99% Approval Rate achieved, yet

something still feels majorly off, and I feel I can finally put a finger on why.

After the initial shock/anger passed, his stance essentially is now this: Get the training, get the first year or two of job experience, and then come over to China. I have the resources and connections to have you start your own studio. Draft a 5-year plan, a 10-year plan. No slacking, no drifting, no settling with a 5-digit salaried job. You want to do this, you better damn well make it big.

Which I have no problems with, in principle. "Dream big or go home;" "If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough," right? So why am I not happy that I'm getting what I want and earning their support? Why does it feel like oppression instead?

Only now I realized.

Citizen Kane.

While of course not an exact analogous situation, it, still, never really was about me, was it? It's still about his being in control, even if he firmly believes he's doing it all purely for my sake, for the best in my interest. I can throw him curve balls and majorly change the blank in what I want, and he can even be okay with it, but to think he would ever relinquish control, to ever cease pushing? That is foolishness.

And of course, part of this, too, feels like I'm just being a whiny unsatisfiable bitch crying over first world problems. Think of all the sheep children who never could fight to break the DOCTOR OR LAWYER routine. Think of what I have, miraculously it still seems, actually achieved.

I need to work on that portfolio. Deadline planned as the end of this month, as soon as I wrap up my other SSOnly promo.

329. What is water

How do you describe the phenomenon of wet-ness? Compared to solid and gas, liquid is a fearsome phase of matter.

Adhesion, cohesion. How disturbingly do these properties meld into assumed territory of real-life fact? Every time you draw your hand through, those intermolecular bonds are weak enough to leave shapeless masses of their brethren, abandoned or trapped behind, attached to the surface they touch. Buoyancy and liquid pressure are expected if you are the one submerged under their territory, but what lends to the careless invasion of their abandoned soldiers onto a hand merely passing through?

Like dissolves like.

322. On twins

"You" and "I" are depressing terms. They are concepts that prove even the most intimate people cannot see or feel as one, for he is not you.

When they were very young, Kanon was unable to tell himself apart from Saga and never would use those words. If little Saga tripped and skinned a kneecap, little Kanon would cry on the side: "Kanon hurt." If little Kanon had homework he could not do, he would chew on his pencil with knitted brows and say, "Saga can't figure this out." Shion tried to correct him several times, but never with good result. Stubbornly, Kanon felt that Saga and he were the same person, no matter who was hurt or whose name was used. Saga did not mind at that time, and even liked it. Having a companion through pain and bliss was not bad.

Slowly, they grew to their teens. Saga's reaction to Kanon's confusion steadily elevated into irritation. He grew to love independence in living and abhorred the concept of a shared life. He began to distance himself from Kanon, training alone, going out alone, and never calling Kanon along to join whatever he was doing. And Kanon, when he couldn't find Saga, would throw a fit that shook not only the foundations of the Gemini House, but that of the entire Sanctuary. 

Driven to distress, Saga asked: "What makes you think we are the same person? We're clearly not." 
Kanon stared back with blank eyes.
Saga tried to smile and continued: "If I trip and fall, you don't actually feel it, you know?"
"I do," Kanon insisted.
"You do not," Saga steeled his voice. "You're hysteric. You want to believe so much that we are one that you pretend you feel it. It's a mental illness."
He watched as something shattered in Kanon's stunned eyes. A moment of hesitation passed, but he grit his teeth and continued: "Here's a number for a therapist. You should be seen."
With these words out, he turned and left. Kanon's pain was so thick and sharp in the air that he almost doubled back, to almost tell him that that was all just a joke. But he ruthlessly suppressed the desire and did not look back.

Behind him came the fearsome blast of an explosion, followed by the rumbling of stone columns collapsing.
Saga sighed. Of course, it's impossible to get rid of this life-sharing child. Why could he not understand? Each person was an individual who held his own stance, beliefs, and reason. It was impossible for two people to share the exact same consciousness. 

From that day on, Kanon drew a clear line of division between the two. He never followed Saga again. They still lived in the same House, but the dynamic between had turned to animosity.

---- Excerpt from 惹是生非 by 寸寸, translated by yours truly.

Yes yes, I've turned to fanfics now that I've exhausted any supply of fanart. But the above hit a nerve that finally confirmed my longtime suspicions that I actually, really, have a twins-fixation. Not the real life variety of whom I have all-too-much exposure (cough), but the idealized version found in fiction. As early as when I first started rounding up books to trade with that person half a year ago (already?), I noticed that both of my top choices involved twins as major devices: Esta and Rahel; Magid and Millat. Part of me wondered, then and there, what kind of vibe that might send a stranger about me.

And now, finally, somehow, it would happen that a fanfic out of all things should be what pieces everything together:

I'm not into "twins" or twincest.
I'm not lonely for company.
I'm not even all that curious about reality outside of the limited perception of my "car."

What I am is I'm in wild desperation of the fact that I am alone in my consciousness. No matter how close I get to someone, the barrier of words/of skin/of non-intersectable space permanently blocks me, mentally and physically. This body is the prison that puts me under house arrest, isolated from the universe. This body is the barrier that limits my existence (confirmed in the eyes of others) to what I perform. The 90% of me that lies underneath, undetectable by performance, is apparently inconsequential. It is the lament of that 90% that surfaces as occasional pangs too-often mistaken for simple lonesome longings, or curiosity for potential freedom outside of this body.

Mythical, fictional twins always seem to at least somewhat address this issue.

Or it's all just a subconscious excuse for a rationalization of why I sport such a giant boner for myself.

251. 何璟

It feels as if the identity associated with that name is simply a far-away memory implanted in my head. Was that person really me? I can no longer tell. When I walked her stomping grounds, with thirteen years of separation, I saw a pale scale model imitation of the locales I still sometimes dream in the interval between. When I had to greet people who knew only her, I could feel their expectation for a different person - not me - compressed down upon my shoulders as if willing me to shrink, or to speak.

Like her.

Somewhere between then and now, I had apparently lost the ability to speak. Instead of pouring endless words and conversation, I sit to observe their vitality. Too conscious of the moment, too awed by the fact of existence and act of speech.

This super-sensitive meta-awareness. Was it exponentially heightened only in the isolation of the last year? Or was it a slow, undetectably deepening phenomenon, brought to a highlight only by his strange colors this spring?

Threadbare.

240. Cloudy eyes

How my world depends so heavily upon the assumed-functionality of this one pair of cameroid apparatus carved into my skull.

My cognition is visually-dominated in its entirety. Memory, learning, retrieval. Until the moment things break, we have a nasty tendency to assume that everything we take for granted is nigh invincible. Whereas...reality...was one of the first fragile occurrences I grew to learn, right alongside that other regular pounding inside my chest.

Accept no substitutes.

I feel weak in the knees from this early-knocking of the future. I was at peace, with the surety that you will come to pass in the far undistinguished distance, bearing little to no resemblance to a present past. But.

Cloudy thoughts beget cloudy eyes with cloudy anticipation. Is that how it works, in the small scale of things? Your colors haunt me, but not in the way of your ghosts.

239. Molecular tracing

I would pay serious money for a system that could tag and trace either a) organic molecules of my body as they get reused, or b) inorganic molecules that have passed through my body. In the end, I suppose both would undoubtedly simply resemble specific path examples of the carbon and precipitation cycles. Yet...

Yesterday, one mosquito mother-to-be (or five, or ten) was able to live 'til the next time she must risk her life to feed, thanks to the generous blood-meal I presented, unaware at the time. My DNA-less erythrocytes have since been broken down to release hemoglobins, of which two α-subunits, two β-subunits, and one iron atom were systematically disassembled and further disintegrated until individual amino acids were reached. Glucose and other nutrients submerged in my blood could have been reused as energy-source straight away. But my digested proteins, in amino acid form, will be rebuilt into essential functioning tissues for either mother mosquito or her progeny. They will continue to be reused, past mosquito and human lifetime, a step down the food chain and perhaps a bit more worn each time, until finally bacteria or plant life recycles them brand spanking-shiny new. And cycles them back to feed the consumers.

Catabolism, anabolism. On Energizer-bunny repeat.

It would be wrong to label them as "my" proteins or "my" amino acids. Aside from the original zygote that came to my possession as my future vessel of existence, which I generously received from mostly mom and a little (but very much essential bit) of dad (who got them from their parents, in turn, anyway), everything else I own have come from similarly recycled building blocks unceremoniously inherited from third innocent parties of the food chain. For some reason, however, a group of highly developed ganglia (though I should not call them that, per emergent property of large numbers) has developed this inconvenient sense of identity that follows the tendency to label things with "I" and "mine." For most of my (evolutionarily advantageous) body parts, they guard with an intricate system of surveillance. But for peripheral, non-essential expendables like overgrown keratin and flaking epithelium, they are free to let go with no more sense of loss than urine or feces that have traveled and exhausted their purpose through my inner tube. Even though they are just as much "me" as any other portion scrutinized by my nervous system, no tears are shed, no thought dedicated to, no spiritual identity is attached to their inconspicuous elimination. All spring forth from my endless (while I live) supply of marrow stem cells, yet all are far from raised equal.

Why does this enormous congregation of cells work as one? (How many laws against universe and entropy do we break by merely breathing?) Why does no single cell hold its own conscious identity? In our totalitarian body state, the nervous system, holder of identity, sits as our stoic Big Brother with not one hint of dissent from any cell confined in the name of survival and existence. Are autoimmune diseases the result of the body's proletariat crying Viva la Resistancia? Big Brother tells us to label those as 'illnesses' that must be cured. We go to fellow Big-Brother-run doctors to administer steroids to bribe those overactive guerrilla warriors of the immune system.

Death is the eventual victory against the dictatorship, where anarchy reigns and the bourgeoisie are lysed, freed to cycle the universe.

A favorite number

White fleeting thought chased bubbles sandal-splashed feet puddles in shade in shine in flickering flickering bickered wickered sunburst starshine moat. Weathered bluff, wind-drifted, feathered mouthful of fluff. How do ideas take shape? These gestures to get fingers rolling reaching touching typing freewriting to overcome a supposed bottlenecked traffic jam of flow? (Bottleneck, bottle-naked, bottleneckéd effect)

Age is a label (one side sticky) ruthlessly slapped onto the side of our tin glass jar skin. Our preserved contents are unaffected (unless exposed to open air), but that smooth exterior is not above the wear and tear of time. Another year 'til my supposed peak, an inflection point after which bears characterization of increasing disparity between perception of the self and perception by the outside.

What do we project?

We live most of our life post our biological prime.

Why is this not horrifying to anyone else (our age)? Death hasn't bothered me since age six, but the concept (and unspoken prospect) of physical and mental deterioration is suddenly terrifying.

-

If rarity defines value a la 物以稀为贵, then does transience mark beauty? Transience at the root of all worldly tragedies. Transience as proof of life.

We can only pretend to share a nosferatu's point of view.

Sibyl, who asked Apollo for eternal life, failed to also specify eternal youth. How easily we assume the two go hand in hand.

20. On conjunctions of

In the earlier days it had been a hint of generic deodorant, gentle residues left upon folds of fabric flicked past my cheek. I would find myself hunching in that unceremoniously ever-same isle in Walmart, sneaking sniffs between passers-by to minimize my apparent creep lvl.5, hunting for your specific variety of specific brand. By the time I had finally figured it out, the association of that particular sense with particular memory was already fading, if not gone.

I am not nostalgic; the replacement was the true worthwhile bargain. An upgrade to your natural you, mingled with a hint of myself, on myself, as my free left wrist habitually rose to cover a yawn at the wheel? It was you.

It was you.

More so than the previously mentioned auditory trigger, this olfactory equivalent packs the real punch that it was you. Last evening I could have drowned in my own hand and arm in you.

Coyly invite me to bed again. I will not decline or deny with wordless silence a second time. Neither will I bring it to your attention for fear that you will ruthlessly take even this away, just like you undid those kisses. I will not forget. Even if my consciousness drifts and my memory of dream and reality mingle in half-out confusion, my impressionable skin does not forget.

My thumb fits over your newest badge under my collar bone.

dot my i's with eyebrow pencils close my eyelids hide my eyes I'll be idle in my ideals think of nothing else but I
I
I
and I

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?

19. On Jung & Myers-Briggs

Here is my latest Political Compass test result:
Regardless of what you make of my stance, let's take a moment to think about how the test actually works: it maps one's position based on two parameters - left vs. right, and libertarian vs. authoritarian. Since having only two variables is so conveniently mappable, and the test questions were constructed in such a way that allows for qualitative analysis, it is perfectly possible to represent one's test result on a grid with two axes, as illustrated above. Very self-evident, yes? The graphical representation is particularly effective at telling you that this test gives no further insight into your persona beyond the two parameters its questions were designed to test.

Now, what if, instead of a graph, the test resorted to giving you a two-letter result? For example, in my case I would be LL for Left Libertarian, while others could be LA, RL, or RA. Instead of showing your friends your obviously unique and special pretty shiny graph, you're suddenly reduced to simply LL, or just one possibility out of a grand total of four permutations. How special is that? It's even better than the horoscopes where statistically only 1/12 of all people are just like you!

But! Hold on, I have a way to make you feel even more special. How about instead of only two measly parameters, we use FOUR? (Now it's so complex we can't even map it! So we HAVE to resort to four-letter results!) How about instead of political views, we use personal preferences and characteristics? Namely, 1. whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, 2. whether you prefer to rely on the senses or intuition, 3. whether you prefer to rely on thoughts or feelings, and 4. whether you are judgmental or perceptive! In that case, I just happen to be an introverted intuitive feeling judge! Or INFJ for short! SWEET. Obviously this must mean I'm soo special, just like every other INFJ out there! We're all like the exact same person according to this logic!

THIS IS WHY MYERS-BRIGGS IS FULL OF SHIT! I HATE PERSONALITY TESTS BECAUSE I'M SO INSECURE ABOUT MYSELF! WHY DOES IT LABEL ME AND THINKS IT KNOWS MEEEE????!!!? (OWWIE IN MY BUTT, ETC.)

...

But seriously guys, the above is apparently the most common argument against Myers-Briggs I remember hearing from people. Take it at face value (combination/coordination based on four dichotomies) and nothing more. If you don't have a problem with the political compass (which is by no means a COMPLETE analysis nor picture of your political stance), why would you hate on Myers-Briggs (which is also by no means meant to represent your WHOLE person) when the two tests operate on the exact same principles?

Interpretation of one's Myers-Briggs result is also incomparable to reading horoscopes. To illustrate, let's go back to the Political Compass. If we were to compile a description of someone who falls into the LL quadrant, we might say he or she is a collectivist/Commie anarchist. Well woah there, Jing! Is she really like that?! Of course not, to that extreme. Nevertheless, compared to people who occupy the other quadrants, that is the general relative direction in which I point. I do not even necessarily agree with the most extremists in my own quadrant, but on the grander scale, "liberal libertarian" is where I fall. Similarly, all the Myers-Briggs personality type descriptions you read should also be interpreted as relative generalizations based on conclusions drawn only from the four parameters tested.

Lastly, neither Myers-Briggs nor the Political Compass find people evenly divided among types. Why that should be so for politics should be obvious...but for Myers-Briggs personality types, certain combinations simply are (statistically) significantly rarer than the expected 1/16 (or 6.25%). The likes of INFJ and INFP are usually listed as ~3% max. How or why that is no one may ever know...it might be due to sampling error for all I care. Point is, neither is fundamentally the same as random distribution.

Also this is officially the longest and possibly most pointless disclaimer I have ever written. I don't know. Not in a mood to compare with that time I had to rant about knowledge and determinism.

Anyway, on to the original point of the poast.

I was 14 or 15 when I had my first run-in with dear Jung and Myers-Briggs. I was kind of in that phase where an ideal pastime would be taking various quizzes and collecting all the flattering results they had to offer my teenage self, which I would then post on the now-defunct Tsuki board. I remember distinctly that this INFJ business was by far the most ego-stroking piece of text I had ever come across. Through the rest of high school and early college, I have had the chance to retake the test a couple of times, but have always gotten the same result.

Then SPS happened, along with that process/realization of change/maturation and what I saw as an embracing of my left brain. I stepped on solid ground for what felt like the first time, and suddenly I realized just how much my views have changed by how little I could reconnect with people whom I once shared great understanding and common language. I pulled back significantly from the past into the here and now, with increased focus on preparation and anticipation for the future. My approach to issues has become methodological and practical to a sometimes merciless degree. Despite what I have happily spent over 200 hours voluntarily doing over the past year plus, I found I had less and less compassion/empathy/patience with people I actually knew, especially if they were dealing with issues I secretly deemed 'petty' and 'juvenile.' It reached the point that I began to question whether I had somehow let rational thinking completely take over my life.

And then, last week, a discussion on our old friend Myers-Briggs triggered me to retake the test for shits and giggles. I was honestly curious whether I had turned from F to T...but lo and behold, I found out that not only was I still INFJ, I have apparently grown into/become even more INFJ than I ever have in the past. Reading its descriptive passages was not so much flattery rather than WTF WHY IS THIS SO CREEPILY ACCURATE. Let's look at some quotes in particular.

"INFJs are champions of the oppressed and downtrodden. They often are found in the wake of an emergency, rescuing those who are in acute distress."
- Would anyone even believe me at all if I say I did NOT choose to volunteer where I do without meaning to fulfill this on purpose?

"The INFJ under stress may fall prey to various forms of immediate gratification."
- Hello, various forms of binging. This comes in how I take certain foods, music, games, you name it.

"Strongly humanitarian in outlook, INFJs tend to be idealists, and because of their J preference for closure and completion, they are generally "doers" as well as dreamers. This rare combination of vision and practicality often results in INFJs taking a disproportionate amount of responsibility in the various causes to which so many of them seem to be drawn."
- So apparently that 'practical' and 'just get shit done' mentality I thought was T was really my full-on expression of J. HURR DURR

"INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people"
- I had a conversation about this sobre my training experience at SPS. My trainees would have a difficult time believing I'm a true introvert through and through.

"On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates."
- Yeah.

"at intervals INFJs will suddenly withdraw into themselves, sometimes shutting out even their intimates."
- Jarek would laugh and cry at the truth in this.

"there can sometimes be a "tug-of-war" between NF vision and idealism and the J practicality that urges compromise for the sake of achieving the highest priority goals. And the I and J combination, while perhaps enhancing self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate their deepest and most convoluted feelings."
- Hello permanent writer's/artist's block. Hello cruel practicality.

"the significant minority of INFJs who do pursue studies and careers in the [sciences] tend to be as successful as their T counterparts, as it is *iNtuition* -- the dominant function for the INFJ type -- which governs the ability to understand abstract theory and implement it creatively."
- Found this out when studying for the MCAT as I realized that all the "intuitive" tricks those ExamCrackers guys try to teach you were the ones I came up with myself to learn science in the first place. Hooray.

From yet another source:

"INFJs place great importance on havings things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives."
- Again, definitely not T, but instead very expected for J.

"INFJ is a perfectionist who doubts that they are living up to their full potential. INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there's always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them."
- Holy shit? Except in my earlier years, I chose to not try in the first place. Thank you, immaturity and Stuy.

"Conversely, they have very high expectations of themselves, and frequently of their families. They don't believe in compromising their ideals."
- Sorry, Jarek and trainees who give me feedback saying I push too hard. =|

"An INFJ who has gone the route of becoming meticulous about details may be highly critical of other individuals who are not."
- Hello OCD behavior in SPS paperwork...


Sigh. That's all for now. Link for those interested in a quick test themselves.