Hello again for now.
tired of everything. dont want to read any more books. haven't for a long time. don't want to watch television or films. everything is the same all over. i need someone that i love dearly to die. thats the only thing i can think of that would snap me out of this state of existential boredom. no music, no stories no ideas. just death. real death. is a horrible thing to think, i guess. but it was the first thing that went through my mind when i woke up on september 11th at 2 in the afternoon. "what took them so long?" i wanted it. i wanted something to snap me out of bouncing from one pleasant or pleasantly entertaining experience to the next. but that wasn't horrible enough, i suppose. the only other time i can rememeber something snapping me out and allowing me a window into being driven was when my friend shot himself. and i saw that window a few weeks after. i was reeling for a long time, but then i saw that i could interpret it any way i liked. and so i interpreted it in the way that made me feel like there was some meaning to it. the ultimate meaningless act. and i gave it meaning. there was direction and focus in my life then. i rejected everything on a moment by moment basis, just because it wasn't the one thing i wanted. which was to not suffer as much as i was at that time. when something hurts alot, it tends to dull all other pains. dull them until they don't exist. so i was numb except to the one pain, which was just a reflection of how i would die and no one would care. because that was what really bothered me most about his suicide. everyone of his friends and family still went about with their daily lives. they changed them, but they still did stuff. i found this to be a repulsive way to act. to me, it was an indication of just how shallow lives are. when they are gone, people still get up in the morning and make coffee. there were 2 weeks where people walked around and were visibly shaken. and then one day i realized that no one else but me cared. not really. they still smiled. they still worked. they didnt carry it in their minds. there was nothing wrong with them. it was my first experience with death, and it solidified my understanding of life. which is to say that i no longer hoped for any meaning to be found. no big meaning, that is. the hope i held for any meaning was based on some kind of permanence. connections people had with my friend were forgotten for reasons of practicality. that is disturbing. practicality motivated them to do things which erased his existence from the past.
my coffee tastes like worms.
i've seen it written somewhre that postmodernism is the human reaction to the truth the first A bomb brought into being. we finally found a way to end humanity permanently. but i can't visualize 30000 people becoming vapor. one can talk about 30,000 people dying, but i don't think it has much meaning. death loses its meaning the bigger it gets. it gets tossed into the gossip column. heidegger thought that when we use the word death, it never has any real meaning. words are public. death is the most private of experiences. there are two sense of the word. the sense of the word that is readily available to everyone, where death symbolizes the end of our aquaintance with someone who was previously available to us. then there is the sense that applies only to the individual. where death is the horizon for all possible actions...hiding in the background of everything we are, waiting for us. it is at once the most public and most private experience we have. socrates and man are mortal, but who really gives a shit? rare is the instance that a death actually affects us. so i don't buy the nuclear death that waits for the species. that isn't real, and neither are the various pants-shitting reactions to it. it is almost impossible to get to know and love a handful of people over the span of a lifetime, and even then, their death may not afford us a decent look into the real meaning of death (the private one). but those who speak of the 30000 clouds of vapor speak of it as if we should feel something. i feel nothing. why should i? i didn't know them. i do well to see death when its the death of a family friend i've known all my life. i'll likely not have more than 3 or 4 experiences with death, including my own. maybe more--my parents gave me a few siblings. but maybe i'll have alot on my mind when one of my sisters dies. i'll be too busy to really care like a decent person ought to. and it isn't denial--its just not practical to allow the deaths of others to make us think about our own too much. human existence seems to be about involvement in the world, it is a public existence before all else. things gain meaning inasmuch as they are public shared experiences. death as that which cannot be avoided and outstipped is not a concept which allows for any meaning in anything else. it is the great leveller, pounding all the nails that stick out back into the nothing that is human existence. it is impractical. i think it probably takes dead people a while to realize they are no more. one moment they are walking to the store, the next they are hit by a bus, but the space they occupied probably makes it to the store, makes it to the counter, asks for some smokes, and then disappears. the space remains for a while, wavering blinking and too busy to realize it is near its end, until it is ignored and forgets itself. i'd imagine that's what dying is. remembering that you aren't necessary, then believing finally believing it.
real meaning is possible, but it isn't a meaning that is worth much, given humanity's penchant for visualizing the sublime and the beautiful. the nostalgia that springs from a involvement in things that stir the spirit is no indication that that involvement means anything that won't end. death conditions all meaning, as a universal and unavoidable experience. death alone has the permanence sought in representational and spiritual truth. the other meanings, being conditioned by death, do not, therefore mean less. the nonpermanence of meaning doesn't make it mean anything less. but for me it means that there is no idea capable of sustaining itself. i am the one that holds the ideas up. i take my hand away and they hover before my eyes for a while. and then they fall. none of them stand on their own. i am the unnecessary entity that likes to pretend to play with necessary things.
but i am so bored.
tired of everything. dont want to read any more books. haven't for a long time. don't want to watch television or films. everything is the same all over. i need someone that i love dearly to die. thats the only thing i can think of that would snap me out of this state of existential boredom. no music, no stories no ideas. just death. real death. is a horrible thing to think, i guess. but it was the first thing that went through my mind when i woke up on september 11th at 2 in the afternoon. "what took them so long?" i wanted it. i wanted something to snap me out of bouncing from one pleasant or pleasantly entertaining experience to the next. but that wasn't horrible enough, i suppose. the only other time i can rememeber something snapping me out and allowing me a window into being driven was when my friend shot himself. and i saw that window a few weeks after. i was reeling for a long time, but then i saw that i could interpret it any way i liked. and so i interpreted it in the way that made me feel like there was some meaning to it. the ultimate meaningless act. and i gave it meaning. there was direction and focus in my life then. i rejected everything on a moment by moment basis, just because it wasn't the one thing i wanted. which was to not suffer as much as i was at that time. when something hurts alot, it tends to dull all other pains. dull them until they don't exist. so i was numb except to the one pain, which was just a reflection of how i would die and no one would care. because that was what really bothered me most about his suicide. everyone of his friends and family still went about with their daily lives. they changed them, but they still did stuff. i found this to be a repulsive way to act. to me, it was an indication of just how shallow lives are. when they are gone, people still get up in the morning and make coffee. there were 2 weeks where people walked around and were visibly shaken. and then one day i realized that no one else but me cared. not really. they still smiled. they still worked. they didnt carry it in their minds. there was nothing wrong with them. it was my first experience with death, and it solidified my understanding of life. which is to say that i no longer hoped for any meaning to be found. no big meaning, that is. the hope i held for any meaning was based on some kind of permanence. connections people had with my friend were forgotten for reasons of practicality. that is disturbing. practicality motivated them to do things which erased his existence from the past.
my coffee tastes like worms.
i've seen it written somewhre that postmodernism is the human reaction to the truth the first A bomb brought into being. we finally found a way to end humanity permanently. but i can't visualize 30000 people becoming vapor. one can talk about 30,000 people dying, but i don't think it has much meaning. death loses its meaning the bigger it gets. it gets tossed into the gossip column. heidegger thought that when we use the word death, it never has any real meaning. words are public. death is the most private of experiences. there are two sense of the word. the sense of the word that is readily available to everyone, where death symbolizes the end of our aquaintance with someone who was previously available to us. then there is the sense that applies only to the individual. where death is the horizon for all possible actions...hiding in the background of everything we are, waiting for us. it is at once the most public and most private experience we have. socrates and man are mortal, but who really gives a shit? rare is the instance that a death actually affects us. so i don't buy the nuclear death that waits for the species. that isn't real, and neither are the various pants-shitting reactions to it. it is almost impossible to get to know and love a handful of people over the span of a lifetime, and even then, their death may not afford us a decent look into the real meaning of death (the private one). but those who speak of the 30000 clouds of vapor speak of it as if we should feel something. i feel nothing. why should i? i didn't know them. i do well to see death when its the death of a family friend i've known all my life. i'll likely not have more than 3 or 4 experiences with death, including my own. maybe more--my parents gave me a few siblings. but maybe i'll have alot on my mind when one of my sisters dies. i'll be too busy to really care like a decent person ought to. and it isn't denial--its just not practical to allow the deaths of others to make us think about our own too much. human existence seems to be about involvement in the world, it is a public existence before all else. things gain meaning inasmuch as they are public shared experiences. death as that which cannot be avoided and outstipped is not a concept which allows for any meaning in anything else. it is the great leveller, pounding all the nails that stick out back into the nothing that is human existence. it is impractical. i think it probably takes dead people a while to realize they are no more. one moment they are walking to the store, the next they are hit by a bus, but the space they occupied probably makes it to the store, makes it to the counter, asks for some smokes, and then disappears. the space remains for a while, wavering blinking and too busy to realize it is near its end, until it is ignored and forgets itself. i'd imagine that's what dying is. remembering that you aren't necessary, then believing finally believing it.
real meaning is possible, but it isn't a meaning that is worth much, given humanity's penchant for visualizing the sublime and the beautiful. the nostalgia that springs from a involvement in things that stir the spirit is no indication that that involvement means anything that won't end. death conditions all meaning, as a universal and unavoidable experience. death alone has the permanence sought in representational and spiritual truth. the other meanings, being conditioned by death, do not, therefore mean less. the nonpermanence of meaning doesn't make it mean anything less. but for me it means that there is no idea capable of sustaining itself. i am the one that holds the ideas up. i take my hand away and they hover before my eyes for a while. and then they fall. none of them stand on their own. i am the unnecessary entity that likes to pretend to play with necessary things.
but i am so bored.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Whenever I'm bored I know it's because I'm avoiding something important. I think you just need a hobby (something a bit more meaningful than internet porn, maybe?).
Please tell me next time Maggie's over at your place-I'll bring Sherlock, since he gets along with everyone and won't get jealous like Sam does. We had this adorable Scottie at our clinic a few weeks ago named Quentin-he was so dignified and polite. We were all glad he got to home healthy.