meaning in the moving design

I read an article recently where someone was trying to make an academic argument about blogging being a revolutionary type of writing, because it's immediate and public and there's no moment of reflection or room to edit and blah blah blah. I don't really feel nearly as self-righteous, but I've decided to try it his way anyway. So. Immediate thoughts. No hesitation. Think, write, publish. All systems go.

I hate making decisions. I usually find a way to have destiny make them for me. I learned this from Jean-Paul Jeunet-- if he rings the doorbell within the next 10 seconds, it means he loves me etc.
In my case, it's if someone doesn't offer me A by next month, then I'm going to do B. Or, I'm going to go to C in one week, unless someone tells me where to go right now.

When left with the things that I and I alone have to decide, I panic... more specifically, I flail. Violently. With all available limbs. i am a danger to myself and others. You don't want to come anywhere near me, lest I drop kick you to the face. I have this awful tendency to over-complicate matters... like if I have to decide between A and B; if left to my own devices, I will likely throw a C and a D into the mix, and introduce an A+1, A+2 etc. I map out my quantum reality- 20 possibilities, 20 paths, 20 worlds... In my mind, Im like the schizophrenic on CSI whose covered the walls with schematics of my life.

[breath]

In high school English class I learned about pathetic fallacy, where environment mimicks moods. Well, I wonder if they have a word for life mimicking environment. Taipei is fast. Everything happens at once, all the time, at a dizzying pace. My life feels especially fast here. And I'm not talking about my walking pace, which yes, has gotten pretty speedy. Im not even talking about my general demeanor, which yes, has gotten faster, crazier, much more intense. I'm all fire here, I ain't quiet about it at all. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it has its moments.. but I swear, there is a chill side to me... Im just not really sure where it's at right now. Im a hyper hypo out here WOO! But all this I can lay on myself, flailing reflex and such.

No, what's most interesting about this "internal-mirrors-external-and/or-vice-versa" business is how all the stuff in my life beyond my control is also coincidentally suspiciously ridiculously.... FAST. I think everyone has life dramas... but naw, they ain't got nothing on me and my family this year. This is ABNORMAL.

So, Im sitting here, as some part of taipei kicks some quantum cause and effect dust in my face, wondering where it's all coming from.... is it me, the city, or the universe? Whoever is setting things on fast forward best be dropping that remote, is all.
Put the remote down slowly and we can all walk away
Stay cool, yo. Stay cool.


* a draft saved from last year. I.. did not think, write and publish. but close enough.

Every Chinese character has a story. Often a long, meandering story, rich in symbolism. The charcter for "female" depicts a woman kneeling in submission, and the character for "tranquility", is the female character under a house. Whoever invented these characters, they assumed that the story was a universal kind of truth. they didnt realize how subjective the story was. In some cases these stories become values frozen in time. They outline a narrative that Chinese people are culturally subserviant to, but will continue to identify less and less with.

There is something about this logic that reminds me of myself, though i cant quite put my finger on how. It has something to do with being needlessly complicated, with getting caught up in the details... with being consumed by my own subjectivity. I guess the Chinese way of thinking is just really bloody neurotic- everything means something, and the thread of meaning runs deep. You end up getting stuck in some all-encompassing history that's not even yours. Like using all these ideologically-outdated characters to narrate your reality today. Sometimes things are just coded in ways that I don't relate to, or understand.

We are saddled by our upbringing, by whichever way we were formed. If we grew up feeling negative, its easy to lean towards negativity. If at first we give too much, it's hard to learn how to be selfish later. If we were raised to be conservative, it's impossible to feel fully free.

A few years ago, I was on a personal mission to figure out the difference between habit and instinct. My argument was that there was no difference; that habits are instinctual. They are disguised as natural reactions, but in actuality, they are learned, and so can be unlearned. So, pumped by this new revelation, I took an inventory of all my habits, my long list of bad behavior and I started to unpack. I can't exactly remember what was going on in my life at the moment, but I was convinced that it was something happening collectively, to me and the people closest to me. I had an image of all of us packing up all our baggage, and jumping off a cliff. The lightest of us would fly while the pack rats would fall, like a test to see if we could change with the times.