An-yeong-ha-se-yo: Korean Hello. In what was a super-unexpected moment last night, I learned the value of speaking a new language and the difficulty in acquiring that ability. To be perfectly honest, I was on a date with a Korean woman in which one of the rules was, “What you say goes.”
At one point, she said to me: “All right. From now on, I say that you can only speak Korean, and I can only speak in English.”
This semi-ridiculous request is possible only in light of the fact that I have acquired some Korean language skills and sometimes respond to her in Korean.
What I hadn’t realized before this time was that my skills were pretty much limited to the ability to say hello, read a menu, order food, beer and soju, ask how much something was, answer yes or no, and ask somebody “Really?” or "Are you okay?"
The truly coincidental nature of this encounter is that I had just spent the last two hours working on English pronunciation and conversation with a pair of high school students. From a purely technical standpoint, there are four sections to language acquisition: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. I have long considered reading and writing to be the two most integral aspects of language acquisition. This is because when you read, especially out loud, you are reading, speaking and listening. Then, when you start writing, you are officially practicing all four aspects.
The reality is that all four aspects have a certain personality that MUST be respected.
Reading. When I read a menu. I understand what it is I’m ordering. This has been an extremely valuable skill to acquire. Korean food is delicious, and it’s even more delicious when you have some idea of what it is you’re ordering. When I read out loud for a Korean person, I have to repeat things three times because my pronunciation is terrible.
Writing. I can write in Korean characters. As a matter of fact, I can create Korean phonetic equivalents for most English words, and this is extremely valuable for teaching when a student can’t quite understand how to pronounce a word. I could not write a Korean sentence to save my life. I could copy one out of a book, but I couldn’t create one of my own volition.
Listening. I pick up bits and pieces of conversations. This is a naturally occurring phenomenon any time you are immersed in a new language. I know when my Korean teachers are talking about me. I know when they’re talking about the food. In other words, I know what they’re talking about, but I have no idea what they’re SAYING. The cook at my school knows zero English, and she’ll just jabber away to me in Korean, and I know WHAT she’s talking about, but I couldn’t respond to her if I tried.
Speaking. The clang of a shop bell means 안녕. Reading out loud, speaking the words off the menu to order food. Talking to the attendant at the bus station and getting tickets to Oksan. Saying yes or no to the students. I can’t create a Korean sentence. It’s hopeless.
What I’m really getting at here is that the creation of the language is the key to understanding it—and by “it” I mean the language itself. Whether in the context of reading, where your reading out loud is a creation of language audibly. Or when you are writing and creating language that means something above and beyond the simple ability to write the letters or phonemes. Or when you can actively listen and respond. Listening and responding are connected in the same way that the earth and the sky are: you are always on the earth and under the sky (only on very rare occasions is this not the case… which is why climbing a mountain is such a worthy endeavor). Having a conversation and seriously being able to communicate with the language, creating meaning, is the key.
When I come back to Korea for my next contract, acquiring Korean is going to be of the utmost importance. Koreans don’t HAVE to speak English in Korea. If I’m living in Korea, it is rude of me to EXPECT it. The contract I will have with myself is that I will, by the end of next year be able to sustain a conversation in Korean. It’s printed now, and it will come to pass.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Way of
nature. The incredible power of nature was recently re-thrust upon me.
I have been aware of the immense power of the natural for quite some time. As a matter of fact, I remember the first time its immensity was thrust upon me—I was in New Zealand, lost in the bush, surrounded by mountains, and crying because I didn’t know which way to go. Once you have been humbled by nature, even just once, you recognize it, forever afterwards, as the predominant power on the planet.
For example, so much talk these days is revolving around the greenhouse effect and what we’re doing to “destroy” the planet. Nobody seems to think about the fact that all we’re doing is creating an environment that is inhospitable to human life. The planet heats up a few degrees, the polar ice caps melt, there is massive flooding, and the end result is simply that the planet takes a blow.
We cannot stop the earth from rotating. We cannot stop the earth from revolving around the sun. This is the bigger nature that we forget about, I think. In our hubris and naiveté we believe that what we have built is the best part of nature, but the fact of the matter is that almost everything humans have built defies nature. Wal-Mart strikes me as one of the most absolutely nature defying edifices in the world. Convenient or not, it seems slightly unnatural that you can go to a building and get fruits, vegetables, frozen fruits, frozen vegetables, canned fruits, canned vegetables, dried fruits, aerosol cans full of things that smell like fruits, fruit of the loom underwear, fruit decorated wastebaskets, orange hunting vests, berry vine seeds.
Granted, I’m taking a somewhat super-naturalistic point of view in terms of nature. In other words, I’m thinking about it in terms of what I have seen and experienced while spending days in the mountains where it can sometimes be a mission to find the next stream and collect some water. And let me tell you that if you don’t have food with you, finding food in nature can be a painstaking task if you don’t know what you’re doing.
All our most revered structures will collapse one day: the stock market, the government, society, and, eventually, mankind. That is the way of nature when you attempt to control it. It is slow, patient, and willing to take a lot of punishment, but, in the end, it will always manage to overcome.
Futures are perpetually unknowable… this is a fact it isn’t even worth debating any more. So, it is entirely possible that we were meant to develop like this. It is entirely possible that nature pushed us in this direction so that we would destroy ourselves. Perhaps the great wheel of existence saw that this particular creature was pushing the boundaries of goodness and needed to be flexed in a direction that would eventually put it out of the world’s misery. I guess I am thinking here of an enormous tree that looks so strong from the outside, but inside is little more than a hollow, ready to be pushed over by a strong wind.
There are only two options these days: fight the fight against the unfathomable structures of humanity and attempt to get people to turn away from their greed-mongering, stuff accumulation, and (to be frank) comforts—which seems a little bit like attempting to hold the ocean back with a spoon—or suck it all up, squirt it into a drying purulent vein, and pray that the end isn’t too painful. Has it gone too far? Do we still think we can conquer nature? When was the last time you climbed a mountain? What good are guns and bombs against the methodical march of rivers and magma?
I have been aware of the immense power of the natural for quite some time. As a matter of fact, I remember the first time its immensity was thrust upon me—I was in New Zealand, lost in the bush, surrounded by mountains, and crying because I didn’t know which way to go. Once you have been humbled by nature, even just once, you recognize it, forever afterwards, as the predominant power on the planet.
For example, so much talk these days is revolving around the greenhouse effect and what we’re doing to “destroy” the planet. Nobody seems to think about the fact that all we’re doing is creating an environment that is inhospitable to human life. The planet heats up a few degrees, the polar ice caps melt, there is massive flooding, and the end result is simply that the planet takes a blow.
We cannot stop the earth from rotating. We cannot stop the earth from revolving around the sun. This is the bigger nature that we forget about, I think. In our hubris and naiveté we believe that what we have built is the best part of nature, but the fact of the matter is that almost everything humans have built defies nature. Wal-Mart strikes me as one of the most absolutely nature defying edifices in the world. Convenient or not, it seems slightly unnatural that you can go to a building and get fruits, vegetables, frozen fruits, frozen vegetables, canned fruits, canned vegetables, dried fruits, aerosol cans full of things that smell like fruits, fruit of the loom underwear, fruit decorated wastebaskets, orange hunting vests, berry vine seeds.
Granted, I’m taking a somewhat super-naturalistic point of view in terms of nature. In other words, I’m thinking about it in terms of what I have seen and experienced while spending days in the mountains where it can sometimes be a mission to find the next stream and collect some water. And let me tell you that if you don’t have food with you, finding food in nature can be a painstaking task if you don’t know what you’re doing.
All our most revered structures will collapse one day: the stock market, the government, society, and, eventually, mankind. That is the way of nature when you attempt to control it. It is slow, patient, and willing to take a lot of punishment, but, in the end, it will always manage to overcome.
Futures are perpetually unknowable… this is a fact it isn’t even worth debating any more. So, it is entirely possible that we were meant to develop like this. It is entirely possible that nature pushed us in this direction so that we would destroy ourselves. Perhaps the great wheel of existence saw that this particular creature was pushing the boundaries of goodness and needed to be flexed in a direction that would eventually put it out of the world’s misery. I guess I am thinking here of an enormous tree that looks so strong from the outside, but inside is little more than a hollow, ready to be pushed over by a strong wind.
There are only two options these days: fight the fight against the unfathomable structures of humanity and attempt to get people to turn away from their greed-mongering, stuff accumulation, and (to be frank) comforts—which seems a little bit like attempting to hold the ocean back with a spoon—or suck it all up, squirt it into a drying purulent vein, and pray that the end isn’t too painful. Has it gone too far? Do we still think we can conquer nature? When was the last time you climbed a mountain? What good are guns and bombs against the methodical march of rivers and magma?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Everything Looks
huge. And we’re talking here about very nearly gargantuan. There is at least one reason I can cite directly for this, and this is the fact that last weekend, while wandering around in the ocean at the Boryeong Mud Festival in South Korea, a large wave smacked me in the face and in my idiocy I hadn’t taken my glasses off. Well, these things happen.
It should probably be pointed out, here, that I have terrible eyesight. To be technical, my eyes are something like a -8.00—whatever that means. All I know for sure is that without assistance, I literally cannot see one foot in front of my face. Well, the first task was naturally to rectify this whole “inability to see” situation that I had managed to get myself into, and, let me tell you, there was a note of the frantic at first when I remembered that glasses can oftentimes take a little while to get sorted out… days in fact. My last pair, with its Transitions ability, super scratch-resistant coating, and high density lens material had taken a week to construct. As I said to my friend: “They were just super-sweet glasses, man.”
“And now your super-sweet glasses are in the ocean in South Korea.”
Touché, salesman.
At any rate, I then remembered that my life revolves around reading, writing, and teaching. These are three things for which sight is pretty necessary, and tears were almost starting to well up at the thought that I wouldn’t be able to read a book for a week, but the brain does magical things when it’s pushed: contacts. Duh. Optical shops always keep a steady supply of contacts on hand, and it’s as easy as going to one and telling them my prescription (this is a handy little number to memorize by the way).
To make a long story short, we succeeded in finding me some contacts.
I haven’t worn contacts in a while (somewhere between five and ten years—which is pretty significant considering my age), and when I put in these contacts, everything looked enormous. I had a copy of a collection of Martin Heidegger’s works with me, and as I looked at it, I could’ve sworn it wasn’t that big when I had put it into my bag. I looked at my hands, and my friend said, “Oh, don’t even look at the mitts… they might scare you.” And, indeed, they were abnormally large. My shoes, my thighs, my backpack, and my feet had all taken on this extraordinarily massive aspect. Not that this ought to be unusual, because I AM a big man, but, at the same time, this was messing with my mind. When I got home, I looked at my little 13” Macbook, and I could’ve sworn it was just as big as my friends 19” whatever it is.
At first, I thought this was simply some kind of optical illusion involving the proximity of the lens to the eye, and, indeed, this is probably the "being" definition, but what of the "nothingness" definition? Does that question even have a place here?
You see, I am leaving my current situation in Korea very soon. I have done a lot of research. I have almost finished writing a book. And my life is taking on an air of mounting madness. There is madness all around me. My best Korean friend is leaving. His wife and daughter are AWOL. The other Korean teacher at my school is leaving. I get the very distinct feeling of rats leaving a sinking ship. After all this time and all this research and all these happenings and all these adventures I have had: it seems like everything is so significant. Combine that with my belief in the fact that every moment in our life is so significant, and everything being so seemingly huge is probably not too far off the mark, eh? We’re dealing here with the world of my existence being huge (through the miracle of optics) and the world of my reality being huge (through the madness of a life lived in an almost pure spontaneity). What does it all mean?
It should probably be pointed out, here, that I have terrible eyesight. To be technical, my eyes are something like a -8.00—whatever that means. All I know for sure is that without assistance, I literally cannot see one foot in front of my face. Well, the first task was naturally to rectify this whole “inability to see” situation that I had managed to get myself into, and, let me tell you, there was a note of the frantic at first when I remembered that glasses can oftentimes take a little while to get sorted out… days in fact. My last pair, with its Transitions ability, super scratch-resistant coating, and high density lens material had taken a week to construct. As I said to my friend: “They were just super-sweet glasses, man.”
“And now your super-sweet glasses are in the ocean in South Korea.”
Touché, salesman.
At any rate, I then remembered that my life revolves around reading, writing, and teaching. These are three things for which sight is pretty necessary, and tears were almost starting to well up at the thought that I wouldn’t be able to read a book for a week, but the brain does magical things when it’s pushed: contacts. Duh. Optical shops always keep a steady supply of contacts on hand, and it’s as easy as going to one and telling them my prescription (this is a handy little number to memorize by the way).
To make a long story short, we succeeded in finding me some contacts.
I haven’t worn contacts in a while (somewhere between five and ten years—which is pretty significant considering my age), and when I put in these contacts, everything looked enormous. I had a copy of a collection of Martin Heidegger’s works with me, and as I looked at it, I could’ve sworn it wasn’t that big when I had put it into my bag. I looked at my hands, and my friend said, “Oh, don’t even look at the mitts… they might scare you.” And, indeed, they were abnormally large. My shoes, my thighs, my backpack, and my feet had all taken on this extraordinarily massive aspect. Not that this ought to be unusual, because I AM a big man, but, at the same time, this was messing with my mind. When I got home, I looked at my little 13” Macbook, and I could’ve sworn it was just as big as my friends 19” whatever it is.
At first, I thought this was simply some kind of optical illusion involving the proximity of the lens to the eye, and, indeed, this is probably the "being" definition, but what of the "nothingness" definition? Does that question even have a place here?
You see, I am leaving my current situation in Korea very soon. I have done a lot of research. I have almost finished writing a book. And my life is taking on an air of mounting madness. There is madness all around me. My best Korean friend is leaving. His wife and daughter are AWOL. The other Korean teacher at my school is leaving. I get the very distinct feeling of rats leaving a sinking ship. After all this time and all this research and all these happenings and all these adventures I have had: it seems like everything is so significant. Combine that with my belief in the fact that every moment in our life is so significant, and everything being so seemingly huge is probably not too far off the mark, eh? We’re dealing here with the world of my existence being huge (through the miracle of optics) and the world of my reality being huge (through the madness of a life lived in an almost pure spontaneity). What does it all mean?
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
It Is Possible to Say
too much. The thunder outside my window just said plenty. As a matter of fact it startled me. This is why almost every major eastern religion is very big on silence. The other day I made a note to myself that silence is always pregnant. What I mean to say by this is that silence is always, always, always in the state of “about to give birth to sound.” Sound is created out of silence.
This is striking, though, for a number of reasons. Silence is never possible, or, at least, it isn’t sustainable. The only place, technically, that silence can ever occur is inside a vacuum, and human beings cannot survive there. And yet, it is the goal precisely because it is unattainable. Would the sound of gently falling rain (and all that white noise in general) be so soothing if it weren’t for the fact that most of the time there weren’t those sounds? Doubtful, mon cher, very doubtful.
It works the same way in communication and words and language. This is where the beauty of poetry derives its nature from, and why wordiness can be boring. Poetry is the art of saying as much as possible in as little space as possible. That definition might garner some arguers, but I’d stand by it. Even if you take the great epic poems like The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, Beowulf, Paradise Lost, and just about any other, the space that these things are covering is truly beyond comprehension.
The terseness of William Carlos Williams, is perhaps a good juxtaposition:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
The thing is this: when in the midst of silence, I and I alone pull out the meaning. What does Williams mean by that “so much depends upon” business anyway? It doesn’t really matter what he meant by it. His silence on the meaning is the license to subjectify. Or what is the real significance of Homer’s Catologue of Ships in The Iliad. Art is a thing thinging. Silence is nothingness nothing.
(Sometimes I get playful with the language, and I’m well aware of my excesses in this department.)
I want to know what it is possible to NOT say, and the more I experiment, the more I come to find that you can NOT say almost more than you can say. This is art. What is a painting but a two-dimensional representation of something else? Ah, but it means. What does it mean? Barely matters. It’s not saying anything technically. And yet it is by its simple presence. Just like me. Just like you. We are all things thinging.
I’m working on brevity these days. Stopping the word flow just when it’s necessary. Otherwise I wind up waking up to way too much watered-down matter. It is the rainy season in Korea, and I suppose you CAN have too much of a good thing, but, so far, the falling rain saying things to me hasn’t yet grown old.
This is striking, though, for a number of reasons. Silence is never possible, or, at least, it isn’t sustainable. The only place, technically, that silence can ever occur is inside a vacuum, and human beings cannot survive there. And yet, it is the goal precisely because it is unattainable. Would the sound of gently falling rain (and all that white noise in general) be so soothing if it weren’t for the fact that most of the time there weren’t those sounds? Doubtful, mon cher, very doubtful.
It works the same way in communication and words and language. This is where the beauty of poetry derives its nature from, and why wordiness can be boring. Poetry is the art of saying as much as possible in as little space as possible. That definition might garner some arguers, but I’d stand by it. Even if you take the great epic poems like The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, Beowulf, Paradise Lost, and just about any other, the space that these things are covering is truly beyond comprehension.
The terseness of William Carlos Williams, is perhaps a good juxtaposition:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
The thing is this: when in the midst of silence, I and I alone pull out the meaning. What does Williams mean by that “so much depends upon” business anyway? It doesn’t really matter what he meant by it. His silence on the meaning is the license to subjectify. Or what is the real significance of Homer’s Catologue of Ships in The Iliad. Art is a thing thinging. Silence is nothingness nothing.
(Sometimes I get playful with the language, and I’m well aware of my excesses in this department.)
I want to know what it is possible to NOT say, and the more I experiment, the more I come to find that you can NOT say almost more than you can say. This is art. What is a painting but a two-dimensional representation of something else? Ah, but it means. What does it mean? Barely matters. It’s not saying anything technically. And yet it is by its simple presence. Just like me. Just like you. We are all things thinging.
I’m working on brevity these days. Stopping the word flow just when it’s necessary. Otherwise I wind up waking up to way too much watered-down matter. It is the rainy season in Korea, and I suppose you CAN have too much of a good thing, but, so far, the falling rain saying things to me hasn’t yet grown old.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
A Few Notes from My Reality
Today I went for a run, and I decided that instead of heading in the direction I normally head in, I’d go the opposite way and run it in the other direction. The spirit of adventure will always lead to discovery, and I discovered that the opposite direction to what I had been going was at least a third again more difficult than my traditional route. It is important to know that I live about halfway up what would probably be most appropriately described as a foothill, the first part of my run is always downhill, and it concludes with running uphill. Normally I head east first, turn to the north, make a left and head west, and finish it off with a southwardly sprint the last fifty or a hundred meters up to my apartment. It turns out that the “westward ho!” portion of my run—which is the longest uphill portion of my traditional run—is the shortest portion of what I think is about three 3k (let’s call it 1). So, today, I ran 1k downhill, then proceeded to run for almost 2k uphill. I learned something. I learned that sometimes, when you choose a different path, it might wind up being more difficult; however, you’ll never know unless you take it.
This has been something of a theme for my reality. I have a tendency to find paths and wander down them fully understanding that there is a possibility it might be more difficult, but, simultaneously, finding it very difficult to care. Shying away from difficulty has never been my style. My style, as a matter of fact, would probably be best characterized as somewhat reckless, but only to a point.
Today, I managed to get one quarter of the way through memorizing Pablo Neruda’s “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair,” and all I keep thinking is that the more I dive into these poems and wrap my head around them, the deeper my understanding becomes. Only the other day did the realization that this work was doing more than it claimed to do cross the threshold of my mind. It is mapping the arc of a relationship. The first poem is like love at first sight: body of woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world lying in surrender. Over the course of the next nineteen poems, the passion transforms itself into something else, until, by the twentieth poem, when he knows it’s over, he writes: tonight I can write the saddest lines—all of which is followed (after the "official" ending of the relationship) by the "Song of Despair." Now, I am an English major by trade, and I probably should’ve picked that up long before this, but I had never actually sat down read them all through before. I used to just open it up to whatever I felt like and read it because they were all so beautiful, but now that I understand his project, I read it with new eyes.
The eventual failure of all romantic concepts of love is ever-present in the work, and that is the reason for despair. The other day, I was talking to my Korean co-teacher and she said that she married her husband fifteen years ago and it was great. They loved each other and it was incredible. Now, after fifteen years, two children, and the effects of time there is no love left. Those were her exact words: “there is no love left… only duty.” That is what becomes of love. It turns into habit and duty. It is my job to be with this person. Romance and passion will always, always fade. It is our lot to deal with this reality.
Habit has been an interesting topic of conversation lately. Tonight, during the course of teaching my adult students how to speak English, I gave them the topic: tell me three bad habits you have and three ways to change or stop them. I gave them mine to begin with: forgetfulness, going, and not listening to doctor’s directions. As to the first one, my methods for changing or stopping it were: practice (like my memorization of Neruda’s book), mnemonic devices, and playing memory games (which is a little like practice, but not quite AS focused). To stop going would be very difficult for me. I find myself every day, as I mentioned, wandering down new paths, but I gave them these three methods to attempt a change: watch more TV (I have what would best be described as a near-passionate-hatred for the thing because people get into the habit of watching too much of it and they have to be there for their shows or whatever… I don’t understand it), sleep more (I have a tendency to sleep for six to eight hours no matter what or when—even if I’ve had a heavy night of “socializing” the night before and all logic would point to sleeping forever… I’ll be up in six hours and doing work), and (as my student suggested) get married. As for listening to doctor’s advice: get married (the same student suggested it), almost die more frequently (that’d sort me out), and have children (for obvious reasons). What is really interesting to me is that when it was their turn, they could give me their bad habits, but they all said that it was impossible to break them. That was almost the saddest thing I’d ever heard. When a revolution of the mind and body is not possible, is there life? Or, are you just living out of habit? The thought actually terrified me: the life lived purely out of habit.
I recently committed Facebook suicide. For those who’ve been in a coma for the last 5 years, Facebook is an “online social networking utility” that allows you to stay connected to all your friends, all over the world, simply by joining and finding them. From personal experience, it is a pretty incredible thing. I have lived in some fairly out of the way places and done some fairly out-of-the-way things, and it was always nice to log in to Facebook and find my friends and see what they were up to. Through a friend I found out that I couldn’t quit Facebook (and their are political reasons that we won't go into right now). This always rubs me the wrong way—like when I was running an overnight crew for a big company and it seemed as if I couldn’t quit… until I did. Tell me I can’t do something, and I’m at least going to attempt to do it, right? It has more to do with the challenge than anything else.
Anyway, the fact that you can only “de-activate” your account (like pushing pause) but never quit the thing aside, there was also the curiosity that started to well up in me about what life would be like without Facebook. I have been on Facebook since my university days in 2004 when the thing was brand new. When I mentioned on my Facebook account that I was quitting, I got one response that said, “That’s just stupid. I don’t believe you.” Some people can’t imagine their world without Facebook. I CAN imagine it, and I wanted to see what life would be like without it. It’s been a week now, and I’ve noticed a serious lack of clutter in my email inbox (they send you notifications about almost anything unless you do the work of requesting them not to), about an hour of my day back every day, a day less cluttered with sifting through people's ridiculous "status updates," and a feeling of freedom that I think I had been missing. It’s too easy is the problem. Nobody wants to do the work that’s required for actually maintaining a friendship relationship. But if you’re up for it… send me an email: elijtaylor@gmail.com. Or, better yet, send me an actual address and I'll write you a letter.
This has been something of a theme for my reality. I have a tendency to find paths and wander down them fully understanding that there is a possibility it might be more difficult, but, simultaneously, finding it very difficult to care. Shying away from difficulty has never been my style. My style, as a matter of fact, would probably be best characterized as somewhat reckless, but only to a point.
Today, I managed to get one quarter of the way through memorizing Pablo Neruda’s “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair,” and all I keep thinking is that the more I dive into these poems and wrap my head around them, the deeper my understanding becomes. Only the other day did the realization that this work was doing more than it claimed to do cross the threshold of my mind. It is mapping the arc of a relationship. The first poem is like love at first sight: body of woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world lying in surrender. Over the course of the next nineteen poems, the passion transforms itself into something else, until, by the twentieth poem, when he knows it’s over, he writes: tonight I can write the saddest lines—all of which is followed (after the "official" ending of the relationship) by the "Song of Despair." Now, I am an English major by trade, and I probably should’ve picked that up long before this, but I had never actually sat down read them all through before. I used to just open it up to whatever I felt like and read it because they were all so beautiful, but now that I understand his project, I read it with new eyes.
The eventual failure of all romantic concepts of love is ever-present in the work, and that is the reason for despair. The other day, I was talking to my Korean co-teacher and she said that she married her husband fifteen years ago and it was great. They loved each other and it was incredible. Now, after fifteen years, two children, and the effects of time there is no love left. Those were her exact words: “there is no love left… only duty.” That is what becomes of love. It turns into habit and duty. It is my job to be with this person. Romance and passion will always, always fade. It is our lot to deal with this reality.
Habit has been an interesting topic of conversation lately. Tonight, during the course of teaching my adult students how to speak English, I gave them the topic: tell me three bad habits you have and three ways to change or stop them. I gave them mine to begin with: forgetfulness, going, and not listening to doctor’s directions. As to the first one, my methods for changing or stopping it were: practice (like my memorization of Neruda’s book), mnemonic devices, and playing memory games (which is a little like practice, but not quite AS focused). To stop going would be very difficult for me. I find myself every day, as I mentioned, wandering down new paths, but I gave them these three methods to attempt a change: watch more TV (I have what would best be described as a near-passionate-hatred for the thing because people get into the habit of watching too much of it and they have to be there for their shows or whatever… I don’t understand it), sleep more (I have a tendency to sleep for six to eight hours no matter what or when—even if I’ve had a heavy night of “socializing” the night before and all logic would point to sleeping forever… I’ll be up in six hours and doing work), and (as my student suggested) get married. As for listening to doctor’s advice: get married (the same student suggested it), almost die more frequently (that’d sort me out), and have children (for obvious reasons). What is really interesting to me is that when it was their turn, they could give me their bad habits, but they all said that it was impossible to break them. That was almost the saddest thing I’d ever heard. When a revolution of the mind and body is not possible, is there life? Or, are you just living out of habit? The thought actually terrified me: the life lived purely out of habit.
I recently committed Facebook suicide. For those who’ve been in a coma for the last 5 years, Facebook is an “online social networking utility” that allows you to stay connected to all your friends, all over the world, simply by joining and finding them. From personal experience, it is a pretty incredible thing. I have lived in some fairly out of the way places and done some fairly out-of-the-way things, and it was always nice to log in to Facebook and find my friends and see what they were up to. Through a friend I found out that I couldn’t quit Facebook (and their are political reasons that we won't go into right now). This always rubs me the wrong way—like when I was running an overnight crew for a big company and it seemed as if I couldn’t quit… until I did. Tell me I can’t do something, and I’m at least going to attempt to do it, right? It has more to do with the challenge than anything else.
Anyway, the fact that you can only “de-activate” your account (like pushing pause) but never quit the thing aside, there was also the curiosity that started to well up in me about what life would be like without Facebook. I have been on Facebook since my university days in 2004 when the thing was brand new. When I mentioned on my Facebook account that I was quitting, I got one response that said, “That’s just stupid. I don’t believe you.” Some people can’t imagine their world without Facebook. I CAN imagine it, and I wanted to see what life would be like without it. It’s been a week now, and I’ve noticed a serious lack of clutter in my email inbox (they send you notifications about almost anything unless you do the work of requesting them not to), about an hour of my day back every day, a day less cluttered with sifting through people's ridiculous "status updates," and a feeling of freedom that I think I had been missing. It’s too easy is the problem. Nobody wants to do the work that’s required for actually maintaining a friendship relationship. But if you’re up for it… send me an email: elijtaylor@gmail.com. Or, better yet, send me an actual address and I'll write you a letter.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Radical Subjectivity
Okay, I have realized it: I have a “type” of movie that I like. It has nothing to do with comedy or drama or sports or anything of that nature. I like movies (and books, and articles, and stories) about radical subjectivity.
Case and point: three of my favorite movies are: Themroc, Can Dialectics Break Bricks, and Pierrot le Fou. For those who are not familiar with these three films, allow me to explain what I mean.
Themroc is a fascinating little French film in which the only really distinguishable word in the entire film is yelled by the main character at the beginning: “Themroc! Themroc!” The rest of the film's meaning is conveyed in that classic writer's way of “showing” not “telling”—probably one of the reasons I am drawn to it. The story, as such, is about a man who has had enough of not owning the means of his own production, quits his job, and becomes a radical subject. He affects others as they realize their own subjectivity. The film ends on two high notes. The next to last scene, Themroc comes down from the world he has created for himself because he’s hungry, and he comes back with two police officers which he and the family across the way (people his radical subjectivity has affected) roast on spits and eat—a delicious metaphor for “the revolution” if I do say so myself… teehee. Then, the police have had enough. They haven’t been able to get him down, and finally they send up a bricklayer to block off the world of the Radical Subjectivity. Themroc brings the bricklayer into his world (with a couple of the women who have wanted a taste of his radical subjectivity) and the movie ends in a fairly wild orgy. In short… Themroc. Watch it.
Can Dialectics Break Bricks is a bit more radically in your face with the propaganda, but once that’s waded through, you’re left with an absolutely brilliant film. The film itself is a Korean tae-kwon-do film; however, some French guys decided to detourn (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm) the film and give it a slightly different angle. The humor comes from the classic karate movie aspect in which there is the good dojo (in this case the dialecticians) and the bad dojo (in this case the bureaucrats... “The bureaucrats are coming! The bureaucrats are coming!”) In short, it is a hilarious little movie about how the weaker, poorer, dialecticians overcome the bureaucrats. The real twist is that there is a “radical subject” amongst everybody who sits outside the dialecticians because he understand that the only way to truly get through what they’re trying to work through is by confronting it face to face—he actually has a meeting with the bureaucrats and says, “Let’s talk about it!” whereas the “dialecticians” only want to talk amongst themselves. It is essentially the post-Marxist understanding that it is only through confrontation of the issues in a non-violent way that a start can be made. Violence might have its place, but only as a final resort when the bureaucrats are tired of being made fun of and defeated by the words. Awesome. Awesome. “Dialectician” is one of my all-time favorite characters in film.
Pierrot le Fou is a little bit different, if only because it’s a love story. Now, the question might be asked, “How can a love story about two people be about radical subjectivity?” The answer is, of course, that love is a subjective phenomenon. This subject has been taken up numerous times over the course of this blog and need not be re-hashed here, but, needless to say, understand that love is a very personal, subjective type of situation and you’ll understand fully what I mean. Pierrot is the French “stock-character” of a sad clown whose love is bound to leave him for the happy clown. Pierrot is the name applied to the main character (whose name is Ferdinand) by his love. He hates the name. He leaves his wife and children for his love. They live a completely unconventional life: after stealing a car, Ferdinand is playing with the steering, explaining that they could go anywhere, but never really going that far, and his love says, “Look at him, forced to stay between the lines.” At this point, Ferdinand says, “Really,” and proceeds to jump the curb and drive the car into the ocean. They get out and walk along the beach as if nothing happened. He eventually kills himself, after shooting his love, by painting his face blue and wrapping dynamite around his head.
I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and he told me that he and his wife had planned to move to England in a year and half and volunteer—he spent a year in Wales after university helping disabled people (he has some kind of certificate). Right now, both he and his wife have stable jobs, but neither is really doing what they want to do. They have no kids. They are simply going through the motions, so they decided.
I just found out that my cousin, a former executive in a very small publishing firm, has decided to give up his position in order to go make cheese from the milk of goats... in Poland. I want to simply write that sentence again: I just found out that my cousin, a former executive in a very small publishing firm, has decided to give up his position in order to go make cheese from the milk of goats… in Poland.
I just found out that my best friend, who has been attempting to get a visa to go live with his wife in England—they met in New York City through me: I met her in Australia and went to high school with him—has recently had his visa application approved and will be moving to jolly old England in a couple of months (he had twice attempted to assault the gates of the home of queueing and crumpets but had been unsuccessful).
I, myself, will be heading back to the USA after a year in Korea only to come back to Korea (Busan) while I pay of some debts that accumulated over years of spendthriftiness, after which time I plan to join the Peace Corps and either spend two years in the South Pacific learning how to farm or in South America learning the same, and after that I plan to volunteer to go teach English in Africa—I will be then have been on six of the seven continents… DAMN YOU ANTARCTICA!
The crux of this whole argument, and the thing that most people don’t understand (REALLY understand), is that, while your dreams might not include traveling the globe and doing whatever wherever: you can do anything. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! Good god almighty how empowering is that?
(One minor note here, if you have children, please think of them first… the next generation needs to be protected.)
But if you have no children, and you’re unhappy, then freakin' Go somewhere else. Do something else. Be someone else. Stop whining. The only one stopping you is you.
Case and point: three of my favorite movies are: Themroc, Can Dialectics Break Bricks, and Pierrot le Fou. For those who are not familiar with these three films, allow me to explain what I mean.
Themroc is a fascinating little French film in which the only really distinguishable word in the entire film is yelled by the main character at the beginning: “Themroc! Themroc!” The rest of the film's meaning is conveyed in that classic writer's way of “showing” not “telling”—probably one of the reasons I am drawn to it. The story, as such, is about a man who has had enough of not owning the means of his own production, quits his job, and becomes a radical subject. He affects others as they realize their own subjectivity. The film ends on two high notes. The next to last scene, Themroc comes down from the world he has created for himself because he’s hungry, and he comes back with two police officers which he and the family across the way (people his radical subjectivity has affected) roast on spits and eat—a delicious metaphor for “the revolution” if I do say so myself… teehee. Then, the police have had enough. They haven’t been able to get him down, and finally they send up a bricklayer to block off the world of the Radical Subjectivity. Themroc brings the bricklayer into his world (with a couple of the women who have wanted a taste of his radical subjectivity) and the movie ends in a fairly wild orgy. In short… Themroc. Watch it.
Can Dialectics Break Bricks is a bit more radically in your face with the propaganda, but once that’s waded through, you’re left with an absolutely brilliant film. The film itself is a Korean tae-kwon-do film; however, some French guys decided to detourn (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/detourn.htm) the film and give it a slightly different angle. The humor comes from the classic karate movie aspect in which there is the good dojo (in this case the dialecticians) and the bad dojo (in this case the bureaucrats... “The bureaucrats are coming! The bureaucrats are coming!”) In short, it is a hilarious little movie about how the weaker, poorer, dialecticians overcome the bureaucrats. The real twist is that there is a “radical subject” amongst everybody who sits outside the dialecticians because he understand that the only way to truly get through what they’re trying to work through is by confronting it face to face—he actually has a meeting with the bureaucrats and says, “Let’s talk about it!” whereas the “dialecticians” only want to talk amongst themselves. It is essentially the post-Marxist understanding that it is only through confrontation of the issues in a non-violent way that a start can be made. Violence might have its place, but only as a final resort when the bureaucrats are tired of being made fun of and defeated by the words. Awesome. Awesome. “Dialectician” is one of my all-time favorite characters in film.
Pierrot le Fou is a little bit different, if only because it’s a love story. Now, the question might be asked, “How can a love story about two people be about radical subjectivity?” The answer is, of course, that love is a subjective phenomenon. This subject has been taken up numerous times over the course of this blog and need not be re-hashed here, but, needless to say, understand that love is a very personal, subjective type of situation and you’ll understand fully what I mean. Pierrot is the French “stock-character” of a sad clown whose love is bound to leave him for the happy clown. Pierrot is the name applied to the main character (whose name is Ferdinand) by his love. He hates the name. He leaves his wife and children for his love. They live a completely unconventional life: after stealing a car, Ferdinand is playing with the steering, explaining that they could go anywhere, but never really going that far, and his love says, “Look at him, forced to stay between the lines.” At this point, Ferdinand says, “Really,” and proceeds to jump the curb and drive the car into the ocean. They get out and walk along the beach as if nothing happened. He eventually kills himself, after shooting his love, by painting his face blue and wrapping dynamite around his head.
I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and he told me that he and his wife had planned to move to England in a year and half and volunteer—he spent a year in Wales after university helping disabled people (he has some kind of certificate). Right now, both he and his wife have stable jobs, but neither is really doing what they want to do. They have no kids. They are simply going through the motions, so they decided.
I just found out that my cousin, a former executive in a very small publishing firm, has decided to give up his position in order to go make cheese from the milk of goats... in Poland. I want to simply write that sentence again: I just found out that my cousin, a former executive in a very small publishing firm, has decided to give up his position in order to go make cheese from the milk of goats… in Poland.
I just found out that my best friend, who has been attempting to get a visa to go live with his wife in England—they met in New York City through me: I met her in Australia and went to high school with him—has recently had his visa application approved and will be moving to jolly old England in a couple of months (he had twice attempted to assault the gates of the home of queueing and crumpets but had been unsuccessful).
I, myself, will be heading back to the USA after a year in Korea only to come back to Korea (Busan) while I pay of some debts that accumulated over years of spendthriftiness, after which time I plan to join the Peace Corps and either spend two years in the South Pacific learning how to farm or in South America learning the same, and after that I plan to volunteer to go teach English in Africa—I will be then have been on six of the seven continents… DAMN YOU ANTARCTICA!
The crux of this whole argument, and the thing that most people don’t understand (REALLY understand), is that, while your dreams might not include traveling the globe and doing whatever wherever: you can do anything. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! Good god almighty how empowering is that?
(One minor note here, if you have children, please think of them first… the next generation needs to be protected.)
But if you have no children, and you’re unhappy, then freakin' Go somewhere else. Do something else. Be someone else. Stop whining. The only one stopping you is you.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Vibes
Sometimes I feel the universe at an unnatural level, or maybe I’m just projecting. Lately I’ve been attempting to distinguish between what is meant by existence and reality. There are probably many definitions, but the way I tend to distinguish them is to say that existence is based on presence or occurrence of something in a particular place or a situation and reality is more of a psychological state (I suppose I’m borrowing from Lacan here). In other words, that which exists is that which takes up space in the perceptible world or is subject to being experienced by the five senses: touch, smell, see, taste, and hear. In this sense, we could say that a book exists, my body exists, that awful smell coming from the sewer, and that dog I hear across the park all exist. Sight is a huge one here, because the things we are able to see with our own eyes make a big impression on us. Combine that sight with touch, and we’re talking about something with a lot of “existence”—especially in this definition of the term. That which is real, then, would be anything that we could say to be “feeling”—emotions, pain, etc. Love would be the most poignant example of something that is real. Love is real, it is undeniable, and it must be dealt with in your world.
It gets a little bit sticky here, because when I say something like, “God doesn’t exist,” I am by no means saying that God isn’t real. I’m saying that he doesn’t have an existence in the sense that I can go up and touch him. When, in the case of, say, a book, its existence is verifiable tactilely. In the same turn, it is possible to say that God is real. God exists as a psychological state that can be “felt.” Love is the same way. You can touch the manifestation of love (i.e. the object of your love as he/she is spooning with you), but there is no way to touch “love.” What does love look like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? The problem with existence is that it changes for everybody, and this is because everybody’s existence is individual. You might think that reality is the same; however, the interesting thing about it is that because the structures of consciousness do not change from human to human, the real can “feel” more real than anything in existence. This is why love and religion are so powerful.
Most of the time when we experience something that is “real” (most prominently love and religion), what we are experiencing is the structures of consciousness taking over. In part, this is why it is such a wonderfully diverse experience: everything we experience that is associated with the experience is sent from the sensuous experience with the world (the existence) and it then passes through consciousness where it takes on hues that perhaps weren’t there technically, colors seem to pop up out of nowhere. Sunsets are suddenly more beautiful because they are experienced with this “other.” Lazy mornings in bed are all the more perfect. Church services are all the more meaningful. These are all forms of worship in the consciousness. Then, after consciousness, it is reflected into the sub-consciousness where it takes on even further signification. In a way, it’s like a game of telephone that the mind plays with itself. There’s the immediate significance of being there with the person, the sensuous experience. Then, there’s the conscious experience that amplifies (or diminishes) it. Next, there’s the sub-conscious chewing of it into a cud where the original is almost completely lost, but there is the lasting ball of something-or-other that leaves the delicious taste in our mouth. Finally, the reflected reflection is reflected once again into the spirit, where it is something that is felt in terms of the universal. This is where the experience that was so immediate becomes something beyond significant, it becomes a part of the fabric of who I am. It becomes me. That’s the power of the real in terms of the mind. It takes the immediate, the present, and anchors it in the self so that it is a kind of perpetual present, because I am that moment.
It is very tempting to set existence and reality at odds with one another. It is very tempting to say that you should attempt to be inside more than you should be inside the other, that you should trust one more than you should trust the other. On the one hand, the “present” of existence is entirely verifiable because of its sensuousness. I can pick up this coffee cup. I can hear my feet crunching on the trail as I walk. I can touch the bark of this tree. I can see the sun shining on the lake. I can smell the garlic and onions cooking in the pan. I can taste the flavor explosion in my mouth. These are the delicious experiences that make up my existence. The real, on the other hand, being nothing more than a psychological state, is unverifiable from a sensory perspective. But how many stories are there of people “feeling” god moving them in a particular direction, in the present, that changed their entire life? How many people experience the reality of present love that changes their life?
The thing about it all is that the mind is kind of in control of everything. All right, I should amend that statement and say that the brain is in control of everything. There is no way to fight the structures of the consciousness. We all have them. They are observable and have been observable for a very long time. In a way, you could call them a fact of life. Love is real. God is real. While they are still individually determined in terms of the “how” these things are experience, their possibility of reality is consistent. Perhaps that’s the difference: reality also contains the realm of possibility, whereas existence does not.
I have been told that I will never be able to love and that I have never been “in love.” From a personal perspective, I think this is perhaps a bit harsh to yours truly. As a matter of fact, I would say that love has been one of the driving forces of my entire existence; however, this is neither here nor there because love is a personal experience of the conscious experience of being with another person. What I mean to say is that perhaps why it might sometimes seem that my love is something other than love is because it exists in this realm of incredible possibility. Reality is not static. Reality is infused with the flavor of possibility, of nutty eternity, of mad infinity, and it only follows that love, at least in my experience of it, ought to be infused with the same flavors.
(For some reason I feel it necessary here to clarify that this eternity and infinity is not the same as “’til death do us part.” That is a lifetime. I’m talking about the possibilities of experience the reality of existence now.)
We’re combining the head the heart I suppose. We ARE both of them anyway.
It is entirely possible that, in this life I am leading, and with these views I’m holding, I will wind up cold and alone and stranded in solitude. I ask too much. I know.
It has also been my experience that there are certain things to compromise: the color of a room, when to go out, what to have for dinner, etc, etc, all the things that don’t actually matter in other words. When it comes to the state of the existence and the reality of possibility, it best not to compromise. Be now, with the understanding that rapid change is always possible. I never know what tomorrow brings. It is a blessing and curse. It is a consistent adventure, but it is also quite scary. My mom said to me yesterday, “Nothing you do surprises me anymore.” Across the world? Have fun. You did what? Wow. Who knows? In the infinite, eternal, present existence exists the reality of possibility.
It gets a little bit sticky here, because when I say something like, “God doesn’t exist,” I am by no means saying that God isn’t real. I’m saying that he doesn’t have an existence in the sense that I can go up and touch him. When, in the case of, say, a book, its existence is verifiable tactilely. In the same turn, it is possible to say that God is real. God exists as a psychological state that can be “felt.” Love is the same way. You can touch the manifestation of love (i.e. the object of your love as he/she is spooning with you), but there is no way to touch “love.” What does love look like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? The problem with existence is that it changes for everybody, and this is because everybody’s existence is individual. You might think that reality is the same; however, the interesting thing about it is that because the structures of consciousness do not change from human to human, the real can “feel” more real than anything in existence. This is why love and religion are so powerful.
Most of the time when we experience something that is “real” (most prominently love and religion), what we are experiencing is the structures of consciousness taking over. In part, this is why it is such a wonderfully diverse experience: everything we experience that is associated with the experience is sent from the sensuous experience with the world (the existence) and it then passes through consciousness where it takes on hues that perhaps weren’t there technically, colors seem to pop up out of nowhere. Sunsets are suddenly more beautiful because they are experienced with this “other.” Lazy mornings in bed are all the more perfect. Church services are all the more meaningful. These are all forms of worship in the consciousness. Then, after consciousness, it is reflected into the sub-consciousness where it takes on even further signification. In a way, it’s like a game of telephone that the mind plays with itself. There’s the immediate significance of being there with the person, the sensuous experience. Then, there’s the conscious experience that amplifies (or diminishes) it. Next, there’s the sub-conscious chewing of it into a cud where the original is almost completely lost, but there is the lasting ball of something-or-other that leaves the delicious taste in our mouth. Finally, the reflected reflection is reflected once again into the spirit, where it is something that is felt in terms of the universal. This is where the experience that was so immediate becomes something beyond significant, it becomes a part of the fabric of who I am. It becomes me. That’s the power of the real in terms of the mind. It takes the immediate, the present, and anchors it in the self so that it is a kind of perpetual present, because I am that moment.
It is very tempting to set existence and reality at odds with one another. It is very tempting to say that you should attempt to be inside more than you should be inside the other, that you should trust one more than you should trust the other. On the one hand, the “present” of existence is entirely verifiable because of its sensuousness. I can pick up this coffee cup. I can hear my feet crunching on the trail as I walk. I can touch the bark of this tree. I can see the sun shining on the lake. I can smell the garlic and onions cooking in the pan. I can taste the flavor explosion in my mouth. These are the delicious experiences that make up my existence. The real, on the other hand, being nothing more than a psychological state, is unverifiable from a sensory perspective. But how many stories are there of people “feeling” god moving them in a particular direction, in the present, that changed their entire life? How many people experience the reality of present love that changes their life?
The thing about it all is that the mind is kind of in control of everything. All right, I should amend that statement and say that the brain is in control of everything. There is no way to fight the structures of the consciousness. We all have them. They are observable and have been observable for a very long time. In a way, you could call them a fact of life. Love is real. God is real. While they are still individually determined in terms of the “how” these things are experience, their possibility of reality is consistent. Perhaps that’s the difference: reality also contains the realm of possibility, whereas existence does not.
I have been told that I will never be able to love and that I have never been “in love.” From a personal perspective, I think this is perhaps a bit harsh to yours truly. As a matter of fact, I would say that love has been one of the driving forces of my entire existence; however, this is neither here nor there because love is a personal experience of the conscious experience of being with another person. What I mean to say is that perhaps why it might sometimes seem that my love is something other than love is because it exists in this realm of incredible possibility. Reality is not static. Reality is infused with the flavor of possibility, of nutty eternity, of mad infinity, and it only follows that love, at least in my experience of it, ought to be infused with the same flavors.
(For some reason I feel it necessary here to clarify that this eternity and infinity is not the same as “’til death do us part.” That is a lifetime. I’m talking about the possibilities of experience the reality of existence now.)
We’re combining the head the heart I suppose. We ARE both of them anyway.
It is entirely possible that, in this life I am leading, and with these views I’m holding, I will wind up cold and alone and stranded in solitude. I ask too much. I know.
It has also been my experience that there are certain things to compromise: the color of a room, when to go out, what to have for dinner, etc, etc, all the things that don’t actually matter in other words. When it comes to the state of the existence and the reality of possibility, it best not to compromise. Be now, with the understanding that rapid change is always possible. I never know what tomorrow brings. It is a blessing and curse. It is a consistent adventure, but it is also quite scary. My mom said to me yesterday, “Nothing you do surprises me anymore.” Across the world? Have fun. You did what? Wow. Who knows? In the infinite, eternal, present existence exists the reality of possibility.
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