My Time as a Human

My songs are spells. Each one is developed for a particular intense experience. Each one is formed like a custom antibody for a particular bacteria, a unique incantation for a particular writhing beast inside me that must be exercised. Once crafted I learn and repeat the spell and with each repetition breath flows in and pushes the rage, frustration or fear out. When at last I feel purified, I carefully place the song on the shelf on the chance that it will closely match a future trouble and be useful again. This shelf of spells casts a shadowy image of my progress over time, all I’ve learned from relationships, travels, and troubles.

I think this is why I’ve never been particularly aggressive about getting other people to hear these songs. Their role is not to entertain, win women, or make cash. Apparently, that’s what my more recent children’s songs are for.

In an interesting shift, I’m finding that as the muse wakes me at four in the morning I’m striking different bargains. I wrestle with her a bit, I have my own demands. I take what she gives me and fight to turn it into something I can make childlike, simple, and fun. Suddenly that angry riff becomes a high energy background to childish excitement. Suddenly that sad finger rolling melody is the old tan curtain behind a storyteller.

The magic now is in taking the learnings themselves, the essence of all of those old spells, and making them simple enough for children to absorb and integrate so that they too can breath them in, laugh them out, and tuck them away for a time when it matches one of their own struggles.

Yes, just like an inoculation through a vaccination, giving them Antibodies.

Chinese mothers stand around the bulk bins in the supermarket
they pick out peanuts
and place them into bags
one.
by.
one.
they choose only those that are perfect
from the massive pile
to bring home.
how could any son or daughter
appreciate
or understand
this incredible love?

Everyone likes the idea of punishment. Punishment makes the world simple, safe, and under our control. Religious extremists make great use of this. If the people who just died in a terrible hurricane were doing something “wrong”, and are being punished, then it means that the same thing won’t happen to you because you are doing what is “good” or “right” according to your group’s belief system. One action leads to another. The outcome is in your hands.

The problems with this system are obvious. It doesn’t matter that a child is eight years old when it happened; when a child’s parents die the child often takes on a lifetime of guilt, wondering what they did to cause or deserve this. When the seeming impossibility of someone so young being to blame is too much, some systems of belief incorporate a series of former yous that are to blame. (Past lives.) This means that you can feel all of the guilt of having done something terrible without actually having any known history of doing something terrible. At eight years old you’ve already been a brutal dictator who must be punished. In Christianity, there is even the idea that you are “born into sin” and never had a chance to begin with.

My current situation certainly gives me plenty of leverage to get cranky. I came to China fired up to work hard. I pushed myself and trained every day, doing what was “good” in the system that I understood: if you work hard without fail, you will be rewarded. Instead I overdid it and injured my knees so badly that it will now take more than six months to heal. Most of my time in China so far has been spent unable to freely walk and explore.

If I look at this as a punishment, it’s miserable to deal with. I’m being punished for knowledge I didn’t have at the time. It doesn’t seem fair. If I had known that the particular type of pain I was feeling was a clue to stop training for a while instead of pushing on I would be strong and healthy today. But I didn’t know.

Many years ago I also did what I thought was right and invested my money instead of letting it sit in a bank, and if I’d just diversified or pulled it out I’d still have money today. But the younger me didn’t and couldn’t have known these things and so I lost it all.

Now instead of guilt I’d like to introduce another concept, a concept that I’ve also seen used by religious people that are not so extreme. Everything that happens has a result. I can’t walk while I’m in an exciting new country and I don’t have any money left from all of my hard work. Those sound like pretty crappy outcomes. But one of the things that, say, a monotheist might say is that, “all things happen for a reason as part of God’s plan.” Atheists and others sometimes refer to the, “will of the universe” or things, “being as they should be”. This is radically different from looking for blame. In fact, because things happened the way they were supposed to, and always do, there is neither blame nor praise for anything you did to cause it. It just was. In fact, you don’t even have to look for a way it fits into someone else’s plan, be they god or universe. You can find ways it’s offered new opportunities for you or those you love. With this new pair of spectacles to see the world it’s time to reframe the results.

If I hadn’t lost all of my money I might have followed my plan at the time and been quicker to rush out into the world. Having not stayed in Austin I would never have moved into the fantastic Pink Palace and learned and taught so much there. I would never have met so many incredible people who are lifelong friends. I would never have experienced so many incredible loves. I might not have taken a class where I learned the word, “reframe”. You might not be reading this blog post right now, because I might have been traveling and not have started a blog and, even then, if I was still able to train kung fu here I wouldn’t have time to write right now.

So, there you have it. The universe/God/Goddess/the Great Spirt/any way you like it has willed that I write this blog post and that you read it. I have suffered a lot so that you can have this before you. I hope it was worth it!

Addendum

There seems to be some confusion, so to clarify: the last line is a joke. Otherwise it would negate the whole point! Of course it’s worth it, even if it sometimes takes looking from the right angle to see how. It’s something I’ve made a habit, and while I’m not perfect it continually transforms my life “setbacks” into a constant source of amusement and new challenges. As I mentioned in the comments, I wouldn’t even be able to speak Chinese now if I hadn’t been injured and given enough time, let alone met so many fun Chinese students from all over the world!

When I first came to China I didn’t plan to become invisible. I didn’t use any of the invisibility skills I learned in woodland survival training. I just walked out into the street, with my foreign clothes, white skin and braid trailing from the top of my head and moved around as inconspicuously as a great ape sucking a pacifier in the middle of a kindergarten class.

Every head turned and every neck craned to look at me. Children stood frozen in amazement. Despite this they did not speak to me. They let me pass. The language was a distant wash of sound that surrounded me, trigging no response in me. The environment was so strange, so different, that the feeling filled me that I was moving through a universe not my own, a ghost, an observer. Nothing interacted with me then. It was as though I could move my hand through objects. Other than the silent looks I passed untouched through crowds.

Invisibility changed my habits. I’ve never spent much time on my hair or how I look generally, but suddenly I was aware of the little I once did care when those instincts vanished completely. When you are moving invisibly among people, what is hair? What is a stain on a shirt? Choosing a shirt at all is meaningless.

After my years of overwhelmingly overactive social life back in Austin, I felt a huge relief. I didn’t feel any tension that I might have to interact with anyone. I didn’t feel any obligation to chitchat or say nice things, as no one would understand me or… as a ghost… even hear me. I could leave my room and wander, still maintaining that same feeling of being alone, feeling fearless, feeling calm.

Eventually, other students began to arrive. I met some of them in the hallways and they spoke little bits of English. It jarred me. Things shifted. I became aware that people outside, people out there, might emerge from the foggy world and recognize me, know me as me, and that I would need to respond to them and interact. The world was suddenly paying attention to me again. I paused before putting on a shirt. I braced myself before leaving my room.

In Taipei, Taiwan I noticed something else. I arrived, knowing no one, and yet this experience was not repeated. The wealth of the place meant that people looked more like me. Many subtle familiar cues told me that I was near my known social group. Ironically the more people ignored me, the more this added to the familiarity and suddenly, at some deep instinctual level, their many small imagined judgements mattered. Did I look cool enough? Was I standing in an awkward way? Shouldn’t I know how to buy this ticket by now?

When I returned from my travels my favorite moment was seeing the smiles and feeling the embraces of my friends. I love knowing people here in Fuzhou. But I do sometimes miss the odd, safe, calm feeling of invisibility and I wonder, now that I’m learning to speak, if I’ll be able to find it again when I begin to travel west.