the state of things

Haven't felt like publishing anything these days because I'm not satisfied with what I end up with, as usual. I need more time in life for this stuff. Sigh.

In-person conversations these past few months have been great on the other hand; always open to talking with people. Thanks to everyone who's listened. :)

Now, where were we again?

For lack of a more cohesive thought process and the sake of time, I'm just going to throw things on here that may or may not be related to each other but are relevant to whatever's been going on with me of late. Or perhaps "for years," as one of my friends has put it.

- Imposter syndrome. and simply being apathetic about the day-to-day process, and even on those days where I'm productive at work, wondering what's the point of it all. The things I actually feel like doing (like writing, as I am right now) are not financially productive enough for me to just give up whatever else I ought to be doing right now.

- That night Jade and I walked the streets of Manhattan and I picked out a set of husky earmuffs. To phrase it in terms not actually used in the conversation because I already forgot exactly what we said, questioning the narratives that have been placed in front of us because they conflict with the way we approach life-- just what are we really striving for? And the conundrum that comes knowing that we are able to experience these issues now because of our having already achieved in life what others have had to spent a lifetime to achieve, or in other words, because of our privilege.

- I'm sick of the phrase, "what does it mean to" + ________ + ?, even though it comes up in church all the time. Or just Christianese lingo in general. My therapist made a comment today about how he doesn't like using the word "sin" in a therapy context because it's such a loaded term that can mean different things depending on who you talk to, since not everyone has the same understanding of it, and I wholeheartedly agree.

- Oh, and therapy's been great. Just a little too short and too expensive for my liking given that I could probably talk about my problems all day and not for 50 minutes a session, and it's not an end-all kind of treatment like you might expect. But it's been nice to have someone who can provide insight and constructive feedback in an understanding and non-judgmental way.

- I think I've spent more money on clothes in the past couple of months than I did in the past few years. Lately I've been thinking about things (like fashion and dating) that I never really had much consideration for years ago. I feel like I've just been maturing really late or something in those respects.

- If societal pressure/expectations weren't an issue, I would be okay with being single for the rest of my life. Not that I don't want a relationship, but I don't see a relationship as the end-all that other people apparently see it as. (And don't throw "man was not made to be alone" at me when Paul also advocates for celibacy in 1 Corinthians. Or for that matter, just don't throw out-of-context verses at me in general, when people have been debating on the proper meaning of these things for ages.)

Most of the time when I do something alone, the thought that sometimes goes through my mind is, "it would be nice if someone else were here," but NOT "it would be better if someone else were here." Having another person there introduces a whole other set of concerns and situations that are probably equal, but not necessarily better to me. Some of the happiest moments I experienced in the past year happened when I was alone, honestly, and I couldn't imagine another person appreciating those moments the same way I did... or at least, another person out of all the people I know currently, best friends included.

- People have asked me lately what I've been looking for in an SO. I honestly can't tell off-the-bat because I'm just not automatically attracted to most females I meet for the first time (cue conversation for another time, or feel free to ask me), and I have a much easier time discerning what I don't like than what I do like. But I guess one thing, in light of the conversations I've had lately: it would be nice to find someone who can keep up with an intellectual discussion and eventually formulate their own opinion about it, even if they don't know anything going in. (Yes, I like having fun, stupid conversations too, but I can have those any day of the week. The more interesting, thoughtful conversations-- those have been more rare for me lately.)

-  On a semi-related note, the problem I have with the typical church-goer is that a lot of people are looking to be told how they should live, simply because the Bible or their pastor says so, rather than really reflecting on why that is so and whether they actually think it makes sense for themselves. If they can at least contemplate why someone outside the church would see things completely differently from it, and in a way that doesn't automatically see the other worldview as inferior, then that'd be a good place to start.

I will admit that I am easily prone to judging people who say things that come across as bigoted or lacking in understanding, though, when their real opinion might be more nuanced or thought-out than it appears to be. But regardless, I'm finding myself in this position where I'm finding being Christian to be more of a turn-off in a person than it is something to spark interest, or at least in the average case. But being antitheist/apatheist/lacking any interest in religion isn't necessarily better to me either. As I put it to one friend, I think I'd have more in common with someone who used to be Christian-then left-then came back (the coming back part being optional). At least, it shows (hopefully) that the person put some thought into it.

- I don't like the way my family sometimes treats Christianity almost like a ritualistic, superstitious activity in itself, which actually is kind of a Chinese approach to religion the more I think about it. Pray before traveling; pray before a big meal; pray with your eyes closed for that matter; go to church every Sunday; take communion and put money into the tithing basket and clap; make sure you're actually singing during worship and listening to the message; "what if you're not baptized before you die?" and little things like that.

This is not something I would've figured out or really understood until I left home, but when you limit the extent of your religious behavior to making sure you're doing everything "correctly," without consideration for what exactly it is that makes your behavior "good," you limit the speaking and transformative power of your faith (not in its full context, I know, but I'm referring to Matthew 5:16 -- "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." See also any of Jesus' interactions with the Pharisees). And you also reduce it to simply being a means for making yourself feel better about whatever lifestyle you're already living.

I think this is in part why a lot of youth get fed up with the religion of their parents and end up becoming either more fanatical/extremist or just leaving it altogether: because they expect that something as professedly life-transforming as a religion would actually reflect something genuinely better about its adherents' lives, and not just become another organized means of getting by in life or providing structure/purpose to it.

- Ironically, I still feel a compulsion to consult others for advice even though I profess being tired of being told by people what I should/shouldn't do (although I've technically been saying the latter since I was in elementary school; my family still makes fun of me for it). Or perhaps it should be: I'm tired of authority. I just want advice. And the right to not follow said advice without being ridiculed for it if I honestly think and feel differently about it.

- Wishing I could record the conversations I've been having in the past few months, because my memory's going and I haven't had much time to reflect on everything we've talked about.

- Paperman, Undertale, Hamilton, Michael Arden, and Beyonce's "Countdown" on repeat. I've also been getting back into hip hop again.

- The more I learn, the less certain I feel, the more fed up I am with people who expect me to have come to some decision or belief on things that are still hotly contested by tons of people today. The expectation to have had your life figured out by *insert arbitrary age of true adulthood here*:

18? didn't know shit.
21? still didn't know shit, or shit about life in the real world anyway.
25? ugh, I still felt like 22 was last year. and I still didn't know shit, though in part because I wanted to enjoy other things in life that I never got to fully appreciate before because school and other commitments but mainly school.

But really. Politics? Religious beliefs? Professional direction? Sexual and relational identity? Lifestyle?

All of these things take time and years of continuous experiences to have developed a substantially meaningful stance on, and, I feel like it's taken me years longer to figure these things out than familial/social expectations have dictated, let alone the fact that a good number of people around me seem to have already decided on these things at younger ages than I am now. The opinions that I already have right now are different from what I had a couple of years back even, and I expect them to likely continue to change as I grow older, with further experience. So pardon me if I come across as non-commital right now; I'm still figuring things out for myself. Hence, the therapy, among other things.

- I feel like this year is the year I move on from the day-to-day distractions to whatever it is I'm really looking for-- if only because I'm fed up with being stuck in every aspect of my life till now.

I still feel like disappearing from everything sometimes, if only because my mind can only take so much human interaction and feedback and distraction from all parts of life before it shuts down. It doesn't help that a lot of these voices have been conflicting, and I'm the type of person who tries to gauge all sources of input before I really commit to something (except for when I stop caring because I just want to get it over with. Stop bitching at me for my car choice man, I KNOW ALREADY.)

But first, time to breathe.

---

Apologies if I come across as frustrated right now. I'm just perpetually frustrated most of the time these days when I actually bother to think about it (I'm pretty sure I've been in a similar phase on this blog in the past, though this time it's the quarter-life crisis edition). If I don't respond well to feedback or criticism these days, I'm really sorry; it's just the phase I'm going through right now. But at least it helps that most people I talk to don't tend to push my buttons that way anyway. (Johny, you can keep trying, but I don't think you'll have much luck. :P)

And if I don't come across as frustrated in person, I'm probably doing a good job of distracting myself away from it. Friends make for good distractions (among other things), even when we're talking about the very things causing my frustration. I do a decent job of separating my emotions and feelings from the substance of my thoughts, or speaking in a detached manner that is.

Till next time.

on writing.

So back in the day (and by that I mean college, so not really that long ago depending on your perspective), I used to write a lot more. I practically blogged something every few days or so, even if it was only a few sentences; whatever happened to be on my mind at the moment. And it was fun… or at least, it felt worthwhile, even in those moments when I was upset and needed to vent somewhere.

And then, people started discovering my blog. Mostly through not-so-random chance—as in, I allowed it to be findable by hinting at its existence… until I finally caved and (quietly) linked to it on FB and that gravatar thing that certain sites like Wordpress use (it’s not there anymore, for the record.). And suddenly I had a readership of some sort, even though it wasn’t really much compared to other people I knew who were more open about blogging. But I was at least aware that some people read my posts sometimes.

Having a readership changed things, allbeit gradually at first. I started to censor myself more; post less frequently; focus on making longer, more substantial entries, until it started feeling like I was trying to write for some magazine or other publication (but still in my own personal style with the excessive parenthetical thoughts and technically improper dash usage as I just learned recently).

And then I started having trouble writing posts. It would take a minimum of 6+ hours for me to write something I was even half-satisfied with, which by working-life standards is 3/4ths of a standard workday already—which made me even less inclined to start because I’d start feeling overwhelmed about “wasting time,” especially considering how often I’d lose sleep from staying up late writing. I’d randomly start a post every so often and never finish it, or I’d finish and then just never publish it for whatever the reason, including my last post “on writing.” (which will never see the light of day as far as I’m concerned. I can’t stand my own writing sometimes.)

Now it’s just gotten to the point where I’m too self-conscious to even start writing about the things that have been on my mind these days.

The reality is, writing is hard. And not just in the I-suck-at-communicating-and-can-never-find-the-right-words sense, but in the sense that it’s difficult to put yourself out there when you know that you’ll likely be judged by your words to some extent by whoever is reading your blog at a given moment. It's almost nerve-wracking, even (especially when no one responds but you see your post’s stats went up and start wondering what that OSX Chrome user thought). And I know for a fact that I don’t take criticism or judgment all that well, especially when it comes to my own personal thoughts.

The point being, I have a lot of things on my mind that I’ve love to write more about on here, but have often stopped short out of fear of not being “blog-appropriate” or simply being unprepared to deal with whatever reactions people might have—because there’s a lot of things I just don’t talk about all that openly with most people. It’s hard because there is some sense to that: in this era of open internet and social media, whatever you share online can come back and bite you later when you least expect it, and there’s no way of taking back what others have seen. I don’t think I’m prepared to handle the scrutiny of “fifty pairs of eyes,” to intentionally misquote Virginia Woolf, let alone that of a single person (and that actually should be reversed to make the comparison accurate but whatever.).

Aside from that, there's this quote from this rather inspirational post on blogging I read the other day that sums up the experience of writing better than I could have:

"You know what writing really is? It’s about putting your completely incomplete and perfectly imperfect thoughts on paper. It’s about facing the stark reality that you’re not as smart as you thought yourself to be and that your beliefs about life (and everything within it) are not as clear as you had hoped them to be."

When I first started blogging, my intention was always rather simple: I wrote for myself. I wrote to keep track of my own thoughts, because I thought a lot, but most of the time only passively and in an aimless fashion to the point where I’d end up forgetting what was on my mind just a few minutes ago.

Of course, while that part of my motivation never really changed, I had to admit that once I became aware of my limited readership, it wasn’t only for me anymore. Part of me wanted to impress whoever it was that was reading at a given moment, almost as a way of saying: “Look at me! My thoughts are deep and insightful and you should pay attention to me!”

But the more I wrote, or tried to anyway, the more I realized this: my thoughts aren’t always all that. I can only say so much before I start repeating myself. And I will never impress everyone, nor is it even worth trying to, because my own concerns don’t always carry the same weight in other people’s eyes.

And that’s just the reality of it. I spend so much time, so many hours agonizing over finding the right words to say, for an entry that likely will just be glossed over within a few minutes by anyone who happens to come across this. It’s discouraging to realize sometimes (and ties into other thoughts I've had on loneliness, but that's for another day). But it reminds me that I shouldn’t be trying that hard to “impress” anyone with what I say anyway. I have other, more personal reasons for doing this, reasons ultimately that make this whole process worthwhile.

All that to say, I’m going to try to be a bit more open and a bit less cautious about what I really want to say when I write here (to the extent that there will probably be more long-form posts of this sort in the future). By not bothering to write out of fear, I’ve been hurting myself more in the long run. And I missed this.

It is now 5 AM, and I have officially screwed myself over for the rest of today. But oh well. To me, it’s been worth it (until I wake up later today and curse past me for not sleeping on this, anyway).

still alive.

I guess I've just gotten more private about things lately... including the things I used to write about. And I can't really sustain this blog with just posts about what I'm currently reading/watching and so on even though that still goes on too. I'd just be self-reporting my distractions if anything, and that's never really been the focal purpose of this blog, else I'd have started a separate entertainment blog or something (which now that I think about it might not be a bad idea but ugh I've started so many blogs by now).

Most days of late cycle between vague tired-of-people-ness, frantically trying to enjoy moments when they come by, and subsequent disappointed feelings but mostly in myself for perpetuating these personal issues indefinitely. Not to mention the host of other problems I don't feel comfortable blogging about for now.

I've been able to speak up more about some of these in person with a few friends, and that's been good... but I still need to see a therapist one of these days. It's been mulling in the back of my head for a long time now (as some of you may know), although like every other major thread in my life, I've been procrastinating on it... just cause. I'm pretty easily distracted. And I suck at asking people for help when I need it since I'm so used to wanting to be independent about everything (and sucking at that too to the point where people nag me about it which only pisses me off more. shut up I know I make mistakes okay).

But procrastination and good talks aside, lately it's been getting to the point where I've started telling myself, "I don't think I can go on like this much longer." I'm sick and tired of letting my insecurities control my emotional day-to-day life, and living in fear of even possibly just having a panic attack or mental breakdown at work when a little unexpected moment just happens to tick me off (not gonna lie; it's gotten close to that). In the heat of the moment- socially or whatever- I can get by fine, and even talk about my issues is a somewhat detached manner... but it's the unpredictable day-to-day happenstances that throw me off.

I would write more but my head hurts (another thing--semi-frequent headaches) and I need sleep. Another time. But yeah, I'm taking therapist recs or advice from anyone who has experience with this kind of thing, secular or Christian. Just putting it out there now so that I'm actually motivated to go through with this for once.

Till next time.

impressions of late

Because I've kinda been all over the place this summer (and also was sick and bed-ridden for a while). Sans books because I handle those on goodreads now. I have a China trip post mostly done but still on hold till I find time to sort through all those pictures I took...

Musicals:

A Little Night Music: 
Saw this at the ACT in SF earlier this summer on their last weekend. Even though it's a Sondheim musical, I don't think I appreciated it as much as any of his other works before, but the ACT did a really good job with it here, with some pretty hilariously witty moments, and great singing. According to a female employee (who randomly talked to me on the street because of the playbill I was carrying), this show was the probably the best one they put on this season. Personal highlight that still sticks with me was the moment "Remember?" came on- capturing what it feels like to experience nostalgia from a single glance. But really, it's hard to describe without actually seeing the scene performed in person though; listening to the soundtrack doesn't evoke the same kind of feeling.

Matilda: 
Second time! Still a bit hard to follow at times- dunno if it's because of the British accents or how fast everyone sing-speaks, but pretty enjoyable and nostalgic for anyone who's familiar with Matilda from the book or film. "Naughty" and "When I Grow Up" are still my favorite songs, though the rest of the soundtrack isn't as memorable to me and I wasn't as in awe by the children dancing this time... but I guess that's sort of a novelty first-time experience thing.

Films:

Terminator: Genisys.
Just for you, Sammy. But seriously, it's fun if you go in with no expectations. Just don't try to make sense of the plot too much like I usually do; it's not worth the effort here.

Birdman.
An incredible dive into the psyche of a faded Hollywood actor. I generally am a sucker for long takes even when they're illusory (see also Rope) and this movie just flows entirely like one enormously long one. Probably my favorite live-action movie from 2014 at this rate.

Whiplash.
Intense. Relatable for anyone who's had a strict music teacher (reminds me of the days my piano teacher would slap my hands for playing poorly...) and for the same reasons difficult to watch. Found it interesting how people decry it as a tragedy even though the ending doesn't feel that way at first- but I have to agree with the sentiment there. At what cost do we ought to strive for genius?

The Look of Silence. 
Followup documentary film to 2012/13's The Act of Killing, on the Indonesian killings of 1965, but this time from the perspective of the victims and following a more conventional documentary style. Difficult to stomach at times but not as sickening as Act of Killing was persay, though perhaps because I'd already been exposed to the subject with the prior film.

What struck me the most was the amount of mental gymnastics people are willing to undergo to not take responsibility for the past- and it happened at every level, including the children of the perpetrators ("Feel free to treat my dad as your father [even though he killed your brother]." Seriously, what). You keep following the blame chain until it gets to the point where eventually no one is responsible, if only because "God willed it to happen." It's disgusting.

Moon.
Pretty cool sci-fi. Reminds me of a part of Interstellar (the part where people usually tear up at) except extended to an entire film concept complete with the claustrophobic atmosphere, and to be honest I like this film a lot more. I'm still a bit confused on what the point of GERTY was in this film though- his role didn't seem as fundamentally important compared to say, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, aside from being convenient for the sake of the plot.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.
Decent, not great as one friend put it. I was fully engaged the entire time, though that might've been partly because I was on a Sour Patch sugar high as it seems like most of the people I was with either zoned out or almost fell asleep at some points where it started to slow down between action scenes. But whatever, the action sequences are good.

Melancholia.
Finally watched this one after friends have been pushing me to for years. Very arthouse, especially the opening (which reminded me of Tree of Life except slightly less annoying), which means good things for people who are into somewhat abstract but beautiful movie visuals and bad things for the rest of us with short attention spans. I enjoyed the first half (sans the opening) more for the social dynamics of the screwed up wedding, whereas I had to force myself to pay attention during most of the second half because I honestly had lost interest in any of the characters by that point. Not exactly my cup of tea I guess, but I've always been more into the plot/character/writing aspect of films rather than the visual and this one excels more in the latter aspect. I don't think I would enjoy any of the rest of Von Trier's films (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac, etc.) any more than this one unfortunately.

TV Shows:

Orphan Black.
Got sucked into this finally at a friend's behest. Canadian sci-fi comedy-drama-mystery-thriller? (shrug, it kinda hits all those points) about a drifting hustler who witnesses the suicide of someone who looks identical to her and then tries to assume her identity... which lands her within some messed-up international conspiracy because her identical twin was apparently involved in some crazy shit. This show is particularly notable because its lead actress does an amazing job of convincingly playing multiple character roles- like Parent Trap x10. Season 1 was incredibly addictive and well-paced enough that nothing felt like filler, though later on I've been having trouble following where the plot is going and the writing quality isn't always that great. On a side note, Alison is hilarious.

Sense8.
8 people discover that they're linked- sensually, almost psychically, what-have-you- in the midst of a greater mysterious plot. The Wachowski's newest Netflix show that feels reminiscent of Cloud Atlas crossed with Heroes crossed with Lost kinda. Pretty unique in that the main cast spans multiple races, backgrounds, and sexual orientations (a Hindu Indian scientist, a Korean businesswoman, a gay Mexican star, a transgender SF "hacktivist", a Kenyan bus driver, a British-Icelandic DJ, a German crook, and a Chicago cop. oh and Sayid from Lost).

Also reminiscent of the Wachowski's works in that it feels pretty optimistic yet corny yet beautiful at the same time, and that the concept has great potential but the execution doesn't always work out so well. Pacing is rather slow and character focused rather than plot focused; I think it finally just started to pick up around episode 7, but really only for one character. Writing can also be cringe-inducing sometimes, but I managed to get past the first four episodes and I'm still enjoying it. Basically, people are really polarized on how much they love or hate this show, but I still think it's worth checking out- at least it's better than the crappy Jupiter Ascending.

Cartoons:

Adventure Time, season 6.
Finally finished this! Apparently I stopped watching last time around the halfway point, which was right when things starting gearing up in preparation for the somewhat bizarre season finale (but no different from usual really). Some episodes are hit-or-miss as usual, and apparently even some of the comet-related episodes were a stretch for some people even though I still loved those. If you aren't familiar with Adventure Time at all, it's colorful and mostly weird but in a way that oddly still makes sense most of the time (compared to shows that are just plain weird). Most of the ten-minute episodes are just random and episodic, but if you make it to season 2 onwards, there actually is a larger overarching plotline that eventually comes out. The show actually has a well-developed series mythology going on, which is what I love most about it, and I like the way that it handles relationships, although lately Steven Universe might have it beat (see below).

Gravity Falls.
Twin Peaks for kids. Seriously. This show is weird and I love it. It's about a pair of twins stuck for the summer at their uncle's mystery shack in a middle-of-nowhere town filled with supernatural secrets and crazy conspiracies. First season's more episodic, not that that's a bad thing (one of my favorite moments is Mabel's crazy illegal rainbow candy-infused acid trip- no seriously, this is what they can get away with on kid's shows these days) but the main storyline kicks into gear during second season and it makes for a great overarching mystery. The writing is clever and filled with random hilarious callback moments that I'm not sure I'd have gotten as a kid (well, Rocko's Modern Life kinda went over my head back in the day... but then again I always had a suspicion something was up after the nudist episode).

Steven Universe.
From the inventor of some of Adventure Time's most memorable songs ("Bacon Pancakes", "Daddy, Why Did You Eat My Fries", etc.) comes this heartwarming and beautifully colored cartoon about a half-human-half-gem kid named Steven and his alien gem friends who protect the earth from alien creatures and stuff. It sounds just like any other kid cartoon, but as the show progresses it delves into some fairly deep and complicated but just accessible-enough-that-kids-will-get-it adult relationship issues, which is pretty impressive for a ten minute episodic kid's series even though other shows like Adventure Time have done it before. Steven starts out annoyingly corny but really grows on you as the series progresses, exhibiting some surprisingly mature moments over time despite his childish personality. Also, the music's great, but that shouldn't be surprising.

Rick and Morty.
The return of Back to the Future on steroids. Season just started, but I loved the premiere. The way this show explores sci-fi tropes and just takes them to their crazy but logical extreme is hilarious and at the same time amazingly creative. Looking forward to the rest of it.

Anime:

Durarara!!x2 Ten.
Similar vibes with last season: not as good as season 1, but I'm still entertained in the meantime. Episodes have been mostly meandering in providing background from one character to another, but the main plots haven't really started yet (about halfway in) and the only big change that really comes to mind compared with last season is Mikado's character for obvious reasons. I suspect the pacing issues are inherited from the plot structure of the novel series itself (they still haven't addressed Celty's head yet), and I realize that most of the continuing appeal for this series comes from "character fanservice"- and by that I mean in the less conventional personality sense, because of how crazy everyone in this series is.

Space Brothers #0.
I haven't actually seen the regular series yet, but this one-shot prequel movie was touching if not a little predictable at times. Was especially fun and atmospheric to see in a movie theater (for the Japanese Film Festival), and brought back familiar awe-inspiring vibes from another spaced-based slice-of-life series, Planetes. The music in particular made my day.

Memories: Magnetic Rose.
Kouji Morimoto is known for working on Akira (the film), Macross Plus, Mind Game, the Animatrix, and a couple of Utada Hikaru's music videos (Passion) among other things. This year he showed up as a special guest for the Japanese Film Festival, and they exhibited a few of his shorts for one viewing with a special live Q&A session after that was quite informative (I was also impressed with the ability of the live translator but that's another story).

Just going to comment on the highlight of this set: Magnetic Rose, a long 45-minute short (oxymoron I know) intended as the first part of a 3 episode anthology series, Memories, based off short stories written by the author of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo. This particular short was the one directed by Morimoto, in collaboration with Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Millennium Actress, etc.) on script and Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell SAC, Wolf's Rain, too many to list) on music.

The basic premise involves a deep space freighter that investigates a SOS signal coming from an apparently deserted space station,. and what results is a crazy mishmash of deep space cyberpunk, French architecture, opera music, hallucinations, and psychological trauma among other things. The animation quality is amazing by 1990's standards and also stands the test of time quite well even today; the actual story itself is rather haunting- but perfect for cyberpunk; and the music meshes incredibly well with the animation.

During the interview after the screening, Morimoto talked about how his conception of cyberpunk in this film was really an attempt to combine his interest in the unfamiliar, in this case European architecture (which he was obsessed with at the time but aware of his cultural distance to), with the familiar, or the cold, dark alleyways of Japan that he'd grown up with. He also revealed that in the vast majority of his works, he conceived of the overall musical structure first and then molded the rest of the film to fit with the music, which explains a lot about the animation he's directed.

Afterwards, he explained how Kanno, the composer, had likened the process of composing to the process of carving out a Buddhist sculpture within a cliff: it's not so much that you create something from nothing, as it is that you feel out a structure that's already there in the materials (in this case, materials being the basic elements of music itself). Speaking of Kanno as well his other past musical collaborator, Utada Hikaru, in light of this, Morimoto exclaimed, "That, to me, is what makes genius."

The rest of the shorts tended towards being more abstract until Genius Party Beyond: Dimension Bomb, which literally was "visual poetry" as one audience member put it, but unfortunately required more visual sensory receptiveness than my sleep-deprived-self had energy for at the time (-_-). So I won't say anything else on that.

anticipation

Because I look ahead in terms of lists.

upcoming:
- finally finishing this Reactive Programming class
- the Scottish Exhibition at the de Young before it closes
- finally visiting the Legion of Honor and the Asian Art Museum
- SF Silent Film Festival
- the Thai Temple at Berkeley
- A Little Night Music
- week-long Python Training at work
- Distant Worlds LA
- Christine & Scott's wedding
- family China trip (Beijing -> Xian -> Guilin/Yangshuo -> Shanghai. mostly touristy.)
- coming back to Pokemon: Symphonic Evolutions
- Matilda round 2
- Durarara!!x2 Ten
- The Look of Silence release (followup to The Act of Killing)

book list:
- White Teeth
- Infinite Jest
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
- Indonesia, Etc
- Snow Crash
- Titus Groan
- The Resurrection of the Son of God
- The Moth
- The Once and Future King
- The Conquest of Gaul
- Midnight
- short stories: O'Connor, Saunders, some more Lovecraft
- and maybe War and Peace before the end of this year -_-

Games
- Technobabylon
- finally finishing Pillars of Eternity and Broken Age
- Life is Strange per Ryan's request
- The Witcher 3? (yeah right, ain't got time for that.)

Toss in work, work outside of work, unexpected distractions and other life priority stuff, and I'll get through maybe 50% of the above. (...50% being the top half that is.)

To follow up from last time, I had a bad people hangover headache most of today almost to the point of wanting to throw up (to be fair I probably should've not tried to schedule so much in 2.5 days- I was already exhausted at the end of the first day) and wasn't able to function much other than lying down with my eyes closed for good chunks of the morning/afternoon- which was slightly ameliorated by a revolving sushi family lunch and then watching brother play Donkey Kong 64 throughout the day, a game that I never was able to finish growing up and don't really care to anymore. Great game though.

Anyway, yes the people disappointment continued as usual, but I noticed a lot of it this time was more due to my inability to be fully present when I'm tired and in a rush (no duh), which was not helped by the sleeping problems I've been having lately. (Example: I was fatigued all day today and now I'm wide awake. and I have to wake up in 5 hours knowing that I will likely be tired at work most of tomorrow too... and I have dinner plans after again.)

And while this weekend was an extreme case of it, this generally is more applicable to the other times in the past too. Which is to say, I get tired from social interaction pretty fast even though I like who I'm hanging out with and will often try to extend that time as long as possible- sometimes beyond what I'm actually capable of handling. Time constraints are a blessing as much as they are a curse.

So anyway, instead of trying to feverishly complete the above to-do list, I'm hoping to tone things down a bit this summer and just... rest, for once. And by rest I mean not worry about being frantically productive in the times when I'm alone, and by frantically productive I mean ticking things off my entertainment and work to-do list and worrying about how much time I don't have.

Learning to look at and re-purpose "wasted time", the time spent breathing, resting, reflecting, contemplating, as time well-spent and well-lived. And remembering that I need to actually make time for these things too or else I'll go crazy.

It's been awhile.

I've had a few posts drafted in the past few months since the last one, but with time and other distractions and ongoing life events (work in and out of work; doctor's appointments and physical therapy- no I'm not dying, I just have knee and skin issues; family visiting for a week and commandeering my car; Pillars of Eternity and that One Piece mobile game my Cisco friends have gotten me addicted on; and so on) and an increasing dissatisfaction with anything I write nowadays, none of them have come to pass.

So I'm going to settle for this one instead concerning moments past unreflected.
This may be a bit messier than usual.

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"So, why aren't you happy?"

To be honest, I have trouble answering questions like this on the spot because a truthful answer requires powers of reflection and self-awareness that I am poorly skilled at drawing upon within a span of a dinner conversation. With the help of time passing since, I can probably think of a few things now compounded on each other:

1. I experience this recurring feeling of dissatisfaction whenever I hang out with people I don't often see nowadays. I could probably reduce this to some abstract statement like "time doesn't suffice," which is annoying because I don't even know what it is I expect from these one-on-one's or one-on-two's (for certain couples lol) nowadays. A deep conversation about life, the universe, and everything, which sounds vapid the way I'm writing it right now?

I used to have these kinds of conversations a lot back during college, but they often contributed to sleep loss because one night wouldn't be enough to encapsulate the kinds of things I liked to talk about, and we'd end up talking till 7 am... (Perhaps I'm just not efficient about getting to the point, but just thinking about that makes me feel rushed and anxious and could trigger a whole other discussion about busy-ness and the need to slow down.) It's even worse now because with people you don't see regularly, you have to play the catch-up game, and the span of an hour or two or three (because I can't do all-nighters anymore and Ryan's always sleep-deprived whenever I talk to him) sometimes isn't enough to encapsulate everything you might want to talk about that's happened to you in the past month or few months or six months or year or several-years for some people, possibly.

And with other people, sometimes you realize that there isn't that much to catch up over because you inhabit different social worlds, and your lives have become less relevant because you don't share a lot of things in common anymore (cue discussion on fear of becoming irrelevant). Case example: feeling removed from the context of friends who live in SF even though I end up going to SF every few weekends anyway. Then again, I don't think it'd be much different if I lived in SF as most of the people I know there are into things I have no apparent interest in anyway*, and I'm happy with where I live now. (*I say apparent because I occasionally lapse into brief obsessions with things I had no past interest in before. Last week it was shoes and now I find myself sneaking peeks at the shoes worn by every person I pass by. I think Wes might've finally rubbed off on me a little haha.)

And then there's the part where you say goodbye, and the other person says something that makes you realize they don't expect to talk or see you around for a while either... because you haven't been regularly talking to them begin with, so why would anything change now? And I could elaborate more on this and how I don't really initiate conversations with most people even when I do want to talk to them, but every attempt I've made so far has regressed into a rant about personal insecurities and how much I hate instant messaging and Hangouts even though I still use it (because if I quit, I'd just lose touch with the people I still am in touch with), and how lack of response when I've initiated with certain people has sometimes made me depressed enough to the point where I physically couldn't work- well okay, that's a whole other story.

What it comes down to, I guess, is that sometimes I find myself wondering if it's worth keeping up with people anymore, if I keep feeling this dissatisfied all the time. I mean, I still treasure the time we do spend together... but is this what it's going to be like for the rest of my life? A series of increasingly infrequent interactions until we disappear from each other's lives altogether due to irrelevance (or one of us dies), like the relationships I've already lost to time? Is it really worth the silent heartbreak?

2. "My priorities are not in sync with my actions." - from another conversation. Speaks for itself.

3. That one time I was told someone didn't like me at all because we had nothing in common. The fact is that a lot of the people I've wanted to befriend in the past actually had nothing or little in common with me to begin with (maybe part of the reason why I found them interesting in the first place?). Since the above happened, I don't really bother to initiate such things anymore, but this still bothers me sometimes.

4. Other things I still don't care to post on here right now because I don't feel like blogging is the best outlet for them at the moment and I experience a mental block even trying to discuss them in person with people I'm close to.

So... how do you explain this succinctly to the person you just spent the last hour catching up with?

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Well okay, considering it took me 7 hours to write this post, I don't think it's possible (and I'm not even satisfied with what I wrote). And apologies for the cynicism, but this is how my mind operates when I don't have it on auto-filter. I've been finding lately that hiding such thoughts just leads to increased apathy and a deadening inside more than anything. My intention in writing this is the opposite.

If you discounted people and relationships I'd say I'm actually pretty content with the way life is right now, as I don't have much else to complain about even with a sucky knee problem... but those are major things to discount from a life. And as tempting as breaking off contact with all people sounds, I don't really intend to do so.