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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

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

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

She sent something worth mentioning? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WordsCharactersReading time

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

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

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

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

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

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

middle-age chronicles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

looming

I exchanged the last of my U.S. cash for NT dollars late last month, so I'm officially looking at the end of funds, i.e., the supposed end of my life. I suppose I should put a disclaimer here (or trigger warning? spoiler alert?) that this all is only a reflection of current thoughts and not necessarily a projection of future action. My primary truism regarding suicide still applies that if I'm not doing something right now, it's fair considered I'm not doing anything at all. And I'm not doing anything right now, I'm blogging.

I have about three month's worth of funds left with no more "buffer" (that was the last of the U.S. cash) and no intention or desire to do anything about it. I know I've blogged this many times before, projecting how long I have left in terms of funds running out, and all of those times funds have come through, all those times I still had that buffer of U.S. cash. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote about it before, was I being dramatic? Crying wolf? Maybe I was testing myself, practicing what it might feel like to face the end of funds? 

That last one sounds like something my subconscious would do, and if that's the case I think the practice paid off. All those times before I don't think I did so well. I'd feel anxious and desperate despite how disparate that was to my philosophy; basically getting caught up in the emotions of particular circumstances – exactly what mindfulness practice trains not to do. Now, this time, it's supposedly fer reals, it's serial; no buffer, no reserve, no reprieve, no miracles, no savior, no windfall, no stuffed mattress, no cartoon safe filled with NT cash falling through my ceiling. The cash will be gone in a few months, and when the cash is gone, the cash is gone. That means no mo' money. Great! Faboo, that was the plan. No point to those previous reactions, better to just prepare.

This is a big deal. It's nothing to be dramatic about, but I also don't want to downplay that it's a major marker signaling the end of my current life path. John's blog was mostly about his experience with terminal cancer and dealing and doing his best to live with it, but then he reached that point, that marker in the last month that signaled it was over (even though it might not have been so clear to him at the time) and there was no more treating or dealing with the cancer, no more fighting it. It just became about the non-stop, excruciating pain and managing it with military-grade the best big pharma painkillers until the end. For me, no matter what mind games I played with myself, no matter what neurotic dysfunction or flaky waffling I wallowed in, the end of funds, running out of money was always, always, always endgame. 

That was the plan. No matter what paltry, lame excuses I made to live on, no matter how many times I tried and chickened out, the plan was to constantly make life decisions that would funnel me to the point where I would reach the end of my funds and there would be no surviving the decision of suicide at that point. Ironically, it was my parents who foiled the plan for so long by providing base funds (which they thought were supplemental to my income because in their minds they simply couldn't conceive of me being unemployed as I have been for the past decade) that kept me not only alive, but reasonably, relatively comfortable. 

Chronic suicidal ideation is survivable in a similar way that bipolar, schizophrenia, PTSD, etc. are survivable. Those, of course, aren't death sentences per se, whereas if suicidal ideation becomes acute, survivability goes down because that's its nature. But if it remains chronic that means there are still mental mechanisms leaning towards living embedded in the consideration and contemplation of suicide and living with it becomes possible. 

I did and was all that but then I added a "fail-safe" (or its opposite, "success-danger"?), a few extra lines of code in the software of mental mechanisms that guaranteed that someday I would succeed in committing suicide instead of just living and getting by with the suicidal ideation. I basically sabotaged chronic suicidal ideation so that it wasn't survivable. The plan was that I set up the conditions so that I would have to commit suicide (by agreement with myself) when I had no more support (money) for living. And I'd never be desperate or motivated enough to make the money myself to survive. I learned about myself that no matter what job I landed or stability or satisfaction I found, it wouldn't last. I'd get bored, I'd sabotage it, I'd come around back to suicidal ideation and nothing anyone has done or said or been to me has changed that.

Little of this is actually new aside from hitting that marker of exhausting my buffer of U.S. cash. The "chronic suicidal ideation" concept is still a relatively new revelation that I'm not through mulling, but all of the suicide stuff otherwise is not. So I think it fair to quickly fill in the rest of the suicide philosophy that I prefer to approach it positively without despondency and recognizing that all things are impermanent anyway. I choose to view it positively as part of my path and that there is something to learn from it. Better that than be all negative about it, right? 

It also helps having a system of belief that includes reincarnation and doesn't put that much ultimate importance on any single bodily lifetime. Each lifetime is important, but for me the importance is measured in what's learned and spiritual progress made. Dying is not an ultimate end. I agree with the belief it's just the end of a body and not the end of a "person" or the energy or the path/journey it's on. How we die and the mindset we're in when we die is key to future manifestations and not human morality or judgment (except to the effect that they affect our mindset). 

If a "trigger warning" was warranted, I hope it's more to trigger living mindfully. If you're suicidal and don't believe in reincarnation, don't be an ass and just don't do it, throwing away your shot. Whoops, there goes the trigger warning.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

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):

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

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.