(no subject)
last week was long and tiring. i got sick. i didnt work. i slept. i went to the doctor. i took medicine. i felt like shit. i couldn't eat. i couldn't speak.
but two good things came of this. first, i quit smoking. it has been a week today. granted, i could barely breath properly so smoking became a bit out of the question. but still. i quit smoking. i did it. it is official now. i am not going back. i am giving my zippo to my cousin, an avid smoker. i love that zippo. i am giving it away. it is the right thing to do. it is my symbolic release of my little friends. i will miss them.
another good thing: i was alone and i read entire days away between blankets, naps, teas, soups. i read. it felt good. first i was finishing the last of dostoevsky's five major works, not including _notes from the underground_. i finished _the adolescent_ (aka _raw youth_). it was another great book. probably the least discussed of his novels. the great thing is that one can read and re-read his novels, always learning and noticing something new. but i will miss the novelty and twists of his plots as seen for the first time. dostoevsky is amazing. hm.
here is a quote from _the adolescent_:
"My friend, to love people as they are is impossible. And yet one must. And therefore do good to them, clenching your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes (this last is necessary). Endure evil from them, not getting angry with them if possible, 'remembering that you, too, are a human being.' [. . .] People are mean by nature and love to love out of fear; don't give in to such love and don't cease to despise it. Know how to despise them even when they are good, for most often it's just here that they're nasty. [. . .] He who is only a bit better than stupid cannot live and not despise himself -- whether he's honest or dishonest makes no difference. To love one's neighbor and not despise him is impossible. In my opinion, man is created with a physical inability to love his neighbor. There's some mistake in words here, from the very beginning, and 'love for mankind' should be understood as just for that mankind which you yourself have created in your soul (in other words, you've created your own self and the love for yourself), and which therefore will never exist in reality." Versilov
i think dostoevsky was unto something. oh, he really was. at least i see myself in this failure to love, in this creation of an allusion, in all of it.
then i read virginia woolf's _mrs. dalloway_. it is so beautiful. so poetic. so full of life. i couldn't put it down. i devoured the book. i must read it again. here is something mrs. dalloway thinks as she prepares for her party:
"So on a summer's day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying 'that is all' more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, that is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking."
beautiful. the ebb and flow of the words themselves resembling the breaking and withdrawing of the waves, resembling life itself.
and then something else happened. dostoevsky and woolf started talking to each other in my mind. they did. i am not going mad.
dostoevsky said in the voice of Makar Ivanovich:
"Do you know, my dear young one, that there's a limit to the memory of a man on this earth? The limit to the memory of a man is set at just a hundred years. A hundred years. A hundred years after a man's death, his children or grandchildren, who have seen his face, can still remember him, but after that, though his memory may persist, it's just orally, mentally, for all who have seen his face will have passed on. And his grave in the cemetery will overgrow with grass, its white stone will chip away, and all people will forget his, even his own posterity, then his very name will be forgotten, for only a few remain in people's memory--and so be it! Let me be forgotten."
first woolf questions:
"Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?"
but then she comes up with a theory of her own through Clarissa's thoughts:
"It ended in a transcendental theory which, with her horror of death, allowed her to believe, or say that she believed (for all her scepticism), that since our apparition, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wise, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. Perhaps--perhaps."
i sat back and listened. i listened to my heart beat following the ebb and flow of life, thinking and wondering about death and all that comes before it.
in some ways, it was a good week.
sorry for the long update.
but two good things came of this. first, i quit smoking. it has been a week today. granted, i could barely breath properly so smoking became a bit out of the question. but still. i quit smoking. i did it. it is official now. i am not going back. i am giving my zippo to my cousin, an avid smoker. i love that zippo. i am giving it away. it is the right thing to do. it is my symbolic release of my little friends. i will miss them.
another good thing: i was alone and i read entire days away between blankets, naps, teas, soups. i read. it felt good. first i was finishing the last of dostoevsky's five major works, not including _notes from the underground_. i finished _the adolescent_ (aka _raw youth_). it was another great book. probably the least discussed of his novels. the great thing is that one can read and re-read his novels, always learning and noticing something new. but i will miss the novelty and twists of his plots as seen for the first time. dostoevsky is amazing. hm.
here is a quote from _the adolescent_:
"My friend, to love people as they are is impossible. And yet one must. And therefore do good to them, clenching your feelings, holding your nose, and shutting your eyes (this last is necessary). Endure evil from them, not getting angry with them if possible, 'remembering that you, too, are a human being.' [. . .] People are mean by nature and love to love out of fear; don't give in to such love and don't cease to despise it. Know how to despise them even when they are good, for most often it's just here that they're nasty. [. . .] He who is only a bit better than stupid cannot live and not despise himself -- whether he's honest or dishonest makes no difference. To love one's neighbor and not despise him is impossible. In my opinion, man is created with a physical inability to love his neighbor. There's some mistake in words here, from the very beginning, and 'love for mankind' should be understood as just for that mankind which you yourself have created in your soul (in other words, you've created your own self and the love for yourself), and which therefore will never exist in reality." Versilov
i think dostoevsky was unto something. oh, he really was. at least i see myself in this failure to love, in this creation of an allusion, in all of it.
then i read virginia woolf's _mrs. dalloway_. it is so beautiful. so poetic. so full of life. i couldn't put it down. i devoured the book. i must read it again. here is something mrs. dalloway thinks as she prepares for her party:
"So on a summer's day waves collect, overbalance, and fall; collect and fall; and the whole world seems to be saying 'that is all' more and more ponderously, until even the heart in the body which lies in the sun on the beach says too, that is all. Fear no more, says the heart. Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall. And the body alone listens to the passing bee; the wave breaking; the dog barking, far away barking and barking."
beautiful. the ebb and flow of the words themselves resembling the breaking and withdrawing of the waves, resembling life itself.
and then something else happened. dostoevsky and woolf started talking to each other in my mind. they did. i am not going mad.
dostoevsky said in the voice of Makar Ivanovich:
"Do you know, my dear young one, that there's a limit to the memory of a man on this earth? The limit to the memory of a man is set at just a hundred years. A hundred years. A hundred years after a man's death, his children or grandchildren, who have seen his face, can still remember him, but after that, though his memory may persist, it's just orally, mentally, for all who have seen his face will have passed on. And his grave in the cemetery will overgrow with grass, its white stone will chip away, and all people will forget his, even his own posterity, then his very name will be forgotten, for only a few remain in people's memory--and so be it! Let me be forgotten."
first woolf questions:
"Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?"
but then she comes up with a theory of her own through Clarissa's thoughts:
"It ended in a transcendental theory which, with her horror of death, allowed her to believe, or say that she believed (for all her scepticism), that since our apparition, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wise, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or even haunting certain places, after death. Perhaps--perhaps."
i sat back and listened. i listened to my heart beat following the ebb and flow of life, thinking and wondering about death and all that comes before it.
in some ways, it was a good week.
sorry for the long update.