I need to get used to facts. Looking for them, processing them into meaningful data and then using them to back arguments or even possibly come up with whole new ideas. That is important if I mean to communicate effectively and powerfully, but it is also important if I mean to develop plans and concepts within my own head (and then, perhaps, communicate it to others, haha).
I’m such a Sophist, and I assume that must be bad. My Sophism leads me to create numerous empty arguments to explain why this isn’t actually bad, but nah, the world doesn’t operate that way and if I want to work with everyone else, well, I ought to learn the (Socratic) rules of the game.
Damn. Creating funny arguments on silly topics just for the sake of idiotic mindfuck is such a cool pastime. Oh well, the wonders of being an adult…
(jk, there's a lot of fun in this sort of factual activity, too. Being a humble explorer isn't as empowering as being an absolute monarch, but it’s sometimes a lot more beautiful.)
Saturday 31 July 2010
Life on Mars (plus two other songs)
I sometimes wonder if there is life on Mars. And when I do, I hope there isn’t. I’d like to have a place and call it my own, all the rules and facts UNDER me. But maybe this wouldn’t be worthwhile and the forces that keep me going would disappear. Maybe I’m not enough for myself.
I have once wondered who I am. The girl with the mousy hair or the script writer? Am I a character inside some broader, incomprehensible movie, or am I the director with god-like powers to create my own small, ersatz story?
Perhaps, as George Harrison once sang (and many before him, but shamefully he’s the only one I care about), it is within me - it is myself - and goes on without me - bigger than me. But alas, these are two different things. I have totally shrunk Harrison’s meaning into my own self. It’s not about life, what I wonder. In the end, it’s just about individuality.
You can’t have one without the other, of course, they go together like the horse and carriage, because life as a broader movie is made of character-individuals, yet we won’t exist if there isn’t a life for us to live. But they are not the same, they are a couple, and none is bigger or more important than the other. They are two sides to a same coin, so then I wouldn’t survive on an empty Mars. There is no escaping, and that’s fine (when it’s not sad, but that’s just sometimes).
And if the individual’s inherent dependency is fundamentally necessary to its existence (through life), can’t we at least shyly wonder what it would be like to live as individuals who aren’t so essentially unique and distinct? Which part is designated to others inside the movie, and how do they write their own script? How do they do it, how do they perceive it, how do they feel?
I sometimes think that I’d like to see what others see, but I quickly shun these thoughts because they make me run away from myself. They lead way too smoothly into thoughts of living somebody else’s life, of abandoning my individuality and assuming that of someone else who exists inside the same movie as me. And that can’t be, I would never allow myself, being the iron fist ruler that we all have to be.
But I shyly wonder, still, and life would be a lot more chaotic, a lot less fluid and careless if we could jump from individuality to individuality. Some would fight for the right of being a certain other, and then they would be abandoned, and the movie would stop happening. If the movie ever stopped happening, individuals wouldn’t survive, to live and to be lived by others. Without the limits of self, characters can’t survive, and therefore they wouldn’t have a script to follow or a paper to write on.
If I could, just for a moment, ever know how is it that others live, then everything would go wrong. Even my problems, my wrongness, everything. So I just remain amazed, watching the multitude of others that exist around me, each one of them a life like mine, a character as me; each writing their own movie, living the same one. And no matter how much I can sometimes wish for a still Mars, all these strangers are what allow me to be myself. To be alone there, I’d have to be together with them.
I have once wondered who I am. The girl with the mousy hair or the script writer? Am I a character inside some broader, incomprehensible movie, or am I the director with god-like powers to create my own small, ersatz story?
Perhaps, as George Harrison once sang (and many before him, but shamefully he’s the only one I care about), it is within me - it is myself - and goes on without me - bigger than me. But alas, these are two different things. I have totally shrunk Harrison’s meaning into my own self. It’s not about life, what I wonder. In the end, it’s just about individuality.
You can’t have one without the other, of course, they go together like the horse and carriage, because life as a broader movie is made of character-individuals, yet we won’t exist if there isn’t a life for us to live. But they are not the same, they are a couple, and none is bigger or more important than the other. They are two sides to a same coin, so then I wouldn’t survive on an empty Mars. There is no escaping, and that’s fine (when it’s not sad, but that’s just sometimes).
And if the individual’s inherent dependency is fundamentally necessary to its existence (through life), can’t we at least shyly wonder what it would be like to live as individuals who aren’t so essentially unique and distinct? Which part is designated to others inside the movie, and how do they write their own script? How do they do it, how do they perceive it, how do they feel?
I sometimes think that I’d like to see what others see, but I quickly shun these thoughts because they make me run away from myself. They lead way too smoothly into thoughts of living somebody else’s life, of abandoning my individuality and assuming that of someone else who exists inside the same movie as me. And that can’t be, I would never allow myself, being the iron fist ruler that we all have to be.
But I shyly wonder, still, and life would be a lot more chaotic, a lot less fluid and careless if we could jump from individuality to individuality. Some would fight for the right of being a certain other, and then they would be abandoned, and the movie would stop happening. If the movie ever stopped happening, individuals wouldn’t survive, to live and to be lived by others. Without the limits of self, characters can’t survive, and therefore they wouldn’t have a script to follow or a paper to write on.
If I could, just for a moment, ever know how is it that others live, then everything would go wrong. Even my problems, my wrongness, everything. So I just remain amazed, watching the multitude of others that exist around me, each one of them a life like mine, a character as me; each writing their own movie, living the same one. And no matter how much I can sometimes wish for a still Mars, all these strangers are what allow me to be myself. To be alone there, I’d have to be together with them.
Friday 30 July 2010
I can make it. Or maybe I can’t. But I’ll have to try doing it, one moment or another, or else I’ll forever live with the feeling that I don’t know. That I’m not sure of what I can and cannot do, what are my limits, that tomorrow I’ll discover the truth. That I’m not yet ready and by no means sufficiently prepared to face the task.
Living is a serious business. Or maybe it isn’t. Some make a lifetime worth of profit out of it, others just can’t quite be as successful as expected (By others? By themselves? By certain standards?). It’s not definitive, though, so one has to wonder why it’s so serious. (The ant does die at some point, after all, no matter how much profit she has made during summer.) Perhaps it’s because life is so present, so offensively here and now that it becomes a serious burden.
Perhaps it’s because it’s so possible and blank that the one who has received it cannot fight the need to make something out of it, creating endless seriousness for said life. Perhaps, even, it is the fear that has faced the dream that makes living such a grave thing, this goddamn delta between two things that are outside the margins of our river. Life is a variable and no matter what others say or what evidence shows, it is always your responsibility to make something out of it. You, the jury, will judge and execute this. Such a serious business.
Other’s will screw me all over. Or maybe they won’t. Life really isn’t just ones business; everybody wants a piece of your success. And you always want a piece of theirs. The kiss is the eve of the spit, and kisses are so sweet it is impossible to go by without them. You are not your own judge, others will judge all the time, even if just inside your head. There’s something so weird about being someone, about having been given a life and carrying it around with so many others walking around you, their lives in hand too, nudging you gently – and not so gently -, from time to time. They are just like you, but they are themselves, and all what they take from you, they’ll give you back, somehow. All of it. Love.
I know myself. Oh, wait, I actually don’t. I don’t know my exact limits, perhaps they don’t really exist, but the truth is that I’m not yet fully acquainted with all my own details. I know how to be, to simply be, but I don’t know what being means, I don’t know what doing means nor do I really know what saying something is, not at all. But “simply doing” ain’t gonna cut it, it’s not enough. It kills the feeling of regret, of being completely lost, the buzzing “or maybe” inside my head. But it doesn’t explain shit to me, and that’s kinda not cool.
But I’ve GOT to do it. Because I can, because I want, because I said so. I need to do without explanation, test before analyzing, act without so much worry because this sort of thing eats you up at some point. No one ever has much time to actually analyze any of the tests, attempts, first trials, but all are (un)lucky enough to have others do it for them, dead or not yet dead. Not that this is important. Life really is serious, I can make it. Anyone can; everybody does, in fact. (And I’ll want a fancy tomb, too). But there’s this delta - dreams and fear, birth and death, others and self - that can be filled with kisses and spit; beauty at every spot.
Living is a serious business. Or maybe it isn’t. Some make a lifetime worth of profit out of it, others just can’t quite be as successful as expected (By others? By themselves? By certain standards?). It’s not definitive, though, so one has to wonder why it’s so serious. (The ant does die at some point, after all, no matter how much profit she has made during summer.) Perhaps it’s because life is so present, so offensively here and now that it becomes a serious burden.
Perhaps it’s because it’s so possible and blank that the one who has received it cannot fight the need to make something out of it, creating endless seriousness for said life. Perhaps, even, it is the fear that has faced the dream that makes living such a grave thing, this goddamn delta between two things that are outside the margins of our river. Life is a variable and no matter what others say or what evidence shows, it is always your responsibility to make something out of it. You, the jury, will judge and execute this. Such a serious business.
Other’s will screw me all over. Or maybe they won’t. Life really isn’t just ones business; everybody wants a piece of your success. And you always want a piece of theirs. The kiss is the eve of the spit, and kisses are so sweet it is impossible to go by without them. You are not your own judge, others will judge all the time, even if just inside your head. There’s something so weird about being someone, about having been given a life and carrying it around with so many others walking around you, their lives in hand too, nudging you gently – and not so gently -, from time to time. They are just like you, but they are themselves, and all what they take from you, they’ll give you back, somehow. All of it. Love.
I know myself. Oh, wait, I actually don’t. I don’t know my exact limits, perhaps they don’t really exist, but the truth is that I’m not yet fully acquainted with all my own details. I know how to be, to simply be, but I don’t know what being means, I don’t know what doing means nor do I really know what saying something is, not at all. But “simply doing” ain’t gonna cut it, it’s not enough. It kills the feeling of regret, of being completely lost, the buzzing “or maybe” inside my head. But it doesn’t explain shit to me, and that’s kinda not cool.
But I’ve GOT to do it. Because I can, because I want, because I said so. I need to do without explanation, test before analyzing, act without so much worry because this sort of thing eats you up at some point. No one ever has much time to actually analyze any of the tests, attempts, first trials, but all are (un)lucky enough to have others do it for them, dead or not yet dead. Not that this is important. Life really is serious, I can make it. Anyone can; everybody does, in fact. (And I’ll want a fancy tomb, too). But there’s this delta - dreams and fear, birth and death, others and self - that can be filled with kisses and spit; beauty at every spot.
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