2 years ago, i was in cherrie moraga’s workshop and she said something to the effect of, describe your prison as you experience it or else no one will believe you.

i don’t live in a prison. i am for the most part, happy and very excited about my life. i know this life is going to be full of ups and downs and hard choices..yet even though its not going to be easy in the long run i need to think of it as easy from day to day cos thats the way i am going to survive and not be so caught up in the challenges lying ahead. Mamos, family, keeping up with the politics, making steadfast decisions when necessary, thinking of decisions as part of a larger picture and not just a flux of individual emotions, dealing with my own sentimentality and hesitations and moments of insecurity, being able to relate, communicate, be honest to people, dealing with doubt that can arise when the going gets tough…and remembering that the tough get tougher and the most important thing is to live with no regrets in the moment, doing what needs to be done, seeing what is right from what is wrong, understanding time. that time is not a flash of immediate instant gratification and heightened sensation but more so the experience of revisiting and reknowing oneself when laying down to sleep in the wee hours of the night, or retelling the story of one’s life to the next generation, to my own grandchildren.

i had a realization a couple of days ago, while walking to my library sanctuary amidst the fast pace of Orchard Rd, that some dilemmas of my generation, or papa’s generation can only be resolved in the next generation…

(Fanon says that ‘each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.’)

what exactly does this mean. both in the political, social and individual sense?

it means that our lives are continuations of past, lived, histories

that each generation lives thru the contradictions and dilemmas of its time

that certain dichotomies shape the way people approach their own lives, and these dichotomies impact and shape lives, their construction are beyond the will of an individual.

to live in a particular generation is to embody its contradictions

sometimes new material conditions are needed for the dichotomies to be shattered. we are, after all, historical beings. we are shaped by our times…

does this make sense, am i being too abstract

to live with the times is to not be dragged down by the dichotomies of the previous generation, but to shape new questions, carve out new dilemmas that are not constrained by yesterday’s vision.

aug 8th. singapore

am home today, ready to start with my oral history project of my folks. this is my 6th day home. detroit feels distant yet still very vivid. i am thinking about the people there and how my schedule feels (radically) different. i miss the interesting characters that i have gotten to know: valentino, djana, vince, alonzo, etc. i wonder how they are all doing. so for once my yugoslavian experience has come in useful! i am the one chinese yugoslavian that they know. so much of the midwest i remember with fond memories. so hard to leave d-town. so hard to leave the city where Grace Lee Boggs, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Mike Ermler, all struggled so hard to build. my memory of Detroit is that it is the symbol of struggle, of struggle with its moments of glory and then also with its setbacks, failures and dreams that were fought for but cannot be realized. I plunged into Detroit and Hamtramck, all ready to adapt, all ready to feel at home after being so alienated within the ivory towers of Brown. happy to find myself a new home, a new community. And for a moment I found it and enjoyed it immensely and for a moment believed that it could be my reality. Believed that I could really jump ship, leave behind my history and enter into this new identity that this new old city has created for me. For a moment I was not who I was but I could be anyone I wanted to be, a new identity for me to play with — a Chinese immigrant, a “Yugoslavian,” a Detroiter, an Asian American, a waitress…no more links to Singapore, to Malaysia, no more identity politics of Brown, no more academic walls…I was building a new Me and I didnt know what I didnt know about myself, my new self. I was given a new name in the Zen Center. I became Ho Jin, boundless truth, a call for me to abandon my old identity, for renewal, rejuvenation, re-creation. A abandonment of my pride, but then also, of my history.

How can this be so exhilarating and yet so irresponsible at the same time?

Spending time w Mamos and the folks from the group brought me back to my reality. There is reality, I have relationships and commitments. I have a home or many homes that I am part of. I hung out with Gordo, Smitha, Giselle and Sharon, memories of days past at Brown. I am a continuation of who I was and I cannot break myself from this thread. Could I imagine Alonzo in Singapore? Could I imagine Papa and Mama in Detroit?

When is a jump-start into a new reality a rejuvenation? When is it a stroke-like paralysis, an escapism that cannot cure, cannot heal but only clots.

Maybe then reality flows in a different direction.

How many brains must I have to live this double, triple, quadruple reality..How am I one person if I can abandon my history and snap. and recreate. and then snap. and recreate…

I am overflowing with so many random thoughts. I am in need of a purge, a brain splat no less.

Sounds familiar. lakunoc.