The Fourth Book

SENTIMENTS OF JUNE 2014: PART 1

Once again, the stinging, smoky smell drifts through Malaysia. Anything beyond a 500-meter radius is completely hidden from the human eye. The haze is back, and for me, it's rather timely. My spiritual sight is shrouded as well.

Here I am, wondering what on earth I'm supposed to write about. About two weeks ago, I felt that my life was coming to a point of stabilization. I had completed my Jonathan Edwards theology class, and was days away from sitting for SAT. Then I would go to Taiwan for a week, and perhaps take the time to reflect on what I've learned these months.

The actual overseas visit radically changed such expectations.

It's not that going to an unfamiliar geographical location was problematic for me per se. The issue was that I was traveling with people, namely, my family. Neither they nor I truly realized how abnormal I was until I was forced to be somewhere unfamiliar for a considerable length of time.

I live in my own head, I really do. I didn't know how true this was until I went somewhere else. Normally, people in a new environment would engage themselves with it. I didn't. I started off continuing to think about topics I usually committed myself to thinking about. Gradually, my family became more and more appalled at how little I care for geographical information (where we were, where we are, where we're going) and how badly I communicate with people (my parents had to constantly respond to people on my behalf, as my replies were mostly short, uninformed, and uncertain).

As the week went by, I became increasingly confused about myself, and increasingly certain that the week was not going to turn out the way I expected it to. I brought three books with me, and I barely read any one of them. I came to realize, through frequent rebukes regarding my abnormality, that there was a fourth book, titled "Experience". And man, did I read it with the utmost frustration. Both the language and the structure of this particular book was completely cryptic to me. It was so hard to follow, to understand.

I felt completely shaken by the time I returned. I did not realize that my defects were so numerous, various, and serious. I did not truly realize that, when it came down to it, I really don't know how to communicate normally. I don't know how to speak to people. And at the heart of that is the fact that I just don't consider other people. I don't consider what others think, or what they don't know.

What's worse is that such elements of personhood are basic. The fourth book is kindergarten-level (in a way). I quite fancied myself a mature person, but what rubbish such thoughts now seem.

All of that having been said, the point is that I'm finding it hard to know in what direction I'm actually heading in life right now. I feel very helpless, very amateur and unskilled. Thus, I'm not quite sure what to write, what to think. The haze really is timely.

The confounding factor is the moral standard of love, I suppose. These few months, I thought I was making some great bounds in learning about love. Suddenly, I'm faced with a vision of myself as a cold, detached, self-absorbed, ambitious, cowardly, condescending, and skeptical—in short, disgustingly awkward—human being. I'm like what on earth, I don't know anything, at all.

The vigor with which I was poring into books is gone. I came back feeling so depressed I didn't feel like reading any more books. That fourth book has left me feeling haunted. It informed me that, despite my rather unusual ability to construct sturdy systems of thought, it's all in vain if I could not share it. Without love I am nothing. I hesitate when I try to come up with reading plans, because I don't want to become so absorbed in my own thoughts again that coming out of it would be awkward and painful.

There's much more to write about, more to reflect upon. I need to organize my thoughts and get an idea of what's going on. And my thought system has to be communicable. But it's late, and I need rest. I will continue tomorrow.