Always Close but never Closed enough

I have never been one to wallow in self-pity. Neither am I who cry for attention. But for the very first time in my life, now I know how self-pity can be such a comforting thought.

Judging from my previous entries, it is fairly obvious that I am a man who really cannot stand anything that is not done economically or thought out. It has been a curse and a bane of my life as I also try to live my life as expediently as I how I write it. One can say that when the law of diminishing returns start kicking in, it is always without fail that I am looking for the next springboard. Of course, some other's might differ, but I leave it to their designs.

It is by this behaviour that I-looking back- have been searching for the next springboard, hence I am not able to hang on onto anything substantial in the last couple of years. And it is this propensity that drives me also to plunge head first into whacked out ideas and even theories that have proven absurd to me previously. Sometimes, it is in the absurdity that we find the biggest gems. But it has been a risky venture as it turned out to be a fruitless endeavour which only end up in lost time and quite unsavoury reputation.

To understand something while internalizing old ones is a risky venture as one loses the sense of reality of which to make sense of the world. I tried desperately to incorporate something I know at the back of my hand of with something quite anti-thetical to it's assumptions and found that certain knowledge arise as a result of it rather than in spite of it. Hence when one attempts therefore to move the other way round- it often becomes a schizophrenic attempt of which no anchor is found in underpining it's two quite different assumptions.

For example, I attempted to understand Chinese culture and tried desperately to argue for a hierarchical society while attempting to use quite Euro-centric concepts, I found that the concepts were quite woefully out of depth in attempting quite a number of phenomenon. The reason is rather simple, certain terms and concepts are never fully expounded because the very act means having to perform sacrilege on it. And to perform something sacrilegious is sometimes in itself short-changing it in the first place. The attempt often fall short because there no language nor term to explain the particular phenomenon or experience as it is precisely the objective. Because to articulate it, is to short-change the process, and to short-change the process is to short-change the understanding.

And therefore having really step out of the zone, I have already performed quite sacrilegious and therefore- I would never fully understanding the whole experience and process however how hard I try. Therefore, my attempts in understanding and using it to my full advantage is really at best laughable. I have missed the first part and second part of the earlier stages therefore I would never fully grasp the third which should comes naturally as a result.

Likewise, my attempts has been woefully short and really did not come to me as naturally as it should be. At best, my attempts is to make it effective without interfering in the process in the first place. And for that I am not even needed- because I am not even clear of the whole process in the first place.

I will be locked out of the whole process because I think even young kids are better than me at this as they have picked up the first step and I really have no clue on the fundamentals in the first place. My education have proven to be rather successful thus far until I attempt to incorporate that with rather "conservative" concepts of which my understanding has no language to explain, The language is in the experience- and for that I have fallen woefully short as I cannot fast-forward nor "instant-nized" as it is not in concepts but rather muscle memory and sub-conscious reflexes that will even render me even more inept than young children.

Anyway, it is in the language of risk that perhaps I am more familiar with and I attempt to be something that I am neither accustomed to nor familiar with and even riled against in the first place. And now at this juncture, I realised that I am wholly inadequate in tackling what might seem even juvenile to most children. Hence perhaps at this particular point, perhaps it is part of process to recognize the limits of my ability to absorb what I am quite ill-equipped to grasp.

At least I tried and really I think I failed quite miserably even as much to understand the psyche and inner-workings of the art, it is in the process and experience that I have failed and however how hard I tried, the tradition remains perfectly malleable to incursions of language and concepts: always close but never close enough.