What is freedom?
Is it that nebulous fought-for guilt trip hanging over our collective heads?
Is it the parading naked with a half empty bottle of wine through your house, simply because it is yours and you can?
Is it a state of mind? A place? A feeling?
Is it something we create for ourselves, no matter our chains that bind us to reality?
Is freedom a fantasy?
...Let me get back to you on that.
05 November 2011
01 November 2011
Creation as an act of self expression
There are so many forms of artistic expression, that you might even call LIFE the great stage, the blank canvas, the running tape, or ball of yarn. Art is order from chaos, such that the universe itself is perhaps the most gorgeous example of all.
A person without an outlet for self expression is a person with a heavy shroud of lackluster experience, a sadness weighing them down that they perhaps do not even know or understand. He who puts pen to paper, she who outlines in oils, they who dance or sing or speak to greater effect than day to day ordinariness, they are the lighthearted, the open minded, the uplifted souls who beautify this otherwise meaningless existence.
Am I simply an idealist, here?
Creation is the process of imbuing life into something your mind bends, your hands form, and your will empowers. Life without creative aspect is no life at all. Inspiration is the divine wind that drives us, and muse the sensitive bitch who by turns loves and hates us.
To think of life as the fuel in the creative engine, you must also realize that it means you cannot shy from experiences. You cannot live small and insignificantly. You must grow, touch, learn, feel, and above all, think. You must do all these things to create something worth... everything.
A person without an outlet for self expression is a person with a heavy shroud of lackluster experience, a sadness weighing them down that they perhaps do not even know or understand. He who puts pen to paper, she who outlines in oils, they who dance or sing or speak to greater effect than day to day ordinariness, they are the lighthearted, the open minded, the uplifted souls who beautify this otherwise meaningless existence.
Am I simply an idealist, here?
Creation is the process of imbuing life into something your mind bends, your hands form, and your will empowers. Life without creative aspect is no life at all. Inspiration is the divine wind that drives us, and muse the sensitive bitch who by turns loves and hates us.
To think of life as the fuel in the creative engine, you must also realize that it means you cannot shy from experiences. You cannot live small and insignificantly. You must grow, touch, learn, feel, and above all, think. You must do all these things to create something worth... everything.
15 October 2011
I, the wet blanket
I am a creature of simple habits, of small routine, and yet convention and tradition bore me and cause me to despise as small-minded those who cling to them for their own sakes. I am socially liberal and yet fiercely committed to the idea of leaving my fellow humans alone as I wish them to leave me be. I do not wish to impose my sense of right-with-the-world on anyone else, because I know it to be ... unusual. I struggle with it, myself, at times.
I find all the political diatribe and vitriol of the current times to be tiresome, hateful, and ultimately impotent. I catch myself feeling guilty for deliberately removing myself from the loop of intimate knowledge of this party or that candidate or the latest popular movement, and then as I skim the surface of the latest on these things I remember my deep levels of dismay, disgust, and pure stubborn reasons for removing myself in the first place. I am surrounded by many people who choose to partake in the mind-numbing drama and discourse, and who would happily scream at me for daring to voice a disagreement, a distaste for their politics.
At a very basic, simple level, I wonder in childlike unhappiness why on earth people feel the pressing need to meddle with other people? Why must we all be in lockstep with one another? Where is the celebration of diversity, the curiosity for ways not our own? Why are we blanketed in fear and hatred for the other?
I live with an odd dichotomy of feelings: I often feel a hopeless hatred for humanity, but also do I find myself giving benefit of the doubt, opening my heart and mind, and trying to love and understand people as people. Perhaps it is why I find and keep so few friends: I suppose it would be awkward to be on the receiving side of such emotional wet-blanketism.
As a side note - I am constantly baffled by one of the primary relationships in my life. There are times I truly think one or both of us must be mad, completely bonkers. Some of the above relates.
I find all the political diatribe and vitriol of the current times to be tiresome, hateful, and ultimately impotent. I catch myself feeling guilty for deliberately removing myself from the loop of intimate knowledge of this party or that candidate or the latest popular movement, and then as I skim the surface of the latest on these things I remember my deep levels of dismay, disgust, and pure stubborn reasons for removing myself in the first place. I am surrounded by many people who choose to partake in the mind-numbing drama and discourse, and who would happily scream at me for daring to voice a disagreement, a distaste for their politics.
At a very basic, simple level, I wonder in childlike unhappiness why on earth people feel the pressing need to meddle with other people? Why must we all be in lockstep with one another? Where is the celebration of diversity, the curiosity for ways not our own? Why are we blanketed in fear and hatred for the other?
I live with an odd dichotomy of feelings: I often feel a hopeless hatred for humanity, but also do I find myself giving benefit of the doubt, opening my heart and mind, and trying to love and understand people as people. Perhaps it is why I find and keep so few friends: I suppose it would be awkward to be on the receiving side of such emotional wet-blanketism.
As a side note - I am constantly baffled by one of the primary relationships in my life. There are times I truly think one or both of us must be mad, completely bonkers. Some of the above relates.
17 April 2011
Superheroism
Let me ponder a bit on the idea of love, deserving and not, affection, caring, who receives it, who gives.
Now, there is, for many of us, an inherent issue of worthiness. In fact, I'd posit that everyone feels one thing or another on this spectrum. It is no binary choice; some people probably wouldn't think they had an answer until you asked them, and they'd find themselves in the middle somewhere. Others have such a high esteem of self that they fall far on the right, whereas others have no sense of worth at all, and stray down to the left side.
Who decides who deserves love? We all have the capacity to love; does that mean we all have an equivalent capacity to BE loved? Do we requisitely love someone else before we ourselves qualify? Is it that we love ourselves first before others may? Does anyone truly deserve love? Well, of course. Don't we all?
Combine an issue with self-worth with that of deciding everyone, everyone except yourself, deserves love and caring, and you're left with someone whose cracks begin to show quite easily. Someone who feels that, with just a bit more, more effort, more self-sacrifice, more super-hero complex, more being everywhere, everything, to everyone, just a little bit more, then she might eventually be returned a droplet of what she has put forth. Is it not a seed's nature to wither and expend its energy to cause the shoot to grow? To put down roots for the coming plant?
On an outsider's perspective, it is ridiculous to hear someone, particularly someone you care for, claim no worth at all on the basis of being undeserved. If your frame is that everyone deserves love, most of all those whom YOU love (since if they were undeserving, you would not love them), and so how could they possibly not deserve it? Superheroism merely drags the bearer into a cycle of lack and vicious failure; but even this is illusory, for how can a mere human be a superman? For all they give, all they clutch tightly and refuse to allow to fail, they are deserving.
From the insider's perspective, how do you possibly accept this and somehow put aside your overdeveloped sense of self-flagellation to open yourself to others? How does a sensible, rational, emotional person discard that self-doubt and instead allow another's light to weave a net of trust about them? It is easy to trust someone else; not so easy, to trust yourself.
For my part -- I want to feel that bright net, I want it there to catch me. I want to believe the pretty things said to my face and pretend the terrible things said behind my back do not exist. Of course they do; as they do for everyone. I do not want to focus on them. I wish to bring into contrast the happiness that is sitting there, knocking on my forehead, peering into my eyes, just waiting, waiting for me to accept it. My hands are full, full of self-torturous recriminations, of a hollow sense of failure, of that undeserving award, dangling from my fingertips.... now I say, just give me time, and I'll watch it fall to the ground. The rest will follow, and I will trust. I will love; not only others, but myself. Because I am worth it.
Now, there is, for many of us, an inherent issue of worthiness. In fact, I'd posit that everyone feels one thing or another on this spectrum. It is no binary choice; some people probably wouldn't think they had an answer until you asked them, and they'd find themselves in the middle somewhere. Others have such a high esteem of self that they fall far on the right, whereas others have no sense of worth at all, and stray down to the left side.
Who decides who deserves love? We all have the capacity to love; does that mean we all have an equivalent capacity to BE loved? Do we requisitely love someone else before we ourselves qualify? Is it that we love ourselves first before others may? Does anyone truly deserve love? Well, of course. Don't we all?
Combine an issue with self-worth with that of deciding everyone, everyone except yourself, deserves love and caring, and you're left with someone whose cracks begin to show quite easily. Someone who feels that, with just a bit more, more effort, more self-sacrifice, more super-hero complex, more being everywhere, everything, to everyone, just a little bit more, then she might eventually be returned a droplet of what she has put forth. Is it not a seed's nature to wither and expend its energy to cause the shoot to grow? To put down roots for the coming plant?
On an outsider's perspective, it is ridiculous to hear someone, particularly someone you care for, claim no worth at all on the basis of being undeserved. If your frame is that everyone deserves love, most of all those whom YOU love (since if they were undeserving, you would not love them), and so how could they possibly not deserve it? Superheroism merely drags the bearer into a cycle of lack and vicious failure; but even this is illusory, for how can a mere human be a superman? For all they give, all they clutch tightly and refuse to allow to fail, they are deserving.
From the insider's perspective, how do you possibly accept this and somehow put aside your overdeveloped sense of self-flagellation to open yourself to others? How does a sensible, rational, emotional person discard that self-doubt and instead allow another's light to weave a net of trust about them? It is easy to trust someone else; not so easy, to trust yourself.
For my part -- I want to feel that bright net, I want it there to catch me. I want to believe the pretty things said to my face and pretend the terrible things said behind my back do not exist. Of course they do; as they do for everyone. I do not want to focus on them. I wish to bring into contrast the happiness that is sitting there, knocking on my forehead, peering into my eyes, just waiting, waiting for me to accept it. My hands are full, full of self-torturous recriminations, of a hollow sense of failure, of that undeserving award, dangling from my fingertips.... now I say, just give me time, and I'll watch it fall to the ground. The rest will follow, and I will trust. I will love; not only others, but myself. Because I am worth it.
15 April 2011
Memory
Who Is Silvia?
Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being helped, inhabits there.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.
William Shakespeare
Who is Sylvia, what is she, that all our swains commend her? (Boy, do they commend her...)
Holy, fair, and wise is she, the heavens such grace did lend her (Brother, you should see what they lent her)
That she might admired be.......
I sang this once upon a memory ago. A favorite poem, altered into an amusing commentary on social maundering.
11 April 2011
It is much too late
Reading, that questing of the mind, suffusing the synaptic connections with purpose and life -- done so late at night as to be nearly morning; it does strange things to me.
I believe my clearest thinking is done in times like these. Also generally my darkest. I have the greatest capacity for humor, intelligence, curiosity, destruction, creation, drive, will, and self-recrimination during the witching hours. I prefer these sorts of undefined, unbound mental spasms to the sliding through the expectations of life wherein I find myself during daylight hours.
Small wonder I choose escapism over reality so often. Perhaps reality is starting to beckon me back. I feel the urge to break something, and these chains with which I bound myself look awfully tempting.
What is too late? What is it to be young, or old? Is it too soon, am I too impulsive? Am I too stubborn? My chains are derived of myself and they are of no moment to anyone else. My fear drives me, and I am beginning to recognize that. This, I must change. Perhaps my sanity, my very life to live, depends on it.
I believe my clearest thinking is done in times like these. Also generally my darkest. I have the greatest capacity for humor, intelligence, curiosity, destruction, creation, drive, will, and self-recrimination during the witching hours. I prefer these sorts of undefined, unbound mental spasms to the sliding through the expectations of life wherein I find myself during daylight hours.
Small wonder I choose escapism over reality so often. Perhaps reality is starting to beckon me back. I feel the urge to break something, and these chains with which I bound myself look awfully tempting.
What is too late? What is it to be young, or old? Is it too soon, am I too impulsive? Am I too stubborn? My chains are derived of myself and they are of no moment to anyone else. My fear drives me, and I am beginning to recognize that. This, I must change. Perhaps my sanity, my very life to live, depends on it.
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