| argh |
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| 11:37pm 28/07/2008 |
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how did I end up back here? how did I go through a whole year of meeting new people, learning new things, having fun, drinking, smoking, falling in love, being loved, busting my ass and poisoning my body and lighting a goddamn fire in my mind when I needed to, but somehow managing to find all the happiness whose mere existence somewhere out in the world used to give me enough hope to keep going no matter what, only to stumble back into another one of those nights when the entire world seems to be huge and empty and impossibly terrifying and there's not a single goddamn person to talk to right now? I spent three weeks reading and talking about a single book, and it was one of the happiest times in my life, and I don't even want to relive that experience because the happiness seems like it wouldn't be there anymore and I'm frankly amazed that it ever was in the first place. a month ago, I had daydreams about settling into old age and reading long slow-moving books with a bemused smile on my face, and now I don't want to read or write a single word of any language that's ever graced the earth or ever will. and I used to be able to tell myself that once I had that happiness, that it would never go away, that I'd be so grateful to escape from this horrible burning twisting agonizing morass of wasted anger and sadness that I'd never set foot back here again. I knew it wasn't true, of course; knew it with 99% certainty, anyway, but that 1% was enough. and now that I've tasted that happiness, and I've ended up right back here again, and nothing that happened in the interim seems to mean a damn thing, it's that much more horrible. I even know that I'll be happy again, if I can just keep going; but it seems so out of my control, and I have to wonder what the point is if someday that happiness will vanish for no reason and I'll be back here again cursing the day I ever felt like anything was going to turn out okay.
and what the fuck is this even supposed to be |
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| !!! |
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| 05:44am 20/03/2008 |
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writing a paper on Notes From Underground, and suddenly it seems to make perfect sense. for as much as he fights to preserve it, the Underground Man is fundamentally incapable of accepting the burden of free will. he does possess, on some level, a sincere desire for happiness; but he cannot understand that obtaining it may entail any sort of responsibility on his part. instead, he destroys all potential sources of it at the first opportunity, then uses his own ability to do so as evidence that they were inherently unsuitable. argh, I'm starting to lose the thread that I had grasped here, and I've barely even begun to be able to put it into words... maybe I should just write this dang paper. |
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| 01:01am 17/02/2008 |
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I was wrong livejournal; I need you more than ever. I need to talk to you while I freak out about the fact that a girl I like and who theoretically likes me doesn't want to talk to me right now and I am drunker than jesus and trying to keep from smoking an entire pack of cigarettes in order to feel better |
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| whoops |
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| 09:41am 10/02/2008 |
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disregard previous post. instead give me high-fives and chest-bumps, and put your arm around my shoulder; and I'll do the same, and we can sing old songs from the old country.
(I probably don't even need this thing anymore, do I?) |
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| hmmmm |
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| 06:07am 22/01/2008 |
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this semester hasn't exactly been the ascension to divine perfection that I half-convinced myself it would be, but it's definitely going better so far. workwise, I am still slacking as hard as ever (this is an extra-bad thing when you consider that I still have a final paper from last semester that I need to finish if I want to go to Scotland, and probably if I want to keep my scholarship), but I'm going out more, meeting people, having fun, not worrying as much. that's good I guess. except that now I kind of *am* worrying more again. real talk, night ripper: it is troubling and confusing to be at the point where you've just met an amazing girl (amazing enough to make me look back on the other people I've thought I "felt a connection with" or whatever since getting here and shake my head as I realize just how deluded/desperate I must have been) but haven't actually hung out with her enough to know whether you're significantly bothered by the fact that you can't be anything more than friends with her at this point. there was this moment the other night where I was like "wow I am pretty bummed to learn that this girl has a boyfriend, but talking to her is kind of cheering me up anyway, so that's cool. except no wait, her ability to cheer me up means she must be even more awesome than I previously realized! now I feel bad again! but slightly better cuz she's here" etc etc repeat ad nauseum.
the fundamental thing that I am driving at here is that once again I am wasting energy overanalyizng the things which make me happy because... I dunno why, really. I'm worried that I should be happier? I feel like I should have to struggle more in order to be happy? I'm upset at myself for turning happiness into such a complicated thing? this little blind boy is going with "all these things and more." |
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| a hard-fought realization |
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| 01:17am 10/01/2008 |
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since arriving at college, I've found myself overpowered by the feeling that people with whom I have friendly interactions secretly resent my presence, and would like nothing more than to never be disturbed by me again. it's a familiar feeling, to be sure, but one that I thought I had left behind long ago. not so; for now I wrack my brain but can think of no more than a handful of people here who I believe truly enjoy my company, whom I can call "friend" without fear that they will scoff at the notion as soon as my back is turned. the feeling has even spread to my old friends, with whom I used to get along so effortlessly. this is, for obvious reasons, troubling.
but today, while reading once more from The Art of Being and Becoming (PROTIP: this is a great and wonderful book), I came to a section on the effacement of the ego. it was all mostly stuff that I already knew on some level, or could have anticipated, or arrived at through spiritual common sense alone. but when I reflected on the words, they began to take on a new clarity, and I arrived at a realization I should have a long time ago.
"why," I thought, "should it matter to me what someone thinks of me? they are no experts in this field; I know myself better than they ever could. what is really important is what they think of everything else in the world. and if I can have a conversation with someone about the world and all of its beautiful things, why should it matter afterwards what impression they retain of me? so long as we have both, through our dialog, arrived at some new knowledge, I should be content." but this thought did not reassure me as much as I might have hoped, for I realized that these conversations have not happened -- certainly not to the degree that I might hope, at least. I have been so concerned with the appreciation of myself that I have not truly given myself over to the appreciation of the world. I horde clever aphorisms, sad stories, beautiful pieces of music, and I share them not because of their own inherent worth and beauty, but in the hopes that their reflected light might draw others to me. there is some part of me that has always found this distasteful, that shakes its head in disapproval every time I read some passage of luminous prose and think immediately of how delightful and charming I will seem when I later quote it. but I had not realized the extent of the problem.
hopefully, this will all soon change. |
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| 04:52pm 24/12/2007 |
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I've been thinking lately (and by "lately" I mean "just now, but triggered and fueled by many other things I've been thinking about lately") about music, and the way I interact with it, and what it means to me. Right now I am listening to Stars of the Lid, and as I usually do when I listen to them, I'm simply allowing myself to merge with the music, to exist entirely within the notes and the silences. Sometimes I sing a little bit, either copying the music or adding some counterpoint, some part of myself. And I had never noticed it before, but when I sing, even more than when I listen, I completely cease to think about anything else. There is nothing in my mind except a single solitary tone, which is somehow a thought and a sound and a feeling all at once. At first I worried that this might be a form of escapism, but I don't think so, because it feels too honest. The music doesn't seem like a reflection of reality, or a substitute; it's not some idealized fantasy world into which I can retreat. There is as much pain and sadness in it as there is joy; and it all feels so alive and so real, more real than the everyday world, as if I were reaching beyond everything and touching the true essence of existence.
I cannot say for certain whether this is entirely attributable to the music or if it is simply a tendency within myself which the music helps me to access.
The fact that this music is instrumental seems significant, and I can't help wondering whether the joy I take from more traditional music ("traditional music" here meaning typical 20th and 21st century western popular music) is somehow derived from witnessing other individuals -- hearing other voices -- as they interact with this true reality in the same way, or perhaps in their own unique way. But as I listen, am I jealous of their time spent in a world richer and more pure, or merely curious to see what they will do there? |
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| I can feel it in the rotting air tonight |
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| 08:40pm 13/11/2007 |
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I just realized that nicotine alone gets me halfway to that enlightened feeling. and I'm not sure what that means. and I'm not really happy with life right now, but I'm not really unhappy either, and I know that you just have to stay alive long enough to transcend living. it seems really easy, which is how I know I'm doing something wrong. when I feel like this all I really want to do is create, even if it's just creating conversation, creating connections that weren't there before, creating cryptic streams of words and cramming them into bottles and tossing them into the ocean. but where did the bottles come from? and is there one big enough for me to fit inside of? |
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| good day for dry lips |
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| 07:07am 24/10/2007 |
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the arcade fire - "antichrist television blues"
decemberists - "sons and daughters"
radiohead - "videotape"
vs.
the notwist - "one with the freaks"
telling my mom about my arabic midterm
mountain goats - "the best ever death metal band in denton"
decemberists - "yankee bayonet" (memory)
stories about my dad
stories abouy my grandparents
mountain goats - "old college try"
(probably more?) |
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| oh yeah |
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| 07:01pm 07/10/2007 |
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that one might've warranted a "freakout"
but I wanted to err on the side of optimism |
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| and the goddess of drought figures us out |
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| 06:50pm 07/10/2007 |
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hey so amazingly enough, college is not the greatest thing ever!
but here are two things which are absolutely flawless
I.
Follow me through
A city of frost-covered angels
I swear I have nothing to prove
I just want to dance in your tangles
To give me some reason to move
'cause to take on the world at all angles
Requires a strength I can't use
So I'll meet you up high in your anger
Of all that is hoping and waiting for you
II.
Ni la intimidad de tu frente clara como una fiesta
ni la costumbre de tu cuerpo, aún misterioso y tácito y de niña,
ni la sucesión de tu vida asumiendo palabras o silencios
serán favor tan misterioso
como mirar tu sueño implicado
en la vigilia de mis brazos.
Virgen milagrosamente otra vez por la virtud absolutoria del sueño,
quieta y resplandeciente como una dicha que la memoria elige,
me darás esa orilla de tu vida que tú misma no tienes.
Arrojado a quietud,
divisaré esa playa ultima de tu ser
y te veré por vez primera, quizá,
como Dios ha de verte,
desbaratada la ficción del Tiempo,
sin el amor, sin mí.
thanks, Jeff Mangum and Jorge Luis Borges, respectively! |
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| oh my gosh! |
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| 07:52pm 16/09/2007 |
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I was listening to Good News For People Who Love Bad News just now for the first time in a long while, and there's that one song with the line "If life's not beautiful without the pain, well then I'd just / Rather never ever even see beauty again", which I used to think was the greatest thing ever but now it couldn't be further from my own beliefs. w-e-i-r-d- -f-e-e-l-i-n-g |
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Read 1 - Post |
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| 12:27pm 03/09/2007 |
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(this is all, of course, strictly limited to pac-man's interactions with the private universe of the game, rather than his position within our own) |
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| to elaborate |
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| 02:13pm 02/09/2007 |
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the relative unknowability of, say, pac-man, is a direct result of the simplistic and undifferentiated nature of his world. how much more real and vibrant he might seem to us if he could befriend the ghosts or choke on the dots, if cherries could be rotten, if some days he just didn't have the energy to keep moving. with so few points to anchor him to reality, how can he even approach a true existence? your world is rich with theme and variation, so that you may pass ten thousand trees each day and never see the same one twice; and perhaps one will fill you with a rich, sad courage not quite like anything you've ever felt.
interestingly enough, his sense of purpose is brilliant and unshakeable; but I fear that to set purpose against personality would be merely an attractive oversimplification. |
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| file under "vast and terrible" |
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| 11:34am 25/08/2007 |
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music: ringringringringringringring
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nah just kidding. this ain't even really a freakout at all. I think I'm doin' a good job of keeping those in check. just that lately the philosophy is starting to grate on me, to go against my own gut feelings about the world, and I'm not sure if that's just further evidence that I need it to save me from those feelings or if it means something's wrong. but anyway the point is, the godhead, the immanent, that divine essence that manifests in all things, must take on that thingness for a reason, you see, can you tell where I am going, what I am getting at, because you see to deny our own humanity in order to be one with the divine is a paradox, remember the divine is in all things, realize that rocks never deny their own rockness, and then ask if it doesn't seem more than a little presumptuous to draw away from the world of things and claim that your destiny lies with something greater.
on a lighter note, I'm cold all the time and guilty about things I didn't even do |
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| 10:50pm 02/08/2007 |
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the first dozen times I heard "No Cars Go" I somehow parsed "a place where no cars go" as "a place in which no cars operate", rather than "a place to which no cars travel" or "a place inaccessible to cars"
having realized this distinction, it somehow strikes me as very important |
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| so here we are at the end, the war is over |
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| 09:25pm 08/06/2007 |
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clung to by messy fibers of the past
(which are perhaps needed to temper this vast and open thing that is me-but-new)
"proper evaluation of words and letters in their phonetic and associated sense can bring the people of earth into the clear light of pure cosmic wisdom." |
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| lol internet |
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| 12:25am 27/05/2007 |
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I'm still stunned
last night I went to bed every bit as distressed and uneasy as my previous post indicates
I do not remember much of my dream; but I had one friend, I think, and we were mocked and persecuted and maybe even a little feared. I remember a girl whose name meant "the work of chaos". I remember planes and wastelands.
and I remember sitting and reading a book, and knowing suddenly how perfectly to unite the physical and spiritual worlds. I think I became enlightened. even filtered through dreams, the feeling was incredible, like nothing I've ever felt. a mental orgasm of perfect clarity. I don't think the actual revelation was important, but rather the feeling. a sign of some sort; something to reassure me.
and then I was dead. some shadowy group which had been tracking me burst into my room and found me there, slumped over my books. my undignified corpse gave no hint of what had happened; no beatific smile creased my face. I think they laughed. it didn't matter. as I watched all of this, my body no longer mattered to me. the final image of the dream was the most cryptic, a four-way split screen, each one showing an image of a crowd, in black and white, and some luminous being of energy standing in their midst. echoes of me, I guess. but interestingly, I felt no more connection to those glowing ghosts than to that body in that room. |
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| onionskin bulging with dread potential |
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| 10:29pm 25/05/2007 |
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some soppy paste where should be knots of strictest fiber
I keep searching for the defining moment of my life but if it hasn't already happened then I don't know how to summon it |
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