Strategise! II

I didn't know that I would want to come back here and write. The increase in wisdom, or whatever we claim such a phenomenon to be, doesn't decrease the need to write. It rather does the opposite. It's the digestion of "finer foods" now.

On 20th Oct 2005, I wrote "Strategise!". On re-reading, I'm much alarmed that, while the nature of problems have changed, the Types and Responses Needed HAVE NOT. The problems have become more non-trivial, exert greater importance on my life, and therefore each Type has now actual, clearly expressable examples that don't go away with time (for a long time to come). I'm not sure if recording those examples is going to make matters worse, but I'll do that:

1, 2. Type N, M: Warped logic wrt world and self, which are becoming one.
- Want financial security to the point of absurdness. Want 面子. Double standards for women vs men.
- Conservative. Makes hurtful moral judgements.
- Pessimistic. Feels abandoned by everyone and no reason to live.
- Unaware of "bigger truths" eg spiritual

3. Type V: Self-pity, self-victimization.
Except for occasional "too pitiful to bear" feelings this is now considered a safe mode. However such feelings pose real dangers to being emotionally manipulated.

4. Type W: False accusations.
- This can be now more precisely rephrased as intentionally hurtful verbal aggression.
- Usually consists of statements with strong emotional undercurrents (but never direct)
- Choice of words that convey direct hurtful sarcasm (当我放屁。／妈一切都不好。／我哪有权利反对。／你有美国妈，只当不要我这个妈好了。）

5. Type S: Secondary meanings.
- A trait is the attempt to "teach a response", which sounds completely logical to herself, backing her claim that her (illogical) statements were based on completely rational motives.
- This is only dangerous as a possibility for emotional manipulation. However, the danger IS real (see below).

6. Type R: Nag
This is generally a safe mode unless it's a repetition of warped logic wrt self.

Since I'm a PhD (candidate) and prone to doing thinking, logic and analysis, I'm going to re-interpret this old literature and come up with more succinct insight. Problems with mum could be summarized as:

(A) Mum warped logic, hurtful expressions -> me offended -> angry/violent
(B) Mum pacifies w warped logic -> me fooled into complacency -> emotionally manipulated, bewildered and angry the next time

(A) can be dealt with staying calm, not getting on the defensive, muting speakers, saying something sweet/comforting. If can't, it's ok. It's not about winning a conversation. Remember, you are not trying to change mum.
(B) is more difficult, and essentially needs emotional distancing. Give up all attempts to communicate with mum. Give up all trust in her. Never take her seriously. "Strategise!" said as much.

While you have (comparatively easily) intellectually matured enough to ignore warped logic, you need to be emotionally matured enough to not be angered, or swayed by her pitiful pacification. Overall, you need to become spiritually matured to love but not trust, to have confidence in self but not disgust for her, to pity when she's unhappy but not empathize, to not empathize but do care, to be caring but not emotional, to be non-emotional but not hating...

Lastly, to mature, you need to realize that:

It's ok to have a special mum.

It's ok not being a perfect daughter.

It's ok not to have a mum.

Some of us just aren't blessed that way.

It's time to let go.

The times when I had felt my computer is truly mine were when I typed stuff here. So I really don't need more than a typewriter. It's bizarre that I who do semiconductors am totally nonchalant and unenthusiastic about technology in electronics.

The computer is not mine. My body and soul are perhaps slowly getting out of my control.

1st

Let's pretend it's my birthday today.

I'll give it a try at making resolutions.

Resolution-making is not fashionable in the East, at least was not so when I was a schoolgirl. At this point in my life, I tend to think it's a great habit that, religious-guilt driven at its roots or not, sharpens your focus and boosts your confidence and spirits.

So here I go. Today I'm going to try writing daily.

(Hopefully more about real issues and less gnarled, irresponsible, repetitive, over-explained introspection.)

Confession

Desperate rationalization and quiet resilience. Masks of a trembling heart full of feelings. The heart too easily trembles with longing, fear and, now, guilt.

Am I getting the rush from the warmth of friendly communication, the pride/self-righteousness for my intellectual achievement, or from pure, base gossip?

Am I myself reaching a turning point? Or raking up the never-resolvable personality split that is fragilly masked with what is called "balance" and "maturity"?

C is kind. C is great. => believes me too easily => gets upset => I feel guilty
|_____________________________________________ |

Here's what I need to do:

PAUSE before I start speaking to C. She sincerely broods over my words, gets obssessed and potentially gets depressed. I was just telling the truth, and I was just trying to help. But there are limits. I don't know how to handle a person whose truth he/she has to face is depressing. It's better to just listen and say the minimum than feeling like a trash-sprouting columnist who gets disgusted by her own words.

On the topic of living life without regret

An excerpt of the recent blog entry of Wu Di that I was alerted of:

Tuesday, November 04, 2003 3:03:48 PM

(from my best friend, Jiang Ying)

Dear Wu Di,

As I type the email address of ophenia@hotmail.com, I am reminded of you once telling me that you don't want to use the name "ophelia" directly because she died early, and that you don't want to be short lived like her. This practical bourgeois sentiment seems to have evolved into some nobler and more exciting notions. I'm very much excited for you as well as afraid for you. You may laugh at me, but you are becoming an archetypal individual who thrives in the razzle-dazzle of city with no close, down-to-earth friends, no intimacy, nothing but boredom and the vulnerability of feminity. I'm not condemning you in any sense, but I hope more than anything else that you would not let your depression stop you from considering rationally the consequences of go with the heat of moments. A game of intimacy is very hard and hurting to play. Please do not keep the thoughts of your wild fantasies with you. My thoughts are mundane, that's why I worry about you. You are great, but if you sink with a fantasy, you become an archetype; if you triumph without stain, you are extraordinary.

Yours forever,

Jiang Ying

Re:

蒋莹，你真不愧是我第一个“最好的朋友奖”获得者。回想当年那段“迷路”的日子，很庆幸自己没有像你讲的那样堕落下去。So I did find my way out of that maze of life. I may not be extraordinary yet. But thanks for being my friend for all these time. Maybe, because of your letter 6 years ago, I will be extraordinary one day. I almost want to call you right now( until I realize it’s already 1 am). Hahahah, maybe your bf will be jealous. But I want to say I love you a lot and I hope you know that.

I must say it really does bring up some of that ticklish sauce that makes one's heart thump, mouth go sour and eyes sting. And it does makes me want to write, write and write again just like a long time ago, when writing wasn't a regime of terror for correctness; write despite the horrible informattability of blogger.

(and yes, I remembered correctly that Justin's friend, who just passed by the office, is another one of the guys who are wearing checkered bermudas this summer)

What can I write about? I've always been most comfortable with reflective-styled writing. Then I stopped, because I'm guilty of being too inwardly directed, as if being so is like being selfish. What, do I care about no one else except myself? Is my own world the biggest and only? You - spoiled and ego-centric and undeserving princess! Grow up and enjoy the world! Then again the clerk who wrote Notes from the Underground didn't sound younger than I am, and Dostoevsky definitely was not. Then again again, what is a diary for if not for "reflections"?

One of my dreams is to get a taste of the artists', the Bohemian life. I have decided that this will always be one of my more or less secret fantasies that will eventually dawn upon my children, just like Naomi Klein. After all these years, I could still recognize, and FEEL, the ache behind my own letter (so nicely disguised that it's at most one of those adorned and inscrutable letters women wrote to each other in classic Victorian literature) - that of the inability to get a taste of the very degeneration I was carefully stepping around, of a circle of wild, unrestricted friends who stimulate the intellect of the imaginery (vs that of the physical and existent). There'll always be flights of craving for the unstable, destructive and dramatic. (At least I shall always be proud of the fact that Keke was a result of the above cataclysmic forces.) I won't linger though. Just a taste is enough. But only when I have gone out too far and spent too much in the cold and the barren. Then I'll willingly get back to the normal and predictable.

First thing first. Write a letter.

I never knew there was support for everybody out there except the between-20-and-30-young-independent-adult age group. Countless groups for mothers new and old, none for daughters only. (There are mixed reading clubs.) I guess we are supposed to be in the best years of our lives (which is definitely true), healthy and confident and likely financially independent. Poster images! This then got me wondering what the stats for depression among different age groups would be. Do I remember it being highest, or starts from ~25-year-olds in college? Or am I just making that up because I'm so convinced by my impression?

It occurs to me that there are so many new things popping right out between my mum and I that halts the illusion that we may share any understanding on any thing. Anything else to test my tolerance? This may just mean that I have to start from the bottom up assuming our relationship has, for reasons that I may know and may even have regrettably but inevitably engineered, gone to shreds. The question remains whether I should try harder? What am I trying for? I'm even getting more emotionally independent from mum (although the fact I'm writing this may suggest otherwise, but just slightly. Believe me.). It's helpful, though, to adopt a constructive perspective not unlike healing a tragically wounded and therefore vicious child who also hurtles personal abusives under assumptions so glaringly wrong. But go away negativism!

Need to:

1. Open my eyes to the variety of people around me, their nature, their strengths, their weaknesses, their 可爱之处, their ways of life. Need to form images of interesting, real life people in my mind as if I were friends to them.

2. Not think of myself as an unfortunate. The fact that I haven't achieved doesn't mean I'm deprived. It just means I haven't tried enough.

Names that I like and counting...

Ambrosia Parsley
Isis
晰，楚，霖，晴，筠，涵，紫淮、涵、璇、萱，忆涵，易璇，觅柔，寄柔，枫，桐，继，季，济，寂，怀璧，宇彤，霜卉vs雨桐，凝卉，慕晴、霜、云、雪，映寒、涵、晗

张（四）（二），张（三）（二）
蒋（一）（二），蒋（二）（一）