Fear of Taking the Wrong Path

I want to start writing again, but it's always so hard to motivate myself to do it. It's never a question of whether I can write or not...I know all I have to do is start and it'll flow out of me. What holds me back is a question of whether what I write is worthy or not...whether it matters...and whether anyone will care. I also worry about whether what I write contains the whole of what I think, and whether that's even possible.

I think I think too much...

Though I suppose it's good to have an overabundance of something rather than a scarcity of it. For then, I just have to learn to hold back and discipline myself to let out just what I need to. And I think that's what I need in my life...there's too much excess everywhere. Too many books I want to read, too much music to collect and listen to. Too many songs I want to master on guitar or sing perfectly on karaoke. It's like there's such a strong urge in me to collect and conquer these lists of activities so that I might feel like I've accomplished something perfectly. It's part OCD and control freak, but it's also part ADD and lack of focus...

I always say that I wish I had clones through whom I could live out all the multitude of things I want to do in my life. But that's not what will give me satisfaction. It's not the completion, the perfection of all things that satisfies; although I'm tempted to call these aspirations excessively grand, perhaps they are in fact short-sighted. I'm reminded of a quote from Star Gate (hey hey, don't make fun! You learn lots of life lessons from TV and other stories!)...I think I just forgot the quote! But it's something along the lines of "If you gain all the knowledge in the world but can't share it with anyone, what good is it?" This is similar in some ways to the Bible's "What good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?"

Life is not all about gain and mastery...there are far deeper, far more important things that we often overlook because of their immediate proximity to us...we're always looking out there, far ahead, high atop the mountain, on the other side of the galaxy...the things we aspire to reach someday...and we miss the precious things right next to us that we can have right now.

I'm not saying to tamper your dreams down and get your head out of the clouds necessarily. I'm saying what are we living for? What really motivates our dreams and desires? Perhaps understanding the motivation behind our desires is just as important as identifying what those desires are...

I was discussing with my housemate the other day a similar topic: I hate to miss out on things, because through all the many times our family moved to another city or another country, I've inwardly felt that I was missing out on a possible life, on possible friends. Lost possibilities. I once wrote a poem on that topic that you can find in my blogs here...maybe that's behind my desire to achieve and conquer things as perfectly as possible...so that I know I didn't miss out on something.

From my years moving and being the new kid...sitting on the sidelines and watching other people's lives...wondering if I could fit into theirs...and feeling a gnawing inside that I might just move away from this life eventually and have to say goodbye...goodbye to the possibilities. It's like a sorrow felt for a stillborn future.

But isn't that just foolishness? There are infinite possibilities, and why should I let my reality be so influenced by these realities that may never be? Is that any different from fear? Terror of the unknown...perhaps my imagination gets the best of me in this...I can take any situation and fix my imagination upon it, then watch the possibilities bloom out and explode in manifold parallels...although I can see down so many different pathways, I'm terrified of choosing the wrong one. Because I know a choice once made cannot be undone.

I started this post thinking about why I struggle to write, but I think this all relates to what I've been struggling with in my job hunt these last few months. I'm afraid of making the wrong choice about my life...where to live and what type of job to get...what kind of career I want. Should I stay in LA? If I do, should I work in the entertainment industry or rather go into law and politics? Maybe I should join the peace corp and work for an NGO? But I'd also like to go to Asia...now do I choose Korea or Japan? And when I'm there, should I just do English teaching? Once I'm fluent in the native language, what type of job should I get?

It's almost crippling to be able to imagine all the possibilities...I'm living too much in the future and not enough in the present. One thing I've realized (and it may seem obvious to an onlooker) is that the first job I get after graduating doesn't have to pigeon hole me into that same job for the rest of my life, nor even the same industry. People change jobs all the time...people make career changes...it's not always easy to do so, but it can be done and has been done. Why the hesitation to believe in mobility? Fear again...fear that it won't work out.

The reason I accepted that I wouldn't be able to go to Asia until August was because of fear that a job wouldn't work out for me in time, and that I wouldn't get a subletter to cover my rent here...fear that I would miss out on a chance to work in the entertainment industry here in LA before I went overseas, hoping that Hollywood experience would make me more attractive to entertainment employers in Asia.

I don't usually think of myself as a fearful person. I'm 6'6" and although I'm a bit skinny, I've played rugby with some huge dudes and I've knocked them flat...I'm not afraid of physical things...I'm a mental person. And it's mental fear that I deal with...fear of lost possibilities.

But I'm going to choose to trust that God knows the future and all those possibilities better than I do. I'm going to work on living in the moment that He has set out for me...to be faithful in the now and trust that He'll lead me into the future that's best for me. Like a lantern that only shows the next few steps ahead, I'll trust that and not let my mind wander into the fear of the unlighted darkness beyond the rim of lantern light. Giving reign to such fear is foolish and counterproductive.

God I'm sorry for being afraid. I'll go to Asia and find what you have for me there. Make a way Lord and provide all that I need to do Your will. Amen!

Golden Week

(I am trying to find the best soundtrack against which to write this, but nothing fits my mood right now…and too often in the past I have sat down with the aim to write on a certain topic, but the music I listened to changed my mood and I never wrote what I had planned to. Thus, I am writing this against a background of silence with my noise-canceling headphones on, and nothing but faint car engine sounds from the street outside, the echoes of a heartbeat as blood pounds in my ears, and the plastic clacking of my keyboard as I try to turn emotion into words…)

The space bar ticks away like a clock...

I never made any plans for Golden Week. At first I had wanted to go to Kyoto, but since it's one of the most popular destinations during this holiday, it would be way too crowded and I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as I could if I went some other time. Besides, I've done a staggering amount of sightseeing and exploring since coming to Japan and both my mind and body are really quite exhausted from all the new stimulation and experiences. If I decided to go on any more trips before sitting down and processing everything, it would all just be a blur and I would experience it all through only half-aware senses, like ordering a rich dessert after you've already stuffed your stomach to the limits - you just don't appreciate the dessert's value unless you wait and digest for a little while. So after one more excursion to Yokohama with some friends on the first Saturday of Golden Week, I decided not to go out until I had resolved some inner issues. Even on Sunday I woke up to get ready for Life Group and a day of church, but I felt in my heart that it would just be more busyness, and I didn't need any more of that; God wanted me to stay home and spend some time with Him. So I did.

At first I decided to use this free time to catch up on all of my homework and readings for class and knock out my first paper assignment so later on I wouldn't be as rushed, so I read one story for my Modern Japanese Fiction class, stretched out on my futon, the pages of the story spread over the floor in front of me. The story was supposed to be an example of a shift in the style of Japanese literature from the more traditional Romanticism to modern Naturalism. It was about an impoverished maid who decided to hang herself when she found out her lazy husband had stolen a bag of charcoal from a store and she knew they would be found out. The story had no emotion, the narrator completely stoic and unfeeling, only stating exactly what happened without any commentary upon events. It left me depressed - I don't like literature like that - so after jotting down a few notes on my reaction to the story, I took my laptop to the dining room and checked my email - hoping there would be enough facebook updates to give me a fix to ease my sadness. There were some, but as always it never quenched my thirst for heart-to-heart interaction.

And so far this writing isn't either….

So much of this break I've just been lying around thinking, trying to be productive, but usually staying up late into the night and sleeping in late into the day too entranced with my dreams to want to come back to reality…my dreams have been so vivid here, and even though I don't remember every piece of story that they held, there's little moments and flashes of them that stick with me. I always remember how my dreams make me feel. And they've been powerful lately…like they're a deeper reality than the waking world.

I read The Little Prince this week. It was great…short enough to read in one sitting, but it was packed full of great symbolism and meaning. I want to write things like this - entertaining but didactic.

I've been trying to orient myself in the last few days…not worrying about homework or any schedules or anything - just centering myself and remembering who I am and what I'm all about...

I have dreams…but I don't know exactly what they are or how to explain them…all I know is that inside of me grows something big, something deep…I know its dimensions, but I don't know its nature…it's too abstract to find the right words. My writing is a way of developing these dreams and bringing them into this world.

Through all of these flashes of thoughts I am well aware of how weird I may seem to those who read this…and to you I really don't have much to say in way of defense. I am who I am, and when I write, I want to write from my heart. I will never apologize for what comes out of my heart, for if I ever did, then I would be rejecting what makes me ME, and such a thing would be unforgivable. My entire life I have wrestled within my heart to try to understand what comes out of it. As a kid I let my heart dream freely…gave it free reign like a kite with no one holding the string. Then as I grew older and I became more aware of the larger world around me, I began to chastise my heart, pulling it down from the sky, and tried to control what it felt and did…but that only brought pain and depression. Through this long struggle I have decided that a life lived in slavery to rules is no life at all…there is no freedom there. And at the same time a life lived in complete surrender to selfish desire is fruitless and only leads to pain and death not only for myself but for others. The way in between is difficult to find - a place where you are true to yourself, but being aware that you share the world with other hearts and each action you take sends ripples through life that touch others.

Though I am a loner, I am not alone…it is true that no man is an island. Even though I withdraw from everyone else to meditate on life, I cannot remain like this; I must go out. Otherwise my heart becomes stagnant and dull. Thus communication with others is essential, and to me art is the essence of communication. Now, by communication I don't just mean talking or explaining something verbally. Although I know we can't always have deep conversations, I really get no satisfaction out of small talk. It has it's place and all, but after hanging out with people who only ever talk about inconsequential things, I always go away hungry for more.

One of my frustrations with hanging out with people here in Japan is that people just want to go do something entertaining…something that grabs your attention and drills pleasure into your senses, then releases you to go home.  I don't want to just go through my life being entertained for the moment…I want something more everlasting…I want the substance of life! I haven't met many people who follow this wavelength, or if they do, they don't talk about it…and so that is what I wander around on my own looking for...

I love traveling because everywhere I go and everything I see reveals more of the mystery of life that I dream about. I find it in short bursts of light and color…like a chance locking of eyes with a stranger coupled with a shy smile, then rushing on through the anonymous city…or the way the sun hits a little waterway snaking between concrete buildings at just the right angle to transform it from a nasty off-green color to a glittering of sparkling diamonds splattering everywhere…or when the wind blows through the train station just perfectly so the lady strutting in high heels in the opposite direction as you, completely consumed in her cell phone text message, looks like a model on a runway, her amber hair swirling behind her in a dance. There are so many moments like these that I see…and they only last for a second, then float away forever. I try to capture them in writing by carrying around a small notepad with me and jotting down notes as soon as I can…but beauty can never be completely captured…that's its nature…it's wild and free…no words could ever retell its true essence perfectly. I think that's what haunts most artists…never being able to truly communicate what they see with their heart. But they still manage to create masterpieces that touch just that spot in others to give them a glimpse of the beauty that the artist saw.

That is the art I want to create...

Why's this incomplete?

OK, so as you've noticed this blog is very fragmented and incomplete...see the thing is I'm finding it hard to get the time to write down everything that's been going on.  I've been so distracted by the whole experience and wonder of this place and so my time has been spent exploring and discovering rather than processing and downloading my thoughts...but now that school has started, I can try again to do this blog like I planned to...so there's more to come, but I figured if I just posted some of what I have, it'll get the momentum going!

Chorus of Sniffing

During my first few days of riding the trains in Tokyo, the weather was a bit on the cold side and a lot of people had runny noses. As I made my way to Sophia, I was holding onto the hand rails of one of the trains, just listening and observing, taking in the experience of the life of a commuter. Then my ears caught the sound of someone sniffing. I looked over at a man in a black suit with a white mask over his mouth. He must have been wearing the mask to keep everyone from getting his germs; how thoughtful of him. But then I heard more sniffing, and as I focused my hearing further, I realized that there was a consistent repetition of sniffs. Here and there, all over the train car people were sniffing. Yet the thing I didn't hear was anyone blowing their nose. They just kept sniffing, trying to keep everything in, while gravity kept frustrating their efforts. I remembered hearing from one of my International Relations T.A.s that in Korea it's rude to blow your nose in public. I wonder if the same is true in Japan? Although I have been in a ramen shop and the guy right next to me blew his nose rather loudly and no one else in the shop looked at him in offense. I have seen a few other instances where someone has done something that I heard was rude to do, but none of the other Japanese appeared to think it was. So my guess is that in Japan, it's all about context. They aren't narrow-mindedly following a cultural norm no matter where they go or what situation they're in; most of their customs originate in a desire to be thoughtful of others and to help society function more efficiently as a whole.

On reading a Japanese story set in the old pleasure quarters of Edo

Perhaps the reason why the stereotype of the Japanese housewife as a boring individual unable to please her husband is because, left alone at home there is little intellectual stimulation for her mind.  The same goes with common male laborers; it has nothing to do with one's sex!  And because the ancient Japanese courtesans were trained in the arts - poetry and music, etc - they were far more appealing to Japanese men than their dull, timid housewives.  No wonder they frequented the pleasure quarter so often.  It wasn't only bodily lust, but it was intellectual lust as well.  Be sure that your wife doesn't only stimulate you physically with her appearance but also mentally with her intellect and fascinating personality.  And she needs hobbies to keep her spirit bright and alive; if all she does is household chores, her dreams and spirits will dim for lack of use.  The woman that you fall in love with and marry should be nurtured as she is and watered so that she grows and blooms more beautiful.  A wife is not a wild flower that you pick because you admire it's beauty, then just leave it lying around to decay.  Instead, you need to pull it up from the roots carefully and put it in your personal garden to nurture and care for it, then enjoy watching her flourish as you lavishly pour your love upon her.

Note: this is a thought fragment, people!  Not a well researched theoretical essay, so don't get all irascible if you mistakenly think I'm a misogynist or something...I don't have time to be politically correct and account for every possible way you might interpret what I write...

Beauty from Afar

Somehow it seems that only in silent removal of myself from everything can I appreciate the beauty of things.  The touching scenes of a movie have nothing to do with me.  And I did not give a flower it's beauty.  These are all far beyond my reach.  So what then is beauty that involves me in it?  And can I sense it without withdrawing from it?

Railroad Crossings

The bells keep ringing, warning of death...and they ring throughout this city: death!  death!  ご注意！ It's no wonder I smell the stench of fear...