archive
30.10.26 - arvo thought
the other week i thought i had a calling from my ancestors to visit their villages in china but i reached out to an aunt there and she didn't get back to me so i took it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be. the best psychics are right about 70% of the time, at best. i am not a psychic, and i am certainly not the best. so i feel less disappointed in myself when my gut instincts don't always lead to the outcome i think they'll take me to. who needs china though when you can just hang around melbourne cbd. I attempt an immersive chinese lesson at the café i arrive at, sitting next to a chinese duo who are yapping away endlessly and rapidly. in fact the pace of their speech is almost startling to me, and makes me wonder how they find time to eat their dessert or not choke. of course this noticing is discrete and kept to myself; i am not one to stare lest i bring attention to myself, a learnt behaviour that often expresses itself to my detriment, for i lapse on these opportunities when they are most needed, perhaps an act of self-deprecation or self-disrespect if you will.
moments before i was at the library but the rising afternoon temperatures had me nearly salivate over the public study desks for a strawberry matcha. but i decided i needed a break from being indoors. i mean i'm still indoors but this place closes at four which is about 45 minutes away and i'll probably head to the park afterwards to do some vlogging. anyway i'm trying my hardest to zone in on their conversation, which ultimately ends up futile given my predisposition to delayed auditory processing and the compressed animecore edm played on the tinny overhead speakers, overlayed with distant chatter collaged with sharp sounds of breaking glass and dinging bell chimes, amongst other white noise. it's all simply too fast and too much, so i quickly resign to the fact that today i will not be experiencing an immersive chinese lesson. i try my best not to regress back to the harsh dialogue of my inner critic derived from childhood attendance to saturday chinese school, where i was chastised for being a bad student because of my illiterate inability to keep up with the other students in the classroom, all barring one white kid who were first generation chinese ESL kids who came to practice their writing. i am pleased to declare that i have mostly moved away from my brain's protective confirmatory bias, for i understand my circumstances arising from my fractured relationship to my culture, and thus, no longer see myself as a failure and feel mostly at piece with my broken speaking. i opt for another approach, taking occasional sideways glances to make sense of their dynamic gestures, taking them as physical flash cards. Biejiao - wrist watch. matcha - mocha. I'm pretty sure I heard Europe. 33Whatever. it wasn't my intention to be here for that anyway.
I am finding flow back in my own pace. I wanted to prepare some content on an upcoming vlog. or maybe it will be a reel because i wanna challenge myself on that short-form content. short-form content to contain my long-form yaps. it's not about speaking faster, it's about distilling my message to the most salient points. speaking like a child and a prodigy, speaking with the highest impact. i'm thinking about trying to communicate with more poetry, more play. there are many structural elements that i'm interrogating in this process to try and learn how to become a better communicator. it's hard to do when you're trying to convey complex ideas. it's hard when you don't have clarity on what the complex ideas you are trying to communicate. that's why the ground work of preparation is helpful, i feel so much resistance to it but i suppose this process will only pave way for better things, in so many different dimensions. that's the thing i love about the expansive possibilities. that's the thing i love about meta-cognition. i am no longer entirely encumbered by the automated predisposition to my patterns of thought, speech and action. i can recognise in increasingly real-time, the ways that these patterns may lead to hazardous outcomes. i steer my ship the other way and am more honest about the likely consequences of avoidance, people-pleasing or ignorance. through this process a lot of discomfort surfaces, but i'm even learning to observe that so it doesn't keep my life lived through the filter of fear. it feels anchoring to come back into myself. to remember the game of life that i'm trying to live by, where i am trying to maintain as much equanimity and stillness as possible no matter what circumstances i'm faced with.
moments before i was at the library but the rising afternoon temperatures had me nearly salivate over the public study desks for a strawberry matcha. but i decided i needed a break from being indoors. i mean i'm still indoors but this place closes at four which is about 45 minutes away and i'll probably head to the park afterwards to do some vlogging. anyway i'm trying my hardest to zone in on their conversation, which ultimately ends up futile given my predisposition to delayed auditory processing and the compressed animecore edm played on the tinny overhead speakers, overlayed with distant chatter collaged with sharp sounds of breaking glass and dinging bell chimes, amongst other white noise. it's all simply too fast and too much, so i quickly resign to the fact that today i will not be experiencing an immersive chinese lesson. i try my best not to regress back to the harsh dialogue of my inner critic derived from childhood attendance to saturday chinese school, where i was chastised for being a bad student because of my illiterate inability to keep up with the other students in the classroom, all barring one white kid who were first generation chinese ESL kids who came to practice their writing. i am pleased to declare that i have mostly moved away from my brain's protective confirmatory bias, for i understand my circumstances arising from my fractured relationship to my culture, and thus, no longer see myself as a failure and feel mostly at piece with my broken speaking. i opt for another approach, taking occasional sideways glances to make sense of their dynamic gestures, taking them as physical flash cards. Biejiao - wrist watch. matcha - mocha. I'm pretty sure I heard Europe. 33Whatever. it wasn't my intention to be here for that anyway.
I am finding flow back in my own pace. I wanted to prepare some content on an upcoming vlog. or maybe it will be a reel because i wanna challenge myself on that short-form content. short-form content to contain my long-form yaps. it's not about speaking faster, it's about distilling my message to the most salient points. speaking like a child and a prodigy, speaking with the highest impact. i'm thinking about trying to communicate with more poetry, more play. there are many structural elements that i'm interrogating in this process to try and learn how to become a better communicator. it's hard to do when you're trying to convey complex ideas. it's hard when you don't have clarity on what the complex ideas you are trying to communicate. that's why the ground work of preparation is helpful, i feel so much resistance to it but i suppose this process will only pave way for better things, in so many different dimensions. that's the thing i love about the expansive possibilities. that's the thing i love about meta-cognition. i am no longer entirely encumbered by the automated predisposition to my patterns of thought, speech and action. i can recognise in increasingly real-time, the ways that these patterns may lead to hazardous outcomes. i steer my ship the other way and am more honest about the likely consequences of avoidance, people-pleasing or ignorance. through this process a lot of discomfort surfaces, but i'm even learning to observe that so it doesn't keep my life lived through the filter of fear. it feels anchoring to come back into myself. to remember the game of life that i'm trying to live by, where i am trying to maintain as much equanimity and stillness as possible no matter what circumstances i'm faced with.
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