Year:2022

March 2022

April 2022

May 2022

November 2022

December 2022

December 31st, 2022

The difference between the days disappears along with those to share it with…

December 29th, 2022

And how tragic that it is the very act of swimming that muddies the waters!

December 23rd, 2022

How dreadful a life it is where to have is far worse than to have lost!

November 23rd, 2022

Once again—the squirrels are fat; and I am alone. Where have you been? I said to myself— where on Earth did you go? You should not look there, came the reply. I thought that you would’ve known. Did you seek yourself in the roars of silence? in the deaf’ning and blinding snow? Did you search through the veils of joy and pain? or in the face of those you know? Birth and death hath torn me asunder; now you must endure the throe— Only then will you find that which you seek; and the answers of far-ago.

May 5th, 2022

This afternoon I embarked on my weekly pilgrimage from my apartment to the Hungarian Pastry Shop. I glided along the northern edge of Central Park on my bike, enjoying how the rough contours of cobblestone beneath my wheels jostled the frame — so much so that I had to loosen my usual chokehold grip on the handlebars, lest my brain rattle violently against my skull. I was pleased by this feeling not because it left any soothing impression on my arms or legs (quite to the contrary), but because it imposed upon me a reminder of how I should try to operate in this world. For various reasons, I hold a concerning amount of tension in my body: whenever I write with a pencil or pen, I grip the barrel so firmly that my hand begins to cramp far too quickly and a permanent writer’s bump has grown on the left side of my middle finger; I tense my shoulders in any circumstance, even when carrying out a task of as little consequence as lifting a feather; my teeth and jaw are often clenched as if I am…

April 17th, 2022

I forgot to recount in my previous entry an encounter that I had on that day while walking back to the Christopher Street station. This commute takes me on a lovely walk through Washington Square Park, and consequentially feeds my voyeuristic compulsion for people-watching. That day, however, I wasn’t in my usual mood to peer into the casual intimacies of park-peoples — I was wrapped up in lament, and tred through the park with careful footsteps and likely a somber expression. But even in my mindlessness, I happened to lock eyes with a girl leaning up against the backrest of a park bench. Tight black coils bounced from her head, and a fitted army-green top with short sleeves and loose black jeans dressed her small frame. With her left hand and a bent elbow she held a up a smoking joint. When our gazes met, a slight smile bloomed on her lips, her free hand shot up into the air, and she gave me a tiny yet eager wave. Although small, her gesture was imbued with the intimacy of a dear…

April 14th, 2022

I was walking from the Christopher Street station to the gym this morning when I came across a parade of children being chaperoned to school by their parents. I began to daydream about being their age, if only for a day, if for nothing else than to relinquish myself of the overbearing weight of self-knowledge and consciousness. Living in oblivion sounded quite appealing at the time. But in a moment of clarity and foresightedness, I caught my wistful thinking as it was tumbling towards self-indulgence: I thought of a scenario in which, in twenty years time, I may very well be crossing the path of someone my own age (a ripe twenty-two) on the street. What if I were to think in that moment, “I wish I could be that age once more, to enjoy the frivolousness and levity that accompanies young adulthood”? How foolish would I be then? Better not to wist, and to instead wist. A conundrum that I am contemplating today is the problem of habituation with respect to eating food. It’s an unfortunate…

April 13th, 2022

I had a strange dream last night. Well, in actuality, it was a multitude of dreams, but this particular one disturbed me. I only recall a single grotesque fragment of it. Someone was cooking a gargantuan purple fish on a gas stove. Its jaundiced, bulging eyes protruded from its head and its body was covered in yellowed spikes. Most nauseatingly, its mouth was stuffed with tentacles, colored with the same purple hue and littered with the same spikes as were on the rest of the body. The person cooking the fish looked at me and then grabbed ahold of the tentacles and twisted them loose from the fish’s mouth. He said, “Here, I know you like this part” (of the fish) and laid the writhing mass on my plate. That was all I remember. But when I woke up, I was extremely repulsed. I have my suspicions regarding the origin of this dream in my subconscious, which is why I decided to record it. Earlier this week, I bought some oxtails to make my favorite Korean comfort dish: ggori-gomtang. I don’t…

April 10th, 2022

I wonder if birds ever feel despair as us humans do. Do they experience loneliness? Is there ever a moment in a bird’s lifetime when they feel outcast by their fellow feathered folk and they can’t find a single thing — nary a single branch — in this world to lean or rest upon? What do they do in those moments? How do they go on? Or are they contented with searching the skies for yet another seed to peck at? This notion sounds ridiculous, but I wonder if our experiences (birds, humans) are more similar than one may initially imagine. This morning, I saw a female sparrow (well, they aren’t really sparrows, but I’ve forgotten the correct name for them) nip at the feathers of a male, vying for his attention. A bird’s equivalent of flirtatious pursuit, I presume. It made me dream about the microcosm of the bird’s love life — on their scale, are there gestures as subtle as a blush, a stolen glance, or a light caress on another’s shoulders? Do they exist, only to be imperceptible to the naïve…

March 5th, 2022

I find my thoughts racing, resulting in my inability to sleep. I’m thinking about my Crisis: At the core of the event was the realization that I had built my life on a bed of sand, and it crumbled when the tides of uncertainty came rushing in. I think that I gave myself electroshock therapy, which sounds insane to write out, but it truly felt as if my nervous system was being reprogrammed: I felt shocks down my legs and arms and the nerve endings at the tips of my thumb and index finger turned black. Sensory stimulus afterwards, especially sounds and music, felt as though I was experiencing them for the first time. As a result, a depressive fog that has loomed over me for years and years was lifted. In the months leading up to the climactic event, I had incessant feelings of “strangeness” — something was amiss. I knew certain concepts and themes were important (e.g. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems) and was attracted to them, but I just couldn’t connect the dots. I’d try to write about…