I stopped describing matters in acute detail a fair while ago like how dead the air feels at night. Sullen and quiet.
A normal, or shall we say, optimum functioning person, is what we strive to become and what we will for others. You can pop a pill and attain a few steps closer to this ideal. Upon chatting to a friend undergoing group therapy it was of interest to learn that one person in a group can serve to be a severe vice for the benefits and progress of the entire group. I challenged this admission by suggesting that due to this one person the group may have learned things they would otherwise have been unable to.
I watched a video tonight:
http://vimeo.com/6337228
Relevant because for the past few months I have considered buying a video camera to document some facets of the mundane existence that comprises the vast amount of our lives. How do you like your tea? Do people even really remember anymore?
When another human being displays an interest in you it is a privilege and I do not believe people appreciate just how privileged they are in this instance. Out of the millions of alternatives it is you.
Here we are in 2010 with the propagation of the Internet and particularly facebook.com et al we scribe ourselves away. I'm entirely guilty of this. I say things here I would unfortunately never articulate with my friends in anywhere near as much depth. Shredding layers of myself eager to peel back layers of adulthood to comprehend my beginning or even my end. People obtain thousands of uninteresting photographs to publish online. I'd rather a printed photograph in an album than the pixelated form smattered across my laptop's screen.
Another recent circulating thought of mine is that as we age it appears to me that we become dishonest. Entrusting others with our genuine emotion becomes a risky vocation and people would seemingly rather secretly love than confess their sins of romantic desire.
By uploading this to a public website have I inherited the title of 'hypocrite'? Have I misplaced any possible credibility? Possibly so. However, I do not believe anyone is credible.
It is all too simplistic and easy to dislike people and not care for people. How often do they reciprocate any efforts after all? Or even initate them to begin with? Despite this and perhaps due to this, I cannot help but feel emotionally moved when a person speaks out against the horrors we execute on one another. With the most sincere of sentiments and blatant stirring of that person's emotions you can't help but feel a little humbled and that people are able to do good. These thoughts were inspired by Ellen Degeneres:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNMggq_NADg
One short breath in the lungs of our lives and it seems all we are able to do during these mundane moments is hate people and become embittered by the things we do not understand about others, and mostly, that which we are unable to know about ourselves. Clutching grudges closer to our chests than we'd ever manage concerning those we love.
One day I will visit all of the places I have been.
"I'm scared and I'm running in my sleep for you. But all of the oceans and rivers and showers will wash it all away and make me clean for you 'cause I had never met you".
Friday, 1 January 2010
Friday, 18 December 2009
Snow.
Daisy and I walked out of the cold into the cold of my student house.
The air around had a definitive weight to it. So much so that the opening of the back door now enforced a phantom influence on the living room. I guess the wind is heavier.
I seem to have been floating around on this cloud for some time, she said. It has continually lost matter but not relevance. The last thing I wish to accomplish is glorifying his ego (all this time on). I almost told him so much this week.
The informed response in her mind was that if she had done, he would have rejected her either by complete ignorance or with malice in his speech. However, the promise of hope one day coming true and fulfilling the dream she had left so long ago was too much to let go of. She'd never be truthful about the truth of the matter. She couldn't if she tried.
"The balance is so precise, you see. If I talk to him then I will finally know. If I don't...then I will never know, and this mental anguish will persist".
(Surely those outcomes are one and the same).
What anguish? (Delusion, I muttered).
"That what was then could now be so different".
Or the same...
"Yes but-". It was at this point my mind numbed. The conversation was tedious and inevitably hopeless. Hope is hopeless, I thought. Hope only exists in the mind of the person who is hoping. Hope is too often coupled with some grand illusion that the world, or people, are in a different state than how they actually are.
The trouble was that the idea provided her with some happiness. It was not for me to shatter, it was for him.
"You see, things have changed. I mean, it's almost 2010 now. A new decade. I'll be moving soon, and things will change further". (That would be superb other than these changes were further distortions that hope was manipulating).
(The source of her woes was unlikely to be the solution. Though in her mind, the source was love.
Love?
Love.
She believed in love and hope, and all of the sugary things force-fed to us as children. At her age! Still, I find it more than difficult to feel disdain for such childish fantasy. It does have an appeal, even for the cynic).
The intensity of first love is said to taint all future relations.
The crazed and manic episodes of melodrama; arguments are the end of the world, and kisses are the beginning. Each day the world is reincarnated and it is difficult to grasp an existence whereby each day simply is. It seems lesser.
"But is it as simple as that? Can we really diminish relationships to first, second, third, etc? When did the race begin and is there an end? Surely it would become a matter of stamina in that instance? I do not believe feelings should be reduced in a cooking pot of belittlement. You feel how you do. Some may say you're foolish, others would say you're wise. It depends on the person's own experiences, as they invariably feel that you should live their life. We are not all entirely similar..."
I suppose, but then, the general consensus overrules, does it not?
"It shouldn't. People know how they feel and such emotions should not be meddled with. The majesty of growing old is tuning into your own thoughts and emotions.
Do you believe in soulmates?"
I, uh...I don't know.
"Well, I do. It's corny. Sometimes life is. Short of the romances in great novels you're unlikely to come across a tale of love that isn't in part corny.
People are stubborn, and cold. Personally, my heart has felt enough cold in its time. It could very well be that my decisions are eternally erroneous. I abandoned once, just as I may try to re-enact. Both may be mistakes but if I do not try then what am I to do otherwise?"
Just carry on?
"Carry on?"
Well, you'll meet somebody new. I know people say this but it DOES happen.
"And what then? To be dissatisfied WITH someone? I'd sooner live thoughtless than emotionless".
The trouble with passion is that its expression lives only in the moment...
When this moment has flown from sight there is but a husk of experience that dwells within our minds, which has a tendency to feel it has once again caught a glimpse of what once filled it. Hope has a high affinity for this husky body.
Daisy and I agreed to disagree. There were too many arguments taking place already.
Neither of us knew the answer, and it would take another 10 years to find them out.
How different this conversation would have been...unfortunately those 10 years still have not come to be.
It's possible this was her goodbye dialogue to the soulmate she did not know anymore.
I'm not very subtle at times...I still see Daisy floating by on that cloud of hers except I know there's nothing beneath her and perhaps look at her oddly.
I believe, sadly, that she needs to let go of that cloud.
The air around had a definitive weight to it. So much so that the opening of the back door now enforced a phantom influence on the living room. I guess the wind is heavier.
I seem to have been floating around on this cloud for some time, she said. It has continually lost matter but not relevance. The last thing I wish to accomplish is glorifying his ego (all this time on). I almost told him so much this week.
The informed response in her mind was that if she had done, he would have rejected her either by complete ignorance or with malice in his speech. However, the promise of hope one day coming true and fulfilling the dream she had left so long ago was too much to let go of. She'd never be truthful about the truth of the matter. She couldn't if she tried.
"The balance is so precise, you see. If I talk to him then I will finally know. If I don't...then I will never know, and this mental anguish will persist".
(Surely those outcomes are one and the same).
What anguish? (Delusion, I muttered).
"That what was then could now be so different".
Or the same...
"Yes but-". It was at this point my mind numbed. The conversation was tedious and inevitably hopeless. Hope is hopeless, I thought. Hope only exists in the mind of the person who is hoping. Hope is too often coupled with some grand illusion that the world, or people, are in a different state than how they actually are.
The trouble was that the idea provided her with some happiness. It was not for me to shatter, it was for him.
"You see, things have changed. I mean, it's almost 2010 now. A new decade. I'll be moving soon, and things will change further". (That would be superb other than these changes were further distortions that hope was manipulating).
(The source of her woes was unlikely to be the solution. Though in her mind, the source was love.
Love?
Love.
She believed in love and hope, and all of the sugary things force-fed to us as children. At her age! Still, I find it more than difficult to feel disdain for such childish fantasy. It does have an appeal, even for the cynic).
The intensity of first love is said to taint all future relations.
The crazed and manic episodes of melodrama; arguments are the end of the world, and kisses are the beginning. Each day the world is reincarnated and it is difficult to grasp an existence whereby each day simply is. It seems lesser.
"But is it as simple as that? Can we really diminish relationships to first, second, third, etc? When did the race begin and is there an end? Surely it would become a matter of stamina in that instance? I do not believe feelings should be reduced in a cooking pot of belittlement. You feel how you do. Some may say you're foolish, others would say you're wise. It depends on the person's own experiences, as they invariably feel that you should live their life. We are not all entirely similar..."
I suppose, but then, the general consensus overrules, does it not?
"It shouldn't. People know how they feel and such emotions should not be meddled with. The majesty of growing old is tuning into your own thoughts and emotions.
Do you believe in soulmates?"
I, uh...I don't know.
"Well, I do. It's corny. Sometimes life is. Short of the romances in great novels you're unlikely to come across a tale of love that isn't in part corny.
People are stubborn, and cold. Personally, my heart has felt enough cold in its time. It could very well be that my decisions are eternally erroneous. I abandoned once, just as I may try to re-enact. Both may be mistakes but if I do not try then what am I to do otherwise?"
Just carry on?
"Carry on?"
Well, you'll meet somebody new. I know people say this but it DOES happen.
"And what then? To be dissatisfied WITH someone? I'd sooner live thoughtless than emotionless".
The trouble with passion is that its expression lives only in the moment...
When this moment has flown from sight there is but a husk of experience that dwells within our minds, which has a tendency to feel it has once again caught a glimpse of what once filled it. Hope has a high affinity for this husky body.
Daisy and I agreed to disagree. There were too many arguments taking place already.
Neither of us knew the answer, and it would take another 10 years to find them out.
How different this conversation would have been...unfortunately those 10 years still have not come to be.
It's possible this was her goodbye dialogue to the soulmate she did not know anymore.
I'm not very subtle at times...I still see Daisy floating by on that cloud of hers except I know there's nothing beneath her and perhaps look at her oddly.
I believe, sadly, that she needs to let go of that cloud.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Smoke and Ashes.
My thoughts - all in a single cigarette. Smoke and ashes.
The routine of overlooking Moulsecoomb Hill from my garden has seemingly become about expression. I smoke to create; ash dancing in updrafts fighting to stay captured in thought waves now separated from its source. The smoke: twisting and swirling about my eyes and body. They dissipate, much like my thoughts as soon as I can reach for a pen.
I wonder about those before me breathing the Sussex air and what it might have been they contemplated on similar nights. Did they have my thoughts? I can't say.
I always seem to be the last to go to bed in my house - even if the people I live with have been out into Brighton. It's as though I am waiting for some prolific development. I wonder if you know or whether you never really "got" my depths. There isn't much to get, really.
Sometimes it is difficult to know you are alive despite so much life around you. Perhaps it is due to this bustling that life becomes forsaken.
The trees bare, the animals still and the people asleep. You, your thoughts, and the night. There is a jingling sound that comes across the garden to the right and I don't suppose I'll ever know the cause of it - I don't, in fact, need to know.
The cigarette ends and I stub it out on the wall to the conservatory. It dies in glitter and resistance. I retire.
Have I sealed the fate of a youth's death; to become a memory in those minds I met fleetingly? Or perhaps worse, to become old and still clutching this cigarette thinking still about all that was and all that might never be. Possibly bitter, with me as the one reminiscing with old faces that I once knew; all in the end of a cigarette.
Shelter in the memories of love, knives in the wind now feel dull.
At night shadowed phantoms steal embraces from the pitch black depths of the corners of my room. The general buzz that life emits seems quieter.
Tonight held fearsome winds and upon the demise of this night's nicotine appeasement the embers flew toward my face. Surrounded by the possibility that the land might tear apart tonight, the expression of emotion to my fellow man seemed distant and unimaginable. A consistent squeaking from above seemed company enough to invite myself out for a final cigarette at 3.05am.
The routine of overlooking Moulsecoomb Hill from my garden has seemingly become about expression. I smoke to create; ash dancing in updrafts fighting to stay captured in thought waves now separated from its source. The smoke: twisting and swirling about my eyes and body. They dissipate, much like my thoughts as soon as I can reach for a pen.
I wonder about those before me breathing the Sussex air and what it might have been they contemplated on similar nights. Did they have my thoughts? I can't say.
I always seem to be the last to go to bed in my house - even if the people I live with have been out into Brighton. It's as though I am waiting for some prolific development. I wonder if you know or whether you never really "got" my depths. There isn't much to get, really.
Sometimes it is difficult to know you are alive despite so much life around you. Perhaps it is due to this bustling that life becomes forsaken.
The trees bare, the animals still and the people asleep. You, your thoughts, and the night. There is a jingling sound that comes across the garden to the right and I don't suppose I'll ever know the cause of it - I don't, in fact, need to know.
The cigarette ends and I stub it out on the wall to the conservatory. It dies in glitter and resistance. I retire.
Have I sealed the fate of a youth's death; to become a memory in those minds I met fleetingly? Or perhaps worse, to become old and still clutching this cigarette thinking still about all that was and all that might never be. Possibly bitter, with me as the one reminiscing with old faces that I once knew; all in the end of a cigarette.
Shelter in the memories of love, knives in the wind now feel dull.
At night shadowed phantoms steal embraces from the pitch black depths of the corners of my room. The general buzz that life emits seems quieter.
Tonight held fearsome winds and upon the demise of this night's nicotine appeasement the embers flew toward my face. Surrounded by the possibility that the land might tear apart tonight, the expression of emotion to my fellow man seemed distant and unimaginable. A consistent squeaking from above seemed company enough to invite myself out for a final cigarette at 3.05am.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
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