Like Mark Eitzel said, "I've been so lucky."
Immediately I shut up--criticism can really stop you. Listening to good criticism of yourself makes all the difference. Only if it is good, though. Good meaning that it sounds like the words you wanted to tell yourself but couldn't because of your moronic neurosis and self-proclamations that for no good reason you do not want to violate. Consistency means nothing if it equates to consistent bullshit. Maude (if I remember correctly) correctly stated, "Consistency is not a human trait." Very true you crazy hippie you. With that notion out of the way (I know I proved nothing but the statement feels correct to me, ergo I will take it as fact without further explanation) I can return to the wonderful effect of hearing yourself criticized when you are ready to hear it. When the words reach your hearing those certain vocal vibrations combined as certain phones function on a visceral level to raise the inevitable change of existence to something painfully wonderful now in your periphery, something impossible to ignore but still possible to avoid.
Philip Larkin prepared me for it. Yes, a dead man that I never met who I only know from his carefully chosen words and brief biography prepared me to hear my awful traits brought out in language too expressive for me to phrase myself. Scarily Larkin mirrors myself and I cannot take such ugly parallels without a tinge of shame: he has no god, fears death for its total cessation of everything, hates kids, worked at a library for forty years, disliked most things, and lived in constant self-deprecation. Now I cannot deny the loveliness of his poetry for it has effected me more than anyone else's, but it all makes me wonder. In all his depression and discontent did he ever really enjoy life? I doubt it for he phrased for me the notion of never having happiness as a possibility; he wrote that the only thing you can ever hope for in life consists of having good health and nothing in the see-able future that will provide any problems for you. Must existence always be that stark? Must the only thing attainable for certain people be an acceptance of reality without any search for happiness whatsoever? Will happiness only be a nice concept destined to never come in large enough quantities to ever satisfy a person's search for it in life? Quite possibly; but I still want to ask Larkin what he felt life was worth living for? I don't only want to live because it's the only thing better than dying. I want life to feel worth it to me even though it will end and even though a low-grade depression has accompanied me for so long. It all seems so weird to me still, this living thing. Kind of like I will never reach an understanding about what is important in a life, like I will never know what makes life worth living despite its temporary quality--it's all something I suppose I must discover for myself but I am perplexed about how people reach that realization in the first place, as some just seem to have activities or routines or lives that they feel confidently about as regards their correctness and worthiness. In all completeness I lack that. Seeing part of Adaptation again reminded me of that: the quest of Susan Orlean to find something to feel passionate about that would whittle the world down to a manageable size. Yet when I read W.E.B. DuBois I get the sense that he lived in complete confidence of what was right and proper about human life, that he intuitively knew that humanity has a higher purpose that they most certainly neglect and fall short of but that that higher purpose, the possibility of greatness, always lies in wait. Unabashedly I admire him for that. He stands so remarkably in my thoughts because he was able to ignore the wretched condition of almost everyone around him and see something better and act on it in his own life. He comes across as a man of remarkable perception and intelligence for he was able to ignore all the superstitions and awfulness in his culture and in the other people around him and seek for himself all those greater achievements of human-kind. I wonder if I weren't so fortunate in my life would I understand the importance of education like he did and if I would seek out the kind of education that he gave himself. With a little remorse I admit that I see myself more like Orlean in all her inaction but without the beautiful phrasing she enjoys in her prose.
Way too many things exist to enjoy, it all makes life feel so overwhelming; giving up and not doing anything but sitting around and writing stupid livejournals comes way too easily when opposed to acting and working towards feeling confident about your life choices. I just wonder if Larkin felt satisfied with his life when he got closer and closer to his death. For if he didn't and I assume that he never really did, I must change something in my life so that I do not end up extending the mirror action with him that I see myself performing. I wonder the same thing for almost everybody that I know in middle age or beyond. After seeing my uncle a few days ago and then coming home and reading about the biological mechanisms of the seven top reasons for death in the United States the interaction with my uncle seemed to connect too well with the text I was reading. Suddenly it struck me how close my favorite family members are to death, to never being around ever again, to completely and forcefully exiting this life. It also struck me how I cannot accept that, how much I don't want them to leave the world, how unready I will always be for death to take away anyone I feel for, but it also came to me that I can do nothing about it and that in some strange way they will want to die, that their old age will possibly prepare them for a departure. Also, that one day I will want to die as well. Yes, I will want to die, to not live any longer, but that feeling will undoubtedly carry with it an intense ambivalence, for how could I ever want to leave behind the world, my hobbies, my sadness, my anxiety, my excitement, my hopes and the people that I love without a sense of helpless wistfulness?
I digress, though. All those things aforesaid come secondary to the thoughts brought about by the critique I heard about my stilted thinking. She made me unable to really reply with any force when she talked about how good her life has been. It made me think that I can say the same thing but I never have. I never have for no good reason. Only that I have always had some kind of awful feeling in myself that provides me nothing but ugly, boring depression. Sure I can still function with it but I don't want it and I don't need it and I would rather offer the world and myself something of a progression from that state, something that Mark Eitzel brought out in the latest American Music Club album: an origin of sadness that led to an eventual wearied affirmation of life. I don't want that constant Larkin mood of futility and disillusionment. I want to enjoy the little time I have, to do something that makes it feel good to wake up even if it goes contrary to my history. Hearing her talk about all the things to feel good about in life just made me feel fortunate to hear her speak to me. It all sounded correct--I knew it was absolutely true on a rational level and that my retarded limbic system must catch up to what I knew then. Really when I think about it I have nothing to be sad about in my life. Sure I will die and it's horrible and all that, but that thought has not had the same fearful tone to it that it has carried in the past year or two. I don't want to go to the opposite extreme and say that everything is great and wonderful and that I cherish every god created morning or anything, but I really have nothing to truly complain about that should provide such a dull ache to my thoughts. I still have reservations about certain actions in my life and lack the much needed confidence to fully convince myself into contentment but I feel grateful, and I have been telling myself that life is good more and more recently. And on that note, I will exit and sit in my longing, awaiting the return of the person that makes me consider my life something to look forward to.
I miss you.
Philip Larkin prepared me for it. Yes, a dead man that I never met who I only know from his carefully chosen words and brief biography prepared me to hear my awful traits brought out in language too expressive for me to phrase myself. Scarily Larkin mirrors myself and I cannot take such ugly parallels without a tinge of shame: he has no god, fears death for its total cessation of everything, hates kids, worked at a library for forty years, disliked most things, and lived in constant self-deprecation. Now I cannot deny the loveliness of his poetry for it has effected me more than anyone else's, but it all makes me wonder. In all his depression and discontent did he ever really enjoy life? I doubt it for he phrased for me the notion of never having happiness as a possibility; he wrote that the only thing you can ever hope for in life consists of having good health and nothing in the see-able future that will provide any problems for you. Must existence always be that stark? Must the only thing attainable for certain people be an acceptance of reality without any search for happiness whatsoever? Will happiness only be a nice concept destined to never come in large enough quantities to ever satisfy a person's search for it in life? Quite possibly; but I still want to ask Larkin what he felt life was worth living for? I don't only want to live because it's the only thing better than dying. I want life to feel worth it to me even though it will end and even though a low-grade depression has accompanied me for so long. It all seems so weird to me still, this living thing. Kind of like I will never reach an understanding about what is important in a life, like I will never know what makes life worth living despite its temporary quality--it's all something I suppose I must discover for myself but I am perplexed about how people reach that realization in the first place, as some just seem to have activities or routines or lives that they feel confidently about as regards their correctness and worthiness. In all completeness I lack that. Seeing part of Adaptation again reminded me of that: the quest of Susan Orlean to find something to feel passionate about that would whittle the world down to a manageable size. Yet when I read W.E.B. DuBois I get the sense that he lived in complete confidence of what was right and proper about human life, that he intuitively knew that humanity has a higher purpose that they most certainly neglect and fall short of but that that higher purpose, the possibility of greatness, always lies in wait. Unabashedly I admire him for that. He stands so remarkably in my thoughts because he was able to ignore the wretched condition of almost everyone around him and see something better and act on it in his own life. He comes across as a man of remarkable perception and intelligence for he was able to ignore all the superstitions and awfulness in his culture and in the other people around him and seek for himself all those greater achievements of human-kind. I wonder if I weren't so fortunate in my life would I understand the importance of education like he did and if I would seek out the kind of education that he gave himself. With a little remorse I admit that I see myself more like Orlean in all her inaction but without the beautiful phrasing she enjoys in her prose.
Way too many things exist to enjoy, it all makes life feel so overwhelming; giving up and not doing anything but sitting around and writing stupid livejournals comes way too easily when opposed to acting and working towards feeling confident about your life choices. I just wonder if Larkin felt satisfied with his life when he got closer and closer to his death. For if he didn't and I assume that he never really did, I must change something in my life so that I do not end up extending the mirror action with him that I see myself performing. I wonder the same thing for almost everybody that I know in middle age or beyond. After seeing my uncle a few days ago and then coming home and reading about the biological mechanisms of the seven top reasons for death in the United States the interaction with my uncle seemed to connect too well with the text I was reading. Suddenly it struck me how close my favorite family members are to death, to never being around ever again, to completely and forcefully exiting this life. It also struck me how I cannot accept that, how much I don't want them to leave the world, how unready I will always be for death to take away anyone I feel for, but it also came to me that I can do nothing about it and that in some strange way they will want to die, that their old age will possibly prepare them for a departure. Also, that one day I will want to die as well. Yes, I will want to die, to not live any longer, but that feeling will undoubtedly carry with it an intense ambivalence, for how could I ever want to leave behind the world, my hobbies, my sadness, my anxiety, my excitement, my hopes and the people that I love without a sense of helpless wistfulness?
I digress, though. All those things aforesaid come secondary to the thoughts brought about by the critique I heard about my stilted thinking. She made me unable to really reply with any force when she talked about how good her life has been. It made me think that I can say the same thing but I never have. I never have for no good reason. Only that I have always had some kind of awful feeling in myself that provides me nothing but ugly, boring depression. Sure I can still function with it but I don't want it and I don't need it and I would rather offer the world and myself something of a progression from that state, something that Mark Eitzel brought out in the latest American Music Club album: an origin of sadness that led to an eventual wearied affirmation of life. I don't want that constant Larkin mood of futility and disillusionment. I want to enjoy the little time I have, to do something that makes it feel good to wake up even if it goes contrary to my history. Hearing her talk about all the things to feel good about in life just made me feel fortunate to hear her speak to me. It all sounded correct--I knew it was absolutely true on a rational level and that my retarded limbic system must catch up to what I knew then. Really when I think about it I have nothing to be sad about in my life. Sure I will die and it's horrible and all that, but that thought has not had the same fearful tone to it that it has carried in the past year or two. I don't want to go to the opposite extreme and say that everything is great and wonderful and that I cherish every god created morning or anything, but I really have nothing to truly complain about that should provide such a dull ache to my thoughts. I still have reservations about certain actions in my life and lack the much needed confidence to fully convince myself into contentment but I feel grateful, and I have been telling myself that life is good more and more recently. And on that note, I will exit and sit in my longing, awaiting the return of the person that makes me consider my life something to look forward to.
I miss you.