Svo Hljótt

Þú söngst til mín svo hljótt

The above is a lyric from the song "Svo Hljótt" by, you guessed it, Sigur Rós. Translated, it means "You sang to me so quietly". One day, I hope I'll be able to meet someone who will sing quietly to me. I myself am quite fond of singing actually; I do it whenever I get a chance and when a song comes up on my player that I know the lyrics to. Despite that, I rarely sing in front of people, I don't even like singing at home when people are there.

There's something intimate about the idea of singing to another person. This probably applies less to the minority of people who have been gifted with the siren's voice. For the rest of us, whom may not have good intonation or a pleasant timbre, to sing to another person is to put oneself in a vulnerable position. One's vocal flaws are exposed and allowed to be readily dissected. Something like that can end pretty poorly if the receiving parties don't really have the singer's heart in mind (i.e. dissections of vocal flaws can lead to entire vivisections of a person's spirit).

Well, I guess the original intention of this post was to link those lyrics to some cheesy notion of "trusting others" but whatever, I'll spare y'all the redundancy. Let's just take a minute and reflect on this idea of "Þú söngst til mín svo hljótt", shall we?

Redux

Time to get back to work...

With the training session, test, and school coming up, I was going to spend August working ahead so I don't drown again, a very unpleasant feeling if you've yet to have the pleasure. Well, regardless of how I was feeling yesterday, as a whole, I feel much more capable again now, much more than I did in May or June (I still remember this one time in May that I just stared at a pot of water boiling, laughing and thinking to myself how much of a nutcase I was at the time, lying in bed and yelling obscenities to myself all day).

I still have nothing but vehement disdain for my program and for myself for ignorantly placing myself into this panic-inducing box. But, it'd be an even greater folly to bail out now and leave myself out here in the middle of this harsh desert, no matter how bad the ride, right? The trip's almost over anyway, I'm sure I'll be able to figure something out after reaching the junction.

Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō

I've watched Bleach since high school and it's the only manga that I really still follow today. I have to admit that the author, Kubo Tite, has done nothing but disappoint me with his atrocious story-telling abilities (though some of it may be due to the constraints put upon him by his publisher) but I've been following this for so long, I might as well follow it to the end, which apparently is coming up in the foreseeable future.

I've found that, for at least a few years now, my imagination has become quite fond of using certain imagery from Bleach as a sort of manifestation for my emotional coping mechanisms. That sounds really pretentious, but whatever the fuck man, that's the best I can do right now.

The Bankai of 12th Squad Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi is Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō, Golden Leg-Cutting Jizō. Jizō is the Japanese name for the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, the guardian of children (which explains why the bankai looks/sounds like some creepy-ass baby). It's been shown twice so far (well, canonically) and during its first incarnation, one of its abilities was for it to burst out a protruding set of blades through its chest, which I assume would impale the things it rams itself into.

Anyway, it's not like I would want that as an ability per se; it's pretty useless as far as the Bleach world is concerned. But, sometimes, my mind uses that as a visual metaphor for catharsis. All those poisonous thoughts that take hold of me, accumulating in that central area of my chest, they really do sometimes feel like blades, each capable of a greatly damaging visceral pierce. It would really be swell if those blades that seem content at wreaking havoc within would manifest themselves and burst out so that I could swiftly rip them out to stop their meaningless onslaughts once and for all.

What a shitty, childish post. Oh well...

Nihil lacrima citius arescit

I thought I was ok, that somehow the past three months had been enough time for me to put enough distance between me and those demons that had such a pronounced grip on me. Apparently it wasn't enough and after today's very unpleasant jolt, I can once again see those fractures, fractures that seem to have remained unmended. Kicking and screaming, I felt like I was dragged once again into that empty darkened space where the bitterness, maintained in degree through the incessant reliving of ravaging memories, abounds. The toxic choking haze surrounds me and I am powerless, as I had been before. How long will you stalk me? I wish you would just leave me alone.

Today, I was looking around a few folders and I came across a random file with a Latin filename. This was downloaded so it wasn't me who made it. It was entitled "Nihil lacrima citius arescit" or "Nothing dries quicker than a tear" in English (I'll just add proudly that I translated most of it without having to look online).

I hope that's true.

Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam

Well, that's two days worth of shitty blog posts I've decided not to put on here because they were just shitty pretentious pseudo-intellectual musings. And, clearly, I'm not narcissistic enough to put that shit up here to try to appear like some fuck-nut with an opinion worth anyone's fucking time.

Anyway...

I was looking out the car window tonight (I was being driven for once after a long while... what a strange feeling). As I cursorily analyzed the buildings passing by, I noticed that there were quite a few churches, generally Protestant. Did you know among the Protestant Christian community, there are over 30,000 different denominations (that number seems way too high but that's like what the wiki totally says man)? I don't really know how that came to pass but each of these denominations probably came into being as a result of some fundamental distinction from its parent group. It's quite a puzzling aspect of the religion and definitely appears as a sign of disunity. Don't worry, though, this post isn't going to devolve into strings of theological jargon justifying the multitudes of denominations.

Even though there're so many denominations, theoretically all Protestants agree on the important points. And so, in a way, these distinctions really just become personal preferences. For the longest time, I accused my old church of being stagnant and insufficient. They were too busy conducting their church business and had forgotten how to be proper ambassadors, after all! Well, maybe I was a bit too harsh, a bit too judgmental. Something I realized early on during that recent, failed experiment was that it was ok for two parties to have different priorities and desires. The two may not be right for each other when those differences become sufficiently unscalable but by no means does that disagreement necessarily imply a deficiency in any one of the parties (though I guess it'd be unrealistic to assume for flawlessness in general). 

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that my old church and all those old churchmates probably were just going in a different direction than me. And, even if they were seemingly lacking in some priorities that I thought would be second-nature for any Christian, the fundamental Christian precepts were nevertheless there. From a theological point of view, in terms of denominations that have that Nicene creed alignment thing (or whatever) worked out, all roads do lead to Rome. And, so, why have I been so bent out of shape that that other road wasn't to my liking. It just wasn't for me and that's ...just fine. So it's only fair for me to say... oops.

P.S. The great irony of the first post mentioning religion after who-knows-when being written right after my commission of certain, um, indiscretions is not lost upon me.

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Home sweet home, well not me, but for a certain someone who has been the sole focus of several familial households for the last couple of weeks. As I sit here, not having to think about driving back and forth from those sterilized hospital walls, the finality of the two major events that have so absorbed my attentions as of late dawns on me. But, it might take a bit longer until I once again reach that very sporadic placid equilibrium. 

Much like that post-caffeine anxiety that I am prone to experiencing, hints of mugginess and uneasiness pervade. But, at the same time, there is also a certain contentedness. I'm listening to "Blind" by Pacific UV and I find that this song, particularly the fuzzy melodic instrumentals in the introduction (starting ~1:00), really captures the current mixed cocktail I've settled into today.

Syzygy

Syzygy, in astronomy, refers to the alignment of three celestial bodies. The most relatable syzygies would be the alignments of the sun, earth, and moon, occurences which produce eclipses. However, other syzygies exist, some much more rare, such as that of other planets, whose orbits are not associated with each other.

I can't help but think the events of the past few days, and even the past few weeks, have been a syzygy of the latter type. This alignment, though, of course, is not one of celestial bodies but one of personal circumstances and miscommunications*. And, just like a sequence of dominoes, the individual components, which by themselves could be considered innocuous, all happened to align conspicuously and, in a spectacular blaze, culminated in the net effect of this grand experiment, all that has happened in the past however long it has been. As I reflect, however, maybe I'm wrong in referring to this syzygy as one of the rarer varieties. Maybe this syzygy was an eventuality bound to happen sooner than later, one that could have been easily prophesied to occur the very moment our fateful orbits began.

On a related note, my nano recently broke, so I've been using my iPod touch again. I was listening to good ol' Donald Pleasance and had for the first time read the full lyrics. There was one phrase that kept repeating itself over and over again like a drum nobody ever ordered: "I came here only to say goodbye". Quite fitting for today's turn of events, a little too fitting (though, to be frank, the fit comes not from any initiative on my part). Sometimes I wonder if these circumstances will all mean something later on. Then again, maybe it's just the confirmation bias talking.

Anyway, it does seem that that is all she wrote. Too bad, I think I was just about starting to get her.

*ok and that horrible, terrible, abominable thing I did, the thing I profusely apologized for, and the thing that I would continue to apologize for until the very end of this age if only it were worth a damn, it was a momentary lapse in judgment, seriously, seriously