(no subject)
I) Went walking in the mountains today. I unglamorously slipped on a patch of wet mud and skidded a little downhill before landing squarely on my bottom, one arm clutching my jacket and the other tilting my new camera upwards so that it didn't touch a single speck of dirt. I was relieved, though a bit annoyed at the patch of mud on my sneaker. When I got home I was about to inspect the damage to my sock when I noticed the other foot and the large, eye catching splotch of blood spread across the toe area. I went to wash it, somewhere between fascinated and horrified that this could have happened without the slightest hint of pain. Turns out it was just a small scrape, and I probably rubbed (what?)against it repeatedly as I ambled up and down the fern lined, leafy wilderness. What unnerves me is that it didn't hurt. I didn't feel a thing. This is a small thing and I was probably distracted by the cut on my finger and the trees above/ generally more interesting surroundings + slight humiliation from unglamorous fall, but for all they say about the alleviation of pain or complete removal of suffering manifest in pain, it scares me that, on a larger scale, we could possibly hurt and perhaps be gravely injured but be completely (blissfully? fatally?) oblivious. Having said that, I am not one to readily declare that Pain is Good but I have to admit, it does have its uses.
II) I was showing the family some of the shots I'd taken with my New Camera, including a few of the pansies in the garden. The colours came out rather well, and when mom saw them, she remarked that they were 'even more beautiful than the real thing'. I was pleased, of course, for my camera and for the little skill it took me to point my lens in the right direction and press the shutter. But it also unsettled me a little, to think that even with something as 'true life' as photography, you inevitably change things. I'm not talking about cropping or perspective though I suppose this does come in- but I can understand that. It's humbling, though, that even when you're trying to preserve the beauty of something through as few channels of interpretation and distortion as possible, even if you want to keep a moment in terms of itself, even if all you want is to take a photo of a flower to remember its colours not in metaphor but in terms of itself, if all you want to do is draw attention on this frail ephemeral thing swaying fragilely in a gust of cool summer wind to remind yourself afterwards that for a brief amount of time this did exist and you did see it and now you have proof that it did and you do remember- even then, just the act of trying to remember will change things. In a way, it's a beautiful thing that every single thing we know and remember has been processed by our minds to be something uniquely ours and perceived by us, but isn't it also a little scary that no matter how hard we try, the fact that we exist as us means that we can never know true objectivity?
III) I realise the last two paragraphs both allude to being scared. In fact, I've felt a little cloud of vague fear settle in a corner of my mind. Maybe it's because I've spent the last week reading We Need to Talk About Kevin (at last...) and it has raised a number of questions about things I had never even considered questionable. Also on my mind is the fact that 2011 is fast approaching and even though if I make a mental list I know that I've done a lot this year but it still feels like it has zoomed by in the blink of an eye. Every night I do my stretches and say my prayers and set my alarm clock to the same time and sometimes I get such a bizarre rush of deja vu though it isn't nearly half as dramatic- it's just habit. But I don't want habit to numb the days, especially now that I- we- are being rocketed into our twenties. I'm not afraid of turning twenty or of Adult Responsibilities or about what I'm going to do in the future per se- I'll just see where life takes me (though I really do hope the world doesn't end in 2012)- but seriously, WHERE IS ALL THIS TIME GOING. I thought old people (or adults, who no longer seem as old as they used to) were exaggerating or that it was just some common convenient space filler, this sighing 'time flies', but I'm starting to feel it too, the seconds slipping through bouts of boredom, silent spaces, spells of waiting, and the great yawning gaps of what appears to be nothing at all. Can time disappear through thin air?
IV) Then and again, maybe I'm just extremely sensitive to tone and writing style and I realise that my writing and the way I write, the things I write about are always in some slight subtle way influenced by the book I am reading/ have most recently finished. I like the idea that what I read gets to me (also provides, comfortingly, an explanation for the complete clinical inanity of my term time posts- too much textbook influence) but I wonder if this doesn't also point to the fact that I lack personal style? :/
V) Err okay. This post looks really angsty and ranty. I'm actually very happy! Feeling a bit threatened by the fact that MY HOLIDAYS ARE ENDING and that (as I have said) WE ARE ALL TURNING TWENTY and also generally a bit restless I guess, but for the most part I just got out my little nuggets of emotional constipation so I think I can now sit down and make a list of New Year's Resolutions in peace. Hoho.
II) I was showing the family some of the shots I'd taken with my New Camera, including a few of the pansies in the garden. The colours came out rather well, and when mom saw them, she remarked that they were 'even more beautiful than the real thing'. I was pleased, of course, for my camera and for the little skill it took me to point my lens in the right direction and press the shutter. But it also unsettled me a little, to think that even with something as 'true life' as photography, you inevitably change things. I'm not talking about cropping or perspective though I suppose this does come in- but I can understand that. It's humbling, though, that even when you're trying to preserve the beauty of something through as few channels of interpretation and distortion as possible, even if you want to keep a moment in terms of itself, even if all you want is to take a photo of a flower to remember its colours not in metaphor but in terms of itself, if all you want to do is draw attention on this frail ephemeral thing swaying fragilely in a gust of cool summer wind to remind yourself afterwards that for a brief amount of time this did exist and you did see it and now you have proof that it did and you do remember- even then, just the act of trying to remember will change things. In a way, it's a beautiful thing that every single thing we know and remember has been processed by our minds to be something uniquely ours and perceived by us, but isn't it also a little scary that no matter how hard we try, the fact that we exist as us means that we can never know true objectivity?
III) I realise the last two paragraphs both allude to being scared. In fact, I've felt a little cloud of vague fear settle in a corner of my mind. Maybe it's because I've spent the last week reading We Need to Talk About Kevin (at last...) and it has raised a number of questions about things I had never even considered questionable. Also on my mind is the fact that 2011 is fast approaching and even though if I make a mental list I know that I've done a lot this year but it still feels like it has zoomed by in the blink of an eye. Every night I do my stretches and say my prayers and set my alarm clock to the same time and sometimes I get such a bizarre rush of deja vu though it isn't nearly half as dramatic- it's just habit. But I don't want habit to numb the days, especially now that I- we- are being rocketed into our twenties. I'm not afraid of turning twenty or of Adult Responsibilities or about what I'm going to do in the future per se- I'll just see where life takes me (though I really do hope the world doesn't end in 2012)- but seriously, WHERE IS ALL THIS TIME GOING. I thought old people (or adults, who no longer seem as old as they used to) were exaggerating or that it was just some common convenient space filler, this sighing 'time flies', but I'm starting to feel it too, the seconds slipping through bouts of boredom, silent spaces, spells of waiting, and the great yawning gaps of what appears to be nothing at all. Can time disappear through thin air?
IV) Then and again, maybe I'm just extremely sensitive to tone and writing style and I realise that my writing and the way I write, the things I write about are always in some slight subtle way influenced by the book I am reading/ have most recently finished. I like the idea that what I read gets to me (also provides, comfortingly, an explanation for the complete clinical inanity of my term time posts- too much textbook influence) but I wonder if this doesn't also point to the fact that I lack personal style? :/
V) Err okay. This post looks really angsty and ranty. I'm actually very happy! Feeling a bit threatened by the fact that MY HOLIDAYS ARE ENDING and that (as I have said) WE ARE ALL TURNING TWENTY and also generally a bit restless I guess, but for the most part I just got out my little nuggets of emotional constipation so I think I can now sit down and make a list of New Year's Resolutions in peace. Hoho.