to lay out pants on the bed and then slide and worm my way into them. When the pain in both legs peak at the same time, I avoid walking in public lest I look like a total spaz or a drunk on a pirate ship in a storm. 

The knee is very slowly improving with help from upping the dosage of Advil. When I said before that Advil had no effect, I was taking it how I usually take it: one pill and expecting whatever pain to go away. It finally occurred to me to up the dosage to two pills three times a day, trying not to go over the bottle recommended do-not-exceed-6-pills-in-24-hours-unless-directed-by-a-doctor. 

I still have a lot of ouch, my knee doesn't bend that way moments. Only it's supposed to bend that way, that's the purpose of the knee otherwise what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Advil dulls the pain enough to improve range of motion and allows me to ride a bike. Oh, and by the way I wasn't simply being a total geek by setting the seat on my common street bike high for more power. After the stem broke (because the seat was set so high) and I stuck the seat post directly into the stem tube, placing it at the lowest possible position, it was very obvious how little power there is in not being able to extend my legs. Now, an after-effect of the stem breaking and riding a bike with the seat at the lowest position (low rider?) is that I have to bend my knee more than if the seat were set high, and even with Advil I ride aware that there is pain if I bend it too much. But at least I can do it.

I'll still be optimistic and take improvement for what it is. Improvement hints this is something that will go away by itself. Even though its cause is a mystery, making it difficult to gauge the outcome, it's probably, hopefully, not a permanent or chronic condition like gout. I'm very glad that when I asked my sister-in-law to send over a bottle of Advil a couple years ago she unexpectedly sent a jumbo-sized bottle! At the time I didn't think I'd ever go through that much Advil, now I'm hoping it's enough. 

All this griping makes me feel like such a hypochondriac. I write about physical or physiological ailments like they're some big production, but then they go away and nothing ever comes of them. They disrupt the comfort of the day-to-day conveyor belt as I'm forced to focus on the pain and not wander beyond my immediate neighborhood, but it's only temporary. If it wasn't only temporary? . . . I don't know. The thing is that I want the conveyor belt to be disrupted to spur me on to greater things (death is the greatest adventure), but it seems all my efforts and energy are towards desperately maintaining the conveyor belt (mundane living). Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't are.

mizerable daze

The weather oracle has already declared this to be a La Niña winter and the long-range forecast for Taiwan is that it will be mild until the end of the year, and then temperatures would plunge after New Year's followed by a long, cold, bitter winter (of course Taipei is subtropical, but that's how I read it). I remember cold, bitter winters over the past 10 years because I would bring cold weather stuffis back from New Jersey because of them. Below average winters aren't pleasant, but at least I should be sorta prepared for them.

And that "mild until the end of the year" is turning out to be no comfort as Taipei has just had two solid weeks of gloom and drear when it wasn't outright raining, which it has a lot, and at least another week and a half of the same according to the forecast. Weeks and weeks of this kind of weather is also in my experience here, notably my first two winters. It seems every kind of worst winter weather is being dished out all at once this season, perhaps the universe's answer for Taiwan avoiding the worst of the CCP pandemic and making sure 2020 sucked for everyone!

Adding to the personal suckage of 2020, one of the two major hypermarts near my place closed at the beginning of the year/pandemic. It was the closer of the two and was in walking distance for alcohol runs during extended rain periods. The remaining store isn't too much farther away in the opposite direction, but requires going by bike. The result is that whenever there's a lull in the rain, I do an alcohol run and accumulate a stock to last as far into the rainy period as possible in case it turns into constant rain. So far there have been enough lulls to consistently maintain over a week's worth of alcohol. 

Even more suckage is developing sciatica in my right leg. Somehow I immediately knew it was sciatica when the pain started (the word just came to me) and was able to confirm its likelihood with a web search that described it exactly. It was pain that was both dull and sharp and I couldn't pinpoint where on my leg it hurt, it was just the whole turkey leg. The description of a "radiating" pain rang true. And since it's a nerve issue, there's nothing that can be done about it but wait for it to go away (similar to the ridiculous issue I had with my cervix long ago).

I expect the pain to simply go away as that seems to be my karma (pattern/habit) my whole life. Same with the pain on my left knee that has developed in the past two days. That's too soon to worry about and I'll finish off the glucosamine I have left which usually takes care of knee pain. Only a little disturbing is that Advil seems to have no effect and it really fucking hurts (not quite as fast as "sciatica" came to mind, "gout" became a possibility). It's far worse than the usual glucosamine-cured knee aches and hampers mobility. Outwardly, sciatica only slows down my walking to thinly veil a limp. This knee pain has shown effects on walking, stairs and bike riding; makes me look crippled, even on bike. 

And then there are the cold showers as mercury continues to descend. Even no where near the depths of a forecast long, cold, bitter winter, cold showers aren't pleasant. I'm still mindfully gauging my emotions at the lack of hot water while in the shower. I scroll through my range of emotions, wondering what I'm feeling. I know what I'm thinking; I'm thinking at least I'm not in the Siege of St. Petersburg, at least I'm not Jewish in the Holocaust. I'm only at "abandon ye all hope of hot water", but how do I feel about that? OK, cold. I feel cold. That's not what I mean. Frustrated? Wronged? I don't deserve this? Injustice? Violated? Tempting, but no, none of those.  

How am I supposed to feel as I jump under the cold shower? This sucks!, yes but that's not a feeling, it's a fact (or an opinion depending upon who you ask, i.e., someone who isn't directly experiencing it). Holy shit! yes, but that's more an expression of a feeling. What is the emotion behind that expression?

What goes through my mind is "let go of ego, let go of attachment (to comforts), let go of the self (what suffers)". There's something practice-related going on. What comes up in my mind is certainly not the peaceful deities/lights (representing the ground of reality) in the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead, but rather the wrathful deities that appear after liberation through the peaceful deities is missed. 

Wrathful deities is more like it. Wrath; this is more akin to anger. Not anger at anything or anyone, just a violent and virulent dissonant energy. It helps me get through it. If I wasn't angry, maybe I'd be wimpy and whiny and complain about it in bouts of self-pity, but St. Anger says, "be damned, cold water, it is not you who will defeat me". All the while not knowing it just may (along with sciatica, seasonal affective disorder, gout, isolation and not being known, gastrointestinal issues, alcoholism, etc., etc.). 

Anger has helped me survive a lot along my way. Is that a good thing? It can't be, can it? Anger and negativity feed each other. But I'd posit negativity as a general or background state – that's not good, it just taints and sours everything. Anger, when controlled, can be a sword, a weapon, an adrenalin bomb, something you need when confronted. Actually, no, it's not a good thing. I'm probably just trying to justify the "way I am", but it has likely caused more grief than good for me.

WordsCharactersReading time

It's no secret and I think no shame that I consider Genesis my fave band of all time, and I typically piggyback Peter Gabriel solo into that number one spot out of convenience. Peter Gabriel and Genesis (whether fronted by Gabriel or Phil Collins) were a huge part of my high school and life soundtrack. 

There are, however, limits to my fandom when artists, trying to keep up with technology, continually re-release or re-issue their catalogues and expect fans to keep up with the upgrades because of whatever bit of better sounding technology is introduced. I was perfectly happy with David Bowie's second round Rykodisc releases and completely ignored future rounds of re-issues claiming better fidelity because of technology. 

My attitude was the same when Genesis released their ultimate Box Set collections. Why am I gonna buy what I already have? What I didn't know was that they didn't just upgrade quality and technology, but it seems they went back to the original multi-track recordings and dug up things that were mixed out of the final original releases. That's interesting!

I only noticed because they've been uploading "official audio" videos, no doubt in part to get fans' attention to buy tickets for their "The Last Domino" tour next year, which is advertised in the video description. I rarely click on those videos because why would I? I've listened to the songs dozens or hundreds of times over the years. 

But then they posted this:

This is "The Battle of Epping Forest"! I clicked on this audio-only "video" expecting just to enjoy the song yet another time, but being so familiar with just about every second of old Genesis recordings, things I'd never heard before stuck out like a sore thumb. 

My ears perked up at the 2:17 mark with backing vocals I'd never heard before and putting me on notice to listen for other things new. Phil sings a high harmony and then ends on "war" with what I consider a classic Collins note – just an unexpected choice of note but sounds great. The lower vocals are evidence (there's not a lot) that Mike and Tony did actually record backing vocals they're always credited with, albeit they unimpressively sing in the same vocal range as their speaking voices (the way guys who are uncomfortable with singing sing "Happy Birthday"). The snarls and grunts of distorted guitar by Steve Hackett in the following section were also originally mixed out and there are a bunch of minor vocal parts throughout the song that have been restored; perhaps considered mistakes at the time, but interesting now.

The song is just epic silliness that only Genesis could really pull off. Other prog rock bands dabbled in whimsy and eccentricity in minor works, but mostly stuck to spacey and science fiction-y and dystopias and other-worldly things to imagine and think and be paranoid about. "Epping Forest" is a galloping, raunchy romp about mob bosses and their street gangs inspired by a story in the morning newspaper (as a cultural reference, I think of the Guy Ritchie movie "Snatch"). I think keyboardist Tony Banks (it was Phil) complained the song is too "wordy" and was disappointed about the vocals going by at a mile a minute, but I don't understand how he can complain or what they expected when they handed over this big hunk o' composition to Gabriel. 

Even just reading it it's something to behold; the puns, rhyming and word manipulation. The verse playing around with the Silver Cloud Rolls Royce is just confoundingly clever ("Did he just . . . ?", "Was that supposed to . . .?). There's a lot I didn't get until much later. Like I didn't know a Silver Cloud referred to a model of Rolls Royce until I heard the (possibly apocryphal) story of The Rolling Stones' "Get Off My Cloud", whereby they were in Texas and at one point one of the members was leaning on a car that happened to be a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud and when the owner saw it he drawled at them "Hey, get off my Cloud!".

Along the Forest Road, there's hundreds of cars - luxury cars

Each has got its load of convertible bars, cutlery cars - superscars!

For today is the day when they sort it out, sort it out

'Cos they disagree on gangland boundary

There's Willy Wright and his boys

One helluva noise, that's Billy's boys!

With fully-fashioned mugs, that's Little John's thugs

The Barking Slugs, supersmugs!

For today is the day when they sort it out, sort it out

As these Christian soldiers fight to protect the poor

East End heroes got to score 

In the Battle of Epping Forest

Yes, it's the Battle of Epping Forest

Right outside your door

And you ain't seen nothing like it

No you ain't seen nothing like it

Not since the Civil War

Coming over the hill are the boys of Bill

And Johnny's lads stand very still

With the thumpire's shout, they all start to clout

There's no guns in this gentleman's bout

And Georgie moves in on the outside left

With a chain flying around his head

And Harold Demure from Art Literature

Nips up the nearest tree

(Here come the cavalry!)

Amidst the battle roar

Accountants keep the score: 10-4

They've never been alone after getting a radiophone

The bluebells are ringing for Sweetmeal Sam

Real ham, handing out bread and jam

Just like any picnic . . . 

It's 5-4 on William Wright

He made his pile on Derby night

When Billy was a kid, walking the streets

The other kids hid - so they did!

And now after working hard in security trade

He's got it made

The shops that need aid are those that haven't paid

"I do my double-show quick!" said Mick the Prick, fresh out of the nick

"I sell cheap holiday, the minute they leave then a visit I pay

And does it pay!"

And his friend, Liquid Len by name of wine, women

and Wandsworth fame

Said, "I'm breaking the legs of the bastard that got me framed!"

They called me the Reverend when I entered the Church unstained

My employers have changed but the name has remained

It all began when I went on a tour

Hoping to find some furniture

I followed a sign saying "Beautiful Chest"

It led to a lady who showed me her best

She was taken by surprise when I quickly closed my eyes

So she rang a bell and quick as hell

Bob the Nob came out on his job to see what the trouble was

"Louise, is the Reverend hard to please!"

"You're telling me!"

"Perhaps, sir, if it's not too late we could interest you

in our old-fashioned Staffordshire plate?"

"Oh! No, not me, I'm a man of repute"

But the devil caught hold of my soul and a voice called out, "Shoot!"

To save my steeple, I visited people

For this I had gone when I met Little John

His name came, I understood

When the judge said, "You are a robbing hood!"

He told me of his strange foundation

Conceived on sight of the Woodstock nation

He'd had to hide his reputation

When poor, 'twas salvation from door to door

But now with a pin-up guru every week

It was Love, Peace & Truth Incorporated for all who seek

He employed me as a karma-ma-mechanic with overall charms

His hand were then fit to receive, receive alms

That's why we're in the Battle of Epping Forest

This is the Battle of Epping Forest

Right outside your door

We guard your souls for peanuts

And we guard your shops and houses for just a little more

In with a left hook is the Bethnal Green Butcher

But he's countered on the right by Mick's chain-gang fight

And Liquid Len with his smashed bottle men

Is lobbing Bob the Nob across the gob

With his kisser in a mess, Rob seems under stress

But Jones the Jug hits Len right in the mug

And Harold Demure, who's still not quite sure

Fires acorns from out of his sling

(Here come the cavalry!)

Up, up above the crowd

Inside their Silver Cloud, done proud!

The bold and brazen brass

Seen darkly through the glass

The butler's got jam on his rolls

Roy doles out the lot

With tea from a silver pot

Just like any picnic . . . 

Along the Forest Road, it's the end of the day

And the Clouds roll away

Each has got its load

They'll come out for the count at the break-in of day

When the limos return for their final review, it's all through

All they can see is the morning goo

"There's no one left alive, must be a draw"

So the Blackcap Barons toss a coin to settle the score!

- Gabriel/Banks/Rutherford/Hackett/Collins

What's more of a secret and not a little bit of shame is that I used to be able to sing (liberally speaking) the entire thing without a lyric sheet along with the record at the top of my lungs (and range) and with the accents when the house was empty or (alone) in the car. Oy vey.

mea culpa

I'm no longer watching those "China watch" YouTube news channels I mentioned in prior posts and I've unlinked them. Don't get me wrong, I steadfastly think China is the biggest threat to the U.S. and believe they consider themselves already at total war with us (in all ways but military because they know they currently couldn't win), and are using all means necessary to remove the U.S. from its position of global dominance in the coming decades and take that place themselves. 

China is not a friend. It is no partner. Friends and cooperative partners don't say the things that China has said to any country that challenged them since the pandemic began (threats, warnings, bluster). The Chinese Communist Party is a mix of organized crime and a terrorist organization and diplomatically somewhere between a hostile competitor and outright enemy and should not be engaged without metaphorical blades close at hand. Taiwan's literal motto towards China is "we sleep with our swords next to our pillows". Taiwan's advantage is we know China is the enemy and that they want to make us the next Hong Kong.

The reason I'm disavowing the China watch news sites is that during the U.S. election and afterwards, it turns out they are shamelessly pro-Trump and willing to use their news platforms to disseminate misinformation about voter fraud and that Trump won. That makes them no longer news, but right-wing, pro-Trump propaganda and not much different from Fox News or the CCP propaganda machine. They came down on one side of an opinion and stamped themselves as biased and no longer reliable as news sources.

The irony is that growing anti-China sentiment in the U.S. is bilateral with both Democrats and Republicans realizing the China threat is real, present and active, and that their infiltration efforts have been going on since the 90s after the west rolled over and played dead after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Australia and Europe are also just coming to this realization based on evidence and experience. By siding with Trump, these formerly-considered "news channels" are shooting themselves in the foot, becoming deluded conspiracy theory channels with limited credibility. If they can't report the facts as they are about the election and keep insisting on idiotic fringe rantings, then what should I believe about their reporting on China? It's about character and credibility, and they lost it. Is their reportage on China also idiotic fringe rantings that I accepted because it was what I wanted to hear, but not actual reality?

Further irony is that Trump is a much greater immediate danger to U.S. values and democracy (the China threat is further down the road). By supporting Trump (thinking his hardline stance against China furthers their own reasonable, supported-by-evidence message that the CCP is evil), they're in effect supporting undermining U.S. values and democracy, which is exactly what China would love! And it's probably no coincidence that I've noticed Trump's tactics and actions to have been very similar to what the CCP uses. Trump seems to take a hard line against China, but in reality he exhibits behavior that mirrors them, despotic and authoritarian, intolerant of dissent or disagreement, eliminating perceived enemies (including former "friends" he previously showered with effusive praise) with just an order. Xi Jinping made it possible for him to be leader for life, Trump has hinted his administration going beyond second or even third terms. His propaganda tactics of lying and continue lying until people believe those lies is chapter one in the CCP playbook (possibly taken from Stalin or Hitler).

To be clear and undeluded, I don't think a single person latched onto those YouTube channels because I shared them. I don't think a single person who didn't already know about the insidious nature of the CCP learned something new or became concerned. That's a good thing since it means I didn't spread pro-Trump, basically anti-American channels in that they're trying to subvert democracy. It also means I won't be getting China news to fan the flame against the CCP, but that just means I'm becoming more the average American. The average American would do themselves well by paying attention to any news that makes it to the mainstream about China and the CCP. It's something about which Americans should stay informed. Heck, the average American already missed the boat with ManBearPig climate change more than 20 years ago.

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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.