NON-FICTION: Excavating the mind from Depression: Hard Core inhibition as a lifestyle

That old metaphor, which I heard a couple years ago, buzzed, on a bus around xujiahui, and the huangpu river, maybe going down to the meiluo cheng, about the one part of the brain, the cortex, inhibiting the thalamus, or a simlar brain area, as the cause of, our neurological correlate to depression stays with me.  Before that, I recall some similar notion, native to my own speculations, about the roots of our depression.  I mean me and my brother's depression.  And maybe I can say me and my uncle and my brother.  And maybe this applies to the satelite of people I know who were abused, violently, and in anger.

The thing is, however, I'm depressed.  The self-pityying, unaccountable, vague connotations of that term are such as I wish to avoid.  So I'm immobile, in such a way that I think this would be described as low grade chronic depression.

I don't know where to start or which way to go in telling you this.  But let me start where I'm at where I am now.  I'm sitting in front of the kitchen window,  sitting straight up and typing.  I have earplugs in and a sleeping mask on.  the door is open and the cats are wandering in and out, after being in all day due to the rain.

The reason I need to blind myself and deafen myself is because this is the only way I can feel comfortable to type most of the time.  The only way I can block out....

Whatever I'm blocking out.  The immanent distractions, the will inside of me that is constatly veering off in any which direction, that cannot put itself into any one thing that I deem productive or necessary.

To do anything, generally speaking, I need a gimmick.  This gimmick is unsusually some audio lectures, books, music, or caffeine, anger, or lateness..

The blindfold and earplugs started last year 2009 or so in Shanghai.  In the apartment off of zhanghyang lu, with the tiny dining room.  I would blindfold myself and try to cover my ears enough, since i didn't have earplugs.  Towards the end of our stay in Shanghai, I would do this while Emma's parents were milling around the house, and often I had takien some of the little balls of hash from the small plastic gum containers that I used to store my hash in.

Bakuin and susan, my cats were with me then as now.  I often had one of my glass jars that i like to use as cups.  I would have a big glasss jar of tea or coffee, or chocolate made by melting eighty percent choclate with some water and creamer.

The blindfold and the earplugs leave me alone, allow me to be in here, free from the outrside.  It's the outside that I can't hanle, that leaves me dead.  The outside me leaves without any identity, without any being.  It leaves me at the mercy whims, the urge to gratification, pleasure , and the urge to consume.

In the middle of that sentence, i reacted to the wine i heard through my earplugs and pulled one out.  It was nothing in my immediate zone of interest, something form outside, a neighbor using some machine to cut or weld maybe.  But I decided it was an acceptable time to get up and try being in the world.  I checked the mail.  No mail.

My attention is waning now, got stuck on gimmicks, the idea of gimmicks.

I have alot of gimmicks.  The idea of god is a gimmick, sometimes i've felt a presece in my mind that I associate with god, what other people know as god.  This was a different prescence than the conversations I'm always having.  I have those too.  A typical example is the one I had last ight with my therapist.  It was in the midst of another conversation I was having in my head.  I realized I was doing it, and thought of telling my therapist.  Then I was having a conversation with him about it.  Then I was telling him that even thinking about telling him would make me have a conversation with him about it.

About the conversations.

Than I thought about how this extraordinary bent in me ought, in some conventional biography of a great man, lead to the production of some skill, some advantage.  This would work if I was some trial lawyer, or a politician, or an interviewre on tv.  Or if I was a writer, hahaha. [While editing this I notice that what I was thinking at this time, last night, was also that I couldn't utilize the conversations as a skill, and this was a difference between me and the great men in the imagined biographies.]

So is that it now?  Am I clear?

What do I want to do?  Work on the Beast book.  That's the one I want to to work on, but I don't feel it.


I guess now writing this post has become a gimmick

The other gimmicks I can think of right now are other people helping me, and schedules.  The schedules are what I have the most trust in now, as escaping the bad parts of other gimmicks.  As for other people helping me, sometimes I have sort of a daydream about a motherly figure helping me to write, setting out the implements, like notepaper and a laptop, a special laptop just for writing that I think of getting, and sitting these down on the table just so.  And it's on a special writing table, and taking my hadn and guiding me to the table.  That's embarrasing, but I think it's a clear reflection of the lack of a motherly figure in my life.

It's embarrasing but even so it's so strong, a motherly figure,a white lady would be nice, and so would a black lady, in her late thirties to fifties, maybe a little plump, and neat in appearance.  It's embarrasing, but every time I think of it, the desire is real.   

Oh yes, a life of gimmicks.  Is that what I've been trying to get around?  Whith all the Brcue Lee, Daoist, Buddhist fascination I used to have? Is that what all the self help and psychology is about?  No, it's primarliy about understanding, about extravating myself from the unseen influences that abound in my mind.  It's about making sese of the lives we lead, of the spectum of minds that make up my social world.

Where do i go from here?  I wnat to stop writing now, as if this blog served a purpose and I'm ready to move on. 
Where do I go?  Stand up.  If I stand up, this may be dissapoiting in that it leads nowehre?  I don't like the idea of finishing this blog, since I need to edit it, which requires taking off the sleeping mask and letting the light and the objects aroud me in.  I dont want anymore auditory visual stimulus going on.

I don't want to hear Phil Hendrie or Christopher Hitchens or any of that stuff I liten to all day and night.  The only thing I can think to do is bring the blaket from the couch and put it over my head and the computer, so I can limit the range of intrusion and edit this blog, publish it and.... I don't know what comes next.

I can't really say I want any of those gimmicks, or that the absence of gimmicks is the solution. For any solution is in itself a gimmick, I sense.

I have to go the bathroom.

I will get up, and them i will come back witht he blanket and edit this blog ad publish it.  I want somethig to listen to while I'm up and about.  I will lisen to soemthing.  I will take off my sleeping mask and use the other cpomputer to listen to something.  I'm using Emmas computer, and my computer is at the other end of the aprrtment, buy the door, on a chair.

I'm back, but I'm not using the blanket.  Maybe I'll go get it in a minute or so.  I'm eating strawberries.  This is a gimmick, as it gives me a sense of doing something healthy.  Eating potatoes is a gimmick, as food impulse keep me going.  I'm going to cut up a potato and fry up the pieces. I wish I had ketchup or eggs to go with it.  This is my second potato of the day.

NON-FICTION: I want to be Michael Chabon, not a Phillip Roth.

I thought of a great analogy/method of overcoming my writing problems, particularly narrative and description.

Stephen King is like Shannon, Michael Chabon is like Tim/Misael/Jerry

What Stephen does that I can't is, like Shannon, he decorates better than me.

Every time I write something, there is always insufficient information, and with this novel I've been revising, now that I've added more description and plot information, it still doesn't seem very good.

It's like now I've prettied up my novel, but it's still unimpressive, something I invite all my friends over to see, and then console myself by saying “The place is still awkwardly put together, and uninspired, but it's good for Darren.” and thinking that it's because my other strengths that they still like me, inspite of the house I live in, when my friends fail to show anything but polite agreement.

It's not because I'm lazy, as the common folk might say. 'Lazy' is a concept only meaningful in coexistence with 'duty'. Otherwise, all you have is a desire not to do something, which then may conflict with a desire to do something.

But I am not 'lazy' about not wanting to go outside naked, I am 'lazy' about the things I don't think of or don't want to do. And, with decorating my house, I am just not aware enough.

I think this is because I am either dissociated due to my abuse trauma, or a natural tendency towards particular perceptual orientations, or both.

As it turns out, you can have fun coming to my house for the conversation, but it's not comfy, and not somewhere where you want to live.

I can't just let go and give the reader all the information they might need, I'm too condescending.

Like, just now, I thought “Should I indicate to the reader of this post that I am talking about my house to describe my story?” And the answer was “If they stupid enough not to get it, I might need to offer a little hint!”

So, in an attempt to overcome, to some extent, my sparse stories, I will try to figure out how I would compete with Shannon, Tim, Jerry, and Misael, if I had to have a few friends over and make them think that hanging out, and staying the weekend or longer was more fun at my place then at other people's places.

Let's look at the bowl I just took a bit out of. I made a 'soup' by butting bananas in a little boiling water and then peeling oranges and putting them in one wedge at a time.

I didn't plan it out ahead of time, I just repeated what I did yesterday. I didn't use the same amount of each fruit, nor did I consider the idea of using the same proportions.

And in my house, there are too many things, which I am not good at organizing.

So, if guys were coming over to my house, I would best to clean two days before they came, and then again, the day they came.

I would have to clean the kitchen extra well, and I would have to make the bowls, spices, vinegar, soy sauce, and every else non-essential to what they need to see in a kitchen. I would also, if I had them, put some flowers over the sink in the window.

So far, not at all creative.

One thing I would do, which I usually don't, is pay attention to my personal appearance when my friends came over. I would shave, shower, where nice, clean clothes, make sure I didn't have too many ingrown hairs, and that my hair wasn't too meessy.

Oh, I would have to think about where they were gonna be sitting, how far apart from each other, what they would be sitting on, what they would have to choose from, in turns of comfort versus utility. I would also think about what they were going to looking at while they were sitting.

I would do well to hide all but a few, nice looking, cosmetic bottles and tubes, maybe leave out the tube of light velvet lotion, or the dark red chanel perfume bottle.

If it was Jerry, Misael, or Tim, I'm sure they would like to have something fancy, like a special kind of beef for dinner, fancy silverware, a cigar, or wine.

Shannon would like to have something somewhat novel, exotic, or something very traditional and authentic.

I would like prepare something light, and with treats, like cakes, pies, or fruit. I would also give them tea rather than wine, or coffee. I might also offer them to get high, to enhance our experience.

Well, let's see what lessons I have so far:

King does traditional story types better than I do, he likes the exotic, but not too exotic, like Douglas Adams, Mieville, or Egan.

Chabon wants to dazzle his readers, and the last time I had guests over, I just made jokes, let them choose a dvd to watch, and made sarcastic comments. I was wearing my thermals and my purple Eagle Point, Oregon sweater that I've had for ten years but won't throw away because it's so comfy.

an hours writing on Chinese New Year

 I told myself I'm going to write for one hour without stopping. That means i will stop at one thirty am.

I'm listening to book eleven of the left behind series: Armageddon.

My main tasks today have been to compile the notes for my novel, which are written on the backs of old fliers for Shanghai Daily that Emma brought home, the paper packaging for pirated dvds here (consisting of paper slightly firmer than construction paper and having four segments, the front contains the movie cover and the back description and two other movie related panels.), large papers that i hang up on the hall, timelines already hung up on the wall, and pages from my many never-full notebooks.

oh, my other task is studying HSK vocab by writing out sentences for words that i dont know in my intermediate vocab book. Some of them I know but i forget the tone, like 跨,to straddle, the one to crumble and the one to boast. Sometimes I see the pinyin and I realized that I have been using the wrong tone, or that I have been using the characters without knowing the tones. Thats not as bad, because sometimes I just repeat things direct from memory. I'm good at imitating things I hear. But it's still embarrassing to realize I've been saying the name of the place like the science and technology museum the right way, but doing so unconsciously.

One of the innocent but annoyingly repetitive questions I can rely on my Chinese comrades asking me is whether or not studying Chinese hard. Aside from its frustrating recurrence hundreds of time every year, I am annoyed by the implied simplicity and the insincerity of the question.

I don't think any real student of any language should think in such acontextual terms as hard or easy. Like, I Consider Latin really hard because of all the cases, but its also easy in its sentence struecture and vocabulary (because I know so many latin word descendants in Spanish and English)

So people ask me if Chinese is hard, rhetorically, because they want to sympathize and establish a tentative bond between themselves and a foreigner. But I, in my rigorously analytic, everyones bothering me state of mind, explain clearly and briefly that the hard aspect of learning Chinese is really just the reading and writing. The pronunciation is much simpler than English and the grammar is too.

(It's Chinese New Years, so its so fucking loud right now with all the fireworks. I havent been out of the house all day. I cannot hear much of the Left Behind book that just finished and many a car alarm is chiming in unison with the armageddon like explosions 'round my cave.)

The thing about Chinese is that you cant just read through something and store away all the words you dont know for later. Like, I still dont know what 'eorundem' means in Latin. But see, it has letters and I remember it. However. If you see 甚 with a place/land radical next to it, you have to look up it up in the dictionary before you no how its pronounced. You might get lucky by guessing that, since without the radical it's 'shen', therefore with the radical it might be something close, like 'shen' in a different tone, or chen, or zhen. But that's no guarantee.

(I've now reached the point, as many of us do every chinese new year, when the noise from the fireworks is so loud and so persistent that my instincts have overridden my conscious and I'm quite tense and nervous and looking for somewhere to hide from the noise and gundpowder scent seeping in through my closed windows.)

I see now that it is tweve a clock, so thats why there making all that damn noise.

Well, well, well, I saw the movie "the Ten" which is a very fresh comedy cut up into ten stories, one for each commandment. As I watched, I realized I was seeing the generational shift in comedy formalized.

The trend in comedy that started with Airplane and Police Story, and continuing on to the Simpons, MST3K, Kids in the Hall, The Ben stiller Show and South Park is now becoming perhaps more intensified with this younger generation (actually it is my generation)

Imitation of Pop culture in order to mock, along with intricate absurdity is still the paradigm, but the form is changing. As of yet, I haven't worked out the details, but its good to see that it, at least hasnt degenerated.

Anyways, Speaking of the kids in the hall, I recently rewatched the first three seasons and I was amazed at how advanced they were, both in topic and imagination. The sketch telling everyone to "stand in the new style" , the one where Dave foley goes to ask his boss for a raise and his boss says he doesnt deserve it, since Dave wrote this present Sketch which uses such a cliched premise (a guy asking for a raise)... and "Screw you Taxpayer" which talks about how the whole show is payed for by public funds and flaunts their contempt of the public.

(The fireworks quieted for a second, i felt hope stirring.... wait. there not starting back up, at least nearby, just bottle rockets and distant rumbling and alarms. oh shit, there we go, they're back)

I bought some new under wears, or long johns or whatever they're called at the carrefour when me and steve went to thumb plaza to eat at punjabis.

I am curious to see how long I will wear these new p.j.'s long john's before i actually wash the clothing i wore for the last two months, so that i might change clothes yet again.

The day that we saw The Ten, I also purchased and previewed the new Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp, what an insult!

I think Depp was good in twenty one jump street and the one where he played the flaming, alcoholic pirate. But Sweeney Todd is a fucking musical!! If you cannot sing with a deep enough voice than you are not fit for the fucking part!!!!

Why does he have to be so arrogant as to ruin a cool musical just because his pseudo artistic goth buddy Tim Burton is too in love to find someone who suits the fucking role???

Are they supposed to be an item? Any self respecting, successful gay man should know better than to go after a straight guy just because he is hot. That's so trite!

Oh shucky shucks, I'm almost done with the hour!!!! Hurray, Ive actually got something done.

Sadly, I feel not much better for the effort, although perhaps i will be able to concentrate on either of the tasks that I have set for myself. I really 渴望很久to出版my 书　any 书都可以。　
its been eighteen years since I wanted to be a writer. And to date I have only published/sold six articles. thats not very good Mr. Taylor. But, We've been over this ground to many times before and so has every other failure and successful person.

I think I will finish my notes for Matthews last post regarding his video game. That will get one of the many put-off-in-favor-of-putting-off-something-else-tasks out of the way.

Well, I have been alone for the past ten or twelve days. Here in the apartment, Emma went back to Shaanxi. I want her to get pictures of the food there 扯面，麻辣炒面，and 凉皮儿. Also I want her to make a video of her grandma, who I really like and feel bad about not seeing this time.


I'm going to seperate this into two posts, i'll cut it off at the beginning of the 'Facing Shame' portion. good night and happy new years and 看春着晚，多发点短信。发财，发财，　不要花财on dorritos and punjabis!!!