It was 4 30 in the morning. Hong Kong being the city that never sleeps, there were buses running all over and cabs’ ubiquitous presence (most were already taken) was easily felt but the convenient and much appreciated MTR had stopped running. Some of my fellow companions were exhausted – so chose to embark on finding a vacant cab. Others found buses that would drop them off at exactly where they lived, thus leaving a handful of us who were either too cheap to take a cab, depended on the services of the MTR, and/or could not find a bus that would drop us off in the near vicinity of our homes stranded. We vacillated between cabbing, taking a bus to some other place hoping that there’ll be some way home, buying cards to play somewhere, and a million other options as young people often do. 

Somehow, after the 45 minutes worth of mindless wandering back and worth not quite sure what to do, our group of stranded hipsters began meandering from Wan Chai (where the Irish pub was at) towards Admiralty. I don’t remember making a collective decision to do such a thing, we just started walking that way and didn’t stop. It was only well into this endeavor that I blurted out, “hey, let’s walk to Admiralty to kill time.”  By the time I said this it was pretty obvious we were doing this already. I can say such profound things sometimes. 

The residue from from being in the overcrowded pub was still caked on our skin, but the morning air was fresh and soothing, alien to Hong Kong dwellers, as we, as a band of brothers and sisters having absolutely nothing to do, marched on. We passed by old folks doing tai chi in the most random places – under massive office buildings, in unknown parks far away from residential areas – all the while feeling the breeze from the harbor right next to us, hearing the crashing of water to concrete and the slapping of water to water as the concrete rejects the entrance of the water.

About two thirds into the walk, we became hungry – the munchies from the beers and whatever drinks we had and all the walking. It became a Harold and Kumar moment, we were desprate to get to a twenty four hour Mcdonalds. When we found a Mcdonalds, we were halted by three highways between us and our desired destination. We contemplated on using our J-walking skills to pass the sparse highways. But as if on cue, various cars sped past us going to God knows where in a matter of minutes. We walked in all directions, desperate for some footbridge that would take us to the promised land. We finally found one after walking fifteen minutes away from our original position and had to walk another forever minutes back to the Mcdonalds after walking over the three highways.

It’s about six something. It’s early, a thursday morning – WHY THE HELL ARE THERE PEOPLE PLAYING CARDS?? Hong Kong never sleeps and loves playing cards apparently. I don’t think any of us have ever felt so accomplished by getting to a Mcdonalds. The food tasted better than ever and our conversations were tired but excited but unknown but I don’t remember. I think we touched base on watching Britains Got Talent on Youtube, how good we feel about being at Mcdonalds, and more – I think.

So after all this, what does it all mean? Do I come out a better person? An inspired artist ready to shake the foundations of the world? Kiss the next woman I see? I don’t know what it means – maybe the event will be a good metaphor for future use, but all I know now is that the event firmly establishes my youth – in whatever definition you want to define youth with. The experience felt ethereal, surreal, unreal. Our spirits were willing but our flesh was weak. The brilliant feeling of numbness from wearyness, fighting off sleep and dreaming. The reality somewhat becomes a dream, this are not as focused – vision, thoughts, feelings. So this is youth, we can still stay up all night doing nothing and not feel any sort of consequence except maybe sleep in til 6 pm the next day and mess up my sleeping cycle for a few days.

Oh, morning glory, what’s your story?

Everything is on fire.

The folk song is as its name suggests – for the folk, the common man, the hustler,  your everyday Bob (unless you are Bob Dylan or Bob the Builder, in which case you are not very common). It is an organic entity like the organic vegetables at the supermarket, but without the smugness organic vegetables are often associated with. It is from the ground and from it springs to life. It touches the soul, the mind , the body in a U2-arena-rock-moment way, but with way less volume and much more substance – most of the time. It is the song nature would produce if the mountains had lungs, the trees had mouths, the rivers had drum sticks, if the blades of grass had hands, the stones had tapping shoes. 

Sitting on a rambling tour bus bustling through the landscapes that Israel has to offer and listening to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, I cannot help but think about how integral the folk song is to bringing the landscape to places where such beauty is lacking and how integral the landscape is to the folk song. one can see the musici n the the view. it sing to you, whispering little secrets of love, life m losing. Hip Hop is birthed from the city, pop from the minds of business executives, punk from punks, and folk from the fields, them mountain peaks, the beauty. 

No matter how high off the ground you go, people ultimately feel safer when near the ground. And it is the fact that the folk is song is of the ground that folk music is as its names suggests the representative of the people. Why is it that people love acoustic versions and performance of songs originally not of acoustic origins – its a step closer to the heart of the folk song. The folk song is concrete, stable, and trustworthy. It is your friend, it is your conscience, it is your music. 

But amidst all my insecurities and confrontation with my academic disabilities, I find solace in the acceptance letters from the colleges gracious enough to take a layman like me. What pure joy. I just spent that latter half hour watching online virtual tours of the Hamilton campus. It makes me smile and intensely desire to crawl out of my high school cocoon and emerge a college student as beautiful and symmetrical as a butterfly. 1 and a half months, the tragedy. Someone please find the remote control and push fast forward. 

So finally I can somewhat get back to living a normal life before the real exams come sweeping over me and knocking me down. What is there to do? Well, first and foremost, I must find the words that will allow me to pass the love that I feel inside to my beloved. It’s her birthday. And with my world spinning at approximately the speed of soundlight and the fact that she is in a foreign country where people text more than they speak yet still make more noise than Mastodon, I was unable to get together a plan to make her know that she’s that refreshing morning air, beauty compact in beauty; the subject of which every love song is singing to, yearning to have her attention. 

Second of all? Well there’s no real plan after that. I can already feel the anxiety consuming me as the real APs inch closer minute by minute. Oh God have mercy. Must get working.

The future hangs over our heads

and it moves with each current event 

Until it all falls around like a cold steady rain

Just stay in when it’s looking this way 

Aside from being a big fan of Bright Eyes, I, who likes to consider myself as a writer and a quasi-serious singer/song writer, am also fascinated by the future. Maybe it’s because I’m at a stage in my life in which I’m transitioning into something new and unknown, but for the last two years I’ve been obsessed with exploring the idea of our inability to fully grasp what’s to come and the necessity at a certain point to just plunge into what we don’t know. 

I feel like however much we like to think that there are tangible destinations in life, it’s more or less an illusion. 

On friday, the AP art class of my school had an art show and one of the artist’s concentration was “Chasing Safety.” He wanted to explore the idea of how people are constantly looking for permanent safety, but constantly fall short – at least that’s how I interpreted it. Through his art, he exemplified people’s constant search of safety in money, weapons, medical equipment, and few other things that I can’t quite remember. But just like how Oberst sang of the future hanging over our heads. Safety seems like be something we are all well aware of, yet unable to fully grasp and because of it, it makes us feel the need to be cowardly rather than audaciously fighting head on into the storm.

Another example that shows elusive destinations we all seem to make solid and factual is a quote of Maya Angelo I came across today. She talked about how she is constantly trying to be a Christian and is surprised when people are able to proclaim that they are a Christian – as if they’ve made it. I guess what Angelo was getting at is that somehow it has been embedded into our minds that after certain rituals we immediately become Christ followers. Yes, if we repent, we can become children of God. Yet, after we become children of God, we cannot just sit idle and wait til kingdom come. It’s almost war-like in the way we need to discipline ourselves to be Christ-like and be followers of Him. Because like in any epic odyssey, there’s a glorious rise and and always, always a tragic fall. 

I guess, what’s been swirling in my mind is that nothing in life becomes smooth sailing, auto-pilot after we are able reach some sort plateau - we are constantly under attack in maintaining our identity, our belief, our status and whatever else it may be – money, love, etc. But I guess, that’s life – to be constantly in motion, to always have some sort of anxiety/fear may it be minor or major – and I think it’s because of this aspect of life that’s make so many fear of losing it – giving it value. It’s the idea that numerous literature has touched upon – that it’s the journey that’s endearing – it induces growth, excitement, genuine emotions, etc – and can often make the destination become irrelevant. 

I want to feel excited – about escaping highschool, entering college, becoming an adult, and everything else I should be excited about – but the residue of homework left in the second semester is a killjoy. A good old thick and hackneyed quilt that is muffling my Hallelujah chorus.

Though I must say, to go through highschool without the pressure of feeling like the omnipresent eyes of college constantly watching is great. Just as we enter the world as a child and, if God willing, we grow old and often become a child again, in highschool I entered school with plenty of naptimes,Ｉhave finally gone the full circle and have come back with naptimes in studyhalls. Snoring on the couch next to the photocopier out of which my calc teacher is printing out our class’s exams – I think this vignette speaks a lot for my relationships with my classes at the moment.

In a split second decision, I would’ve, hands down, said Autotune is a negative entity to music. I mean, isn’t it cheating? And being mainly an acoustic musician, it takes away from all the authenticity of recording and performing! But wait, from a unsupported recording songwriter as myself, Autotune saves time ergo saves money! How could I ignore that? This conundrum I found myself in, left me as confused and tangled up as the issue of downloading music and  buying music. Yes it’s bad and musicians do need cash, but it’s free and hey, I’m not making that much money! 

But if we are able to put all the ethic matters aside and look at the fundamental issue of the what does this mean to the consumer of all this music, I think it speaks a lot for our need to hear the imperfect and or at least have some sort of hint that there is, as a band in my high school called named themselves, “sweet imperfection.”  

Maybe I’m a minority when I say this, but there seems to be a sort of ethereal energy that is radiated in a live performance may it be on a recording or a concert. The likes of Bob Dylan, Ryan Adams, The Hold Steady, Conor Oberst, Rolling Stones, The Band, Bonnie Prince Billy, Antony and the Johnsons and Norah Jones – these are all highly respected musicians and songwriter who rather be ashamed of their imperfections, have embraced it and used to to their advantage in their artistic ventures (Though I’m certain there are more a like who choose not to use Autotune to perfect everything, I am only quite certain for those few). On the other hand, for those such as Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and T-Pain who have used Autotune to its extreme in order to create an artistic effect, to me, does not use it in order to get “perfection” but to emphasize on the imperfection and instead, make the imperfection entertaining and bearable.

I believe that anyone who claims to be an artist will be deeply looked down upon if he or she was to use Autotune to create “perfection.” Yet I think I’m liberal enough to say hey, for the guy who can only pay for so many hours of studio time Autotune is a big helper in getting things done in specific moments, not for whole songs, why not?

When I think of the things coming up in the tomorrows and the tomorrows of tomorrows, I see a blur. Very much like when you take a photo  from the window sill of a moving train. 

There’s no order, no straight and direct line. Everything amalgamates together and I can’t quite make anything out of it. Ultimately I know what it is. But the strain of the blurriness and the death of details tends to ware me out. 

I must admit, I am the epitome of disorganization (I would post up a photo of my room, but I fear it would be too obscene even for the internet thus risking the termination of my still adolescent blog space) so the wariness and heavy heads are indubitably largely my fault. So where does the rest of the fault come from? inconsiderate education system? rapidity of hong kong society? 

Even though what I’ve written thus far sounds as if I am having a terrible experience, my innards tells me else-wise. I cannot escape the feeling that this is it. This is what all the old people yearn for again. Feeling stuck between stations. To have a canvas of chaos. To know nothing but the unknown. We are addicted and madly in love with the mess. 

THE MESS! THE MESS! THE MESS! THE BEAUTY! THE BEAUTY! THE BEAUTY! YOUTHYOUTHYOUTH!

I don’t want to wake up early tomorrow.

True senioritis, I have found, is not the feeling of a lack of motivation, but something much worse – the knowledge that everything, the work and tests and whatever, that comes your way in the next few months is absolutely worthless and that no threat or punishment is feared – it is sinister. Who is man when he is not encapsulated by fears of consequence, when consequence is only a word he knew of? 

Senioritis feels much like purgatory. Actually, maybe it is some sort of purgatory on earth. One is stuck between the stations of his glorious or much needed to be forgotten past and the ambition filled and dreams of the future of which he grasps out clawing like a tired mountain climber desperate to reach the next plateau. It is when every condition, requirement, etc. is not a need, but a maddening obstacle preventing him from reaching his ideal goals – the “true” him that aspires to be that’s the subject of his daydreams. 

There’s a photo of Dylan resting on my window sill right in front of me. It’s him with his frizzy puff of a hairdo, long nails and squinting eyes from the rays of the sun saluting to the camera.

It feels like he’s saluting to every person who’s going through the likes of a second semester of senior year. It’s like he’s risen above the storm and purgatory is only a worry of the past. But I guess we’re all human in the end, I’m pretty sure there are moments where he has or will feel the turbulence of suspension – to feel no footing on anything – a creative idea, the plans for tomorrow, the end of a sentence. 

Just like The Mountains Goats singing it like it’s some sort of scripture:

“I am going to make it through this year, even if it kills me!”