Affirmations

Yesterday's post was a pity party of sorts. I had to get it off my chest, or perhaps clear the muck out of the way so I can appreciate what I have. 

I've been doing a lot of reading: I finished my fourth book this month, which I personally think is wonderful. I am brimming over with renewed faith in intellectual discourse. 

I'm trying hard to take my mind off all the travel I'm not doing. The Korean Film Festival opened today, and I was transported to another world for 100 minutes. 

The only kind of comparison I want to make is between present Epiphanies and past Epiphanies. I have grown in compassion in the last six years. I have become more tolerant of people of colour whose backgrounds I'm not as closely familiar with as those of Asian origin. I'm more clear on how I want to present in the world. 

A reviewer claimed that Susan Sontag's work, 'At the same time', is "excruciatingly white." I could see that coming. Sontag was of an older generation, but when you look at people like Gloria Steinem and the effort she puts in to showcase the achievements of women of colour, you realise that it can be done. And that many people, intentionally or out of ignorance, choose to opt out of a deeper understanding of what it means to be the descendant of colonisers (or simply the beneficiaries of white supremacy). 

It makes sense then, that my next book is 'Girl, Woman, Other' by Bernardine Evaristo. I'm already 10% through and it's a pleasure to be reminded of the antiracist truths I have to keep drumming into my head because so much of the background noise of life is all blaring white supremacist overtones. 

On Wednesday I wonder

I've spent much of the last few hours ingesting Susan Sontag's 'At the Same Time' - a title which seems to allude to the multiplicity of the truths she insisted on. At this point I'm tired of her headstrong presence, but perhaps it's also the medication change of yesterday that is colouring my world lacklustre. 

I've identified within myself a dissatisfaction with my occupational status. The sensible parts of me that conjure up my steady learning, and point out the pointlessness of interpersonal comparison, seem weak. Voracious is the voice that claims I haven't achieved my potential. 

Despite my knowing very well deep down that a university pathway will just introduce me to stress, frustration and anger, I long for the symbolic 'piece of paper' which offers the most straightforward route to employment in the literary world. Rejoice I might at people like Glen James of the top podcast 'My Millenial Money' who has reached affluence despite the odds, my lack of drive seems to condemn me to a lifetime of living with my parents and suffering the emotional and mental consequences. 

Having done things my way for so long, I am ill-equipped to meet the needs of the higher education maw, which quite a few ppl other than me believe educates people out of the highest degree of nonconformity. The current academic disciplinary divisions also leave me high and dry, for it's at the very intersections of literature and politics that I like to live. 

Lately I've downloaded an Anthropology podcast where interviews with authors take place, and I've been transported from an initial attempt to transform South Korean immigration policy into something befitting a newly multicultural state, a movement which hasn't made much headway, to how practitioners of an ancient form of dance in Sri Lanka use the movement to resist the harshness of armed conflict. 

I don't really want to be interviewed so much as I want to be closely co-conspired with. I want a friend who respects me, whom I respect, and have fun with. Not just around the world - in Sydney. 

Crinkled Leaves

Like rediscovering an old book

Freshly fluent in the language of your mind

It reads, as you 

Tune in to its frequency

Somebody said they regretted

Not learning a foreign language

And I found myself smiling

At opportunities lying in wait

The book is a translation

Of a language quickly fading

From your memory, yet

Echoes of it animate your dreams

You'll probably never recover

Knowledge previously gained

But there's variety to savour

No two syllables the same

The richness of your interiority

Only multiplies anew

With every fresh, new day

You make a better you