Happy paint your midget green day all!
So I started this long in depth blog about my time in Wales, Ireland and Scotland and how since living there, St Paddy's day has always been a day of intrigue for me in the States, but yeah no.
Let's just say the sum of why it's weird to me is the Irish don't make as big of a deal about St Patrick's day as we do. Ha.
No rivers get dyed green, the thought of green food dye in milk is disgusting to them, I don't think they even have parades, and certainly they may go to the pub but no funny hats with shamrocks, no "kiss me i'm irish" t-shirts, no shamrock mardi gras beads and all the goofy-ass things we do.
Don't get me wrong I am not criticizing our habits on this day, it just intrigues me. It tells me something about our culture as Americans that I never would have got before living overseas.
In a sense, I think we have such an ambiguous cultural identity that a lot of us are grasping for something to identify with as a "cultural identity". We say "I'm Irish" "I'm Mexican" "I'm Scottish" "I'm Italian" but we say that having never been and certainly having not lived or been raised in those cultures (naturally with some exceptions). It's our heritage and we should absolutely honor it, but I realized when I lived in Wales, I am not Irish or Welsh or German or French (although my ancestors are), I'm American, full of all those weird contrasts and contradictions. We make a big deal about other cultures holidays: St Paddy's Day, Cinco De Mayo, Oktoberfest and do it up like many of cultures never dream of. We commercialize them.
We make them our own.
And I think it's actually kinda cool.
Anyway, instead of being out having a Guinness or a Jameson as I typically do (no drinking for a while remember
). I am sitting at home, after having a wonderful conversation via Skype with my longest standing friend (we have been friends since we were 12) contemplating what it means to be an American on St Paddy's day...
Ironic?
Ha I suppose.
Listening to a wide variety of Irish music, from Loreena McKennitt to Sinead O'Connor to the Dropkick Murphys to the Pogues.
I got stuck on Sinead O'Connor though, god her voice is so beautiful.
Sorrowful
Haunting
Hopeful
Alone
Powerful
and Delicate
all at once
I think what I love about her music is it feels so incredibly personal.
It also speaks to me right now, I think, because I am feeling this big philosophical shift happening within myself. I told a friend recently, "I have often felt like my life is a constant series of starting over".
I actually like starting over.
I like moving
I like starting a new job
I like the potential in starting over.
"The Ouroboro,"
he said. "Google it"
And yes I suppose I am in a constant state of re-creation
but
I also feel like I am moving forward in a spiral
not stuck in the same circle.
Because ideally
we learn from our experiences
and move forward
It's always circular though isn't it?
I'm not even sure where I'm going with all of this, just kind of vomitting the things going on in my head right now.
I feel like I'm waking up
or entering a new dream perhaps?
There is a scene in Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf
when Harry, the steppenwolf, finds himself in a corridor of a theater, he has gone from room to room
exploring his past
real
imagined
psychological
philosophical
intellectual
and the charachters associated with all of them
each room is a new dream
or reality
Actually the two really are not that different
He runs into Mozart off an on in his dream/adventure/passage/discovery
toward the end Mozart enters the room and sets up a radio
(keep in mind thsi book takes place when radio was still new and people like our main character did not like the idea)
Harry listens as Mozart plays "Concerto Grosso in F Major by Handel" and hears initially what he describes as
"that devilish tin trumpet spat out, without more ado, a mixture of bronchial slime and chewed rubber; that noise that owners of gramaphones and radios have agreed to call music"
Eventually Mozart convinces Harry that although the music pouring out of the radio is
"stupid and coarse, lamentably distorted, to boot, and chucks [the music] into space to land where it has no business to be; and yet after all this it cannot destroy the original spirit of the music"
I feel this happening in my life right now. A shift. Old ideas are dying and new ones emerging.
It's not good
it's not bad
it just is
As I said to the friend I mentioned earlier "sometimes we have to learn to let it go and realize that existence is chaos from time to time/"
Although there may be no universal truth or meaning, we can have both on an individual level
Which sounds very lonely when you think about it.
But my lovely long-time friend tonight pointed out that "although there may be no universal truth, there are underlying themes that connect us"
Like respect
Like honor
Like love
And we express thos ethemes in very different ways, but they are still there like a river we go to for both life and recreation.
I'm rambling now and to anyone who has managed to hang on to this internal babble i am having with myself, bless you!
I'll leave you with some more Hesse, Mozart's concluding his argument of what the radio represents to Harry
(and how I am feeling about these changes and my habit of starting anew once again).
"All life is so, my child, and we must let it be so; and if we are not asses, laugh at it. It little becomes people like you to be critics of radio or of life either. Better learn to listen first! Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
So here I stand in my own corridor, it is a time for consideration and self-reflection I suppose....
(this song gives me chills)
So I started this long in depth blog about my time in Wales, Ireland and Scotland and how since living there, St Paddy's day has always been a day of intrigue for me in the States, but yeah no.
Let's just say the sum of why it's weird to me is the Irish don't make as big of a deal about St Patrick's day as we do. Ha.
No rivers get dyed green, the thought of green food dye in milk is disgusting to them, I don't think they even have parades, and certainly they may go to the pub but no funny hats with shamrocks, no "kiss me i'm irish" t-shirts, no shamrock mardi gras beads and all the goofy-ass things we do.
Don't get me wrong I am not criticizing our habits on this day, it just intrigues me. It tells me something about our culture as Americans that I never would have got before living overseas.
In a sense, I think we have such an ambiguous cultural identity that a lot of us are grasping for something to identify with as a "cultural identity". We say "I'm Irish" "I'm Mexican" "I'm Scottish" "I'm Italian" but we say that having never been and certainly having not lived or been raised in those cultures (naturally with some exceptions). It's our heritage and we should absolutely honor it, but I realized when I lived in Wales, I am not Irish or Welsh or German or French (although my ancestors are), I'm American, full of all those weird contrasts and contradictions. We make a big deal about other cultures holidays: St Paddy's Day, Cinco De Mayo, Oktoberfest and do it up like many of cultures never dream of. We commercialize them.
We make them our own.
And I think it's actually kinda cool.
Anyway, instead of being out having a Guinness or a Jameson as I typically do (no drinking for a while remember
). I am sitting at home, after having a wonderful conversation via Skype with my longest standing friend (we have been friends since we were 12) contemplating what it means to be an American on St Paddy's day...Ironic?
Ha I suppose.
Listening to a wide variety of Irish music, from Loreena McKennitt to Sinead O'Connor to the Dropkick Murphys to the Pogues.
I got stuck on Sinead O'Connor though, god her voice is so beautiful.
Sorrowful
Haunting
Hopeful
Alone
Powerful
and Delicate
all at once
I think what I love about her music is it feels so incredibly personal.
It also speaks to me right now, I think, because I am feeling this big philosophical shift happening within myself. I told a friend recently, "I have often felt like my life is a constant series of starting over".
I actually like starting over.
I like moving
I like starting a new job
I like the potential in starting over.
"The Ouroboro,"
he said. "Google it"
And yes I suppose I am in a constant state of re-creation
but
I also feel like I am moving forward in a spiral
not stuck in the same circle.
Because ideally
we learn from our experiences
and move forward
It's always circular though isn't it?
I'm not even sure where I'm going with all of this, just kind of vomitting the things going on in my head right now.
I feel like I'm waking up
or entering a new dream perhaps?
There is a scene in Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf
when Harry, the steppenwolf, finds himself in a corridor of a theater, he has gone from room to room
exploring his past
real
imagined
psychological
philosophical
intellectual
and the charachters associated with all of them
each room is a new dream
or reality
Actually the two really are not that different
He runs into Mozart off an on in his dream/adventure/passage/discovery
toward the end Mozart enters the room and sets up a radio
(keep in mind thsi book takes place when radio was still new and people like our main character did not like the idea)
Harry listens as Mozart plays "Concerto Grosso in F Major by Handel" and hears initially what he describes as
"that devilish tin trumpet spat out, without more ado, a mixture of bronchial slime and chewed rubber; that noise that owners of gramaphones and radios have agreed to call music"
Eventually Mozart convinces Harry that although the music pouring out of the radio is
"stupid and coarse, lamentably distorted, to boot, and chucks [the music] into space to land where it has no business to be; and yet after all this it cannot destroy the original spirit of the music"
I feel this happening in my life right now. A shift. Old ideas are dying and new ones emerging.
It's not good
it's not bad
it just is
As I said to the friend I mentioned earlier "sometimes we have to learn to let it go and realize that existence is chaos from time to time/"
Although there may be no universal truth or meaning, we can have both on an individual level
Which sounds very lonely when you think about it.
But my lovely long-time friend tonight pointed out that "although there may be no universal truth, there are underlying themes that connect us"
Like respect
Like honor
Like love
And we express thos ethemes in very different ways, but they are still there like a river we go to for both life and recreation.
I'm rambling now and to anyone who has managed to hang on to this internal babble i am having with myself, bless you!
I'll leave you with some more Hesse, Mozart's concluding his argument of what the radio represents to Harry
(and how I am feeling about these changes and my habit of starting anew once again).
"All life is so, my child, and we must let it be so; and if we are not asses, laugh at it. It little becomes people like you to be critics of radio or of life either. Better learn to listen first! Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest."
So here I stand in my own corridor, it is a time for consideration and self-reflection I suppose....
(this song gives me chills)
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
I think it is awesome you have such a long standing close friend. I tend to have a few really good friends but after time we change and go our separate ways. The few close friends I have known a long time are more like family now that I see every few years or so.