Again

I need to start writing again about the things I'm learning.
There's a fear, a refusal to let the world see the inner workings of my mind. A resistance built upon an egotistical stance that I can recall everything I want to remember and don't see a need to writing it down.

But there is a real need. Although we're the sum of our collective experiences, sometimes it's not easy to remember what those experiences are.

In college I learned about Dostoyevsky's "perfection" as defined by human's conception of God. That we create God in the image of perfection. Because this perfection exists, we are by default, imperfect, and we can never become perfection as long as we have its image in mind.

I can't find this exact quote or passage. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.

Remembering. What is it?
In class we watched Hiroshima Mon Amour, and I presented on La Jetee.

It reminded me of my favorite Proust quote that I always go back to, and may get a tattoo of on my arm. It's applicable in so many situations because it's beautiful, and general, yet symbolic enough to represent the literal and the figurative. To me, it always meant a destruction of everything I knew to start again. In my most intense moments of vulnerability, I've always found one last hope, something more powerful and immense to carry me on to the next chapter. Last night, I recited it to a friend of mine who's mother is undergoing a cancer battle. I think to him, it must mean something different, and stronger than what it means to me. Funny, maybe it was a divinely inspired message- why did I choose to tell him at the time I did?

Mais, quand d’un passé ancien rien ne subsiste, après la mort des êtres, après la destruction des choses, seules, plus frêles mais plus vivaces, plus immatérielles, plus persistantes, plus fidèles, l’odeur et la saveur restent encore longtemps, comme des âmes, à se rappeler, à attendre, à espérer, sur la ruine de tout le reste, à porter sans fléchir, sur leur gouttelette presque impalpable, l’édifice immense du souvenir.

I loved La Jetee. I watched it 3 times. I wrote this email to a friend, but never mailed it

Here's one of my favorite films- it's a 28 minute masterpiece by Chris Marker made in '62 during the Cold War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqMEc0oe4yc

It's sci-fi but deals with very real issues of nuclear war anxiety/trauma

what I find most intriguing: the investigation of memory and relationship between past/future and the power of the present. Of preserved immaterial moments, death and stillness

it's cool because as the audience we are forced to construct a fluid narrative out of all these still images, and we do... much like how we live our lives, constructing meaning out of randomness. It's also cool knowing how we construct memory- every time we recall something, it changes. All of what we think are memories aren't accurate!!

Sometimes, I forget to remember. When I look back, I realize my message was always very clear. I'm now finding the context and platform for myself to synthesize it and deliver it. It is a message of feminism but of embracing femininity and not trying to be masculine to win the game. It is a message of self acceptance in the end, that is more universal.

Being back in my element now, I'm running into chance encounters again. This means I'm on my "path"

Eckhart Tolle's New Earth really touched me. It helped me re-evaluate the ego and its role. The sensitivity I experience is really just my ego, and me taking things personally is a reflection of that and it isn't anything constructive. I also learned of the pain body. Those with heavier pain bodies have the potential to transform it into something powerful. In my best moments, I feel the raw emotion inside of me come out to help. I want to enact change. I want to help people. 

Someone told me recently that when he met me he felt he started to undergo a transformation. He realized there was hope for him to live life the way he wanted to, to find happiness, a new start.

Maybe i'm starting to become a symbol of the destruction/recreation process I've forced myself into many times.

A guy grabbed my face and tried to make out with me when I was only just being friendly and engaging him in conversation (NO flirting at all). It felt very disturbing to me when I refused him and he said, what, do you have a boyfriend or something? As if I had to be claimed to not want to make out with him, otherwise I'm open territory. It sucked, the entitlement, especially coming from someone who seemed like such a nice guy. He's so indoctrinated in this masculine entitlement that it was natural for him to say that as his response. I really didn't like it. 

But I do like it when one person in particular acts territorial towards me, even when we both know he shouldn't. Because I know he cares. I suppose it's the people we choose to open up to, we want to allow them to claim us, that we are okay with submitting to.

I'm not a submissive person by nature even though I used to be by default because of my upbringing. Now when I submit to someone, it's a choice, it's out of respect, it's allowing them the power to set the tone. This is a rare thing. This means I trust and want you. This power is not to be taken lightly.

What is sex appeal? Why do some people refuse to harness its power? Are they afraid?

Is Gone Girl a representation of someone who's so confused by all the social roles a woman has to play and refuses to play them anymore, to then set the rules of the game?

Or is it just a version of sociopathy.

Homecoming

Every time I'm home I feel such an internal struggle.

I realize more and more that my parents and I always failed to connect.

That's why for most of my life I only wanted to be around those I couldn't connect to, because it felt familiar.

The ones I did connect to I couldn't handle. I didn't understand the feeling of truly relating to someone.

My values are so different from those of my parents and my culture. Yet they're also not entirely in sync with Western values because I am Chinese. I guess I'm just me.

Only recently, this year, have I become comfortable enough with myself to accept true connections.

Now I'm learning the subtle differences between all connections
Emotional
Psychic
Intellectual
Physical

I often wonder why most movies have a narrator that feels she doesn't fit in. The ones that are about the super popular girl aren't as relatable.

The isolation I felt all my life can be channeled into something great.
Even if my subject matter isn't relatable
My struggles and my message are universal.

Checking In- A post from 2014

This has been the year during which I wasn't afraid to take risks and change the way I was living.
Then, miraculously, everything fell into place.
What was me before, a scared, anxious and unconsciously self destructive little girl became an independent, self-assured and free person.

Once my mind and heart sought out the same path, everything else from environment, friends, finances to even my physical body refined itself. I'm not saying I don't struggle day to day- some of my friends have been there for me during moments when I was having a bit of a mental breakdown and felt hopeless, but those moments have been few and far between.

I live my life untraditionally because there's nothing stopping me anymore. It all flows now- no longer do the jagged edges of time passing stab me.

I've always been a firm believer that when things are meant to be, they feel effortless. I'm not against working hard, as I've always worked hard for the things I want, but it's an affinity- an ease that's felt when both you, and whatever else whether it be a person or an opportunity both have doors open for one another. In the last 4 years I've been around too many people who believed the best way to get by was to keep knocking and trying to force yourself into a closed door. Some of them eventually get in and get what they want. But what I really want is for what I want to want me too, not acquiesce to my disrespect.

"You're too nice," I've heard all my life. Even though in the past few years I've been around such mean and aggressive people, I still make an effort to maintain my softness and kindness. I believe everyone deserves to be treated kindly because even the shittiest person has a reason for why they became that way. I don't abide by superficial heuristics to judge people- oh he's this and that, so then he's probably this way. I don't write people off. I want to know what's really at play even though within a few seconds of meeting someone I'll already know what they're all about. The rest is confirmation, and understanding, and being generous with my time, my ears and my heart. I care. Until you start acting like an asshole to me, and then my attention on you is gone. Always a giver, never a taker. Until you take too much from me and give me nothing back and I feel absolutely drained.

Spending the last day and a half re-reading old journals, I see who I've always been. A thinker, a writer- a girl who had an interesting insight into the world and into herself that was wise beyond her years. What's changed is my determination and strength. Feeling lost before, I didn't allow myself to have the things I wanted, or be proud of who I was. Now, there's a ferocity that has developed. A thankfulness in being me and a deep thirst to show the world what I'm capable of. Some of the people I've admired came back to me this year to tell me they respect me so much. Hearing the astrologist tell me that I'm much more powerful than I know or allow myself to believe. I know I'll get there, it's just me stopping me because I'm my toughest critic. There's also an emotional blockage that's still residual from my past. My life always felt very hard. I was shone a lot of cruelty and felt starved in some senses from a young age. I'm much more than what you believe me to be, and even when you know me you'll keep on finding out more. The ones that have truly understood me tell me I'm like an onion, with layer after layer and even more, when peeled back. I don't think there's a single person in this world who knows everything about me and I'm fearful that there will be that person, because then they'll be too close to me.

I'm going back to school in the fall for a passion. I've finally found a place of work where everyone is compassionate and "gets me" and doesn't judge me. What I've treated as my bad habits and vices in the past have now all become good qualities. The constant evolution and actualization will never stop- I love identifying what I need to work on and continuing the process. Right now, I'm working with a life coach to focus my goals, intentions, work on developing productive habits like time organization and planning so I can unfold the future I want for myself.

There will always be an openness though- for chaos, for spontaneity, for more self discovery. For that person I never knew existed who pops in and teaches me something new about the world and about myself. This is a journey and every single year is both the biggest battle, and the biggest pleasure.

I really never knew I'd get myself here. But I always had it in my mind: 24 was going to be that age it all fell into place.

I quit my job. Broke up with the guy who was utterly wrong for me. Changed my lifestyle and developed self respect. That last part is the most important.

I hope you never read this, I'll be ashamed if you do.

How do you reconcile two opposing paradigms?
I'm at once a realist, and a romantic.

On Halloween night a psychic took a look at my palm and told me I have two life lines. To her, it meant that I would live my life one way and change drastically, then continue to live my life in another way. She disagreed with my therapist, who said that people can't change, because I would prove her wrong.

To google, the two life lines also indicates a blessed life, a resilient life, and someone who lives two different lives at once.

The soft side. The strong side. The dark side. The loving side. The antisocial side. The buoyant side. The champion. The loser. The doubter. The believer. They're all me. So who am I really?

Emotional contagion is when you don't know if an emotion belongs to someone with a stronger personality, or to the crowd, or to you. I guess you could say I get emotionally sick often from others. Sometimes I am an emotional hypochondriac and believe myself to have contracted something even when I haven't.

In 2013 the biggest lesson I've learned is that it's not about achievements but the people you keep close to you that carry you through the critical times. Real love and support are hard to come by and difficult to maintain. Seeing my mom get sick I realized that sure money is important but what comes first is caring, because that heals psychological wounds that can't be healed by doctors.

When I reach out in times of need I get a very real response from those that are close to me. I know I haven't lived the past few months in vain. I used to be very rejecting of people who wanted to be close to me because I wanted to believe that I was invincible and didn't need anyone. The truth is we all need someone.

Why do we fall for some and not for others?

Today Nassim wanted to unpack a few boxes I had left in the corner since we moved in.
I surmised the reason I never went through them was in fear of what thoughts it would bring back to unpack them.

Not even what it could bring back, but what it reminds me that's still inside of me. A lingering sadness for times past. A longing for the best and worst time in my life. Travelling in Paris, feeling inspired, learning about literature and art and French culture. Writing speaking and hearing only French. Lost, but so found. I was always plagued by a feeling of impending doom for the future though, that I could never shake. In my idle time I couldn't enjoy- I only thought I was wasting time and wished I could just work, work work work to get somewhere. I wanted a jumpstart on my career path. I always wanted to mature, to be older than I already was.

Now that I have that, and it's killed the sensitivity I always struggled with because I have nothing but focus for my job, sometimes it hurts to sink into those thought bubbles that remind me of how much I used to feel, and how little time I have to do that now. Worst of all, it reminds me how great those times were. Nostalgia, a killer. I'm so susceptible. My job now doesn't give me the opportunity to remember the past or ruminate beyond what's going on immediately because it moves so fast, but now I'm re-evaluating. Do the people around me feel the way I do? Are they as drawn to culture and moved by art? Do they experience the same things I do? The answer is no.

I always thought it would be cool to meet the people I'm meeting now, I fantasized about having the sort of life I have now- fast paced and professional. But now that I have it, I only miss how life used to be. How sensitive life used to be. How special life used to be. The moments I used to share with only those I cared about, not forced by professional ties to experience certain events that mean nothing to my core. My values don't feel solid, I only pretend. I'm tired of pretending. I just want to be.

I was lost when I was found, then I found what I lost, and now I'm neither lost, nor found.

Where do I go from here?

I want to love, I want to explore, I want to feel again. I want it all back. But part of me is afraid, and part of me doesn't want it back now that I've come so far in a routine. All I wanted was order back then, and now I just want the disorder, the freedom, the inspiration.
I don't want to care anymore about what I don't care about. Because the truth is, I just don't care.

If there's one thing this juice cleanse taught me it was to simplify which seems to be the theme of the past year.

The juice cleanse works because you're ingesting easily digestible juices, so your body, instead of focusing energy on digesting, focuses on healing which it's put off since digesting is a priority. Past hurts, emotional and physical, start aching again but they're healing.

I feel like my whole year was cutting out everything complicated. All that clutter had to leave, and I really reduced my existence to a few fundamentals. Once that happened, my energies were focused on my personal priorities, and of course, healing.

Yes I do in part feel guilty for letting certain people drift away, because I didn't have the energy to sustain relationships, but now is the time I've been reaching out again.

I found old videos and messages I had recorded from past years. I think I used to be much more forward and friendly and careless. Of course I've become this way out of necessity, careful and contained, but at the same time it's something I'm working on switching on and off. I want to be okay being vulnerable again. There was something charming and relatable to being vulnerable, don't you think?

i've gone all around the world to realize it's not location, it's me.

i always want to restart, thinking a new place, new friends, will change me. but it's me i have to change. it's never too late right?

i think it takes finding something worth changing for to really make me want to change. i have.