Masterlist

06/04/2021

How can meaning be found,

When light keeps pouring in and out of you?

 Blinded,

yet everseeing.

 A call for higher purpose,

an eagle’s cry

heard in the distance.

Pain is seared in the follow-up response,

Nothing alike earthly sensation.

It stretches far and wide,

beneath your body,

above your soul,

nowhere in the middle,

for it does not locate

where the mind can get ahold of it,

 Has destiny been set on stone,

or is the latter our own pliable existence?

 “Repond.”

 “How?”

 “Just respond.”

 For longer than an eternity could ever be,

it waited.

What for?

 For oneself,

no sin can be condone,

no doubt can be harbored.

 To build yourself,

You must be destroyed.

By what hands,

Will determine the freedom of your well’s boundaries.

 To be teared up,

And shown bare in your true essence

 Oh how tangible can pure fear be.

 Now drown in yourself.

Now be your fear.

Now,

play in your abyss,

for there is where your meaning resides.

I found this on Pinterest and am crying for some reason-

Franz Wright, from God's Silence; "Why Is the Winter Light"

[Text ID: Empty me of the bitterness and disappointment of being nothing but myself]

James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

~Some Thoughts on Fantasy, Music, and Resonation~

I was recently listening to a friend talk about why philosophy was pointless, the idea that it was just discussion and no real change came of it. Unreal, impractical, useless. Overall, his reasons were undeveloped, underthought, and devoid of any real conviction and it seemed to me that he was far more confused as to why it was a source of study and the purpose it served than he was actually critical of the practice as a whole. But it got me thinking about the "unreal" and the impossible.

And it caused 2 thoughts to spring into my mind. First, fantasy at its core is the unreal. It is so magnificent because it simply cannot be. We explore the worlds made of a different yarn than our world. There are similarities, some things that are shared, but the rules of nature itself is the difference. A new world is made by using the mysterious pieces of our own world. Yet, the interesting thing about this phenomenon isn't the created thing, but rather the reaction to it. People love it, obsess over it, delve deeper into the lore and history of these unreal worlds. The feeling of exploration and the other feelings that those worlds inspire, the auras, the "vibes" are what pull people in.

Which brings me to my second thought, which is what those vibes invoke in me from other forms and mediums. Music, for instance.

Most people who I have spoken to listening to music are far more drawn to the lyrics of the song, than its ambiance, or its emotion in the music. Music draws forth an emotion in it's own right, which the lyrics add voice and thought to. Both are of immense importance to a song's creation, and neither can be of lesser value. Yet, those emotions which are incited by the music still exist, even if unrecognized. Thus, the musical vibe and the lyrical emotions are not only separate, but also shift how we resonate with the songs themselves.

All of this brings me to 2 unanswerable questions.

1. Does fantasy invoke the emotional response of a uniquely philosophical need for limitless potential?

And by that, I mean that as fantasy is outside of the realm of possibility, is it due to our natural inclination of creation? Or our need to explore the unknowns? The exploration of a new limitless-ness, rather than the confines of our universe?

2. Does our individual resonation with music reflect our adherence or non-adherence to artistic intentions? (In other words, is the way we enjoy the song predicated on how the author wanted us to interpret the song?)

girl you look like you drop common loot when defeated

“Dogs don’t know what they look like. Dogs don’t even know what size they are. No doubt it’s our fault, for breeding them into such weird shapes and sizes. My brother’s dachshund, standing tall at eight inches, would attack a Great Dane in the full conviction that she could tear it apart. When a little dog is assaulting its ankles the big dog often stands there looking confused — “Should I eat it? Will it eat me? I am bigger than it, aren’t I?” But then the Great Dane will come and try to sit in your lap and mash you flat, under the impression that it is a Peke-a-poo… Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship. Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can’t make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it’ll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish, and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — “I thought that was a cat. Aren’t I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?” … A lot of us humans are like dogs: we really don’t know what size we are, how we’re shaped, what we look like. The most extreme example of this ignorance must be the people who design the seats on airplanes. At the other extreme, the people who have the most accurate, vivid sense of their own appearance may be dancers. What dancers look like is, after all, what they do.”

— Ursula Le Guin, in The Wave in the Mind (via fortooate)

Sometimes I think this world is cruel and unjust but then I remember how I dropped my wallet when I was on the bicycle 8 years ago and a homeless man ran 6 blocks to return it to me. Sometimes I think this world is lonely and grey but then I let the rain touch my body and hear birds make their way home at evening and for a moment, just a moment- I understand why Prometheus stole fire and laid it at man's feet, why dying stars leave a trail of wishes, why I still love 6-year-old Erica I met on a summer trip a decade ago, even though I never saw her again.

Sometimes I think this world is a bad place, but then I look around me and in all its chaos and mosaic of bodies and souls and dreams, I see beauty and goodness hidden behind kind eyes and rough hands.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

Welcome Me

Lately I’ve found myself… lost.

I mean everyone has been in their own way over the past year and half. Been there, said that. 

But when I feel stuck…or lost..or wandering…it’s not good. Not that it’s great for anyone. I just tend to spiral.

I’m losing touch of what makes me happy and honestly maybe what’s even scarier to me is that I’m losing a sense of what I want. And I don’t mean in life. I’ve never had any answers to that question. But rather whenever I make a decision lately, no matter how small or large, it’s like I’m looking at myself from outside my body. It’s a stranger making that decision. 

Maybe thats imposter syndrome. I’ve heard the term thrown about a few times here and there. But I’m trying to walk away from labeling myself, those around me, and behaviors. I feel like we as a society are teetering on the edge of the toxic thought process: “If we label it, we understand it.” Right now, I’m not caring too much about the diagnosis and more about the symptoms. 

Interestingly enough, I just remembered a take on relationship communication that connects nicely to that thought process. They (@kyleleejenner on tiktok) said that “more often than not, when your girlfriend is sharing a problem with you she’s probably talking about an emotional one….what she is feeling about the problem is actually more important to her than the problem itself. Therefore listening to her feelings will solve the problem. She doesn’t want your practical solutions right now.”

I don’t necessarily care about the label or maybe even to the solutions right now. But I do care that I feel this way. I care that it feels like I’m someone I’m not. I care that I’m worrying about regretting decisions. I care that what I think I’m feeling is not really how I’m feeling. 

I’m hoping writing my feelings will help to acknowledge how I’m feeling or even to discover how I’m truly feeling. Next steps will come later.