Thank you Masha

There you go. Tearing up after seeing your post on your bday. 

I saved the pic of you and your grandma comparing hands, using it as one of my backgrounds now. 

disillusionment and hope

I have finally reached a stage in life where I can buy non-pirated mangas without feeling guilty. (shouldn't it be the other way around lol) Unfortunately good stories are scarce, and passion is rarely rekindled, hence I sway between these somewhat extreme states of disillusionment and hope...

Bungou Stray Dogs - Though not much, I actually know a little bit about the Japanese writers in the Meiji and Taisho eras beyond a lot of them dying from consumption and poverty etc, so you can imagine my excitement when the manga boasted of the setting that these literary giants band together, go on adventures and fight crimes, and my shock horror bitter disappointment when I realised the characters were in name only and lack any kind of nuances resembling the historical figures. I mean even depiction of Dazai's suicidality was nothing beyond the superficial and quite bland. and when Ichiyo Higuchi became a cruel but stupid and unimportant mafia woman--- I think I was ready to put the book down and declare it a waste of money.
(no pictures as I do not recommend)

Moriaty the Patriot -- if the previous one is just bad this one is horrendous. I was lost for words apart from WTF. I hope to find a way to put in a formal complaint somewhere though my Japanese is non-existent.
1st chapter opened with a young aristocrat burning his whole biological family alive because they were snobs and didn't treat the working class very well and he wanted to turn the page and lead a more noble upright and sympathetic life. (????????) okay this was morbidly twisted but I would put up with it for now--who knows maybe down the track he would reveal a Patrick Melrose kind of developmental history and admit he's just taking revenge---
and then Sherlock Holmes showed up -- invited Mrs Hudson and Watson to a seedy bar, faked a message from Mrs Hudson to seduce a brute in the bar, and took leave from the scene so that Watson could rescue the damsel in distress and earn Mrs Hudson's trust and become his housemate. (???????) Mrs Hudson got harassed and groped in the process.
after I puked---Okay this stupid sociopathic piece of junk is not Sherlock Holmes alright. period.
(no pictures as I strongly advise against)

Lastly, the chance encounter with Golden Kamuy gave me immense hope...

Well researched and very interesting historical and cultural background(there was a Ainu dialect linguist as well as a Russian translator on the project), diverse characters with depths, and I am always always excited to see Shinpachi and Hijikata, especially as they are not going so gentle into that good night. If Saitou pops out somewhere later even better but hey I am not greedy...
Think what I appreciated most was that the author was incredibly merciful. His universe was a cruel universe, plenty of blood and gore and people die quickly and easily like candles being snuffed out, but the ones who were vulnerable from fate were the adult male characters - those who actively played a role in the universe, those who needed to take responsibilities for themselves and their surroundings.
-while the animals, the children, and the weak and elderly were invariably respected, cared for and sometimes with very happy endings. I melt every time following the story lines of Retar the wolf and Ryu the Hokkaido Inu, and so relieved that they did not have to be sacrificed in any way for the development of this human story.


what makes me a bit uneasy though was the dynamic between Asirpa and Sugimoto - especially after I realised that she's only meant to be 12-13 (seriously even 15 would be a much more comfortable number!) It was very obviously accepted in the story that there was a special bond between the two while every other adult male character treated Aspirpa as a child. @_@ am sorry, after the Watsuki scandal I think of the P word wherever I go and definitely have some PTSD...
Having said all that, the Kenshin romantic lines on the other hand were a lot more appropriate and clear cut - Kaoru at 17 was considered an adult and could have something going on with the 28yo Kenshin, while Misao at 16 was clearly and consistently considered a child. though she was infatuated with Aoshi, there was never any indication even subtly that Aoshi reciprocated in any kind of way...
...but guess what Watsuki turned out to be? oh the irony...
well in that case I will try to be less paranoid and just enjoy the story for now.

and a much less important shortfall XD the male characters were diverse in looks and personalities and actually all quite likeable, but they were all too "straight" (and probably too involved in battling the harsh elements to have space and energy for anything else) that none really stood out and could make me go starry-eyed... but hey like I said... I am not greedy...

Hajj

So... following Kenshin’s footsteps, I recently visited Hakodate. ^_^ Surprisingly enough after my very angry rant earlier this year about the lacklustre storyline of the Hokkaido Arc - the plot took a more exciting turn in the last few months and focused back on Saitou, interactions between Kenshin and Saitou, as well as the comical addition of Shinpachi which I thought was a really positive spin.

So, hope is re-instilled and I am pleased that I saw it with my own eyes now rather than later. Photos of Goryokaku and Hekketetsu-hi Monument and the memories that I was physically there myself will probably bring back some positive emotions for years to come. Moreover who knows when Watsuki will do some unforgivable deeds again and Hokkaido arc will die prematurely...or more likely when my own moralistic attitude will take over and my love for kenshin will be no more.

Goryokaku was very touristy - mainland groups taking photos in throngs up on Goryokaku Tower-- I bet they didn't know a thing about the history and cared even less. Hekketetsu Monument on the other hand was deserted - it was away from pretty much everything else though and was up in a mountain. I went there early in the morning by myself (didn't think hubby would appreciate it and also underestimated the distance -_- lol). It was a chilly long hike (maybe only 15 mins but felt like an hr due to my physical unfitness) and there was this eerie buddhist temple leading up to it...@.@|||| think I got a bit freaked out even with the images of my favourite superheros cheering me on:

There was a certain degree of sadness as I looked at Hakodate city (maybe its just me with my chronic dysthymia). it was desolate, ran down, almost a haunted version of its old self - about 150 years earlier when it became a port to the outside world - foreign influences and trade flooding in as well as migrants from the rest of japan - and that strong and glaringly bright sense of hope-- that with willpower and hardwork alone, great things can be made out of this harsh cold no man’s land...

Such was the hope of Kenshin's times--this heroic inevitability perhaps bound to fail, but something I so lack and so desperately want to hold onto..

I also bought the Kenshin merchandise - cross scarred apple pies. Just for the boxes really. -_-||| the apple pies themselves taste a bit like 老婆饼…… Not the most impressive Hokkaido pastries...

anyways this is getting a bit long for a jet lagged brain, I have wanted to talk about Kenshin, and Saitou, and Kenshin+Saitou for the last couple of years but kept procrastinating. maybe another time... lol

Hope instilled

Hegira

So, it has been more than a year... issues settled and maybe...almost back to normal. the Kenshin Hokkaido Arc restarted in the Jump monthly serials, and Watsuki promised fans a good story, as a way for himself to reflect and repent etc. 2 new manga volumes have been published and the 2nd volume made it to the Top 3 selling chart (The other 2 are both current weekly serials, and I guess it just shows how robust Kenshin’s old fan base is) New kenshin movie is in the making - though I really have doubts about Takeru Sato pulling it off as teenage kenshin this time... (isn’t he also well in his 30s now??) but never mind...

In this whole time I have been ruminating, and am still ruminating now. About Watsuki, about Kenshin, Saitou, Kaoru, Hiko-sensei...the familiar storyline playing over in my head again and again.
and I guess mostly about myself, and why this continues to haunt me so much.

Loyal fans have come to Kenshin’s defense and the most often heard argument has been the need to separate the art from the artist, though in my mind that is almost a whitewashed lie. Art simply cannot be separated from the artist and in many ways art really IS the artist. What you commit to paper is often the innermost you coming under the sun - ironically more vulnerable and exposed than a pedophilia arrest in the news.

I guess that is where I get stuck.

I have been quite disappointed at the Hokkaido story since its 1st chapter, even with Watsuki’s moral failings aside, and the subsequent chapters so far did very little to salvage it.
What’s with the agitated parade of all the past popular characters in the initial chapters? And in the recent ones even Hiko-sensei? He’s in the mountains making pottery and the story hasn’t hit the critical point so leave him alone! Just an attempt completely lacking in confidence to grab hold of the different fan bases so they don’t drop out? -_-|||||
I won’t even mention the fact that Saitou-san appeared in almost all the marketing materials yet his role in the story was fleeting and he shyed away from showing the world that his left hand was injuried in battle against a powerful opponent — that’s really not Saitou-san is it?
I am dreading but also waiting for Hokkaido Arc to end quickly and prove that it is pale, feeble and crap so I can really fly off the handle about it. Yes I know I am just an angry obsessional perfectionistic fan who’s on the lookout for something to be pissed off about—-

But maybe the anger did not stem from Hokkaido - it was elusive but raising its head already back in Tokyo with the Jinchu Arc. Though somewhat representing the good and evil polarity, siblings Tomoe and Enishi actually were both rather chaotic in their coping style facing grief and loss. It is hardly explainable only by the loss of a mother when they were young but the role of their father seemed very much missing —yet we at least know he was well and alive and held a respectable position in the Bakumastu at least till Tomoe was at a marriageable age....

If he remained invisible and absent till the end that was that, but a bit later in the story this jovial irrelevant and somewhat out of place old man popped up in the village of the fallen — first doing some supportive counseling to Kenshin and later, aromatherapy to Enishi... and somehow in the midst of all these low key psychological support stuff he revealed himself to be Tomoe’s father (hence - Enishi’s father too and Kenshin’s father in law?)

Even as a teenager I found it very odd and unconvincing and doesn’t quite make sense.

And just maybe, the very same odd and incoherent sentiment,15 years later, drove the naggingly unsettling pretext from which all the events take place in Hokkaido - the hegira in search of Kaoru’s absent father - who was assumed dead for years and was hardly missed in the original story. yes Kaoru was in the habit of picking up older men off the streets (lol) but she was quite clear in her need for servants to do her household chores and not for paternal replacements. Funny enough, even in the midst of this current Hegira, Kaoru 5 years older and now a mother herself, still seemed rather chilled about all this kerfuffle. The proactive one jumping up and down about finding this new father-in-law he never met and drove all this adventure to take place - is Kenshin.

I do find this misplaced father complex rather cringeworthy. My fondest memories about the Kenshin story and what made it full of warmth, hope and security is its offering of a glimpse to a world, though toxic, ruthless, and misleading, without a care for its young and weak—is also littered with spiritual fathers left right and centre, who come in all ages shapes and forms but invariably true to their values, honest to their feelings and noble at hearts, who will meet you along the treacherous road, each playing his part guide you through bits of the journey till you safely reach the other end.

I really missed that. And I kept wondering what happened, for Watsuki who created this glorious world full of brillant fathers, to spiral down into this pitiable regressed form, repetitively, pathologically depicting the process of finding a wayward father home as the ultimate fulfilment, as well as the desperate need to show that despite absence and abandonment, such a father is still a very good father and even his absence must have been for a decent and noble reason.

And ultimately what does this say about me? - who remain on ill terms with both parents, perhaps for a very long time too, just that getting married made everything came out under the sun a lot more. — who have been in this state of chronic dysthymia and acopia perhaps because there were never much faith (or shall we say illusions?)in my biological father’s ability to tackle the world. - who as a teenager found the Kenshin story life changing and inspiring and wanting to create a secure world of fathers of my own but now many years later as a disgruntled middle aged woman really doubting this could even be done—

And yet...I am feeble and ambivalent even in this acceptance of the impossible - now and then I would still dig some graves and rattle some long dead bones...hoping to replicate this security...for myself and maybe for others...someday...somehow.

Though as I was venting, the latest chapter of Hokkaido Arc came out - in its last page, there was half a silhouette of Saitou-san, with an injured arm still recovering—
But still standing tall, still smoking, and will still give Kenshin some attitude once he walks through that door. Not parental at all but most containing.

And that was enough. I am feeling hopeful again, maybe just enough for me to survive another day of suppressing negative emotions dealing with my family of origin.

When the prayer curtain falls

I haven't written for a while. A lot of lifestyle changes has taken place. I have also turned another year older. I have noted with sadness, perhaps mostly disappointment in myself - that I have finally reached Saitou-san's age.
Yes, fictional I know, but it was a magical number to me for a long time.
The stage of life Saitou-san was at when he met and challenged Kenshin with his famous lines -

The last time we fought, was on the battlegrounds of Toba-Fushimi. 
So,that makes it ten years. 
Ten years...
Two little words said in a breath.
But living it through, is an awfully long time. 
As you put it, ten years...
is long enough to make a man ROT. 
Drowning in your self-satisfaction and phony righteousness...
How can the Hitokiri Battosai protect people without killing?
Have you forgotten?
"A Swift Death for the Evil"
That was the code of justice common to both the Shinsengumi and the Hitokiri. 

i will digress a bit and do some housekeeping updates--
In Feb this year, Watsuki-sensei was not charged but only fined for his paedophilia habits. The fact, that after all the media upheaval and fans' bitter disillusionment etc etc, his punishment turned out so proportionately light, made me suspecting that his perverse collections were perhaps anime-only, and had nothing to do with real children. -_-|||| But, enough was enough and the damage was done. Ironically the very man who made Saitou-san someone not holding back such memorably sharp criticism -of a man previously upright "rotting" after years of invisibility from the public eye - has apparently rotted himself.

Strangely or not I did not actually find it so hard talking about his perversity. Maybe slightly more of an understanding of the culture has allowed me to be condoning. After all, not so long ago compensated dating with under aged school girls was still not taboo in the jap society and only became illegal in very recent years. Instead I struggled hard with the fact that he has rotted in less perverse and much less obvious ways and somewhere inside me still bloody hurts every time when I think about it.

When news came of the Shonen Jump 50th anniversary exhibition - I was determined to do an otaku business trip, and so I did. (yes I ate the delicious Anzai-sensei pudding that had the boing boing bouncy texture just like when Hanamachi bounced his chin XD)

I read Watsuki-sensei's interview from the official exhibition catalog (beautifully bilingual, beautifully translated). The talented genius storyteller has become a disappointment in so many ways - in fact - he was at a complete loss as to why Kenshin was such a popular series. Quoting him:

"30% of the readers were female when it was first serialised. Today a lot of females read Shonen Jump, but back then it was rare. Now that I think about it, the reason why it appealed to so many female readers could have been due to the story being told from a woman's perspective. I didn't realise it back then"

You've got to be joking.
*facepalm*

There really wasn't such a thing as "a woman's perspective" in the Kenshin story. In fact, Watsuki's depication of apparent adult female characters (and there weren't many) were actually terrible fails. In retrospect this is hardly surprising for a man who struggled with mature sexuality and turned to paedophila. Megumi and Tomoe were merely make-believe 2D symbols of what beautiful women should be like and lacked any convincing character depth. Kaoru - got a lot of positive light as the female lead but was incoherent at best, and otherwise quite regressed and impulsive, with a brain completely not in the league as any of the other main characters. I wonder now and then how much he would have subconsciously modelled Kaoru on his own volatile needy mother...(this is going a bit far but I won't be surprised at all if he had one) The Kenshin story told from Kaoru's perspective? - that would be a nightmare.

So what has made a story lacking in convincing female characters so genuinely appealing to female audiences?

Oh the mystery and the irony.
He has not a single clue the real emotional and intellectual needs of the very subpopulation he is sexually attracted to.
Or maybe he intuitively had, once upon a time. and  now he has rotted, and lost it.

I think the discontinuation of the Kenshin sequel in response to his public fall from grace is a good thing.

Talking about pre-loved manga artists rotting... Takehiko Inoue is another. Well he hasn't committed any socially unacceptable crime yet, so my accusation of him rotting is for now but a cowardly whisper.
He has recently upgraded the slamdunk series covers with some new artwork...
Lots of media praise about youth, passion, friendship, nostalgia blah blah blah...
I am sorry... they actually look horrible. They look like middle-aged narcissistic men posing as lively hopeful high school students. Each of their facial expressions convey nothing but "my face alone is a work of art".

I think i feel a bit sick. I will do some comfort eating to cope with that.

the mad man

So I have gone back to re-read Kenshin since hearing about the scandal two weeks ago. These days I read much slower than I used to, but I still love the Kenshin manga to bits. I also caught up with a friend lately and talked about Watsuki-sensei's fall from grace. We watched two of the three Kenshin real-life movies together so the grief was really shared. We concluded that no matter what happened, Kenshin will remain as the best manga for us, so the only question remains - how now can we ever share it with our children? or our children's children?

Lots of memories came flooding back as I went through the story once again. There were many things I have held dear, but there were more things which have been ingrained in me and became second nature, and only now I realised -they actually came from Kenshin!

i really hope to note down all the things I want to say about Kenshin and Saitou before the end of the year, but these days I read and write so much slower than before so I am not too sure whether this is too ambitious. T_T There were so much I wanted to talk about Kenshin and Saitou, but before that I thought I really should give Soujiro a mention.

There was a part when Soujiro felt very challenged by Kenshin's world view in the midst of their battle and said one of most agonising things -
Back at that time, you... you did not come to rescue me. 
If what you have been saying are the truth - why? why did you not come to rescue me back then?
Back then, no one came to my rescue. 
The only thing that saved me was Shishio-san's words, and a short sword that he gave me. 

To which Kenshin replied-
You kept on mentioning about "back then" and questioned why wasn't I there to rescue you.
I am not able to travel back in time and I simply cannot imagine what really happened at that time or place,
but if it is not all too late, is it okay if we start the reparation now?

I guess I can easily imagine this being the universal unspoken conversation that takes place at work...

the most memorable thing about Soujiro is not what he said and did as a character but what Watsuki-sensei said about him when his part of the story came to a conclusion. Despite painting him as the teenage heart throb and being ever so sympathetic about his traumatic childhood and the choices he made subsequently - Watsuki-sensei's view on the approach of life he took was clear---

No matter what external difficulties one encounters in one's family or the wider society, no matter how difficult and bitter your life has been, being a person, living in this world, the one single thing you cannot give up is thinking independently.

There you go. It was a lesson I held dear as a miserable clueless teenager vulnerable to falling into all kinds of toxic external expectations.
and now looking back 17 years later, it is as needed a lesson now as it was back then.

Just for that alone, Watsuki-sensei is still Watsuki-sensei.

Oh and this article from Mockingbird is very timely.
Love the art, hate the artist?

the swan song

News came yesterday that Nobuhiro Watsuki got arrested for child pornography possession. i was pretty shattered. Perhaps all the future generations from now on will dismiss Rurouni Kenshin as "the manga drawn by that paedophile" and it will not be valued anymore, which i think is absolutely tragic.

More tragic perhaps is that I couldn't help but imagine myself being called upon in the wee hours of the morning for an emergency assessment if Watsuki sensei attempts suicide in custody(they commonly do) and what I will end up saying to him---"Hello sensei, I am your shrink. i grew up reading your Rurouni Kenshin and it really shaped my life and brought me to where I am now. Sadly I can't think of anything that can fix you. All I can do is to keep you alive for prison no matter how much you want to die. In all honesty, your shit has nothing to do with me. I just don't want to end up going to the coroners for you when you get your easy way out. I will now ask Romeo the Phillipino nurse to sit with you for suicide watch. He's not much of a talker given his Japanese isn't great, but he's much bigger than you so don't even think about doing anything silly.  Hopefully after the weekend some other shrink will take over and you won't be my business any more. "

Now this is all rather defeating (and racist too), and perhaps affirms the point that mangas are mangas, and at the end of day they do nothing to make us mere mortals better people--readers or artist alike--but still I am grieving. I am getting old and weary not to say I have felt old and weary for years now. I see life as an ocean of suffering that knows no bounds and over time my pool of ideals continue to diminish, which makes the sudden shattering of another all the more heart wrenching.

I have expected the Kenshin story to end somewhat badly, but not like this. The first few chapters of the new Hokkaido arc were bland to say the least. maybe I would have coped with Watsuki-sensei going down in mediocrity, and accept that he will eventually ruin his once upon a time brilliant imaginary world by being too weighed down by his need to please an audience and earn a living when his creativity dried up. but, no, nothing dramatic and scandalous like this.

I guess I am also scared that our modern times have become so infantile in its division of good and bad, and so fixated on shaming, that Kenshin will get discarded like a baby along with the bathwater. If this becomes the case, the values from the beautiful story which shaped my life and provided me with such comfort during my loveless adolescent years will be one day doubted and dismissed even by myself. I fear that if I do not record some of these down, one day their emotional weight within me will also puff away without a trace...

i remember for many years even after my adolescence, despite my avoidance of the ever renewing phone technology, I would go to great length to set up Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu as my ringtone on every single new phone i acquire, just so during the years of miserable and frightening work calls, there was something comforting I could hold onto.

i remember despite my lack of alcohol dehydrogenase I would still reach for a drink or two when I remember Master Hiko's words - you watch the cherry blossoms in spring, you gaze the starry night sky in summer, you admire the full moon in autumn, and you greet the first snow in winter. Such sceneries! how can your sake not be tasty when your are in the midst of them! If you still dislike your alcohol, there must be something really wrong with you.
the context of nearby death and suffering in which he said it, just makes you ponder his words again and again.

i am touched when I look back to Kenshin and Master Hiko's final battle, many years later as a shrink, and be amazed all the more at its masterful development -- that this tells nothing but an old old story of the tragic Oedipal drama -- but told with such fineness, warmth and goodness from one's heart that the inherent elements of tragedy were not lost, but it so convincingly turned it around with atonement, acceptance and individuation. The son has killed his father, but the father was also rescued by the son, without his conscious knowledge. The father tells the son to value his own life and follow his own instincts in critical moments- they intend good and not harm!--and that was when the son's own journey of change truly began.



this is getting long... i will grieve some more and write part II bit later in the week... T_T

In the web

It has been a while since I wrote anything. In the meantime another one of my very disturbed patients did some high lethality self damage, and I happened to be the lucky one who saw her last. I sank into a frightening depression in the midst of yet another blame game and could find motivation for hardly anything. But then, sertraline did some wonders (and I highly recommend) and I survived the misery of work without taking too many mental health days, and said no to some job offers, and planned an overseas wedding and honeymoon itinerary and booked all the hotels during this awful period of time.

So, maybe looking back, it wasn't so bad at all, but it took immense effort to maintain that level of psychosocial functioning, with daily doubts whether i will manage to pull through the home stretch of my training, or flee the shrinkage as a wreck, knowing I will never have the guts to return. Perhaps the fact that i worked in the same post for the last 6 months as when I did as a first year and remembering things to be much more under control back then made it all the more defeating, or maybe, the realisation that control of the uncontrollable is but a delusion but your fellow clinicians use such defence day in and day out so their narcissistic selves don't disintegrate and they can continue doing the good work of saving the world... further added a sense of helplessness.

Or maybe, just when I was at a more tender age and know less of the world. I could comfortably adopt a more black and white view and a clear line could be set between the normal and the pathological, that could keep my psyche at bay from the mad and the bad and the sad that I see everyday. Maybe paying some proper attention to the male psychotic patients and their long suffering, very supportive but invariably transgressive mothers just made everything not so simply neurochemical. Or maybe the gradual realisation that my own mother was prominently Cluster B who did not tick all the criteria boxes only because she was bound by her cultural norms, and contained by a dependent endorsing husband, made me feel as if walking on the edge of a cliff--a slip of the foot at any minute could send me tumbling down into some pervasive pathology of my own.

so, here i am, frightened of my near misses, intermittently losing sight of the various forces that steadied my wobbly gait all these years, divine or otherwise. maybe there is yet hope, that I can untangle some more deep seated anxiety and hysteria, before moving forward, hopefully less of a wreck than before.

Back to my pet topic...

There was a scene at the end of la la land when Emma Stone fantasized about an alternative life where things worked out perfectly with Ryan Gosling. i was dubious whether that scene was about a longing for lost love at all, in fact--wasn't it a bit mean that she did not even think for one second about his failed attempt at cooking a roast with her storming out of the flat etc and try in her mind at least to make that part perfect too? so end of the day, it was only a fantasy about her need for being perfectly treated. I guess she ended up becoming a famous star so she was allowed to be a bit more narcissistic than the average population... Gosh I am harsh... XD

Despite all that, it was a touching scene that viscerally moved many, including myself. Speaking from my shrinkage I can only say our infantile fantasies of being perfectly loved have its universality and permanence, and as adults we don't just grow out of them. if we don't accept and give them expression but think we are so much better than all these and try to annihilate them somehow, they probably get all the stronger and seep out in other more unpleasant ways than the appreciation of a somewhat regressed movie ending.

In relation to infantile fantasies, there has been some very heated debates in the chinese psychology circles lately about filial piety, but one common point of agreement that got mentioned again and again---
If you are in denial of the problems between you and your parents, and repressed your anger about their lack of love and failed attempt at care, your negative feelings don't dissipate into the ether but are bond to seep out in one way or another in the other parts of your relationship realm, and most commonly, your own children will end up take the direct blows and suffer...

i think i will come back my pet topic of all times - the parable of the unforgiving servant. over the years I've been wondering more and more that maybe our modern minds are no longer equipped to process this story properly. We tend to oscillate between the following two extremes that would completely fail the point：
1. given how much we value self-efficacy in this day and age, how many of us are really ready to accept the complete cancelling of our debts without generating a sense of rage at the helpless position we are made to be in？or maybe we think a truly merciful Almighty would have done this much more tactfully without hurting our feelings: how about planting a sack of gold outside the palace on the street corner so we can accidentally pick it up and be thankful of our good luck and our capacity at the end of the day to pay it all back？or surely the big boss can hire us into some palace position and pay us extremely well so we could pay back that massive debt with ease. Now that would be really merciful, and more often than not, a lot of us are indeed deluded that whatever privileged heavenly work we did or continued to do, surely will be enough to earn us back to grace.

2. we are in complete denial of our debts, pretend we are innocent as a dove, and are more or less imbeciles when it comes to responsibilities and deny our own roles in any of these, as clearly, if we never meant them, none of these entail any grave consequences. Going one step further, when our feelings about the important figures in our lives get too complex and ambivalent, we would be quick to be in denial of their debts too. Surely they are innocent as doves, and imbeciles too. and grave consequences of their actions just simply don't exist. This actually mimicks forgiveness, and we often end up calling it forgiveness, as this is probably the best we could do with human efforts.

I think for the modern mind, it is extremely difficult to ever take the position of--
I don't deny I was responsible and I have accumulated such debts, but I also accepts the helpless position and acknowledge that I do not have the self-efficacy to ever pay it back.
And that goes to any of my fellow servants on the street.
But having said that, that unforgiving servant, from that many thousand years ago, ran into as much problem with this as we do, hence the somewhat explosive unexplainable behaviour that manifested.

Now because it is all so difficult, we compulsively fake it. We think we can make the call to deny another person's debts to have existed in the first place, or, we jump into declarations of forgiveness all too quickly. We pretend our mind has ultimate control over our feelings and fool ourselves into thinking that if we tell ourselves and others long and hard enough that we have forgiven from a logical and reasoned perspective, we have indeed forgiven from the depth of our hearts, while more likely, we just repressed it, and then sooner or later, someone else suffers. And then, more denial, and more faking it till we make it, and also the quickness to jump and condemn anyone who hasn't used denial as a defence mechanism like we did.

But we are never going to make it---
...and really, at the end of the day, aren't all these also claiming to be able to pay back debts when you couldn't, and aren't all these throat grabbing of your fellow servants too?

Psalm 51

Recently something very frustrating and hurtful happened at work (just as I was getting better). In many ways I felt like I have become a time bomb of some kind that no one wants, for matters really not of my own doing. well in short for good or bad I have probably completely switched from a flight response back into a fight response. or maybe I just realised,for the benefit of my daily survival in a toxic world, if i don't get my shits together, only more shit will be heaped onto me.

in this current climate I somehow managed to flip back to Psalm 51. It spoke to me first a couple of years ago after I have just been through court and imagined that to be the end of my trauma (which is now looking like the first of very many). Despite my liking of it I guess there has always been a tinge of anger that went along with it--Hey surely I didn't commit adultery! and no I didn't murder anyone either! Why do I need a psalm from someone who so gravely sinned to speak to me?

I guess the fear of responsibility is forever hanging, and persistently learned, as the clasp around my neck from those who need me as a scapegoat tighten, or, even if it is not yet tightening, there are plenty around me who, consciously or not, not fail to add in reminders.  Well I guess this is nothing new. For a few decades I have been the scapegoat for my mother's various pathology and unhappiness and only in very recent times she realised she has lost her grip, while I just fear once she becomes ill in health in some kind of way, all my efforts will be in vain.

reading of verse 16-17 of the psalm still stir something in me (and not just a little)--
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.

given my problematic maternal attachment, I do have a feeling though that the current feelings these verses evoked are perhaps much more grief at how much I have been despised and resentment for having to survive and thrive(or at least pretend to be) in this toxic world rather than anything else...

but perhaps, just perhaps, coming back to this psalm means a move forward to the realisation - that at the end of the day, contrary to worldly beliefs, when tragedy hit whose grave sin was it or who really brought about the brokenness, really doesn't matter in the face that no one is actually despised?

Now, head knowledge apart, this is still very hard to swallow. and I guess in the context of my lingering perhaps relapsing(but hopefully not) GI symptoms, the swallowing bit is maybe a bit more than a mere metaphor.

I dreamt about Hilary the other night...

I dreamt about Hilary the other night. She asked me what went wrong and what could she have done better. I tried to explain to her outcomes of things in life do not depend on efforts alone and us born and bred in the modern era do need to acknowledge and admit that luck often plays a big role. In her disappointment though I don't think anything I said really registered. Now the Hilary dream was likely all about me and nothing about American politics and I can just head to my supervisors next week for an interpretation, but I guess I still feel sad for Hilary -- not on grand scales whether or not she was the only hope to halt world war no. 3 or served as the finest example that feminism still has a long road in face of male superiority etc etc etc... I think I rather feel sad about her just as a person -- one who so persistently and single-mindedly invested immense effort in her aspiration of becoming America's first female president, who went very far on this costly road, even if for self-gratification purpose alone, and then in a dramatic turn of events,  had her dreams cut short like that. Everything else aside, that in itself, is very, very, sad. 

My understanding about politics is nothing beyond crude and am sure many may have talked about this in much more sophisticated terms, but I really think president election often serves nothing more than the purpose for many regressed adults to find mothers. Given that childbearing is regarded as a basic right and that prerequisites are minimal and people more often than not fare poorly in bringing up children, flawed early developments are many and secure care and nurture are scarce... and I mean... very flawed... and very scarce.

we perhaps all like to think as we humans evolve in the modern cultures, that our heads have become superior enough to have acquired the power to dictate our emotions. The fact remains however, that voting for most has nothing to do with the head and everything to do with the heart. Those of us who have adequate neuroticism to sense that despite our best efforts our heads and hearts are somewhat out of sync, often are 1.idealistic 2. cope by avoidance rather than take imperfect human responsibilities and acknowledge that as we remain human, our decisions and actions are inherently flawed regardless.

Mad evangelical friends who were openly deluded and ecstatically praised Trump's victory as awesome and God's will done aside, social media is also not short of people who endeavour to take control by predicting all kinds of disasters they could see coming but could do nothing about and how much they were the lonesome sane voices ignored in the current madness, perhaps in the hope that when disasters hit in the future they could take some solace in telling people I-told-you-so-hence-am-better-than-you? Now that's pretty regressed too. why not just admit that you are scared and more the acopic with the hard work of living in the face of unpredictability in a hostile uncertain future, just like the rest of us?

When Masha first sang Akatsuki I read the translated lyrics and felt very touched and hailed it as a great song. I even put it down as my whatsapp tagline... but... I think I then managed to forget about it. my memory consolidation have been indeed getting worse over recent years... but here it is... translated from its Chinese translation... and at least for me, it has not lost its buzz.

Akatsuki (Dawn)

Nobody's life can be smooth sailing
Sometimes things hit you hard and you would even resent God

I believe, if it is you
No matter what kind of grief or pain
You will have the strength to carry on
Even if the flame inside you is about to burn out

A dream not realised, feeling powerless, looking up the night sky
Who said the darker the sky, the brighter the stars?

Surely it's alright if I try to be cool--
"Failure" is out of fear not daring to reach what you want
If the stars tonight are too bright for you
You can definitely fight on

It's okay if you laugh at me, but please listen
No matter how weak you are
You are still able to support another
Because there will be always someone who needs you
Because that person is right here

You are definitely not powerless

The sun is rising again
To me who is surviving another day
Looks like it couldn't care less
Another day starts



PS. My functional overlay has much improved since a couple of months ago. Remembering a time when I was warmed back to human connections, but back then for one reason or another,failed to internalise such experience, was really helpful.

Functional overlay

Well... so I've had debilitating indigestion and somewhat unspecified GI malaise for the past 2 months and eating has become a very tiresome feat. This has been in particular detrimental as for many years I have been using food and carbonated drinks as my main coping strategies and now I have lost my (probably only) effective coping mechanism. A scope this week however revealed nothing sinister but mild gastritis, the sigh of relief was small as the disproportionate unwellness experienced in relation to pathology found is rather certainly indicative of functional overlay. and guess what, at work I talk to people with functional overlay and gently explain about functional overlays while acknowledging their genuine distresses etc etc etc. yah...

though I suspect no outsider really cares whether I end up functionally overlaying or not with my psychosocial stressors or the hardness of living life overall, I still find my persisting distress with eating these days very very... defeating. The fact that my very pathological mother developed rather elusive and debilitating upper GI symptoms on the eve of my graduation from med school, and accused all practitioners and investigations of incompetence in understanding her ailment and spilled her dark moods about a sick stomach wherever she can. Looking back the whole matter had a hysterical flavour to it. moreover, her symptoms persisted throughout my medical career and even to this day she continued to assume her sick role and successfully made everyone cater for her debilitating eating habits.

I feel defeated, and embarrassed, and angry that it looks like I am heading down the same path as her, and probably deep down I am just as hysterical as her while loathing how much I suffered under her hysteria all my life, and despite all my professional knowledge about functional overlays and insight and awareness that as I try hard to individuate away from my mother there will be another part of me screaming hard to pledge loyalty to her, the knowledge and insight could not save me from becoming so functional myself...

so... I've been dragging my feet a bit at work despite working again with my somewhat idolised supervisor of many years. These days I am curious about nothing and no one, and even checking facebook makes me irritable as I could not bear to see all these people enjoying food I could no longer carefreely eat. The part of my brain in charge of my imaginary friends---for very strange reasons---worked way better in the past couple of weeks than during the last five years of my shrink training added together... but when I lack the energy for curiosity... am even less curious about my imaginary friends and find them hard work too... I wonder too if I would feel better if I am ignorant of functional overlays and can just project and blame everyone else for my elusive malaise...and nowadays when I pray... I open my mouth and could not say anything or think anything---
I just wail.
but, maybe, just maybe, the wailing is in fact something.

PS. On a much lighter note this is so beautiful I need to watch this on the big screen. Lets hope they do it for the Jap film festival this year.
No. 9 starting at 18:00 is on replay at the moment.

when games more primitive than Pokemon Go are needed...

 So... I found Clinical Theology incredibly profound... and total hitting home on many fronts, and hence... very difficult to read. T_T never been really into phone games... but downloaded a few tower/city/farm building games in the past fortnight so I could read a few pages and then play games just to restore my sense of control... XD

last week it was 50% Clinical Theology and 50% control freak games, this week is 100% control freak games and no Clinical Theology... -_-|||| yah...

anyways... keeping a record of some of my favourite bits... T_T

The neurotic Christian, who is defending against his own dread by a reaction pattern which leans over backwards against despair into forced keenness, and against unacknowledged doubt into forced faith, thus relying on the cutting-off of his "bad-side", neither admitting nor healing it, is ultimately bound to be just as merciless towards the overtly afflicted who come his way.

To take flight from the inner threats intensifies their power over the psyche. The constant nagging fear of the uprush of inner feelings of annihilation keeps the ego constantly on the move. The mechanisms of defence are employed to keep on top of the situation. Even the Christian faith, which rightly understood would enable a man to turn and stand fast against this onslaught, is oftener used to give a man strength for his flight from reality. More commonly, the effect is either to intensify the introversion or swing violently away from introversion into the 'distractions of great undertakings', what Pascal calls the libido dominandi; or seek forgetfulness in sensuality, perhaps in debauchery, trying to leave his reflective self-consciousness behind him. But all this defiance is manifestly despair over his weakness.

The physician of souls must not be taken in by the commonest of all religious defences, the active attempt not to despair. The common statements "i am trying not to lose hope", "trying to trust God", "trying to have faith" are more likely to be evidences of hidden despair than of hope, of dread of non-being than of confidence in the new being.

The soul, reacting logically to its personal past, feels that God's eyes should see what the mother's eyes evidently saw, unattractiveness, worthlessness, the badness of its "being there" at all. God's eyes, it is felt, ought to express the same disappointment, the basic disgust that the mother's did. God ought not to offer acceptance and intimacy to a thing that a mother rejected and was ashamed of. "Let my shame go where it doth deserve.""My own mother, who knew what I was like, found me unlovable. You, God, must be mistaken. If you could see what the internalised eyes of my own mother are still looking at, You too would turn away in disgust." But the discrimination is one which the soul has not the wit to make. The adult cannot readily leap back to the correct insight about its infancy, or on to a new situation created by God's redemptive act. The truth is a contrast between the then and the now. "What my mother's sick or soured contemptuous looks seared into my soul, that I became." If the eyes of a holy Love can look upon this wretchedness and really see it, and in spite of what it sees, go on looking in kindliness and welcome, that, too, will evoke its own appropriate response.

The more godly or religious the parent seemed to be, or the more entrenched in an obsessional, inflexible sense of the rightness of all she does, the more difficult it is for the child to break out of her primary devaluation or annihilation of its being, to a new valuation, even in adult life, and even if God Himself be the person to offer it.

The great obstacle to spiritual progress, as St Theresa of Avila noted it, is a lack of the will to love in response to the love of God. Why this reluctance, if not because of the projection on to God of the distrust engendered by the original fall and by the terrible mother who seemed to have caused it? The love of God is felt to be, like hers, a demand that the child shall adopt all the correct attitudes of dependence and trust, as if nothing had ever happened. Preaching for conversion may rely heavily on longing and urgent appeals for decision. The preacher may need, and feed upon the response he seeks to evoke. He gives the impression that God shares his impatient hunger for the committed souls of men. This technique, of course, is calculated to sweep those who are for the most part hysterical personalities over minor schizoid obstacles into decision. But it drives the schizoid person deeper into his paradox.

This impasse can be broken only with the help of someone else who is able to overcome the defensive isolation without arousing further defensive withdrawal, and permit commitment without arousing commitment-anxiety. It is the task of the psychiatric and pastoral care to attempt this. Interpretation of these symptomatic feelings, when it is given by one who has overcome a similar sense of cut-offness in himself, or who has accepted it creatively, or has been accepted in spite of its continuance, is a service which invariably diminishes the sense of severance from common humanity.

more superego-y ranting

I hardly ever flip back to my old blogs (most likely from avoidance of embarrassment just in case i once upon a time used to be immature and hopeful and lively) and not surprisingly, ended up feeling like "oh did I once upon a time write such shit? " when I revisited.

such shit, however, esp in recent years, are often good sensible superego-y shit. the problem remained that I probably only intellectualised the good stuff and they never emotionally sank in.
well only if they managed to emotionally sink in back then... i would have moved forward and be at a better place by now.

or maybe not... just wishful thinking.

there have been quite a bit in the tabloid news of mothers killing their children lately. one story in particular made me quite shaken. The brief bits and pieces about said woman in the tabloid were diagnostic enough of bpd. and though my own mother may superficially be ordinary low key Asian in many ways, and thank God, never had the privilege of constitutional rights of bearing arms, the desire and determination in crushing my spirits and annihilating me existentially as a person, esp in my uni and intern and residency years, were perhaps much the same.

it has taken me many years to finally come to admittance that my mother is very clearly cluster b,(and had enough intelligence and conservative cultural background and a colluding husband to be able to fly under the radar and justify her actions to many), in the midst of all my guilt about being socially offensive and psychologically external locus of control and spiritually unforgiving and culturally incapable of filial piety and perhaps unfit to be a chinese human being now that i have publicly said really bad things about my parents...

guilt aside... i don't think i have really escaped her slaughterhouse yet, or maybe i will never make it. That very suppressed part of me which still desperately crave the very rare but very genuine moments she would approve and regard me as "my amazing, sweet, kind, beautiful, intelligent girl" (quoting very bpd Mrs Christy Sheats), will hold me there.
 and that is unsettling enough.

Frank Lake's intro in his Clinical Theology is very comforting at such times--

“The thickness of the repressive layer which covers up our threatening inner negativities is diminished by physical, mental, and emotional ill-health, an also by spiritual disobedience in those who have been well garrisoned in heart and mind by the Holy Spirit against the enemy within. But, as Freud showed, the return of the unconscious into consciousness is a function of abundant health as well as of ill-health. The abundantly healthy personality presses up against the barriers and limitations imposed by unconscious fears and expectations of defeat. Encountering resistances, it attacks them and drives them into the open. We must expect that that fullness of the Holy Spirit and the fullness of life within the Body of Christ will force the alien elements of despair, distrust, anxiety, rage, envy, lust and the like, which are each man's deposit from the intolerable passivities of infancy, to declare themselves before they are cast out。”

and i am so thankful, as i revisit the same again and again, of the years of noble and wonderful superegos i have collected over time, which i had leaned on to survive, and mercifully replaced parts of a superego that was merely a cluster b mother's devaluation ---

Masha---
"trust" does not equate "understanding". i personally believe, when I trust someone else, the responsibility entirely rests with me. It is I who wanted to trust you--you carry no responsibility. To me there is no such thing as "being betrayed", because I myself wanted and was willing to trust another person. When one starts to think one understands another, the thoughts of "being betrayed" would often arise. The presumption of "I understand you" is often the most frightening, whether it be between friends, colleagues, bf/gf, or family members...

King Baldwin---

When I was sixteen, I won a great victory. I felt in that moment I would live to be a hundred. Now I know I shall not see thirty. None of us know our end, really, or what hand will guide us there. A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that.

---and hopefully, hopefully, as time goes by, not mere intellectualisation of words above only.

Time to watch Masha again~~

In the recent drama (that had really bad ratings T_T) Masha played this very unhappy ex-musician now-shrink working in palliative care and by chance helping an angry stuttering young girl to discover her musical talent, and somewhat overcoming his own demons and rekindling his own spark for life along the way blah blah...

lots of elements in there hit home though I have really been procrastinating watching the drama... -_- I think I finally realised after many years that the part of me that has been drawn to Masha is largely my superego. LOL when I am in an absolute shithouse I don't like to hear him preach at all... eg. all those life is really tough and circumstances are very difficult but live your life diligently and survive and thrive as a neurotic crap...

this probably explained why I gleefully celebrated the fact that he got married and proved himself not gay. XD there are many genuinely heartbroken fans out there who attributed earthquakes and other natural disasters in the past year as consequences of his marriage (psychologically very vivid and profound...@.@)
so......
sorry Masha... T_T
but now that I am interested to watch the series... at least I know my superego is slowly being restored lol.

this is immensely touching but it did take me a while to realise that it is not a Japanese song and Masha didn't compose the music at all... -_-|||| LOL I know...



so, I have been curious enough to take on an exercise in finding out that if Masha is for my superego... which stars really appeal to my id.... or once upon a time, used to do the job?
difficult question... maybe Lee Junki? I used to be so heartbroken when he had elevated bmi and a chubby face in his late 20s... but now he's getting on in years too with diminishing facial collagen anyway and I just care much less... T_T
well exercise ongoing...

last but not least... Masha being told off. this is probably still projection... but totally hits home. XD

Weltschmerz

Well Germans are very wise and intellectual and have very nuanced words such as this to accurately depict emotional states...
alternatively I could have titled it 这种屎一样的人生生无可恋(which really is doubly offensive coming from a Christian shrink -_-|||)---------- I still need some face and German sounds way smarter.

I have been feeling first very paralysed and then very very mad about some recent developments in that very long and ridiculous saga. in fact I have given up praying that inappropriate prayer years before when it first happened... after many years, I have given up hope that there is a chance I would be mercifully chucked into the sea as it is not going to happen and I will be made to endure through all this, as the saga goes on... and on... and on.

I guess I will talk a bit more about my imaginary friend instead of myself then, so that the narrative doesn't cut so deep close to home and there can conveniently be a bit more projection to facilitate the release of negative emotions. My imaginary friend has threatened to leave me for years given my dwindling investment in this imaginary relationship and frequent unscrupulous endeavours to recharge emotional energy from him for purposes elsewhere. I don't know how much it had to do with shrink training, or the never ending paralysing saga, or much more likely my own worsening acopia by the year with this toxic world in the context of various predisposed vulnerabilities. Things remain tenuous somehow despite my attempts amending things this year by going PT... T_T I have been contemplating whether it really means as one grows old and has more important priorities in life to attend to maybe its just not appropriate to want to play with one's imaginary friend anymore...

The other day I made an incidental discovery that there has once been a biography written about my imaginary friend...in English... @.@ Not translated, but written by a white dude in the early 80s. feeling surreal and somewhat still in disbelief... I now have this very book in my hand -- accessed from a library 15mins away when there are only 6 copies in worldwide library collections... more @.@

I think I am more than a little envious of the white prof who clearly loved my imaginary friend much more than me, to be able to research so extensively and put together so much facts and translated all the poetry, while attending to his various professorial posts, and while the whole of China was preoccupied with cultural revolution... God knows how he managed to get past that mad persecutory government and access all those obscure records to complete this book!
Seriously, it was academic work but every single page was exuding love... and I am touched. T_T

In short, white people are awesome. T_T (that still sounds racist and not quite right doesn't it? -_-) It has been a very enjoyable and invigorating exercise working through the English translations and trying to work out which poems they are in Chinese... and picking out prof's own personal interpretations in them all...

Although the more I read, the more uneasy I become of the fact that my imaginary friend no longer serves as a hero who steps off a manga book, and that more and more of his experiences and struggles start to echo mine... which is frightening.

Prof found this obscure record that all his Chinese biographers omitted - in a casebook about contemporary administrative law, which recorded  his mismanagement of a case when he was a provincial police commissioner, via a file audit by higher powers -- two people called a guy out of his home and kicked him to death. one principal malefactor did most of the damage, but the accomplice reported he did not take part in the assault but tried to dissuade the principal malefactor from violence. Eye witness accounts confirmed this but the dead guy's wife protested the finding and refused to sign the proceedings so the accomplice was kept in prison for more than 60 days while the dispute was going on, and the accomplice despaired and took his own life. Higher powers decided that the accomplice was unjustly incarcerated which resulted in his suicide. Officials involved, incl. imaginary friend, were dismissed from office.
So there was a suicide, there was some higher powers, there was a file audit, there was a root cause analysis, and blamed was attributed and punishment dished out. legal systems in my home country are not very humane and extremely far from perfect even today save hundreds of years ago, I can only say WTF that while there were all kinds of other horrible shit going on, such a matter was pounced upon and then recorded as an example of mismanagement.

Behind it all, my imaginary friend, who was only 21 at the time, took his responsibility, documented records as they were, and probably relied too much on his own belief that he did nothing wrong in an unfortunate case as such and didn't try to explain away his involvement, and had too much pride to bluff through things, or involve his very influential father and uncles to sweet talk the higher powers and dust the records away.

Out of curiosity I read through some of the other cases in that volume of the casebook, his case was listed amongst numerous other overtly dodgy conducts by overtly dodgy officials -- torturing prisoners to death, keeping innocent people imprisoned till real criminals caught, and coercing witnesses to make false statements... etc etc etc.

from this lovely article - “We are all three days away from being tabloid news. And most of us are on day two.” along a similar vine, my imaginary friend got named and shamed on some official tabloid news, with records that would survive for hundreds of years.
That casebook was actually published during his lifetime, perhaps 1-2 years before his death.
By that time he has already left politics and all administrative posts for years and wandered around, away from his family too, in the capacity of a wealthy vagabond.
I really wonder how he felt about it. He probably felt he's never going to get away from it all.

There is way too much projection going on. think I am just going to have a good cry about it. T_T

well, my imaginary friend is still my friend for now, thanks to super awesome white asian studies

prof.

and that serves adequately as a reason why life is less shit and 生有可恋 for now too.

the Agur club

I went totally brain dead for a few weeks prior to the end of my last job. wasn't proud about the decline in spiritual life either -- to the point that even reading Mockingbird articles has became difficult. :SSSSS rather than blaming it on external factors I think I really need to have a good think about how to look after myself better in a toxic world. Such things unfortunately are often more easily said than done, and I am probably clueless how to even make a start.

http://www.mbird.com/2016/02/forgive-yourself-or-die-trying/
Sentiments from this terribly sad story i could identify with in many ways. :S It interestingly reminded me of another old friend. Whenever Agur from proverbs 30 opens his mouth I can usually hear myself talking:

Proverbs 30:7-9

 “Two things I ask of you, Lord;
    do not refuse me before I die:
 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
    give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God.

there is a well known Proverbs 31 Ministry with a somewhat feminist undertone that pops up now an then in my newsfeed. not only I find Proverbs 31 rather grandiose...lately the more I looked at it in its entirety... the more i think it is reflective of all kinds of unresolved Oedipus complex issues... XD (well... interested parties are long dead and likely won't be offended by me saying that I hope...)

alternatively i can be more politically correct and say that people's callings are just very different...XD and if ever God permits... i hope to be able to start a Proverbs 30 ministry one day and help like minded neurotics to survive and thrive in this toxic grandiose world...

Therefore after this many years... I am still envious of very non-grandiose Agur... whoever he was... who opened his prayer grumbling about how worn out he was, and admitted so frankly of his generalised acopia, who wanted things to be neither good or bad but falling into a very narrow range of his neurotic thresholds...
and approached God with no guilt and shame in his fulminant neuroticism.

as God was likely abdundant and unrestrained in His blessings of both riches and poverty, poor Agur probably never managed to stay low-key middle class as he so wished.
But that's okay, he and his neurotic ranting made it to Proverbs, and that to me, speaks of much grace, especially in difficult times.

I wish you happiness

My sense of agency in 2015 has hit a new low despite having a bit more luck than many more others in the process of getting through training. after all the realisation that what I have perceived to be the most enjoyable and rewarding of subspecialities prob still means 20% of proper work and 80% of politics - aka. the never-ending soothing of giant babies here and there (who are not patients, and who shamelessly take on roles of functional and respectable professional adults) who consciously and subconsciously try in all ways possible to make you their mother and hold you responsible for whatever junk that really should be their own... :$$$$$$

I've become increasing frustrated with the fact that unless I have periods of prolonged bed rest (LOL) I am not able to retrieve my imaginary friends and enjoy their company. Maybe its really just time to admit and come to terms that I can't be a functional and respectable professional adult after all, at least not in that capacity.

Until a few days ago I did not realise Miyuki Miyabe wrote a new short story, delightfully linking Peter's Funeral Procession and Solomon's Perjury together.
I cried at the point when Sugimura-san somewhat oddly but kindly said to Ryoko Fujino:
I wish you happiness.

It brought back fond memories of something else from Sugimura-san:

But you will find happiness. Though relentlessly pursued by people, or things, and you hid yourself under the table screaming, sooner or later, you will have to crawl out from there.
Once you are out, the world is still here.

real life crawling out with unfavourable developmental trajectory, sadly is not just a table... but a series of many tables...

I still think about Sugimura-san now and then... he who is so wise about worldly poisons and remained so kind to this world, who spoke these above words so warmly and tenderly...
simply just wouldn't let himself go...
or his loved ones.

I think i am more than a bit envious of aunty Miyuki, being equally capitivated by her at the same time. One who is so in tune with all kinds of subtle human poisons and does not call them by any other whitewashed names...
and manages to be successful and thriving with such terrible knowledge.

so... 2016... i think i will keep crawling, and do my best to fight off professional giant babies groping along the way, without acting out and calling giant babies giant babies in their faces.
and have a really good think about -- if I dislike giant babies so much, who would not have any capacities to change themselves--
what part I need to do myself to break free from that kind and live my own life.

what is comforting though, aunty Miyuki is still writing Sugimura stories, and Sugimura-san too is still living, learning, evolving.

so I wish you happiness too, Sugimura-san.

Judge Dee at work

The patient

I did not know this patient for long, but there used to be a time he was well versed, witty, and warm and engaging. He loved his books, and loved talking about his books, and, though knowing his end was near, still had future oriented plans and looked forward to going home from the hospital so he could have a read of his Robert van Gulik collections again.
He saw my eyes lit up at the mention of that name, and he was surprised I knew about old-school Judge Dee and could rattle off all the story plots on top of my head. I managed to be good enough to a lovely dying elderly gentleman and not get negatively ocpd about the details (that I read them in
Chinese and the Chinese translations were partly re-written by the translators which made them awesome and the English originals were otherwise odd and shallow in their emotionality and to me merely a white man's oriental fantasies blah blah blah... -_-|||||)
Under the guise of psychiatry appointments we had some good conversation about the goodness of Judge Dee common to both the east and west, fantasies or not.
and then i remembered many things myself.

The plum blossoms

Judge Dee and his crew have been around for many years and were more family than family to me, and Judge Dee the eternal wise paternal figure. The fact that he acquired three wives just for a blissful table of mahjong was always something more to giggle about but never affected my respect for him.
Though something soured in this imaginary relationship in recent years, when I became old enough and shrinky enough, and realised what he did to Mrs Kuo the pharmacist's wife in the Chinese Nail Murder.
I think I was fond of the fact how he finally encountered a woman matching him in wit and sophistication, and the mutual chemistry in the air when they were both capable of quick set shifting in conversation topics - from poetic descriptions of plum blossoms to demises of female prisoners then to the feasibility of killing by driving nails into people's nostrils .
and then he acted out, in the name of justice, and emotionally blackmailed her to jump the cliff to her end.
despite the fact that I do really empathize how deep he was in his loneliness, trapped in the rough distant town of Pei-chow. There were many things his blissful mahjong table couldn't deliver, and all made worse by the sudden loss of Sergeant Hoong who had been his fixed point in a changing age ever since he was a child...
I think he killed a part of himself, with her.
I don't know if the fact that I cannot forgive a book character has taken my pathological imaginary friendships to a whole new level, but maybe, just maybe, I was in fact more angry with myself who for many years believed that though painful he really did the right and noble thing in a position of authority and there was no other way out...
I myself may have reached a time in life when I will soon be acquiring and acting in much more authority than what I have now, and I am just dreading, dreading that despite my best efforts not to join the league of some of my very embarrassing ex-bosses, I may not be able to avoid becoming Judge Dee, in a time vulnerable and hard pressed on every side, acting out under a noble guise and making some very very grave mistakes.
and maybe that will be even harder to swallow than a very unfair coroners report, despite of the worst part of it being over, again knocked me out hard and made my bones very dry.
...and made me fearful that whilst carrying such poison to work and having to pretend all is okay... I will act out sooner or later. 


The golden bell

Judge Dee was the father but Tao Gan was my special friend，though I really couldn't understand why he was so special. He was already middle-aged by the first time he appeared, a dry and hunched man, always looked a bit down and out, anxious and pessimistic in nature, many years ago had a wife who ran away from him so a bit of a woman-hater, who tried to be smart but could never outwit Judge Dee...
End of the day, I think Tao Gan reminded me a lot of myself, and validated the part of me that has always been a bit of an anxious loser, who not very decently loved all kinds of depraved goss from the magistrate files and derived so much happiness from them. There was a time he giggled for a whole night by the candlelight reading some perverted scholar's love poems to his step-mother--and the pervert wrote a lot too so there was plenty to enjoy--
I think I can imagine myself doing that, totally.

There was something i really liked about Murder in Canton, the last story in the canon. There wasn't only the tragedy of Chiao Tai's death, and all these wonderful exciting stuff at last coming to an end, but i think it ingeniously ended on a very hopeful note.
It had nothing to do with happiness and satisfaction in the traditional Eastern value sense - with Judge Dee being acknowledged by the empress rising to power and avoiding a fall from imperial favour, or a new son being born out of his blissful mahjong table, or whatever remaining of his crew all getting well deserved promotions...
It ended with Tao Gan, by then approaching his 7th decade in life, and always finding more enjoyment in his solitary and not-very decent hobbies, who was still recovering from the aftermath of a very difficult case, and grieving the loss of his good friend Chiao Tai---
walked up to blind Miss Lan-lee's attic and inviting her to go with him to the capital.
her cricket the Golden Bell chirped, and gave him a fright.

it was such a nice ending, with all its imperfections and traditional dissatisfaction.
So bright and warm and hopeful that i could hardly open my eyes, I would not have wanted Judge Dee to have ended in any other way.
and then I realised, not only me, but the author, and the translators...
no matter how very uncool they have made this guy out to be, they all totally loved Tao Gan too.


The Final Words

My patient knew he was going to die very soon, when the team that has cared for him for many years did not offer him another follow-up. He was walking out the hospital...abandoned, shocked, listless and unkempt when I called and reminded him about his psychiatry appointment.
So he walked back to see me, in his emotional stupor. 
We didn't end up talking much, apart from me calmly reassuring him that I had little to offer in the face of him dying (which perhaps was even worse than non-reassurance) but just in case he wanted to talk about it? He was too overwhelmed to speak the whole time but made great efforts to gesture with his hands reassuring me that he was in fact okay.

End of the day, I knew there was very very little of anything there was left to say, or there was still appropriate to say for that matter.
So what came out was simply, feebly, non-psychiatric:

"Thank you for talking to me about Judge Dee."