Back

       I've been back in PA for a few weeks now, untangling knots. I tried to write about it before, but I thought that maybe my vehemence was blinding, so I waited. Now I've come back to what I started and finished it.

       I am sitting on a mattress that hurts, in a room that is no longer mine, in a house full of junk, in a place where there is nothing to see or do, and I am angry. I keep telling myself that the world doesn't owe me an instruction manual. I remind myself that no one lied to me on purpose. I point out that I can at least take comfort in that fact that I was right about so many things. None of it helps.

       I can't even have a nice, satisfying rage, because there is no one to be angry at. I can only sit here, stewing in my frustration, trying desperately to have civil conversations about what I am going to do next with people who really love me and deserve none of my muted prickle.

       I'm not disappointed, because disappointment implies that at one time you fully expected something good, and that expectation was somehow dashed. I, on the other hand, have simply returned to a state of desperate longing that was, for a few brief months, lifted hopefully. I am not disappointed. I am back.

I Don't Understand About Me and Books

       I've been reading books that I don't understand.
     
       I've been hearing the words and seeing the imagery, watching as people run and speak and sit and stretch out their hands for things that they don't believe in, but I won't sit with them. I'm too restless to wait for the feelings to align and tell me a truth other than this is what people feel, sometimes.

       I hate it. It is as if the truth is buzzing past my ear, the harsh, physical whine making me cringe away and swat at empty space. I should know! I should understand! If only I could grab myself by the hair and drag her back over to the storyteller's feet, make her stay put until she found the truth in the storyteller's voice, the listeners' eyes, the space between them. Instead I'm stuffing pretty poetry into a mouth that wants something completely different.

       At least I'm reading again. At least I am back, translating ink into words. Hopefully soon I will find myself translating the images into reality, and when the time comes, Future Self, seriously, re-read Sula, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I know that they are talking about the same things but I can't... I can't put my finger on it and I don't have the patience to sit and steady my aim.

       They both tell stories of toil in the face of misery, opposites actually being the same, segregation, infidelity... Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep delves into religion and artifice while Sula lingers over friendship and sexual femininity, but the two works resonate.

       ...Or maybe I'm insane. This is driving me insane!

I Think About 'Adulthood'

       It looks like a clique, but it's not.

       It looks like a club, a collection of people who know things and do things and are a certain way that others can't put a finger on; but then suddenly you are on the other side of eighteen, or twenty-one, or twenty-five and you don't actually know those things or do those things or feel any different.

       You've graduated without having to pass the class, without realizing it was a class.

       You've felt the mantle drop over your head without ever proving you had the qualifications.

       You've gotten into the room, and realized that you actually just got out of one. This isn't the place where everyone knows and does and is a certain way. That was the place. That was blissful, ignorant childhood; and things that felt important but really weren't; and a few years of parental structure. This is a million choices, a billion outcomes, seven billion distinct universes that may or may not have anything in common. This is where people scramble to make sense of where/who/why they are, and what they are going to do in the decades that stretch before them.

       This is the real world.

       I read "coming of age" stories for fifteen years, and I never fully understood them. They are not about navigating something adult, like death or hardship; they are about seeing the world differently, as something that you are a part of. I guess that once you have experienced death, or love, or some other construct of these, you realize that you have touched the edges of human existence, that no adult has done any more, and that you have to make your own answers. You look up from yourself, and you see the world differently, as if you've passed through some barrier and are looking back. You realize that you are the world.

       Of course, not everyone goes to war or loves an ill-fated pet at just the right age for sudden illumination. Most people just get older, and then find themselves doing adult things, and then realize that if they want adulthood to be any different they are going to have to make it so themselves.

       I'm just going to have to make it so myself.

You Don't Understand About Me and Books: Part II

       Sometimes I swear there are magnets on my soul.

       Sometimes I open the right book - and after a decade or so of practice it is often the right book - and we snap together, the story starts, the pages in my left hand are stacked higher than those in my right, and then it's over, done. I'll surface like someone emerging from a parallel universe and blink at my surroundings thinking, "oh, right. This is Here. Wait. What time is it?"

       Other times, I will open the right book and it is less like being swept along and more like the slow burn of running. It takes time, but the momentum grows and soon the magnets are humming and then lights start flickering and sometimes I'll even have to stop, panting, to chase the burning tales of ideas or concepts or understanding as they spiral outwards, rolling phrases around in my mouth like marbles, listening to the rumble of concepts falling into place.

Visual Inspiration: Note

       I am shuffling through my "Visual Inspiration" folder today, trying to categorize the many, many photos I have into some sort of organised system. Unfortunately, I can't! God bless whatever genius invented metadata tags, because the human mind just does not work in rigid categories. The images I love are loved for being combinations of things: beautiful subjects, in interesting places, doing interesting things, evoking interesting ideas... I can't pick a dominate attribute to file most of them under!

       I am forcing them into certain categories, but I am worrying about how I am going to start thinking about them like that. From now on, I'm going to try to title my little "Visual Inspiration" collections a bit less obviously.

       Also, anyone know if there is software to organize documents with tags? The whole internet is, and most intranets are, but I would love a system for personal files, as well.

Swimming Blind

       There is an image in my head that I want to draw, but I simply don't have the skill. I see it as an oil painting (I have never used oils) and it focuses on a small girl. Hands are emerging from all around her, clapped against her mouth, pressed against her ears, covering her eyes. It would be a typical "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" image, but stifling.

       Now, I would like to stress that I have a high appreciation for the practice of "guarding your senses." What you choose to expose yourself to not only shapes your personality, but affects what I consider the skeletal system of your character: your habits. I could write an entire book on the power of controlling your personal universe, but this image is not about how you manage your world, but how others manage it for you.

Halloween Stories

       I have noticed that there are two kinds of horror: First there is the fun horror, the horror you go to experience at haunted houses, the kind that develops a cult following. It is so much fun because you get the rush of adrenaline from the tension (the same reaction you would feel on a roller-coaster or other simulated danger), and then afterwards all the hilarity of remembering your reactions, mixed with a healthy dose of relief. However, there is another type of horror, what I think of when I hear the term, which leaves you unsettled and uneasy afterwards. It is not about zombies, or sharp objects, or being startled, but about the human soul.

       Horror is an involuntary reaction. It is not controlled by reason, but by the senses. Think about navigating a haunted house: there are sounds (the sounds of distressed human beings works the best), there is visual input (the sets, and also the darkness, which gets your imagination scrambling) and there is tactile input (things hanging from the ceiling that you have to push away, as well as the plain fact that you are physically present.) Your mind might know that there is no danger, but your body is being tricked into tension, a tension that explodes when someone jumps out at you in a plastic mask. Slasher movies use as many of these tricks as they can, as well: other distressed humans, worrisome sounds, visual cues, and sudden scares.

       However, since horror comes from the subconscious, people are horrified by different things. Personally, I find myself laughing at slasher movies simply because my response to fear is to get super analytical: to point out the terrible acting, the cheap special effects, the inaccurate wounds, or even just the fact that it's a movie. Want to set me on edge? Be subtle. Don't show me the monster, or, better yet, show me a monster I can worry about: human beings.

       Well, I am currently trying to scribble a little something of my own for Halloween, but I also have to prepare for Nanowrimo, a job interview, and life in general, so please enjoy a few dark stories, in honor of the season. These are all picture-stories ("comics" doesn't seem like the appropriate term) because, as I mentioned, all the best horror touches as many senses as it can, so visual is better than just words.

       First, I would like to recommend His Face all Red, a dark little story by Emily Carroll. I read this on Halloween in 2010, and the imagery really stuck with me.

        Did you like it? Here is another by Emily Carroll: The Prince and the Sea. It is similar, except it starts out nicer, and ends up worse.

       Okay, well, I understand that things like that aren't necessarily everyone's cup of tea, so here, have some straight Korean horror: 2011 Mystery Short. Unlike the other two, which get under my skin, this one makes my heart jump. Every time. Yes, I know it is in Korean. No, you don't have to be able to read it. Just keep scrolling.

       Mwahahaha!

Psychologies and Things

       Today I have landed a job and purchased chicken, and I am excited for both. These, as well as gorgeous weather, conversations with family members and informative video consumption, have ensured that I enjoyed my day fairly fully.

       What have I watched? Of note, I watched a video from the Fashion Week Internationale series highlighting Seoul. The series seems fairly interesting, despite it's superficial discussions, because it focuses much less on fashion than it does on the differences between cultures highlighted by the events, so I might watch more. This one taught me some surprising things about the beauty culture of South Korea, and subsequently sparked an interest in Asian history, since it occurred to me that I really don't know much about the individual countries that compose "Asia."

(Continues beneath the cut...)

Sunday

It is Sunday, and I am making ramen for lunch and writing an essay on the co-dependence of Faith and Reason.

Here, have a video of Alain de Botton, an atheist, explaining what atheists should glean from religion:

You know, Neil deGrasse Tyson had an interesting point when he said,

"It is weird that the word "atheist" even exists. I don't play golf. Is there a word for non-golf-players? Do non-golf-players gather and strategize? Do non-skiers have a word, and come together, and talk about the fact that they don't ski?" 

I think his point was that there should not be a word, but all I can see is that being against religion is fundamentally strange. There are simply voids and questions that are not just untouched by science, but not meant for science in the first place.

A Wave of Reason

I love how much I can love this video, eventhough I don't necessarily agree with everyone in it.

Lightning

Sometimes I get struck, like as if by a bolt of lighting, by the phenomenal beauty of human life; what we can do, think, know, experience. Real life is so, so much better than any fiction that could ever be imagined, and there is so, so much more to life than sex and entertainment. I just...

Sometimes, I cry because I am not God. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed by the disparity between what there is to know and understand and live, and how much I reasonably expect, in my short little time here, to know and understand and live.

The Pensive Pen (Whether He Liked it or Not)

Edward Gorey is the illustrator whose work you have seen but whose name you might not know. An artistic eccentric who spent only one semester in art school and, at least at the beginning, self-published his work, Gorey has become well known for his intricate, nonsensical drawing and macabre humor. Personally, I have never liked his drawings, but after seeing a gallery of his works at the Portland Public Library yesterday, I have developed new interest and respect.

(There is more below the cut, because this ended up longer than I expected...)

A Thought

I think the definition of beauty is "That quality that makes life worth living."