Matthew Stadler's Personal Weblog

It’s the weekend! When one sits in front of a computer screen as much as I seem to, you get to weekend and get excited. Excited for what? For two days of cramming in as much things as you can possibly do in not enough time? We suspend our lives while we work. We don’t do enough fun things and we get lousy paychecks and heart attacks. I still love my weekends though. Weekends are the nights that everyone goes out on the town to let go. People abandon their lives, their worries, and their convictions. I have seen some strange things out here in the night life. The way people interact, it’s amazing. It’s nice to not be working a weekend this week. My schedule has been a bit hectic. Sometimes I think I am getting somewhere, that lecture in Portland, but then there are times when I just sit here and wonder if I am really doing it. Is this my dream? My brain seems so locked into an idea of something that I can’t give up on it. But sometimes my heart seems completely vacant. Nothing stirs it as much anymore. I miss that passion and drive I had when I first started. That innocent youth, well maybe that isn’t the best expression of it. Youth hasn’t been my strongest point. I always strove so hard to get away from youth and now I fondly remember that time. I was in such a hurry to “grow up.” Like getting to that point where life would just fall into place before my eyes. I think my mother had a lot to do with that. Being so pushed away and feeling abandoned made me dislike not being the adult in the situation. I missed out on so much. So I always strove to be better than others in everything. I had to prove I was not her, I am not Nanay. I now look back on all that wasted time. I wasted it. But there is nothing I can do about that now. I am here. I am living the dream. I still am amazed at my surroundings. Life here is more than I expected it to be. The colors and sounds are so different from home. But nothing I do to capture it seems to do justice to this place. A photograph cuts out the sounds and smells. And while my writing seems to lead to a place where I can convey the ideas and thoughts I have of this place, nothing is like being here. When I can sleep, I revel in the bright sunlight as it comes through my window, reminding me I am alive for another day. And when I can’t sleep, I watch the people passing by. Some are returning from work and some are going to it. They are just regular people in their regular lives. I like watching them. It’s like some voyeuristic view into another person’s life. I see some of the same people night after night. I have started making stories up about them. It’s better that than obsessing over other things when I can’t sleep. I wonder why someone would want to be working from dusk to dawn. Maybe that should be my new task. I will write stories, fictitious of course, of these people I see. That can’t be any worse than any other project I am pretending to work on right now. Nothing seems to inspire me to continue with my writing these days. I have fallen into a pattern of starting something I can’t finish. But maybe I should abandon that idea as well. It seems like this place is getting to me. It may be time to move on somewhere else. I just don’t like staying in the same place long. But where should my adventures take me to now? I don’t want to venture back to home. It is not home for me now. As much as I have loved it here, sometimes staying in the same place to long is hard. I liked going to France, but my French is only barely tolerable. Germany was wonderful, the people are amazing. But it is too much like home to want to stay there long term. So here I am. Asia is a good enough place for now. I should apply myself to something better. I must keep writing. I must finish something. Regain what notability I once had. All while pretending I don’t care and I do what I want. Just remember smile, because no one wants to see you when you are down. I’ll keep writing.