hi~

it's been a while since i last wrote, that's for sure.  it's not that i've run out of things to say, or didn't want to tell you, it's just that.. it wasn't right for me to write them here.  this wasn't the place, nor was there a time where it would be good for me to pour out my writing.  so i haven't written for a long time.  just been letting things store up. and it's starting to congeal into something, into a living breathing story that might actually make sense.  unlike much of my other writing. I'll write in here still, i hope.  but i can't say how much or how often.  Lots of times nowadays, i sit down to write something, and a complete story, a part of it, just comes out.  ionno where it's come from, or why, but i'm trying to save it until it's complete, before i start letting things go loose again.

anyways. i wrote this on the plane, since it came out unrelated.

Paper is one of the only places I feel free. It's as if the act of the ink flowing into the fibers of the paper is an outpouring of my soul, like I'm growing an extra arm.  When I'm done writing, I can read it over again later and still recall everything I felt while writing it, all the things I thought of on the side.  It's like turning over your arm, and knowing that your skin is there, just never noticing unless you deliberately check. It's not like I have power over my words as they come out, that's probably why I digress so often. Maybe that's why it's such a great feeling to write.

I've always focused on the 'hard' things, math, science, all backed by firm logic and sound basis.  but it's in the freedom of words where I think I can really express myself.  When I sit down to write these things, I don't need to think about 'what to write', or what i want to talk about.  As I set up my computer, or clean off my desk, put my fingers on the keyboard, uncap my pen, the words are already streaming from me.  It's kind of relaxing, like untying a really taut string after a long time. 

When people talk, I wonder where the words come from.  speaking to another person involves so much thought, so many tiny little things being processed while you try to say something.  You wonder 'is this the right thing to say?' or 'does this person understand me?' or 'does this even relate to what we're talking about?'  Maybe the people who feel comfortable talking to other people are the people who feel the way I do when I write.  Like, as they open their mouths, the words are running to their tongue, flwoing along some hidden canal in their bodies, falling over each other to get out.

this isn't to say that what they say is perfect, or that what they produce when they speak/write is a refined, finished item.  But it's natural, it's smooth, like the way a waterfall crashes on its way down, or the way rocks are piled atop each other to for a mountain.  you just have to look, to take a quick glance, and you can see/hear immediately that there is more behind this than just simple words/ you can see the quivering tip fo their pen, the smooth motions of their hands running over the keys, hesitating for breath, pausing over a comma, or letting their throat/finders idle after a long paragraph.  You can feel the heat of their breath, hear the sound of their soft sighs as they exhale, trying to constantly maintain their composure, while feelings well up inside.

What does it all mean? Why?

These are the question we always come back to, the ones we always end up asking, looking to see behind what is there.  This is what we've been taught, trained to analyse and compute with our minds.

But let's return, regress to a more primitive form of communication.  We taught to think, to conceive and develop, but not taught to imagine.  We're not taught to see a world inside and outside, all around and permeating everything, to walk through those fields, to sail the seas of our soul.

I think the truest for of understanding is where you stop listening, and start living the words.  When the power of their speech, their words, sweeps you away, into something beyond your consciousness, an image of your own, that your mind creates, but their words shapes.  you might not see exactly the same image, or feel exactly the same thing, but you experience an event, a change in yourself, and that is the same.

Of course, it's the writer/speaker's job to find the right words, to combine, to flavor their work just the right way, so that you can experience what they want you to.  They have the power when you read, when you listen.  Like the way a chef garnishes a soup, or the placement of a ribbon in a flower bouquet.  If they do it correctly, if they bring you the right things, then you will feel what they want.  Then you will have a great experience.  The right words with the right colours, the right font, the right writing.  Or the right tone, the right lighting, the right setting.  It's all about the environment and method of placement. That's what people are all about.  But it's being and to see it, being able to move with it, that makes things great or good, from terrible to amazing.

- j -

so i've started playing shogi lately.  what's shogi?  it's a kind of chess.  you can capture pieces and replay them, like in american style bug-house, but it's also on a larger board.  and you can basically only move forward.  quite an interesting game.  very difficult.  i'm not really sure how well i can learn it without any technical/formal reading, but i'll get more into that when i have access to a library that doesn't blow.

sometimes i'll be wandering through xanga and find a site that is about 99% trash, except for 1 really great post.  or perhaps just good.  either way, it somehow manages to make me very happy when i see things like that.  I normally believe that most people who use xanga don't really use it for anything other than reading other people's xangas, or perhaps some very abstract way of keeping in touch with other people.  doesn't that seem strange to you?  a giant website full of people's lives, and really, nobody cares that much about each individual one.  just like in real life.  maybe that's just me.  actually, that last paragraph doesn't really sound like me at all.

but it's true.  when it all boils down to it, what are we in the long run?  how many people will our lives have an actual change on?  3? 4?  400? 4000?  how many people will we actually touch with our minds, our ideas, our passions?  at brown, in warren, we live in our own little worlds basically, hanging out with our friends, but not really, in a sense.  our friends know us, but how much do they sacrifice, how far will they go?  what is the measure of one's friendship, and why do people always insist on trying to measure such a thing?  isn't that just very inefficient?  But in a sense, it's also quite stupid to decide how far to go for one person and not for the other.  it's silly to try to put everything on the line for everybody.  also, you will die.  but perhaps, you will touch one of those people.  so i guess you will at least have the satisfaction of dying, knowing that you made a difference. as small as you are.

That's what we're really all trying to do, right?  with all of our experiences and our brilliance, we're not much different from people who kill others (think Hitler), or people who devote their lives to something beyond our comprehension (think Mother Theresa).  Why?  Because perhaps, all we are doing is spending all of our time shouting 'I AM!', as loud as we've been able to get.  because we're so worried that our lives here is all we get, that we spend all of our time trying to verfiy who we are.  trying to see whose dream we can crush in order to let our own survive.  'I AM GREATER THAN YOU!' what we're really shouting, sometimes.

but, you're not.

you won't ever be greater than me, because there isn't really a way to differentiate.  some people would say 'money', some people would say 'happiness', some people would say 'love', and all those other things. that doesn't make you a better person if you're richer, happier, more loved, smarter, any of those things.  in the same sense, i'm not any better than you.  but somehow, people continue to try to do this.  trying to find a way to understand where they stand, how to make themselves better, how to strive for something bigger.

don't try to understand, is what i'm really saying.  don't try to think of how to make yourself better.  i'll probably lose about 90% of ya'll reading this at this point.  so i'll just say what i'm thinking, just translated from whatever language i think in.  One must look out to see in.  One must grasp to feel emotion.  there's no need for people to try find an area for improvement.  this is the thing. even if you are #1 at something, you must keep improving.  always.  there's no need to search for a place to improve, no need to 'identify priorities' or 'see if you want to'.  you must.  it is mandatory.  one must always be looking for something higher, something farther and beyond.  it's not how to get there that is the question. it is the will to do it, that most people lack.

nothing is impossible, except the inevitable. so, accept the inevitable, and you will always be stronger.  you won't be lost. you won't need to figure where you are, or how you are doing.  you just need to be changing, always growing.  the greatest trees in the world, never stop growing.  the highest mountains, never stop changing.  trees fall, and mountains erode to nothing, but while they exist, they accept what is going to happen.  that is why the mountain never moves, and why those trees have the will to grow so tall.

accept, and you will understand.  tune out, and there's no point in living.

i don't even want to write my name here.

- jliu -

i've been hearing the phrase 'oh, that's nice' a lot lately.  not the sort that is like.. 'oh, you won 40$?  that's nice.' the kind like.. 'oh, you hold doors? that's nice.'

this does not really make me a nice person in any way, i think.  just because i happen to do nice things doesn't mean that i am a better or nicer person for it.  i personally think that i am not a very nice person, since most of the time i am making fun of people and thinking of crazy, often cruel, ideas.  see what i mean?  that's not very nice at all.

i do what i do because it's the right thing to do, not because it's the nice thing to do.  there are too many people out there who are doing the nice thing not because they want to do it, or that they think it's right, but because they think that if they are nice, other people will hold them in higher resolve, or that it will reduce tension in relationships.  those are all benefits of doing nice things.  people who think like that are pretty selfish, i think.  they go out of their way to be nice because they see all these things that they can get from doing nice things.  that's not nice at all, that's playing for an expected return.  isn't that kind of annoying?

be nice because you think it is right, because you think that if you aren't nice, you won't be able to walk around with a clean conscience for a little.  be nice for the sake of being nice.  for the sake of thinking of the other person's emotions, not your own.  if you are so interested in your own emotions, don't lie to us and pretend that you love being nice for niceness's sake.  that's just not cool, and confuses people who are being genuine, because they will not understand what in the world is happening and why what they are trying to do is not working.

that's what i think about niceness.

- j -

let me tell you something.

i love secrets.  not the part about telling people them, but i love the part about knowing them.  so really, this is to say that no matter what your secret is, how dire or terrible or revealing, if you tell me that it is a secret, it will remain that way forever, until you say that i can talk about it.  or it becomes general knowledge and i can pretend that i heard through the grapevine.

and i think most people don't tell secrets because they all assume that if you tell one person a secret, then it will immediately spread.  this is false.  so so false.  normally telling a person that they are getting secret information shuts them up even more, unless they are idiots who cannot understand the concept of 'secret'.  this is something one must also take into account when telling people things.  As in, can the person you are talking to actually comprehend the importance of what you are telling them?  or a they a dim-witted fool who doesn't process information properly, therefore just blurting out things at the first second they think of it.  (interesting thing with the 'first second' part there.  cool, eh?)  anyways. 

of course, i also don't tell anybody my secrets. ever.  not really because i don't trust any of you, just most. 

where do you go when you're tired of being you?