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.