"Offscreen Space" refers to the six areas blocked from being visible on a movie frame, but still part of the space of the scene: to the left and right, above and below the frame, behind the set, and behind the camera. Part of the screen action takes place unseen in these areas. According to master Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, "...what is important frequently takes place outside the frame."
今天在工作沉悶的時候我會用電腦的滑鼠繼續當年的漫畫生涯。創作的方向當然有著很大的轉變――畫的是一格漫畫，而非連環圖；如果內容仍然是充滿暴力的話，會是更厲害，不見血的那一種。追求的仍然是人類最基本的自由：反思的自由、表達的自由、抵抗的自由、尋找的自由、發現的自由。被「漫畫之父」手塚治虫所影響（尤其是他的傑作《きりひと讃歌》Ode to Kirihito），我的人物通通是獸人。兒女仍然是我的一號「粉絲」，鼓勵我在一格之內寫出小孩也可以明白卻也值得哲學家深思的信息。
二零零五年喬布斯在斯坦福大學的畢業演講裏鼓勵年青人不要停下腳步，必須不斷尋找生命中的最愛，「尋找最愛的工作就好像尋找最愛的戀人」，如果人沒有發現自己的最愛，他就必須繼續尋找，不要滿足現狀，只有做愛做的東西人才可以真正得到滿足。不枉他是迪士尼其中一個最大的股東，我可以聽到演講的背景音樂是《木偶奇遇記》的"When You Wish upon a Star"。喬布斯的人生態度和他所發明的產品若出一轍：非常好用，也十分膚淺，完全缺乏洞察生命奧祕的想像力。試想像一個世界，當中每一個人都只願意做自己最愛做的東西，沒有人喜歡做的東西（即是人世間絕大部份的東西）是沒有人做的東西，所有人都終日無根地飄來蕩去尋找他最愛的戀人最愛的工作最愛的汽車最愛的家居最愛的娛樂最愛的飲食和那還未被發現或也許永遠不會被發現最愛的潛意識。以人為本的發明以人為終。幸好他沒有在富士康發表同一篇偉論，如果世上只有樂意高價買電子貨品的幸運兒卻沒有願意賤價砌貨品的勞工，我們哪有這麼多運動手指頭的機會？
就以加拿大人最喜歡講的「權利」（rights）這個概念為例，我們對之約定俗成的理解並非典型的所謂negative rights，意即只要沒有牴觸法律，我們有權利不被他人干預個人的自由（例如言論自由的權利）。我們沒有要求他人為自己作什麼，反而希望不被干預。但今天當聽到rights這個字的時候，大家通常的理解卻是他人（尤其是政府）應該為我們做的事，自己應得的利益、財物、或服務。這些所謂positive rights 要求他人干涉我們的事務，譬如認為政府應該分派稅款給「生活水平較低」(underprivileged)的人以求達到「公平」（另外兩個模糊不清的概念）。與其請求他人不要妨礙我們創造未來的動力和自由，我們寧願承認外在環境的控制，邀請政府的干涉，依靠一些「有資格」的「專家」為我們作決定，為的是獲得某些我們認為身為人類理所應得的權利。
近日我一家在考慮收養一隻狗為寵物，我和兒女花了不少時間學習養狗的知識，也花了更多的時間探討和實踐權利和義務的關係、自由和自由的代價、夢想和現實的並存。這些最基本的生命課題在我們於學校廿年或以上漫長的生產線員工訓練課程中鮮有涉獵。女兒問我：「為什麼我們不能現在就買一隻狗？你買得起呀！」當「價錢唔係問題」的時候，它就成為最大的問題。如果我們認同今天孩子是在一大堆似是而非、模稜兩可、甚至是互相矛盾的不成文生存法則中沉溺的話，自我教育（一個真正的自由權利）就是人一個首要的義務，家庭就是抵抗風俗和實踐真善美的基地。活在安逸、自由的世界，everything is allowed，but nothing is important。一個識字但卻不懂得閱讀的人比一個被壓抑的文盲更加可憐。
My article for the September issue of Angel's Heart. I know some of you might not have access to the magazine, so here it is.
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《樹林中的妳》
And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music."
Yesterday I took my daughter to a bookstore to get her own collection of Jane Austen, an act that I see as a rite of passage for all women who ever take reading and probably womanhood seriously. It is a privilege for a Dad to hold her daughter's hand and pay for a collection from the most famous and probably most important female novelist of all time, and it was his personal triumph when the cashier affirmed the gravity of the moment by breathing out these words from the lowest point of his diaphragm when we laid the books on the counter: "Wow, Jane Austen..."
But it was not an unqualified triumph. I have my doubts and insecurity. I doubted in an age when kids are trained to be a consumer even in what they choose to read, if my daughter finds them a bit of a stretch from her usual taste (she likes characters that are all animals--not that human are not animals, but you know what I mean). And what if she doesn't like them? Would I see it as a failure of Ms. Austen, of me as a father, or of my daughter as a reader? Before we decided on the purchase, I turned to one random page in "Sense and Sensibility" and asked her to read it and tell me if she can understand the sentences. I didn't ask her if she likes the sentences, because there is no way for her to tell yet. I can only take the leap of faith to trust that as long as she is intellectually capable to understand the words, then one day she will grow up to their greatness. Nothing is secure other than this trust.
And I suppose I used the same approach in writing this blog. All along I am very aware of my own naivety in trusting people of different backgrounds, life styles, ideological orientations, and even skills in language comprehension would somehow find their own paths in navigating the spaces both within and outside of the "screen" I choose to display. I do not advertise my blog. I don't attach the address in my emails. Yes, I am aware many of my faithful readers do know me personally, but I would rather they don't. The arm's length is not for the sake of my detachment, but to create a safety zone for someone to acknowledge, yes, it is ok to think differently, and yes, it is also ok for me as as reader to agree or disagree with this writer, and yes, most importantly, it is ok for me to think he is very right about some things but I choose to not listen and to not change. Just because the truth is revealed, it doesn't mean I will need to move a finger. It's like laughing at a funeral when everybody is blessed with deafness.
When this space is properly observed and respected, life can go on even when blood is splattered all over the words. Oh, but the naivety of this trust. Of course people do not detach me from my writing. When people see me in person, they sometimes look to the other side. Sometimes they see through me---out of contempt or out of shame? I do not know. Sometimes when people talked to me, they tried to explain themselves, as if I needed their explanation to validate their taste in movie, in music, in life choices. Not that I do not care about the person, but I truly don't care about all these "character traits" when I talk to him/her. This is reality, not Facebook. For years, everyday I enjoyed beautiful friendship with a coworker sitting beside me, who happens to be a homosexual. In our years of interaction, God knows not for once did his sexual orientation become a "consideration" in my head when I spoke or listened to him. Not that I do not care about homosexuality as an "issue", but it was a non-issue when we were engaged in human contact. Sometimes he even flirted with me, and I always have my way to get back at him with an even funnier joke.
What a lengthy prologue. What I really want to say today is: I won't be writing this blog any more. No, there is no animosity or bitterness in my heart, not a single bit. No one is responsible for this decision other than myself. If you think this is an act of protest, then you cannot be more wrong. I will write about it if I want to protest about anything. This is an act of moving on. An act the grows out of an understanding of myself and this medium called a "blog". To me, it is all or nothing at all. I find it no longer viable to write the way I want to write. I aim to be an Alice Munro, a Michael Ondaatje, a Margaret Atwood. Whether I actually possess the talent to fulfill this goal is another matter (so far it does not look good), but the aim is there. And this is not the place. I don't know where the place is or if there is actually such a place. I can't imagine Munro going to a party without people trying to see through her. Jane Austen published the first two editions of "Sense and Sensibility" anonymously.
It was a good run. Five years. Millions of words. Some of the comics are so ingenious that I don't know which fallen angel blessed me with the wicked ideas. Some people "open" a new blog every now and then as if they are getting a new pair of shoes to pull themselves out of a moment of shitty feeling only to discard the product after the consumption satisfied the transient need (no, I am not talking about anyone specific, especially not you if you think I am talking about you; I am only speaking generally), but I wrote with diligence and commitment, as with everything else I do in life. But all good things must end. So my fellow eavedroppers (sorry for an one last jab), au revoir and merci.
The name of this blog is called "Offscreen Space", which suggests an arm's length (at least, maybe even longer than that) in my literary endeavor and my true personhood. When the space is not within the screen, the onlooker is encouraged and sometimes forced to seek beyond and beneath the facets and discover what might not be readily apparent even after a diligent reading between the lines. I'd like to see an artist as a magician, but sometimes his act could bring about a pathological obsession.
Hiding in the "Offscreen Space", a magician never gets personal. But as demonstrated in my last post, sometimes I must be drunk on my own pride and my own words to commit some idiotic language overkills. So I am going to get personal again today and say that I am very sorry about what I said yesterday. Now I am not going to remove the post, so that you can savor its full bloody glory and see how goodness might be spoiled when Satan gets the better hold of a person.
Tonight my brother talked to me about politics, but I know his purpose was not really politics but to reach out to me. He did it out of love and I could feel it. And I looked at my kids and their cousins, everyone so happy and perfect in their own ways, so God-like, that I was reminded how God first conceived me and the way things should be. It is true that if there is no love, then there is no peace, and without peace, life is unlivable. If my passion is to contribute to a livable world for the generations to come, then I must not do things that undermine the integrity of a noble purpose. It is a lesson in the lost and found of love. My hero Wendell Berry must be having the same feeling when he wrote this poem of prayer "Candle Against the Wind":
I know that I have life only insofar as I have love.
I have no love except it come from Thee.
Help me, please, to carry this candle against the wind.
The following piece of writing has no reason to exist. In fact, I beseech you to not read it and, for a long while, begged myself to not write it. It will mark one of the very few occasions when I explain my writing, an activity that I detest--explaining, that is, not writing. You are particularly not suitable to read the following if you mistake my writing on this blog for a tweet that is intended to be a quick jab here and a quick jab there. I intended to do serious writing, and if you do not intend to do serious listening, I cannot guarantee your ears won't get hurt. But, hey, you've been eavesdropping for long enough that I am sure you can't subdue your curiosity now. So let's get down to business.
Someone told my wife to tell me that a few other certain someone accused me of deliberately talking bad on yet another certain someone (confused yet?) in my previous post "When I Get Older". Yes, I was inspired by a dinner conversation during the past weekend, and I (stupid me) chose to pick a couple of examples I overheard in the conversation to write on a topic that I have in me probably for years. I said, "People before our time likes to tell us stories. Like how life used to be tougher. That a kid has only one pair of shoes and that's all. Like how one used to make clothings out of gunny rice bags." I must be very stupid to use examples fresher than a newborn's ass.
The fact that I have heard these two example for over a dozen times in my life matters to no one. The fact that I myself has also told stories to my own kids about children with only one pair of shoes also would not be sufficient to vindicate me. How prideful of people to believe they own a collective experience of making clothes out of rice bags and having only one pair of shoes. And how unthinkable for them to think that I, as as writer who also happens to be a full time worker and a father of two, would spend my precious minutes and energy to write a tweet to jab at a certain particular someone. The person in question is a person I do not even know enough about, let alone has a feeling strong enough to write about. When I said "I look at a storyteller who has supposedly gone through tougher times but at this very moment of her life is lazy, wasteful, and uninspired...", do they think I am accusing this person of being lazy, wasteful and uninspired? How the hell do I know how she lives her life? I hardly know her, people! What is the context and theme of the piece? I hope someone actually did give a shit instead of only gazing at their sensitive navels.
But it really doesn't matter. As someone has taught me time and time again before: it does not matter what you say, and it does not matter what you think, and...sorry, I forget about the rest. Anyway. Back to the original purpose of today's writing--or the non-existence of it. My wife asked me to explain. And explain I must. In fact, I might as well do it all at one shot. For my piece "Lest Not Forget", I would like to apologize to anyone in the world who has ever suffered, particularly for being a refugee, and even more particularly for being a swimming refugee. And for the piece "Rules of the Game", I would love to apologize to my lovely parents because I think boat cruise is one of the most meaningless and wasteful ways to enjoy oneself, a Babylonian way of life. My parents love boat cruise so much that I have lost count how many times they've been on one. (I am sure they've lost count too) And for that I am totally guilty of hurting my own parents. In fact, if my old brain serves me right, my parents were in the aforementioned dinner conversation and they were the ones who volunteered information about people going to church to get gunny rice bags to make clothes. Hey, why the hell was I not accused of being a parents-basher? That ain't fair!
Guilty as charged. In fact, in the past I was variably and sometimes simultaneously accused of being a "proapgandist", an "ideologist", a person with "a gun in my hand" and ready to aim and shoot (I must say, being a cowboy at heart, I like this one a lot), a person who adds and subtracts from the Words of God (this one is certainly enough to condemn me to hell). Do I not have the right to get upset over these accusations? But I've never got upset. Because they are all false and stupid. And I never see a reason to explain myself, because only time will tell. But this time is different. My wife bugged the shits out of me, and I am sick and tired of--not people falsely accusing me--but people not knowing anything about the art of writing, much like how they desecrate the Bible by taking bits and pieces out of context and justifying whatever the crap they happen to advocate. So let's talk adult for once: please stop reading my blog if you do not like to read writings like these. They are not good for you. You are not good for them. You don't understand them (yet they might understand you). My sentences are long. My phrases sometimes dangle. My pictures are dull. The layout sucks the donkey dick. There is NOTHING here for you. Please leave me alone. And if you ever--EVER--fantasize I spent time to write about you specifically, then you are just fantasizing.
OK, enough. Or maybe not. The experience again brought about a question that I have spent years to ponder upon, and I might as well take the pertinent occasion to share with you my fellow eavesdroppers. For the longest time now, I wonder why I am still going to church, a Victorian-age society much like the one depicted in Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence" that utterly intent on maintaining its own rigid stability. It imposes on its members set rules and expectations for practically everything. Those who breached the social code were punished, with exquisite politeness, by the other members, by authorities. They might not outright condemn you to hell for having free thoughts, but you can't be too sure if you are not too far from it. If you don't play along, they'd try to shame you into submission, with their contempt, with their false accusations. All out of love. My ass. Week after week, I waste my precious youth, for the sake of what? Hypocrisy? I don't care for that. For my kids, I must say. This cowboy can walk into the sunset alone, anytime, but I don't want to drag the little ones into the freaking chaos. I don't want to confuse them. There are nice people there. The kids are small, and they should have a chance to grow up normal. I want them to have a choice. I want them to have a perspective. I want them to tell for themselves. Time well wasted, I guess. You take some, you lose some. For now I shall wait. That's part of being a responsible adult. No, there is no crisis of faith. This is a crisis of community.
