Living With Yourself

I think there are a number of ways you can do it, some are probably better than others but I don't really know, I haven't quite tried them all yet.

Some us are golden boys/girls. We do everything we're supposed to and we do it right. We don't make career mistakes, we're successful, we have lots of friends that reinforce our beliefs that we are good and we are worthy. We're the ones that win the awards and get the recognition we need. We rely on life being a mirror that reflects back what we want to see, but we rarely look past the mirror.

Some of us are servants. We exist to help other people, we are activists whose primary goal is to change the world and make it a better place. We get so involved in fighting the problems of the world so that we can live contentedly in our privileged and comfortable bubbles. We take solace in knowing that we've somehow created some semblance of balance in world that's so incredibly inegalitarian.

Some of us are medicated. We see psychiatrists who prescribe various pharmaceuticals in various dosages and rotate between any number of psychotropic drugs so that we can feel "ok".  We sit, and we observe the world as it is, and see the people around us and how they treat each other. Seeing everything for what it is creates a sort of emptiness and powerlessness, and since we were never able to pull of being the golden boys or girls or the servants, we turn to medication. We are prescribed happiness, focus, and sleep. We are prescribed an unawareness to our situation and to the situation of the world.

And then, of course, some of us don't live with ourselves.

Rick F*cking Perry

I’ve never been one to write anything. Political, that is. I’ve never been one to write anything political. I’m not too into politics. Half the time it seems hopeless, and the other half of the time you find someone and/or something that gives you some hope, and you realize just how powerless that one person and/or idea is to actually do anything. Watching Rick Perry’s campaign video titled “Strong” pissed me off, though. Enough to actually sit down and write something. Offending line (portion):

“There is something wrong with our country when gays can openly serve in the military”

And then he goes on to talk about how he’ll end Obama’s attack on religion, and how faith is what made this country great. Typical GOP-type blabber, nothing new.

I’m probably not typical as a gay man because I can accept when someone says they think homosexuality is a sin. If through whatever causal chain that results in humans having principles and beliefs that’s what they’ve arrived at, I’ll accept it. I would never expect to change his or her mind with words any more than someone would expect to change my mind about the existence of God.

But if this is what makes you vote for someone, if this issue is really what pushes your buttons and gives you enough energy to cram yourself into a booth and push a button next to Rick Perry’s name, I have a question for you.

What’s your deal?

Observe this chart of national issues that I’ve prepared:

Actual Problems	Rick Perry’s Problem
Stagnating growth in GDP	GAYS IN MILITARY
National Debt Surpassing 100% of GDP
8.6% unemployment
Global Warming
Natural Disasters at Home and Abroad
Income Inequality
The Cost of Higher Education
Health Coverage (through whatever means) for Everyone
Underfunded scientific research institutions
A Waning Space Program
Natural Resource Depletion
Waste Disposal
Impending Fresh Water Shortages
International Trade Imbalance
Allies and Friends in Europe in Trouble
Inappropriate handling of China’s rise by the US Government
People that think it’s okay to shorten words to like “are” to one  letter…..OK, personal problem.

I know, right? And it’s not like that would be the entire focus of his presidency (knock on wood) but still…. you’d rather make it the focus of your campaign to smear the desire and willingness of LGBT people to serve openly in the military than address any of those other issues? You suck. And I rarely say that about politicians.

I recognize that the actual issues I listed have real solutions given by members of both parties. No matter what they are, I respect them putting forth an actual problem, and an actual solution. Not pulling something out of their ass that we all know is going to be a non-issue in 100 years (50 years?).

So please, be smart when you vote. And remember, Presidents don’t write laws. Congress does. Don’t forget to make an informed voting choice for your state senators and house representatives. 

Title III

"I suddenly had a desire for something of my own, of my own doing; my own creation that I could grasp, hold, and cling to. Something that I could hold on to because I had made it, me alone and no one else. It would be the product of my own choices and my own resources, and it would be mine."

Stomach Lump

1. Chicken Tortilla Soup II
2. Burberry Cologne
3. Starbucks
4. Burning Leaves
5. The thought of winter
6. The Meijer Parking Lot
7. Suburban Silence
8. Swan Diving
9. The Smell of Fresh Laundry
10. Nebraska

Winding Road

Being back at work is better.

People like me, and the phrase "Sam can do it" is widespread. I try to make myself irreplaceable. I think at work it works, it just never has in relationships.

I am down to 15mg of temazepam a night with an end in sight to another dependence I don't need. I'd rather sleep less.

Gnocchi, sauteed in butter till crisp, with Pesto Rosso is delicious in all countries.

I work 50-70 hours a week. And then when I come home I work some more. I love it.

I am making friends.

Life is good, and I can stick this out.

What's In a Name?

I don't think I've ever been more fascinated by names than I have been since moving to China. While there's more often than not a distinction between what is a "name" in English and what is a "word", in Chinese, at least from an outside perspective, there is much less of a difference. In English a name usually doesn't have a direct meaning, primarily because it was derived from a language other than English. Obviously exceptions exist, most notably those among us lucky enough to have been named after a virtue (Chastity? Verity? Patience? all women, of course). Generally, though, we are able to distinguish and we look at the text "Richard" and think "male person" and look at "queen" and think "royalty" (or "drag").

Rarely when we look at names do we think of meaning. I don't think of my own name "Samuel" and think "Oh, derived from Shemu'el, Hebrew for 'name of God' or 'God has heard'". However much I may appreciate the meaning of my name or the situation that called my Mom to choose it for me, it's not the first thing that comes to mind.

My Chinese name, on the other hand,  is a different story. I have a two-character name (most surnames are a single character and given names are one or two characters). It was given to me by my Chinese professor at North Central. We were given the option of an artfully transliterated name that sounded like our English name, or a new name entirely. I thought of the process like a birth, and opted for a new name entirely.

My name is 林風 (Lin Feng)，translated directly the first character means "woods", and the second character means "wind". Overall it comes off as something akin to "the wind going through the woods". When I see my name written, I see "woods", and I see "wind", and the name has meaning to me, and a meaning that I like, at that.

The names of my coworkers are no different. There's 刘天明 (Liu Tian Ming), for example, who sits behind me. Her last name Liu means "to see", a fairly common last name. Her first name Tian Ming (literally "heaven/sky and bright put together) means daybreak, or dawn. I can't help but wonder if their name is just a name to them, or if this meaning is embedded into it since all three of those characters appear frequently in what's read on a daily basis.

What's even more interesting to me is the names that Chinese people often choose for themselves in English. More often than not they pick a common name (Jessie, Jack, Eileen, John, James) that they like the sound of and go with it. Sometimes, they choose a name they like the meaning of. The coworker I mentioned earlier's English name is Ivy, chosen particularly for the plant. Another consultant who works here chose Apple as her name. Perhaps my favorite, though, is the consultant who sits across from me, Seven. I think I might actually have to name my first child after a number. Five or Six if it's a boy. Seven if it's a girl.

So, in short, go look up your name. It might mean something fun.

Time to Think

This is my living room. In the last week I've had off (for the national holiday) I've had quite a lot of time to stare at it, sit in it, rearrange it, and photograph it. 

"Sometimes I think Sam could convince God of anything" - Mary S., a therapist I had my freshman year of high school.

Well that might not be true (and may actually be blasphemous, especially coming from a Christian counselor) it is true that I can convince myself of just about anything. I'm good at fabricating a reality based on some idea I've had too much time to think about. Those realities have taken a number of forms: I need to major in something different, I need to take up a certain hobby, I'm in love with such and such person....I could go on and on.

I can't possibly convey the negative effect of having an empty week in which to ponder and "fabricate" has had, and now the reality I've created seems to be one that's screaming what am I doing here?

It's a fairly typical Sam reaction to a situation: take an offer for an internship, get offered a job based on that internship, tentatively accept the job in reaction to some semblance of security that it offers....

....and then scrutinize the hell out of it. 

Maybe the grass is just greener on the other side of the Pacific (in fact, I'm pretty sure it is greener), maybe I miss Amy, and Lauren, and Jayme, and Jaysin, and the jobs that I had where I knew what I was doing and took comfort in the fact that the lack of any chance for advancement meant that I was already on top and there was nothing else I had to learn. 

Someone once said I was negative, or more of a "glass half-empty" type of person. It hurt to hear it, but I have to acknowledge the truth in it. I just wish for once I could be a little more positive, a little more upbeat. I really hate facing that I'm just not that happy of a person, and I probably won't ever be, and there are a lot of things I would never have learned if I were an optimistic person. 

So, I'll eat the bitterness, and see what happens at work on Monday.