I try to control the mundane details of life in order to create a facade which can mask the infinite chaos that is my life. I long to bring order and perfection to myself when all I am is laziness and inadequecy. Instead of dealing with the root of the problems in my life I busy myself putting everything into straight rows, placing everything just so, hoping to avoid cracks with my toes, making sure that all the doors are closed. I dot my i's and cross my t's, periods at the .beginning and end.
New Years resolution- bring order to something meaningful and allow the rest to go to shit...right after I uniformly scrape all the enamyle off of my teeth...
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
No Escape
I realised last night that my answer, given in response to a question posed by a friend of mine, was false. I was asked what my fears are. I answered quickly that I fear being "unknown" more than anything else. This is a lie; a complicated lie granted, but a lie nonetheless. Where in one sense I do fear the fragmentation, isolation and solitude of the existence I see around me, I also dear the opposite of this. I fear being known. I construct arguments and theories which support my flight away from "the other". I latch onto the extreme of knowablity and claim triumphantly that because I cannot be known fully by a single person that it is futile to try to interact with and know "the others" who surround me. What does this extreme look like in more detail I wonder.
I am thoroughly convinced that human beings are not finite beings. This point ultimately brings me back to a point where one can be known, but I will return to it at the end of this piece. I shall begin my argument from the opposite of what I deem to be true. All human beings are finite. This should necessarily narrow the scope of aspects that a human can possess, making them effectively knowable. Yet, let us look at the different ways in which a person must be known in order to be known fully. This shall prove to be an infinite list, contrary to my starting point.
1. People can be known emotionally.
2. People can be known physically or carnally.
3. People can be known intellectually.
A scientist would look at these categories and collect data from numerous sources to create a centralized and agreed apon individual. They would ignore outliers from the data and create a very convenient and simple, albiet quantitatively vast, picture of an individual. This way of investigating an individual is inherently misguided and flawed. There are underlying complxities to these categories which force open the picture of the individual to an infinite spectrum.
The first is the difficulty of the perspective of the observer or interacter. Every person interacts in these three ways differently. For example, John Doe's wife and son know him in very different carnal ways. The notable difference is that his wife knows him sexually, but the son is a part of John's flesh and has a different physical relationship with him. Even John Doe's office affair partner knows him differently than does his wife because the physical sensations are different. The relationship is different. This is an example of the perspective difficulty in the physical sense, but also applies to the other two categories as well.
The second difficulty is the different tones and tinctures within even one observer. Emotions are not all the same. There are different intensities, durations and initiations of emotions which make an emotional experience different every single time. It is not the same thing to get angry at a dog for pissing on the carpet as it is to get angry at a person who has just shot your wife. Even the emotional response to the same person changes due to different circumstances.
I have some other thoughts of the differences. They involve remembering/history, reputation, the interaction between the three ways of knowing someone and irrationality. I do not have time to elaborate on them now, but I may get to it. I feel confident that the difficulties hitherto described are enough to support my claim that human beings are not as finite as they seem. All of the different ways of knowing a person makes it impossible to finitely nail down a definition. Perhaps to be known is to be known in relation to everything else in existence. Buddhists call this dependant origination. In sum, that everything arises in relation to other things and do not exist on their own, but in connection to one another. That is not to say that the self does not exist, but the falsely imagined lone sense of self does not exist. This brings me back to my musing on knowability.
Do I fear being known or unknown? Take for granted that we cannot be fully known by a single being. Yet, we can be known by the infinite fully. Perhaps this is what God is. I do fear being unknown, I fear oblivion, an existence without God, an existence without the connection. I also fear being known on a more primal level. I do not want people to know me deep down, because I, like everyone, have deep dark spots. I do not want those places to be found by people. But, can I escape the infinite, can I escape God. NO! To be known is to be fully exposed, something my mortality will not allow me to do.
I have to stop for length, sleep and sanity. I leave the question as open as it was when I began writing tonight, and I pose it to you my reader. What are your fears? My fears are simultateously to be unknown and known, a frightening paradox which threatens to tear me apart, from which there is no escape...
I am thoroughly convinced that human beings are not finite beings. This point ultimately brings me back to a point where one can be known, but I will return to it at the end of this piece. I shall begin my argument from the opposite of what I deem to be true. All human beings are finite. This should necessarily narrow the scope of aspects that a human can possess, making them effectively knowable. Yet, let us look at the different ways in which a person must be known in order to be known fully. This shall prove to be an infinite list, contrary to my starting point.
1. People can be known emotionally.
2. People can be known physically or carnally.
3. People can be known intellectually.
A scientist would look at these categories and collect data from numerous sources to create a centralized and agreed apon individual. They would ignore outliers from the data and create a very convenient and simple, albiet quantitatively vast, picture of an individual. This way of investigating an individual is inherently misguided and flawed. There are underlying complxities to these categories which force open the picture of the individual to an infinite spectrum.
The first is the difficulty of the perspective of the observer or interacter. Every person interacts in these three ways differently. For example, John Doe's wife and son know him in very different carnal ways. The notable difference is that his wife knows him sexually, but the son is a part of John's flesh and has a different physical relationship with him. Even John Doe's office affair partner knows him differently than does his wife because the physical sensations are different. The relationship is different. This is an example of the perspective difficulty in the physical sense, but also applies to the other two categories as well.
The second difficulty is the different tones and tinctures within even one observer. Emotions are not all the same. There are different intensities, durations and initiations of emotions which make an emotional experience different every single time. It is not the same thing to get angry at a dog for pissing on the carpet as it is to get angry at a person who has just shot your wife. Even the emotional response to the same person changes due to different circumstances.
I have some other thoughts of the differences. They involve remembering/history, reputation, the interaction between the three ways of knowing someone and irrationality. I do not have time to elaborate on them now, but I may get to it. I feel confident that the difficulties hitherto described are enough to support my claim that human beings are not as finite as they seem. All of the different ways of knowing a person makes it impossible to finitely nail down a definition. Perhaps to be known is to be known in relation to everything else in existence. Buddhists call this dependant origination. In sum, that everything arises in relation to other things and do not exist on their own, but in connection to one another. That is not to say that the self does not exist, but the falsely imagined lone sense of self does not exist. This brings me back to my musing on knowability.
Do I fear being known or unknown? Take for granted that we cannot be fully known by a single being. Yet, we can be known by the infinite fully. Perhaps this is what God is. I do fear being unknown, I fear oblivion, an existence without God, an existence without the connection. I also fear being known on a more primal level. I do not want people to know me deep down, because I, like everyone, have deep dark spots. I do not want those places to be found by people. But, can I escape the infinite, can I escape God. NO! To be known is to be fully exposed, something my mortality will not allow me to do.
I have to stop for length, sleep and sanity. I leave the question as open as it was when I began writing tonight, and I pose it to you my reader. What are your fears? My fears are simultateously to be unknown and known, a frightening paradox which threatens to tear me apart, from which there is no escape...
Friday, December 22, 2006
Epitaph For a Friend
A man is a mosaic of all the different relationships that he has had in his life. Throughout life he makes inumerable utterances of who he is to all the people whom he comes into contact with. The mosaic of all these utterances is who that man is.
When a man dies all those people, carrying with them their piece of the mosaic, come together to sort out who that man was.
Is it possible for a Eulogy to do a man justice? Even if the speaker takes into account some surface differences of that man's relationships with different people, brother, son, friend, teacher etc, it is impossible, for no one person can understand let alone explain who that man was.
Can their be a person in a man's life who holds the guidelines to put all those pieces together?
I don't think so, and that is the loss, not only the physical death, but the fragmentation of the mosaic. The fragmenation of the person's memories, impressions, relationships, dialogue---self.
Those left behind are left with only the piece that they had. Some have small pieces, others large. All incomplete, broken, hurt.
It is the wish of all men to be known fully. This cannot happen in life, and it does not happen upon death, perhaps it can happen beyond death. Perhaps man has 100 senses and upon death we are awakened to the 95 senses that have lain dormant since childhood, only retained in the heart of the poet and the comedian. This is why the idea of heaven has been man's desire for countless aeons. We long for a place where we can know and be known perfectly.
We want someone who can read a dramatic epilogue in a sad film while the music reaches its climax and the shot slowly fades up into the clouds, until everything becomes light. This cannot be.
It's been 4 months, and I'll always remember the piece of Garreth that I knew while he was alive. To my most joyful friend who always smiled, especially when life was kicking him around...
When a man dies all those people, carrying with them their piece of the mosaic, come together to sort out who that man was.
Is it possible for a Eulogy to do a man justice? Even if the speaker takes into account some surface differences of that man's relationships with different people, brother, son, friend, teacher etc, it is impossible, for no one person can understand let alone explain who that man was.
Can their be a person in a man's life who holds the guidelines to put all those pieces together?
I don't think so, and that is the loss, not only the physical death, but the fragmentation of the mosaic. The fragmenation of the person's memories, impressions, relationships, dialogue---self.
Those left behind are left with only the piece that they had. Some have small pieces, others large. All incomplete, broken, hurt.
It is the wish of all men to be known fully. This cannot happen in life, and it does not happen upon death, perhaps it can happen beyond death. Perhaps man has 100 senses and upon death we are awakened to the 95 senses that have lain dormant since childhood, only retained in the heart of the poet and the comedian. This is why the idea of heaven has been man's desire for countless aeons. We long for a place where we can know and be known perfectly.
We want someone who can read a dramatic epilogue in a sad film while the music reaches its climax and the shot slowly fades up into the clouds, until everything becomes light. This cannot be.
It's been 4 months, and I'll always remember the piece of Garreth that I knew while he was alive. To my most joyful friend who always smiled, especially when life was kicking him around...
Thursday, December 21, 2006
hmmmm.....
And today I wonder as to what this has become
whence we shallowly sit, awaiting to succumb
- to incolence and lack of minds -
wandering wearily in a dreary time.
I bring a plea to end all this,
for there is more to life than infatuated bliss.
To return and ponder the greater expanse;
that dim and dreadful may no more hold stance.
whence we shallowly sit, awaiting to succumb
- to incolence and lack of minds -
wandering wearily in a dreary time.
I bring a plea to end all this,
for there is more to life than infatuated bliss.
To return and ponder the greater expanse;
that dim and dreadful may no more hold stance.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Clothed in Skin
I am going to say something which very few people will believe. Ready? Wait for it...
My consciousness once spontaneously drifted out of my physical body and I lost all conception that, whatever I may be, I was not my body, but was something much more connected with the rest of reality, something more ephemeral, but at the same time much more than the tiny physical body which I so often mistake for myself.
I told you that you wouldn't believe it.
I tell this story because I have recently come up against some rather frightening medical problems involving my heart. It probably isn't anything, but nevertheless I have been gripped by fear for my mortal body. To quote South Park, "You know, I learned something today". Well actually I have known it for a long time and am reminded of it every time my physical body is in pain. I am afraid of death.
I don't think that I am alone in my fear of mortality, but I feel like a hypocrite in my fear. I must return to the inebriated blog which I deleted referred to in my last post. In describing my decietfulness I also discussed, albeit drunkenly, the fact that my blog name is thephilosopherone. I ranted drunkenly that I am a charlatan and that I do not deserve this title. I don't think that anyone really does. I have considered changing it, but that would just confuse me. I have developed this persona on the web and to change the name would be disasterous. I would like to clear up the misconceptions surrounding that name. I do not profess to have any answers. I do not profess to be intelligent. I read a lot, who gives a flying fuck! I think a lot, who doesn't! I am not trying to bring enlightenment to people, I do not possess esoteric knowledge. I strive to be free, to be free from knowledge, belief, faith...I strive to be free from mortality? So, I am a hypocrite. For all my talk, all my ideas about a loss of self, the fact that " I do not know" WHO I am, is all bullocks. When it comes down to it, I feel a strange attachment to this flesh suit which I think of as myself.
Am I merely like a new arrival to a nudist colony who is reluctant to remove his boxers? Is my attachment to my physical body something that will leave as I grow older? as it wastes away to nothing? Can I truly escape my dependance on my body in this life. The goal of the ascetic is to do just this, but prophets from Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed(don't worry no pictures) denied these practices. They stressed the importance of the physical body. I think that this is where gnosticism (the belief that the physical world is nothing but illusion) falls apart. Our physical bodies are important to our spiritual quests. To deny the body food and water entirely would make it impossible to search for some sort of enlightenment.
I have never fully understood the motivation of a martyr. I have heard many North American preachers exhorting people to praise martyrdom, but it never sat well with me. Perhaps there is something wrong with martyrdom? Could there not be as much value in uttering a few heretical words, but continuing to LIVE? Is not LIFE better than death? I am not denying that martyrdom is a noble thing, something to hold aloft as venerable, but I am just wondering why I would not be able to do it. I would not be able to choose death over life. I WANT TO LIVE! I have something to do, something to say, something to experience. I haven't finished with life. Jesus didn't die until he said that "it is finished". Jesus knew his thing to do (not that we have the faintest clue what that was), but I don't know what I have to finish. How can I ever die if I never find out what it is I am supposed to do, or be?
Perhaps I should focus on just that, on being, rather than doing, I have said this many times before, as has the Introspective Irishman, but when I try to focus on being I end up torturing myself mentally and spiritually and with this recent heart issue, physically as well. My vain struggle to find an elevated state of being leaves my physical body in ruin, which begs the question, should I just give up on seeking? Should I live a contented animal life? sleep and feed, sleep and feed. I can't do that without a lobotomy, so I can't and I must face physical ruin. Maybe then I will be able to shift off these clothes of skin and really start LIVING, finally begin BEING. To be a real living being instead of a shiftless anxiety ridden animal. For now I am caught in a cycle of compulsion to seek something beyond myself with the ironic result which makes me physically unable to seek anything but sleep and food.
I have probably been being all the time. I just want to be concious of that being which only seems to happen beyond my grasp. Oh well.
I still haven't ever seen the dusk...
My consciousness once spontaneously drifted out of my physical body and I lost all conception that, whatever I may be, I was not my body, but was something much more connected with the rest of reality, something more ephemeral, but at the same time much more than the tiny physical body which I so often mistake for myself.
I told you that you wouldn't believe it.
I tell this story because I have recently come up against some rather frightening medical problems involving my heart. It probably isn't anything, but nevertheless I have been gripped by fear for my mortal body. To quote South Park, "You know, I learned something today". Well actually I have known it for a long time and am reminded of it every time my physical body is in pain. I am afraid of death.
I don't think that I am alone in my fear of mortality, but I feel like a hypocrite in my fear. I must return to the inebriated blog which I deleted referred to in my last post. In describing my decietfulness I also discussed, albeit drunkenly, the fact that my blog name is thephilosopherone. I ranted drunkenly that I am a charlatan and that I do not deserve this title. I don't think that anyone really does. I have considered changing it, but that would just confuse me. I have developed this persona on the web and to change the name would be disasterous. I would like to clear up the misconceptions surrounding that name. I do not profess to have any answers. I do not profess to be intelligent. I read a lot, who gives a flying fuck! I think a lot, who doesn't! I am not trying to bring enlightenment to people, I do not possess esoteric knowledge. I strive to be free, to be free from knowledge, belief, faith...I strive to be free from mortality? So, I am a hypocrite. For all my talk, all my ideas about a loss of self, the fact that " I do not know" WHO I am, is all bullocks. When it comes down to it, I feel a strange attachment to this flesh suit which I think of as myself.
Am I merely like a new arrival to a nudist colony who is reluctant to remove his boxers? Is my attachment to my physical body something that will leave as I grow older? as it wastes away to nothing? Can I truly escape my dependance on my body in this life. The goal of the ascetic is to do just this, but prophets from Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed(don't worry no pictures) denied these practices. They stressed the importance of the physical body. I think that this is where gnosticism (the belief that the physical world is nothing but illusion) falls apart. Our physical bodies are important to our spiritual quests. To deny the body food and water entirely would make it impossible to search for some sort of enlightenment.
I have never fully understood the motivation of a martyr. I have heard many North American preachers exhorting people to praise martyrdom, but it never sat well with me. Perhaps there is something wrong with martyrdom? Could there not be as much value in uttering a few heretical words, but continuing to LIVE? Is not LIFE better than death? I am not denying that martyrdom is a noble thing, something to hold aloft as venerable, but I am just wondering why I would not be able to do it. I would not be able to choose death over life. I WANT TO LIVE! I have something to do, something to say, something to experience. I haven't finished with life. Jesus didn't die until he said that "it is finished". Jesus knew his thing to do (not that we have the faintest clue what that was), but I don't know what I have to finish. How can I ever die if I never find out what it is I am supposed to do, or be?
Perhaps I should focus on just that, on being, rather than doing, I have said this many times before, as has the Introspective Irishman, but when I try to focus on being I end up torturing myself mentally and spiritually and with this recent heart issue, physically as well. My vain struggle to find an elevated state of being leaves my physical body in ruin, which begs the question, should I just give up on seeking? Should I live a contented animal life? sleep and feed, sleep and feed. I can't do that without a lobotomy, so I can't and I must face physical ruin. Maybe then I will be able to shift off these clothes of skin and really start LIVING, finally begin BEING. To be a real living being instead of a shiftless anxiety ridden animal. For now I am caught in a cycle of compulsion to seek something beyond myself with the ironic result which makes me physically unable to seek anything but sleep and food.
I have probably been being all the time. I just want to be concious of that being which only seems to happen beyond my grasp. Oh well.
I still haven't ever seen the dusk...
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Paradoxos: My Hermeneutic of Self
I composed a post a few nights ago in a smashed stupor . Naturally I deleted it first thing the next morning. I hope that no one read it, it was mainly based around the music I was listening to at the time which happened to be Blind Melon, that pretty little grunge band that made it big because the lead singer died of a drug overdose.
The central idea in the post was more concerned with me...as all my writing is. I rambled about my deceitfulness.
I am a liar!
Disingenuis!
False!
Nothing that I do, say or am is true.
All the words that I use to convey my sense of self to another person are elaborately concocted lies. How do I know this?
For one, I do it consciously, I am a deliberate liar.
Also, I have no sense of self, how could I convey an image of myself to people without actually knowing what that self is?
If I convey a personality, a concrete self to other people, it must necessarily mean that I am lying. But then again...
Am I being dogmatic? Just because I do not know myself for certain does not mean that my falsely imagined interpretations of myself are outright lies. They are simply interpretations. Again I find myself back on this topic of interpretation. What did I conclude last time? I concluded that interpretation is a dialogue, a discourse, a discussion or a relationship between two beings. We gain knowledge of ourself and "the other" through the dialogue.
The sense of self is found inbetween the two beings.
The space between the two is where everything is found.
Our falsely imagined senses of self are lies, but by interacting with others we find ourself.
I have a rather split personality. One dogmatic, the other sees only grey. Sometimes a third inbetween sees both at the same time. Another sees nothing at all. What does this have to do with what I just concluded about the relationships between people? Perhaps I can find a sense of self within myself. My different and contradictory selves are in fact in dialogue with one another. My writing, my speaking, my eating, breathing and walking are enactments of the dialogue within myself. Perhaps people with a dissosiative disorder/multiple personality disorder (commonly and incorrectly called scitzophrenics) are merely those with very distilled versions of themselves. We all have them, they are just not manifested as clearly as mentally distressed people. That is the root of mental illness anyways, extreme versions of normal behavior.
I within myself am a dialogue of opposites and compliments...I am a contradiction...I must interpret the dialogue between these parts to find a self...not a centralized sense of self, but a self created from dependant relationships between different compartments...this is the hermeneutic of self...I am a paradox...
The central idea in the post was more concerned with me...as all my writing is. I rambled about my deceitfulness.
I am a liar!
Disingenuis!
False!
Nothing that I do, say or am is true.
All the words that I use to convey my sense of self to another person are elaborately concocted lies. How do I know this?
For one, I do it consciously, I am a deliberate liar.
Also, I have no sense of self, how could I convey an image of myself to people without actually knowing what that self is?
If I convey a personality, a concrete self to other people, it must necessarily mean that I am lying. But then again...
Am I being dogmatic? Just because I do not know myself for certain does not mean that my falsely imagined interpretations of myself are outright lies. They are simply interpretations. Again I find myself back on this topic of interpretation. What did I conclude last time? I concluded that interpretation is a dialogue, a discourse, a discussion or a relationship between two beings. We gain knowledge of ourself and "the other" through the dialogue.
The sense of self is found inbetween the two beings.
The space between the two is where everything is found.
Our falsely imagined senses of self are lies, but by interacting with others we find ourself.
I have a rather split personality. One dogmatic, the other sees only grey. Sometimes a third inbetween sees both at the same time. Another sees nothing at all. What does this have to do with what I just concluded about the relationships between people? Perhaps I can find a sense of self within myself. My different and contradictory selves are in fact in dialogue with one another. My writing, my speaking, my eating, breathing and walking are enactments of the dialogue within myself. Perhaps people with a dissosiative disorder/multiple personality disorder (commonly and incorrectly called scitzophrenics) are merely those with very distilled versions of themselves. We all have them, they are just not manifested as clearly as mentally distressed people. That is the root of mental illness anyways, extreme versions of normal behavior.
I within myself am a dialogue of opposites and compliments...I am a contradiction...I must interpret the dialogue between these parts to find a self...not a centralized sense of self, but a self created from dependant relationships between different compartments...this is the hermeneutic of self...I am a paradox...
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Tear in the Curtain
give me extremes, give me excess,
to hell with temprance, sobriety and success.
fuck contentment, peace and rationality,
cleanliness, order, health and
feelgood sentimentality.
prudence, planning, straight roads, business ties, cubicles...
roooooowwsss of urinals!
why these platitudes, these reasons,
this purpose business.
no more reasons, no more excuses
stop trying to defend this divine cerebral spasm called existence!
just let it be!
raw unadulterated reality.
let it flow down like water falls
and echo with wild animal calls
let it rise like mighty snowcapped mountains
and spring up like subterrainean fountains
wrench these dreamers from their slumber
with shrieking lightning and calamitous thunder
tear this peaceful world of illusions asunder...
much too raw and teenage I know, oh well, it stays as it is...
to hell with temprance, sobriety and success.
fuck contentment, peace and rationality,
cleanliness, order, health and
feelgood sentimentality.
prudence, planning, straight roads, business ties, cubicles...
roooooowwsss of urinals!
why these platitudes, these reasons,
this purpose business.
no more reasons, no more excuses
stop trying to defend this divine cerebral spasm called existence!
just let it be!
raw unadulterated reality.
let it flow down like water falls
and echo with wild animal calls
let it rise like mighty snowcapped mountains
and spring up like subterrainean fountains
wrench these dreamers from their slumber
with shrieking lightning and calamitous thunder
tear this peaceful world of illusions asunder...
much too raw and teenage I know, oh well, it stays as it is...
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Twelve Smells of Christmas
The Twelve Smells of Christmas will be a progressive post if I am witty enough to develop it.
12 murdered pine-trees
11 heretical turkies
10 uncle's special egg nog
9 incontinent snowmen
8 upper class chinese ancestors
7 baked/stoned gingerbread...people (pc)
6 Great Aunt Gladys' perfume
5 holly being kissed beneath the mistletoe...let your imagination flow
4 salt in the wounds of the driveway
3 a real stable in which a woman has just given birth
2 burning wrapping paper
1 uncle's special egg nog revisited
This is just an initial impression of what Christmas smells like...
12 murdered pine-trees
11 heretical turkies
10 uncle's special egg nog
9 incontinent snowmen
8 upper class chinese ancestors
7 baked/stoned gingerbread...people (pc)
6 Great Aunt Gladys' perfume
5 holly being kissed beneath the mistletoe...let your imagination flow
4 salt in the wounds of the driveway
3 a real stable in which a woman has just given birth
2 burning wrapping paper
1 uncle's special egg nog revisited
This is just an initial impression of what Christmas smells like...
Thursday, December 07, 2006
things that would make me happy right now...
1) firing purple paintballs during the meeting of a cult, quickly rolling up the windows and then shouting "whoo!" at the top of my lungs and then speeding off. yes, all in that order.
2) taking a random trip to montreal and living w/ correy for a couple weeks and talking about how depressing life and love can really be
3) quitting the olive garden
4) seeing an obese, furry, little animal outside my window. preferably lost or running into something and knocking itself out
5) gopher hunting or just finding a gopher skull to decorate my room w/ (no really, they're so intricate and cool!) actually i take that back, i *need* to shoot something living that's furry and that screws the farm over...
6) beating a table full of guys in texas holdem and spending the money on barcadi breezers, yes a drink right now would be very nice...
7) knowing the rest of, "DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD..."
8) setting a certain dutch reformed, the-only-public-Christian-school high school in edmonton on fire
9) waking up tomorrow morning in coquitlam next to john and since i'm going there, i minds' well wish that time would stand still for 2 years in that moment. there i wished it.
10) being able to hand out a decaf drink to a bitchy customer that needed their caffine fix just one last tiiiiime
11) wipping my brother's ass at family guy monopoly and then gloating about it for days about how i'm so awesome and better than him b/c i'm older. *sigh* those were days until he grew and got smarter. no really, i'm a good older sister, nathan and i are close.
12) finally finding that yellow brick road therefore making all my referrences not insane and not stupid.
that's it, i'm tired. i just downloaded, "butterfly" by crazytown and that's made me pretty joyful. oh orange county, you were such a good movie now weren't you? ahem. if any of you guys give me any of the above things you will instantly become a good friend of mine. yes, since good friendships are fucking cheap these days, i thought it appropriate to put that out there. excuse my french, i'm a little bitter right now. damn it, i so wish canada had volcanoes right now...
2) taking a random trip to montreal and living w/ correy for a couple weeks and talking about how depressing life and love can really be
3) quitting the olive garden
4) seeing an obese, furry, little animal outside my window. preferably lost or running into something and knocking itself out
5) gopher hunting or just finding a gopher skull to decorate my room w/ (no really, they're so intricate and cool!) actually i take that back, i *need* to shoot something living that's furry and that screws the farm over...
6) beating a table full of guys in texas holdem and spending the money on barcadi breezers, yes a drink right now would be very nice...
7) knowing the rest of, "DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD..."
8) setting a certain dutch reformed, the-only-public-Christian-school high school in edmonton on fire
9) waking up tomorrow morning in coquitlam next to john and since i'm going there, i minds' well wish that time would stand still for 2 years in that moment. there i wished it.
10) being able to hand out a decaf drink to a bitchy customer that needed their caffine fix just one last tiiiiime
11) wipping my brother's ass at family guy monopoly and then gloating about it for days about how i'm so awesome and better than him b/c i'm older. *sigh* those were days until he grew and got smarter. no really, i'm a good older sister, nathan and i are close.
12) finally finding that yellow brick road therefore making all my referrences not insane and not stupid.
that's it, i'm tired. i just downloaded, "butterfly" by crazytown and that's made me pretty joyful. oh orange county, you were such a good movie now weren't you? ahem. if any of you guys give me any of the above things you will instantly become a good friend of mine. yes, since good friendships are fucking cheap these days, i thought it appropriate to put that out there. excuse my french, i'm a little bitter right now. damn it, i so wish canada had volcanoes right now...
retail
In my experiences at The Gap, Starbucks and now The Olive Garden I keep being reminded that people generally are just stupid. And it seems like the half of those people have dedicated themselves to the growing, world-wide cult of beligerency. I'm sure under the cover of darkeness, they secretly drive off in their mini-vans to their domain where they swap stories of how they made servers cry and baristas make their drink over 6 times b/c it wasn't exactly 180 degrees before they floored it out of the drive-thru. Then i'm sure after they have their sharing time, the leader (which often times is referred to as "satan") makes his expected, courteous and seemingly caring and inspirational speech of how they can be even worse the next day. Then it's followed by rounds of rip-roaring texas holdem where customer recovery coupons are the anty and the winner gets tipped out everything that wasn't tipped to all the servers of that week. It can be pretty good money depending upon their bills and believe me, the victory and honour of winning such a holdem match would be instant glory and bragging rights all around. Even the moms who were on a tighter budget in the corner on the green, ripped sofas would nod their approval as they played a milder version of dutch blitz. They may even offer you a ride home or ask about your personal life. Yes, this is where one can build true friends. These people must be in a pact, they feed so hungrily and come in waves honking their horns, pounding their fists at the till or intentionally messing up the men's colared, striped, hard-to-freaking-fold-again long-sleeved shirts in Section 2.
Though sometimes their comments may seem to fall on deaf ears, they're very much heard. We give them their chicken romas for free, refund their clothes over the due date and continually make them their Venti, no water, 6 pumps, soy, 180 degrees, no foam, w/ cinnamon powder on top, double-sleeved Chai Lattes. It's what we do best. I sure hope their weekly meetings go well and that their chants can be heard well into the streets of Whyte Ave. If I find this place, I will rat them out to the hippies or maybe I'll call up my friends who religiously buy everything you can think of for their paintball guns and we'll fire off a few rounds. I hope they have purple paintballs...that would make me a very happy girl. :) Yeesh, anyone want to vote that i'm starting my period soon?
Though sometimes their comments may seem to fall on deaf ears, they're very much heard. We give them their chicken romas for free, refund their clothes over the due date and continually make them their Venti, no water, 6 pumps, soy, 180 degrees, no foam, w/ cinnamon powder on top, double-sleeved Chai Lattes. It's what we do best. I sure hope their weekly meetings go well and that their chants can be heard well into the streets of Whyte Ave. If I find this place, I will rat them out to the hippies or maybe I'll call up my friends who religiously buy everything you can think of for their paintball guns and we'll fire off a few rounds. I hope they have purple paintballs...that would make me a very happy girl. :) Yeesh, anyone want to vote that i'm starting my period soon?
LIFE
So this is what life is: a lot of disapointments and some randomly placed "good times"? I'm asking b/c part of me is wondering if this statement is generally true while the other part is trying to weigh if it's worth just giving up. A person can only go one for so long and can only invest so much of themselves until nothing's left. And you're just left w/ yourself or whatever is left of yourself that is, when "friends" and experiences are done deteriorating you. This is sounding quite hopeless isn't it? I guess it shouldn't though b/c I'm a Christian and should have all the hope in the world, right? Don't you hate it when you know one thing and believe it yet it's so contrary to you feel? And what's the deal w/ feelings and emotions controlling humanity anyways?! I don't get it, it frustrates me. Actually, the reason why it frustrates me is b/c I do get it and sometimes I just feel stuck inside myself and I can't express the ways I may want. I see myself acting and falling into things like everyone around me and sometimes, I can't seem to stop myself. We have so much potential and so much power behind us and gifts w/n us, yet we limit ourselves constantly. It's incredibly dissapointing, i can only imagine how it must make God feel Who has all these amazing plans for us and Who built us for success.
I'm semi-depressed. Maybe i shouldn't blog when i am. I like life, i think it can be very vibrant and fun and there's many times where i've stood still and soaked in all life had to offer. I value those times. And if Iwere to step completely out of the self-centered bubble that's around my mac right now, I would honestly say that I love my life too. It must just be one of those days...so how does one deal w/ these "days" and in some cases, seemingly "months"? Do they just stay busy and keep going and forget? Is it healthy to forget? Maybe I should just lower my expectations but then again, it's b/c of lack of expectation that people settle for what's around them and it soon becomes normal and there we have it, the world...The one we helped create b/c we couldn't believe for anything more. At the same time i am only 19 and maybe it's best that I don't go there until then. I think i'll just settle w/ *this* just being LIFE...mainly b/c it's easier to say that and shove it to the side. Maybe someday i'll work on all the things i've shoved to the corners of my table but right now it's what's easier. Yes i'm human and yes i'm settling for less but it seems like it hurts less to settle for less and get less than to hope and be disappointed once again.
And as far as off shore comments go, I would not reccomend long-distance relationships to anyone. I'd like the say that is most of why i feel hopeless and depressed tonight...What can i say? Life just gets hard when you can't be w/ your bestfriend and boyfriend. But that's just how life will be for the next couple years so you just gotta run w/ it and give it your best shot. I sure hope i'm still a good person and can still love and invest in people the ways i want too when the day's done. To me, that's what matters most i suppose.
I'm semi-depressed. Maybe i shouldn't blog when i am. I like life, i think it can be very vibrant and fun and there's many times where i've stood still and soaked in all life had to offer. I value those times. And if Iwere to step completely out of the self-centered bubble that's around my mac right now, I would honestly say that I love my life too. It must just be one of those days...so how does one deal w/ these "days" and in some cases, seemingly "months"? Do they just stay busy and keep going and forget? Is it healthy to forget? Maybe I should just lower my expectations but then again, it's b/c of lack of expectation that people settle for what's around them and it soon becomes normal and there we have it, the world...The one we helped create b/c we couldn't believe for anything more. At the same time i am only 19 and maybe it's best that I don't go there until then. I think i'll just settle w/ *this* just being LIFE...mainly b/c it's easier to say that and shove it to the side. Maybe someday i'll work on all the things i've shoved to the corners of my table but right now it's what's easier. Yes i'm human and yes i'm settling for less but it seems like it hurts less to settle for less and get less than to hope and be disappointed once again.
And as far as off shore comments go, I would not reccomend long-distance relationships to anyone. I'd like the say that is most of why i feel hopeless and depressed tonight...What can i say? Life just gets hard when you can't be w/ your bestfriend and boyfriend. But that's just how life will be for the next couple years so you just gotta run w/ it and give it your best shot. I sure hope i'm still a good person and can still love and invest in people the ways i want too when the day's done. To me, that's what matters most i suppose.
Paradoxos- a Fraction of an Explanation
Don't build your house on the sandy land, don't build your house too near the shore...
These lines begin the common sunday-school song which teaches children that the desirable goal of life is certainty. I believe that most people are stuck in this mentality. They are afraid to step out of their comfortable beliefs to explore the possibility of something beyond the same rocks on which they stand. Freud calls this arrested development, clinging to the oceanic feeling in which people are trapped like infants completely dictated by their superego. Nietzsche said, balhadghdshghhjaksghfs, and that those people are weak and insignificant. Up until recently in my life I identified with those people on the rock. I was content, but then it cracked. I was forced to move on.
I did not leave my rock intending to find another more desirable rock. I have abolished the idea of certainty from my thinking. In a way...
I would like to return to the song about building one's house on the sand. It has occured to me that the rocks on which we sit, our beliefs, our perceptions, our faith, are very small rocks. In fact, if you step back from all the arguments, discussions and debates you can see that everyone is sitting on their own little rock and all those rocks are the sand. People who claim to have the rock solid truth are just sitting on pieces of sand. It is merely a problem of scope and perspective that they cannot see the fragility of their position.
The problem with what I am currently saying is that I am being entirely unoriginal. Plato being the first to mention this idea. The aforementioned Freud and Nietzsche also said this. The problem with all of those dead white guys is that after criticising peoples' knowledge they set up their own system of belief and then founded their own little rock. They sat down on the beach with everyone else. Nietzsche arguably didn't because he went nuts, which leads to my final thought...
Is the alternative to certainty, insanity?
I hope not! I am looking for some sort of order to chaos. I am looking for certainty to uncertainty. I am looking for knowledge in ignorance. I am seeking the unseekable. I am experiencing paradox. Sometimes it seems futile and it is terrifying, but sometimes I see the paradox and I become ecstatic. This bipolar experience of life is infinitely more certain than the small certainty offered by belief and whatever else people use to delude themselves. I'm not building my house on the sandy land and I am nowhere near the shore, I'm sailing away, and it turns out that the ocean is made out of kool-aid and seahorses are just ancient aquatic saxaphones cursed by Posiedon to float androgynously through the ocean.
My mind is shot from studying for exams, among other things, salute for now...
These lines begin the common sunday-school song which teaches children that the desirable goal of life is certainty. I believe that most people are stuck in this mentality. They are afraid to step out of their comfortable beliefs to explore the possibility of something beyond the same rocks on which they stand. Freud calls this arrested development, clinging to the oceanic feeling in which people are trapped like infants completely dictated by their superego. Nietzsche said, balhadghdshghhjaksghfs, and that those people are weak and insignificant. Up until recently in my life I identified with those people on the rock. I was content, but then it cracked. I was forced to move on.
I did not leave my rock intending to find another more desirable rock. I have abolished the idea of certainty from my thinking. In a way...
I would like to return to the song about building one's house on the sand. It has occured to me that the rocks on which we sit, our beliefs, our perceptions, our faith, are very small rocks. In fact, if you step back from all the arguments, discussions and debates you can see that everyone is sitting on their own little rock and all those rocks are the sand. People who claim to have the rock solid truth are just sitting on pieces of sand. It is merely a problem of scope and perspective that they cannot see the fragility of their position.
The problem with what I am currently saying is that I am being entirely unoriginal. Plato being the first to mention this idea. The aforementioned Freud and Nietzsche also said this. The problem with all of those dead white guys is that after criticising peoples' knowledge they set up their own system of belief and then founded their own little rock. They sat down on the beach with everyone else. Nietzsche arguably didn't because he went nuts, which leads to my final thought...
Is the alternative to certainty, insanity?
I hope not! I am looking for some sort of order to chaos. I am looking for certainty to uncertainty. I am looking for knowledge in ignorance. I am seeking the unseekable. I am experiencing paradox. Sometimes it seems futile and it is terrifying, but sometimes I see the paradox and I become ecstatic. This bipolar experience of life is infinitely more certain than the small certainty offered by belief and whatever else people use to delude themselves. I'm not building my house on the sandy land and I am nowhere near the shore, I'm sailing away, and it turns out that the ocean is made out of kool-aid and seahorses are just ancient aquatic saxaphones cursed by Posiedon to float androgynously through the ocean.
My mind is shot from studying for exams, among other things, salute for now...
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Entangled in Nightmares
Can the human imagination create something real? Something that, although delusory, has the power to act autonomously of our initial fabrication? By deciding that our perceptions of existence are real we create our world around us. This is true for the mundane details of life, but also affects the most lofty and grand ideals which control our lives.
Our notions of god are nothing more than idols.
We create god out of thoughts and words rather than the wood and bronze of ancient times.
This god is a very weak god, it is no god at all, it is a puppet whom we create and give life.
It is the antithesis of God-
The Infinite, the Beginning and the End.
The One whose name I cannot and must not utter.
But this puppet god that we create, what is it, is it the devil...
Although it is powerless and our creation, we give it power.
It is a chimera dreamt up by children who are afraid of the dark.
It is a judge concocted by those who want to control others.
We bow down and worship this god.
This is blasphemy!
This puppet god is given power by our perceptions.
All of our neurotic fear, shame, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and general puniness are a result of the power we give this dark imposter.
Our own nightmares trap us in a futile cycle of unworthiness.
Christian attempts to sanitize and humanize religion have done nothing but produce an even grimmer god, one who loves us yet is still the perpetrator of an insane existence which forces every individual into submission to those who have the power. There is no freedom from our nightmares within religion.
This is why it has often driven people mad. It is driving me mad.
I find no hope in certainty.
There is no impetus to continue seeking a captive yet enslaving god.
Vagueness does not exist in the incomprehinsible One.
There is all the reason in the universe to seek The Unattainable.
One more thought...a compass does not tell the traveller which direction to go, but rather allows the traveller to choose which way to go by clearly stating the options. Two questions remain:
1. Are up and down and every other fathomably degree alternative options aside from the x and y directions on the compass?
and
2. What will happen to our compasses when the magnetism of the poles reverse? Which way will be up and which will be down. oh no I sound like Nietzsche, I should stop...
Our notions of god are nothing more than idols.
We create god out of thoughts and words rather than the wood and bronze of ancient times.
This god is a very weak god, it is no god at all, it is a puppet whom we create and give life.
It is the antithesis of God-
The Infinite, the Beginning and the End.
The One whose name I cannot and must not utter.
But this puppet god that we create, what is it, is it the devil...
Although it is powerless and our creation, we give it power.
It is a chimera dreamt up by children who are afraid of the dark.
It is a judge concocted by those who want to control others.
We bow down and worship this god.
This is blasphemy!
This puppet god is given power by our perceptions.
All of our neurotic fear, shame, guilt, feelings of inadequacy and general puniness are a result of the power we give this dark imposter.
Our own nightmares trap us in a futile cycle of unworthiness.
Christian attempts to sanitize and humanize religion have done nothing but produce an even grimmer god, one who loves us yet is still the perpetrator of an insane existence which forces every individual into submission to those who have the power. There is no freedom from our nightmares within religion.
This is why it has often driven people mad. It is driving me mad.
I find no hope in certainty.
There is no impetus to continue seeking a captive yet enslaving god.
Vagueness does not exist in the incomprehinsible One.
There is all the reason in the universe to seek The Unattainable.
One more thought...a compass does not tell the traveller which direction to go, but rather allows the traveller to choose which way to go by clearly stating the options. Two questions remain:
1. Are up and down and every other fathomably degree alternative options aside from the x and y directions on the compass?
and
2. What will happen to our compasses when the magnetism of the poles reverse? Which way will be up and which will be down. oh no I sound like Nietzsche, I should stop...
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhino?
El - if - ino...
oh glory, the nectar of life yet retains some sweetness...
oh glory, the nectar of life yet retains some sweetness...
Saturday, December 02, 2006
My Hermeneutic- genesis of my articulating an idea coherently
I thought that I would clarify my last post. Judging by the rather glib comments mostly poking at my substance abuse issues i take it that the post was too abstract and vague. On one hand I wish to leave it abstract and vague, so that the readers of the text can interpret it in thier own way. The preposterous notion that a text can mean one single thing has long ago been erradicated from most thinking peoples' minds, but it creeps back in subtle ways. People still persist in the fantasy that they can know something that is true. Perhaps this is because people are all very egocentric and are trapped in the sad idea that they even know themselves...back to hermeneutics though...I write so that the reader can read their own human experience into the text and thereby learn something about existence by engaging with the text, i.e. the expression of my human experience. The relationship between writer and reader creates a space where two beings can understand one another, in a form of conversation which has advantages over verbal conversation.
In my last post I wished to say many things:
1. I was commenting on the futility of writing. First, most of what we write in our society is meaninglessness embodied in ink and paper...memos, essays, post-it-notes, reference letters, birthday cards etc...We live in a completely mechanistic and utilitarian society in which most writing constitues the next command into a computer for an international paperclip manufacturing coorporation. Second, the depressingly full libraries of our society are enough to make any writer feel miniscule. Unless, perchance one person reads my work and engages with it in the way described above. Then maybe a scrap of meaning can be found in writing.
2. I was also commenting on a environmental/economic issue, connected to the first point about futility, that we consume huge amounts of natural resources to keep our meaningless society from collapsing in on its paper frame.
3. I was commenting on how we ignore that written text is a connection between writer and reader, described above. We stack our books away and treat them like objects when they are actually an opportunity to communicate with even the dead. To learn more about this idea read Emily Dickinson's poems "In a Library" and "A Book".
What I really want though, is that my readers would respond to the text with their own experiences. That is the written dialogue which is made possible by blogs. I don't want to know if someone liked my writing or not, I really don't care, although literary criticism is a useful exercise. I want people to be affected by the text, allow themselves to be affected, and to respond with their own utterence of their existence.
It is way to late for this and I have hardly clarified my last blog, but I am getting somewhere. I am producing, havn't found the joke yet, but I need the hermeneutical feedback of the other to get anywhere.
and I'm spent...
In my last post I wished to say many things:
1. I was commenting on the futility of writing. First, most of what we write in our society is meaninglessness embodied in ink and paper...memos, essays, post-it-notes, reference letters, birthday cards etc...We live in a completely mechanistic and utilitarian society in which most writing constitues the next command into a computer for an international paperclip manufacturing coorporation. Second, the depressingly full libraries of our society are enough to make any writer feel miniscule. Unless, perchance one person reads my work and engages with it in the way described above. Then maybe a scrap of meaning can be found in writing.
2. I was also commenting on a environmental/economic issue, connected to the first point about futility, that we consume huge amounts of natural resources to keep our meaningless society from collapsing in on its paper frame.
3. I was commenting on how we ignore that written text is a connection between writer and reader, described above. We stack our books away and treat them like objects when they are actually an opportunity to communicate with even the dead. To learn more about this idea read Emily Dickinson's poems "In a Library" and "A Book".
What I really want though, is that my readers would respond to the text with their own experiences. That is the written dialogue which is made possible by blogs. I don't want to know if someone liked my writing or not, I really don't care, although literary criticism is a useful exercise. I want people to be affected by the text, allow themselves to be affected, and to respond with their own utterence of their existence.
It is way to late for this and I have hardly clarified my last blog, but I am getting somewhere. I am producing, havn't found the joke yet, but I need the hermeneutical feedback of the other to get anywhere.
and I'm spent...
Black and Blue
It dawned in me a while back that the ink with which we write is black and blue.
This may seem insignificant, but now whever I look at a clean white sheet of paper-
All I can think about is that I am about to bruise its skin black and blue.
A veritable pummeling.
By transferring my thoughts onto paper I am committing an act of violence.
I don't think that I can write anymore.
Think of all those screaming pieces of paper.
In your desk.
In your binders.
Crammed into the books on your shelf.
Waiting in your printer-tray for their impending doom.
Literature is a violent hate crime.
This is a mad world.
Yet, I am comforted by my infrequent use of red-inked pens.
This may seem insignificant, but now whever I look at a clean white sheet of paper-
All I can think about is that I am about to bruise its skin black and blue.
A veritable pummeling.
By transferring my thoughts onto paper I am committing an act of violence.
I don't think that I can write anymore.
Think of all those screaming pieces of paper.
In your desk.
In your binders.
Crammed into the books on your shelf.
Waiting in your printer-tray for their impending doom.
Literature is a violent hate crime.
This is a mad world.
Yet, I am comforted by my infrequent use of red-inked pens.
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