Thursday, June 30, 2011

There are still many things to unlearn... All these defenses, built to deflect pain... built to hide (and in some ways protect) the little kid I used to be. Layer after layer of garbage - waiting to be peeled back like old paint
So, after a series of varying rejections, I feel like writing some sappy love poetry...

I built you a palace
you turned a blind eye
I opened my heart
and you willed it to die
I played like a child
and you said to mature
I said I was scared to
Then i lost my allure

Monday, June 27, 2011

Pursuit

Holy: it means separate
je ne sais quoi
ineffable
mystical
sacred texts, teachers
all pointing towards it
but not the thing itself
many paths
one truth

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Photography

Photograph is only one of two hobbies since I have had since a child (gardening is the other). When I am behind the lens (or screen) it is amazing how time becomes fluid and how my heart flutters. I can be in a crowd of thousands and I hear the simple calm voice in my head calculating composition, lighting, and color... inventing new ways of seeing conventional things... seeing things as they are and not as the icons we imagine in our head.... finding indescribable beauty in an ordinary white fluffy cloud.

It's from the Greek words φῶς "light" and γραφή "drawing", together roughly translates to light writing. It is how I tell stories. Is how I show the world what I see and what I feel. It is existential. It is real. It is raw. Like music it has to power to capture the emotional relevance of a given moment. It bites and won't let go.


Photograpy is the difference in this:



and this



(as an aside it's funny how we also migrated from the noble love associated with the return of a war hero featured below to the raw passion of the image above)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Mein Kamph

Just rehashing what I wrote yesterday and adding a little more...


Basically I have gone from Christianity (which was a decision based on fear -. Hell or retribution from an angry God) to hedonism (essentially aimless living, which was based on selfishness - this eventually grew tiresome and hollow) to a renewed version of Christianity to pan-spiritualism. Next I went on the open road and then into the wilderness for a while (in the vein of Moses, Jesus, Emily Dickinson, ect). At first I sought to "loose myself of imaginary lines" and later after my admission that I have no clue, I sought peace through revelation though not through faith (yet).


This led me to form my own views and admit the limitations of my own understanding. Next was an honest examination of Buddhism... And though it was helpful, I ended up trading one form of stress for another and it still didn't give a reason for living besides enlightenment (which is selfishness, which I suppose is better than
fear as a motivator).


I have mostly given up on finding any set path long ago, though I
thought it might come from a patchwork understanding of spirituality
(or relationships with others) I think it will most likely come from
within...


Yesterday someone posed a very simple question to me: "What is one
thing could you never do without?"


The company of interesting people (that is humanity, our species) might be the only thing on that list. Though I can rationally come up with many reasons why that is a silly goal (impossibility of connecting our concisenesses, the ethereal and corruptible nature of memory, the future extinction of our species in a few billion years, the fact that need is simply a psychological dependency on my part), it still provides some measure of satisfaction when viewed in the context of beauty. It is timeless and eternal and does not need permanence to have meaning - like my favorite analogy - making sand castles by the sea shore. Interestingly, in some ways this merges all of my views (and old hopes)... The over arching goal of Christianity, most other religions, my childhood lessons from my parents, and a response to the most basic of philosophical questions. Why live? Simply, to love.


Maybe by faith I can go a step further and do as Jesus suggests and
love those who hate you...

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Meaning and Purpose, Redux

Hell, I can't even get over the basic concept of free will. The only honest thing I feel I can do is just stop and cry and scream "I don't know" to the universe. I guess that might be what I am looking for... someone who just simply admits that along with me and will join me in the search... I wouldn't mind meeting someone who's already found something to latch on to either.

As an aside...what's ironic to me is when I did that I was left with a resounding peace from the very place I started. Here
and here. This is where Kant ended his search.. "in particular Immanuel Kant's "critical" philosophy in order to carry out a reductio ad absurdum according to which all rationalism (philosophy as criticism) reduces to nihilism, and thus it should be avoided and replaced with a return to some type of faith and revelation."

Buddhist-style meditation and thinking has been helpful for dealing with this anxiety but I still have a lot of anxiety when I pause to reflect on my future and purpose. I really don't have a clue. It's almost analysis paralysis.. And it seems Neitchze was spot on:

"One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche calls 'passive nihilism', which he recognises in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's doctrine, which Nietzsche also refers to as Western Buddhism, advocates a separating oneself of will and desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterises this ascetic attitude as a "will to nothingness," whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This mowing away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent[31]:

A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: the pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos — at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists."

This is certainly true, I have an overwhelming sense of peace concerning the trivialities of daily life, but it has been replaced with a singular overarching pathos - a lack of purpose.

This is where I am at now:

Nietzsche's relation to the problem of nihilism is a complex one. He approaches the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world is a problem that has "become conscious" in him.[32] Furthermore, he emphasises both the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"[33] According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure.[18]

He states that there is at least the possibility of another type of nihilist in the wake of Christianity's self-dissolution, one that does not stop after the destruction of all value and meaning and succumbs to the following nothingness. This alternate, 'active' nihilism on the other hand destroys to level the field for constructing something new. This form of nihilism is characterized by Nietzsche as "a sign of strength,"[34] a wilful destruction of the old values to wipe the slate clean and lay down one's own beliefs and interpretations, contrary to the passive nihilism that resigns itself with the decomposition of the old values. This wilful destruction of values and the overcoming of the condition of nihilism by the constructing of new meaning, this active nihilism could be related to what Nietzsche elsewhere calls a 'free spirit'[35] or the Übermensch from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the Antichrist, the model of the strong individual who posits his own values and lives his life as if it were a work of art.


I have struggled and came to the same conclusion a while back. That my purpose was simply to build sandcastles in the sea shore. I could not be attached to the permanence of my efforts or creation.

I am in my battle field. I take time to play, meet others and to forget the war of ideas in my head, but I do not for one moment pretend that I have emerged on the other side victorious. I suppose it is a dark place and I haven't wanted to admit that, but the positive characterization of my place in life certainly helps me to admit this. I guess you could equate to a Christmas Truce, though I let these lighthearted periods last a little longer than a day. I don't think my spirit has a enough strength to bear a constant intellectual struggle.

Monday, June 06, 2011

For You



You just call out my name,
and you know wherever I am
I'll come running
to see you again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall,
all you got to do is call
You've got a friend.

Hey, ain't it good to know that you've got a friend?
People can be so cold.
They'll hurt you and desert you.
Well they'll take your soul if you let them.
but don't you let them....

Saturday, June 04, 2011

To be happy to see you
To always try to see the other side
To not be selfish
To never give up
To be honest, even when it hurts