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

To Stay Sane & Grow

The Greek-Australian Christos Tsiolkas said something that resonated with me on an ABC podcast - whatever his connection to Greece (and the EU project), when the shit hit the fan, it was Australia that called him back and had a place for him. Likewise, I too felt comforted and soothed by the protections in place in this country of which I am a citizen. I felt lucky that I hadn't followed up on my impulse to travel to Taiwan in March/April. Somehow I felt safe by virtue of being randomly stuck in a remote corner of the universe where the infections failed to proliferate. This counting of my blessings has stayed with me. 

Still, I found it hard to be unaffected by the sheer scale of the suffering. I don't know anyone personally who has died or is deeply ill, but as I watch the people around me move their strides speak of grief, loss, even trauma. No-one is unscathed by the as-yet-unfolding tragedy. 

Long ago, no one had space to hold my trauma. So I feigned lightness. It was a survival mechanism, but I want to reconnect with my deeper sense of self after all these years. Feel the feelings. Work through them. 

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Finding ways: It's my specialty. 

I am interested in adding more variety to my life, though I don't know how to do it. Maybe going back to karaoke rooms in the city would be a good idea? Sydney recorded zero cases today. Reinforce my Spanish knowledge on Duolingo (maybe finally master the 'personal a')? Hire a language tutor on italki?

The last piece of the puzzle

You could say that I've done a lot of research on childfree women. In addition to the articles and books I read on the subject, I joined various groups on social media. There's a spectrum of attitudes women cultivate towards kids, that they often iterate when amongst themselves. The polar extremes are 'I love kids and am close with a few, but when it comes to personally rearing them, I've decided to opt out' to 'I hate kids and their loud, messy failure to be well-behaved adults'. The latter category sometimes shamed mothers, particularly mothers who had more than two kids. 

It was fairly easy to decide I was happy childfree. The hard work I had to do was treat mothers with the same respect I reserve for my tribe (of childfree women). Seeing women who chose differently than me as equal to me, and worthy of sympathy, compassion and non-judgement. My reasoning is like this: if I'm deeply content with myself, then I can be deeply content with another person who isn't harming anybody, and is acting in her personal best interests. 

I've removed the animosity factor. We are all working towards the same hopes and dreams: living a good life. Let mothers enjoy their life path, since that is what they wanted. People don't have to be a carbon copy of me. 

Speaking of animosity, I'm finding myself opting out of the outrage parade where US politics is involved. A slightly different issue, but it's tiring to hurl insults at the so-called enemy. We're all in the global community together, and I don't want to hate anybody. Socially sanctioned hatred is overrated. Building trust across the global community, reminding us that we have common interests at heart, inspiring us to gravitate towards peace and co-operation? That's hard. In fact, I don't remember the last time I heard the word co-operation in The Guardian or BBC or any of the media I consume. It took me a while to locate it in my inner word-scape. 

Maybe I've mellowed in my old age. I do turn 37 in a few months. Whatever the inspiration, I feel more wholesome. 

Rekindling appreciation

For a long time, Haruki Murakami books were my main in-depth connection to Japan. I had started to feel that my feminism was pushing me away from this country. But recently I feel hopeful again that I can find inspiration within its borders. I started reading women authors - most notably Sayaka Murata - and started watching NHK World. It's comforting to recognise aspects of the culture whose language I studied for four years, particularly as the soothing tones of the syllables float into my ears. 

Now is a time for rediscovery. Making peace with the past. Finding the inner glow that has stayed with me through my various incarnations. Having a sturdy sense of reality - or letting nebulously connected fragments of reality dance around, seeking new relationships to each other. 

Now is a time to be alone. Companionably, I share a living room with my parents for a part of the day. When they clear out, I touch base with my feelings and find a strategy that will keep me happily engaged in the late hours. Sometimes I chat with friends online. Sometimes I enjoy being alone. Because we always return to the alone state - it is a constant. 

... Observe the dance of particles that is the body, whether in stillness or movement. 

Post-astrology

 It’s unclear to me how to consciously direct my personality’s development. Would I do well to study different personality types to the one I emulated, attempt to compensate for decades of conformity to an (arche)type by an artificial rebalance? Or am I just better off randomly discovering lost avenues of the soul?

Maybe I should start a support group for those that have been harmed/limited by astrology.

Casting off my constructed shell of a personality is freeing - and terrifying. My existential identity crisis persists all these years. Perhaps active world sculpting is crucial to restoring social know-how. I got a taste of that in the coaching group I joined in March/April. 

An important discovery made thereabouts was that you have to know what your thoughts are in order to change them. Get in tune with those mental grooves, know their specifics. 

At times I’m tempted to muse on astrological knowledge I previously found comfort in, and it can be disappointing to withhold that space from myself. I find myself floating in space, no patterns (or constellations) to latch onto. I think about the many feminists I know who look to astrology for meaning. I think about whether I could date anyone who has a more-than-casual belief in astrology. Probably not, just like I couldn’t envision myself dating a Christian. 

At the same time, there’s a lot to be said for tolerance and open mindedness. Maybe my next partner will have a deep seated belief in aliens, or the absolute centrality of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or something kooky I will have to humour. 

But who really knows what will emerge - all I can do is stay open to the endless possibilities in the universe.