April 2012
21 posts
oh fuck! I’m hearing some faint voices… X(
this could be the beginning of the end…
on shallow forms of anti-racism:
My conclusion is basically that you are not fighting oppression by humiliating the (or one particular) oppressor. You call them out. You embarrass them.
Where do you go from there? Aside from alleviating your temporary rage and resentment, nothing much is accomplished except further animosity. I don’t really believe in peace, in the stupid liberal utopian sense. I believe in conquering...
More self-reflection on privilege and education:
I was at this space for at-risk youth. It became very evident who the service-providers were versus the service-users. The former mostly white, the latter mostly racialized.
ANYWAYZ… I went to a spoken word workshop. One of the people there was this really privileged white woman who was also very unaware of her privilege. Okay. So she pissed me off. Everything she said, I just responded in...
Well, I guess the solution is simple. I just think about all the people I don’t want in my life and all the ones I’m grateful for having in my life. Then concentrate on the latter. And everything will be good, again. :)
Ughghghgh...
Life is so frustrating. Communicating with normative people. Even if they are queer and disabled but without any understanding of queer or disability politics and how to deal with triggers. Everyone has their triggers. Trying to talk honestly to the other person about how we trigger each other is super difficult because the other person is just like— “you have issues!” basically...
a happy encounter:
I met one person who seems to understand me, which makes me very happy. But what is understanding anyway? Obviously, they haven’t had the same experiences as me in many ways, but they understand— something fundamental about myself, that others don’t. The importance of theory. How theory is NOT a futile and facetious academic exercise. Theory is more fluid and ironic and evocative...
On "curiosity":
Every word in the English language has a potential to be problematic. “Curiosity” is one of my therapist’s favourite words when it comes to facing experiences he is not familiar with. When facing the Other. (which in this concrete situation means me— I am Other to him.)
ANYHOO… connotation of curiosity: European colonialism— the curious gaze of the colonzier...
On religion and politics, or something like that:
There is something beautiful in every piece of suffering, every piece of human vulnerability, every supplication of the oppressed and defenseless. The seduction of that beauty leads to attachment. To personal emotional investment. We may call it compassion or any number of words for sharing/embracing our sufferings, facing the suffering of the Others in their Otherness.
We get pulled by this...
On Christianity
Well, I guess there is a reason I *chose* Christianity but the real reason is the politics. The potential for radical emancipatory politics therein. It’s an interpretation of Christianity— the political interpretation that I’m interested. Yet, it is not *just* an interpretation. I really do believe it. It is very different from the view that God loves everyone equally. Everyone...
“burn all the photographs” — I could’ve sworn that was a line from a song by Adele but I can’t find it anywhere… oh well…
I didn’t burn anything (except in my mind) but threw some things away. I had one last look before throwing them out. You smiled a few times but you looked extremely unhappy in every one. The seldom occasions where you did...
a small radical political act
For me, it’s a radical act to begin everyday by wearing socks. Protecting the skin on my feet from the harmful chemicals and toxins that randomly make contact with them as I walk about / enter into the world.
Anyway, this is a metaphor. It’s okay if nobody gets it but me.
————
Elaboration: There is nothing inherently good or evil about those chemicals or...
Came really close to full-blown psychosis the other day— hearing voices, hallucinating, but I mostly hallucinate smells. Just by luck, I had an appointment with my therapist that day and I went. He did everything in his power to calm me down. I felt like some significant healing took place then.
I was able to reintegrate many parts of myself that were disowned and dissociated. He...
“Your pain
is the breaking
of the shell
that encloses
your understanding.
...”
– Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet
Boondocks quotes the very first stanza and the two of the later stanzas; the only reason that stupid episode was worth watching. :D
“The revolutionary wants to change the world; he transcends it and moves toward...”
– Sartre. Baudelaire
someone from OPIRG gave me this quote. Awesome! :)
I almost died... (again) ...LOL!
Due to a pretty bad case of insomnia, I was awake since like 4:30am and some random time during the morning decided to wander driftlessly around the streets. After getting a booster juice, which is my breakfast, I walked aimlessly around and around, roaming the hallowed and hollowed avenues near my current place of residence.
Anyhoo… I became lost in my thoughts again. The streetlight was...
Dear A--,
(CONTEXT: I was having a disagreement with A— about whether academia could provide a site for radical, political resistance to dominant structures of oppression, e.g. transphobia, etc. I said yes; she said no— the entire system is wrong and has to be eradicated, academia is part of the system.)
I’m sorry you have suffered so much trauma and so much violence. In prison. In sex...
I decided to delete my other blogs since I feel it’s not necessary to have like 20 different blogs. LOL.
But yeah, I avidly believe that developing an anti-oppressive politics is indeed a spiritual journey, as my former TA for equity studies used to say. I feel like it is a sacred activity and I don’t want to discuss it in a space where I feel unsafe. Hence, I left the Centre...
Even if your happiness is bought by and built upon the capital and foundations of my pains, my sorrows, and my lacerations, I feel eternally honoured that I contributed to your happiness. To your happiness only— nothing else matters.
After an evening of silent tears whilst staring blankly into space at the 24hr McDonald’s, I woke up this morning heading towards a familiar place. It was closed. I arrived 15min too early. Now I sit amongst the empty tables and chairs at another campus building nearby. Too early, before the hustle and bustle of the day begins.
I reflect upon the vicissitudes of life, of death, of...
“night’s cherry blossoms—
heavenly ladies
among us”
– Issa (via yama-bato)
March 2012
4 posts
It's raining.
It’s raining outside right now. Finally, a weather evocative of my present mood. I often wonder if rain was the heavens crying? Not tears of sorrow, or of regret, but tears of releasement, compassion, and understanding. My soul aligns with the internal movement of the universe. In restfulness. In solidarity.
It seems that something greater than myself is finally smiling at me. And I smile...
Hope.
I imagine one day in our old age, we meet again. You, in venerable grey-hair, as beautiful as the last time I saw you, a laughing youth with dancing, radiant eyes. Smiling. That endearing, mysterious smile. Me, taken aback by your presence. We embrace in loving silence. Our hearts meet again. My soul awash in wholeness. Finally, I am home.
Even if I “fell in love” with you...
a bouquet of roses symbolizes beauty
but what is beautiful about a bouquet of roses? the true and raw beauty of it comes from the roses and not the bouquet roses that were once a blossoming, flourishing life-force in the bouquet, however, they are nothing but dead plants, corpses remnants of a formerly burgeoning vitality so the beauty of each rose comes from its life
when we kill the...
December 2011
70 posts
3 tags
"Life is life despite life..."
landanj:
“Life is life despite life— in its patience and in its ageing.” —Levinas, Otherwise Than Being: Or Beyond Essence
