(no subject)
my roommate kevin and i were talking about human creation and what it means to create things. he told me that the reason he thinks he has the urge to create is caused by this wish to document everything. and his urge to create things (artistic or otherwise) is largely just a means of documentation. i told him i agreed and the majority of my creative output has been focused on growing up and documentation thereof.
he said he thinks acting excessively in this way can become a problem because, as he said, his brother considers every moment not spent creating something a wasted moment. Not that his brother has ever said that, but kevin says that feeling seems to show through. we decided that it is unhealthy to become anxious about creating; to feel that every non-creative moment is is wasteful is, in itself, wasteful, because there must be some semblance of a balance between input and output. time spent interacting with other people, places and things is necessary to creating anything meaningful.
maybe the reason we have such an intrinsic desire to create and document is because we feel we are part of a generation of people whose paths are carved for them, none of which lead to eternal glory, fame, or immortality. on the other hand, we thought, perhaps everyone has a desire to immortalize his or herself in some way. ultimately however, not everyone is in some way immortal, and to think that everyone even strives to immortalize themselves seems to cheapen any attempts to do so personally. therein lies the crisis. why even create if doing so is just a cheap and feeble attempt to gain recognition or immortal infamy? Perhaps everyone simply tries to validate themselves to the best of their ability, be it through their athletic ability or the amount of lovers they've had, and we simply try to validate ourselves through the very documentation of our existence.
Yet at the base of the discussion we established that a very legitimate feeling of fulfillment rises in us both during the creative process, and to deny that solely because we didn't think we would gain recognition would be pretty silly since creating things seems to only have positive consequences.
all this jabbering got me onto thinking about 'being yourself.' i think immortality is paltry compared to being self-accepting, because it would be like living a great eternal lie to go down in history as someone great if you personally could not accept yourself.
yet i believe there is a difference between not accepting oneself (e.g. never being good enough for oneself) and always striving to be better and better.
still, as far as priorities go, one's own self-acceptance should come before acceptance from others in any shape or form. self-consciousness is a slow death of self, or a self-loathing of sorts, that damns one to conformity, even subconsciously.
by the way, i read this short story by d.h. lawrence called 'the man who died' and it's about christ being taken down from the cross too early and wandering off into lebanon and fucking this priestess and feeling fulfilled, and in it christ wonders "from what, and to what, could this infinite whirl be saved?" and i think its almost evidence in and of itself that we are all wholly inconsequential: our lives, our interactions, our validations, our 'purposes.' and therefore we should aim to be self accepting and accepting of others to the fullest in order to enjoy life as much as possible.
and also jesus was like 'i am risen' right before he fucked the priestess which was funny cause it was him talking about his boner. not to dumb it down or anything but i thought that was funny.
he said he thinks acting excessively in this way can become a problem because, as he said, his brother considers every moment not spent creating something a wasted moment. Not that his brother has ever said that, but kevin says that feeling seems to show through. we decided that it is unhealthy to become anxious about creating; to feel that every non-creative moment is is wasteful is, in itself, wasteful, because there must be some semblance of a balance between input and output. time spent interacting with other people, places and things is necessary to creating anything meaningful.
maybe the reason we have such an intrinsic desire to create and document is because we feel we are part of a generation of people whose paths are carved for them, none of which lead to eternal glory, fame, or immortality. on the other hand, we thought, perhaps everyone has a desire to immortalize his or herself in some way. ultimately however, not everyone is in some way immortal, and to think that everyone even strives to immortalize themselves seems to cheapen any attempts to do so personally. therein lies the crisis. why even create if doing so is just a cheap and feeble attempt to gain recognition or immortal infamy? Perhaps everyone simply tries to validate themselves to the best of their ability, be it through their athletic ability or the amount of lovers they've had, and we simply try to validate ourselves through the very documentation of our existence.
Yet at the base of the discussion we established that a very legitimate feeling of fulfillment rises in us both during the creative process, and to deny that solely because we didn't think we would gain recognition would be pretty silly since creating things seems to only have positive consequences.
all this jabbering got me onto thinking about 'being yourself.' i think immortality is paltry compared to being self-accepting, because it would be like living a great eternal lie to go down in history as someone great if you personally could not accept yourself.
yet i believe there is a difference between not accepting oneself (e.g. never being good enough for oneself) and always striving to be better and better.
still, as far as priorities go, one's own self-acceptance should come before acceptance from others in any shape or form. self-consciousness is a slow death of self, or a self-loathing of sorts, that damns one to conformity, even subconsciously.
by the way, i read this short story by d.h. lawrence called 'the man who died' and it's about christ being taken down from the cross too early and wandering off into lebanon and fucking this priestess and feeling fulfilled, and in it christ wonders "from what, and to what, could this infinite whirl be saved?" and i think its almost evidence in and of itself that we are all wholly inconsequential: our lives, our interactions, our validations, our 'purposes.' and therefore we should aim to be self accepting and accepting of others to the fullest in order to enjoy life as much as possible.
and also jesus was like 'i am risen' right before he fucked the priestess which was funny cause it was him talking about his boner. not to dumb it down or anything but i thought that was funny.