(no subject)
The ideas aren't new, and they aren't focused as well as they could be, but they are important to my personal journey, so here they are.
For a long time, I have presented myself as anti-desire. My wants, when thwarted, disappear. I swallowed with the ease of practice all those things that I might briefly have desired. In time, I experienced all my personal needs as transient, insincere, and unexplainable. The pain of living lessened. My panic attacks, an expression of what Nietzsche would call "ressentiment," tapered off, and I could live in the world.
And I was wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong nonetheless, because in finding a way that I could live my life, I stopped living it. I became inert, allowing life to come to me. Never yearning towards, only delighting in it as it drifted my way. But I doubt, strongly, that I have experienced very much of it. My strongest desires, what I knew of them, were primarily for inertia, for things to remain as they were. Love, yes, I wanted to keep the love I found, but also the pain. What I already knew, I could understand, and I could bear that burden.
I have seen myself as weak. The BDSM community will tell you that the player who chooses to be submissive is truly the one in power, but I do not believe that to be the case for me. I have craved pain for the awakening it might bring, but I have also allowed it in cases where it was not pleasurable to me. Partly because it pleased those who dominated me, but also because I wanted so little for myself. I wanted to give it all away, but I gave nothing of what I truly was. I allowed the pain (and I do note that my wording suggests power) because I wanted to empty myself out. Then again, I can't say this isn't what the others felt. I only suggest that in some cases, I didn't chose the pain, merely accepted it as it shoved itself upon me. Conforming so as not to have to desire, acting without any accountability. Having seen Bertolucci's "The Conformist," having read Nietzsche, I understand that I longed to continue as an innocent. I did so even as I participated in things that many would see as morally reprehensible, by remaining aloof from my own submission. Though I took joy in it, I did not continue to seek it out.
Even my language, even now, I write as an academic because I think as one. Please don't assume that the arrogance of my language removes me from the experience of the truth. I have to begin to live my desires now, to seek them out, to discover which are true. It seems like I've always wanted more more more than I could have, and why would I try? Why reach for the stars when the comets will fall for you? If I can see and choose and believe in what I want, I could begin to pluck them from the sky, instead of waiting for the sky to fall on me.
I am not Chicken Little, I can no longer be a little lost lamb. I fear the world because it is a place to fear, and I love it because it is filled with things to be loved, but I have not grasped it and pulled it to me, and I have never made it submit to my will. I will find a way to see myself, because I should, because I don't want to die without having lived.
And I'll do it... tomorrow. *cough*
For a long time, I have presented myself as anti-desire. My wants, when thwarted, disappear. I swallowed with the ease of practice all those things that I might briefly have desired. In time, I experienced all my personal needs as transient, insincere, and unexplainable. The pain of living lessened. My panic attacks, an expression of what Nietzsche would call "ressentiment," tapered off, and I could live in the world.
And I was wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong nonetheless, because in finding a way that I could live my life, I stopped living it. I became inert, allowing life to come to me. Never yearning towards, only delighting in it as it drifted my way. But I doubt, strongly, that I have experienced very much of it. My strongest desires, what I knew of them, were primarily for inertia, for things to remain as they were. Love, yes, I wanted to keep the love I found, but also the pain. What I already knew, I could understand, and I could bear that burden.
I have seen myself as weak. The BDSM community will tell you that the player who chooses to be submissive is truly the one in power, but I do not believe that to be the case for me. I have craved pain for the awakening it might bring, but I have also allowed it in cases where it was not pleasurable to me. Partly because it pleased those who dominated me, but also because I wanted so little for myself. I wanted to give it all away, but I gave nothing of what I truly was. I allowed the pain (and I do note that my wording suggests power) because I wanted to empty myself out. Then again, I can't say this isn't what the others felt. I only suggest that in some cases, I didn't chose the pain, merely accepted it as it shoved itself upon me. Conforming so as not to have to desire, acting without any accountability. Having seen Bertolucci's "The Conformist," having read Nietzsche, I understand that I longed to continue as an innocent. I did so even as I participated in things that many would see as morally reprehensible, by remaining aloof from my own submission. Though I took joy in it, I did not continue to seek it out.
Even my language, even now, I write as an academic because I think as one. Please don't assume that the arrogance of my language removes me from the experience of the truth. I have to begin to live my desires now, to seek them out, to discover which are true. It seems like I've always wanted more more more than I could have, and why would I try? Why reach for the stars when the comets will fall for you? If I can see and choose and believe in what I want, I could begin to pluck them from the sky, instead of waiting for the sky to fall on me.
I am not Chicken Little, I can no longer be a little lost lamb. I fear the world because it is a place to fear, and I love it because it is filled with things to be loved, but I have not grasped it and pulled it to me, and I have never made it submit to my will. I will find a way to see myself, because I should, because I don't want to die without having lived.
And I'll do it... tomorrow. *cough*