SATURDAY, 12 MARCH 2005
Some of the thoughts that form in your head that may end up on paper only have value for you, and sometimes only in a particular period of your life. Other thoughts have value and relevance for many more people than just the one who has expressed that particular thought in a certain way. These thoughts, these ideas, are important: the type of ideas that can flow through anyone, out to other people, who pick up on the ideas and make them personal for themselves in their own lives.
WEDNESDAY, 16 MARCH 2005
15:11
From the China Post: “[If you] understand the origin of [your] fear, the origin of [your] status […], [you will] discover that life can be different.”
15:59
So many images, so many words … it’s as if there is [an] [N] conference going on in my head that threatens to degenerate into a bazaar! I do feel every now and then an obsession steadily creeping closer, like old ghosts, to tell her, to show her, who I “really” am.
Of course, she actually does have a fairly good idea who and what I am. My real obsession is the PROCESS that has led to this point. And this process includes loneliness, spending a lot of time on my own, despair, struggle with the legacy of religious beliefs, at times a desperate need for the kind of love you feel on your skin, uncertainty, hopelessness, existential angst, alienation from the country of my birth, my family, and at times even friends I have in this country. This – this is what I want to reveal to her!
FRIDAY, 18 MARCH 2005
09:30
I had a particular view of myself before I met [N.]. This view included that if I had to be happy on my own, that would simply be the way it had to be. (I never accepted that I necessarily had to be alone, but I knew that I was faced with the very real possibility.) My view of myself as an “enlightened individual” also underlined that I did not need intimate confirmation of who and what I thought I was.
And then she arrived.
And then came the idea that to turn back time and again be without her … that it would be difficult.
Likewise, she had a certain view of herself before I made an appearance in her life. This view included that unless a good man crossed paths with hers, she would have had to find happiness on her own. Like me, she certainly hoped that she would not have to be alone for the rest of her life; like me, she knew the possibility kept lingering behind her like a shadow on a sunny, cloudless day. She also increasingly thought of herself as stronger than some of the female characters she had spent time with. That she should not be seen by a man as needy became her own pet obsession.
And then I appeared on her scene. And then she developed feelings for me. And she remembers how she had felt about herself and about men in general before I appeared. And she observes how she feels about me now.
Does the contradiction also cause her some anxiety?
12:18
You meet someone, and soon after you develop a feverish need for her presence in your life. You fall into a state of panic because you know, if this person withdraws, you’ll be in serious trouble. So you find that you surreptitiously start putting safety measures in place, just in case … and in such a way that it doesn’t disturb the process the two of you are actively involved in too much.
What I would like to suggest is simple: Screw the measures. Surrender. Open your heart. And if the process does not lead to the results you had hoped for in your finest moments, you simply pick up the pieces, again – and pieces they will be! But you know you have to do this, because if you don’t stop the surreptitious construction of safety measures, she will quietly start setting up measures of her own. Where does that leave you?
No, damn the measures. Free yourself from fear and uncertainty. Live … and if it doesn’t work out, you will at least know, and remember.
17:23
Last night we were drinking tea in town. I joked that I still feel a bit tense when I am with her.
“Why?” she asked. “It’s just me.”
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