Resurrection

It's been nine years since she died. Or that's what we thought.  History, memory, time came to a full stop where she could not adapt. She was given up, folded, archived, black and white pictures in the bottom drawer of an empty desk. 

I was the empty desk. Life anew. "You are exactly like her," heard a strange personality masquerading among her acquaintances, a covering projection of an imposter. Her friends, though, mourned and accepted the substitute. Sometimes they pulled up the archive to point to a page or two. Sometimes they missed her presence too. 

But she was only dormant. Her unresolved characters flare up into the cold space on occasion. Torn, fragmented images adrift in thoughts and actions never quite find their way to each other. 

Nine years was but a cycle to an eerie familiarity. A maybe inadvertently crossed the mind leaving a crack in the shell. No longer solidified, she rampaged through the surface, engulfing what she scorched. That was me allowed her resurrection. 

Nine years fill a desk. Is she taking over now? Would she survive it this time? I misjudged her intention. I have missed the weight of time bearing down on the strained legs and the sore heart. A slow, imperceptible accumulation of moments verges on a collapse. She would take me with her at the implosion to a minuscule desk with a minuscule drawer. We would be once again closer. 

How many times we must play the dying and the resurrected in this recursive game of life, we wondered. The final level may be reached asymptotically but with escalating difficulty. Buried tracks and conjured up figures are the clues. Living in a backed-up dream, we rest for the next round.

12/27/2020
in Palo Alto

I and she

I was reflecting on myself, about an interesting behavior I've been observing: it is not that I don't understand what people mean by what they do or say, but I will still think and behave, in reaction, as if they truly meant well. I was thinking why, often.
Eventually I recalled the person that was half of my age and morphed into me. Let me call that person she, or he, or it, or whatever, just for convenience. She truly thought all people meant well by what they do or say to her. Actually, she didn't even think that, because there wasn't even the concept of aggression or being its target. Enlightenment finally struck: everything start to make more sense in hindsight if not all are benevolent.
I took over from there. I thought she left but she did not. She became my body, returned to Nature. I do not own her. I simply cannot avoid her, as she cannot avoid breathing without extreme efforts or consequences. She still thinks the way she used to think or not think. She talks to me, often.
If that is the case, I was mistaken. We in fact just got to be about the same age, or she is twice as old as me. Anyhow, I have been new and stupid until now. Now I can hear her better. Either I got mature enough to converse with her on an equal footing or she just learned some new language that easily gets through.
But what's I and what's she are always changing, or never change. But can I or can I not talk about the never changed?
I was writing this to answer her. Or do I mean it?

------

I was reflecting on myself,
about an interesting behavior
I've been observing:
it is not
that I don't understand
what people mean
by what they do
or say,
but I will still think
and behave,
in reaction,
as if they truly meant well.
I was thinking
why,
often.

Eventually I recalled the person
that was half of my age
and morphed into me.
Let me call that person she,
or he,
or it,
or whatever,
just for convenience.

She truly thought all people meant well
by what they do
or say to her.

Actually,
she didn't even think that,
because there wasn't even
the concept of aggression
or being its target.

Enlightenment finally struck:
everything
start to make more sense
in hindsight
if not all are benevolent.

I took over from there.
I thought she left
but she did not.
She became my body,
returned to Nature.
I do not own her.
I simply cannot avoid her,
as she cannot
avoid breathing
without extreme efforts
or consequences.

She still thinks
the way she used to
think or not think.

She talks to me,
often.

If that is the case,
I was mistaken.
We in fact just got to be
about the same age,
or she is twice as old as me.

Anyhow,
I have been new and stupid
until now.

Now
I can hear her better.
Either I got mature enough to converse with her
on an equal footing
or she
just learned some new language
that easily gets through.

But what's I
and what's she
are always changing,
or never change.
But can I or can I not
talk about the never changed?

I was writing this to answer her.
Or do I mean it?

On becoming 25

(This can be read as a casual poem where words do not have meaning. This is a valley where your thoughts may or may not flow through.)

Is 25, 25 years?
It is not like when I was much younger. Since a while ago maybe, this has been the case, about the turnover of years.
The feeling of a year has been progressively disjoining from the numbers.
1997 was a year. 1998 was one too. The definition seemed to be clear at that age.
A year should be how a year feels like. There should be things happening in it. A few things for each day or each week. The length of a week is stretched out by the filling of things.
The progression of each month thus becomes memorable, as if it is a person with a story. A story that is anchored at an abstract sequence of the so-called weeks, whose tempo was made salient by the turnover of things. It is through the deflection of month, a sequence gains its simultaneity.
2014 is not a year, neither was 2013, 2012, 2011 - if the feeling of year is part of its definition that has been held constant since I was 8.
I'm reluctant to call them years since there was not one thing that happened in them.
The recent turning of numbers, not years - like the rising turbulence from the heated deposits of memory, is not yet, if it is ever going to be, one complete movement.
What is a thing? What slows down or speeds up the progression of numbers as time contemplated backwards. What made them distinguishable from each other.

Maybe it is my definition of "thing" has changed. A younger me would take events in a smaller time scale as a thing. And the scale becomes larger as I becomes older.
Then I recalled how I named a number a year. It is not that I can remember, describe, identity what the things in it were like. There is nothing that I can say about them except the feeling of a year, justified by the feeling of things and the tense in between, when they are all projected into the past.
If the feeling is always a part of, if not all of, its definition.
A thing should be what a thing feels like. What holds constant since I was much younger.
Then it is not that I have changed my definition of a thing, but the numbers that were not in the thing had changed their tempo - the swarm of numbers agitated by the pacing up of the stars, the sun, the moon, the flowing of temperature and colors.

What is it to be 25? If I say it's eventually going to 50, it is as if there is time lying ahead equally spaced as what there was before.
But if the turnover of this life is also with the speeding up of the stars, the sun, the moon, temperature and colors. The next 25 is not the same amount of years as the 25 before, if a year should be what it feels like. Then I have lived the majority of my life.
I have always had lived the majority of my life.

But are the stars, the sun, the moon, temperature and colors turning faster? Or when they are projected backwards in time, there will be a point where their slowing down is justified by the salience of a year.
Isn't it more like - whenever I try to grasp the so-called past, the so-called "thing" shrinks in time and multiplied in number, while the rest is elongated in time and reduced in number. As the world projects backwards in time, two parts of the world have distinct trajectories of distortion and drift apart. There is only a regime where the feeling of a year lives. It gives simultaneity to what it lives on.

What is, then, becoming 25? If I am the person who is becoming 25, who has also had the 24, 23, 22, and if a person lives on things as a year does, I have been being born and killed at every moment. A previous me is always severed by the dislocation between the size of things and the size of the rest.
But wait. Maybe being me is just how being me feels like. The feeling is part of, if not all of its definition, and is held constant. As that of a year. As that of a thing.
Then when I am projected backwards in time, I was not a person. I was fragments scattered in the distorted things as they syncopate and interfere with the rest - familiar but not intimate.

I becomes 25 as if have just woken up from a dream, as if there is more reality lying ahead, compared to what is scattered before.
I have always had just woken up from a dream, if, at the end, a dream is the scattering made by the waking.

If the past should just be how the past feels like, 25 is just a fine gradient of scattering. Becoming 25 is the making of 24.

The numbering of years is to overcome the sharp sense of being born, as the numbering of age is to overcome the sharp sense of waking up.

I'm a fixed standing point

I live in a three dimensional space.

but I am not living.

I'm a view point with fixed position.

I'm helpless.

because I'm just a, probably infinite small, three-dimensional space.

I exist.

because a four dimensional continuum is passing through me slowly.

I meet my friends but it doesn't mean we are moving around in the space.

It only means there are two sets of wave complex intervening with each other in a static four dimension view.

probably that's why the logic topology is ever consistent through different layers of complex system.

well, maybe this is wrong.

because it is hard to explain death.

or say, I cannot explain memory and death at the same time.

if obtaining memory is an illusion of the looming projection in the perceivable space.

then death is a abrupt change.

why would a continuum would have abrupt sphere?

is this a property of this three dimensional space?

or controlled by the periodical interaction between the 4th and 5th dimension?