The Scientist

It was relentless outside
the snow ravaged his coat
It fell and fell until
every part of him grew cold

The ultimate lie from science
is that what's outside
could never wreak havoc
within the observer

He dissected him
and drugged himself
Fed himself backwards loops
with diminishing results

The scientist became
his own experiment
And his experiment
failed 

The symbolic win

What does it mean that you finally did it? 

I've been reeling on a thin line that is the hedonic treadmill. I know that it's happening to me, and I know that in spite of my conscious awareness it will eventually eat me whole. Maybe it already has.

But (yes... that ever present but) ...

Can you really put your fire on the back-burner? Can you really take the only thing at the moment that gets you excited like a little kid at Disneyland and just say "no bro, time to stop".

Is this the youthful ambition of life? Will I eventually lose this to a content-yet-yearning stasis? It's as if it's no longer a battle of good-or-bad (*red flag one*) but a matter of following that self-zeitgeist to its end. A wayward spirit to boot. Taken further, an insidious possession.

What did the creator of Future Bass say having discovered this new sound? "Idk if this will slap but man it sounds good and I'm going to go with that". And now, here I am listening to future bass in all its glory.

I'm resolved to follow through. And then I'll look out into the sky on some bright day and look back at all the moments that led up to it. Happy that I did it and that I can do so much more.

I deserve...

*This blog was written on Good Friday this year but has been in queue. -Aaron
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The idea that "I deserve... this" is an incredibly complicated idea simply because we can't really gauge how much someone is worthy of something.  All we know about another person is what we've seen them go through or, even less convincing, what we've heard that person go through. The better solution (if there is any one solution) is to let one's reality of the situation have more weight than other people's opinions.

This conundrum is often considered cut-and-dry because nowadays anytime someone says "I deserve this" it's usually met with the retort "you're entitled". But this can't be the only answer because this sidesteps someone's entire struggle (unless you believe that no one is entitled to anything... then this entire blog is completely useless to you).

I found myself in tears during Good Friday service today [sic]. Because I realized that for the times when I said "I deserve [ ]" the blank was only filled with good things. I believed I deserved good things coming into my life because I've suffered so much already.  I believe I deserved it because I've been so patient. I believed I deserved that the tables to turn and my luck to change. I believed that I deserved things to go my way because I was "a good person".

And it hit me, during Good Friday service, that I'm not as good of a person as I thought. And I knew in the pith of my heart the child that I was before would never have wanted to become me now.

And I realized that the exact opposite thing happened to Jesus. He actually deserved good things and a happy life (unlike me). He did not get what he deserved. And I contrasted that with me and some of my predicaments and how, miraculously, many times I actually got it good when I didn't deserve it.

I didn't deserve the love He gave to me -- his life and (many many many) chances for redemption. Yet he gives it to me anyways. 

There's an understanding within me now that I deserve a lot more bad than good in my life, so whatever good I do receive I must never take it for granted.

And I'm so, so thankful.

Finding what makes you unhapy

I've never written too much about what makes me unhappy. It's only because such things seemed fairly obvious to me. Things that make me unhappy are probably things that make us all unhappy. For example, here's a short list of things that make me unhappy (in no particular order):

• Injustice
• When things don't "go" my way 
• When people are upset with me
• When there's no more coffee in my cup

And this is all fairly straightforward. 

Rather, most people spend their time trying to find what "truly makes them happy".  So we try a lot of different things to see what makes us happy. And by extension, most people spend their time trying to find someone "who makes them happy" -- this almost sounds selfish to write but it's true. 

And that's all good and all. 

But an interesting thing I've recently discovered about myself is that the things that make me happy don't make me feel as happy as I thought they would. Or maybe those things truly make me happy but happiness is naturally transient, yet if this is truly the case, then the rest of the blog doesn't make sense... so let's say this isn't the case.  Still, in the midst of all this trouble trying to find out what/whom makes me happy, I forgot to spend time and effort on trying to mend the things in my life that make me unhappy. 

And the kicker is: I realize now that a lot of things about myself make me unhappy. These are truths about myself that have been built and layered upon the large -- and small -- mistakes that I've let fester and run amok in my life.  These are things that were fairly benign at first, but left alone for a while... they grew.

So I started to ask myself very existential questions like "why can't I be happy?" and "why do I do things that make things worse?"  And I've come up with two not-mutually-exclusive possibilities:

1. I try so hard to be happy that I've neglected the parts of myself that make me unhappy.

2. I try so hard to be happy in order to avoid the aspects of myself that make me unhappy. 

Both possibilities are probably true (and probably the same or correlated). But the more I reflect the more I realize this truly terrifying thing:  the crappy parts of me really do control my life and behavior far more than I imagined. And it's a real mind-bender. 

*****

It's hard to accurately describe the aspects of myself that make me unhappy -- besides the fact that they are really personal. If I had to typify these aspects, they're clearly things to do with self-doubt about oneself that seem immutable.  Perhaps they really are objectively immutable or unlikely to change. And the fact that I can't control these aspects really frustrate me... to the point where I sputter that sad surrender: "what's the point? what's the use?"

Maybe I can't change these things. But being aware of them and how great their impact is on my mental/emotional game (they have tremendous impact) can help me move on... can give me a better chance for change or successful coping methods. Maybe all along all I needed was just to be able to pin-point the true source of my inability for lasting happiness: the unhappiness at my core. 

A clean, well lit place indeed

Hemingway is a powerful author.

That probably goes without saying given his name. He has one of those names that people instantly connect to genius (like Einstein? Michelangelo? ... Trump? wait... definitely not the last one haha).   Ever had a Hemingway cigar a lá Fuente? Ah I remember my first Short Story...  I smoked it in my backyard, but I had just turned 18 and was still hiding my smoking from my parents. My backyard connected to my room's window so I crawled out my window just to smoke it. What a great cigar. And what a childish way to have smoked it haha.

Anyways, back to Hemingway. There's one story of his I always go back to.

A Clean, Well Lighted Place 
(and Hills Like White Elephants come to think of it but not...right now).

I go to cafes all the time. I resonate with that place. A clean, well lit place. Sometimes I just go to go and feel like I'm a part of something -- I'm a part of life. I like to see people talking to each other, and smiling at each other. Going about their lives and I get to take a peak. I see emotions on people's faces. Some I wish I could change. Frankly, sometimes I go to forget my life. Either way, when I'm there things get better. Maybe it's just the caffeine but things do get better. Even just for a little while.

I wish there was a cure to loneliness. I wish there was genie who could grant wishes when you're feeling trapped and feeling like there's no way out of your situation. I wish I could have more strength to deal with and overcome all of my shitty weaknesses and pesky quirks. Everyone has these moments. I'm almost sure of that.

And why yes, a clean, well-lighted place helps. In a modest, small way. But it helps.

A lesson

You settle. Oh do you settle.
But before then, you suffer.

Reminder

The real magic in things like coffee and cigars and macarons and paintings is taking elementary things, likes fruits and leaves and eggs and paint, and making them into something extraordinary.

This applies also to more intangible things like sounds (to music) and feelings (to love).

Then all I have to do is take my experiences, all the good and happy and bad and sad and hopeless times, and make them into something extraordinary. I have to do better.

Back to Kierkegaard

In college I read Lowrie's biography of Soren Kirekegaard (SK).  I learned a lot of things about SK from that book, but the most memorable thing about it to me was a lot of effort elucidating his personality. One particularly vivid thing about him was his penchant for walks around his city of Copenhagen talking with ordinary people. I imagine him taking walks, thinking. Of course, this isn't particularly mind-blowing ... I'm told Kant was very fond of walks, too (at the exact same time and place everyday...). But what made SK's walks different is that those walks probably were more like our kind of walks than Kants. You know, being that SK probably went on walks wondering "What's the purpose of this all? Why am I struggling so hard with [insert self-improvement goal]? Is this all there is (i.e. my career, my relationships, my seemingly insurmountable problems?"

And he came up with an answer. Part of it is letting go of the vice-like hold on reason. Part of it is accepting God. Part of it is realizing... it just is that way, and that's... okay.

26!

Birthday post. YES.

I'm pretty happy right now. Last night I blew cake with my family at midnight. Greeted by family and friends overseas. Woke up to sweet Facebook bday wishes. I make it a point to reply to every single one. It's like the best thing. There's not many reasons to talk to old friends but at least when they hit me up I can ask/tell them a thing or two. And I get to reminisce on memories with that person.  I love that. Seriously.

Tomorrow I get to hangout with my best friend traveling all the way from Socal. I'm the luckiest.

God, what a kinda shitty 25th I had though. If I could only begin to say...

But it's all water under the bridge though. There were times when I didn't even know how I'd get through the day, sometimes the week... a month once! But there were some good times of course. Visited Italy and France last Winter for my mom's bday and I had a blast. I can even say it was my second time there, for both countries... Don't even deserve to be able to say that. But merci God! Grazie God! I'll visit again someday.  And I still have a great job. That's the real blessing right there. Very thankful for that every single day of my 25th. Man, I really hope I can do some good in academia.

There's not much structure to this post. I'll even update it later. I'm just spewing birthday happiness onto my blog. It's like the ultimate hair-cut, you feel great for that one day. I admit this blog has been monotonously sad the past few blogs... well it's true my 25th was a tough year.

26's looking good so far :)

Gogol's insight

Recently, I picked up Nikolai Gogol and some of his work. It's sad that I never read much of him in college. Not that I would trade him for Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or Chekhov... but I wish I at least read his "The Overcoat" or "Nevsky Prospekt" at least once then...

“What an amazing world we live in!” I thought to myself the other day as I walked along Nevsky musing over these two stories: ‘How strange, how inscrutable the games fate plays with us! Do we ever attain the object of our desires? Do we ever achieve that to which all our efforts seem to be directed? Everything happens the wrong way round. To one Providence has given a pair of splendid horses, and he rides along indifferently, oblivious of their beauty, while another, whose heart is fired with a passion for horses, is forced to go on foot and must content himself with licking his tongue at the handsome beasts which gallop past. One fellow has an excellent cook, but, alas, is unlucky enough to possess such a small mouth that it cannot accommodate more than two pieces of meat, while another has a big mouth…but, alas, has to content himself with some sort of German concoction of potatoes. What strange games fate plays with us!” 

- Nevsky Prospekt

We know this. But he said it right.

Irrelevant

In dire circumstances this weekend I opened up the book "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis hoping to find some semblance of sense of the shit I put myself through.  The idea of the title is telling enough.  I forgot how prim yet lucid Lewis wrote.  I haven't read any prose of his style in recent times; no one writes that way anymore. I only got as far as the introduction to find Lewis expressing his gentle disclaimer that the book wasn't what you're hoping for when you find a book of that title (never-mind the author himself being a professor):

“... When pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.” - C.S. Lewis

 His book was more of an intellectual discourse. Not particularly what I needed at the time since it was technically irrelevant to what I was hoping for... but I continued.

There's a poignant passage somewhere in the book -- I'm going off memory now -- where Lewis talks about how sad it might be to actually be in God's position.  Imagine being someone's last "choice". When all of a person's bridges are burned and all he or she has left is you for comfort or solace, or, daresay, help... that's not a particularly pleasant place for you.  You know this person is just there to see you now because you're the only person who's left.  Be it because of your kind nature or what other people say about you being a nice person -- whatever -- but this person all of sudden considers you a friend as a last resort. You should know better than to lend help to this leach.

Yet, that's God. And he's okay with that.  He knows full well the truth (no chance guess here) that you're only trying to get in good connections with him because He's the only one left. And really, He's okay with that . He loves you nonetheless. We might call God's position sad but he's okay with that. Ain't that something about Him?

There's a whole bunch of other stuff that Lewis is erudite about but I think I got what Lewis is saying.

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You know you've got it bad when you start reading Bukowski. In theory his writing is exceptionally cathartic but you'd never actually want to be in a lot of Bukowski's positions. He often writes about stuff when stuff isn't how we'd like it be. But yet... here I am... reading "Gambler's All".
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Bad things and how things are when it's bad is great to write about. Living it is another story.

I wonder who you'll meet

I meet people for three hours at a time.
And I'll never see them again.

Sometimes you meet someone who's beautiful
At least they seem so
Then you wonder what if things were different
If you actually knew this person
And then suddenly you want to become
Everything you're not

I've already internalized it
I'm not that attractive
At least not conventionally

Maybe if my skin was lighter
Or maybe if I was rich
Maybe if I was younger
Maybe if I was taller

Maybe if I wasn't broken
I wonder if we could ever be

How timid I am
The world has taught me so
And I'm tired of trying against it

So I'll just give a small smile
And wish you farewell
And wonder who you'll meet
And who will caress your lips
And touch your cheeks
And run his hands through your hair

And who will laugh at your jokes
And make you coffee in the morning
And take you dates to beautiful places
But rather is fixated on your face

And who will argue with you
About some mundane issue
And who will wipe
the tears from your face
When life is unbearable

And I'll wish it could be me

Fighting

I've been a little heavy on the drama in the previous blogs. I'll keep on running with it. 

I'm unhealthy. It's clearly obvious that I can't do too much physical activity. I can't run a mile right now. But even more, sometimes normal things are hard to do. Just waking up and making a day plan and carrying it through ... gets me tired (physically... mentally is another story). 

So I drink coffee. It helps. I know I shouldn't have to though.

But something that helps when I want to be a lazy fat man that gets me up is the thought: 

"Aaron, fight for your life". 

That helps a ton. Living is a fight. I need that realization right now. Lively things fight -- they move and cry and laugh. When babies are born? You hope they come out crying (right?)? 

I need that vitality. I need that cold water. Now more than ever.

Trying to remember

... how it felt to think something meant something for you. 

I've almost given up on this blog. Not intentionally. But if unintentional, is that worse? Or even more, who cares (whether intentional or unintentional... or at all?)? 

Honestly I'm returning to this blog even more confused than before about my life. With fleeting certainty. Pitiful (me). But it's okay. It's okay. Everything happens for a reason, remember? 

Haha I swear I have different moods than existential gloom. I don't want the world to remember me this way. In fact, I'd prefer the opposite. And there's so much beauty in this world... I try not to get dragged down by the dreary... but it's so easy.  The worst part is that when you're dragged down you often don't go alone. You take other people with you (you?).   

Honestly it's cathartic letting it out onto this blog. I'll know I'll bounce back. I still have faith that I will :) With time, yeah. With prayer, yeah. But for now, thank you. It's helpful. I'm not a strong as I think I am or hope I am.  I get tired a lot. But that's okay. It's okay. 

All in degrees. That's the key. It's okay because it's not all or nothing. In fact, it is all AND nothing. And everything in between. Let me explain:

I make a goal to sleep at 11:00 pm. I look at my clock, 10:50 pm. Okay, ten minutes left. I check Facebook, I check my calendar. I check Twitter, I check my messages. 10:59 pm. Okay, better sleep now. 11:00 pm -- wait! I forgot to check my Instagram... 11:10 pm. Shit. Okay, I'll sleep at 12 am.

Why not sleep at 11:11 pm? Or 11:25 pm? 12 am is still okay, a little on the late side. But even 11:45 pm would have worked better in my favor.  Point is --  you don't hit your goal.  Don't throw it all away. Hit your goal +1 minute. Hit your goal +2 minutes. It's okay. Still better than your goal +60 minutes. It can get worse. What's worse? Well... your day next day would be rather shitty without sleep.  (In this sense I've been sleepless far too long. Time to sleep.)

That's my current predicament. I can't get any clearer than that. If I did, what fun would that be? 

Exquisite sadness

"The agony is exquisite, is it not?" - Miss Havisham (the BBC rendition).

These are sad times. And it's reflected in our music. Everything from "Stay High" to "Pill in Ibizia" to the latest "It Ain't Me" mixes sad and somber realities with techno-synths and dope drops.

I'm taking something from this positive. Perhaps in the sad dramas of life, it really isn't about trying to "avoid the storm"... rather, to "dance in the rain". And isn't that what we all should be doing really?

Look at the early Christians. Persecuted amid the Roman purge. They had some joy and solace in Christ regardless of their limbs being ripped apart from them.

Can you really spin every situation into a beautiful one? Or rather, make something beautiful out of sadness? I think you can. And I'm ready to find out. 

What does it all mean?

The Cubs came back from 3-1 and won the World Series. The Cavs came back from 3-1 and won the NBA Championships. It's incredibly amazing and incredibly nonsensical.

Things don't make sense anymore.

It's still the Year of Mercy. Perhaps that's the point. Mercy doesn't have to make sense. Life is the game you're currently losing but you can come back and win. Maybe it's not too late.

The anti-hero?

So today I finally watched Deadpool and I loved it.

I remember watching the trailers for it way before it came out in theaters. I refused to watch it. I never really was into the whole X-men "superhero" genre. I lost track of the franchise; they kept making more movies with new characters, which I never would watch on time, and I eventually got left behind and I figured it's not worth watching the new ones because I wouldn't appreciate all the details having not watched the entire franchise movies prior.

Then comes Deadpool, breaking the fourth wall, serving as an example of another "super hero"  in the franchise.  He didn't charm me in the trailers. I'm like "that's not what a super hero should be". I judged the book by its cover.

Now having watched it, it's still clear that he's not quite a superhero, and I still don't think he's someone to emulate. But he's something else -- an antihero. And having the movie shown in quasi-first person, undependable, Notes from the Underground narrator style was a good move. He has a story. He found love. He was a desperate. He does a lot of bad shit, but generally for his love.

Deadpool in the movie says something along the lines of I'm a bad guy, who just beats up the worse guys. His humor was pretty catharsis enabling, too -- especially at times when he would point out the absurd notions: "Why do I only ever see you two [referring to Colossus and Negasonic], it's like the production couldn't afford another X-men".  His freak physical deformity post-mutation is real telling, too.

I get why the movie was a hit. Perhaps it's because that's pragmatically the closest we could ever get to being a real hero (super or not)... an anti-hero.

Then I thought about Flannery O'Connor's short stories. How each character had a flaw; no character was perfect. O'Connor uses of the grotesque (that's a technical term) Southern gothic:

“Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological. That is a large statement, and it is dangerous to make it, for almost anything you say about Southern belief can be denied in the next breath with equal propriety. But approaching the subject from the standpoint of the writer, I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn't convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. They cast strange shadows, particularly in our literature. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.”

― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Obviously, though, the full picture is that we are called for more. Fallen though we may be at times, even the anti-hero can pull heroic moves, then the rest is up for God to judge.  Somewhere between Colossus (unbreakable heroism) and Deadpool (the anti-hero)... we may very well fluctuate. It's scary. But we're not alone. Let the anti-hero in us move ever towards right side of that hyphen.

The Truth of Our Sadness

It's really hard to pinpoint the nexus of our dark side.
The side of us which we build walls around.
The side of us we think would scare people if they ever knew.
The side the demons taunt.

Our vulnerable side.  Our weak side.

But I know.
It's all I know now.

It's the side of us
That's sad
Sad at this idea
"I'm all alone"

Sad because
After all our efforts
We can't find anyone
Who can love us
Exactly the way we want

So this sad side
Begins to love itself
And builds ivory walls around itself.
And creates fake smiles to guard it from others.
It creates its own fortress of understanding for itself.
So strong and thick is its threshold it even forgets its there.

And if it never realizes its own reality...
And never meets the Love for which it yearns...
Even if this interior sadness is surrounded with every possesion it wants
Even if this interior sadness has found who it thinks is the love of its life
It'll still be sad.
It'll die sad.

Notes from the Bottom

"O matter and impertinency mixed! Reason in madness!" - Edgar, King Lear

I get why people become cold and bitter.

Just like the trope that says staunch atheists were once very religious people, perhaps the most ruthless, cold-hearted people were once actually the kindest people on earth -- the kind who did things for people without expecting anything in return, the kind who would put others before themselves.

They simply found that in their most dire of circumstances, no one would lend the kind of understanding, help, and support they offered people.  Being the nicest person made it difficult to find others who were as nice. They asked, people offered what they could and it would always fall short in comparison. Maybe to compare in the first place was their actual downfall. I guess you could blame them for that. But being in a bad place already, this only exacerbated what was already a sad disposition: a pretty self-destructive Molotov-cocktail.

Something that amazes me is the Year of Mercy Jubilee prayer we pray at the end of Mass.

"...You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness 

in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:"

 Well, may weakness not be our undoing. Lord, mercy.

SF again?

The past three weeks have been pretty hectic. At least in my universe. Well, the presidential debate was pretty insane in mostly all our universes but I digress. I've been traveling to SF a lot. Thrice in the past week and a half.  Is that a lot? I don't know.  Probably.  Feels like a lot though. That's good though, because that means they've been memorable trips. Memories appreciate. That's good. Well, at least the good ones do.

Currently writing this blog in SF. Didn't see that one coming... haha.

I'd just like to restate my belief in miracles.  I was walking a thin line.  And I fell. But I was caught. Yes, by God. The atheists laugh. I laugh at gilded butterflies.  Now how do I properly say thanks for a miracle? Climb back onto that thin line (NOT a cocaine line for you close readers). Try again. Hopefully not fall again. But if I did it's okay. Miracles happen... twice? Thrice? Maybe not. No worries, I had my run. I'm due. Let's do this.