Revision as of 08:54, 17 September 2019

why I write

1.

My mom finally mailed me a box of stuff, which she picked from what I had mailed to her from the US the year before. She said she couldn't include the knives because the government banned the mailing of all sharp objects. My immersion blender didn't make it, either.

My mom sent the box from China. I knew she packed it because I found two plastic bags with the Chinese label "Bei Yi Department Store." She worked there for more than twenty years before retiring at the age of fifty. I recognized my dad's handwriting on the mailing label. In the field for "detailed description of contents," he write — in their Chinese characters and then following the same squarish strokes the English letters — "Clothes" and "Books". He declared their worth 1500 USD.

Inside the box I found Letters to A Young Poet, The Book of Questions, a pink cookbook named Mexico, the National Geographic hiking map of Jasper National Park in Canada. I found a grocery bag I got on the beach of Oaxaca and two shirts from a slightly touristy shop in Chiapas.

I suppose my dad understood the value of these things to me by putting down a number ten times higher than the material cost.

I ordered Letters to a Young Poet from Amazon the day after my architecture advisor told me to read it. "My dad wanted me to be a lawyer," he said, "as an English major, I thought architect would be the middle ground." We were having a conversation about future. I remember him saying: the present things are clear while the past trickles away. Trickles, tinkles, twinkles, he must have said one of those words. I remember he pressed his fingers together and made a gesture towards something far. I remember agreeing with the revelation. I still remember those who instilled some sort of revelation in that young mind of mine. There were three John's, a Jeff, a Guntram and an Anne.

words from Rilke

I found solace in solitude that year. I wrote — had been writing — because I depend on it. I wrote, but I couldn't say I was a writer, because everything felt too close and too private. For years I'd only shared my writing in one of these forms: enigmatic poetry, aloof witness, and sarcasm.

There was a distance between me and me, and therefore, there was a distance between me and the world.

2.

"Being here is a demarcation of time," I wrote that in September, 2018.

I wanted to make a speech about the physical and internal turmoil, some of which I endured and some of which I inflicted on myself. But I didn't. Instead I showed some works from the past. The first website I made, the last website I made. A series of photos. A snapshot of a play script.

...

5 key texts

I want to evoke feelings. I believe it is shared human nature and thus a way to foster empathy.

Empathy comes from compassion (understanding and love) for the self. <-- don't have a text yet; does personal experience count?

Causality is important in determining narrative.

Narrative, in the dramatic sense, follows a structure.

Memories are images strung together. Words construct images — words come to me via memories. I am turning personal memories into images... And I want these images to make sense to others. I want others to understand, through these images, something about me, something about themselves.

I am still a bit confused about how narrative and memory come together.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 =why I write=
-My mom finally mailed me a box of stuff, which she picked from what I had mailed to her last year from the US. She said she couldn't include the knives because the government banned the mailing of all sharp objects. My immersion blender didn't make it, either.
+.
-My mom sent the box from China. I knew she packed it because I found two plastic bags with the Chinese label "Bei Yi Department Store," a place she worked for more than twenty years and from which she retired at the age of fifty. My dad wrote the mailing label. I recognized his handwriting. In the field for "detailed description of contents," he wrote "Clothes, Books" and declared its worth of 1500 USD.
+My mom finally mailed me a box of stuff, which she picked from what I had mailed to her from the US the year before. She said she couldn't include the knives because the government banned the mailing of all sharp objects. My immersion blender didn't make it, either.
-I found my old books. Letters to A Young Poet, The Book of Questions, a pink cookbook named Mexico, the National Geographic hiking map of Jasper National Park in Canada. I found a grocery bag I got on the beach of Oaxaca and two shirts from a slightly touristy shop in Chiapas.
+My mom sent the box from China. I knew she packed it because I found two plastic bags with the Chinese label "Bei Yi Department Store." She worked there for more than twenty years before retiring at the age of fifty. I recognized my dad's handwriting on the mailing label. In the field for "detailed description of contents," he write — in their Chinese characters and then following the same squarish strokes the English letters — "Clothes" and "Books". He declared their worth 1500 USD.
+Inside the box I found Letters to A Young Poet, The Book of Questions, a pink cookbook named Mexico, the National Geographic hiking map of Jasper National Park in Canada. I found a grocery bag I got on the beach of Oaxaca and two shirts from a slightly touristy shop in Chiapas.
 I suppose my dad understood the value of these things to me by putting down a number ten times higher than the material cost.
-I bought ''Letters to a Young Poet'' the senior year of college. "My dad wanted me to be a lawyer. As an English major, I thought architect would be a middle ground," said my architecture advisor. The present things are clear, I remember him saying, while the past trickles away. Or did he say "tinkles"? "Twinkles"?  I remember he pressed his fingers together to make a gesture towards something far, and I remember agreeing with the revelation. When he told me to read Rilke, I did not hesitate for one second.
+I ordered ''Letters to a Young Poet'' from Amazon the day after my architecture advisor told me to read it. "My dad wanted me to be a lawyer," he said, "as an English major, I thought architect would be the middle ground." We were having a conversation about future. I remember him saying: the present things are clear while the past trickles away. Trickles, tinkles, twinkles, he must have said one of those words. I remember he pressed his fingers together and made a gesture towards something far. I remember agreeing with the revelation. I still remember those who instilled some sort of revelation in that young mind of mine. There were three John's, a Jeff, a Guntram and an Anne.
 '''words from Rilke'''
-I found solace in solitude that year.
+I found solace in solitude that year. I wrote — had been writing — because I depend on it. I wrote, but I couldn't say I was a writer, because everything felt too close and too private. For years I'd only shared my writing in one of these forms: enigmatic poetry, aloof witness, and sarcasm.
-Years later, I know I write because I must.
+There was a distance between me and me, and therefore, there was a distance between me and the world.
-=why I write this thesis=
+.
 "Being here is a demarcation of time," I wrote that in September, 2018.
-I wanted to make a speech about the physical and internal turmoil that I had — sometimes endured and sometime inflicted on myself —  the year before.
+I wanted to make a speech about the physical and internal turmoil, some of which I endured and some of which I inflicted on myself. But I didn't.  Instead I showed some works from the past. The first website I made, the last website I made. A series of photos. A snapshot of a play script.
-This year. The year before.
-My narratives are so bound up by the recent past that I felt a huge burden when someone asks me about it.
-My life is in fragments.
-One of the words I retreated to has been "forgetting."
+...
 =5 key texts=