I’m sitting in a new-age Taipei cafe, the walnut wood interior is lit by industrial lighting, and the drinks they serve focus less on the coffee quality and more on the creative combination and presentation (guava, coffee, tea, and plum powder for example). I was craving some caffeine, but I guess I’ll settle for the surprise.
As if just for my enjoyment, the past week of grey in Taipei has been replaced by a sunny day. Of course, I’m being facetious, but today is my birthday after all, so give me a little slack. I’m reflecting on my past year in reverse order: thinking about how so much has changed in such little time. This time last year I was living a life that I had lived for the past two years. I was living in a large SF apartment, working hard for my startup, traveling every couple months. Now, I’m conducting independent research, baristaing, a homebody (yes, I know I’m writing this from Taipei), and homeless. I can’t believe I’ve been unemployed for almost 3 months now. It feels like it just started. I’ve gotten to the point where I lose track of what day of the week it is, but I haven’t yet lost my “working” mindset that compels me to keep pushing day in and day out on what I care about. And that’s mostly a good sign: it means what I’m working on is what I truly care about, but I want to get to the point where I’m fully embodying the carefree, meandering mindset to take inspiration from all of my daily life into my research, work, and art.
Already in my 3 months of unemployment, I’ve had the time to
- perfect my latte art
- perform some kintsugi on things I was clumsy with
- INSERT PHOTOS
- do my first cyanotype
- make net art
- like this seasonal website garden
- dive deeper on my communal computing research questions
- immerse in two SFPC classes
- love the world and my friends and myself
In light of my recent funemployment, the question lingering in the back of my mind has been: what does it mean to live life to the fullest? In this temporary, treasured period of my life, where I am committing to following no rules other than the ones written by my heart, this is the question that shadows every day. I’m careful about phrasing this question such that it is not perverted into one that categorizes time into that which is wasted and that which is lived. I believe every moment is life lived, that “time wasted” is just another product of the capitalist understanding of time as money. So the question is less whether each moment I am living is the best sort of life, and more of whether I am approaching each day with a lightness of heart and perspective, to strike the balance between letting my heart speak freely and letting the world sing back.
I desire to be lost. I desire to gift my freedom to the world, to let the animals of the world dictate the direction of my legs, to grant the plants of this earth how my hands choose to move. I desire a freedom that comes from having none, the kind that slips between your joints and through each ear and traces the valley of your collarbone with every passing breeze. I am but a free person with the desire to be determined. I want to lose myself in the soft chaos of the world, so that I might find pieces of my soul forged by the universe, fractured reflections in found mirrors and bright neons in the shadow of alleys, the sparkle of a beating heart in the gaze of the celestial.
I desire to be soft, to pillow with the world. I desire wings of stardust. I desire to cradle each blade of glass in the world, whisper sweet nothings, fall asleep with the wind settling in my hair. I want nothing more than to be honest with the world. I wish for nothing but the strength to stay true to my ambition for knowledge and the temperance to always learn from the world around me.
This past year I…
- birthday photoshoot with andy
- lived in new york for a summer and did the Interact Residency
- moved out of my sf apartment of 2 years
- africa trip with family
- moved to oakland with andy, living in oakland
- started dating sabrina
- laid off
- sublet in sf
- start of independent research life, started working at mannys