Some times are strange—note the intentional gap. Yes, I believe that there is power in some times.
I just realized that my hands are reflected upside down in the shiny part of the middle of my computer speakers, and visual oddities always make me do a double take. It’s absolutely stunning the power that seeing something can have.
Recently, I started edited a work that I wrote last year, and it’s funny to see it again. It’s very much a snap shot of a very strange time in a fellow’s life.
The thoughts fly so rapidly at times that it is simply absurd to try to lock them down. Answer this question for me: what do you do with all of your down time? When you have nothing to do, what do you do?
Would it be possible for somebody to convince you that if you simply focused on constantly being productive in the here and now that you would manage to get one helluva lot accomplished?
Would it take the example of an entire life?
Sobeit.
Maybe that’s my goal. What is possible in a life? The other day I read a story about Nikola Tesla that said he averaged two hours of sleep a day and lived until he was eighty-something years old. Granted, he was a bit of a freak, but do some math:
22 hours every day * 365 days a year * 65 years (for example) = 521950 hours
16 hours every day * 365 days a year * 65 years = 379600
Tesla essentially lived twice as much as other people. Who needs sleep? Oh, well, I suppose that if you’re okay with murmuring to yourself and not being able to control the physical self when the mental self takes over, then you’ll be fine.
There has to be some kind of balance, right? Maybe that’s what all that eight hours a night business is all about. I have found that six hours is more than enough for me on just about any given night. Eight hours sometimes makes me groggy. I know a lot of people that manage to sleep for ten or twelve hours, and I can only EVER manage that with aid of some kind.
Is it some kind of subliminal training we put ourselves through?
For the last couple of days, I have walked to work and found myself on the verge of tears. Usually there is a song playing on the iPod that I connect with something I can’t connect to at the moment, and all that disconnection brings tears. It means a time so profound some little while ago, and yet I think…
Creating meaning. People can’t take away the things that mean to you. Did you know that? You, yes you. The reason most academic papers say to shy away from the pronoun “you” when writing is that it becomes to personal almost immediately. The consciousness, the psyche, is so absolutely terrified of being addressed directly (and believe me when I say this happens much less frequently than you probably realize) and seen for what it is (nothingness), that it is jarring to find that word in print. It is even more jarring when the you is connected to something that makes you feel. Have you ever been hurt? Have you ever been loved and left? Do you remember the one you loved? Today, I had one of the moments where I ran into a thing you wouldn’t believe. You are simply reading along, and all of a sudden, you stumble across yourself in between the lines on page. You were an asshole at that time and you know it. There is no going back to change it, but every time you go there it brings the tears to your eyes. Can you believe the things you did? Can you believe the things you said? It brings tears to your eyes now as you think about it. You have to believe that you made all the right decisions, because, essentially, you did. Who’s to say you didn’t? You did what you had to do. There is a certainty you know who you are. Or are you the one who felt the searing pain of dislocation? Were you the one who felt like your arms were being ripped out of your sides and your legs were being ripped off of your body? Were you the one whose time was suddenly wasted? You still loved. You still felt. The carpet was pulled out from under you and you were left naked and alone in the depths of psychological despair. You re-live the pain of every smile you thought was so genuine, but now feels so genuinely false. You re-live the hurt of every joyous moment in their arms when you go back into your memory. You tell yourself that wasn’t what you want. You put a gigantic psychological band-aid on and move into the world a new person. You were to many scars as it is. Why can’t you ever pull yourself out of the past? Why can’t you stop the perpetual onslaught of the bleakness of the future? There is weariness in your gait. There comes a time when you probably ought to stop asking questions and start answering them, but that time is difficult to assess. Do you know what’s going on right now? I, which is to say, the author, am subjecting my sub-conscious to an evacuation. I don’t even actually know what this is about, but the fingers are furious at something and they fly more quickly than I can keep up with. Yet, I still know when I end sentences in prepositions. …-the Fuck? We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the dessert, when you came to mind, and I played your song. Who are you? Do you even know? And we’re back to questions again. Sometimes I have intense delusions about people coming back to my work after years and years and years and having to collate and bind all of these words into some kind of manageable whole. Blogging is very much like masturbation. But what if it actually winds up meaning something. I know for a damned sight that if I were to go back through these bastards I would probably have some kind of mental shock that would ruin my system for at least a week. The overload would be palpable. I have hereby written almost one thousand one hundred words in almost exactly twenty-five minutes. I’m officially too lazy to do the math on that. But it comes down the fact that some times are meant for disposal, and what better way to dispose of oneself than to create meaning, because that is something I have done here. Whether or not it’s a decent meaning or an important meaning or a loving meaning or a worthless meaning is secondary to the fact that it is meaning. Does it mean to you? Perhaps, perhaps not. Some times are not for you. Some times are reserved for me and me alone. You know, I only started these words because I needed some time to charge up the iPod for the journey I plan to take to Home Plus so I can return a sheet that is the incorrect size and buy: water, gin, and olives—I have grown beyond the need for vermouth. Just chill the goddamned gin and serve it to me in a cocktail glass please. In another random note, I’ve been learning some Korean lately—which is important when you understand that Korea is my current residence—and I can officially say, “Hello. My name is Eli” in Korean. Oh, it’s the small battles that are sometimes the biggest. Oh, to be there and alive in that corner of time in the world. Could you ask for anything more? Welcome to the world of my in-sink-er-ator. This time it’s for you to make meaning from.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Fantasy Letters to Famous People
Volume I:
Brandon Boyd
Dear Brandon~
As we have not ever met, I hope you don’t mind the familiarity of the first name greeting, but I have recently gotten the premonition that we will eventually meet under seemingly happenstance. The whys and wherefores of the meeting are not exactly important, but the fact of the matter is that I think we have something to say to each other. What that thing is I can’t say, but I feel as though you have something to say to me that can only be said face to face, and I feel that there is some piece of wisdom that I can impart to you. We will only know it when it happens.
Does it seem strange to feel so certain? Perhaps it ought to, but I also feel as though it doesn’t matter if the premonition ever comes to fruition, because, in a way, I am meeting you here in these words.
I remember my late teens and early twenties being something of an “All-Incubus-all-the-time” kind of ridiculousness. There was something that made me gravitate towards the pain in SCIENCE, the activity in Make Yourself, and the dawn in Morning View. That has been my journey, too.
I also want you to know that while this volume of words is addressed to you specifically, it by no means means to exclude the band. You see, what I didn’t understand at the time, and something I understand only slightly more now, is the organic nature of the music and the words. Mike and Jose and Brandon form the core of something that manages to speak. Oh, there are a lot of people that don’t like your band. Hell, there are a lot of people that don’t like everything… it’s a bit like cancer: you can get it from everything these days.
The danger is suddenly very apparent that this is wandering into one of those pointless hero-worship fan letters written by a fourteen year old girl, which is by no means the intention. What I think you all have come to understand in your lives is that it is possible to develop the human character. The arc of your musical accomplishments and undertakings is something that smacks of in development. There are methods to develop the mind—and I would imagine that you are all great students of not only your instruments, but your minds and characters.
Do you read a lot? I read a ton: Aristotle, Joyce, Proust, Tzu, Zizek, Epictetus, Sartre, Hegel, Dostoyevsky, and Rudolf Steiner all have a place on the spectrum of things that matter to me. It’s not about taking their words and believing them, it’s about applying them to the character. One of the things Rudolf Steiner believed was that the soul or the spirit existed outside the body (as opposed to inside it). Just think about the potential ramifications of something like that. Don't judge it. Let it be. But think about it. There are so many things, but what do they mean? It’s important to give up ever actually finding out. There is no answer.
The answer would ruin it. The answer would fuck everything up. Without questions there can be no development. It’s the question that was put into place. Whether you believe in god or Buddha or Jesus as the son of god or Shiva or Zeus, the function of god is to provide people, not with an answer as is so widely assumed, but with the question. There is a very famous line from a very famous book that says that if there were no god it would be necessary to invent him. (In an unrelated note, if you’ve never read “The Brothers Karamazov,” it’s worth the time and effort.) It would be necessary to invent him precisely because of the fact that people need to have the question. What I see in the music of the band is precisely this type of development that comes from asking the right questions.
One of my many personal aphorisms is that I learned to read in High School, in college I learned to ask questions, and while studying more intently at grad school, I learned how to ask good questions. To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about EXACTLY what I learned, and this is probably because I have never had a brain for facts. My focus is simple truth. Facts feed the brain. Truth feeds the soul. And there are far fewer truths than there are facts, but I find the sustenance of truth to surpass the sweetness of facts. Facts are the fat group on the food pyramid. Maybe it’s because their illusion as fact is built into them. They are a fact because we want to believe in it. It is a fact that there are twelve inches in one foot, but only on earth does that fact matter even one iota, and there is a lot of universe out there. Facts are a might arbitrary to me. I don’t even think I could tell you one truth. I feel them. I know them when I see them. But I couldn’t tell you one. There are things I think I know, but one of those things I think I know is that there is always wiggle room in the things we think we know.
All that’s left is the understanding that the total development of the human character ought to be our only focus. We don’t even really know for sure what is possible in the human character (and I suddenly feel like I should explain that when I use the term “character” I mean the mental (cognitive), emotional, and spiritual aspects of humans), but I feel instinctively that if we only spend our life doing it, we’ll come to understand nothing—which I think ought to be the goal. When we understand, we stop questioning, don’t we?
I would like to sit and play a writing game with you, I would like to play guitar with Mike, I would like to drum circle with Jose, and I would like to sit and break bread with you all. One of the other things I think I know is that things tend to happen exactly as they’re supposed to, and really shouldn’t happen any other way. To fight the universe is to lose a fight.
It was nice to have met you. I’m currently teaching English in Korea. If you’re ever in the area, look me up.
Peace
Love &
Gonzo
Eli
Brandon Boyd
Dear Brandon~
As we have not ever met, I hope you don’t mind the familiarity of the first name greeting, but I have recently gotten the premonition that we will eventually meet under seemingly happenstance. The whys and wherefores of the meeting are not exactly important, but the fact of the matter is that I think we have something to say to each other. What that thing is I can’t say, but I feel as though you have something to say to me that can only be said face to face, and I feel that there is some piece of wisdom that I can impart to you. We will only know it when it happens.
Does it seem strange to feel so certain? Perhaps it ought to, but I also feel as though it doesn’t matter if the premonition ever comes to fruition, because, in a way, I am meeting you here in these words.
I remember my late teens and early twenties being something of an “All-Incubus-all-the-time” kind of ridiculousness. There was something that made me gravitate towards the pain in SCIENCE, the activity in Make Yourself, and the dawn in Morning View. That has been my journey, too.
I also want you to know that while this volume of words is addressed to you specifically, it by no means means to exclude the band. You see, what I didn’t understand at the time, and something I understand only slightly more now, is the organic nature of the music and the words. Mike and Jose and Brandon form the core of something that manages to speak. Oh, there are a lot of people that don’t like your band. Hell, there are a lot of people that don’t like everything… it’s a bit like cancer: you can get it from everything these days.
The danger is suddenly very apparent that this is wandering into one of those pointless hero-worship fan letters written by a fourteen year old girl, which is by no means the intention. What I think you all have come to understand in your lives is that it is possible to develop the human character. The arc of your musical accomplishments and undertakings is something that smacks of in development. There are methods to develop the mind—and I would imagine that you are all great students of not only your instruments, but your minds and characters.
Do you read a lot? I read a ton: Aristotle, Joyce, Proust, Tzu, Zizek, Epictetus, Sartre, Hegel, Dostoyevsky, and Rudolf Steiner all have a place on the spectrum of things that matter to me. It’s not about taking their words and believing them, it’s about applying them to the character. One of the things Rudolf Steiner believed was that the soul or the spirit existed outside the body (as opposed to inside it). Just think about the potential ramifications of something like that. Don't judge it. Let it be. But think about it. There are so many things, but what do they mean? It’s important to give up ever actually finding out. There is no answer.
The answer would ruin it. The answer would fuck everything up. Without questions there can be no development. It’s the question that was put into place. Whether you believe in god or Buddha or Jesus as the son of god or Shiva or Zeus, the function of god is to provide people, not with an answer as is so widely assumed, but with the question. There is a very famous line from a very famous book that says that if there were no god it would be necessary to invent him. (In an unrelated note, if you’ve never read “The Brothers Karamazov,” it’s worth the time and effort.) It would be necessary to invent him precisely because of the fact that people need to have the question. What I see in the music of the band is precisely this type of development that comes from asking the right questions.
One of my many personal aphorisms is that I learned to read in High School, in college I learned to ask questions, and while studying more intently at grad school, I learned how to ask good questions. To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about EXACTLY what I learned, and this is probably because I have never had a brain for facts. My focus is simple truth. Facts feed the brain. Truth feeds the soul. And there are far fewer truths than there are facts, but I find the sustenance of truth to surpass the sweetness of facts. Facts are the fat group on the food pyramid. Maybe it’s because their illusion as fact is built into them. They are a fact because we want to believe in it. It is a fact that there are twelve inches in one foot, but only on earth does that fact matter even one iota, and there is a lot of universe out there. Facts are a might arbitrary to me. I don’t even think I could tell you one truth. I feel them. I know them when I see them. But I couldn’t tell you one. There are things I think I know, but one of those things I think I know is that there is always wiggle room in the things we think we know.
All that’s left is the understanding that the total development of the human character ought to be our only focus. We don’t even really know for sure what is possible in the human character (and I suddenly feel like I should explain that when I use the term “character” I mean the mental (cognitive), emotional, and spiritual aspects of humans), but I feel instinctively that if we only spend our life doing it, we’ll come to understand nothing—which I think ought to be the goal. When we understand, we stop questioning, don’t we?
I would like to sit and play a writing game with you, I would like to play guitar with Mike, I would like to drum circle with Jose, and I would like to sit and break bread with you all. One of the other things I think I know is that things tend to happen exactly as they’re supposed to, and really shouldn’t happen any other way. To fight the universe is to lose a fight.
It was nice to have met you. I’m currently teaching English in Korea. If you’re ever in the area, look me up.
Peace
Love &
Gonzo
Eli
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