Wall Panel

I am so used to being a passive observer, a bystander even in my own life. When I get the rare moment to just sit back and watch, it's not hard for me to forget that I physically exist.

Sitting on a bench  waiting for my order in a Chinese restaurant this past week, I disappeared. A Chinese man and women bravely manned the counter, fumbling over three phones ringing non-stop, pausing for a breath only to look up at the next customer waiting to order takeout. A conveyor belt of people, filtering in through the door empty handed and leaving with bags full of the promise of food and a little respite from the weight of the world. Here were children getting off from school, tired college students, apprehensive workers picking up food for their bosses, the occasional little old lady, out of place in the fast churning vortex of the takeout counter corner of a Chinese restaurant at lunch time. In a few minutes I learned quite a bit about the neighborhood. The Chinese man spoke in perfect English, and as much of an efficient machine he was in those first few moments switching from phone to phone to customer to phone to delivery man, he greeted his regular customers warmly. Somehow I was astounded by how he managed to find a single spare moment's breath to ask about anyone's life, to remember about any one out of a sea of endless faces and orders. As time passed he and the restaurant were taking on more dimension and complexity before my own eyes. When my order was called it took me a few nanoseconds to step into myself and realize I was not in fact the wood-paneling of a Chinese restaurant wall. When I'm caught off guard at these times, the journey back to the reality feels distant and long, as if I'm approaching and stepping into my shell again from a vast distance. It takes a moment to remember how to reuse the controls, and I always feel that fleeting moment of surprise as I realize people are expected to speak, slowly the signals are sent from my brain, to my jaw muscles, to my mouth: form the words, use your vocal chords, listen to the sounds.

Even in less obviously passive situations it takes me a moment to get used to being so present, it still catches me off guard when I realize suddenly that people can see me perfectly, and that they might have the silly notion that I too am just as much an actor in the scene they're playing. It's been especially challenging lately stepping into the role of a teacher-figure. It's easy for me to walk into a room full of people and assume that I have a certain level of invisibility. But as a teacher-figure I've had more than one awkward moment when I've realized the spotlight's been on me all along and an eager group of children are waiting patiently for my words. I do have some knowledge to impart to such a young group of children, but it has been quite a new experience not only being in the role of an imparter of knowledge, but of stepping into a role that requires a certain level of presence. I have always suppressed myself, relegated all the portions that compromise a decently structured human being to some other private sub-layer. Only recently, and not without effort, I've tried to express myself more fully. But on those tired days when I don't have the effort left in me there's not much I can do to stop myself from falling back on the default systems.

As I put more effort into being present I do sometimes worry about exposing too much. I am so eager sometimes, my emotions are raw and strong. They prickle at the back of my skin to be let loose, to be expressed loudly. But I'm not good at toning them down or filtering them properly all the time yet. Sometimes it's all or nothing. And I do worry about hurting people with my blunt honesty, repelling people with my unhidden admiration, offending others with my unfiltered distaste, the list goes on. Some days are easier than others, and I love those rare moments when I can just be myself without the effort, without the care or worries, and without all the locks and bolts and unnecessary layers of obfuscation. Those days when I can just be me, like a boss.

HOLY SHIT, MUSIC!

I love hearing music again after days deprived of it.  Usually days spent being stressed and weighed, quite a few leagues down, by the little mechanical details that are needed to keep the cogs of the machine moving along.

Focus

I lack focus.

My mind wanders from one thought to the next, switching quickly through all the threads running in parallel.  It's somehow never enough to think about one thing at a time.  Instead the focus switches, bringing a different thought, one that was already meandering along slowly and quietly in the background, to the forefront as soon as my attention wanes from whatever I was formerly attempting to focus on.  It's a big problem when I'm trying to get any work done, and it's a big problem with me in general.  My interests and knowledge lacks depth, though their breadth is extensive.  I am so eager sometimes to take in everything that I fail to be an adequate source on any one subject.  It's something I've come to despise.  I'm shallow and hollow in a sense.  I am envious of those others who can justify their passions with the knowledge to match, those who truly are pursuing a greater depth of insight into a single or select few things.  Against these people I feel inadequate, a lesser person who has failed in a sense to live up to my goal of aiming to the best version of myself I can create.  And I feel exposed when I find myself interacting with these people.  I feel that my lack of depth is obvious, it must be immediately clear I think, how much I am something of a sham.  Here is someone who is not worth talking to, after all, enthusiasm and knowledge that extends only so far as to scrape the surface of things is cheap and abundant.  Compared to these people who carry a truly deep and complex network of knowledge in their minds, I am little better than a hollow mannequin.  A shell, simply painted to reflect the little that anyone can come to learn from glancing at the surface of a body of knowledge.

What I lack is devotion.  A large part of the identity of those who are truly great at something is defined by their work.  They are their work, their work is them.  Not entirely, but enough that it matters, enough that it becomes a valuable thing and raises the value of their own identity.  I have always been intrigued by too many things, and I spent far too much of my younger life being frustrated by the fact that I would not live long enough to be able to learn everything.  Still, in a sense, I've rebelled against this notion, and have come to sample a bit of everything, and it hasn't helped me.  Sometimes I wonder also what would've happened if I'd simply rolled with my natural inclination towards art and writing.  But these are things people sometimes told me I had a talent for, and so it was not mysterious or fascinating enough.  I wanted to learn everything, and I wonder if I maybe migrated towards those things I knew would be most difficult for me, those things I knew I would have to spend more time learning.  But they were also the things that required me to focus outside of myself, whereas art and writing is often about introspection.  There is a whole universe of things out there, and I gravitated towards that which was farther away, though introspection comes more naturally, unavoidably even.  I don't regret choosing the path that I have, I would choose it again given the choice.  I do regret how bad I am at following it.

At this point, I can't say that I am my work, it exists outside of me, something I must pursue. One thing, amongst a whole slew of other things competing for space in my mind.  I think I've inadvertently aspired to become a lense that captures every detail of the world I'm in.  An impossible task that I am bound to fail at again and again and do a poor job of.  I hope someday I can train myself to find the subset of things that it would be best for me to focus on.  The set of things such that in producing my work I would be happy to have define me in part and define in part.

Wanderer

I like to wander. To walk for no other purpose than to walk, feeling the muscles of the legs stretch and contract, pulling bones and body along through space, and each step, hitting and pushing off the Earth, processing the texture and composition of the ground beneath my feet as it does so. I am a sensor, taking readings as I move along. The tiny points of pressure pushing up are little rocks. The grainy texture sliding against the bottoms of my shoes are little motes of dust and sand. The wet soil sinks with my weight. And better yet, is the feeling of the sun, warm against my face and skin, I register its life-giving force and I too give off warmth in response, "Yes, I am still a part of this universe also." And while my body writes and sends this message off in all directions where it dissipates and fades with distance and with time, it is still busy sensing.

Sensing, every minute change, as the air pressure rises and sinks, each strand of hair floating and waving, sending information via movement down to the roots where each push and pull is processed until I know, the direction of every breeze and gust of wind pushing past me on its way to become a part of other pressure systems, pushing and pulling across the Earth, directing oceans and carving mountains.

Light bounces off the objects all around me where my eyes process them into shapes and colors so that the world comes into existence in my minds eye. A world that extends in all directions, full of the unsensed, unprocessed, more data for me to collect so long as I am willing to push forward. A world that I process innately and automatically as my eyes reveal it, my findings stored away in memory.


But perhaps, most selfishly, its what all my findings confirm that makes me especially fond of wandering, the simple proof that I exist.