bits and pieces, torn
thematic fetishism aside, I find myself depressed again. This journal recently has been devoted too much to broad, sweeping generalities. It is the details which matter most and the details that need to be discussed. This could continue, as I could recount days and weeks, rather than hours and minutes. As that silly cliche goes: stay in the moment.
There are signs of progress, of course; I woke up earlier today than yesterday (even though both days represent a setback; I ate healthier and have been drinking more water rather than carbohydrates today; soon, a friend will come and swimming and dinner will happen.
What is more important? Capturing a sense of emotion, or concentrating on minutia. I suppose, then, I've gone back on my intention and am relying on the fetishism of striving for balance. Today begins as a loss; moments of victory and progress; tomorrow can be better. But where does it leave me? If it all ended, what would be said?
More waves of emotions and realisations have been hitting me. I've been living a life still shackled by my own conservativism. The appeal to authoritarianism is an appeal to power, an appeal to laziness, an appeal to fear. The power, I must say, is an important part that my modernly medieval mind can't seem to grasp most of the time. Isn't there always a superior or inferior force? My mind gravitates toward the issue of sex on this notion, in particularly what penetration really means. In college, at some point, I professed a confusion about lesbianism but a deep understanding of masculine homosexuality. It was met with a laugh of disgust and the quip that it was "very Aristotlean" of me. The confusion remained, quite honestly. But another conversation, years after Aristotle, prompted the notion that why is anal sex so revered and held upon a pedal stool as an ideal? What is sex, then? Lately, to overuse the poor word, it has been fetishism and exploration. I still don't feel comfortable enough in my body, and I'm learning I may never.
My mind has experienced a deep disconnect that everyday I feel closer to unraveling, and yet everyday I feel farther from myself. There is something deep within, struggling to be freed, struggling to align itself with the universe. Most of my late teens and early twenties saw a celebration of discord and a lack of traditional harmony, particularly in music. To highlight examples and struggle against the broad sweep, I think of Sun Ra and The Olivia Tremor Control in particular. My classically trained musician of a cousin, in a conversation that came about after much bitterness and a rising tide of hostility for weeks told me --in the best English he could muster --that my music was awful, depressing, unnecessary, and lacking any real beauty. Nonetheless, at 18, it was the retreat into self I wanted and needed.
At 26, what do I want and need? Where does my heart lie? Herein the discussion can turn from power into laziness. By deferring power to others, by allowing others to proclaim your own powerlessness is terribly defeatist. It inverts the celebrated modernist notion of free will which indeed my limited understanding of postmodernism seeks to exploit. Because of my training and interests, it brings to mind existentialism, which weighs even greater on my mind as I reread The Stranger. I first read the novel in June or July of 1999, at the suggestion of a woman who took her life in August of 1999. I was 13 at the time; I hope to reread The Stranger again before I should turn 39, but perhaps there would be an odd sort of vindication of allowing 13 years to lapse between readings.
The Stranger brings to mind that notion of my self-imposed bondage. Though I continue to fight the urge, I must invoke the thoughts of Bill W. In that most brain washing of programs that has bonded me to other sick and infested people, the 3rd of the 12 steps has a prayer in which part of it says "Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will..." From there stems this notion of bondage of self, though I suppose it could come from anywhere, really. I could attribute it to Marx, or Camus, or some other white man who left behind a body of famous work that pseudo-intellectuals like to parade around, much like I am doing now. My writing only becomes precise when I criticise myself, I find. If only I could turn this abuse into something more productive. Such as abuse of others, or even invert it into whatever the opposite of abuse may be. Which, leads me to the plot --not the point, the plot --of that most existentialist of novels.
An Arab is murdered.
Another literary moment came to mind, this one from 2004. That year is truly a watershed in my life. The part of 2004 is from March or April, when we read The Sound and The Fury. Longtime readers of this blog (which dates back to 2003!) will recall my obsession with Dalton Ames. Shortly after I reread Camus, Faulkner came to mind. These two novels linked in my mind because of events from this year which summoned PTSD-like symptoms for others based on events of 2000. Quentin Compson made it to Harvard before his obsession with purity and his sister and Dalton Ames and the weight of insanity thrust him down to drown, somewhat like Virginia Woolfe, if I recall --weighted down by stones of his own choosing.
It really isn't that bad, that dire. This all caused a sudden tremor of fear. If I truly decide to not live in fear --what will I do? How will I do it? Why will I do it?
Perhaps that is the problem, that I am seeking bondage from other sources. This is, most definitely, the appeal to fear and thus that oft noted linkage between the secular religion of Communist Russia and that of Christianity. Even some silly little trifling of non-fiction I read in the Fall of 2011 (Among The Truthers) made a comparison between the two.
Returning to the rock analogy also brings to mind a discussion of resentments, and how as we travel along with an empty wagon, we can kick the stones that impede our path, or we can pick them up and weigh ourselves and the wagon down. It never fails to kill people. When I choose a drastic overhaul of my life, I emptied quite a few rocks from my wagon. The weight --literal and metaphoric --is off. But I'm still not sure what to do. I wish my actions were as brave as these words.
My entries end because I get tired. I realise that when I condemn others to tl;dr I am condeming myself to a similar fate. My only hope is that someone will read these words and take some action based upon them. I've covered the basics, offered a detail or two, and even employed that most Hemingway of styles, the iceberg. Camus, I read somewhere, was influenced by that, and it came to me with The Sun Also Rises.
Today I can offer a solution, however. There can be a glimmer of hope. Perhaps those I condemn are just as afraid. Perhaps, as Bill W and even my atheistic friends suggest, I should "trust in the process." If I have drank from the Kool Aid which says to "live and let live" to "let go and let God" then, perhaps, the secularized versions I hear "life for life's sake" "it is what it is" are equally valid. This dual nature, the essence of struggle between faith and reason is crucial. Briefly, it is what has brought me to (and kept me, so far) in the Episcopal church. I don't want to preach indoctrination, however, and I'm afraid that mentions of Bill W, Marx, Camus, Christianity, existentialism, Dalton Ames speak to the opposite.
I'm afraid, that's all. But, at the same time, if it all ended now...I'm not sure I would care. The path is of my own choosing, and right now I'm just so bewildered and bedeviled by this. Didn't Barry Schwartz say something about The Paradox of Choice? The happiest and healthiest of people I know just do. In writing this, I continue the trend that the sickest write. The bravest do not wield pens, or sword, or penises. They simply display their hearts and work quietly and diligently. They serve others, and those others could be anyone. If the schmaltz police comes, tell them I'll be out on the lanai eating cheesecake.
There are signs of progress, of course; I woke up earlier today than yesterday (even though both days represent a setback; I ate healthier and have been drinking more water rather than carbohydrates today; soon, a friend will come and swimming and dinner will happen.
What is more important? Capturing a sense of emotion, or concentrating on minutia. I suppose, then, I've gone back on my intention and am relying on the fetishism of striving for balance. Today begins as a loss; moments of victory and progress; tomorrow can be better. But where does it leave me? If it all ended, what would be said?
More waves of emotions and realisations have been hitting me. I've been living a life still shackled by my own conservativism. The appeal to authoritarianism is an appeal to power, an appeal to laziness, an appeal to fear. The power, I must say, is an important part that my modernly medieval mind can't seem to grasp most of the time. Isn't there always a superior or inferior force? My mind gravitates toward the issue of sex on this notion, in particularly what penetration really means. In college, at some point, I professed a confusion about lesbianism but a deep understanding of masculine homosexuality. It was met with a laugh of disgust and the quip that it was "very Aristotlean" of me. The confusion remained, quite honestly. But another conversation, years after Aristotle, prompted the notion that why is anal sex so revered and held upon a pedal stool as an ideal? What is sex, then? Lately, to overuse the poor word, it has been fetishism and exploration. I still don't feel comfortable enough in my body, and I'm learning I may never.
My mind has experienced a deep disconnect that everyday I feel closer to unraveling, and yet everyday I feel farther from myself. There is something deep within, struggling to be freed, struggling to align itself with the universe. Most of my late teens and early twenties saw a celebration of discord and a lack of traditional harmony, particularly in music. To highlight examples and struggle against the broad sweep, I think of Sun Ra and The Olivia Tremor Control in particular. My classically trained musician of a cousin, in a conversation that came about after much bitterness and a rising tide of hostility for weeks told me --in the best English he could muster --that my music was awful, depressing, unnecessary, and lacking any real beauty. Nonetheless, at 18, it was the retreat into self I wanted and needed.
At 26, what do I want and need? Where does my heart lie? Herein the discussion can turn from power into laziness. By deferring power to others, by allowing others to proclaim your own powerlessness is terribly defeatist. It inverts the celebrated modernist notion of free will which indeed my limited understanding of postmodernism seeks to exploit. Because of my training and interests, it brings to mind existentialism, which weighs even greater on my mind as I reread The Stranger. I first read the novel in June or July of 1999, at the suggestion of a woman who took her life in August of 1999. I was 13 at the time; I hope to reread The Stranger again before I should turn 39, but perhaps there would be an odd sort of vindication of allowing 13 years to lapse between readings.
The Stranger brings to mind that notion of my self-imposed bondage. Though I continue to fight the urge, I must invoke the thoughts of Bill W. In that most brain washing of programs that has bonded me to other sick and infested people, the 3rd of the 12 steps has a prayer in which part of it says "Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will..." From there stems this notion of bondage of self, though I suppose it could come from anywhere, really. I could attribute it to Marx, or Camus, or some other white man who left behind a body of famous work that pseudo-intellectuals like to parade around, much like I am doing now. My writing only becomes precise when I criticise myself, I find. If only I could turn this abuse into something more productive. Such as abuse of others, or even invert it into whatever the opposite of abuse may be. Which, leads me to the plot --not the point, the plot --of that most existentialist of novels.
An Arab is murdered.
Another literary moment came to mind, this one from 2004. That year is truly a watershed in my life. The part of 2004 is from March or April, when we read The Sound and The Fury. Longtime readers of this blog (which dates back to 2003!) will recall my obsession with Dalton Ames. Shortly after I reread Camus, Faulkner came to mind. These two novels linked in my mind because of events from this year which summoned PTSD-like symptoms for others based on events of 2000. Quentin Compson made it to Harvard before his obsession with purity and his sister and Dalton Ames and the weight of insanity thrust him down to drown, somewhat like Virginia Woolfe, if I recall --weighted down by stones of his own choosing.
It really isn't that bad, that dire. This all caused a sudden tremor of fear. If I truly decide to not live in fear --what will I do? How will I do it? Why will I do it?
Perhaps that is the problem, that I am seeking bondage from other sources. This is, most definitely, the appeal to fear and thus that oft noted linkage between the secular religion of Communist Russia and that of Christianity. Even some silly little trifling of non-fiction I read in the Fall of 2011 (Among The Truthers) made a comparison between the two.
Returning to the rock analogy also brings to mind a discussion of resentments, and how as we travel along with an empty wagon, we can kick the stones that impede our path, or we can pick them up and weigh ourselves and the wagon down. It never fails to kill people. When I choose a drastic overhaul of my life, I emptied quite a few rocks from my wagon. The weight --literal and metaphoric --is off. But I'm still not sure what to do. I wish my actions were as brave as these words.
My entries end because I get tired. I realise that when I condemn others to tl;dr I am condeming myself to a similar fate. My only hope is that someone will read these words and take some action based upon them. I've covered the basics, offered a detail or two, and even employed that most Hemingway of styles, the iceberg. Camus, I read somewhere, was influenced by that, and it came to me with The Sun Also Rises.
Today I can offer a solution, however. There can be a glimmer of hope. Perhaps those I condemn are just as afraid. Perhaps, as Bill W and even my atheistic friends suggest, I should "trust in the process." If I have drank from the Kool Aid which says to "live and let live" to "let go and let God" then, perhaps, the secularized versions I hear "life for life's sake" "it is what it is" are equally valid. This dual nature, the essence of struggle between faith and reason is crucial. Briefly, it is what has brought me to (and kept me, so far) in the Episcopal church. I don't want to preach indoctrination, however, and I'm afraid that mentions of Bill W, Marx, Camus, Christianity, existentialism, Dalton Ames speak to the opposite.
I'm afraid, that's all. But, at the same time, if it all ended now...I'm not sure I would care. The path is of my own choosing, and right now I'm just so bewildered and bedeviled by this. Didn't Barry Schwartz say something about The Paradox of Choice? The happiest and healthiest of people I know just do. In writing this, I continue the trend that the sickest write. The bravest do not wield pens, or sword, or penises. They simply display their hearts and work quietly and diligently. They serve others, and those others could be anyone. If the schmaltz police comes, tell them I'll be out on the lanai eating cheesecake.