Words of Innocence and Experience

People are people
So what should it be?
You and I should get along so awfully.
–Depeche Mode “People Are People”

Ah, how complicated people are!

Sometimes when people make a general statement about me, I wish I could exclaim “Oh, that’s not true!” and give various examples to prove what I’m really like. Nevertheless, there is always fear and modesty that pull me back–fear that saying too much would scare people away, particularly the ones who barely know me. Time would tell, I’d think, but what if I’d never seen those people again? Their impression on me would remain stereotyped and untruthful.

However, if thinking in another perspective, I’d just known the people, too. When I’m anxious over the frustration of the interactions with them, they are possibly troubled by the same thing as well. They’d think that their remarks weren’t intended to do harm. It was actually I who had misjudged them.

The reasons–fear, modesty, etc.–which prevent both sides to open their hearts and be frank would not disappear. Therefore, misunderstandings are likely to be intact.

If only people were simpler, success in communication would not be such an uphill job.

When this world is trying its hardest
To leave me unimpressed
Just one caress
From you and I’m blessed
–Depeche Mode “One Caress”

After enduring the dullness of daily routines, now I’m ready to talk about “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

It is an extremely controversial book, continually denounced for its explicit sexual content. It is true that it does contain some, uh, steamy parts. However, I find myself equally enjoying the first half of the book, especially the descriptions of Connie’s disillusion with life and love. The words, coated with elegance and sorrow, are unbelievably accurate accounts of the unbearable emptiness of 20th century life.

The plot is actually quite predictable. Connie, the heroine, married Sir Clifford Chatterly before the war. Tragedy hit Clifford before he returned from the battlefield–he was severely injured and thus was paralyzed from the waist down. Unable to travel around like normal aristocratic men do, Clifford found his pleasure in writing, having intellectual talks with his friends, and later his mining projects. While Connie enjoyed Clifford’s recreations from the beginning, she gradually grew aware of the meaninglessness of these activities. Moreover, her female self begged to be adored and cherished. Things grew even grimer when her tentative affair with Michaleas turned out to be disappointing and humiliating. Finally, she found solace with Mellors, the Chatterley’s gamekeeper, who lived in a hut in the woods…

When I first finished reading the book, I was obsessed with the mutual love Connie and Mellors have established as most dreamy girls would be. Their relationship is passionate, honest, intense, perilous, tender but exciting. Clifford is the villain who is incapable of facing the reality, showing respects to his wife, and do with his foolish stubbornness. Nevertheless, while envying Connie and Mellors’ love, I began to sympathize with Clifford, even more than the lovers.

Clifford, after all, is the most wretched victim of war in the book. Circumstances force him to move out of his misery and move on, and composing, reading, chatting, and bossing around are his ways to remain positive about life. Although Connie’s zest for love and sensuality should be fulfilled, Clifford cannot afford to think about them since he would never be able to provide them for her. His pleasure in reading and composing literary works is, unfortunately, incomprehensible to Connie.

Due to personal experiences, I realize that people would naturally turn to intellectual development, or the so-called “reason,” when there is no way that their sensual desire would be satisfied. As people gain more and more knowledge, they also drift away from the primitive, spontaneous, and sheer affection Connie and Mellors share.

Love is worth yearning for, but I can’t bear to think about it now…

In addition to probing into love and relationships, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” is compelling in its celebration of innocent lives and beautiful landscapes. Categorized as Modernist literature, it offers solutions to tolerate modern life and ways to find retreats. Well, the amorous parts alone are worth reading. Wrought with emotion and fragility, they are much deeper than the b-rated romantic sagas commonly found in bookstores.

Now you’re standing there tongue-tied
You’d better learn your lesson well
–Depeche Mode “Policy of Truth”

Life without the Internet is hard.

It’s not just about being cyberholic. Well, isn’t every young person cyberholic these days? Our life basically operates around the Net.

One thing about the Net that is incontestable is its immediacy. When dying to find answers to some questions or learn more about aything, the urge would be satisfied within a few minutes through the Net.

Also, people lose their best means to interact with one another when the Internet connection dies. Although cell phones make it possible to contact someone, the price of the phone bill would be truly scary if using it for too long. Besides, the electro-magnetic rays harm human brains. With the Net, more specifically, instant messengers (IMs), it’s easy to talk to people any time one feels like to. IMs are so common that using them becomes less intrusive than making phone calls. IMs also permit photos, links, and files, and in a way, it’s easier to express oneself through IMs.

Anyway, with no Internet connection, I feel that I’ve lost the privilege to share things with others. There are things I wish to say to someone, whom I’m sure must be online at a certain moment, but I can’t. Even though I can organize what I want to say and e-mail that person the next day, inserting personal feelings in e-mails seems weird. Worse still, some people don’t check their e-mails at all or are too lazy/busy to reply to them. Sending mails appears to be merely a one-way communication, depending on which is not a gurantee of response on the other end.

The feeling of emptiness and suppression closes in on me when I need the Internet and don’t have it. I’m tongue-tied, stuck in this little barren space…

Where’s the confusion?
A vision of what life is like
–James “Born of Frustration”

It was my first time to spend the weekend at the my rented room, vacillating between having the air-conditioner on or off. I’d tried to use little electricity, though. I left for the school early in the morning to enjoy free air-conditioning in the computer center and the library.

The department sent all students in our TESOL program two papers since the author is giving a speech at Tsing Hua some time in September. Anyway, I finally made my first contact with papers on English teaching.

I perused one of the two in the library. The content of the paper is fairly comprehensible, fortunately, discussing the function of discourse markers (i.e. fillers like and, so, all right, OK, well, now) in lectures. To my dismay, there is nothing exciting or inspiring about the paper, which is composed exactly the way how “normal” papers are written–citing past researches, criticizing them, and then introducing new ideas or results. I dozed off amid my reading and lay prone on the desk for half an hour. Ugh, I’ve never slept for so long in the library!

After waking up, I continued my reading. To disperse the boredom, I took a book about English love poetry and fliped through it whenever the paper bugged me.

It’s funny how unexciting TESOL papers are to me. Neverthelss, I also found that it might not be difficult to me to compose one, as long as I come up with ideas about a stupid experiment which other scholars haven’t tried. Perhaps it is possible for me to finish my studies early once again.

I haven’t thought about my future plans these days. I haven’t forgotten them, merely feeling that immersed in uncertainty and depression is useless. Besides, it is so much more pleasant to remember the way Dave’s luscious lips curve into his trademark wicked smile, the magical moments when he’d shout “oh yeah” in concerts, the way Martin’s head nods with the rhythm of the music, how Martin’s blond curls floats in the air when he dances, how D. H. Lawrence’s words burn with painfully vivid pictures of memory and desire.