sunday morning nonsense
It appears the boys WILL be (arn't they?) home by Christmas. One of the not-so-great-wars came to an end. But the national nightmare is not over; we are not Europe, but like them, our lights have gone out --and indeed, to echo further, they will not be lit again in our lifetime. What does a complex, overt act of imperialist aggression mean?
At this moment, once more (this time to echo myself), I am lost in The Woods.
After what felt like a personal nightmare from 1999-2002, I built my wall. The Wall began as an ambitious project many years prior, but that may be overt revisionism at work. To avoid that, I will take the conventional date of 2001, the year I discovered Pink Floyd. From August 2001 (when I acquired a CD copy of The Wall) to October of 2002 I worked in earnestness on a project I hoped would kill me.
Why do I always feel the need to compare myself to historical trends and make broad cultural allusions? For many reasons, really. First and foremost, I consider the individual as a nation-state, although the concept of nation-states became anachronistic many, many decades ago. Secondly, I believe in context, and how else can we contextualise if not by understanding our broader circumstances? Thirdly, I have always preferred the "big picture" and tend to get lost in and forget and distort the details. I suppose I could go on, but those 3 reasons ought suffice.
In sum, I want to contextualise myself, now, in 2011. Personal circumstances (the death period of 1999-2002, 3 deaths and a near fatal heart attack), and the events of 2001 formed who I am. It seemed natural to withdraw during those formative, early teenage years. And thus, the discovery of the Wall in August of that year and the events of September flowed together nicely.
In vain, I protested against it...briefly. As the march toward war gathered momentum, as my weight skyrocketed and I struggled to understand the basics of modern European history, as I began awakening to the idea of future possibilities...I retreated. Nothing seemed to matter, really. The idea of the heroic individual still attracted me, but it seemed no one could win.
The personal depression I had been going through for years also escalated in the first of many great meltdowns in 2003. As I had failed, once more, nothing mattered.
How the years 2003-2010 passed, I really don't know. None of it makes sense. There are so many demons, so many personal, political, existential, social, moral, ethical, physical, sexual, intellectual failings. There are probably more, but if I continued enumerating, we'd both lose interest. I think I may have already.
What a quick summary, a quick musing of the past decade or so means is unclear.
All I can say is this: Vaclav Havel died today and that makes me sad on some level I cannot quick explain yet.
At this moment, once more (this time to echo myself), I am lost in The Woods.
After what felt like a personal nightmare from 1999-2002, I built my wall. The Wall began as an ambitious project many years prior, but that may be overt revisionism at work. To avoid that, I will take the conventional date of 2001, the year I discovered Pink Floyd. From August 2001 (when I acquired a CD copy of The Wall) to October of 2002 I worked in earnestness on a project I hoped would kill me.
Why do I always feel the need to compare myself to historical trends and make broad cultural allusions? For many reasons, really. First and foremost, I consider the individual as a nation-state, although the concept of nation-states became anachronistic many, many decades ago. Secondly, I believe in context, and how else can we contextualise if not by understanding our broader circumstances? Thirdly, I have always preferred the "big picture" and tend to get lost in and forget and distort the details. I suppose I could go on, but those 3 reasons ought suffice.
In sum, I want to contextualise myself, now, in 2011. Personal circumstances (the death period of 1999-2002, 3 deaths and a near fatal heart attack), and the events of 2001 formed who I am. It seemed natural to withdraw during those formative, early teenage years. And thus, the discovery of the Wall in August of that year and the events of September flowed together nicely.
In vain, I protested against it...briefly. As the march toward war gathered momentum, as my weight skyrocketed and I struggled to understand the basics of modern European history, as I began awakening to the idea of future possibilities...I retreated. Nothing seemed to matter, really. The idea of the heroic individual still attracted me, but it seemed no one could win.
The personal depression I had been going through for years also escalated in the first of many great meltdowns in 2003. As I had failed, once more, nothing mattered.
How the years 2003-2010 passed, I really don't know. None of it makes sense. There are so many demons, so many personal, political, existential, social, moral, ethical, physical, sexual, intellectual failings. There are probably more, but if I continued enumerating, we'd both lose interest. I think I may have already.
What a quick summary, a quick musing of the past decade or so means is unclear.
All I can say is this: Vaclav Havel died today and that makes me sad on some level I cannot quick explain yet.