kukicha

organic green tea.  roasted tea twigs and stems from japan.  very mild earthy quality... almost briny.  so different from how i thought it would taste.

i had tea and soup with an old friend today.  hmm, that's very strange to say.  he's actually a former student of the campus mission organization with whom i used to be on staff.  being from an asian culture, describing him as a friend is bizarre.  like addressing your professor father as "professor" in public.  almost a little gross?

what is it with asians?  why do 40 year olds look like 20 year olds?  and why do they treat you like you're a child if you're remotely younger than they are?

we touched on that between our sips of tomato basil bisque.

where does one draw the line between what i feel comfortable portraying about myself and what others prefer to view in order to perceive the proper elements of myself?  for a creative person who lacks that natural ability to sense social nuances, this is becoming a life-long quest.


it's easy to complain about the general public's refusal to understand that people are made of a multitude of dimensions.  often, this is what artists use to justify their angst and exemption from society.  we struggle with fettering off the labels imposed upon us so much that it becomes a game of cat and mouse; artists are constantly trying to outwit their audiences' ideas of them.  naturally, this is a generalization in itself.  but honestly, it's quite often true.

however i refuse to be so delusional.  one can't escape the judgment (i make a distinction between "judgment" and "condemnation") of people.  it's how a person processes data--make conclusions.  otherwise how can anything be known?  it's the natural way that i can be understood.  there must be an initial idea of what and who i am, just as there is in knowing anything else.  it would be absurd to ask others to make no conclusions about me at all.  that leads to fear and distance.  it's the initial data of someone or something that causes further exploration.

yet, i can't help but wish that the initial conclusions of people that people make only serve to be a sketch of the entire person, rather than the foundation.  it gets tiresome to try to purposely convey myself without being self-conscious.

while the bisque was gone, the answer to the question of the elusive line was yet to be found.  indeed, a life-long quest.