And so it’s back with a vengeance.
This rubber banding–its elasticity is increasing.
What have I done to cause this?
Nothing at all.
It just happens, like a haunting.
A haunting because I have become forsaken, in forsaking the world, forsaking its people.
1:42am, Ho Chi Minh City // August 20th
Down a dark alley way, a dog looks to me in suspicion, indecisive if I’m worth the taste.
I feel he senses I’m out of place; that I do not belong here.
Everything must return to its source in due time.
A clean slate is a wonderful thing.
One may build from the scaffolding of that which previously came.
But to enter into a situation full of preconceived notions, opinions, prejudices and expectations, limits the situation entirely.
Your mother has it.
Your father has it.
Your sister, brother, uncle and cousin have it.
They all have it.
Even you have it.
The sixty-year-old man says, “Don’t worry, I’m not dying.”
And so he wastes his life.
One of my greatest fears used to be being controlled. Whether by an individual, a group, a state, or anything external to my sovereignty as an individual.
I got wind of the fact it was indeed I who controlled myself and my living experience several years ago.
I have been disaffected for several years now.
Have you ever noticed that when people say things, they’re saying it to themselves?
There is no conversation. It’s a battle. A battle with their mind.
True conversations only happen once in a blue moon.
One can feel like a vampire out in the desert, sun blazing. It’s cold hiding in the shadows all day, but the unabated sun is hardly bearable for more than a couple of minutes.
I’m used to the constant, thick heat of Southeast Asia at this point.
There’s an ever-watchful eye in your life, but who’s is it?
Not yours. And its judgements it makes are not your own.
Even after having read the previous sentence, it will begin to tell you the story of this problem, and how you need to fix it.
There’s something brewing within me and it feels like hatred.
Tame, but disdain.
Everyone’s stuck, but why think about them when you are too?
What about them renegade vows?
Vows are never made for another. They’re made for oneself.
No excerpt.