Banana Yoshimoto is the sh*t

IT’S BETTER NOT TO FORGIVE CERTAIN THINGS.

Banana and I have many questions in common, the only difference being that she is closer to the answers than I am. Then again, I do not think she’s going to beat me to the finish line any time soon.

I did not like Dreaming of kimchee. For me, that was the least powerful compared to the rest It has its element of magic. Banana has done justice to this character.  But the topic stresses me out and not in a stressful way, in an unnecessary way.

We have had similar thoughts, and what I find really uncanny is our sense of analogies and issues.

I have this thought. That life is an airport with very bad flight timings/service. The planes come in and go as they please.

Anyhow, for those few hours at the T3 you can choose how you want to while away your time before departure.

Death is the objective.

Life is a pastime, rather how we choose to pass our time before death.

(Which is why bucket lists exist)

Banana uses the analogy of us being on this train (life) (newlywed), depending on how long we choose to stretch the travel defines the lengths of 1) us moving away from safety, of what we consider a “good train ride” , or “the necessary train ride” 2) reaching for the unknown.

Haha. The unknown is the answer.

Secondly she uses, the words hobbies. 

We invest our time, in activities that end up defining us as people and ourselves. I am but a bunch of different hobbies put together.

There are some crazy feelings towards mothers and experiences that haunt me. Banana is scary.

1)            Lizard: The idea of a mother being strong. The idea of a mother falling. The idea of a daughter not being able to say that. Some develop psychosomatic blindness. I wasn’t so lucky/unlucky.

2)            A strange tale from down by the river : Abandonment . My mother abandoned me on the road when she had a fight with my father as an infant. However. She lies about it. I would rather her tell me about what she went through than lie about it. Why must mothers lie about the past? Do they know that we look up to them?

Also, I think I need to read her book again. Because, I fucking scared I missed something.

Also, in my poem,I say I was born in a bright tunnel.

Banana says she feels is we are not born with hope, rather it comes to us. As a transforming force.

experiment

I had to and so
I joined this game

and everyone seemed to play it right.

Except I didn't know the game

and everyone refused to tell me the rules

Except one-

DON'T TELL THE NEXT PLAYER HOW TO PLAY

Turns out,

if you play a game long enough, you somehow play like everyone else.

You run where everyone runs ,

you escape whoever everyone escapes.

Still, even if the next player is my child,

I shouldn't tell him.

But What If

I was still learning the game

And this new player popped up.

What'd happen if I taught him whatever I knew, however inconsistent with the game?

or What'd happen if I hadn't taught him and he followed me anyway?

hope in a calamity

Everyone butchers the internet.

And everyone does so rightly with its shortcomings:

Sick fetishes, pornography, gossip, consumerism, greed, obsessions, uproductivity.

And as you have it, Google has answers for all kinds of questions including , "I'm afraid of sex" ,"A fox bit me in my dream" , and "How to make an impact flash bomb in 5 minutes"(all questions tried and tested today, thank you very much).

Generations prior to the googleAge will persecute technology on the ( albeit very justified) pretext that it is unnatural; it turns you into a recluse; your life revolves around a machine (in this scenario, mine being my lappy). And most often than not, it becomes like a drug, once you sit, you're glued. For hours on end. and time losing its essence. And by the end of say 6 hours, you'd be left wondering where those 6 important hours of possible assignments or chores getting finished went...

...Which is precisely why i've never really been a "techperson". Well, not since the past five years. Ofcourse, there is the occasional mail check, or Facebook update, but i've personally found the internet to be a load rather than a boon. It alienates you from your friends when you get stuck to episodes on TVduck, or constantly walling people on Facebook, and frankly, it desensitizes you just a wheebit- wait, that's media in general, an entirely different topic of discussion for another day perhaps.

Yes. Back to the internet. So why suddenly I talk of this?

Well, honestly it's my vacation week, and i have reconnected with the internet and my cobwebbed blog accounts. And while, yes, I'm still trying to figure out Twitter (yes, technologically challenged me :) ), it struck me..

Now i may not completely understand twitter, afterall it's only been a day, but I think it's an ingenious way for people , and all kinds of people mind you, to connect on a very safe and equal plane. And this platform, gives people and free and equal chance to debate ideate, share, follow (yes! that's the word they use!) and perhaps form this highly digitalized and BBM-oriented internet-with flying chips in a vortex- world, acquaintances.

And twitter is not like your normal social networking sites. You can follow practically anyone, your favourite author, activist, artists, designers, musicians. Woah. Yes, that's what i thought. Woah. And yes, it somehow fulfills your stalker tendencies. but when you look at it closely, you'll find that those whom you intended to stalk, are actually boring. and other people, random people or activists,s hare the same thoughts about several socio-political-cultural-ecological-philosophical-crapbag- oh good you're still reading this :)

issues.

i felt good thinking that there was finally some plane on which, we as human beings, could connect about what really matters to us. And twitter is somewhat more a personal space.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO EPIPHANY 2.

In reference to the tried and tested ridiculous questions, it got me thinking three things : a) these people don't have lives , b) wait, i'm typing this. c) wow, they actually wrote back to these people, with genuine answers.

So spyware, adware, hackers, and pedophiles aside, the internet can be a place where you can find nice people who are willing to give you advice or help in whatever keyboard-limited way.

And they bothered to reply to the most absurd questions you asked on the internet probably when you couldn't share this with someone in real life. Google is your shrink (wow :|) and Twitter is your.. well i'm still finding out what twitter's about.

Till then,... aha. wasted 1 hour already. :)