conjecture

For the past week, I've been playing with this hypothetical idea of suicide at the center of my existence as the result of having sent myself a message from my past life into this life, not unlike Data did in the "Cause and Effect" episode of Star Trek TNG.

I keep looking at my life and wondering how did I end up here? Looking at the environment from whence I came, there are so many paths my life could've taken. It was one full of privilege and material opportunity. The answer is, of course: I brought myself here. I squandered the privilege and opportunities and ran the whole damn thing into the ground. All by myself! This is actually nothing new, but I'm looking at it from the angle of that final temporal loop in which the Enterprise finds itself after Data sent himself the message. Unlike the previous loops where all the strange occurrences and déjà vus were just a mystery, in the final loop they align in a way that they realize there's a message there.

Did I send myself a message that my subconscious is bearing out? Year-by-year, location-to-location, pursuit-to-pursuit, point A to point B to point C, I've lived my life in a way that would guarantee that I would be in my current position. And where suicide has always been an attracting, if not compelling, force in my life, I would of course create final conditions where suicide is logical and optimal, even while acting in a way that accords with living my life.

It was an experiment from the start, conditions controlled. Realizing the value of human life, I had to be responsible about affecting as few lives as possible. I've been constantly lowering my impact as much as possible, and now even my own memories won't be impacted. I've phased even my identity out. It's not important. It's not the point.

What might I have told myself at that moment of death when the Enterprise started shuddering and Captain Picard called to abandon ship, or in the final moment in the bardo of rebirth if I had learned to navigate it like lucid dreams, before all traces of what I was consciously aware of before in my past life dissolved because a sperm hit an egg and anything that could be said was me is created anew in the fresh and clean architecture of a new brain and body with just a splash of past karma vomited all over it? And perhaps a message.

A message that gave its first nudge in this life in an attraction to Japan of all places from a very young age. There may be other reasons for it. Such as when I was a kid, NHK would have a weekly broadcast on Saturday nights of Japanese programming out of New York. UHF Channel 47 if I remember correctly – oh, and not New York, but Linden, New Jersey, I remember it said so in station IDs between programs – and my parents never missed a Saturday night since they couldn't understand American broadcasting and there was no Chinese language broadcasts either back then, I shouldn't wonder.

Me and my brothers' interest was in the weekly episodes of anime; three series that I recall watching were Raideen, Ikkyu-san (a monk!), and the original Space Battleship Yamato, as well as the live-action, original Go Ranger!

The reason for the Japanese programming was the same reason for the success of my father's office (a private medical clinic) at the time: Japanese companies were doing well and sending corporate slaves over to New York and settling them and their families in New Jersey, and with so few Japanese speaking physicians, they flocked to my father's office. That also created a sphere of Japanese names in my childhood as me and my brothers were recruited to comb through the white pages and collect addresses with Japanese names to whom my parents would send advertising. I remember a lot of folding and licking stamps and sealing envelopes (forced child labor, lol!).

I'm not sure of the time frames involved. Obviously the airing of the anime can be pegged to the mid-to-late 70s, no surprise there. But another element was my grandparents' visits. I'm not sure what years they took place, or even if there were multiple visits, but in my memory, my mother's parents visited from Taiwan every summer. I would create lists of Japanese vocabulary, plying my grandmother for basic words in Japanese. Although I'm not sure how that worked since my grandparents sure didn't know English. I'm sure I was a resourceful little monkey.

The point being I was interested in Japanese, and had absolutely no interest in whatever language my parents were speaking to each other, which I wouldn't know until decades later wasn't even Chinese (Mandarin), but Taiwanese.

And the point of all this is that not many years later, there was something very comforting and familiar when I learned that in Japanese history, suicide was not only not condemned, but was even expected in certain situations (why the corporate head of the Daiichi Fukushima Nuclear Plant hasn't committed suicide yet is beyond me, and is probably indicative of some part of Japan's spirit dying).

Bah, this wasn't supposed to end up being a stroll down memory lane.

Be it as it may, the concept of suicide was then always there. Always. There was never a point in my life where I thought I never would or could commit suicide. I would even go so far as to say that even during relationships it didn't go away, and I likely had more of a sense that suicide was still more realistic than being with this person for the rest of my life and living happily ever after. Although I'm sure I was expert at blocking it out.

Committing suicide, or not committing suicide alternately, became my signposts in my life, marking directions to not go, or otherwise to generally half-heartedly strive towards. If the vine I was swinging on wasn't the one to let go of, it was always there several vines down. I even made it into my own inside joke to torment me that I never would.

There are any number of bad reasons to commit suicide. I've long discounted any reason as being a bad reason to commit suicide. But if I don't have a reason to do it, why this lifelong impulse? What might I have said to myself? That perhaps in the pursuit of enlightenment, one must first be prepared and willing to give up one's own life, characterized by all our attachments and aversions, voluntarily, no matter what the circumstance? It's counter-intuitive to life. To reach enlightenment in any lifetime, some future lifetime, one must have experienced the willingness to give up one's own life. That idea solidifies as more difficult than it sounds as I type it since accompanying the thought is "selflessly".

In the metaphorical tales of the Buddha's description of his past lives are ridiculous stories of self-sacrifice, such as coming across a dying tiger mother with her cubs, but she's too exhausted to kill him to feed herself, much less her cubs. Guess who comes to the rescue and does it all himself (whispered hint: it's not Jesus).

And even contemplating the extinction of this particular existence, try as I might, alive, I'm just not that selfless.

WordsCharactersReading time

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a pretty intriguing text on the topic, but I do take it with a grain of salt. It's a template, a starting point, but it is a culturally-b(i)ased work. It should be liberally interpreted by others and the general concepts that can be gleaned from it are more important than the actual text, I think.

One thing from the "Old Souls" book that stood in contrast with the Tibetan Book of the Dead was the time scales involved, and I've never been comfortable with the time scales in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Too concrete, too normative, grounded in our subjective reality. I'm concluding that is one of the things that should be interpreted liberally.

I don't think time is an objective, normative phenomena of the universe. I agree with Einstein that time and space are inseparable, and once we don't exist physically in space, neither do we exist in time as we know it.

Time is our fishbowl. We don't have the mental architecture nor the imagination to envision the non-existence of time. If time was created by the Big Bang, when did the Big Bang occur? We can't even approach that concept since time is so hard-wired into our very existence.

So for people who read the Tibetan Book of the Dead and are intrigued and find some belief in reincarnation, we can formulate our own ideas of what happens and how and why, but not when. So when my cousin says that her infant daughter had mentioned she was her mother in her previous life, who had died some 15 years earlier and thus beyond the bounds of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I have nothing to say about that. My cousin's instant acceptance of her daughter's statement is no longer completely outlandish.

Ghosts are another issue that have recently been brought to mind. I'm open to the possibility that just as in "Old Souls", a death can be so sudden and violent that actual memory can be transferred into a next life, but that a life and death could be so filled with anger and attachment and/or fear that the phenomena of what we call "ghosts" occur.

A ghost phenomena may occur when there's a death but the circumstances prevent the natural progression towards rebirth and the energy gets "stuck" in its previous existence and can't move on. And again, time is irrelevant. A ghost existence can last for quite a long period in our normative understanding of time, but for a ghost, time is not a concept.

As I continue to read "The Lovely Bones", the murdered girl continues to watch what happens for years and years after her death. I'm reading at the point where she's watching her younger sister's college graduation, and to me, it seems that it's not like she's sitting in heaven watching in real time what happens 2, 5, 8 years after her death; that in heaven, it is actually 8 years after she was murdered.

But in her death experience, she watches what happens after her death, far into the "future", but not occurring "in time" at all. So if I were to hypothetically plug her case into the template of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, she could witness all the things she reports as being far in the future, but it has no bearing on when her time in the bardo states ends and when the natural sequence of events pushes her into a reincarnated existence.

She narrates events years and years after her death, but in our normative time line, she may have already been reincarnated when those events actually occur.

Again, strange space. Loosening the grasps and tendrils of this physical reality. A good portion of my days is spent experiencing the input of this physical reality, this life, and reminding myself not to be attached to any of it – both negative and positive; it is ALL not much more different than a dream. It all passes and passes by whether we are I am here or not.

Again, meditating on all the random people I see around me throughout a day and wondering what's their motivation. Why are they doing this? Why do they do what they do? And no matter what I can imagine, my own response is that I certainly do not want whatever they have. I don't want their motivation or reason why they strive for whatever they do. I don't want to be them.

I don't want to leave a body. I don't want to leave a body that someone, I don't know who, might be asked to come identify. I don't want to leave any physical evidence of my gross bodily existence. I don't want any identification with a body suggesting that was me, when it certainly wasn't. Whatever physical remains I may leave wasn't me nor anything anyone should identify as me. I desperately do not want to leave a body.

While I was in the U.S., I read the book Old Souls: Compelling Evidence From Children Who Remember Their Past Lives. I wish the author used the word "testimony" in the title instead of "evidence". As testimony, it is compelling. As evidence, it's easy or possible to discount. It doesn't prove anything. The author of the book is a journalist who accompanies a professor, whose main body of work is focused on gathering testimony of children who claim they remember their previous life, on what may be his final rounds of gathering such testimony.

The approach is as scientific as it gets for the topic, with numerous checks to weed out "tainted" testimony. The criteria for credibility is pretty strict, and that's what makes the testimony compelling. If there's a risk of susceptibility to suggestion in a case, it's not given much weight. That goes to my criticism of the film Unmistaken Child, where it's shown that a child remembers his past life as a high ranking lama, but it's not discounted that the memories were suggested by the people around him. In fact, as Tibetan literature is replete with cases of past life remembrances, I liked that this book doesn't even have a hint of mention of Tibet. It's such a part of Tibetan culture that it is all suspect and not even worth mentioning. That's how strict the criteria are in this book.

I liked that there is consistency in the cases: all of the children's testimonies recall a violent or unnatural death. To me, that suggests that if an experience is traumatic enough, the psychic or karmic imprint can survive the destruction of one physical construct of a person and can carry over despite a new physical brain constructed in another body.

The theory might go that we generally don't remember past lives because the information is lost with the dissolution of: first, our physical bodies and brains at the death of our physical selves; and then second, our consciousness, our true selves, our enlightened selves, our selves that is the basic energy of the universe from whence we come, which generally is not part of the software that is naturally installed when sperm hits egg and a new biological being is created with a completely new brain architecture.

Actual memories are all erased. What generally does carry over is karma – the deep-seated, ingrained habits and personality of what we've done and who we were that characterized our behavior and being. But we generally can't attribute those things to anything in our new life (unless we consider reincarnation). It's just who we are, but it's still pretty plastic and can be countered by our new environment and personality.

What this book suggests is that a violent death, or a death with a heavy impression, can carry over more readily because of that severe, psychic imprint. You tend to remember the shit that happens to you in death as well as life. In general, perhaps suicides also fall into this category. Suicides are often accompanied by tragic circumstances or extreme negative emotions. Hm. I don't remember any of the cases in the book as being suicides, but that's not fatal. There are any number of reasons on this slippery topic why suicides weren't part of the sample.

If I commit suicide, it won't be tragic and I hope to have tamed my negativity. If I commit suicide, I imagine euphoria. The idea of dying still makes me happy in a way that I can't explain.

WordsCharactersReading time

Wow, I did it. I verify having lucid dreamed. It was a messy, disturbed dream, possibly caused by the return of insomnia. After not being able to get to sleep, I got up for several hours and puttered around, then feeling some exhaustion lay back on my bed still not feeling like I would sleep, but then faded in and out of half-sleeps.

The key component in the dream was that I had my hardcover copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead in my lap. I turned a certain way and ripped the paper covering over the hardcover, and was shocked and annoyed because it is supposedly a sacred book, which doesn't mean anything in itself, but it's one that I try to be mindful about.

I had negative thoughts, thinking things like, "damn", and realized it was only the paper covering that I could simply discard, and then saw the back of the covering had also ripped and more negative thinking, "total loss". Then I thought, "This isn't right, I can't have ripped the cover of the book because the book is sitting on my bookshelf. All I have to do is get out of "here" and it'll be there as always. Then I started struggling up through layers of consciousness.

As I was pushing myself out of sleep, I imagined the book on a bookshelf in my room that doesn't exist, but then as I came closer to consciousness, I revised the image so that it was sitting where it should be on my night table/altar, and I had the feeling that I was right, the book was fine, I'd been in a dream. When I broke the surface and woke up, the final position of the book on the table was a little different than I had imagined, but that's not the point.

This was a classic description of lucid dreaming – realizing being in a dream triggered by an object in the dream. However, I didn't navigate my way in the dream, but forced myself out of it, still realizing it was a dream.

This was very different from the strange sleep paralysis dream experiences I've had before. This felt like a dream in every way, whereas before I was in some lucid state where I didn't have a conscious sense I could "get out of". I never consciously processed that it was a dream, but was reacting like it was an actual experience, like in a dream. And in those states, even though I could move around, I did have a continued sense or connection with my physical body laying in bed but that it was paralyzed. That was still part of the actual experience, with no external thought of it being a dream.

I also have to totally retract what I said yesterday. Drowning in sleep doesn't suck nearly as much as insomnia. Furthermore, there is a difference between the insomnia I've been having, whereby I could sleep for 2 or 3 hours before waking up and not being able to fall back to sleep, and the type where you can't get into a full sleep at all, like today. That's worse. You don't even get the false comfort of being able to slip into a sleep state.

Aside from the lucid part, I have no recollection what was actually going on in this dream. It wasn't location specific, but some, if not all, of my family members were around and I think they were annoying me. It was in a public area, but I'm not sure if it was indoors or out. Just a lot of stuff going around, messy, but not all negative.

There was one situation that would have normally made me aggressive or combative, but I handled it calmly and wisely, the way I usually imagine handling a situation after an initial negative reaction and realizing that was wrong and would just make things worse.

This insomnia – yesterday and today – came as a total surprise after my last post and it's mucking my thoughts. I want to get out of the apartment either to ride or to shoot, it looks perfect outside for either – cloudy but unlikely to rain. But I'm not rested and I've been able to ride 3 days in a row, so I probably shouldn't.

I've been enjoying my brother's Nikon D80, to my surprise. It can't shoot sky for shit, the gradients come out all pixelized and may be why people recommend shooting in color and then removing the color components one-by-one to get black and white.

I've just been shooting in black and white mode because I don't even like the idea of shooting with an SLR in color. Not sure what my hang up is. Feels like I'm cheating somehow.

I'm gonna make coffee now. And make my fucking bed.

Bwahaha! I have no recollection typing the end of the last post. I think I was heading towards some point there. Or not.

Actually, almost every night lately I haven't been able to remember finally shutting everything off, brushing my teeth, washing my shot glass and coffee mug, turning out the lights and crawling into bed. Party animal. Although I think the time of the last played songs on iTunes gives me a general time of when it happened. One time it was 5:45 a.m., which I do remember because it was getting light out.

There was a time not long ago, when I was resolving to try to be awake by 9 a.m., and that's been a miserable failure. No insomnia, but drowning in sleep, which almost sucks as much. If it ain't one thing, it's a fucking nother. I pendulate between the two.

And after almost 2 weeks of sporadic computer use, I'm trying to spend less time online. I actually did start practicing bass more, and none since I got this laptop. I have a book "J.S. Bach for Bass", and I'm learning how to tap using it. And seriously, Bach on bass fingerstyle sounds like shite. Victor Wooten can get away with it because he's god (and he's usually tapping, slapping or double thumbing or a combination of all of these anyway), and the author of the book isn't terrible, but there's no way I could pull it off. Tapping works for me. And is fun. So there.

I'm starting to feel whole again. I got a new laptop on Monday. It's nothing fancy, basically it's just an upgrade of my 6-year-old Compaq; no new whistles and bells, nothing that I can't believe I've been living without for all these years.

The big difference is Windows 7 and getting used to the new OS, which is basically figuring out how to do exactly what I was doing on my old computer on my new computer.

The biggest bitch of a problem was getting my iTunes library information over to the new laptop. I read a bunch of articles online on how to do it, but nothing worked until I hit a breakthrough last night. Per the articles, I'd been focusing on the XML file for my iTunes library.

After I had made a complete mess of my files and where they were between my new hard drive, my old hard drive, and my external hard drive, the final fix that worked was fortunately because I had both the old library XML file and .itl file (iTunes library database file) from the last time I used iTunes on my old computer saved in a location that wasn't affected by opening and closing iTunes, which automatically updates and changes those files.

The trick that worked for me was with iTunes closed, I replaced the active XML and .itl files in my new computer's iTunes folder in the My Music folder (which is iTunes' default location to put them) with the old ones and then opened iTunes and it opened with all the old information. Rejoicing was had and we ate cake. I ate cake. There was no cake. I was relieved.

The key was not only the XML file, but also the database file, you need both. Once I opened iTunes with the old information that was pretty much success. I'd been in that position before.

The only thing left was to direct iTunes to the new location of the files. To fix that, just try to play any song whose file you know exactly where it is in the new location, and you'll get a notice that it can't find the file and would you like to locate it.

Click yes and then just direct iTunes to the new location of the actual music files, and iTunes will do the rest and eventually figure out the new pathway to at least most of the files (NB: you still need to do the consolidation step whereby all your files are in one place, which is something I do anyway :p).

The online advice said you need to mess with the XML file to tell iTunes about the new file pathway, but I don't think you need to. I think all you need is iTunes to be reading the old .itl and XML library files and once you give it a clue about the actual music files' new location, it will search the new pathway itself.

Aside from that my bike is whole again, too. After several rides where the chain didn't "feel" right, my bike computer started also having problems, so I took my bike in. Long story short, they replaced the mount for my bike computer, replaced the chain with a good quality one, and replaced the rear gear cassette because 3 gear rings had signs of wearing and it's best to replace the whole cassette at the same time.

The results were immediate. I took the long way home along the bikeways and could feel the added power and torque in having some new components (and this is an entry level road bike). The chain still slipped if I put too much torque on it, but after I got home, I wiped off the chain with degreaser and lubed it and I just need to break in the chain a little more.

It's feeling like life is a constant effort to maintain some sort of status quo. Fixing things that break or righting things that go out of balance. And that's no way to live a life. Or at least not a good way to perceive it to be.

It's interesting that my iTunes library information was so critical and that my bike computer problem was the reason to definitively visit the bike shop.

There was a point where I had given up on retaining my iTunes information (play counts, ratings, last played, and playlists), and I was at a loss at how to start listening to my 17,500+ music collection again.

Usually I just have the entire collection on shuffle play. And I reload my iPod shuffle every 3 days using a system that is just way too geeky to not be embarrassed about. Should I just re-start that process? Should I just listen to music recently added or that I'm not as familiar with compared to albums that I've had on CD for decades?

In the end, I should just not care. I shouldn't be attached to these things. But as long as these things are here, I do. Or am.

The same with the bicycle computer. It's conceivable to go on bike rides without having the ephemeral information about distance, speed and averages, but I haven't seen a single cyclist that goes on "rides" who doesn't have a computer on the handlebars.

And a ride without the information is qualitatively different from with it. Without it, you're just kinda touring and enjoying the scenery. With it, I dunno. Well, you just know. You can challenge yourself with it. You can take some pride or achievement in it.

But even as ephemeral as the information is, it's a record. As ephemeral as our lives are, what we leave behind is a record. If it's not recorded, what was there? This all ties in somehow. Really. (<-- drunken blogging/lazy/whateva).

I haven't been remembering dreaming much lately, and even if I remembered that I had been dreaming, I had no recollection of the content of the dream. This time I woke up from the dream, remembered the dream and it happened to be an Amina dream.

Was it because it was an Amina dream that I was unconsciously particularly inspired to remember it? Meaning nothing else in my subconscious has been worthy of being remembered? And the whole Amina thing – hey, it's old. Or is it?

I was in the foyer area of a mansion, classic European-looking, perhaps Victorian? I'm not sure what that looks like. It was brightly lit by a large chandelier and had high ceilings. I was halfway up a curving staircase facing down towards the foyer area, and Amina was behind me, I couldn't see her, and I was shielding her because she was in some sort of state of undress. And I was being chivalrous.

I don't know who I was shielding her from, because down in the foyer were some completely naked, large and curvy women who were completely casual, didn't even take note of me there, and two of them separately walked by the staircase in all their glory into another unseen room.

My reaction was a bit of astonishment, but mindful of Amina behind me, we started to back our way up the stairs, where I knew on the next landing there was a bathroom that I could easily back her into and she could have her privacy. But when we got to the door, where I expected to stop and she could go in and close the door, we both continued in, and then she closed the door with both of us inside.

Calculating the situation and concluding my being there was consensual, I turned around and saw her for the first time in the dream. She was modestly dressed in a negligee and she was stunningly gorgeous, my reaction not being too far from the first time I saw her. Calculating some more, I concluded it was also consensual for me to approach her and start kissing her and then the camera of my perspective goes askew and I woke up.

So why did I remember this dream of all dreams? Was it because of Amina or because it dealt with romantic issues?

It's not because of Amina. Amina is most certainly now a fiction. So it probably had more to do with what Amina might still represent, which is romance, the human biological imperative, the crude human version of spiritual male/female union that represents a divine unity and oneness. Or not.

In the bright light of day, if I was in that same situation with Amina, I don't think my impulse now would be to kiss her. To love her. I don't think. Love is no longer a part of my equations anymore, I tell myself. Even if I could romantically love another person, which I doubt, my software then runs the program asking what next? What do I want from such a relationship? Do I want a relationship? Well, do I, punk?

But then why the dream? Why it was Amina is clear; it was because she was some sort of pinnacle, the love of my life I called her; but if I had the chance to even meet her again in this lifetime, I would probably decline unless she had some reason that was compelling enough for me to accept. Some love of my life.

I made the mistake when I was in New Jersey to mention to my sister-in-law my last relationship and the year it occurred, and smart cookie as she is being a medical doctor and all, she calculated how long it had been since I'd been in a relationship and made an exclamation to that effect.

Needless to rehash details, I'm clearly so out of practice that I can't be considered being able to give an objective assessment of the situation. It's simply out of my reality for even consideration. From the empirical evidence, I'm not even interesting, much less attractive, much less a pursuit, much less a catch. That's just reality and I have considered it and accepted it. It's even perfect.

I think I'm just going to have to relegate Amina dreams such as these as inconveniences of the human condition. Just because we're human beings, we crave love, attention, and we lust. If we can achieve communion with another human being, great, good for you. It's still an instinct for me, but it's not reality.

WordsCharactersReading time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now I'm reading "The Lovely Bones" at the bookstore. Needless to say, it is very different from the movie, which I now consider utter rot. How could Alice Sebold entrust a director like Peter Jackson with this kind of material. I guess someone who had read the book might read what they know about the book into the movie and find it palatable, but going the other way around, the movie is a total miss.

I'm walking around these days in devout contemplation of the world without me and it's beautiful. Strains of the unbearable flirt at the fringes of my existence again but there's a euphoria about it. I also saw "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" at the bookstore and read the first few pages and made a note to re-read it after I'm done with Lovely Bones.

The Lovely Bones is really good, but a lot of what's good is in the concept; it's kind of a gimmick, it's a cute story of a 14-year-old who is raped and murdered by a serial killer. Reading those first few pages of Unbearable Lightness of Being made me think of the difference between the two works, and that maybe Kundera's writing is what qualifies his book as literature.

But that's uncomfortable territory for me, I'm not the literary type. And why all this judging and judgmentalizing anyway? Where did I get that from? I did see the movie of Unbearable Lightness of Being before I read the book, and I loved the movie and I loved the book and the book didn't detract from the movie when I saw it again.

Which is different from one of my favorite books of all time, Catch-22, where I saw the movie first, loved the movie, read the book, loved the book, watched the movie again and didn't quite like it as much.

My laptop is on its last legs, so I'm not online much these days. It's 6 years old. Right now it's perched precariously on top of a portable fan pointing straight up, and with the battery removed, and I'm seeing how long it will last like this before it fitzes out again, which I'm expecting.

If it doesn't fitz out, I can replace the broken internal cooling fan, but I'm not sure a new battery will fix the (I'm guessing) voltage or electrical circuitry problem, which may have been initially caused by the broken fan and overheating. Anyway, it appears to be a compound problem and I'm thinking I just need to suck it up and buy a new laptop. Even though I can imagine the world without a new laptop and it's beautiful.

Bah, I watched The Lovely Bones on HBO last night. It reminded me why I avoid Hollywood films.

Someone recommended the book to me a long time ago, something in response to my musings on death and dying (I think it was a guest while I was at Deer Park), and as lovely as the book sounded, at least its title, I never got around to it. I'm sure the book is much better than the movie and give the movie a rotten 4 out of 10 tomatoes.

I almost turned it off after a half hour for all the emotional manipulation and sentimentality, but decided to continue enduring it to give it a fair shake. The Hollywood treatment of forcing situations to be all suspenseful and dramatic, even in red herrings and misleads in situations that you know aren't going to pan out, made me think this material would, from a narrative point of view, have been much better handled by an indie filmmaker.

However, I was intrigued by the treatment of the death experience and give the director credit for the portrayals, although I'm not saying an indie filmmaker couldn't figure out a way to make the portrayals even without the big budget special effects. And it wasn't the cheesy effects that impressed me anyway, but the ideas.

In short, it's about a 14-year-old girl who is raped and murdered by a serial killer and finds herself in a between state, not completely unlike one suggested by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, whereby an aspect of her is still connected to the world she left behind. Her family, on the other hand, has to find a way to cope with her disappearance and the inability of the police to find evidence to implicate the murderer.

The murder itself isn't actually shown, and she herself isn't even aware of it at first, and I thought that was intriguing, as I once imagined that was what death might be like in some cases. There's a difference between what we experience and what might be observed, which is curiously similar to a description of falling into a black hole I heard in a documentary last week.

I liked, among other things, the portrayal of the state the main character finds herself in as one that is a product of her own imagination and takes on characteristics of her own mental state, which may be still connected to objects in the physical world. A lot of the symbols that are portrayed are taken from things reflecting her reality and mental state when she was alive. Pretty keen.

I'll say without giving anything away, even though I highly don't recommend anyone going out of their way to see this film, that the ending of the movie is what one might expect from a Hollywood ending (remember 2012? the world is destroyed, billions are killed and they still manage a happy ending!).

A bit of end narration that I think is lifted directly from the book suggests that the story was supposed to be about the relationships of the people who she left behind, and how she felt comfort in people's ability to go on without her and so she could let go, too. And that's the story an indie filmmaker would have likely done.

That's not what the movie is about. The movie doesn't suggest anything as thoughtful as that, and dwells on the tawdry murder mystery Hollywood-style. Except there is no mystery, just how is this going to develop. I was decidedly not impressed how it developed.

The big surprise is how comfortable I was returning to Taiwan. I don't know how long it will last before things get routine and I get itchy again about my next bold move.

The first thing I noticed after lugging my luggage up the last steps and entering my apartment was the smell of mold. Annoying. But not unexpected. Humid and cold Taiwan winters apparently make mold a natural part of winters lingering into early spring. If I'm still around for another winter, I will buy a dehumidifier.

The first thing I noticed that was out of place was a little black piece of something under my bike, but it didn't look like anything major requiring attention. A little while later, my foot found a small piece of broken cylindrical plastic but I had no idea what it was or where it came from and put it aside to figure out later.

Later, upon scrutinizing my bike, I found the front gear shifter not working. It was the same feeling as when I went to New Jersey and found the shifters on my bike there not working. Move the shifter, nothing happens. That's when I looked at the black piece of plastic and the piece under the bike and figured they were related and something had spontaneously broken in my absence.

It was a kind of a feeling that someone was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't figure out what.

After getting my bike in New Jersey fixed, I went out on a single ride and it was out of commission again. Until then, the weather had it so that I was mostly rolling on a trainer in my parents' basement, which isn't much of a workout. So the first time I felt it was good to go to hit the road, I went up 9W, figuring my fitness level could take me comfortably up to Closter Dock Road and back.


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(It's an untechnical but decent downhill)

But while racing obnoxious car traffic down the Closter Dock Road hill, I felt a sharp impact and I felt my rear tire go slack. I thought it was a blowout. I knew my brother was out taking his daughter to a "creative movement" class (she'll start ballet lessons next year or something), so even though I didn't have any money on me, and I didn't have a patch kit with me – both signs of ridiculous unpreparedness – I did have a cell phone on me, which I usually don't, and called him to pick me up.

It turned out that by the time he got me, I was in comfortable territory to have been able to jog all the way back to my parents' house with my bike; about half the distance. It would've taken some time, but I was never in a dire situation wondering what to do.

After I bought a new inner tube, I realized it wasn't just a blowout. The rim was damaged with an eye-widening dent. Upon installing the new tube, that's when I saw that the wheel was completely out of true and that there was also a gash in the tire which may have occurred in the incident.

I basically needed a new wheel built. That stopped riding in New Jersey cold. It wasn't worth having a new wheel built before I left.

That was one ride. The only ride. On a road well-ridden by cyclists and it totally disabled my Peugeot. I think I will take the Korean guy at Bike Masters' advice and get a new bike once I return to the States. I'll probably buy it from Bicycle Workshop, though, for their effort in keeping the Peugeot alive.

The damage to my bike here wasn't as dire. Aside from the mystery of something spontaneously breaking and US$20 and 15 minutes for a new front derailleur, everything's back to normal, heading back to routine.

If I continue riding this year, I am predicting I might have to replace the entire drive train by the end of the summer. At least I need to get an opinion on the chain, which I had replaced some years ago and I don't think the fuckers gave me a performance chain. I need to be more discerning about that.

Or something's telling me to stop riding. Riding is a distraction. It is a false sense of "doing something", when really I'm doing nothing. Either go back to work or stop riding, you idiot. Word.

New Jersey killed my fitness. All eating and no exercise. I've even had to work back up to the easy 20-mile sprints along the bikeways, and I'm not even thinking of hills or extended rides. I gained some 20 pounds while I was there, and I think I've lost most of that, but it sure doesn't feel good.

May 3, 2011; 6:41 A.M. - My room at my parents' suburban house just before I left for the airport, tidied up for my departure – those aren't my beddings and there are no guitars in sight. The thing I found that I miss most is my stereo system (pretty much unseen on the right; Bang & Olufsen turntable covered by a towel) which was put together in the days before digital files became the dominant aural medium. Back then, you picked and chose components to comprise a stereo system. The key components of my system is a kick-ass 100 watt Yamaha amplifier that I inherited from my brother – it's so old that it doesn't even have a remote control – and 20 year old Bose AM-5 speakers, which my cousin told me are still rated better than later versions and other 5.1 Bose systems. Seriously, CD sound quality through an audio system like this will always be better than any kind of digital file media played through a digital player.

May 14, 2011; 2:37 P.M. – My room in Taiwan. The bathroom is on the other side of that opaque glass = this is not a place to entertain guests. No stereo system, but I must say, I'm pretty happy with the Ozaki computer speakers that I found here. If I go back to the States, one of the few things I would want to take with me are those speakers.

I guess the big surprise is how comfortable I was returning to Taiwan. Being in the U.S. started becoming just a haze of unreality and limbo; albeit comfortable like drowning in honey. I didn't want to leave and I didn't want to stay. My departure date came suddenly and too quick and I didn't feel ready to leave.

I didn't feel like I made any connection there nor accomplished anything. I gave up on setting up a blog for my father or any hope of possibly giving his life extended meaning by setting down in words what his life was. I sure don't know anything about his life. I'm not sure who does or whether it will all be forgotten once he's gone. In the end, that just may be his fate. That may just be what he wants.

The last two weeks, I barely had any interaction with my parents. It seemed like it was no matter that the time I was there visiting was limited. It came to seem like we were all waiting for it to come to an end so we could all go back to our regular lives and not have the nagging feeling in the back of our minds that my time visiting was limited.

My relationship with my brothers is just what it is. I guess I can't say expectations weren't met because we have no expectations. Things are fine between us, but. I guess we could've spent more time with each other, time to just mellow just be comfortable.

I'm thinking this is what Thich Nhat Hanh may mean when he relates that the greatest gift you can give is your presence. The best quality time you can have with other people is when it's not rushed, when the time you spent is just time you spend with them.

But the way it was, they were both busy and had other stuff to do, me too I suppose, and the time we did spend together was very conscious of itself and a conversation rarely just got comfortable to the point that we could just shoot the shit and let the conversation evolve and talk about our concerns and say what was really on our minds.

I spent the most time with my sister-in-law, and again I have no complaints about that, although she has 3 small children, and so of course that's where her priorities are, and accommodating that was also my focus. I didn't want to be a burden or draw her away from that, and I did want to be useful whenever possible.

The wild card connection was with my other brother's children in Philadelphia. Even though they call me by the wrong name, which is not cool on the part of my brother, I love those kids. My cousin's daughter Gracie will always hold a special place for me, but she will always be that much farther from me because of my now threadbare relationship with my cousin.

But it was very comfortable returning here. I'm not sure when was the moment when it became comfortable, whether it was immediately after I was dropped off at the airport and got a Jamba Juice as a last taste of the U.S., or whether after I landed in Taipei and found it raining and plotting the best way to get home, or sometime else during the journey.

But I was definitely comfortable by the time I lugged my luggage up the last steps and found myself in the isolation of my room. Isolation is best alone. Isolation is not so satisfying when accompanied by family members, in-laws and family and nephews and nieces.

(This blog used to allow comments. The comment this post ridicules explicates is included in the body of the post. - future ed.) 

Well, as long as I went and published the anonymous comment from the previous post, I should probably address it aside from just laughing at it (and just about every line made me laugh), because there actually are quite a few issues upon which the comment gives me the opportunity to clarify my personal perspective (read: super long post, not unlike my running commentary on the Craig's List suicide note from way back when).

I.
The biggest problem with the comment is this person, who I'll refer to as 'he', goes on and on without any knowledge of his target (me), and as a result he ends up imposing his view without having listened, and therefore what he says has no relevance in this particular forum and is not welcome. It also makes the overall tenor of the comment patronizing and condescending and arguably insulting (whether he was trying to be insulting, the jury (me) is still out).

When I was at Deer Park, I was a long-term guest, so sometimes short-term guests would open up to me because maybe they felt more parity with me as an ordinary Joe, whereas they may have felt more formal with the monks, and the most important thing for me to do was listen and understand their issue, and only respond if I really had something personal to say and an idea where they were coming from.

If there was something in my understanding or experience that I thought might help, I would offer it, but if not, I didn't pretend that I did and spew Buddhist doctrine. I also very, very rarely drew upon Buddhist doctrine in my responses because it was important for me to be personal.

If I went to a monastery and brought up the issues in this blog and got the answer this commenter posted, I would've turned around and walked out. And if someone came to me with an issue and I gave an answer, and that person turned around and walked out, I would have chalked that up as a big fail on my part.

So the first big thing to learn from this person is to listen deeply before offering your opinion. Even if this person's intentions were good, it was counter-productive. He may have been trying to help and offer some insight, but he instead ended up insulting me because he made assumptions and didn't bother finding out to whom he was commenting.

II.
He writes: I really wonder why you take a fatalistic attitude towards life.

I'm not sure from where that assumption of fatalism comes. My best guess is that I used the word "inevitable" in my personal description, and maybe there's logic in that, but by inevitable, I wasn't implying fate or destiny. He didn't know that because he didn't bother finding out. Anyway, if I have a fatalistic attitude towards life, it's because it's my choice.

He writes: If you are really practising Buddhism you would know this is unacceptable and incorrect.

I don't make any distinction between practicing Buddhism and living life. So I don't accept the implication of his "if", nor that there is "really practicing Buddhism" as opposed to "not really practicing Buddhism".

If he believes that I'm not really practicing Buddhism, that's his issue, not mine. It doesn't change my view. I might say that making a statement of what's unacceptable and incorrect is not really practicing Buddhism either, and I don't expect that to change his view either. But once you start drawing these lines, you're basically creating intolerance and painting Buddhism as something dogmatic, rigid and absolute.

I can also just as easily respond, "OK, I'm not". It's not a constant concept in my mind that I'm practicing Buddhism. I have no attachment to a claim that I'm really practicing Buddhism. I don't do anything because Buddhism tells me not to do it against how I go about my life according to my flawed nature.

I don't think Buddhism should define its practitioners, and I try not to let Buddhism define me. I think it's much more fruitful to be open to Buddhism being defined by its practitioners, and I define Buddhism according to what makes sense to me.

So I don't accept his statement on what's unacceptable or incorrect, and from my understanding, I don't think Buddhism has any comment on it either. Second lesson: beware of absolutes. There are none. Or very few.

III.
He writes: All life is sacred and thus you have no right to contemplate doing away with yourself.

The "all life is sacred" mantra of Buddhism is one of the most mindlessly abused by practitioners because it so easily allows people to take the high road, but it can also lead to arrogance and hypocrisy when applied dogmatically.

When you say "all life is sacred", that's all you have to say. That's all you should say unless you want to run into pitfalls like in this person's comment. For him "all life is sacred" = "I have no right to contemplate doing away with myself".

For me "all life is sacred" requires me to contemplate doing away with myself to get to the essence of what is sacred about it. I not only have the right, but it's my responsibility. The sacredness of life includes the dissolution of life. Life is the totality of life, death and, for Buddhists, reincarnation over multiple lifetimes.

I'm not sure I want to get into the conundrum of quality of life vs. metabolic life, either. "All life is sacred" doesn't mean just mindlessly preserving all forms of life, but accepting and respecting death as part of it, however death may come. And it will come.

I note that he stops at my right to contemplate doing away with myself, implying that he doesn't even need to mention that I have no right to actually do away with myself. I note that because I think that any meaning to someone actually committing suicide is just way beyond him. That's fine, many people can't make such a leap, and from what he writes, there's no reason to expect him to.

So yes, all life is sacred, but it certainly does not strip me of any rights to contemplate anything I want.

IV.
He writes: That is definitely not the way of Buddhism.

Again, Buddhism to me is life, it's the journey. There are no absolutes, there is no dogma. There is no "not the way of Buddhism". Buddhism isn't some exclusive doctrine. To me, everything is Buddhism. It's not even a "religion". Christianity is part of Buddhism, Islam is part of Buddhism, terrorism is part of Buddhism, because Buddhism is a contemplation of human life in its totality here on this planet and about the entire universe in its impermanence in general.

He writes: From what I can tell, you are just stirring in your own selfish concerns.

Isn't basically everyone stirring in their own selfish concerns?

Or maybe he's referring to that old tired blame game that people who commit suicide are "selfish". From what I've heard about reactions to suicides, those people are not only just as selfish, but even sadistic in feeling the person who committed suicide should have endured what was obviously unendurable just so that he or she didn't have to experience the pain of someone they knew committing suicide.

He writes: The way out is to rise above the outer surface of things by use of method, wisdom, and compassion.

Not bad, but I would personally modify it to read, "The way is to use method, wisdom, and compassion". There is no purpose for the way, there is just the way. And maybe faith in it.

As for the "way out", I don't subscribe to the idea of a "way out". I'm certainly not looking for a "way out". I'm just trying to understand and learn, and this is where my inquiry has always led. Semantically, I'm not thrilled with rising "above the outer surface of things", "above" perhaps suggesting superiority. "Beyond" is perhaps a better word, and to see beyond the surface of things and into the nature of things is, I think, a legitimate Buddhist pursuit.

V.
He writes: It is a known fact that people are happier when they dedicate themselves to things larger than their personal interest or relationships, towards activities that have an impact on a larger scale.

It's not a "known fact". It's not even a fact. It's easy to imagine a profile of a person who dedicates himself to things larger than his personal interest or relationships towards activities that have an impact on a larger scale and still be miserable.

I'll revert to Buddhist doctrine now to offer that becoming happier in general comes from rooting out the causes of suffering, i.e. attachment and desire, and understanding them.

He writes: That is what Buddhism is about.

Not really. It's a method and practice of engaged Buddhism, but it certainly isn't what Buddhism is about.

He writes: You need to ask yourself why are you not being authentic in your beliefs.

He's right! I do need to ask myself why am I not being authentic in my beliefs. My belief is that I need to commit suicide, that is my path, that is the meaning of my journey. So why am I not committing suicide?!

Unfortunately, I think by "beliefs" he's referring to Buddhist doctrine and dogma.

The attractiveness about Buddhism should be that it deals with real life, real people's lives, not dogma, not doctrine, not what someone else says or dictates. Buddhism gives suggestions towards some truth but requires personal verification. Buddhist doctrine says something, but demands people to find the truth in the doctrine for themselves.

If someone doesn't find it, then Buddhist doctrine is not offended. If someone doesn't find it, then Buddhist doctrine was not for them. Anyone who insists that Buddhist doctrine is some monolithic dogma that anyone can find if they really look at it from some (usually their) perspective is no better than the born-again Christian I met in law school who beseeched me to be more open-minded and see things her way.

VI.
He writes: It is useless to profess a philosophy that is counter to your own behavior and thoughts.

I'm really trying to take his comment seriously, but it is difficult because I can't stop laughing. As the level of his discourse degenerates, I have trouble maintaining mine. But I try.

I'm guessing that the philosophy he refers to is Buddhist dogma and doctrine that is monolithic and separate from the lives it purports to guide. I don't profess such a philosophy. I think it's useless to have a philosophy that is separate from one's own behavior and thoughts. A philosophy is one's own behavior and thoughts. If one's philosophy is counter to one's own behavior and thoughts, you're an idiot. And I am an idiot because I haven't killed myself yet.

He writes: There is nothing to be so despondent about.

I'm not sure where he got that I'm despondent about anything. My only guess is that he hasn't read enough and just assumed it. Ass U Me. D.

Pick yourself up and get over this ego-based negativity.

Ego-based negativity . . . okay, there's something there, but it has nothing to do with what he knows, just what he's assumed. As for picking myself up and getting over it . . . *stifling laughter* Aw shit, I just spit all over my computer screen. Degenerating.

He writes: Think positively in a progressive manner (not that lipservice that many do about being positive).

That's good, absolutely right; not sure he's got it, though.

Take positive action. Use affirmations. Participate in selfless acts for community or strangers.

All good. Good advice. If he really thinks it would change anything in my case, well, that's just ignorant. It ain't cool to be an ignorant Buddhist, yo.

Evolve your philosophy.

OK, no problem, anyone's philosophy should evolve; good generic advice. I'd like to see it on a t-shirt.

Find the heart of compassion that leads to true individuality, that in itself releases you from bondage that pulls you down.

Oh shit, I really can't stop laughing at this one. He speaks of leading to true individuality when all I read from him is mainstream dogma and doctrine, not individuality. Listening to this guy would be the bondage that pulls me down. Mm, bondage...

Have an experience of oneness (through deep meditation, but maybe you might need entheogens like salvia divinorum to kick start it at some level).

Um, OK. I just ordered some salvia divinorum entheogens from Amazon.com. Oneness should be here in a few days. Continuing degeneration.

That oneness is always there. Enlightenment is right here, right now.

Yes, the oneness is always there. Enlightenment is right here, right now. Tell me more, enlightened one.

Alright, that's it, I have to stop. The comment degenerates into preachy drivel that would open the floodgates of snark and sarcasm, and there's nothing to offer in snark and sarcasm. Except maybe entertainment and I'm not trying to entertain.

I guess in conclusion, I'm going to have to go on the offensive.

This person is a poor authority on Buddhism and I feel sorry for anyone he tries to touch with Buddhism and believes what he's saying. He's a hypocrite and would do himself a favor to reflect more deeply on the dogma he's expounding and throw it away. He expounds without offering any real insight. He needs to get to the point where he's suicidal. If he gets to that point and still expounds the same things, people will see his truth and sincerity. All I get is arrogant self-righteousness.

I'm sure he disagrees 100% with me (and my descent into sarcasm) and is likewise horrified and offended by my liberalistic view. And the wonderful thing is that's Buddhism.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I've just been confounded as to what to make of this trip to New Jersey. It was completely unplanned and I even had to rush add pages to my passport days before my flight. I don't think it was even two weeks since it was suggested I return for a visit and the actual flight. As such, I didn't put the time I spent here to any good use. I managed the trip to Philly, but I didn't get into New York once, and I never seriously considered going up to Blue Cliff Monastery for a visit. This was more or less an extension of the useless way I've been squandering my time in Taiwan.

And I think I'm going to declare this trip a total wash. It was useless. I was useless. I have no relationship with my parents. There's no connection and it's basically just some twisted form of obligation. In Taiwan, sometimes I visit Kaohsiung and one of my cousins there has little to no contact with his father. He doesn't sit with them for meals, he takes what he wants, doesn't contribute if he doesn't want to, and that's fine because it's family and he's the child.

That's in contrast to my feeling that effort should always be made to have a connection, talk as much as possible, have a real feeling as family. But being with my parents here, I'm feeling I got it wrong, and my cousin got it right. They don't need to feel any connection, they don't need to sit down at meals and chat. They're satisfied just to provide the basics and that's it.

I gave up encouraging my father to write down his life stories, concluding that he probably doesn't have anything worth being remembered. Well, no. The worth he has to contribute is not worth pushing him to act when he doesn't want to and only puts up resistance. And I'll say this as dispassionately as I possibly can: I have no love for them. I despise them. Deep down. It's not even an emotion anymore. It's fact, it's family history. Intellectually I can justify and tolerate them, but it's just responsibility. Behaviorally, for most part we get along just fine.

For their part, I don't think they feel much different. They just don't blog or even think about it. They have their own cultural bias and perspective, and I say this as dispassionately as I can, but their feelings toward me may be some equivalent of despising. Contempt maybe. They don't understand me, they don't respect me. They are confounded at how they perceive me. They are confounded at what a disappointment I am.

As little legacy they will leave and will likely be forgotten in a generation or two, I think if I disappeared or if it came out that I committed suicide, I think they would actively try to erase any physical remnants or memories of my having been here. They'll make sure I don't leave anything for anyone, not because they don't want me to leave anything for anyone, but it's just their mindset to just get rid of all my stuff since it's useless and has no worth to them.

That's what I think. Or maybe that's just the feeling I'm getting out of this visit. I just know I don't feel good about this visit, and it may take me a while to figure out how it fits in with what I'm doing or not doing in Taiwan, and what it means for any future decision. And I am part dreading returning to Taiwan and falling into that same useless, worthless routine that I've been in for the last year plus.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

I went to Philadelphia last weekend to visit my other brother's family. He's 2 years older than me. My oldest brother who lives in Englewood Cliffs is 3 years older. I actually went to Philly earlier this month for his 7 year old son's birthday, but that was with the rest of the family and it was just a day trip.

On that trip, I learned that my brother was introducing his son to plastic model kits. They were working on a model of the Titanic together, and he had a model kit of a B-17 (1/48 scale I think – rather large) in the closet, waiting to be built after he gets a little older.

Me and my brothers all got into building plastic models when we were kids, but he was indisputably the best at it. My efforts often turned out as incomplete or inconsistently painted pieces of crap. I forget how good my oldest brother was at it – we were bitter enemies when we were kids and many of my memories of him in that period have been wiped clean.

But my older brother seemed to have a natural talent for it, as he does with many things, and his assembly, painting and weathering were impressive for his age, which I'm guessing he was in the range of 9-12 when he was actively building these kits.

We were mostly into World War II warships and planes – 1/700 scale Waterline Series Imperial Japanese Navy warships and 1/48 or 1/72 scale Japanese and U.S. warplanes. We had definitely stopped by high school, maybe even junior high, and the remnants of the collection ended up out of sight on some closet shelf, I shouldn't wonder.

The years took their toll and the vast majority eventually was lost or destroyed and discarded. At some point, I decided to pack the remaining pieces away in a single box filled with synthetic cotton for meager protection. I forget exactly when this took place, but certainly it was after my brother left for college and I still had 2 years of high school to finish, or on one of my trips back from college on vacation.

I don't think he knew what happened to the collection, but I clearly remembered I had packed it away. So when I heard he was introducing his son to plastic models, I went searching for the box and found it without too much difficulty (aside from my mother filling my closet with clothes, after completely filling the closets in both of my brothers' rooms, the contents of my closet have remained untouched), and brought them down with me to Philly.

I was hoping to go to my brother's son's little league game, but it got rained out, so instead we excavated the box and pulled out the contents:

My nephew was pretty excited and impressed and asked a lot of questions. I was surprised at how many models were in the box. I knew the main aircraft carriers and battleships were there on top, but then there was an assortment of lesser ships, including heavy cruisers, light cruisers, a hospital ship, a seaplane tender, and an entire support fleet of destroyers and submarines.

I suspected there were some planes in there, but didn't know which ones, and there they were at the bottom of the box. Only one 1/48 scale plane survived, which is sad since we had a lot of them. I don't even know the name of the aircraft that survived (middle left of the photo), but we had maybe at least a couple dozen of 1/48 scale aircraft.

However, the piece that survived was a good representation of my brother's skill. The propeller and engine cowling are removable and he had painted the engine. He had also weathered the wings along the joints and around the guns for realism.

The other planes in the photo are smaller 1/72 scale models, and we had a lot of them, too. They are in various degrees of disrepair, and they make me think I may have made a decision over which planes to save, meaning the ones I didn't choose got chucked, which is sad if that's what happened.

The most damaged 1/72 scale plane is the light grey (white) A6M2 Zero with the diagonal blue line on the fuselage by the napkin holder, and it was saved despite the damage because the markings of the plane were supposed to be that of Saburo Sakai's plane or his flight group.

Sakai was Japan's leading fighter ace to survive the war, and he was a bit of a hero to us because his story was recorded in a book called Samurai! that may have been the first novel I ever read. He was among the best of the best and one of his stories was also featured on a Discovery Channel episode called Dogfight Over Guadalcanal.

As an adult, he remained an impressive figure to me because he became a man of peace, refusing to even kill a mosquito, and he went on reconciliation trips to meet and befriend the American pilots he had fought against during the war. When he died some 10 years ago, I read about it in the New York Times and printed out the article and tucked it into the copy of Samurai! that I still owned. It turns out my brother did the exact same thing.

The other 1/72 scale model of historical note is cut off on the left side, the B5N torpedo bomber with the yellow fuselage and brown and olive camouflage wings. That was the only plane with those markings and was flown by a pilot I think was named Fujita who led the attack on Pearl Harbor (NB: these are anecdotes from childhood memory, for which I haven't confirmed historical accuracy) (N even more B: after a cursory history wiki check, all of that information is wrong, aside from that a B5N, with standard olive green navy aircraft markings, led the first squadron in the attack on Pearl Harbor).

I'm glad how it all played out. It was a bit of atonement to have preserved these models and have my brother show them to his son 30 years down the line. It wasn't only with my oldest brother that I fought, me and my older brother also had our share of fights.

On one occasion when we still lived on Cambridge Place, we were in a heated fight, and it ended with me on a balcony on the upper floor of the house with a bunch of models threatening to send them crashing to the lower floor where my brother was. I remember him warning me not to do it, but then I started hurling them down.

I don't think they were his models. Even in our worst fights, I hope that it would have been unconscionable for me to destroy his work (my other brother would've been a different story, I'm sure). And since I'm not sure he would have cared whether I destroyed my own models, the most logical explanation is that they were my models that he had helped me complete, since I always ended up with a plastic ball of paint and glue when I made them on my own anyway.

I think that incident left deep scars on both of us for different reasons – on my part it represents the environment of sheer rage and hate that I was up to my eyeballs in.

I don't think having preserved these other creations from his youth is necessary towards anything in our sibling relationship that we haven't dealt with in our own ways through the years. There hasn't been anything hanging over us that has prevented us from having a more fulfilled and complete relationship that we can finally let go of.

But there's still the full circle aspect from that incident to actually handling these models surviving from 30 years ago. There's a bit of finality or bringing it to a close, and realizing it's about his son and raising his children emotionally well now, and not any lingering aspects or memories from the past.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Counting down one week before I return to Taiwan. That's reality. As it happens, I've allowed myself to fall into the fantasy of being here and ignore everything I still have to face when I go back.

I don't think returning to the States is anywhere in my future plans. There's nothing for me here, and anyway I don't think I could live within a hundred mile radius of my parents. They have been pushing me dangerously close to my breaking point with them without even doing anything.

And that's exactly it. They haven't changed or transformed at all to warrant any changes in my intolerance level. Nevertheless, there's nothing for me here, and still unmotivated to do anything, it is simply not an option.

I'm at a loss how to sum up this past month. I'm not sure what this month is or what it means. Maybe it just is. Maybe I know that it means nothing in the long run and is a reflection of that and that's why I'm unable to express anything about it. But I hope to.

I've been hanging out a lot with my sister-in-law at my brother's house. They live in the same town as my parents, so she's in very familiar territory to me. She comes from a family of 4 sisters and we discuss a lot about family issues and history.

I also went down to Philadelphia and visited my other brother there. That's more stuff I'd like to express, but have no idea how to say it. While I was down there, I met up with an old college friend and we had a good talk over brunch.

Bored now.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

For the vast majority of my accessible childhood memory, my parents lived in this town. There are scraps of other places, but mostly places I've only heard about: West Orange, Jackson Heights, and ... that's about it. My childhood memory is a fragmented, threadbare affair, and my sister-in-law informs me my oldest brother is no different.

I've always assumed that the nieces and nephews I've interacted with these past several years wouldn't remember anything about me, because I don't remember anything from their ages. But apparently they are getting a substantively different upbringing with things worth remembering (oddly, me perhaps being one of them).

My parents used to live on the north side of town at 22 Cambridge Place. That house still exists, albeit completely remodeled – no one has yet torn it down and erected a McMansion as is happening all over town. I do have memories from that house intact. And not all bad ones, believe it or not.

I guess I've been fascinated by memory recently, plumbing the depths of what I remember about that house. It had, and still has, a pretty large backyard with a fence around it – a common feature for older houses, but McMansions are huge atrocities on relatively small plots of land that yards are largely being done away with.

That was where me and my brothers played and explored. Ample tree cover, an old but usable swing set, a shed for my father's gardening equipment, which horrified me because of the spider life that took a liking to the place.

And one infamous night when my brothers and some of their friends camped out in the backyard in a new tent someone had gotten. I, the youngest, wasn't invited to the party. I remember this as fact, not as memory, but at some point I decided to go out and try to scare them.

I think I snuck up and created a shadow against the tent wall and that did the trick in scaring them. That lasted the whole of a few seconds before they realized it was me and they proceeded to chase me around the backyard in the dark. I headed for the gate, which was usually open, but they had closed it for the occasion. Hilarity did not ensue.

Again, most of this is fact memory, but when I impacted the wire fence, that's something I remember. It was just a flash, me running at top speed and brought to a sudden stop by the fence. I think I remember seeing red against white.

The aftermath memory reverts to facts. My parents, as usual, weren't around; I don't remember them involved in any of this. I vaguely recall one of my brothers, I think my second brother, taking me up to my parents bedroom where he called them to tell them what happened and field advice. I forget if I needed stitches, but I think the scar above my right eye is from that incident.

Fast forward to adult memories.

I was in 6th grade when we moved to my parents' current house, ending those formative memories. At my parents' current house, I finished elementary school, attended high school, left for college, visited during breaks, graduated, left for Japan, got dragged back from Japan, left for law school in San Francisco, set up a life in San Francisco, threw away my life in San Francisco, returned to my parents house, left for the monastery, returned to my parents house, and finally left for Taiwan.

And this time, visiting from Taiwan, I find remnants of stuff, relics, from my life in San Francisco. I got rid of a lot of stuff before I left, gave a lot of it away to friends (I had friends), but quite a few pieces made it back to New Jersey.

And this time, enough time has passed since I left San Francisco that these relics now have meaning. For example, what was just kitchen plates and bowls before now conjure meaning. Independence, living a life. That matching kitchen set was bought at a Bay Area flea market. Beer glasses that I snuck out of bars and clubs, because, Christ, for the price of beer, I should get something out of it. My collection of coffee mugs. Pots and pans that I used to conquer my complete lack of comprehension of how to cook.

Relics now. It's unthinkable now to return to the U.S. from Taiwan and set up that sort of life again. I tried it, it didn't work. And now I have these plates, bowls, cups and mugs still wrapped up in newspaper for shipping as evidence. And memory.

numbed silly

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Being here has become a major numbing experience. In fact, my daily patterns aren't that much different from what they were in Taiwan in terms of isolation and avoidance, although I do have mandatory social exposure to my parents, and I see my brother and his family every several days.

The first week crawled by, but then the second week zipped by and slipped away before I even noticed. All I do really is putter around, falling into all the same old patterns and habits. It's just more luxurious here.

My parents have a nice, spacious house in quiet suburbia as opposed to my noisy, dark urban apartment in Taipei. I've pulled out my guitar (Takamine) and bass (Spector) and have my drums (Yamaha) set up in the basement, and playing them has been sweet – much better quality instruments than I have access to in Taiwan.

My bike here is older, and almost failed as a result, but now that I have it working, I can feel how it is just a better quality bike than my Giant. It's a Peugeot that I bought in San Francisco 12 or 13 years ago and the gear shifters are outdated.

When I pulled the bike out, the shifters didn't work. Well, they worked one way, but not the other, so once the chain was on the largest ring in front, I couldn't downshift, and when the chain got to the lowest gear in back, I couldn't upshift.

The first place to which I took the Peugeot was Bike Masters in Englewood, where I've been going to since I was a kid. Ownership has changed, though, and the current owner is Korean. He took one look at the shifters and wouldn't give them a second glance, wouldn't even touch it. "Buy a new bike!", he said, not even making eye contact. I scoffed at his inability on the way out.

The second place I went to was Bicycle Workshop in Tenafly and they – Spanish speakers, although I don't know where they are from – were better with an explanation, maintaining there was no company support or parts for this kind of shifters, but they had one last ditch procedure they could try, but emphasized that they couldn't guarantee it would work.

It sounded like they'd seen this problem before since they prompted me with a question about how long it's been since I rode the bike – they suspected it hadn't been ridden in a long time, and I confirmed that it had been years since I rode it.

I gleaned that because of the long period of inactivity, grease had built up in a certain part of the shifters preventing them from "grabbing". They were going to soak them for several days in a solution to clear away the grease. Almost a week later, they called and told me to pick it up, it was working.

The weather has been hit or miss, though, and I've mostly been riding on a trainer in the basement for 30-60 minutes. I went out once on a sunny day, but quickly discerned it was too chilly for my liking and just rode to the north end of town and back. Barely 5 miles there and back. Small town.

But what am I doing? What's the point? I'm even boring myself now.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

My practice is grateful for my parents. Truly so, I'm not being sarcastic. Things they insinuate, things they do, things they outright say, things they represent are all opportunities for me to watch my practice in action, and overall I think I've come along quite satisfactorily.

And on top of that is genuine, normative gratefulness, simply for what they've provided and for how much worse they could've been as parents and were not. And below all the gratitude is a recognizable indifference towards them that informs me that they should not in any way be a part of what I decide to do or not do. I don't owe them that, nor do they necessarily deserve such consideration.

My reactions of becoming a cold wall, or feeling a tightening ball of anger or annoyance gripping in my chest, to what so far has been the worst reaction of becoming outright sarcastic and snarky, are all being watched and minded.

The first two types of reaction are easy to handle; they are immediate and immediately recognizable, and easy for me to grab a hold of, acknowledge and relax and let go of. Stop it. Good practice *pats practice on the head*.

In general, try to do no harm, don't say anything harmful or creates negative tension, even in response to an offense.

I'm neither articulate nor observant enough to describe their perceived offenses, but suffice it to say they are family things. Things that only come from being family and just about anyone knows it when they encounter it with their own families.

The incident involving sarcasm and snark was a response to relentless, although likely unintended, condescension and insulting of my intelligence by my approaching senility father, and the breaking point led me to start repeating what he was saying in exaggerated, mock agreement. I don't regret my behavior as it was harmless and more defensive exasperation than an offensive cut at his cluelessness that I twisted after plunging it in.

I've also been learning suggestions that my father, in general, can't be claimed to be a good, well-intentioned, self-sacrificing figure towards other people in his life, both professionally and personally.

As a medical doctor, I have no reason to doubt he has always conducted his business to the highest professional standard, strictly speaking – he has been sued for malpractice, but has won every time because his records are meticulous and logic and reasoning competent and defensible – but he never went the extra inch to help someone, not much of a bedside manner, I shouldn't wonder.

Personally, I always look for the good, well-intentioned person and read that into the non-expressive, blank wall exterior of my father, but I realize that may just be my own projections. Whatever, really. In my experience, he has never gone beyond the call of duty except for acting as the family bank, and that's significant enough, so fine.

They off-handedly called me "spoiled" in response to my apathy and lack of interest towards my life. So much to say about that. The great irony of a parent calling a child "spoiled" is that, well, someone did the spoiling (hint: it was them). Another thing is that they were calling me "spoiled" when I was a teenager. They're still calling me that?! Come on, where's the progress?! Where's the imagination?

But where I understand how it might have made me angry before on multiple levels, it doesn't now and I was content to think to myself, "maybe so".