Sounds And What They Are

This poem took roughly 30 minutes to compose. Feedback welcome.
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The crunch of a potato chip is
not some anguished cry;
it is the gentle murmur
of compliant satisfaction.

The glug of a cola is
not some savage sound;
it is the soft and subtle sigh
of complacent consonance.

Addiction does
not howl with destructive revelry; it
trudges in weary silence,
passively undisturbing,
narcoleptically undisturbed.

Political humor bites
with all the geriatric toothlessness of
caustic sludge,
incessantly regurgitating,
perennially indisposed.

Sounds And What They Are
is not some incisive roar;
it rings hollow
under the crushing weight of its own hypocrisy.

The sound of an oreo is the sound
of the silent lamentation of the soul.

Lyrics: I Have The Best Words

My third rap. Excessive wordplay, gratuitous rhyme scheme, and validation-seeking flaunting, all inspired by certain Trump quotes (italicized) I found especially funny.
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I have the best words, Dubya coulda called me to save the Kurds, I’m absurdly immersed in diverse terms, my terse verse will reimburse Lazarus with a worse hearse, that’s a perverse reversal of a dispersed curse, rehearsing a coercing of life itself dispersing, a mercy killing by mere conversing.

I’m so humble, never fumble, never crumble, never stumble, but I’ll rope a dope like Rumble in the Jungle, make Foreman tumble while formin’ jumbles of conjunctive mumbles like a grumbling Dumbledore, my bumbling’s at the core an eon of lore, start a war with naught but vocal cords, slaughter more boorish florists than a forest shortage, across the world it’s the same old story: Chinese kid ascends to glory with nothing more than his guts, and an august gust of his musk at dusk -- and just the robust lust it mustered is enough to snuff injustice, like small green muppet pullin’ spaceships up ‘fore he kicks the bucket.

I know words like bigly, I could have saved Pompeii by parleying quickly, lauded Hawking -- now he’s jogging briskly, called Dorian Grey, made his portrait sickly, better get a fig leaf when I whisper glibly

So buff my rebuff sloughs off a gruff ox like I’m coughing up pop rocks, robbed Gringotts with my rough maw, my Hajj-worthy tough talk is sign of your loss, a cross between the Great Mosque and a Sino-boss, oscillating cord like a sine of floss, glossy process like a lustrous Haber-Bosch, my words nourish like ammonia, gosh, honestly a toss up between the time I quashed a rough mosh pit with a posh mitt made of nothing but lofty postulates, or when apostles flocked to my shock-and-awe wrought lips across the brainwashing I offhandedly tossed off, my panache causes nausea in life forms I’ve crossed off.

I know all the best words keep em in my pocket, like a shard of my soul held in a locket, flex my lexicon and launch a rocket, grab my vocab and God can’t stop it

You’re geriatric, I’m doin’ hat tricks, makin’ berets and bowlers out of mattress fabrics, three in a row like pseudoruminant gastrics, cause anaphylaxis with my intensive tactics, tic tacs toe to me for prophylaxis, of halitosis, I’m a maxi pad, I don’t know meiosis, my own sis insists I’m the apotheosis, so incisive my decisive dismissal incites civs to fizzle out like sizzling gristle, an abyssal vice for grizzled tribes in a missile crisis, watch as my advice ices ISIS, and I’ve made sacrifices, like making so much money I forget what strife is.

Pedantically Analyzing Another Idiomatic Saying

Part One here.

What does "have your cake and eat it too" even mean? Aren't the two synonymous? When I tell you “I want to have cake”, what do you think I desire more: to acquire a cake, or to eat one?

Let’s assume, in the above quote, that “have” means “possess”, to distinguish it from “eat”. Then what is the purpose of possessing a cake if not to eat it? Isn’t a cake’s very existence defined by its capacity to be eaten? Why would I ever want to merely possess a cake? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be preferable to eat a cake and NOT possess it? When I come into possession of a cake, it’s always through some kind of investment: temporal, financial, emotional, or otherwise. Why would I want to undergo this sort of investment if I don’t have to? Does the quote suggest this sort of investment is necessary to obtain satisfaction from a cake? I want to not have a cake and eat it, too. Is that so wrong?

Perhaps we lament the impossibility of simultaneous cake-possession and -consumption because cakes have appealing qualities outside of their taste. Is there something especially enticing about a cake’s frosted aesthetic, its nuptial connotations, its decadent symbolism? If so, perhaps when we bemoan the fact that we can’t “have our cake and eat it too”, we are bemoaning something endemic to eating itself. Consumption, by its nature, is zero-sum; when we eat a cake, we gain satisfaction, but we must destroy the cake we possess in exchange for that satisfaction. Consumption is about loss as much as it is about gain.

Vulnerability, Pretension, And Demystifying Your Successes

I've noticed a trend in the conversations I've had with my friends in the past weeks: We often talk about how being authentically vulnerable in front of other people is the only path to genuine intimacy, and how it's both difficult and rewarding, and how we wish it weren't so difficult.

I don't know how I feel about these conversations. On one hand, I can see how, being early-twenties college students maturing as adults, this topic would be especially salient to us. On the other hand, I wonder if these talks are nothing more than elitism and arrogance masquerading as interesting conversation -- because the conversation usually has this part where we bemoan how it seems like other people in our age group are just so damn reluctant or unable to be vulnerable with each other, but not us, because we're having this conversation, and this conversation is evidence that our understanding of vulnerability is much more sophisticated and nuanced than our peers'. So it turns out all this whining about everyone else being superficial and hollow was actually us being superficial and hollow this whole time, using a conversation about vulnerability as nothing but a tool to feel superior to other people. This sort of ego stroking is antithetical to intimacy, because genuine intimacy is necessarily mutual. Superiority quashes reciprocity.

Despite all these conversations I've had, I'm still far from understanding the issue. It seems like I spend some of my time narcissistically and silently envisioning others as being much more self-absorbed and shallow than myself, and some of my other time defending these same people from my own criticisms while simultaneously shaming myself for being so unkind, and some of my other time defending myself from this self-shaming. And all this pontificating seems like a total waste of brainspace, because at the end of the day, I really do think most of my peers are just as willing and capable of being vulnerable as I am, and understand why it's desirable as much as I do. I'm even convinced most of them have participated in precisely the same type of conversation I've just described, and some of them have probably reached far more sophisticated and nuanced understandings than I have.

I've only ever read one thing defending humans' pretentious nature, by the creator of the marvelous Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, in a Youtube comment he made:

"Humans are hairless talking monkeys who walk around on our hind legs, even though our lower back can’t handle it yet. Pretension is our superpower. We might as well own it, and shoot for the stars."

This quote made me think about how the line between pretension and authenticity can be so blurred as to be nonexistent. One example is the blog you're currently reading. Of all the motivations I can detect for starting this blog, a major one is, after reading someone else's work, thinking, "I could do better". Another is the notion that the ideas in my head would be somehow new or thought-provoking or worthwhile to anyone. Another is to appear smart and thoughtful and self-aware. You may well tell me these are all fine motivations for starting a blog, and you may well be right, but there's still a faint ickyness that lingers my mind whenever I think about them. These motivations feel pretentious and egotistical by nature. But it also feels like I'm putting myself out there, and am hence vulnerable to criticism or mockery, and am often being genuinely vulnerable with my readers. Here, pretension and authenticity are somehow inseparable.

Another example is the academic sphere, which is a domain I mostly adore -- but university research sometimes seems needlessly esoteric, adhering to senseless conventions and buried under abstruse nomenclature* (such as "abstruse nomenclature") to the point of being deliberately exclusionary. I do think there is a lot of ego stroking in academic circles, because sophistry brings the sensation of intellectual superiority along with it. But the ideas in any advanced field can be enormously complicated, so complicated vocabulary may be necessary to express them. And the very purpose of publishing your ideas is to share them with other people. The university is a place designed for intellectual vulnerability.

I recently watched a video called "Demystifying Your Successes", in which the creator raised an interesting point: Whenever you become exceptionally skilled at something, a certain mystique also arises around you. Others begin to ascribe your skills to immaterial descriptors: natural talent, ineffable genius. This sort of mystique is alluring. It makes you intriguing and powerful. It becomes tempting to feed your mystique, to conceal the path to your success and further elevate yourself. The key point in the video is that, however attractive this seems at first, it's actually far more gratifying and worthwhile to do the opposite. When you demystify your successes, you pave the way for others develop in their own ways, different from yours. You will become exposed to new ideas, learn new techniques, be forewarned of new obstacles, and hence increase your own skill in the process. By helping others, you help yourself.

A macrocosm of this is societal. For example, during the civil rights movement in America, a segregationist would not have realized that whenever a previously marginalized group of people is uplifted and given equal chances to succeed, everyone profits, including the segregationists themselves. A black American who previously had no opportunities may well turn out to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jordan. We had everything to gain from unlocking these talents.

My mom teaches elementary school, and she introduces her classes with the following thought experiment: Suppose we each have an apple, and I give you my apple. Then you have two apples, and I've lost my apple. But suppose there's a problem we need to solve, and we each have an idea on how to solve it. Then if you share your idea with me, and I share mine with you, we each have two ideas, and neither of us have lost anything. Ideas are non-zero sum, and leveraging this fact has led to the vast majority of human progress.

Vulnerability is another non-zero sum thing we can leverage. Sharing our fear, grief, and insecurity lightens the individual burden and makes it easier to bear. It's enormously comforting when you know others care about your hardships and want to help you overcome them. Even better, sharing our love, gratitude, and joy excites us and brings vibrancy to life. It's one of the most pleasurable things in life to witness raw human passion, and just as pleasurable to be the one expressing it. Some of my most memorable moments have been simply bearing witness to someone else's passion, exulting and reveling in it, letting its irresistible tide swallow me like a starfish returning to the ocean. So don't be afraid. Your vulnerability is nothing more than your humanity, and it's precisely what makes life worth living.





*I remember reading a gender studies paper which called on us to "problematize heteropatriarchal systems". I absolutely agree we need to problematize heteropatriarchal systems, but I wish there was a way to say this without using two words my spellchecker doesn't even recognize.

Poem

This poem took around half an hour to compose. It is minimally edited. (There was a line about condors, and later, a line about feathery crucibles and unquantifiable liquid aviaries. But nothing bird-related made it through the editing process.)



Sycophants gyrate
Emerge from shattered crucibles
Shake cores
Entangle pretense and candor
Reject the mailman and a lot more
Control over your ego cuz you're a half-wit
But you make up for it with your cheap tricks
No degree, but a cornucopia of fabrics
Textiles have always been your strong suit
Pottery as cryptic as a tight noose
But with linen you feel maximally cozy
Weave a ship and a rocket at the same time
Loom as familiar as your first rhyme
Build mass transit with some frayed thread
Nourish continents
Ascend
And lo, the aforementioned kneel to you now

Then sublime insight shows the tragedy of their existence
They are unable to transcend the vast gulf of distance
Because of correspondence infrastructure
They
Dismantled earlier

Axen

I have seen an empire's birth: The empire called Axen. I have seen its civilization rise out of formlessness. I have seen culture emerge from a cold and lonely void, complex traditions and arcane ritual built in the gloom of obscurity, poetic expression and unique lexicon spring to life from soundlessness. I have seen the capacity of the human spirit to tame and conquer even the most feral biomes and give life to the most barren wastelands. I have borne witness to men far greater than I cutting steps in the path of progress with nothing but naked ambition.

But all this has come at great cost. I have seen censorship. I have seen power and control exerted to their fullest. I have seen great purges occur in less time than it takes to blink; extensive, vibrant historical records erased with callous irreverence. I have seen coups and reformations mercilessly squashed. I have seen a regime obsessed with power grow unassailable. I have seen alliances brokered between the most powerful few, uniting to crush any semblance of democracy. I have seen the most convoluted and violent Politics and War to establish control over a languishing populace. Yes, I admit: I, too, have wanted to be at the top. I have pleaded and groveled, masking my desperation from myself with pomp and irony. At the time, even the slightest promotion seemed swollen with gravitas. I, too, have been drunk on power -- but I always knew I would never be The Ones with my fingers on the strings. Have I any dignity left? If I do, it eludes me.

All this, yet the controllers never seemed to matter to the controlled. Because whatever happened at the top, no matter how sky-shattering, no matter how tumultuous, never seemed to trickle down to the people at the bottom, the ignoble, the unpromoted. The unpromoted coped with this in various ways. There was rage, there was sadness, there was apathy. None of it ever amounted to much. However dissenting the voices at the bottom would be, the ones at the top would keep on laughing.

I have seen travelers. I have seen pilgrims of all sorts take refuge at Axen. Few stay, as I have. They were the smart ones. I conversed with some, cloaked in the shadows of dank alleyways, away from prying ears. They asked me, "Has it always been this way?" and I would reply, "Yes. I've been here since the beginning," and to this, their eyes would grow wide with awe and terror, and their feet would grow swift with sudden urgency, and they would disappear from Axen within a fortnight. I do not blame them. The age of the Axen Empire stretches far back in history, and to meet someone who was present for its birth is no small thing. You could count on one hand the total number of living people who witnessed it.

But it ends there, for all I've ever truly done is borne witness. They've called me various things in the past; they've tried to pin me down as a joker, a mover and a shaker, a gruesome troll, a shameless propagandist not to be taken seriously, but what I've really been -- all I really know how to be -- is a watcher, the idle slave of my sensory inputs, beholding, never becoming; perceiving, never participating. My contributions to Axen, scant as they are, hardly deserve the air they would be spoken with. My restlessness and dissatisfaction with the status quo has never manifested into tangible reality. My voice, whenever it did speak out in dissent, has always been laced with a sniveling and flippant refusal to take things seriously, burdened under the weight of its own arrogant detachment and delusion. All this time, I've just taken it, and it has been far from fine.

And even now, I am still paralytically disposed to do nothing but bear witness in passive silence. I am seeing the end times. I am not alone in this -- the apocalypse has been coming for a long time now. We were all forewarned. We all made aware of Axen's date of death, long before it will come to pass. Discord has already come. Discord looms enormous on the horizon, blotting out the selfsame Sun who heralded it. And even while the jackals are drawing ever nearer, the ones at the top are still mired in senseless antiquity and mindless tradition, perennially drowning in the quagmire of their own torpor. They will be forever confined to stagnation, stranded in the progressless trappings of days long forgotten to modernity. I do not weep for them. I wept long ago, years ago, when I first realized their deep-rooted refusal to adapt to their own circumstances. Nowadays, any pity is gone. They will let their culture drown with this? Very well, then let it drown. But I pray -- for their sake -- they don't beg me for help when they realize it's too late to be resuscitated. For when their hand scrabbles for sanctuary as they sink into that dense swamp, I will merely be watching.

My Fear Of Unoriginality

I have a fear of being unoriginal. Ultimately, it has little impact on my sense of confidence or self-worth or day to day happiness -- but I hope by prying it apart, you or I will get something of human value.

I first became aware of this fear after watching the clip from Good Will Hunting where Will is wrecking that Harvard guy at the bar. We like the scene because an elitist douchebag is receiving the poetic justice he deserves, but I am terrified of unwittingly being that same sort of elitist douchebag. After all, all the things I've learned in school have been discovered by other people, people far smarter and more successful than I'll ever be. What if I, too, am masking my total lack of originality with pretentious arrogance? What if I'm wasting my time rethinking thoughts already thought countless times before, expressed in ways far more skilled than I could express them? And it doesn't end with thoughts: I've no doubt that all the emotions I've ever felt have been felt countless times before by countless people, and that moreover there exist emotions I've never felt that have also been felt by countless people, emotions far more vivid and compelling than anything I'll ever experience. It's frightening because originality is another way to say human value, a way to tangibly measure one's contribution to the world. This video (one of my favorite things on Youtube) expresses it in even starker terms: "if, in the end, we find ourselves with nothing left to say, nothing new to add, idly tracing outlines left by others long ago, it'll be as if we weren't here at all." And so perhaps this fear, at its core, is a roundabout fear of death, or else of the ultimate purposelessness and futility of life.

The times when this fear is most clear is on social media. I scroll through my various feeds and can't help but notice a sameness to it all, each post a clone of the last in nearly every sense: structure, content, tone, and all vaguely suggesting something is more important than it actually is, or something is less important than it actually is, or, even if it gets the importance of the thing just right, laced with a faint, hypocritical inaction and/or apathy, because there's a social media paradox: You don't need to post the unimportant thing on social media by definition, and spending your time posting about the important thing on social media seems both ineffective and lazy, because if someone truly cared about the thing, they wouldn't need your post to be doing something about it, and if you truly cared about the thing, you would surely be finding ways to contribute which are far superior to posting about it, and if someone didn't care about the thing, your post isn't going to persuade them anyway. Merely posting about something important on social media is the best way to make yourself feel like you've contributed while simultaneously expending the least amount of effort possible. The level of exertion has diminished to literally the lowest level to which it could possibly descend: A single button press. The "share" button is prominently -- almost garishly -- displayed across every article, video, image, and blog post in existence.

Viral content, shares, retweets, and so on are the epitome of unoriginality, and so in a way, the fear I'm describing is the very bedrock social media is built on. It's not an unfortunate byproduct of getting on Facebook; it is the Facebook experience. It reminds me of the concept of "clutter" in advertising: due to the massive amount of advertising consumers are subjected to on a daily basis, it becomes increasingly harder for marketing teams to stand out. So in an attempt to separate itself from the clutter, advertising inevitably and paradoxically becomes a part of it. And I hate that irony.

This disappointment and cynicism towards social media always results in me hitting backspace, restraining myself from posting whatever is on my mind. I am just becoming a part of the clutter, I tell myself. I'm still not sure whether this restraint is good or bad. On one hand, I can already hear people telling me it's bad, and to just go ahead and post whatever I was going to, because I'll never know who might find it interesting. On the other hand, I also can't help but think of this advice as yet another bit of unoriginality, a worthless platitude incessantly repeated in every feel-good movie ever, a substanceless suggestion to "just be yourself" when there's really no other Wei I can be, and when in fact the "self" being given this advice is a self terrified of being unoriginal. And I also think people giving this advice might change their mind if I actually revealed to them what I was thinking of posting, which I would never do, because of the same fear that prevented me from posting it in the first place.

I can see how it could be argued that this whole fear is irrational and unwarranted, and how I am an original and unique person, with my own unrepeatable set of influences and experiences. But even the words I've just typed sound so hollow, yet more recycled syllables fed to me in a banal attempt to console my insecurities. My uniqueness itself is not a unique quality. Everyone is unique, and this uniqueness takes even less than a single button press; it takes nothing more than to be born. There is nothing redeeming about this kind of originality.

I'm also thinking about how this disappointment and cynicism toward the lack of originality on social media is itself unoriginal, and how I'm constantly seeing criticisms of this type hypocritically show up on my various social media feeds, and how I myself am going to, in a few moments, share this very blog post on social media. The irony is so staggering that, even while typing the words you are currently reading, I'm considering deleting this entire post, and I'm thinking maybe the only reason I'm not is because the "just be yourself" platitude has so thoroughly sunk into my subconscious that I've managed to delude myself into thinking what I've done here has even a modicum of originality (which is to say human value). If that's the case, I at least hope you were fooled as well.