Author: whatsoeverellen

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A year.


A year has passed since I started earning my own living.
Recently, memory of the days I spent over the former two jobs occurred to me quite a lot.
I started my first day in X Journal in November last year. As we were working on a new website and the boss was aggressive(or stupid) enough to think that it should compete Bloomberg, I showed up at 6am everyday by getting up at 5. After several hours’ machine-alike translating, the boss would shout over MSN to announce our freedom of a short breakfast break. Then I would flee to get a smoke in the stairway in that industrial building, antiquated as it would collapse at any time. A winterly beam of sunshine would cast in from the high window in the stairway, watching the smog burning out of my cigarette dispersed, and finally disappeared in it. Then I get back to the office for breakfast. My local colleague grumbled on the same thing over and over everyday, thanks to which I grew a filter system in my ears for the discharge of excessive bullshits. All I had in mind was one thing. I wondered how many of days like that still waited ahead.

Before long, I was back to S Paper and was a reporter again. To be fair, I didn’t enjoy so much being a reporter, neither did I possess the quality to make a good one. Except that a slight sense of satisfaction was indeed felt seeing my name inked in as a byline. I never raised questions on a press conference, for I never really had a question or necessary curiosity. I hardly exchange thoughts with my peers, not that I never tried, simply couldn’t fit in. Meanwhile, though, I rarely had problems getting the job done. If I got luck, I even got compliments for writing a good story sometimes, which felt so distant now. But nothing could alter the fact that life as a reporter is in its nature hectically disordered: I never cared to have a serious meal, while refreshments at conferences could just make a day. I was at my lightest. The job was in general acceptable in a friendly weather, but when the sky lost its temper, I lost my patience of faking everything was okay.
Oddly, when I think of those days, while all the details are still vividly clear, the time itself feels outrageously remote. So remote that I’m not even convinced it was me who went through it, or, I just stole someone else’s life and lived that for a while.
That’s how I come to realize one thing: in the future, I will feel the same way about the present being. The current days is doomed as a future memory with the same kind of irrelevancy. One never lives one’s true life if one doesn’t mean it.
It’s been a year since I started earning my own living. If there was anything that varied, it’s that things have been invariable with me. I still cannot spend less carefully, nor am I able to behave a bit more sophisticatedly. But I feel blessed, for beneath everything, I still sense it, the primary suffering bundled with life itself, and the one and only truth that no one can do nothing about.
There are people lost their sentiments for good.

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工作已经一年。
最近常常想起做前两份工作的日子。11月开始在X报上班，那时在做的网站还在筹备阶段，为了增加竞争性，上班时间不段被提前，每天5点起床，6点到公司，进入机器人状态猛翻译几个小时，直到老板在msn群聊框里大吼一声：we’re done guys! time for breakfast. 然后我会跑去那栋旧得感觉随时会塌掉的工业大厦的楼道里抽一根烟，冬天的阳光从楼梯间高高的窗户里照进来一束，烟的影子在那光中慢慢散开。然后回到办公室 call早餐吃，用左耳听local同事就一模一样的事情每天重复抱怨，再从右耳一字不落地过滤掉。那时候满脑子想的就是，这样的日子还要过多久。
没过多久，毫不费力地回到S报，回到了做记者的轨道中。对于做记者，谈不上喜爱，也深知自己不适合，仅仅是看到自己的名字变成印在油墨纸上的byline时 获得一些微小的满足感。在外面跑新闻的时候，我从不会举手提问，一是没有那么多问题，二是提不起足够的兴趣。也不大跟同行交流，不是没有努力过，只是总插不上话，有点格格不入的样子。不过写稿子交差倒是从来不成问题，不时听到编辑顺口表扬一句还能乐个半天，现在想起来却都已经恍如隔世。生活毫无规律可言， 甚至吃不上一顿完整像样的正餐，好在靠着各种招待会的refreshment也基本可以果腹。天气好还算过得去，要是不巧赶上降温、刮台风、下大暴雨的日子，就苦逼得不免自怜，感到自己像个烈士。
想起这些实在平常，奇怪的是，当所有的细节都还历历在目，那样的经历却像已经万分遥远，远得我甚至不觉得经历过的是我自己，倒像是默默过了一段本该属于别人的人生。
我突然明白，若干年后，想起现在在F台工作的日子，也会是一模一样的感受。这会是另一段想起来就像是与我无关的记忆。谋生的方式有很多种，但如果不是诚实地对其产生兴趣，就永远不像是在为自己而活。

工作已经一年。如果说我有什么变化，那就是我毫无变化。花起钱来并没有宽裕一点，为人处世也没有世故更多。我感到幸运，因为我还能感到在这一切表象之下，生命原始的痛苦，和让人束手无策的绝对真实。我知道有人已经再也感觉不到。

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Page Flipper.

 

 
 
These days I’ve been quite upset searching for an apartment yet making not a bit of progress. When all I want is merely an affordable and not-that-unbearable place to live in but it seems so dim, the realization that I have been, am being and will always be an externality in this city simply shouts itself out. And I’m more than reluctant to plea for help, and I don’t wanna give in an inch, and I hate myself for being so annoyingly stubborn.
 
Still, I have very strong incentive to get the hell through this painful process, that being, the eagerness to arrive at the next episode of life. I suppose moving (and moving in together) should fall into the definition of “a new episode of life,” however an uneasy one it may be. It could be I expect so much from the future, it could also be I’m just fed up with the present, it could actually be both. But why bother digging into the details, when life will find a way to force itself forward after all. 
 
What really concerns me is, can flipping over pages after pages of life be the solution of life itself? I understand vaguely but well enough that it doesn’t really work this way, I just can’t help wanting so much to paging into the next chapter of life while leaving this one behind. Technically speaking, it’s not the content, but the route/direction of life that I actually do give a damn about. Let tomorrow land safe, let yesterday never reoccur. As to today, well, as long as I still survive, let it just be what it ought to be. Here we get to it again: life is elsewhere. It sounds hopelessly sweet, but else? where? 
 
 
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Post-Room in Rome.



I randomly decided to watch this movie today, solely to kill my afternoon time at first, and felt terribly blessed for how this random decision has made my day unexpectedly.
It reminds me of how I have fallen in love every time, with absolute foolishness and blindness, believing love is what conquers all.
It also reminds me of several very close friends of mine, who share the similar nature with me, however differently our stories finally led us to.
Days ago I belatedly found out a facebook page of a friend, which she only shows to the the closest ones and reveals her saddest affections deep down, pieces of her broken heart. I happened to know most of what she has gone through. And above all, she puts:” I’m always in love.”
Maybe love IS really what conquers all. But we just easily confused passion, lust, wild urges, an instant rush of blood into the head, or whatever feels so intense that we thought it has to be love, with what love truly is. It’s probably the misunderstanding but love itself that hurts us. Strictly, I’d rather believe that way.
Loving a stranger is probably the most fatal thing on earth, and achingly beautiful.
But what really touches me about this movie is it perfectly shows that, while we should have guts to fall in “love” regardless of all (for this part we’ve done good enough), we ought to also have the true grit to let go.
This is the only way we get stronger.






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Two scenes




I’ve witnessed (well, one ear-dropped) two scenes today, both allowed me a slight glimpse of marriage – a thing everyone has been so obsessed with and so desperate to put themselves into.

Scene one happened on my way to work, while I was smoking waiting for the company shuttle.
A woman, with a baby attached to the front of her, was talking on phone with a sarcastic mean tone. It took merely 10 seconds for me (or any stranger around her in that circumstance) to figure out who exactly was she yelling at. It was her husband’s mistress, or I should say, in a way more familiar to all of us, the third one in a marriage, the little bitch.
From the conversation I learned that the mistress has also a child that belongs to the unnamed husband, which makes the whole story seem a bit cruel to me as the woman beside me is carrying a baby, which is still just an infant.
From the conversation I also learned that the woman has not even a slight accusation against her husband, who has slept with another one with a child born, but sole rage at the mistress she was talking to.
From the conversation, to be accurate it was her disorganized and foulmouthed group of broken words, I understood her several key points: 1, You like sleeping with my husband, fine with me. 2, You wanna raise his child, fine with me. 3. I would let you pass should you just give back all the stuff and money belongs to my husband.

When my curiosity was fulfilled, I crushed out my cigarette and headed right to the awaiting bus, not because I ran out of time, but I truly felt sad for the idiotic woman and her idiotic marriage.
Scene two was much less dramastic, and happened on my way back from work, on the company shuttle.
A male anchor who sat behind me was chit-chatting with a female colleague about his just-happened wedding. They were talking about how costly a wedding could possibly be, and how much effort was demanded during the preparation of it.
“My wife and I got registered in the end of 2009, and threw the wedding after almost one year,” he said.
“Why on earth was that for?” she asked.
“Well, um…we think after all we’d better follow the ordinary routine. And in an ordinary routine, a wedding is a must,” he sighed.
Well no, I’m not gonna comment anything on the subject, for any word against marriage would be easily deemed as cynical or attributed to some queer reason like “you’re too young to get to it.”
I also believe and tend to believe there must be some people happily married in the world, rare in my knowledge though.
What bemuses me a bit is, while I see people able to embrace marriage as unconditionally as they do, I seldom see the tolerance of a same level be granted to those who are not a fan of it.
That is gravely bizarre. 

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A closure, a start?


So after the two days scratching my head making a critical decision, I realized I’m not even close to fulfilling one of my new year resolutions – be fearless. 


Actually, I have deep fears in my heart. Some of them have been there for quite a long time. For all these years, I’m dealing with them by pretending they don’t exist, while for this time, the very first time that I find pretentious ignorance doesn’t really work. 

The one thing you should know, darling, is feigned courage doesn’t make you a conqueror.

It sounds lame, I know. But I guess admitting the fear itself without fearing is also necessary. Since I’m already here – pretty far away from the person I’d wished to be, I just have to be honest with that. “Never fool the person in the mirror,” I surely believe this is the right thing to do and I hope I’ve done it correctly.



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做一个坚定的Pessimist。


现在我或许是不该看调调低沉的书的.但这两天还是在一切可以无所事事的间隙里重看了一遍《悲观主义的花朵》.原以为本书可以与自己现在的状态起到一点呼应,却发现是大大地估计错误了.
绝望,浓烈,不可自拔的爱——我没有.真的没有.
我有的只是一个个轻佻,虚荣,犯贱,自甘堕落的困境.
而我相信它们都是事出有因的,并且竟真的一点一点细致地回到自己过去的人生轨迹中去寻根究底.偶尔对别人说起,但并不要求对方会相信或理解.我已经不是小女孩了,不能再依赖没有道理的”原谅”.
“Maybe it’s finally time to deal with the real self of mine,”每天都对自己这么说着,因为总得想办法让自处变得简单些.
—————————
虽然每天已经大部分时间都是独自一人的,但我还是嫌独处的时间不够.远远不够.
一无所有的日子里,所有的欲望的确只剩下一个人抱膝坐着.
而日子却不会理会你这卑微的愿望,依旧自顾自混乱地飞奔着.
几年前无意中学到的一点物理常识总是提醒着我:任何状态的熵永远在不可逆地增加着.亦即这个世界永远在不可逆地日益混乱着.如果不相信一个万能的上帝,尊重科学便是我唯一的出路了吧.
我想让日子规整一点,简单一点,不那么混乱一点,无异于做梦.
何况我对生活上一次还可以用”简单”来形容的那个截屏已经毫无印象.
—————————
小时候很期待将来,是相信将来总会比当下好;小时候也会害怕将来,是害怕它没有自己想象的好.
现在我还是期待将来,是奢望将来不至于像现在这么糟;现在我已不再害怕将来,因为我知道它总会结束.
—————————
我想没有人知道我在说什么,这就对了.









It might be inappropriate for me to read any grey-styled book for now. Still, I finished rereading the book in all my possible spare time these days. And it turns out I was totally wrong by expecting it could answer some of my current confusions.
No. I definitely have no such kind of desperate, wild and powerless affection. What I got is just a dozen of frivolous and depraved dilemmas.
Interestingly, while I believe I must be caught in for some reasons, I did spend some patience to trace back the path I’ve been through for an attribution of the situation. And I even mentioned to some of my friends pretending thoughtlessly. It all became possible as I didn’t expect any understanding or acceptance. I’m just too old to depend on others’ forgiveness any more.
“Maybe it’s finally time to deal with the real self of mine,” I told myself everyday as something has to be done to make it easier staying with myself.
While I am spending most of time by myself everyday, it’s still far from what I need. In days like this that one truly have nothing to lose, all her desire has shrank to sitting there holding her own knees.
But this is not how it works, as life still rushes forward in a disordered way.
According to some physics that I accidentally picked up years ago, entropy is always increasing in our world. That means, as long as a mess exists, irreversibly, getting bigger and bigger is the only way it goes. I suppose believing in science is the one and only choice left with me as I have no god in my heart.
Hence, I would just be daydreaming while I hope everything can turn to be simple again. Not to mention I can’t actually recall when was the last screen capture that everything was simple.
I liked to fantasize about a future when I was little, and I still expect one now. For as a pessimist, I know even if there has to be something we call it “future”, it will end after all.
I wish no one understood what I’ve been talking, coz no one should.






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Trivial matters.

 

 

Since writing has become the majority and priority of my daily life in terms of “a job”, my interest of writing something belongs to me is receding everyday.

It’s bad. Also good.

I bought a recorder, a years-awaited desire, before the inclusive interview yesterday. It’s actually a birthday present from someone close to me, though the process of getting it is in no way romantic. But like you said, let’s just be practical for now.

I was expecting the recorder can to some extent fix the blank of the forgone writing, though I know it won’t. I got no idea what I will talk about if I was talking to no one, not even myself, but a digital device. And as my concerns kept emerging, I realized something funny.

Maybe, I say maybe — Whilst I’m bothering with all these different manners to record what seems matter, I am just trying to numb myself and bury a fact, that nothing matters enough to be recorded.

But even to me it sounds too relentless. So screw it.

We’re all trivial living creatures and we’ve been happy with that for ages.

 

 

自从”写字”以工作的方式侵略式地主导了我的日常生活,对于写点什么这件事,我的兴趣已逐日递减.

这或许很糟糕,却也未尝不是一件好事.

赶在昨天的专访前买了一支录音笔.我已经记不得自己是从什么年纪开始幻想拥有一支录音笔了,但对于可有可无之 物的欲念,总是一耽搁就许多年.而这只录音笔,实际上也是一份来自对我很重要的人的生日礼物.虽然到手的过程毫无礼物的情趣可言,但就像你说的,混社会, 还是实用点比较好.

我曾经期待录音笔可以填补来不及写下或无法写下的那部分空白,尽管这显然不切实际.我甚至根本无法想象自己对着一只录音笔会说些什么,当我知道自己并不是在说给包括自己的任何人听.而在这层出不穷的顾虑之中,我发现一件有意思的事.

会不会,我只是说假如,我费尽力气地用各种途径去尝试记录下一切看起来重要的片段,仅仅是为了麻痹自己去遗忘一个事实:其实没有任何一种生活了不起得需要被记下.

悲观如我,这个猜想也的确是在太冷酷了.

我决定不要再去想它,而专心地记录各种无谓的细节.

毕竟,在某一个足够强大的目光下,我们必定都只是微不足道的生物,况且这微不足道的情景也已经延续了天知道有多久.

 

 

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SATC 2.

 

It’s kinda ironic to watch the movie of SATC2 alone after I just got stood up by one of my best girlfriends. Thank goodness the unpleasure didn’t ruin the movie. Actually I knew I would love it before I watched. As it’s just impossible for me to keep the minimal amount of rationality when it comes to the subject of SATC. So this is not a movie review, just some quick notes.

There’re several fragments that really touched me:

1. Vowing moment in the Gay wedding. When Anthony said to Stanley:” It was not love at the first sight, (everyone laughed) but it does turn out to be love……You’re the first person to take me as who I actually am,” he became unable to proceed because of the tears in eyes, and I had tears in mine too. (blush)

2. Charlotte and Miranda’s drinking talking in the suite’s bar. The two mothers finally got some moments to speak up things they dare not to even admit otherwise. The talking thing can be really burdensome from time to time, at moments like this, having someone to “Sip!” us is actually a bliss. And Miranda is definitely the perfect “Sip!” friend.

3. “Tonight’s just for girls, but I’m available tomorrow alllll day and night,” said Samantha, after she successfully hooked a target up. This can’t be the first time that I heard it from S, just as heart-warming as the first time. Everyone has an internal ranking system, that’s how we choose date A over date B, turn down date C to meet up date D. And for Samantha, despite of her obsession with sex, girls always outrank everything else. To some extent, that’s just what SATC is all about.

 

As to Carrie, except for the fashion icon, she always stands for all kinds of mistakes we could possibly make and all types of stupidity we could possibly be born with. She is the person that you look into the mirror everyday. The only difference is she always gets to have a happy ending and you don’t. (Welcome to the real world.)

Not exactly relevant here, but if I have to rank them, I would say Miranda is my fav. This woman is beyond words.

Lucky for me, I got to meet up another best girlfriend after the movie. And the HagenDaz she bought me made my day.

 

 
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Live as you’re dead.

 

 

I never used to think living like a dead person would be my wish someday.

Since my childhood, I’ve thought about being a lawyer, a singer, a diplomat, a writer, a news anchor, a columnist, a coffee shop owner, a book store clerk, a boutique salesgirl……all these fancies based on one common assumption, that life is a positive thing and I want to live the most out of it. Unfortunately I have thousands of doubts about that now. It’s not in a bad way, you should now.

I try to reflect on myself for some moments everyday, but the pure loneliness makes me unable to clear my thoughts every time. When people start to pity him/herself, all of his/her judgments become unjustifiable. Hence I realize that I need to get rid of the self-pity thing before any thoughts come up. It’s difficult and almost impossible, but worth a try.

Work is tiring, actually not bad. I can’t say it’s something I’m passionate with, coz all the passions about things you haven’t really experienced is just a lie you told yourself repeatedly. It’s a bubble that can break at any moment, like the property market now. And getting back to the topic, being a journalist is never my deemed terminal, but an experience that I think would be favorable to what I really want. (What I really want is another question here.) Like when you’re on the way to somewhere, stop at some critical points will make the journey more meaningful and the destination more enjoyable. But with all the discretion to choose the path, and a terrible decision maker as I am, I really don’t know whether I’m right about mine. Not to mention what the “destination”, or “discretion”, really means. Just by giving them a second thought I get myself totally messed up.

That leads to the start of this post, when I tried to get something out of all these inconclusive pieces, maybe live like a dead person isn’t that bad as it sounds. To even sound crazier, maybe I am living like a dead person, and everyone else is too. We all crave for liveliness and we all have had that. It certainly tastes sweet. But look at everything into the essence, you see a black hole and you feel bored. Most terribly yet quite fairly, the more you want to squeeze out of the life which you were given unexpectedly, the faster it’s eating back at you.

Some like to pitch life as an enemy to battle with, which sounds too serious to me. But if it has to be, taking it easy is probably the only way to win. And in the battle of mine, I know I don’t have to win, I always can pretend to be dead, for a while or for long. That doesn’t really matter.

 

 

我从来没有想到“像死了一样活着”有一天竟会成为一种期待.

小的时候大人总是会引导我们对于未来的幻想.我爷爷曾说:”希望你成为一个外交家.”于是我想过成为一个外交家.后来又听大人说:律师是个赚钱的行 业.并且小时候的价值观里律师绝对是劫富济贫的角色,于是我又开始盘算着成为律师.而再后来的作家,出道或仅仅是酒吧歌手,摄影师,新闻主播,专栏撰稿 人,咖啡馆老板娘,书店小妹,名牌服装店店员…所有这一切对于职业的幻想,无论贫贱富贵,其实都是建立在一个共同的假设上,即生活是令人期待的,而我 必须让自己尽可能地从中体验些什么.而渐渐地我对这个假设产生了动摇.倘若这种动摇能使我更接近真实,那么这其实并不是一件坏事.

我试图每天都对自己的生活进行一定程度的思考,但一种带来窒息感的孤独却让理性思考成为困难.当一个人开始自怜自已,这时候所催生的所有思想都变得 失去参考价值了.因此我知道如果想要试图将一些事情弄明白,就必须先彻底摆脱这些无谓的自怜.这很难,简直不可能,但值得一试.

工作有压榨之嫌,而除了投入和产出的严重不成比例以外,我并不感到糟糕.但如果要做到绝对诚实,我也无法再大言不惭地说这是我的激情所在,因为假如 还没有体验个透就言说激情,那么激情不过是一个不断对自己重复的谎言罢了.就像现在的房地产市场一样,泡沫总是一碰即碎的.更何况做一个新闻记者从来不是 我笃定的终点,我只是一直相信记者是更接近真相的人群,而真相对我所真正希冀的总是有好处的.(我真正希冀的是什么,这又是另一个棘手的问题了.)当一个 人走在一段遥远的路途上,或许是需要在途中去拜访一些别的景色的.那些景色会让旅程更成熟,也会让目的地更令人欢愉.问题的关键是,当我被赋予对这条路径 的自作主张的权利时,我开始慌张,担心自己走了错的路,看到了不对头的风景.我向来是一个糟糕的决策者.更不用说“目的地”或“自由选择”这些字眼究竟意 味着什么,稍加探究,已毫无头绪.

于是又回到了文章的开头.当我试图从这些零碎的线头里强行发现些什么的时候,我发现,或许像死了一样活着并不像它听起来那么可怕.更夸张一点,或许 我正在像死了一样活着,或许所有人都正在像死了一样活着.我们渴望生命的鲜活,也都曾拥有过那些激烈快乐着的时刻.那样的过去必然是难以忘怀的.而当你看 向所有事物的最深处,那本质上的虚无看起来就像一个黑洞,你感到无聊透了.最可怕的是,当你越是想要从生命中榨取尽可能多的快乐,生命往往也正加速吞噬着 你.这其实是个公平的交易.

有人喜欢把生命渲染成一个需要去与之战斗的对立的存在,这种比喻对我来说太严肃了.如果这场战争势在必行,或许别把它当真才是唯一的胜算.而在我的私人战争里,胜利不是一件必需品.我知道我永远可以选择像死了一样活着,一会儿,或一辈子.时间其实并不重要.

 

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An unexpected overnight.

 

 

I was in the middle of a movie when the messenger box popped out. The time was around two to three in the midnight, I can’t remember exactly. It was Jingjing, who asked me whether I could help her with a survey of her final project.

It later became a hybrid of a nice conversation with her and the rest of the movie. After everything, it was already five a.m. When I was about to sleep after shutting down the machine, the image outside somehow amazed me: the color of the sky has quietly whitened.

Unknown birds were tweeting.

This must be the gentlest overnight I’ve ever made, yet it doesn’t affect the innocence of a dawn.

It may be the same daybreak that one encounters in consciousness or after waking up from a sound sleep. Just two utterly different realizations.

Without any guiltiness I immersed myself in the euphoria by taking photos aimlessly with my dusted Canon. I realized it was foolish when I was doing all these. It was also the foolishness that further intensified my euphoria.

Now I’m losing idea about whether or not to take a poor-quality nap before the breakfast at 10:30.

 

两三点的时候，我正在看一部电影。一个msn对话框突然跳出来，是处女座的jingjing叫我帮她做一个survey.

于是就在做survey,间歇地和她聊天，间歇地看完下半部电影中，到了5点。关了电脑。正要关灯睡去，发现窗外已经泛了白。不知怎的，那画面突然惊艳了我。

从来没有通过这么轻松的宵。但这并不妨碍黎明的无邪。

在清醒中遇见的清晨，和从沉睡中醒来看到的清晨，是太不相同的。