are we breathing? are we breathing? are we wasting our breath? - emily haines
i spent a day going to the river last week. I have had strange incidents with the river that haven't yet convinced me of its splendor. Growing up in southern california near the beach, the river has never been much more to me than what lets out all the sewage into the ocean. therefore a trip to the river is always awkward and foreign to me. I know that it sounds strange to many for me to be almost 24 and not entirely know what to do with a river, but what can i say...i grew up a beach bum.Yet last week's trip to the river was different and lovely for the first time. However, the thoughts that accompanied me while I was there added a strange element to the whole experience as well.
Lately, i have been engaging in a sort of theologicial/life-defining debate with my dad over emails. my father has always found structure and pattern in nature and sees god in this. its the same with the art he enjoys. he often says that he is not interested nor particularly likes most art after the 1950's with the dawning of modernism and post-modernism. the same mostly goes for the literature he reads with a few exceptions of course.
To me, nature has always seemed almost the opposite of how my father views it. To me, nature seems chaotic. Most things in this world seem chaotic to me. Regardless if there happens to exist a god or eternal-life, i still dont find much reason or logic to our existence or this world. I know there are explanations for why these specific trees grow in this region and why this river winds the way it does. I understand that the rocks that grace its side and guide it to its outlet erode and leave particles of rock and sand on its banks... but as I sat there letting the small pepples fall through my fingers, i asked myself if there is a explanation or a reason for the size and shape at which each individual pepple and grain of sand erodes into? I dont believe so. True, it may be that our biological and ontological understanding is limited.(i ventured in using philosophical terminology timidly...please correct me if my usage is awkward or incorrect) And so perhaps there is reason and explanation for what we cannot (currently) explain. yet, this answer/excuse leaves much to be desired. if there are indeed answers and explanations to that which we dont understand that is existing in some other, unattainable, noumenal world; my life as i live and view it will always be disorderly and always, eventually fall into the unexplainable regardless since i will never obtain these unattainable truths.
I suppose this can be a dangerous point to exist on when trying to base one's morality, give reason to one's life, etc....blah blah blah. In an attempt to make this less philosophical and keep in somewhat personal and even prescriptive, i wont venture down that path but rather conclude with me sitting on a rock covering my eyes watching the flies and gnats swarm in the sunlight. I can live without ever fully understanding. However, i have this intense desire to continue and try to understand fully knowing that it is completely unattainable. life is the attempt and the failure.
a friend of mine recently wrote that his interior world was shifting and suddenly he must get to know himself all over again. I couldn't define my own life in better words than these. everything is in transistion and i have become different, altered. i feel as though i must re-examine who i am suddenly. there are decisions to be made and actions to be taken and as much logic and reason and i try to put into it, it simply comes from my emotions and what us working class folk call "the gut". how well do you know yourself? yeah...its always limited... but i know there is a certain extent at which can be understood and its something i need to re-discover.
i tend to reject letting any one philosophy, theology or outlook define and govern my life. rather, i seem to run off a couple between emotionality and reason that is no doubt partially conditioned by the society that i was raised in, etc. (hegel, freud...blah). nevertheless, when you find yourself with altered views and changing thoughts, frustrated and restricted, what do you work off of? how do you make your decisions? its seems reason always succumbs to my emotion and desire. its dangerous and you fail and you sometimes dont understand right away or sometimes ever at all. but its the attempt that i value...the attempt to have, know, become, hold that which its best for my well-being.
selfish? perhaps a little. however, i dont necessarily find this negative thing. and i like to assume that sometimes these actions benefit more than just me.
*
I heard on npr that a scientific discovery has been made. A scientist has been studying why some animals live longer than others. its all about the heartbeats. an animal consumes energy and through its activity, the heart either beats faster or slower. a squirrels heart beats something like 400 times a minute. while a whales heart beats every 3 seconds. in the end he discovered that ALL animals die (assuming that they exist to their fullest potential) after roughly a half a billion heartbeats. every animal from a cat to a elephant.
the only exception is of course humans. which he attributes to hygiene and modern medicine. So we have overcome and defied nature and thus live as long as an elephant opposed to the 20-30 that we should. what a privilege we have. how will you spend all those extra heart beats? how else but in trying to be as truthful with yourself as you can be? how else other than in an attempt that is, has, and always will be destined to fail?
a life spent denying, pushing away and avoiding grief and failure, is a sadder life than embracing and accepting it. So i'll make that leap...watch my beautiful descent. regardless where i land i'll find something there.
maybe you?
half a billion heart beats later it will hardly matter at all anyways. why is that not okay with so many of us?
my friend finds reason and logic in the face of so much that rejects him and denies him. While i dont necessarily believe in the same things as him, its beautiful. Furthermore, while he has never spoken of it to me, i assume that there are many who maybe think that he is cutting himself short by placing his belief in that which he does. yet, he continues on. failure looks him in the eye everyday, it surrounds him (i assume), the mass majority of the population would probably view him as a contradiction, an oxymoron...he doesnt care and continues on.
beautiful.
one cant keep lying to themself just because its easier. i am going mildly crazy over that which i dont understand and my dirty future full of blaring but scary truths.
shall i embrace it or tiptoe along the thin curb...scared to touch the grass on one side while never letting my toes hit the golden, gutter waters of concrete angles on my left?
sometimes sound judgement and good sense is worthless.
*
A crude metaphor through a real-life experience:
the other day the basement of my work flooded. there is one floor drain with a hole that is about an inch and a half wide. I was standing in about 2 inches of water. over half the basement was flooded. I spent over an hour with a push broom pushing all this water in a tiny hole to get rid of the water. i couldnt help but think that the water was like everything we must endure and attempt to understand in the world. while the hole is our brains. there is so much and it is so overwhelming but we cant just leave the water standing. we have to attempt to take it all in. but what is left when all the water is gone? nothing but a damp floor.
*
listen to more otis redding.
i spent a day going to the river last week. I have had strange incidents with the river that haven't yet convinced me of its splendor. Growing up in southern california near the beach, the river has never been much more to me than what lets out all the sewage into the ocean. therefore a trip to the river is always awkward and foreign to me. I know that it sounds strange to many for me to be almost 24 and not entirely know what to do with a river, but what can i say...i grew up a beach bum.Yet last week's trip to the river was different and lovely for the first time. However, the thoughts that accompanied me while I was there added a strange element to the whole experience as well.
Lately, i have been engaging in a sort of theologicial/life-defining debate with my dad over emails. my father has always found structure and pattern in nature and sees god in this. its the same with the art he enjoys. he often says that he is not interested nor particularly likes most art after the 1950's with the dawning of modernism and post-modernism. the same mostly goes for the literature he reads with a few exceptions of course.
To me, nature has always seemed almost the opposite of how my father views it. To me, nature seems chaotic. Most things in this world seem chaotic to me. Regardless if there happens to exist a god or eternal-life, i still dont find much reason or logic to our existence or this world. I know there are explanations for why these specific trees grow in this region and why this river winds the way it does. I understand that the rocks that grace its side and guide it to its outlet erode and leave particles of rock and sand on its banks... but as I sat there letting the small pepples fall through my fingers, i asked myself if there is a explanation or a reason for the size and shape at which each individual pepple and grain of sand erodes into? I dont believe so. True, it may be that our biological and ontological understanding is limited.(i ventured in using philosophical terminology timidly...please correct me if my usage is awkward or incorrect) And so perhaps there is reason and explanation for what we cannot (currently) explain. yet, this answer/excuse leaves much to be desired. if there are indeed answers and explanations to that which we dont understand that is existing in some other, unattainable, noumenal world; my life as i live and view it will always be disorderly and always, eventually fall into the unexplainable regardless since i will never obtain these unattainable truths.
I suppose this can be a dangerous point to exist on when trying to base one's morality, give reason to one's life, etc....blah blah blah. In an attempt to make this less philosophical and keep in somewhat personal and even prescriptive, i wont venture down that path but rather conclude with me sitting on a rock covering my eyes watching the flies and gnats swarm in the sunlight. I can live without ever fully understanding. However, i have this intense desire to continue and try to understand fully knowing that it is completely unattainable. life is the attempt and the failure.
a friend of mine recently wrote that his interior world was shifting and suddenly he must get to know himself all over again. I couldn't define my own life in better words than these. everything is in transistion and i have become different, altered. i feel as though i must re-examine who i am suddenly. there are decisions to be made and actions to be taken and as much logic and reason and i try to put into it, it simply comes from my emotions and what us working class folk call "the gut". how well do you know yourself? yeah...its always limited... but i know there is a certain extent at which can be understood and its something i need to re-discover.
i tend to reject letting any one philosophy, theology or outlook define and govern my life. rather, i seem to run off a couple between emotionality and reason that is no doubt partially conditioned by the society that i was raised in, etc. (hegel, freud...blah). nevertheless, when you find yourself with altered views and changing thoughts, frustrated and restricted, what do you work off of? how do you make your decisions? its seems reason always succumbs to my emotion and desire. its dangerous and you fail and you sometimes dont understand right away or sometimes ever at all. but its the attempt that i value...the attempt to have, know, become, hold that which its best for my well-being.
selfish? perhaps a little. however, i dont necessarily find this negative thing. and i like to assume that sometimes these actions benefit more than just me.
*
I heard on npr that a scientific discovery has been made. A scientist has been studying why some animals live longer than others. its all about the heartbeats. an animal consumes energy and through its activity, the heart either beats faster or slower. a squirrels heart beats something like 400 times a minute. while a whales heart beats every 3 seconds. in the end he discovered that ALL animals die (assuming that they exist to their fullest potential) after roughly a half a billion heartbeats. every animal from a cat to a elephant.
the only exception is of course humans. which he attributes to hygiene and modern medicine. So we have overcome and defied nature and thus live as long as an elephant opposed to the 20-30 that we should. what a privilege we have. how will you spend all those extra heart beats? how else but in trying to be as truthful with yourself as you can be? how else other than in an attempt that is, has, and always will be destined to fail?
a life spent denying, pushing away and avoiding grief and failure, is a sadder life than embracing and accepting it. So i'll make that leap...watch my beautiful descent. regardless where i land i'll find something there.
maybe you?
half a billion heart beats later it will hardly matter at all anyways. why is that not okay with so many of us?
my friend finds reason and logic in the face of so much that rejects him and denies him. While i dont necessarily believe in the same things as him, its beautiful. Furthermore, while he has never spoken of it to me, i assume that there are many who maybe think that he is cutting himself short by placing his belief in that which he does. yet, he continues on. failure looks him in the eye everyday, it surrounds him (i assume), the mass majority of the population would probably view him as a contradiction, an oxymoron...he doesnt care and continues on.
beautiful.
one cant keep lying to themself just because its easier. i am going mildly crazy over that which i dont understand and my dirty future full of blaring but scary truths.
shall i embrace it or tiptoe along the thin curb...scared to touch the grass on one side while never letting my toes hit the golden, gutter waters of concrete angles on my left?
sometimes sound judgement and good sense is worthless.
*
A crude metaphor through a real-life experience:
the other day the basement of my work flooded. there is one floor drain with a hole that is about an inch and a half wide. I was standing in about 2 inches of water. over half the basement was flooded. I spent over an hour with a push broom pushing all this water in a tiny hole to get rid of the water. i couldnt help but think that the water was like everything we must endure and attempt to understand in the world. while the hole is our brains. there is so much and it is so overwhelming but we cant just leave the water standing. we have to attempt to take it all in. but what is left when all the water is gone? nothing but a damp floor.
*
listen to more otis redding.
________________
image: Mathilde Ter Heijne "tragedy"
1 comment:
This blog made me really, really happy.
Dude, I saw Morris Day and the Time last weekend!...
In my dreams, anyway.
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