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A Writer’s Eternal Cycle of New Beginnings as a Way of Survival
Thoughts and photos taken at the Immigration Museum, Melbourne
We’ve got so much to say, we might as well just say it. Write…type it. I’ve been wanting, longing, and clearly, I’ve been a tad nostalgic. Why not? I’ve been missing thing I have been missing out on, just, ideas that are not more than memories instilled in me from sources such as dreams, movies, songs, stories.
There’s this image of monks, or else an Asian community, bringing fire to a lake. It’s the lantern festival, I know, but, where did I get this unlived memory from? There are things I lived too, like fire on the shore, while distance town lights streak the moving black waves of the Marina. But I miss more than that.
Right now, I miss the raw talent of the beginner. The dramatization of the stream of consciousness, taken from zigzag to circles. Rendering the lights of the town lanterns. The zen master Shunryu Suzuki is quoted saying: “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few”. Similarly, I vaguely recall a poem by Chen Chen called “When I grow up I want to be a list of further possibilities”. I don’t remember the possible possibilities, but I liked that, I liked the infancy left undeterred. I never want to get to the point of…
