Evening Thoughts: What time is it there?

If there were a single theme I could muster from the past few years of my life, it would be "displacement."

Funny, because it's all relative to the years spent in high school. Even before those years, though, displacement has always been a part of my everyday. Growing up in Inwood, moving to Riverdale, and you know, they say it only matters as much as you make it matter, but I'm not so sure they're right. Being Asian-faced, having parents who have lived much of their lives in a distant Korea, and not relating to any particular face, class, language, or location, has always been a part of the feeling that I'm constantly shifting from one place to another.

But what marks these most recent years so special is that I've really pushed the extent to which I have moved from here, to there, to somewhere else. Geographically, I've never traveled so much--I lived in Seoul, Korea by myself for three summers, moving from a small apartment there, to college or home here (in New York), again and again. I've gone from New York to Seoul, from Dorm to Dorm, from Home to Apartment, from College to Work, from Relationship to Single, from Friends to other Friends, from Downtown to Uptown, from here to there, to somewhere else.

All this movement is really interesting in that it's like a sifter. You shake it from side to side, and the more vigor you exert the more you:

sift (sĭft)
v.sift·ed, sift·ing, sifts
v.tr.

1. To put (flour, for example) through a sieve or other straining device in order to separate the fine from the coarse particles.

Ten Minute Start: light on my feet

Kikuo Johnson, beautiful comics

I listened to "The Fray" and "R-Kelly" on the subway ride today, drawing sketches for my up coming single episode strip. The Fray say, "Everyone knows I'm in/ Over my head" and R-Kelly says "My mind is telling me no but my body my body's telling me yes." And oh man, this woman sat next to me and she smelled so good, and was wearing this beautiful yellow dress and red shoes. Yesterday's work-out was awesome.

I actually feel good, today.

Ten Minute Break: up-dates

Good morning!

It’s another week, and it’s another Monday. I woke up this morning and turned on “Do the Right Thing” and watched the first few minutes while getting ready for work; Spike Lee constantly amazes me with his theatre-esque direction and writing. He builds this world, colors it, and gives it a plurality of voices, each so strong, so insistent, and so obsessive. I picked up “The Invisible Man” and read it on the train. That book is scary how it talks to you, tells you things you’re not sure you’re ready to hear.

I took a different walking-route to work, and ended up getting a little protein drink (power apple pie, they call it). It was delicious. My friend is taking a road trip across America and he’s writing about it in his blog: American Jam Check it out. I spoke to another friend of mine last night, and he really opened my mind up. I was all stuck and hung up in a few impossibilities, and talking to him was like walking out into the cool morning sun. I’m co-writing with a friend a piece on a movie I’ve really enjoyed lately. I’ve set deadlines for certain projects relating to writing and drawing. And this week is going to be a pressure cooker. Big closing on Friday. Got to keep on moving.

I will figure this out

Ten Minute Break:

Hatching a plan, designing my escape route...

Memory

It was the day of my brother's high school graduation, and my grandmother and I were sitting in the car. She reached into her purse and pulled out petals of jasmine flowers. I used to tell her how much I loved the smell when I visited her at her apartment. She gave them to me, by the clumps. They had fallen and she picked them up, thinking of me.

Good Morning

This is my roar in the morn, Singing Lord! give me more, stretch out my body at the shore, the sea is a rough page and I intend to make my mark on the biggest of all stages, pain is a part of growth, we all struggle to know since nothing is easy but everything's fair, compare not yourself to the weak hearted and scared, for you don't know the courage harbored in quiet shells.

Much of what I do these days, much of what I say, is a clumsy improvisation. A wild and desparate attempt to make shapes in the darkness. I try to speak truth, but truth is only possible with immense strength. I see such truthful words every once in a while and I am humbled. A wild brush fire burns quickly. I hope for pheonix's flight, and indeed, from the ashes I am reborn everyday. But even a bird that lives for a million years feels the fleeting nature of time.

Please excuse these ramblings for the moment. I promise to bring home something good, someday.

Peace.

Ten Minute Break: a short verse (after much thought)

the only promise that matters
is mine to me, and after many years
of being split between
hopeful and terribly dissapointed
it's about time I kept a promise
of mine to me.

Ten Minute Break: re-Boot

Get excited.

Excited to read these books I recently got. A guide to drawing Comic Books, a collection of Billy Collins's poems, a collection of essays on design, by Michael Bierut. Also recently got an issue of the economist. I haven't been up to date on my world news in a while. Nothing like a narrow point of view of everything to get me interested again. I have my lows, where I simply don't see the point of anything. But when I'm up, everything comes together and all the pieces fit as if everything is connected. Broadening the playing field. Stretching out my legs. Ready, set...

go.

A Short My Bro Made:

Ten Minute Break: Other

Hey, it's been a while.

More thoughts on Otherness: Growing up, since middle school even, I've always looked to other people as models of how to-be. Otherness has come natural to me, for whatever reasons. Sometimes it has been oppressive. By looking at some other person as a reference point for self creation can be self destructive if in fact that other person is really a definition of what you are not, and what you are.

Sometimes otherness has proven liberating. It can be as simple as seeing an Asian face on a magazine cover or a movie--an Asian face that is not a martial artist, a computer nerd, or a foreigner, but someone who transcends these definitions and adds layers to the thick skin that goes deep to the bone. This kind of otherness is the best. It collapses otherness on itself. It points the flashlight of identity to find that the entire room can be lit.

Of course, some people tend to say we are all the same. We are all each others keepers. I believe this is a valid sentiment, but it is about something entirely different and separate from the issue of otherness, and not a solution. Sameness is important for empathy and understanding, and can be useful in communicating ideas and feelings. Sameness does not solve otherness, and when sameness is applied to otherness, it merely shows that otherness can be a human experience. I do believe we are all the same, but sometimes empathy without experience, and understanding without knowing, can be just as oppressive as willed ignorance, and forced teaching. Sameness is a way of relating to other people, otherness is a way to relate others to your self.

When you relate the other to yourself, and when you find that this experience expands the definition of what self can be, then otherness will no longer restrict your movements. Suddenly, every new encounter will add to your definitions, and of course, defining will no longer require "not" and "different from" but a string of "and"'s.