It's been done
About ten years ago, when I was sixteen, I was spending a significant portion every day looking for an objective morality. I didn’t feel I could definitively tell right from wrong. It bothered me, so I thought that I could find a “platform” from which to view the world, I could determine the difference in any situation. I spent a lot of time thinking and writing about it.
Later I found out what philosophy and religion were about.
That’s my best example of having Things To Say about something, then realizing Things had already been said. Finding out you’ve been chipping away at a question that is pretty much the central theme of all abstract thought in the history of the world can be kind of a downer, actually. Gets to be even more of a downer when you realize that people have always been chipping away at all the questions you’ll ever think to ask, and they’ve chipped deeper than you’re going to.
It makes you wonder, what’s the point? Previous great minds have already thought of everything I’m going to say. Furthermore, they have read all that previous to previous great minds have had to say and built their thoughts on those thoughts. I don’t have time, for one thing, to read previous great minds and previous-previous great minds and build my own thoughts on theirs.
One thing that always cheers me up is T.S. Eliot. I don’t really know what his poems are supposed to be about, but to me they’re about all this intelligent, meaningful stuff that has come before, overwhelming you until you’re unable to say anything in the present time. To me those poems are about the fear of saying anything, fear of what you say being meaningless. Yet they’re some of the most meaningful poems I’ve read. Here was someone who obviously recognized this profound fear of being pointless, but he said something and made a point.
So on the one hand, I feel intimidated by T. S. Eliot. But then I think about T. S. Eliot on El Jay, looking at Milton macros which say, “I have a Lucifer; your argument is invalid!” And T. S. Eliot sort of shuffles and thinks, “Aw, Milton, my argument totally is invalid! I’ll just erase my post now.”
It’s not that I think I decide to keep my post/continue thinking about moral objectivity/not give up writing/always say what I think because I might be the next T. S. Eliot. It’s more like, “Dude, if Eliot felt intimidated, we probably all are.” May as well just suck it up, fuck it, and do this shit. You know?
The ironic thing is a lot of people may feel the intimidation thing, except you wouldn’t know it. If you feel it keenly, then you are aware that others have felt it before you and expressed it better. But if everyone felt that way all the time then T. S. Eliot would never post to El Jay.
So, do you feel the intimidation thing? On LJ? In writing? In real life? How do you get past it? Do you think about someone who inspires you, or does that make it worse? Who/what is it that intimidates you? What do you want to do with your life, anyway?
This entry was originally posted to Dreamwidth. Read Comments | Reply
Later I found out what philosophy and religion were about.
That’s my best example of having Things To Say about something, then realizing Things had already been said. Finding out you’ve been chipping away at a question that is pretty much the central theme of all abstract thought in the history of the world can be kind of a downer, actually. Gets to be even more of a downer when you realize that people have always been chipping away at all the questions you’ll ever think to ask, and they’ve chipped deeper than you’re going to.
It makes you wonder, what’s the point? Previous great minds have already thought of everything I’m going to say. Furthermore, they have read all that previous to previous great minds have had to say and built their thoughts on those thoughts. I don’t have time, for one thing, to read previous great minds and previous-previous great minds and build my own thoughts on theirs.
One thing that always cheers me up is T.S. Eliot. I don’t really know what his poems are supposed to be about, but to me they’re about all this intelligent, meaningful stuff that has come before, overwhelming you until you’re unable to say anything in the present time. To me those poems are about the fear of saying anything, fear of what you say being meaningless. Yet they’re some of the most meaningful poems I’ve read. Here was someone who obviously recognized this profound fear of being pointless, but he said something and made a point.
So on the one hand, I feel intimidated by T. S. Eliot. But then I think about T. S. Eliot on El Jay, looking at Milton macros which say, “I have a Lucifer; your argument is invalid!” And T. S. Eliot sort of shuffles and thinks, “Aw, Milton, my argument totally is invalid! I’ll just erase my post now.”
It’s not that I think I decide to keep my post/continue thinking about moral objectivity/not give up writing/always say what I think because I might be the next T. S. Eliot. It’s more like, “Dude, if Eliot felt intimidated, we probably all are.” May as well just suck it up, fuck it, and do this shit. You know?
The ironic thing is a lot of people may feel the intimidation thing, except you wouldn’t know it. If you feel it keenly, then you are aware that others have felt it before you and expressed it better. But if everyone felt that way all the time then T. S. Eliot would never post to El Jay.
So, do you feel the intimidation thing? On LJ? In writing? In real life? How do you get past it? Do you think about someone who inspires you, or does that make it worse? Who/what is it that intimidates you? What do you want to do with your life, anyway?
This entry was originally posted to Dreamwidth. Read Comments | Reply