the fullness of life here
Back in Chicago and the mad intensity of it all is just so glorious and overwhelming after the quiet, the solitude, the simplicity of life in Russia. Tver feels in a way like a dream; yet also perfectly ordinary. It seems impossible that the simple everyday things, the women selling pirozhki from their stands, the corner with the garish modern mall across from a lovely quaint classical building, the morning glory of the flower garden at the dacha with the misty pines rising behind it...that these things exist only in a spot impossibly far away in a random city across the globe which not a single person I meet has even heard of, much less been to.
Why was I even there?
Here...here...the midnight conversations the romances the classes the web of our little society the intellectual curiousity the organizations of which I form a small part: moments from this past week
with ---, in my room. I'm perched on the bed, he's on my floor, sometimes reclining, sometimes sitting; and we take turns opening up to each other the painful things on our minds, lowering our heads and speaking quietly into the rug, the blanket, and it is so curious to think about what we are trying to do- help each other? And what are our motivations, and how much do we care, how much do we just want to be in the position of savior? Offering up curious bits of advice, as if we knew...Yet regardless, it seems good. And even if there is a bit of savior-complex operating in the moment, underlying it is an honest and lasting desire for each others' lives to go well. We have both been much more alone than this before, I think. It is good to have each other now.
(what's funny is that life here is so intensely full of relationships and people that this description could practically apply to 2 or 3 different conversations I've had since arriving here...a shock after 2 months of stilted Russian chats about fruit gardens, cultural differences, and a bit about life in the USSR)
Today, attended an odd class. Buddhism, Psychoanalysis and Emotional Life. Not sure what to make of a class where we spent half an hour discussing logistics, half an hour reviewing the bare bones of Freud's psychoanalytic theory (which nauseates me, unfortunately...I should be more open-minded and, you know, actually read Freud before reacting to his ideas, but something about it is so ugly and repulsive and I'm afraid of the way that ideas about how the mind and the unconcsious work can affect how our minds work, so don't want to be exposed to these), and half an hour meditating. Among other things. The meditating was interesting, but I think in the end its goals are simply not ones to which I aspire. The simple basic state he directed us into--quiet, eyes closed, back straight, feet on the ground, not moving, focusing on your breathing and trying to let go of all thought, ignore all ideas that come to mind, send them away, to move towards the tranquil state of an undisturbed pond--was interesting; but actually it made particularly interesting thoughts come to mind. Instead of inducing thought-free-ness. And he said, to truly achieve a state of meditation with all its benefits you must learn to ignore these thoughts that surface, even if they are beautiful or could lead to interesting paths, and at that point I thought- no! I'm not alive in order to escape the state of being human, to escape existence and pain and beauty and arrive at some perfect tranquility. I want those thoughts; want permission to chase them or- no, not chase them, but let them lead me. What was excellent about the almost-meditative state was that the thoughts were choosing their own direction, as I successfully silenced all consciously chosen thought; but what intrigues is the chance to explore those independently moving thoughts, not releasing them and moving into nothingness. But I bet people would say I'm just being resistant to meditation and need practice. Meh.
Why was I even there?
Here...here...the midnight conversations the romances the classes the web of our little society the intellectual curiousity the organizations of which I form a small part: moments from this past week
with ---, in my room. I'm perched on the bed, he's on my floor, sometimes reclining, sometimes sitting; and we take turns opening up to each other the painful things on our minds, lowering our heads and speaking quietly into the rug, the blanket, and it is so curious to think about what we are trying to do- help each other? And what are our motivations, and how much do we care, how much do we just want to be in the position of savior? Offering up curious bits of advice, as if we knew...Yet regardless, it seems good. And even if there is a bit of savior-complex operating in the moment, underlying it is an honest and lasting desire for each others' lives to go well. We have both been much more alone than this before, I think. It is good to have each other now.
(what's funny is that life here is so intensely full of relationships and people that this description could practically apply to 2 or 3 different conversations I've had since arriving here...a shock after 2 months of stilted Russian chats about fruit gardens, cultural differences, and a bit about life in the USSR)
Today, attended an odd class. Buddhism, Psychoanalysis and Emotional Life. Not sure what to make of a class where we spent half an hour discussing logistics, half an hour reviewing the bare bones of Freud's psychoanalytic theory (which nauseates me, unfortunately...I should be more open-minded and, you know, actually read Freud before reacting to his ideas, but something about it is so ugly and repulsive and I'm afraid of the way that ideas about how the mind and the unconcsious work can affect how our minds work, so don't want to be exposed to these), and half an hour meditating. Among other things. The meditating was interesting, but I think in the end its goals are simply not ones to which I aspire. The simple basic state he directed us into--quiet, eyes closed, back straight, feet on the ground, not moving, focusing on your breathing and trying to let go of all thought, ignore all ideas that come to mind, send them away, to move towards the tranquil state of an undisturbed pond--was interesting; but actually it made particularly interesting thoughts come to mind. Instead of inducing thought-free-ness. And he said, to truly achieve a state of meditation with all its benefits you must learn to ignore these thoughts that surface, even if they are beautiful or could lead to interesting paths, and at that point I thought- no! I'm not alive in order to escape the state of being human, to escape existence and pain and beauty and arrive at some perfect tranquility. I want those thoughts; want permission to chase them or- no, not chase them, but let them lead me. What was excellent about the almost-meditative state was that the thoughts were choosing their own direction, as I successfully silenced all consciously chosen thought; but what intrigues is the chance to explore those independently moving thoughts, not releasing them and moving into nothingness. But I bet people would say I'm just being resistant to meditation and need practice. Meh.