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《一根烟的时间》

站在火车站外面点了一支烟
一个菲佣样子的女人走过来
Can I have a cigarette? I’ll pay you.
我愣了一下
从盒子里拿出一根递给她
It’s ok, you don’t need to pay me
但她坚持塞了一个两元硬币在我手里
然后点上那根烟
沉默地抽了起来
⋯⋯
我默默好奇着她的生活
和这一口烟对她意味着什么
是因为家中主人不允许抽烟吗
也可能是出门忘带了
或者仅仅是just had a really bad day that can use an emergent smoke
⋯⋯

但我很快就不再想了
抽完那根烟
各自离开
世界上有太多
这样短命的好奇
只活过一根烟的时间

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don’t break my heart.

 

我曾经是个blog上瘾的人。同时也是个看blog上瘾的人。尤其是心情低落的时候，那些带着距离感的陌生文字可以产生的疗效，甚是神奇，就像胶片机中蕴含着无法被预测的惊喜一样。可是在信息日益快餐化的如今，这样的乐趣已经几乎被谋杀。以前追着看的很多blog都停歇了，极少人有耐心再去认真地写点什么，因为极少人还有耐心去看——活着的blog越来越少。终归到底，人的本质还是逃不过attention seeking的。

我有时候在想，不知道这个世界上有多少个blog或许永远都不会再更新了。 那些blog要是知道自己的使命已经悄然终结，该多伤心。想到这里我就会对自己的blog说：放心吧，我还在。

其实心里知道，相比之下，我比它更需要这样一个傻里傻气的保证。

 

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Quotes of Margaret Atwood (to be updated)

“The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.”

“I was sand, I was snow — written on, rewritten, smoothed over.”

“There is something reassuring about the toilets. Bodily functions at least remain democratic. Everybody shits.”

“Oblivion was increasingly attractive, since why retain your brain when no amount of thinking could even begin to solve the problem? It wasn’t even a problem, it was beyond a problem. It was more like a looming general collapse.”
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what we talk about when we talk about aging.(完美跑题)



有一天下班挤在地铁上，前面是个老太太，人比我矮，离我又那么地近，逼于无奈盯着她头顶稀疏的头发过了几个站。那些时间里，我突然意识到，老了就是这样的，如果“有幸”活到那时候，有一天我也会变成那样：头顶苍白，手上爬满了老人斑。
这一幕持续的时间，长得足以唤醒了我对变老的恐惧，以及我似乎已经忘记这种恐惧很多年了。我从来是一个对于变老的恐惧远大于死亡的人。小时候我恐惧变老，甚至根本无法想象“自己是一个30出头的女人”这件事情会真的发生。那是年少轻狂的恐惧，是完全基于想象和未知的恐惧，就像活着的人恐惧死亡。可是现在，再重温这份恐惧，却像感到这件事每分每秒都在发生，没有想象的空间，没有蜿蜒的余地。我不知道其他所有人是如何承受这些变化的，如何眼看着自己日复一日地走向衰老，却仍然泰然处之。是不是每个人都一面视而不见，假装一切都好，一面默默放弃对生命的挣扎？
想着就一阵悲凉。
现在的我去便利店买烟还是会被要求出示身份证，虽然每次都不乐意，但我知道，哪一天他们不再查我的身份证了，我会更不乐意的。因为不乐意和更不乐意就是人生的唯二选项。
————————————
这个让我想到王尔德的《The Picture of Dorian Gray》。Dorian Gray年轻俊美，容貌好看得周围的身旁每一个人都忍不住要盛赞，要为这容颜终有一天会老去而提前哀伤。年轻的Dorian也将这哀伤植入内心，渴望自己拥有不老之身，默默许下愿望，希望画家Basil为他画的完美的画像可以替他承受一切岁月的痕迹。他的愿望成真了。画像一天天变老，每天都出现新的痕迹，腐朽的、邪恶的、世俗的、肮脏的⋯⋯一切他所行之恶，都在画像上结了果。画像成了Dorian最大的心结和秘密，他的灵魂被腐蚀得疮痍满目，而在世人眼中却仍然完美无暇，拥有着他人梦想拥有的一切。最终，Dorian不堪心灵的重负，一刀刺死画像。而这一刀也刺死了他自己，他的尸体丑陋得别人几乎辨认不出，血淋淋的画像上，却仍是他年轻时完美的容貌。
这是王尔德的第一部小说，充斥着唯美主义和青春至上的影子。而书中最重要的角色，相信大多数人都会认同，其实是Dorian的朋友Lord Henry。可以说Dorian一生的悲剧都是Lord Henry的旁敲侧击潜移默化中造成的。而Lord Henry，大多数人都和我一样，相信那就是王尔德本人的化身。可以说王尔德将自己植入Lord Henry这个角色，而Dorian，更像是他渴望、同时也警惕着自己成为的人。他如此绝望又炽烈地追求美，同时也分身出来，毫不客气地对其进行最赤裸的揭露和抨击。
极端的美是可以逃脱道德的。因此极端的美也就是极端的丑。就像王尔德在序言中写，all art is quite useless.
我想，其实所有的问题都来自于自怜自艾。
公司一个同事，三四十岁，当妈也好些年头了，前些日子去给脸上打了几针，花了几万，瘪下去的双颊就奇异地饱满了起来。我听着，难以给出什么恰当的反应，尴尬地笑了笑。每个人都一样害怕变老。这害怕本身，最让我害怕。
但愿时间对我们都温柔一点。


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Watch out, Pessimist.



I’m a pessimist. always been one. I believe it’s the realistic/mature way to see life. But the other part of the reality that I left out was, you can’t possibly deal with the bloody reality with not a bit of the optimism seeds. Everyone needs a dose of that kind, and so do I.
I only drop this down coz I realized that my pessimism used to hurt, and is still hurting people that I love. And I also realize that being pessimistic can be nothing like acting pessimistically.
Perceive life in a pessimistic way; live it in an optimistic way. It sounds like crap. But one doesn’t run away from one’s own fart. 




我是个悲观主义者。一直都是。我相信悲观才是现实的。但我忽略了另一部分现实，如果没有那么点儿乐观，现实便根本无从面对。

写下这个是因为我突然意识到自己的悲观情绪曾经伤害过，并且还在伤害着那些我爱的人。
我想很多人都对“悲观”二字有着太深的偏见和误解。不过没什么所谓。因为我现在知道，内心悲观和表现得悲观可以完全是两回事。

悲观地看待生命，乐观地执行生命。这听上去像是一句屁话，然而但凡是自己悟出来的屁话，便也不无道理了。
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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.

_______________________________________________





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.