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ok someone tell me i'm not crazy or rambling. or both. i was reading tantra today and [i could have not read far enough or misinterpreted it completely] but it said something along the lines of 'everything amounts to nothing'. in other words, if you are completely balanced and totally in the middle you really are nothing
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but i was missing the point, or i didn't give a shit about the point, or whatever. of course the reasoning is that if you are this calm thing, you're like a rock in a stream. you can push the water around you. you can watch it flowing and not be shaken. etc. (i butchered that metaphor, but you get the idea.)
so i guess the thing about emptiness, to me, is that it promises everything that isn't there is somewhere else. the passion isn't in your life because it's in your art, or the volatility isn't in your emotions because you're watching it in the world around you, etc. etc.
and then this reminds me of whoever's acting theory about how whatever you're playing onstage is true while the opposite is also true. so you're playing a marriage proposal and you're so happy and relieved, but you're also tense and upset. so you're killing someone, and you also love them a little.
i think it is this contrast that we like as people, and not really emptiness or vastness or any of that. we like looking over the expanse of the ocean because where we can get ourselves on foot is so limited and because it all seems so big. i think this is related to how we see, in terms of contrast between colors and contours, etc.
so back to the thing about being the still thing in the water making waves. that i guess is pretty synonymous with being nothing and everything, that concept of being perfectly centered. and it makes sense; what are the things we remember about people? you remember their eccentricities and flaws, the stuff that falls outside of center. and if you remember something perfectly 'in the middle' about someone, it's only because you think it's abnormal to be so centered.
the thing is, we love people for their flaws. so it's like, what's correct, the way i feel, or the way to be the most productive, perfect person i can be? is it right to be passionate and ineffectual or centered and powerful?
i remember when i saw sigur ros the whole time they were just standing really still, almost perfectly. none of that shaking heads or spaz dancing or whatever. they just stood there and then when they needed to go to another instrument they walked in as few steps as possible and then got still again. and i remember thinking that they were just channeling all their energy into the music and not wasting any with movement. and i just remember that everything, visually, was so expressionless and plain, but i was still moved.
and then i think about that quotation thom yorke pulls out all the time about being neat and orderly in your life so you can be free and chaotic in your work.
so it's all one enormous paradox, just like "you're unique! just like everyone else!" and nothing=something etc. and maybe that's the ultimate truth, the same thing that acting coach talks about, that the opposite of everything true is also true.
as far as the ultimate truth being the middle, i get pissed because the middle seems like the most boring and awful thing. who the hell would want to be "not too"? like, what if all the ways to describe you were "oh, she is moderately _____..." i don't know about you, but there is nothing i love like an extreme. i'd rather be a total bitch than "not too mean, not too nice". but maybe it's more about an overall middle: not too chaotic or un-" because my chaos is in one place, just like the world isn't empty but the sky appears to be. and i guess that could be why we like the sky: because it's like nothing but it's everywhere, and because it reminds us of every place that isn't huge or empty. because it creates an overall effect of balance.
i can probably reexplain this in a sense-making way when i am less tired, but oh well.
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