Where I am Now

I'm coming to the conclusion that life was meant to be lived how we choose to live it, not according to others' ideals and values. Others' opinions can inform your own, but ultimately we choose to adopt the parts that suit us and reject the parts that don't.

That brings me back to faith. Specifically, the Christian faith. I'll make my choices and own them. God is my judge, not anybody else. I'm at a place in my soul where my community is further away from being able to minister to me than ever before. I need people to walk with me while I figure out life, even while I might not be making choices that are deemed "right." God is working on my behalf and getting me through this trying time in life, I know he is. He's providing for me. He's brought me to all these challenges, and he will bring me through them.

That's why I still pray, even though Sunday School is mostly inconsequential fluff. I've never claimed to be "perfect," nor is perfection, by any definition, what I seek. I've only ever wanted to live, and live well, and to be honest and real. Because that's a prerequisite to loving and being loved, and a prerequisite to true joy that persists even in hard times.

We're all God's children, trying to make our way in this world. Live and let live, I say.

Yearning

Sometimes in life, you may be seeing or talking to somebody smart, beautiful, funny, and laid back, but what you need is to chill with a homegirl. Then you realize that everybody's gone their separate ways, and things just aren't as they were.

The sourness of heartbreak or disappointment doesn't come all at once at the beginning; emotions return, by trickle or flood, maybe faintly, maybe strongly, but you recognize it distinctly. Regret-- unfulfilled desire and incomplete happiness.

We crumple up these feelings like the flawed outlines and rough drafts written on loose leaf by young aspiring writers, tossed into the dustbins-turned-knots in our hearts.

Lord, come take out my garbage.

"Godsend" by DC Talk

Part of why I haven't written in a while is for the prudence of letting old ghosts rest. But there's a new woman in my life, and she deserves a less encumbered me. So, demons must be exorcised.

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"Godsend" by DC Talk

My upbringing was a bit on the insular, sheltered side. I never listened to the secular or modern music until middle school. The firstband I ever discovered was DC Talk. It was because they were Christians / made Christian music that my parents even had their CD, "Free at Last," in the house. I think it was a thing that Christian Book Distributors did, send out free CDs to members once in a while. So, DC Talk was the first band I ever followed, and I followed into my high school years.

What I should mention is the place DC Talk has in my spiritual development. Their music, at least to the awkward kid that I was, was cool, hip, and modern. It was a relief to find cool, hip people who espoused the same worldview as I did, and propagated the same beliefs I'd been taught. DC Talk's music solidified my values, especially with regard to love. That's where this song comes onto the scene.

"Godsend" was, up until that point in my life, a summation of my ideals about love. "The One," divine destiny, the whole nine yards. It was in that phase where everybody dedicated songs to each other (ie "This song is our jam!"). I'd wanted to sing this with Beatrice at the next youth group coffeehouse. That was before our relationship collapsed, of course.

There are some of you out there who know the history between me and her. She was not my "high school sweetheart." She was the girl I could never let go through all of high school, because my ooey, gooey, sappy little heart believed that true love, even if unrequited for a while, could conquer all. That's why Beatrice was able to fuck up that heart of mine, multiple times. She was the one for whom that love of mine, as clumsy but wholehearted as it was, was never enough. In retrospect, she never did understand love, much less the world, in the same way I did, so this song was wasted on her; she ruined it for me, and that's why it's on here. Because of the association this song had with my ideals about love at the time, she ruined love. I didn't even consider dating for the next five years or so, it was that bad.

For this one song from our time together, I have about a dozen for the pain she caused, so I guess that makes it special, in its own way.

What's Important, and Why I'm not Happy

What's important in this life, for a Christian, is the Kingdom of Heaven. I keep forgetting that. I keep running around, searching for some magic shot that will cure my soul of its boredom and dissatisfaction with everything it tries.

Lately, it's been relationships and the intimacy they seem to promise. No relationship, unless it aids in building my character and in turn the Kingdom, will ever satisfy. The same goes for whatever job I may hold.

The bottom line is that I'll never be content to live for myself; what smallness that would be!

Into Uniform

I enlisted in the Army in August of 2012.

April of 2012: As a lit major, I was sitting in a post-modern lit class listening to my peers talk about how nothing has meaning, and I reacted against this presentation of effete intellectual life that might have been my future. I just got this stifling feeling of my life was slipping away as I sat there, almost helplessly. I wanted the opposite, and the military quickly emerged as an option.

I realized, in the course of time, that what I was after was masculinity. I was out to remedy the weakness I'd allowed myself to cultivate my entire life, which had culminated with a philosophical dead end in a classroom. Is that an embarrassing thing to admit? I don't care, I have no shame. God was about to redefine a lot of concepts for me, though. I've since realized that masculinity is not putting on cammies and gear and toting a gun to look badass. It's what's inside the uniform that gives the uniform its power; there are a lot of hollow people walking around in our armed forces. One doesn't have to join the military to become a man, nor does joining the military necessarily make you one; this path is merely the one on which I have been lead. While I don't have a complete handle on true masculinity, I've learned that it requires the paradox of humble confidence that comes from knowing one's place before God, yet also having a firm faith in what he's doing in me and through me. That humble confidence enables a man to lead people on his team, whether that be his church or his family, to be upright in the sight of the Lord.

What is he doing through me? I don't know the full extent of it yet, but what he's doing in me has enabled what he's done so far, and I believe that trend will continue. Not only has God used the process of joining the Army to teach me about being a man, but he's been using that preparation to teach or further hone the traits and skills I will need to fulfill that role: Leadership by example; Discipline that enables devotion; A spirit of self-sacrifice. The list goes on. I've seen so many changes already, both physical and mental, and that has caused my faith to grow. The process can only intensify once I'm actually in, and that gets me excited for what God has in store.

In short, this Army adventure is about following hard after Jesus, trusting that he'll make me the man I need to be.

If anybody has questions, ask, and I'll do my best to answer.

An Old Letter I Wrote, Never Sent

Dear _____,

I admire you as more than a friend,

(The difference between a friend and a lover is less of type, more of degree. By varying degrees we interject into one another's lives, claiming by these acts that yes, our existences are mutually benefited.)

but I won't try to make us more than friends.

(You're better off with our friendship as is, and to take it to the that next level is probably not feasible or desirable. I have some growing to do, and who knows - you might just become even more amazing, in time! I would just hinder you from becoming a better you, in too close of proximity. At least right now.)

I figured... I just wanted to let you know that I like you, wanted to say it with no strings attached.

(Wait a couple years, see what happens. Maybe we'll be ready and right for one another by then, maybe not. But just know that I want the best for you, always.)

By the time you get this, I will probably be gone again. But I still want to watch Ponyo.

Why Writing Didn't Happen

I lost my desire to speak when I realized that talk is cheap. People have spewed mindless drivel right, left, and at me. I myself made empty promises and resolutions.

Around the time of my previous post about wanting to write again, I started really getting into my physical preparation for joining the military, and in that activity, that action, I found the solution to my malaise that my words had never been able to dissolve. I became a better man: a man of action whose actions alter reality.

Interestingly, all of my ideological questions and dilemmas have been answered. I have become truer to myself and everybody around me since joining the army. Even my words mean more, now. Training physically made me mentally stronger, and since then, I've written things that I'm ready now to release to the world.

I'm really back this time, laconic as ever, but back. Hi.

On Writing

The written word, after all the research papers I have produced, has become for me a ruined thing. I haven't created a thing in so long, that I have had to read my past works to verify myself that yes, I did once write, and perhaps yes, I may yet write again.

Join me in my quest to rediscover my touch, my love, and my self.

Traversing Social Distance

I’ve travelled between East and West perpetually with a rigidity of gait born of insecurity. At times accepted and at others rejected in both worlds, the cultures of my Chinese forefathers and my Mid-Western existence, I’ve been conditioned to tread hesitantly, feet shod in uncertainty. Memory flickers like a candle that illumines incidences in the dark archives of my history. As I examine the pages, I am made to relive events from my childhood.

One memory stands out from the few I have of kindergarten. I recall that a play-time was among the first activities, probably to get us used to each other. I spoke to the other kids at least partially in Mandarin; there was a slight gap in communication for a bit, and the world seemed to convulse. I think all of us, only recently removed from the womb, grappled to express and receive meaning however we could, so we recovered admirably—my peers picked up on what I meant and I adopted full use of English. I didn’t realize it then, but this event would be the first of the contractions that would deliver me from one world into the other.

The next contraction would occur a year later, in the first grade. I drew a self-portrait and chose peach for my hue. I considered peach “the” color of skin, and thought nothing of it until a classmate asked me, “Why are you using peach?” I must have given him an expression that showed I did not understand why he’d asked that question, so he persisted, saying, “Your skin color isn’t peach.” I was flabbergasted by this revelation—my eyes had been opened to race as a construct based on physical characteristics. Disappointment followed shock when I failed to find in the 24-color Crayola crayon set a color that better matched my hue than the color one of my peers had disallowed for me, the color I no longer was, the color he still was.

I was born, then, and like a babe, I came kicking and screaming. Over the next few years, each day of school was like travelling to hell and back—especially the third grade, when I had Mrs. D., who was a veritable witch. I knew, unarticulated, that I was ‘other’ to her: she’d often mix up me and my south Indian friend, Kushal. She’d call me “Kushal” and him “Ezra.” How one could fail to distinguish between East and South Asians, I’ll never know. That she did let me know that we were consigned to the out-group, lumped into a faceless group of the pigmented, and I felt that, deep down. I can’t ever remember a time she was happy with us or anything we did. The other children picked up on this general disapproval, and we were made pariahs. My kicks were feeble steps, and my screams miserable whimpers that died in my throat as I lay in my disheveled bed on lonely nights.

I was convinced then that I could never arrive. Every member of a minority group born in this country is born dangerously close to stillbirth, near death. To the extent his or her birth into wider society is handled with care, he or she will accept or “buy into” the ethos of this nation. In that era of my life, alienation characterized my social existence, and I marinated for years in a sorrowful rage that turned into a twisted ambivalence between a hunger to prove my worth and a thirst to avenge my wounds.

The words of my father rang ever in my ear, that I must work twice as hard to compensate for my ethnicity, yet the fruit of my labor weighed never sufficiently—by society’s standards or his. I shuffled about in limbo, unable to see any way to advance or to retreat. A part of me died then, and what was left was a shell of the boy I had been.

Recent Political Musings

I've been processing a lot of stuff lately. I've learned a lot, too.

I've come to the conclusion that America (the USA) is at a point where we've lost any sense of telos. "Telos" is Greek for "purpose," and in this case, I refer to the overarching purpose of existence. The question of "why are we here?" was once answered by Kennedy's likening of America to "the City on a Hill." Modernism and even Post-Modernism have come and gone, and we are left, collectively, with nothing to live for. We've "lost the plot," so to speak. We are all sheep gone astray. This development has grave implications on a variety of areas. Ever since Vietnam, we've been doubting whether we have any right to lay claim to what's "right" or "true."

Along with the degradation of our belief in any telos, the tangibles of materialism and hedonism have become our gods. To that end, so many of our companies and their executives have been willing to ship our manufacturing jobs overseas. This phenomenon has left a trail of economic and social devastation in its wake—formerly working neighborhoods have become crime-infested slums because of corporate greed. On top of this, those we've outsourced our jobs to and done business with, particularly China, have stolen our technological secrets. We thirst for the cheap fuel of the Middle East. These are national security threats; we strengthen the foes of tomorrow by the business deals of today. Yet, these American executives keep going back for more, as the cheap labor (greater profit margin) is too difficult for them to resist—because for them there is no tomorrow. These executives and businesspersons are traitors to the American nation.

Bear in mind that I have no illusions about identifying my patriotism with my faith. I realize that in Christ alone is our true telos found. America has been substantially better about most things than most other countries in the last hundred years or so, if we're going to be honest. I just think it'd be a damned shame for it to all go to waste.

Reflections on Politics of Sexual Orientation

The problem faced by a gay, chaste Christian man is the same as by a straight, chaste Christian man: the "unfairness" of having been created thus and allowed no partner. The argument over the validity of any one orientation is therefore a struggle over the unfairness who gets to sin more and get less flak for it, because a straight Christian is held to the same standards as the gay one outside of heterosexual marriage. The fornicating "straight" Christian is just as bent as the fornicating gay one, and much more so than a chaste gay one.

We shouldn't stop opposing homosexual lifestyles, but we should also oppose heterosexual activity outside of marriage.

The Kingdom, Eternity

We stand together at the dusk of a clear May day and look toward the setting sun. The sun colors the sky and our faces golden with streaks of fuchsia, and bathes us in a gentle warmth to match our camaraderie. There are no obligations or pressures in the here and now, as we revel in the grace that has brought us here.

Ezra's Life in Song, Inaugural Post: Vanessa Carlton - "A Thousand Miles"

Youtube: the song (and music video).

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard this song, a full five years after its original release. I was sitting on a couch in Wendy's living room while largely not helping with post-party cleanup, on February 12, 2006.

That day, I'd raced home after church to get ready to attend her birthday party. It was a wet day, and I was driving a tad too fast down Hobson. I skidded into the guard rail at the intersection of Hobson and Washington, which smashed my right front lights and damaged the bumper. Luckily, the damage was not severe, but I knew I was going to be in deep shit with my dad. I made it the rest of the way home without incident.

Upon reaching home, I told my dad about hitting the guard rail, and of course, he forbade me to leave the house. But after a while, he magically changed his mind, with but a single condition-- he said I had to drive the marred car to the party. That was a whole lot better than nothing, so I took it. I wouldn't know until later why he'd let me go.

I arrived somewhat late, and the party had already begun. After a while, Tim Tsu came up to me with and asked an odd question, in an odd tone: "Hey, Ezra... wanna go with me to pick out a movie?" Another friend would be joining us. My logical side prompted me to immediately ask, "Does it take three people to pick out a movie?" "Oh, uhh... yeah, we need a variety of opinions. Let's go pick out a movie!"

We went to the nearest rental, browsed about for close to half an hour, and failed to reach a consensus on what movie we should watch. Tim received a phone call, then came over to inform us that "somebody else had actually brought a movie." That, or "they don't want to watch a movie anymore." We got back to Wendy's house, and I knew something was up the moment I got inside, because it was all dark. I seem to recall a crowd of peers crammed into the stairwell like sardines, giggling like the schoolgirls they largely consisted of. In the living room, Wendy stood in the dimness, wearing a white dress, within a large heart-shaped formation of lit candles.

I just kind of stood there and looked at her. She beckoned me over, into the center. "Will you go to Turnabout with me?" "Well, of course." Upon which, everybody cheered. Somebody put on music, I think, and she asked me to dance with her there, within the heart of lit candles. I dithered, objected on the grounds that I was a poor dancer. But, of course, I couldn't very well refuse her, in front of everybody there. So we danced awkwardly, within that heart of lit candles, in the dimness of her living room. After enough footage had been obtained of us, the pitiful spectacle was finally put to an end.

The lights were turned back on, and we started to clean up. That was when the song came on; it must have been playing from one of her mixes. I felt like a boss after getting asked to Turnabout, and we were quite a sappy pair, so this song was perfect for the moment. It was at that time that I found out that Wendy had managed to call my father, tell him about her plans, and thus spring me from house arrest. What a day. This was one of several high points in our (pseudo) relationship, and I shall cherish it forever, even though we didn't work out.

Why this song fits the "Ezra's Life in Song" project: recalls a significant emotional milestone; recalls a significant person; lyrics' writer also speaks of remembering.

Falling Without Style

During my senior year in high school, I met a girl through a mutual friend. For the sake of this story, let’s just call her “Mal.” She went to another high school in the same town, and we bonded primarily over the hardships of schoolwork, which at times included joint study sessions, and shared culture. Our conversations, both online and in person, were often playful. We teased and bantered-- flirted, almost. Independently from the old saying, we developed this farewell we used exclusively between us: “Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite!” That was part of our display of affection. We were more just confidantes than ever truly interested in each other, but we were real-- or so I thought.

I had been a proponent of honesty, during my younger years. Even when responding to such trivial questions as, “How are you?” I had often answered with, “tired,” “depressed,” or “shitty.” It was this foundation, an honesty which demanded intent when presenting such basic queries, upon which our friendship stood. I had no idea, then, that this foundation was set upon sand.

I enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis as a biomedical engineering major, my freshman year of college. In those days, WashU was among the top 10 universities in the nation, as ranked by U.S. News. As an Asian-American student that had totally bought into the Model Minority stereotype, to be there was absolutely wonderful. However, I was unprepared for the independence of life far from home and the responsibility of learning in that type of environment. Before long, I was shell-shocked by a string of personal disappointments and academic failures. The mounting pressure that resulted from the growing incongruity between my expectations and reality caused me eventually to drop out during my second semester. My community witnessed me return home in defeat.

My basis for self-worth was yanked like a rug from under me; I stumbled and had my nose bloodied before a watching world.

Less than a year later, I gained acceptance to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in spite of my unresolved psychological issues. I’d gotten in touch with Mal again, who’d been there for a year, by then. She’d offered to walk me around campus a bit, answer any questions I had-- serve as a welcoming party, of sorts. I accepted. We met for lunch one day, and she greeted me with, “How are you?” I don’t even remember what I said, only that it was something along the lines of, “I’m alright.” My answer would have been fine, except that I had not yet perfected my mask, my façade of strength.

I still sported a splotch of crimson, spreading from my nose. I had not yet learned to lie with my face, thus make the lie complete.

She asked again, for confirmation, and my repeated reply gave it. Upon seeing the incongruity between my words and my face, her own face fell. The light in her eyes dimmed in response to the darkness in my own. The rest of our lunch and subsequent time together could not be saved.

I had needed understanding. I realize now that Mal would have tried to give it, and that effort would have been enough for me. It would have been better for both of us if I had said something-- anything-- but I did not even know to ask. I would rather have sweat and cried inside of my mask than let her attempt to help me breathe by taking it off. My next breath would have been the one needed for our friendship to live. When I think of her, I am confronted by a nagging sense of loss that consists of unrealized possibilities and un-lived futures.

Mal is not alone in the place to which I exiled her. Within the hollowness behind my mask, whispers escape my lips and echo with the names of a dozen lost friends.

A Link to My (More) Conventional Blog

More accessible/less cryptic updates on my life here: http://aboutcbt.blogspot.com/. Get some!

Bigger, Truer Love

I love her more than ever before. After all this time, I find myself praying for her, not about her. Freed of the shackles of romance, I now love her more truly.

Fragments: Rejection

Rejection isn't limited to somebody refusing to choose you. It is also when any one person in the world chooses any other person. When a person chooses another, he or she prefers that one over all the others in the world. Over you. That person is deemed to be of more worth to the chooser than you. The chooser may not even know you. But already, you have been written off. It just doesn't mean much to you, because you don't care about that person either, in return. But rejection is painful when you do care.

What makes rejection painful is not only that your worth isn't recognized by the other person, but that you have misjudged that person's judgment. You don't know this person as well as you thought you did, because you believed she saw you in a certain way. And that certain way you thought she saw you was the same way you saw her. Thus, the relationship is not one of intimacy, but its opposite, alienation. She doesn't know you, and you don't know her.

Fragments: Old Spice Parody

Look at yourself.  Back to Jesus.  Back to yourself.  Now back to Jesus. Sadly, you aren't Jesus. But if you died to your old self and started living for Jesus, you could be more LIKE Jesus. Look down, back up, where are you? You're on your knees, worshipping the Jesus you could be more like.  What's in your hand?  Back at Jesus.  What He has is your hand in His. Look again, His hand has holes that should have been in yours!

Anything is possible when you live for Jesus and not yourself.

Christ is on the throne.

Fragments: Random Musings 5

I am beginning to think, after all this time spent searching for intimacy, that it is not to be found.  My ideal companion does not exist in the form of another fallen person.  I'm looking for a love only God can provide.  Not that I can't take enjoyment from being with others, only that I have been pinning unfair expectations on everybody I meet and all those I am surrounded by.  I expect divinity of them.

Fragments: Random Musings 4

I seem to hold off posting in hopes that my thoughts will somehow coalesce into some sort of novel.
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I want to be with people, but I feel like I simultaneously push them away.
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I put existence under Occam's Razor and disappeared.