Saturday, 30 March 2013 @ 03:07 0 stares
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.
And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”
― Haruki Murakami, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
“I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
“You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction--they're all just fuel.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark
Labels: haruki murakami, quotes
@ 02:42 0 stares
Ritsuka nodded and took a book from his messenger bag – Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. He carefully placed it back on the bookshelf that filled an entire wall of her office. After a few moments of perusal, he grabbed another from the shelf. Jung's The Undiscovered Self was tucked neatly into his bag.
"From the master to the protégé is it?"
Ritsuka sat down. "I just want to see the difference. I don't believe that Freud is as crazy as everyone makes him out to be. I think they just don't understand."
"Oh?" Katsuko-sensei turned to look at him. She was done with her computer and the screen behind her showed its usual screensaver of hypnotic circles and squares swirling into some psychedelic pattern beyond recognition, a digital Rorschach of sorts.
Ritsuka had spent hours staring at that screensaver. "How so?"
"Well," Ritsuka began, settling into the couch and getting comfortable. He crossed his legs and looked at Katsuko-sensei as he talked. "First of all, Freud's interpretation of our libido is very misunderstood. The word has been transformed to refer to sexual appetites instead of the pursuit of pleasure that Freud meant it as. Libido is a very nihilistic thing, it's the force that drives us to do everything. It has very little to do with actual sex, but since libido is associated with sex in modern culture, thanks to Freud, people say that he's all about sex."
"Well, you have to admit a lot of what he wrote was sexual in nature. Like how dreams stem from sexual dissatisfaction."
"There's more to life than sex," Ritsuka said thoughtfully. "Our dreams don't stem from sexual dissatisfaction, but rather from sensual dissatisfaction. It is a depravity of our senses that dreams exhibit."
Katsuko-sensei blinked, clearly taken aback. She was constantly shocked at Ritsuka's precociousness. "Go on."
"Well, everything is a sensual experience for me. We use our senses for everything, but very few people are aware of it. I think I'm hyper aware of these things, because I feel that the world is a very sensual place." Ritsuka blushed. "I've learned to be so excited by it, so enthralled with people and smells and tastes. I'm hyperaware of everything and really enjoy it."
"You're the type of person who drinks of life."
"I'd much rather swim in it."
@ 02:26 0 stares
I found out, that perhaps I'm not the only one... the only one who thinks and feels such things. We started talking about what we wanted to do later in life and I asked her a question. It was, " Do you ever feel like your fate is set?" Surprisingly, she replied with yes, so I decided to tell her, that sometimes I felt so trapped because I could just see how my life was going to go, because I was such a coward, I would never do anything special or reckless in fear of the consequences and that I had no motivation because I didn't know what were my goals anymore. She understood it, the pressures of growing up with this kind of racial family background and our parents being first generation immigrants and working so hard to make a life for us, we have to repay them. We were both molded from a young age, and made to work hard. And that's why, I don't know what I really want at all, I don't know if my goals are my goals, or if they are just the ones my parents have placed on me. After all, I've always done what they've wanted me to.
Another thing we agreed on was that we really wanted to take a gap year after high school was finished, and just go travelling all over the world. But of course, we couldn't because our parents expected us to go to university straight away and get a job. We both are mature enough to know that we do indeed owe them a lot, and we can't bear to disappoint them. But that fact acts to the pull, to the wanderlust. Knowing what we want, but it's something that we might not ever really have. I think I wanted to cry at that point. I didn't look at her. I told her another thing, how I just wanted to run off into the bushland surrounding us right now. Just live there, and not come out. I was starting to feel scared that she would think I needed help or something and was really messed up, which I kind of am, but she said she was the same. She told me her father ran a karaoke bar and her mother a fish and chip shop and she never ever really travelled or had fun. She didn't have siblings so often she had to play by herself or help out at her mother's shop. Nobody really liked her at school either. She said she didn't really have many friends and she was afraid of losing people. I haven't heard "let's be friends" said it loud. The fact that she said it out loud made me feel... more secure, than I've felt before with friendships. It's as if I could never believe that someone liked me without them saying that I was a friend. I was afraid that they didn't, that they were just pretending.
At different points down the track, we would point out pretty natural features and landscapes to each other and joked a lot that we should run away together. And I really did want to, and I think she wanted to too.. but the consequences stopped us. I told her I think I would be happy if I for once just let go off anything and did reckless things at whims. I explained to her too, that it's not like I didn't love my parents, or everything else I had back at home... and she finished my sentence for me. Sometimes, this inexplicable feeling just overpowers you.
I think I asked her some other things... those sort of topics you always end up wondering about at night.
I didn't say much after that, but I was so tempted to just let it all loose, tell her how empty and lost and sad I felt. But I didn't. I think we caught up to another girl along the track. This girl was extremely religious, and having discarded my upbringing in a catholic primary school, I was interested to know what she thought about things. I wonder if it was mean of me to .. almost interrogate her I guess. I asked her if she believed there was a heaven after death and as expected she answered yes. I asked her what heaven was like and she replied that she didn't really know, but she thought it was cloudy, and nice. I asked her what people do there, and I think she was kind of confused but she replied with, they probably hung out with god and angels and stuff. Usually I would have laughed at that kind of answer, but I didn't want to hurt her and she sounded so sincere. She then told me that she was sorry, she didn't really know the answers to my questions but she knew that I was definitely going to heaven.
I felt kind of warm at that. I told her I was flattered. I didn't tell her though by bible standards, I'm probably not going to heaven anyway. Going to hell for being able to love... I wonder what she would have said to that.
I just believe... we all die equal... there is no heaven or hell... I mean.. if we were supposed to pray for the sinners... why does nobody... ever pray for Satan? Anyway, to me both heaven and hell sound absolutely ridiculous, just another system to make us do the right thing. I think humans should be able to be moral... without the 'threat' of going to hell.
... Anyway... I wonder if she remembers all this even happened, those few moments of ... closeness I guess. I remember Fo said to me the other day... that I did belong somewhere. I just belonged to that group of people in the world, who thought a lot and felt differently. I was glad... that I seemed to meet someone like that in real life. The wondering... questioning... and hyperawareness of everything...and at the same time.. so much distance and bouts of numbness
@ 01:44 0 stares
I seem to be stuck in a kind of limbo, sitting here, doing nothing, feeling nothing, just ... waiting.
Friday, 22 March 2013 @ 03:51 0 stares
the Richard Howard translation of the Little Prince is horrible it makes me want to cry. He single-handedly made it lose its charm. I miss that lovely bittersweet language and wistful feel that I still remember experiencing when I was younger. Before I even knew what being wistful felt like.
Someone please buy me the Katherine Woods translation, I want to keep it forever and love it.
Though, of course, I wish I understand French so I could read it in its original form.
It would be nice if we could just be able to read any language appreciate foreign literature in it's purest form...
@ 03:43 0 stares
When my school library won't let me borrow books classified as 'senior/adult fiction.'
Not happy.
Kindly do not get in my way, books are meant for people to read them, not just sit there on the shelf and gather dust. I wouldn't borrow it if I didn't like it anyway. I understand the level of my own maturity. Like Wilde said, "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all." Take Lolita by Nabakov for example. If I want to read Murakami or Kundera or a book on a psychotic man who has a fetish for sleeping girls or something like that, why should you stop me?
I don't want to read those stupid vampire young adult books, I just want an interesting book that makes me think, question my own moral compass even. I am not being pretentious. As an institution of education, what exactly are you promoting?
Wednesday, 6 March 2013 @ 01:10 0 stares
I constantly find myself catching the live ones and moving them outside. That's time consuming but it has become a habit, saving these little living creatures.
It's probably because I often find myself thinking, just if we really do have immortal souls and are constantly reborn, not just a lump of meat given temporary sentience, I would like very much if a kind person saved me even if I were just a small, insignificant insect. I supposed I wouldn't have a brain big enough to comprehend these things if I were, say an ant, but it would be nice all the same.
There was a newt on my pillow the other day when I left the window open, escaping from the heat outside and there was a giant cricket in my bathtub yesterday, although I'm not quite sure how it got there.
Sunday, 3 March 2013 @ 23:52 0 stares
It seemed too blue, too bright
Like somebody had painted it there.
And the houses bathed in sunlight,
Looked like toy models,
And I can't help but wonder,
If we're all playthings in somebody's grand scenery.