a few lessons learned
1. don't hide in houses with thick curtains or blinds blocking out the world. don't try to keep the world out. it is in you and doing this only makes you feel unhealthy and scared and oh-so-alone.
2. (this from i heart huckabees) life is full of meaning, or something-ness, and everything means something, but
3. nothing really means anything because it could all be equally meaningful--and because life is painful, full of misery and awfulness and nihilistic moments, like too many jelly beans in your mouth after easter guests have left, but
4. it's that pain that leads to meaning, by feeling something horrible, maybe we bond with others, talking about it or sharing it, or maybe we come to understand something about ourselves, or maybe we just realize that somethingness or meaning or love/joy/warmth only exists if we make it, if we rub the sticks together
5. (rough translation of ursula leguin) love is bread in the oven; you have to bake it fresh every morning
and
6. it's spring, i ahve to admit it, and i have way too many things to do, i keep trying to do too much in too little time
so instead, i'm gonna try the reverse
too little in too much time, because that's the way that life should work
or it loses all reason/meaning/organization/joy---we should not run through our days with alist of things to do that never ends---that is merely capitalism and people and bottled-up fears trying to break their way into a place they can never go (our lives)
"stop acting like you don't have control,"
she says, pulling the covers close to her skin,
" you've chosen and you choose every day"
7. SPRING!! Oh, season, welcome!!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
"give me something to sing about" - buffy
so in thinking about school and life and stuff
i feel generally uninspired
i sit in these rooms with computers and people
(the more time passes, the harder it is to tell the two apart:
both so generally uninventive and easy to overload)
i sit and i open my mouth, words come out,
they don't really mean anything
i don't even know if i mean them, just that i know i'm supposed to speak
i spent 2 hours last night, awake, restless, turning over and over
and over in my bed
(alex was on my feet, staring at me like i was a fly in his soup
except with the added disgrace that i would not pet him, which really
really drifts from that original metaphor)
thinking about class
about how this one class where the teacher calls on people to say stuff
to explain stuff quickly and discreetly, which i hate,
where she has assigned extra stuff for the break, and all i can think, all
i want to say is 'how dare you? -- this is my life, stop pressuring me
to givve you more, i read 2 books a week for you and it's not enough!? i give
my comments and my brainpower and my life to you on a weekly basis and you want more?!
more?
really?'
because i feel like a bad scholar or student or person
for not doing more (for not doing everything possible for class, like some,
who read foucault because someone said his name once
in a book
in france
as a way of being pretentious
and misdirecting the reader
and even worse
i don't have the positivity to say 'fuck it' and move on
i keep wanting to do more work, if only to feel that i deserve more free-time
which is ridiculous
it's really the result of a puritan thing, where i feel guilty for lesiure and good about work even as it drains me entirely
i mean,
i want INSPIRATION
not boring books that bore me, that drain me, that zap my strength
or i'd be doing a law degree so i could actually have some ethical power int he world
(though that's being idealistic, and even then, law can be fun)
"today I just want someone to entertain me
I'm tired of being so fierce
I'm tired of being so friendly
...
somebody do something
anything soon
I know I can't be the only
whatever I am in the room
so why am I so lonely?
why am I so tired?
I need company
I need backup
I need to be inspired"
ani d, 'face up and sing'
i internalize everything it seems
or mabye i'm just willing to admit it
today, i spoke to sara far too early in the morning, she was in boston
with my brother
(whose very presence in the world seems to require my own to balance his obstinate him-ness [not that he's good or bad, but that we are so very opposite], especially i'm sure when one is staying in his home)
and she was frustrated because his life is empty yet he pushes it on her
with space and dishwashing and rules and statements and emotional blackmailing that is generally only implied
(as reported by sara stoll in the report 'i'm on the phone with my brother so fuck off' dated blahbalh)
in the process, the point is, i realized that we, people not just my bro, work so hard for symbols that our life is full (a full planner, a full list of things to do, credentials on the wall, a phd, an mrs degree, a husband/wife/fuck buddy, a pet, a house, clothing, tools, a guitar, a shower that is not a stand-up model, a particular floorplan, a space, a garden, or in this case, a GIANT television and an empty thought immaculate home)
that we forget that it already is
we keep saying that there's NEVER ENOUGH TIME
but TIME is right HERE, passing before us, moving like photons through our every being
we are time, we are moments, here and there, where something is felt, understood:
a church with bergamot and sunlit windows in italy
a hand to hold when the word cancer slips into a room
smiling faces and good food on a cold night
words that speak the truth, possibly more truly than the truth itself
we live and we die and we move
we move on
but what's important isn't the symbol
it's the sense that we do move, we move in a space, on a trajectory, where we belong
and whether it's history or conspicuous consumption, we feel out of place when the space is someone else's (with all their assumptions and ignorances)
but that time is the moment to recognize that we are so very fragile, with our symbols, and that the only real reality is something iread that philip k dick said:
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." pkd
and we can respect each other when we realize that the words and the walls and the memories are just ways of holding back the really real, the deep night that is the universe where life is a speck of dust to be vacuumed away----we are each only trying to hold on
though, of course, that doesn't mean that some of us aren't holding on to garbage (teehee, yes tv's are NOT a good way to make life, they are crap, and history is ALWAYS intended to do something)
so what with all the rambling? hmmmm, that's the point, though, isn't it, let's ramble with one another, let's rap some ideas about (and i use rap in the 60s sense of conversing) and connec the dots with one another----because really, how else do we find that stuff that doesn't go away when we stop believing in it?? other than by holding someone's hand, and remembering we're not alone
NOT EVER
i feel generally uninspired
i sit in these rooms with computers and people
(the more time passes, the harder it is to tell the two apart:
both so generally uninventive and easy to overload)
i sit and i open my mouth, words come out,
they don't really mean anything
i don't even know if i mean them, just that i know i'm supposed to speak
i spent 2 hours last night, awake, restless, turning over and over
and over in my bed
(alex was on my feet, staring at me like i was a fly in his soup
except with the added disgrace that i would not pet him, which really
really drifts from that original metaphor)
thinking about class
about how this one class where the teacher calls on people to say stuff
to explain stuff quickly and discreetly, which i hate,
where she has assigned extra stuff for the break, and all i can think, all
i want to say is 'how dare you? -- this is my life, stop pressuring me
to givve you more, i read 2 books a week for you and it's not enough!? i give
my comments and my brainpower and my life to you on a weekly basis and you want more?!
more?
really?'
because i feel like a bad scholar or student or person
for not doing more (for not doing everything possible for class, like some,
who read foucault because someone said his name once
in a book
in france
as a way of being pretentious
and misdirecting the reader
and even worse
i don't have the positivity to say 'fuck it' and move on
i keep wanting to do more work, if only to feel that i deserve more free-time
which is ridiculous
it's really the result of a puritan thing, where i feel guilty for lesiure and good about work even as it drains me entirely
i mean,
i want INSPIRATION
not boring books that bore me, that drain me, that zap my strength
or i'd be doing a law degree so i could actually have some ethical power int he world
(though that's being idealistic, and even then, law can be fun)
"today I just want someone to entertain me
I'm tired of being so fierce
I'm tired of being so friendly
...
somebody do something
anything soon
I know I can't be the only
whatever I am in the room
so why am I so lonely?
why am I so tired?
I need company
I need backup
I need to be inspired"
ani d, 'face up and sing'
i internalize everything it seems
or mabye i'm just willing to admit it
today, i spoke to sara far too early in the morning, she was in boston
with my brother
(whose very presence in the world seems to require my own to balance his obstinate him-ness [not that he's good or bad, but that we are so very opposite], especially i'm sure when one is staying in his home)
and she was frustrated because his life is empty yet he pushes it on her
with space and dishwashing and rules and statements and emotional blackmailing that is generally only implied
(as reported by sara stoll in the report 'i'm on the phone with my brother so fuck off' dated blahbalh)
in the process, the point is, i realized that we, people not just my bro, work so hard for symbols that our life is full (a full planner, a full list of things to do, credentials on the wall, a phd, an mrs degree, a husband/wife/fuck buddy, a pet, a house, clothing, tools, a guitar, a shower that is not a stand-up model, a particular floorplan, a space, a garden, or in this case, a GIANT television and an empty thought immaculate home)
that we forget that it already is
we keep saying that there's NEVER ENOUGH TIME
but TIME is right HERE, passing before us, moving like photons through our every being
we are time, we are moments, here and there, where something is felt, understood:
a church with bergamot and sunlit windows in italy
a hand to hold when the word cancer slips into a room
smiling faces and good food on a cold night
words that speak the truth, possibly more truly than the truth itself
we live and we die and we move
we move on
but what's important isn't the symbol
it's the sense that we do move, we move in a space, on a trajectory, where we belong
and whether it's history or conspicuous consumption, we feel out of place when the space is someone else's (with all their assumptions and ignorances)
but that time is the moment to recognize that we are so very fragile, with our symbols, and that the only real reality is something iread that philip k dick said:
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." pkd
and we can respect each other when we realize that the words and the walls and the memories are just ways of holding back the really real, the deep night that is the universe where life is a speck of dust to be vacuumed away----we are each only trying to hold on
though, of course, that doesn't mean that some of us aren't holding on to garbage (teehee, yes tv's are NOT a good way to make life, they are crap, and history is ALWAYS intended to do something)
so what with all the rambling? hmmmm, that's the point, though, isn't it, let's ramble with one another, let's rap some ideas about (and i use rap in the 60s sense of conversing) and connec the dots with one another----because really, how else do we find that stuff that doesn't go away when we stop believing in it?? other than by holding someone's hand, and remembering we're not alone
NOT EVER