I've forgotten the subtle art of sitting down and writing; no particular reason or cause, just letting whatever is on my mind spill onto the page. Now this could mean either of two things: 1) I no longer feel the urge to write for posterity and capture greatness whenever it should hit me like a piano falling from a two story building or 2) I've just been letting myself become lazy and uninspired. I prefer 2, but I suspect that it's a matter of both of them. Well, I would hope it has something to do with spiritual growth, but then again, writing is a channel through which the soul is expressed. And perhaps I just haven't been letting myself flow enough; I've been holding and bundling myself up too tightly, I'm sure that must be it -- I've been (horribile dictu) censoring myself.
Of course, maybe that's not such a bad thing. I don't know anymore. I don't know what's good. All I know is the beautiful, but who is even to be sure what that is? Lest you think I'm wandering now into vague quandaries, the mental thought goes something like this:
1) I used to write everyday, whether the urge struck me or not
The question -- is this part of a negative mental habit of forcing myself into vagaries for no apparent reason? That is, is it the same habit which leads me to speak my mind whenever a thought occurs to me without consideration?
2) Problem: Now I don't write so often.
Well, to be fair, it was just a one day lapse. But more disturbing is that I feel I have nothing to write about. I don't know myself anymore. Music appeals to me, art appeals to me, poetry appeals to me, but I'm suppose...I feel luke-warm, I'm tired. I have much work. I have a great mountain of work resting on my shoulders. I don't know. I just feel so overwhelmed that I have nothing to say. And it's not that I'm stressed; I'm just tired.
Tomorrow I have a bio test. I studied for two hours, skimming through the book and looking at chapter headings. Now forbid I should sound ungrateful to the teacher, but he didn't put a practice exam on the server and he's taught us practically nothing (or, at least, nothing useful) in the past four weeks, so how am I supposed to know what's on the test? I find some small consolation in the fact that after this I will not have to learn anymore new material and, even if there is a residual final, at least it will be the end of Bio's 101 and 102 respectively.
I also have a latin test tomorrow. I think, just to get it over with, I'm gonna take it tomorrow. That should be best. And I think I'll do well. I'm just worried. Because I normally do well, and I feel bad. I don't like depending on my intelligence, because (predictably) I didn't do anything to earn it, so it isn't reliable. It means that my evaluation in the world is to some extent based on things I was given without my consent (but that by no means implies I don't enjoy them :-) rather than on the choices I can make. I know, I know -- I have no control. Really, we all want to have the appearance of some modicum of control over our own lives, but who's to say we really do?
I notice that I've become complacent in the last few days...vindictive in my dealings with others, vindictive in my attitudes. I think this "philosophy" I've discovered through JD is sufficient and an end unto itself, not only for myself, but for all others as well. So I've taken to giving advice. But I was given a good piece of advice a long while back at my father's table, and he rebuked me, "No one likes a wise guy." It's true. I have to stop looking down on people from a podium, from a height of any kind. All heights are false. We are all equal.
Sometimes I feel so vulnerable and afraid. Cliché to all extremes, but I feel exposed, completely and violently exposed. I seek for coverings, but in searching for coverings, for attitudes, for ways of dealing with the world, I cannot blind myself to what goes on around me. To what happens. All things happen, by existing, by consuming, we are apart of the human world. Even at this second the sun flares and a million sparks of energy fly across the spheres, nourish all plants, all animals, the worlds of ascending strive, order moving into chaos, the destructive impulses of man, Zeus with the jutting lightning bolt in his hand preparing to destroy all order, to annihilate creation.
I am carried off. In nova fert animus...I have so much more to say. I should not still myself. I should look on all things with compassion and mourn. Mourn! Mourn and seek. That is what poetry is for. Poetry is a dynamic and vibrant living response to the world around me. I take everything in, and if I harbor it in my heart it should fester like a rot from my hand to the page; flowing streams, dripping noxious toxins that flow out of me freely, reshaped into truth, the ugly transcendant to divine.
What a rush. I am capable of inflicting chaos upon myself. Stir the waters, till the muck.
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Sunday, April 27, 2003
O saisons, O chateaux! La soleil a ete encore retrouvée, what is this madness that steals upon me? If you have not, find "Apparition" by Mallarmé and read it in French. If you don't know French, then it will be requisite for you to learn it, because the ending stanza, the final seven lines of that poem, these are among the most beautiful lines of poetry that I feel I have ever seen in any language. Mallarmé, who I felt to be snubbishly involved to excess with fans and metaphors, has redeemed himself in full, John Donne style.
Today was a beautiful day. I went down to Hawthorne and I ate crepes and I read St. Augustine's Confessions sitting outside in the sun (as they should be read) and smiling and listening to people talk and a poor woman came asking for shelter and people were helping her and I learned that her name was Karen and a nice man bought her a sandwich. I walked around, I examined couples, men, women, children, I contemplated, I let my mind overtake me, I intoned the silent name of God.
And then I came back, played the flute, read some more, ate a fish dinner prepared expertly by one among our very own, and began my essay on St. Augustine who is an unparalleled genius. I am so taken by a sudden rush of excitement and happiness, I doubt if I shall ever get to sleep tonight. For the last ten minutes, I have been translating a poem that rivals even Shakespeare for beauty of language and insight, so rich, such a tableau of rich sounds, and even in French. Solitude and study are the way to beauty and God.
But yet I am not completely sure if I will consign myself to eternal contemplation in chastity. I must of course remember that asceticism is a Christian idea and not a Jewish one. It is fine to study Augustine, but one needs balance for clarity. Of course, in Augustine's journey we see our own, and it is so tempting, that congealing, that gradual coagulation of the truth in one's life, culminating in a cathartic conversion; we want naturally to follow in his footsteps. But we can't, we must seek our own path. And all considered paths lead to God. That is my belief. Various traditions have sprung up, various schools all equally valid as the glistening return to that one.
I have only to breathe, only to trust in myself, only to meditate away this thunder-struck uneasy wonder. It is indeed a goodnight. Tomorrow, schooling. One week left.
Today was a beautiful day. I went down to Hawthorne and I ate crepes and I read St. Augustine's Confessions sitting outside in the sun (as they should be read) and smiling and listening to people talk and a poor woman came asking for shelter and people were helping her and I learned that her name was Karen and a nice man bought her a sandwich. I walked around, I examined couples, men, women, children, I contemplated, I let my mind overtake me, I intoned the silent name of God.
And then I came back, played the flute, read some more, ate a fish dinner prepared expertly by one among our very own, and began my essay on St. Augustine who is an unparalleled genius. I am so taken by a sudden rush of excitement and happiness, I doubt if I shall ever get to sleep tonight. For the last ten minutes, I have been translating a poem that rivals even Shakespeare for beauty of language and insight, so rich, such a tableau of rich sounds, and even in French. Solitude and study are the way to beauty and God.
But yet I am not completely sure if I will consign myself to eternal contemplation in chastity. I must of course remember that asceticism is a Christian idea and not a Jewish one. It is fine to study Augustine, but one needs balance for clarity. Of course, in Augustine's journey we see our own, and it is so tempting, that congealing, that gradual coagulation of the truth in one's life, culminating in a cathartic conversion; we want naturally to follow in his footsteps. But we can't, we must seek our own path. And all considered paths lead to God. That is my belief. Various traditions have sprung up, various schools all equally valid as the glistening return to that one.
I have only to breathe, only to trust in myself, only to meditate away this thunder-struck uneasy wonder. It is indeed a goodnight. Tomorrow, schooling. One week left.
Saturday, April 26, 2003
I say, slightly inebriated, to those who love me, to those I love -- Mom, Dad, Alicia, Val, Britten and Chris (:-), the stranger, the lover, the ideal, and spleen; to those at Reed; to JD, Nick, Tom, to myself, to God: I love you. The night swims away. Dreams pass like the moment. Life as a television screen. Life as a flowing river. Or the reverse. Life transcendent. Life overcomes, abundance, the waiting in the corner of pain, all the words I've ever heard and remembered, if foolishly -- it was all wrong. I know nothing. I love you all. I'm staying right here.
Monday, April 21, 2003
"Exodus" is Americana? Who would have known. Of course, this version sounds conspicuously English, and I don't remember understanding any of the words in my parents' CD. Oh well. Now that I have head-phones, I have proportionately increased the amount of variety of music that I listen to. I once stated that almost all moments of life should be accompanied by music. Of course, Plato muttered something or other about music enriching the soul, but then he also exiled it from the Republic -- you have to be careful about secondhand Plato.
Today is okay. The sky is very grey, but the trees contrast with a lovely green. The music is lively of course, but beyond the exuberance of "Exodus" I can still feel the lingering after-effects of my family's own exodus from Portland back to Colorado: my mom and sister came to visit for the weekend, and they are now gone.
It was an okay weekend. I saw them, joked around with them, played music for them (two performances, one for orchestra and one individual performance with my instructor), and saw a movie. The movie was entitled, "Phone Booth" (forgive the quotations but I can't underline or italicize online) and it is actually a pretty interesting movie. Now I'm going to contradict myself here, but I think the problem with Phone Booth is that there was too much music. It switched, perhaps, between two many modes, using music and sound-effects and background scenery noise in order to emphasize and provoke the excitement of a script that could have very well carried itself. The idea is captivating, indeed almost existential -- a man receives a phone call from an unknown sniper who forces him through all of his sins until we arrive at a final and very public burst of catharsis. However, the script and direction overemphasize the New Man at the expense of a thorough examination of the processes by which we account for our sins and redefine our own identities. The movie is divided into two parts, one slim, the other bulky: the pre-phone-booth loud-mouth ritzy snob and his recreation of himself through the medium of communication at the end. But the problem is a character cannot move from a two dimensional portraiture into a three-dimensional self-discovery. The first character is unreal, and the only claim he has to any existence beyond the pages of a script is his complete ignorance of the sorry state of his character, but this is hardly a novel psychology -- the snob, despises by all others while at the same time placing himself head and shoulders above them, is at least as old as the Greek comedies which Plautus was to then copy for a Roman audience in his piece, "The Braggart Soldier." Thus I would argue that the lack of depth in the initial portrait, the lack of space devoted to expounding on exactly who this character is (and I can't remember his name for the life of me :-) leads to problems in the phone conversation that dominates the film. There is not interplay of wills, no real battle between the anonymous sniper and his victim -- the victim does not really change so much as collapse, and when catharsis comes it seems as much the self-indulgent babbling of a victim as the confident apology of a changed man. The movie does not offer us a conclusion, except for a hazy drug-induced scene at the ending when the main character is carted off in an ambulance and the sniper, now become God or the personification of men's inner conscience, moralizes in a monologue addressed as much to the audience as to the character and coming off a bit like the fool at the end of Misdummer Night's Dream.
Well, now that I've got analysis out of my system...needless to say my mother and I had a long "discussion" about the movie. My mom advocating I suppose a kind of realism in movies when she criticized the logic of the final revelation of the sniper's identity (or you could call it a non-revelation). I recognize the limitations of the movie, and have discussed them in depth above, but I do give kudos to the script-writer (if not the director, who bumbles through what should be a Hitchcockian psychological thriller by trying to turn it into a whodunnit comedy action piece with flashy music and dizzying technological 3-D renderings, including a horrifically over self-conscious opening sequence) for creating a script in which the majority of the action and interchange involves a single conversation in a single day's time which concerns itself with a single, primary subject -- the sins (or rather, a primary sin) of the main character. Now if you'd told me before I saw "Phone Booth" that I would ever see a movie about a phone conversation that was interesting and sustained, I woiuld have said, "Bah." But I must say, for all the limitations of the directing choices and even the acting (whoever played the main character could have done a much more interesting job and appeared much more in control of the situation instead of babbling like a death-crazed man), it was nonetheless a pretty good movie. Heck, it's even classical -- single location, single day, plot unfolding pretty much in real-time. Wow.
By the way, Americana is pretty good stuff. :-)
Today is okay. The sky is very grey, but the trees contrast with a lovely green. The music is lively of course, but beyond the exuberance of "Exodus" I can still feel the lingering after-effects of my family's own exodus from Portland back to Colorado: my mom and sister came to visit for the weekend, and they are now gone.
It was an okay weekend. I saw them, joked around with them, played music for them (two performances, one for orchestra and one individual performance with my instructor), and saw a movie. The movie was entitled, "Phone Booth" (forgive the quotations but I can't underline or italicize online) and it is actually a pretty interesting movie. Now I'm going to contradict myself here, but I think the problem with Phone Booth is that there was too much music. It switched, perhaps, between two many modes, using music and sound-effects and background scenery noise in order to emphasize and provoke the excitement of a script that could have very well carried itself. The idea is captivating, indeed almost existential -- a man receives a phone call from an unknown sniper who forces him through all of his sins until we arrive at a final and very public burst of catharsis. However, the script and direction overemphasize the New Man at the expense of a thorough examination of the processes by which we account for our sins and redefine our own identities. The movie is divided into two parts, one slim, the other bulky: the pre-phone-booth loud-mouth ritzy snob and his recreation of himself through the medium of communication at the end. But the problem is a character cannot move from a two dimensional portraiture into a three-dimensional self-discovery. The first character is unreal, and the only claim he has to any existence beyond the pages of a script is his complete ignorance of the sorry state of his character, but this is hardly a novel psychology -- the snob, despises by all others while at the same time placing himself head and shoulders above them, is at least as old as the Greek comedies which Plautus was to then copy for a Roman audience in his piece, "The Braggart Soldier." Thus I would argue that the lack of depth in the initial portrait, the lack of space devoted to expounding on exactly who this character is (and I can't remember his name for the life of me :-) leads to problems in the phone conversation that dominates the film. There is not interplay of wills, no real battle between the anonymous sniper and his victim -- the victim does not really change so much as collapse, and when catharsis comes it seems as much the self-indulgent babbling of a victim as the confident apology of a changed man. The movie does not offer us a conclusion, except for a hazy drug-induced scene at the ending when the main character is carted off in an ambulance and the sniper, now become God or the personification of men's inner conscience, moralizes in a monologue addressed as much to the audience as to the character and coming off a bit like the fool at the end of Misdummer Night's Dream.
Well, now that I've got analysis out of my system...needless to say my mother and I had a long "discussion" about the movie. My mom advocating I suppose a kind of realism in movies when she criticized the logic of the final revelation of the sniper's identity (or you could call it a non-revelation). I recognize the limitations of the movie, and have discussed them in depth above, but I do give kudos to the script-writer (if not the director, who bumbles through what should be a Hitchcockian psychological thriller by trying to turn it into a whodunnit comedy action piece with flashy music and dizzying technological 3-D renderings, including a horrifically over self-conscious opening sequence) for creating a script in which the majority of the action and interchange involves a single conversation in a single day's time which concerns itself with a single, primary subject -- the sins (or rather, a primary sin) of the main character. Now if you'd told me before I saw "Phone Booth" that I would ever see a movie about a phone conversation that was interesting and sustained, I woiuld have said, "Bah." But I must say, for all the limitations of the directing choices and even the acting (whoever played the main character could have done a much more interesting job and appeared much more in control of the situation instead of babbling like a death-crazed man), it was nonetheless a pretty good movie. Heck, it's even classical -- single location, single day, plot unfolding pretty much in real-time. Wow.
By the way, Americana is pretty good stuff. :-)
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Our bodies, our intellects, our minds, our talents, our fortunes are assigned to us by providence from the beginning of our birth. We praise a man saying that he is beautiful, but the beauty is not his but the manifestation of God?s own will. How then, can we ape over the beauty of mortals, when we should be exalting the beauty, the true beauty, of their creator, that benevolent immortal God? When we see a beautiful form or figure, it is not the beauty that resides within itself that we laud, but the hidden presence of God that calls us. And is it not true that when we are struck by the figure of a lustful attraction, our attraction is to the propogation of our species because God created Man and said, ?Behold, it is good?; because God from the heavens looked over the earth and announced, ?Be fruitful and multiply; I shall make you numerous, yes numerous, as the grains of sand that lie upon the shores?? Therefore it follows that bodies are neither ours to sell nor to praise, because they belong to God and our attainment of Him through their forms, various and diverse.
Friday, April 18, 2003
It's driving me crazy, I need to write something, anything. I need to feel the words flowing out of me, see syntax, observe the changes in form and morphology, correct spelling, play with syntax, play with form, elucidate ideas, couch ideas in vivid expression, couch expression in vivid ideas. I just want to write, something, anything, like a deep primordial expansion, a drive within me. I just want to get out language, pure language like a clay and play with it and mold and shape it like a pot, a glorious shining painted vessel that can contain sloping water of days and God. How wonderful it is to feel, even imagine the feel, of a pen shaping words beneath the guiding stear of my wrist, even if the imagination is only the reality of clicking, how great to put words and sounds to abstract actions and ideas.
Poetry. The virgin conception. Filled with God, our minds are changed by what we read, what we see. There is no time. The soul is moving too fast, I can't pinion it down, like a conveyor belt at full throttle. I want so much, and I feel as if there were no time for anything. I want to freeze time. This night, this day have slid by. Life is sliding me buy, and I want to grasp it, control it. That is why -- language, wherein my expertise, my higher skills and abilities lie, I want to take that and mold the form of the world to fit myself, I can't.
I need to stop wanting. I need to pause. I need to sleep. I need to give up and accept, not except, mortality. Mortality is myself, the way of the world. We shall all die. All of us. You will be dead, this will be dead, extinguish. Life even now flickers on the edge, a tapering flame. Glory in the warmth-and-burnt. God.
Poetry. The virgin conception. Filled with God, our minds are changed by what we read, what we see. There is no time. The soul is moving too fast, I can't pinion it down, like a conveyor belt at full throttle. I want so much, and I feel as if there were no time for anything. I want to freeze time. This night, this day have slid by. Life is sliding me buy, and I want to grasp it, control it. That is why -- language, wherein my expertise, my higher skills and abilities lie, I want to take that and mold the form of the world to fit myself, I can't.
I need to stop wanting. I need to pause. I need to sleep. I need to give up and accept, not except, mortality. Mortality is myself, the way of the world. We shall all die. All of us. You will be dead, this will be dead, extinguish. Life even now flickers on the edge, a tapering flame. Glory in the warmth-and-burnt. God.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
I'm in the middle of an endorphin rush. I don't know why. I'm excited, there's this wonderful ache just about in my chest, right near my shoulders, the pectorals, I'm not sure, but I just ache so wonderful it's the kind of searing pain that you want to prolong because it's so gratifying like the gush of proper sounds on your tongue grinding between your teeeth and your mouth and I just want to scream and wail in agony, agony is the word that expresses it best because agony is so blessed, pain that doesn't stop but is so intense that the body begins to shut down, the defenses to cave in, and the entire sensory system is overwhelmed by its sweet joy. The words sweet and agony should be inseparably paired and even if the dictionary doesn't place them so they should be next to each other and joined in eternal wedlock.
The words just come rushing. My heart beats oh so fast. I haven't taken anything, I don't know what's wrong with me, I just can't concentrate, I just want to surrendur myself as if I were filled with God. As if visibly God or some demon were moving and stirring within my veins. It is more wonderful than any drought I've ever tried, I have imbibed of something but I don't know what and I don't know why the feeling is so intense so pleasurable it is the prolonged agony wonder sweet of crucifixion.
Today was a very productive day. I talked to people, I played the flute, I worked out, I did homework, I read about Catullus. And yet, I'm tired. I think that has something to do with the agony, I'm so tired. Oh this is insufficient. Screaming from the roof-tops I want to open the window and cry "I love you" to the whole world and surrendur myself to the whole world to be raped and filled with penitence and forgiveness, crime suffering agony and then the sweet juices and flow of redemption and the violins scratching and strutting and scutting Bach, Bach violin concertos ringing out clear and wailing and filling the entire night the stars engulf it and the darkness engulfs it I am filled with the demon of inspiration and I want to see his shadow palpably in the world transformed and transfixed in translation.
The words just come rushing. My heart beats oh so fast. I haven't taken anything, I don't know what's wrong with me, I just can't concentrate, I just want to surrendur myself as if I were filled with God. As if visibly God or some demon were moving and stirring within my veins. It is more wonderful than any drought I've ever tried, I have imbibed of something but I don't know what and I don't know why the feeling is so intense so pleasurable it is the prolonged agony wonder sweet of crucifixion.
Today was a very productive day. I talked to people, I played the flute, I worked out, I did homework, I read about Catullus. And yet, I'm tired. I think that has something to do with the agony, I'm so tired. Oh this is insufficient. Screaming from the roof-tops I want to open the window and cry "I love you" to the whole world and surrendur myself to the whole world to be raped and filled with penitence and forgiveness, crime suffering agony and then the sweet juices and flow of redemption and the violins scratching and strutting and scutting Bach, Bach violin concertos ringing out clear and wailing and filling the entire night the stars engulf it and the darkness engulfs it I am filled with the demon of inspiration and I want to see his shadow palpably in the world transformed and transfixed in translation.
I'm in the middle of an endorphin rush. I don't know why. I'm excited, there's this wonderful ache just about in my chest, right near my shoulders, the pectorals, I'm not sure, but I just ache so wonderful it's the kind of searing pain that you want to prolong because it's so gratifying like the gush of proper sounds on your tongue grinding between your teeeth and your mouth and I just want to scream and wail in agony, agony is the word that expresses it best because agony is so blessed, pain that doesn't stop but is so intense that the body begins to shut down, the defenses to cave in, and the entire sensory system is overwhelmed by its sweet joy. The words sweet and agony should be inseparably paired and even if the dictionary doesn't place them so they should be next to each other and joined in eternal wedlock.
The words just come rushing. My heart beats oh so fast. I haven't taken anything, I don't know what's wrong with me, I just can't concentrate, I just want to surrendur myself as if I were filled with God. As if visibly God or some demon were moving and stirring within my veins. It is more wonderful than any drought I've ever tried, I have imbibed of something but I don't know what and I don't know why the feeling is so intense so pleasurable it is the prolonged agony wonder sweet of crucifixion.
Today was a very productive day. I talked to people, I played the flute, I worked out, I did homework, I read about Catullus. And yet, I'm tired. I think that has something to do with the agony, I'm so tired. Oh this is insufficient. Screaming from the roof-tops I want to open the window and cry "I love you" to the whole world and surrendur myself to the whole world to be raped and filled with penitence and forgiveness, crime suffering agony and then the sweet juices and flow of redemption and the violins scratching and strutting and scutting Bach, Bach violin concertos ringing out clear and wailing and filling the entire night the stars engulf it and the darkness engulfs it I am filled with the demon of inspiration and I want to see his shadow palpably in the world transformed and transfixed in translation.
The words just come rushing. My heart beats oh so fast. I haven't taken anything, I don't know what's wrong with me, I just can't concentrate, I just want to surrendur myself as if I were filled with God. As if visibly God or some demon were moving and stirring within my veins. It is more wonderful than any drought I've ever tried, I have imbibed of something but I don't know what and I don't know why the feeling is so intense so pleasurable it is the prolonged agony wonder sweet of crucifixion.
Today was a very productive day. I talked to people, I played the flute, I worked out, I did homework, I read about Catullus. And yet, I'm tired. I think that has something to do with the agony, I'm so tired. Oh this is insufficient. Screaming from the roof-tops I want to open the window and cry "I love you" to the whole world and surrendur myself to the whole world to be raped and filled with penitence and forgiveness, crime suffering agony and then the sweet juices and flow of redemption and the violins scratching and strutting and scutting Bach, Bach violin concertos ringing out clear and wailing and filling the entire night the stars engulf it and the darkness engulfs it I am filled with the demon of inspiration and I want to see his shadow palpably in the world transformed and transfixed in translation.
First off, hi to some people I love dearly: Mom, Dad, Lele, Chris, Brit, Val, anybody I might have forgotten...
Sonia Sanchez came to our school tonight and read poetry. She's such an amazing reader. She would soar from a simple cadence to a chant to song, and then swoop back down into the hum of her rhythms, her wild repetitions, her poetry that was word bursting out of its shell to mix and mingle with life. She invoked vividly "Peace" as if it could be touched, as if it were a palpable grasping for the fingers; she murmured some words about love; she projected herself and her ideals with delight onto the stage and out into the audience.
At the beginning of the reading, I felt awkward; I felt like an over-saturated sponge -- the desire to soak up everything thwarted by a retention too thick, too yearning, yearning beyond the limits and capacities of what the mind can accomplish. To be there, right there, in the moment and listening to someone great, someone of genius -- the live birthing skill in them. To soak up every word and not miss a drop. I wanted that.
I met JD and Nick before the show. It was so weird sitting with them. Nick was wearing these jeans with gaping holes at the knees. I felt a bit scandalized, I must say. And we sat, as JD remarked with mock-peevishness (now is he a Mulligan?), 150 ft away from the poet as one "cannot listen to poetry within 150 ft of the speaker." I think it was a jab at my own elitism. Ah well...all in playfulness. Of course, then Scott saw the three of us and joined us, and I felt the extreme awkwardness of it...I was part of a group, a group infringing Reed society. It felt weird. I felt as if I were being identified by the others present as part of a group of people in strange dress, on, as I said, the fringes, and yet at the same time I felt strangely alienated from the undercurrents and overtones of the very people I was sitting with.
As the reading went on, however, perhaps moved by the words, perhaps moved by complacency, we all of us melded together and things became more relaxed. Now by the end of the night, I felt pretty good with them. But I wanted to accompany them further, I didn't want to leave; I wanted, on the one hand, the poetry reading to end so I could talk to them and maybe go out with them (Nick and JD...maybe Scott as well, I didn't know what Scott had planned as I hadn't expected him...in truth, didn't even expect Nick) but on the other hand, I was unsure if they wouldn't immediately leave when the reading ended. That was at the beginning, before I relaxed.
In the end, I escorted them to the busstop and let them go. I didn't ask to accompany them because I felt it wasn't my place. I went back to my dorm, looked at poetry I wrote, wrote some more (and despaired of doing any revisions tonight...yech) and then talked to people online and listened to music. Then David called and queried me about my inebriations over the past weekend. And now, here I am, 12:30. It's been a good day. I walked to Milwaukee today (the street, that is) and it was really very nice. Exercise for an hour, flute for an hour, The Golden Ass, a poetry reading, latin poetry...a good life. Now I just have to stop overanalyzing and reap while I sow. Ah well, day's end and rambling aside, goodnight.
Sonia Sanchez came to our school tonight and read poetry. She's such an amazing reader. She would soar from a simple cadence to a chant to song, and then swoop back down into the hum of her rhythms, her wild repetitions, her poetry that was word bursting out of its shell to mix and mingle with life. She invoked vividly "Peace" as if it could be touched, as if it were a palpable grasping for the fingers; she murmured some words about love; she projected herself and her ideals with delight onto the stage and out into the audience.
At the beginning of the reading, I felt awkward; I felt like an over-saturated sponge -- the desire to soak up everything thwarted by a retention too thick, too yearning, yearning beyond the limits and capacities of what the mind can accomplish. To be there, right there, in the moment and listening to someone great, someone of genius -- the live birthing skill in them. To soak up every word and not miss a drop. I wanted that.
I met JD and Nick before the show. It was so weird sitting with them. Nick was wearing these jeans with gaping holes at the knees. I felt a bit scandalized, I must say. And we sat, as JD remarked with mock-peevishness (now is he a Mulligan?), 150 ft away from the poet as one "cannot listen to poetry within 150 ft of the speaker." I think it was a jab at my own elitism. Ah well...all in playfulness. Of course, then Scott saw the three of us and joined us, and I felt the extreme awkwardness of it...I was part of a group, a group infringing Reed society. It felt weird. I felt as if I were being identified by the others present as part of a group of people in strange dress, on, as I said, the fringes, and yet at the same time I felt strangely alienated from the undercurrents and overtones of the very people I was sitting with.
As the reading went on, however, perhaps moved by the words, perhaps moved by complacency, we all of us melded together and things became more relaxed. Now by the end of the night, I felt pretty good with them. But I wanted to accompany them further, I didn't want to leave; I wanted, on the one hand, the poetry reading to end so I could talk to them and maybe go out with them (Nick and JD...maybe Scott as well, I didn't know what Scott had planned as I hadn't expected him...in truth, didn't even expect Nick) but on the other hand, I was unsure if they wouldn't immediately leave when the reading ended. That was at the beginning, before I relaxed.
In the end, I escorted them to the busstop and let them go. I didn't ask to accompany them because I felt it wasn't my place. I went back to my dorm, looked at poetry I wrote, wrote some more (and despaired of doing any revisions tonight...yech) and then talked to people online and listened to music. Then David called and queried me about my inebriations over the past weekend. And now, here I am, 12:30. It's been a good day. I walked to Milwaukee today (the street, that is) and it was really very nice. Exercise for an hour, flute for an hour, The Golden Ass, a poetry reading, latin poetry...a good life. Now I just have to stop overanalyzing and reap while I sow. Ah well, day's end and rambling aside, goodnight.
First off, hi to some people I love dearly: Mom, Dad, Lele, Chris, Brit, Val, anybody I might have forgotten...
Sonia Sanchez came to our school tonight and read poetry. She's such an amazing reader. She would soar from a simple cadence to a chant to song, and then swoop back down into the hum of her rhythms, her wild repetitions, her poetry that was word bursting out of its shell to mix and mingle with life. She invoked vividly "Peace" as if it could be touched, as if it were a palpable grasping for the fingers; she murmured some words about love; she projected herself and her ideals with delight onto the stage and out into the audience.
At the beginning of the reading, I felt awkward; I felt like an over-saturated sponge -- the desire to soak up everything thwarted by a retention too thick, too yearning, yearning beyond the limits and capacities of what the mind can accomplish. To be there, right there, in the moment and listening to someone great, someone of genius -- the live birthing skill in them. To soak up every word and not miss a drop. I wanted that.
I met JD and Nick before the show. It was so weird sitting with them. Nick was wearing these jeans with gaping holes at the knees. I felt a bit scandalized, I must say. And we sat, as JD remarked with mock-peevishness (now is he a Mulligan?), 150 ft away from the poet as one "cannot listen to poetry within 150 ft of the speaker." I think it was a jab at my own elitism. Ah well...all in playfulness. Of course, then Scott saw the three of us and joined us, and I felt the extreme awkwardness of it...I was part of a group, a group infringing Reed society. It felt weird. I felt as if I were being identified by the others present as part of a group of people in strange dress, on, as I said, the fringes, and yet at the same time I felt strangely alienated from the undercurrents and overtones of the very people I was sitting with.
As the reading went on, however, perhaps moved by the words, perhaps moved by complacency, we all of us melded together and things became more relaxed. Now by the end of the night, I felt pretty good with them. But I wanted to accompany them further, I didn't want to leave; I wanted, on the one hand, the poetry reading to end so I could talk to them and maybe go out with them (Nick and JD...maybe Scott as well, I didn't know what Scott had planned as I hadn't expected him...in truth, didn't even expect Nick) but on the other hand, I was unsure if they wouldn't immediately leave when the reading ended. That was at the beginning, before I relaxed.
In the end, I escorted them to the busstop and let them go. I didn't ask to accompany them because I felt it wasn't my place. I went back to my dorm, looked at poetry I wrote, wrote some more (and despaired of doing any revisions tonight...yech) and then talked to people online and listened to music. Then David called and queried me about my inebriations over the past weekend. And now, here I am, 12:30. It's been a good day. I walked to Milwaukee today (the street, that is) and it was really very nice. Exercise for an hour, flute for an hour, The Golden Ass, a poetry reading, latin poetry...a good life. Now I just have to stop overanalyzing and reap while I sow. Ah well, day's end and rambling aside, goodnight.
Sonia Sanchez came to our school tonight and read poetry. She's such an amazing reader. She would soar from a simple cadence to a chant to song, and then swoop back down into the hum of her rhythms, her wild repetitions, her poetry that was word bursting out of its shell to mix and mingle with life. She invoked vividly "Peace" as if it could be touched, as if it were a palpable grasping for the fingers; she murmured some words about love; she projected herself and her ideals with delight onto the stage and out into the audience.
At the beginning of the reading, I felt awkward; I felt like an over-saturated sponge -- the desire to soak up everything thwarted by a retention too thick, too yearning, yearning beyond the limits and capacities of what the mind can accomplish. To be there, right there, in the moment and listening to someone great, someone of genius -- the live birthing skill in them. To soak up every word and not miss a drop. I wanted that.
I met JD and Nick before the show. It was so weird sitting with them. Nick was wearing these jeans with gaping holes at the knees. I felt a bit scandalized, I must say. And we sat, as JD remarked with mock-peevishness (now is he a Mulligan?), 150 ft away from the poet as one "cannot listen to poetry within 150 ft of the speaker." I think it was a jab at my own elitism. Ah well...all in playfulness. Of course, then Scott saw the three of us and joined us, and I felt the extreme awkwardness of it...I was part of a group, a group infringing Reed society. It felt weird. I felt as if I were being identified by the others present as part of a group of people in strange dress, on, as I said, the fringes, and yet at the same time I felt strangely alienated from the undercurrents and overtones of the very people I was sitting with.
As the reading went on, however, perhaps moved by the words, perhaps moved by complacency, we all of us melded together and things became more relaxed. Now by the end of the night, I felt pretty good with them. But I wanted to accompany them further, I didn't want to leave; I wanted, on the one hand, the poetry reading to end so I could talk to them and maybe go out with them (Nick and JD...maybe Scott as well, I didn't know what Scott had planned as I hadn't expected him...in truth, didn't even expect Nick) but on the other hand, I was unsure if they wouldn't immediately leave when the reading ended. That was at the beginning, before I relaxed.
In the end, I escorted them to the busstop and let them go. I didn't ask to accompany them because I felt it wasn't my place. I went back to my dorm, looked at poetry I wrote, wrote some more (and despaired of doing any revisions tonight...yech) and then talked to people online and listened to music. Then David called and queried me about my inebriations over the past weekend. And now, here I am, 12:30. It's been a good day. I walked to Milwaukee today (the street, that is) and it was really very nice. Exercise for an hour, flute for an hour, The Golden Ass, a poetry reading, latin poetry...a good life. Now I just have to stop overanalyzing and reap while I sow. Ah well, day's end and rambling aside, goodnight.
Monday, April 14, 2003
I can be benevolent and I can give something to people, just by listening. I haven't developed skills that need developing, but at nineteen, my life is not over. My life has hardly begun. I should look towards ever horizon with hope and joy, because I can extract the bounty and succor of life from my own roots and from the roots of others.
I don't feel like I'll be able to exist alone. I naturally want to reach out. But I naturally pull inward. I can harmonize these seemingly contradictory tendencies and make myself complete. I can become a new man.
Today was very productive -- in all aspects. I got up, I went to hum lecture. Okay, so I was a bit late...but I was tired and I got up at 8:45 and I did manage to wash my face and brush my teeth and so if I was 10 mnts. late to lecture, it's a product of my supreme time management skills that I didn't miss lecture entirely. And tomorrow I shall get up and do it again.
I feel good about myself tonight; I feel as if I love myself -- as if there's hope for me. I can reach out to others, I am not completely at a loss for words, I can establish meaningful connections with people. I need to keep challenging myself, to feel awkward about something everyday, to overcome barriers, to try to listen to people, and maybe sometimes to put my own desires and feelings aside, because they can get in the way of what is my true joy, which is living and working with others for mutual benefit.
Well, forgive that brief aside; then I studied latin and ate a hasty breakfast in the brief window between Hum and Latin. Latin was good...I've not checked myself. Maybe I should do an experiment and just be quieter in classes. I always talk about it, but I don't do it. I love the spotlight, that's the problem -- I love being the center of attention. But Aristotle says it's better to veer to far the way we don't normally bend than to veer in excess the other direction. I think there's something intrinsically correct about that. Better to do what's disagreeable and maybe slightly more beneficial than what's agreeable but harmful. Philosophy is the organization of life for the pursuit of benevolence. All these asides. So I'll try not speaking in classes, not being vehement, not being violent, but listening to what other people have to say. I'll try. It'll be difficult for me. It will be very difficult. Just one class -- Latin tomorrow and Hum on Wednesday. Ah, these projects of self betterment. I can do it. Ugh.
After Latin I practiced flute, which was very agreeable. I feel good about flute as well -- I'm consistently happy at night now, after talking to people or walking or doing my own thing. I feel good about myself when I go to bed. This is not a bad thing. I am.
Flute finished, I exercised. I think I'll be able to keep up a good exercise routine. And after exercising I ate something, read a bit of The Golden Ass and...sent notes to my class about it. Unsolicited emails as they were. Oh well, possibly interesting points. Never hurts. Then I took a nap, and I fell very deeply into sleep, but it was only 20 mnts. I went to the housing lottery, went to orchestra...I'm a bit nervous about the concert on Saturday, we're not quite in as good shape as we could be -- at least there's still a dress rehearsal...ate dinner, came back, talked to JD.
I felt pretty bad after talking to JD, because we talked about life and depression and being happy and he sounded annoyed with me and increasingly critical of my attitude by the end. Some things I can't help. I am where I am. I don't want to be resistant to change, but I dunno -- it's hard for me and sometimes I feel as if he's very critical of me and as if I'm a burden to him and it makes me feel bad about myself. I felt extremely overwhelmed after talking to him. As if I were extremely intellectual with a one-track mind going straight off the track to the abyss, jeering crowds along the railways, violins playing quick cadenzas, dark sky. Not true.
I called two more people and talked to them -- an old friend whom I haven't talked to in awhile (and why? -- He's perfectly amiable...a wonderful human being, a good friend, an avid counselor) -- and then Nick. I guess the conversation with Nick was filled with digressions, but they were good digressions, reasonable, interesting, friendly, and I felt much better after the whole affair. He's going to bed now -- I wish him a good night.
I can't change all at once, but I will change. I won't just sit here. Things will get better. And I don't have to be alone when I'm sad or depressed. I can call people; I have people to talk to and to turn to. The trick in life is to find people who love us enough to make us feel good about ourselves and yet who, at the same time, constantly urge us to examine ourselves, make ourselves better, more caring, more loving people. The point of life is to overcome all prejudices, to overcome all stumbling blocks (to borrow from Jesus), and finally to arrive at universal love and universal mind, all good ideas and passions becoming our own. I have not arrived at that point yet, but I have tasted of it, sampled it, and it is sweet and promising. Someday i will spread my wings and fly free, but I flap furious little gusts about, perching and squawking. We're a vast multitude of little sparrows in the tree-tops learning to fly.
I don't feel like I'll be able to exist alone. I naturally want to reach out. But I naturally pull inward. I can harmonize these seemingly contradictory tendencies and make myself complete. I can become a new man.
Today was very productive -- in all aspects. I got up, I went to hum lecture. Okay, so I was a bit late...but I was tired and I got up at 8:45 and I did manage to wash my face and brush my teeth and so if I was 10 mnts. late to lecture, it's a product of my supreme time management skills that I didn't miss lecture entirely. And tomorrow I shall get up and do it again.
I feel good about myself tonight; I feel as if I love myself -- as if there's hope for me. I can reach out to others, I am not completely at a loss for words, I can establish meaningful connections with people. I need to keep challenging myself, to feel awkward about something everyday, to overcome barriers, to try to listen to people, and maybe sometimes to put my own desires and feelings aside, because they can get in the way of what is my true joy, which is living and working with others for mutual benefit.
Well, forgive that brief aside; then I studied latin and ate a hasty breakfast in the brief window between Hum and Latin. Latin was good...I've not checked myself. Maybe I should do an experiment and just be quieter in classes. I always talk about it, but I don't do it. I love the spotlight, that's the problem -- I love being the center of attention. But Aristotle says it's better to veer to far the way we don't normally bend than to veer in excess the other direction. I think there's something intrinsically correct about that. Better to do what's disagreeable and maybe slightly more beneficial than what's agreeable but harmful. Philosophy is the organization of life for the pursuit of benevolence. All these asides. So I'll try not speaking in classes, not being vehement, not being violent, but listening to what other people have to say. I'll try. It'll be difficult for me. It will be very difficult. Just one class -- Latin tomorrow and Hum on Wednesday. Ah, these projects of self betterment. I can do it. Ugh.
After Latin I practiced flute, which was very agreeable. I feel good about flute as well -- I'm consistently happy at night now, after talking to people or walking or doing my own thing. I feel good about myself when I go to bed. This is not a bad thing. I am.
Flute finished, I exercised. I think I'll be able to keep up a good exercise routine. And after exercising I ate something, read a bit of The Golden Ass and...sent notes to my class about it. Unsolicited emails as they were. Oh well, possibly interesting points. Never hurts. Then I took a nap, and I fell very deeply into sleep, but it was only 20 mnts. I went to the housing lottery, went to orchestra...I'm a bit nervous about the concert on Saturday, we're not quite in as good shape as we could be -- at least there's still a dress rehearsal...ate dinner, came back, talked to JD.
I felt pretty bad after talking to JD, because we talked about life and depression and being happy and he sounded annoyed with me and increasingly critical of my attitude by the end. Some things I can't help. I am where I am. I don't want to be resistant to change, but I dunno -- it's hard for me and sometimes I feel as if he's very critical of me and as if I'm a burden to him and it makes me feel bad about myself. I felt extremely overwhelmed after talking to him. As if I were extremely intellectual with a one-track mind going straight off the track to the abyss, jeering crowds along the railways, violins playing quick cadenzas, dark sky. Not true.
I called two more people and talked to them -- an old friend whom I haven't talked to in awhile (and why? -- He's perfectly amiable...a wonderful human being, a good friend, an avid counselor) -- and then Nick. I guess the conversation with Nick was filled with digressions, but they were good digressions, reasonable, interesting, friendly, and I felt much better after the whole affair. He's going to bed now -- I wish him a good night.
I can't change all at once, but I will change. I won't just sit here. Things will get better. And I don't have to be alone when I'm sad or depressed. I can call people; I have people to talk to and to turn to. The trick in life is to find people who love us enough to make us feel good about ourselves and yet who, at the same time, constantly urge us to examine ourselves, make ourselves better, more caring, more loving people. The point of life is to overcome all prejudices, to overcome all stumbling blocks (to borrow from Jesus), and finally to arrive at universal love and universal mind, all good ideas and passions becoming our own. I have not arrived at that point yet, but I have tasted of it, sampled it, and it is sweet and promising. Someday i will spread my wings and fly free, but I flap furious little gusts about, perching and squawking. We're a vast multitude of little sparrows in the tree-tops learning to fly.
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Song of My Youth
Now in those days I broke off the birches of wood, the branches, tore the shreds of my shirt, and invoked for myself a crown of my youth and strength and glory; perishable leaves, unuttered garlands green, and flowers, flowers to serve as gems, the thrushes and ushers of the new age. With my crown the sunset dawned cooly in the sky the burden of an endless string of blue days. I was already growing, already changing, alreading having written
Some of the illuminations. Still my spirit was trapped in as if by a cage. Whittled away by time, it grew weaker, frailer, upon the expected attending day when my soul could escape. My soul flourished drinking from good waters, rich wines, and always inebriated, I ranged the grey ghosts of dawn, the cooling tides of even that had not yet flown.
Flown, stretching my wings outward, are you not aware, you who scorn me, that I am one indivisible ageless soul, with the wantings and the yearnings of all souls? That my life is come about through the demons of inconsistency, that I bubble up and boil over, that I contain multitudes of heat, passions, feelings, and that my flame is sharp, acerbic, and will burn you if you come too close?
Incite yourself in the passionate rages of fire. Fire burns a clear and crystal pit of all imaginings. Cast off your doubts, crown yourselves in the laurels of your youth. The leaves decay, the ages come, and the crown
Is all the more glorious in her ending perfection, the leaves go to yellow, brown, red, and gold. Crowned with crowns of perfect gold, we die, the material of our earthly frames transmuted into the august ripening of wisdom. We walk eternal by the cool and flowing streams of time.
Now in those days I broke off the birches of wood, the branches, tore the shreds of my shirt, and invoked for myself a crown of my youth and strength and glory; perishable leaves, unuttered garlands green, and flowers, flowers to serve as gems, the thrushes and ushers of the new age. With my crown the sunset dawned cooly in the sky the burden of an endless string of blue days. I was already growing, already changing, alreading having written
Some of the illuminations. Still my spirit was trapped in as if by a cage. Whittled away by time, it grew weaker, frailer, upon the expected attending day when my soul could escape. My soul flourished drinking from good waters, rich wines, and always inebriated, I ranged the grey ghosts of dawn, the cooling tides of even that had not yet flown.
Flown, stretching my wings outward, are you not aware, you who scorn me, that I am one indivisible ageless soul, with the wantings and the yearnings of all souls? That my life is come about through the demons of inconsistency, that I bubble up and boil over, that I contain multitudes of heat, passions, feelings, and that my flame is sharp, acerbic, and will burn you if you come too close?
Incite yourself in the passionate rages of fire. Fire burns a clear and crystal pit of all imaginings. Cast off your doubts, crown yourselves in the laurels of your youth. The leaves decay, the ages come, and the crown
Is all the more glorious in her ending perfection, the leaves go to yellow, brown, red, and gold. Crowned with crowns of perfect gold, we die, the material of our earthly frames transmuted into the august ripening of wisdom. We walk eternal by the cool and flowing streams of time.
I will become incompetent forever. What strikes me now is the guilt, the feeling of vain inadequacy, the fear of change forever, sudden death, the striking deep within the lungs: I've smoked, I've imbibed. I wonder now if perhaps my mind will lose its edge, that sharp or vivid point to it that it may have had -- if I will wander down alleyways alone, surrounded by fumes -- if I will die a lonely death, forsaken of all. Such depression hits me now. My entire actions, my entire outlook, my entire view makes me sick. I don't want to be myself. I get so depressed every weekend when I have to spend it in this dorm, this awful dorm, with no friends, no exictement, simply mountains and mountains of books and work. I want to break free! I want to shatter them forever, I want them gone.
But I know when I go out that the life of love will never be for me. I harbor the secret fear in my heart always that I am unlovable, always that should anyone get too deep, too close, too hot to the deep burning center of me they will flicker with flames and vanish in a puff of smoke. Inelegant poetic devices, but you'll have to forgive me. I live in a kind of closed off agony. Another weekend wasted. What did I do? Simply go to a party for some three or four hours maybe, imbibe, ruin myself, and now I am soiled and abandoned. I begged JD (well, I didn't beg, but I could have) not to take me back. That I didn't ever want to go back. I don't want to be alone. I need consideration, I need to escape myself. And who am I? Someone awful. No, it isn't self pity, it's a desire to atone for everything, simply to shed this skin, this detestable skin, I have no desire to be who I am.
I babble. I talk about intellectual things. I argue. I carry myself with a cruel arrogance. Don't you see? It's inexcusable...even if I like those things. I can never escape my own pale and cast. Even to have done the things which I've done, the horrible, inexcusable, that is just it! There is no escape. I cannot change my comportment and carry about on with my life. I deserve to be punished, hanged, whipped, lacerated for who I was. I can never escape it. Others never forgive me for what I've done to them, so how can I possibly forgive myself? And I know that I will do it again. I will alienate people, I will be inappropriate, I will deride myself, I will be controversial -- merely because it's in my nature. It's the only way I know how to live, how to operate. I want to scream, I want to plunge myself out the window right now and tumble, hitting the floor, falling, scattering, scattering until there's nothing of my left, not even a pinch, not even a drop.
Agony. That's the word. This horrible feeling of vested guilt over actions when one has imbibed which one cannot control. I simply rambled, I simply derided myself, that is all. But I could tell I was trying to make myself popular by cruel self-mockery, that that was always my place, that I was always the younger, the disconsolate, the unwanted. In the end there is nothing for me. Nothing at all. No person can fill the void, the gap, because I hate being here with myself and I'll always flee from my own arms into those of another, even though those others never materialize.
I don't want to be here! I don't want to be me! How can I love myself if I choose specifically not to? And where is God? I have abandoned him. For one week I supplicated myself, for one week I prepared to live a different life, as if all of the world were emerging into sharp focus, into an answer. But where is that answer? If it ever was, it has slipped through my fingers. Was it give to others? Imbibe. Enivrez-vous. No! None of it has worked. I still want, I still feel boundless, bottomless, depthless pits in my soul, pits that cannot be filled, really blemishes, blemishes and scabs, scabs all over for the sinful ways of life that I have lived.
Sinful, only removing myself from God, from others, from the world. I wanted to be recluse. That's right! I want all of it or none of it. Either complete and unconditional love and admiration from ever human being, a complete submission from others, or I am raped and cast out and dominated and could not control the spark of my own zeal and set fires ablaze and I wander off, downcast and alone. If I can have not universal love, I want not any other kind of love that there is to be had.
I've been looking in my desperation for anything -- a warm body, an escape, a fluid, a substance -- anything to clear me and cleanse me. I've been writing, I've been accomplishing. This is what this fury has produced, myself. And I am in love with a tortured idol. A tortured idol of the artist is keeping my from happiness, locking me in the garden, and I can only be surrounded by the sweet perfumes of aberration. I am a blind prophet, raving stark mad with the words of my god.
Rimbaud. Lettre du Voyant. You think I quoted the above? It existed or resided somewhere in my pitful wretch of a mind. Why can't I do things on the weekends? My complaints are few, but my world is stark. There is no room for unhappiness. Perfection has either attained or failed in the corpuscule of my soul. Soul -- an illusion, an allusion, a fluttering bird with its wings to the air. I cannot destroy my body, let the world do it for me. Bitter old age, disease, sickness, and death. Something else to kill, but by my own hand I can never. Should it be so strange that I feel this? Cannot others? No, I would never do it. I don't want to have to go into a program of rigorous avoidance. I wouldn't trust myself anymore. But I do trust myself. I trust myself to take my agony kindly, like a bitter medicine. And any others? That would be weakness. It is fine to imbibe, but to depend? No, the brain can twist and turn with new illuminations, new works, temporarily, but I don't choose the rose-colored glasses. And so to see things as darkness? Possibly, quite possibly in all hope and good fortune. Good fortune? God, everything lies sprawled out before me -- histories, ages, nation, genius, disgust, arrogance, and emptiness -- like a cold, stark, pit.
But I know when I go out that the life of love will never be for me. I harbor the secret fear in my heart always that I am unlovable, always that should anyone get too deep, too close, too hot to the deep burning center of me they will flicker with flames and vanish in a puff of smoke. Inelegant poetic devices, but you'll have to forgive me. I live in a kind of closed off agony. Another weekend wasted. What did I do? Simply go to a party for some three or four hours maybe, imbibe, ruin myself, and now I am soiled and abandoned. I begged JD (well, I didn't beg, but I could have) not to take me back. That I didn't ever want to go back. I don't want to be alone. I need consideration, I need to escape myself. And who am I? Someone awful. No, it isn't self pity, it's a desire to atone for everything, simply to shed this skin, this detestable skin, I have no desire to be who I am.
I babble. I talk about intellectual things. I argue. I carry myself with a cruel arrogance. Don't you see? It's inexcusable...even if I like those things. I can never escape my own pale and cast. Even to have done the things which I've done, the horrible, inexcusable, that is just it! There is no escape. I cannot change my comportment and carry about on with my life. I deserve to be punished, hanged, whipped, lacerated for who I was. I can never escape it. Others never forgive me for what I've done to them, so how can I possibly forgive myself? And I know that I will do it again. I will alienate people, I will be inappropriate, I will deride myself, I will be controversial -- merely because it's in my nature. It's the only way I know how to live, how to operate. I want to scream, I want to plunge myself out the window right now and tumble, hitting the floor, falling, scattering, scattering until there's nothing of my left, not even a pinch, not even a drop.
Agony. That's the word. This horrible feeling of vested guilt over actions when one has imbibed which one cannot control. I simply rambled, I simply derided myself, that is all. But I could tell I was trying to make myself popular by cruel self-mockery, that that was always my place, that I was always the younger, the disconsolate, the unwanted. In the end there is nothing for me. Nothing at all. No person can fill the void, the gap, because I hate being here with myself and I'll always flee from my own arms into those of another, even though those others never materialize.
I don't want to be here! I don't want to be me! How can I love myself if I choose specifically not to? And where is God? I have abandoned him. For one week I supplicated myself, for one week I prepared to live a different life, as if all of the world were emerging into sharp focus, into an answer. But where is that answer? If it ever was, it has slipped through my fingers. Was it give to others? Imbibe. Enivrez-vous. No! None of it has worked. I still want, I still feel boundless, bottomless, depthless pits in my soul, pits that cannot be filled, really blemishes, blemishes and scabs, scabs all over for the sinful ways of life that I have lived.
Sinful, only removing myself from God, from others, from the world. I wanted to be recluse. That's right! I want all of it or none of it. Either complete and unconditional love and admiration from ever human being, a complete submission from others, or I am raped and cast out and dominated and could not control the spark of my own zeal and set fires ablaze and I wander off, downcast and alone. If I can have not universal love, I want not any other kind of love that there is to be had.
I've been looking in my desperation for anything -- a warm body, an escape, a fluid, a substance -- anything to clear me and cleanse me. I've been writing, I've been accomplishing. This is what this fury has produced, myself. And I am in love with a tortured idol. A tortured idol of the artist is keeping my from happiness, locking me in the garden, and I can only be surrounded by the sweet perfumes of aberration. I am a blind prophet, raving stark mad with the words of my god.
Rimbaud. Lettre du Voyant. You think I quoted the above? It existed or resided somewhere in my pitful wretch of a mind. Why can't I do things on the weekends? My complaints are few, but my world is stark. There is no room for unhappiness. Perfection has either attained or failed in the corpuscule of my soul. Soul -- an illusion, an allusion, a fluttering bird with its wings to the air. I cannot destroy my body, let the world do it for me. Bitter old age, disease, sickness, and death. Something else to kill, but by my own hand I can never. Should it be so strange that I feel this? Cannot others? No, I would never do it. I don't want to have to go into a program of rigorous avoidance. I wouldn't trust myself anymore. But I do trust myself. I trust myself to take my agony kindly, like a bitter medicine. And any others? That would be weakness. It is fine to imbibe, but to depend? No, the brain can twist and turn with new illuminations, new works, temporarily, but I don't choose the rose-colored glasses. And so to see things as darkness? Possibly, quite possibly in all hope and good fortune. Good fortune? God, everything lies sprawled out before me -- histories, ages, nation, genius, disgust, arrogance, and emptiness -- like a cold, stark, pit.
Friday, April 11, 2003
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Just finished the Hum reading. Now I'm depressed. Well, I've been depressed for awhile. It started this morning. The day just felt over before it had even began. The day, the week, the month, the years, and, by a grandiose extension, life. Life over. Dull, boring, nothingness: nothing to look forward to, nothing to make, nothing to do. That's what it feels like. Why does it feel like this? I don't know.
At first I thought it might be a feeling of dissimilation (is that the correct word?) between me and my surroundings. Everyone here is against the war, supports liberal ideals, supports pro-choice, etc. Now, these aren't things that I inherently disagree with, but I guess it's kind of boring to be surrounded by a group of people who are very vocal about things that I generally agree with. It doesn't stimulate thought. Nor am I convinced people spend a good deal of time putting thought into their ideas. It seems they are in a general state of outrage, decrying one violation of the universal code of goodness after another. Relativistic relativism. I'm not quite sure how to phrase that. It's just -- they're so accepting, as they say, so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. Perhaps that's the right way of saying it.
Of course, not everyone is like that and most individuals I know aren't. But there are some people who hold opinions and attitudes that are very extreme and even border on violence, certainly irreverence. I don't like irreverence; I think it bolsters the individual's ego with actually doing anything good about a problem. For instance, people are irreverent toward Bush, protest him, bad-mouth him -- but what do they do about it? Nothing, it seems. They revel in a state of moral superiority simply because they can be irreverent. There's this attitude on campus that the individual, simply by opposing what the majority thinks, is somehow vindicated. Of course, that's not an attitude that is unique to my college, I think that it is rather a very old idea of one's place in the world. And it's appeal is without bounds. It is certainly appealing to me. I use it. We separate ourselves from each other, cut ourselves off, live in bubbles. As if the real world and Reed College could so how be separated. As if what we experience daily is not life.
Well, that is one of the a myriad of the things that are bothering me. I don't like that last sentence, but oh well. I don't have to be a word-smith here. I'll reserve that for writing I don't actually intend anyone to read. Awful constructions, again and again. Probably because I'm writing in passive voice. That colloquial, informal english of the good ol' populist escapes me.
So what else is bothering me? In short, a sense of boredom. Nothing's happening, my life isn't going anywhere, each day is a simple repetition of responsibilities and assignments. I hate biology, for instance, wherein every week I have a lab and every week I am responsible for a lab writeup. The materials being requisite for its completion, by the way, have not been delivered to me by my lab partners. Well if I don't get them tomorrow I cannot very well put together the lab. And it will not be my fault, it will be theirs. In truth, I really don't want to do it. I really, really, really very much do not want to do it. I hate biology. I skipped class on Tuesday partially because I was tired (because now their is a never-ending stream of verbage in the halls at night, laughter, idle talk, and for my part I am robbed of sleep by insomnia caused by an incipient depression) and partially because I just really, really, really did not have any motivation to go. And I will not have any motivation to go tomorrow either. I don't want to go. And I don't want to do the lab. And I know it'll happen all over again next week. There'll be two more classes and a lab lecture of which I have no desire to attend, one more lab report. I got my test back and for all the studying I did, I was just one bar above the mean. I detest it. I'm at the point where I just don't care anymore.
Here's a thought: there are three kinds of activities -- those one finds native joy in (sex, eating, sleeping, parleying with friends, hanging out), those in which one finds self-actualization (flute, writing, reading, etc.), and those which run counter to one's conception of himself and are not enjoyable (biology). Now, doubtless a few more categories can be wrangled out. But the trick, in life, is to have group A and group B overlap. And right now, the activities in which I find self-actualization are not the activities which I natively enjoy. Signing off for the day, please email me with any comments or insights: firezdog@yahoo.com.
At first I thought it might be a feeling of dissimilation (is that the correct word?) between me and my surroundings. Everyone here is against the war, supports liberal ideals, supports pro-choice, etc. Now, these aren't things that I inherently disagree with, but I guess it's kind of boring to be surrounded by a group of people who are very vocal about things that I generally agree with. It doesn't stimulate thought. Nor am I convinced people spend a good deal of time putting thought into their ideas. It seems they are in a general state of outrage, decrying one violation of the universal code of goodness after another. Relativistic relativism. I'm not quite sure how to phrase that. It's just -- they're so accepting, as they say, so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. Perhaps that's the right way of saying it.
Of course, not everyone is like that and most individuals I know aren't. But there are some people who hold opinions and attitudes that are very extreme and even border on violence, certainly irreverence. I don't like irreverence; I think it bolsters the individual's ego with actually doing anything good about a problem. For instance, people are irreverent toward Bush, protest him, bad-mouth him -- but what do they do about it? Nothing, it seems. They revel in a state of moral superiority simply because they can be irreverent. There's this attitude on campus that the individual, simply by opposing what the majority thinks, is somehow vindicated. Of course, that's not an attitude that is unique to my college, I think that it is rather a very old idea of one's place in the world. And it's appeal is without bounds. It is certainly appealing to me. I use it. We separate ourselves from each other, cut ourselves off, live in bubbles. As if the real world and Reed College could so how be separated. As if what we experience daily is not life.
Well, that is one of the a myriad of the things that are bothering me. I don't like that last sentence, but oh well. I don't have to be a word-smith here. I'll reserve that for writing I don't actually intend anyone to read. Awful constructions, again and again. Probably because I'm writing in passive voice. That colloquial, informal english of the good ol' populist escapes me.
So what else is bothering me? In short, a sense of boredom. Nothing's happening, my life isn't going anywhere, each day is a simple repetition of responsibilities and assignments. I hate biology, for instance, wherein every week I have a lab and every week I am responsible for a lab writeup. The materials being requisite for its completion, by the way, have not been delivered to me by my lab partners. Well if I don't get them tomorrow I cannot very well put together the lab. And it will not be my fault, it will be theirs. In truth, I really don't want to do it. I really, really, really very much do not want to do it. I hate biology. I skipped class on Tuesday partially because I was tired (because now their is a never-ending stream of verbage in the halls at night, laughter, idle talk, and for my part I am robbed of sleep by insomnia caused by an incipient depression) and partially because I just really, really, really did not have any motivation to go. And I will not have any motivation to go tomorrow either. I don't want to go. And I don't want to do the lab. And I know it'll happen all over again next week. There'll be two more classes and a lab lecture of which I have no desire to attend, one more lab report. I got my test back and for all the studying I did, I was just one bar above the mean. I detest it. I'm at the point where I just don't care anymore.
Here's a thought: there are three kinds of activities -- those one finds native joy in (sex, eating, sleeping, parleying with friends, hanging out), those in which one finds self-actualization (flute, writing, reading, etc.), and those which run counter to one's conception of himself and are not enjoyable (biology). Now, doubtless a few more categories can be wrangled out. But the trick, in life, is to have group A and group B overlap. And right now, the activities in which I find self-actualization are not the activities which I natively enjoy. Signing off for the day, please email me with any comments or insights: firezdog@yahoo.com.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Today in the school newspaper, the veritable Quest, always seeking and never finding, I saw yet another article concerning the efforts of the library-workers of Reed College to unionize so as to prove their payment and working conditions. This afternoon I approached a girl working at the library desk and I questioned her as to whether or not there was a copy of the book entitled "Catullus and His World" on reserve, to which she replied, "Do you have the call number?" Now, I did not have the call number, and I was forced to exert myself and look it up, then give it to her, upon which she promptly retrieved the book for me, and we both went about our business. However, there are computers at the library desks. And the library workers have access to those computers. And she was not engaged in any other activity concerning her work -- well, there is work and then there is work. She was doing work, mayhaps, but it is not of the kind and type that one is being paid to do. It was homework. She was being paid to do one kind of work, and she was setting herself about an entirely different type of work. And when I asked for help, she proceeded to have me go about her work so that she wouldn't have to go about my work. In any event, this all has something to do with the fact that the Reed workers are poorly treated, seeing as they spend so much time working, and indeed deserve more pay. I feel this extension of pay and improvement of working conditions might profitably be extended to all those who spend any time in the library; if we, the humble students of the Reed community, are not going to receive pay for reading long books for long hours, while they, the workers of our humble school library, are to receive pay for the doing the same while making us go about their business of searching out a book's call number, then I think a serious offense is being committed against the united citizenry of Reed College in general. It is absolutely infuriating.
So that aside, I just spent about an hour and a half reading about Catullus. We approach books very often as we approach television -- we hope for something instantly entertaining that will release pleasure into our cerebral cortex in short intervals. But to sit down with discipline and commit oneself to a thorough reading of a book, this is another matter entirely. I think that it is so far from being a vice in fact a virtue to simply commit a block of time to reading a book, cover to cover. And not a simple, easy book like "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" but a rather more difficult book, like Gibbon's adventures in Rome. There is immense profit to be found in simply committing one's mind to a task and having at it for hours on end. The mental stimulation is only one of the benefits to be secured from such activity; straining against one's own impatient will, keeping one's eyes from glazing over at the repetitive list of place names that accumulates like a mountain from a molehill of abstruse references, and continually searching and grasping with one's mind for a point, a verb, a manner of location, anything -- these are all useful and commendable skills. Because the next time someone whom you are paying asks you to do the work you are paying them to do, you will have obtained at least a modicum of the self-discipline neccessary to keep from yelling at them and stamping your feet repeatedly like an unruly four year-old.
On a final note, it would be enjoyable to sit down and read the Aeneid in latin, entirely, with no notes, translation, or aids in the way of a guide, source-book, dictionary, etc. The mind is so used to encountering things it understands that it rarely sojourns into unfamiliar or unknown territory. To you all I bid grace.
So that aside, I just spent about an hour and a half reading about Catullus. We approach books very often as we approach television -- we hope for something instantly entertaining that will release pleasure into our cerebral cortex in short intervals. But to sit down with discipline and commit oneself to a thorough reading of a book, this is another matter entirely. I think that it is so far from being a vice in fact a virtue to simply commit a block of time to reading a book, cover to cover. And not a simple, easy book like "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" but a rather more difficult book, like Gibbon's adventures in Rome. There is immense profit to be found in simply committing one's mind to a task and having at it for hours on end. The mental stimulation is only one of the benefits to be secured from such activity; straining against one's own impatient will, keeping one's eyes from glazing over at the repetitive list of place names that accumulates like a mountain from a molehill of abstruse references, and continually searching and grasping with one's mind for a point, a verb, a manner of location, anything -- these are all useful and commendable skills. Because the next time someone whom you are paying asks you to do the work you are paying them to do, you will have obtained at least a modicum of the self-discipline neccessary to keep from yelling at them and stamping your feet repeatedly like an unruly four year-old.
On a final note, it would be enjoyable to sit down and read the Aeneid in latin, entirely, with no notes, translation, or aids in the way of a guide, source-book, dictionary, etc. The mind is so used to encountering things it understands that it rarely sojourns into unfamiliar or unknown territory. To you all I bid grace.
Monday, April 07, 2003
Naps are so good. I took a one hour nap today instead of attending Animal Behavior. But animal behavior is...sketchy...anyway, so why I would I want to go to that? It was only a lab lecture ? boring reiteration of what is already self-contained within the handouts. And I never read the handouts. This whole evolution thing sounds pretty doubtful to me. It's based on the idea that you have an animal with one character trait going along perfectly well, and then suddenly it splits into offspring with two different character traits. Not one, but two. Distinct markers of differentiation. Why not three? Or four? Or five? And we can't tell whether any of it actually happened or not. Science is a religion. Sola fide.
So apparently you can translate the english idiom into latin: "Do caput"...I leave it to you to figure out what it means. But technically the body member referred to is unambiguous in latin, and it doesn't have quite the same connotation as it does in the english. Oh well.
So Chris is leaving DU. It's so sad. If DU is reading this, you should give Chris more money. I can't believe you waste so much money on your music program such that, when it comes to rewarding the poor, innocent computer majors, there isn't any left. What's up with that? Sell a Steinway.
I'm pretty happy right now. I don't have any work to do. I am finisehd with my homework. That's right. I turned in my essay, I practiced flute, I read another of Catullus' poems (he is obsessed with that sparrow), I read the book of Revelation for Friday, and now I am sitting back, chatting online (= wasting time) and listening to Weather Report at high volume. Life is good.
Today I had orchestra. I didn't go last week, but I decided to return today. Well, actually, it's not really a matter of choice. I really like orchestra, actually. Even though I haven't been practicing as much lately. But I did practice today. Orchestra on Mondays, flute choir on Wednesdays. We're playing Music for the Royal Fireworks by Handel (pronounced, as I learned only recently, "handle", as bad as Dvorjak [sp?]) and Beethoven's...5th, I believe. Our conductor calls it, "humorous". I have never heard that term applied to a piece of music before. But then there were those wacky abstract Dadas who sat down at the piano, played nothing, got up, and left. Definition of music as sound over a period of time. Those crazy Dadas.
Well, that's about it for today. I'm so happy I slept. Sleep is so nice. Soooo nice. Hmm...I really can't think of anything else to write. Oh, if you've never read the Book of Revelation, you should: it's weird. It's kind've like James Joyce, only the words follow in a generally comprehensible syntactic structure. Actually, what it most resembles is Dante. And we all love Dante...so much.
Alex
So apparently you can translate the english idiom into latin: "Do caput"...I leave it to you to figure out what it means. But technically the body member referred to is unambiguous in latin, and it doesn't have quite the same connotation as it does in the english. Oh well.
So Chris is leaving DU. It's so sad. If DU is reading this, you should give Chris more money. I can't believe you waste so much money on your music program such that, when it comes to rewarding the poor, innocent computer majors, there isn't any left. What's up with that? Sell a Steinway.
I'm pretty happy right now. I don't have any work to do. I am finisehd with my homework. That's right. I turned in my essay, I practiced flute, I read another of Catullus' poems (he is obsessed with that sparrow), I read the book of Revelation for Friday, and now I am sitting back, chatting online (= wasting time) and listening to Weather Report at high volume. Life is good.
Today I had orchestra. I didn't go last week, but I decided to return today. Well, actually, it's not really a matter of choice. I really like orchestra, actually. Even though I haven't been practicing as much lately. But I did practice today. Orchestra on Mondays, flute choir on Wednesdays. We're playing Music for the Royal Fireworks by Handel (pronounced, as I learned only recently, "handle", as bad as Dvorjak [sp?]) and Beethoven's...5th, I believe. Our conductor calls it, "humorous". I have never heard that term applied to a piece of music before. But then there were those wacky abstract Dadas who sat down at the piano, played nothing, got up, and left. Definition of music as sound over a period of time. Those crazy Dadas.
Well, that's about it for today. I'm so happy I slept. Sleep is so nice. Soooo nice. Hmm...I really can't think of anything else to write. Oh, if you've never read the Book of Revelation, you should: it's weird. It's kind've like James Joyce, only the words follow in a generally comprehensible syntactic structure. Actually, what it most resembles is Dante. And we all love Dante...so much.
Alex
Sunday, April 06, 2003
The more that you give and the less that you take in life, the happier you are. Because taking depends upon greed and the inconstant vicissitudes of fortune, whereas the individual can always give of himself, and, if he enjoys the giving, be assured of complete bliss. I know this, and I try to find love in something beyond myself, call it what you will, yet still all I want to do is take ? from everybody.
I've sought to rob myself ? in the blind development of my talents, I've frittered away time and energy that should have been put forward not into perfecting myself, but into perfection of the world. Practicing an instrument so that I could play beautifully, I lost sight of my audience; writing poetry so that I could be immortal, I lost sight of the immortal things that I could perhaps have shared with the world; and striving always to better my peers and professors rather than to learn from them and to teach them ? teaching which is only at its heart and soul perfected learning ? I lost sight of the truth itself. Now, with all light extinguished in the darkness I grope and seek to rob others. I seek from others the gifts that I should be giving to myself ? companionship, energy, charisma, love, compassion, and loyalty. I want to pluck these qualities from them and build a crown of laurels for myself. If I could rob others of their share and due of the world the crowning height of my self-destructive individualism would be complete. I would conquer the world and peer over it, a god of my own creation, horrifying and forsaken.
Well, close enough for a poetic image. But take JD and his friends for instance, and measure them against the flute. I have been spending a lot of time this year practicing the flute and improving my talents in that sphere. I have done so for my own glory, but now that I've found friends, I seek to abandon it so that, instead of playing in an orchestra concert on the 20th, I can go to Canada. What am I thinking? Why, at the prospect of human tenderness, have I abandoned my obligations to a group? Do I truly believe that the orchestra exists for the fulfillment and gratification of my own desires, rather than believing that I myself exist to share my talents with them, to give them what they need of me, to arrive with them at an other-worldly perfection of music that is not my own doing but that some Herculean contribution on my part might help to create?
Herein lies the central reason for my unhappiness: I view every incident, every situation, and every person as simply a means to fulfilling a need, to elevating my own happiness, to improving my own life. But I have neglected to think ever about what I can do to improve the lives of others. I become involved, this way, in obligations, and seeing that the obligations do not provide me with true happiness, I seek to dispense with them the moment that something better comes along. It is because I have never truly given of myself that I so rarely feel pride, that I so rarely feel such love for something that I would prefer it to what ostensibly might seem, on the exterior, better.
How can I become a better person when I don't know the very beginnings of the path? I know what is wrong, I know what is right, but what I don't know is how to bridge the gap between right and wrong and walk from the one to the other. And in the end, to be a good person must intrinsically be tied up with inner happiness...so am I not still thinking on the same sphere of self gratification?
This is the essential theological question ? do we serve God because of what He can do for us or because of what we might do for Him? Of course, it is a ridiculous question, for what can God need from us? But the spirit of the idea remains constant ? we should do good things not for the benefit that they will derive for us, but because they are good. And likewise, it would seem to follow that the person who does good things will be happy because good things are the source of happiness. But the two are completely unrelated nonetheless. Must have something to do with Jesus on the cross... :-P
I've sought to rob myself ? in the blind development of my talents, I've frittered away time and energy that should have been put forward not into perfecting myself, but into perfection of the world. Practicing an instrument so that I could play beautifully, I lost sight of my audience; writing poetry so that I could be immortal, I lost sight of the immortal things that I could perhaps have shared with the world; and striving always to better my peers and professors rather than to learn from them and to teach them ? teaching which is only at its heart and soul perfected learning ? I lost sight of the truth itself. Now, with all light extinguished in the darkness I grope and seek to rob others. I seek from others the gifts that I should be giving to myself ? companionship, energy, charisma, love, compassion, and loyalty. I want to pluck these qualities from them and build a crown of laurels for myself. If I could rob others of their share and due of the world the crowning height of my self-destructive individualism would be complete. I would conquer the world and peer over it, a god of my own creation, horrifying and forsaken.
Well, close enough for a poetic image. But take JD and his friends for instance, and measure them against the flute. I have been spending a lot of time this year practicing the flute and improving my talents in that sphere. I have done so for my own glory, but now that I've found friends, I seek to abandon it so that, instead of playing in an orchestra concert on the 20th, I can go to Canada. What am I thinking? Why, at the prospect of human tenderness, have I abandoned my obligations to a group? Do I truly believe that the orchestra exists for the fulfillment and gratification of my own desires, rather than believing that I myself exist to share my talents with them, to give them what they need of me, to arrive with them at an other-worldly perfection of music that is not my own doing but that some Herculean contribution on my part might help to create?
Herein lies the central reason for my unhappiness: I view every incident, every situation, and every person as simply a means to fulfilling a need, to elevating my own happiness, to improving my own life. But I have neglected to think ever about what I can do to improve the lives of others. I become involved, this way, in obligations, and seeing that the obligations do not provide me with true happiness, I seek to dispense with them the moment that something better comes along. It is because I have never truly given of myself that I so rarely feel pride, that I so rarely feel such love for something that I would prefer it to what ostensibly might seem, on the exterior, better.
How can I become a better person when I don't know the very beginnings of the path? I know what is wrong, I know what is right, but what I don't know is how to bridge the gap between right and wrong and walk from the one to the other. And in the end, to be a good person must intrinsically be tied up with inner happiness...so am I not still thinking on the same sphere of self gratification?
This is the essential theological question ? do we serve God because of what He can do for us or because of what we might do for Him? Of course, it is a ridiculous question, for what can God need from us? But the spirit of the idea remains constant ? we should do good things not for the benefit that they will derive for us, but because they are good. And likewise, it would seem to follow that the person who does good things will be happy because good things are the source of happiness. But the two are completely unrelated nonetheless. Must have something to do with Jesus on the cross... :-P
Oh no...we lost an hour! We lost a damn hour! Aaagh. That ruins everything. That means I have to sleep until 11 tomorrow so I can get eight hours of sleep, and then, not counting getting ready for the day and all that, I only will have one or maybe two hours to work on my essay. Ack!
I spent all night after 9:15 or so working on my essay. Except for when I started gossiping with some girls about the residents of our dorms. It's amazing how creepy people become when you start gossiping about them. Perfeclty decent people become...monsters. Oh well. I'm not sure if I can believe any of it.
Little crisis with Ben, my ex. I was talking to him last night, only it wasn't him, it was his friends pretending...not to be him, but to be his new beau. So I thought he had a new beau. So contrary to all logic, I was jealous, even though I should be over him by now and have, in fact, been okay with the fact that we're not dating for several months now. It's amazing how fragile a thing the psyche is. Well, at least he told me later that I was being tricked. And I was. How mean of them. But oh well, life is forgive and forget and so forth. No nursing wounds in the heart. You get worms that way.
I'm so tired I can barely think. It is time for sleep. And tomorrow? More Lucretius. Oh God, and I was reading some Catullus today too. About Lesbia's pet sparrow. First, her name is Lesbia. Second, she has a very interesting relationship with that sparrow. Who knew sparrows were a cure for sexual tension? It bites a lot.
I spent all night after 9:15 or so working on my essay. Except for when I started gossiping with some girls about the residents of our dorms. It's amazing how creepy people become when you start gossiping about them. Perfeclty decent people become...monsters. Oh well. I'm not sure if I can believe any of it.
Little crisis with Ben, my ex. I was talking to him last night, only it wasn't him, it was his friends pretending...not to be him, but to be his new beau. So I thought he had a new beau. So contrary to all logic, I was jealous, even though I should be over him by now and have, in fact, been okay with the fact that we're not dating for several months now. It's amazing how fragile a thing the psyche is. Well, at least he told me later that I was being tricked. And I was. How mean of them. But oh well, life is forgive and forget and so forth. No nursing wounds in the heart. You get worms that way.
I'm so tired I can barely think. It is time for sleep. And tomorrow? More Lucretius. Oh God, and I was reading some Catullus today too. About Lesbia's pet sparrow. First, her name is Lesbia. Second, she has a very interesting relationship with that sparrow. Who knew sparrows were a cure for sexual tension? It bites a lot.
Friday, April 04, 2003
I had claimed that science was responsible for the destruction of individuality in our society, but I must be wrong and I atone. For to say that science is any one thing, that is truly to sacrifice individuality in the name of abstraction. Science is a study as variable and diverse as its component parts; the information that we derive from science means nothing, and yet it means everything. Careful minds can interpret the information in many different ways, and yet in the end there must be only one truth. Biology is the study of life, even while it tells us very little about how to live. Everything and nothing contained in the same seed. Endless fields of ecstasy.
Right now, I'm in bio lab, exchanging catty comments with the bio instructor about how much I hate bio labs. Extremely fatigued. I shouldn't have stayed up so late last night, but I went out walking and I ran into friends and ended up watching Classic Jerry Springer, "My Boyfriend is Really a Girl." Oh the joys of the illiterate world. Well, they did have text on the screen.
I'm kind've grumpy right now. It's because of not getting sleep. So if I enjoyed staying up last night, I should be willing to pay the price right now. I don't understand all these philosophical arguments about pleasure. As if it were something that one could quantify. Damn callow-sophomoric youth -- me. Know nothing. Not even what I don't know. Either you don't know what you don't know so you know you know everything even though...blech. Well, it doesn't get any worse.
There's a musical performance of new music today at 4:00. Originally I was supposed to play in it, but it was tough music so the conductor let me go. I'm glad. Ugh, you never feel very much like your life is in order when your consciousness is in shambles. Not playing, squandering away my time, frivoling it away, un petit frou-frou.
Paper due for conference Monday. What am I going to do this weekend? JD is in Idaho, but I might hang out with Nick, who knows...it's so weird speaking specifically. Oh well. You'd think my life was completely normal, which it probably is. But tonight? Shabbat dinner. Oh yeah. There might even be soup.
And in Latin class we had a festival and we read a bit of a play by Plautus. Kind've boring in parts, but then I was tired. A comman in the Neil-Simon variety. There's some guy in this site who spends every entry criticizing movies. Amazing, I could never do that. I remain a name-dropper, literary reference-maker, even faker than but as callow as our dear friend H.C. which is not H.C.E. Hehe.
I'm kind've grumpy right now. It's because of not getting sleep. So if I enjoyed staying up last night, I should be willing to pay the price right now. I don't understand all these philosophical arguments about pleasure. As if it were something that one could quantify. Damn callow-sophomoric youth -- me. Know nothing. Not even what I don't know. Either you don't know what you don't know so you know you know everything even though...blech. Well, it doesn't get any worse.
There's a musical performance of new music today at 4:00. Originally I was supposed to play in it, but it was tough music so the conductor let me go. I'm glad. Ugh, you never feel very much like your life is in order when your consciousness is in shambles. Not playing, squandering away my time, frivoling it away, un petit frou-frou.
Paper due for conference Monday. What am I going to do this weekend? JD is in Idaho, but I might hang out with Nick, who knows...it's so weird speaking specifically. Oh well. You'd think my life was completely normal, which it probably is. But tonight? Shabbat dinner. Oh yeah. There might even be soup.
And in Latin class we had a festival and we read a bit of a play by Plautus. Kind've boring in parts, but then I was tired. A comman in the Neil-Simon variety. There's some guy in this site who spends every entry criticizing movies. Amazing, I could never do that. I remain a name-dropper, literary reference-maker, even faker than but as callow as our dear friend H.C. which is not H.C.E. Hehe.
Thursday, April 03, 2003
And here is my second post. I'm feeling very good right now. I was out walking on Steele St. and 39th. It is beautiful out tonight; the air is cold enough that it makes you feel alive. One of these days I'm going to go to the Himalayas and see the Buddhist monasteries (that's the Himalayas, right?) I mean, Nepal. It's very appealing, the idea of becoming a Buddhist monk for awhile. I believe all of the cares of the world can be conquered by the mind, perhaps because I depend upon my brain so much.
This is all rambling. Just sit for awhile in silence. It's so nice to simply put a halt to the churning apparatus of thoughts that always surrounds us. Everyday just go for a walk or do something. Leave work during your break and instead of hanging out in the cafeteria or smoking outside or chatting idly with a co-worker, just go walking outside. Leave school, stop reading your books and writing your papers. What's important in the end is just to enjoy life. As Baudelaire says, "Enivrez vous, n'importe sur quoi" or something like that.
I haven't really done that much besides today. I finished editing a paper for French, turned it in (and was 15 mnts late to class in the process because my printer takes a long time to print) and then found out that it wasn't due 'til Tuesday. Oh well, it's over with anyway. Now I just have the Hum paper.
I also read Romans. It's for school ? well, I'm not a religious nut yet. But I have to say that Romans was very inspiring. I took it to mean that you can be saved even if you don't believe Jesus is Christ; the message of toleration I liked. Paul's opinion on good works, however, I'm not sure I believe in. Now granted, now one should perform the commandments in the Torah simply because he wants to get on the right side of divinity, I don't think, but on the other hand, I don't believe in "sola fide." It's very tempting of course; Paul very likely places faith subordinate to good works because good works spring from faith. If one doesn't sanctify his soul to God, he is left to the mortal way of sin and will perish. A few thoughts.
I will not take up regular religious rantings. I so will not. Oh God, and I have Dante's Vita Nuova as the title for my site. Good lord. Oh no.
So now I have to read Acts. I don't go to a religious school, either, I go to Reed College in Portland Oregon, whose three tenets are Communism, Atheism, and Free Love (none of which holds true in my case, interestingly enough). I'm feeling better today. I wish I didn't depend so much on other people for my welfare. But then, no man is an island. I wonder...I address myself as if I were speaking to someone who didn't know me, but is anyone reading this at all?
This is all rambling. Just sit for awhile in silence. It's so nice to simply put a halt to the churning apparatus of thoughts that always surrounds us. Everyday just go for a walk or do something. Leave work during your break and instead of hanging out in the cafeteria or smoking outside or chatting idly with a co-worker, just go walking outside. Leave school, stop reading your books and writing your papers. What's important in the end is just to enjoy life. As Baudelaire says, "Enivrez vous, n'importe sur quoi" or something like that.
I haven't really done that much besides today. I finished editing a paper for French, turned it in (and was 15 mnts late to class in the process because my printer takes a long time to print) and then found out that it wasn't due 'til Tuesday. Oh well, it's over with anyway. Now I just have the Hum paper.
I also read Romans. It's for school ? well, I'm not a religious nut yet. But I have to say that Romans was very inspiring. I took it to mean that you can be saved even if you don't believe Jesus is Christ; the message of toleration I liked. Paul's opinion on good works, however, I'm not sure I believe in. Now granted, now one should perform the commandments in the Torah simply because he wants to get on the right side of divinity, I don't think, but on the other hand, I don't believe in "sola fide." It's very tempting of course; Paul very likely places faith subordinate to good works because good works spring from faith. If one doesn't sanctify his soul to God, he is left to the mortal way of sin and will perish. A few thoughts.
I will not take up regular religious rantings. I so will not. Oh God, and I have Dante's Vita Nuova as the title for my site. Good lord. Oh no.
So now I have to read Acts. I don't go to a religious school, either, I go to Reed College in Portland Oregon, whose three tenets are Communism, Atheism, and Free Love (none of which holds true in my case, interestingly enough). I'm feeling better today. I wish I didn't depend so much on other people for my welfare. But then, no man is an island. I wonder...I address myself as if I were speaking to someone who didn't know me, but is anyone reading this at all?
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Well, this is my first post. Tonight is an interesting night. Right now, I should be reading the new testament for school, but instead I've been engaging in therapy. First, I called a friend of mine (I guess I'm going to talk frankly about everyone I know, so if you should ever be reading this and I should ever offend you, please bitch me out as it will make my life quite interesting...I'm serious :-) and he got mad at me because I'm very argumentative. I'm trying not to be argumentative. I've thought about Freudian analysis (it's a defense mechanism), about philosophy (I'm really just a seeker after the truth), but when it comes all down to it, sometimes I just have poor social skills. So he chewed me out (well he said he wasn't chewing me out, so he was) and then he hung up on me, and I felt bad. So I wrote a long letter to another one of his friends and even though it was completely incoherent, I felt better afterwards. So that means in total I have had two completely socially inept conversations tonight.
After that, I read Ellipsis, which is a cool site. You have to go to www.du.edu/~wmoore. He's a friend of mine, he and his boyfriend Britten. They're both friends of mine. I used to date Britten actually. He was feeling depressed the last time I read him, but he seemed better today. Anyway, it's kind've from him I'm getting the idea of doing this. I mean, I like to write, and granted this is very conversational and not serious creative writing, but I think it's helpful to assess what happens to you everyday. And it's entertaining to read. Yes! I am trying to entertain people, I am communicating with an audience ? it will be good for me.
So Chris was depressed and I was inspired and here I am. Now, other business. Tonight I had flute choir, which went well. Other than that, I simply uh...wrote a french paper (they're harder to write when they're in french because you try to think of a good idea and then you realize, "Damn it, I have to translate my idea into French" and then you scrap the good ones and you write only about the bad ones). Sorry about all the parentheticals. Consider them introductory material.
I could talk all about myself, but I think I'll become evident if I write here long enough. Kind've after Emerson. Oh good lord, Martha. I'm absolutely in love with the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and I quote from it all the time. Lessee, lessee, what else? Well hmm...I woke up at 9:00 today. I've officially discontinued that whole alarm thing. I very much anti-time, in the sense that I do not approve of it. I think the world would be a far better place without it. Just freeze everything exactly as it is now. Like when snow is falling all around swirling and it's cold and everything is wonderful, keep it like that forever. A block of ice.
Well, that should do it for the day. I shall write more. This shall become a past-time. It is something constructive to do, it's psychologically helpful, I might make friends...Oh yes I am certainly optimistic about this. Yes indeed.
After that, I read Ellipsis, which is a cool site. You have to go to www.du.edu/~wmoore. He's a friend of mine, he and his boyfriend Britten. They're both friends of mine. I used to date Britten actually. He was feeling depressed the last time I read him, but he seemed better today. Anyway, it's kind've from him I'm getting the idea of doing this. I mean, I like to write, and granted this is very conversational and not serious creative writing, but I think it's helpful to assess what happens to you everyday. And it's entertaining to read. Yes! I am trying to entertain people, I am communicating with an audience ? it will be good for me.
So Chris was depressed and I was inspired and here I am. Now, other business. Tonight I had flute choir, which went well. Other than that, I simply uh...wrote a french paper (they're harder to write when they're in french because you try to think of a good idea and then you realize, "Damn it, I have to translate my idea into French" and then you scrap the good ones and you write only about the bad ones). Sorry about all the parentheticals. Consider them introductory material.
I could talk all about myself, but I think I'll become evident if I write here long enough. Kind've after Emerson. Oh good lord, Martha. I'm absolutely in love with the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and I quote from it all the time. Lessee, lessee, what else? Well hmm...I woke up at 9:00 today. I've officially discontinued that whole alarm thing. I very much anti-time, in the sense that I do not approve of it. I think the world would be a far better place without it. Just freeze everything exactly as it is now. Like when snow is falling all around swirling and it's cold and everything is wonderful, keep it like that forever. A block of ice.
Well, that should do it for the day. I shall write more. This shall become a past-time. It is something constructive to do, it's psychologically helpful, I might make friends...Oh yes I am certainly optimistic about this. Yes indeed.