sigh. i'm in something of a bad mood, so excuse me if i rant.
it's quite frustrating when you talk to someone about how you're feeling, and they reciprocate with trying to liken your story/emotion to one they have experienced. similar occurences or whatnot. they understand, they say (and i'm not pulling a 'no one understands me' fit here), but rather, they can't understand. as we are not the other person, there's no tangible way they can truly know of what we speak. as she says in Waking Life:
"So much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed; It's unspeakable. Yet, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we have connected, and we think that we are understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion."
it may be what we live for, but i wonder if we might not be better simply recognizing that there is no way to truly know, and so simply listen to the other person with no need or desire to relate somehow. it just pisses me off sometimes when they seem to try and say, well, that can often be the case in such-and-such situations, likening your particular situation to an understandable cliché of pop-psychology. simplifying it. but that's misguided. most things are never as simple as they'd like. emotions are complex. far more so than can be adequately expressed or understood by others. attempting to do so seems pointless. i always feel skeptical when someone does this with me, and certainly i've done it enough times. it's all we can do, right? or can we just sit across from the person, hear their words, and say yes. i hear you, and in doing so, i come to know you a little more. i care that you live well and are happy. but i'm not you, and i don't live your life. let it be at that.
it's quite frustrating when you talk to someone about how you're feeling, and they reciprocate with trying to liken your story/emotion to one they have experienced. similar occurences or whatnot. they understand, they say (and i'm not pulling a 'no one understands me' fit here), but rather, they can't understand. as we are not the other person, there's no tangible way they can truly know of what we speak. as she says in Waking Life:
"So much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed; It's unspeakable. Yet, when we communicate with one another, and we feel that we have connected, and we think that we are understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion."
it may be what we live for, but i wonder if we might not be better simply recognizing that there is no way to truly know, and so simply listen to the other person with no need or desire to relate somehow. it just pisses me off sometimes when they seem to try and say, well, that can often be the case in such-and-such situations, likening your particular situation to an understandable cliché of pop-psychology. simplifying it. but that's misguided. most things are never as simple as they'd like. emotions are complex. far more so than can be adequately expressed or understood by others. attempting to do so seems pointless. i always feel skeptical when someone does this with me, and certainly i've done it enough times. it's all we can do, right? or can we just sit across from the person, hear their words, and say yes. i hear you, and in doing so, i come to know you a little more. i care that you live well and are happy. but i'm not you, and i don't live your life. let it be at that.
something on the boards inspired me to muse about this.
is it better to live a quiet life knowing that you are living in a way that makes you happy and hurts no one, wherein you are largely (happily) ignored by the world at large, and thereby let the ignorant masses continue to play out their ridiculous ways, as you feel it’s not worth it, or not possible, to change it? Or to try and work with life and get to people and try and reach those who would be most disinclined to accept and receive your views? it is possible to maintain personal ethics without trying to ram your own so-called better way of living down their throats? is it wise to even attempt to do so? the tao suggests leading by example, not preaching or trying to control, and while i agree, these days it’s more likely that no one will pay attention to you unless you appeal to their needs, either through sex or survival or whatever. But if you are to teach only by making yourself an example, without running around preaching it, then the only real change that seems possible is on a small scale: the place you live in, the people around you, and you must trust that others out in the world are doing something similar in their particular places. So it would be that we are content knowing that we’re living as best we can and trying to help others do the same, respectfully. Such a fine line. For those people out there who I so vaguely refer to often fill me with such disgust that I would just as soon leave them to drink and fuck to their heart’s content, oblivious to me and my friends. But that’s being elitist, and i know better than to let that side of myself win out.
is it better to live a quiet life knowing that you are living in a way that makes you happy and hurts no one, wherein you are largely (happily) ignored by the world at large, and thereby let the ignorant masses continue to play out their ridiculous ways, as you feel it’s not worth it, or not possible, to change it? Or to try and work with life and get to people and try and reach those who would be most disinclined to accept and receive your views? it is possible to maintain personal ethics without trying to ram your own so-called better way of living down their throats? is it wise to even attempt to do so? the tao suggests leading by example, not preaching or trying to control, and while i agree, these days it’s more likely that no one will pay attention to you unless you appeal to their needs, either through sex or survival or whatever. But if you are to teach only by making yourself an example, without running around preaching it, then the only real change that seems possible is on a small scale: the place you live in, the people around you, and you must trust that others out in the world are doing something similar in their particular places. So it would be that we are content knowing that we’re living as best we can and trying to help others do the same, respectfully. Such a fine line. For those people out there who I so vaguely refer to often fill me with such disgust that I would just as soon leave them to drink and fuck to their heart’s content, oblivious to me and my friends. But that’s being elitist, and i know better than to let that side of myself win out.
my friend rain - still against calling her my girlfriend, and anyhow she's 10 years older than me - found this at reed and gave it to me. how cool is that?
had a couple of job interviews today. the first one went really well. the other one...
let me just say that the blank-mind stupor of orgasm is hardly the state to be in when being interviewed. oh well. hopes for the first remain.
let me just say that the blank-mind stupor of orgasm is hardly the state to be in when being interviewed. oh well. hopes for the first remain.
well, i've got 2 pictures up, but i can't put up any more until i get photoshop working properly. for some reason my digital camera takes pictures that average 150kb and so none of them fit. alas.
"He had gone to several universities ... and had found only curves and credits. He had become drunk on the idea of God and found only theology. He had risen several times on the subtle and powerful wings of lust, expectant of magnificence, achieving only discharge. A few times he had extended friendship with palpitating hope, only to find that no one quite knew what he had in mind. His solitude now was the result of his metabolism, that constant breathing in of joy and exhalation of sadness"
-Edward Lewis Wallant
-Edward Lewis Wallant
looking through your collection of 500+ cds and not being able to pick out even 30 you want to listen to anytime soon is depressing.
Oh, how i love Homestar Runner.
"So i just got this message you left for me on Pom-Pom's cell phone telling me to go away and pick up sticks!? Well i say that is GARBAGE, sister! Having to put up with you is like having to put up with GARBAGE! I dont know where you get off, but it's definitely not at the Homestar station anymore! Looks like you're widing the 7:30 alone train to Aloneville! Making stops at ex-girlfriend junction and west-BWEAKING UP WITH YOU! Oh, and you can keep the collector's plate!"
"So i just got this message you left for me on Pom-Pom's cell phone telling me to go away and pick up sticks!? Well i say that is GARBAGE, sister! Having to put up with you is like having to put up with GARBAGE! I dont know where you get off, but it's definitely not at the Homestar station anymore! Looks like you're widing the 7:30 alone train to Aloneville! Making stops at ex-girlfriend junction and west-BWEAKING UP WITH YOU! Oh, and you can keep the collector's plate!"
hmmm. i still haven't got the hang of this i guess. i need to figure out how to free up a bunch of memory on my computer so i can get photoshop to work properly.
this is my first entry.
i'm sitting at my computer after having cried and cried when i found out about elliott. i am dry eyed now, all cried out, and it pisses me off. i understand that we have only so much saline in us, but goddamnit i want to keep on crying. it feels a lot better than sitting here in doubt and emptiness. numb. this is fucked.
i'm sitting at my computer after having cried and cried when i found out about elliott. i am dry eyed now, all cried out, and it pisses me off. i understand that we have only so much saline in us, but goddamnit i want to keep on crying. it feels a lot better than sitting here in doubt and emptiness. numb. this is fucked.
