You thought love is beautiful

(casual writing)

Dear S,

Two years ago today, Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away. On his day of death, I was reading his book One Hundred Years of Solitude. I didn’t know that until a month later.

And today, I’m reading another book of his – Love in the Time of Cholera. It has been more than two weeks that I’ve started reading it, but I’ve just finished the second chapter. (130 pages out of 400 something) The reasons are, first, I would like to taste it slowly in detail, and secondly, I’m pretty busy this month. S, you’re busy for your exam, me too for my academic. You know what? I’m planning to go for an exchange program in Shanghai in the next semester, therefore this is already the last semester for me to gain GPA for university admission; and this is already the last month before the semester ends. Anyway, I would would like to say it that, like you, I’m busy and stressed on my academic too.

But that’s not important. Especially when I’m in the mood of talking about love. What I want to say is that, there are two things that you probably think they are beautiful: Love and the end.

Emotion-triggering shit

Dear S,

I’ve been training (forcing) myself to be rational recently. This Wednesday, when I was attending English course at school, the teacher told us to discuss: Is progress always good? Is that important to preserve the tradition? And she asked me to deliver my opinion to the class.

I answered: Yes, I think progress is always good, and it is not important to preserve the tradition. As “preserve” is a verb – to preserve – it refers to an action and implies one try to keep something from washing out intentionally. I don’t agree with such act. What should stay would always remain. If things are really right, they will not vanish. Identities won’t change; equations won’t change, because they are correct.

Soon, another classmate had also answered the same question. She (I don’t remember who exactly she was actually) said something like traditions should be kept and passed on; they are valuable because they have existed for long; it would be bad if they fade out, etc.

If that was a debate, I would surely have won. The other has no logic at all. But anyway it wasn’t a debate. I bet most people in the classroom would stand on her side if they had to choose whose answer’s better. The reason is very simple: mine sounded cold and hers sounded warm.

Wind power is out

The wind has gone and wind power is out.

Only the scent was left behind.

We thought there was nothing more to hallucinate about,

But I found myself in a bind.

The star and the bird-woman would never talk to me.

Levitate me!

Levitate me!

Let me be the object for once!

葉公好龍

這個星期，我不斷在問自已：「有甚麼東西我是葉公好龍的呢？」

事緣這個星期我在看馬克·吐溫的The Adventures of Tom Sawyer（中文好像是《湯姆歷險記》），深深地著迷於書中的主角。

湯姆是個十二歲的男孩，是一個孤兒，由他姨姨（Aunt Polly）養育。他姨同情他、也耐心照顧他，但她始終愛自已的親兒子多於湯姆。湯姆是一個調皮、但本性善良的孩子（好老土，經典就是這樣），又有點小聰明，常欺騙和作弄其它小朋友。最經典的情節，莫過於他姨要他為籬笆刷油漆，他便跟路過籬笆的小朋友要說，這是一件非常光榮的工作，提議他們用自已的寶物，來和湯姆交換這份光榮的差事。

人生中的三、四事

0140－這是一個屬於我的節日和儀式

九月開學以來，精神長期處於崩緊的狀態。近一，兩個月，情況更加嚴重。

整個人都失去情調。無法從閱讀取得任何樂趣、上課拿著紙筆都畫不出甚麼、開sem以來一篇文也沒寫過、中同多番約踼波只出現幾次、更別說彈鋼琴。

花多了時間在學業上，但卻看不見有任何長進。一篇僅四百字的英譯中功課，前後花了六、七小時，又如何？我的譯文還是一塌糊塗、只有死板的句式。

I like wrong things

“Seeking emancipation upon treacherous scenarios.”

Not a new statement. I’d written this on the last new year eve, in a lousy short poem, to conclude year 2015. But I didn’t really think about it until the last two or three weeks.

I finally realized, and accepted that I don’t live for happiness. Since then, I've started turning myself into a rather rational person, and I suddenly understood many things – many things that I was supposed to have understood long ago.

美好得教人絕望

S：

看《烏托邦》和《Interstella5555》時早有這種感覺。故事中那虛構的幻想世界，過於理想，與現實形成強烈對比。起初我還能投入欣賞；但很快我便意識到自己與她的距離，然後便不禁憂鬱。

當年阿凡達大熱，出現了一個「阿凡達抑鬱症」，證明不少人也有過這種經歷。