Archive for category BooBooBeeBoo (Angsty Melodrama)

Doubt, and yet…

I cannot help but admit I am having second thoughts about returning to China. There is the inevitable voice of self-doubt, and I must decide whether it is just that — self-doubt — or realism. Much like my initial departure, I am very much unsure of what to expect of the future.

Trying to recapture and gauge the discouraging emotions from that time has been less than fruitful; but what I do remember is that this creeping, paralyzing uncertainty was a hallmark of my thought process before I left; and it was nowhere in evidence during my absence. The world felt more expansive, brighter, and full of possibility, even when I was hosing shit of questionable origin from my shoe in a public bathroom, or watching a stream of toddler urine slowly wend its way toward me along a subway car’s floor.

I am not so naive as to believe this is a pure effect of longitude; nevertheless, I think it makes sense to pick up the search where I left off.

Recognizing that the difficulties in China will be formidable — trying to unravel the mysteries of simply moving money from one place to another today was a trial in and of itself — I’m sure I still want to give it a shot. I’m just having to remind myself why a little more lately.

As I’ve tried to explain my move to a few of my friends in China, I’ve often fallen back on the phrase: 一个生活没困难,没意思 . That is, “A life without difficulty has no meaning.”

And aside from some personal difficulties, some real and some imposed from within, I’ve had it pretty easy. Prestigious private prep school, solid college, never fearing for food on the table or a roof over my head, and falling into money (in varying amounts) from one job to the next, without really ever feeling like I had to exert myself overmuch.

This applies even after I went into business for myself, a decision I more or less based on being able to buy a big TV/monitor and deduct it from my taxes. I made almost twice as much money as I ever had before, and I spent half that year essentially unemployed. Sure, I worked hard on the projects I got — I do have a decent work ethic, after all — but I didn’t have to go through any of the trials and tribulations normally associated with running your own company.

It kind of felt like cheating, really. As if I’d entered an “Infinite-subsistence-pay-at-the-expense-of-your-soul” code on some cosmic gamepad. It never really seemed like I earned that money. Possibly one of the reasons I spent most of it on gadgets and toys for which I had no need, and food/drink/gifts for friends (only the former of which I regret).

A friend once suggested I was so unhappy because I haven’t really had to try for anything, and maybe he was right. Ever since I graduated high school, in all honesty I’ve really kind of been coasting.

Maybe I just feel like I need more of a challenge. Maybe I’m bored and want to see what’s over there. Maybe I’m running away from something here. Maybe I’m stupid, crazy, or both. Maybe I fear being tied down to unpleasantness more than the possibility of never putting down roots. Maybe I’m just chasing a girl. That last one I’m fairly sure isn’t it… but who knows, right?

As I said before I left the first time, I think the desire for more difficulty in one’s life must be specific to spoiled kids with too much time on their hands (i.e., me). But, meh. So be it. If I’m going to be a stereotype, I may as well try to see how far I can stretch it.

Whatever my concerns now, I’m committed to going. Regardless of what doubts I may have, or the failing memory of those first doubts, what I do remember clearly is the sense of certainty when I decided to go back.

I am choosing between safety — the security of a job here, and the likely possibility of at least enough work to keep me going for the next few years — and an unfathomable unknown.

Given I have awakened to the fact that I am essentially free of all responsibility but to make the most of my time, I hope I will opt for the chance of discovery every time.

Next post, hopefully another journal transcript, and not a techie/emo rant.

Fuck you, everyone.

If I never see another computer again, I would not be terribly upset about it. This presents a problem, since my job (for lack of a better word) depends on computers.

But after a long and difficult night, and today’s long and difficult morning, dealing with all kinds of retarded shit inflicted on me by Lenovo, Intel, the RIAA, and Microsoft, I am well and heartily sick of the electronic world, and a little bit of the physical one too. I want to take my laptops, and use them to crush the skulls of the people responsible for the bullshit I just had to go through.

So let’s document this process, in the angriest, most unnecessarily profane manner possible:

1) Skype recording in Vista: Fuck you, Microsoft, RIAA, and SoundMAX.

I decide it’d be nice to record my Skype calls, since I’ll hopefully be doing a lot of business calling with Skype from China. That way, it would be easy to go back and review meeting notes, client instructions and project parameters, so on and so forth.

So I hit up Google and download a couple apps to try out. Come to find, thanks to the morons at Microsoft, the RIAA, and SoundMAX, I am not allowed to record audio off of my own soundcard in Vista. The rationale there, I guess, is that since people apparently still pirate music (gasp!), they must be doing so by buying a CD, playing music on their computer’s CD drive, then recording the audio at 1:1 speed through the line-in input. So any recording off the sound board is disabled at the driver level.

Take note, this is a new and essentially undocumented “feature” of Vista and/or various manufacturers’ drivers. People using XP, you’re in the clear. Don’t ask me about Windows7, because I couldn’t give a shit right now even if I wanted to. Also I don’t care about who’s actually technically at fault here, MS or the manufacturers. I hate them all.

But seriously? The only people this affects are the ones who want to use the feature legitimately; i.e., musicians, geeks like me, or etc. What kind of mouth-breathing digital (note: DIGITAL, you stupid assholes) media pirate is going to take the time to record music off his sound card or internet radio at 1:1 speed, when he could just rip it directly as fast as his drive or net link can transfer?

So I end up having to fork over some money to a third-party software company. At the least, this product (Pamela for Skype) has some extra features, like voicemail, return automatic calling, and so on, that to be fair Skype should already have. I love cheap VoIP and I’m otherwise pretty happy with Skype, but yeah… fuck you too, Skype.

2) My new computer’s wifi: Fuck you, Microsoft, Intel, and Lenovo.

So you would expect, if you paid $1500 for a new laptop, that something as simple as wireless internet would work. Right? That seems like a pretty reasonable, logical assumption, right? I mean, a base requirement for a satisfactory product purchase would be the proper operation of all basic functions of said product, at least at the beginning of its life cycle… RIGHT?

Right.

So why, Lenovo and Intel, does my brand new X200s keep dropping connection? Fuck you guys. I can’t even — and this is key, here — access the Intel webpage to download the fucking drivers to fix my fucking wifi card.

Whose idea was that? Nice job. Fuck you.

Meanwhile, my T61 is fine. Researching on the web, downloading drivers, and so on. So I start uninstalling the bullshit wifi manager packages you preloaded on my laptop, one by one. Oh, it looks like I chose to uninstall the wrong one, because it destroyed the wifi installation and now Vista won’t grant me permissions to reinstall it.

Awesome. Fuck you, Vista and your retarded, nonsensical user permissions. What’s that? I’m logged in as an admin and you won’t grant me permission to delete this folder? I have to reboot into Safe Mode and do it from a DOS prompt? Why am I back in 1992 using rmdir /S? What’s this? I’m still logged in as admin and you’re saying permission was denied to copy a driver file somewhere, so I can never ever install drivers for my wifi card? Oh, and you’re not telling me where the target location is, so I can’t go and manually fix it? Fuck you.

So I restore the PC to factory settings — after I spent about 3 hours stripping it of useless shit from Lenovo, Intel, and Microsoft — and start again. After some tweaking, I manage to get the wifi more or less working. Still shitty, but at least functional. How, you ask? Yes, I removed all your shitty, bloated software and just installed the bare driver.

At this point, it’s 3am and I get to go to bed.

Seriously, fuck you guys.

3) Vista language packs: Fuck you, Microsoft.

Admit it. We live in an increasingly digital and international world. Worldwide communications are expanding at a phenomenal rate, and the global economy blurs political and cultural borders more and more with each passing day.

So, why would the knuckle-draggers at Microsoft decide to forbid any version of Vista except Ultimate/Enterprise to change its display language? And beyond that, fail to tell anyone about it? Fuck you guys.

This is beyond moronic. I paid for Vista Business. In a product with the name “Business” in it, would you not expect that, you know, maybe some of your clients might be multinational? That it might be useful, even for someone who doesn’t want to pay for and install all the over-inflated useless crap in Windows Ultimate to have the option of switching display languages? You think maybe there are people in the States who might not have English as their first or preferred language?

Well, I guess not. You’d rather rip people off for as much as you can for basic conveniences. Fuck you. I’m downloading your Chinese language pack right now, and I’m going to use a freeware third-party program to fix your mess.

(Update: by the way, that third-party fix worked perfectly. Fuck you, Microsoft.)

In conclusion: I am going to go for a run, take a shower, and avoid my computer like the plague for the next three hours.

Some more angst… But this time, from CHINA!!

I’m having a lot of fun here, and I’m pretty excited to be moving on, but right now I think I’m going to address some nagging shadows in my head. Rest assured, some funny/more interesting shit is in the works.

There are some things about Shanghai that have surprised me, either with the simple fact of them, or because of their simultaneous strangeness and familiarity. Every write-up, documentary, or travelogue that mentions China inevitably talks about its duality.

There is plenty of that in evidence here; Jing’an temple, one of Shanghai’s major tourist draws, is an 1800-year-old temple tucked into one of the ritziest shopping districts on Earth, surrounded by Dolce, Gucci, and Rolex storefronts. I’m staying in a Marriot, but turn a corner and walk 50 meters, and there’s a whole street full of guys in shacks jury-rigged out of old cardboard boxes and construction yard scraps, selling breakfast hot from a sizzling griddle to a jostling crowd of schoolgirls, laborers, matrons, and businessmen in Armani knock-offs.

As for myself, I’m finding it difficult to cope with the maddening confusion in my head. I have been telling all my friends how much I missed real conversation, since I had to make do with limited Chinese on my side, and at best the barest English on the other. But right now I’m sat one table away from an American and a German talking about hotel strategies, and I’m having the strangest, but undeniable, feeling of hostility.

Then I turn my attention to the other two nearby conversations — the Chinese bartender and receptionist at the counter, or the two Chinese businessmen on my other side — and I feel like I’m home, despite only being able to understand every third or fourth word. For all I know, they’re discussing which type of rusty spoon would be most useful in removing my kidneys while I sleep tonight, but I derive the oddest sensation of comfort simply from the rhythm and melody of the language.

A mystery.

I had a conversation earlier today that might help me find some answers here. As I’m taking the day to relax before a trip to the boonies, I decided to visit the pool for a swim. I was the only one there, aside from a hotel employee who was just staring blankly at the floor. After a couple laps, we started talking. It turns out his job was basically to sit around and wait for me to leave. I asked if he was bored, and he explained that, well… kind of, but not really.

He applied the zhong (middle) in zhong guo (Middle Kingdom, i.e. China) in a way I hadn’t heard before. He told me it also applies on a personal level; it’s important for people to be zhong, or centered, in themselves. He couched this in terms of social harmony — in a country as diverse and populous as China, for individuals to be content is really the only way to avoid excessive strife and conflict.

On a social level, this sounds a lot like the national party hotline or something. It’s so much the antithesis of the Western way of thinking, where the idea is that you should decide what you want, then strive mightily until you get it. Governing people is so much easier when they’re docile, so I can understand why this is such a well-perpetuated attitude.

On a personal level though, and applied rather more selectively, I recognize it as something I desperately need. Not to say I should be completely passive — there’s been plenty of that for me already — but I should know when to be happy with what I have, so I at least have some kind of home base.

Anyway, there’s plenty more to talk about there, but my interest in it can only really be maintained for so long. As for China’s duality, I’m rather more interested in the common threads, those constants of Chinese culture that have survived the ravages of the more volatile tendencies.

That sounds a bit grandiose, I suppose, and it’s fairly tough to do. So I’ll just cop out, stop here, and try to stave off jetlag till some reasonable hour presents itself.

Friday night ramble

So here I sit, savoring a cup of coffee along with this odd sensation of contented solitude. It’s a feeling I was used to, not that long ago, and it’s something I’m rediscovering.

It’s not unlike opening your eyes early on a Saturday morning, with an empty schedule before you. You know you haven’t yet fully awakened to the world, and there’s a languorous, velvety warmth wrapped all around you. You’re fairly certain that you’re being lazy, but equally sure that nobody cares.

It’s all right. But it gets kinda old after a while.

This was basically the state in which I’ve existed for several years; stumbling out of high school into college, then into a career, cruising through a decade with my eyes closed, my mind still wrapped in hazy half-sleep. I was becoming comfortable with the idea of this as an inevitable constant; my future as a soft-focus blur. Alone, regrettably, not exactly happy, but with no real hardship to speak of.

Safe.

Comfortable.

Then, of course, I went and got into an actual relationship.

It was astonishing.

This tiny woman, simultaneously as familiar to me as my own childhood and as alien as the minds that enjoy NASCAR,  sauntered into my life, took a casual look around, and pulled all the walls down. I was left squinting (yes, I’m aware my eyes normally look like that anyway) against the savage light of some very harsh realizations.

It wasn’t really something I was ready for, so I started wrapping my life up around her, instead of facing it. So, you can kind of imagine (or if you’re anyone I’ve talked to in the past year, you’re probably already sick to hell of hearing about it) my reaction when she propped the door back up on its hinges and walked out.

Yeah. It wasn’t pretty, let’s just leave it at that.

So now I have most of the old walls built up again. They’re familiar. They’re comfortable. I’m (mostly) over her, over it, and trying to get over myself.

But it’s not quite right.

I wake up early these Saturday mornings, and there’s no velvety warmth behind my eyelids, there’s no silky stretch and yawn. Instead there’s a crackling light racing round the inside of my skull, and a hammering in my chest. I can’t do anything but lie there and gasp for a while, then I have to get up and pace. It doesn’t matter where. Lately, it’s been up the side of Cowles Mountain. Every day. I mean, I’m starting to recognize rocks.

I think it’s actually a good thing for me. Aside from getting me outside once in a while, it’s once again convinced me I have to do something, and learn some things — all those things that make me snicker cynically when other people talk about them.

You know. Like, about feelings and shit.

I’m not used to that. I’m used to analyzing things. I’ve grown accustomed to the idea that I can figure out most of my issues by picking them apart and thinking about each one, because I’ve been under the happy illusion that I’m intelligent.

Of course, I’m not intelligent. I’m mildly clever, which is not at all the same thing. It’s the difference between the chimp who leads his troupe to local dominance, and one who’s figured out his favorite stick makes a dandy ass wiper.

Now I’m starting to understand that it’s not enough. I can rationalize away a lot of stuff, but not a purpose. I need something to do, and not for the sake of doing it, nor just because I don’t really want to do anything else. I’ve been here before, too, and it’s not exactly heartening to see how little progress I’ve made. If I don’t make any more progress than this, so be it. But I probably shouldn’t sit around and watch the next ten years pass the same way. I just have to, you know. Whatever, I’ll do it tomorrow.

Ahem… anyway.

Socrates, Lao Tzu, Shakespeare, &c. have expressed and/or expanded upon the notion that a wise man is one who admits he knows nothing.

For me, and I’m sure countless others, I believe this is a fallacy. If you’re just smart enough to know you’re a jerk, in no way does that make you not a jerk.

It just makes you more insecure than the stupid jerk next to you.

Oof. I need to stop drinking coffee. Gotta wake up at the crack tomorrow to try and find personal growth at the REI used gear sale, or else some other asshole is going to buy it first.

Well, it’s all over.

That’s it… show’s over, folks. Expect a gradual cessation of posts like this, and hopefully more stories about getting farted on at the gym.

————————————————————-

I offered a timeline, told her I wanted to work at it, and see if we could keep things going. But she was either too frightened, impatient, or — and I do have to face this as a probability — reasonable and clear-headed to consider it.

We never really had much going for us, I guess. The culture barrier and the distance, of course, would have worked against us. I thought we could have dealt with it, but she saw 12,000 miles and her family dynamic as insurmountable barriers. I guess I can’t be sure if she was wrong.

She has a pretty clear picture of how she wants her life to be, and she’s positive an imminent marriage is the next step to that — even admitting that it may not matter so much who is involved.

The most painful side of it is, I can’t shake the suspicion that her practicality has already moved her further along her path, and she’s trying to keep me in the dark. A lot of the signs are there, but there’s no telling for sure. I guess that’s the part really eating at me; the feeling of a betrayal. I don’t open myself up to people often, nor very much — this place, where I bare my soul to any East European spam bot that cares to drop in, is the exception that proves the rule — and for a while I felt like this might be too much to handle.

It still might be, for certain things. But in all this mess, I have learned a few things. Some are old and known, some are new (to me), and some are borrowed. Nothing blue, sorry. That ship has sailed.

- There are people in my life that won’t screw me (figuratively), even if they’re heartily sick of my bullshit. Also, to my unabashedly abashed surprise, my parents can stand up and be counted among them.

- If I’m being honest, I’m probably not as cynical and disinterested in other people as I think… but I’m also more of a wuss than I like to admit.

- Things will get different. Maybe not better, but that’s largely up to me. See that? Self-actualization. That’s like SCIENCE, that is.

- I’m a narcissist. Self-loathing, sure, but they’re not mutually exclusive properties. I haven’t decided yet whether my narcissism falls within the normal range for human self-interest, but seriously, come on. Look around at this site. This is like, a fucking temple to my self-abused ego.

- I can be unbelievably petty.

- Cherish the good, forgive the bad, learn from it all, and keep moving.

- That kind of sounds like a country music lyric. Except instead of “moving” I would have had “truckin’”.

- I HATE country music.

Regardless of how it ends, the journey was amazing. I’ll treasure almost all of the memories, and on balance I believe we’ll both be better people for it, albeit in very different ways.

Knowing all that sometimes doesn’t help, especially when I remember those special moments we’ll never have a chance to revisit. And I’m positive I still have more blank staring to do.

But it’s good enough for right now.