(no subject)
Okay, so:
Tonight my band played with Kittie. Kittie is a mediocre metal band that got famous because it's four relatively attractive women playing the mediocre metal. I know they have plenty of fans, so there's people who see something in it, but when there are people making a big deal about something that strikes me as "...eh." I tend to be much more critical. I think it was my acting teacher who told me something like this:
When you're not psyched about something, when you don't get what the big deal is, that's because the part of you that contains the thing in question isn't awake right now. His example had to do with Gandhi, I think, along the lines of "If you're into what Gandhi was saying, that's because what made Gandhi great is also awakened and alive in you." My acting teacher's into yoga, and I think he's a little more "alternative" than he lets on, but this prompts thought.
What if everything that humans are capable of is contained inside any of us, and is just turned on or off? Like, everyone is capable of mass-murder, and everyone is capable of perfect altruism, (these are not necessarily opposites) and who you are just depends on what portion of all that is awake inside you? This begins to sound like the snowflake argument- you are capable of anything you put your mind to, but I don't think it goes that far. Something needs to be called inside you. To bring out your talent, your skill at anything, it must awaken you, it must bring you closer to God (I use the term God as loose as I think it is possible to use it.)
Now that I think about it, I think I'm just talking about genetics. Is it true that we all contain the entire human genome, and certain bits are just turned on or off? I'm not sure about that, and I should go find out.
... A few paragraphs ago I was talking about Kittie. Raowr!
To change the subject less than entirely, I am hitting walls again. I used to be so frustrated that I had no driver's license. I used to be infuriated that High School was my boundary. Now, I get less ragey against my confinements, but the frustration is still there. Why is my band playing shitty nightclubs - I'm ready for stadiums? Why aren't I an influential and important writer - how do I get there, and what is there to even write about? I am very greedy and selfish and terrible, I notice sometimes. I want what I haven't earned (haven't I, though?) I look at the things beyond my means and say, "I want THAT. Come on. Aren't I deserving enough?" A deserving man would never consider himself deserving. I may be judgmental, but at least I don't spare myself the same judgement. I think that's the problem sometimes - maybe I just think inside myself somewhere that I"m just so much better than everyone else, why doesn't the world just give itself to me? Obviously I deserve it...
Obviously, I don't think this way consciously. The thought that I might be this way sends a shudder through my entire body. I don't know where the boundary is, though - I used to be completely humble, all-giving, the martyr, the sufferer. I put others before myself constantly. I was constantly miserable. Now, I have learned to respect myself, to love myself, and I wonder if I've become drunk with self-love. I'm no Narcissus, and I certainly don't think i'm all that great, but I'm talking about my standards, my levels of self-love that I'm comfortable with. I feel that these days I'm more withdrawn, more alone than I ever was before. This is because of some weird combination of my inability to put down roots and to bind with others, perhaps my need for some form, any form of self-torture. Maybe I'm just sick of most of the people that formed much of my life, or I don't get to see the ones that did matter enough.
Do I repeat myself too much? Am I worrying about the same stuff over and over again? Do these writings get me anywhere? Am I making progress? Do I have a future? Am I doomed to live with a mostly comfortable, sometimes unbearable balance of self-love and self-hate? How long can I keep up a Do/Am question loop? Apparently not that long.
I will post something that I wrote last night, after having some sort of hallucinatory dream/vision, prompted by lyrics in somebody's profile and taken way out of this world by my imagination. It was pretty beautiful, but the written version is cheesy-ish... the language just poured through me, and I struggled to describe what I saw before me. I used to write things that I thought people would read and say "yeah, I get that." Now I don't know what I'm writing, or even if anybody gets it. I don't know if I care (of course I care).
Last question: does anyone else talk to themselves? I stopped worrying about having a split/multiple personality (everybody go read "The Minds of Billy Milligan". Fantastic book.) a while ago, because if it were going to develop it would have already. When I argue/put myself down, I always talk to myself as if I were talking to somebody in front of me. I argue! "Nah, dude, you can't think about it that way. Shut the hell up with that." It's a dialogue/debate between my inside thoughts and the counterargument gets voiced by... my voice. Is that weird? I sometimes want to embrace it and just see what I could come up with two parts of me working together. When I put parentheses in these paragraphs that I write to you (who are you?) more often than not it's that "other" part of me, the one that is critical and questioning, and always has things to chime in with. I sometimes want to experiment with meditating with a keyboard nearby, and when the two parts of me begin to both speak up, just let them flow out of me and record the two viewpoints in different fonts. Is this what intelligent people do when they're alone? Provide their own colleagues? Is that sick and twisted.
Sigh.
Tonight my band played with Kittie. Kittie is a mediocre metal band that got famous because it's four relatively attractive women playing the mediocre metal. I know they have plenty of fans, so there's people who see something in it, but when there are people making a big deal about something that strikes me as "...eh." I tend to be much more critical. I think it was my acting teacher who told me something like this:
When you're not psyched about something, when you don't get what the big deal is, that's because the part of you that contains the thing in question isn't awake right now. His example had to do with Gandhi, I think, along the lines of "If you're into what Gandhi was saying, that's because what made Gandhi great is also awakened and alive in you." My acting teacher's into yoga, and I think he's a little more "alternative" than he lets on, but this prompts thought.
What if everything that humans are capable of is contained inside any of us, and is just turned on or off? Like, everyone is capable of mass-murder, and everyone is capable of perfect altruism, (these are not necessarily opposites) and who you are just depends on what portion of all that is awake inside you? This begins to sound like the snowflake argument- you are capable of anything you put your mind to, but I don't think it goes that far. Something needs to be called inside you. To bring out your talent, your skill at anything, it must awaken you, it must bring you closer to God (I use the term God as loose as I think it is possible to use it.)
Now that I think about it, I think I'm just talking about genetics. Is it true that we all contain the entire human genome, and certain bits are just turned on or off? I'm not sure about that, and I should go find out.
... A few paragraphs ago I was talking about Kittie. Raowr!
To change the subject less than entirely, I am hitting walls again. I used to be so frustrated that I had no driver's license. I used to be infuriated that High School was my boundary. Now, I get less ragey against my confinements, but the frustration is still there. Why is my band playing shitty nightclubs - I'm ready for stadiums? Why aren't I an influential and important writer - how do I get there, and what is there to even write about? I am very greedy and selfish and terrible, I notice sometimes. I want what I haven't earned (haven't I, though?) I look at the things beyond my means and say, "I want THAT. Come on. Aren't I deserving enough?" A deserving man would never consider himself deserving. I may be judgmental, but at least I don't spare myself the same judgement. I think that's the problem sometimes - maybe I just think inside myself somewhere that I"m just so much better than everyone else, why doesn't the world just give itself to me? Obviously I deserve it...
Obviously, I don't think this way consciously. The thought that I might be this way sends a shudder through my entire body. I don't know where the boundary is, though - I used to be completely humble, all-giving, the martyr, the sufferer. I put others before myself constantly. I was constantly miserable. Now, I have learned to respect myself, to love myself, and I wonder if I've become drunk with self-love. I'm no Narcissus, and I certainly don't think i'm all that great, but I'm talking about my standards, my levels of self-love that I'm comfortable with. I feel that these days I'm more withdrawn, more alone than I ever was before. This is because of some weird combination of my inability to put down roots and to bind with others, perhaps my need for some form, any form of self-torture. Maybe I'm just sick of most of the people that formed much of my life, or I don't get to see the ones that did matter enough.
Do I repeat myself too much? Am I worrying about the same stuff over and over again? Do these writings get me anywhere? Am I making progress? Do I have a future? Am I doomed to live with a mostly comfortable, sometimes unbearable balance of self-love and self-hate? How long can I keep up a Do/Am question loop? Apparently not that long.
I will post something that I wrote last night, after having some sort of hallucinatory dream/vision, prompted by lyrics in somebody's profile and taken way out of this world by my imagination. It was pretty beautiful, but the written version is cheesy-ish... the language just poured through me, and I struggled to describe what I saw before me. I used to write things that I thought people would read and say "yeah, I get that." Now I don't know what I'm writing, or even if anybody gets it. I don't know if I care (of course I care).
Last question: does anyone else talk to themselves? I stopped worrying about having a split/multiple personality (everybody go read "The Minds of Billy Milligan". Fantastic book.) a while ago, because if it were going to develop it would have already. When I argue/put myself down, I always talk to myself as if I were talking to somebody in front of me. I argue! "Nah, dude, you can't think about it that way. Shut the hell up with that." It's a dialogue/debate between my inside thoughts and the counterargument gets voiced by... my voice. Is that weird? I sometimes want to embrace it and just see what I could come up with two parts of me working together. When I put parentheses in these paragraphs that I write to you (who are you?) more often than not it's that "other" part of me, the one that is critical and questioning, and always has things to chime in with. I sometimes want to experiment with meditating with a keyboard nearby, and when the two parts of me begin to both speak up, just let them flow out of me and record the two viewpoints in different fonts. Is this what intelligent people do when they're alone? Provide their own colleagues? Is that sick and twisted.
Sigh.