Trying to unwrap a ball of emotions

I don't know how we got to this state but in being who we are, seeking our own meaning of friendship, what we have is breaking down. I may be beginning to doubt myself, my understanding of what it means to stand solidly. Sometimes I am confused about goodness and following Christ. I am confused at the many stances there are to this and how some people can come across to judge, to rule away with my kind, and I am inclined to say, "look we are different. but not wrong". Why is difference such an appalling thing? I don't understand how to reconcile what I accept and what I do because others don't accept what I do. I don't know if I am seeing the world wrongly or differently. I don't know if my God is God or if I'm making up truths, and it ends up that only truth knows what truth is. So it's beyond me.

I think I may have been selfish and maybe I could change, but suddenly I am accepting of myself. I am comfortable with how I think about living and I am putting effort still to live up to my ideals but my ideals are reachable and authentic. I just think that we need to love others we need to look up to God, and we need to live well. I don't know about tradition anymore, I accept them but I accept them on a contextual basis. I can live differently elsewhere and be a follower of Christ. I can accept many expressions as long as they are sincere and genuine. I can say that nobody is different from anyone else just because of some isolated utterance of accepting Christ? No that is pure garbage because accepting Christ is following Him and is knowing that God created us. We are no different Christian or non-Christian, as people. We are different only in that we are accepting God's grace, but it is offered to all, and we are too isolated if we put that kind of separation. I love the world too, some things are beautiful. Many things are twisted, distorted and damaged but that cannot be separated from us, we cannot condemn but we can condemn only by action, by doing good, by helping. That is our form of condemnation, we need to shut up and do something. Why are all these Christians talking from a pulpit? That may be good that may be needed but now we have such limited perspectives, I don't know why everything is shut out in a box. I am so frustrated and I just don't know how to think about what's actually okay. This is all not okay to me and it cannot be me and God against this world, it may just come back to me.

I feel deceptive and manipulative. I don't trust my own feelings, and I feel selfish. Needy and taking what I need when I want it. I need to be more level headed but I feel swept into some uncontrollable steadfastness about knowing what I want, about somehow making art and doing what I know to be right. This does not make sense but then I know it's okay when I have this purpose, when I step into some sureness and feel dependent again. I wish you would come and explain to me what is going on in my head, why my emotions are feeling so incomprehensible, so individual. Not even I can come to it and unwrap these complicated meshed up feelings. It's almost mystical, ethereal, illogical and very, very independent. They are a different person and they elude me always.

I want to go back to something simple like knowing I like this person very much and never changing. Knowing something and have it stop there, having malaysian food again, and being certain about a friendship, knowing some purposes and having some direction. But that is so straightforward and maybe life will be too boring. I want to love my dog, walk in a pathway, see something and the light just reflects, and it's not some object attached to all my life and all the feelings and emotions in the world. i want to run and keep running to sleep and never wake up and when i do it's just to look into a sky and stop there, not feel all these bursts of energy and be perplexed or overwhelmed or in wonderment.

the world is surprising and it's so mysterious. Everything is like a mystery and the human heart is so independent, so undefined, so deceptive. God is sometimes almost deceptive, because we kid ourselves, we play games with ourselves and walk in circles chasing our own tails. Then we try to hop out and just walk straight along some square road, to just take simple steps and it's like something comes in your way, all the time. I just want to scream or cry but I'm not, just typing and looking out the window periodically, seeing bits of outside in little window pane boxes.

It's all about relationships, all about kindness and trying to be a good person, everyone grasps that everyone knows what it really is all about. In trying to do such everything becomes weird and complicated because our heart and desires step in the way and somehow we haven't all found the right way to do things, to seek the right source of strength and it is found and there exists such but it's elusive. And maybe it is not, but we all know the simple is complicated because it is so simple. It is so simple and it is impossible. They say that you never know what exists and the concept is there and intangible. But what we see is what is real, in the real sense of the word. Realness to us is a funny kind of thing because what do we mean by real? I think feelings are real, and the most real of them all are the pleasant feelings and unpleasant feelings. They come and we sometimes have to go through layers of deceptive kinds of feelings to know what's right at the bottom. And joy is like a very pleasant feeling right at the bottom or right at the core, the centremost centre. And evil is like an unpleasant feeling at its core. Now the world kind of operates like that and because of the deceptive layers that pile up in our heart we do all the wrong things in the world and there is so much wrongness. God is here among it all and we try to find him, and we question and we just live life every day and walk along with a ticking clock. we don't have the choice but to walk. we can only decide where to walk and how to walk.

i just have to stop and then i will go back to living, to doing and actually, moving. every action and every movement is like a mark then can never go back, it's some kind of timeline, some kind of forwardness infact backwardness is an illusion because there can only we a backward kind of forwardness, isn't that weird? things never ever go back even when you try to place that concept in play. Even if there was a time machine that took you back in time that isn't really going back in time, it is still a forward time motion of going back in time. Time only goes forward actually, it's so weird.

i'm getting cold and my coffee is cold and i'm going to stop messing with my head.

Dinner with Dr. Ro

I love hearing her perspectives, and I greatly respect Dr. Ro. Not only because she understands homesickness, but in a way greater than anyone else, she helps me deal with it and she's teaching me to overcome this cultural-bias I am so deeply acquiring.

I find myself to be less accepting of American culture than many TCKs and MKs. Though I adapt easily, I feel so disapproving toward so much of the way things are here and what I myself have adopted. Mannerisms, respects issues, food, expressions, the air? etc.

Coming here, I ought to adopt the culture with more open arms. It is easy to disregard the admirable qualities of America and its culture. This would definitely be an easier post to write if I instead ranted of all things frustrating about being here and adapting to this alien culture. But I often forget this one very important point, that I have very close American friends, whom I love and care for, and by beating their culture up I am forgetting that God gave me such blessings as a package.

Dr. Ro had some wise words:

-We need to trust that God has us here for a purpose, and that he is especially equipping us by providing us with the cultural experience. There is a reason that I grew up in the specific culture which I grew up in, and also a reason why I am put here in America to familiarize myself with this culture.
-We should absorb the culture here, and not deliberately draw distinctions between my culture vs. their culture. I love this piece of advice, because it is perfectly fitting for me. Going Malaysia/Asia vs. America/Western is my specialty. This is perhaps the biggest contribution to my misery too. It is probably a part of an answer to why I am unable to build closer friendships with the general American population. I have adopted a judgmental stance and perhaps there may be two paths while comparing cultures: avoid condemning what I am not used to; being thankful for what I have been brought up by is a great thing!
-Don't forget that God created the whole world! Each nation has good and bad qualities. (That doesn't mean one cannot have a preference)

I don't think it's wrong to be repelled by certain qualities and to be attracted to others. This is why I particularly love Asia. But it is a mistake to generalize and stereotype. Instead of speaking in general terms, identify individuals, and speak out preferences as an individual. We are too prone to generalize, it is perhaps one of the greatest cultural wrongs we are capable of. We also perhaps can never get rid completely of such biases, but we can make every conscious effort to try.

Some introduction

There must be a place in life for blogging, and I think that those days perfect for which are Nodays.

Nodays don't really exist and I tend to embrace those kind of non-existential ideals. The kinds that always sit so comfortably in paintings and in active little minds. Some of them remind me of the imperfection of earth, but also the hope of heaven's perfection. Then I get to some uncomfortable corner of frustration or some dreamy kind of hopefulness and then I'll write something on here if I'm not sitting on some expanse of grass looking into the air.

I'm on to my third year at Houghton and I think I am finally sensing the need for this outlet, so I will go from here. I hope I don't spurt nonsense too often, and I hope that most of my posts will be insightful and entertaining. I also hope to be honest in my portrayals. I hope this will be a valuable part of my writing output and will make up for my lack of writing in college.

Sincerely :)