A fairy tale’s silver lining.

Once upon a time, we were happy.

Whether I say it because I have to believe it–we all do, sometimes, whether the underlying is truth or not, and I quietly wonder whether it’s more true than false, or vice versa–is not the point.  We do believe it; we were able to smile then, and we’re able to smile now, looking at pictures of smiles, remembering words from smiling faces.

We were happy, and it’s bound never to be the same.

Nothing stays the same.  That’s stagnant.  Anti-progress.  Things have to continue on, and voices have to fade.  Smiles are renewed.  Is the twinkle in the eye?  We change.

Just as I’ve changed now.  I peruse through my iPhoto memory, letting it whisk my true memory back, and I appreciate the times for what they were then, and think of the difference between me and me.  I am essentially a whole different person from who they know, and as I keep wandering back into myself and who I probably should’ve been this whole time that girl gets lost even further into the distance.

Will they ever forgive me, or is it really such a matter?  After all, I’ve nothing to apologize for, since this is no intentional wrong-doing.  But I do know that what will feel to me like an improved version, a beautiful regression into something more pure and essential in myself, I will disappoint them.  I live life more purely now, and I sound like a stuck-up prat to even claim it, but it’s true.  I smile more easily than even those smiling pictures could tell.  I flit happily from friend to friend, undeniably in love with every step along the way, in love with the way life is, in love with the way I feel.  I’m actually able to write again, though I have this sharp tendency to want to mirror newly beloved characters more often than I wish.  (Read the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.  If you’re smart, you’ll buy all three before digging in.  If you can’t find the next book soon enough–don’t blame me.  I’ve officially warned you.  Bookstores aren’t open at 2 am, after you’ve finally pried yourself from the closed back cover long enough to remember my brilliant advice and curse the next six hours of sleep.  Likely much deserved sleep, but you won’t want to.)

Parenthesized book review aside, I’ve moved on to something new.  There’s no changing back.  What’s next?  And how much of my past gets left on the timeline?

Nothing in particular.

I have Christmas lights and possibly the smallest but cheeriest tree set up in the corner of my room, where the laundry basket used to go.  I don’t know where to put the laundry basket anymore.   It doesn’t matter, because now (at any time of day, thanks to the amount of natural light this room gets) I am cheered by the soft glow of multicolored lights scattered about.  I still can’t decide if the pink one’s actually purple, but on to things that matter.

Did I mention the tree has tinsel and a gold star that swallows the top of it whole?

I am cheered, and I am homesick, all at once.  I just realized the day I slapped these things all up that I don’t get a real Christmas this year.  Walking outside, it’s bright.  It’s hot.  Things are green everywhere.  I thought I’d like this.  I miss white and brown and grey, sweaters, boots, the whole thing.  At least we’ll be in Chiang Mai at Christmas, which is at least cold this time of year.  But oh, the significant lack of pie, of odd Dutch desserts I can’t actually spell, of a tacky fiber optic color changing tree, and as I’m reminded right now by a tickling on my knee, a significant presence of mosquitoes.

Yeah, I know it’s early for this, but if you had exactly the setting I do you wouldn’t quite realize what time of year it is either.  Don’t worry, I’m not listening to my collection of Frank Sinatra’s Christmas songs yet.

In fact, I’m listening to 游戏 by 張棟樑.  Nicholas Teo.   I wonder if I can just study Asian languages for the rest of my life.

Thai is finally working with me, on the hearing and reading, at least.  How does one speak a language well?  I can’t quite seem to grip that (or the colloquial, either, damn it all).

Anyway, what I meant to get to is that I am homesick, and yet, I can’t imagine actually being home.  (Where’s the adventure in that?)  I can’t…imagine going back to how things were.  A lot of exchangers want things to just be the same.  Normal.  When they return.  I desperately wanted that when I left, so badly I imagined not leaving, preserving everything just so…

I want everything to start over.

Not everything.  Just everything around it.  I want my best friends there still.  (I want some of them to be much happier.)  But I want the situation different.  I’m not an Academite anymore, I’m not timid and veiled, I’m not content with waiting in any form.  I hope this means I won’t procrastinate anymore, but who am I kidding, I should be doing laundry right now.  I’m a stronger person now than I’ve ever been before, and I don’t believe in the same things anymore.  Life is getting easier.

Which is why it’s okay.  I’ll be going to Japan soon enough–this is, of course, sometime after I get a job and another job and some grant money; we’ll work on that later.  After I’m back in my home country.  Yes, sounds perfect.  Now, when do I go to South Korea?  To Taiwan?  To Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China?  I have a lot of money to earn.  And then I have to go back to Thailand, and pretty much everywhere else.  It only makes sense to move to Asia, with this itinerary.  …Two seconds later, I remember where I am.  Too bad my visa’s so restrictive on the leaving the country thing.  Meaning I can’t.

I read not that long ago a proposal to drive disease carrying mosquitoes to extinction.  They must all die.  I’m all for it.  What are they doing in my room?

Inspiration attacks.

There are people—I know them, they live two floors beneath me—who picture their world as what they create.  Get lost in some sort of media, they say.  It’ll make the world bearable.  Then I know these other people; they say the world is something to adapt to.  Get used to it, because you’ll probably never know much better than what you’ve got.

Me, I’m a different breed, I guess.  I didn’t know that it was so rare, but I want this world to be something I want.

When I say that, I’m not talking about something that didn’t exist before I made it up.  My mind is not the world.  I don’t think the world is all that bad, either, or there’d be no one who travels, or does anything interesting.  I hear about interesting things all the time.  I’m talking about experiencing.  I’m talking about living, really living, by getting out there and finding the good.  I don’t care if it takes a lifetime of searching, because there’s no point in finding it all anyway—I want to leave some for others to discover, though it’s true that every discovery is honestly your own, if you found it.

For myself, I want to see the world, and get whatever I can out of it.  I want to touch the corners of the earth and find them dull and shredded like the corners of a well-worn book.  My world will be treasured, and its pages will be full of life.

That’s my reason for everything, really.  What I’m not looking for is a purpose, it’s a procedure.  A means to no necessary end.  I do because I want to find out what happens when I do.  I want to know where the places I go can lead me.  I want to see what doors open behind the windows, the skylights, the peepholes, under the magnifying glass.  They’re there, not always easy to find, and not always easy to open.  Sometimes the key is with someone else.  Sometimes the key is somewhere too obvious, like every time I’ve lost my school ID only to find it on my chair, or on my desk, or even worse, where it’s supposed to be, hanging in its holder.

But the point is, it’s always there, and it requires less than reason to want it.  Curiosity isn’t always reasonable.  An eager search for the unknown isn’t logical, but it’s what makes the world something to be in.

It’s all been {re}done

Getting older. I’m getting older.

By no means am I old. On no account am I wise.

But every year is, well, another year. They go by faster, and they have more within them than they ever have before. Days fly by, weeks slink past, months disappear–time moves at a pace that suggests last Thursday never happened, but at the same time it’s because it feels so long ago. I’m starting to understand a little what people do to waste time, or keep it.

It’s strange to hear people talk, people barely a year or two younger, and think how obsolete that already is. For instance, the conversation about religion across the hallway. (The excessively loud conversation about religion.) I remember that conversation. It used to keep me up at night, talking the hours into oblivion trying to find a point of view amidst the collective. Now, we’ve found positions. They change, but subtly. Conversations don’t occur until a year after you’ve been living it, because with time flying and yesterday never existing you don’t even notice you’ve changed. Reflection is what life is starting to become. And I’m not old yet.

Ah, I know now why communication is so important in relationships. Sure, I understand it abstractly, but the gist of it lies in this theory of mine. Reflection happens when there’s nothing new, right? So then you want to find someone who can show you that other side of life. What’s behind the glass without the glare.

I just figured out why I write. For real, why I write.

I have the other side to someone’s story.

I don’t have to mean something romantic (though heaven knows I do that sometimes), but–I have something important to say. And someone has something important to return. Even if it doesn’t seem to mean much, it’s life. I want to learn what I can when I can. And life already started, forever ago, yesterday, so it’s about time I caught up.

I might not be posting tons more poetry. I will be writing, and like my title implies people might not even want to know. But I’m confident that somehow, just tossing out the idea might make a difference, in whatever way–and there are a lot of valuable things left in the world to discover in return. Though poetry can be quite pretty and pleasant, and thoughtful as well. I’m just not that good at it! –Always worth a try.

(EDIT! I said this in a moment of, weakness, maybe? But lately…it’s been getting extremely hard not to write poetry. Looks like there might be a change of heart here. Still don’t know if I’m any good, but I love to write it. And I’m [re?]discovering the awesome conveying properties of poems.)
…Actually, if you wanna know someone who is fantastic-amazing at poetry, check out the Boy pages over at Classic Act. Leave lots of love so Code Writer Val can show him and prove to him how smart and insightful he really is. He needs the good smack on the head.

Mata ashita.

Just another post on relationships, with no *hearts*

Except for that one, of course.

My Theories of Human Nature class has struck again. Poetry will continue tomorrow.

I’m not entirely sure what we were talking about today. Marx, mainly, not communism entirely. I floated in and out and tried to keep out of the politics. Sometimes I think it would just be easier if I were liberal like everyone else here. That just wouldn’t be me, though.

The class was discussing Marx’s theories, I was writing in Japanese, what time did I go to bed? I don’t know.

Alienation.

That’s what got me. The sentence was spoken, in plain and pure English, “People naturally alienate each other.”

I thought about my group of friends–both my groups of friends–and began a map, linking person to person. Dark lines (make your mark heavy and dark) between the people I believed were truly friends with each other. Dotted lines between those who pretended they were, and not even that hard. Dotted and dark lines, when one person in the relationship was actually convinced of its existance, even though it was known better.

It was depressing, yes, and it confirmed it: People alienate each other, even friends, for whatever reason. I can see it everywhere. An honest to God friendship is rare, and I can’t help but imagining that’s the way it’s always been.

Of course, then you take a step back and wonder, is this just how I see it? Just because I believe that to be true, doesn’t make it so for everyone. Does that mean I’m right? Certainly some people really are deceived, and it hurts to think I might be one. I might. I have no idea.

That’s the thing. So much of this relies on pure faith. We’d discussed it before: does blind faith really exist? Well, if you ask me, it sure does. I have absolute faith in at least seven people in this world, and I need it. I can’t imagine life without it.

Mata ashita.

iFollow

I know, the iPod is so much hype and consumerism. I’m practically sinning against my own objectives by owning one. But I re-realized it today. I love that thing.

I love that thing so.

iPod owners, admit it. Mp3′s got nothing on this handy little device (and mine’s a nano, so it’s handy and really little). You can sort playlists, search for composer (like people actually categorize their music by composer–if you do, let me know, maybe with a little explanation? I couldn’t do it), and have pretty album art.

Just throwing that out there.
Well, that and…

Philosophy! (Just throwing this out there too)

I’m in a class called “Theories of Human Nature.” That should explain plenty, but allow me to elaborate.

We study and discuss intensely philosophers’…philosophies. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant. Discussions are lead by our teacher, commonly known as God. (at least around here.)

I am that student the teacher is always wondering if she’s paying attention, scribbling furiously in my notebook in self-confusion. Granted, I often am scribbling, but usually if I’m that kind of spaced out I’m concentrating on something they (oh yes. they.) were talking about twenty minutes ago. This is one of those scribbling bouts, one I had earlier in class today.

scribble, scribble, scrabble.

Can you exist without purpose?

Self-teaching–but you don’t test yourself–well, you do—BUT—NO—crazy-going.

But I know I need friends. I know I need to have other people around. I want to prove I’m smart. I am done being underestimated.

I am completely hung up between wanting to be my own–prove everyone wrong–be verified by others–I’m stuck between

codependence and self-reliance

…and there’s nothing I can think of to help me choose between the two.

How do I decide whether or not I consider others’ opinions valid (and thus them-for most people consider themselves defined through and through by their opinions-how you define yourself is how you see things differently *something brought up earlier*) or to shun them and their cruel and undermining thoughts? (I’d miss the compliments and have to be self-assuring.)

I. Don’t. Know.

end of scribbling

I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue. And by the time I was with it enough to realize other people were talking at all, they were talking about communism. Oh, such wonderful idealism that is. But that’s philosophy for you.

There’s so much I’d like to write. I promise (or apologize apowogize for *thank you www.robandelliot.com*) more later.

 

Mata ashita!