Excerpt

She looked out the window.

Although she couldn’t see it, the sun was setting, and it signified its retreat with a four-sided glowing orange on the wall opposite her.  Her window was slightly open, and she could just smell the autumn air.  The autumn weather was paradoxical in that it was crisp like new, but also an agent in the celebration of nostalgia.  It was probably because it was so crisp like new that fall afternoons can be remembered so well in later years.

And the weather accentuated every sound.  She lived within her modest means, and so she found her apartment well-acquainted with the sounds of life flowing through the city’s mechanical veins.  The noises floated into her room, and since nostalgia always sets in with the air, the sounds that accompany it consequently become congenial as well.

Some things I need to remind myself of

Some advice for you, Kit.

With love,
Kit

1. You will always be in a transitional period. You're never gonna "get there", so enjoy the ride.

2. Children aren't articulate, but they know what's right, so listen to them more.

3. Talk to yourself more; you try to hide it like you're sane, but c'mon.  The best conversations are the ones with the person who knows you best.

4. Grammar was made to relay ideas better. If you get what they're saying, grammar has no real role then.

5. DANCE, you fool.

6. Talk more with less thought; you'll find out the kind of person you are quicker. Then go from there.

7. Nothing you have is truly yours except your ideas. Even those, you should share.

8. I know you should "go with the flow", but flow into work more often.

9. You are only as good as your actions.

10. Learn parkour. It's, like, the fastest way to feel like a kid again.

11. Give praise where praise is due; you're not gonna get better just because you withheld a compliment regarding something you wish you could've done, too.

12. Practice more. Fear of failure IS failing.

13. Love more. How could you live with yourself otherwise?

Desert of Sound

I've always claimed to write music, but it's never felt like this.
Voice and guitar by the talented Danni Chung and video shot by my very own Allison Rhee

Take writing, for example

I have to reside in that place somewhere between carelessness and meticulousness.

If I am too careless, then my writing will have no direction; if I am too meticulous, then my writing will be too faltering.

Neither can I vacillate from one to the other--I will own no real trail of thought if I keep changing my state of mind.

No--I need to find comfort in a place between the two, a place where I exemplify boldness with a characteristic of wariness. I must write like I mean to write, but I must also exhibit care.

And not only my writing, but my life must also be led in this manner. I must be in a state of urgency so that I can fully engage all of my faculties, but I must also heed the words of God. I must live because God gave me this life, but I must also be wary of how I live for that very reason.

Some scribbles in my pocket notebook

Happiness is not leisure. It is not retirement or luxury, it is not the easy attainment of pleasure.

Happiness is the transpiration of growth. It is not merely doing something enjoyable--it is becoming better at it. And the actual realization of aspirations is only momentary in its pleasure because it is only an indication of growth, not its finality.

Too often we attain an object and wonder at the inconsistency between it and our expectations. It is because our souls flourish when we ourselves flourish--attainment without continuance is nothing but a halt to what was food to our souls.

More Love, More Power

It's an amazing feeling when things that don't go your way all come together in the end to harmoniously reveal that it was all in due time to make things go His way.

Collaborating with Danni Chung was such a blessed experience.  I know Danni from years ago when we attended the same church.  She and I attended the same college as well, and now we are coincidentally in the same city in South Korea.  We took this opportunity to collaborate a song together.. but the events leading up to it.. well, it never seems as divine if it isn't personally felt, but let's just say that everything seemed to happen exactly the way they should as willed by God.

Allison Rhee filmed everything, and Danni edited the video.  Enjoy!

Numb

All things shine on the sun; how can they not when they radiate so?  They're so vibrant with color, they're shaking in my very sight, and they send their lights out.  All things are graphic-- any blur is a man-made thing.  The dew on the window is no cause for blurring-- the droplets themselves are so vivid.  Displacement of attention is a man-made thing.

And why do we have loss of detail?  It's all a numbing-- we numb the pain, we numb the senses because only then can we ever become deluded enough to think we can do it ourselves. But we cannot... we're weak beings who have the knowledge enough to make ourselves ignorant to our weaknesses.  We're too knowledgeable for our own good on how to cut out what we consider excess, when really it is vital, even inherent.

Because in our weaknesses, we cry out to God...

Otherwise, we hesitate and stumble, become confused and fumble, and we find ways to numb ourselves again.  We let these moments pass with dissatisfied taste, but we convince ourselves that it's "just the way it is."  There's nothing else to do, then, but to harden ourselves to it, and after a lifetime of this, we build walls into a corner.  But this corner seems safe; this corner seems good, because it's a space we can control.  But we forget about God; how can you be satisfied knowing you're in a delusion, and you have to deny true things to be happy?  How can that possibly make you happy?

We numb ourselves so well... it's the one thing we are all good at.  We trim out the truth, we're a race of convenience, and we justify it because we work hard to attain convenience.  We're so numb.

Fire

There is an awakening in my heart akin to that of a rekindled flame.  It roars with passion at some times, and at others, I protect it from the wind with cupped hands-- but it burns, nonetheless.

I felt the spark of it when I stepped into Jubilee Church.  It was like gathering the fuel and recognizing it as good flammable material.  And there were sparks that landed dangerously close, but none that embarked on a glowing trail to the center of my heart.

Here, I must take the time to recognize God's influence on my circumstances and thank Him for what He did for me.  It's one thing to know it and such a difference matter to apply it.  I had planned a trip with Allison which had to be cancelled, and here, I must admit that I am prone to do the things that would make Allison happy. Well, although I associate her presence in my life with God's blessings, I hesitantly decided to attend my church's men's retreat.  I am a man of words, and so, what would I be if I wasn't a man of my word?  If I recognized that the church had all the right materials to set things ablaze, then how could I live with myself if I ignored the obvious act of Fate when God shattered my plans?  And so, at the risk of hurting Allison, whom God Himself had put in my life anyway, I committed to going to this retreat.

And lo and behold, what happened?  Things happened exactly as they should if only I let them-- or rather, let God.  This is what I had been missing.  All those allusions to melancholy and ennui-- lack of inspiration and color in my life-- they were all instantly cured, and not only cured, but replaced by new passions I had never even known to want.  It's like I wanted fire in all its orange splendor, and, instead, I got a beautiful blue flame, even hotter than what I had originally intended to want.

But it wasn't all an effortless receiving of the Spirit, there were moments even after the moment.  It didn't end with just the decision to commit; there was the moment that I decided to raise my hands for praise, the moment I decided to speak (in fact, this moment occurred again and again), the moment I decided to be honest with myself about my past-- there were moments after moments.  And every moment added fuel to the fire, and it grew bigger and brighter.

And then-- I jumped into the flames themselves for, you see, there were moments after the retreat.  I had to enter the fire and be refined by the heat as it burned away the earthly things that had taken hold of me with fierce determination.  But I see them as they close into a crinkled black mass of what I recognize to be repentance, and I could see the Purity that every soul is meant to be underneath the ugliness as it fell away.

And if this soul is me, if I am it, then I have to take this moment to state that I could not recognize it.  There was a lingering fragrance resembling nostalgia, like something deep in my past that transcends even my memories, but other than that, I must admit that I was beholding something novel that I can only now proclaim is something truer to myself that I had ever uttered myself to be.

I am, once again, reborn.

Redefining habits

It's easy to forget how we ever pick up routines that inhabit our lives, filling them with definitions for our existences.

The interests we have in our lives intrigue our minds enough to evolve our initial curiosity little by little into specialized routines that define us.  In this way, we become "experts", but the process with which it happens is truly fascinating.

(Also, when I say "routines", I mean daily routines that define your occupation, e.g. sitting in front of a computer for a programmer in contrast to hitting the gym for an athlete.  I don't mean "get out of bed and shower rather than brush your teeth first" kind of routines)

The habits, routines, whatever you want to call them, become integrated into our lives initially without any effort at all because they become adhered to by curiosity.  I've seen it many times, felt it just as many, to have whole days and nights become consumed by a chance brush with something fatefully interesting that it proceeds to change the course of a life drastically.

But then, many times, human fallacies, or maybe just personal habits of lesser degree that are more obstructive, tend to spoil that pure, innocent, even giddily fun and enjoyable interest into ambitions that're a little darker, a little less for the interest and a little more for the self.

I am, of course, talking from my own experience.  Writing is one of those things that I started doing purely for the delight.  It was just something that I was somewhat good at, something that brought me great pleasure.  But as I grew, I began to regard it less as a recreational habit and more as a tool-- a tool to gain recognition, respect, even money one day.

But I should know that if I truly believed in my talent as a writer, then all these things will follow only if I hone my skills to the best that they can be, and I can only achieve that if I don't waste any of my mind, time, and ambitions on anything so superficial as where my writing can take me monetarily or in regards to fame.  I wouldn't try to get to a destination by wearing the proper attire, but rather, by building the very vessel that would take me there.

I live in an increasingly abstract world, I know, but I have to come to realize the language that the abstract has with the tangible world.  It's the natural world that grows flowers, but it's the abstract one that calls it beautiful.  So I must harness my natural inclinations and let it be abstractly interpreted as it must be to better my world, to cleanse it-- not by denying, but by redefining.

Jubilee's Men's Retreat

Over the weekend, I had the gracious opportunity to accompany the men of Jubilee Church of Seoul on their men's retreat in... oh dude, I forgot where we went. An hour and a half out of Seoul.  But it was beautiful, man.



All I can say is- I've been missing this my entire life.  Just becoming enveloped by the love for God that I felt resonating from the voices of every man who was praising God around me.  Just being given the opportunity to experience it made me feel so blessed.

Pastor David was a blessing by himself.  He loves God, and it's so apparent when he speaks because his diction isn't forced- his words simply come out the way they do because you can tell he's trying to describe something that simply can't be vocalized.  Other men do their best to put their sermon behind the podium, but he brings his love for God up there and does his best to try and convey it.  It's awesome.

And the praise was simply great.  Tim 형is a blessed singer, no wonder he's a 가수, but more than his skills, his love for God spoke louder than his voice, I couldn't help but dance. Man, I couldn't help but dance.


What can I say?  I could try to relay to you all the experiences I had at the retreat, but they're feeble attempts to describe to you the awakening of a flame inside me that's refining my very heart, and it's joyful to the point of sadness because I've been missing it for so long.

But joyful, nonetheless, for I have found it again, but now the real battle starts- but I won't, can't despair.  Cuz "if my God is with me, whom then shall I fear?"

Impulsion is good for me

I usually always plan what I'm going to write before I post a blog.

But I think I'll change.

For one post, at least.  For one post, I'll write what comes to mind as I write it, and then I'll post it with absolutely no editing for aesthetics, and see if I like it.

I've been trying to write about the books I've read as I read them, both for the sake of writing in a critical perspective and simply writing in general.  I shouldn't ever stop writing.  They say a shark sinks when it stops swimming; with their streamlined body and powerful muscles, all they were built to do was swim.  They sink if they stop doing what they were built to do.

I'll at least list the books I've read so far for cataloging purposes: my latest being The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens before that, and currently on Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.  I really admire Dickens- his writing is seriously crazy good, I become simultaneously excited and disappointed when I read his stuff- excited to be reading it, disappointed that I could never emulate his style, no matter how hard I try.

I'm a bit in despair, however, for the fact that I love Charles Dickens, and yet I can't recall anything of A Tale of Two Cities that I read only a little before I came to Korea close to seven months ago.  Talk about irony.

Hm.  I think impulsive writing is good for me.  I'm always pressuring myself to write well, so I remain critical of my writing even as I write, which I, somewhere deep down, know must be counter-productive; but this is liberating.  Writing for the sake of my soul, to express the speculations of something purer than me even while it resides in me, to produce without attaching a cost or value.

Milk.

What does it take to be a man?

One who doesn't deny fear, but embraces it, to hold it close and let go to see it transformed into courage; one who doesn't hold back affection, but expresses it for the fact that he is not less of a man because he feels as much as he acts and thinks; one who, in fact, acts by how he feels, for it if it be morally upstanding or against it if it be morally depriving; one who wavers only to consider right and wrong and never to consider the opinions of others; one who lives for the cause, but is willing to die for the effect.

A man like Christ was.

Reflections after Easter

Last Sunday was Easter Sunday.

It celebrated the rising of Jesus from the dead...

and this day of all days, I should really consider my life and if I really live as if I believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead for me.  And if I do-- what part of my life really proclaims that truth?  Because even the demons believe in God, and so how does my life differ from a mere belief in existence?  How does my life reflect a belief in sacrifice?

I need to embrace the things that I should be grateful and joyous for- because I am ashamed, but I can only be ashamed by knowing why I should be joyous.  Why I should even be ashamed in the first place.  Many feel shame because some things are innately shame-inducing, but they cannot come to terms with their shame because they do not know that the alternative is joy-inducing.

His victory is my victory, but am I living like I'm victorious?

to God's gift to me

...And this talk of things unspoken, it reminds me of those- dare I say, beautiful?- evenings spent with you in Boston, most vividly just lazy nights spent staying indoors with wine, book, and the presence of something other than us, even though we were the only ones in the room.  And that other presence was an unspoken and growing love for one another, and the hours and days were blanketed with something wonderful that I can't describe, but I can try:

It was like standing in a room while it filled with water, and I was gently lifted and floating around, and we were doing this lovely dance while submerged in it all.  Or rather- it was like a haze, a colored haze, maybe yellow, but something that made everything bright and more obscured at the same time, and the haze drugged us every time we breathed it in, and our minds became optimistic, and our hearts softened, and I felt affection for everything, even the glasses we were sipping our wines from.

And the funny thing is that I don't remember the words that we spoke during these specific moments, but I understand them to be beautiful because our hearts were in excited chatter, a conversation taking place in a lofty place above us, and as the silent words rained down on us, we felt their expressions on our skin, and we loved each other accordingly.

I miss my dog

This will be a pointless entry.

I used to have this dog since I was, like, eleven years old.

It was a mini poodle.  For anyone who knows me- yeah, I have a pit bull / boxer mix, too, but I also had a mini poodle.

Anyway.

I had this dog since it was two years old for thirteen years, making it fifteen years old.  Pretty old for a dog.  And the thing was, the thing is that it only loved me.  It only smiled like how only a dog can smile when I walked into the house, it only followed me around, it only slept with me, it only relaxed when I sat next to it, it whined when I closed the door to go to the bathroom.

It was a pretty nervous dog, but it guarded me with her life.  She barked like crazy at anyone who came into my room while I slept.  Silly little dog.  It only weighed like seven pounds, how in the world could it ever have protected me?

After I left for college, I noticed its age increasingly more every time I came home.  Its eyes started to go hazy as its eyesight started to fail, and it started to go deaf as well so it could only hear me when I yelled.  Its mind kind of started to fail, too, I think.  It would lose me a lot and spend a good while looking in every room for me.  I know because I watched it from upstairs run from room to room.  I didn't watch it for amusement-- I was calling its name the whole time.

Anyway.  The point is, after I came to Korea, it started getting this infection.  And then it got bad enough that it had to be put down.  And I didn't get to be there or anything.  And I really miss it-- I mean, I guess you, the reader, wouldn't really care about this little dog, but you've gotta understand, it absolutely lived for me.  I gave it happiness and meaning in life, and it makes me really sad to think about it now dead.  Just... dead.

Poetry

What is it that characterizes a piece of writing as poetic?  Where does it cross the line from merely descriptive into a categorization of art?

What is "almost poetic"?

When do the words stop being merely relative tools of communication to become allusions to sublimity?  Or beauty?

Hm- I guess "the poetic" is descriptive then... descriptive of something arbitrary within that cavity, something that words can't describe anyway, but we try to, and then we consider it "poetic".  Ah.  I guess that's it.  Words that attempt to describe what words cannot describe.  And I guess that it just so happens that much of poetry is rhythmic because the human soul owns its own rhythm, and words emulate it in form where functional definitions fail.

The Things They Carried and Crazy Love

I got to fit in another couple books in my busy schedule (mm.. mostly by reading when I should be lesson planning) and I've gotta hand it to Tim O'Brien for his The Things They Carried for his innovative and refreshing story telling ability.

The "things they carried" were whatever baggage he and his Vietnam War comrades hauled around for the time they served in the war.  The beginning chapter listed all the standard equipments, listing them by name, utility, and even weight.  Then, he goes on to list other things they carried, varying from person to person by their cultures, beliefs, and sentiments.  I felt a dull kind of pain for the man who tied his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck before every trek, only to have her leave him in a letter.  Kind of silly, yes, but he claimed the pantyhose still held its charm to protect him from the bullets, the forest, the bombs, the night... but you just knew he felt an unsettling and panicking fear that the one thing he had depended on to get him through the war was no longer his valid motive to carry on.

And then, the final chapters were about the emotional burdens they carried: fear, guilt, shame.. love.  These weighed as much as their M-16 gas-operated assault rifles which weighed 8.2 pounds when fully loaded with their 20-round magazines.  Probably weighed even more.  All in all, it was a fascinating read, one that made me really understand a war not by its facts, but by its stories that evoked a very raw emotion in me.

From one martial war to another personal war...

I reread Crazy Love by Francis Chan again.  He's a very convicting speaker (I got to hear him in Philadelphia in the summer of 2008), but he's a convicting writer as well.  Not much to say about this book except.. it had my heart doing cartwheels and wanting to hide in the corner at the same time.  Its message is very urgent, which is that we have no time to waste if we're aware of such a love as God's.  And I was rejoicing and ashamed simultaneously.  Anyway, great author, great book, great message.

Star of Wonder / None Shall Pass

This song is so disgustingly sick, the beat to these Aesop Rock verses... holy, this song is so lyrically good to me, I can't stay seated, I'm gonna stand up and pace around a little bit and then sit back down.

An Excerpt

John thought about love.

  Love had been like a mountain to him, towering over everything all around it, and he had considered it with awe.  He had thought, ‘Ah, love is like this mountain, majestic in form and amazing in its immensity.’  But when he fell in love, he realized that love was not the consideration of the mountain at all.  To be in love was to climb this mountain, and then to consider the rest of the world from such a lofty height.  From the top, he looked around and thought, ‘Ah, this is love, which is amazing in itself, but the thing that amazes me most is the perspective it gives me of the rest of the world.’

Open-mindedness

Note to Self:

Always be ready to change my views.  Who am I to think I've got it figured out?

Love My Haters

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even 'sinners' love those who love them." -Luke 6:32

There is a remarkable story of the priest who heard a knock at the church doors one night.  He invited in a man who asked for a place to sleep.  The priest offered him a warm dinner and a bed.  Later that night, the priest was woken from his sleep by a noise, only to find that very man stealing from the church.  Startled, the man used the silver candlestick that he was putting into his bag to hit the priest over the head.  The priest was rendered unconscious, and the man dropped the bloodied silver candlestick and ran into the night.

A few hours later, there was another knock at the door.  The priest, still awake and recovering from his blow to the head, slowly walked over and opened it.  Two policemen stood at the door, the thief in custody.  They had arrested the thief when they found him trying to sleep in the local park and discovered the church property in his bag.  The thief looked dismayed- there was no way out for him.

But then, the priest did a curious thing.  He left the door and then came back with the very candlestick the thief had used as a weapon against him.  The thief then knew his fate and lowered his head.  However, the priest spoke, "This man has church property only because I gave it to him.  And I am glad you have brought him back; he has forgotten one item," and he handed the thief the silver candlestick.  "Now go," he said, "and be good."  The thief was speechless.  After the policemen left, the thief stayed with the priest and weeped for forgiveness.

Lent

Lent started today, and I've gotta say that I had no idea what I could give up or add in my life.  I'm blessed enough to say that I'm fairly content with my life at the moment- but then again, there's always more that can be done, and complacency is always a real danger.

After some thought, I decided that I'd give up Facebook for forty days.  I hadn't formed a certain reason why I would at the time, but it seemed like a big enough task without it being too radical.  But now that I think about it, I'm very eager for the next forty days because Facebook is nothing more than something to pass the time with for me.  Everyone says it's a great way to keep in touch, but I feel absolutely no personal connection via Facebook, and I find that I too readily form opinions of people that solidify way too quickly when, really, I don't know them at all.

So, in pursuit of a deeper connection with the people who I do want to know, and for the sake of those I assume to know when I really don't, I'm going to give up Facebook.  I left my email address as my status, and I'm kind of excited to see who might email me, instead of hoping for haphazard comments that might concern me on Facebook.  I'm actually really eager to channel what time I do spend on it on other things that could be considered more productive.

And above all, I've gotta remember that God is my strength, and what time I do find myself with, I should give it to him.

Anyway, let's see how it goes.

Sympathizing

Human nature is such an interesting topic.  I've been guilty of this myself, but some of the most obvious things in life seem to become so complicated, a glass so stained by our ignorance.

But I think subjectivity is for a reason.  If we were to look at our lives objectively, even for a moment, we would know the general direction in which our lives should go, but it is simply impossible to do that.  However, what we can do is attempt to view our lives through the eyes of someone else, and this allows us to sympathize, even empathize, with those around us.  By being able to imagine the perspective of those around us, we can look at our own lives from a less than egocentric manner, but then we also begin to understand what it would be like to be someone other than ourselves.  Often, those of us who are the most lost are those who cannot sympathize with other people.

And then there is the question of morality.  It is much too dangerous to try to solve moral issues by trying to step into another person's position to view our own situation because, frankly, we are all flawed.  And so any views of the problem would be a flawed view.  Everyone is biased by culture and habit, and so all solutions would be influenced by them.

However, thankfully, we have an objectively moral, but unconditionally loving God.

He is objectively moral, and so we can be confident that his definition is the correct one.  And he is unconditionally loving, and so we can rest assured that what he commands is to help us.  We have to learn to sympathize with his perspective, but we can only do that if we know him.  And how can we know him?  Through the bible which is said to be our sword in battle.

The battle being our war with our ignorant selves, fighting to see through God's eyes by understanding his heart.

Mitch Albom and "Three Cups of Tea"

I just got through reading Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

Mitch Albom has a knack for sentimental writing, and both books had their share of corny sentences, but they both left me with a really comforting sense of duty to my life when I finished them.  When I put them down, I had this urge to change my life, but in very subtle ways that asked rather than demanded to be changed.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven opens up a world beyond my peripherals, those connections with people I don't even consider a part of my immediate life.  However, Albom attempts to remind the reader that our lives have repercussions far beyond what we live for, and he delivered that message in a creative and emotional way.

Have a Little Faith is about the lives of two men of God whom Albom personally knew.  Their stories of faith far differ in their approach, but he finds the common ground for the two men of different faiths, and it is that their lives are substantially more meaningful than any success stories of the modern day man.  Their lives are modest, but the good they produce outweighs any egocentric dreams and accomplishments that we are all infatuated by today.

Another book I got to squeeze in was Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.  This is a semi-autobiographical book about the life of a single man who literally changed the lives of thousands of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan by building schools in their villages.  It follows the life of Greg Mortenson as he struggles through countless obstacles to found education throughout the two countries, one school at a time.  Mortenson's life may seem a bit glorified through the pages, but he certainly deserves the praise as he scrapes the money up for the children on the other side of the world while living homeless in California at the start of his endeavors.  A very good read.

A moment

There's a lot of things I think I need to change for myself, and these considerations all come from a deep inner feeling than any rational thought.  Although I do rationalize the feeling, what really convinces me that I need to change comes from a dull and persistent thudding from my chest just above my stomach.

I think what really initializes it is that even though I try to be a good person, I know I'm not ideal.  And I like things to be ideal if it's in my power to make it so.  But I'm constantly reminded that I'm lacking, and it's also a fault of mine to want to excel in everything, and so I'm in this perpetual cycle of inspiration and disappointment that I can't seem to break out of because I just don't want to settle.

It's a painful reminder whenever I look out into the world, and I realize my life is drinking in what my eyes are seeing, when really my heart should be eating from the feast that God has prepared for me.  I think that's where this alien feeling of mine originates from the most- knowing that there's an outshining heaven, but infatuated by a vain world.

intheRebel Mixtape

I've been working on a mixtape.  I don't really have a direction with it-- I just reacted when the desire to write and record arose.  This was the result of all those reactions to those desires.

The Best Short Stories of 2010

I'm currently reading a book called The Best Short Stories of 2010 which, I assume you assumed, is a collection of short stories that two supposed experts on short stories decided were the best to be featured in their book.

It's a great read, but it seems that every story lacks an uplifting and optimistic ending or tone.  It's almost as if the short story writers of 2010 found it naive or out of style to utilize any archetypal optimism, and they all attempted to achieve a sublime realism like it was the new fad.  They all seem to try and explicate the vastness of the human soul, but they all see it in a similar shade of gray.  Or whatever color it would be if a splash of red mixed with the gray in the far lower corner of the soul.

Not to say they're not good; in fact, they're brilliant.  But they're a kind of brilliance that seems to blend together like if I put them all in a clear plastic bag and shook it around really fast.  They don't vary; they're just variations of the same thing.

However, I'm being unfair.  I'm a good number of pages past halfway, but there are still a few stories left to read, written by some writers yet discovered by me.  I just keep finding myself hoping that maybe they subconsciously saved the best for last.  I mean, even if you weren't intending to, with a book title like The Best Short Stories of 2010, wouldn't you put the better ones toward the back?

Lovestruck with Luv(sic)

This song is the perfect song.



It's emotional without being radical-- this permits it to defy time because, let's face it, we are all emotionally driven without always being emotionally charged.  Whether I'm tending a broken heart or I'm just considering life at arms' length, this song offers itself as the perfect reason to close my eyes and reflect.

It's a perfect testimony to music-- the jazz sampling, the basic rhythm through that perfectly simple beat, the testimony to hip hop, the meta "music about music" lyrics just accentuates what love for music should be and is through this song.

I get lost listening to this.  It's perfectly varying and repetitive.  The harmony and melody come together so poetically, it makes me wanna freakin' cry.  The lyrics are just deep enough without being pretentious, the key is perfect for reflection.  There are just enough segments without drums to take that moment of breath right before delving into it again, reflective of the moments of silence life itself should have.

I don't know.  It's perfect.

RIP Nujabes

Two selves of a Whole

It's a great battle we wage against ourselves.  Everyone must wage it, and everyone must win if they hope to pursue a greater triumph of the soul.  But if the war is between two selves of the same whole, then there is an innate dilemma that presents itself in a two-dimensional choice-- one must identify with the winning self, and one must identify with the better self.  To claim one and disregard the other is to fail because one offers the means while the other offers the direction.  How utterly useless would it be to put on the shoes to walk, but cannot find the way?

When I say 'better self' I am, of course, referring to a morally superior half-- because to identify with the winning self that is not also morally conscious is to succeed at failing.  And to only choose the morally upright half that is not also the winning half is to fail at succeeding.

I personally think I am the latter; that is, I identify with the moral side of the battle, but I confess that it is the losing side.  I feel the anxiety of an impending doom-- though all strategic maneuvers have seemed to fail, I keep hoping for a miracle, one small enough to occur in someone as insignificant and undeserving as me, to change the course of this losing battle.

Outliers

I'm currently reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and it's become a sort of a struggle to read it.  I like it because it carries a sort of optimism in its words, but it just doesn't feel authentic.  That's how I've felt about Gladwell's other two books as well, Tipping Point and Blink.  I don't know how to describe it, but it seems as if he uses all the facts he's collected exclusively to serve his own purpose-- they don't sound as if they'd advocate his points, and yet he makes it so through his diction.  Alas, I read this book with a dubious mind.

However, there is something else that this book makes me feel, and it is a frustration of my failures, or rather, a desire to succeed.  I feel that I must take what I learned from the book and flourish in my element-- and I am in the peculiar position of currently being in my self-prescribed element, i.e. a classroom, at the moment I want to succeed in it.

However, I've really been feeling the fatigue and frustrations of teaching day in and day out.  I've been feeling my body literally become slow to move, and I've been forcing myself to become enthusiastic for my students, a decision all too conscious for its effort and so severely considered in the moment.

But I imagine this is the exact circumstance required to overcome and excel.  If I am not fatigued, then how else would I feel so great about my achievements if I am, truthfully, not really achieving anything?  And so, tired as my arms feel to raise them, I do-- to embrace the present and coming challenges, to use each day as a block to build the facade that is my confidence, a process slowly done but surely made, and to one day look back and just feel the magnitude of the mountain I just climbed resolutely beneath my feet.

War and Peace

After an arduous, but completely satisfying, two and a half months, I turned the last page of War and Peace.

I've gotta admit that it wasn't easy getting through some parts, but many others had my eyes glued to the pages, sometimes reading when it was definitely not a good time to be reading, i.e. during work.  This is the longest I've read a single novel, and although I know that I don't completely grasp all that Tolstoy was trying to accomplish with it, I have absolutely fallen in love with his book.

Leo Tolstoy has risen to the top of my list of authors, not because of all the things I've heard about him, but because he simply is, almost effortlessly, the best writer I know.  He flawlessly executes sentences that speak in volumes using a most concise diction-- he doesn't waste words trying to do what can be done with a few quaint phrases.

But more than that, I love who he was, or who I believe him to have been through what I've read.  He's vastly knowledgeable of high society, and yet he subtly seems to indicate through his speculations that he is disagreeable towards the gentry-- I think he speaks through Pierre who, although, is not a part of the aristocracy by upbringing, suddenly finds himself in such company due to a large fortune left to him by his late illegitimate father.  I think Tolstoy identifies with Pierre the most, as he becomes the richest character with the most depth, undergoing the biggest arc of change throughout the entire one and a half thousand pages of the novel.

And just who do I believe Tolstoy to have been?  A God-fearing lover of Man, not for their actions but for their potential, a true idealist who believes in change through patience, a man who advocates that the best change for the abstract world comes from loving the ones immediately around us and that real change begins with what we know.  I love him for being idealistic in the most realistic way one can be.

It was just a really great book by a really great author.