Having said that the end is only a point in time, what about the point or everything else that comes after it? I think I will believe that what comes after what we call the "end" is a "beginning."
The last scene in the movie "送りびと/送行者/Departures," the man takes the stone from his dead father's hands in front of him to his wife, pregnant with his child, behind him, depicting one life ending and another one just beginning in a flowing continuity.
Come to think of it, Joanne's death sparked the beginning of a relationship - one with myself. I began to talk to myself (everyone knows I'm crazy) when no one is listening. I started getting to know myself better - what to do with myself, how to teach myself to think in spiritual terms. If only I had thought of it this way then, maybe the mourning process that nearly killed me would have been easier. If only.
So I guess the end isn't really the end. Being able to look forward to a new beginning is nice. But I must remember to treasure the present before the end, and before I look forward to the new beginning.
Who said that babbling at four in the morning is not healthy? Well, maybe my liver does. I guess a healthy mind does still needs a healthy liver, so off to bed I go.
Here is the trailer for the movie I mentioned above. One of my favorites.
Monday, 17 August 2009
The end of everything...is just the end
With typhoon Morakot having taken so many lives, or put in another way, taken so many lives away from the rest of us who are still living, I've started to think again about the end of things in general.
Lives end, lucky streaks end, bad luck ends, relationships end. All things good and bad come to an end.
Sometimes relationships between people, family, friends end because of death from natural causes, from sickness or from accidents. Sometimes relationships can end because of losing touch and sometimes they end because of antagonistic situations, like a fight or misunderstanding. I've lost a friend (who is still alive, I think) who was one of my best friends in high school, and I don't even know what happened. She won't email anymore. Hasn't for two for three years now, which is two or three lifetimes in email years. I'm guessing she terminated the friendship, probably with a click of the delete button.
Watching the emotional pain of the typhoon victims filmed by news crews brought back feelings of when I lost a good friend to a car accident during college. Being dead just seemed so much easier than having to deal with what went on inside of myself.
After Joanne died, I slowly started learning that people die, people leave, people cut themselves off from us - relationships in the physical world just seem to all end at one point or another. So if the end is all the same and inevitable, therefore the process is what matters? These days that's what I believe. Mourning and sadness is sure inevitable, but what's left over is an abundance of memories. My brain tends to tends to automatically dump bad memories a short while after it comes in, so what I'm left with are happy memories. So I celebrate those memories. I celebrate the life before the death. Life is a process, death is just a point in time. So the end of everything is just the end. But the process of life, of friendship, of romantic love, of being someone's family, of creating a family is the fantastic everything else. I feel that if I can remember to celebrate that fantastic everything else, I think I'll be OK. I think that's how I've been OK.
So in the event that a life or relationship comes to an end, I shall celebrate and celebrate and celebrate what happened before the to my end. If I don't get killed while reporting or by a freak accident and I am dying in bed of sickness or old age, I will have a ton to celebrate - so much to celebrate that I will be happy to die.
How do I mourn a loss? Creatively. I make things up about life after death. No one knows what's after death, therefore it's open to interpretation and imagination, and no one can tell me that I'm wrong. Reincarnating, going to heaven or hell, becoming a god, returning to the universe as energy? All of the above! This is why I don't go to church, temples or mosques - I'll either get tossed out, kicked out, or I'll have to sneak out. Then I'll be banished forever and sent to hell for heresy. I am religious, just not in the conventional way.
Lives end, lucky streaks end, bad luck ends, relationships end. All things good and bad come to an end.
Sometimes relationships between people, family, friends end because of death from natural causes, from sickness or from accidents. Sometimes relationships can end because of losing touch and sometimes they end because of antagonistic situations, like a fight or misunderstanding. I've lost a friend (who is still alive, I think) who was one of my best friends in high school, and I don't even know what happened. She won't email anymore. Hasn't for two for three years now, which is two or three lifetimes in email years. I'm guessing she terminated the friendship, probably with a click of the delete button.
Watching the emotional pain of the typhoon victims filmed by news crews brought back feelings of when I lost a good friend to a car accident during college. Being dead just seemed so much easier than having to deal with what went on inside of myself.
After Joanne died, I slowly started learning that people die, people leave, people cut themselves off from us - relationships in the physical world just seem to all end at one point or another. So if the end is all the same and inevitable, therefore the process is what matters? These days that's what I believe. Mourning and sadness is sure inevitable, but what's left over is an abundance of memories. My brain tends to tends to automatically dump bad memories a short while after it comes in, so what I'm left with are happy memories. So I celebrate those memories. I celebrate the life before the death. Life is a process, death is just a point in time. So the end of everything is just the end. But the process of life, of friendship, of romantic love, of being someone's family, of creating a family is the fantastic everything else. I feel that if I can remember to celebrate that fantastic everything else, I think I'll be OK. I think that's how I've been OK.
So in the event that a life or relationship comes to an end, I shall celebrate and celebrate and celebrate what happened before the to my end. If I don't get killed while reporting or by a freak accident and I am dying in bed of sickness or old age, I will have a ton to celebrate - so much to celebrate that I will be happy to die.
How do I mourn a loss? Creatively. I make things up about life after death. No one knows what's after death, therefore it's open to interpretation and imagination, and no one can tell me that I'm wrong. Reincarnating, going to heaven or hell, becoming a god, returning to the universe as energy? All of the above! This is why I don't go to church, temples or mosques - I'll either get tossed out, kicked out, or I'll have to sneak out. Then I'll be banished forever and sent to hell for heresy. I am religious, just not in the conventional way.
Friday, 14 August 2009
Morakot disaster - よーし頑張るぞ！
Hundreds dead, hundreds missing and millions without homes.
Almost all my coworkers who have been sent to report from the disaster areas still have not come back yet, or have had a break since last week when they first arrived. Each day they face homeless victims of the flooding and mudslides, some sick, some heart broken, some whose heart have been torn to pieces like their family was by Morakot. My colleagues every day see dead bodies, stray body parts, have to wade through disease infested water and slug through mud and have no choice but to wear the same three sets of clothing they brought with them, which they've been washing by hand in their cheap hotel room every night. One coworker wrote from Taitung, "When we arrived at the scene, the local there said "the previous TV reporter that got here first told us not to talk to you guys because we already talked to them.'" A colleague from Gala TV wrote, "Are these government officials here for disaster relief, or are they here to take publicity photos? What is the matter with them?" Then on TV we all see President Ma Ying-jeou first blaming the Central Weather Bureau for underestimating rainfall (why, I never knew he was a meteorological expert, and why doesn't he leave the experts do what they do, from forecasting the weather to investigating whether and how much the forecasters were at fault), then refusing aid from the US when first offered days ago (how many more people had to suffer from starvation, sickness, lack of shelter and even death during this time?) then finally deciding to appeal for international aid days later, again blaming victims for not evacuating themselves, and then promising a man a bulldozer to dig out his father from underneath the mud then not keeping that promise... A friend at the CDC said, "Ma should have left the experts to do their job, and as for himself, instead of blaming everyone else, just reach out and comfort his people." All such dreary news. All such depressing news.
However, this disaster has also brought out the best in the community. People have donated billions of TWD, food, supplies and clothes. Students, expats, ordinary citizens have all made their way down there to help with disaster relief. Entertainers Taiwanese and foreign have flown in to help raise funds. The international community overseas is also helping raise money as well. I'm really touched to see how much compassion people have and how generous they are with their money and time.
I had felt so useless in Taipei, not being on the front line and also felt so guilty on my two off days (which I was really dying for) this week. But there still needs a skeleton crew up here to hold down the fort. Most of the footage gathered in the south are being transmitted via SNG vans back to the station in Taipei, and we write their stories for them. And now that I'm somewhat recharged (70%, which is not bad), I think I'm good to go again. I cancelled the next 3 off days and will be going back on the night shift for a team member that is still in Taitung. So after my morning of anchoring, starting at 6h00 tomorrow, I'll be working nights again. I've got my vitamins and supplements and I'm ready to go. It feels good to contribute more than I have to. It feels good to be part of a team.
It also feels good going to bed feeling this way :)
See you on TV at 6h00, 8h00. 9h00 and 11h00 on Channel 53 tomorrow!
Almost all my coworkers who have been sent to report from the disaster areas still have not come back yet, or have had a break since last week when they first arrived. Each day they face homeless victims of the flooding and mudslides, some sick, some heart broken, some whose heart have been torn to pieces like their family was by Morakot. My colleagues every day see dead bodies, stray body parts, have to wade through disease infested water and slug through mud and have no choice but to wear the same three sets of clothing they brought with them, which they've been washing by hand in their cheap hotel room every night. One coworker wrote from Taitung, "When we arrived at the scene, the local there said "the previous TV reporter that got here first told us not to talk to you guys because we already talked to them.'" A colleague from Gala TV wrote, "Are these government officials here for disaster relief, or are they here to take publicity photos? What is the matter with them?" Then on TV we all see President Ma Ying-jeou first blaming the Central Weather Bureau for underestimating rainfall (why, I never knew he was a meteorological expert, and why doesn't he leave the experts do what they do, from forecasting the weather to investigating whether and how much the forecasters were at fault), then refusing aid from the US when first offered days ago (how many more people had to suffer from starvation, sickness, lack of shelter and even death during this time?) then finally deciding to appeal for international aid days later, again blaming victims for not evacuating themselves, and then promising a man a bulldozer to dig out his father from underneath the mud then not keeping that promise... A friend at the CDC said, "Ma should have left the experts to do their job, and as for himself, instead of blaming everyone else, just reach out and comfort his people." All such dreary news. All such depressing news.
However, this disaster has also brought out the best in the community. People have donated billions of TWD, food, supplies and clothes. Students, expats, ordinary citizens have all made their way down there to help with disaster relief. Entertainers Taiwanese and foreign have flown in to help raise funds. The international community overseas is also helping raise money as well. I'm really touched to see how much compassion people have and how generous they are with their money and time.
I had felt so useless in Taipei, not being on the front line and also felt so guilty on my two off days (which I was really dying for) this week. But there still needs a skeleton crew up here to hold down the fort. Most of the footage gathered in the south are being transmitted via SNG vans back to the station in Taipei, and we write their stories for them. And now that I'm somewhat recharged (70%, which is not bad), I think I'm good to go again. I cancelled the next 3 off days and will be going back on the night shift for a team member that is still in Taitung. So after my morning of anchoring, starting at 6h00 tomorrow, I'll be working nights again. I've got my vitamins and supplements and I'm ready to go. It feels good to contribute more than I have to. It feels good to be part of a team.
It also feels good going to bed feeling this way :)
See you on TV at 6h00, 8h00. 9h00 and 11h00 on Channel 53 tomorrow!
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