Random Thoughts of a Summer Evening
The purpose of all living things occurred to me most deeply at a family reunion. IT was a Williams family reunion. All of the decedents of my mother’s, mother’s parents (great grand parents), and their spouses. With a major chunk of the family missing (My three uncles did not come we were all a little pissed) there were 36 people (over 50 if the three uncles’ families had come) ranging in age from 5 to 87. The professions of these people spanned the full spectrum; from stay at home parent to defense contractor with the government, from professor of law to horse riding instructor. It occurred to me that if it had not been my great grand parents then none of these people would have been around. Sure some body would have taken their places but it would not have been the same. They would not have been connected the same. The world would have been different. The point is that all of these people can easily say that two people had a major effect in their life and existence. That is the purpose of a living thing; to propagate, the spread, and affect the world.
Some of the best literature, philosophy and writings, are those that tell you what you already know. Perhaps this is why religion, philosophy, science and any other means of explaining what we already know are so appealing.
Words have only fucked up the mind.
I have a hard time admitting my feelings. There are so many things that I want to say to people and I know I never will. It is not because I do not want to, but because I fear that to speak them out loud for another’s ear would make my feelings real. When something is real it is so much harder to control.
Some months ago I saw a mouse in my apartment. To many summers spent out on the trail, where the field mouse is common, have made me see mice not as a bad sort creature. They are just trying to survive like the rest of us. The day after I saw him I found a note on my door from the apartment management that they would be checking for “pests” the following day. The evening after I found the note the mouse scurried across my floor as if to say “they did not find me.” It was about this time that I decided to start rooting for a side in the battle between my apartment management and the mouse. I sided with the mouse and named him Martin. Five times there were notes on my door talking about checking for pests and five times Martin always showed up the day after to say “I’m still with you man.” It was as if I had found a connection to the wild in this domesticated environment in which I still live. I rather liked the idea of Martin out witting the people who were illogically afraid of a little mouse. It occurred to me last night that it had been a long time sense I had seen the little black streak scurry across the floor as I entered a dark room. When I woke this morning I went to the bathroom and there in the toilet was the water logged form of the drowned mouse Martin. The oddest thing, the thing that is bothering me now, is that I felt nothing. No emotion came to me. Even when image of an innocent mouse on the edge of the toilet slipping into the water and then struggling for minute even hours in the night to keep its head above the surface finally becomes tired and dies in the water of my toilet, even then I felt nothing. I simply emptied my bladder and flushed the toilet.
I can never picture myself married. Not because I can not picture myself happy with a woman for the rest of my life. I can picture myself happy with any number of women for my whole life (not all of them together that would be fun for a while and then just become… I’m not sure how Mormons do it). The thing that I can not picture is being content with myself and how I interact with the ones around me. I think I would drive myself crazy (in a bad way). I’m too much like my dad.
I love music. All kinds of music. But I have never found something that matches what is in my soul (what ever your definition of “soul” might be). I have never heard something that my soul dances to. I have found many thing that come close but never right on. I think that it is because the soul always dances. It is always changing and moving to its own song. I have often wished that I were a musician so that I could get that song out but when ever I try what ever I do is so at odds with what is in me they simply break each other into pieces. For a long time I tried to take on the philosophy that life should be an art and that everything I do should be an expression of my soul. To actively try to achieve such a goal is to fail. So then how am I to express my soul?...
I miss…
A cerebral life is an interesting one. You would not think that it would be that great to exist within you own mind. But that world behind my eyes and between my ears is such a fucked up place I can not help but have fun.
Some of the best literature, philosophy and writings, are those that tell you what you already know. Perhaps this is why religion, philosophy, science and any other means of explaining what we already know are so appealing.
Words have only fucked up the mind.
I have a hard time admitting my feelings. There are so many things that I want to say to people and I know I never will. It is not because I do not want to, but because I fear that to speak them out loud for another’s ear would make my feelings real. When something is real it is so much harder to control.
Some months ago I saw a mouse in my apartment. To many summers spent out on the trail, where the field mouse is common, have made me see mice not as a bad sort creature. They are just trying to survive like the rest of us. The day after I saw him I found a note on my door from the apartment management that they would be checking for “pests” the following day. The evening after I found the note the mouse scurried across my floor as if to say “they did not find me.” It was about this time that I decided to start rooting for a side in the battle between my apartment management and the mouse. I sided with the mouse and named him Martin. Five times there were notes on my door talking about checking for pests and five times Martin always showed up the day after to say “I’m still with you man.” It was as if I had found a connection to the wild in this domesticated environment in which I still live. I rather liked the idea of Martin out witting the people who were illogically afraid of a little mouse. It occurred to me last night that it had been a long time sense I had seen the little black streak scurry across the floor as I entered a dark room. When I woke this morning I went to the bathroom and there in the toilet was the water logged form of the drowned mouse Martin. The oddest thing, the thing that is bothering me now, is that I felt nothing. No emotion came to me. Even when image of an innocent mouse on the edge of the toilet slipping into the water and then struggling for minute even hours in the night to keep its head above the surface finally becomes tired and dies in the water of my toilet, even then I felt nothing. I simply emptied my bladder and flushed the toilet.
I can never picture myself married. Not because I can not picture myself happy with a woman for the rest of my life. I can picture myself happy with any number of women for my whole life (not all of them together that would be fun for a while and then just become… I’m not sure how Mormons do it). The thing that I can not picture is being content with myself and how I interact with the ones around me. I think I would drive myself crazy (in a bad way). I’m too much like my dad.
I love music. All kinds of music. But I have never found something that matches what is in my soul (what ever your definition of “soul” might be). I have never heard something that my soul dances to. I have found many thing that come close but never right on. I think that it is because the soul always dances. It is always changing and moving to its own song. I have often wished that I were a musician so that I could get that song out but when ever I try what ever I do is so at odds with what is in me they simply break each other into pieces. For a long time I tried to take on the philosophy that life should be an art and that everything I do should be an expression of my soul. To actively try to achieve such a goal is to fail. So then how am I to express my soul?...
I miss…
A cerebral life is an interesting one. You would not think that it would be that great to exist within you own mind. But that world behind my eyes and between my ears is such a fucked up place I can not help but have fun.
posted by The Golden Retirver at 10:02
1 Comments:
"I fear that to speak them out loud for another’s ear would make my feelings real."
This is odd, yes. Sometimes I find that ignoring something really does make it go away. Other times it's just denial. It's always in the first moment of expression that danger seems to lurk.
Re: marriage. There are these terms that have sprung up in recent generations to deal with all these changes in society. It used to be boyfriend/girlfriend, fiance, spouse. Then we had gay people and unmarried couples living together, etc., and these generic terms like partner and significant other became more prominent or more correct. And I used to kind of dislike the term partner, as a way of imposing a term that was generic and faceless onto something rich and personal.
But now there's another side of the word "partner" that I've come to like. When one talks about marriage, about husband and wife, there's a societal connotation that overlaps itself neatly, sometimes unnoticed onto the relationship. There's a bond of expectation, of obligation and of law on top of what started as something personal and emotional. I don't know that I like it, the idea that the bond becomes an obligation, a duty, something to take for granted while the marriage certificate holds.
Which is not to say that I'm not going to get married. But the reason that the word "partner" has started to appeal to me again, is that it assumes nothing formal. It isn't obligation, duty, something that can be taken for granted because of the label or something external. It implies that there is constantly cooperation, a sense in which two people stay together because they simply like being together, and because they help each other month by month, year by year. That seems to me to be the core of what is good about this thing called "marriage". If I need or want something from a person, I shouldn't have to say that I deserve it because I am a husband, or a family member, or a friend. I should be asking based on the relationship itself, without looking to a label for power. Labels are for explaining something to the outside world.
I guess what my aversion boils down to, is related to what my mom said the other day. She told me "obligation is not a dirty word". I think maybe it should be, because in way it seems to be one of the enemies of real virtue. There aren't cheap tricks like a list of obligations to help you.
Finally, about words. I started re-reading The Tao is Silent the other day, due to feeling directionless (in the bad way of wanting something I didn't understand). Do you remember the part about naming? The idea that, when you name something, it can change in the very act, that it can become less itself, just because you've been silly enough to talk of it. That's part of the reason that I come up with all these crazy theories, then take this one back, ignore the other and resuscitate the third months later. Knowledge is like a big, obnoxious, funny-shaped rock that you try to lie on. You break it up, and it feels better with the pieces in a new position, but the jagged edges eventually start poking you again. You try to sculpt them, throw bits away, re-glue a rock or smash it into tinier pieces. It's not an easy material to work with. In the end, maybe it's easier to lie on after you've pulverized it into sand, and there's simply nothing left to be done.
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