same old, same old

- so what've you been up to?

- oh you know, the usual. worshipping idols, taking things and people for granted, trying to change

open wide, here comes the new year

viva la vida / ecclesiastes

you know what's really toxic? what's really soul-destroying? wanting to be there. or wanting to feel like you're finally there. Because here's the truth -- there doesn't fucking exist. You'll never actually be good enough, or smart enough, or funny or popular or rich enough. I know you think you will be, if you just try hard enough or change your diet or whatever but I'm telling you -- you never reach that point. That magical point just beyond the horizon where you think you can finally relax and be happy. Wake up! It doesn't exist! It's not real. Look, I know you think you know all this already - that being discontented and incredibly successful is something that happens to other people, something people write novels about and make movies out of - but you don't really think it applies to you, do you? Deep down, you think you're above all that. That it'll never happen to you. You don't actually realise that somewhere along the line everything you've been doing - every single thing you've ever tried and all your "achievements" amount to nothing more than a miserable attempt to pacify that shitty niggling feeling deep down in the core of your being that never seems to go away. That feeling of not being enough - of never ever being enough. You think 'oh if I can just do this, or oh I if I can just be this way - then my life will be sorted out. then I'll have my happy ending.' Listen to me. You need to fucking wake up - or else you'll end up 40 years old and alone, a sad old bastard who spent the best years of his life chasing something that doesn't even exist. And then you'll be like the rest of these poor old bastards who never really lived a day in their life. Who spend their days with their heads in the sand, walking around like zombies, not knowing where they're going or what they're after. And you'll have wasted your life, and there's no getting it back. Listen to me. There's no such thing as happy. Are you listening? You'll never be happy. This is it. Do you hear me? This is all you get. Right here. Right now. This is it. This is your life, and it's all you've got




So go and make the most of it.

weakness has its own pattern

- you remind me of myself 

- in what way?

- neither of us can seem to stay in love for very long

---

how to be perfect without wanting to be perfect

because if you want to be perfect, you start wanting other people to be perfect, which makes you a shitty person, because then not only are you unable / unwilling to reveal yourself to people and show them all the hidden ugliness and error you harbour in your heart, but you are also unable to tolerate the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of others... unable to receive them sincerely and without judgement

how to forgive yourself for not being perfect, but not so much that you are content with less than perfection

how to love one another

how to love your mother

---

The Pygmalion effect states that if you think you're better than everyone else, sooner or later they'll probably notice and stop hanging out with you.

the trouble with perfection

By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis: it seemed that everything that could be achieved was already achieved. No more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, physiognomy and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture, the innovative use of the human form in figurative composition, the use of the subtle gradation of tone, all had reached near perfection. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches. At this point Mannerism started to emerge. The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or in both cities simultaneously.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannerism

immovable feast

memories are made of this

- A long time ago, when we were still living in New York, David was working as a cab driver at the time. I remember one winter he came back at some ridiculous hour and as he was hanging up his coat he said to me, guess who I just met? and I said who? And he said, Dean Martin. And I said who? This was back in the early 1940s by the way, back when he was still a relatively unknown crooner who used to just sing at clubs around the city. Anyway, so I said who the hell is Dean Martin? and he explained to me who he was and that he'd gotten his autograph. And I said to him, I never knew you were a fan of his. And he replied, I'm not - I just felt bad for the guy! Apparently what happened was that he picked up Dino from outside a bar or club after a gig, and he said the guy just looked completely miserable, as in totally defeated. So when he got to the hotel he told Dino how he didn't want to mention anything but couldn't help but notice how a famous singer was in his car - and that he just wanted to say he was a big fan and loved his stuff and told him he'd let him ride for free so long as he'd agree to autograph this picture he had of me at the time -- apparently I was a big fan of Dino's as well. So anyway he got the autograph, and showed it to me. A few years later, he became quite a big deal - as I'm sure you're aware. And every time we'd catch him on tv, David's chest would puff up with pride and he'd wag his finger at me and say, you see, Cheryl, everyone needs help. Big or small, whether they know it or not, everyone needs a little help now and again. A couple of years after that, Dino was in town again to shoot a film. And at that time David was having a little bit of success as a pianist, and he hoped or believed that maybe if he could get him to recognise who he was... I don't know, maybe Dino would give him a shot, or return the favour or something. So he was on his way to the location of the shoot planning to show Dino this picture of me with his autograph on it. And on the way there he was stuck in traffic, and apparently there was some hold up because someone had fallen into the water and was flailing about. And everyone was just standing about not doing anything so of course he takes his shoes off and coat off and just immediately dives in without a second thought. And when he finally swims over to the person, someone with a megaphone yells 'CUT' and he looks around to find about a hundred people and about 5 cameras just staring at him, including the person who was apparently drowning, because they're all filming the movie Dino's supposed to act in. So they fish him out of the lake and he tries to explain how he's there to meet Dino and they probably think he's some crazy fan and escort him off the premises dripping wet and all. And by the time he gets back to the spot where he'd jumped in from - he'd just chucked his coat and shoes on the ground, you see - so of course his wallet was gone, and the picture was inside his wallet. He was so embarrassed by the whole thing that when he came home that day he just told me he'd lost the picture, and refused to say any more about it. I remember he was awfully depressed for about a week after that, but I don't think I ever truly did believe he'd just misplace something as special as that. He'd only told me what'd really happened about five years ago. By then, he was pretty much spending every day in the hospital, and he was hooked up to all kinds of machines, and when I was visiting one afternoon he called over to me and said to me, 'do you remember that day, when I lost your photo with Dino's autograph on it?' And I'm glad he told me the truth, because at least I can remember him properly this way, even with no picture or autograph to show for it.

- That's an amazing story.

- ... Can I ask you to do something for me?

- Of course, anything.

- Can you not publish that story in your magazine, or in any other publication you might write for? I know it's silly but, I don't really want anyone else to know about it. It's one of the few things that I can confidently say I know about him that nobody else knows. And I kind of want to keep it that way. I don't want him to be famous. And I know it's selfish, but it's the kind of story that people will want to keep telling over and over again. But if everyone starts telling the story, I feel like I'll be losing a little bit of him, of him beckoning me with a bony finger, and me leaning over towards him just to try and hear what he was saying. When I think of that story I want to remember it like that. As something special and private, just between us, something whispered and half-remembered between green hospital sheets.

Please. Promise me you won't tell anyone.

get tender

but how

---

I am struck by its small-town ambiance – the inherent slowness of life, the dedication to a certain way of life that revolves around languid, simple meals with friends, often in modest, open-air eating places, or going from one mamak stall to another, nowadays perhaps interspersed with a drink in a fancy bar somewhere in central KL. We call this kind of social interaction to lepak, even when we are speaking English. 

[...] 

To understand the Malaysian’s commitment to the art of lepak (or lepak-ing; the verb can be used with great freedom) is to understand why KL is a strange place – a capital city with the soul of a village, a metropolis that doesn’t quite know how to be a metropolis.

- Tash Aw, Look East, Look to the Future 

king of unhealthy living

shoes mar a delight of the sea. the shore would facilitate a wilful flight of combined truths, injuring beehives and we sigh for a long time. quietly is the grower's passion that warrants a way to escape. a flicker, cool and jangling with brevity, awaits the baroque accoutrement. Maine folk are youthful and ruthless, harbouring laughter with generous conversation. dance forty seven might well be tomorrow's engagement, as the options are forthcoming well into sundown. occasionally, your behaviour may undo the infinitesimal design, in keeping the same omissions, which mostly cave and rumble unconsciously. witless ouroboros clings to the stars, attempting to prosper, grinning and leering with a mad hunger. carving desperation out of longing and starvation out of the flesh. tumid and empty, it trips and staggers vertiginously into the ocean.

home is something you always leave behind

The case for a God who saves people who don't call themselves Christians

I tried living for myself, that is to say, without God once. It didn't really work out for me

---

So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

- Acts 17:22-23

---

- Do you believe that the God of the old testament, that is to say of Israel that is to say of Abraham and of the Jewish people is the same God that the Christians worship?

- Yes

- Do you believe that the God that the Koran describes is the same as the God of the bible?

- I'm not too sure

- Do you believe that the God that Westboro baptist church worships is the God that we worship?

---

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. 

Romans 3:9

For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. 

Romans 4:3-5

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. 

Romans 3:28 - 30

 ---

- do you think, barring those who are blatantly serving and worshipping themselves and their own desires, and those who have given themselves up to what they know is evil, that we are all attempting to serve the same God in our own flawed and uniquely misguided ways?

- i think it's possible... but at the same time, I think some of us are doing a better job of it than others

---

"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits." 

Matthew 7:15-20

---

So which of us do you think is Cain 

and which of us is Abel?

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:6

The way to worship - to obey God... this is what it looks like. No one comes to the Father except through following Jesus Christ's example -- Jesus doesn't say, no one comes to the father except through saying my name. If Jesus lives in us, through our lives, then perhaps others are acquainted with him through us? Does that make their journey any less authentic than if they had met him through scripture? Or at a church event?

Sacred Heart

Isn't that a pretty sun
setting in a pretty sky?
Will we stay and watch it darken?
Will we stay and watch it darken?  

The church not made by hands
Not contained by man
That precious place
Unmade by man

---

What is prayer anyway?

Clasping of the hands, head bowed, eyes closed, solemn faced.

There's more to it than that, right

It's about attention, isn't it? Intensely attending a certain matter

I thought it was about supplication. Asking humbly for something to happen or some harm to be averted.

It's a conversation, isn't it. A conversation between heart and spirit. That's why it requires so much concentration.

How do you mean

We're so used to using our flesh to communicate, we're not so good at speaking from the heart. Or listening to it for that matter.

Smoke rose in the distance, a slow and ominous plume. Sirens wailed softly beyond the horizon.

So if prayer is just talking then what's it good for? Why should we pray for this or that or anything if it doesn't actually change anything

What makes you say it doesn't change anything

Well I can talk to you about the shape of this table for as long as I want, but that won't make it into a triangle.

That's true

No, that's right. Just talking about it wouldn't change anything - but what if you were talking to a carpenter instead.

What do you mean

If I were a carpenter and had my tools with me, I could certainly make the table into a triangle - but the owner probably wouldn't be very happy with me

... What are you trying to say?

The growing glow tinged the sidewalks orange and cast long flickering shadows across the bistro walls.

Sorry, let me try putting it another way.

No, I see what he's saying. You're saying that things only change if you talk to someone who has the power or ability to change things, right?

Sure, yes I get that, but my original point still stands: that just merely talking about something - without taking any further action doesn't accomplish anything.

No, of course not. But that's not to say that talking about it isn't useful.

I feel like we're not talking about prayer anymore.

... what do you think it means to pray for someone

I always thought it was something like hoping for the best? Like sending positive energy or something. Or at the very least, just spending a few minutes thinking of them

Which goes back to attention and awareness

But how on earth does that benefit the person you're praying for. I just don't see how logically it would make any difference at all.

Unless you do something about it

Right?

But how do you know what to do about it? It's not always so simple

Perspiration forms like dew on their foreheads. The dried wood crackles and the ambient roar of combustion makes it harder to hear each other.

So a prayer is the meditative component that hopefully leads to epiphany and effective intervention, but without action to back it up doesn't actually make any difference in the real world. Ok, I get what you're saying.

I see! why didn't you just say so

The smell of burnt concrete and smoke engulfs the group. The flames lap at their shoes.

No, that's not it. That's not it at all.

do no harm

---

All compassion is self-pity 

- D.H. Lawrence

---

The lady in the public health lecture mentions something about 'case-finding' and how it's different from normal population screening. The idea is, she explains, that by using factors like smoking and body mass index and previous hospital admissions, you can identify asymptomatic people who are at high risk of developing a serious illness. GPs would then phone them up at home and construct a 'virtual ward' to take care of them in the community, in theory pre-empting hospital admissions by picking up and treating illnesses early. My first reaction to that is 'whoa hold on... you mean to say we're having enough trouble treating the present sick and dying population adequately, and yet you now want doctors to invade people's homes and look after the healthy? Maybe we're going about this the wrong way.'

Maybe the reason the NHS is stretched so thin is because we are trying so hard - maybe unrealistically - to cure everyone and keep everyone healthy. Endlessly optimizing. We're trying to export franchises while our flagship branch is going bankrupt. Buying assets with money we don't have. The idea is that prevention will help save money in the long run, but we spend so much money on trying to save money. It feels a bit like those promotions where you buy 10 more items to qualify for a 10% discount. Are we really saving, or just spending more? The costs of living in a too-health-conscious society. It's obviouslyh better to prevent hospital admissions and to treat patients in the community - to preempt the disease, but there is a cost as well to both patient and doctor by effectively having a patient take up residence in the practice, just in case he/she catches a cold. Is that what the NHS is doing right now? Inspecting every nook and cranny for potential maladies and bringing to a 10 minute consultation a laundry list of benign lumps, problems and worries.

Our resources are being stretched thin, reducing our pay to provide more services and facilities. Telling a starving man to eat less to save money to buy more food. We are looking to expand our kingdoms while our castles are crumbling. Why don't we focus on what we already are trying to do. Why don't we focus on doing that properly first. You learn 3 chords on the guitar and decide to pick up the harmonica. Just because you can do something, doesn't necessarily mean you should. Maybe we get greedy and overlook the risks of treatment, the harms of over-diagnosis, Sometimes doing nothing is the lesser of two evils. Maybe we forget. You can't learn everything. You can't save everyone.

social media will tear us apart

Now I take it that when we understand a thing analytically and then dominate and use it for our own convenience, we reduce it to the level of 'Nature' in the sense that we suspend our judgements of value about it, ignore its final cause (if any), and treat it in terms of quantity. This repression of elements in what would otherwise be our total reaction to it is sometimes very noticeable and even painful: something has to be overcome before we can cut up a dead man or live animal in a dissecting room. These objects resist the movement of the mind whereby we thrust them into the world of mere Nature. But in other instances too, a similar price is exacted for our analytical knowledge and manipulative power, even if we have ceased to count it. We do not look at trees either as Dryads or as beautiful objects while we cut them into beams: the first man who did so may have felt the price keenly, and the bleeding trees in Virgil and Spenser may be far-off echoes of that primeval sense of impiety.The stars lost their divinity as astronomy developed, and the Dying God has no place in chemical agriculture.
[...]
It is not the greatest of modern scientists who feel most sure that the object, stripped of its qualitative properties and reduced to mere quantity, is wholly real. Little scientists, and little unscientific followers of science, may think so. The great minds know very well that the object, so treated, is an artificial abstraction, that something of its reality has been lost. 

- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

---

Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

---

- why don't people seem to like me?

- do you really want to know

- what do you mean

- why people don't like you


- why

- most people don't want to be changed - and all you do is try to change people



- you're a real dick sometimes

---


"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

---

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now. 

- Jack Kerouac

---




- and then I started wondering if it works the other way as well

... how do you mean

- like maybe every time you sin you lose something precious

---

what is humanity? what does it mean to be human, anyway? how do we lose it - or more importantly, how do we hold on to it? it's something to do with choice - the kinds of choices we make determine what sort of creature we become. Which choices are human. Maybe hell is losing your humanity, and living with others who have similarly lost theirs. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Difference between heaven and hell: the key is how we treat other people and ourselves.

only time will tell / always know, never now

can i tell you the real truth? by the time you find out it's perfect, you've put out 3 other records they don't care so much about.

---

trying to tell which moments are sacred and which are merely sentimental

ode to shunkan

the holiness of trees / how to be clean

song of the month #2 / cliches come true

you don't have to go far

one day someone
will truly love you
and you will grow
sentimental
and believe in platitudes

i ain't afraid of no ghost

autumn son

if you keep telling lies
the thing is you end up believing them
and one day you wake up and
discover even your unhappiness is a mask
you can no longer take off
and your smile is a muffled cry
for help
you've forgotten how to decipher

next year i will find out that sometimes
when we don't talk
it's not because you are angry
but because you are trying
very hard to love someone
who makes you sad

but in the meantime
it seems i've run away
from home again
and the songs on the radio
don't make me feel a thing
all my emotions are papier mâché
as falling leaves disintegrate into
compost heaps



dead air excavates a blank line
that dutifully conveys the sound
of you not saying anything to me
i'm doing call collect
long distance again
and i've run out of things to say
there is static where
your offer to come rescue me
should be
no kidnappers to pin this one on
i'm afraid
just me

realer than real

... but besides those feelings, there's also a different kind of thing, underneath. something more rare, more real, more lasting

---

0. The Opposite of Loneliness - Marina Keegan
1. On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - Haruki Murakami
8. How to Be Polite - Paul Ford
3. Shipping Out - David Foster Wallace
3. Right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe - C.S. Lewis
9. The Therapist - Jeffery Deaver
4. The Results are Visible - Taffy Faukner
4. Weights and Measures - Jodi Picoult
9. Ode with a Lament - Pablo Neruda
7. On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion
5. That Crafty Feeling - Zadie Smith
6. The Nature of Fun - David Foster Wallace
7. Suicide Hotline - Shinji Moon
6. The Depressed Person - David Foster Wallace
9. Another Dog's Death - John Updike
8. Joy - Zadie Smith
2. Mayakovsky - Frank O'Hara
9. Good Old Neon - David Foster Wallace
6. How to Email with an Old Friend After Falling Out of Touch - Paul Ford

His job is to heal / Don't Burn Out

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. 

- 1 Timothy 2:1-3

---

“God has spoken to me many times that my job is to love and His job is to heal.” 

- Heidi Baker

---

Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. 

- Romans 12:11-13

---

'Keep yourselves fueled.' Really needed to hear that this week.

飽きました

I suppose one way to make a heart tender is to let it feel this way

---

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil. 

- Joel 2:12 - 13 

rookie mistake

was i kind today?
...
I sure was trying to be


(I genuinely don't know)

---

finding it genuinely hard to relate to freshers
'Oh what course?'
'Ah is that hard?'
'Oh what hall?'
'Ah I see...'
'That's pretty far isn't it'
'Ahhh...'


and I wonder if it's because I'm not trying hard enough, or if maybe I'm just too old
or maybe a bit of both

why is it - so hard to be interested all of a sudden? am i maybe asking the wrong questions - or maybe not asking for the right reasons

---

The skin of the knuckles of Mrs. Tagus is drawn tight and dry, and when she unfists the fist to let me comfort the hand I feel the skin crinkle like paper. Me: unfortunately also skin like paper. I look at our two hands. If my late Sandra were here with us this night I would say, to her only, things concerning oldness, coldness, trouble with stairs, paper-dry skin with brown sprinkles and yellowed nails, how it seems to Labov we get old like animals. We get claws, the shape of our face is the shape of our skull, our lips retreat back from big teeth like we're baring to snarl. Sharp, snarling, old: who should wonder if nobody cares if I hurt, except another snarler?

- David Foster Wallace, Say Never 

G r d Y r H r t

this song is called mistaking enthusiasm for kindness

Autumn Son

I have woken up at 6am and ridden the tram into and away from the city as the sun comes up and the mist dissipates and the streets are still and lit with soft autumn light and most are in cold dark rooms under warm sheets sleeping soundly or bleary eyed and properly dressed already with little clouds escaping their mouths waiting for a bus into work or for a light to turn green and bags under their eyes

...

and i don't love the city the same way i did last year,      and i doubt anybody ever will

---




on the empty tram gliding through early gray neighbourhoods on an electric hum - a kind of peace that feels like loneliness - that lingers, and stays with you even afterwards. Nottingham's version of the enoden

should've done dentistry

Abandon all hope ye who enter here 

- Dante Alighieri, Inferno 

---

I started work as a doctor 20 years ago, when the start date was 1 August, regardless of which day it fell on. It was a Saturday. I had moved 300 miles for the job and knew no one. Home was a single room above one of the surgical wards, with a collapsed, plastic covered mattress on the bed, a worn sticky carpet and an ancient wardrobe and desk. I paged the outgoing doctor at 7.30am. She arrived, shoved her pager at me and a tattered piece of paper with about 12 names on it. “These are [the emergencies] all coming in this morning. There’s 18 people needing bloods [tests]. Get all the bloods to the lab by 8.30am or they won’t run them. I am never coming back to this fucking shithole.” She walked away. 

I went to the first ward. A nurse turned from the desk and asked if I was the new house officer. I said I was. ‘Well, I’ll tell you now. you’re all fucking useless. We hate all junior doctors. And we didn’t want a bloody female one – at least the last guy was cute. Do what we tell you or we will make your life a fucking misery.’ 

It was utter misery. I worked from 7.30am on Saturday to 7pm on Monday with no sleep, one meal and about eight cups of cold coffee. That was standard for six months. I have no idea what the patients thought. I passed the time in a haze of exhaustion, fear and misery. Support was almost nonexistent. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of the years and years of work it had taken to reach this point – everything I had given up through my teens and early 20s in order to pass one exam after another. During those six months I know that at least five first-year juniors killed themselves or died unexpectedly in the UK. I understand why. I could easily have been one of them. 

- First day on the Job

---

it's always puzzled me how some senior registrars seem to carry about them an apparent resentment and palpable disdain towards medical students they've never met before - how they treat we hapless fetuses so unsympathetically - but now it all makes sense. I used to think they were just having a bad day. That it was because they didn't remember being a medical student themselves, but now I see it's the opposite. They remember it all too well. From the moment you lock eyes, the first thing that goes through their head is this: 'you lot have no idea how good you have it now.'

public enemy

caring for people isn't as simple as it used to be

song of the month #1 / shinseiki no ringo san (???)

(Disclaimer: I'm no expert at music - these are just my opinions and everything I say might be wrong. Now, with that out of the way, let's get this show on the road!)

September's song of the month is 'Machine' by Chirinuruwowaka, a Japanese rock band formed in 2005 by Yumi Nakashima as a side project to her other band GO!GO!7188 (which if you like what you hear here I recommend you to check out.) The band's name comes from a sentence from the traditional Japanese poem / alphabet Iroha.

I think the main thing that catches my ear is the song's energy and verve. Right from the start, the bass drum and bass line have that stomp-y, grunge-y, in-your-face, kind of rebellious insistence that catches your attention and doesn't let go until the end. Another thing is the attitude - it reminds me a lot of that song Cherry Bomb by the Runaways - that girl power anti-anthem, take-us-seriously-or-we'll-kick-your-ass kind of attitude. And the melody is just great in my opinion, there's just enough brightness to balance out the dissonance and create a really unpredictable tension in the verse that steadily builds in intensity all the way to the chorus and then gets released once the band kicks into gear. Then it's back to a slow and steady simmer.

The other thing that really makes the song interesting for me is the vocal performance. Those little flourishes in her voice add a lot to the song. I think the fact that she has a high sort of voice - as opposed to a deeper or husky voice - not really powerful, not exactly refined either- just short of shrill- works to her advantage strangely. Her voice is high pitched, girly but she sings in a knowing and assured manner - she gives off a little bit of that worldy-wise, post-modern, everything is ironic and tired kind of vibe - if that makes sense. A kind of sweet-bitter way of singing. It might just be the diminished chords affecting my judgement but she reminds me a bit of shiina ringo, particularly from her stem and poltergeist days. And also i guess the chorus to Yume no Ato.

In summary, this song is a real rush. It gives you time in between to catch your breath, and just when you're about to catch up it goes speeding off again. That guitar tone as well. Ugh. It's got that bare, raw Pixies meets Weezer stripped down feel going for it and an uncomplicated but amphetamine inspired rhythm section that drives the song forward.

tl;dr this song is cool and fun

---

Runners up:
Hoshikuzu no Pipeline by JUNK Fujiyama.
Heard this on an episode of Space Dandy. It's just - well... it's fantastic.

夜明けの街でサヨナラを [to say goodbye in the dawning city] by indigo la End
So far, it's been a J-rock kind of month. Standard upbeat 4-piece power pop with moody philosophical hipster lyrics with plaintive wailing bridge and uplifting sublimely catchy chorus. I just really like this band because everything just works. It's like they've got catchy melodies and harmonies down to a science. It's also super bright tonally, while still packing a punch. This song is off their Ano Machi Record mini-album, which was a bit too avant garde for my tastes at times but there are a handful of gems in there.

So I guess that's it for September. I enjoyed doing this post and I may or may not do another one next month, depending on whether another song really grabs my attention and if I have enough time (read: am able to overcome my incumbent laziness long enough) to write something. if you enjoyed any of the songs or have any songs to recommend leave a comment below!


alright, well y'all take care now -- don't be a stranger, hear.

oh, hold up just a minute! I almost forgot. Here, something kawaii for the road



now g'on, git

they call me doctor worm

what happened to being kind?

---

i feel quite far from God at the moment. this past week i've been declining steadily, gradually deteriorating - i tried to fight it. but i can almost feel myself shrivelling up, losing mass, folding into myself again

how to ruin a sunset

Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes. 

- Proverbs 27:20

---

my heart only knows how to possess

memory and desire

思わず、私はカウントダウンされた

---

September is the nostalgic-est month, spewing
Freshers from hopper buses, mixing
alcohol and anxiety, stirring
gastric contents with cheap liquor.
Registration kept us busy, traipsing
gingerly across campus, feeding
a little life with hall food
and meal deals from Boots.

相変わらず

don't write 'em like they used to

wake up, my heart

maybe the reason you like sunsets
so much is cause they never last
for long
the days are getting shorter
and so long feels like forever
don't you know
that Summer is for lovers
and nights are for sleeping, fella
ain't you glad to see the sun?

pandemonium

i had sleep paralysis again last night. i had stayed up the whole night to finish writing up a case report and was feeling incredibly sleepy, but i had to be in Derby for a 9am meeting with my clinical supervisor. it was already 7am. in the end, i decided to take a 30 minute nap, just to freshen up before catching the early bus to Derby. i lay down and covered myself with the duvet and very quickly consciousness faded and was replaced by a curious scene. i dreamt i was in a classroom watching a young boy and girl converse. they stood before me, among rows of neatly arranged tables and chairs, facing each other. neither of them noticed me. it was as if i wasn't there. pale blue light streamed in from the windows and coloured everything a cold turquoise. there was no sound. i was transfixed by the two of them, but told myself not to get too involved. i reminded myself i would have to wake up soon. i didn't want to miss the bus. i continued watching them with mild fascination, in the back of my mind knowing i would have to wake up very soon. eventually, they finished talking and headed out of the room. as they were leaving the classroom i tried to follow after them, but suddenly i the observer - that is, my point of view - stopped suddenly in its tracks, unable to advance any further as if it had reached the end of an invisible tether, and i was astounded to see a phantom doppelgänger emerge forth from right where i had been standing. i watched it walk forward, away from me. i was still rooted to the spot. with a completely neutral expression on its face, it followed after the boy and girl and left the room.

my eyes were suddenly open and i was in my bed. the sun had come up and a grey light filtered through the curtains. i tried to get up but i could only move my eyes. 'oh great. not this again,' i thought, and braced myself for what was to come. gradually a ringing in my ears started getting louder and louder and a raspy voice like grating steel started speaking, gradually increasing in speed and volume, till it became too fast for me to follow - the sound was deafening. i willed myself not to listen, to ignore the roar that had filled my skull and to just focus on keeping my eyes open. my eyes darted around the room. there's no one there, i told myself. the voice in my head started to cackle. it'll be over soon, i told myself repeatedly. hang in there!

i felt my back arching ever so slightly and my body tilting like it does on ships, like gravity had shifted by a single degree. it felt like being in the middle of a stampede. like being assaulted from all directions. i felt that if i had allowed my resolve to waver, i would have been swept away into some kind of abyss. despite the delirium, i clung to fact, for if i had loosened my grip on it just a little, i felt i would be dragged under and drowned in its violent current. i quickly abandoned that thought and submerged myself in fervent concentration. i lost all track of time. i am fine. it's all in your head. you will be fine. you will be fine. i refused to think of anything else. i guess it must have been around 5 minutes but it felt like longer. as suddenly as it had come, it had gone. the rigidity and fear had left my body and just like that i could move again.

what sleeping early and eating healthy has to do with Godliness

For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. 

- Romans 14:15

---

I said it before and I’ll say it again: All food is good, but it can turn bad if you use it badly, if you use it to trip others up and send them sprawling. When you sit down to a meal, your primary concern should not be to feed your own face but to share the life of Jesus. So be sensitive and courteous to the others who are eating. Don’t eat or say or do things that might interfere with the free exchange of love. 

- Romans 14: 20 - 21

---

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. 

- Daniel 1:8

---

“I’ll try to remember,” Tim said. “But at the moment, I’m thinking mostly about this weight. Is there a reason I’m carrying it? Is it to make me stronger?”  

 “It’s possible to get stronger by carrying the weight,” Paul said. “But for runners, strength training often happens while we are not running. This time, I wanted to help you understand something about the challenge of weight. If you are planning to run a long distance, wouldn’t you want to have as little unnecessary weight as possible?”

- Jon Swanson, Running with Weights

I can't see what anyone can see (in anyone else)

how can i get you to love this place the way i do

---

it's great when you find someone who likes you for who you are, but it's a rare thing to find someone who cries and laughs at and loves the same things you do

---

'I'm a student at Yana university, you know? And you're really pretty, Iwase. You're a thousand times smarter and better looking than Miyoshi.' 

'You're still going out with Miyoshi!' 

'Huh...? Yeah...' 

'If I'm a thousand times better than her, then go out with me.'

'I like Miyoshi a thousand times better.'

---

'Don't pretend that you still like me, you player!' 

'I told you, you've got it all wrong! I told Iwase that I liked you a thousand times more than her! Seriously! 

'Then what about compared to Aoki?!' 

'Hmm, three times.' 

'You took that seriously?! You are so retarded!
But it's more realistic that way, so I guess I'll believe you.' 

'Yeah, I like you more than anyone else in the world.' 

'Then take me to the zoo.' 

'What for...?!' 

'You just said you like me more than anyone else in the world..!'

dream of the 1980s

rakyat

Malay, from Arabic ra‘īyya ‘herd at pasture, subjects of a shepherd or king’.

blood sport

I don't believe in my own abilities enough to be a neurosurgeon, and I question the judgement and motives of those who do

---

maybe humans aren't built to be responsible for as many people as doctors are on a daily basis

---

Medical school makes you a certain way. It's a bit scary really. When my supervisor asks me how my attachment has been going and what skills I feel I'd like to practice more - I instantly think to myself, oh great, she cares. She wants to engage, and so I ramble on about hands on experience and feeling more competent as a doctor. She nods patiently with a great listening face and then later towards the end of the meeting fills in the 1st assessor meeting checklist by paraphrasing my words, and then my heart sinks a little. I was so convinced this doctor genuinely wanted to hear about how I'd been getting on. But no. She only asked so that she could fill in a form. Because this is her job.

Just today a 78 year old woman brought into the emergency department for a collapse was telling me about the sudden death of her 50 year old son on a scuba diving trip whose funeral she was scheduled to attend tomorrow - 4th family member to go in 3 weeks, she tells me, voice shaking and choking back tears

and all I can do is put on a sympathetic face and think:

I need to ask her about her cough

the impossible mission impossible (mission)

the fruits are ripe and rotting
out there on the vine
gotta reap what you sown right
gotta dig 'em up on time

boy, you got a good head
and son, you got heart
but your hands they still soft
and there's work to be done

and when the rain come in
don't you pay no mind, hear
let 'em clouds pass you by
they go 'way in no time

and when time comes
when you got sons of your own
remember tell 'em i love you
before they all grown

おかえり

いつも返したい

kinder than I seem, crueller than you think

brb trying to change who i am inside

---

i think nothing makes me sadder than looking closely at myself for a very long time

---

"weep with those who weep"

---

1. stop wallowing
2. pick yourself up
3. try again
















4. I said stop wallowing

sometimes you need to see from many angles to appreciate one thing fully

watch this film with Japan soc and then watch it again with filmmaking soc

---

the reason I think [this documentary] is so good is because if I were to try to make the same thing, I know that no matter how hard or enthusiastically I try, I never in a million years would be able to make anything even half as good. that's because it's the director's vision, and a person's vision is something only they can realise or bring to life fully. A person creating something that cannot be improved upon by anyone else in any way - isn't that something to marvel at?

---

Japan is the land I feel I was made for. I feel this connection deep inside, like a resonating frequency, like the same dust that makes up its islands is in my bones. You know that feeling of moving away from your hometown and then coming back to visit as part of observing some cultural festival that is also a tradition - and that feeling of belonging. of being 'back'. I feel that way about Japan, a country I've only been to once, for a week, have never lived in, and only read about and seen on tv. But we cannot be together unless I go. She will not come to me. I must go to her, but going to her isn't easy. Which is the same as saying, we will never be together. And it frustrates me, because I know precisely what magnitude of joy that is eluding me - that is the exact amount of happiness I forfeit by allowing our separation.

日本は私を作られたのためにの場所のように何か感じている。その島を構成する同じホコリが私の骨の中にあるように、共振周波数のように、心の奥底この接続を感じます。そして所属のその気持ち - 故郷から離れて移動した後も伝統あるいくつかの文化祭を観察の一環として訪問するために戻ってくるその気持ち。「バック」と感じ。私は一度だけにしてきた週に、住んでいたことがありません国について、わずか約やテレビで見てだけのこと― 私は日本にそのように感じています。しかし！私が行く場合を除き、私たちは一緒にすることはできません。彼女は私に来ることはありません。私は彼女に行くが、彼女に行くことは容易ではない。言うと同じである、私たちは一緒になることはありません。それは没収幸福の正確な量を私たちの分離を可能にするのこと 、 そして私は私を逃亡される喜びのどんな大きさを正確知っているので、私を失望させます。

---

i'm more comfortable in English but maybe i'm happier in Japan

---

if Hayao Miyazaki were born in America do you think he'd still make great movies?


imagine if you spoke a language that wasn't designed to express the thing inside you that you have your entire life wanted to say - that would be pretty tragic, right?

you're gonna miss this

“I know that the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get. The old life, the jokes, the drinks, the arguments, the lovemaking, the tiny, heartbreaking commonplace.”

— C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

---

- how long did it take you and Sobia to clean the house?
- hmmm not too long
- about 2 hours?
- yeah about there
- mmm  cause that's how long I was gone
- why?   feeling guilty?
-    nah  i was just thinking I should go to the gym more often


---

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.” 

― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

---

real life is in the conversations you have in the kitchen, while washing the dishes. it's with the acquaintances you bump into in the hallway. it's in how you spend your free time. it's in the uncomfortable pause. it's in the supermarket checkout line. it's what happens while waiting for the bus, on the way to work. real life isn't what you see on the big screen. real life is behind the scenes. it's all the hours of tedium and difficult, unglamorous work.^{1 2} the parts of the Rocky montage that got left on the cutting room floor. the moments that nobody ever gets to see. it rarely comes prettily packaged as some great escape or adventure. it's not always the handsome prince. some monumental set piece lying in wait just around the corner. real life isn't a highlight reel. it's not a string of spectacular events and beautiful memories played back to back, one perfectly timed freeze-frame high-five after another. that's not what you should be aiming for at all.

the moments that truly matter are not always grand. life is something you create with the little moments, and it's dangerous to forget that. It's dangerous because if you keep expecting or looking for life to be what the movies and television advertisements keep trying to convince us is special or important, you'll end up on your deathbed never having actually lived. if you keep insisting that your life should look or happen to you a certain way, you're going to miss it. you're going to miss it completely.

---





---

in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 

- 1 Thessalonians 5:18

---

<sup>1. “True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care—with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world.” - David Foster Wallace, The Pale King ↩
2. "And I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in, day out” really means. There happen to be whole large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration." - David Foster Wallace, This is Water ↩</sup>

good luck out there

“True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care—with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world.” 

- David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

ｋａｎｊｉｔｅベイビ

river stay 'way from my door

And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hinging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. I yawn, I fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I always had too little time. Now here is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.  

 One flesh. Or, if you prefer, one ship. The starboard engine has gone. I, the port engine, must chug along somehow till we make harbour. Or rather, till the journey ends. How can I assume a harbour? A lee shore, more likely, a black night, a deafening gale, breakers ahead — and any lights shown from the land probably being waved by wreckers. Such was H.'s landfall. Such was my mother's. I say their landfalls; not their arrivals.

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed 

don't tell me you feel nothing

tryna woo u rn

- 「彼女は綺麗な」

- 「でもさあ、中にのことはやはり一番重要じゃない？」

- 「ああ... そうそう ― 彼女骨構造も超絶妙だ!」

relient k saturday

マンダム

write what you know

the faster i learn the quicker i forget

count it all joy pt. 2

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. 

- 1 John 3:20

---

Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. 

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

---

This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for as to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation-- the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.
If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life-- his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. 

[...] 

Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. 

[...] 

He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. 

- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

every love story is a ghost story

Imagine walking along a river. The sun is hanging low in the late evening, casting its golden glaze about and colouring the sky a faint indigo. An ochre sheen tinges the edges of granite and long leaves of Lomandra as the water gradually loses its lustre, clear lines coalescing into a dusky and diffuse orange, shapes dissolving into impressionist wraiths. You reach the bridge which joins the two sides of the river. You lean on its stony balustrade, resting your elbows against the parapet. You look down at the embankment, its grassy knolls and plainly tiled walkways. The water runs shallow and clear and you can just about see the bottom of the river, erratic mosaics of dark rocks embedded in the mud. The stream surges briskly just inches above the riverbed.

In the distance, couples sit on the grass or amble intimately. A man comes along and stands next to you, just a few feet away. He leans against the balustrade looking out at the embankment while smoking a cigarette. On his nose are perched a pair of thin, wire-frame glasses which complement the many wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He is wearing an equally wrinkled plain brown short sleeved shirt with the first few buttons unbuttoned and a pair of beige slacks which have been stained by some unknown substance unevenly at the bottom. His eyes look as if they are very tired, as if they have stayed open all night. He stares out into the distance as smoke from his mouth billows gently. A deep blue with streaks of pink stretches across the sky as the sun sinks lower and lower behind you. The man's eyes are fixed upon the riverbank. He stands there, silent and stationary except for the smoke escaping his lips. When he has finished his cigarette, he stamps out the smouldering remnant on the ground with the heel of his foot and wipes his hands on the front of his pants. He then scratches something into the balustrade and walks off with hands in his pockets.

By this time nothing is left of the daylight except a tender patch of blue still lingering over the horizon. The street lights have come on and several windows of faraway apartments are variously illuminated. The lovers have become silhouettes, lolling in the darkness and leaning into each other. A cool breeze sweeps in from the city, lightly brushing your arms and face. You stand there watching the skyline disappear. You watch the colour drain from the sky completely. Now even the lovers have left, and you stay on that street as empty as the night, nursing this feeling as the evening wind nuzzles its cold nose against you.

presenting complaint

My heart is like a tightly wound piece of string or wire in my chest that's been twisted to the point of strangulation and every so often I can feel it untwisting a little and it's alright for a while before it inevitably goes too much the other way and gets twisted again

happy songs are great for dancing but how come i only trust the sad ones

last night
i knelt on a grassy slope
and an angel was speaking to me
but i wasn't listening
i got up halfway
and went to bed

and ignoring all the signs
i stared straight into the sun
with a smile as white as ash
i descended into that infernal jubilee

in the park where i was buried
i spun around chasing
my tail
and knocked your good
intentions to the ground

and then you were dressed
like a cluster of graves
as i circled the kitchen
table
like a wounded animal
pacing its cage

how to be sober

Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

---

HPC:

1/52 h/o
- being wise in himself
- rejoicing when others weep
- covetousness
- speaking carelessly
- lust of the flesh
- pride before God
- self pity



DDx: there is no love

you think you're too clever to enjoy this kind of movie and that's why i feel sorry for you

any author's putative success depends not only on his facility and diligence in writing but also on the miracle-tier-improbablity of his writing finding and reaching the right people


---

Listen, if people don't pay attention to you, it doesn't mean you're not beautiful. People ignore beautiful things all the time.

love don't shout

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.” 

- David Foster Wallace, The Pale King

---

Hideaki Anno, David Foster Wallace and Louis CK; whatever these three have in common is probably what I should be aiming for

---

It's easy to write about someplace you love - what's tough is writing about it in a way that doesn't sound corny or cheesy to a person who's never been before

blessed are the meek

it's that time of the year where I have to try really hard to imagine what Jesus would do if a group of local louts called him out on the streets for being asian

---

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

- Matthew 5:38-48

Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.  

- Matthew 26:52

hometown hero

https://youtu.be/eh0qbJAQhgk

왠지 모르겠지만 좀 부드럽다 이게

12/5/15:

whatever makes you miss it

google search: am i packing slowly because i don't want to leave

lukewarm poet

21/3/15:


i spent three years being very sad and without knowing i was sad. it sounds strange, i know. 'how can you not know if you're sad?' you're probably thinking. but you can. you can pretend so well and so often that you forget you're pretending. there was one day, about three years ago when i just woke up and stepped into the shower and started crying. i cried for about 10 minutes, and then I got out and got dressed and put on my shoes and left the house. but i still remember - how good it felt. it felt good to cry. that's how you know you're sad.¹


---

私は非常に悲しく、私は悲しかった知らなくてもされて3年間を過ごしました。それは奇妙に聞こえる ですね。 「悲しいなら、知らない訳がないじゃん？」っておそらく考えています。しかし、できます。あなたはあなたがふりしていることを忘れていることをとてもよくし、そう頻繁にふりをすることができます。私はちょうど目が覚めた、シャワーに足を踏み入れと泣き始めたときに1日、約3年前にありました。私は約10分間叫んだ、と外に出たし、私の靴を着て、入れてしまって、家を出ました。しかし、まだ覚えている - そんなに気持ちいいかんじました。泣いてた時 ― とても良いと感じました。それから 知ってた ― 悲しかった、僕は。とても悲しかったぞ


---

Uncertainty isn't the mark of a wise man. it doesn't mean you are insightful or attentive or more aware of the complexities and paradoxes and contradictions of the human condition to always mask your thoughts and words in ellipses and parentheses and end every sentence with a question mark. Don't play dumb. It gets old you know, this schtick -- the whole exaggerated shrugging of the shoulders. 'Don't look at me, I don't have  all the answers... I'm just wondering out loud... don't mind me.' That thing you do. Acknowledging that you don't know everything is preferable to remaining ignorant of your own ignorance, but one cannot be content to stay there. Wanting never to be wrong isn't a strength if it means never being right either. That's worse than being a pedant. At least the pedant is willing to take a position and will not suffer to sit eternally on the proverbial fence. A man should have conviction - a firm idea of what should and shouldn't be, and learn to stay silent or enquire earnestly on matters he is not familiar with. And then ideally to go away and make up his mind about it. If you wrestle with an idea, press on until you come to a firm conclusion, and don't give up until you do. If you know something, then say what you know. If you don't know, admit to not knowing. If you think you know it, either keep silent or risk being wrong. Don't try and weasel your way out of it. A man should commit, should risk, stake something on his word. And if he is wrong, so be it. There are worse things in life than being wrong. One of them is being a coward. People who never willing to make mistakes will never learn from them. Stop adding 'perhaps', 'maybe', 'more or less', 'if i'm not mistaken' to your sentences as a means of pre-emptive acquittal. when you present an opinion, don't have one foot out the door, ready to escape. don't pretend you're being polite by presenting your conclusions as a suggestion, afraid of imposing on someone else's beliefs. It accomplishes nothing and only obscures your message. A man should be sure, confident, and assurance comes from security, and security comes from knowing, and knowledge comes from being acquainted with truth. A man should be willing to bet his life on the truth.

---

feels weird if no one's told me off in a while // the irony of being rebuked for trying to avoid being rebuked

count it all joy

some things you only learn by being smart; others, by being hurt

---

---

"I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places."

— Isaiah 45:3

---


Hey, please don't ask me how I am in front of my Brother or what I'm up to.

The answer is, "I don't know"

rainfall

it is 3:41pm on Thursday the 11th of June 2015. I am standing at the large full length windows of my apartment looking out at the rain.¹ It started raining about an hour earlier, quite suddenly - without warning, one minute sunshine and the next a torrent of small droplets falling and crashing onto leaves and pavement. And where before it was reasonably sunny looking now the sky is an off-whitish, very bland and unexciting sort of hue, and the world seems similarly drained of colour from having been deprived of direct sunlight. As if the colour saturation slider of the world's photo editing app had been set to very low. Ah - yes, Grayscale. that's what they call it.

There is a dense mist that obscures the tops of the tall condominiums that surround ours. It is thick as fog, and white like clouds. Thick with condensation. This makes the buildings further away harder to see as well. The buildings as they recede into the distance become fainter, a veil of increasing opacity as they grow further away. beyond the half-erased buildings nothing can be seen except the same featureless shade of off white that reaches into the sky. the effect is surprisingly not dismal, but calming. The streets and leaves are wet, the stone and cement taking on a darker shade and shininess. The cars go up and down the boulevard leading up to the roundabout fountain, with headlights on and wipers on. There is also the speed and velocity at which the rain is falling. It is not fast and heavy like it sometimes is here, where you can hardly see them because they're moving so fast, where all you can feel is the sheer speed and fierce velocity / urgency with which the pellets bombard you / your surroundings. It is also not mild and halting like the drizzling and light showers I've grown accustomed to in the UK. It is falling at what i can only describe as a 'moderate' speed. Unhurried, neither fast nor slow. It falls at the same rate as a small phone if you were to drop it from the top floor of a condominium. There is a cool chill of air-conditioning where I am standing. Rainforest, is the word that comes to mind. There is a bough, shooting upwards vertically outside my window. It is the tallest one of its tree and stands alone, coming up roughly to the level of my chest. It stands 20 feet away, uncrowded by any other vegetation. It looks at once lonely and serene. The leaves are vaguely ovate in shape, but quite thin and dark green, slightly drooping under the pressure of repeated impact, staccato percussion of the raindrops, receiving a hundred tiny blows per second, they look like they are shivering, fluttering like little green wings on a branch.

I can hear thunder, coming it seems from far away. And it is a low grumbling, kind of guttural growl. Not sudden. And it lasts a long time. It reverebrates and echoes, seems to be travelling toward or away. It is not so much a thunderclap but like the sound of one hard, massive rocky thing grinding against another. A little like the sound of how the wheels of a heavy luggage suitcase sounds rolling at speed against the asphalt, but larger and more expansive, spacious. How unless it is right underneath you and makes you jump, we learn to tune out these sounds. The growlings of heaven. Intermittent. Behind and beneath is the noise, faint, barely audible static of rain splashing against the leaves and hard surfaces, railings, balconies, streets. It sounds soft, continuous crashing of surf, - not a pitter patter, because that implies being able to discern discrete rhythm to the noise, but the downpour is just a constant, mixing and mingling coalescing into one long uninterrupted stream of sound. the world outside whispering sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh --

by the time i write all this down it is 4:30 and it has stopped raining. The mist has moved on and the tops of buildings are visible now. The sky is still white and boring but brighter, letting through more light. the sounds of  a noisy motorcycle's engine and chirping birds. The ground of the open air public tennis court opposite our condo is made of green clay and drying, slowly regaining its lightness of colour in mottled patches, puddles of water collecting where the ground is uneven and dips in.

---

^{1. what made me stare out the window in the first place was the sense that I was missing out on the real world, (#existentialfomo) (I was looking up pictures of Uchida Maaya and watching Donald Glover's comedy central stand up special - which to be honest i can do anytime) my everyday waking life by choosing to forfeit to opt out of participation and enter the pre-made, pre-taped, exit the present and engage in mindless appreciation of online video - letting the moment pass unobserved, unexamined, uncelebrated. seemed like a sin. I look to the window and see that it is raining, and a sense of relief because i'm not missing out on sunshine so it's a kind of relief, minimises the opportunity cost, condone, mitigate the consequences of passivity. but then a voice comes and says, but why should you value the sunshine any more than overcast days, or even the phenomena of rain. Is there nothing for you to admire about it? Is your capacity for wonder and imagination really so limited. So i stood at the window and watched for a while. Trying to take in the moment before it leaves, and record down everything about it that feels real and immediate to me. what it feels exactly to be me and alive and awake at this very minute - so that in the future i can read it and be transported to this very moment in time and feel that it had not passed me by but that i have made the most of it. made the most of each moment and by extension, my life. a way of reliving but also ensuring that i live it the first time. A textural form of redemption ↩}

literary suicide

You are, unfortunately, a fiction writer. You are attempting a cycle of very short belletristic pieces, pieces which as it happens are not contes philosophiques and not vignettes or scenarios or allegories or fables, exactly, though neither are they really qualifiable as ‘short stories’ (not even as those upscale microbrewed Flash Fictions that have become so popular in recent years–even though these belletristic pieces are really short, they just don’t work like Flash Fictions are supposed to). How exactly the cycle’s short pieces are supposed to work is hard to describe. Maybe say they’re supposed to compose a sort of ‘interrogation’ of the person reading them, somehow–i.e. palpations, feelers into the interstices of her sense of something, etc. . . . though what that ‘something’ is remains maddeningly hard to pin down, even just for yourself as you’re working on the pieces (pieces that are taking a truly grotesque amount of time, by the way, far more time than they ought to vis a vis their length and aesthetic ‘weight,’ etc. 

[...] 

 [A] chance to salvage the potential fiasco of you feeling that the 2+(2(1)) pieces add up to something urgent and humand and the reader not feeling that way at all. Because now it occurs to you that you could simply ask her. The reader. That you could poke your nose out of the mural hole that ‘6 isn’t working as a Pop Quiz’ and ‘Here’s another shot at it’ etc. have already made adnd address the reader directly and ask her straight out whether she’s feeling anything like what you feel. 

[...] 

You’d have to be 100% honest. Meaning not just sincere but almost naked. Worse than naked–more like unarmed. Defenseless. ‘This thing I feel, I can’t name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?–this sort of direct question is not for the squeamish. For one thing, it’s perilously close to  [...] 

— David Foster Wallace, Octet (excerpts)

---

do you see what he is doing? what the gesture is?

---

rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

— Philippians 2:7-8

when did this city get so pretty

- what about here?

- no, this place is not beautiful

-  what makes it beautiful?

-   how much you miss it 

将来の彼女へ / girl who can sing a little bit

i want to hear you singing
in the morning
from a faraway room
as i lean just outside your door
a cloth in hand
wiping the dust off something
just listening to you croon

i want to slow dance with you
to jazz in a foreign language
eyes closed
i want to hold you
and sway the way breathing is
easy and natural
and slow and deep
and precious and
essential

i want to twirl you round
and watch you spin like the sun
rising into view
and nestling into my arms
soft and blossoming flower
i want to be good
to everyone
but especially
to you

最美的時候

house on a cliff

yesterday i had a dream i was in a strange house by the sea. i knew at once it wasn't my house and that it must have been a dream - but i was intrigued by my surroundings. i wanted to explore the house. it was spacious, laid out like a villa and lavishly furnished with dainty drawers and desks, ornaments and flowers resting perfectly in small shapely vases like they are in fancy hotel foyers. I wandered, examining the phantom details - knowing I was really lying in bed but enthralled by the experience, the illusion of being elsewhere. it was either early morning or late evening - the light was dim, soft and indirect - it came from elsewhere, an ambient luminosity highlighted the shapes and silhouettes of objects while revealing one or two details, keeping the rest shrouded in shadow.¹ the tatami floor mats made no sound as i ghosted my way slowly through the rooms. i made my way through the study which opened into the bedroom, a wide space with huge windows facing toward the sea. on the floor was a futon and my mother lay there asleep. i leaned over to check on her but didn't wake her. i wanted to explore the house more first.

it was pleasant, but at the same time felt strange. it was welcoming the way a luxurious hotel or resort house is. it didn't have the warmth of being actively inhabited, but offered you its amenities, it had been prepared for guests - considerations made and measures taken. a clean and neat - less than enthusiastic but nevertheless appealing smile. not a warm welcome but a cordial invitation. the house itself was large, made up of many spacious interconnecting rooms, filled with things like chairs and bland yet tasteful - carefully selected decorations, neatly arranged for display - like the pictures they hang up in hotel corridors - everything to suggest the appearance of ordinary life - but so silent and devoid of any evidence of human activity - it was simply impossible to believe that anyone had ever lived there. it was like being in a massive still life exhibit in an art museum. yes, that's what it felt like -- a museum. or one of those furniture exhibits in ikea, only instead of a living room or kitchen it was the whole house, with nothing to break the illusion. the uncanny attention to detail. the meticulous upkeep. everything in its 'proper' place. no picture frame askew, no coffee table magazine out of place. it felt contrived, unnatural. it was less of a place and more like a full scale diorama. some kind of super-realistic doll-house which i found myself walking through. a very attractive, tidy and elaborate pose.

later i find myself outside, wandering the compound surrounding the bungalow / villa. it stands on its own about a hundred meters away to the left on a cliff overlooking the sea. the sun is just about setting and a soft glow bounces off its walls. there are no other houses in sight. where i'm standing, there is a narrow aisle of rock like stairs carved into the side of the cliff leading down about 20 meters to where the rocks meet the sea. it's a steepish incline, but the rocks are steady enough to gain a secure footing. i plant myself at the top of the stairway and look out toward the horizon. the sea stretches far into the distance and merges with a great blanket of cloud that spread out in all directions to cover the expanse above. suddenly i feel wet. i look down and my feet are wet, and a trickle of water runs down the aisle. i look up behind me to see water streaming from a hill, coming from a source i can't see. at first i think - 'this makes no sense... water doesn't just come from nowhere - if anything, it would be coming from the sea... ' and then i start to be slightly alarmed. should i move? i think. my first instinct is to get back into the house. but then i try to calm myself down. i'll just wait for it to die down. the house is right there, and the sea way below me. there's no chance i'll be swept off... right? by now the flow has gotten stronger and the water has covered the ground about an inch deep and is sweeping pebbles and debris off in the direction of the shore. before i have time to rethink my decision, a wave sweeps in over the ridge and rushes toward me violently, spilling off down the cliff and behind me. now i am concerned that if i let go of my perch i will swept off by the next wave. the water is rising rapidly, so i crouch down and grab hold of the nearest, most secure looking rocky outcrop. the water keeps coming in, in boisterous waves six or seven seconds apart, showing no signs of slowing or stopping. soon everything around me is covered with water. it is up to my waist, but my feet are still planted on the ground. i try to reassure myself - relax, even though it looks bad you're still on land. as long as you don't let go. just don't let go of the rock and you'll be fine. no matter what. don't let go. i watch each wave as it comes, amazed and panicked by how high they are getting. i glance at the house to see if i should just try to swim across against the current. the water is now flowing fast like a flood, threatening to tear me from my perch. i hold on even tighter. don't let go. just don't let go. waist deep in water, clinging desperately to the rock, i glance back at the house again - but it seems to have moved, just an inch. i watch with horror and see the house slowly receding into the distance. it is growing further away. I realise that my rocky perch has been dislodged and is being swept out to sea. In desperation and panic I abandon the rock and jump straight into the water, in the direction of the house, now even more distant and moving away with the gradual inexorable velocity of a missed train just departing. I paddle desperately against the tide, but the current is too strong and sweeps me further and further away. With the water all around me, up to my neck, jostling me violently, I lose sight of the house. I lose sight of all landmarks. I am moving frantically against the current. Everywhere I look I see nothing but the sea and the gray featureless sky above me. With nothing to hold onto and no direction to head towards, a fatal resignation sweeps into me like a flood. I realise I am paddling aimlessly, with absolutely no hope of getting home. I stop struggling and allow my body to drift into oblivion.

---

^{1. i was amazed by the dream-house. the existence of objects i was simultaneously creating and discovering. the rooms were fabricated, but without my knowledge. i was fascinated by every detail, and subjecting it to scrutiny, and at the same time afraid to wake up. usually, you can ruin the magic for yourself if you try to see the trick behind it. for instance, if you are watching the movie and start looking for the plot points -- hints of contrived dialogue, you can often see the machinations - the technique behind it, ropes and pulleys and levers peeking through the seams, movements of the invisible hand - directions being whispered off-stage. but none of that happened. there was nothing in the mise en scene to suggest that it was not in fact reality. i was impressed at my mind's talent for counterfeit -- that the illusion was so complete, despite already knowing it was just that. ↩}