Today is characterized by Maggie feeling like an ugly goddless heathen. ^^;
And I kind of grin about it, but it's not a particularly nice feeling, although it tends to be an amusing perdicament. I've been feeling particularly goddless for a while, I guess it kind of started in the summer with my encounter with my coworker--yeah, the "I-love-Jesus" woman. It doesn't really matter how literalist and inherently weird her beliefs, seemed, though, because she believed in it. I have never whole heartedly believed in anything in my life. That kind of sparked this. A few comments made by a very confused boy a month ago kind of solidified it--you know, we supposedly think that our fathers are our gods, or so it is equated in psychology. I found out that my father was human a long time ago, and after that church was less important to me. It used to matter, you know, and some times in embarrassing ways. ^^; It's even weirder when your father is your priest, and more or less your spiritual leader. My mother, since the divorce and all, has been more like a sister to me. She takes care of motherly things, I suppose.. but the mother aspect about her is what frustrates me--that need to return to the time when i was a child, because those were the good times. Especially in the presence of her family, I feel like my mother and I are coconspiritors, or sisters in a world that kind of rejected us for being wrong. I identify with my mom. Sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. I like this relationship we have, but it makes me ever concious of how easily I could become her, and just how anxious she is. On top of that, though, I know just how much effort it must take to have come out of her family. I guess in some ways I admire my mom, but I don't aspire to be her, really.
So I suppose the church and doctrine was the first to go--I always felt manipulated in Sunday school, and I hated it. It was one of the characteristics of Maggie-the-kid to find all the places that were trying to manipulate me, and to do away with them, because I was afraid of being used. I went about thinking that a lot of things were trying to fool me, and that I could fool them right back. Even when I played with my friends, that was a kind of theme--I played with my brother and a boy named Phillip, and since I was the girl, I was always the secret weapon--the one that no one thought could fight but always ended up coming to the rescue and kicking everybody's ass. Of course, that's children's fantasy, but I guess it's about fooling. Anyway, that's kind of off topic. I'm talking about gods. I am interested in them, but I don't have any--I have nothing to believe in. I create what I can. I suppose that's really what half of it is--creating what you can, and letting the conciousness of people around you and something greater shape it into what can be followed by everyone. Individuals create their gods, and then the interaction of those invidual gods create something that none of us can control--like a chaos theory of creation. It explodes and there is something beyond our understanding, something that taps into the *is* that we cannot explain. It takes a whole community conciousness to reach the is in a way that everyone understands. That's hideously philosophical, but that's the kind of mood I'm in. Bear with me, I guess.
But you know, I created what I could, but each time these things get away from me. I create the things that revolve around what I learn. When I was in Magic-class at Mac, it was all about secrets and writing. It was about the things that I did not know and could only imagine, and I think it's the loss of secrets now that leave me feeling kind of stranded. The people that I held up high are now very, very human--and staggering humans, at that. I forget what I believed in about these people, or maybe I'm overexposed to it. A secret achieved is a power lost. I feel like the dreams I had when I came here grew stagant, and when I had what I wanted, they lost their myth and glory. I have a very hard time with this, and I will hang onto a concept until it is beat out of me--I will be loyal to what I want to believe in until it turns on me--or my idea of it turns on me. Something inside me will eventually reject it. I honestly don't think these things betray me, but my mind thinks that they do, and after that I don't have much to do other than hate it. But I look always for that thing that won't leave me, won't betray me--something that I can put all of my trust in without making it afraid, or something that I can put all of my trust in and wont' go stagnant. A world that keeps moving--something that I don't have to move myself. Admission that I am weak, but not like it is now--if I admit that I am weak now, everything stops and I fall into whatever place I was before I came to college. I think I'm thinking about this because of my Islam class--but I understand the power of submission. (That's what Islam means, note.) I understand that when I try to control things, they slip away from me, and it is my nature to try and control everything, and so I end up caught up and spinning. I understand the power of the act but not the power of the god that inspires it. I understand "the world" and "the is" but not "the god"--and that's probably the point, that which we cannot understand.
I'm feeling strangely lonely now, though, because what I made out to be the perfect is no longer perfect. The world that was so easily beautiful is now regular, normal. It isn't new anymore. The images of those who left were impressed on me. Now they are tangible, real figures, and they are fucked up--and not only are they fucked up, but there is a definate lack of connection. I hate losing connections with people. I think, perhaps that I am naturally loyal, but it scares the SHIT out of me, because I understand how easily that can be taken for granted, how real it is that I care with all by being for someone and then lose the rest of the world--including the truth about how that person feels about me. I don't want to lose the rest of the world, but I know that I can. And it's only to a point, because I run into so few people who are the same as me, and I think that naturally these kinds of people don't connect to eachother. It really scares me to find out that what I had with someone is not what it was--or that it never was what I thought it was. I guess that it's always been my biggest fear--realizing that the rest of the world doesn't feel like I do.
I don't really know what I'm babbling about anymore, but I guess the point of this entry was to say that this would be a lot simpler if I had a god to call on at times like this. But I've denied what was given to me, and I haven't really settled into anything that I trust. I have these big ideas and no one to tell them. I feel kind of drained of fire--like Rahkel. I know where I used to get that fire, but it's dwindling, kind of. It's dwindling because I immersed myself in it and forgot what it was, then I thought to hard about it and wanted too much from it and thoroughly confused myself. Now I think I stay around only to be loyal to the dream that I constructed.
And I know that there is a connection, and that there is *something* that happens when I want something so, so badly, but I don't know if it is my wanting it that creates this connection or if the connection is already there. I don't trust myself or the people around me to know what is going on or what will happen.
And ontop of all of that I feel kind of ugly today. I guess it's not really a very good confindence day in the life of Maggie, but I was sufficently philosophical and I guess I'm done now. I just have to find something to do to kill time, because I took a nap today and I'm never going to be able to sleep soon.
I guess I'll just leave you with this fictional thing--a Grunge Appeal peice with Angel and Persephone. It kind of stemmed from how I'm feeling today, and I think it does a better job explaining things than I can. It's unfinished, but oh well. Nothing in Grunge Appeal is finished.
She was still and somber, our Angel, lady of the simple and deadly. She was like a stone, with little emotion and little movement-until the necessary moment. She moved without fault, as if the air spun around her. And, constantly at her side, wanted or not, was Persephone, her fallen star-her strange and intangible lover, the woman who so perfectly opposed her. We never deemed to make assumptions about Angel and Persephone, for what went on between them was greater and more enormous than anything we came to know. They shared a spirit, perhaps, despite Angel’s coldness and Persephone’s faults.
Angel was still and Persephone was in constant, agitated motion, out of reach for all normal onlookers. Her blue eyes jumped from thing to thing, and her hands continually wandered in unfinished gestures. Words tended to pour haphazardly from her mouth, as if she could not control the questions that ripped her heart to shreds. It was Angel’s still, deadly calculations that kept her in check-Persephone, the raving wild ocean-only Angel. None of the others had any control over our tragic fallen star. Angel was her stone, her still rock in the center of the raging river, on which Persephone’s detached and anxious philosophy clung relentlessly.
Angel sat on the train, eyes half open to the passing buildings. She listened to Persephone turning her cigarettes around in her hands, pacing her breath with the rise and fall of streetlights below.
There was something more aggressive about Persephone tonight, something that boiled at the surface even more than usual. Angel could feel it coming off of her-pushing itself into her consciousness, from the cruel fluorescent light on her hands to the little movements of cigarettes inside the box. She avoided Persephone’s eyes. She could feel them jumping around either way-she turned her head to look at each man and woman in the train car, to look at the ads, and once and a while, to rest momentarily on Angel’s face, where they would burn until they had to move away.
“Can we walk from the next stop?” she asked.
“Alright,” Angel replied. Persephone pulled the cord and a delayed chime went through the car. They slowed and Persephone stood, anticipating the station ahead. She was already at the door when the train no longer moved, and she was into the throng in the station before Angel left the train. She didn’t lose her, though. It was difficult to lose her.
They entered the fresh air at the staircase down to the street, and Persephone was moving quickly. Angel came into pace with her and she slowed, but her hands were restlessly searching for her lighter. The cigarette was already poised in her red lips.
“I needed the air,” she said.
“And a smoke,” Angel responded. She handed Persephone her own lighter, and the girl took it in thin hands. It took her three or four times to keep a flame, and then with grace she handed it back to Angel, who lit her own-much slower. Persephone let out a shuddering breath with the first exhale-threw her head back up at the sky and stared at it while she walked.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have no god,” she hissed. It poured from her lips without restraint. “All of my gods are dead.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed them.”
“My father is a man without honor-his god is the god of the rich, and I despise the rich. The gods that they worship in the sky cities-the ones whose names are only ‘God’-they are useless and they do nothing, and they are nothing, because they have no definition-or too much definition, I don’t even know. I am completely alone, Angel.”
So I suppose the church and doctrine was the first to go--I always felt manipulated in Sunday school, and I hated it. It was one of the characteristics of Maggie-the-kid to find all the places that were trying to manipulate me, and to do away with them, because I was afraid of being used. I went about thinking that a lot of things were trying to fool me, and that I could fool them right back. Even when I played with my friends, that was a kind of theme--I played with my brother and a boy named Phillip, and since I was the girl, I was always the secret weapon--the one that no one thought could fight but always ended up coming to the rescue and kicking everybody's ass. Of course, that's children's fantasy, but I guess it's about fooling. Anyway, that's kind of off topic. I'm talking about gods. I am interested in them, but I don't have any--I have nothing to believe in. I create what I can. I suppose that's really what half of it is--creating what you can, and letting the conciousness of people around you and something greater shape it into what can be followed by everyone. Individuals create their gods, and then the interaction of those invidual gods create something that none of us can control--like a chaos theory of creation. It explodes and there is something beyond our understanding, something that taps into the *is* that we cannot explain. It takes a whole community conciousness to reach the is in a way that everyone understands. That's hideously philosophical, but that's the kind of mood I'm in. Bear with me, I guess.
But you know, I created what I could, but each time these things get away from me. I create the things that revolve around what I learn. When I was in Magic-class at Mac, it was all about secrets and writing. It was about the things that I did not know and could only imagine, and I think it's the loss of secrets now that leave me feeling kind of stranded. The people that I held up high are now very, very human--and staggering humans, at that. I forget what I believed in about these people, or maybe I'm overexposed to it. A secret achieved is a power lost. I feel like the dreams I had when I came here grew stagant, and when I had what I wanted, they lost their myth and glory. I have a very hard time with this, and I will hang onto a concept until it is beat out of me--I will be loyal to what I want to believe in until it turns on me--or my idea of it turns on me. Something inside me will eventually reject it. I honestly don't think these things betray me, but my mind thinks that they do, and after that I don't have much to do other than hate it. But I look always for that thing that won't leave me, won't betray me--something that I can put all of my trust in without making it afraid, or something that I can put all of my trust in and wont' go stagnant. A world that keeps moving--something that I don't have to move myself. Admission that I am weak, but not like it is now--if I admit that I am weak now, everything stops and I fall into whatever place I was before I came to college. I think I'm thinking about this because of my Islam class--but I understand the power of submission. (That's what Islam means, note.) I understand that when I try to control things, they slip away from me, and it is my nature to try and control everything, and so I end up caught up and spinning. I understand the power of the act but not the power of the god that inspires it. I understand "the world" and "the is" but not "the god"--and that's probably the point, that which we cannot understand.
I'm feeling strangely lonely now, though, because what I made out to be the perfect is no longer perfect. The world that was so easily beautiful is now regular, normal. It isn't new anymore. The images of those who left were impressed on me. Now they are tangible, real figures, and they are fucked up--and not only are they fucked up, but there is a definate lack of connection. I hate losing connections with people. I think, perhaps that I am naturally loyal, but it scares the SHIT out of me, because I understand how easily that can be taken for granted, how real it is that I care with all by being for someone and then lose the rest of the world--including the truth about how that person feels about me. I don't want to lose the rest of the world, but I know that I can. And it's only to a point, because I run into so few people who are the same as me, and I think that naturally these kinds of people don't connect to eachother. It really scares me to find out that what I had with someone is not what it was--or that it never was what I thought it was. I guess that it's always been my biggest fear--realizing that the rest of the world doesn't feel like I do.
I don't really know what I'm babbling about anymore, but I guess the point of this entry was to say that this would be a lot simpler if I had a god to call on at times like this. But I've denied what was given to me, and I haven't really settled into anything that I trust. I have these big ideas and no one to tell them. I feel kind of drained of fire--like Rahkel. I know where I used to get that fire, but it's dwindling, kind of. It's dwindling because I immersed myself in it and forgot what it was, then I thought to hard about it and wanted too much from it and thoroughly confused myself. Now I think I stay around only to be loyal to the dream that I constructed.
And I know that there is a connection, and that there is *something* that happens when I want something so, so badly, but I don't know if it is my wanting it that creates this connection or if the connection is already there. I don't trust myself or the people around me to know what is going on or what will happen.
And ontop of all of that I feel kind of ugly today. I guess it's not really a very good confindence day in the life of Maggie, but I was sufficently philosophical and I guess I'm done now. I just have to find something to do to kill time, because I took a nap today and I'm never going to be able to sleep soon.
I guess I'll just leave you with this fictional thing--a Grunge Appeal peice with Angel and Persephone. It kind of stemmed from how I'm feeling today, and I think it does a better job explaining things than I can. It's unfinished, but oh well. Nothing in Grunge Appeal is finished.
She was still and somber, our Angel, lady of the simple and deadly. She was like a stone, with little emotion and little movement-until the necessary moment. She moved without fault, as if the air spun around her. And, constantly at her side, wanted or not, was Persephone, her fallen star-her strange and intangible lover, the woman who so perfectly opposed her. We never deemed to make assumptions about Angel and Persephone, for what went on between them was greater and more enormous than anything we came to know. They shared a spirit, perhaps, despite Angel’s coldness and Persephone’s faults.
Angel was still and Persephone was in constant, agitated motion, out of reach for all normal onlookers. Her blue eyes jumped from thing to thing, and her hands continually wandered in unfinished gestures. Words tended to pour haphazardly from her mouth, as if she could not control the questions that ripped her heart to shreds. It was Angel’s still, deadly calculations that kept her in check-Persephone, the raving wild ocean-only Angel. None of the others had any control over our tragic fallen star. Angel was her stone, her still rock in the center of the raging river, on which Persephone’s detached and anxious philosophy clung relentlessly.
Angel sat on the train, eyes half open to the passing buildings. She listened to Persephone turning her cigarettes around in her hands, pacing her breath with the rise and fall of streetlights below.
There was something more aggressive about Persephone tonight, something that boiled at the surface even more than usual. Angel could feel it coming off of her-pushing itself into her consciousness, from the cruel fluorescent light on her hands to the little movements of cigarettes inside the box. She avoided Persephone’s eyes. She could feel them jumping around either way-she turned her head to look at each man and woman in the train car, to look at the ads, and once and a while, to rest momentarily on Angel’s face, where they would burn until they had to move away.
“Can we walk from the next stop?” she asked.
“Alright,” Angel replied. Persephone pulled the cord and a delayed chime went through the car. They slowed and Persephone stood, anticipating the station ahead. She was already at the door when the train no longer moved, and she was into the throng in the station before Angel left the train. She didn’t lose her, though. It was difficult to lose her.
They entered the fresh air at the staircase down to the street, and Persephone was moving quickly. Angel came into pace with her and she slowed, but her hands were restlessly searching for her lighter. The cigarette was already poised in her red lips.
“I needed the air,” she said.
“And a smoke,” Angel responded. She handed Persephone her own lighter, and the girl took it in thin hands. It took her three or four times to keep a flame, and then with grace she handed it back to Angel, who lit her own-much slower. Persephone let out a shuddering breath with the first exhale-threw her head back up at the sky and stared at it while she walked.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have no god,” she hissed. It poured from her lips without restraint. “All of my gods are dead.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed them.”
“My father is a man without honor-his god is the god of the rich, and I despise the rich. The gods that they worship in the sky cities-the ones whose names are only ‘God’-they are useless and they do nothing, and they are nothing, because they have no definition-or too much definition, I don’t even know. I am completely alone, Angel.”