2+2=5

on 1984 by George Orwell for my Civil Resistance class, Prauge

--Two Minutes Hate--building people up to be as angry as possible, encouraging agression and teaching violence and bigotry. it's easier than people would suspect to attack the rational and appreciative part of peoples' minds with blind rage. how important, though, to channel and control that emotion so that it isn't turned in the wrong direction. it's difficult to control thoughtcrime.
--Children--raised by the state and not by their parents. but what are their parents other than agents of the state? frightening, though, that not even homes can remain out of the state's control. the kids were out of the sphere of independent thought or morality that could possibly come from their parents. off-colour and biased slogans. violence. hate in droves. sneakiness. that's absolutely disgusting.
"There was a link of understanding between them, more important than affection or partisanship."
--Family--his family, as a child, had the virtue of being united for no reason other than love. Rearden (in Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged') damned that quality in his own familial relationships. but we see the parsons and their children devoid of any family ties. is that what we want?
--Logic & Absolutes--they create their own reality but we already know that isn't possible (right, Frank?). so what are we going to call this altered reality? a lie. and there isn't any tangible way to prove it, but the universe keeps record of its dealings. there is logic and there is a truth, and somebody knows it. but when anyone can claim absolute knowledge of something, who knows who actually has authority to say their version of the truth? facts are subjective. dos there exist any tangible record of Caesar but his words?
--Words & Thoughts--the purpose of words is to express oneself. the puspose of lots of words is to express oneself well. there is no need for words if people don't have thoughts, and the less people think, the less words are necessary, and so the less people know how to think because words aren't even available to them, in a gigantic circle that will end in Newspeak, which is nospeak.
--Speaking--what are the words that we hear? what are the words that we say? it is possible to speak but not actually be saying a single thing: the man who's face one cannot remember, the man who has no eyes. and some people say too much eve, if they're right: Rearden said things that people would prefer to be kept quiet--people didn't want things to be said because they didn't want them to be so obvious. he would have been silenced by Newspeak. but he wouldn't have kept quiet. thankfully.
--Agreement/Consent--damn them, they who nod in agreement to save their own skins, even against the vilest evil possible. wouldn't you rather be dead than live like that?! why don't they fight against it? but what can they do, really, sacrifice themselves for nothing? but how do they fight? i would rather sacrifice myself, not for the cause, but because i wouldn't be able to live like that. for them, there is something tangible that they're betraying by NOT saying. but what about for us, and our battle that is much more subtle? what things are we allowing by our mere acceptance of 'the way things are'?
--Sex and Love--the Party condemns it as an evil. but what about it is evil? the attachment, maybe, or the loyalty. but they suppress their sexual desire, i think in order to kill any desire and passion and individuality and preference and whatever else. so every time we suppress our desires, does that mean we're dying inside?
"I understand HOW: I do not understand WHY."
--Logic & Absolutes (cont.)--the knowledge of some distant piece of evidence (not memory but EVIDENCE) was enough to shake the lie. even if the lie is all around, you know you're not lying in your own mind when there is tangible proof to back it up.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
--Logic & Absolutes (cont.)--absolutes follow logic and reason and real existence. we must hold onto that.
--Perception-- the proles only see/remember little things, so are useless when trying to make an analysis or reach an understanding about anything as a whole. the Party members only see/remember the big picture, and can't even look at anything close enough to see its true nature.

how perfectly awful.

if nothing else, communism and fascism and dictatorship brought about really brilliant literature.

the conclusion is coming

part 7

3. they latched onto that sad smile like it was all they had left. in some ways, it was. it's funny how sometimes we have to play act for the things we love: pretending through our tears that everything is the same. we do it for their sake, we say, to keep them going. but mostly we do it for ours. because when every last shred of dignity is invested in the maintenance of that one thing, we cannot afford to realize that we blinked a second too long and now everything is different. devastated, even. so we laugh too loud and talk too much and smile too wide to pretend away the obvious destruction of the thing we hold most dear. because when it finally is gone, there's nothing to do but start plotting out our own burial patches.
4. somehow, i have never loved an animal. or i can't remember back to a time when i did. and so the theory that animals were never expelled from nature, thus subject to a different type of love than humans, doesn't make sense to me. by any means, i still become angry when i'm trying to get our dog to pay attention to me instead of my brother. because i know the animal loves my brother more than me. it 's quite obvious we have a bad relationship. and so i have nothing to understand this unconditional and unassuming love by. i suppose God counts: i've never felt unloved by Him, or rejected, or neglected. i've never tried to change our relationship, or never had to prove to Him that i was good enough. the love of God is something that was definitely never expelled from the garden. instead, it transcends it. He didn't even stop loving eve when she bit that silly apple that shot us off on our straight course through all the unhappiness of all time. He simply shook his head and sighed and said, well, i guess you'll need my love more than ever now.
6. it must be terrible for her not to have anything else to hold on to. the trembling in her hands would now never stop. because she was finally alone in the world without anything but the thoughts running through her mind each day. and what horrifying thoughts they were, giving way to sadness, giving way to a grave drawn with her heel on the grass between two apple trees.
7. i dare say that this is what the end of books are supposed to be like. everything works out alright, they two star-crossed lovers get together, one says a great statement of truth and they drift off into the sunset together. i just never suspected it would be so easy for the two of them. but it was the end. as we know, after all this, they got into their car and just...finished. it seems such a striking contrast, an ironic and unfair loss of time. but of course, we always realize something profound and important when it's just about too late. it's difficult to figure out how to make the right choice until all the other ones have been eliminated, when you're slipped to the end of your rope and you finally learn to hold on, because you have no other choice. and then there's so little left to hold onto that it's impossible. we destroy all our best laid plans, our greatest loves, our deepest dreams that way. but it's alright. we smile and say, that's just what happens, better luck next time. our actions reverberate throughout the universe and effect planets two and three and thirty. but our soul breaks free from our body and we return to the idyll. and our bodies close our eyes and turn into particles, flying away, lighter than air.

the sun shines through the window

part 6

2. the lightest death in the heaviest circumstances. the heaviest death in the lightest circumstances. indeed, all other struggles are mere trivialities. but who is to weigh circumstance or death? he could have just as easily grown up with out this divine complex and cleaned up his shit just as everyone else. but in the end, perception and knowledge are the only things that matter, and so we allow him to have made the great and eternal end.
5. a categorical agreement with nature is nothing more than an acceptance and justification of the fallible guises people invent to explain the world in relation to their own ideology. you comment on how nice the outhouse smells as you're staring at the flower-shaped air freshener hanging over the hole. kitsch is decorating the inside of the stall and inviting all your friends to dinner parties in there.
8. shocking to read that "the brotherhood of man on earth will be possible only on a base of kitsch." it seems as though these are two spheres which are not only separate, but far removed from each other. upon further examination, we understand what he means: kitsch requires a unity of all people understanding, and relating to, and being emotionally affected by the sentiment triggered from an object, person, ideology, etc. a brotherhood of man requires all people to feel the same. this requires an end of culture and religion and personality and individuality: an end of words misunderstood. it seems this isn't a good idea at all. when we lose our individuality, our soul jumps ship off the deck of our body. faces appear the same, conversations don't change, there aren't any miscommunications. it brings about an end of disagreement, it brings about world peace. but at what cost? wouldn't we rather die fighting than cease to live?
10. for a very long time i've thought that i believed in marxism. (i would say communism, because Soviet Socialism was not even close to marx' discourses on communism, but my mother always gets angry and tells me that most people--meaning people of her generation--don't see the difference and would threaten to blacklist or deport me or some other ridiculousness.) i believe in an end of the exploitation of workers, an end to corporate control, an end to commercialism, financial security for the world, human rights, and the like. but there's something in me (my soul shouting very loudly on the deck of my body) that fears a loss of ego, a loss of culture and preference and individuality and disagreements.
12. maybe kitsch lives in all of us. maybe it's something we cannot escape--hardwired into our brain pathways since the time we accepted our culture. but if we recognize it for what it is, does it change it's meaning? maybe an awareness of kitsch in our lives, and an appreciation for the sentiment for our own purposes, not to be replicated or superimposed, can be at least non-harmful, if not beneficial.
15. funny that the french doctor protested someone else's kitsch in order to promote his own. he couldn't tolerate the woman appealing to her constituency, tugging at the heartstrings with freedom, democracy, and the American way. to him, that had no appeal. instead, he wanted to grab the heartstrings of his own followers using annoyance and lack of tolerance for the other side for some and the benefits of the world of medicine for the others. i'm sure, if given the chance, every other subgroup present would have wanted to say a few words in his own language of kitsch, but there simply wasn't time.
19. it seems there is some inherent personality trait in all of us that makes us desirable of being part of something bigger. for some it's country, for some it's religion, for some it's the popular circle in the schoolyard. most people feel very uncomfortable about being alone. we stand apart from the crowd, looking on with smug smiles on our faces, too good for their grand march. but when they start looking back at us is when we loose our cool. one by one faces will turn, gaits will slow, whispers will start. many will look around them and remember they are alone, and begin to loose their footing. they teeter precariously on the edge of the cliff, and start to move back toward and into the group. impressive are the ones who cast defiant glances back at the masses and deftly hop from rock to rock, whistling as they go. and the flock marches on, gaining strength from those around them and the ideologies represented by the metaphorical blood on their metaphorical flag, never once considering that the blood initially came from one who hopped alone on the outcropping of rock, never once realizing that their role in the parade is lighter than air.
22. some are condemned to playacting, some simply do not act. it all depends how much one values the cause versus his own small life. for some, the cause can be abandoned and they can simply return to their life. but if the cause is their life, there is nothing to return to, nothing that remains of who they are. and so they put their lives on the line and fight and fight and fight until they realize they are screaming at the air. still, some choose to continue yelling.
23. i think i belong in the third group. general people do not concern me, neither do those i don't know or respect. but the few who i have trained my eyes on, the few who light my room with their presence, the few who raise my soul to the deck of the body--those are they who's watchful eye i crave. it's a temperamental relationship, a shifty happiness. for us members of the third party, our watching-eyes indicators need to constantly know someone is there. we seek eternal confirmation of affection. and we are the most sensitive to words misunderstood, for one miscommunication can drop us into a well of loneliness. our hands reach outward continually.
28. sad to be immortalized (as long as gravestones last, anyway) in death so against the way they lived their lives! only she had it right: make a final statement, declaring the way even one's body is to be handled. because the soul i believe goes on. it returns continuously and eternally, allowing our essence to not be destroyed by the fabric of the changing universe. so, i suppose, what happens to the body is not telling or tragic. ironic, maybe, but not important. in death only can the soul be free from the body, can shed it's mortal cage and simply be.
29. we simply cannot cease. living feels so permanent, so weighty, so important, that it is improbable to me that i will simply dissolve someday. that kitsch will remain as my last will and testament. even if i am not remembered here, somewhere my soul will live on, returning and repeating endlessly. es muss sein.

it must not stand that kitsch is an inevitable part of life. it is true: countries are run by it, cultures are upheld by it, people are motivated by it. but somewhere, sometimes, there are striking individuals who wage a daily battle against the collective, who have trained their minds to resist it at all costs. they are the ones it is imperative to count on to preserve the idea of ego: in practice, in teaching, in remembering. without the ones who push against the masses, who walk along the edge of the cliff, who fly high above us, there is no hope for a maintenance of dignity in the human race. without those who self-sacrifice for truth and freedom we are left spraying cans of aerosol fragrance and marching in the may day parade.

the rest of my brain stopped working long ago

part 5

2. ignorance is bliss, they say. but in most all circumstances, at some point the blinders come off and we are left feeling foolish and miserable. is it ever enough just to shrug our shoulders and say, 'i should not be held responsible; i was not properly informed'? maybe, but who then should be responsible? someone has to be. there must be at least one person who we should be able to point our long fingers at and tell them to clean up the mess. but often the search for the guilty party leaves us looking confusedly around the room waving our fingers at the walls while the ignorant offender tries to slip out the back door as he too is shouting for justice. and so the responsibility lays with everyone involved, no matter their innocence or unawareness, no matter their victim or offender status. they must sigh and wipe their hands on their jeans and work to fix the mess, or else the rubble and wreckage stay on with the only benefit being the fact that there is now a public display of the suffering, but nothing useful to use.
4. i have seen that smile before. the slow, closed-mouthed smile, the kind that isn't for joy or or hilarity or happiness, but for amusement at the expense of someone who is struggling along. it almost makes the person grow a few inches in order to look down on you from above. they look at you with pity: they know something you don't, and it isn't going to make you happy when you finally hear it. and they somehow are better than you, for they have real insight into your life as well as theirs, and they can see already into the future what's going to happen. and them knowing this somehow ensures its happening, and the smile grows wider. and all you want to do is reach way up and slap their smile away and say, you just wait. i'll won't do it. you'll see.
7. there are two types of people in this world: the type that have their deep-seated desires the compel them toward every decision they make, and those that do not. among the first group, there are hundreds and thousands of subcategories of the types of desires that one might have--toward love of a person, obsession of an idea, passion of a beauty, enthusiasm toward a profession, etc. and this motif can be found throughout their life: sometimes it is less prevalent than others, but in every big move onward and upward this passion is furthering its course. it is the lifeblood that runs through the veins when a person is metaphorically asked to save one thing from the burning building. often there is a general confusion at first, but they all come out coughing and holding their treasures high above their heads. among the second group, there are only a handful of lifeless and listless people milling around, unable to decide which direction is up. they are those who, because of their lacking an internal desire, are unable to make even the smallest decision, worrying that it'll be the wrong one because they don't know which is important or not. the ones that lack that lifeblood desire float casually through life, unintentionally getting in the way of the first group as they march down the street. they usually are alone.
8. the thought of people making heavy into light, turning real into farce, always has left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. i feel frustrated and annoyed with people who presume to say they don't care about anything, and don't have any respect for people who do care. from a silly movie, but i liked the quote: "you have everything, and still the world holds no joy, but you insist on making fun of those who would see it for its possibilities!" i believe i'm one of the ones who sees the world for it's infinite amount of possibilities. i find novelty and gravity in the most trivial and unnoticeable things: making paratha on a dirt floor, drinking tea in an iraqi coffee shop, having a picnic on a hot roof. and i loose patience with people who can't seem to grasp my excitement at anything. i don't have time to waste with people who have all the time in the world to sit and laugh at enthusiasm.
11. but mockery of one kind of passion only covers up another kind, something dark and secretive. the world of those who don't care about anything is slowly being reduced to a small few, as more and more are discovered to have some sort of disguised desire. they keep it hidden from the world out of fear or shame or privacy, and the more of those that are discovered, the more interesting ones perception of people is. for although their desires are subversive or strange or eccentric, they fascinate us. we cannot turn away from those who scare us, out of fear and out of interest. the people who seem the most boring are often the ones that are most interesting to someone somewhere in the world, and rather than mock them, we respect them for doing/thinking/believeing/wanting something that few others even dare.
12. "love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory." it's most often an accident. that she just happened to have said the phrase that was poetry and impressionable beauty to him was not something either of them expected. but man has no choice but to imprint that poem into his memory. it simply is there, existing of its own accord. the wavelengths of his brain we re just in tune to the words she spoke, and all of a sudden she was there, imprinted forever. lust is when someone enters their first movement into our carnal memory. but carnal is temporary, carnal is transitory. poetry endures forever: across space, across time, across barriers of all kinds. it interacts with the wavelengths of other types of beauty, eternally returning and occurring and imprinting our minds. love is the ultimate eternal return.
14. he was blessed and cursed with strong convictions on multiple fronts. different parts of his personality competed for his attention and acceptance, each cheering internally after succeeding externally. their fanfare is so joyous that it reaches the conscious part of his brain in order to give him the feeling that he chose correctly, and that he is happy about it. unfortunately, after the initial parade and excitement, the other ideas begin bickering with the one that succeeded, and their din is loud enough too to reach the forefront of his mind. this feeling is called doubt. and it's usually much more prominent after an extremely important victory is made by one contending party, for then the uproar is louder than manageable. many great decisions have been betrayed by the warring between the parties.
15. "the characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities." they are born of roads overpassed, of situations lost, of people missed, of dreams deferred. what is my novel about? of all things in my life, what are the most often wondered about? someday, you all will know. in general, life is eternally returning. we notice musical motifs if we look for them, characteristics passed on if we display them, worries and hopes and fears and joys returning over and over in a thousand different ways. we remember them forever and they influence our lives indefinitely, but equally haunting are the things that can never return again.
18. it's funny how differently situations occur in two peoples' minds. their accounts of the same experience often show to widely divergent stories. and she and he were the pinnacle of words misunderstood. love, sex, fear, hope, anger, paranoia--all these words, and thus the accompanying experiences they prompted and accounted for, had completely dissimilar meanings for the two people. they were unable to understand one another, and thus made each other miserable. language barriers are real, and often lead to huge problems. one word misunderstood can send someone across town or cross country, with no purpose, and no legitimate reason except for a lack of understanding. they thought they were both grasping toward the same thing but happened to be facing different directions and so their hands always missed each other, except during sleep.
22. i know very little of love, nothing of sex, and even less about the connection between the two.
23. why would he abandon his ideal happiness, his most perfect life and the half missing from his soul for a woman of accidents? what choice is this? it is one born of hundreds of laughable accidents, ones that made poetic entries into his mind, motifs that he can not abandon. his love is finding not the one perfect person that will complete his soul, but the one that he cares enough for and needs enough that he would never leave even if he found her. it is as much or more than anyone can hope for. because in an existence where nothing happens but once, the choices we make we must live with for eternity. and as difficult as his decision was, it is one that he would make over and over again if given the opportunity.

although we are only given one life to live, and though it may disappear, blow away like a shaft in the wind, it matters every moment of every day. our choices remain with us through at least our mortal existence. the trick is to find the ones that allow us to sleep through the nights holding the hand of the one we love.

i would rather not lose

part 4

3. there is something rather telling by the way people walk down the street. three distinct personality types are typified. there are those who do not watch where they are going and are jostled too and fro down the sidewalk, like a twig floating down a river. it doesn't have much control over where it is going, neither does it care. some walk with an apologetic demeanor, scuttling out of other peoples' paths, jumping into the street, dodging dogs and small children with as much initiative as a timid little animal. and still others barge down the road, straight path, eyes forward, quick steps. they move for no one. if any person threatens to be in their way, a death glare should do the trick. they usually arrive at their destination first, moving people out of the way with their boring eyes and fast pace.
4. we are so very proud of telling the story of our suffering. in a world where it is everywhere, i believe that it makes us seem more credible if we have had some traumatic or awesome or interesting story to share with others. we show off our battle scars, displaying proudly for the world to see where we fought and what it took out of us. it is because in retrospect, everything is cast in a different light. when we're actually partaking in the suffering, it is kept to ourselves. no need to showcase our weakness, our inability to fight against the cosmic forces of the universe. and so we hide our problems until we have overcome them
8. she is not to be scorned for the seriousness with which she approaches life. the weight she places on flirting, on sex, on him, on her body and soul. some simply cannot help it. some cannot prevent their soul from acting a certain way, being a type of character. it is fruitless to speak to our soul and say, 'look, soul. i want you to stop being the way you are,' just as it is useless for her to go to karenin and say, 'look, karenin. you must cease waking us up each way every morning.' it is just what karenin does, and it is just what she does. when he called her soul up to the deck of her body, and as she has attempted to keep it there, these are the consequences of that action. one cannot ask one's soul to be present and faithful, only to chide it for the way that it acts. otherwise, what is the purpose of having a soul at all? if we are merely all interchangeable bodies, with our souls on the inside all behaving as everyone else's, do we not still enter a concentration camp of ideas?
12. "the third wandered on and on, no tree apparently striking him as worthy of his death...until at last the man lost the courage to go on and stopped at a luxurious maple." it was his choice. for all, it was their choice to climb petrin hill, to choose a tree, don a blindfold, sustain a shot from the silencer of the rifle's barrel. a choice. but the third seemed unable to choose. unwilling to choose. the beautiful trees with their earthy smell and waxy leaves grow onward and upward toward the heavens. a noble and strong life form. we build our lives from its wood: cradles, houses, coffins. and yet for the third, it was not good enough. looking back on his life, as it was so certainly flashing before his eyes at this point, he had done better than he thought. but for death, as for life, he simply lacked the strength to fight against it anymore. and so he chose the best tree he could, closed his eyes, and crumpled to the ground.
13. but for her, it wasn't her choice. someone else had chosen for her, and for once, she could not take that to be her own as well. simply that fact meant that she had the courage to go on, and stopped the man with the rifle before it was too late.
15. just as it was never her choice. he sent her places: all things she did were actually in obedience to his suggestions, which she always took as commands. his words held too much weight, and she was powerless to push them off. and it had to be others giving her mercy, not allowing her to do the terrible things he asked, not taking the right to do them if she didn't freely give. if they did follow through, it would be as though they were stealing from him, for ultimately she was his. but her one merit was that she retained the word 'my.' she was still able to recognize that she was not her own, thus voicing her small desire for freedom.
16. the tall engineer didn't seem to be concerned with the fact that it wasn't her choice.
20. a crow, buried alive. how morbid a thought. people used to be overwhelmingly afraid of being buried alive that they would tie the dead's fingers to strings and strings to bells, and put someone on at night to listen for bells ringing. the graveyard shift. today, it was her turn to work it. she was salvaging those things bordering between life and death, defying the great headstones that bar the way. but who was to save her, buried up to her neck in dirt stamped down around her timid body, unknowingly by the man she trusted.
21. what a terrible thing, to become Tereza. of being a soul rejuvenated in a body controlled by a man who's only tie to her is his appreciation of her response to when he calls out to her. to be a plaything, a flatterer, a dependent child...it would be to loose all power in a relationship. not only in a relationship, in life. a lack of pride, not to be the one that calls forth the crew of someone else's soul, but always in response, always waiting for the call. i think i'd rather just stop listening.
24. it is a wonderfully terrible thing when the adversary must trick people into making false judgements. terrible because those are so easy to be caught in, but wonderful because that is when it looses it's edge. the battle is more than halfway won, at that point. that is when we must fight harder and be more cunning, and never give in.
26. i cannot help but feel overwhelmingly sad. sometimes you fight and fight and fight but loose in the end, the only consolation prize is knowing that you didn't give up.
28. come now, woman! come on, now! i am pleading for you on behalf of every female in the world who exists, who has fallen in love, who's soul responds to the call of the one who has woken them up to the fear and joy of being alive. step up, Tereza, step up! somewhere within you there is a woman who can be strong enough, who is big enough, who will be brave enough. surrender something, betray someone, walk away from the grassy knoll and those who send you there. we are cheering for you, begging you to do it for and by yourself. to move in the direction that you've been headed all your life, stopped in the most beautiful city in the world by one of your many possibilities. but there must be more for you. there must be! so do it. raise your voice, build the courage, strengthen your muscles. if not for yourself, or for all the women, do it for me. because i'm afraid to be you.

farewell, they all said. the benches and the road and the foreign names and the crow and the man with the rifle and the women and their pushy umbrellas. goodbye, goodbyye, gooooodddbyyyyeeeeee....

the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more

tin: words misunderstood

2. what is the musical composition of my life? i think it has many movements, all with much alteration. perhaps it is better to think of lives, or mine, at any rate, as an entire musical career, not simply one compositions. looking back at the career of Philip Glass, or Rachmaninov, or Bach: their later pieces are much more developed and noticeable than earlier ones. similar motifs run through them all, thought some compositions have a faint sprinkling, and others are drenched in the distinctive sound. they borrow from predecessors, test against contemporaries, but eventually create a unique relationship with noise. (a painter's life collection of work is also a suitable metaphor: see the growth, but faint similarities, between early facial studies and japanese attempts of van gogh and his later, most famous masterpieces.) but motifs are often made of inside jokes, common happenings, observed rituals...and i feel as though every few months i write a new and different sonatina. but what are the real motifs? oh, to have you as one of them...
3. multiple choice (hint: this is a trick question).
B: fidelity out of duty is useless. in what situation would i rather be held together by fidelity just for the pure novelty or convenience of it than fly into a million pieces of a real and honest being? this is not an appropriate choice. much better is the unknown. is trying something new or betraying something old because of a desire, not a useless fidelity because of a fear.
C: there is something to be said for an excess of noise. even if you listen to music that enriches the soul, it is still crucial to know how to be quiet and live in silence. it is true--often silence can tell more than anything if you pay attention to it. it speaks the most important parts of life. the truth that is whispered when we are still and calm is the most useful, the most life-changing. words have their place. music has great import. but nothing can replace the magic of the absence of sound.
D: i believe in absence in general. there's something to be learned from them, however frightening it can be to not know where the presence went to create that absence, and if it is ever coming back. but in each moment of absence it becomes either easier or more difficult to exist, and that is where we learn what we need to survive.
4. patriotism is ofent nothing more than feeling unwarranted and undeserved pride toward a piece of land that one was born on due to a great and cosmic game of chance. so much attention and love and devotion is shown toward something that most people have never had any real investment in. but it is the desire to belong to something that is exploited to create a feeling of solidarity to further the cause of others who have put so much pride and import into a piece of land very similar to all others.
5. i don't mind cemeteries. the archaic and solemn headstones stand guarding the afterlife. a gate to beyond. No Passing Through Here, they say. in the old cemeteries, one doesn't feel it like a sense of refusal. the names on the stone are eroded, the rock is chipping, the grass grows long and wild. it is easier to see the portal between life and death as merely illusionary. but graveyards full of the new dead...those seem terrible. no matter how much we want to, they say, we cannot pass the way into the other world safely, nor can they pass back to us. and that uncrossable boundary is unsettling. more frightening still are those in the graveyard who can't accept it.
7. i am sure that living in truth is nearly impossible, for we are always aware of the people around us and their constant judgment. under careful scrutiny, it's much easier to act the way that others expect us to: join their clubs, visit with their friends, use their phrases, take on their attitudes. there are seemingly many acceptable lifestyles and social norms, but really most are the same. after having taken away the names of things and other useless distinctions, most of humanity is one big person. the universal soul. in the buddhist way we are all connected eternally. in the current way we are all connected temporally. ego has essentially been destroyed. but to live in truth is to live the individual way. to embrace your feelings and follow your instinct and not discount the internal part of you that screams truth when the world is quiet. awake, soul, awake!
9. love is a battle, and sometimes fighting is the least appealing thing of all time. to run up to the front line, make an advance or two, retreat, wait for the mortar to fall. the screaming sounds of bombs flying through the air, the fear of being on watch duty for the night, the pain of a poorly dug foxhole matched with a well-aimed blow...and before you're carried off the field suppressing internal screams of agony, because it's never safe to give away your position to the enemy. but sometimes being non-mortally-wounded is a blessing in disguise. a few days of recovery away from the field, time to allow your ears to hear silence and your eyes stop reacting to branches blowing in the wind. and on good occasions they'll let you go around on your own a bit. you walk into the woods and away from the infirmary and just keep walking and walking until you reach the open sea, struggling each step from the pain in your wound not being sufficiently healed but you know it's better than going back in.
10. the purpose of betrayal is the same for all: shed a layer of life that no longer suits, that has been outgrown. her problem, poor woman, was that she was growing faster than any of her surroundings, quickly rising above and surpassing them. for their would have been no purpose in betraying something that suited her. things she liked, she embodied and consumed and applied to her motif and composition, and it is ridiculous to think of betraying part of one's own self. the unbearable lightness of being...for her, it was flying. even walking was beneath her. she outgrew her legs when most in her life were only learning to stand. and it was a high and lonely path in the clouds among the birds. but as unhappy and light and far the sky was, ground would have been much worse. because there, she would see forms that were similar to her own, and expect them to behave the same way. it was painfully confusing to remember that they were not. when she comes to terms with height and, at least she knows what she's dealing with. living in truth, away from it all.

and words misunderstood are the embodiment of separation. for we all have our distance between each other: realities, ideologies, dreams, pasts. and we cannot ever know exactly what someone else is meaning by their words, or their very person and if we do not understand each other? if our motifs and theories are already solidified? we move on from each other, unable to reach a reconciliation. thankfully, if we do betray each other, we are ready. internally, we know that we must shed that does not suit us, accept its absence, and learn to fly.

much more angst is required

part deux: soul and body

2. science only goes so far, and then comes god. the concept of living is easily explained by dna, organs, and chemical reactions in the brain, but at one point we cannot account for love or soucit or sorrow. there are some things that chemistry of the brain cannot explain away for me.
3. remembering that our DNA is inherited from our family makes it difficult to see the face as a carnal impression of the soul. we like to believe that I am I, an individual and unique expression of self, and when our face becomes a picture of that self, we can no longer see ourselves as part of the masses. although she wished her mother's features away, reality says they are still so. our face repeated throughout generations means that we are never truly alone.
5. she lost everything? her beauty and her youth passed away, and this is everything. and what can now be said of the world culture of womanhood that these things are everything, and the loss of them constitutes a loss of dignity, of individuality, of soul.
7. if she was indeed a continuation of the people who came before her, the people who influenced her life and raised her soul, a Nurture not a Nature, then so must everyone only be a continuation: a transfer of personality trait from one person to another. we are all a great compilation of different parts of different people. but. on the other hand, we may take the puzzle pieces dropped for us, and bend and cut them into appropriate shapes to fit in with other puzzle pieces we have picked up around town as well. we grow a few pieces ourselves, and maybe at times realize they are ones we want to discard for good, and thus our Self comes together in its imperfect clarity.
8. "And so the man who called to her was..." magic. this is what it means to find a soulmate. to want to be better for someone else, to have a desire to be yourself, even if you've never known yourself before. and so i thank the boy who made the call for all hands up on my deck.
9. if one looks at something for purely-by-chance circumstances, it is not just as easy to look at it as 'this chanced to happen,' as, 'it could have easily not'? what makes it one way or another? "chance and chance alone has a message for us." call it divine intervention, call it chance, call it accident, call it what you will: but do things happen for a reason? they must. there must be some cosmic juggling game, and when the two things happen, they happen because they are pulled together.
11. "it is wrong, then, to decide..." this is true. i recall all the little seemingly random, though noteworthy occurances of my life, and many, if written down as a story, seem very novelesque and trite. but they occur more often than one recalls. and we do take notice of things pertaining to what we find beautiful or important to us. and they happen so much to her because she was looking for them. trying to find a way to force life to make sense, give her a sign, show her the way out. she believed that one symbol could have a million repercussions and return again and again. and these returnings had such a meaning as to warrant notice and response in her life. for what is the purpose of beauty but to change us? to create meaning and import out of an otherwise transient world? to connect the beauty our body recognizes with important events that our soul appreciates.
13. "sensuality is..." it is what i feel when i can tell that every nerve of my body, from my brain down to my fingertips, is reaching out toward you. picking up every move you make. every world you utter. every expression in your glance and the move of your hand and the turn of your head. and i indulge my appreciation of your senses, and my senses sensing yours. but she screamed because she had to force him to be near her, had to positively ensure that all his senses were directed toward her needy frame. sensual, but forced.
14. it often takes one thing to bring a person's soul up to the deck of their body, to make the crew of the soul fight for life to save the sinking ship. but it cannot always rely on the thunder or the wind to keep the crew up. if they do not find a way to be motivated to staying up on their own accord, the absense of the great instigator will cause once again the soul to begin to disappear. thankfully, it is inevitable that at least gradually anything of beauty or ay import to the soul will call all hands on deck as loudly and with as much force and clarity as the original.
15. it is what we all want--to be unique and to be loved for our uniqueness. that is why being a sex symbol or an object is never fulfilling: your body is used for the way that it is the same as all other womens' bodies. it is the love of someone's soul that brings the most joy. and it is only those who have given up on the dream of their soul that find any satisfaction, because then they are being appreciated at all.
16a. he sees beauty as something that is not fogotten, as well as something that creates import in coinciding aspects of our lives.
16b. what does it mean that i do not dream? that i have no imagination? that my body cannot, or will not, imagine or communicate or create or anything? or that they aren't beautiful or memorable creations? the dreams i do recall are (or were) either lovely or terrifying, or beautifully and fascinatingly terrifying. so i only imagine that all dreams are this way. but perhaps only the dreams i obviously can remember hold any importance in life. maybe that's why i'm so good at creating daydreams--because being subconscious won't do it.
18. i once almost had vertigo. right after i finished almost being anorexic. a cry to be noticed. sometimes it was real. i would really feel the world spinning around me and cry my body needed to learn and fell over. but it was contrived. most of the time i convinced myself that i was falling. not ever a conscious choice, but a real need to become the most important person in the room. so i would lean over, put my head between my hands, and make a show out of falling to my [over] benefit, nobody ever caught me. so my epidemic sorted itself out and my soul took control of my body, righting myself before i capsized.
20. i don't want to be afraid of breaking open that canvas anymore. i want to take a finger to the small hole, pick it open, pry the layers off, and climb inside to figure out what the real of existence is. things aren't always as they seem. daily events and recordable happenings are, in fact, reality, but there's something beyond reality that is crucial to an appropriate understanding of the world, and that is the way that reality is applied. what people do in certain situations, what was the cause behind them, where else our options lie. living on the surface, life is easy. things happen, and you respond in a programmed way. but living a few layers down opens up more opportunity for success and failure and pain and love and every emotion imaginable, and a few that haven't been invented yet.
24. what does war have to do with nudity? i don't know. i can see the similarities in regards to the human body used for lust: the desecration of the organic soul and body, the cheapening of life and personality, all disregard for unique and individual, for choices and agency, for living and loving. but i don't know anything else.
26. i'm afraid of being weak. those pauses in dubcek's speech, the sadness of the people in the streets, the fear behind her eyes, my own heart murmurs, the pit in my stomach every night when the world goes to sleep...i hate that. but i think i learned too late the terror behind weakness, and now it's harder to guard against emotion. she went to her comfort zone: falling with fear and hiding with weakness. as long as it's possible to stave off vulnerability, it's much easier to fake it through life under the pretense of strength and confidence. but once the feelings begin to flow, there's almost no hope. and you find yourself falling. and that's the terrible thing about weakness: you don't know how far you're going to go down the rabbit hole. the reason she wanted him weak was so that he could fall with her. she envied those at the top and since she couldn't be with them, she wanted all them to come to her.

there are indisputable ties between everything around us. to and from each other, ourselves, our environment, our destiny...sometimes those ties are broken. often we are cut loose from our anchors and hope our homing beacons work.

scraps of paper

yes i still take notes on books.
here, among the next several posts, will be my scattered thoughts on the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

part 1: lightness and weight
1. obviously, we each only have one life to live. each experience happens but once. but the repercussions of real, though transitory, events do exist. they inspire further proceedings, actions, thoughts, beliefs, laws, lifestyles...we can look back on and reconcile ourselves with past events, however horrible, because, in fact, they have so much weight. they evoke real emotion that we, as feeling and sympathetic beings, need to find a way to come to terms with. it is the impression that Hitler had on the man so heavily (see? weight) in his youth that causes him to recall all sorts of memories about his whole childhood. it is that that he thought back fondly on, not Hitler himself.
2. but i do believe in eternal return. it is because of this phenomenon that we have such a deep desire to do good, to choose correctly, to leave a positive mark. because if we simply ceased to be remembered, we wouldn't care so much about what we do each day and what we leave behind. it is heavy to know that our actions will be important, but it would be far worse, in my own mind, to simply be forgotten. for i know that i can do something to be proud of and want my life story to be written on the pages of time. i would fear dreadfully were i to just die and end.
4. "metaphors are dangerous. metaphors are not to be trifled with. a single metaphor can give birth to love." allowing something or someone to warrant enough importance to be spoken of metaphorically (although, ironically, metaphoric stories have no weight of their own) means they are though of on multiple levels. they are heavy and important enough to be relatable, to be eternally returnable. for isn't the principle behind the nonexistence of the eternal return that each event only holds importance in it's own individual moment and circumstance in time? if one can be applied to multiple situations, it has the potential to continue forever, repeating itself, in some way, over and over again.
6."making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)." i agree.
9. compassion, in english, does seem like pity. you say you have compassion for soneone as you're saying, "oh you poor thing," or, "i feel sorry for you." it is much better, as the czech say, to have a shared feeling with someone: "i'm feeling your sadness with you." but how, in english, do we translate these feelings and sentiments to one another? we must learn how to think with soucit (czech), not compassion (english): to take suffering of others upon ourselves, instead of as an innocent and pitying bystander, pretending we wished we could help. "this kind of compassion...therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy." this is what we endure in love--a desire to breathe and feel and live and hurt the emotions of another soul, connected to yours by this soucit. to love someone fully is to completely understand them, thus feeling their pain and excusing their emotional actions. for if they are ours as well, how would we condemn ourselves?
12. she was not happy in her love, for it was not the sort of love that makes one happy. it was marked by jealousy, fear, obsession, and need. it was not the pure type of affectionate and renewing love; it was a downward cyclical type of codependent love. it breaks and wears the soul down at a faster rate than it builds it up. and she felt the effects of this in a sick and degeneration and tiring and nightmarish state. it was present in her dreams; not quite visible in normal daylight. only under the magnifying and scorching sun of noonday that they were both able to see the unhappiness, and ran away in search of an escape.
13. but. it was as if robespierre was beheading french nobles for eternity. in the shallow scope of his life (which is, indeed, a most important scale to consider, especially looking at an individual who values his existence), he was repeating the same circumstances, the same actions, the same story over and over again, with all the same consequences. he needed his women and the grudged him the others over and over again. weight. eternal return.
15. "for there is nothing heavier than compassion. not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes." this captivating soucit consumed every aspect of his whole life. it, in its quiet passive-aggressiveness, took charge of his mind and heart, and threatened to destroy his entire lifestyle. it is not something one can switch on and off at will, some conscious choice: to feel, or not to feel. it comes to us in our unconscious sleep, taking hold of our hand and refusing to let go. and it weighs a ton. soucit weighs one's soul to the ground, hurtful in all its pressure, compressing the brain and heart and lungs. it gives an eternally returnable emotion to even one who has spend a lifetime trying not to make an impression.
16. "necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value." we all have needs. ever person under the sun has desires and goals and compulsions, and they all have weight, and we all have value. need is something that cannot be erased, and our value catapults its way through eternity, making marks here and there.

we are not flickers of being, burning for our one quick moment and then disappearing. we have needs, wants, emotions, soucit, and love, and for this, we make an impression on the fabric of eternity.