I have the incredible urge to go to the store, buy a stack of firelogs, start burning them in the fireplace, throw open the sliding door to the backyard just a few feet away from the fireplace, leave the door open, and sleep there, between the fire and the outdoors.

I won’t, but it’s what I feel like doing. But I won’t. And I’m actually a bit sad about that.

— § —

© Aron Hsiao / 2004

What else do I feel like doing right now?

• I feel like taking out the biggest loan I can still get and buying a classic car.
• I feel like driving to downtown Provo and walking around pointlessly in the dark.
• I feel like throwing out every single item of clothing and every toy in the house.
• I feel like driving to a 24-hour store like Wal-Mart and buying a whole bunch of random things in the aisles that I never visit becuase I don’t need anything in them.
• I feel like tearing out this massive desktop computing installation I have here at my desk, clearing the desk entirely, and putting nothing but my laptop in the middle of it.
• I feel like putting on a leather jacket, driving to Salt Lake City, buying some Chinese take-out, and eating it sitting alone in Memory Grove.
• I feel like shaving my head and my eyebrows again.
• I feel like going out skating all night, nowhere in particular.
• I feel like buying a plane ticket to some small town where nobody goes, just to find the local diner, have a burger, and then come back.
• I feel a bit like I’m lost.

Whatevs.

Okay, since I’m struggling to get myself to do this in private, let’s do it in public so that I know that I have to perform. Seems to be a quirk of mine—I’m far better in public than I ever am in private.

— § —

© Aron Hsiao / 2004

Where would I like to be in ten years? A simple enough question, right? Not so fast! It really isn’t.

• I’d like to be writing books again. I miss it. Preferably fiction—to finally deliver on some of that “promise” I was always told that I show—but I’ll settle for anything that gets me back on the shelves and back to churning chapters out.
• I’d like to be living in a smaller house, that I actually own. I don’t know where. It’s tough to talk about these kinds of things without thinking of the kids, and that’s not by accident. The kids come first. I don’t like Utah, but Utah is their home. But at least a smaller house. Nearer the mountains.
• I’d like to be financially secure. Right now I am not. I have relationships to thank for this. Every time I have a relationship (marriage or otherwise) in my life, it destroys me financially. I hesitate to make further comment here, but I’ll defer to others’ imaginations on what this says about significant others, and about me.
• I’d like to have the academics question settled. Either I will be or I won’t be. I don’t want to still be dreaming of doing it someday; I want it to either be entirely out of my system or to have an office on campus.
• I want to be single. This is tough to admit to myself. It treads on a bunch of insecurity-laden territory. Relationships are good for the ego. One worries that over time if one is always “the single parent,” that the kids will enjoy life elsewhere more, begin to see one as a bit less-than somehow. But at the end of the day, I am tired. I am tired of people my own age. I’ve had my fill. I have always been happier, in the end, on my own. It is time I admit that to myself. It’s not that I don’t have anything to give, or don’t want to receive; it’s that I’m just not highly compatible with most people, and the exercise is too expensive. I’m over 40. I have limited resources and years left. I don’t want to waste them on relationship nonsense, and I am blessed to be a person that doesn’t have to, even if it’s tempting at times.
• I want to be the best damned father ever, with a central place in my my children’s lives so that I can be of support to them. But what does this mean, and how to weigh it, so as to do good rather than to do damage? Unanswerable questions. Frustrating, that.
• I want to be me. I think the biggest fear in my life right now (apart from the general dread and anxiety that comes with the parent of children who will grow up in a divided family, with much troubled water under the bridge) is the fear of losing my faculties. Of losing all of that knowledge, all of the habits of mind, all of the familiar inquisitiveness, that are me. I have the strange fear that at some point I will wake up and want to do nothing other than watch television all day. That is a terrifying thought.
• I’d like to be happy again. Despite the fact that my children are the most important things in my lives and have brought me untold joy, every other part of my life went off the rails the moment we became parents. Academic career fell apart. Marriage was instantly on the rocks and ultimately couldn’t be steered away from the ditch into which it ran. By ten years out, the kids will be in high school and thinking about college. By then, I’d like to feel as though something else is right in my life again.
• I’d like to have a reasonable relationship with my STBX. The problem is that we exist in completely different emotional and cognitive universes. We can’t share joy together and we can’t disagree. Either brings tension. It’s like a problem in translation; neither can make any sense of the other and bad things result. I’d like to get to a place where it feels like we are not trying to avoid pushing each other’s buttons. I don’t know if that’s possible. Maybe we always will. I know for sure right now that she pushes my buttons when she opens up and stops tiptoeing around, and I suspect that I push hers when I do the same. It would be nice someday not to have to feel that way about each other and to have open, relaxed conversations, instead of strained bomb defusings of the same kind that we had to do fifty times a day while we were married and living together. Ten years?
• I want to be doing something real. More on this later.

Shit. The list is a flop. Why?

It’s completely not actionable, for the most part. It’s all ephemeral, conceptual stuff. I guess that’s where I am in life.

Add this one:

• I want to have found a balance again—the balance that I once found in Chicago and then again in New York—between the conceptual and the actionable in life. I have the bad habit of being trapped in conceptual space, as though it is enough in life to wrangle with concepts. Maybe this is also part and parcel of the cultural fabric—the schematic centrality of identity and identity-habits—that I have spent so much time complaining about here. But yes, in ten years, I would like to see more action—and I don’t mean women.

I wrote, some time ago, that when life gets difficult, it is time to take the big risks, engage in the grand actions, and that this is what separates one group from the other in life.

I have spent the last year and a half making good on that offer to myself. But I need to keep it up—and indeed to avoid the slide back into conceptualism.

— § —

Still a waste of space. Not good enough.

I’ll have to try again soon, and see if I have the balls to think clearly and speak clearly in public on any matters of importance, given that my entire life right now is that of a person precariously balanced on the edge of a precipice being buffeted by the wind.

Public domain

Why was I so hesitant to have kids when I did in life? Why did I think about it so long?

Because generational responsibility is encoded into the core of who I am. It has been the norm on both sides of my family since generations before I was born. It is at the core of the two cultures and extended families that generated who and what I am. I am nothing without it.

And at the end of the day, I believe that once you have kids, your primary responsibility is to them, first and foremost, and yourself a distant 99th or 100th. I knew, years before I became one, that as soon as I became a father my life as I knew it would be over, by conscious choice. I would take on a new role that was all-encompassing. I had to weigh that. And to make the decision to let myself, the old me, die away and become a memory.

That’s my belief. A parent exists for and only for their kids. They chose to have them. They took on the responsibility. At that moment, their kids became the people that bear the family name, that are people. And the the parent? They recede into existence as a part of the mere support system for those people that now bear the family name. The rest is nothing but the rest.

I realize that there’s a pretty big western tradition out there, including psychologists (who regularly refuse to see themselves as the highly culture-bound creatures that they are), who will argue that this is a false belief or unhealthy or blah, blah, blah. Sure, whatever. Tell me what you need to tell me. I’ll always listen to anyone. But don’t expect me to agree.

I’ll also say that I’m not here to force my beliefs on anyone. I’ll leave that to our modern cultural totalitarians on the left and on the right, who never met a moment for activism they didn’t embrace with a verbal barrage or seven.

My beliefs are mine and mine alone. But they are mine, and I, for myself, am compelled to be governed by them.

© Aron Hsiao / 2000

So.

In my ongoing quest to try to identify the absolute best clear-head, focus-driving writing device in existence, I got ahold of an eMate 300. I used to write on my Newton 2100 devices and still like them a great deal, but the process of pulling out the external keyboard, plugging it into the dongle, plugging the dongle into the Newton, finding a place to set both free-floating devices, then opening the Newton door, folding it over, and getting it to stand up just-so is just a tad too far to go when you have to jot (read: type) and idea down.

You end up just not doing it because it’s a PITA.

So—the eMate. Built-in keyboard, clamshell form factor. Open screen and type. That’s the sort of thing I’m shooting for. On the other hand, the device is now twenty years old, give or take. It’s not exactly plug-and-play to make them go…and they have some typical deficiencies at this point.

1. There is a well-known hinge problem. With wear, a spring in the hinge breaks free and punctures the mylar cable leading to the display. At that point, what you have is a dead eMate 300.
2. Virtually any original battery is completely unlikely to work by now, and they shipped with proprietary battery packs (though built from a series of AA cells, as virtually all battery packs are these days).
3. So I’ve just spent an afternoon with a soldering iron, a Dremel, and a bunch of tools and spare parts implementing the permanent hinge repair and a complete battery pack rebuild and replacement using modern 2400mah AA cells.

It was a lot more fiddly than I thought it would be, but it’s done. I hope. For the moment, I’m typing with no problems on battery power (yes, I’m using the device right now) and the hinge seems to be functioning (though it is much more stiff than it used to be).

What do I think, now that I’m laying here typing on this thing? (more…)

School starts on Monday.

My daughter, my first child, my little girl, is going to “big kid school,” starting kindergarten.

Sure, she’s been in pre-school for three years already, but this is different. This is every day of the week. Hours every day, every day of the week. And in a big class in a big building with kids of every age. And several miles from home.

At the same time, I know she’s ready. We went to the school pre-year picnic tonight and as I watched her run around with the other kids, it was abundantly clear: she’s a big kid, and it’s time for her to have more autonomy. It’s a good thing.

In a way it’s strange, but I’m quite proud of her. She is a force of nature, a being unto herself. She is great. And she’s going to do very well.

— § —

I think that at the end of the day, I’m a person who’s either naturally single or who has very, very specific needs in a significant other.

First and foremost is the freedom to be, think, say, and feel honestly and without guilt, regret, or worry—without having to grit my teeth or to hold back or to try too hard.

— § —

© Aron Hsiao / 2009

What do I want out of the coming year? What do I want out of life?

Chris said it once on Northern Exposure. A great phrase.

All I want are “pure moments.” As many of them as I can string together. Other stuff is just…stuff.

— § —

Pure moment, today’s example.

We were at daughter’s school, waiting for her to be asked in for her pre-year ten-minute interview with her teacher to assess her academic readiness.

I, daughter, and son were sitting on tiny chairs at a round, wooden table. Somehow and at length, after discussing music instruments, I offered to “draw” us all some imaginary instruments with my fingertip if we could have a jam.

I “drew” a piano on the tabletop, invisibly outlining a keyboard. I “drew” a guitar in the air in front of my daughter, and I “drew” myself a bass.

And then, by god, we did jam. We jammed for a full five minutes, and it was fucking savage, right there in the hallway next to kindergarten and first grade.

Those are the moments for which life was invented.

There are seriously very few adults in the world today. Those few that remain are dying off at an alarming pace. Replacing them are 70-year-old children, and to follow are those who are now 60-year-old children, 50-year-old children, 40-year-old children, 30-year-old children, and so on.

— § —

My life right now is littered with debris of all kinds—physical, mental, emotional.

A long-term project of debris-clearing is needed, but it feels almost insurmountable. There is just so much of it, everywhere I look. I keep arranging it and stacking it and trying to form piles and putting it into bins and so on…but it’s all just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic as they say.

© Aron Hsiao / 2007

It is underneath all of this debris of various kinds that the real things, and real living, can be found.

But clearing it all away is an undertaking that has to be worked in around the realities of everyday life.

— § —

At some point, you reach an age and level of experience at which you are pretty confident that you can do just about anything in your corner of the business world.

That youthful worry about your competence and the nervousness that someone might be looking over your shoulder and evaluating your performance—those things are gone. Now you know you can do it all, and do it well.

The problem then becomes one of prioritization. Instead of being blinded by your insecurity, you are now torn amongst reasonable options all the time, having to make decisions that never seem perfect, but always seem like compromises, then just getting on with it.

— § —

In fact, and sadly, that’s pretty much life. Having to make decisions that never seem perfect, but always seem like compromises. And then just getting on with it.

One of the most unjust things about reality is that there isn’t any time to really acknowledge or celebrate the meanings of things. And even if there was, you couldn’t do it, because such attempts simply don’t work.

Honors never are. Appreciations never do. They always fall short, seem hollow. Because as valuable as meaningful things are, they are meaningful in-themselves.

Any attempt at pausing to value them after the fact is a pointless waste.

— § —

My STBX always hated high English culture. I always loved it, largely because they undertand this, and they aren’t maudlin. Real emotion is deep and silent and solitary, utterly unshareable. At least that’s how I experience it.

I’ve been watching a bit of British television on the weekends again. I think my two favorite characters of all time, in any genre, come from British crime drama: Inspector Endeavour Morse and Detective Sergeant James Hathaway.

Realizing that they are merely fictional characters, seen in necessarily limited settings and character arcs, and that they appear in the form in which I know them on that most pedestrian of mediums, I nonetheless find very much in them to admire.

© Aron Hsiao / 2004

I am actually a big fan of tactility and of the aesthetics of materials and situations. That’s my version of sensuousness—not massages and hugs and strawberries dipped in chocolate, but more more fundamental stuff.

I have always loved leather, for example. Hard or soft, black or brown, it doesn’t matter. My cars have always had leather seats. I have always worn leather shoes. I have always had multiple pieces of outerwear at any time made of leather.

The same goes for stone. One of the first eBay purchases I made, way back when I was still a teenager, was a stone chess set. Why? Not because I loved chess so much as because I loved stone and the aesthetics of stone when carved into a chess set. I basically took up chess because of the fact that chess sets could be made of stone, and though I never got good at chess and the pieces have since been lost, the board remains and I can’t bring myself to part with it, even though it weighs rather a lot and has no purpose without actual chessmen to accompany it.

Wood, pavement, stone, leather, glass, steel. The tactility and aesthetics of these things lie somehow at some of the deepest intersections of my subconscious mind, as do the seasons and situations that bring out their nuance as well as their extremes. I have spent rather a lot of money over the course of my life (relative to the amount of money that I actually have) ensuring that I’m surrounded by these things. They mean rather a lot to my well-being, I think.

Yet I’ve not been able to find a way in my life to do much with this intense interest and yen. Photography is as close as I’ve come, and I’ve built a tiny (and I do mean tiny) side income with thousands of photos taken over the years that are essentially all about these materials in various kinds of lighting and in various situations, as found in the real world. No people. No hugs or chocolate-dipped strawberries and red lips. Those things bore me.

But a particularly interesting marble hallway? A leather jacket laying on a wooden table? Be still my heart.

But I do wish that I could figure out a way to turn this interest into something deeper. Something that somehow synergizes with my other great loves in life—academics and writing.

— § —

Some people were made for business and the office and the modern workplace.

I was not.

I was definitely, definitely not.

— § —

Between this blog, my personal digital diary, and my written journals, commonplace books, and so on, I have upwards of 4,000 pages of personal writing accumulated.

What is it all for?

Someday, I’ll aggregate them all into some sort of volume, all collated into chronological order from the multiple sources at issue, and have them bound. Two or three copies, maybe. Just to have and to pass on.

Why?

I’m not sure. Because it all exists, that’s why.

And because I need to add paper to the list of substances above that fascinate me, deeply resonate with me, and by whose aesthetics and tactility I am held utterly spellbound.

© Aron Hsiao / 2004

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

(Nietzsche)

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

(Maya Angelou)

“Truth is everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”

(Bob Marley)

“Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.”

(Hugh Mackay)

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being?”

(Oscar Wilde)

“People change and forget to tell each other.”

(Lillian Hellman)

“It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved.”

(Francois de La Rouchefoucauld)

“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.”

(Willa Cather)

© Aron Hsiao / 2007

• All good intentions have at their core a totalitarian impulse.
• Every judgment that we make in social life consists almost entirely of snake oil.
• Snake oil is the primary lubricant of every sphere of modernity—the market, the state, the church, the community.
• The road to hell is paved with good intentions. But the road paved with good deeds also leads to hell, as does the road paved with bad deeds. This is because in human life, all roads lead to hell.
• This is the more honest way of saying that “all human life is suffering.”
• Hell is not actually as bad as people make it out to be. In fact, it’s required for happiness—because it’s required for redemption.
• Redemption, not love or hate, is the core human impulse. This is what is meant by “original sin.”
• In the end, we are all going the same way. We will have changed precious little, and there is precious little that we can change.
• The romance of the library lies in solidarity—in the fact that it is entirely a catalogue of unperfected stories and their unfinished final resting points.
• Fall comes every year while we are alive. It came every year before we were born, since time immemorial. Once we are dead, it continues to come every year without us, forever.
• Every single fallen leaf, snowflake, and grain of sand precisely is as special as we are.