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"English is so bad at describing what it means to grieve. We use words like bereft or bitter or sad,..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:36:40 -0400

“English is so bad at describing what it means to grieve. We use words like bereft or bitter or sad, or we say we have a broken heart. But none of these really get at the nuances. The words don’t seem to capture each exquisitely painful feeling.

For example, there should be a word, maybe borrowed from German, a language so good at expressing complicated mental states in a single lengthy word with many chewy consonants, for when you miss someone so incredibly, achingly much, when that person pervades every thought, every interaction, every waking moment, but you also loathe them. Because they treated you badly, or because they were too weak to be honest with you. Because you were betrayed. And because you loathe them, you hate yourself for missing that person so intensely. For missing the laughter they inspired; for wishing for the easy intimacy that you built. You hate yourself for knowing that they aren’t worth so much sadness, that such an outlay of mental energy is entirely wasted and useless. But you feel it anyway, and you cry in the shower or into your pillow or anytime something reminds you of that person. Which is all the time. There should definitely be a word for that.

There should also be a word, maybe from the French, who do existentialism so well, for the feeling of disconnection you cultivate when you walk through the streets with your headphones on, sad songs blasting into your ears loudly enough that you can pretend you are alone. You pass by other people almost without seeing them, since you can’t hear them. You walk by shops and offices on the sidewalk, going somewhere or maybe not going anywhere in particular, feeling like the music in your ears is a soundtrack to your sadness. This song makes you think of that person; that song comes close to capturing how lonely you are without them. You isolate yourself physically because you feel so isolated inside; surrounded by people, you are still alone, because you have been abandoned by that one person who made you feel somehow less alone.

English is also missing a word for how it feels when you know that person has moved on so quickly. When you find out you weren’t as important as you thought you were. When you realize that they were acting selfishly instead of caring about you, or when you understand that you didn’t really come into it at all for them, they were just doing what they needed to do. Maybe it should come from Russian, because the Russians know despair. You thought you were finally getting over them. You could almost go an hour, if you were busy with something really important, without thinking about them. Then you see a Facebook post or hear some gossip from mutual friends, and you realize you weren’t over it. Not even close. You realize you were still holding out hope that you would get back together, that there would be some way to repair the damage, to be happy again. When that hope is crushed, the fragile Jenga tower of your life tumbles down. There should be a word for that kind of defeat.

And there should also be a word for when you’re just so tired of being sad, for when you are tired of being lonely but somehow don’t know how to stop. When you’re tired of crying, tired of thinking about that person, tired of missing them. You can’t yet make yourself recognize all the bad things; remembering how you’ve been done wrong doesn’t help. But the hurt over the good things, the things you still miss so much, is a dull twist in your stomach now, instead of a gaping hole in your chest. You don’t know how to turn that off, don’t remember how to be happy. But you sort of remember happiness as it existed before that person, and you want that so desperately. You want to stop this misery that drags at your ankles and eyes and insides. You know it will take time, but sometimes just the fact of being tired of crying makes you cry. Maybe we could co-opt a word from Japanese for that, since melancholy is a specialty of theirs.

There should be an English word for all these feelings of grief. And I desperately wish they existed now, just so I could tell you, next time you ask, how I’m doing in only four words, instead of all these.”

- P. Luna, Feelings We Need Words For (via titsany)

Damn you, Ayn Rand.

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:47:40 -0400

But you’re right.

Photo

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 12:06:30 -0500

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Mon, 19 Nov 2012 07:47:58 -0500

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Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:48:14 -0500

Shits & Giggles 9

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:13:39 -0400

I’ve established that money means nothing.

As long as I’m happy and learning, I’ll live.

Shits & Giggles 8

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 19:42:36 -0400

I have come to an ultimatum. My new hobby of choice is definitely going to be the banjo.

How cool is that? Banjos are cool.

Standard tuning is surprisingly just two octaves above the cello (C, G, D, A).

Shits & Giggles 7

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:51:38 -0400

I have a pink toothbrush. I am unstoppable.

Shits & Giggles 6

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:40:32 -0400

New York is only twenty hours away.

In approximately 19,200 breaths,

or 7 million lightning strikes,

or 24 million new posts on tumblr,

I will be in New York.

Shits & Giggles 5

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:17:06 -0400

Sometimes I wish for traumatic experiences so I can write a better college essay.

The other day I was talking to my friend about how my mum is setting up some extra life insurance plan that will support my college tuition if she dies, and my immediate response was “Well, that’d make a good essay.” So yeah.

Shits & Giggles 4

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 09:51:42 -0400

Within the first semester of junior year, I should be driving. I only have three more drive times and a test until I’m on my way. This means that I can drive to my cello teacher’s house for lessons. Cool. In addition to driving, my parents said I could pick up a new hobby or sport. Cool. My childhood was always deprived of “recreational activities” other than some music stuff here and there due to the lack of having rides.

My parents have owned numerous restaurants before and throughout my childhood. This meant working at least eighty hours a week. I was pretty much raised by various Korean housekeepers and Mexican maids—I swear I was getting legitimately fluent in Spanish haha.

When I was about seven or eight years old, my mom sold two of her restaurants to take a break from work and to spend more time with me and my sister. (Of course this only lasted for a week until she started planning for a new restaurant.) Cool. What I mean by “spending more time with me and my sister” is sending me to theology school every summer for four years. When I say theology school, I don’t mean “Vacation Bible School” or summer camp. I mean theology school. College level classes about church history, foundation, Greek, Hebrew, creationism and evolution, gospel, and just about anything you can find in the Bible. By the time I was twelve, I’d probably read the Bible more than a dozen times from cover to cover. I know my shit.

So yeah. I’ve done a hint of everything (football, martial arts, gymnastics <-(that’s embarrassing), but I haven’t gotten decent at anything other than theology and some cello…due to ride issues.

And now that I’ll be driving, I shouldn’t have any ride issues. So yeah. I can pick up a hobby or sport for a year and a half until I head off to college. Cool.

I should definitely consider underwater basket weaving.

Wow. I suck at giving closure. to be continued, perhaps…

Shits & Giggles 3

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:54:09 -0400

I’m leaving for New York in about five days! I can’t wait to see the MoMA and well…the whole city really.

It’s too bad that the New York Philharmonic’s concert season ends the day I land in New York and starts again the day after I leave.

I’ll actually be staying five minutes away from the city in New Jersey. Hopefully all the stereotypes aren’t true.

God and the Meaning of Life

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 21:36:00 -0400

As much as I’d love to believe that a god or an afterlife exists, my rationality kicks me in the face. I mean, I don’t even have much rationality, but it’s always been pretty clear to me that there is absolutely no proof of the existence of a god.

I was raised in a strict, Christian home a mother who forced the idea of ignorance into my head, and well, look at me now. Here I am, writing posts about homosexuality and atheism. More about my crazy, fundamentalist upbringing later…

By the time I was eight or nine years old, I began questioning the rationality of religion, only to receive answers from the Bible.

Here, let me a pull a Bible verse to be a bit more clear.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

I used to think this was one of the most beautiful verses, but if you actually read what it has to say, it preaches ignorance. “Lean not on your own understanding;” That’s pretty clear. God made me atheist. How ‘bout that…

I continued to call myself a Christian although it was all self-denial and stubbornness until I broke a few months ago. And man, was I depressed. There was (well… and is) no purpose in life. So I ended up trying to find a reason to live.

What I found was this: The purpose in life is to live. Primitive life forms such as viruses exist solely to reproduce and live. We are the same thing. If there is a greater or deeper meaning to life than to live, there is absolutely no way to know.

In order to sustain life, we create illusions that all point to this primitive life form that lives to live. Religion was created to explain natural processes and societal hierarchy. Societal hierarchy was created from surplus of food and social stratification. We created social stratification and surplus of food to live.

I had realized that I needed to give meaning to my own life in order to—wait for it—live. I want to live so that I can help others live for the sole purpose of living. Perhaps that’ll take me to a place where I can gain more knowledge of why things work the way they do or a place where I help the sick to live a longer life. Whatever I do, that’ll be my purpose in life.

Shits & Giggles 2

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:07:00 -0400

Friend: I’m bored

Me: Hi, board. I’m chalk. We should be friends.

Friend: Nope. You’re done.

Me: What are you chalking about?

Friend: Just stop

Me: Am I going over, board?

Musical Expression

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:06:00 -0400

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.” Victor Hugo

When it comes to music, it seems like there is an infinite number of genres, (ever heard of mathcore or independent folk polka?), but they all point to expression. Expression, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “a mode of significant representation or symbolism; especially a vivid indication or depiction of mood or sentiment.” Expression in the world of music is the portrayal of “mood or sentiment” through…(herp-derp) music. Before expressing musicality, one must thoroughly comprehend the music.

I believe that in order to understand music, people have to dig deep into the mind of the composer. When listening to music written by Haydn, it often isn’t structured to move musically, but you can hear the playfulness and cheerful melodies. When I listen to his first cello concerto—third movement—I love the flamboyancy of the style. I can imagine his pen bouncing like the bow as he writes. But when you listen to the agony of each note in Shostakovich’s eighth string quartet, I imagine papers flying everywhere. One can emulate the life he that he had in war-ridden Soviet Russia. The listener understands his emotional struggles…which, in turn, allows the listener to understand the music.

to be continued

Eugenics

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:07:00 -0400

The concept of eugenics is beautiful. (Breakdown: eu - good or well, gen - give birth… you get the idea.)

Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where people achieve better things? Think about it.

Eugenics are already widely used in agriculture; almost all of the foods we grow and eat are the cream of the crop when it comes to taste and nutrition. All of the clothes made from organic materials such as cotton and silk were genetically modified to be of the best quality and comfort. Dog breeders make sure that bad characteristics such as genetic disorders and ratty disposition are non-existent. After the consistent use of eugenics, how can one deny its worth?

By improving the quality of humanity, we can change the path in which we are headed.

Another thought: Are people really equal? No, not at all. And I’m not speaking of silly things such as race or sexual orientation, but things such as levels of intellect, good health, and warm personality. Clearly, the intelligent, healthy, and happy individuals will outlive their counterparts.

By saying all of these things, there aren’t any intentions in my mind of dehumanizing the population. Diversity is always necessary. And genes aren’t a very stable thing anyway. I guess that in a way, eugenics are already happening through the process of natural selection. Survival of the fittest.

Like I said earlier, theoretically and conceptually, eugenics are beautiful. But practically, it is the most despicable and disgusting thought to ever cross the human mind.

Hypocrisy

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:58:00 -0400

I tend to be a really passive person. I usually don’t give a flying fuck about anything, but I’m really getting tired of taking your shit.

And that’s okay—we were bound to end up like this.

You don’t need me, and I don’t need you.

Adiós

Love

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 07:58:00 -0400

Here is a dictionary definition of the verb, to like: to feel attraction toward or take pleasure in.

Now here is a dictionary definition of the verb, to love: to feel attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers.

The words are interchangeable, based on connotation. Love is just a superlative of like. The only arguable difference is hormonal release between the two, but it’s all the same otherwise.

Homosexuality and Identity

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:09:00 -0400

Homosexuality

Who the fuck cares about what you are doing or what you want to be doing with your genitalia?

—-

Identity

Consider the following. You have created a community in which someone can claim to be an autistic pangender asexual demiromantic trans-Asian cat otherkin and not be immediately denounced as a troll. Whether you think these identities are valid or not, you find it plausible that someone would believe they are a Korean cat with autism and appropriate social justice terminology to defend that belief. What does that say about the state of your community? (And that’s not even starting on the people who actually supported us).

I find it so utterly absurd that a movement whose original purpose was to defend the rights of POC, trans* individuals, and other oppressed groups has been co-opted by people who believe they are dragons or that they have Homestuck characters living inside their head. It’s hilarious to me. It’s also incredibly offensive. I think what happened is that the SJ movement’s message of acceptance was somehow generalized to mean that if you don’t accept everything,you are a bigot —and the outcasts of the internet, the furries, the soulbonders, latched onto that, because they had finally found a place where no one could make fun of them. A “safe space”, if you will.

But it’s completely stupid (tw: ableism) and it trivializes the struggles of people who actually suffer from oppression (people laughing at you on the internet is not oppression).

(Source unknown)

Shits & Giggles 1

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 09:58:00 -0400

I thought I was clever when I (thought I’d) made the word shitzophrenia…turns out it’s pretty unoriginal.

AP Test scores came in the mail, and I got a 4. Not bad.