introducing âmethyst

there's this man with his punctuation marks.

at first, he lost his comma (,)

he starts to fear complicated things, he only look for simple sentences.

after that, he lost his exclamation mark (!)

he starts to whispher and talk monotonously. nothing excites nor upsets him. he grows indifferent to everything around him.

then, he lost his question mark (?)

and he no longer wants to know anything because he's not willing to ask anything.

not long after, he gets rid of his colon (:)

he no longer explains anything.

he's left only with his double quotes mark (“”)

all he can do now is cite others' words.

he kept going like that until he reaches the full stop.

I came across this story while rereading (skimming for the most parts) all vietnamese textbooks last summer, and it stuck with me ever since. it's a reminder for me to create things for my life instead of just looking at others' work, hence the birth of this genre: âmethyst.

after two solid cycles of discography, arts, photography, and travel posts, I feel like there's more to say that doesn't really fit any of those categories. the what I see travel, arts and music changed a lot.

for travel, it's less about the places now, but more about the people. I've always feel stressed by the number of things I haven't seen, and I really never find peace while I'm traveling as "there's still more to see". however, as life goes by, looking back, the most beautiful moments were the moments that I wasted looking for the next big thing. also, what's even the point of visiting ruins or monuments and doing rituals without understanding the precursors of those things? it has always been about the people, for the people.

for arts and music, I just have to keep reminding myself that more things can be art than you think. it isn't necessarily the stuff that sells or gets exhibited in a museum. I always thought literature must be long and have a definite meaning. kurt vonnegut's slaughterhouse five in high school and andrew hui's a theory of the aphorism changed what I thought completely. they're only examples to show me how there's more beyond what I thought counts as art.

and artists, the greatest of them are quiet and won't be the first on people's minds. however, they know themselves, they have their own values for their life and their arts. they don't let art or fame degrade their life. it's a healthy process, and it's why I have a lot of respect for them.

so I just hope to spend this space to reflect on what I've learned. chill out. sunbath. breathe in and breathe out. yeah, I love and I want to praise the quiet life.

âmethyst

amethyst is the stone of sobriety. amethystos is made up of a (not) and methyskein (make drunk). this is why they were used in making wine goblets back in the day, as it helps intoxicate wine and alcohol. amethyst is purple, which is also the color of the crown chakra, which represents spirtuality and awareness. lastly, âme means soul in french, and thyst, although meaningless, sounds similar to thirst enough. so yeah, it's like my attempt to recover over the thirst for harmony and compassion between people after reading dostoevsky's the brothers karamazov.

the absurdists would laugh at this, but I don't care.

credits to the wonderful pawel czerwinski on unsplash