生日快樂/33

I originally wrote this on my birthday. It has been changed. Immediately after finishing it I thought it was the best thing I ever wrote. The following morning told me otherwise. It had some good sentiments so I've decided to keep most of it, but decided to make some changes to make it a little more coherent. Perhaps that ruins the spirit (get it?) of "the sauce" inspired ramblings, but I couldn't bring myself to leave it as it was.

Today marks year number 33. I'm 33 years old and I have no idea what that means whatsoever. My dad was 33 when he married my mom and the result of that was Gina, me, and Raymond. My birthday also coincided with Teacher Appreciation Day in Taipei (or Taiwan, I'm not sure if it's countrywide), so I was also treated to a banquet. While this was by no means a celebration of my birthday, I still received a great happy birthday chorus from my fellow 蓬萊 staff, friends, students, and family, and it was amazing. It's hard not to feel happy that people care.

People care. It's a wonderful thing.

I am fascinated by everything about my life. Also, it's my birthday, and I've been drinking, and that makes everything even more fascinating. Every time I sit and write a blog I end up thinking and thinking and thinking. I don't know how to really express myself, or how to express this experience, or even what it was the last time around. Sometimes I wander around new streets and just stare up and try to imagine the history around them. There's a department store called Carrefour near my school and directly across the street are some of the most run down homes I've ever seen. I look at those and imagine just how much the property that those apartments sit on must be worth (I'm pretty sure it's a lot). I've walked by them so many times, and I can't help but wonder how much longer they'll be there. It's one of those interesting dichotomies where you can see the new and the old in direct confrontation, and it seems the new eventually wins out in the end.

I don't where I fit in that. Do I want to follow the societal and technological trends or be a perpetual confrontation/luddite?  Am I making choices that move me forward, or am stuck moving in perpetual circles? Have I isolated myself by living abroad again? I don't know. What I know is that today I turn 33; and all the societal/internal noise feels insignificant because I can close my eyes and return to these places (or just look at pictures on the computer):

 

What to do when there's so many wonderful things around me, and yet this beauty is drowned out by news headlines that are perpetually frustrating. It is while reading things like this that I feel my greatest conflict. I'm abroad; I should stop caring. Obamacare, guns, Ted Cruz, Iran, Israel, drones, terrorists, massacres, civilian casualties, Islamic extremists, the religious right, apparently now there's an atheist "church," progressive, conservative. Sensationalist stories about people, places, events and the labels we place on ideologies create an incredible din, it seriously never ends. I feel an increasing desire to distance myself from all of it because every day; every day, it's this: Who's fighting who? Is America going to bomb another country? More people were shot. The U.S. political system appears broken.

Then I see young kids getting into metal, and a teacher creating great opportunities to play and record music for his students, and I feel inspired to keep caring.

Most of all today, I think about the people that matter most to me. I wish I could embrace you all, and tell you all how much I love you. This reminds me of a story about drinking and wanting to tell everybody about my feelings. Years ago, probably around the year 2000, I spent a lot of my time with some Klamath Falls folk (you all know who you are) that had migrated to Portland. I had a habit of drinking too much and wanting to share my feelings. I also had a habit of drinking so much that I would nod off here and there. Anyways, one evening after some merriment Cory was taking Andrew and I back home in his truck. I was blabbing about this and that and then proceeded to finish with: "I just love everybody so much." And then promptly fell asleep. Good times. 

These are my thoughts entering year number 33. I have felt a lot of love from amazing people; I am very lucky.