Teatime.

I was too sick to drink coffee that day, believe it or not.

We stopped in Starbucks for some Tazo. I never really buy tea. I'm not sure why.

I was sleep-deprived, physically exhausted, garbed in huge basketball shorts that did not belong to me. My hair was down in a wavy mess, my eyes ringed with my smeared black eyeliner. Good thing I felt far too awful to care what I looked like. I probably resembled a cross between a racoon and a crack addict.

"What can I get for you?" The attractive dirty-blonde male behind the counter looked so cheery and clean-cut. That's one thing about everyone who works at Starbucks — they all look put-together, as if someone just clipped them out of the Christmas edition of magazines and put them behind counters to sell muffins and caffeinated drinks in pretentious flavors.

His appearance contrasted mine dramatically. He seemed to realize it.

"Hi, I just want a tea."

He stared at me for a brief second.

"I don't really know what weird flavors you guys have, and I don't care. I'm just really sick right now, and I want tea."

He glanced at me sympathetically, the frazzled mess on the other side of the counter, as if I were an absolute nut. But a tolerable one.

"Well, if you're looking for something ordinary, we've got Earl Grey. If you want something more soothing for a sore throat, you can go with a peppermint tea or the China green tips, which is just a plain green tea. We also have some other flavors. It depends on what you're in the mood for."

Fucking tea doctor.

"You know, why don't you just pick one for me? Surprise me."

He paused for a moment, as if he was trying to think of an answer to a hard problem, and looked me up and down with his piercing eyes. I suddenly felt oddly exposed, naked.

He reached for a cup and smiled.

"You seem like a Zen kind of person."

I never figured out what that meant. But the tea was fantastic.

∞

"What's next?"

It was cold. Not too cold, though. For once, it actually felt like autumn, a season we only get a brief glimpse of where we live.

There was nobody around. It made sense — after all, it was well past midnight on a Monday night.

But there we stood, four people on the rooftop of an 8-story building. It was just us and the loud whistle of the night wind that threatened to sweep us off our precarious balance on the top of the city. The city, if one could call it that. But even dilapidated cities look like real cities at midnight, when all we could see were the small dots on streetlights and skyscrapers that surrounded us in the distance. We could pretend we were somewhere bigger.

We could pretend we were something bigger.

But maybe we were bigger that night. Maybe there was something that felt bigger, as we took a bottle, a pack of Blacks and an anthology of Updike short stories and impulsively climbed the rungs of a tall ladder to the top of the world.

Maybe it was the fact that we didn't know the answer to "what's next?" that made us feel bigger, as if we, four people searching for everything and nothing at the same time, wielded the power of the unknown. As if we held, just for a brief moment on that windy night, the driving force of the world in our palms.

As if we suddenly realized what it meant to seem big and small at the same time. Powerful, yet insignificant. Omnipotent, but clueless. We felt infinite, but at the same time, terrifyingly mortal. A terror that we embraced, that we turned into a still calm,

all wrapped up in a solitary, simple question.

"What's next?"

"The world."

Interesting finding of the day.

Not that I needed Jung to tell me what kind of person I was, but it appears that he had me all figured out from the beginning.

Apparently, my personality is consistent with 3.3% of the human population.


INTPs live in the world of theoretical possibilities. They see everything in terms of how it could be improved, or what it could be turned into. They live primarily inside their own minds, having the ability to analyze difficult problems, identify patterns, and come up with logical explanations. They seek clarity in everything, and are therefore driven to build knowledge. They are the "absent-minded professors", who highly value intelligence and the ability to apply logic to theories to find solutions. They typically are so strongly driven to turn problems into logical explanations, that they live much of their lives within their own heads, and may not place as much importance or value on the external world. Their natural drive to turn theories into concrete understanding may turn into a feeling of personal responsibility to solve theoretical problems, and help society move towards a higher understanding.

INTPs value knowledge above all else. Their minds are constantly working to generate new theories, or to prove or disprove existing theories. They approach problems and theories with enthusiasm and skepticism, ignoring existing rules and opinions and defining their own approach to the resolution. They seek patterns and logical explanations for anything that interests them. They're usually extremely bright, and able to be objectively critical in their analysis. They love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. They love to discuss these concepts with others. They may seem "dreamy" and distant to others, because they spend a lot of time inside their minds musing over theories. They hate to work on routine things - they would much prefer to build complex theoretical solutions, and leave the implementation of the system to others. They are intensely interested in theory, and will put forth tremendous amounts of time and energy into finding a solution to a problem with has piqued their interest.

For the INTP, it is extremely important that ideas and facts are expressed correctly and succinctly. They are likely to express themselves in what they believe to be absolute truths. Sometimes, their well thought-out understanding of an idea is not easily understandable by others, but the INTP is not naturally likely to tailor the truth so as to explain it in an understandable way to others. The INTP may be prone to abandoning a project once they have figured it out, moving on to the next thing. It's important that the INTP place importance on expressing their developed theories in understandable ways. In the end, an amazing discovery means nothing if you are the only person who understands it.

The INTP is usually very independent, unconventional, and original. They are not likely to place much value on traditional goals such as popularity and security. They usually have complex characters, and may tend to be restless and temperamental. They are strongly ingenious, and have unconventional thought patterns which allows them to analyze ideas in new ways. Consequently, a lot of scientific breakthroughs in the world have been made by the INTP.

The INTP is at his best when he can work on his theories independently. When given an environment which supports his creative genius and possible eccentricity, the INTP can accomplish truly remarkable things. These are the pioneers of new thoughts in our society.


What a genius man that was.

This is the moon without a tide.

I can't feel anything.
There are too many books on my skin.
I just want to sleep a slow, long slumber. But the silly girls and their pageant stances — they're stopping me.
And so is the rock ricocheting in my head.
I can't cough out the ash from my lungs,
nor is it ever warm enough in the winter.

It's terrible that I wonder, when I stumble across photos,
"Well, did you fuck her, too?"
It's worse that I don't care.
Or maybe it's better.

The air in the room is too dry to breathe.
This time of night doesn't foster coherence.
All the better. Let's just all stay enigmatic.

You keep to your side; I'll keep to mine.

Not that you could ever scale the walls around me anyways.

I guess there's not much anyone can do for a zombie with a death wish.
And we can't all be modern-day Picassos.

Why do you write? (Part 2...)

People always, always say that language has limitations.

I've never disagreed more.

For me, language has never had any limitations. Every emotion, no matter how strange or obscure or powerful, can be described through words. It might take hundreds of lines of poetry, or perhaps a saga, but nonetheless, it can be done. One just has to know how to use the language in a way that conveys the nuances or sets a tone that will make your frequency resonate on the same frequency of the reader.

Which means you have to feel what you write.

When I say 'feel,' I mean it in the most profound sense of the term. It doesn't matter what you're writing. You have to strip down all your inhibitions to write. Everything that eventually comes out of your fingertips should first make its way through every bone in your body. You need to feel an adrenaline rush when you write, feel your mind tracing every word on the paper.

You need to feel the frustration of trying to arrange and rearrange your words so you can fine-tune to that perfect frequency.

And when you've achieved that perfection, you should feel drained, emotionally and mentally and physically, as if you've just run a 5K through a tornado.

Drained, but ready to do it again.

And when your readers read your writing and realize instantly that they feel the exact feeling you're conveying, then you know you've succeeded.

I think I write because it's a high. Because it's a challenge.

Because I want to see if I ever hit the barrier between words and emotions, and if I do, I want to tear them down.

I have concluded

that poetry is for those who have fallen in love and in deep, dark despair.

Those who have not experienced either or who have experienced one without the other can enjoy lots of things in this world,

but poetry cannot possibly be one of them.

Come to Me...

I've never been that stable, you see.
But neither was Beethoven. Nor Picasso. Nor Poe. Nor Hemingway.
What's the fun in watching sailboats and sunsets all the time? Placidity never much suited me. I'm not sure what it is.

They tell me I was wired wrong.
You're the odd one out, they said. You're strange. Maybe my brain was knitted with the threads of tornadoes. Woven nets of Expressionistic art, quietly catching all the passions of the Greek gods in its complicated trap.
I have prickly bramble for grey matter,
Tsunamis for cerebral fluid, stirring up my calm, rational thoughts until they're nothing of the sort.

If David Hume were still alive, I'd have him over for champagne.
Perhaps he'd like Pour le Piano, too.

"No matter what the passion is: let it be disagreeable, afflicting, melancholy, disordered; it is still better than that insipid languor which arises from perfect tranquillity and repose."

Give me anything but slow slumber, for that is what wears me out the quickest.


Come to me, all silent sailors, if your seas are still tonight,
if the world's not big enough for you, if infinity is at your fingertips, but not in your grasp.
Come to me if you want to rip the electrodes off your pulse. We can run together to the arhythmic beats of our restless hearts.

We'll build a canoe with those dead, languid lives. We'll row our way to the Netherworlds.
Or Jupiter.
And then we'll catch them in nets, every fiery tragedy, every subliminal flight,
until our backpacks are full. Until we have to hold those brilliant stars, like tiny crystals, in our hands.


I'm waiting.