I’ve been carving tunnels through time to get to the other side of obsession. On the way I pass through passages filled with the faces and spaces stuck in my mind. I try to let go of them line by line…

I’ve never played the long game, nor do I know how. When it comes to love, platonic or romantic, it’s never a slow burn, but rather an instant explosion of infatuation. I always envied the minds of calculated people, the ones who are always thinking multiple steps ahead. I often act on impulse. My emotions still seem childish and chaotic to me, as I fail to grasp the scope of how each action leads to a wave of consequences. So when I think about the long game lately, I wonder how I can be tamed into becoming an expert.

Over the past year in Taipei I have been tested on patience and this so-called long game. Is it because I’m an American and as a culture we’ve become so accustomed to convenience and immediate gratification? Or maybe it’s because I’m so confident in my ability to will things into existence - In my ability to jump through time and pull desires into the present. I rarely allow time to unfold without my interference. 

There is an element of control in this desire to bend time. I am not satisfied, even disgusted, by my very human circumstances that force me to wait day by day, minute by minute, month by month, to hopefully, eventually, see change take place. Time decays and time grows. In the slower currents of Taipei I am sometimes restless and disturbed by the pace that relationships and opportunities evolve. Writhing and clawing at the people who I wish would act with more urgency. I try to see how I am being asked to exercise grace and a patience that I have never practiced. To bow down to the passages of time, to relinquish my innate desire to run at full speed into the fires of obsession, intrigue and impulse.

Obsession feels like fire that spreads with a blinding quickness. Once it lodges inside my mind I become infected like some sick animal. It dictates my days and burns away at my neutrality. 

If water is the antidote to fire, I wonder how I could let this cooler element rule me in the throes of obsession. To allow the rushing currents of urgency to wash over and through me without letting it drown me. To not want to choke time but rather let it fall drip by drip. For water the long game is an unreachable destination making it both eternal and ever-present.

When I think of certain people I’ve met in Taiwan I see them as air - moving in imperceivable, powerful ways but impossible to hold closer. And air doesn’t need fire the way fire needs air.