Sunday morning fears
today, like most days recently, begins with sighs of defeat. I opted for an ice cream cone and making chai in the more conventional sense -- with milk and sweetener -- instead of going to church. I did wake up in time, and quite easily, but my body moved me slowly, away from typical routines.
Generally speaking, I do not push myself the way I know others do. Part of growing older, on my part, is accepting that 12 hour sessions of reading, writing, studying, cleaning, moving, any activity really, are part of the teenage past. My mind and body are capable of more, but my heart just isn't in it. It seems after undergraduate, things sort of hit a slump.
In 2010, though, I fought to overcome that slump via modern medical science. The process sort of began in 2009 when I tried to tweet fewer song lyrics and read more. Of course, this wasn't enough to fight the reality that I was gaining weight and losing life.
I'm not sure why I'm complaining so much, really. Again, is it acceptance to just say "meh, I just don't feel like it" or is that more of a defeatist attitude? Actually, I believe most people call it depression. The first alarm was set at 7, which had I actually responded to it would have meant 9 hours of sleep. It would have been enough time to get exercise in and maybe even some reading.
When these fits strike, the reasonable conclusion would be to push harder. As I recently heard, if you feel you're going through hell, keep moving. It has gotten easier, it really has. My room remains mostly clean and dust free. Laundry gets done regular, and my hygiene is very good, bordering on normal. Even with the weird pretentious writing I observed in my writing over the past few months, there appears to be more hope.
It just gets hard, sometimes, to tell what is real. Days like today, the only goal tends to be to not sleep it away and to not fight anyone and to shower. On good days, I set goals and tend to accomplish most of the items. Then, on really good/excellent days, the world can be conquered and all problems solved. The true test of strength, of progress, of productivity comes on days like today. Again, I already am defeated, at least partly.
As a quotation of the day recently said along the lines of --and I believe this is from Harper Lee, to boot --courage means starting and seeing something it through to the end, even though you know defeat is imminent.
All this, of course, is where doubt sets in. Most of my reactions are fear, based on that lack of doubt and lack of trust and lack of understanding. Truthfully, I find myself that naked, absurd man that Camus and others of his ilk wrote about, in some fashion or another insofar as I feel more taught to be part of, than actually part of the whole. As I write this, as I try to revel in my uniqueness I can't help but feel more of a tired cliche than an actual human being. In most of my efforts to be part of, or to be a part from, it never seems to work.
Recently the act of silence has caught my eyes and mind. When I go to Northside (almost daily, I might add) I have been focusing more on empty chairs. As pathetic and brainwashing and cultish as the program is, there is some guilt but mostly satisfaction in knowing I am there. The empty chairs speak of those who die or are simply absent.
In a somewhat parallel fashion, I've been thinking of television shows and movies and other forms of art. Usually, especially in high school movies or depictions, there is some sort of bully, an antagonist. He shows up at the school dance to purposefully set himself apart and to make his identity and anger at the system show. Usually, it ends in some revelation that ultimately shows he belongs, even if he can't fully accept it.
But what does that really mean? He always belonged. We have some sort of mopey element, always present that if properly dealt with can simply be reintegrated into the whole. The happy ending, if you will.
So, then, where does that leave the parallelism?
Like in AA meetings, it is not the sourpuss that matters. The crying, the bitterness, that can be overcome. What remains, of course, are the empty seats. What remains, are those that by their lack of presence, are truly apart. Is this the "silent majority"? Is this the segment of population whose unthinking obedience to the system is truly at fault?
Silence matters most, and I am only now starting to hear it, see it, and feel it. It makes me more uncomfortable than those who do show up. At 26 I am learning what some probably knew all along. Again, I may be smart, but I'm certainly quite slow. My work ethic died about a decade ago, truly. I was that unthinking, faithful to the system cog. In many ways, I still am; I am the element that rallies against hypocrisy by committing the most damning and hypocritical acts.
This idea sort of filtered to me last year, when I read Baudrillard's The Mirror of Production. To parlay what I interpreted from that book into what bothers me most --and that highlights my hypocrisy -- is that Baudrillard's argument, if if I understand it correctly, is about the flaws inherent in Marxism. Marx isn't the wonderful rallying cry against the inequities of capitalism, as embodied by Smith the century before him. What is being said, is that Smith created a coin, but only used one side. Marx simply flipped it over, wrote some damning critique of the other side of the coin --but that's just it, he had to define himself by inverting Smith. The coin, which is the problem, has Smith here and Marx there, but their source of contention (if that is the right word) is the same. One coin, 2 perspectives.
True innovation, true creation, is not done this way. By simply turning an idea up its head, we get the high school bully who "fights the system" and harms the weak. This is some sort of step in some sort of direction.
We live in a multidimensional world. To this end, I have recently begun an attack on those who say "the world isn't black and white, there's a lot of grey, too!" My response is bullocks. Perhaps this is where I am smart, this is where the formal education shows itself --my retort to the black-white-grey assertion is that you've still created a restricted world. The world is not that limited. Linguists have written many books on the issue of colours, and how languages systematically sort of define what colours are available to describe. As English speakers, we certainly recognise more than just black, white, and gray. To admit and acknowledge grey is a starting point, not an end point.
What about all the other colours? If I remain stuck in my own personal discourse --as is wont to happen --it is because I have forgotten about the other colours. On Friday I found myself, along with my sister, trying to explain what a persimmon is like. We were baffled, but we came up with some sort of description that seemed adequate enough. It would have been aided, of course, by the persimmons being in season and allowing our interlocutor the privilege of trying the persimmon itself. But alas, this is summer --not persimmon season.
In sum, I am glad I removed my doubts and fears by projecting them onto Marx and colours and other tropes. I'm still fighting the same battle, but hopefully I was successful in recognising another facet. This writing may have actually helped me, and I hope it helped someone else, too. Isn't that the cliche of the intellectual, to hope that words matter? Either way, the point is for there to be hope, for there to be some sort of faith that the innovative and the obedient continue to move. Now it is time for me to move, too.
Generally speaking, I do not push myself the way I know others do. Part of growing older, on my part, is accepting that 12 hour sessions of reading, writing, studying, cleaning, moving, any activity really, are part of the teenage past. My mind and body are capable of more, but my heart just isn't in it. It seems after undergraduate, things sort of hit a slump.
In 2010, though, I fought to overcome that slump via modern medical science. The process sort of began in 2009 when I tried to tweet fewer song lyrics and read more. Of course, this wasn't enough to fight the reality that I was gaining weight and losing life.
I'm not sure why I'm complaining so much, really. Again, is it acceptance to just say "meh, I just don't feel like it" or is that more of a defeatist attitude? Actually, I believe most people call it depression. The first alarm was set at 7, which had I actually responded to it would have meant 9 hours of sleep. It would have been enough time to get exercise in and maybe even some reading.
When these fits strike, the reasonable conclusion would be to push harder. As I recently heard, if you feel you're going through hell, keep moving. It has gotten easier, it really has. My room remains mostly clean and dust free. Laundry gets done regular, and my hygiene is very good, bordering on normal. Even with the weird pretentious writing I observed in my writing over the past few months, there appears to be more hope.
It just gets hard, sometimes, to tell what is real. Days like today, the only goal tends to be to not sleep it away and to not fight anyone and to shower. On good days, I set goals and tend to accomplish most of the items. Then, on really good/excellent days, the world can be conquered and all problems solved. The true test of strength, of progress, of productivity comes on days like today. Again, I already am defeated, at least partly.
As a quotation of the day recently said along the lines of --and I believe this is from Harper Lee, to boot --courage means starting and seeing something it through to the end, even though you know defeat is imminent.
All this, of course, is where doubt sets in. Most of my reactions are fear, based on that lack of doubt and lack of trust and lack of understanding. Truthfully, I find myself that naked, absurd man that Camus and others of his ilk wrote about, in some fashion or another insofar as I feel more taught to be part of, than actually part of the whole. As I write this, as I try to revel in my uniqueness I can't help but feel more of a tired cliche than an actual human being. In most of my efforts to be part of, or to be a part from, it never seems to work.
Recently the act of silence has caught my eyes and mind. When I go to Northside (almost daily, I might add) I have been focusing more on empty chairs. As pathetic and brainwashing and cultish as the program is, there is some guilt but mostly satisfaction in knowing I am there. The empty chairs speak of those who die or are simply absent.
In a somewhat parallel fashion, I've been thinking of television shows and movies and other forms of art. Usually, especially in high school movies or depictions, there is some sort of bully, an antagonist. He shows up at the school dance to purposefully set himself apart and to make his identity and anger at the system show. Usually, it ends in some revelation that ultimately shows he belongs, even if he can't fully accept it.
But what does that really mean? He always belonged. We have some sort of mopey element, always present that if properly dealt with can simply be reintegrated into the whole. The happy ending, if you will.
So, then, where does that leave the parallelism?
Like in AA meetings, it is not the sourpuss that matters. The crying, the bitterness, that can be overcome. What remains, of course, are the empty seats. What remains, are those that by their lack of presence, are truly apart. Is this the "silent majority"? Is this the segment of population whose unthinking obedience to the system is truly at fault?
Silence matters most, and I am only now starting to hear it, see it, and feel it. It makes me more uncomfortable than those who do show up. At 26 I am learning what some probably knew all along. Again, I may be smart, but I'm certainly quite slow. My work ethic died about a decade ago, truly. I was that unthinking, faithful to the system cog. In many ways, I still am; I am the element that rallies against hypocrisy by committing the most damning and hypocritical acts.
This idea sort of filtered to me last year, when I read Baudrillard's The Mirror of Production. To parlay what I interpreted from that book into what bothers me most --and that highlights my hypocrisy -- is that Baudrillard's argument, if if I understand it correctly, is about the flaws inherent in Marxism. Marx isn't the wonderful rallying cry against the inequities of capitalism, as embodied by Smith the century before him. What is being said, is that Smith created a coin, but only used one side. Marx simply flipped it over, wrote some damning critique of the other side of the coin --but that's just it, he had to define himself by inverting Smith. The coin, which is the problem, has Smith here and Marx there, but their source of contention (if that is the right word) is the same. One coin, 2 perspectives.
True innovation, true creation, is not done this way. By simply turning an idea up its head, we get the high school bully who "fights the system" and harms the weak. This is some sort of step in some sort of direction.
We live in a multidimensional world. To this end, I have recently begun an attack on those who say "the world isn't black and white, there's a lot of grey, too!" My response is bullocks. Perhaps this is where I am smart, this is where the formal education shows itself --my retort to the black-white-grey assertion is that you've still created a restricted world. The world is not that limited. Linguists have written many books on the issue of colours, and how languages systematically sort of define what colours are available to describe. As English speakers, we certainly recognise more than just black, white, and gray. To admit and acknowledge grey is a starting point, not an end point.
What about all the other colours? If I remain stuck in my own personal discourse --as is wont to happen --it is because I have forgotten about the other colours. On Friday I found myself, along with my sister, trying to explain what a persimmon is like. We were baffled, but we came up with some sort of description that seemed adequate enough. It would have been aided, of course, by the persimmons being in season and allowing our interlocutor the privilege of trying the persimmon itself. But alas, this is summer --not persimmon season.
In sum, I am glad I removed my doubts and fears by projecting them onto Marx and colours and other tropes. I'm still fighting the same battle, but hopefully I was successful in recognising another facet. This writing may have actually helped me, and I hope it helped someone else, too. Isn't that the cliche of the intellectual, to hope that words matter? Either way, the point is for there to be hope, for there to be some sort of faith that the innovative and the obedient continue to move. Now it is time for me to move, too.