Friday, April 28, 2006

stealing greek

feeling the need to ramble a bit today......

let me tell you about two new words i learned this week. they aren't actually new. they're a few thousand years old really. and they aren't english, they're greek. but they are new to me, and i'm excited about them.

word #1: kalon -- abstract beauty, the recognition of beauty without desire, without the need to possess. something like zen-aestheticism, appreciating beauty in and of itself.

i think this is a fascinating idea...mostly because, for me, it is almost incomprehensible. as an artist, the only thing i want to do is capture beauty, or create it, or somehow leave my mark on it. as an artist, i only appreciate beauty in terms of possessing it, in whatever way i can. inspiration is the attempt to acquire beauty, to consume the beautiful so that one may produce the beautiful; sandwiched between that beauty, perhaps one can become beautiful oneself. i don't know. i am not sure that the concept of the kalon is possible, in reality -- i don't know if one can grasp what beauty is apart from grasping after it. but i like entertaining the idea that it is possible, or that as a term it might be able to describe something so magnificently beautiful that the mere existence of it is possession enough. i like that it might be able to describe something transcendantly beautiful, beyond perfection, boiling over with its own ineffable, blindingly endless existence; like God on the top of a mountain.

i have felt some moments where the world and life and its plan were jarred into beauty -- like a re-set bone -- and that beauty had been enough, to know it was there was sufficient for me, and to know that i had a place in it was a comfort. so perhaps i understand the idea of kalon, to a degree. it is a holy beauty, a beauty so sacred that it consumes you, consumes the self...you become a part of it; it is too big to become a part of you.

i concieve of the word kalon, or beauty that is kalonic, as being opposed to beauty that is 'hellenic.' Hellen's was the face that launched a thousand ships. if her beauty had been transcendant, those armies would have turned back, satisfied with the slightest glance at her, and happy to know that somewhere in the world there existed something so beautiful, and for her to be in the world was enough. hellenic beauty inspires lust, desire, war...inspires men to die; kalonic beauty inspires them to live.

word #2 akrasia -- the breakdown of human reason which results in irrational choice...usually due to the contamination by human will.

i didn't know there was a word to describe why i've made most of the decisions i have in life. what it comes down to is that sometimes the reasons for a decision aren't always reasonable; they aren't predictable, they aren't decipherable or very well explicable. and sometimes you choose something just to enact your will, to know that you are still you and you can decide something even when the world seems to spin out of control........eating disorders, anyone? not to mention any number of less obvious manifestations that derive from a similar kind of neuroses...

if you've ever read any of the "reasons not to have a girlfriend" posts, you'll perhaps be somewhat familiar with my personal conflict with the self -- i do and have done things that just don't make sense, a victim of my own compulsions. i have done dangerous things, committed potentially life altering acts, all the while just looking at myself, thinking "what the hell are you doing? you idiot..." everything i do is a choice, because right alongside the reasonable, the sensable, and the safe there shuffles the impulse to do the opposite, the appetite for the edge of self-destruction. and i won't deny that sometimes you've gotta run up to the edge, and walk that line and find out what you're made of...sometimes, you have to know the answer to the question "what if...?"

and sometimes the floor falls out from under you and the wisdom of your decision is apparent to no-one. on the way down, you think "why did i do that," and if the fall is long enough you remember: akrasia. or "a-crazy-a." because, sometimes, we're all a little nuts.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

"can't do it max..."

i used to be a good student. i mean, after i was a bad student for awhile, and i barely graduated high school, and flunked out of Canisius College...i took three years off, and then started going to Buff State, and started pulling A's and the occasional B. and then this year happened. last semester i attended so few classes i had an unofficial withdrawal from three of my courses. my grades in the classes i did attend were...not failing, but nowhere near what i'm used to getting.

so this semester i decided that i'm going to bring my grades back up.

and i just can't do it.

granted, i've been sick three times this year with what appears to have been strep, and have had my share of...troubles...with the amherst town courts. and i had move into a new apartment again.

but honestly, if my head had really been in the game, it wouldn't have mattered, and i wouldn't be in the mess that i am now.

as the end of the semester nears, and the missed classes and make-up work pile up, now, more that ever, i am frantically trying to figure out what's missing from my academic focus so i can get it back and at least not throw away another semester.

i used to love school. now i'm afraid i'll be stuck in the same sort of limbo i was using school to avoid -- doing nothing, learning nothing, being nothing.

i can't wait for summer. i've got that itch. i feel guilty. other people can do this. other people take more classes than i am taking, and work full time, and don't sleep, and they can make it happen. why the hell can't i?

i don't understand the lethargy, but i have a few theories:

1. too much fun -- i used to not have friends. now, i have friends. i could not have them, i suppose. but then i wouldn't have any friends. the unrelenting need to have people like me makes me want to hang out instead of do my work. and i have really only ever operated in extremes in this arena. hang out, every chance i get. or hang out with no one, ever.

2. no girlfriend -- usually, when i have a girlfriend, she is my social life. so i don't need or usually have friends of my own when i'm dating someone. i'd like for that to change next time around, but i am just accustomed to the ol' ball and chain. it made being social easy; just find one person you're comfortable with, and hang out with them. and then ignore them when you have to do something. it takes the focus off of being social, and realigns it on the task of the day. that was really easy. i know it sounds horrible. but sometimes i wish i had a girlfriend again, just so i could get some work done.

3. writing -- since i've decided to own the creative factor of my life as its defining feature, i have little patience for anything else. granted, at this stage, i'd probably be bad at writing for 8 hours a day like a real live writer does; i think that's something you've got to work up to. and so i'm not wishing that i had nothing else in my life to do. but it seems that the times i've felt the most creative are always the times when things like school are my biggest obstacle to creativity. and that is a pain in the ass. don't they have programs for people like me? (anyone says "12 step", and i'll kill you...)

4. lack of wellbutrin -- i was on this drug for awhile, when i first started back to school. i don't really remember it making me feel any different. it was supposed to make me feel motivated and, well, less bi-polar, i guess. but the only reason i took it was to keep the people who bugged me about it off of my back. it made other people happy, but i don't remember it making me happy. i was against the idea of taking a drug to fix something i felt like went deeper than a medical issue. i still am. but at this point, i'm willing to try anything. i had stopped taking it, and things kept moving pretty smoothly. i attributed that to fact that my life actually had purpose and direction, i was paving a path of A's and B's towards a certain goal, and that was good for my spirits. my focus is a little hazy, now. maybe its time to give the ol' doc a call...

5. bad health -- they say that health of body affects health of mind. they also say that strep can stay in your system (which it has in mine, evidently) and swirl around your body and go to your HEART. no wonder i felt like i was going to die when i was sick. i don't think it got as bad as infecting other parts of my body...but who knows? maybe it went to my head, and ate away my brain. i do feel like i have a headful of scrambled eggs. at any rate, i have some health issues i need to take care of; strep was one, so i've got one down. i still need to get my wisdom teeth out. and i still need new contacts. i am so gross. i just want to feel better.

there we go, Buff State. top five reasons why i've sucked at school all semester. can't you just...let me float by....for old times sake?

Monday, April 17, 2006

Journal Entry, 4/17/06, 12:30 am

i get panicky when i haven't written.

i am panicky.
because i feel like i can see meaning and purpose and greatness receding out of my life, and i will become an empty vessel, useless; a dried up potsherd.

when i decided what to do with my life, all the fear left me. i became fearless. my worst fears, my dreamt fears were no threat to me any longer. i was no longer paranoid. i did not even fear the yellow-eyed monster man in the bushes that i made up. i could face him, bear his attack, run out to meet it, collide with him, and, win or lose, i could know that i would be ok. i had no fear...guns, knives, fists, nails, teeth held no real danger. i had a better weapon. i had words by the hilt, that were carving up and creating my life. i had a sword that could kill and give life, that could make and unmake. a sword of spirit.

and i knew, also, that the yellow-eyed monster man was me, and that meant i could take him. i had the power to look him in his terrible face and scowl back. i had a weapon that could tame and kill him, a weapon whose handle, when within reach, is salvation. it is a sword i can live by.

it is all of and the only power i have.

the longer i keep away from it, the weaker i become. the life i lead becomes less clear to me, the path obscured, overgrown with bushes, where my fear awaits me, with yellow eyes, poised to steal my life, and able to do so.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

sorry for hiatus

sorry folks.
i've been sick again.
last time, i promise.
and i'll return soon with some new material too.

i know you've all been worried.