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.
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.
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