(no subject)
I was listening to some Nina Simone a little bit ago. I'm still listening to her, but that's irrelevant.
She was listing things in a litany, what she doesn't and doesn't and doesn't have. I was thinking about what she was saying, mostly because I thought it would be an effective vocabulary builder for the people I know at City Hall who are really passionate about learning English. So I was reflecting on her words in a less than romantic way.
And suddenly, the song was over. It had seemed like seconds. I must have been thinking about something else, and masquerading those thoughts as potential ways to help my vicarious co-workers tackle the English language. I listened to the song again, focusing on the actual sounds she was making, because I didn't want to get lost in thought and miss the song a second time. I have it downloaded to my computer's hard drive, so it's not like it's going anywhere if I don't listen to it, but in a way I felt a little self-absorbed and wanted to absolve myself. (And yes, the irony of chronicling this all in an online journal devoted exclusively to myself is not lost on me.) In my mind's eye I could see her lips, see them moist and glistening, see them purse when she articulated bilabials, when sibilants crawled out of the fissure in her open face, when sounds and sounds combined into phrases and poured out of her mouth like water.
--
It's funny how the best way to know how far you've come in any regard is to look at the same thing twice. So much of this year I've been so wrapped up in the concept of normalcy. Balancing your mental health, or at least assuming the necessity to do so, is an extremely demanding and unnecessarily stressful task. I had obsessed over all my days into one of two categories: good or bad. Pluses were never enough, minuses were inevitable because of the person I am, i.e. a bad one. When it came to what I deserved, when it rained it poured, and when I got a break, it was just coincidence, which made the lack of any fulfillment in my life all the more depressing. Time became my top priority; I affixed a deadline to each and every single thing that I could think of, even those obviously out of my control. If Masa didn't call me by precisely 8, he didn't care about me. If the lefthand elevator wasn't the first one to pick me up on the 12th floor at City Hall, I'd never find a way out of whatever problem it was I had convinced myself was real. I became obsessed with being obsessive.
It was weird and dissheveled and awkward. And no matter how prevalant my penchant for allowing my insecurities to get the best of me, I never cease to be amazed with myself each time I let it happen. These pockets of negative feelings just seem to envelope entire chapters of my life, to the point that I have a hard time distinguishing emotional eras--even to this day, as far as I'm concerned I was a kid, in high school, then in college. Those are the ABC's of my autobiography. There is no before and after the first time I fell in love, no real pivot associated with when I lost my virginity. I don't even remember the first time I smoked a cigarette. Anything I uniquely accomplish by my own means, I take to be a given. It's just silly.
Yes, I realize thinking about this is silly. In fact, the only reason I'm taking the effort to describe this kind of mentality is because I'm sure there's countless people who can relate, and perhaps a few of them will read this and not feel quite so isolated or ridiculous for being human and a little too paranoid for their own good.
With that said, a lot of stuff has happened in the past two days, and I'm really impressed with myself for how not to heart I'm taking it. Consider the following anecdote:
I hate tokenization in general. I don't like seeing people being exploited or used on any level, even if it's pretty superficial. I'm stubborn to a fault, and it's not an option for me not to react if I see something I think is wrong. I get tokenized for being a white person an awful lot in Japan, and it drives me up the fucking wall. Typically when someone comes up to me and just demands I practice English with them, I remind them in civil yet firm Japanese that you can't tell if someone is an English speaker solely by looking. Or when kids (and, to my chagrin, the middle-aged) point at me and shout 'foreigner!' I am quick to respond 'You're the foreigner to me' in a somewhat sing-song tone. I don't want to alienate these people, but I do personally feel it necessary to point out what a jackass they're being.
But sometimes these kinds of incident happen so quickly, I don't have the appropriate amount of time to react politely, such as when people pass me in the street and, for the sole sake of impressing their friends, try and act like they know me by giving me high-fives or waving. What the fuck. This is totally lame and will set you up for a well-deserved ass-kicking if you dare venture into any sexually liberated part of the world. I'm not your friend, I don't know you, I don't want to touch your gross hand or wave back at you, you seemingly well-intentioned yet racist twit. Fuck you.
So, when confronted with such situations, my stock reaction is to shout 'dasai omae!' or 'you suck!', as I assume that's the opposite of the person's expectations. It's gone over pretty well so far, typically people are humiliated for being called out on pretending to be friends with someone solely because of their skin color, and they either embarassedly bow a lot, or immediately get ripped on by their more civic-minded friends.
However. I totally screwed the pooch, y'all. On Saturday night I was out with Minako, when this whacked-out lady in a sundress passed us by on the street at around 9pm. She got the attention of the two friends she was with, then started waving at me. I had no idea who she was, so I assumed she was waving at Minako, until I turned to her and saw how equally weirded out she was. So, more of less unconsciously, I turned my head back to the woman in the sundress and shouted 'dasai omae!'
Well. A few minutes go by and it occurs to me I think I actually know this whack-job. Immediately I feel awful because I more than likely totally hurt her feelings in front of her friends, and it's not like me to yell mean-spirited things at vague acquaintances in public. But, since I couldn't even recall this woman's face, I had no idea of determing who she was or how to contact her, so I decided to try and forget about it unless I happened to see her again.
Well. Fast-forward to Monday. I'm about to leave work so I have all this vacation time piled up, and I'm taking the last two weeks of this month off. On Monday I get a call from one of the higher ups in my office asking me to come to work immediately, since the woman in the sundress has come to City Hall and is demanding reparations. Feeling tooootally fucked, I suck it up and head over to my office.
To be brief, this woman was insane. She was crying, told me she had sought legal consultation and knew she could sue me because since we are "friends" whatever I said to her in public could be misconstrued by anyone over-hearing as truth, which would damage her reputation. And, in case you're wondering, I met this woman one time 11 months ago. What the holy crap. I explained to her that I didn't recognize her at all, and disclosed how I typically deal with drive-by exploitation, and then did genuinely apologize for hurting her feelings. This wasn't satisfactory to her at all, and she went on about how she hadn't been able to sleep since 'the incident' and since she's in the middle of writing her graduate thesis, I've ruined what would otherwise be very crucial thinking time for her.
Fortunately my higher ups have pretty decent heads on their shoulders. My 2nd highest boss was trying to appease her by reiterating what she was saying, and ended up telling me, "Yes, Ben, you are a public servant, which means you can't always act the way you would as a private citizen. So as a public servant, you can't yell at people in the streets. Now, I'm not saying that once you stop being a public servant, you should yell at people in the streets, but--" and then couldn't finish his thought because he started laughing at how ridiculous what he had just said was. The woman went on for a while after that, told me that the Japanese language is beautiful and that I shouldn't say vulgar things in it, then left in tears. Then she came back shortly to have us validate her parking. Then she left again with just a bit of the sniffles.
Although you might think this couldn't be a more ridiculous story, the most uniquely Japanese aspect of this whole situation is that the woman never actually told my bosses what I had said to her. In other words, I was summoned to a meeting, participated in a meeting, and concluded a meeting where no one actually knew what we were talking about. And somehow I enjoy living in this country. After I told my bosses that I had just told the woman she sucked, they were really confused. I later found out from my second office (which she had also taken upon herself to contact) that she stated she had been verbally assaulted by me, and was too emotionally damaged to sleep. Thank God I have human-like Japanese people co-workers, who prioritize me over appeasing some whacked out fruit cake. Everyone's laughed it off by this point, and I don't think it will go down as a very memorable incident. I am, however, the first person in the International Exchange Section to conduct a meeting with a crying person as far as I know.
But the best part about this all happening is that I didn't lose my cool. I didn't obsess, didn't beat myself up for bringing shame (albeit crazy whackjob shame) upon City Hall, and I don't feel particularly guilty one way or the other. I've been trying to work on my mental outlook to try and get back to being able to more definitively see things for what they are, put them in their place with proper context, and stick with my initial judgment. And so far so good, wonderful!
Another pretty disastrous thing happened over the past few days as well, but it's a bit too personal for public internet broadcasting. However, rest assured that I am dealing with this situation with flying colors. Viva la rationality!
She was listing things in a litany, what she doesn't and doesn't and doesn't have. I was thinking about what she was saying, mostly because I thought it would be an effective vocabulary builder for the people I know at City Hall who are really passionate about learning English. So I was reflecting on her words in a less than romantic way.
And suddenly, the song was over. It had seemed like seconds. I must have been thinking about something else, and masquerading those thoughts as potential ways to help my vicarious co-workers tackle the English language. I listened to the song again, focusing on the actual sounds she was making, because I didn't want to get lost in thought and miss the song a second time. I have it downloaded to my computer's hard drive, so it's not like it's going anywhere if I don't listen to it, but in a way I felt a little self-absorbed and wanted to absolve myself. (And yes, the irony of chronicling this all in an online journal devoted exclusively to myself is not lost on me.) In my mind's eye I could see her lips, see them moist and glistening, see them purse when she articulated bilabials, when sibilants crawled out of the fissure in her open face, when sounds and sounds combined into phrases and poured out of her mouth like water.
--
It's funny how the best way to know how far you've come in any regard is to look at the same thing twice. So much of this year I've been so wrapped up in the concept of normalcy. Balancing your mental health, or at least assuming the necessity to do so, is an extremely demanding and unnecessarily stressful task. I had obsessed over all my days into one of two categories: good or bad. Pluses were never enough, minuses were inevitable because of the person I am, i.e. a bad one. When it came to what I deserved, when it rained it poured, and when I got a break, it was just coincidence, which made the lack of any fulfillment in my life all the more depressing. Time became my top priority; I affixed a deadline to each and every single thing that I could think of, even those obviously out of my control. If Masa didn't call me by precisely 8, he didn't care about me. If the lefthand elevator wasn't the first one to pick me up on the 12th floor at City Hall, I'd never find a way out of whatever problem it was I had convinced myself was real. I became obsessed with being obsessive.
It was weird and dissheveled and awkward. And no matter how prevalant my penchant for allowing my insecurities to get the best of me, I never cease to be amazed with myself each time I let it happen. These pockets of negative feelings just seem to envelope entire chapters of my life, to the point that I have a hard time distinguishing emotional eras--even to this day, as far as I'm concerned I was a kid, in high school, then in college. Those are the ABC's of my autobiography. There is no before and after the first time I fell in love, no real pivot associated with when I lost my virginity. I don't even remember the first time I smoked a cigarette. Anything I uniquely accomplish by my own means, I take to be a given. It's just silly.
Yes, I realize thinking about this is silly. In fact, the only reason I'm taking the effort to describe this kind of mentality is because I'm sure there's countless people who can relate, and perhaps a few of them will read this and not feel quite so isolated or ridiculous for being human and a little too paranoid for their own good.
With that said, a lot of stuff has happened in the past two days, and I'm really impressed with myself for how not to heart I'm taking it. Consider the following anecdote:
I hate tokenization in general. I don't like seeing people being exploited or used on any level, even if it's pretty superficial. I'm stubborn to a fault, and it's not an option for me not to react if I see something I think is wrong. I get tokenized for being a white person an awful lot in Japan, and it drives me up the fucking wall. Typically when someone comes up to me and just demands I practice English with them, I remind them in civil yet firm Japanese that you can't tell if someone is an English speaker solely by looking. Or when kids (and, to my chagrin, the middle-aged) point at me and shout 'foreigner!' I am quick to respond 'You're the foreigner to me' in a somewhat sing-song tone. I don't want to alienate these people, but I do personally feel it necessary to point out what a jackass they're being.
But sometimes these kinds of incident happen so quickly, I don't have the appropriate amount of time to react politely, such as when people pass me in the street and, for the sole sake of impressing their friends, try and act like they know me by giving me high-fives or waving. What the fuck. This is totally lame and will set you up for a well-deserved ass-kicking if you dare venture into any sexually liberated part of the world. I'm not your friend, I don't know you, I don't want to touch your gross hand or wave back at you, you seemingly well-intentioned yet racist twit. Fuck you.
So, when confronted with such situations, my stock reaction is to shout 'dasai omae!' or 'you suck!', as I assume that's the opposite of the person's expectations. It's gone over pretty well so far, typically people are humiliated for being called out on pretending to be friends with someone solely because of their skin color, and they either embarassedly bow a lot, or immediately get ripped on by their more civic-minded friends.
However. I totally screwed the pooch, y'all. On Saturday night I was out with Minako, when this whacked-out lady in a sundress passed us by on the street at around 9pm. She got the attention of the two friends she was with, then started waving at me. I had no idea who she was, so I assumed she was waving at Minako, until I turned to her and saw how equally weirded out she was. So, more of less unconsciously, I turned my head back to the woman in the sundress and shouted 'dasai omae!'
Well. A few minutes go by and it occurs to me I think I actually know this whack-job. Immediately I feel awful because I more than likely totally hurt her feelings in front of her friends, and it's not like me to yell mean-spirited things at vague acquaintances in public. But, since I couldn't even recall this woman's face, I had no idea of determing who she was or how to contact her, so I decided to try and forget about it unless I happened to see her again.
Well. Fast-forward to Monday. I'm about to leave work so I have all this vacation time piled up, and I'm taking the last two weeks of this month off. On Monday I get a call from one of the higher ups in my office asking me to come to work immediately, since the woman in the sundress has come to City Hall and is demanding reparations. Feeling tooootally fucked, I suck it up and head over to my office.
To be brief, this woman was insane. She was crying, told me she had sought legal consultation and knew she could sue me because since we are "friends" whatever I said to her in public could be misconstrued by anyone over-hearing as truth, which would damage her reputation. And, in case you're wondering, I met this woman one time 11 months ago. What the holy crap. I explained to her that I didn't recognize her at all, and disclosed how I typically deal with drive-by exploitation, and then did genuinely apologize for hurting her feelings. This wasn't satisfactory to her at all, and she went on about how she hadn't been able to sleep since 'the incident' and since she's in the middle of writing her graduate thesis, I've ruined what would otherwise be very crucial thinking time for her.
Fortunately my higher ups have pretty decent heads on their shoulders. My 2nd highest boss was trying to appease her by reiterating what she was saying, and ended up telling me, "Yes, Ben, you are a public servant, which means you can't always act the way you would as a private citizen. So as a public servant, you can't yell at people in the streets. Now, I'm not saying that once you stop being a public servant, you should yell at people in the streets, but--" and then couldn't finish his thought because he started laughing at how ridiculous what he had just said was. The woman went on for a while after that, told me that the Japanese language is beautiful and that I shouldn't say vulgar things in it, then left in tears. Then she came back shortly to have us validate her parking. Then she left again with just a bit of the sniffles.
Although you might think this couldn't be a more ridiculous story, the most uniquely Japanese aspect of this whole situation is that the woman never actually told my bosses what I had said to her. In other words, I was summoned to a meeting, participated in a meeting, and concluded a meeting where no one actually knew what we were talking about. And somehow I enjoy living in this country. After I told my bosses that I had just told the woman she sucked, they were really confused. I later found out from my second office (which she had also taken upon herself to contact) that she stated she had been verbally assaulted by me, and was too emotionally damaged to sleep. Thank God I have human-like Japanese people co-workers, who prioritize me over appeasing some whacked out fruit cake. Everyone's laughed it off by this point, and I don't think it will go down as a very memorable incident. I am, however, the first person in the International Exchange Section to conduct a meeting with a crying person as far as I know.
But the best part about this all happening is that I didn't lose my cool. I didn't obsess, didn't beat myself up for bringing shame (albeit crazy whackjob shame) upon City Hall, and I don't feel particularly guilty one way or the other. I've been trying to work on my mental outlook to try and get back to being able to more definitively see things for what they are, put them in their place with proper context, and stick with my initial judgment. And so far so good, wonderful!
Another pretty disastrous thing happened over the past few days as well, but it's a bit too personal for public internet broadcasting. However, rest assured that I am dealing with this situation with flying colors. Viva la rationality!