Compressed lips for maximum impact

To wield words as pixel brushstrokes to lash meaning, feeling, pulse. There is some wild satisfaction in that plus added convenience of touch (plus) speed (minus) carpal pain of dragging sore wrist through scratchy scraggy lead and pulp and mixed fibrous mesh.

Fine balance sobre finer bounds.

Needle-sewn lips.

Up, down, up. Zig zagging through. Like the pain of swallowing nettles, once I get through it's through.

WoT covers that aren't actually hideous??!?

Not saying that these agree spot-on with how I visualize the characters or manage to avoid the cheese factor altogether, but they at least marginally depict scenes that really even happens in the books. Versus, you know, depicting completely made up crap that doubles as a deterrent for potential new readers and a major embarrassment factor for actual readers. Too bad they will likely be limited to ebooks forevar.

Combined with the attractor of not having to carry around 5-pound bricks, I think it's officially time to give these a reread again. E-readers are a godsend tailored specifically for WoT.

THIS GIF

Most inspiring ever. Will post endproduct(s) once I gain the urge to edit.

Eggling Day 1

It really is about time I do this, birthday gift from Rez almost a year and half ago and all that.

*_*

Random requests pt. 1

Another attempt at being more productive, from an anonymous "ITT you tell me what to briefly draw" thread. And by 'brief' I mean my usual <1hr, though most of these were done in ~30 min, with a couple closer to 15. Everything in SAI.

» Anne Frank wearing a cowboy hat riding Hitler reverse cowgirl style.

NWS image - click to view

» obama as a slave picking cotton


» A sloth with a top hat and a cane dancing on a stage


» I'll take a grizzly bear squatting 1000 pounds.


» Okay, not only is that not a grizzly bear, that is neither a squat nor is 1000 pounds a ton, but either way, I dig it.
(Alright, fine.)

» have you never seen someone do a squat though
(??? I am now confused.)

» Draw a guitar as if it were an incredibly erotic woman.
(Got lazy here and pretty much did another lavtorso.jpg that I imagine caters more towards a stereotypical male aesthetic.)

» a highway running through outer space


» George Washington's strong body odor winning the Revolutionary War.


» A winged tiger teaching her cubs how to fly.


» Oprah Winfrey riding a giraffe through a multi-colored neon background


» This with ALTERNATE POSE: on stage, rocking out with a guitar
(Not sure what's going on here, but I was pretty tired. D=)

» mr. peanuts as an alcoholic demanding another drink from the bartender
maybe saying something about how his life is a lie because he's a legume



That's all for now, folks. SO HARD TO KEEP UP ONCE THESE THINGS START ROLLING

Amber

When this amber colored dream of so many years
Comes to it's end, will I awake the real me?

The light goes out and the stage goes dark..

Gödel’s incompleteness theorems

Sauce

'It is not strictly science, but rather a very interesting set of mathematical theorems about logic and the philosophy that is definitely relevant to science as a whole. Proven in 1931 by Kurt Gödel, these theories say that with any given set of logical rules, except for the most simple, there will always be statements that are undecidable, meaning that they cannot be proven or disproven due to the inevitable self-referential nature of any logical systems that is even remotely complicated. This is thought to indicate that there is no grand mathematical system capable of proving or disproving all statements. An undecidable statement can be thought of as a mathematical form of a statement like “I always lie.” Because the statement makes reference to the language being used to describe it, it cannot be known whether the statement is true or not. However, an undecidable statement does not need to be explicitly self-referential to be undecidable. The main conclusion of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems is that all logical systems will have statements that cannot be proven or disproven; therefore, all logical systems must be “incomplete.”

'The philosophical implications of these theorems are widespread. The set suggests that in physics, a “theory of everything” may be impossible, as no set of rules can explain every possible event or outcome. It also indicates that logically, “proof” is a weaker concept than “true”; such a concept is unsettling for scientists because it means there will always be things that, despite being true, cannot be proven to be true. Since this set of theorems also applies to computers, it also means that our own minds are incomplete and that there are some ideas we can never know, including whether our own minds are consistent (i.e. our reasoning contains no incorrect contradictions). This is because the second of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems states that no consistent system can prove its own consistency, meaning that no sane mind can prove its own sanity. Also, since that same law states that any system able to prove its consistency to itself must be inconsistent, any mind that believes it can prove its own sanity is, therefore, insane.'

Real actual conversation #405

Circa 2002.

Tina: That's the cheesiest thing I've heard.
Jing: What does "cheesy" mean?
Tina: Lame.
Jing: What does "lame" mean?
Tina: Cheesy.
Jing: And "cheesy" means...
Tina: Lame.



(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

What is a man?

A miserable little pile of insecurities, laced with the belief that he alone can see and feel, that he alone is righteous and wise. Tinted with various degrees of a wish for validation by fellow man.

It's just the tiniest bit fucked up that all of life's most excruciating problems can be simplified down to these:

1. WAAAAAH WAAAAH HE DOESN'T LOVE ME
2. WAAAAAH WAAAAH SHE DOESN'T LOVE ME
3. WAAAAAH WAAAAH HE/SHE/THEY DON'T LIKE ME/APPRECIATE ME FOR WHAT I DO/WHO I AM


I'm allowing myself the guilty pleasure of making generalizations
just this once.

Stuff I forgot I drew

Why, I'm more active than I thought!


A dream note to remember. I am the darkness cockblocking the storm from reaching other white fluffy chicks. Yet, black is part of the storm.

No lie about "everything."

ANALOGY TIEM

VULGAR : Wtd. :: UROBOROS : Dum Spiro Spero
ಠ_________ಠ

Unrelatedly, happy birthday Aldy.

Third time does the trick...?

(1:25:32 PM) Jarek: well
(1:25:41 PM) Jarek: i see the cars for the people inside
(1:25:53 PM) Jarek: who are all douchebags/old/too slow/dont deserve that fancy car
(1:26:15 PM) Jarek: not 'that volvo'
(1:26:32 PM) yuuzora: You don't see the driver in the car in front of you, though.
(1:27:27 PM) yuuzora: Do you seriously think of it as "the unknown douchebag" rather than "that car in front"?
(1:27:40 PM) Jarek: its unknown till i blow past him and look to see who it is
(1:27:45 PM) yuuzora: Exactly.
(1:28:00 PM) yuuzora: Until then, it's the car in front of you.
(1:28:12 PM) Jarek: its more like a faceless figure who is a dick
(1:28:45 PM) Jarek: with my eyes, i see the car
(1:28:53 PM) Jarek: in my mind, i feel hate towards the driver
(1:28:59 PM) Jarek: i cannot hate a car
(1:29:01 PM) yuuzora: Exactly.
(1:29:02 PM) Jarek: that would be silly
(1:29:08 PM) yuuzora: That is where the analogy fails.
(1:29:17 PM) yuuzora: We are AWARE the car has a driver.
(1:29:27 PM) yuuzora: That's why it's possible to not fall for the car.
(1:29:52 PM) yuuzora: With your eyes, for all intents and purposes, all you see is the car.
(1:29:59 PM) yuuzora: To others, all they see of you is a Golf.
(1:30:03 PM) yuuzora: Nothing changes that.
(1:30:20 PM) yuuzora: Does that mean you look like a Golf?
(1:30:26 PM) yuuzora: Even if that's what everyone else sees?
(1:31:22 PM) yuuzora: Everyone, including myself (unfortunately enough) only sees me in the body of this Asian chick.
(1:31:37 PM) Jarek: mmm
(1:31:51 PM) yuuzora: Does that mean I absolutely have to be this Asian chick?
(1:32:16 PM) yuuzora: Does it mean that the inner driver inside this Asian chick has to be even physically tangible and locate-able?
(1:32:40 PM) yuuzora: I don't DENY that I'm an Asian chick, or that my car is a Volvo.
(1:33:00 PM) yuuzora: I'm not saying that I don't fit in well in this Asian chick, or this Volvo that I was born in.
(1:33:27 PM) yuuzora: Since it's the only vehicle I've ever known, of course it fits - simply because I've never known anything better or worse or different.
(1:33:53 PM) Jarek: what kind of vehicle would you switch to if you could
(1:34:15 PM) yuuzora: It doesn't matter if they're all vehicles.
(1:34:27 PM) yuuzora: I want to see what the world would look like to a driver.
(1:34:52 PM) yuuzora: One vehicle doesn't differ from another if it means I'll still be stuck in one.
(1:35:04 PM) yuuzora: What does it look like, free of a vehicle?
(1:35:17 PM) yuuzora: I'm so very, very curious.
(1:35:23 PM) yuuzora: And another question I posed.
(1:35:43 PM) yuuzora: Is it possible that we live in an environment where being free of a vehicle is impossible?
(1:35:57 PM) yuuzora: Like how a space suit is required to be in space?
(1:36:38 PM) Jarek: well
(1:36:42 PM) Jarek: in that respect
(1:36:50 PM) Jarek: you can still see the environment outside you
(1:36:54 PM) Jarek: even if you're stuck inside the vehicle
(1:37:07 PM) Jarek: being stuck inside the suit doesnt stop you from looking outside
(1:37:08 PM) yuuzora: Reality outside does not necessarily look the same at all as what we see from inside the vehicle. Tinted glass, etc.
(1:37:20 PM) yuuzora: What does that reality, free from a vehicle, even look like?
(1:37:21 PM) Jarek: i guess
(1:37:27 PM) yuuzora: It doesn't have to look like ANYTHING we see now.
(1:37:34 PM) Jarek: probly too much to handle for our primitive monkey brains
(1:37:59 PM) Jarek: there might be wavelengths bombarding us all the time that our eyes filter out
(1:38:00 PM) Jarek: actually
(1:38:02 PM) Jarek: there are
(1:38:12 PM) Jarek: there are infrared emissions from everything
(1:38:15 PM) Jarek: if we could see them
(1:38:19 PM) Jarek: we'd be practically blind
(1:38:30 PM) Jarek: black body IR, reflected IR
(1:38:34 PM) Jarek: and UV as well
(1:38:43 PM) yuuzora: Even those are part of the physical reality.
(1:38:44 PM) Jarek: if we could perceive the reflected UV from objects
(1:38:52 PM) Jarek: we couldnt see anything
(1:40:11 PM) yuuzora: Even if we can't see them, our car brains have developed instruments that can.
(1:40:19 PM) yuuzora: We're very advanced cars who think we're just cars.
(1:40:28 PM) yuuzora: We have science that tell us more and more about how cars work every day.
(1:40:44 PM) yuuzora: We have other car machines that measures the world that a car lives in.
(1:40:57 PM) yuuzora: We know about things that our immediate car bodies cannot detect.
(1:41:07 PM) yuuzora: Like other EM waves.
(1:41:29 PM) yuuzora: Can a driver outside a car see those things?
(1:41:32 PM) yuuzora: Maybe, maybe not.
(1:41:47 PM) yuuzora: It's just as likely to not resemble what we cars see in the first place.
(1:42:18 PM) yuuzora: Maybe to drivers...
(1:42:24 PM) yuuzora: The possibilities are endless.
(1:43:18 PM) yuuzora: Maybe we'd see life forces or whatever.
(1:43:24 PM) yuuzora: Who knows.
(1:43:51 PM) Jarek: *shrug
(1:45:33 PM) Jarek: so how do we perceive something which has no measurable impact on the things we can perceive?
(1:45:51 PM) yuuzora: We can't.
(1:46:05 PM) yuuzora: And that's why most people are satisfied believing their lives prescribed as humans.
(1:46:20 PM) yuuzora: We take whatever we see as absolute, physical reality.
(1:46:34 PM) yuuzora: Anyone who says otherwise is labeled a lunatic.
(1:46:43 PM) yuuzora: Or a crazy religious leader.
(1:47:03 PM) yuuzora: I'll summarize Plato's Cave to you.
(1:47:10 PM) Jarek: ive read platos cave
(1:47:17 PM) yuuzora: Basically, Plato's cave was the inspiration for the Matrix and stuff.
(1:47:30 PM) yuuzora: Personally, I think the Matrix's interpretation is way too shallow.
(1:47:42 PM) yuuzora: Outside of the matrix is only another physical reality.
(1:47:53 PM) yuuzora: Wow, sucker.
(1:47:59 PM) yuuzora: Not creative enough.
(1:48:21 PM) yuuzora: If you've read, you should know.
(1:48:44 PM) yuuzora: Since all we've known are shadows projected on a wall, it's impossible for us to gain understanding of what the world outside looks like.
(1:49:09 PM) yuuzora: From what we hear of the few people who have run outside the cave and have seen, we think it's absolutely ridiculous.
(1:49:30 PM) yuuzora: But at the same time, if someone lies and says they've gone out but really hasn't, and just makes up some crazy tale that they have gone out...
(1:49:35 PM) yuuzora: We wouldn't know the difference if he's lying.
(1:49:39 PM) Jarek: so by becoming more technologically advanced, can we prove that these outsides exist?
(1:49:53 PM) yuuzora: Maybe.
(1:49:57 PM) yuuzora: Maybe not.
(1:50:09 PM) yuuzora: I always thought the forefront of physics is where things might point.
(1:50:30 PM) yuuzora: Crazy shit that we don't understand like wormholes and blackholes and other modern physics crap.
(1:50:50 PM) yuuzora: Maybe that is only a corner of what the world looks like to a driver.
(1:51:12 PM) Jarek: so why dont you go into physics
(1:51:21 PM) Jarek: it sounds like you're passionate for it
(1:52:32 PM) yuuzora: I just said. It may, or it may not be.
(1:53:06 PM) yuuzora: If true reality is entirely different from our physical reality, exploring it through physical reality means will only get us farther from the truth.
(1:53:30 PM) yuuzora: I used to be fascinated by quantum physics, when I was like 12 and first learning English.
(1:53:49 PM) yuuzora: But then when we had that in Stuy junior year, it didn't seem at all like what I was hoping for.
(1:54:18 PM) yuuzora: I was expecting it to be philosophical for some reason, instead of having to memorize stuff about quarks and spins and photon packets.
(1:55:07 PM) yuuzora: I'm not passionate about physics. Quite far from it.
(1:55:23 PM) yuuzora: All I want to know is what I look like without this skin.
(1:55:39 PM) yuuzora: And what the world looks like behind the panorama.
(1:55:51 PM) yuuzora: And it's not immediately possible.
(1:56:02 PM) yuuzora: And sometimes I feel dead with that itching curiosity.
(1:56:24 PM) Jarek: mm...
(1:56:39 PM) yuuzora: I would say the difference between this mentality and going around accepting life like everyone else...
(1:57:01 PM) yuuzora: Is the difference between breathing consciously and breathing normally/subconsciously.
(1:58:15 PM) yuuzora: When I'm busy or stressed and feel the ties of responsibility strapping me down (like now, studying for the MCAT and such), I'm usually breathing subconsciously, not questioning that I'm Jing, worried about my future, etc.
(1:58:55 PM) yuuzora: But when I have lax times, or even at any time I want, I can induce controlled breathing, or to start looking out of my eyes like I'm in that moving tower I mention so often.
(1:59:21 PM) yuuzora: How exactly I go back to breathing subconsciously or becoming one with Jing again, I don't know.
(2:00:50 PM) Jarek: so help me make these vehicles last for much longer than theyre supposed to, so we have enough time to puzzle that out
(2:00:52 PM) Jarek: =]
(2:01:34 PM) yuuzora: That's just being shackled with limited view for even longer.
(2:01:48 PM) yuuzora: I don't seek death.
(2:01:52 PM) yuuzora: I don't fear death.
(2:02:09 PM) yuuzora: Maybe that's what it would take to become free of the vehicle.
(2:02:15 PM) yuuzora: Lots of religions suggest that.
(2:02:18 PM) yuuzora: But.
(2:02:39 PM) yuuzora: Since I'm in a vehicle now, might as well make the most of it, for the vehicle's sake.
(2:03:03 PM) Jarek: and for the sake of those around you
(2:03:08 PM) Jarek: present and future =]

Addendum

When we drive on the road, most of the time, it's impossible to see drivers of other cars around us. Only if the sun hits at the right angle can I make out the driver behind me in the rear view mirror; only if I take my eyes off the road can I peek at a driver directly to my left or right. Who drives directly in front of me is almost always a mystery, unless I can somehow make out their face in their rear view mirror given they don't have a tinted rear windshield. I doubt most drivers perceive their neighbors in terms such as, "That [person of unknown race, gender, and age] is such an asshole for cutting me." Human perception dictates that we're much more likely to say, "That [red Jeep] is such a dick."

Unless whichever human driver I happened to offend manages to see me personally through the various (and more) methods mentioned above, all they will think is: "Wow, what a fucking retarded Volvo." In fact, it's not just the angry driver who thinks I'm a Volvo. Everyone who sees me really sees only a Volvo, most of the time, under normal circumstances. Does that mean, at any time while I'm driving, that I believe even for a split second that I actually physically look like a Volvo? Do I start believing I'm a car?

What if I have always been in that driver's seat, since birth? It's awkward at first, trying to master the break, the accelerator, the wheel and whatnot. But every new driver gains a sense for the car's motion, sooner or later. Keeping a constant safe distance between me and the car in front becomes habit, instinct, intuition. We feel the engine's struggle when climbing a steep hill; we know when it's too late to stop for a yellow light. We are aware of our car-ly dimensions when we perform a perfect parallel parking into a spot just barely big enough. As drivers, we become (as if) one with our car. After all, we are (largely) responsible for every move it makes. We're able to switch freely between consciousnesses as (driver of) a car and as our human selves. It's never a problem, never an issue of imprisonment or misunderstanding. Neither you nor any other person on the road really believes each other to be cars because everyone can simply step out of one. As soon as the door opens, the unit in perception changes. It's not really a mean red Jeep I was talking about; it's some cueball douchebag. It's no longer a wacky Volvo; it's just another Asian chick who can't drive.

And that is where the analogy fails. But, I ask again, what if I have always been in that driver's seat since birth, and so has everyone else, and it's impossible to ever get out of the car? What if our bodies are actually fused to the car metabolically, such that we are replenished when the car "eats," and our wastes are eliminated when the car exhausts? What if all the windows have always been tinted to the darkest shade on every side, such that no one ever realizes that for each car, there is an inner driver who is a separate being from the mere car? We can believe we're all cars because 1) from what I can tell of myself and others, we're all cars; 2) the car responds to my conscious commands, moves as I do, and essentially is my functional body; 3) what on earth does an inner driver even look like, if one exists at all? No one has ever seen one, much less proven its existence. Furthermore, current science has discovered, with more and more detail, exactly how each part of our car-bodies work. There is some sort of nervous system that connects our external car bodies to an inner command compartment, a centralized computer. There are various ways to relay messages from that central command room to the rest of the car parts. Sometimes weird things happen when we remove one car part and the central command doesn't catch up to the fact and still thinks it's there. The car is a very mysterious and complex system. It might even come up with the illusion that it exists and has a consciousness!

But the presence of a driver is something forever outside the realm of consideration, since science only tests the testable, the empirical. In controlled and limited settings. Only to hypotheses we can create with our limited imagination as cars.

I can and do accept that I'm a car like everyone else. But since very many years ago, at an age that Piaget (another of our limited sciences) says is impossible to have such abstract thought, I realized I could dissociate from the car and, in fact, wonder about myself as a driver. What is that being like? I wish I could strip away all my car fluff and see, because despite what everyone else believes, I know the car is only such a minimal part of what I am, what reality is. Are we thus fused to the car because we live in an environment otherwise uninhabitable, similar to how we have to wear special suits in space? I question the very dimensions of the world we perceive, peeking from behind our heavily tinted windshield. How does the world look like to I the Driver? I cannot begin to imagine, given our so-very-limited perception and imagination from having always lived as mere cars.

I suppose it's a Plato's cave type of thing.
P.S. All vehicular references purely arbitrary. I are an good driver I swear.

Correspondence

"I am frustrated because so much of catching up is the trading of biographical data that, while important and interesting, overstays its welcome and prevents the actual furthering of the relationship itself, so that eventually there is no more relationship, just mutual retrospection."

This. I was so _____ when I read this that I can't even find the word that goes into that blank. Not quite relief, but the wordless kind of exchange where if dimensions allowed, I'd punch you and start laughing. For taking words out of my mouth, I thank you.

I've been...inert, and content with the present situation. Both positive things in my book. I suppose I should be feeling pressure from all that will happen within a month or two (MCAT/application process/wisdom teeth extraction/etc.), but I'm not. Some might call it the calm before the storm, but with me it's more of an oscillation. Almost a month ago I remember singing a very different tune, and again something similar to now before that.

I wish I live with less regrets.

Still unused to the concept that I really can go anywhere I want, now, alone, with my car. It's a very foreign type of freedom that I haven't worked up enough enthusiasm to yet explore. Home hasn't been nearly as bad as I anticipated a month ago, and it's almost a bit silly now to remember how much I freaked myself out over this back then. I'm taking a prep course for the MCAT as well as being trained for the local HopeLine (which operates differently enough for me to truly realize just how much I loved SPS and its people in Columbus), and with some potential future employment down the line.

The parental situation has been manageable. With graduation, suddenly I have gained a few rights to existence, but am still largely seen as being the same age as my siblings. Any time I bother to speak my mind on an issue and happen to disagree with them, they automatically assume it is because they have spoiled me to the point that I think I have a voice. Any time I bother to bring up anything they haven't thought of and they happen to approve, they voice extreme surprise that I can, in fact, think and/or process information.

They seem pretty impressed that Jarek found a 60k job upon graduation despite my claim that we broke up since two years ago, at their request. I wouldn't know what to think if things can actually proceed smoothly here at some point. I've become so used to hiding everything from them that the idea of "coming out" is ludicrous, even though we're at the brink of reaching there...I think. I hope.

In the master bathroom of our house there are three large mirror-walls. I haven't felt this estranged from my body in quite a while, seeing my whole from unfamiliar angles. Too often I stare at that face for so long to become unable to recognize it.

Have I ever told you in specifics about this kind of dissociation? It goes beyond unfamiliarity with the mere physical body that I see so very little of. I am more familiar with these appendages and front half of a torso than I am with the most supposedly-important part that most of the world probably recognizes me by. I have never seen it except in pictures and some videos - but as everyone says, The camera lies. "I" look different in every picture; "I" am different dependent on who took the picture. This stuff is untrustworthy because I never know how it will show up the next time. Mirrors are untrustworthy as well, because there exists some sort of internal impression/idea of how this face is supposed to look, and I (and everyone I notice) would subconsciously morph that face into something consistent with our preexisting impression. (When enough mirrors are combined to correct that mirror-image effect, what I see is even more strange and warped. This doesn't help.)

There are other pitfalls with mirrors as they show just how paper-thin the dimension of our world (that we have become so used to, so ready to claim as objective, as empirical, as real) truly are.

In early Chinese elementary school, there were periodic weekend class time/activities devoted to teaching children basic chore skills. Off the top of my head, I remember sessions where we learned how to hand wash small clothing items and, in this particular instance circa first or second grade, how to sew buttons. I forget the specifics of what happened before I left home, but I was somehow seeing blue smoke at the peripherals of my vision. At first I thought it was too much incense being burned indoors, but it persisted as I went out and walked to school. I kept rubbing my eyes, but it wouldn't going away. It affected everything I saw, wherever I looked. On that walk, I realized how helplessly dependent I was on the state of my eyes, how I counted on them to tell me truth, and how much I'd gotten used to assuming that they did. I thought about how these two small instruments, that can only see a span of 180 degrees of what is in front of them at any time, can never simultaneously perceive the other entirely mysterious and elusive side. Sure, I could turn about face and look in the opposite direction, but it didn't change that I then could no longer see the side I was facing before. The brain holds a memory of the first 180-degree span and stitches it together with knowledge/vision of the other 180 degrees; it creates a completely artificial understanding that the two are connected to form a fluid and ever-changing 360-degree panorama that readjusts itself in perspective based on how the rest of the body moves. We only think we know how the world and our surroundings look like. But really, at any instance in time, all we have to go by is the front ventral half of our physical body and the rest of the 180-degree span as seen from two cameras inconveniently set in our head.

If we had no hands, no means of tactile exploration, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference if we were actually looking through eye-shaped peepholes into another world. But because this "reality" is what we have become used to since birth, and because we have hands that can tell us there appears to be a backside to our head, we have always matched what we see with what we feel and assumed thus that our combined senses perceived something real. On that day, I realized my senses were fallible, fragile. Nothing says I'm not another being apart from the Jing that this supposed world perceives; nothing says there isn't another entity, the real "me", merely looking through Jing's peepholes into her supposed world and reality. This is why I feel strange as her; I'm wearing her skin and flesh, wearing her motile and tactile skills, wearing her limited eyes that only see 180 degrees. She is a moving tower and vessel inside of which I am trapped, even though I control her and can even forget this and become her, think that I am her.

And if I'm not necessarily her, then who is this that looks through her peepholes and lives life wrapped in her skin? Who is this entity that clearly exists but (I) can't find or feel since (my) false tactile sense tells me there is nothing in the 180 degrees that I can't see, other than the back of my head? My hands are part of the panorama illusion. I suspect that I can't find this entity even if I were to dig and tear Jing apart.

As a seven-year-old, I had nowhere near the language capacity required to express any of this. When I was back home, I stumbled over my tongue trying to explain to my parents, but no words could come beyond the question of, Who am I?

They were surprised. And the answer they gave consisted of a surface explanation concerning lineage and family trees, which of course was not at all what I was looking for. I felt inadequate, unable to clarify or make them understand. This may have been the first instance I felt the insufficiency of parents, and that of adults in general by proxy. Nowadays I just lament the uselessness of words and how much of a struggle it is to wrestle with them. I remember trying to describe this to several people through the years, but not once do I think I've managed to have it come out right - including this time just now.

When I say dissociation, it isn't just the alienness of my physical body alone. It's the unbearable panorama itself. I wish I can rip apart the fabric it is projected upon and see what is behind these limiting peepholes. It's the unbearable curiosity and impatience that this play on life and reality be done already. (I am, of course, still interested to see how things in the drama of Jing will turn out in the end, but I've also always been the curious type who skips to read the last page of the novel when a quarter way through the book.) Even if I'm just playing the long and perpetual part of Jing, I think I'd be satisfied to know, even just for a moment, what is really beyond the stage.

I guess it only happens when I'm bored with my present roles. When things become hectic again, fusion into Jing is much easier. It is much more natural to become lost in the face of responsibility, to realize that her problems and dilemmas are my problems and dilemmas, that her dreams during this life here are also things I would want, that her ultimate rewards are really rewards for me as well.

I've been content. And waiting, waiting, waiting without any real idea of what I'm anticipating. I'm interested and heavily curious.

How are you?