Return

I have refrained from writing new posts to honor my grandfather's passing and to give my words to him their appropriate place at the top. Five weeks have now passed, and the world has moved on. I just want to thank those who expressed their condolences. You were precious few. God grant the rest of you the little consideration necessary to express your sympathy for your friends' losses.

A lot has happened in the interim, and I would I know satisfy those gossip-thirsty among you with many juicy tidbits, were I so inclined. Unfortunately, I think gossip is poison and hold it very much in disdain and contempt. Yes, I am being pretentious, but I am done being politically correct about my views. I will not abandon my humility, but I am a coward and a hypocrite if I do not express that which I believe is truth. And in the meantime, if anyone wants to call me out on my pretentiousness, if anyone can find in my actions or thoughts a hint of hypocrisy, by all means slap me in the face with it. I am done bringing myself down for others, I am done being 'one' of 'them', and I am done investing all I have in people. I have spent the semester chasing after that which I cannot have, and it has cost me dearly in honor, pride, time, and resources. More importantly, it has cost me my own sense of self-respect.

Recently, something happened that could potentially change much of this. But my own incompetence and pathetic desperation will work to ensure that the law of inertia remains intact. So now, I have only my return home to look forward to; my 5 weeks of heart-wrenching yearning and the inevitability of impermanence and the death of many things both physical and sociopsychological. The great experience of the banality of bureacracy, the fetid corruption of my nation, and the rotting of its breathtaking innocence by the touches of greed and consumerism. If only you knew what it was like, if only you knew so that when I spoke to you of this you did more than categorize what I say into neat little emotion/personality slots you have deemed appropriate for me after your judgment of who I am. And yes, you have judged and categorized and made assumptions about that. I at least will admit that I have and that I am aware of it, and that I try to revise them as often and as accurately as I can based on everything I ever experience in my interactions with you.

But for all of that, the love of those I love, my love of the land and its bounty, my love for my home and its grace and its truth; these are more than enough to make me anxious to leave already. God knows I have not loved anything or anyone, or been loved, in two years of this cold land. I am too nice, apparently. Or too lonely. Or too serious. Or too unattractive. Or too intimidating. Or too opinionated. Or too different. Or too conforming. Or expect too much. All these (and there are many more) are real things that have been said to me. Or have been implied, when the culprit was not an individual but a larger entity such as a group or the community or even this whole culture. And the question then is, if so many qualifications and conditions are set upon one by the people of this society just for simple, honest, true caring, is that caring even worth seeking out, is it worth anything, is it even real? Love is most beautiful when unconditional, unreasoning, and instinctive. But what do you do when the real thing is not around? You look for the closest alternative, obviously, because there is nothing worse than having nothing at all. But what if you give all you have, and fail at finding even the crudest semblances, the faintest of shades? What does that say about you as a person?

My Grandfather

My grandfather, my jiddo - an agent of the Light if ever there was one. Pious and courageous in his faith, he lived a full life, and faced his death with grace. In his mighty spirit he held all that is good and pure in our culture, and all that is worthy in men everywhere. He spoke only truth, and gave of himself without thought or desire soiled by self. In joy, he upheld the respect of all those he knew, and shined at them with fellowship and amity. He held himself with dignity, and yet was not too proud, and dealt with all fairly and in good faith and spirit. Gentle as ever a man was, and humble, and virtuous in all his conduct and thought, he wrought only the good, the ever noble, in thought and deed. In his patience and self-discipline, he inspired us to be more, to move beyond desire, beyond self. A gentleman through and through, refined and cordial, he was more princely than any prince, despite - no - because of, his suffering, his toil, and his humble means. In his heart was love of life, family, friends, community and country, and his duty to them was no duty, but instinct, as natural and as certain as the passing of Time. Like a crystal his love caught and concentrated his every virtue and beamed it out at all those around him, so that we were made better for it, for him.

Time has taken him from us, ripped from him the garment of his body, and set him elsewhere. And though his passing may be the blessing of others, with his spirit in new raiment, pristine white, or enjoined and whole with the Universe once more, our loss is hard to bear, in a world where so few remain with his wisdom, his honor, his soul, brave and true in its gentleness, unshakeable in endurance and integrity, mighty in love and character. It is my only hope that I may aspire to find him still in my life, and to found him in others', to preserve and elevate his essence in all that I do. All that is left to me is to fight for that cause, and pray that I achieve but a fraction of the purity and humanity that characterized my grandfather, in my worshipful eyes. God bless and protect his soul, and keep those he loved from harm, and give to us the strength to ensure that his self and what it stood for, his memory on this earth, never wanes.

I pray, Grandfather, that Gibran, that great mentor to whose wisdom I owe my being, and whose acquaintance I owe to you, spoke true:

What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

But regardless of whither your grace has landed, jiddo, (and I know it is a good place and bettered by you), I swear, in your name and in God's, in my life I shall not cease; I will rage, rage against the dying of the light!

Music

I learned oud, or lute, for 3 years. Even though I gave up in exasperation and despair of ever being this good, I find that I miss it now. I wish I could create beauty, joy, or goodness by virtue of a talent, or knowledge, or skill. Would that I could flood the world with the reservoir that is my soul. But I have been given no tap, and that which I strive to fashion for the moment in every moment is ever rusted, blocked, a crude and pathetic attempt at elevation above the mundane, at becoming more than a consumer of the efforts of other beings and things.

Later

Tonight I have no urge to do anything. I just want to put everything off until later. If I could, I would put all of life on pause. Since I am deprived of that particular talent, I have to settle for being 'unhealthily' good at procrastination. I don't know why my severe lack of motivation is worse these days, but I do know the weather is not helping. I went down to the Cape for a night, and it was so beautiful I did not know what to do with myself coming back. There were so many stars I could not be sure of Orion's lines. And, there was family. The closest to family that I have away from my family. They are in mourning, as am I. He was a fine man, and always kind and generous to me. I will miss him.

It is important to know want, to become a truly mature and responsible human. And not just know the fleeting desire and the shallow, in the ignorance of youth, but true need biting felt at the height of awareness and intellectual capacity. At the same time, while it is an essential developmental milestone, I believe that its extended presence hinders growth and creative potential. A system that employs techniques whereby need is incorporated into learning could be quite powerful, especially if combined with Socratic disturbance. Educational systems are key to the natures of people and their societies. Theoretical exploration followed up with trial implementation of experimental methods needs to be encouraged a lot more than has been done in any of today's societies. I hope to do some of this work myself...later.

I've been thinking a lot lately about pressure, and the strangeness of that construct, and the incredible variation that exists in people's interactions with it. Stephen King mentions it significantly in his The Langoliers. Maybe I'll come back to it.

As hard as we try to distance ourselves from our origins, parade our transcendence above the physical, the sensory, and the bestial, we cannot but fail. We are cruelly, inexorably linked in reason, emotion, and behavior to our physical state and all material influences upon it. Free will exists, and is a powerful driver of human history and civilization, but in most of our everyday lives, for most of the everyday people, it is but a mirage. Would that knowledge be upsetting? Should it be? What is our need for control, and where does it come from? Is it pride, or is it fear? A sense of and need for agency are built into us neurologically, and I find that fascinating, because there can be no human without it, and yet some are able to recognize that it is often false. Just one more example as to how people are not and cannot be equal, either in their rights or their responsibilities. Controversial, I know. I guess I'll try to address that particular issue in the future as well.

If there is time. Think about that. You do not have the time to do all you wish, to discover all you do not know, to answer every question and fulfill every need, to pass through every experience, sense every sensation, feel every emotion, and think every thought that you ought to. What does that do to your morale? Because mine's not happy about it.

Pitch

Cannot see, cannot know, cannot feel, no thought, no emotion, no time. What passes? Am I? Too much too soon too fast too good too bad.

Tried to be well, tried to be right. Tried to be more, tried to be all. And with every trial I resent myself more. Tonight, there is no person on earth I can say I like. Tonight, my faith in possibility, my hope for transcendence is gone. Tonight, I cannot respect my self, cannot respect my people, cannot respect my species, and am not impressed with existence. Insignificance permeates my core and renders me paralysed with revulsion at the world. My world. For my world is not your world, and there is no one in it.

Perfection is an illusion, and strife for the high and the good, for the beautiful and the right, for meaning and purpose, is a mockery and a handicap.

This is truth to me, absolute and immutable, as the world stands, and as I stand in who I am and what I am. But there is nothing like failure to draw the thoughts out from the dark recesses of the mind, where they are hidden lest they devour the will and the heart for life. And there is no failure like the failure to satisfy oneself. The disappointment, the frustration, the utter hate for one's incompetence, and the bitter contempt at the surrender of one's ideals, are just the beginning. And there is no hypocrisy greater than the need for self-satisfaction in refuting the ways and lives of the self.

Twisted and uneasy my mind continues to refuse me contentment, and as if conspiring with it, the world veils its beauty and its joys from me, and all that is left in me is fear of life and death in equal measure, and a terror beyond comprehension of an insanity that is all too real in the abysses of my dark hours.

2/8/09

False hope is more hurtful than no hope at all. Consideration and respect are things of the past. Honor is quaint, and decency a relic reserved for the eccentrics. All is weighed on the cruel balance of profit and ego, the cost-benefit societal poison.

I should start assuming that everyone I meet is a liar and pretentious two-faced hypocrite. On the rare occasion I'm wrong, it'll be that much sweeter. And since we're assuming things, it seems the healthiest option to assume myself incapable of achieving anything I want from the outset. Do you not find that as soon as you want something it becomes infinitely harder to achieve? And if you were so fortunate as to have the ability to stop caring about, or to kill all desire for it, do you not see that that which you have forsaken comes unbidden? How is that reasonable? What kind of cruel irony is that, and who is laughing? To give of yourself, to be passionate, is to be taken advantage of. And the more you give, the more they will take, until you are nothing but an empty insignificant echo of the full-throated roar of the ocean that was your soul.

And yet there is no nobler way of life. But then who cares about nobility in this brave new age?

Quotations

"For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green. I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and people who will see a world that I shall never know. But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door." - J. R. R. Tolkien

‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.’ - W. B. Yeats

"There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." - Robert Browning

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" - Dylan Thomas

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health,
and quiet breathing." - John Keats

"Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I'll meet you there." - Rumi

"The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings." -Buddha

"When you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb." - Gibran

I shot a smile into the air
It came to Earth, I know not where,
Perhaps on someone else's face
In some forgotten quiet place.
Perhaps somewhere a sleeping child
Has had a happy dream and smiled
Or some old soul about to die
Has smiled and made a little sigh;
Has sighed a simple final prayer
Which lifts up gently in the air
And flows into the world, so wild,
Perhaps to wake the sleeping child.