The clouds are high, white, and fluffy against a light blue sky. They are dispersed in chunks, a daub of white here, a little fluff there, leading back to the clear, steely, purple mountains in the distance, the tallest of them capped by more white snow. All this repetition of white, the height of the clouds, the sun so bright it cooks the color out of shirts and into skin, it's all background, a stage, a setting for a great normalcy and greater mystery.
He wonders whether it has meaning or not, whether it matters if he notices the clouds or the mountains or the sun. He wonders idly whether the world of his senses matters more or less than the world of his mind, each connection sending arcs of chemical and electric signals racing across new neurons and new pathways.
He's at the brink of a new mental maturity, somewhere nearing the edge of a great abyss or at the lip of a great peak he's been hiking. He's unsure whether he has been crawling or climbing; his internal gravity cannot tell him whether he is edging near a vast emptiness, or the final stretch to a grand plain of new knowing. He is either in the canyon or nearing it, though the difference may not matter. He reaches his arms out, strained and battered, but lovingly so. His fingers are sore, pounding with blood as he crams them into a new crack split open by understanding.
Human beings are complex and complicated, both biologically and socially formed, unique to the planet, but part of a constantly changing whole. The universe echoes into them, forming them in its own complex and complicated image, echoes into all things, everywhere, itself a shadow dreamt by some sleeping god or universe machine. The whole neither fits together, nor falls apart in this intricate, elegant, and eternal shifting, but instead defies the philosophers and their inductive reasoning, the scientists in their observations, the poet's musings, and the young lovers and their fate.
He knows this like he knows his ABC's, absently, recalling but only now beginning to reflect upon it. He is riding the wave of the greatest systematizing, the greatest crystallization of thought he has ever experienced, placing pieces into their rightful positions, and watching as the cogs, apple seeds, and nuclei whip, zing, and soar in modes yet unimagined. His consciousness is moving from beyond himself, beyond his world, beyond his universe, puzzling and smiling at the wholeness of existence, the second simplicity of the All.
The clouds are made of hydrogen and oxygen nothings, floating upon still emptier air, and yet they provide foundations to the heavens.
What glory! What commonplace! What else could we expect? A paradox of brilliance and dullness, a union of the divine with nothingness.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Dealing with Pain, Part One
I
I met him the night before Thanksgiving.He introduced himself like all the others,
Tipped his hat, indicated that he was a product of new change
But failed to mention his proclivity for overstaying his welcome
That weekend, we became acquainted, though I had no intention of letting him stay for long
(I prefer a solitary existence within my mind)
He spoke with a bitter smile forever flickering on his face,
Never fading, but winding from bright to dull at strange intervals
And he stayed. He set his baggage down and began to speak. He spoke long through the night and into the morning and on through through the next day, into Monday and Wednesday and Saturday, rolling thought the vestiges of November, winked once at Santa Claus, gave no gift of reprieve on Valentine's Day, played the same constant trick on April Fools and ushered in the goodbyes and sweet sun of summer.
II
Kind, sir,Though I do not know your original reason for being here, I humbly ask that remove yourself from my noggin, vacate the premises of my mind, and never, ever, not once, return. Not only have you wasted my time and energy, but you have sullied my thinking, knocked down my dreams and seem at times to hold them far too tightly. I fear that you may throttle them in time if you do not relieve your presence and pressure.
No? No, you say! Well, that simply will not do! You must leave, you must! I can no longer stand your company. I was too kind to say it when you first arrived, but you are unwelcome, sir. You are most unwelcome. You and all your kin. So, you see, I no longer want you here. So, get out!
No? No, again! I warn you, sir, if you refuse to leave of your own volition, I will put an end to you violently. You may know the tactics of Aleve and Tylenal, but I assure you there are other ways to fight you, ways that may force you out through relaxation, good feelings, and raw, nauseating steroids. Will you not cry off your attack on my cranium? No, no I see that you will not. Well, then, I will rain heaven and hell down upon you, sir.
III
Day 214: The fight continues. I will burn this fucker to the ground.
Friday, June 12, 2009
We the Living, Chapter II
We philosophers have a way of mulling over the same ideas over and over again, wearing down to the bare truth we seek, the idea at the core that needs to be expressed multiply before it can be realized.
Kira will be an engineer, just as Talley was an engineer, just as Rearden was an engineer, just as Roark is an engineer. Rand's protagonists are people who want truth, who seek it in the absolute. When asked why she chooses a life of "dirt, and iron, and rust, and blowtorches, and filthy, sweaty men and no feminine company" Kira responds, "It's the only profession...for which I don't have to learn any lies. Steel is steel. Most of the other sciences are someone's guess, and someone's wish, and many people's lies."
Vasili Ivanovitch is a man ravanged by communism, a man whose powerful body is stooped by the weight of the collective. This is an early reflection of Rearden, of Wynand, at the end of their runs for truth and justice embodied in Rand's capitalism.
Rand is pressing here at the same truths she presses at in the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Not the same story, but a story seeking after the same end.
Kira will be an engineer, just as Talley was an engineer, just as Rearden was an engineer, just as Roark is an engineer. Rand's protagonists are people who want truth, who seek it in the absolute. When asked why she chooses a life of "dirt, and iron, and rust, and blowtorches, and filthy, sweaty men and no feminine company" Kira responds, "It's the only profession...for which I don't have to learn any lies. Steel is steel. Most of the other sciences are someone's guess, and someone's wish, and many people's lies."
Vasili Ivanovitch is a man ravanged by communism, a man whose powerful body is stooped by the weight of the collective. This is an early reflection of Rearden, of Wynand, at the end of their runs for truth and justice embodied in Rand's capitalism.
Rand is pressing here at the same truths she presses at in the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Not the same story, but a story seeking after the same end.
Good tidings we bring, to you and your kin
Rarely is a great man a good one, I said to her as we sat illuminated in the darkest, warmest night I'd yet experienced in Seattle. She was one of the many dear friends I had to say good bye to, and her advice, humor, and wisdom is always cherished.
We paused at that moment, her soaking in whatever perceived wisdom I had spoken, I wondering how anyone could be so blessed to have one's words so carefully listened to. I had, in that sentence, revealed all the worries and fears of my life, had thrown into that yellow, fluorescent light a weakness I keep wrapped beneath the gauze of my own resistance to arrogance (whatever little I have), and the robes of uncertainty I carry on my soul.
Her advice, as always, is to be honest with myself, to seek greatness with humility, but with fervor. She, like many others, begged me not to be too hard on myself, reassured me that I am a good person. And I, of course, told her I demand much more of myself.
I feel that I, and everyone I meet, has greatness buried in them, waiting to be unearthed. We are forever told to keep it entombed, to fit in, to be different enough to be individuals, but the same enough to get along. Our deviance, and thus our greatness, is calculated to be within the bounds of acceptable. I think the same is true of our goodness. We are meant to be great and we are meant to good. The goodness I share with world is not enough, not nearly enough. I and they deserve a better Christo, a man who will bring joy and hope to everyone he meets.
That, that! is ridiculous. It is far beyond my grasp, but it is an anvil which I may temper myself against. I want myself and others to be uplifted, to uplift others with everything that they are. Perhaps this is the meaning of greatness. It is certainly an image of goodness.
We paused at that moment, her soaking in whatever perceived wisdom I had spoken, I wondering how anyone could be so blessed to have one's words so carefully listened to. I had, in that sentence, revealed all the worries and fears of my life, had thrown into that yellow, fluorescent light a weakness I keep wrapped beneath the gauze of my own resistance to arrogance (whatever little I have), and the robes of uncertainty I carry on my soul.
Her advice, as always, is to be honest with myself, to seek greatness with humility, but with fervor. She, like many others, begged me not to be too hard on myself, reassured me that I am a good person. And I, of course, told her I demand much more of myself.
I feel that I, and everyone I meet, has greatness buried in them, waiting to be unearthed. We are forever told to keep it entombed, to fit in, to be different enough to be individuals, but the same enough to get along. Our deviance, and thus our greatness, is calculated to be within the bounds of acceptable. I think the same is true of our goodness. We are meant to be great and we are meant to good. The goodness I share with world is not enough, not nearly enough. I and they deserve a better Christo, a man who will bring joy and hope to everyone he meets.
That, that! is ridiculous. It is far beyond my grasp, but it is an anvil which I may temper myself against. I want myself and others to be uplifted, to uplift others with everything that they are. Perhaps this is the meaning of greatness. It is certainly an image of goodness.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
We the Living, Chapter I
I'm finally reading "We the Living" after months and months of it sitting on my shelf, with my patiently and kindly waiting to open it's covers and escape. Grace gave me the book--I have no idea if she wants it back or not, but I imagine I'll send it to her with a note attached if I can get her address.
Grace is a brilliant woman with a cutting mind and a clever tongue. I'm regretful of how things have played out between us: I'd much prefer shouting over silence. Perhaps it's because we both share an odd love with the characters, or because I recognize her and myself in the books, or simply because we both read Rand together last summer, I find myself thinking of her.
The book opens on a dreary dilapidated Russia, finally successful at their Revolution, finally buried beneath a communism which shares only grey, dry bread, and worn faces. "Petrograd smelt of carbonic acid." The character Kira clearly the novel's heroine; Kira is unphased by decay around her, the movement toward collective: she retains her individuality and therefore her humanity, "Her eyes were not frightened; they were steady, curious, hostile" (18). She is already characteristic of Rand's powerful individuals, already showing resistance and life when she ought to be a "woman with sagging breasts," who is drained so much that even her ability to give life is empty.
I wonder at Rand's ability to make clear, without yet saying it, that Kira is different than the other characters. Her contrast is superb for this end, but also Kira's relative indifference to her environment is noteworthy, drawing us to wonder about her and her lack of weariness.
I found the passage about the accordian song particularly haunting. It sets the mood for the whole of the chapter, perhaps even the book. It declares the state of relativety, confusion, and degradation of truth in Rand's Russia.
"No one could tell whether his song was gay or sad, a joke or immortal monument; it was the first song of the revolution, risen from nowhere, gay, reckless, bitter, impudent, sung by millions of voices, echoing against train roofs, and village roads, and dark city pavements, some voices laughing, some voices wailing, a people laughing at its own sorrow, the song of the revolution, written on no banner but in every weary throat, the 'Song of the Little Apple.'
Grace is a brilliant woman with a cutting mind and a clever tongue. I'm regretful of how things have played out between us: I'd much prefer shouting over silence. Perhaps it's because we both share an odd love with the characters, or because I recognize her and myself in the books, or simply because we both read Rand together last summer, I find myself thinking of her.
The book opens on a dreary dilapidated Russia, finally successful at their Revolution, finally buried beneath a communism which shares only grey, dry bread, and worn faces. "Petrograd smelt of carbonic acid." The character Kira clearly the novel's heroine; Kira is unphased by decay around her, the movement toward collective: she retains her individuality and therefore her humanity, "Her eyes were not frightened; they were steady, curious, hostile" (18). She is already characteristic of Rand's powerful individuals, already showing resistance and life when she ought to be a "woman with sagging breasts," who is drained so much that even her ability to give life is empty.
I wonder at Rand's ability to make clear, without yet saying it, that Kira is different than the other characters. Her contrast is superb for this end, but also Kira's relative indifference to her environment is noteworthy, drawing us to wonder about her and her lack of weariness.
I found the passage about the accordian song particularly haunting. It sets the mood for the whole of the chapter, perhaps even the book. It declares the state of relativety, confusion, and degradation of truth in Rand's Russia.
"No one could tell whether his song was gay or sad, a joke or immortal monument; it was the first song of the revolution, risen from nowhere, gay, reckless, bitter, impudent, sung by millions of voices, echoing against train roofs, and village roads, and dark city pavements, some voices laughing, some voices wailing, a people laughing at its own sorrow, the song of the revolution, written on no banner but in every weary throat, the 'Song of the Little Apple.'
'Hey, little apple,
Where are you rolling?'
Where are you rolling?'
...No one knew what the little apple was; but everyone understood" (18).
This paragraph is the most important for capturing Rand's feelings and thoughts about the revolution. It is empty, filled with no certainty, no clarity, and no depth.
There is some part of reading Rand that makes me want to rise up and defy societal norms, to refuse to give into a collective concious, to turn my back on others, and live only for myself. Ironically, to read Rand is to be part of a revolution, a defiance against the revolution of the proletariat. I'm not convinced that Rand is right, but she may be onto something. Perhaps we give in too easily to the notions of helping other people. If nothing else, I have learned from her to at least ask "Why?"
This paragraph is the most important for capturing Rand's feelings and thoughts about the revolution. It is empty, filled with no certainty, no clarity, and no depth.
There is some part of reading Rand that makes me want to rise up and defy societal norms, to refuse to give into a collective concious, to turn my back on others, and live only for myself. Ironically, to read Rand is to be part of a revolution, a defiance against the revolution of the proletariat. I'm not convinced that Rand is right, but she may be onto something. Perhaps we give in too easily to the notions of helping other people. If nothing else, I have learned from her to at least ask "Why?"
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