Sunday, October 19, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Randomness to Follow
Delicate intertwinings between intention and outcome, with god's eyes on the final victory, the score tied between what we meant and what we did, with villages burned and hearts loved weighing in the balance.
What tears may be shed for eternity? In the thousands of turns our galaxy takes in the blink of an eye, as the stars themselves grow cold and dwindle, and eternity passes twice, and infinity becomes boring, where do we stand?
We have eternity to decide what we shall do.
Do our dances compare with unthinking form of the spheres, can our minds surpass the greatest of God's creations? Beauty, truth are fickle things, apt to change with the slightest change in perspective, swing a giant lever across the paradigms of our worlds, where trash not only another's treasure, but is both to a third, and gophers to the fourth.
All is flux, unchanging, the hold is loose- all things come apart.
Mere chaos is loose upon the world
How should we command the sands to stay?
Sand the color of tarnished silver
(Common object, defining a setting) (Color used to determine mood, provide a unique feel and flavor)
Grow up, get a job, get married, have kids, die.
(Routine)
We can observe the dominant patterns in our lives, and find most of us powerless to change them. There are no alternatives presented to us, in our society. Artists, vagrants, primitives, all of them tossed in the bin labelled "Failure" with nary a second glance, no mourning the terrible loss of Other and New and Different. But who cares? Nothing lasts forever. A cold comfort, hm?
If buddhism and nihilsm both equal a third thing, are they equal to each other?
Caught in the tides and pulls of a system understood to be far more powerful than an atomic blast, more consuming and encompassing most spend their lives unaware of it, and feeling powerless to do a single lonesome thing about it, but blessed with insight to do anything he can see?
An infinity of poses present themselves to my eyes, each distinct, with triumphs and losses, a full life each, to rival anyone who ever lived, and to die in no less a significant way than any other. No one will ever die more deeply or more really than I will, and no more real than any who came before or after.
With this in mind, how can my course of action be a surprise?
Almost- but not quite- no action at all. With the small variations so insignificant as to be overlooked, the van der waals force of personality. But they hold all the distinction of my mind against its backdrop, now.
I do not work. I do not study. I play some unremarkable games. I have no plans. I have no one "special" in my life. No passion. No drive. I am... pushing myself closer to the baseline, a sort of template from which anything may spring. Purposely increasing the tension in my heart, knowing that soon, soon, it will snap. I will break. I have dammed up and dammed, holding back all these things, with a preserve of rationality, restraining things with logic and fear, embarrasement, pain. Dealing with these things in the only way I know how, closing my eyes, and walking backwards, waiting until the situation makes itself such that my decisions are made for me, that my course is made clear.
A study in hypocrisy, of trying to contain and equalise two opposite forces, my primal and ingrained drives, and my aware intent-action system, my inhibitions.
Every time I hear within "I might like to do that", every time I feel a spark of an urge, it is held back by any number of obstacles, almost purposely, hoping to find the spark, sifting through my impulses for something sustaining, a drive or a calling. Yet I am fairly sure that the "drive" present in others, the calling or purpose they can happily dedicate their lives to, is almsot random. A small tipping of the balances of the chemistry of personality.
People can become playthings, to me. I watch them get excited about something, lay somethign out, see them discourse on a topic, a plan, an idea, a dream. I laugh at dreams. They are jokes, small things to forget and spurn. I see with painful clarity the multiplicity of possibilities with a course of action, how one thing merges into another, how dreams can fail, and also succeed, the rough probabilities, the needed motivation. Sometimes I insert myself into these discussions, or explanations, using my questions as levers, or hooks, pulling their dream apart, exposing their hopes for what they are. Sadly, I only usually do this when I feel they are being false or foolish. It gives me some small pleasure to make people experience something like what I feel, knowing it is painful. Tangling up certainties with questions, perspective, complications, taking thigns away from them, destroying their actions, removing possibilities, creating others. Playing my part in the small but ineffable forces of development in a person, to be there, but usually forgotten, the unconcious effects always present if miniscule.
My sense of humor is either black or innocent, finding the darkest and most death's-hand jokes wonderful, giving the finger to fate. But, not so gone...Ooh, flattery, you whore, get lost. Fuck you. I won't masturbate here for your benefit.
I am quieting all the other voices in my mind. Trying to simplify my life in the best way I can.
Kyle once told me that it was impossible to find the same effect of monasticsm and contemplation in our environment, that it was not possible to live here and have thwe same benefit. I think he was both right and wrong. We may live here, but we don't have to live in the same world. There are thousands to choose from, just walking down the street. Billions of people we never have to know, places we never have to see, thigns we never have to experience, if we can sated in something of our choosing. This si naturally easier, or perhaps more easily seen, in the city, with its massive parallel lives. A thousand social networks, with some small common nodes, but ultimately never overlapping, networks which each can hold many passing generations, blending and spawning, changing and losing boundaries, only with retrospect able to see the new ones leap out of the page of memory, more obvious than they ever were in situ.
My own world need have none that I do not want, in the significant sense. But to do so, poses a larger question- how little I really know of what I want.
I feel like I stand on a plain, surrounded by thousands of other people, all the faces I have ever known, all people who have their lives, who have eyes, but all of whom are curiously blind, lids shut lookign only at the dirt, when I have looked up, and see ... Universes. Beauties and sorrows, experiences without counting, possibilities unconcioused by the many quiet hordes around me, and I say to them, "look at the stars", and they tell me "the stars are not important, the dirt is important"
All my certainty in this situation is gone. All my previous experience has been of dirt.
My life has been dirt, mud, something I have been wallowing in since before I was born, and my weight marked down on a chart, my sonogram beginning its enwrapment of my life into a certain channel.
I was dirt, and now I am made of stars and sight. Through will, I create my universe.
I know I am not alone, but it can be difficult to meet the eyes of others.
My mind is now rarely straightforward.
Thoughts and decisions are like waves to me now, they pass, and lap, and I am the sea, and I move with unstoppable force when I wish. Thoughts pass like ships in the night and my best decisions are made without any thought at all. I hold myself open like a hand spread open, feeling the wind of life pass over me. The whole of my law is "do as thou wilt". I never believed it could be possible to work that way, but it is.
What tears may be shed for eternity? In the thousands of turns our galaxy takes in the blink of an eye, as the stars themselves grow cold and dwindle, and eternity passes twice, and infinity becomes boring, where do we stand?
We have eternity to decide what we shall do.
Do our dances compare with unthinking form of the spheres, can our minds surpass the greatest of God's creations? Beauty, truth are fickle things, apt to change with the slightest change in perspective, swing a giant lever across the paradigms of our worlds, where trash not only another's treasure, but is both to a third, and gophers to the fourth.
All is flux, unchanging, the hold is loose- all things come apart.
Mere chaos is loose upon the world
How should we command the sands to stay?
Sand the color of tarnished silver
(Common object, defining a setting) (Color used to determine mood, provide a unique feel and flavor)
Grow up, get a job, get married, have kids, die.
(Routine)
We can observe the dominant patterns in our lives, and find most of us powerless to change them. There are no alternatives presented to us, in our society. Artists, vagrants, primitives, all of them tossed in the bin labelled "Failure" with nary a second glance, no mourning the terrible loss of Other and New and Different. But who cares? Nothing lasts forever. A cold comfort, hm?
If buddhism and nihilsm both equal a third thing, are they equal to each other?
Caught in the tides and pulls of a system understood to be far more powerful than an atomic blast, more consuming and encompassing most spend their lives unaware of it, and feeling powerless to do a single lonesome thing about it, but blessed with insight to do anything he can see?
An infinity of poses present themselves to my eyes, each distinct, with triumphs and losses, a full life each, to rival anyone who ever lived, and to die in no less a significant way than any other. No one will ever die more deeply or more really than I will, and no more real than any who came before or after.
With this in mind, how can my course of action be a surprise?
Almost- but not quite- no action at all. With the small variations so insignificant as to be overlooked, the van der waals force of personality. But they hold all the distinction of my mind against its backdrop, now.
I do not work. I do not study. I play some unremarkable games. I have no plans. I have no one "special" in my life. No passion. No drive. I am... pushing myself closer to the baseline, a sort of template from which anything may spring. Purposely increasing the tension in my heart, knowing that soon, soon, it will snap. I will break. I have dammed up and dammed, holding back all these things, with a preserve of rationality, restraining things with logic and fear, embarrasement, pain. Dealing with these things in the only way I know how, closing my eyes, and walking backwards, waiting until the situation makes itself such that my decisions are made for me, that my course is made clear.
A study in hypocrisy, of trying to contain and equalise two opposite forces, my primal and ingrained drives, and my aware intent-action system, my inhibitions.
Every time I hear within "I might like to do that", every time I feel a spark of an urge, it is held back by any number of obstacles, almost purposely, hoping to find the spark, sifting through my impulses for something sustaining, a drive or a calling. Yet I am fairly sure that the "drive" present in others, the calling or purpose they can happily dedicate their lives to, is almsot random. A small tipping of the balances of the chemistry of personality.
People can become playthings, to me. I watch them get excited about something, lay somethign out, see them discourse on a topic, a plan, an idea, a dream. I laugh at dreams. They are jokes, small things to forget and spurn. I see with painful clarity the multiplicity of possibilities with a course of action, how one thing merges into another, how dreams can fail, and also succeed, the rough probabilities, the needed motivation. Sometimes I insert myself into these discussions, or explanations, using my questions as levers, or hooks, pulling their dream apart, exposing their hopes for what they are. Sadly, I only usually do this when I feel they are being false or foolish. It gives me some small pleasure to make people experience something like what I feel, knowing it is painful. Tangling up certainties with questions, perspective, complications, taking thigns away from them, destroying their actions, removing possibilities, creating others. Playing my part in the small but ineffable forces of development in a person, to be there, but usually forgotten, the unconcious effects always present if miniscule.
My sense of humor is either black or innocent, finding the darkest and most death's-hand jokes wonderful, giving the finger to fate. But, not so gone...Ooh, flattery, you whore, get lost. Fuck you. I won't masturbate here for your benefit.
I am quieting all the other voices in my mind. Trying to simplify my life in the best way I can.
Kyle once told me that it was impossible to find the same effect of monasticsm and contemplation in our environment, that it was not possible to live here and have thwe same benefit. I think he was both right and wrong. We may live here, but we don't have to live in the same world. There are thousands to choose from, just walking down the street. Billions of people we never have to know, places we never have to see, thigns we never have to experience, if we can sated in something of our choosing. This si naturally easier, or perhaps more easily seen, in the city, with its massive parallel lives. A thousand social networks, with some small common nodes, but ultimately never overlapping, networks which each can hold many passing generations, blending and spawning, changing and losing boundaries, only with retrospect able to see the new ones leap out of the page of memory, more obvious than they ever were in situ.
My own world need have none that I do not want, in the significant sense. But to do so, poses a larger question- how little I really know of what I want.
I feel like I stand on a plain, surrounded by thousands of other people, all the faces I have ever known, all people who have their lives, who have eyes, but all of whom are curiously blind, lids shut lookign only at the dirt, when I have looked up, and see ... Universes. Beauties and sorrows, experiences without counting, possibilities unconcioused by the many quiet hordes around me, and I say to them, "look at the stars", and they tell me "the stars are not important, the dirt is important"
All my certainty in this situation is gone. All my previous experience has been of dirt.
My life has been dirt, mud, something I have been wallowing in since before I was born, and my weight marked down on a chart, my sonogram beginning its enwrapment of my life into a certain channel.
I was dirt, and now I am made of stars and sight. Through will, I create my universe.
I know I am not alone, but it can be difficult to meet the eyes of others.
My mind is now rarely straightforward.
Thoughts and decisions are like waves to me now, they pass, and lap, and I am the sea, and I move with unstoppable force when I wish. Thoughts pass like ships in the night and my best decisions are made without any thought at all. I hold myself open like a hand spread open, feeling the wind of life pass over me. The whole of my law is "do as thou wilt". I never believed it could be possible to work that way, but it is.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Burn the World
"Tear it all down! Burn the old world! Death to it! Start over! We can make a new world, where we will find love, and have meaning, and everything will be perfect again""
"Why?"
"I dunno, why not?"
"Why?"
"I dunno, why not?"
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Dreams
I had a dream this night about my perfect man. I can't remember all the details, but he was tall, dark and scruffy, and taught me how to crack safes. I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me. On the other hand, who cares!
Friday, August 1, 2008
The World as I have Found It-Desire
Aesthetics- the question of the desirable, the attractive, the compelling, the beautiful.
I am always at a loss to set down a comprehensive explanation for the topic (perhaps all the better) but I might propose here some hypotheses.
Desire- is proportional to the perception and the tension. That's all. It's that simple. Of course, just those words alone makes nonsense, so I'll elaborate.
Focusing on sensual or erotic desire, for its commonality and intuitiveness, I would say the crux of it is what you perceive to be attractive and the tension in attaining/possessing it. An attractive photo of a person, a person, a model, any of these things, is dependent upon you as a viewer- it does not have an inherent property of beauty, only a commonality of taste. (Here is in truth my largest statement. I make no claim to evidence besides my own anecdotal evidence, but I say it thus anyway). Desire, and indeed, all aesthetics, is and must be utterly subjective.
Body type is a sub-example of this- I myself am greatly attracted to the "jock" archetype of image. There are a number of Freudian questions I have about the origins of this attraction, but the fact remains that it is still an image, that upon seeing, usually impels me to desire. Naturally, women, of whatever beauty mean nothing or next to, in this same way.
Tension, the other half, is more properly expanded to be part of the tension/release cycle of pleasure. Desire-tossing this out here, mind you- is the mind seeking the pleasure, a pleasure which can be increased by increasing the tension accordingly. R.E."What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly".
An example of tension/release can be seen in the study of orgasm- having only subjective experience in this, my statistical base is severely limited, but may be insightful anyway. Although the analogy may be stressed, take note- The longer one delays, or is delayed in achieving orgasm, the more powerful the wave of pleasure afterwards is. Similar effects are expectation of a purchase, vacation, and the achievement of this thing.
Point- By whatever method the mind uses to goad oneself on, tension and pleasure can be...separated, in a way. Desire can become associated with the tension of expectation, and never actually require it be released- though it may become a strained and shaky hold after time without release. (See videogame hype and results)
Aside- The separating point between forms of art (e.g. "modern" and "classic") exists at the point where the art serves the desire+tension mechanism and where it serves to conscious mind, (e.g.- reshaping the "room" to where it is no longer a room)
Returning to my wandering train of thought, I wonder, without certain result, where exactly fashion fits into this schema. I find, when looking at some elements of fashion, an undeniable and quite compelling draw, without any obvious focus. Certain outfits, particularly designer outfits, seem to be following something my mind can follow like a scent, but not as a name, and I know they do some sort of thing in their work, but I know not what. It is not empty, though, and is unworthy of complaints of shallowness.
I say beauty is subjective, dependent on what we are predisposed to desire, and increases in magnitude only insofar as we think it does.
I am always at a loss to set down a comprehensive explanation for the topic (perhaps all the better) but I might propose here some hypotheses.
Desire- is proportional to the perception and the tension. That's all. It's that simple. Of course, just those words alone makes nonsense, so I'll elaborate.
Focusing on sensual or erotic desire, for its commonality and intuitiveness, I would say the crux of it is what you perceive to be attractive and the tension in attaining/possessing it. An attractive photo of a person, a person, a model, any of these things, is dependent upon you as a viewer- it does not have an inherent property of beauty, only a commonality of taste. (Here is in truth my largest statement. I make no claim to evidence besides my own anecdotal evidence, but I say it thus anyway). Desire, and indeed, all aesthetics, is and must be utterly subjective.
Body type is a sub-example of this- I myself am greatly attracted to the "jock" archetype of image. There are a number of Freudian questions I have about the origins of this attraction, but the fact remains that it is still an image, that upon seeing, usually impels me to desire. Naturally, women, of whatever beauty mean nothing or next to, in this same way.
Tension, the other half, is more properly expanded to be part of the tension/release cycle of pleasure. Desire-tossing this out here, mind you- is the mind seeking the pleasure, a pleasure which can be increased by increasing the tension accordingly. R.E."What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly".
An example of tension/release can be seen in the study of orgasm- having only subjective experience in this, my statistical base is severely limited, but may be insightful anyway. Although the analogy may be stressed, take note- The longer one delays, or is delayed in achieving orgasm, the more powerful the wave of pleasure afterwards is. Similar effects are expectation of a purchase, vacation, and the achievement of this thing.
Point- By whatever method the mind uses to goad oneself on, tension and pleasure can be...separated, in a way. Desire can become associated with the tension of expectation, and never actually require it be released- though it may become a strained and shaky hold after time without release. (See videogame hype and results)
Aside- The separating point between forms of art (e.g. "modern" and "classic") exists at the point where the art serves the desire+tension mechanism and where it serves to conscious mind, (e.g.- reshaping the "room" to where it is no longer a room)
Returning to my wandering train of thought, I wonder, without certain result, where exactly fashion fits into this schema. I find, when looking at some elements of fashion, an undeniable and quite compelling draw, without any obvious focus. Certain outfits, particularly designer outfits, seem to be following something my mind can follow like a scent, but not as a name, and I know they do some sort of thing in their work, but I know not what. It is not empty, though, and is unworthy of complaints of shallowness.
I say beauty is subjective, dependent on what we are predisposed to desire, and increases in magnitude only insofar as we think it does.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Cities on Fire with Rock n'Roll
I was originally going to make my next post about a topic which I had prepared ahead of time, and written and formatted properly. But I've changed my mind, and I'm about to barrel off into another rant.
The only problem is, I'm about to be ranting about myself.
You see, boys and girls, there once was a boy named Ben. And over time, he grew up into a man, and some things happened to him which he liked, and some he didn't, and some people aren't happy with how he turned out. For instance, he displays personality quirks a little out of the ordinary.
So I'll try to come a little more clean about some of the things that I've been thinking behind my mask while I talk to you.
Recently having gone through FYP, my perspective on the world has changed somewhat. I'll explain what it is now later, and now interject with a description of what my life was like.
Acknowledging the rose-colored lens of memory, my life shortly before entering university was pretty damn happy. Having got over a number of confidence issues, being physically fit and experiencing a freedom of sexuality previously unknown all helped. But the primary thing was that almost every single day, at some point, I was caught up in moments where I felt like I was directly and entirely involved in the divine, moments of light, peace and unexpressable beauty. I saw eternity in a grain of sand, was struck by the magical in the most small moments, and was utterly certain of a divine, wonderful purpose to existence. Everything was peachy. (Yes, I'm simplifying. There was plenty of shit, but my balance and grace let me pretty much neutralize most, if not all of it)
I was intelligent and knew it, spiritual and knew it, and knew I was capable of heading out into the world and most likely going to do Big Important Things.
"But Ben", you cry out, "surely this is the way all people feel when they're growing up, and we can all see the freight train of misery coming a mile away, as you go through growing pains of reality!" Fuck you. I'll repeat that, just in case you missed it. Fuck You. Let it sink in before moving down. No, I mean it. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, I don't care who the fuck you are, and I'm thinking of a few notable people in my head right now. If you can't grant me the individuality of my experiences and if you aren't willing to listen to me honestly, then you can just stop reading now. Please take a moment to consider this.
If you want to understand me now, then keep my (simplified) past in mind as you read.
In FYP, I underwent a radical reexamination of all of my beliefs. For everything I thought I knew, I learned two more contradictory ideas, similarly convincing. For everything I was convinced by, I learned it to be wrong. For everything I learned to be wrong, I learned to be possible, but differently. My certainty fell into beliefs dropped into ideas became tendencies. Relativity took over, perspective became more important.
Then I met two very wonderful men. Well, in spirit, anyway. Nietzsche was by far the greater in reputation, but came of smelling like ham. But what he expressed resonated so deeply with me that I found myself hard pressed to explain just how.
Then Ludwig Wittgenstein walked into my life, and it was never the same again.
His beautiful explanations about the limitations on philosophy were the one significant thing I came away with. And it took apart everything I thought I knew, even then. Or at least began to.
That's what deconstructionism means, you know. It's just taking apart what you know,and looking for the assumptions you've made underneath, looking for the holes and the hypocrisy.
My summer was unremarkable. At least, for purposes of this post, it was. I started a new year in school, took courses I wasn't really certain about but because they were good courses to take, I took them. I made a halfhearted attempt to keep up with the homework, but quickly flagged. And thens topped altogether. I didn't study for tests, I ended up maliciously hating my job at Subway, and was stressed and tense all the time, and was frequently incapable of enjoying myself, even with friends.
In short, I began to show signs of clinical depression, something I'm not exactly uncertain about, because I've got a damn good list of reasons to be depressed, and it isn't something unfamiliar to me. But this was the first time I'd find myself wandering the streets at night, standing in the middle of the road, wondering if maybe I should just stand there, see if the car coming would hit me. When contemplating my death was- Mundane. Some I did as a matter of course, something that occupied my thoughts as much as dinner occupies the thoughts of others. Sorry, Contemplating suicide, if that was a little ambiguous.
Either you know what depression is like, or you don't, and trying to describe it has been done by better people than me, and I don't want to waste time here, so I'll skip it.
I ended up at the university help center, looking for someone to listen to me and help me. And the fellow did, partially. But it was me, on my own, who came to a realization. That I was operating without looking at my assumptions. I did not have to go to university. I, in fact, did not have to even try to do Big Important Things. I was one mental step away from being free from all of the bull shit that most people don't even fully realize they live in. So I left. I just walked away.
There are some aspects to this that need detailing, so I will. Yes, there was more than one factor contributing to my dropping out. Trying to work part-time didn't help, and trying to maintain the same level of recreational/leisure time was a very damning nail in the coffin, but most of all here you should know that I know I could do it, If I wanted to. But I had never considered if I really wanted to, I just went.
Once I left university, I started to look over my life, over my beliefs again, but on a more personal level. I started challenging myself even more to challenge society, to challenge convention. To deconstruct what I had lived with. The result was...perhaps disappointing.
I spend most of my waking time (and dreaming time, too), concerned with a basic hunger for philosophical answers. Aside from time where I am not actively involved in a mundane action or playing with my electronic anesthetics, I will find myself staring into space, thinking. I've come up with some interesting answers.
To help you understand me, know this- I waver, most days, between knowing nothing, and knowing less than nothing. I listen to trains of thought in my head, thoughts arranging themselves like airships, drifting by, mulling on resolutions, coming up with answers, deciding small matters. I drift between scorning my life, or forgetting I am alive.
I dream, try to wake up, wake up, wonder if I am dreaming, strive to dream again, and strive against striving, strive to know why I strive. My thoughts rise and fall like tides and waves, leaving behind something in me unsatisfying and difficult to describe, like a shape behind my eyes, a message inside my forehead, a certainty I know to be madness.
To selectively clarify; I have lost most of what I knew. My assumptions are laid bare, and my truths are rendered. Limited. Contained. Wittgenstein does not satisfy one with a denial and replacement, merely a show of logic that leaves you applauding because you don't know what else to do, then shuffling awkwardly out the fire exit of your mind, left bereft of structures of meaning.
I know that I have changed. I know that I am different. And yet I know that, statistically and psychologically, the tendency seems to be to exaggerate one's own importance, to feel special. But how many other people walk barefoot in the city? How many people are found perched on objects above you on Quinpool road, simply because they cared to do so? Who lives in a world where relationships are honest and intense, drama excised, people open to one another at a deep and personal level? I am an anachronism of my past, searching automatically for things I no longer feel I need, looking for things I cannot name, and with a funny feeling the world is about to turn on the lights and say "Suprise!"
The only problem is, I'm about to be ranting about myself.
You see, boys and girls, there once was a boy named Ben. And over time, he grew up into a man, and some things happened to him which he liked, and some he didn't, and some people aren't happy with how he turned out. For instance, he displays personality quirks a little out of the ordinary.
So I'll try to come a little more clean about some of the things that I've been thinking behind my mask while I talk to you.
Recently having gone through FYP, my perspective on the world has changed somewhat. I'll explain what it is now later, and now interject with a description of what my life was like.
Acknowledging the rose-colored lens of memory, my life shortly before entering university was pretty damn happy. Having got over a number of confidence issues, being physically fit and experiencing a freedom of sexuality previously unknown all helped. But the primary thing was that almost every single day, at some point, I was caught up in moments where I felt like I was directly and entirely involved in the divine, moments of light, peace and unexpressable beauty. I saw eternity in a grain of sand, was struck by the magical in the most small moments, and was utterly certain of a divine, wonderful purpose to existence. Everything was peachy. (Yes, I'm simplifying. There was plenty of shit, but my balance and grace let me pretty much neutralize most, if not all of it)
I was intelligent and knew it, spiritual and knew it, and knew I was capable of heading out into the world and most likely going to do Big Important Things.
"But Ben", you cry out, "surely this is the way all people feel when they're growing up, and we can all see the freight train of misery coming a mile away, as you go through growing pains of reality!" Fuck you. I'll repeat that, just in case you missed it. Fuck You. Let it sink in before moving down. No, I mean it. Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, I don't care who the fuck you are, and I'm thinking of a few notable people in my head right now. If you can't grant me the individuality of my experiences and if you aren't willing to listen to me honestly, then you can just stop reading now. Please take a moment to consider this.
If you want to understand me now, then keep my (simplified) past in mind as you read.
In FYP, I underwent a radical reexamination of all of my beliefs. For everything I thought I knew, I learned two more contradictory ideas, similarly convincing. For everything I was convinced by, I learned it to be wrong. For everything I learned to be wrong, I learned to be possible, but differently. My certainty fell into beliefs dropped into ideas became tendencies. Relativity took over, perspective became more important.
Then I met two very wonderful men. Well, in spirit, anyway. Nietzsche was by far the greater in reputation, but came of smelling like ham. But what he expressed resonated so deeply with me that I found myself hard pressed to explain just how.
Then Ludwig Wittgenstein walked into my life, and it was never the same again.
His beautiful explanations about the limitations on philosophy were the one significant thing I came away with. And it took apart everything I thought I knew, even then. Or at least began to.
That's what deconstructionism means, you know. It's just taking apart what you know,and looking for the assumptions you've made underneath, looking for the holes and the hypocrisy.
My summer was unremarkable. At least, for purposes of this post, it was. I started a new year in school, took courses I wasn't really certain about but because they were good courses to take, I took them. I made a halfhearted attempt to keep up with the homework, but quickly flagged. And thens topped altogether. I didn't study for tests, I ended up maliciously hating my job at Subway, and was stressed and tense all the time, and was frequently incapable of enjoying myself, even with friends.
In short, I began to show signs of clinical depression, something I'm not exactly uncertain about, because I've got a damn good list of reasons to be depressed, and it isn't something unfamiliar to me. But this was the first time I'd find myself wandering the streets at night, standing in the middle of the road, wondering if maybe I should just stand there, see if the car coming would hit me. When contemplating my death was- Mundane. Some I did as a matter of course, something that occupied my thoughts as much as dinner occupies the thoughts of others. Sorry, Contemplating suicide, if that was a little ambiguous.
Either you know what depression is like, or you don't, and trying to describe it has been done by better people than me, and I don't want to waste time here, so I'll skip it.
I ended up at the university help center, looking for someone to listen to me and help me. And the fellow did, partially. But it was me, on my own, who came to a realization. That I was operating without looking at my assumptions. I did not have to go to university. I, in fact, did not have to even try to do Big Important Things. I was one mental step away from being free from all of the bull shit that most people don't even fully realize they live in. So I left. I just walked away.
There are some aspects to this that need detailing, so I will. Yes, there was more than one factor contributing to my dropping out. Trying to work part-time didn't help, and trying to maintain the same level of recreational/leisure time was a very damning nail in the coffin, but most of all here you should know that I know I could do it, If I wanted to. But I had never considered if I really wanted to, I just went.
Once I left university, I started to look over my life, over my beliefs again, but on a more personal level. I started challenging myself even more to challenge society, to challenge convention. To deconstruct what I had lived with. The result was...perhaps disappointing.
I spend most of my waking time (and dreaming time, too), concerned with a basic hunger for philosophical answers. Aside from time where I am not actively involved in a mundane action or playing with my electronic anesthetics, I will find myself staring into space, thinking. I've come up with some interesting answers.
To help you understand me, know this- I waver, most days, between knowing nothing, and knowing less than nothing. I listen to trains of thought in my head, thoughts arranging themselves like airships, drifting by, mulling on resolutions, coming up with answers, deciding small matters. I drift between scorning my life, or forgetting I am alive.
I dream, try to wake up, wake up, wonder if I am dreaming, strive to dream again, and strive against striving, strive to know why I strive. My thoughts rise and fall like tides and waves, leaving behind something in me unsatisfying and difficult to describe, like a shape behind my eyes, a message inside my forehead, a certainty I know to be madness.
To selectively clarify; I have lost most of what I knew. My assumptions are laid bare, and my truths are rendered. Limited. Contained. Wittgenstein does not satisfy one with a denial and replacement, merely a show of logic that leaves you applauding because you don't know what else to do, then shuffling awkwardly out the fire exit of your mind, left bereft of structures of meaning.
I know that I have changed. I know that I am different. And yet I know that, statistically and psychologically, the tendency seems to be to exaggerate one's own importance, to feel special. But how many other people walk barefoot in the city? How many people are found perched on objects above you on Quinpool road, simply because they cared to do so? Who lives in a world where relationships are honest and intense, drama excised, people open to one another at a deep and personal level? I am an anachronism of my past, searching automatically for things I no longer feel I need, looking for things I cannot name, and with a funny feeling the world is about to turn on the lights and say "Suprise!"
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Here we go again
You know, people, maybe things just aren't so bad out there. At the very least, they aren't much worse than all the rest of the history we've had. Our children aren't really the epitome of elder-abuse and undisciplined action to bring down our world. War isn't really becoming more common, with greater bloodshed. Our leaders aren't really any less trustworthy than 600 years ago. The planet isn't doomed. We'll get through. Global warming will not exceed the regular bounds which the planet cycles through every geological era or so. Remember- the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's a cliche, and relies on the same evidence of obviousness that all cliches are folly to, but what the hey, right?
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