Saturday, September 29, 2012
On translations, games, and illusions
So, hello to my 350th post.
I hate how some words are so... untranslatable. It makes my life annoying. It's as if my friends insist on using words that just don't have a direct translation.
You know, sometimes I feel sad for people who are only monolingual or bilingual. There's something that you lose by not being multi-lingual, because every language is different, and there are words that exist in one language and don't in another. I give you an example, the middle english "hwaet", which means something to the effect of NOW-THAT-I-HAVE-YOUR-UNDIVIDED-ATTENTION-HEY-LOOK-LISTEN. See, there isn't a word like that anymore.
Or perhaps, you say, that's just time. How about the chinese terms 幸福 and 气质? I am aware that some common translations (blessed and disposition respectively) are commonly used, but when it comes to meaning... they barely even make the mark. So when I read bad translations, it just annoys me. I mean, I completely understand as a translator. When it comes to the linguistic side of me, it's just, not. Of course, as both a translator and a person, I know that there's not going to be translations for many things any time in the near future, but that doesn't stop me from wishing, does it?
On another note, I am of the opinion that some games have better background stories than books. (Take 9dragons, which is my current interest, for example.) I'm only playing for the storyline. I love MMORPGs with warring factions. It adds on to the complexity of the game. Seriously, if it's like Runescape with people just running around, then it gets boring. Having factions just adds on to the intrigue of the plot. (It's also one of the reasons why I love wuxia RPGs, the settings and plots are the best.)
"The best illusions are those that are real."
It took me a while to get my mind around this one, but I think I've managed to at least scratch the surface of its meaning. It's like hiding in plain view. It's not lying, it's literally being. The only important thing is that your heart is not where your self is, because those are two very different things. It separates illusion from reality. The thing is, people can see where you are, but they can't see where your heart is.
Posted at 4:16 PM
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Ego non
Sometimes, you hurt the people you want to protect the most.
That's what the title of this post refers to.
Ego non. Not I. Even if all others do, not I. Or at least, that's my wish.
Need to stop reading sad books (and I need a .txt copy of 且珍行). All these thoughts are getting a little too depressing. I need to find stories that are of a lighter sort and not, well, emotionally draining.
It's been a while since I've actually meditated, so, I need to meditate.
I need to clear my heart to open my mind. I need to accept to let go. And above all, I need to calm the sound of my breathing and just, hear peace. I don't think anyone who hasn't done meditation can understand how to "hear peace", but you can. Or at least, I think so.
I also need to do calligraphy. And play the piano. And paint. And draw. And just submerge myself in something personal. Something close enough to my heart that I can do it and find myself in it. I feel like I've lost myself somewhere along the way.
But the problem is, I don't know where.
You know, sometimes we say we feel lost. But I personally think it's different from what I'm feeling now. This sort of loss feel more personal. It's not as obvious (even to myself), but now that I reflect on it, I feel empty. Hollow. Devoid of purpose and meaning.
Why am I here? Why do I live? If I am truly here, and if all of us do come into this world to make a difference, why am I failing at that? Why am I hurting others? Why am I not feeling any of that pain myself?
Please just let me be able to put my heart and my soul into not hurting the people I care for. Please let my eyes be open. Please don't let me fall prey to ignorance.
Please just let me find myself again.
...
Recently wrote a poem. I think it should have been better, but I just like the feel of it.
Sincerely stifling, Autumn
Pieces of red sky
Falling, falling.
Drifting down in sheets and layers
To smother us in a blanket
Made from the tresses of trees.
And those massive kings,
They have lost their crowns
Of vermilion lifeblood.
I realise, I do not write happy poems. Well so I do write happy-ish poems, but not happy-happy, more of fake happiness or a happiness borne of wildness and ferociousness and with a touch of the painful.
Perhaps I need to rethink my priorities.
Posted at 8:29 PM
Friday, September 21, 2012
Over the streamlet vapors are borne, Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.
You know, this is weird but I find that as I grow older I am starting to enjoy more... traditional things more. Things like opera and herbal soup.
Okay so there's really no point to me saying this but really, I finally understand why people talk about acquired tastes.
Opera. This is something I never got when I was younger. Opera was the sort of CDs and stuff that my grandmother used to listen to (and my mother and I can do the accompaniment along to, we've listened to them so often), and I think I'm only starting to better appreciate it now. Of course that could have something to do with the fact that my cantonese is way better now so maybe.
Herbal soups. I don't know, I've been messing around with chinese herbs more nowsaday (not just 狗纪子 and 当归) and yup, gotten used to them. Also trying out new tea combinations. I think it makes for a good start for some change, at least. (My current diet is really, really, unhealthy and probably unnutritious to even my dog.) And since I have so much time from 'O' levels to, well, when JC life officially starts, I probably have some time to learn how to make more soups.
So.
Things I want to do! In no obvious order of importance, or chronology.
- Improve my cantonese. Going to spend the holidays actually making an effort on this one.
- Learn to make more soups.
- Learn to handle seafood. Could also try out some recipes I found recently.
- Read the books on my to-read list.
- Pressure Cat姐 to help me get printed copies of online books. (Of course, as a birthday present.)
- Finish up what I have left of last year's NaNo. I may consider writing a new one this year.
- Read/watch Kuo Pao Kun's
The Spirits Play.
- Spend some time with friends. Hang out with people at bookstores. I need reading suggestions.
- Spend more time with family.
- Reflect. I'll keep it personal, so...
- Consider choices for JC. This includes consulting teachers. Also a lot of planning for my own future.
- National forum thing Mr Chew mentioned?
- IF writing fest with Hope and Louise? And also RS continuation?
- Intellectual conversations with people. Also talk more to my online friends (about more important things).
- Spend more time on music.
- Learn to open up more and how to be around people without slapping them all.
- Learn how to deal with my constant mini-emotional crises.
The last one there is pretty important, I think. Also, that, I just realised, is one
very long list. I intend to cross out more than 2/3 of that.
...I have a weakness for herbal chicken soup. Does anyone want to try out a new recipe I found with me?
Posted at 10:33 PM
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
The smell of dead tree leaves amidst chocolate
I cannot seem to think of an appropriate title for this post. The first thing that popped into my mind was a memory that I had (based on a smell that I smell, even as I am typing this). Which simply reminds me that technology has its limitations.
After all, how do you describe a smell the exact way it is to someone? Or a taste? Or a feeling?
Here is where I think of the title. "The smell of dead tree leaves amidst chocolate". To be honest, it's what the smell that I smell right now reminds me of.
I hope that scene description (of my memory) can elicit the imagination of the smell that I smell.
Alright, on to my main point.
I think, if I start living the way some people do, I will go crazy.
I think I really will.
I'm not the sort of person to believe that faith is all you need to live and that trusting in yourself is enough (although I never actually understood the concept of self-loathing). Sometimes you need the little push that your aspirations give you. Sometimes you need the strength that your emotions give you. It's not like you can completely detach yourself from them (although you can come close).
Sometimes, you need that anger.
But really, if I were to live my life that way, for my anger, for my own basic survival instincts, for being myself, I will just go stark raving mad. It's one of the reasons why I practise meditation. In chinese it's called 静心, which, literally translated, means "quieten the heart". I think many people get the impression that to meditate you have to ignore yourself, but that isn't true. When you meditate you become more, yourself. (Okay, so that's a really weird way to phrase it but I don't think there's any other possible way.) You become more aware of yourself and what you're feeling. You can put a name (well, so maybe not a name, but something that lets you identify yourself) to your state of consciousness.
And the thing is, once you can put a name to the feeling, you can let it go. Perhaps that's another way of living.
Meditation isn't about non-sensitivity, it's about hyper-sensitivity.
I'm a very conflicted person. Some moments I want to use all that rage and anger in me and use it to live (like I do sometimes - this is the cynic in me) and other times I want to just live life like everything's water under the bridge. Perhaps those two methods sound very... opposed, because they're both very extreme, and to tell the truth I haven't truly done either yet. They both have their good and bad sides, which I will not go into for now.
Back to the topic.
Perhaps it would have made sense to live in a very self-defensive way if the world I live in (the context?) isn't the way it is now. But the thing is, it is. The key word is balance. Moderation. The subtle combination of thoughts, ideas and most importantly, concepts.
The entire notion of balance is driving my crazy.
I read this book quite a long while back. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but it said something about how you should live a balanced life. It annoyed me at the time.
Pray tell, how do you base your life's principles on the a single word?
And now, I finally understand.
The world doesn't exist like how we imagine it to, and we're small and insignificant. But damn that, I'm going to try and live my life anyway. To be honest I don't care if I change anyone's life or not. I just want to continue existing. And even if I one day stop existing, I pray that somewhere out there, my (or is it truly mine anymore?) consciousness will remain.
Posted at 5:17 PM
