Thought Catalog Update

Hello Friends,

More of my work has been added to Thought Catalog (TC).

Cyberspacial contact can be made to access my homepage on TC through the clicking of this link.

- J. A. Kind

15 Things People Who Live In Apartments Can Relate To

1. You crave to have a FRIENDS set up with your neighbors, but at the same time you avoid them like the plague.
2. If you hear a neighbor open their door or the elevator rings and you are in the hall looking like crap and just wanting to get some takeout from the place across the street, you run, yes you run, to the nearest point out of sight. 
3. The amount of walking you have to do to simply get to your door is unbelievably revolting.
4. Sometimes, when you are feeling really empathetic to the world, you walk really quietly because you don’t want to disturb the people below you and you understand, with a frighteningly realistic passion, what it feels like to be bombarded by the Feet Above.
5. Other times, when you are feeling really, quite honestly like pure crap, you walk with a thunderous collection of booms because why not world?  Huh?  Why not?
6. However, when the rage dissipates, you find yourself in a state of paranoia because you don’t want to get evicted.
7. You dare Them to evict you – you are the best thing that ever happened to that apartment building.
8. You secretly wish that you will find your true love buzzing into the building.
9. If dogs are allowed in your building, there always seems to be that one insane one that loses its shit when you walk by. 
10. Whenever you walk into your building, you have an instantaneous one-second debate with yourself over whether or not to take the stairs.  Of course you take the elevator (if you have one), but the act of thinking about possibly going up the stairs makes you feel a bit healthier. 
11. Sometimes your apartment feels way too small and too crowded from neighbors.
12. But, every time you visit friends’ houses they seem way too large and lonesome. 
13. Every once in a while, you look out your peephole to try and stalk people.  And every once in a while during those every once in a whiles you see something that either makes your life or breaks it.
14. You have a strange relationship with your landlord that you don’t think will ever normalize.
15. You never want to migrate to suburbia.

    - J. A. Kind

The Wonders of Gerard

Sometimes I massage my dog’s intestines through the gentle rub of his furry belly in order to find out whether he truly has to go to the bathroom or if rather, he is just playing me.  We have a strange relationship, Gerard and I. 

Some people say he looks like me.  I suppose they are correct; we are both small, he is a French Bulldog, we have quirky personalities, and have enticing eyes – for him, his eyes attract people’s attention because they appear to be bulging forth from his smushed face, while for me, my eyes attract people because my eyelashes are rather preposterously long.  I guess the only major difference between Gerard and I, besides the fact that he is a dog, is that he is black and I am a partly Filipino, partly bunch-of-other-ethnicities human. 

Little do most people know, Gerard rocks the Polar Bear Thing; he’s black with white fur.  Hence, whenever people call Gerard the little white dog, I usually have to hold back bursts of laughter erupting from my stomach because of the innocent misconception.

This past year, I wanted to play on the fact that most people misconceive Gerard for another race, so I made him an Instagram.  Little did I know, that this halfhearted, almost satirical play on the app itself would become such a wholehearted, inspiring endeavor. 

When I first started Gerard’s Instagram, I predominantly posted strange pictures where Gerard’s sever under bite was astonishingly perceptible or where he looked like a furry, asthmatic demon because I had photographed him with flash on after he had gone on a long walk.  Yet, as weeks passed by and his account made headway, I had a ridiculous idea.  I would revamp Gerard’s pictures and use them for my IB Art Journal, under the storyline that he was a French immigrant trying to culturally appropriate to Western life.

And so, in order to make the pictures appropriate for IB Art, I started to really get into maintaining Gerard’s Instagram.  I began posing Gerard up against a grey wall, taking stylistically enhanced photographs, casting certain shadows across the point of view, and applying a specific concoction of filters onto the nearly finished product.  And then, as if the universe wanted to play a satirical joke back on me, people all over the world seemed to respond to Gerard’s new, artsy Instagram.  Gerard was making friends in California, South Korea, Argentina, and many more amazing, distant lands.

These friendly followers rapidly began to amount to something huge, and Gerard’s Instagram quickly became more famous than all of my family member’s Instagrams combined.  Gerard achieved such a degree of fame, that he actually became an affiliate and representative of not one, but two pet companies, Animal Hearted and Outward Hound. 

I was in shock, as was my family.  I could never have imagined that the images I was using as an angst-filled joke against society and for my high school art journal would become appreciated by my dog lovers all over the world. 

I suppose in the end, it was not the people who assumed Gerard identified as white that had made the largest misconception – it was me.  I had doubted that Gerard’s Instagram would become anything – that it would merely remain a joke known by a few close friends and me.  Deep down, I guess I had assumed that something I could make at this point in my life would ever amount to something as large and wondrous as Gerard’s account became. 

Boy did I learn a lesson. 

   - J. A. Kind

Netflix Love

Supposedly, I am in an unhealthy relationship with Netflix, which is quite frightening considering it is one of my first true loves.  That’s the dreadful opinion of many of my closest family members, including my beloved dog (sometimes I think he get’s jealous), pertaining to the close bond I have formed with the Internet streaming site.  In almost a scheduled pattern my family members reiterate their concerned views into my love-struck ears.  However, unfortunately for them, I have discovered their sly schedule and usually connect to Netflix through my noise cancelling headphones in order to evade their daily decrees. 

Personally, I respect their views, but I must admit, I wholeheartedly disagree with them.  Perhaps the lust I fervently feel for Netflix unintentionally blinds me from viewing the larger picture of our relationship, but in general, I’m a happy camper. 

When I try to obtain a more unbiased glance at the grander scope of our love, it seems quite comparable to many of the committed relationships I have come to know.  I mean Netflix and I see each other almost single every day, snuggle up in bed with one another before we shut our eyes, and have this brilliantly similar interest in television shows and movies. 

Honestly, I think we were meant to be.  Netflix is there for me when I am feeling hopelessly lost from the sweltering daze of having read a thousand pages of textbook material; but it has also been there for me when I have wanted to invite Ice Cream over and, you know, do it all together.  Netflix even challenges me, which I just adore (I love a good challenge), for when I am with it, I have to make sure I manage my time to the best of my capabilities.  Yet more incredibly, Netflix has made me more social at school, for it has actually introduced me to many of my current friends.  I share with them the similar entertainment infatuation that has resulted in the strong bond between Netflix and me. 

I know at first glance this sudden social spurt seems quite paradoxical, and trust me, it threw me for a loop, but I believe it has come to strangely work out rather nicely.  When I first started seeing Netflix, I wanted to get away from the world, not because the world exudes an inherent evil unparalleled to the villains I watch through Netflix’s interface, but rather, because I simply needed a little unrealistic distance from the world around me.  I needed to delve with a cyberpartner into the wondrous world of on-demand Internet streaming and all-consuming binge watching. 

However, as Netflix and I plunged like Alice from “Alice In Wonderland” (which is unavailable for streaming, but quite readily watchable through Netflix DVD) further into the wondrous world, something miraculous happened.  Instead of passing random assortments of characters and props like Alice did, I met people – real life, flesh and blood humans, who love Internet streaming and binge watching just as much as I do.  And as I think back and tickle retrospect, that moment right there was precisely when my love for Netflix truly blossomed into the sturdy oak that shades us from storms and glares on my computer screen.  And so, through my relationship with Netflix, one that began with my escape from the world, I have found my quirky, television show and movie adoring friend group.

We rally to the methodical intro of “House of Cards.”  We cringe at the horrid aftermath that is My Bad, s05e01 of “Dexter.”  And we babble like heartbroken mushes, oh how we babble, when the emotional rollercoaster, “Doctor Who” touches the sensitive surfaces of our souls.  We come together, only after we have finished our homework and adequately supplied our stomachs’ needs for sustenance, and we become better watchers.  Better listeners.  Better people.  And I personally owe this all to my sweet, sweet Netflix.

       - J. A. Kind

Gerard Featurette

Not a literal featurette.

Nonetheless won4derful.

- J. A. Kind

Guilt: The Caustic Character

            The Roman playwright, Plautus once wrote, “nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.”  In The Assault, the author, Harry Mulisch, composes a plot based on the integrity of Plautus’ wise words.  In the beginning of the novel, in order to avoid the wrath of the Krauts, Mr. Korteweg and his daughter fatefully transport Fake Ploeg’s dead body from their yard to that of the Steenwijk’s.  A major aspect of the plot is anchored by Anton Steenwijk’s unforeseen perception of the guilt that wrecks havoc upon Mr. Korteweg’s life.  This guilt arises because all but Anton in the Steenwijk household are murdered.  Korteweg’s actions stem from the immense necessity he has to care for his lizards.  However, once the guilt of the Steenwijks’ deaths manifests itself in Korteweg’s mind, he murders the very lizards he once sought to protect.  Death seems to follow those who reap death, for Korteweg commits suicide later in life.  And although the assault may have directly caused the murders of Fake Ploeg and the people whose yard his body ultimately desecrated, it is the sheer violence of guilt that conceives the deaths of Mr. Korteweg and his lizards.  

            Throughout the novel, Anton locks himself in a room of ignorance by refusing to learn why certain events, in relation to the assault, transpired.  He describes this room in a broader sense, in that he feels as if “his entire universe had become that other one which now fortunately had come to and end, and about which he never wanted to think again” (56).  In this new, imperceptible universe, Anton represses his feelings, emotions, and even his mere thoughts pertaining to anything that happened the night of the assault.  Yet, ironically, throughout his life, Anton comes face to face with numerous people who hold many truths about the assault.  For instance, Anton faced Fake Ploeg’s son in a heated discussion where “every word mattered” (90); he listened to the man, Cor Takes, who “shot [Ploeg] first in the back, then in the shoulder, and then in the stomach” (108); and ultimately, he met Karin Korteweg, who enlighteningly described to him “what happened that night” (175).  However, it is not until Anton’s conversation with Karin Korteweg, that he is able to piece together the collection of personalized stories he had heard about the assault.  Through this conversation, Anton learns of Mr. Korteweg’s guilt.  This guilt stems from Korteweg’s interpretation of the events in which “three people had lost their lives because of his love for a bunch of reptiles, and the thought that [Anton] might kill him if [he] ever got the chance” (182).  However, Korteweg’s guilt reeks of a pathetically ironic scent, for Anton had never pondered about Korteweg’s guilt because Anton had purposefully remained in locked in ignorance.  The unknown sparks the fire that destroys Korteweg’s guilty mind.  Therefore, through Anton’s informative interactions with the people of the assault, especially Mr. Korteweg, guilt becomes a character in the novel that ruthlessly and maleficently devastates lives.

            This very guilt, murders Korteweg’s lizards.  Although lizards stereotypically seem like ephemeral pets that cannot form strong bonds with their owners, in Korteweg’s eyes, he witnesses “something about eternity and immortality, some secret in them” (181).  Even to other people, Anton included, Korteweg’s lizards evoke an inner, universal mystery.  When young Anton secretly views the lizards, which he describes as “weirdly silent” (69), awe washes over him – for “the creatures stared at him out of the past as deep and immovable as themselves.  Though some of them seemed to be grinning broadly, their eyes spoke a different language, of a gravity so immovable and undisturbed as to be almost unbearable” (69).  The lizards captivate their viewers with an almost hypnotic spell, which, only elevates in power with Korteweg’s emotional connection to them.  Karin later terms this emotional connection as “something to do with [her] Mother’s death” (181).  This symbolic association between the lizards and Mr. Korteweg’s deceased wife alludes to another representation of the character, guilt.  For through the lizards, which are depicted as “the only thing [Korteweg] still cared about, Korteweg tried to cope with the loss of his true love.  In turn, this loss transforms into guilt as Korteweg tends to the reptiles he desperately attributes to the loss of his wife.  The lizards’ need for attention consumes Korteweg and the “trouble he took to keep them alive through that winter of hunger” (181) was irrelevant – he had already fallen victim to guilt’s tight, emblematic grasp.

            Accordingly, when in order to save the lizards, Korteweg and Karin fatefully transport Fake Ploeg’s dead body from their yard to that of the Steenwijk’s, everything changes – for all but Anton of the Steenwijk household die because of this.  When discussing this with Anton, Karin puts it as such, “Peter dead, and your parents too, they seemed to turn back into lizards for him again, just ordinary animals” (182).  Thus, the guilt that ravages Korteweg’s mind from the murder of his three neighbors ultimately consumes the once all-powerful guilt that Korteweg had felt from his lizards.  In turn, the guilt grows like a wild fire, and as if almost to stomp it out, “as soon as [Korteweg] came home from the Ortskommandantur, he trampled [the lizards] to death…like a madman” (182).  And although Korteweg terminates his lizards’ physical lives, that “something about eternity and immortality” (181) he had once felt for them, lives on in the form of brutal, violent guilt.

            This very guilt, murders Korteweg.  When Korteweg’s wife had passed, the lizards “had become his only reason for living.”  So, when Korteweg is ravaged by the guilt of how he murdered his lizards, he breaks.  He enters a state of paranoia – fearful that Anton, the only survivor of the Steenwijks “might take revenge” (180).  “But in the end he didn’t need [Anton] to kill him” (182).  After the assault, in order to try and escape Anton’s possible vengeance, Korteweg and Karin “leave on a merchant ship within the year” (180).  There, in New Zealand, they try to create a new life for themselves.  However, guilt follows them, “and there, in forty-eight, [Korteweg] commit[s] suicide” (180).  When Karin shares all of this with Anton, she concludes with “perhaps he did it mainly for you” (180).  Nevertheless, she, like her father, is still ravaged by guilt, and so she also attributes her own history to Anton’s perception of her and her father’s guilt.  This attribution is nothing but a mere representation of blame, which in turn creates the next prey for the ravenous character, guilt.  And so, the brutal cycle continues. 

           Ultimately, Plautus was correct in his observation of the guilty mind – for Mr. Korteweg and his lizards die from the sheer violence of the destructive, emotional force.  However, through the juxtaposition of these deaths and the continuation of the guilt that presides in Karin and eventually Anton, the author of the novel, Mulisch, gave life to guilt.  And so, as death seems to follow those who reap death, guilt, like a wildfire, consumes all as it expands its caustic realm. 

      - J. A. Kind