February 1, 2005

Relevant Renaissance, Part 2

1

it’s dif­fi­cult to be upright and per­verse, emo­tional and intel­lec­tual, impen­e­tra­ble and vul­ner­a­ble, with­out sac­ri­fic­ing the integrity and value of all of them.

—corus aquilo

This is the first time that a com­ment has been so good, it spawned another entry (although I fail to see how being a well-rounded indi­vid­ual has any­thing to do with per­sonal iden­tity, so I cut that part out).

In P.E. dur­ing high school, I learned that there’s no such thing as the per­fect ath­lete. If some­one builds up their speed, they lose endurance. If some­one works on their strength, they lose flex­i­bil­ity. To be a per­fect ath­lete is impos­si­ble, because there’s a very strict phys­i­cal lim­i­ta­tion involved.

To be well rounded in a much more gen­eral sense, to be a mod­ern day (non-pedagogically rel­e­vant) Renaissance Man, on the other hand, is only lim­ited by the mind. This means that many qual­i­ties do not oppose each other the way phys­i­cal qual­i­ties do. One can be cere­bral, intel­lec­tual, yet emo­tional at the same time. One can be firm and opin­ion­ated about recy­cling, yet open-minded about god and reli­gion, all at once. One can appre­ci­ate fuck­ing hard and fuck­ing gen­tly, because one does not take away from the other.

The key to this is a sep­a­ra­tion of self from bias. One has to be able to appre­ci­ate any­thing from any other point of view. To do this requires an almost purely sub­jec­tive mind­set, tear­ing one­self away of ones own bias. Only then can one improve in any aspect. The hard­est thing, as noted by corus aquilo, is keep­ing the integrity and value of both, because appre­ci­a­tion, not enjoy­ment, is the true mea­sure of being rounded. They may go hand-in-hand, as appre­ci­a­tion often leads to enjoy­ment, but it’s the basis of such that becomes impor­tant. There’s a fine line between those who enjoy a box of Kraft Dinner as much as 20 oz. New York steak, and those who can appre­ci­ate the two. The for­mer is con­sid­ered a per­son with no taste, the lat­ter can be con­sid­ered a cosmopolite.

The Olympic decathlon record holder often holds the title of “the Worlds Greatest Athlete”. It’s the only objec­tive test of all around ath­letic abil­ity, mea­sured in speed, spring, strength, and sta­mina. To be a bet­ter per­son in the gen­eral sense, is to be a rounded in much the same man­ner. The mea­sure is any­thing from con­ver­sa­tional skills, to gen­eros­ity, to golf hand­i­cap, to patience, to aca­d­e­mic achievements.

The only objec­tive test is life.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
April 1, 2004

Control

0

With change comes the need for control.

And with emo­tions run­ning through me in an almost uncon­tain­able, effu­sive man­ner, that need for con­trol has never been more necessary.

Usually, this comes eas­ily. It feels as if I’ve been train­ing my whole life for such a thing, that I’ve spent most of my time work­ing towards becom­ing a cere­bral per­son. Except that in the past, it’s was to edul­co­rate the pain.

Now, it’s to con­trol the hap­pi­ness. The almost inef­fa­ble feel­ing of euphoria.

Sometimes, I can barely con­tain the surge of emo­tion, and I have to stop myself from act­ing out, to keep my mind in check. I refuse to be one who acts out of emo­tion. I refuse to be one who’s at the whim of what­ever mood I’m in.

I will be stronger than that which has become so impor­tant to me. I will be in con­trol of that which I’ve sought so long to have.

Because bal­ance is more impor­tant than happiness.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
December 16, 2003

Reversal: Part 2 (The Floundering Mindset)

0

Out of the storm of life I have borne away only a few ideas — and not one feel­ing. For a long time now I have been liv­ing, not with my heart, but with my head. I weigh, ana­lyze my own pas­sions and actions with severe curios­ity, but with­out sympathy.

—Pechorin, A Hero of Our Time

When I was younger, I decided that I wanted to cast all my emo­tion aside, because at the time I knew noth­ing but pain. I set this as my goal, and started to work towards a ster­ile, cere­bral mind­set. I wanted to feel noth­ing, and this idea fol­lowed me through to university.

At this time, I never believed that I was com­pletely suc­cess­ful; I still felt too much. However, as my sit­u­a­tion changed, as I met new peo­ple with good hearts and minds, I expe­ri­enced what hap­pi­ness was like. I was never sat­is­fied though, never happy enough, and always wanted more but could never achieve it. Suddenly, it felt as if my cere­bral goal was too suc­cess­ful, and I was stuck, I was numb.

I’ve gone from one extreme to the other, from want­ing noth­ing to want­ing every­thing. In both cases I was a fail­ure, but it’s only now that I real­ize that suc­cess would have assuredly meant no turn­ing back. I believe that when a cer­tain extent is reached, one becomes igno­rant to any­thing that could pos­si­bly change one­self. Now I under­stand the bal­ance, the dichotomy that absolutely must exist in order to have a healthy mind.

And things are much bet­ter this way.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
October 6, 2003

The Greatest Balance

0

When I went home a few months ago, I found a copy Soul Mountain at Chapters, which I had been look­ing for, ever since I found out about it. I’ve been read­ing as much as I can lately, when­ever I have the time and the energy to con­cen­trate on what Gao Xingjian is try­ing to nar­rate to me.

The thing that makes the auto­bi­og­ra­phy inter­est­ing so far is that Xingjian was incor­rectly diag­nosed with fatal lung can­cer, and after proper review, had been given a sec­ond chance on life. His out­look changes, and he begins to see every­thing around him very differently.

I’ve lately felt that, although I’ve never been threat­ened with any life-altering inci­dents, I’ve begun to see things dif­fer­ently as well. It’s as if I have noth­ing and every­thing to live for. That there would be no dif­fer­ence between dying tomor­row or in eight decades. It’s almost as if I’ve had my fair share of expe­ri­ences, each one as impor­tant as the other in shap­ing who I am, good or bad, and that this is already suf­fi­cient for me to be sat­is­fied with my life. Perhaps I feel this is true when I com­pare the amount that I’ve already learned with the infi­nite amount that is impos­si­ble to learn. After all, what is the pur­pose of life any­way? For me, it is to con­tin­u­ally shape myself into a bet­ter per­son, whether it’s intel­li­gence, or a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion of music, or dex­ter­ity, or any­thing. And since there is no absolute goal I have to reach (or can reach), there is no way for me to fail, and death hence­forth becomes meaningless.

When I tried to explain this to some­one, he got con­fused, and thought that I was telling him about how I had expe­ri­enced all there is to expe­ri­ence already. This couldn’t be fur­ther from the truth. There are a plethora of things I haven’t done, that I haven’t been through, and when­ever I’m given the chance to actu­ally expe­ri­ence one of these things, I feel as if I’ve gained more out of life.

Instead of see­ing the act of liv­ing as cross­ing out items on a life-long “to do” list, I see it as writ­ing down items on a “have done” list.

The great­est dis­tinc­tion for me between these two world­views is that I can take my time in doing what I want, instead of feel­ing rushed to accom­plish as much as I can before I die. Seeing life this way has cer­tainly allowed me to be a much more relaxed, flex­i­ble, easy-going per­son, unin­hib­ited by the fear of death. The good thing about this is that I didn’t have to fool myself into this view, sim­ply because I was unsat­is­fied with my life. Somehow, this mind­set shaped itself in my brain, and even­tu­ally man­i­fested itself through my ever-continuing maturity.

It has made life mean­ing­ful and mean­ing­less at the same time.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
June 14, 2003

Emotional Cuirass

1

Yo.

It’s been dif­fi­cult to write lately. Sometimes I peruse other peo­ples’ blogs, note their wit and style, and wish I could write as inter­est­ingly as they do. Then I remem­ber that I only write for myself any­way and that it doesn’t mat­ter if I sound bor­ing or pre­ten­tious. Nevertheless, my writ­ers’ block has par­tially been due to the fact that I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing some odd mood swings. It’s not even so much due to the ephemeral nature of my emo­tions, but more related to the fact that I don’t under­stand what I’m feeling.

Some things make me happy. Some things make me depressed.

I think I’m mostly just con­tent, which is a feel­ing I’m not quite used to yet. It’s almost as if I’m float­ing in a pool of luke­warm liq­uid, unsure of what my senses tell me. All I know is that my dys­thymic phase has long left me. For now, I have resigned myself to expe­ri­enc­ing such emo­tions with an open mind, with the hope that I will some day under­stand them.

I remem­ber want­ing to keep my emo­tions in check a long time ago, want­ing to become a com­pletely cere­bral per­son. Nowadays, I’m not so sure that this was such a good idea, not that I’ve been able to fully suc­ceed in such a mon­strous task. Perhaps a bal­ance is needed in some­thing such as this as well. A lack of emo­tions may cause a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion for the few emo­tions one expe­ri­ences, or vice-versa.

My ratio­nale has changed on this because my expe­ri­ences have changed. Growing up in a chaotic world of con­fu­sion and pain, I wanted an emo­tional bar­rier to pre­vent any fur­ther men­tal agony. Now, I’ve accom­plished more, loved more, been loved more, and felt more. Perhaps I now feel that hap­pi­ness is worth the pos­si­bil­ity of men­tal anguish. Sometimes it feels as if I’m wait­ing for a ter­ri­ble inci­dent to revert my views. Life, how­ever, seems to be get­ting better.

I just wish I knew what I was feeling.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
May 5, 2003

Fetus

0

I am usu­ally not one who pro­fesses to know a lot. I’m often fairly hum­bled in front of many oth­ers who pos­sess a greater intel­li­gence than me (although I know my fair share of stu­pid peo­ple). I think that intel­li­gence is some­thing about myself that I’ll never be sat­is­fied with. There are too many things to know and learn and improve upon, and the pur­suit of such would take longer than an eternity.

Reading back on some of my entries, some­thing which has been hard to do lately, I feel like a child again. My entries seem to be filled with such uncere­bral emo­tion some­times. It’s as if I can be greatly both­ered by things that I should be able to over­come. Of course, it’s writ­ing here which helps me out when I need it, when it feels like no one can under­stand or relate. It all just fills this writ­ten his­tory with bias. Nothing can change the fact that I am still a human per­son who has emo­tions, although my life expe­ri­ences have damp­ened them considerably.

I feel young when I real­ize how much these emo­tions can some­times affect me.

I’m still unsure whether it would be bet­ter or worse to feel more. On the one hand, I can keep myself in check and keep my actions con­sis­tent if some­thing hap­pens which might upset me. On the other hand, I feel numb, as if things which should bring me plea­sure end up being noth­ing in particular.

Balance needed in yet some­thing else.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
March 30, 2003

Moving Towards k

0

I’ve come to a point in my life where I’ve achieved my sta­bil­ity. That’s not to say that it won’t dis­ap­pear once a new sit­u­a­tion arises, but it seems that my loss of bal­ance has given me prac­tice in regain­ing it.

The future seems so uncer­tain. I don’t have a room­mate for the sum­mer, and I don’t even know if I need one. Everyone is talk­ing about mov­ing in with each other, but none of our leases end on the same month. I might not be grad­u­at­ing in a month if I fail any courses, a very dis­tinct pos­si­bil­ity. That means that my grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mony would be delayed, and I would need to reg­is­ter for a sum­mer semes­ter. I don’t even give a shit about the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mony, but it’s not like I would be going for myself. I don’t even have a job lined up any time soon, some­thing which I am des­per­ately in need/want of.

Yet in the face of such uncer­tainty, I have been able to remain rel­a­tively sta­ble. I’m not sure why this is. Possibly, the taste of good liv­ing I had last sum­mer has cre­ated a kind of hope in me, a hope with no-strings-attached.

What an odd turn of events, that hav­ing a con­tent sit­u­a­tion (and even los­ing it) has made me “hap­pier”. I won­der if it’s just a phase, that I’m still rid­ing off a store of emo­tions, and that once the store in drained, I’ll become a bit­ter per­son. Somehow I doubt it, but one can never tell.

I can now safely say that I am a bet­ter per­son, although if his­tory has taught me any­thing, it’s that any­thing can change.

And yet there is still a wish for change.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
March 26, 2003

I Cry

0

I came home yes­ter­day with a note on my desk, and it said that Dolly was being taken for a walk.

My first reac­tion was dis­be­lief. I couldn’t under­stand how some­one could just take my cat for a walk. I was beside myself with shock. I felt vio­lated. I felt insulted. I felt terrible.

I hadn’t walked Dolly yet, for sev­eral rea­sons. First of all, I didn’t have her microchipped, so any chance that she gets away would be dev­as­tat­ing. Secondly, I hadn’t decided whether I should take her out yet, since she might miss being out­side too much after her first time. That was a big deci­sion for me, one that I hadn’t made yet, but one which was made for me.

The most impor­tant point is that Dolly had her first walk with­out me. I wasn’t there to see how she reacts with the world, I wasn’t able to be the first per­son to let her outside.

I stood in my room for ten min­utes in dis­be­lief. I couldn’t even wrap my head around how some­one could do such a thing, to walk into my home and vio­late my feel­ings in such a way. I put on my head­phones, put on my fuck off playlist, and sat under my desk, shak­ing my head. This was the most offen­sive thing any­one has ever done to me in my life.

When the real­iza­tion that there was no other first walk sunk in, I started to sob. The shock segued into depres­sion, and I slumped onto the ground, pulling my hair, still in dis­be­lief. I cried for a good while, some­thing I haven’t done for eight or nine years. I cried so hard that my tear ducts felt like they were being sucked of their flu­ids and the walls were start­ing to touch each other. By the end of it, my eyes had the old famil­iar swollen feel­ing, and I was exhausted. I show­ered and tried to wash the mucus from my hair.

The whole sit­u­a­tion has made me more fully under­stand how much I care about Dolly. I already knew how much I cared about her, and I appre­ci­ated her before, but I never real­ized the extent of it until now. I don’t see her as a pet. I see her as a child.

It’s also made me think about the nature of good and bad, and how much of a bal­ance there is. I never really believed that either existed, since one bad thing gen­er­ally spawns a good thing, such as mur­der help­ing to con­trol over­pop­u­la­tion, or geno­cide lead­ing to beau­ti­ful art/culture. Of course, I’ve never been through either, so my thoughts are quite limited.

I just can’t see the good in this sit­u­a­tion. I can’t see how this can be any­thing but bad. I haven’t learned any­thing from this, one of the only pos­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for it hap­pen­ing, and I have lost even more faith in humanity.

Seeing the good in this would be healthy for me.

Tagged as
Filed under
Daily Life Thoughts
March 12, 2003

The Ivory Box, The Penis in a Jar

0

The idea of unbal­anced rela­tion­ships was brought to my mind over the week­end. For a rela­tion­ship to work, both par­ties must be sat­is­fied with the rela­tion­ship. If one per­son isn’t happy, then the rela­tion­ship is bound to fail, unless work can be done to appease that person.

An inter­est­ing idea that arises from this is the occur­rence of rela­tion­ships in which both par­ties have dif­fer­ing rea­sons for being together. For exam­ple, one per­son might like the good time that the other is able to give, while the other per­son might like the intel­li­gence of the first person.

I imag­ine that a tro­phy hus­band or wife rela­tion­ship would be like this. One per­son has money to offer, whereas the other per­son has looks, and both are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for the other.

Even a rela­tion­ship as unbal­anced as this is able to work, as long as both peo­ple are happy. And what if one per­son wants one thing from the other that can only be tem­porar­ily pro­vided? The rela­tion­ship becomes tem­po­rary itself, although not to both people.

Yet can such a rela­tion­ship work? That depends on the def­i­n­i­tion of “work”. I don’t think that such a rela­tion­ship can last for long. After all, it is based on the fun­da­men­tals of hedo­nism, to one per­son at least. The other per­son, aware of this or not, will only be left alone in the end.

So, hypo­thet­i­cally, one may look at both cases, one case where both par­ties are aware of the tem­po­rary sta­tus, and the other case in which only one mem­ber knows of such sin­is­ter motivations.

The for­mer can be suc­cess­ful, as both peo­ple have an under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion, although an end­ing of the terms may cause prob­lems such as the end of a friend­ship. The lat­ter, on the other hand, can only lead to pain.

Being con­fused about either can only lead to worse.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
February 24, 2003

Imbalance

0

I think Dolly may be inter­ested in hav­ing another cat around the house. I’ve been play­ing some cat sounds, and no mat­ter where she is in the apart­ment, she’ll com­ing run­ning into my room. A sec­ond cat is some­thing I only started to con­sider this term. Last term it felt as if I wouldn’t be able to han­dle the chores, let alone dou­bling my annual vet­eri­nar­ian bill. Sometimes she seems lonely though, like when she imme­di­ately starts to cry when I walk in the door after a day of school, her protest­ing only being soothed after pick­ing her up, and being replaced by a low purr. I’ve always seen myself as a one cat per­son; I think I’d feel a lit­tle imbal­anced if I had more than one. If I do decide to get one, it will def­i­nitely be after I grad­u­ate, def­i­nitely after I find a sta­ble job, and pos­si­bly after I can pur­chase a condo. It would be more for Dolly than for me though. I can’t imag­ine find­ing another cat that is as well-adapted as she is, so the idea scares me a little.

One time I dis­cussed with Pita whether he would ever con­sider get­ting two dogs. He said that he couldn’t, not just because it would be much harder to han­dle, but because he would feel more favourable to one or the other.

The idea of favour is one that I haven’t been able to under­stand. How can par­ents love all their kids with­out lik­ing one more than the other, espe­cially when one fol­lows the desires of the par­ents more closely. It might be some­thing I don’t under­stand, being an only child. If such a bal­ance is pos­si­ble, wouldn’t polyg­a­mous rela­tion­ships work as well? I think part of the mis­un­der­stand­ing stems from my con­fu­sion of rela­tional love and parental love as well.

For love is the root of my imbalance.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
October 27, 2002

Unwanted Balance

0

I went to the Black Tomato yes­ter­day, which was a small restau­rant with a decent atmos­phere (though I think it would have been bet­ter at night), which served jazz along with your meals. You could pur­chase jazz albums from the side of the restau­rants, and numer­ous por­traits of jazz greats were hung near the top of the walls. The meals were pretty pricey; the sand­wiches cost over 10 dol­lars, and the 7oz. filet mignon was $24.95. I was really con­sid­er­ing the filet mignon since I so rarely get a chance to go out and eat at a nice restau­rant, but I decided that I had noth­ing to cel­e­brate. I went with a flank sand­wich, which had thinly cut strips of mar­i­nated steak with sauteed onions, and melted cheese, baked on French bread. The put a sort of sweet mus­tard with it, that gave it a spicy, juicy taste, which was excel­lent. I had to get a pint of Strongbow, since they didn’t have Double Diamond. In total it cost me about $20.00.

It was com­i­cal to see what kind of man­ners peo­ple brought to the table. You could tell who was an exec­u­tive by the way they broke their bread, or you could tell who was a admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant by the way they cleaned their teeth with their tongue. I won­dered if their man­ners were a result of their pro­fes­sion, or their upbringing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
October 19, 2002

Control

0

I never did express any res­o­lu­tion on my jeal­ousy sit­u­a­tion. After think­ing about the sit­u­a­tion for a while, I real­ize that I can still be a jeal­ous per­son. It’s almost as if I now know that I’m human. “Still, it’s nice to know I’m capa­ble of tears!”, Lermontov’s char­ac­ter, Pechorin, tells us.

I’m not quite sure if this is a good thing or not. After all, I spent a good deal of my early con­scious­ness try­ing to become a com­pletely cere­bral per­son. I haven’t been entirely suc­cess­ful, after all, I’m human, but I do believe that I have achieved a degree of logic that I can be con­tent with. It makes me won­der how Lermontov, as we can see through his char­ac­ter, can be so “evil” a per­son. As he admits, much of his character’s traits are based on his own.

I sup­pose I real­ize now that jeal­ousy can be a good thing as well; it keeps my mind in bal­ance, and allows me to keep in touch with other peo­ples’ emotions.

I sim­ply wish that my mind and judg­ment wouldn’t be so clouded as it had been on that day. It’s a lit­tle scary, not know­ing in what ter­ri­ble way I can act out in.

I once met some­one who was in total con­trol of his emo­tions. In this way, he could feel when he wanted. This allowed him to lose him­self in a greatly touch­ing movie, but also gave him a con­trol of any neg­a­tive emo­tions he may expe­ri­ence. I looked up to this per­son greatly, some­thing that I wish I could say was more com­mon in the peo­ple that I know. It seemed like such an amaz­ing abil­ity, although many peo­ple whom I express this to disagree.

And I still haven’t decided whether I dis­agree as well.

Tagged as
Filed under
Daily Life
Pages (1):1