sometimes i wonder if some of life's 'biggest joys' can erase a lifetime of regret or self pity. if i had a grandchild would his or her birth alleviate some of my life's greatest sorrows? can i carry on in this state of half-living in the hopes of my salvation resting on another's shoulders? my heart does not feel like a heart to be honest. i feel afraid of it like it does not pump blood, but black sludge through my veins. i feel like it is a source of poison and pain and sometimes i'm afraid of it. but what can i do? i can't kill it without killing me. how do you clean a heart of its wounds and all the scars that make it so so ugly

what i know is that we have made idols of ourselves but that it is also inevitable. i find that so many things we do we are too myopic to see how we look at things in terms of how they serve us and make us feel good. i tell you i care about you but perhaps only in the way that it makes me feel happy to care about you. but i still care. don't you see? i cannot extricate myself from any equation. i am always the ultimate balancer and arbiter of any decision. nature does not evolve those with no will to survive. self preservation makes us assholes. but i have decided i do not want to evolve without you. if i am extinct they will find no traces of you in my fossils. don't you see? you are the combination of arbitrary factors that make my gills grow and my skin change color. you are in my changing bone structure and you are in my mutating genes. i cannot fight without you. without you i am the same and will remain the same, the kind of same that gets eaten up and spat into the dust of a world that will be long forgotten.

beautiful watercolor picture i found of Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki & studio ghibli, which i watched two days ago. i liked HMC more than spirited away, even though spirited away had more of a storyline.. HMC didn't make any sense to me a lot of the time, even when it was over, i didn't have the sense of "ahhh" that i got with spirited away. nevertheless i really loved it. as always with studio ghibli i think the visuals were amazing, amazing, amazing. imagination is incredible, even though this is based off a novel. so well thought through, so well conceived and so well delivered. soundtrack is another A+. the ending song called The Promise of the World is melancholy and touching. 

the story itself. i don't know what the novel offers, or if it is as haphazard as i felt the film was. but the story was funny, exciting and touching even when it didn't make sense. all i know is i wanted so badly for howl and sophie to be together. i wanted them all to be happy. a good review i've read is that the film manages to "blend child-like wonder with sophisticated emotions" which is true. i felt more watching this film than silver linings playbook. you have to watch it with an open heart, i think, and not get too distracted by its fantastical element. it is quite breathtaking but is meant to supplement the heart of the story at the end of the day i think 

all the bullshit i've been listening to lately. i put elephants because i'm really slow catching up to these songs but then i realised that elephants could run real fast if they wanted to. should've put a sloth

3 from siyichen on 8tracks Radio.

i don't have anything to talk about anymore, sometimes i feel

did i just type like yoda

i have been playing tennis and doing exercises at home fairly regularly i think. i gym sometimes. i try to eat better (not always successful) and today i started drinking more water (2 cups so far... not great progress imo). have been more excited about 'cooking' and the limited options that open to me (limited by my lack of any cooking skills obviously) and thus the implication that i can probably only make salads for a long time to come... the other day gus ruined four eggs before he boiled another three to hard boiled perfection and made me egg mayo on toast. it was the best egg mayo i've tasted

another thing is that i changed my wallpaper to a phrase "this is a fight you can win" because all i ever view this as is that, a fight, against myself but i must win against myself. i find it so ridiculous that there are these two personas battling in the same person, one that wants to drag me to the pits of depression and self-pity, and the other (much more difficult to channel) is the one that wants to bring me to a land of light, books, peace of mind... dare i say it... 'happiness'

because i've realised it's so important to feel good about yourself and in johnny depp's words, 'if you're not on your side how can you expect anyone else to be?' which i feel is a valid statement and something that i've been keeping in mind. i have been making very conscious choices every day at every minute pertaining to whatever may be relevant at the moment, but choices that make me feel stronger and surer at the end of everyday (most of the time). i have those moments, driving in the car alone, waiting to fall asleep, when everything comes rushing back to me like a tidal wave but at least i don't cry anymore when they happen (most of the time). i just sort of force myself to think about something else because what people don't really remember i suppose is that tidal waves also recede

more photos from taiwan

My mind these days is always on my self-esteem. Today I had coffee with a friend who talked to me about God. I am not entirely sure how this all fell together but he mentioned that people are weak and we are a few things: liars, cheaters, selfish, insecure, incapable -- then he went on to explore 'insecure'. Why are we insecure? It seemed random that he would choose to harp on this one topic but I'm glad he did because insecurity is all that has been on my mind these past few months, and trying to move past it.

He said, when you're insecure, you don't really believe that God loves you. To me that sounds ridiculous. That's one of the most basic things and one of the most fundamental truths I turn to especially when I'm in need -- God loves me. But he said, no. You mustn't believe that. Because if you understood how glorious God is (and he translated the word glorious into the word 'heavy' or worthy. How much God weighs in your life), and you understood then that God in all this power and might, chooses to love YOU, and finds YOU worthy, with all your flaws and sicknesses and fucked up shit going on -- then you wouldn't give a shit about what anyone else ever thought again. Because God is better and greater than anyone who is going to have an opinion on your identity and your being, their opinions become irrelevant when you're secure in the knowledge that God finds you fully worthy despite all the things you are insecure about.

I never thought about it this way, that my insecurities about my looks, my personality were related to how shaky my belief was of God's love for me. That inherently I don't feel like I'm worth anything to Him. All horizontal relationships are affected by the vertical. The whole of Christianity is a paradox. I believe that I am a piece of shit, but God still loves me anyway, so I must be worth something and not a piece of shit. But I am! It's upon this dynamic between humility and undeserved grace that we must operate and live our lives, I think.

Today I went through a really rough day. I think in the past few months the things that have been so important to me just broke down so quickly I never even realised they were so fragile. Since then I've been picking up the pieces and doing things all over again, trying to do them better. But today was one of those days where you've cut yourself on the shards and you just can't help crying, looking at the shabby, dulled version of whatever previous glory you have tried to restore. It was one of those days where I felt so helpless and powerless. I find it sad that I only turn to God when I feel this way. But I did. And just that feeling, when things spin so out of your control that you can't even touch them anymore, to have some knowledge that somebody out there loves you enough to fix it for you instead. And true enough, God came through and made the night better. And through whatever happened today I find myself learning new things and growing stronger from it already.

And this quote. I love it:

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." --- Martin Luther King Jr

taipei

when this bitchin man wore a running man shirt and walked around as if it was nothing

when we cycled 20km in four hours at danshui and gus kept accusing me of not pulling my weight 

when we stopped at some random cafe along the way and drank iced lattes 

when gus couldn't finish this tall ass ice cream

when we were on a tv haha

when we bought unnecessarily excessive amounts of adventure time merchandise for annie

when this whole team of young female soccer players attempted to order food all at once

when this dj in the club treated it like his own concert 

when gus died and boon was not happy about it

when boon finished a bottle of whisky coke in 15 seconds

when we went batting at the cages in ximending

other life

when i got a tattoo

when i forced meelo to wear this costume and she hated it

when i did exercise today and felt good about 'health' i suppose even though my legs are huge