Status Updates From Totempole

this book is taking me so long to

incredibly slow up until now but it blossomed like an orchid and now I am in love

And so he laughed and laughed and went on laughing, and as he did he suddenly remembered the myth of Zarathustra, about whom it was said that when he was born, instead of crying, he burst into laughter. Stephen had never fully understood the myth before, but now, in the midst of his ecstatic joy, he realized he was being born.

And now, at last, Stephen stopped observing himself, observing Sun Bo, stopped wondering what to do next, stopped worrying about roles, stopped doubting, stopped denying, stopped thinking altogether. At last he was released--released from his great constricting self, his self-opposing self with all its isolating power and power to negate, its eccentricities and handicaps, willfulness and vainglory

With Sun Bo he wanted only to express his love- and love to Stephen's mind meant just one thing: giving, giving selfessly, totally, without anticipation of return. serving him, stimulating him, satisfying. There was only
one thing to be avoided--avoided at all costs--taking. Taking was the antithesis of love.

"You speak like good mother who has nothing but rice for family to eat. Mother say, 'Oh, if only we have egg and anchovy and meat.' Plenty rice, but mother-talk make everbody dissatisfy, everybody hungry. You understand?" he chuckled. There is war, wife is dead. I am here. I am PW. That is as world is. I cannot imagine otherwise. To imagine otherwise make me miserable, make me crazy maybe."

Let the others beef and bitch and blow off steam, not him! He knew how futile it was, how megalomaniac! to imagine oneself--one's piddling little self--at the center of the cosmos. Copernicus had long since taken care of That!

Much as he wanted to follow Mundel's advice, Stephen found it impossible. Instead he resorted to an old and tested response one he relied on whenever it came time to participate in sports or any other physical activity--buffoonery. He considered his body grotesque, and tried to make others laugh at it and overlook it by
exaggerating and mocking its grotesquerie.

why is half this book about masturbating

slow but easy progress. still need to finish my japanese book but i might just finish this first…