I stumbled upon some saved conversations of what started past trysts, and promptly closed them after twenty-some lines. Oddly, a huge smile was bubbling up inside me as I read, which is a weird reaction to embarrassment. I can only attribute this to the fact that I have grown sufficiently out of that version of myself that I no longer feel affiliated with her, and thus I can laugh at these mistakes with a wise shake of the head. Or maybe it's because the partner-in-crime is no longer in my life, nor was he ever in any significant way, which means, among other things, not only no unexpected reminders from sightings in day-to-day life, but also no sudden recollections that make me squeeze my eyes shut against my will.
I spent a lot of blog posts about this particular incident, partly due to timing and partly due to the above-mentioned lack of knowledge, which made room for idealization. I spent a lot of time fantasizing how the story's extensions might play out, but reading the ignition of the whole thing, I realize that it might be best left as a full movement in itself. If he came back, he'd come back with these memories of the nonsensical and silly things I've said, and though I just said I have no problems recounting such things, I have no desire to know that there's someone else who could recount them as well.
**
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
perspectives of the militia
Regarding my last post, I can't tell if it was crafted with an underhanded move of denial or not. But that's not my main concern right now, if weightier feelings were to surface later, they'd, of course, be dissected with the due obsession I give everything. But "right now" is dominated with a slight frustration at the too-familiar sine curve I've found myself on.
"Bad Luck", that's how someone identified it to me. For general conversations in the generic bubbly air of coffee shops, "bad luck" suits just fine. But I get the feeling it's not just fine, not for the person who coined the term and not for me, who nodded in consensus. I think we feel like we should take responsibility for it. I think agency is bursting to charge forth in front of us, plant its stance resolutely, and announce: "this is somehow because of you."
"Because of your ways", it'll say, with the kind of tough love a general reserves for his fleet, "because of how you look, because of what you think." I think it'll say this with sharply clipped syllables, no mincing of the words spared. I think it'll march away with too loud clicks of its heel. I think it'll leave behind a trail of dust and shame hovering over my face, taking the veil of the "bad luck" argument with it. I think it'll do all of this if I let myself slip into the crutch of excuses. So I don't. I think it'll show no mercy regardless. And I'm right.
**
"Bad Luck", that's how someone identified it to me. For general conversations in the generic bubbly air of coffee shops, "bad luck" suits just fine. But I get the feeling it's not just fine, not for the person who coined the term and not for me, who nodded in consensus. I think we feel like we should take responsibility for it. I think agency is bursting to charge forth in front of us, plant its stance resolutely, and announce: "this is somehow because of you."
"Because of your ways", it'll say, with the kind of tough love a general reserves for his fleet, "because of how you look, because of what you think." I think it'll say this with sharply clipped syllables, no mincing of the words spared. I think it'll march away with too loud clicks of its heel. I think it'll leave behind a trail of dust and shame hovering over my face, taking the veil of the "bad luck" argument with it. I think it'll do all of this if I let myself slip into the crutch of excuses. So I don't. I think it'll show no mercy regardless. And I'm right.
**
Saturday, November 20, 2010
re-education
I feel like I haven't written in here for a while, at least not personal things. Even though I really wanted to record them somewhere, I'd stopped myself for fear of whom my audience might constitute. However, I think my desire to pour memories into words is outweighing the apprehension.
There were, of course, escapades that made great material for lighthearted gossip. They provide great release but evoke very little emotional unveiling for me. Then came the major plotline of the week, which, at this point, has become such a familiar pattern I hardly think it deserves yet another rehashing. My mind seems to feel the same way, as it has mostly vacillated between the realms of indifference and fatigue since. I sort of just feel...exhausted, not at the specific situation but the fact that an encore was not something I was looking for.
On a practical level, the timing is impeccable. The let down came at the tailwind of a letting go, molding my reaction into one of almost detached interest rather than a melodramatic internal affair. On the other hand, I almost miss the exquisite pangs that accompany struggling for something I care about. It's being a really long time since I really felt anything of such magnitude. Maybe not even in three years. And while the fluffy stories are fun enough, I can't help but feel like I have missed something crucial in my reformed education.
**
There were, of course, escapades that made great material for lighthearted gossip. They provide great release but evoke very little emotional unveiling for me. Then came the major plotline of the week, which, at this point, has become such a familiar pattern I hardly think it deserves yet another rehashing. My mind seems to feel the same way, as it has mostly vacillated between the realms of indifference and fatigue since. I sort of just feel...exhausted, not at the specific situation but the fact that an encore was not something I was looking for.
On a practical level, the timing is impeccable. The let down came at the tailwind of a letting go, molding my reaction into one of almost detached interest rather than a melodramatic internal affair. On the other hand, I almost miss the exquisite pangs that accompany struggling for something I care about. It's being a really long time since I really felt anything of such magnitude. Maybe not even in three years. And while the fluffy stories are fun enough, I can't help but feel like I have missed something crucial in my reformed education.
**
Monday, November 8, 2010
nostalgia
“Ah, no nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed!”
—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
I don't know if this is true. On one hand, does it even count as nostalgia if you've never had it? On the other hand, I certainly know what Pessoa might be gesturing towards. I too, had glimpses and ghosts of things and people I could have "had", yet they could not quite make it into the definitive realm called existence. These things I indeed have great nostalgia about, if it can be called as such. But I personally do not count them so. They are usually too diluted with fantasy and falsity to qualify for true, grounded nostalgia.
Nostalgia is a gritty thing. Not light on its feet nor painted over with too-bright colors. Everything is as is. All the unpleasant details. The smoke in the room the first time you poured your heart out. The chilling raindrops that fuzzed your vision after a homecoming. The melting makeup at the end of the night when you get your heart's desires. All of these you remember, and here's where nostalgia's sucker punch's going to get you: despite all that, all the smoke and the messiness and the imperfections, you still want those moments back, blemishes and all.
**
—Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
I don't know if this is true. On one hand, does it even count as nostalgia if you've never had it? On the other hand, I certainly know what Pessoa might be gesturing towards. I too, had glimpses and ghosts of things and people I could have "had", yet they could not quite make it into the definitive realm called existence. These things I indeed have great nostalgia about, if it can be called as such. But I personally do not count them so. They are usually too diluted with fantasy and falsity to qualify for true, grounded nostalgia.
Nostalgia is a gritty thing. Not light on its feet nor painted over with too-bright colors. Everything is as is. All the unpleasant details. The smoke in the room the first time you poured your heart out. The chilling raindrops that fuzzed your vision after a homecoming. The melting makeup at the end of the night when you get your heart's desires. All of these you remember, and here's where nostalgia's sucker punch's going to get you: despite all that, all the smoke and the messiness and the imperfections, you still want those moments back, blemishes and all.
**
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
pearl harbor
I don't know why sometimes people break down over the smallest things. Given my drive to place logic into every crevice of reality, sudden meltdowns are not permitted in my equations. Imagine a foreign feeling suddenly envelopes you in some way, and you have no idea what caused it. What could this mean? For one thing, it means it could happen again. For another, you would not know when it would happen. And finally, you would not know how to prevent such things. Imagine having no such control over your own self, a thing that should be most immune to such incomprehension.
I just read a short story inspired by alcoholism. The narrator goes through the same sense of lack of control. The only difference is that she is too drunk in her narrative to care, so the reader cares doubly for her. It's easy for me to do so, because I can lay a concise solution out on the ironing board, waiting for her to try it on.
Such tactics cannot be used on things whose roots remain unearthed. I suppose the medicine is somehow embedded in the very process of physical release, but I don't just want a reactive patch-up. Not knowing would mean no armor to iron, no armor to put on, and consequently, no defense against the very first moment of the blow. No matter how instantaneously the pain recoils, it's always the unpredictability that hits the hardest.
**
I just read a short story inspired by alcoholism. The narrator goes through the same sense of lack of control. The only difference is that she is too drunk in her narrative to care, so the reader cares doubly for her. It's easy for me to do so, because I can lay a concise solution out on the ironing board, waiting for her to try it on.
Such tactics cannot be used on things whose roots remain unearthed. I suppose the medicine is somehow embedded in the very process of physical release, but I don't just want a reactive patch-up. Not knowing would mean no armor to iron, no armor to put on, and consequently, no defense against the very first moment of the blow. No matter how instantaneously the pain recoils, it's always the unpredictability that hits the hardest.
**
Thursday, October 14, 2010
sources
Can I just vent that I really really REALLY do not believe in a supposed "friendship" that consists of no time together? It just doesn't work. People have all kinds of grandiose ideas about how abstract concepts can subsist on abstract fuel. Love, friendship, grief, none of them have to be material based!
Well, I'm calling bullshit. Their sources of subsistence are petty and tangible and necessary. If it's not some physical thing, then at least time, or visible effort, will be needed. This is how all these great concepts unravel--you take them for granted, justify to yourself how they don't need to be watered regularly, and turn your back on them, empty water can in hand, for one too many days.
You know how the most spoiled, fragile, delicate flowers are also the most beautiful? Pause from reading this line and think of the most exquisitely, deliciously, PAINFULLY beautiful flower you can imagine.
Now think of a cactus.
You're right, a cactus, with its super efficient needles, does not need watering at all. So go feast your eyes on a cactus. Because I'm done waiting for your water can to come back.
**
Well, I'm calling bullshit. Their sources of subsistence are petty and tangible and necessary. If it's not some physical thing, then at least time, or visible effort, will be needed. This is how all these great concepts unravel--you take them for granted, justify to yourself how they don't need to be watered regularly, and turn your back on them, empty water can in hand, for one too many days.
You know how the most spoiled, fragile, delicate flowers are also the most beautiful? Pause from reading this line and think of the most exquisitely, deliciously, PAINFULLY beautiful flower you can imagine.
Now think of a cactus.
You're right, a cactus, with its super efficient needles, does not need watering at all. So go feast your eyes on a cactus. Because I'm done waiting for your water can to come back.
**
Sunday, October 10, 2010
candles, revisited
Another night marked with candles, so now, yet another time to reflect on them. The image of warm yellow flickers is really comforting to me. They light just enough of the dark and are kind enough to leave the rest alone. Generosity rules this bunch--who bestow just the right amount of glow upon their mesmerized audience.
Of course, their biggest asset is still the associations they carry, with wishes, with celebration, with loved ones, all of which give a similar glow to the beholder, no? Hope for what you may have. Gratitude for what you do have. And support for achieving all that you have. There is a reason why these associations have the same effect in our insides as candles do in an ordinary room.
When Prometheus gave us fire, the gods punished him for giving mankind too powerful a tool. Greeks dubbed his gift the "means of life". And let's read this description more metaphorically than it was perhaps intended (like how we do with Septembers), a flame uncontrolled indeed has great potential to destroy, but maybe that's precisely why it renders life so apparent and visible to us.
In light (pun intended) of its power, I suppose it's not at all surprising what a simple flicker is capable of--to illuminate what we need to flourish, ignite what we were afraid of starting, and perhaps brighten again what we have left to gather dust.
**
Of course, their biggest asset is still the associations they carry, with wishes, with celebration, with loved ones, all of which give a similar glow to the beholder, no? Hope for what you may have. Gratitude for what you do have. And support for achieving all that you have. There is a reason why these associations have the same effect in our insides as candles do in an ordinary room.
When Prometheus gave us fire, the gods punished him for giving mankind too powerful a tool. Greeks dubbed his gift the "means of life". And let's read this description more metaphorically than it was perhaps intended (like how we do with Septembers), a flame uncontrolled indeed has great potential to destroy, but maybe that's precisely why it renders life so apparent and visible to us.
In light (pun intended) of its power, I suppose it's not at all surprising what a simple flicker is capable of--to illuminate what we need to flourish, ignite what we were afraid of starting, and perhaps brighten again what we have left to gather dust.
**
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