Do you ever just sit and wonder?
"I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well." - Thoreau
He's right you know. At times I feel overwhelmingly self-serving, one-tracked, unwillingly and unknowingly committed to writing about myself on a daily basis. Maybe it's some vain, futile attempt to explain to the world who I am, where my passions lie, almost redeeming my existence in a world destined to deter me with ignorance to my being. Occasionally I fall victim to tangents, mental deviations from the subject at hand, lapsing into politics, the religion/spirituality debate, embarrassing family stories, but for the most part, my writing revolves around me. And I'm not going to apologize. I know of nothing, or no one, to any greater extent than myself, yet at times, even that knowledge is slightly overwhelming.
"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." -- St. Augustine
I wonder. I wonder where in the hell I came from. Where I'll end up. How I've managed so far being completely ignorant on a domestic basis. Why I avert my eyes when I catch someone looking at me. When I'll become undeniably comfortable with who I am. How many versions of myself there may be before I settle into permanence. Where I put my cell phone. Why I have an empty journal by my bed. How many more people I shall befriend before my social skills retire to Florida. If I, indeed, existed in a former life. Why I get so emotional when others are seemingly callous. Why I'm not doing more with me life.
He's right you know. At times I feel overwhelmingly self-serving, one-tracked, unwillingly and unknowingly committed to writing about myself on a daily basis. Maybe it's some vain, futile attempt to explain to the world who I am, where my passions lie, almost redeeming my existence in a world destined to deter me with ignorance to my being. Occasionally I fall victim to tangents, mental deviations from the subject at hand, lapsing into politics, the religion/spirituality debate, embarrassing family stories, but for the most part, my writing revolves around me. And I'm not going to apologize. I know of nothing, or no one, to any greater extent than myself, yet at times, even that knowledge is slightly overwhelming.
"People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." -- St. Augustine
I wonder. I wonder where in the hell I came from. Where I'll end up. How I've managed so far being completely ignorant on a domestic basis. Why I avert my eyes when I catch someone looking at me. When I'll become undeniably comfortable with who I am. How many versions of myself there may be before I settle into permanence. Where I put my cell phone. Why I have an empty journal by my bed. How many more people I shall befriend before my social skills retire to Florida. If I, indeed, existed in a former life. Why I get so emotional when others are seemingly callous. Why I'm not doing more with me life.
posted by Chishiki Lauren at 11:18 PM
3 Comments:
"you must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any agitation, any pain, any melancholy, since you really do not know what these states are working upon you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question whence all this may be coming and whither it is bound? Since you know that you are in the midst of transitions and wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything morbid in your processes, just remember that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself of foreign matter; so one must just help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and break out with it, for that is its progress. In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is now happening; you must be patient as a sick man and confident as a convalescent; for perhaps you are both. And more: you are the doctor too, who has to watch over himself. But there are in every illness many days when the doctor can do nothing but wait..."
--Rilke, Letters to a young poet.
(short answer: it gets better.)
If you think about life as a whole, it'll be an interesting story. The happy "non thinking" side of me believes that after you die, you're made to review your life on some sort of mystic VCR that shows you actions and your thoughts and you can figure things out from there. What better way to see yourself than when you're dead?
How great...I have the same VCR theory. Only, besides simply reviewing my life, I have the chance to watch home movies of anyone I'd like, within reason. It could get pretty ugly, but it'd be entertaining to see the side of people they choose not to present.
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