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.
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.
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