Childish Energy

I was looking for a word or way to describe how I felt today. Me and my co-worker have been using "vengeful", but today I think it went a bit further than that, and it was layered with other things. I decided it would bring me comfort to write them out instead, as Mr Chow whispers it to Angkor Wat at the end of In the Mood for Love.

The feeling reminds me of the story of an Italian man doing a semi-Forrest Gump after having an argument with his wife and walking 450 km (and semi-funnily/cynically, getting fined for breaching a Coronavirus curfew). I don't know exactly how he must have felt, but I would think he was filled with the sort of energy or feelings that I had today.

I also thought of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a movie I haven't actually seen, but as I understand it is just some kid who skips class and decides to take an adventure around Chicago. He might have been motivated by more childish feelings, but in a way I was also motivated by that too.

It made me think of how disgraceful being "childish" is seen, and yet petulance, being a "hater", being fueled by spite and pettiness, is, when I think about it, one of the purest forms of motivation in a time when it seems like people often lose steam, burn-out, lose will, etc. I liked that in Inside Out, anger was shown in some scenes to be a fueling force behind taking action, for me, this is childish energy.

Ye, I was feeling "childish" today - I worked late the past 2 weeks, and while I think they were useful and "necessary" perhaps - it was not satisfying. A coincidence that the evening after the work was presented, I read a reddit post asking what things are over-romanticized, and the literal top post was over-working. It went something like "nobody's going to clap for you, you'll just get another email". I didn't feel like I was supported well, or listened to, or seen, in the process, perhaps.

Opening the mini-Zen garden also made me consider whether I was falling victim to a common male pattern of externalizing my problems and resolving them that way too. I do a healthy amount of escapism through games and media, and today I went more "extra" by "reclaiming" the 16 hours I lost doing unpaid overtime essentially. I had left the office an hour earlier than usual last week and today I went a bit further by A. not drinking any caffeine - as I decided to do my no coffee day on a work day where I knew what I had to accomplish was more brainless, B. leaving early to go see a movie and C. not related to work per se but about externalizing my issues - getting some ice cream - I might add, the same flavor that me and Chris had gotten a few days ago, but she conveniently ate all of it even though I thought we were sharing it. I suppose this reminded me most of the Italian man who decided to be extra instead of confronting their partner - I'm just that tired maybe, or more true for me, don't like burdening others with an emotional binge of sorts - it's neither helpful nor healthy for anybody.

Slight tangent - I've come to appreciate Worst Person in the World a bit more, in that the film does portray someone I actually do not have much sympathy for/I actively despite, since I value loyalty and consequently hate infidelity - but I suppose the film would not have worked if they chose something only lukewarm and not an actual unpopular opinion. In a way I also do petulant, unsavory, childish things - my life is great, but dumb, sometimes 1st world problems or injustice convinces me that you know what, sometimes nobody is going to look out for you, and that I should not be entitled and expect it in the first place - you have some power to just quietly look out for yourself.

So that was me today, just self-caring a little because nobody else was, and that's OK. I went and saw Superman, and I cried a little at different parts of the movie. I've always thought Superman was a boring character, but this movie has convinced me otherwise. People are saying it's because the director Gunn understands the character, and I think they're right. I think that his vision and understanding of the character, as well as the actor who plays him - felt earnest and got to me in a corny way. In an interview he did with BBC1's Ali Plumb - David Corenswet talks about what defines his understanding of the character, and he says that Superman is contradictory - his upbringing and life is actually great in a lot of ways, and he doesn't have the tragic backstory (or at least, the destruction of Krypton is not the same as seeing your parents murdered in "crime alley"), but he is lonely. He's still an alien, who feels human, and chooses to walk and live amongst us as Clark too, but sometimes is reminded he is an alien by others, but he earnestly wants to be good, and kind, and protect others because he does see the good in everyone (which in the DCAU this role is more taken by the Flash perhaps). Watch the interview, he states it more eloquently than I. Or as the movie puts it as well, in a corny way no doubt, and almost embracing it - maybe it (kindness, and seeing the best in others) is punk rock. 

The show also reminded me that aside from petulance, the "childish energy" I have, which motivates a lot of what I do personally, even if I think and opine differently at the level of society or country, is very "childish". I try my best not to break the simplest of rules in a lawful good kind of way, and I find myself thinking and admiring still the "shonen" type heroes like Naruto, and ye, this version of Superman too. I think something really has been lost with all the intellectual nuance and "well this and that complicates this".  We often think of these simple values as perhaps "missing the point/reality of the situation", making excuses of pragmatism or "but how will people see this/take it" - and I am 200% guilty of falling into this trap of mistaking complication for intellect/experience. I certainly think the US's Democratic Party has lost the plot through the opposite - political-sciencing their message - test audiencing/making things palatable and messaging, has become the prime focus instead of the message and content itself - just put yourself out there, with an honest re-telling of what you're about and you're focus, and let those things come later, and letting the voters discern and choose. 

But I digress, so ends this short day, time to patch the temple with mud.

I looked at the boat on my blog

And wondered why I feel something for it. I wondered if I really liked that kind of idyllic lifestyle, when often I don't feel enthused to do similar activities right now. Then I came to realize it's the setting that enables the lifestyle I want - being able to literally sit on a boat for a few hours with no consequences or responsibilities after. I might just be that tired on no-caffeine-days after having to return to work for 5 days a week and continuing to do most of the weekend chores and finally working on my final language of the 6 UN languages (العربية). Often I feel better after having ate - so maybe these are the beginnings of the dreaded sugar-ed up American diet. Speaking of which, I sometimes feel trapped by my situation - in some sense by who I've decided to love and where I've decided to make a living. But because I've decided I cannot be trapped. Anyway, the country is pretty fucked, always has been but more so now, and not directionally so too, it seems. Let's just eat and stop being hangry/hungemotional. 

Every Second Counts

I wonder if there's a word for feeling outside of time, of routine. Disconnection? Transit between terminals? Maybe there's a German word for it. Being put on hold. 

Dos Mil Cien Pesos

I write (wrote) this in the twilight of the year. The colours don't blend,the redder the sky, the bluer the water. I always do, even when the change is arbitrary, it is real because it is made.

I wanted to 'actively rest'. I imagine like some writer who spends his time in a cottage by the sea and puts down, materializes his abstractions into a murder mystery. I sat in the taxi yesterday coming home (regresan), and wondered if I had let me ideal of Chris insidiously overcome the reality of her. I wonder what people do to reconcile this. I also wonder why reality is  often thought of as grittier and grimmer. Maybe because we would rather daydream sunshine than night.

I am proud of the baby steps me llevo en espanol. Haco? Mis mejor enfruerzo. I am no genius, I have to do things the hard way. Which is the traditional way. I wondered if my time was so spare, or perhaps my mentality not under the "siege" of time slipping that allowed me this. Or simply talking to real people right after studying a book. I hope to repeat this in San Francisco, maybe with Russian, then Arabic, then ?? Malay and Cantonese, or in reverse, and let my fears go, let the image of an embarrassed adult be that of the old white lady visiting Paris, and trying her best.

All I wanted was a black grand national. Funnily, my blank ink dried. I've always been a 'hopeless romantic' with 'a bleeding heart', I like writing and speaking metaphorically and abstractly, though I guess people would want it more structured, disciplined, to give it respect. Rambling doesn't justify attention. Maybe that's why I like reading Ying Yue's blog, or find it endearing she reads mine (at some point), it feels like a kindred spirit, though in reality I don't know her outside of that stream of consciousness. I also wonder if it's a form of luxury (it is) to have mental leisure time like this as if my time need not be spent productively. My hope, my justification is simply that it brings about renewed clarity and agility in my thinking later.

Time to think of a nickname, in Spanish, for her.