My Cinematic Adventure

I am Jack's clean slate.

Early film theorists aimed to define cinema as a medium. They asked themselves, "what sets film apart from other forms of art?" Rejecting schools of thought that saw film as an extension of literature, theatre, or music, many experimented to explore the boundaries of film. This birthed an abundance of  movements currently studied by academics across the world. There's so much to say about the Germans and their mise-en-scene-- everything in front of the camera. The carnival that Dr. Caligari walked through are recorded by ultra-flammable celluloid strips and fallible human memory, yet it remains untouched in film history. The Left Bank filmmakers painted 1960's Paris so vividly with such stylistic camera work that you can still feel the condescending glare of its inhabitants. Their bitter commentary still sharply pierce through your fragile sense of individuality as you wander through the city that is no longer not quite the same as it appears on screen. The Russians weren't so fortunate. Low production costs meant that they had to deal with what they had. So they were able to pioneer the art of montage for the sake of bringing film to the common man. At its core, film is the child of sound and image bound together by time. Everything that else just comes with the territory. (I am aware that you can pull this information from an introductory film studies course. This information is not impressive. Fuck off)

Me? I'm still a slave to David Bordwell and his theory on narration. To me, stories have always been a manipulation of feelings and emotions. I know this because it's never the plot that quite sticks with me. It's the sentiments evoked, the feelings that are kept safe within the confines of my brain, withstanding the sensory overload of everyday life. I find myself still remembering the most mundane (read: useless) details of my childhood. I didn't know it at the time (who did?) but events such as my being bit by the German Sherpard twice my size when I was six or the time when I missed the tree trunk sledding down a steep hill may have been the greatest adventures of my life. There are some things in life that you just don't forget.

Before I continue to type away at my keyboard, I want to make it known that it's not bad at all to be Alan Lin at this moment in time. There is simply so much to be thankful for. At this moment, I wake up exhausted but carry on with so much to look forward to. Even if it's just to experience the marking of a new year, something not so distant in the future.

With that said, I live a cinematic life without being born into one. I stare off into space and breathe in deeply. There is a full orchestra every time I head into bed. Each dark corner I round, there's another never-ending hallway waiting. I pick my own soundtrack for rainy nights. By now you should know: I am a hopeless dramatic.

As the bitterness of each sip of alcohol reaches my lips, it washes away each smartass, inappropriate remark that I could have but didn't make at work. The vodka and carbonation in the diet tonic water sets production for the opening scene for Touch of Evil-- a lengthy escape destined to end up in flames. The first drag of the well-deserved cigarette: I am Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. As the nicotine from my second puff enters my bloodstream, I am Vincent Vega. By the time the chemicals in my body take over, I am a prop with legs ready to be put on strings. I am Min Sik Choi. I am Sessue Hayakawa. I am DeNiro, Untouchable. I am Boris. I am invincible.

Then I blink and I realize that I'm out of frame-- a little lost, holding onto whatever I have with my dear life... barely a production assistant. But I guess it's okay. I know what I felt and what I didn't get to feel yet. There's always a sequel, and I'm planning to make this a franchise.

My Foot over Another

Distance.

As with every other concept of measurement, it's less concrete than I am comfortable with. Are our leaps and bounds measured by inches or are they judged by things that we've left behind? Or maybe it's by the amount of time that has passed. I guess it depends: am I trying to see whether I can finally chalk up the old wall in my garage adding an inch to my height (being 5'11" is a burden to the obsessive compulsive soul) or is this another assessment of self-development or rather the lack thereof. Is there really a unit that measures progress if not regression, a way to calculate change using a standard equation: After minus Before over Before (By the way, I had to Google that as I have in the past ten years of my life. How's that for a college degree?)

I guess we live in an age where money can buy anything, even to close voids of any kind. And I guess it's too bad that it's not something that I have a ton of. It's cold where I want to go. There's so much character I don't have enough to offer just yet. I know I don't belong because I have to find my own way there first.

There are so many similarities between who I am now and who I was two, three, five years ago.  My writing provides irrefutable evidence. The frightening thing is that all the emotions are the same. The night sweats never left. Here lies the same sadness with just a little splash of incoherence masked by achievements. I may know a few words with more letters included in their spelling, but I haven't learned the definitions yet. Have you ever heard a word and it just took your breath away? I mean literally feel the knuckles of its syllables jut against your stomach so hard that you have to regain your footing. Because you know: you just felt perfection. You also know that the feeling of perfection doesn't come around easy and can't be savoured-- no matter how hard you try.

When you feel anything right at all that, you don't want to let it go. I guess you shouldn't let it go. Regardless of the tangible distance, there are some things that can't be measured.

My Avant Garde Movie Script

You can't count on me to write even when there is something on my mind anymore.

How do I begin to put words together when I don't even have a steady stream of conscious thought. It's like I've been writing a script with no unifying notion or theme to tie any of it together. I feel like the synapses in my brain are firing off with complete disregard. Drifting off, I'm in so many places yet none at the same time. So all I can do at this point is to beg for any sort of competency to articulate, to communicate my state of disbelief and loss. Evidently a couple of sentences in, I'm not answering my own prayers.

The past couple of months have been a little strange. At this time, I'm forced to reflect and I can't quite wrap my head around it-- unable to distinguish the good and the bad. It's been a little bit of a blur, really. I'd describe it to be like a roller coaster, but not in an "up and down" kind of way how people would usually imagine, but rather one of those fucked up sections of the ride where the designers put a couple of corkscrews in there just to fuck with your sense of orientation. You can't quite see where you're going, but you just know that you're moving forward. Eventually it's all going to come full circle as the brakes engage-- I'm just hoping that I'm not on a ride designed in Roller Coaster Tycoon. I was always the kid who made unrealistic coasters that would send riders to their demise. ("[Roller Coaster Name] was too intense..." Pussies...)

I can't help but think I've been a little reckless. A little too young. Yet at the same time, I'm only getting older. How do I live without consequences kicking me straight in the balls? I feel thankful yet so unfulfilled with a definite sense of self-entitlement.

I'm still not all here and there is a something constantly wearing away at the empty space. The walls continue to erode and little chunks of myself are being washed away day by day. That's the problem with filling a void with anything other than yourself.

My July

Everyone needs something or someone to hold onto.

Just to keep him or her afloat. It doesn't even have to be tangible. It can be a conviction, an ambition, or a daydream. Something to keep him or her going-- fuel. Because as much as we'd like to be self-reliant, we can't just live for ourselves for some sick reason. Like the buddy cop who dives in front of his partner, in slow motion and all. Some people do it for a greater plan, a larger power.

Maybe in the end, it is actually for ourselves.

So why not skip it and just be better for yourself? It just might be the solution for me. Sure, it may sound selfish. But so is using other people just for a sense of purpose. People get hurt, and the worst of it is that you're responsible for their suffering. To me, there's nothing worse than causing someone's emotional distress, and I've played the part on both ends of the bargain. I forget that there are 4.6 billion self-aware,  living people who feel just as I do. They breathe, hearts beating, looking up at the skies wishing that others are looking at the same exact picture as I am. The best thing I can do is to take comfort in the fact that they exist-- perhaps not thinking the same thoughts but breathing the same air.

I sit on my balcony that I knew would be a place of solace, Adele playing in the background, scotch in one hand (switched over to wine for the night already) and cigarette in the other. I look at the Palm trees in sight. The birds just made a noise and I'm trying to hope for humanity's sake that they're not bats... why would they be? The night air is cold and I can barely feel my toes, but it's strangely sobering. The bass is bothering my neighbor enough for him to knock on my door ("I am not trying to be that guy... I'm not a dick...really... but these walls are so thin") so I'm forced to castrate my music. This is what my night is shaping up to be like... how it's been the past month. It's not so bad, but the problem that I have is with the mentality that I've been going about it... wishing for something to save me.

I need to heed that nothing can save me from myself. A breakfast omelet will not be made without my making it. My problems will not be solved by anyone else. No one can take these deep breaths for me. So I suppose this is yet another entry about manning, growing up. That's all I can write about these days, I guess. I wake up tired and come home exhausted, but it's all a luxurious suffering. It's all the beautiful struggle of a spoiled kid.

It's still all beautiful.

My Pen with Dried Ink

I can't write.

It's not your typical writer's block. In fact, words are flowing if not pouring out, matching my steady stream of thoughts normally fragmented. Instead, my tongue is tied because I can't bring myself to materialize these thoughts in fear. I'm afraid of the consequences. I am scared of feeling too vulnerable and exposed because they are private. I don't want anyone feeling singled out as I document their presence or absence. I am terrified of writing because it means that everything becomes tangible and real.

You may think that all of these things can be avoided if I kept a private journal or somehow made these entries unavailable. The truth is that this would be unsatisfactory. Call me an exhibitionist if you must, but I believe that making these things public is a integral piece of expression. The writer scribbles his words not for the sole reason of showing others, but he prepares for the possibility of their being read. Even with a limited, or even imaginary audience, these entries are as intimate as locked eyes or a close embrace. Because the truth is that all I want is to feel that I am not alone-- that I'm not this oddity, a walking abomination, a fucking train wreck.

But I am alone. I haven't decided whether that's a good or a bad thing. It may be both or neither.

So I'm stuck here.
Writing about how I am unable write.

My State of Sadness

It was brought to my attention tonight that when I talk about sadness, I tend to be vague. This took me a little by surprise because it wasn't always this way. After thinking about it however, I realized that it's true. More importantly, it dawned to me that it sort of makes sense.

Yes, I've got sadness running through me.

For no particular reasons that I can think of other than hormonal imbalances, I've got lots of it. It's a fundamental part of my being. It is responsible for my heightened ability to empathize. It's my creative driving force, materialized by each and every step that I take and every sentence that I struggle to construct. I embrace it and sometimes thrive on it. Absolutely and unnecessarily painful, I live my mundane life as if it were the cinematic sequence where a supporting character walks away cradling his unrequited love. But this makes me better because I continue to live in a constant state of dissatisfaction that leaves me hungry. Hungry not like the obese woman in a stroller going back to the buffet for her fifth plate (sometimes that too) but hungry with and for a hope that there's always room for improvement.

Yet I choose to keep the sources of my welcomed illness to myself. Or better yet, I am perfectly able to articulate them and the consequences that they have on me with eery emotional detachment as if I were narrating in a third person. The truth is: people leave. And I leave. So you tell me what the fuck the point is. They're much more prized and in-tact locked inside my head. Maybe I'm afraid that the sadness could be cured. In fact, I know that it can disappear-- it has before.

I'm not ashamed of the multiple sides of me that make up my being. If I were, I would not proudly exhibit it through my writing. Although these entries are not written for validation, I am well aware of eyes that skim through them (yes, yours.) I encourage, if not crave for people to understand how I think. It's rewarding when someone makes an accurate remark about me that I've never thought about before.

But know that these thoughts are mine, and mine only.
And so is my sadness, regardless of the things and people who have caused them.

My Mortality

You know how when you sleep on your side sometimes and your ear rests right up against the pillow, you're able to hear your own heartbeat? I fucking hate it.

It's a steady beat that speeds up slightly when you inhale and slows down gradually as you breathe out. There's a consistency that you take for granted. But do you realize that while it continues to pump oxygen one second, it can easily stop the next? The sound of my heart beating is a constant reminder that I am mortal. I've always said that the only thing that I can't get more of is time, and there are so many things that I want to do. Chances are, I don't even know all of the things that I want to do yet. In other words, at some moment in time before some truth is revealed to me, I'm going to drop dead.

And yet, I abuse my body constantly. I drink and smoke too much. I'm awake at ungodly hours thinking the most mundane thoughts and writing the most cliche words. I'm not helping my race against time. But God damn it, it's during these times that I feel the most alive. It's as if we are cursed to think in dichotomies-- if it's not this, then it's that. If I'm killing myself slowly but I'm not dead yet... I must be alive. So nobody can kill me other than myself. For that, this life is sublime.

My Sleepless Nights

I sit here exhausted but awake, barely able to assemble a complete sentence. It's laughable for me to even attempt to construct a coherent train of thought. I really wish that I could take these fragmented flashes and build something useful. But thoughts fly by, slipping between my fingers everytime I try to connect the dots. As scattered as 80's movie montages may be, the champion always come out trained and ready, the house is cleaner than ever, and the ugly duckling transforms into the girl that every jock desires. (That last one usually only involves in the taking off her glasses, by the way... Don't be fooled by Hollywood movie magic, fellas!) For me, I'm only rewarded with mental rug burn.

I've had trouble falling asleep for a long time now. These nights come in waves. Like a school of piranhas, once they arrive, I fall prey to their sharp teeth sunk deeply into my skin. My body becomes a punching bag-- taking vicious blows from my own drawn premises, countless "what-ifs" and an endless pursuit of the truth. My heart beats in rhythms measured by a couple of "I'm sorrys," a few more "fuck yous," too many "goodbyes" and not a single "I won't ever leave you." Eyes wide open, I lay hoping for a moment of tranquility. And sometimes for a second, I get it.

But sometimes a thought can take your breath away.

I wouldn't say I tend to overanalyze. I am a firm believer in looking past the bigger picture. Because really, it's easy to see what is shown to everyone. But it's behind the covers-- the fine print-- that lays the reward. The problem is that as I lay in bed, I'm trying to decipher a different language. So far, my translation is, "I'm scared, I really want you to understand. I haven't been giving you my all and I think you know. I'm not sure if I ever can."

Why do I have to be so comfortable?

Thoughts are not defined by time. Like a film, you can replay them over and over again-- celluloid strips may wear with time but chances are they'll last longer than you will. So we dream. We wish that our version, complete with alternate endings, subtitles, and do-overs can be released as the Director's Cut. But the truth is that while feelings and mental images are not confined by the clock, events are. Our every action, consequential, are in ink. So we settle.

And by this time, I've become too warm underneath the covers and every slight physical irritation becomes a grand obstacle for me to fall asleep.

The sun rises. The tear ducts around my eyes involuntarily water as I yawn. Two particular thoughts come into mind. "Well, here comes a new day" and "Fuck, I never closed my eyes."

Rinse. Repeat.