late crazy thoughts (disturbing)

tonight I am up late because of some caffeine I drank and too much food I ate (which made me upchuck). They have these plastic boxes of food here in japan that contain a whole lotta cold food inside. Tonight I was administered the biggest one I had ever seen for a "new year's party." Eating all of it was a very bad idea and a very bad idea that I did not understand to be so at the time. Ugh.

so I probably shouldn't go on too many rants as my mind has been affected by my stomach and given me this queezy, not-so-good feeling to the rest of my entire body. Yummy eh?

But I just came to this idea that although urban life is practical and efficient, it is sometimes also sterile and lifeless. And at its most intense, i.e. Manhattan, Delhi, Beijing, and many other cities (most of which I have never been to...) it can be overwhelming, suffocating, or pacifying/numbing (from over-stimulation). I think of the trend in the great minds of Europe who in my opinion became increasingly depressed and pessimistic as the continent modernized. But then there is the happy medium, the perfect city: Portland comes to mind, San Diego is much closer to it than Los Angeles. But then there is the human fascination with artifice that is most elegently (and ridiculously) portrayed in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey when the apes go ape over this black monolith that is so perfectly smooth, sharp, and straight-edged. This fascination spreads out to things as strange as garbage heaps. Even I have been impressed with the mere resemblance of a collection of artificial debris (ie trash) as if it were a sculpture, or at least something to photograph.

Then there is Vancouver, the hybrid city. The city surrounded by natural beauty, with trees down its every lane, or so it could sometimes seem. And Seattle. The Pacific Northwest did wonders on the world, let's face it. Despite its love for suburbia.

In the country things are different, or are they? I must say that the city and its instruments pervade peoples' lives here just as much as they do in the city. Technology works that way. It is ubiquitous. And with it the infantilzation of the masses. The dreams that rush through every well crafted petroleum and metal based, circuitry filled item, that, like a coffin, hides its truth inside. And yet I too cannot leave these items without a certain amount of remorse, even intellectually backed remorse (whatever that means).

And what of the coffins of our society? What does it do to a human to never really confront death until one dies oneself? Human frailty, shortness of life, the same idea of mortality that everyone always speaks of but never truly realizes. And that's partly why I am so afraid to venture forth into a country that does not shield its people from death, a country where the sadnesses, frailties, and injustices of life are spilled out in front of you like a cadaver on a dissection table. Did I scare you? Maybe not, but I am not feeling any less queezy. I should perhaps change the subject now.

it's 1:28am and my body just tried to get rid of the rest in its system that it didn't approve of and was perhaps pretty successful in doing so. This is the kind of writing I could only do on an upset stomach, or something of that nature. Still I feel it worthy of giving to you, even if it is not pretty. Nor is much of humanity pretty, whether we allow ourselves to see it or not (it usually goes down some drain or into a box so as to be sure we don't see, smell, hear, or touch it). Perhaps it is better to almost entirely shield ourselves from the things that are really not pretty if are lucky enough to be able to, but I'll leave that to question you.