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
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Documentation
Things written recently:
“I am re-entering the USA. I am less than thirty minutes from American soil, and my heart is racing.
New York City… goddamnit. I’m back. For a week.
Claire on Wednesday.
Patrick on Thrusday.
I think I will take Caroline her Pee-Wee.
We are very done.
I can see it.
I’m shaking right now. Why?
I don’t think I want to be here. I’m pretty sure that American is not my home anymore. The world between my ears and the joy in my heart are officially my new permanent residences. Just as my job is now (quite simply) a writer, my home is (quite simply) wherever the words are that I am.
Good-bye to angst-ridden questions of where I ought to live. Wherever I find myself, that’s where I’m supposed to be.
Funny that I make that already clear distinction right now. Keep in mind that one can never know the future.
Do your year in Korea again. You must, must, must.
What now? What comes next?
Last night at the Ramble Inn, they brought out a guitar. Why is it that when I start to play, the people are happy, or (as it happened at the Jisan Valley Rock Festival) wind up sitting behind you on the hill, clapping for you, and sitting through an entire impromptu set only leaving when you stop playing?
Ah… stupid question. Change: “What is it about my performance?”
Perhaps there is something there isn’t there? The key, now, is to find a way to make a living out of it. On the road? On Tour? You can do it my boy. You can do it. Rock and Roll!”
Written after Seeing You
Seeing you well
makes my heart
quake.
Can you ever know,
really, what you
meant.
You and I, we were
not meant to
be,
and yet we, yes we,
were something to
mean
that for which forever
was built to
stand.
What does that mean?
We, as in us, isn’t
a thing we can make
real,
and yet we, as a
thing that cannot
be,
some ways manages
to mean more
universally.
You were perfect for me at that time;
and I would be a fool to resent it.
Isn’t this what you wanted, really.
Cautious leap of faith into skills.
“Would that it were a home
instead of a house,” one might say.
Interlocutor reply,
“But a house IS a home,”
“Explain yourself,”
and the like.
Thusly to the breach, we fly!
A well-flung phrase,
a thrust of wit,
and the game dances itself
across its own hardwood floor.
Who thought these things?
Who thought into him?
All pieces of game,
all the smackings of might,
suffer a neophyte learner
to sink ever more and ever more
into my being with
__________________________.
“I am re-entering the USA. I am less than thirty minutes from American soil, and my heart is racing.
New York City… goddamnit. I’m back. For a week.
Claire on Wednesday.
Patrick on Thrusday.
I think I will take Caroline her Pee-Wee.
We are very done.
I can see it.
I’m shaking right now. Why?
I don’t think I want to be here. I’m pretty sure that American is not my home anymore. The world between my ears and the joy in my heart are officially my new permanent residences. Just as my job is now (quite simply) a writer, my home is (quite simply) wherever the words are that I am.
Good-bye to angst-ridden questions of where I ought to live. Wherever I find myself, that’s where I’m supposed to be.
Funny that I make that already clear distinction right now. Keep in mind that one can never know the future.
Do your year in Korea again. You must, must, must.
What now? What comes next?
Last night at the Ramble Inn, they brought out a guitar. Why is it that when I start to play, the people are happy, or (as it happened at the Jisan Valley Rock Festival) wind up sitting behind you on the hill, clapping for you, and sitting through an entire impromptu set only leaving when you stop playing?
Ah… stupid question. Change: “What is it about my performance?”
Perhaps there is something there isn’t there? The key, now, is to find a way to make a living out of it. On the road? On Tour? You can do it my boy. You can do it. Rock and Roll!”
Written after Seeing You
Seeing you well
makes my heart
quake.
Can you ever know,
really, what you
meant.
You and I, we were
not meant to
be,
and yet we, yes we,
were something to
mean
that for which forever
was built to
stand.
What does that mean?
We, as in us, isn’t
a thing we can make
real,
and yet we, as a
thing that cannot
be,
some ways manages
to mean more
universally.
You were perfect for me at that time;
and I would be a fool to resent it.
Isn’t this what you wanted, really.
Cautious leap of faith into skills.
“Would that it were a home
instead of a house,” one might say.
Interlocutor reply,
“But a house IS a home,”
“Explain yourself,”
and the like.
Thusly to the breach, we fly!
A well-flung phrase,
a thrust of wit,
and the game dances itself
across its own hardwood floor.
Who thought these things?
Who thought into him?
All pieces of game,
all the smackings of might,
suffer a neophyte learner
to sink ever more and ever more
into my being with
__________________________.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
It Feels So Good
to write. Bob Dylan coming softly through the speakers, a cat napping gently in the early hours of a London morning, and me interrupting it with the sounds of keyboard clicks and thoughts manifesting themselves. I am extremely comfortable here.
I have been in London for five days now, and, somehow, I’ve already managed to find a kind of equilibrium with the world around me that reveals itself in the smile of an existence hell-bent on fully existing.
I’ve been watching the wheel of time as it moves here. You see, I’m visiting friends, but that’s not exactly accurate. I’m visiting a part of my heart? No. I’m visiting a part of myself that is external to me. That’s probably closest, but the exactitude I’m looking for doesn’t actually exist. The reality of my situation is thus: after leaving Korea, I am staying at a girl’s house that I met in Australia. She is married. She is married to a friend of mine that I met in high school. She is Italian and studying to be a doctor in London. My friend has just entered a biodynamic farming school under the tutelage of students of the Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophy. They met in New York City when she came to visit me. I watched them fall in love.
The sheer number of things that had to come together to make this thing even a remote possibility numbs my mind, but here I am inside it and writing about it, which feels good, and I’m simply enjoying the reality of being inside something that smacks of significance. These things don’t just happen. These things are uncommon. As a matter of fact, as I was explicating my theory that it feels like we are all moving towards something even greater (she and he and I and another and his significant other), she said to me, “But you also make that decision.” Hell yes we do. Somewhere along the line you have to look at your situation, realize it’s unique, and seek to find a way to perpetuate the uniqueness almost indefinitely. This is difficult thing to do, especially when you understand the nature of time and space, because all things change and pass away. Nothing is truly static. However, there has to be a way to incorporate that reality into the nature of the thing that you’re trying to develop, and when it is genuinely incorporated, what’s to stop you from metaphorically ruling the world? (Even if it is only your small chunk of the world.)
Ah, well, we’re wandering into spaces that can’t be comprehended right there and it’s probably best if we reign everything in and start talking about the whats and hows of the present, huh?
I am unemployed again, and feeling like the universe is waiting for something, somewhere, to send me to the most appropriate place. I have discovered that in my life there is only so much control I can exert over my reality. At one level this seems like a bit of a bummer because everybody wants to believe that they can control their reality; however, the fact of the matter is that because man is a social being, there is only so much control that he can exert over his reality. He can desire. He can yearn. But, most of the time, he will always find himself at the whims of others. Even your super-wealthy aristocrats are reliant on those they would oppress. Without the lower classes, your quantity of money would be worthless. That’s a bit abstract, to be sure, but any time you’re dealing with money you’re dealing with metaphorical value, never actual value.
I wonder if anybody has ever considered that money is a little bit like language? Surely somewhere along the line has looked at money and decided that this bit of money is sufficient to describe my desire to purchase this object, much as this word is sufficient to describe this thing or this desire. Money would have to be a derivative of language. It has the same structure.
Speaking of structures (and I fully realize that this post is bordering on SUPER-random, but we’re dealing with consciousness diarrhea right now), I have been thinking about how the generally three-fold structure of existence that I have heretofore acknowledged might have a fourth-fold. All right, it comes from Heidegger, and that’s as it may be, but when we look at it objectively without the hullabaloo surrounding him, he might be onto something really important. The structure of human reality as I have previously said it to be is generally something in the realm of the mind and the body and the spirit. These are just terms and you can just as easily substitute consciousness, physicality, and spirit. I found that I generally found that I would then have to mention that consciousness is then split into the general consciousness of sensual awareness and the sub-conscious of body and mind processes that we don’t “think” about. Heidegger cleared this up for me with his development of the four-fold: earth and sky and mortals and divinities. Mortals would be the physical. This is our body. We die. That’s a part of it all. The earth and the sky are the two levels of consciousness. We are always on the earth. We are always inside a world of sensual awareness. However, we are also always under the sky, and this is something we forget. In other words, we are always inside the world of consciousness, but we are also under the rule of a sub-consciousness that is there but generally forgotten about. The divinities would be the world of the spiritual that is clearly undeniable in existence.
I will say it clearly, right here, right now:
I don’t like religion. Attempting to regulate something so organic is akin to the travesty that is Genetic Engineering in plants. I know that cloning and genetic engineering is abhorrent to most of the religious community, but when I look at what they’re doing to the spirit, it’s largely the same but in a different realm, engineering something to fit around something they can’t understand, when they ought to allow themselves to not understand.
All that being said, I see the spirit of the universe in almost everything when you take the time to notice it. The other day, walking around a farm, I saw a patch of five flowers that had sprouted up out of the ground. It wasn’t a garden. It was surrounded by grass all over the place, but there were these five flowers that decided they would grow right there and bugger all those that told them otherwise. That meant something to me. That seemed to wreak of the spiritual. Today, I’m going to walk the south bank of the Thames and visit the Globe Theatre, a spiritual quest for me to be sure.
I have been in London for five days now, and, somehow, I’ve already managed to find a kind of equilibrium with the world around me that reveals itself in the smile of an existence hell-bent on fully existing.
I’ve been watching the wheel of time as it moves here. You see, I’m visiting friends, but that’s not exactly accurate. I’m visiting a part of my heart? No. I’m visiting a part of myself that is external to me. That’s probably closest, but the exactitude I’m looking for doesn’t actually exist. The reality of my situation is thus: after leaving Korea, I am staying at a girl’s house that I met in Australia. She is married. She is married to a friend of mine that I met in high school. She is Italian and studying to be a doctor in London. My friend has just entered a biodynamic farming school under the tutelage of students of the Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophy. They met in New York City when she came to visit me. I watched them fall in love.
The sheer number of things that had to come together to make this thing even a remote possibility numbs my mind, but here I am inside it and writing about it, which feels good, and I’m simply enjoying the reality of being inside something that smacks of significance. These things don’t just happen. These things are uncommon. As a matter of fact, as I was explicating my theory that it feels like we are all moving towards something even greater (she and he and I and another and his significant other), she said to me, “But you also make that decision.” Hell yes we do. Somewhere along the line you have to look at your situation, realize it’s unique, and seek to find a way to perpetuate the uniqueness almost indefinitely. This is difficult thing to do, especially when you understand the nature of time and space, because all things change and pass away. Nothing is truly static. However, there has to be a way to incorporate that reality into the nature of the thing that you’re trying to develop, and when it is genuinely incorporated, what’s to stop you from metaphorically ruling the world? (Even if it is only your small chunk of the world.)
Ah, well, we’re wandering into spaces that can’t be comprehended right there and it’s probably best if we reign everything in and start talking about the whats and hows of the present, huh?
I am unemployed again, and feeling like the universe is waiting for something, somewhere, to send me to the most appropriate place. I have discovered that in my life there is only so much control I can exert over my reality. At one level this seems like a bit of a bummer because everybody wants to believe that they can control their reality; however, the fact of the matter is that because man is a social being, there is only so much control that he can exert over his reality. He can desire. He can yearn. But, most of the time, he will always find himself at the whims of others. Even your super-wealthy aristocrats are reliant on those they would oppress. Without the lower classes, your quantity of money would be worthless. That’s a bit abstract, to be sure, but any time you’re dealing with money you’re dealing with metaphorical value, never actual value.
I wonder if anybody has ever considered that money is a little bit like language? Surely somewhere along the line has looked at money and decided that this bit of money is sufficient to describe my desire to purchase this object, much as this word is sufficient to describe this thing or this desire. Money would have to be a derivative of language. It has the same structure.
Speaking of structures (and I fully realize that this post is bordering on SUPER-random, but we’re dealing with consciousness diarrhea right now), I have been thinking about how the generally three-fold structure of existence that I have heretofore acknowledged might have a fourth-fold. All right, it comes from Heidegger, and that’s as it may be, but when we look at it objectively without the hullabaloo surrounding him, he might be onto something really important. The structure of human reality as I have previously said it to be is generally something in the realm of the mind and the body and the spirit. These are just terms and you can just as easily substitute consciousness, physicality, and spirit. I found that I generally found that I would then have to mention that consciousness is then split into the general consciousness of sensual awareness and the sub-conscious of body and mind processes that we don’t “think” about. Heidegger cleared this up for me with his development of the four-fold: earth and sky and mortals and divinities. Mortals would be the physical. This is our body. We die. That’s a part of it all. The earth and the sky are the two levels of consciousness. We are always on the earth. We are always inside a world of sensual awareness. However, we are also always under the sky, and this is something we forget. In other words, we are always inside the world of consciousness, but we are also under the rule of a sub-consciousness that is there but generally forgotten about. The divinities would be the world of the spiritual that is clearly undeniable in existence.
I will say it clearly, right here, right now:
I don’t like religion. Attempting to regulate something so organic is akin to the travesty that is Genetic Engineering in plants. I know that cloning and genetic engineering is abhorrent to most of the religious community, but when I look at what they’re doing to the spirit, it’s largely the same but in a different realm, engineering something to fit around something they can’t understand, when they ought to allow themselves to not understand.
All that being said, I see the spirit of the universe in almost everything when you take the time to notice it. The other day, walking around a farm, I saw a patch of five flowers that had sprouted up out of the ground. It wasn’t a garden. It was surrounded by grass all over the place, but there were these five flowers that decided they would grow right there and bugger all those that told them otherwise. That meant something to me. That seemed to wreak of the spiritual. Today, I’m going to walk the south bank of the Thames and visit the Globe Theatre, a spiritual quest for me to be sure.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
I’ve Never Been Good
with good-byes. I find myself, now, at yet another crossroads where I must begin again on another road. Words that mean the world to me:
This spring, I am going to set off on the road again.
I have been staying here about as long as I am meant to,
so now I think it is time to find a new place to reside.
When ascetics stay in one place for a long time,
they begin to languish, stuck in a mire of sloth and inertia.
I want to embark on a new path, like an eternal beginner,
clumsily starting all over again from the beginning.
--Beop Jeong
While it is nearly Autumn, I find that it is time for me to be somewhere else.
It has been an absolutely incredible year. The places I’ve gone, the things I’ve done, the people I’ve met and all the other things “I” have been granted the opportunity to experience seems to somehow pale in comparison with the knowledge that I DID these things.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that for the last year, what I am most proud of, is the fact that I attempted as completely as possible to embody the idea of genuine action. Human beings are about the only creatures on the planet that can make conscious decisions without being entirely hampered with those… instincts. We have language. That, in itself, allows for jobs and occupations. We have money. For all of its metaphorical reality, it allows us leisure time—which is why Aristotle says that the truly good life involves having at least some money. The issue that, I believe, most people run into is the ontological use of this time: what am I to do with it?
The most common medication for free time is television. I don’t like television. Full stop. You see, it’s not that I don’t like it because of its “mindless entertainment” value. It’s not even that it can be used as a kind of hegemonic indoctrination tool—although this aspect is quite terrifying. It is precisely that what we have worked so hard for, and by that I mean what the pinnacle of humanity has been striving for (i.e. leisure time that sets us outside the realm of animalism) has come to nothing more than staring at a box of moving pictures.
This all smacks of time. Time can be a blessing or a curse. When we are at our leisure, time is a blessing. When we are at our work, it is a curse. Time is precious. I’m through asking why time is or who invented (although I would say that “I” make time). I’m through with all of that. That fact of the matter is that time IS, and our only real task is to ensure that this gift is used appropriately.
So, when I see that humanity is slowly trending toward sedentary mindless submission to hegemony, it makes me feel good that while people are watching their favorite shows in their dark houses illuminated only by the TV screen, I have been out amongst the world, wondering at the way the light manages to make it through the tops of the trees, throwing myself in giant puddles of mud, wandering through clouds at the top of mountains, listening to Korea reggae bands at an abandoned ski resort, visiting forty meter tall Buddhas carved on the side of a mountain, eating pajeon and drinking mokoley, bathing in one of the largest bath houses in the world, eating that raw fish that was so disgusting when I was a child, watching sunrises and sunsets thirty-six hours apart, memorizing books, writing books, and, generally, just doing.
It is ironic that I, as a writer, put very little stock in people’s words—and this applies probably most rigidly to my own words. I find that action will always eclipse what people say. For example, for my last weekend in Korea, I decided to go somewhere I had never been before. There’s a city called Taean, a not-too-large city on the west coast of Korea. South of Taean, there’s a city called Anmyeon-do, which is essentially a hole in the ground. South of Anmyeon-do, in the middle of I don’t even know where is where I was. My friends said they were coming with me. I left earlier than them because I was meeting the girl I’ve been seeing, and they were going to come later.
They said they were coming. Getting to where I was from where they were was a huge mission. It took me almost five hours, and they were leaving almost five hours after I did. They came. They did what they said they were going to do. I celebrated my last weekend in Korea with the people that actually cared enough to do something real with me. I’ve been to so many going away parties that it actually makes me sick. Oh, they’re always fun affairs to attend, but they’re also usually always too superficial for my taste. What I had on the beach, eating barbecued shellfish with the people I cared about most in Korea meant more to me than almost anything. But that’s always been my style I suppose. I would trade depth for superficiality any day of the week.
What am I saying good-bye, too? I find myself not knowing the answer to this question. I know I’m saying good-bye to my current place, and the people as I have known them will change immensely by the time I get back. I’m saying good-bye to the comfort of the known and once again traveling into the breach of the unknown. Where things are up in the air and I am at a loss for understanding, somehow feels like the place most appropriate for my existence.
I don’t know. I will maintain that until I pass out of this realm. Who’s to say about life? Who’s to say about time? I will certainly not be the one so arrogant as to proclaim that can know. Knowing now the things than can happen in one year, in one day, in one hour, and in one minute of an existence genuinely lived moves us ever closer to the complete acceptance of ignorance… in a good way.
So, good-bye to whatever it is that I need to say good-bye to, and hello to the beginning of what’s next. Ah, conclusions, they’re always so inconclusive, huh?
This spring, I am going to set off on the road again.
I have been staying here about as long as I am meant to,
so now I think it is time to find a new place to reside.
When ascetics stay in one place for a long time,
they begin to languish, stuck in a mire of sloth and inertia.
I want to embark on a new path, like an eternal beginner,
clumsily starting all over again from the beginning.
--Beop Jeong
While it is nearly Autumn, I find that it is time for me to be somewhere else.
It has been an absolutely incredible year. The places I’ve gone, the things I’ve done, the people I’ve met and all the other things “I” have been granted the opportunity to experience seems to somehow pale in comparison with the knowledge that I DID these things.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that for the last year, what I am most proud of, is the fact that I attempted as completely as possible to embody the idea of genuine action. Human beings are about the only creatures on the planet that can make conscious decisions without being entirely hampered with those… instincts. We have language. That, in itself, allows for jobs and occupations. We have money. For all of its metaphorical reality, it allows us leisure time—which is why Aristotle says that the truly good life involves having at least some money. The issue that, I believe, most people run into is the ontological use of this time: what am I to do with it?
The most common medication for free time is television. I don’t like television. Full stop. You see, it’s not that I don’t like it because of its “mindless entertainment” value. It’s not even that it can be used as a kind of hegemonic indoctrination tool—although this aspect is quite terrifying. It is precisely that what we have worked so hard for, and by that I mean what the pinnacle of humanity has been striving for (i.e. leisure time that sets us outside the realm of animalism) has come to nothing more than staring at a box of moving pictures.
This all smacks of time. Time can be a blessing or a curse. When we are at our leisure, time is a blessing. When we are at our work, it is a curse. Time is precious. I’m through asking why time is or who invented (although I would say that “I” make time). I’m through with all of that. That fact of the matter is that time IS, and our only real task is to ensure that this gift is used appropriately.
So, when I see that humanity is slowly trending toward sedentary mindless submission to hegemony, it makes me feel good that while people are watching their favorite shows in their dark houses illuminated only by the TV screen, I have been out amongst the world, wondering at the way the light manages to make it through the tops of the trees, throwing myself in giant puddles of mud, wandering through clouds at the top of mountains, listening to Korea reggae bands at an abandoned ski resort, visiting forty meter tall Buddhas carved on the side of a mountain, eating pajeon and drinking mokoley, bathing in one of the largest bath houses in the world, eating that raw fish that was so disgusting when I was a child, watching sunrises and sunsets thirty-six hours apart, memorizing books, writing books, and, generally, just doing.
It is ironic that I, as a writer, put very little stock in people’s words—and this applies probably most rigidly to my own words. I find that action will always eclipse what people say. For example, for my last weekend in Korea, I decided to go somewhere I had never been before. There’s a city called Taean, a not-too-large city on the west coast of Korea. South of Taean, there’s a city called Anmyeon-do, which is essentially a hole in the ground. South of Anmyeon-do, in the middle of I don’t even know where is where I was. My friends said they were coming with me. I left earlier than them because I was meeting the girl I’ve been seeing, and they were going to come later.
They said they were coming. Getting to where I was from where they were was a huge mission. It took me almost five hours, and they were leaving almost five hours after I did. They came. They did what they said they were going to do. I celebrated my last weekend in Korea with the people that actually cared enough to do something real with me. I’ve been to so many going away parties that it actually makes me sick. Oh, they’re always fun affairs to attend, but they’re also usually always too superficial for my taste. What I had on the beach, eating barbecued shellfish with the people I cared about most in Korea meant more to me than almost anything. But that’s always been my style I suppose. I would trade depth for superficiality any day of the week.
What am I saying good-bye, too? I find myself not knowing the answer to this question. I know I’m saying good-bye to my current place, and the people as I have known them will change immensely by the time I get back. I’m saying good-bye to the comfort of the known and once again traveling into the breach of the unknown. Where things are up in the air and I am at a loss for understanding, somehow feels like the place most appropriate for my existence.
I don’t know. I will maintain that until I pass out of this realm. Who’s to say about life? Who’s to say about time? I will certainly not be the one so arrogant as to proclaim that can know. Knowing now the things than can happen in one year, in one day, in one hour, and in one minute of an existence genuinely lived moves us ever closer to the complete acceptance of ignorance… in a good way.
So, good-bye to whatever it is that I need to say good-bye to, and hello to the beginning of what’s next. Ah, conclusions, they’re always so inconclusive, huh?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Language.
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.
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.
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?
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