This is once again bound to be more of a journal entry instead of a serious inquiry into the state of the human character, but perhaps there is something inside the things we do that helps us get a glimpse of what we are.
I’ve been on vacation for a week. It all started last Monday. We just had to get through Monday, and then we were all free for a week—Korean Thanksgiving… thank you for falling smack in the middle of the week this years instead of on the weekend like last year. So, as was usual, I made some tentative plans: off to the mountains on Tuesday, in the mountains on Wednesday, back home Thursday, pub quiz Thursday night, Friday – friend’s going away party, on Saturday my band was making its debut, and Sunday was a day devoted to time well spent with an important person in my life—my intimate friend.
But Monday came first, and Monday morning I found that I needed to clean my apartment because I was hosting a small gathering that night. This took up most of my morning. Work is six and a half hours of teaching small children the intricacies, delicacies and preposterousness of the English language. Then, the gathering began with one. Then, there were two, and then our party was complete with four, and we decided to eat grilled pig intestine and drink perhaps too much. After much, much, soju, beer, and bokbunja, it was time for pool and the continuation of the imbibing of quantities of the aforementioned. Once again… vacation. Celebrate now, because to wait for even a moment puts you in danger of regret.
Tuesday morning was rapid packing for going into the mountains. It was easier packing than usual because we didn’t plan to rough-it as much as we could have—by “we” I mean myself and my Chinese best friend: just a couple of nights camping but not having to cook. More expensive, but we were in celebration mode as it may or may not be one of the last times we ever see each other.
Unfortunately, when we arrived in the city that was the gateway to the mountains, there was one of those… what’re they called… typhoons. That’s the one. Camping became a last resort very quickly. So, we took a bus to the base of the mountain range where there was a small village and stepped into a hotel and out of the incessant rain: 30 dollars for a floor with pads, a TV, a fridge and a bathroom. Grand. I have an idea…
Because this room had no beds, it turned out that it was the perfect size to pitch our two individual tents and have our camping experience right in the motel.
First, we’d eat and get a little tipsy, because there is nothing like putting up a tent when the odds are most against you.
The night ended on a jocund note: the pure enjoyment of good company, good food, good drinks, and the knowledge that this moment is significant.
Seoraksan National Park in South Korea’s Gangwon-do has had a very special place in my heart for a long time. The first time I went there, I went with a friend, and we managed to find perhaps the most difficult hiking experience in Korea. The second time I went, I once again went with a friend to tackle the beast again and test it and myself; however, we were turned away because of lingering snow on the top which we were not prepared for. The third time I went, I went alone, and conquered that trail with something like aplomb, and including a brief dip in the river along which I hiked. This was my fourth time in the park, and for the first time, because of some safety concerns involving the slippery nature of the large rocks Korea uses to create their trails, it was time to stay at the base of the park and do all those things that most people usually do when they go to the park.
The rain ended in the morning, and we woke up prepared. There were waterfalls to see. Just past the entrance gate to the park, there is a left hand turn that leads to a series of waterfalls which terminates in something called The Rain Dragon Waterfall. It had rained heavily for almost 24 straight hours. The streams were swollen and the river was heaving. Essentially, somebody very big had seen that this series of waterfalls actually resembled an entire dragon: smaller falls all the way up, curving, jumping, diving, leaping, powerful falls in themselves, to a powerful fall that became a nexus point for the entire stream. All the water that went down to the valley came from this point. Magic.
Then we took the cable car to the top of a mountain where, with a little rock climbing, you could literally stand on a rock that you had no doubt was the exact tippy top of this mountain, and the expansive views were definitely incredible—but I’ll contend that when you walk all the way up there it seems even more moving. We ate some stuffed squid and took a little nature walk for a couple of hours, left the park feeling how powerful the sight/smell/touch/taste/feel of nature could be, had some more stuffed squid and beef stew, and then we went camping.
It isn’t quite fall in Korea. It’s just around the corner, and it usually lasts for a week, but every once in a while, mother nature likes to send previews of what lies in the future, and after a typhoon seemed like the perfect time: it froze. We froze. For the first time in almost 6 months, I believe that it was actually 0 degrees celcius.
Thursday was about the trip home. When I got home, I got a surprise visit from the girl I’ve been seeing, and, after a couple of hours, as I was putting her on the bus home I got a reminder about the pub quiz happening that night. “I’ll be there man.”
Fortunately, we took a cab—it’s an hour and a half walk, but I was tired. Unfortunately, we lost the pub quiz. Unfortunately, we decided to walk home. When I arrived at home, I literally fell on my bed, not feeling well, and having an uncomfortable presentiment about the following days.
I woke up Friday, or rather I should say I finally got out of bed at 7pm. The truth is that I woke up at 8:30am to vomit, and spent the rest of the day not doing anything or talking to anybody, because I sounded like Tom Waits with strep—band performance tomorrow… I’m the lead singer…
It’s always strange to watch someone go away from Korea. You know they all eventually will, but you never get over the sense that your time here is transitory, your days here ARE numbered, and that very soon it will be you that’s the one leaving. At any rate we looted our friends apartment after a night of debauchery—a strange, soothing, mollifying process that lets you know they’re gone and pacifies you with things you need but haven’t been about to acquire.
Saturday consisted of 18 cups of tea, cold medicine, and rest—not to mention loads of emails to the band members about the probability that our show might not happen then deciding that it’s going to happen no matter what. It happened. It was our debut. Considering that it was our first ever performance, that we practice once a week (sometimes 2, sometimes 0), and that I still sounded like Tom Waits with strep, it went over pretty well. At the very least, we got a lot of sycophantic praise that we stuffed into our caps and walked away with. And we did walk away, too… 45 minutes away to a chicken and pizza restaurant. Booze kept me going, and when I got home, it ensured that sleep was almost immediate.
Sunday was a day devoted to the girl I’ve been seeing, but I hadn’t unpacked from Seoraksan, I hadn’t done any cleaning in almost a week, the dishes were still piled up from the last two days’ extended couch stay, and I had promised to make her food—the ingredients of which were absent from my apartment. So, I did what needed doing: dragged myself out of bed, forced myself to ignore that my body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, went to the supermarket, cleaned my apartment, and started cooking. Galbi jjim, look it up, it’s delicious, and it uses grated pear in its sauce.
Essentially, it was another day in bed… essentially.
She left at 8pm. At 10:30 I was asleep. I woke up at 10:30 this morning and played guitar for 2.5 hours until I had to go to work.
That’s it. That’s the end of another week…
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
I am
exhausted.
But that’s how I like to be.
I have been so active in the course of the last couple of weeks that I am finding it difficult to function right now. What I need is something like fourteen hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cool room with no thoughts of doing anything other than sleeping. That’s what I plan to do, too.
But I’ve performed twice in three days, been heroically drunk, done things that a good boyfriend ought to do, and I am the proud owner of a bronze medal bearing the mark of a bodybuilding competition in which I took part in the bench press competition.
I think it’s entirely possible that drinking beer from noon until 2am the night before the competition seriously affected my performance, and I actually feel pretty bad about the whole thing because the team that took second place earned that spot by virtue of the fact that they did one more rep than my team.
Jam session
Open mic host
Going away party
Pool hall adventure
Outdoor music and beer festival
Bench Press Contest/Open Mic
Now I’m at work. It’s not that I don’t like work, but I’m certainly not that fond of it that I want to be there while simultaneously being completely exhausted. It’ll be fine.
Unrelated note: I think that one thing Asian animation has going for it is that it does still no how to make a body wait for the action. It understands how to build tension by making you wait for the smoke to clear, and, what’s more, they’ve even managed to make so many of these similar situations that a body is still not sure if the maneuver just pulled off will be successful or an utter failure. Sometimes the smoke clears and it’s all over. Sometimes the smoke clears, and it’s just beginning. That makes for a pretty decent life metaphor, doesn’t it? I’m waiting for the smoke to clear and I’m not sure if what I’ve done here will have been successful or fruitless.)
I have 9 weeks left in Korea—that’s the outside figure. The inside figure is six weeks. These facts are playing wild tricks on my mind. You see, I’ve gotten so used to being in Korea and on my own that it’s difficult to imagine how I will adjust to being in a place where people understand not only my language—well, for the most part—but also the way my mind works.
What’ll it be like to take the spirit that I have developed for adventure in Korea and turn it toward my homeland: every day is an adventure here, and I will desperately attempt to keep that same frame of mind for the return home.
For example, the other night I was busking in Seoul near Gangnam station, when a group of foreigners came up to where me and my friend had set up shop and started talking to us about things and stuff. It turns out that they were also from Suwon and just happened to be visiting Seoul. Two of them had been in country for two weeks and were still wild with the excitement and newness of things. Well, we had stuffed our earnings into a backpack and decided to head home. When we got to the bus stop, we realized that we didn’t have the bag. We trooped back to our home base and noticed that the bag was gone. We assumed/hoped/prayed that the people we’d just met had picked it up, but as none of them had phones, and only one of them asked for an email address, it was still a bit touch and go. Anyhow, we consoled ourselves that all we lost was money, some extra clothes, and a small day pack… in other words, nothing too important.
The next day I was having dinner with my girlfriend when I received a phone call from a friend of mine who had received a phone call from a friend of his saying that he had a backpack that belonged to a certain busker. Ah, the way the universe moves is sometimes extremely intriguing. At any rate, that which was lost on Saturday was returned on Sunday, money and clothes in tact. As a bonus to the story, the guy who picked up the bag (and you’d better believe I treated him to a few beers for the effort) is also a pianist, and it has been mentioned that the band I am currently fronting could use a good keys player… I’ve invited him to our practice. He does also play the saxophone, which could be interesting.
What kind of equivalent story will there be when I wander back through the world of the United States of America. Could I, like I did at the music festival, walk up to the organizer, say, “Could I play a few songs?” and wind up as one of the performers? Could I win 3rd place at a weightlifting competition? Could I find out how small the world is meeting good ‘ol Midwestern boys while busking and having it turn out that they are all somewhat musically inclined? What are the chances?
If I remember correctly from two years ago, it is sometimes hard to meet people attempting. It can be somewhat difficult to encounter people that are actively seeking out newness and freshness and coincidence and beauty and truth and going and doing and being. What I seem to remember is complacency and apathy and an entire generation of people that forgot about Rage Against the Machine and are currently growing fat and illusioned and sinking into the illusion and loving it. Plato’s image of people staring at the shadows on the wall and believing that the shadows are the things themselves rings in my ears when I see the vapid reality of modern culture all over the world. If you’re not going to attempt to see the objects for themselves at least take the time to try to find the light source.
Damnation, I do get preachy sometimes, but forgive me for being invested.
So, perhaps I have just answered some of my own questions. I have a unique “in” to the generation I’m talking about. The children of this country are being daily corrupted by an educational system that is focused on attempting to gain funding for things they’re not even sure about: when the business of education becomes the business of making money the business of educating slowly moves down the rungs of importance. The older generations are too set in their ways. It is the generation of affectable human beings between University and their mid-thirties to forties that hold the keys to the future of this country and whether or not we will become a nation of dunces or a nation of people committed to understanding the reality of things. Are we ready to take up the struggle? My plan is to put down in print the reality of things and attempt to wake up the slumbering juggernaut of the energy of a generation with so much power it has been purposefully lulled to sleep by the powers of the people that that energy would slaughter. Words should be our weapons. Our battlefield is the field of the mind. When that’s been won, the physical dominoes fall into place. This blog was all over the place… I’m not sorry…
But that’s how I like to be.
I have been so active in the course of the last couple of weeks that I am finding it difficult to function right now. What I need is something like fourteen hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cool room with no thoughts of doing anything other than sleeping. That’s what I plan to do, too.
But I’ve performed twice in three days, been heroically drunk, done things that a good boyfriend ought to do, and I am the proud owner of a bronze medal bearing the mark of a bodybuilding competition in which I took part in the bench press competition.
I think it’s entirely possible that drinking beer from noon until 2am the night before the competition seriously affected my performance, and I actually feel pretty bad about the whole thing because the team that took second place earned that spot by virtue of the fact that they did one more rep than my team.
Jam session
Open mic host
Going away party
Pool hall adventure
Outdoor music and beer festival
Bench Press Contest/Open Mic
Now I’m at work. It’s not that I don’t like work, but I’m certainly not that fond of it that I want to be there while simultaneously being completely exhausted. It’ll be fine.
Unrelated note: I think that one thing Asian animation has going for it is that it does still no how to make a body wait for the action. It understands how to build tension by making you wait for the smoke to clear, and, what’s more, they’ve even managed to make so many of these similar situations that a body is still not sure if the maneuver just pulled off will be successful or an utter failure. Sometimes the smoke clears and it’s all over. Sometimes the smoke clears, and it’s just beginning. That makes for a pretty decent life metaphor, doesn’t it? I’m waiting for the smoke to clear and I’m not sure if what I’ve done here will have been successful or fruitless.)
I have 9 weeks left in Korea—that’s the outside figure. The inside figure is six weeks. These facts are playing wild tricks on my mind. You see, I’ve gotten so used to being in Korea and on my own that it’s difficult to imagine how I will adjust to being in a place where people understand not only my language—well, for the most part—but also the way my mind works.
What’ll it be like to take the spirit that I have developed for adventure in Korea and turn it toward my homeland: every day is an adventure here, and I will desperately attempt to keep that same frame of mind for the return home.
For example, the other night I was busking in Seoul near Gangnam station, when a group of foreigners came up to where me and my friend had set up shop and started talking to us about things and stuff. It turns out that they were also from Suwon and just happened to be visiting Seoul. Two of them had been in country for two weeks and were still wild with the excitement and newness of things. Well, we had stuffed our earnings into a backpack and decided to head home. When we got to the bus stop, we realized that we didn’t have the bag. We trooped back to our home base and noticed that the bag was gone. We assumed/hoped/prayed that the people we’d just met had picked it up, but as none of them had phones, and only one of them asked for an email address, it was still a bit touch and go. Anyhow, we consoled ourselves that all we lost was money, some extra clothes, and a small day pack… in other words, nothing too important.
The next day I was having dinner with my girlfriend when I received a phone call from a friend of mine who had received a phone call from a friend of his saying that he had a backpack that belonged to a certain busker. Ah, the way the universe moves is sometimes extremely intriguing. At any rate, that which was lost on Saturday was returned on Sunday, money and clothes in tact. As a bonus to the story, the guy who picked up the bag (and you’d better believe I treated him to a few beers for the effort) is also a pianist, and it has been mentioned that the band I am currently fronting could use a good keys player… I’ve invited him to our practice. He does also play the saxophone, which could be interesting.
What kind of equivalent story will there be when I wander back through the world of the United States of America. Could I, like I did at the music festival, walk up to the organizer, say, “Could I play a few songs?” and wind up as one of the performers? Could I win 3rd place at a weightlifting competition? Could I find out how small the world is meeting good ‘ol Midwestern boys while busking and having it turn out that they are all somewhat musically inclined? What are the chances?
If I remember correctly from two years ago, it is sometimes hard to meet people attempting. It can be somewhat difficult to encounter people that are actively seeking out newness and freshness and coincidence and beauty and truth and going and doing and being. What I seem to remember is complacency and apathy and an entire generation of people that forgot about Rage Against the Machine and are currently growing fat and illusioned and sinking into the illusion and loving it. Plato’s image of people staring at the shadows on the wall and believing that the shadows are the things themselves rings in my ears when I see the vapid reality of modern culture all over the world. If you’re not going to attempt to see the objects for themselves at least take the time to try to find the light source.
Damnation, I do get preachy sometimes, but forgive me for being invested.
So, perhaps I have just answered some of my own questions. I have a unique “in” to the generation I’m talking about. The children of this country are being daily corrupted by an educational system that is focused on attempting to gain funding for things they’re not even sure about: when the business of education becomes the business of making money the business of educating slowly moves down the rungs of importance. The older generations are too set in their ways. It is the generation of affectable human beings between University and their mid-thirties to forties that hold the keys to the future of this country and whether or not we will become a nation of dunces or a nation of people committed to understanding the reality of things. Are we ready to take up the struggle? My plan is to put down in print the reality of things and attempt to wake up the slumbering juggernaut of the energy of a generation with so much power it has been purposefully lulled to sleep by the powers of the people that that energy would slaughter. Words should be our weapons. Our battlefield is the field of the mind. When that’s been won, the physical dominoes fall into place. This blog was all over the place… I’m not sorry…
Monday, August 30, 2010
My social calendar is full
and I hate it. I’m essentially a reclusive ascetic content to spend my days and my time in the comfortable research of what it means to be a human. Every so often, however, it crops up in my research—and in my existence in general—that part of being human is all wrapped in being a part of humanity: the community aspect. Roughly, I am engaged to be functioning in society (as opposed to the gentle autocracy I wield over myself in my own residence) every evening for the next week.
These times are always important for me, and they remind me of how lucky I am that have the opportunity during the other times of my life to pursue those things which seem to fulfill me most fully: study and practice. However, study without application and practice without the game are exercises in masturbation. So it is that these moments of putting what I’ve been studying and practicing have special meaning for me.
I hate the fact that I have to get myself away from practice, but practice is very safe. If you screw something up, nobody’s watching you and quietly saying to themselves (and sometimes yelling loudly): “You suck.” That’s the beauty of practice. It’s the quiet advancement of the self in whatever area you are attempting to improve; however, it is in the game that what you have been practicing for so long really makes itself known.
Okay, it has just occurred to me that what I am differentiating between when I say study and practice is precisely what Plato is always on about: the visible versus the intelligible realm. When I talk about study, it is the reading that takes up some of my time every single day of my life. Whether it be a novel, an academic work, or language acquisition book, the thing I am exercising is my intelligence. When I talk about practice, it is the physical labor involved in acquiring any kind of skill. So, my practice is going to the gym three times a week, playing guitar/singing, and walking.
This is kind of strange, but my intelligible realm and my physical realm seem to have awkward counterbalances… damnit, I’m looking at myself through a strange lens… I would say that walking and language acquisition make up a duo, going to the gym and reading a novel are a duo, and playing music and reading academia are a duo.
When I go walking, I tend to do so at a particular pace and with the express purpose of being in the midst of a walk. Every time you go walking, you can find something new. Oh, that restaurant looks awesome, I’ll have to come back here. Oh, that’s where the library is. You’re picking up the language of the place where you are. The language of where everything is. You’re drawing a map inside your brain by engaging with the physical reality of the thing. This is what the acquisition of language does. Language is the drawing of maps with the mind toward meaning. When you “get the lay of the land” by actually traversing the land in question, this can be likened to getting the lay of the land of language: the more you traverse it, the more you feel comfortable with it. The bulk populace: temperance/consciousness
Going to the gym is something that happens three times a week, and it’s basically always the same. It’s comfortable. I know what I’m going to do. I know how it’s going to feel. I know that it is going to require some effort, but I know that kind of effort all too well—thanks to years and years of practice at it. In short, it’s become something that is basically just a part of my existence. Having spent the last ten years of my life almost insatiably reading novels—for pleasure or for academic purposes, my life would feel naked if it was void of a novel to read. In short, reading novels is comfortable, I know how it’s to be done, I know how it’s going to feel (especially if it’s a good novel—Proust was an exception (I’ve never felt anything like that from a novel)), I know that it will require some effort (or, at least, it should), and I know that effort all too well. The auxiliaries: courage/the body
The practice of music and the study of academia are paired because of the strenuousness of the activities. They require more effort than the others because this is the active attempt to learn something, to change the way I think about myself and the world at large. Music has the special, magical affect of being effective to the mind as it watches harmonies and melodies fall into place. It is basically sensory practice: it has a look, a feel, a sound, a touch, and (in some cases) you can almost taste it when it’s done well—perhaps that’s why we call some music tasteful and others disgusting. Reading scholarly works performs the same actions for the intelligible realms. It helps the mind see more clearly, feel more appropriately, hear what people are saying more thoroughly, touch the inner recesses of the self, and taste what it means to be human. The guardians: wisdom/sub-conscious
It occurred to me (and Gad how I love how writing does this) that writing pervades them all. They are all doing their jobs, and writing is somehow related to all of them. Walking is one of my greatest sources for writing fodder, and one constantly learns about themselves at the gym (if they are paying attention), which means words to be made. Novels are chock full of meaning that needs to be struggled with, and there is nobody out there who would deny that acquiring a second language doesn’t affect the way we write and what we write about: we are language. Finally, the deepest sources of writing whathaveyou comes from the strenuous exercises of practicing music and studying scholastically. The community: morality/spirit
I am just a writer who is doing the job that I’m most fit to do, and it is with this in mind that I bear the labor of pulling myself away from my practice and study in order to gain the knowledge that comes from the combination of theory (that which results from practice and study) with experience. I will bear the inanity and mundanity of a society that has moved away from a desire to truly know what it means to be human and finds itself floundering in a world of trivialities involving which celebrity is wearing what designer and wondering what it must feel like to be a millionaire. I will taste the fruits of the lifestyle I’m battling against in just the same way a flu shot works: a bit of the infection so the body knows what it is fighting against; and I will breathe the air of a freedom that looks good on the outside, but bears inside itself the seed of slavery that will one day ripen. To be the slave of a slave:
Brannigan: I'm de-promoting you, soldier. Kiff, what's the most humiliating job there is?
Kif Kroker: Being your assistant.
Captain Zapp Brannigan: Wrong. Being *your* assistant.
These times are always important for me, and they remind me of how lucky I am that have the opportunity during the other times of my life to pursue those things which seem to fulfill me most fully: study and practice. However, study without application and practice without the game are exercises in masturbation. So it is that these moments of putting what I’ve been studying and practicing have special meaning for me.
I hate the fact that I have to get myself away from practice, but practice is very safe. If you screw something up, nobody’s watching you and quietly saying to themselves (and sometimes yelling loudly): “You suck.” That’s the beauty of practice. It’s the quiet advancement of the self in whatever area you are attempting to improve; however, it is in the game that what you have been practicing for so long really makes itself known.
Okay, it has just occurred to me that what I am differentiating between when I say study and practice is precisely what Plato is always on about: the visible versus the intelligible realm. When I talk about study, it is the reading that takes up some of my time every single day of my life. Whether it be a novel, an academic work, or language acquisition book, the thing I am exercising is my intelligence. When I talk about practice, it is the physical labor involved in acquiring any kind of skill. So, my practice is going to the gym three times a week, playing guitar/singing, and walking.
This is kind of strange, but my intelligible realm and my physical realm seem to have awkward counterbalances… damnit, I’m looking at myself through a strange lens… I would say that walking and language acquisition make up a duo, going to the gym and reading a novel are a duo, and playing music and reading academia are a duo.
When I go walking, I tend to do so at a particular pace and with the express purpose of being in the midst of a walk. Every time you go walking, you can find something new. Oh, that restaurant looks awesome, I’ll have to come back here. Oh, that’s where the library is. You’re picking up the language of the place where you are. The language of where everything is. You’re drawing a map inside your brain by engaging with the physical reality of the thing. This is what the acquisition of language does. Language is the drawing of maps with the mind toward meaning. When you “get the lay of the land” by actually traversing the land in question, this can be likened to getting the lay of the land of language: the more you traverse it, the more you feel comfortable with it. The bulk populace: temperance/consciousness
Going to the gym is something that happens three times a week, and it’s basically always the same. It’s comfortable. I know what I’m going to do. I know how it’s going to feel. I know that it is going to require some effort, but I know that kind of effort all too well—thanks to years and years of practice at it. In short, it’s become something that is basically just a part of my existence. Having spent the last ten years of my life almost insatiably reading novels—for pleasure or for academic purposes, my life would feel naked if it was void of a novel to read. In short, reading novels is comfortable, I know how it’s to be done, I know how it’s going to feel (especially if it’s a good novel—Proust was an exception (I’ve never felt anything like that from a novel)), I know that it will require some effort (or, at least, it should), and I know that effort all too well. The auxiliaries: courage/the body
The practice of music and the study of academia are paired because of the strenuousness of the activities. They require more effort than the others because this is the active attempt to learn something, to change the way I think about myself and the world at large. Music has the special, magical affect of being effective to the mind as it watches harmonies and melodies fall into place. It is basically sensory practice: it has a look, a feel, a sound, a touch, and (in some cases) you can almost taste it when it’s done well—perhaps that’s why we call some music tasteful and others disgusting. Reading scholarly works performs the same actions for the intelligible realms. It helps the mind see more clearly, feel more appropriately, hear what people are saying more thoroughly, touch the inner recesses of the self, and taste what it means to be human. The guardians: wisdom/sub-conscious
It occurred to me (and Gad how I love how writing does this) that writing pervades them all. They are all doing their jobs, and writing is somehow related to all of them. Walking is one of my greatest sources for writing fodder, and one constantly learns about themselves at the gym (if they are paying attention), which means words to be made. Novels are chock full of meaning that needs to be struggled with, and there is nobody out there who would deny that acquiring a second language doesn’t affect the way we write and what we write about: we are language. Finally, the deepest sources of writing whathaveyou comes from the strenuous exercises of practicing music and studying scholastically. The community: morality/spirit
I am just a writer who is doing the job that I’m most fit to do, and it is with this in mind that I bear the labor of pulling myself away from my practice and study in order to gain the knowledge that comes from the combination of theory (that which results from practice and study) with experience. I will bear the inanity and mundanity of a society that has moved away from a desire to truly know what it means to be human and finds itself floundering in a world of trivialities involving which celebrity is wearing what designer and wondering what it must feel like to be a millionaire. I will taste the fruits of the lifestyle I’m battling against in just the same way a flu shot works: a bit of the infection so the body knows what it is fighting against; and I will breathe the air of a freedom that looks good on the outside, but bears inside itself the seed of slavery that will one day ripen. To be the slave of a slave:
Brannigan: I'm de-promoting you, soldier. Kiff, what's the most humiliating job there is?
Kif Kroker: Being your assistant.
Captain Zapp Brannigan: Wrong. Being *your* assistant.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Teacher and Student
These two labels seem to follow me around and lurk in all the corners of my world. In this moment I’m a student, and fifteen minutes later I’m playing the role of teacher. Even in the sub-conscious realm that writing comes from, it becomes apparent how I see myself:
“I’m a student.”
Vs.
“I’m playing the role of teacher.”
I don’t feel worthy of the title of teacher. To be a teacher is an incredibly important job. It means that the lives of young people are in your hands. I am absolutely certain that the importance of the role of the teacher has been almost completely lost in the bulk of the civilized world—although it might be preserved somewhere in the uncivilized world (although I can’t say for sure). We’re talking about a person who, for an extended period of time, is in control of how our children are learning to think. Imagine the importance of that. Is school important? Hell Yeah! I’m afraid that both schools and teachers have been tainted with a healthy dose of economics and politics, which basically serves to render them impotent.
(In a side note: if you are interested in a world where the educational system is something else, check out “The Glass Bead Game” or it’s alternate title “Magester Ludi” or it’s German title “Das Glasperlenspiel” by Hermann Hesse. It’s… educational, and it won a Nobel Prize for a good reason.)
Being a student is one of the greatest situations you can find yourself in, and what I call “terminal students” are all over the place. I once new a guy who was just heading back to school in order to get his third Master’s Degree. Don’t get me wrong, what I’m talking about here is the fact that I absolutely love being a student, but what I have learned in the last couple of years is that there are most definitely two different kinds of students.
One of the greatest pieces of advice that was ever offered to me, was given by a college professor, and it was just as I was finishing my Master’s Degree and trying to decide whether or not I simply wanted to continue on with my PhD or do something else before jumping right back into academia. She told me that being a professor is more difficult than it looks. Apart from all the academic knowledge that you must be up on: proper ways to make your paper comply with the MLA, tidbits and factoids that you must know, metaphor analyses, and language components (she was definitely an English Lit teacher), there was the fact that so many students from so many various backgrounds walk into your office, and, in a way, it is part of your job to ensure there success somehow. This goes for all subjects and all levels of education, but it is especially true in the studies of the humanities.
With that advice in mind, I embarked on a quest to become a student of life.
Of course, the ironic part of becoming a student of life is that to do this I became a teacher in Korea, but I’m going to be very honest and say that teaching English in Korea is not the most academically intensive occupation one can do.
I have been a lot of places and done a lot of things in this life already, and I feel confident that I have experienced enough to be able to teach some people some things; however, I don’t want to simply be a teacher, I want to be THAT teacher. You know the one, right? The teacher that actually affects their students. Oh, you accept up front that you won’t be able to affect them all, or, what’s even more depressing, even most of them, but I know that I remember the name of my high school English teacher to this day—well, one of them. I don’t know how many teachers I actually had throughout my education—countless perhaps?—but I know that I only remember the names of a few of them, and I’m sure that this is the case with most people.
It is with this goal in mind that I set sail for some of the most random occupations that are available. When I tell my mother that I’m going to be a long distance semi-trailer truck driver for a while and then I’m going to be a farmer, she is—as is certainly appropriate for a mother who is concerned about the state of her offspring—*ahem, concerned. You can imagine the conversation:
“You’re wasting your education. You should be teaching not farming.” Etc.
I know that she means well, but I am getting my graduate degree in living right now, and once I have that, then I can return to the world of academia knowing that I will be well-prepared for the baggage that students will be carrying with them into my office.
Everyone’s path is different. This is the struggle that maintains the parental/progeny battle. As soon as parents understand that their children must be allowed to go their own way at some point, the sooner the world crumbles. They never will and never should accept this because they ARE the owners of years of extraordinarily valuable experience, and it is their job to be the voice of reason that their children disregard but come crawling back to—or not. They represent a path that has been taken, tried, and found acceptable. Children naturally rebel against this path. They want to find themselves, so they must move away from the teachers and be what they’re going to do, be their own teachers, and become students of the world.
Here I sit: studentteacherstudent. I learn daily from Plato and William Thackeray and the guitar and exercise and run-on sentences and inappropriate lists and my students. Meanwhile, I teach the nuances of essay writing, grammar, reading, listening, and writing to some eager and some not-so-eager young faces. Then I come home and try to learn from everything I do.
What I want most in the world is to be a conscientious student, but I find myself to be lazy sometimes.
Have you ever wondered what happens to a mind that is constantly engaged? I want to be very clear and state that engagement and entertainment exist in different realms. Because I have a Korean girlfriend at the moment, last weekend I went to see Step Up 3 in 3D, and I quickly realized that when something is visually stimulating or impressive, the story, the engagement, the challenge (which is a word that I would love to have perpetually associated with the word engagement), and the effort are not necessary. If you’ve ever seen a movie from Hollywood, you can guess the story from the first fifteen minutes.
I digress… Engage the mind and see what happens. It responds remarkably well to challenges. Remember all those people that said they wrote twenty-page papers in one night and got good grades on them. That’s the effect and power of adrenaline mingling with the brain juices. You can accomplish a helluva lot when pressed to do so, or you can accomplish nothing with a lot less effort. Something or nothing seems like a pretty simple choice to make, but effort is something else. For now, I will remain mostly student and look forward to the day when I will be able to say that I am mostly a teacher. Until then, I am always a writer.
“I’m a student.”
Vs.
“I’m playing the role of teacher.”
I don’t feel worthy of the title of teacher. To be a teacher is an incredibly important job. It means that the lives of young people are in your hands. I am absolutely certain that the importance of the role of the teacher has been almost completely lost in the bulk of the civilized world—although it might be preserved somewhere in the uncivilized world (although I can’t say for sure). We’re talking about a person who, for an extended period of time, is in control of how our children are learning to think. Imagine the importance of that. Is school important? Hell Yeah! I’m afraid that both schools and teachers have been tainted with a healthy dose of economics and politics, which basically serves to render them impotent.
(In a side note: if you are interested in a world where the educational system is something else, check out “The Glass Bead Game” or it’s alternate title “Magester Ludi” or it’s German title “Das Glasperlenspiel” by Hermann Hesse. It’s… educational, and it won a Nobel Prize for a good reason.)
Being a student is one of the greatest situations you can find yourself in, and what I call “terminal students” are all over the place. I once new a guy who was just heading back to school in order to get his third Master’s Degree. Don’t get me wrong, what I’m talking about here is the fact that I absolutely love being a student, but what I have learned in the last couple of years is that there are most definitely two different kinds of students.
One of the greatest pieces of advice that was ever offered to me, was given by a college professor, and it was just as I was finishing my Master’s Degree and trying to decide whether or not I simply wanted to continue on with my PhD or do something else before jumping right back into academia. She told me that being a professor is more difficult than it looks. Apart from all the academic knowledge that you must be up on: proper ways to make your paper comply with the MLA, tidbits and factoids that you must know, metaphor analyses, and language components (she was definitely an English Lit teacher), there was the fact that so many students from so many various backgrounds walk into your office, and, in a way, it is part of your job to ensure there success somehow. This goes for all subjects and all levels of education, but it is especially true in the studies of the humanities.
With that advice in mind, I embarked on a quest to become a student of life.
Of course, the ironic part of becoming a student of life is that to do this I became a teacher in Korea, but I’m going to be very honest and say that teaching English in Korea is not the most academically intensive occupation one can do.
I have been a lot of places and done a lot of things in this life already, and I feel confident that I have experienced enough to be able to teach some people some things; however, I don’t want to simply be a teacher, I want to be THAT teacher. You know the one, right? The teacher that actually affects their students. Oh, you accept up front that you won’t be able to affect them all, or, what’s even more depressing, even most of them, but I know that I remember the name of my high school English teacher to this day—well, one of them. I don’t know how many teachers I actually had throughout my education—countless perhaps?—but I know that I only remember the names of a few of them, and I’m sure that this is the case with most people.
It is with this goal in mind that I set sail for some of the most random occupations that are available. When I tell my mother that I’m going to be a long distance semi-trailer truck driver for a while and then I’m going to be a farmer, she is—as is certainly appropriate for a mother who is concerned about the state of her offspring—*ahem, concerned. You can imagine the conversation:
“You’re wasting your education. You should be teaching not farming.” Etc.
I know that she means well, but I am getting my graduate degree in living right now, and once I have that, then I can return to the world of academia knowing that I will be well-prepared for the baggage that students will be carrying with them into my office.
Everyone’s path is different. This is the struggle that maintains the parental/progeny battle. As soon as parents understand that their children must be allowed to go their own way at some point, the sooner the world crumbles. They never will and never should accept this because they ARE the owners of years of extraordinarily valuable experience, and it is their job to be the voice of reason that their children disregard but come crawling back to—or not. They represent a path that has been taken, tried, and found acceptable. Children naturally rebel against this path. They want to find themselves, so they must move away from the teachers and be what they’re going to do, be their own teachers, and become students of the world.
Here I sit: studentteacherstudent. I learn daily from Plato and William Thackeray and the guitar and exercise and run-on sentences and inappropriate lists and my students. Meanwhile, I teach the nuances of essay writing, grammar, reading, listening, and writing to some eager and some not-so-eager young faces. Then I come home and try to learn from everything I do.
What I want most in the world is to be a conscientious student, but I find myself to be lazy sometimes.
Have you ever wondered what happens to a mind that is constantly engaged? I want to be very clear and state that engagement and entertainment exist in different realms. Because I have a Korean girlfriend at the moment, last weekend I went to see Step Up 3 in 3D, and I quickly realized that when something is visually stimulating or impressive, the story, the engagement, the challenge (which is a word that I would love to have perpetually associated with the word engagement), and the effort are not necessary. If you’ve ever seen a movie from Hollywood, you can guess the story from the first fifteen minutes.
I digress… Engage the mind and see what happens. It responds remarkably well to challenges. Remember all those people that said they wrote twenty-page papers in one night and got good grades on them. That’s the effect and power of adrenaline mingling with the brain juices. You can accomplish a helluva lot when pressed to do so, or you can accomplish nothing with a lot less effort. Something or nothing seems like a pretty simple choice to make, but effort is something else. For now, I will remain mostly student and look forward to the day when I will be able to say that I am mostly a teacher. Until then, I am always a writer.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Why do we want to feel fear?
Amusement parks specialize in the peddling of safe fear. The reality is, of course, that on any given day, at an average of 10 minutes per trip with (roughly) thirty people, that math is something like:
30*6=180
180*12=2160
So, more than 2000 people EVERY DAY ride those “terrifying” things. In a year, it’s hundreds of thousands. Those statistics ought to be enough to make one feel absolutely secure in sitting down on those death machines, but why does your stomach still turn and your heart rate jump exponentially?
It’s because—apart from the “being freed from gravity”—there is always that possibility that something will go dreadfully wrong.
Human beings love being that close to danger.
It’s the same in love. We are at once willing and yet unwilling at the same time because we know we’ll be at the precipice of potential disaster, but when it comes to matters of the heart we can be even more unwilling to let our guard down.
As it turns out, most things depend almost entirely on the attitude you take into them. If you take an attitude of arrogance and entitlement into something, you’ll find out pretty quickly that this particular attitude can be quite off-putting to quite a lot of the population. If you take the attitude of genuine interest and enjoyment into whatever venture you’re wandering into, you’ll find that people respond in kind.
I don’t have many opinions that matter. Socrates was right, we’re all ignorant, and it’s because there is too much to know. The amount of things that I know for sure could be counted on a hand that’s been maimed—and indeed that image seems most appropriate—while the things I don’t know couldn’t be compared to all the sand in Hawaii.
It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that I should start to believe in things other than human nature, but it seems like the investigation of that one thing could occupy a body for the entirety of a lifetime. It encompasses everything, see. Politics, literature, art, music, science, math, culture, economics, morality, ethics, sensuality, sexuality, language, and knowledge all fall under the umbrella of human nature.
But it’s unimaginably complex, and that’s a bummer? The structures of exactly how a human goes through its world can be broken down into types, but there is always room for jockeying, and that one piece of information means that there is always room for jockeying in everything.
I teach students how to write long sentences, and it makes me happy when they write nonsense:
Fat Eli and ugly Benjamin almost always drink dirty soju, which is delicious, over the moon, but crazy Alice and stupid Peter powerfully sleep in the subway, which is loud.
Does it mean?
Music means something, I think.
I wonder sometimes whether or not politics in the modern sense of the term has anything to do with the politics as the ancients envisioned it?
What kind of effect does the population size have on the method of governing?
What does it mean that almost all philosophers and political theorists and religions forget about the ground of their theories: is-ness.
Without the body there can be no mind. Without the land there can be no country. Does the mind actually create? Or is it perpetually a step behind?
Right now I feel compelled. That’s all.
It seems like I want to cry, and my stomach hurts, and I’m confused about why it seems like there’s a car horn honking in the next room, and all I really want to do is play the guitar, and I keep wondering when my bowels will unleash the hellish bind that I know is in there, and my computer died, and I don’t know what to do about the future, and how the hell am I going to send all these goddamned books home, and when will I finish my studies of the Korean language, and what do I do about the feelings I feel for a girl I know (and she knows) I’m going to leave in a couple of months, and why do I find myself in that position, and why do I think I actually want that particular situation, and why does it feel safer to love at a distance, and why do I believe that I am (as yet) incapable of loving because I still don’t know myself well enough, and I’m pretty sure I know about four people (probably more) who would hate that statement, and I don’t believe in a Christian god, and I know about a million people who would hate that statement, and what kind of arrogance does it take to know something that’s impossible to know, and what’s wrong with having a belief that’s different, and there are so many words I don’t know, and the decadence I’m dealing with in my life must be remedied, and what’s so decadent about using the air conditioner, and I eat leftovers all week, and survival seems like a more worthy goal than the acquisition of free time, and it is a belief I have that most of the free time across the world is spent exceedingly unproductively, and that makes me very sad, and TVs in taxis makes me even more sad, and the more I understand what is possible for people in general the less I understand people generally, and when will parents learn that their kids inherently want different things than life-givers, and when will kids learn that their parents have that most incredible of all of life’s little educators: experience, and when will humans learn that it doesn’t matter whether we know these things or not it is precisely that conflict has always existed and is necessary and productive when understood as a method for growth and development, and I fucking hate war, I hate war, I hate war, and I don’t understand why people are so bad to each other, and I’m sorry I got into an argument with one of my best friends, and I feel like I need to talk to her, and I had a dream about her the other day and we were in Venice with my father, who looked exceedingly sad as he was perpetually attempting to get away from us while toting (very literally) two babies with him and I wandered off on a walk—which happens so frequently these days that I sometimes get very scared to step foot outside my door lest I wander around for hours and stare in rapture at the fact of existence, and I miss having meaningful conversations, and sometimes it feels like I’m a dinosaur investigating my own extinction, and sometimes I just want to be quiet, and half of my time is spent recovering, and the other half is spent ailing, and I don’t know what from.
30*6=180
180*12=2160
So, more than 2000 people EVERY DAY ride those “terrifying” things. In a year, it’s hundreds of thousands. Those statistics ought to be enough to make one feel absolutely secure in sitting down on those death machines, but why does your stomach still turn and your heart rate jump exponentially?
It’s because—apart from the “being freed from gravity”—there is always that possibility that something will go dreadfully wrong.
Human beings love being that close to danger.
It’s the same in love. We are at once willing and yet unwilling at the same time because we know we’ll be at the precipice of potential disaster, but when it comes to matters of the heart we can be even more unwilling to let our guard down.
As it turns out, most things depend almost entirely on the attitude you take into them. If you take an attitude of arrogance and entitlement into something, you’ll find out pretty quickly that this particular attitude can be quite off-putting to quite a lot of the population. If you take the attitude of genuine interest and enjoyment into whatever venture you’re wandering into, you’ll find that people respond in kind.
I don’t have many opinions that matter. Socrates was right, we’re all ignorant, and it’s because there is too much to know. The amount of things that I know for sure could be counted on a hand that’s been maimed—and indeed that image seems most appropriate—while the things I don’t know couldn’t be compared to all the sand in Hawaii.
It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that I should start to believe in things other than human nature, but it seems like the investigation of that one thing could occupy a body for the entirety of a lifetime. It encompasses everything, see. Politics, literature, art, music, science, math, culture, economics, morality, ethics, sensuality, sexuality, language, and knowledge all fall under the umbrella of human nature.
But it’s unimaginably complex, and that’s a bummer? The structures of exactly how a human goes through its world can be broken down into types, but there is always room for jockeying, and that one piece of information means that there is always room for jockeying in everything.
I teach students how to write long sentences, and it makes me happy when they write nonsense:
Fat Eli and ugly Benjamin almost always drink dirty soju, which is delicious, over the moon, but crazy Alice and stupid Peter powerfully sleep in the subway, which is loud.
Does it mean?
Music means something, I think.
I wonder sometimes whether or not politics in the modern sense of the term has anything to do with the politics as the ancients envisioned it?
What kind of effect does the population size have on the method of governing?
What does it mean that almost all philosophers and political theorists and religions forget about the ground of their theories: is-ness.
Without the body there can be no mind. Without the land there can be no country. Does the mind actually create? Or is it perpetually a step behind?
Right now I feel compelled. That’s all.
It seems like I want to cry, and my stomach hurts, and I’m confused about why it seems like there’s a car horn honking in the next room, and all I really want to do is play the guitar, and I keep wondering when my bowels will unleash the hellish bind that I know is in there, and my computer died, and I don’t know what to do about the future, and how the hell am I going to send all these goddamned books home, and when will I finish my studies of the Korean language, and what do I do about the feelings I feel for a girl I know (and she knows) I’m going to leave in a couple of months, and why do I find myself in that position, and why do I think I actually want that particular situation, and why does it feel safer to love at a distance, and why do I believe that I am (as yet) incapable of loving because I still don’t know myself well enough, and I’m pretty sure I know about four people (probably more) who would hate that statement, and I don’t believe in a Christian god, and I know about a million people who would hate that statement, and what kind of arrogance does it take to know something that’s impossible to know, and what’s wrong with having a belief that’s different, and there are so many words I don’t know, and the decadence I’m dealing with in my life must be remedied, and what’s so decadent about using the air conditioner, and I eat leftovers all week, and survival seems like a more worthy goal than the acquisition of free time, and it is a belief I have that most of the free time across the world is spent exceedingly unproductively, and that makes me very sad, and TVs in taxis makes me even more sad, and the more I understand what is possible for people in general the less I understand people generally, and when will parents learn that their kids inherently want different things than life-givers, and when will kids learn that their parents have that most incredible of all of life’s little educators: experience, and when will humans learn that it doesn’t matter whether we know these things or not it is precisely that conflict has always existed and is necessary and productive when understood as a method for growth and development, and I fucking hate war, I hate war, I hate war, and I don’t understand why people are so bad to each other, and I’m sorry I got into an argument with one of my best friends, and I feel like I need to talk to her, and I had a dream about her the other day and we were in Venice with my father, who looked exceedingly sad as he was perpetually attempting to get away from us while toting (very literally) two babies with him and I wandered off on a walk—which happens so frequently these days that I sometimes get very scared to step foot outside my door lest I wander around for hours and stare in rapture at the fact of existence, and I miss having meaningful conversations, and sometimes it feels like I’m a dinosaur investigating my own extinction, and sometimes I just want to be quiet, and half of my time is spent recovering, and the other half is spent ailing, and I don’t know what from.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Monster
There has been this lingering demon in my head since about a year ago. My friend and I had made it to 설악산 (Seoraksan) National Park in South Korea, and we were trying to figure out the best hiking that we could get in when we ran into a Canadian girl who said she had done this loop in about eight hours. It was the only loop trail, because the trail everybody traditionally took was straight up 대청봉 (Daecheongbong) and then came back the same way. My friend and I are anything but traditional. What we did, however, fail to take into account is that this young female was born and raised in the mountains, spent every weekend in Korea at another national park climbing as many mountains as she could. My friend and I spent every weekend getting sauced and climbing very low hills if we did anything—another longish story. At any rate, that climb took us (precisely as the KPS times told us it would) around 12 hours. It hurt so bad it is almost incomprehensible to think about. There aren’t even any Koreans who are crazy enough to do that. They stay in a hut about halfway through (well, it’s more like two-thirds of the way through).
I have this mildly sadistic challenge streak inside me, and I wanted to know if it could be done better, faster, and with less ache. I trained. I went back. These are the notes I took:
I had intended, during the course of my hike yesterday, to keep notes and give an accurate description as possible to what one encounters on what I call “The Monster.” What follows is basically an hour-by-hour transcript of the bastard.
Some words of advice: realize that this route is VERY dry. At the top of the mountain—for basically six hours—there is no potable water. In other words: BRING WATER… lots of it, because, like I said: dry, arid, and painful at the top. Second piece of advice: it is twelve hours, and you’ll need plenty of food. You’ll need a fair bit because you’ll need hourly snacks and something significant every four hours or so. Third, do something to train beforehand. It will help, even though you’ll still definitely feel it. Fourth, invest in some proper hiking apparel because attempting this route in jean shorts and t-shirts WILL result in very uncomfortable rashes—in places you might not imagine.
Okay, the first hour takes you through 소공원 (So Gong-won)—the park at the base of the mountains). The entrance fee, as of 2010, is a staggering 2500 원—the equivalent of about two dollars. The park itself is nice. There’s a tourist motel inside of it. As of this year, there is a bunch of trees whose claim to fame is that there has been a restaurant under its shade for 200 years. There’s a garden. There’s a giant statue of Buddha. You can take a cable car—but get there early for this as it fills up extraordinarily quickly. There’s a trail to a waterfall.
Your trail rambles past all of this and past a couple of restaurants deeper in the woods. Finally, you come to 비선대 (Biseondae)—a rock, a restaurant, and the crossroads. The trail to 대청봉 (the previously mentioned peak) is to the left. It’s 10.8km away and the backwards version of what I’m describing. To the right is about 10 minutes of moderate incline. At this point, the 1st hour is over and you can choose to go see the monk who lives in a cave on the side of the mountain (to the right) or continue up the trail to the left. The main advantage of the cave is that it affords one of the greatest views of 설악 (Seorak) Valley, and the main disadvantage is that it adds about 30 minutes or an hour to your ordeal. Understand that from this point, the next three hours are essentially ascension. There are brief respites here and there, but for the most part you must keep in mind that you’re going up a mountain in Korea, and what better way than to throw down millions of stone stairs and walk straight up that fucker.
Anyway I should make a couple of important points. The 2nd hour (as in the hour moving away from the cave) is probably the hardest. It just keeps going up. In the third hour it is possible to get some spring water, but ONLY if it has rained recently. If you’re desperate, there’s usually a trickle you can get something out of. The fourth hour has a more reliable spring, although still touch and go if it hasn’t rained recently. It also begins to let you know what the KNPS classifies this particular (ahem… 2-day) hike as a hike/scramble. It’s dry and rocky at the top, which means that you’ll be doing some “scrambling” over bits of mountain.
Take a break and assess yourself. Get a bit to eat, because after four hours you’ll be at 마등령 (madeungneung). The KNPS says its 1327m. If you’re fatigued, just turn around and walk the three hours out. Seven hours is already a helluva long hiking day and there is nothing to be ashamed of in it. If you feel up for it, just keep to the trail at the left. The next five hours are a great mix—and by great I don’t always mean good. Essentially, what you need to keep in mind is that you are walking along the ridge of the mountains. This means two things (at least): fantastic views, vistas, and geological features; and walking over mountains that range from 1300m to 1200m. In other words: in order to get from view to vista to geological wonder you will have to do steady alternation between ascending and descending, sometimes significantly. After a steady descent of 20 or 30 minutes, you’ll find the corresponding ascent just around a corner. Three hours of this (after the previous four hours of steady ascent) has the tendency to make a body tired. So, the last two hours are psychological hell. There is a long descent at the end of the third hour, and you start to believe that you are going down in earnest. You start to feel relieved. You start to breathe easier. You start believing: that wasn’t so bad. Then, you turn a corner and start going up. “What sadistic bastard put this here,” you think, “but, oh well.” The you turn another corner and you’re still going up. You turn a third corner and you see an almost sheer scramble that terminates youknownotwhere: MERDE!! The main advantage you have no is “having come this far.” Either way is four hours—maybe six if you turn around—and it’s best to just press on. A little hint: baby steps are fine, and the knees prefer them to having to pull the body weight long distances.
So, you take another forty minutes of ascent in stride (as it were) and realize your situation. It hurt psychologically and physically, but you’re heading back down now and everything is going to be fine of course. Not on your life. You got more ascent yet to come. Essentially it is only the last 30 minutes of this five-hour section of hiking which are pure descent. 희운각 hut awaits the weary traveler with foresight enough to make a reservation. Otherwise, you head to the right and three hours of walking down steps made of stone or metal. A recommended 2-day hike is what I have just described, mated with a stay at the hut, then an ascent of Daechoengbong the next day.
However, since that’s not what we have decided to do, I recommend that you take this ambling, non-strenuous section of the hike—which follows a river all the way back to the park—is: take your time. If it gets to be after 6 or 7 and you’re near the rock that was crossroads, take the opportunity, break the rules, and jump into the crystal clear river. It’s cold, clear and perfect for a body aching from (by now) 10 hours or so of hiking. At the very least, find a place to put your feet in.
The most enjoyable part of this section of the hike is watching the river trip and fall and create pools that look delicious bare are made inaccessible by… factors. After 2-3 hours of river-watching and steady heading down off the mountains, you make it back to the rock. Keep in mind that you still have a one-hour walk to the park gate, but after what you’ve been through, it’s like a walk… in… the park. The beauty of 설악산 is its relative closeness to society (Koreans would have it no other way). If you’re staying in a motel, you can just stop at a restaurant on your way back. If you’re camping, you can pick up some beer, soju, or (and) maggeulli and spend the evening—which will be very short—over a couple of drinks and grub. Sleep will be easy to come by.
Either way, the images your brain will be processing at the end of the day will be: mountains in the distance, sparsely populated with foliage, that look like great bowls of ice cream topped with chocolate syrup; three and four level waterfalls emptying into deep pools; vast expanses of mountain range that seem to dance waltzes with the imagination; never-ending trails of rock stairs that have been conquered; scrambles over treacherous mountain-adz tops that you realized would have maimed you had you slipped; and finally, what is possible for humans to do in a day.
I have this mildly sadistic challenge streak inside me, and I wanted to know if it could be done better, faster, and with less ache. I trained. I went back. These are the notes I took:
I had intended, during the course of my hike yesterday, to keep notes and give an accurate description as possible to what one encounters on what I call “The Monster.” What follows is basically an hour-by-hour transcript of the bastard.
Some words of advice: realize that this route is VERY dry. At the top of the mountain—for basically six hours—there is no potable water. In other words: BRING WATER… lots of it, because, like I said: dry, arid, and painful at the top. Second piece of advice: it is twelve hours, and you’ll need plenty of food. You’ll need a fair bit because you’ll need hourly snacks and something significant every four hours or so. Third, do something to train beforehand. It will help, even though you’ll still definitely feel it. Fourth, invest in some proper hiking apparel because attempting this route in jean shorts and t-shirts WILL result in very uncomfortable rashes—in places you might not imagine.
Okay, the first hour takes you through 소공원 (So Gong-won)—the park at the base of the mountains). The entrance fee, as of 2010, is a staggering 2500 원—the equivalent of about two dollars. The park itself is nice. There’s a tourist motel inside of it. As of this year, there is a bunch of trees whose claim to fame is that there has been a restaurant under its shade for 200 years. There’s a garden. There’s a giant statue of Buddha. You can take a cable car—but get there early for this as it fills up extraordinarily quickly. There’s a trail to a waterfall.
Your trail rambles past all of this and past a couple of restaurants deeper in the woods. Finally, you come to 비선대 (Biseondae)—a rock, a restaurant, and the crossroads. The trail to 대청봉 (the previously mentioned peak) is to the left. It’s 10.8km away and the backwards version of what I’m describing. To the right is about 10 minutes of moderate incline. At this point, the 1st hour is over and you can choose to go see the monk who lives in a cave on the side of the mountain (to the right) or continue up the trail to the left. The main advantage of the cave is that it affords one of the greatest views of 설악 (Seorak) Valley, and the main disadvantage is that it adds about 30 minutes or an hour to your ordeal. Understand that from this point, the next three hours are essentially ascension. There are brief respites here and there, but for the most part you must keep in mind that you’re going up a mountain in Korea, and what better way than to throw down millions of stone stairs and walk straight up that fucker.
Anyway I should make a couple of important points. The 2nd hour (as in the hour moving away from the cave) is probably the hardest. It just keeps going up. In the third hour it is possible to get some spring water, but ONLY if it has rained recently. If you’re desperate, there’s usually a trickle you can get something out of. The fourth hour has a more reliable spring, although still touch and go if it hasn’t rained recently. It also begins to let you know what the KNPS classifies this particular (ahem… 2-day) hike as a hike/scramble. It’s dry and rocky at the top, which means that you’ll be doing some “scrambling” over bits of mountain.
Take a break and assess yourself. Get a bit to eat, because after four hours you’ll be at 마등령 (madeungneung). The KNPS says its 1327m. If you’re fatigued, just turn around and walk the three hours out. Seven hours is already a helluva long hiking day and there is nothing to be ashamed of in it. If you feel up for it, just keep to the trail at the left. The next five hours are a great mix—and by great I don’t always mean good. Essentially, what you need to keep in mind is that you are walking along the ridge of the mountains. This means two things (at least): fantastic views, vistas, and geological features; and walking over mountains that range from 1300m to 1200m. In other words: in order to get from view to vista to geological wonder you will have to do steady alternation between ascending and descending, sometimes significantly. After a steady descent of 20 or 30 minutes, you’ll find the corresponding ascent just around a corner. Three hours of this (after the previous four hours of steady ascent) has the tendency to make a body tired. So, the last two hours are psychological hell. There is a long descent at the end of the third hour, and you start to believe that you are going down in earnest. You start to feel relieved. You start to breathe easier. You start believing: that wasn’t so bad. Then, you turn a corner and start going up. “What sadistic bastard put this here,” you think, “but, oh well.” The you turn another corner and you’re still going up. You turn a third corner and you see an almost sheer scramble that terminates youknownotwhere: MERDE!! The main advantage you have no is “having come this far.” Either way is four hours—maybe six if you turn around—and it’s best to just press on. A little hint: baby steps are fine, and the knees prefer them to having to pull the body weight long distances.
So, you take another forty minutes of ascent in stride (as it were) and realize your situation. It hurt psychologically and physically, but you’re heading back down now and everything is going to be fine of course. Not on your life. You got more ascent yet to come. Essentially it is only the last 30 minutes of this five-hour section of hiking which are pure descent. 희운각 hut awaits the weary traveler with foresight enough to make a reservation. Otherwise, you head to the right and three hours of walking down steps made of stone or metal. A recommended 2-day hike is what I have just described, mated with a stay at the hut, then an ascent of Daechoengbong the next day.
However, since that’s not what we have decided to do, I recommend that you take this ambling, non-strenuous section of the hike—which follows a river all the way back to the park—is: take your time. If it gets to be after 6 or 7 and you’re near the rock that was crossroads, take the opportunity, break the rules, and jump into the crystal clear river. It’s cold, clear and perfect for a body aching from (by now) 10 hours or so of hiking. At the very least, find a place to put your feet in.
The most enjoyable part of this section of the hike is watching the river trip and fall and create pools that look delicious bare are made inaccessible by… factors. After 2-3 hours of river-watching and steady heading down off the mountains, you make it back to the rock. Keep in mind that you still have a one-hour walk to the park gate, but after what you’ve been through, it’s like a walk… in… the park. The beauty of 설악산 is its relative closeness to society (Koreans would have it no other way). If you’re staying in a motel, you can just stop at a restaurant on your way back. If you’re camping, you can pick up some beer, soju, or (and) maggeulli and spend the evening—which will be very short—over a couple of drinks and grub. Sleep will be easy to come by.
Either way, the images your brain will be processing at the end of the day will be: mountains in the distance, sparsely populated with foliage, that look like great bowls of ice cream topped with chocolate syrup; three and four level waterfalls emptying into deep pools; vast expanses of mountain range that seem to dance waltzes with the imagination; never-ending trails of rock stairs that have been conquered; scrambles over treacherous mountain-adz tops that you realized would have maimed you had you slipped; and finally, what is possible for humans to do in a day.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
lethargy
The last few weeks have seen me in a noticeable state of lethargy… in a way. I am not entirely sure that I can even really call it that, because lethargy for me still involves doing quite a lot. I still manage to do quite a bit of reading (FINALLY finished Hume’s tome), study the Korean language, go to the gym, play the guitar, and go for four-hour training walks (I’ll soon be hiking). I suppose that what I’m really talking about is the fact that I haven’t done a whole lot of writing lately, and this is largely because all that reading, exercising and studying is just such a part of my daily/weekly routine that I find in them only the pleasures that one usually associates with those things that are solid and reliable. The fact that I haven’t written much lately is a sign to me that A) I have been living too much in the future and planning my return to the states (which I necessarily wish to keep somewhat secretive, and if I write about it, it’s not very secret is it?)
B) I haven’t had a whole lot to write about. Which is both true and untrue because I believe that there is ALWAYS something to write about; however, what I’m experiencing at the moment is a re-surgence in my sex life which I have always had a hard time writing about because of modesty and respect for the nature of that act.
All that being said, not enough people write about sex in such a way that does it justice. I’m afraid that “Marko, breathing his hot breath on her heaving bosom was enough to send shockwaves of desire through her body. His gentle caresses and strong, firm but soothing voice had caused a need in the pit of her being that could be satisfied by only one thing. She grabbed his ebony hair and let him know what she wanted.” just doesn’t quite do justice to something that can be of such great import.
I had a girlfriend for seven years (essentially), and for the bulk of that relationship it was long-distance. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what two college-aged students who would go for long periods of time without each other would do when they finally got together. Perhaps the best word for it was frenzy. Usually they’d only have about two or three days together because of the restraints of school or work and, for those of you who have experienced something like it, that’s generally a good amount of time to spend doing basically that one thing. After that, the spirit might be willing, but probably not, and the flesh will be spongy and sore. However, it is as a result of sessions like those that I learned a lot about what IT means.
I think that I have actually been blessed by the fact that I am not an excessively pretty person because that meant that I didn’t get to experience a lot of one-night-stands. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I have been in Korea that I had that hollow experience, and I can say from experience that it is much more fulfilling and dignified to have the experience of the body with somebody you care deeply about.
It seems highly probable that I’m just a big softy and that my parents raised me to be respectful of women, but two of my favorite things are spooning and—dear god I wish it had a more manly name (maybe I should make one up)—pillow talk. There is something about the intimacy of the act that seems to permeate everything that goes from the build-up, through the act itself, and it seems like the only appropriate finish is the intimacy of touch-to-touch and close conversation. As a matter of fact, it was precisely when these things stopped happening that the previously mentioned relationship started to fall apart.
I’m also beginning to see that there are a couple of different possibilities for significant kinds of physical intimacy. Almost everybody that’s had an opportunity to get drunk with somebody they love has experienced the kind of alcohol-fueled madness that results from what starts as gentle hand squeezes under the table or soft skin caresses that nobody sees. It can be wild and passionate and one helluva lot of fun because it so often feels like the primal call of nature: I need your body. I don’t care how intelligent you are or how funny. Right now, I want your body. This is the urge (not always accompanied by drunkenness) that affects those dealing with even low levels of satyriasis and furor uterinus: a pure desire to slake the physical thirst that wells up in all of us; however, in the bulk of the population this thirst peaks its head out only periodically.
Another kind of physical intimacy that is possible occurs when two people want to illustrate, using the body, how important they are to each other. This shouldn’t be overlooked. I have often considered that there are a lot of triptychs out there (conscious, subconscious, spirit; father, son, spirit; guardians, managers, workers; etc), but I think that the most frequently left-out aspect of all of these is the ground—thanks Heidegger. Without an earth, there can’t be humans. Without humans, does the concept of god exist? Without god is there a need for heaven? Without the body, can there be a seat for the soul? One of Rudolf Steiner’s greatest ideas was that the soul is outside the body, but, unless I missed it, I’d like to think that it doesn’t just sit outside the body but permeates it, through and through, and extends beyond the confines of the body. Call it an aura, but I guarantee you that you have met somebody or been around somebody and felt them immediately. That’s the extension of the soul outside the body. It is during this kind of physical intimacy, where two souls are charged with the connection of intimacy, love, caring, and compassion that something different happens. The fulfillment of the physical need of the human body to release itself is one thing, to touch souls in this particular way is something that warms the entire being, from the consciousness to sub-conscious, from the soul to the body.
It could be argued that the accomplishment of this warming is what the kama sutra is about. Sure, it teaches you a lot of fun ways to go about doing something that’s already fun, but it could be argued that these are attempts to find the most pleasant and fulfilling way of satisfying your partner. Let’s all be honest and say that man-on-top-pounding-away is perhaps the most boring of all the potential positions. It is the remnant of a man-centered universe. It can be fun every once in a while, but variety is the spice of life, and that almost goes double for the bedroom. Get creative, not because it’s fun, but because it is an illustration of how much you want your partner to feel. It’s an illustration of how on fire your soul is to touch their soul in a meaningful way.
Sometimes, I think the most important moment in any relationship is the simultaneous laughter that happens during the act itself. It’s possible. It ought to be fun, and what’s more natural than to laugh when you’re having fun?
B) I haven’t had a whole lot to write about. Which is both true and untrue because I believe that there is ALWAYS something to write about; however, what I’m experiencing at the moment is a re-surgence in my sex life which I have always had a hard time writing about because of modesty and respect for the nature of that act.
All that being said, not enough people write about sex in such a way that does it justice. I’m afraid that “Marko, breathing his hot breath on her heaving bosom was enough to send shockwaves of desire through her body. His gentle caresses and strong, firm but soothing voice had caused a need in the pit of her being that could be satisfied by only one thing. She grabbed his ebony hair and let him know what she wanted.” just doesn’t quite do justice to something that can be of such great import.
I had a girlfriend for seven years (essentially), and for the bulk of that relationship it was long-distance. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what two college-aged students who would go for long periods of time without each other would do when they finally got together. Perhaps the best word for it was frenzy. Usually they’d only have about two or three days together because of the restraints of school or work and, for those of you who have experienced something like it, that’s generally a good amount of time to spend doing basically that one thing. After that, the spirit might be willing, but probably not, and the flesh will be spongy and sore. However, it is as a result of sessions like those that I learned a lot about what IT means.
I think that I have actually been blessed by the fact that I am not an excessively pretty person because that meant that I didn’t get to experience a lot of one-night-stands. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I have been in Korea that I had that hollow experience, and I can say from experience that it is much more fulfilling and dignified to have the experience of the body with somebody you care deeply about.
It seems highly probable that I’m just a big softy and that my parents raised me to be respectful of women, but two of my favorite things are spooning and—dear god I wish it had a more manly name (maybe I should make one up)—pillow talk. There is something about the intimacy of the act that seems to permeate everything that goes from the build-up, through the act itself, and it seems like the only appropriate finish is the intimacy of touch-to-touch and close conversation. As a matter of fact, it was precisely when these things stopped happening that the previously mentioned relationship started to fall apart.
I’m also beginning to see that there are a couple of different possibilities for significant kinds of physical intimacy. Almost everybody that’s had an opportunity to get drunk with somebody they love has experienced the kind of alcohol-fueled madness that results from what starts as gentle hand squeezes under the table or soft skin caresses that nobody sees. It can be wild and passionate and one helluva lot of fun because it so often feels like the primal call of nature: I need your body. I don’t care how intelligent you are or how funny. Right now, I want your body. This is the urge (not always accompanied by drunkenness) that affects those dealing with even low levels of satyriasis and furor uterinus: a pure desire to slake the physical thirst that wells up in all of us; however, in the bulk of the population this thirst peaks its head out only periodically.
Another kind of physical intimacy that is possible occurs when two people want to illustrate, using the body, how important they are to each other. This shouldn’t be overlooked. I have often considered that there are a lot of triptychs out there (conscious, subconscious, spirit; father, son, spirit; guardians, managers, workers; etc), but I think that the most frequently left-out aspect of all of these is the ground—thanks Heidegger. Without an earth, there can’t be humans. Without humans, does the concept of god exist? Without god is there a need for heaven? Without the body, can there be a seat for the soul? One of Rudolf Steiner’s greatest ideas was that the soul is outside the body, but, unless I missed it, I’d like to think that it doesn’t just sit outside the body but permeates it, through and through, and extends beyond the confines of the body. Call it an aura, but I guarantee you that you have met somebody or been around somebody and felt them immediately. That’s the extension of the soul outside the body. It is during this kind of physical intimacy, where two souls are charged with the connection of intimacy, love, caring, and compassion that something different happens. The fulfillment of the physical need of the human body to release itself is one thing, to touch souls in this particular way is something that warms the entire being, from the consciousness to sub-conscious, from the soul to the body.
It could be argued that the accomplishment of this warming is what the kama sutra is about. Sure, it teaches you a lot of fun ways to go about doing something that’s already fun, but it could be argued that these are attempts to find the most pleasant and fulfilling way of satisfying your partner. Let’s all be honest and say that man-on-top-pounding-away is perhaps the most boring of all the potential positions. It is the remnant of a man-centered universe. It can be fun every once in a while, but variety is the spice of life, and that almost goes double for the bedroom. Get creative, not because it’s fun, but because it is an illustration of how much you want your partner to feel. It’s an illustration of how on fire your soul is to touch their soul in a meaningful way.
Sometimes, I think the most important moment in any relationship is the simultaneous laughter that happens during the act itself. It’s possible. It ought to be fun, and what’s more natural than to laugh when you’re having fun?
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