so i let it out unwittingly today. and it turns out i came here for an apology - or at the very least an explanation. funny that. and also funny what the combination of ignorance and delusion can do to a person. seriously, what the fuck was i thinking?
major learning: what matters to me matters... but then only to me. and i need to learn to be able to sit and live and dance and... breathe with that - and not just pay lip service to my ability to do so. and i'll have grown up when i truly let go of my need for certain "sorry"s. i just don't know why it's so hard to let it go, you know?
for a while i thought everything hinged on self-awareness - i mean, my ability to be "adjusted" and fine... maybe even happy? i thought that was about me knowing that i can't do x and need to work on fixing that, that i can't do y and need to let that go, that i kick ass at doing z and need to be cognizant of that too. but it... self-awareness isn't even the half of it. i mean, it's a start. the whole point of me blogging was to force myself to be in my head a bit more - but even that does not necessarily grant any results! and it's getting disheartening. it's like... like i find myself in a really deep lake and i take that in (self-awareness feat A)... then i admit to myself that i can't swim (self-awareness feat B)... then i decide that what i need is a raft, and i'll be fine - and there you have it. i have identified the problem and in this case even gone so far as to propose a solution but that does not result in the raft materialising, does it? cos if there isn't one, well... nothing's changing. it's an awful (awful!) metaphor on the whole - to speak nothing of the melodrammatic allusions to drowning in particular - but i couldn't think of a better one.
bottomline: all my expectations were really stupid.
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Monday, 15 October 2007
fsg 2 and eh 1
i don't know why i'm so fascinated by these two men, but anyway - here goes...
"When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy by his inferiors. It should be a rule that bad writers must start with plain heroines and ordinary mornings, and, if they are able, work up to something better."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
"You see it's awfully hard to talk or write about your own stuff because if it is any good you yourself know about how good it is—but if you say so yourself you feel like a shit."
- Ernest Hemingway
"Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones."
- Ernest Hemingway
"When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy by his inferiors. It should be a rule that bad writers must start with plain heroines and ordinary mornings, and, if they are able, work up to something better."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
"You see it's awfully hard to talk or write about your own stuff because if it is any good you yourself know about how good it is—but if you say so yourself you feel like a shit."
- Ernest Hemingway
"Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones."
- Ernest Hemingway
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
poetry 5: hope for the past
Thanks, Robert Frost, David Ray
Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought...
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks.
Hope for the past, yes, old Frost,
your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.
Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought...
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks.
Hope for the past, yes, old Frost,
your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.
poetry 4: the more loving one
The More Loving One, W.H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now i see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now i see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
poetry 3: friends
To My Friends, Primo Levi
Dear friends,
I say friends here
In the larger sense of the word:
Wife, sister, associates, relatives,
Schoolmates,men and women,
Persons seen only once
Or frequented all my life:
Provided that between us, for at least a moment,
Was drawn a segment,
A well defined chord.
I speak for you, companions on a journey
Dense, not devoid of effort,
And also for you who have lost
The soul, the spirit, the wish to live.
Or nobody or somebody, or perhaps only one, or you
Who are reading me: remember the time
Before the wax hardened,
When each of us was like a seal.
Each of us carries the imprint
Of a friend met along the way;
In each the trace of each.
For good or evil
In wisdom or in folly
Each stamped by each.
Now that time presses urgently,
And the tasks are finished,
To all of you the modest wish
That the Autumn may be long and mild.
Dear friends,
I say friends here
In the larger sense of the word:
Wife, sister, associates, relatives,
Schoolmates,men and women,
Persons seen only once
Or frequented all my life:
Provided that between us, for at least a moment,
Was drawn a segment,
A well defined chord.
I speak for you, companions on a journey
Dense, not devoid of effort,
And also for you who have lost
The soul, the spirit, the wish to live.
Or nobody or somebody, or perhaps only one, or you
Who are reading me: remember the time
Before the wax hardened,
When each of us was like a seal.
Each of us carries the imprint
Of a friend met along the way;
In each the trace of each.
For good or evil
In wisdom or in folly
Each stamped by each.
Now that time presses urgently,
And the tasks are finished,
To all of you the modest wish
That the Autumn may be long and mild.
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