Despair - On Race

 Despair - On Race

I am thinking a lot about how to get people excited about learning and exploring other cultures. Because so far I feel many of my attempts with peers have been generally abysmal.

They are uninterested, their bubbles are too tiny, and the task for them appears daunting.

We are 8 months now into one of my largest undertakings as a creative force, and I feel smothered beneath the weight of their indifference.

Or worse yet, their constant comparisons to Western storytellers, characters or art.

As though anything and everything I reference is only best revealed through the lens of comparison to Tolkien, Rowling, Martin, King, or Jordan.

Always white creators. Always white writers. Always white historical touchpoints, or art, or people.

I think a lot about how their priority for learning about it is a privilege of their position. They don't have to. They don't have to welcome or embrace any other culture that is not their dominant one. They can step back when it is inconvenient. They can walk away until another night, push it off until next week.

My parents had no choice, when they arrived in Canada. They had to learn white cultures, pizza, and mac and cheese. They had to raise children listening to rock concerts, driving cars, staying out late, and all that. They had to raise me and work in and amongst, even worship in a system entirely of Western design.

I had no choice either. I grew up with this colour skin and this black hair, and the name "Lee". I had my attitude and capabilities determined for me before I met people, in every career, vocation, and hobby.

And my friends know none of that. Sympathize with none of it. To be straddling two worlds where you fit in neither. Never shall I actually be accepted. I am too Canadian to be Chinese/Malaysian. I am too Yellow to be White.

They nod with 'empathy'. They say..."Yeah that sucks" and then politely look away until it is appropriate to comment on the weather or what's on TV.

I think my soul is filled with a lonely longing because their silence is deafening.

Life - Not Worth Celebrating

 Life - Not Worth Celebrating

I have been grappling of late with the feeling of being a friend in passing. Where people only message when they need something, or as a perfunctory thing in between actual events, with no stakes, and often only with responses of "Nice" and "Yeah".

And it makes me want to socially withdraw, which seems to compound the issue. It is this feeling of being socially outcast, where I have no one to discuss thoughts or emotions, even though I'm not actually 'down' or feeling negative, these connections are profoundly unsatisfying and commonly feel not worth the energy to develop further. I don't feel like the summation of human contact with others should be constantly through the lens of suffering or needing help.

Covid has emphasized this feeling of societal drift. I feel like I don't have anyone to celebrate with.

Maybe there's nothing worth celebrating.

Maybe I'm not worth celebrating.

Thoughts - Valentines

Thoughts - Valentines

For Valentine's day, I went alone at night to the gym and worked over a heavy bag for an hour, with only the company of concrete and sodium lights. The sound of passing traffic on the highway, and the slow fall of blood from my lip where I bite too hard.

Comic - A State of Motion - Pascal Campion

Comic - A State of Motion - Pascal Campion

Just something to hearten your day.

Thoughts - 10 Years to Today

Thoughts - 10 Years to Today

I won't be sharing a picture of myself from 10 years ago.

Life - Helpless Rage

Life - Helpless Rage

I am alone, standing before a heavy bag. Music I don't remember. There is an acrid smell of chalk and sweat, and the lights are half on, cold, and quiet.

Fists up.

Life - Exhaust

Life - Exhaust

There are moments in my life when the incandescent rage in my chest burns out. It sputters and coughs, dying into weak embers.

And I feel cold... and empty.

It's moments like those, I wonder what's really holding me together, except for this strange
self induced agony.

Life - Quiet New Year

Life - Quiet New Year

It was Lunar New Year earlier this week.

There are a bunch of traditions around New Year. You're not supposed to shower away the good luck on the day, or shave. You're supposed to have already cleaned the night before, so there are many places for luck, prosperity, and happiness to fill.

I didn't really do that.

I worked late on a stressful project.

Picked up a quick to go meal.

Ate alone, listened to music, and went to sleep.

It's the most depressing Lunar New Year I've had in forever. Except for calling my own parents, no other phone calls, no other real well wishes. Just a really empty moment.

It's weird, because I keep looking at the last few weeks of my life, which seem to be filled with work and walking through the dark. I've become like those Salarymen, collecting a paycheque for doing a bunch of managerial work that feels...empty.

Life - Fault

Life - Fault

Sometimes, no amount of being told "It's not your fault." sticks. In your head and heart, you always just hear;

"It's your fault."

Over. And over.

It's your fault.

It's your fault.

It's your fault.

The words twist around and around. Over and over in your head. These are personal failings. They are raw wounds that ache invisibly.

Writing - Shattered Moon

Writing - Shattered Moon

A shattered moon rose over the night sky. Over the silt-salt oceans boiled away as they watched from the heights of a half-crumbled cloudtower. Beneath, the wilds of concrete seethed and burned, but up here, with the winds and grit for company, a dystopic peace had settled. His hand clutched in hers, the slow crawl of stars plied their soft twinkling dance through the sky.

They were lonely.

In an empty place, devoid in heart of courage there was little to do but watch, wait, and wonder. Until the slow crash of stone and steel sent them plunging cold to the embrace of ash.

People - Broken Man - I Was Raped, Does Anyone Care?

People - Broken man - I Was Raped, Does Anyone Care?

What follows is a lengthy, difficult, unreferenced autobiographical writing from an otherwise anonymous poster on reddit.  He uses a throw-away alias, that would be difficult, if not largely impossible to track down.  He even opens with an admission that he doesn't know what he aims to accomplish by posting this story.  I don't know what I intend to accomplish by reposting it.

Only that it is a troubling piece of writing.  It's a human piece of writing.  It delves into a societal darkness that is problematic for us to analyze too closely.  But we need to do a number of things, at least in my reckoning.  First, this man needs to know that we do care.  That the world is changing, and that we listen, and have empathy as individuals, as a culture, as a society for him.  That his story, were it to prove credible is worth listening to.  Second, that our world is changing that twenty years ago, ten years ago...men would never have even imagined that this was a problem.  He delves a little bit into this in his piece of writing.

We don't live in that world anymore.  We're in the midst of transitioning through it, but the world is a-changing through it.  We have a lot of hard questions to ask, and a lot of harder answers to find.  But we'd never know until stories like this, human stories begin coming to light.

So I share it with you, in the darkness of the internet.  In some strange corner of nowhere.  Hopefully it moves you to ask questions too.  Obviously...trigger warnings galore.

Edit: I added this message when I shared it to Facebook...I feel like it might, but maybe doesn't, explain why I put it into a public blog to share. 

This is a piece of writing I read tonight.  Once I finished reading it, I had to go for a walk and think about it.  When I got back, I transcribed it over the course of half an hour, loaded it into one of my private blogs and left it. I keep repositories of writing for myself everywhere, dark writing, tragic writing.  Human writing.

Then I came back five minutes later.  I hadn't shared it. Maybe it was because I was ashamed I had read it? Maybe because I was ashamed for the guy, his story that I had read. It was on my mind. It was on my mind because I didn't know how to explain it. I still don't. I don't know why it is important, only that it is. And in an era where we share images of kittens, and what people wear, or what GoT character best represents us...why would I hesitate to share something important?

Truthfully I'm still not sure. But I'd like to talk about it.

Drabble - On Depression

Drabble - On Depression

There is this insidious, deep seated weird thing in your brain, when every time you hear a compliment you think to yourself "They're just being nice."

Grief - Waves

Grief - Waves

/u/GSnow once wrote something that I have read during hard times.

He said:

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life. Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

Hope that helps. Im sorry for your loss.

Drabble - Me

Drabble - Me

It's not you, it's me.  It's never you, it's always me.

It's me.

Me.

Me with an imperfect belly.  The wrong curve to my hips.  The wrong smirk.  The wrong eye color.  Me, with too-frizzy hair, and eyes that are a little too wide-set.

Me, with the eccentric need to eat too-hard boiled eggs in the morning.

Me who cooks pasta in unsalted water.

It's not you, it's me.  Me who wears socks to sleep in summer.  Who packs a rain coat on a clear day.  Who pats every dog, shies away from every cat.

Me who reads sad romance novels, and the funnies on sundays.

Me who dances with two left feet, who drives a little too fast, who mismatches purse and sandals.

It's not you, it's me.  Me who blinks during photos.

Who spills ice water at dinner.  Who uses the fork in the right hand, and the knife in the left.

Who writes too much, and stares at the stars too long.

Who isn't right for you.  Who won't be what you want.  Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short.  Hair too straight, too curly, too much moustache, not enough beard, too muscular, not tan enough.

It's not you, it's me.  Me who is all wrong for you.  Me who tells myself it will never work.  That your eyes glass past mine every time.

It's not you.  It's me.

It's always me.

Always.

Me.

Writing - Otter

Writing - Otter

About 3 months or so ago, Rachel challenged me to write something about an otter, or otters if that was my preference.  I don't remember but I don't think there was anything else stipulated beyond that.  I've written six stories now about otters, and most of them I don't like.  Today I wrote this one, the first sad one (write what you like) and I love the flow of it.  One hour, writing and thinking.  Unedited.  Otter.

Creux - Essence

Creux - Essence

Sometimes you write something that makes no sense.  Actually I write a lot of things that make no sense.  I have to toe a strange line between both being absolutely clear in the execution of my communication, but also give it a sense of artistic styling to convey how it should feel.

Sometimes I get it right.

Sometimes I get it wrong.

Life - 4Am

Life - 4AM

It's 4 in the morning and I spat blood into the sink, cold water flows and my face is illuminated by a cascade of iridescent lightbulbs.  I watch the copper tinge swirl twice around the clamshell cutout, and as my blood runs down, I realize I do not care.

Life - Dead Reckoning

Life - Dead Reckoning

n. to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings, but feeling all that much more adrift.

#dictionaryofobscuresorrows

Navarre Island - Benedict's Letter to Despina

Navarre Island - Benedict's Letter to Despina

I had an assignment today to write different fictional pieces of writing that would fit into my campaign world.  I wrote a letter from Benedict to his unborn daughter, Despina.

Life - Forget

Life - Forget

To be willingly forgotten, is to be cast away and the memory removed.  To be willingly forgotten.  To pretend the memories never existed, and pretend and wish and dream so hard that they never did.  To alter truth, and time, and space.  To willingly forget you knew a person.  To cast them adrift, in a sea of nothings that had never been, and become to one another as strangers again.

Without the light of acknowledgement in your eyes, did we ever know each other once?

I am pleased.

To have made your acquaintance.