Thursday, March 31, 2016

Mental Exodus

I appreciate introspection. Taking time to look within and process the surrounding world births profound conclusions and important observations. There's always such thing as too much, though. In the case of thinking, you've overdone it when you no longer really cognitively connect to a world outside your own. It's when your mind begins to scratch itself raw. At that point, it seems difficult to open up again, but there are little ways to make progress.

Being with your most engaging friends pulls you out of your own head and into a sort of collaborative space between minds. Observing the living of people you care about is refreshing and reminds you that whatever negative thoughts are not necessarily reality. I've written a little bit more about this here.

Another path of exit is through books. Unlike movies, which although enjoyable, completely turn off the mind, books engage thinking both in following a story and processing its material. Reading is something I've found personally very helpful, as it can be relatable, offer new ideas, and sometimes pulls you into a completely different setting.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

On Originality

When I was a kid, I took every chance offered to prove how special i was. To live a meaningless life as a normal person has been my adolescent nightmare. At this point, I've kind of settled into the belief that almost all of originality has already been claimed. It's the curse of later times. There aren't too many artistic rules to break these days. Most ideas have lived in someone else's mind before your own. It's really a pity. Then there's also the fact that all trends start as someone being stylistically different. Before you know it, their style becomes common, appearing in magazines or showing up in in department stores.

Of course there's also the unbreakable fact that every life is unique. No one life could ever be replicated exactly as each person's life is a stack of events, thoughts, and history unparalleled. Even if you try to copy actions, you simply can't repeat moments. The downside of this is that the past is locked away. You can revisit old times in your heart, but you'll never breathe the same air.



It's a perplexing thing to think that much of human action, feeling, and thought is rarely novel, yet every person's timeline is inadvertently a new mélange of happenings. Perhaps the harder we try to be original, the less successful the product is. 

Beginning "Kafka on the Shore"

There's a certain joy in casually reading and stumbling on a line (maybe a few) that make you pause. Whether it provokes thought or is something you deeply relate to, the experience is like finding an unknown treasure.

With television, I actually appreciate and seek spoilers. For some reason, knowing what is going to happen makes me want to watch more than being in the dark. With books it's the opposite. I avoid spoilers like plague. Why? I'm not completely sure, but it really takes away from the experience.

Going back to the aforementioned love of quotable lines, I've found the type of spoiler I didn't know I needed to avoid. By now it's pretty obvious that I really like Haruki Murakami. Often I like to look at quotes. As an international award winner and overall famous novel, Kafka on the Shore is frequently quoted. The numerous lines were unavoidable. Of course they were good, but then when I found them in the pages of the actual book, the ah-ha feeling of discovery was absent. I would advise not reading a novel’s quotations before you read the story.

That aside, I’m only around 100 pages in, yet Kafka on the Shore  has already proven to be a little different from Murakami’s other works. With the chapters alternating between old Nakata’s story and fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura’s, it took a little bit of adjustment. Out of Murakami’s other works, I’ve only seen this done in After Dark so far. Not only do the stories change, but the narration styles differ. Kafka’s chapters are told in first person, with Kafka as the narrator, while not only are Nakata’s told in third person, but he also speaks mostly in third person (with cats nonetheless).  In terms of character, Nakata and Kafka seem like each other's foil. Nakata is elderly, living loosely without cognitive intricacy. Due to a freak accident from his childhood, Nakata lives with mental retardation, causing him to think and behave rather childishly. On the other hand, Kafka, who is only fifteen years old, is accelerating through maturity at an alarming pace. He’s completely on his own and even lies about his age. Seeing how Murakami brings these opposites together will certainly be something I'm looking forward to.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Looking Back When Dissatisfied

Always looking for something new is a symptom of my short-lasting interest. I get tired of things quickly. Lately, it's been in the matter of music. I've been listening to the same few artists on repeat for at least a couple months now. As with any other instance of musical tiredness, I tried finding new content that I could shift to for now. Unfortunately, I've lacked success and just kind of stayed within the realm of those same artists.

Recently, though, rather than searching for new, I've returned to the old. I don't mean a few months ago old, but rather years ago. Mindfully skipping over my terrible short-lived EDM phase in eighth grade, I've listened to both the favorites of last summer and some iconic favorites from as far back as 2008.

With this revisiting of old music comes the emergence of old memories. The feeling of nostalgia stirs in my stomach and I feel just a shred of my younger self return. I'm reminded that in the never-ending forward path of time, you've just gotta recount the past sometimes. When my mind is transported to the past, I really get to see how I've grown and changed, as well as my friends. The feeling makes me want to gush to them of how much I appreciate them, as they've been with me for years. It maes me want to discuss our shared memories and share a good laugh.

The thirst for the new should not extinguish the flame of the old. You should not cling to the past by any means, but rather be mindful of what's happened, and how it's shaped who you are.

Friendship & Flexibility

Real friendship is most definitely work. More idealistic people would probably argue that a true friendship shouldn't feel like work or a chore, but let me tell you, friendship is effort. It's effort that in the right circumstances, is 100% worth it in the end.

As I've gotten older, human connection and the mechanics of relationships has only seemed to grow more and more complex. I've often felt as if I weren't giving enough, or giving the right sort of thought and effort. How could I get it through to someone that I honestly care about them and cherish them?

I'm busy. My friends are busy. Making plans sometimes proves to be quite a challenge. When proposing possible plans, I've sometimes noticed a sort of tension that emerges as my friends may become visibly anxious as they think about their schedules. The moment I say that this can happen whenever it's possible, despite possibly being pushed back multiple months, the tension dissipates and a relaxed and appreciative smile takes its place. Though flexibility is not an option in select circumstances, it's something that should be exercised as often as possible. I don't mean in action necessarily, but presented as an option. Letting your friend know that you're willing to wait for them to be available, or that you're completely willing to change plans to fit them better displays mindfulness and conveys care. 

Flexibility outside of scheduling is also appreciative. In conflict, indignant stubbornness is nothing outside of damaging. Compromise by both parties is often claimed to be a necessary pieces of a healthy relationship, romantic or platonic. Sometimes, you've either got to meet in the middle, or agree to disagree. 

This probably seems so simple and obvious to some, but honestly, it's common for people to forget to consider others on a deep level. Even if flexibility seems minuscule in act, it's effective.

Cloud Atlas



Cloud Atlas the novel resided on my To-read list for months until I had an opportunity to simply record the movie and save it to watch with friends. Before viewing, I had already read the book's summary and I'd also heard of and seen the awful Yellow-face makeup. My friend had previously recommended the movie to me, so late on a Friday night, we watched Cloud Atlas until 2:30AM (with snack breaks and pauses for laughter of course).

Overall, Cloud Atlas is gorgeous. The cinematography was striking, the colors stunning, and the music astounding. The stories themselves aren't completely phenomenal on their own, but once connected together through time, they're complex and engage the mind.

A contrast to the beauty of the film is the overall bluntness that is presented both in contexts of comedy and horror. It was funny as hell when the pretentious critic was pushed off a roof with a pancake ending, but it was also disturbing to see a fabricant waitress killed with blood spurting everywhere. There's no censoring, and instead every gruesome detail of the characters' actions is depicted. 

Themes constant throughout the movie included the oppression of one group of people by another, conflicted love, truth, and simply human connection. The horrors of systematic inequality were disheartening, terrible, and sometimes physically sickening. They ranged from control, to physical violence, to even cannibalism in more than one story line. 

Despite the multiple strengths of the film, the makeup was incredibly distracting. The Asian characters who were clearly white men in half-assed makeup were cartoonish. They all bore some resemblance to Spock, and the interrogator looked completely like an alien. As an Asian American, you can bet I felt a little insulted by the portrayal of Korean men. Did the makeup artists think that weird triangle brows, straight (obviously synthetic) black hair, and a flat heavy hood lid was convincingly Asian? The other race-crossing makeup attempts weren't convincing either. I understand that they used the same actors in order to draw the connections through history, and I really do think that it's a fascinating and ambitious idea, but as much as I wish to fully appreciate it, the makeup was just not good. 
Why??????


Regardless, I still do want to recommend Cloud Atlas, as it's an-almost-three-hour thought-provoking wild ride.