Monday, December 22, 2008

A Harmless State of Agitation

I feel like writing but I don't know what about.

Boredom isn't necessarily painful. It is just a state of agitation to substitute for the possibility of a state of nothingness in the hope of eventual action. I guess I can see the evolutionary advocation for constant action.

Damn this language failure. I've been forgetting things again. It comes in cycles. And I look at a structure of some idiomatic sentence and start to wonder: how the hell does this even work? I guess that's not the point of an idiomatic statement. It is idiomatic because that collection of words adhered under a common acceptance of meaning, whether it works or not. But it doesn't do me much good trying to think about it, and then I lose the ability to produce anything for a moment. And then I forget what the sentence is. And it would have been useful to say something else. Damnation.

It is raining again. It rains for a while and you get to thinking, "well this is how it is". And then it clears up and the blue sky looks a little strange and even invasive. But then you realize that yes, the sky is good, and the sun will feel good today, and the air and the streets are clean from just being washed, and it looks very nice out: clean and shiny and the colors are vibrant. And then the clouds gather yet again and you wake up to the pattering, thinking, "again"?

Nothing cohesive for now. Lots of phone calls to make. Meaningless anxiety. Doesn't make any sense.

The Canine King

Is there greatness in the dog world? And moreover, what constitutes this greatness?

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Another Quarter Down, Moving On

The danger has passed for now. I can breathe again. Was there ever a danger? Of being left behind after being so close to graduating? I don't know. I don't know what I learn these days. I read the books and do the homework and take the tests and forget about it. They say the only things that stick enough to move you to action are the things that you genuinely accept as true, and vividly so, where enough force is applied to push it back into your subconscious to gestate there for later days. And all this school is just a blur. I have the vague feeling I'm losing these days spent here, but no, the philosophy is invigorating my mind, shaping it, preparing it for exercise, that I can be sure of. And there are some things that are sticking. I don't think like I used to.

But I do think I am starting to believe in something. It is hard to believe in nothing, but I remember being pretty close. And it was painful. But now there is something. Nothing from school either. Maybe some things from philosophers here and there, but I've been reading on my own and oh the ideas, they can be so beautiful. Contemplating them can give that swelling in the chest that comes with the viewing of a sunset or a grand landscape, or a great work of art, or a sprawling skyline, or a gorgeous person, or whatever else it is that gives the swell.

And the music. The music has been good. Listening. Playing. Sometimes I'm improvising on the guitar and it gives rise to certain modes of thought that I hadn't been expecting: say a collection of images or somebody arguing with someone else or someone advocating a certain idea. I carry off a certain pattern of notes and here is a man who believes he has been cheated, and here is another who is trying to tell me something important. Vague constellations of meaning, trying to sharpen into focus. It slips away for now. I think I'm moving in the right direction. It feels good to be in a trance once in a while.

It is getting colder and colder for the coming winter. The dusk is very beautiful in the clear cold. The fire leaves are back. The brightest red-orange tree in the neighborhood. It catches my eye when I go out back to turn on the jacuzzi. But then I move past a certain point and the wall and the neighbor's trees obscure it and I curse the obstructions and look to the right, where there is a beautiful sunset with huge plumes of clouds and I can't sit down to enjoy it because of another wall and I curse that obstruction too. And I curse the suburbs, all crammed together with nothing to see but walls and houses and its all the same and these backyards are just concessions to something lesser, as there's not much to see out here. But I'm glad for a backyard. I am. I just want to be able to sit out and watch the colors changing in the clouds, that's all. Because it is there, and it is very large, and shouldn't be that hard to see. But it is.

It has just begun to rain. Sleep for now. The rain should make drifting off pleasant.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

That's Me?

Says something naive like a kitten while looking into a mirror for the first time, not sure whether to be overjoyed or to be in complete terror. Complete terror? A kitten?

Ah forget it. It's nonsense anyway.