Just some ramblings

Cartesian Dualism is driving me crazy. I am starting to feel like Gilles Deleuze and jumping out of my 3rd story window.

That of course is a joke, however, dualism is seeming more and more intuitively correct. I need to remind myself of Descartes’ The Passions, and read it thoroughly. I need to inspect this man’s personality. the trail he left behind of his history, not just his ideas. His being… if you will. his existence in the (ek-sistence) sense. I love Heidegger. I wonder if Descartes and Heidegger may have been friends. I think Hume would have been Descartes’ friend, that fat bastard.

I am in love with antiquity. Since childhood, it has been my dreams, to go into the past. At 3 years of age it was the 1920’s thru 40’s, the eras of my grandparents. I wanted their life. Simple.

Later on, my dreams extended further back. Living in an era, of religious conflict. The 1600’s. Late 1600’s to be exact. Now I long for the late 1700- early 1800’s

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Where the heart is

Hands shaking
Heart pounding
Sickened stomach
Aware today
Aware of the fear

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enduring a liminal period of my life.

I am severely confused. I thought taking things non seriously would be great, and it is, but now I am confused. Because seriousness lingers, and I have to choose one or the other. So even though I am living in the middle, eventually its gotta go one way. That terrifies me, and excites me, and yep, confusion prevails.
In my practical life, aside from my emotional life confusion, I find myself overcoming pride. Overcoming labels, or what I must seem like. I know the most practical route to take, which takes time, and again I find myself stuck in the middle between now, and then. The beginning of something worthwhile, and that end way far ahead. Enduring the liminal periods are never easy. they require strength, and commitment. I need to take it slow, and hinder my pride from making me change my mind a million times so I can fulfill some egotistical fantasy. Time to come back down to earth. Problem is I’ve been on earth forever, I just didn’t want to recognize it.

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Directions and Ability

I am drowning in a way. Like a conscious person, stuck inside a vegetative body. My body and sometimes my mind, work against my will. My will is strong, ambitious, driven. I tire easily, I am in a pretty bad position, with little help. I start to focus on all the things I could accomplish. I start them. And then its done. I get distracted by something, whether it be out of my control or within it, and I lose the focus.
Sometimes, I don’t believe life is meant to be lived this way. Society or the idea of it anyway, makes our life so hard. We all complain, but we do not do anything about it. I wish I could go off to the woods, and just live off the land. I wish I could escape this bullshit “world” and be at peace, in simplicity. With my family close, fresh air, nature, time and quiet that allows my mind to drift into places I’d love to venture. My little interests and research projects I’d love to get my hands on. All the things I start but cannot finish here in this place.
I feel trapped by society. I feel trapped by my body, although I think someday I can work around it. I feel trapped by others expectations of me, and the ones I place upon myself for caring about others expectations. I feel trapped by my solitude. being the only one, the sole responsibility for 3 lives. I feel trapped by finance, and education,by what I need to be doing to “survive”in society. I remember when I was a little girl and wanting to go live in the rain forest. My parents used to laugh at me and say “you do that”and I said ” i will! I will live off the land, wear next to nothing, and eat bugs if I have to, that’s living”. I truly wished it were that simple. Even if my life expectancy was half of what it is now, would it be worth it, just to struggle for real survival and not societies definition of survival? Maybe.
I also remember in my pre-teen years many people asking me “why is life so hard for you?”. Maybe because I complained a lot, or couldnt make it through simple things. yet I’d excel at school, but daily living seemed like too much to bear. Waking, eating, socializing, being what was expected of me, behaving properly. Maybe i just was never meant to be cut out for this sort of living. I never identified with it, and never felt quite at home in this society. Perhaps, that is why “life is so hard for me.”
I’d love a drastic change right about now. and in some ways its almost as if I don’t have a choice.

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no title

Wherever you are,
I hope you are having a good day
I hope you are happy
I hope you are spending it with loved ones.

I guess this can apply to two things today, but it only applies to one.
And you will never know.

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On expression

I’m finding it hard lately to express myself in words. Almost if, there are none, or my mind has no ability to find the right ones. Lately I feel connection to other peoples words, in songs, poems, blogs. I feel a connection in sounds, musical notes, the chirping of the birds, the howling of the dogs, the roaring of the engines passing the street. They all speak to me.
I’ve been expressing myself through song lately. Through other people’s lives I can relate to, although in some way its not my life. Its sort of a denial coupled with understanding. This song makes sense, I get it, but because I’m not writing it, its not really my own. Why can I not find my own expression lately? This writing is a step in the right direction.
I’ve tried to dance lately, and the movement is just not coming. I try to express what it is I feel to the music I relate with, to the notes I usually can precisely define in an action. Lately I have no such outlet. I dont feel the movement as I once did. I don’t feel the passion or the belongingness to the music as I usually do. I end up falling to the floor feeling defeated. Maybe that is what they mean by depression causing lack of motivation and loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed. Maybe I am realizing this is just a bout of depression. One that won’t last much longer I am sure.
Why do we find it so hard to express ourselves? Why, when it seems the most important time to, do we freeze up and are unable to move forward? What exactly is it holding us back? the easy answer is fear, but that word, is so complex that the four small letters do not express the complicated essence that it entails. Am i afraid to express in my own words, afraid of what I will say? Afraid perhaps that saying it, will be too much to handle, too much emotion to cope with? Its possible. Its probable.
Coping is a struggle and I always figured by expressing, it would be a form of coping, but sometimes the expression just creates more to cope with. And so,I guess the only solution is to let it be. Let myself be unable to express for the time being. When the time comes I will again. When the time comes, and the moment is right, I’ll dance again. For now there is nothing to express and I will just let that be.

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Untitled, Undone, and Unfinished (edited)

It’s bitter cold outside

but I can weather anything with you.

Through the city streets, we shuffle through the chaos

The clouds enveloping the gloominess in our view

Escape.

Night falls…

and we welcome the dark blue sky

for it muffles the noise, the frustrations,

the entropic soliloquy of the city streets.

The city changes shape .

Time stands still with you.

We skate on thin ice and dance our way through those shadowy trees

How far I’ve come

to come back Home

to this place.

I miss this land much more than you know.

Here I stand

under these familiar stars

with you.

Moving  breathlessly but

faltering at every sound in my head,

screams to take action.

I entangle the fear in the dark trees

that entangle themselves above the sidewalk.

I take in the bitter cold air

refresh my senses in time thrown afar

BREAK

where is this going?
where are you going?

Now it is done
and so, the memories,
the unfinished lyrical,
the untitled lifetime
they come undone.
C’est fini

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Aida the musical: An existential on love, time and dualism

The Official Musical Synopsis : 

https://musicalcyberspace.wordpress.com/musicals-a-b/aida/

 

“At the ensuing trial, Pharoah sentences both Aida and Radames to be buried alive. Amneris rises to her role as future Pharaoh by convincing her father to let the lovers die in the same tomb, an act of mercy for the two people she has come to love. Facing death, Aida looks to Radames for strength. As they are slowly deprived of light and air. Radames swears he will search for a hundred lifetimes to find her again.

Back in the contemporary museum, the spirit of Amneris watches as the modern man and woman are strangely drawn to one another. They are the reincarnations of Aida and Radames, finding in each other a new beginning.”

My Thoughts:

Now, what I love most of this story in addition to my relation to Aida’s character, is how this musical begins and ends in the present day …that everything comes full circle.

The love story becomes validated by time, or rather, timelessness. The present/past motif presented begs the question: Have Radames’ and Aida’s love always been and will their love always be?  Time is therefore an important theme in this story.  The ‘timing’ of Aida and Radames’ meeting and love for one another couldn’t be worse for either character given their circumstances.  Their love for one another forces each character to question their ethics. To question if they have an ethical duty to the people that depend on their word, on their social position at the time and on their actions in the future.  Eventually their painstaking decision making will be made in vain. Unexpectedly,  brings the lovers to an untimely death.

Time is a common theme in the storyline.  Amneris  sings” This should have been my time. It’s over it never began” showing how she  is conflicted by time. She wants the now to be ideal, but reality is Radames loves Aida, not her. She wants to blame fortune, fate,but the truth is, that which is, is.

Time and love matter, but do not. The point in the story is that love is endless, timeless and eternal.That is, is is, and always was, will always be. The characters Aida and Radames, connect by expressing their love for adventure, their passion for freedom, their feelings of being trapped by their existential situations. Unfortunately, time is playing against them considering their positions in life could not be farther from being compatible. However, the two characters essentially relate and are very compatible. They have a choice, to go on living a lie, and living for others. Aida chooses the consequence of losing Radames in her life as a lover for the greater good.

Their love is discovered upon Radames’ act of saving Aida’s father. Both Radames and Aida are charged with treason and sentenced to death. Amneris shows some compassion towards the lovers situation. She allows them to be buried together and goes on as Pharaoh to bring a reign of peace among the land after the death of Aida and Radames. The love of the two, has now changed history and future of two nations. Again, we see time as a factor.

The beginning and end of the play takes place in the present time. In a museum, where two individuals meet and we learn they are the reincarnations of Radames and Aida. Finding one another again at last, in physical form, where we can only assume their love has never died. Fate has now been verified, which transcends the physical and measured world, and denotes a much deeper meaning to the universe.

One of my favorite songs in this play is song by Aida. It’s called “The Past is Another Land”, her struggle with memory, the now, and where to go are enveloped in the words she sings. She describes the futility in the now she experiences.  The present being a realization of meaninglessness. Certainty that came with hope, experienced in childhood, has now become doubt and reality that cannot be changed. She describes her disembodiment from her past experiences and the familiar. She struggles with old memories, feeling the ambiguity of life. She sees the future as inevitable. A sun that shines brightly and seems warm and beautiful, but also malevolent and bringing about death of time past. Her decisions will bring about a future that she cannot return. So we see, that while fate or destiny may be in the macro view of the universe in this play, decisions and free will also are important in the material world, and physical reality. We encounter a sort of dualistic perspective of the universe in this play. The physical and the transcendence of the physical, which exists as love.

A song from the Musical written by Tim Rice:

The past is now another land
Far beyond my reach
Invaded by insidious
Foreign bodies, foreign speech
Where timeless joys of childhood
Lie broken on the beach

The present is an empty space
Between the good and bad
A moment leading nowhere
Too pointless to be sad
But time enough to lay to waste
Every certainty I had

The future is a barren world
From which I can’t return
Both heartless and material
Its wretched spoils not my concern
Shining like an evil sun
As my childhood treasures burn
Shining like an evil sun
As my childhood treasures burn

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Just some disjointed rant

Why do I feel like I have nothing substantial to say lately? Is it because I don’t?  Is it because I never did?

You know, I was going to type something about struggling or some bullshit, perhaps make it sound poetic. But it is just the same old bullshit as usual. Maybe that is why I feel like I’m dying. this is a transformation. Perhaps that is a little dramatic. Well, maybe not.

I feel like something died. Maybe I’ve been in denial too long. Denial that the realworld, the society we live in will not catch up to me, that i can somehow not be part of it. Somehow figure out a trick to not becoming one of those people. whatever that means… I wonder how long that stage actually lasted. Too painful to worry about at the present moment. Lets see there are 5 stages of grief according to Kubler-Ross, and is pretty accepted in the psychological world:

Denial- we have covered.

Bargaining: hmm. havent actually encountered that yet. Although churchgoing on the 16th might count as a bargaining tool. That or visiting Descartes grave idea…

Anger- it comes and goes. I guess I’ve thrown a book or two recently.

Depression: yea, in it. does anyone really pass from this stage? Not in life altogether (that would be just silly) but in the situation which brings on the five stages of grief.. the actual grieving process.. does depression ever leave?? i wonder.

Oh and of course we come to the final and favortie stage of acceptance. Got to love that acceptance. You know I always wondered when applied to death, who actually ever “accepts” a persons death? I mean, ok, i guess in negation to denial, acceptance seems like the most logical solution. Accepting reality. But what if acceptance is being at peace with it.. not that you “allow reality to dictate life”. Who is ever at peace with death?  Anyone alive cannot assert peace with death. Death is the ultimate concern. How do we avoid it, how do we seek it, why do we die? If we didnt die, would 80% of the questions regarding life, even occur???? Probably not. Death is the real concern here.

And yet the good old Major Arcana tarot card number 13 (oddly enough) is DEATH. And as we watch the fearful faces emerge when that card is turned over, someone with more knowledge laughs quietly to themselves because they know the true meaning of death. What a load of bullshit.

Death brings new beginnings. Death is transformation. With every birth comes a death. Death is a way to start over, turn over a new leaf. WOW. Have we not evolved???? Why are we still making excuses and stuck in the bargaining phase??? Why are we in denial?

‘Taken from ezineartciles.com “Acceptance This is the final phase of grief that everyone should strive to reach. It is only when you finally accept what has happened that you will be able to move on with your life.”

Is this a fucking joke? Who exactly is saying we should strive towards acceptance? Elizabeth Kubler-Ross? Why say that about acceptance but fail to  say that about any other of the stages of grief? Does not practically every article preface the description of grief with : not everyone experiences these stages in the same order or in the exact same way??” but isnt making the statement that acceptance is final and a goal saying a lot? And also being quite contradictory?

What is acceptance. How does one accept without being passive? Perhaps some passiveness is good but now we are taking ancient skepticism… completely impractical. I could live there. Attain ataraxia by being completely non decisive. That would be perfect. Take me back to Ancient Greece. Perhaps I will learn the secrets of time from some bullshit class at Uni and figure out how to time travel, and go back to good old Sextus Empiricus.

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Letter to an anti-humanist

Dear  Heidegger,

Why cannot I not just unfold into my essence and accomplish ek-sistence?

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