Hrmmm...
It's funny how when someone close to you suddenly dissipates from your life, when you lose that familiar, reinforcing interaction, only then do you fully realize the extent of the peculiarities of skew that this person had thrown on your perspective. As the vitality begins to drain out of that strange, sublimated concoction we call a relationship, it fades and crinkles until it becomes just another oddly familiar silhouette over your shoulder, something you can look in to any amount of depth, or heave into the darker obscurity lurking outside our everyday awareness. And depending on how dear to your heart this person was, you may find the entire world around you has shifted its presentation to you - not just in its endless permutations of events, of work and play and rest, but in something running far more fundamental, some change in those nearly imperceptible threads tying that big brusque world of your perception to the malleable humdrum of your mind. You may find that color is fleeing the world (or being macabrely supplanted by some maddening hue out of space). Perhaps ordinary parts of the world become senselessly brutal or futile, or the parts you cherish most turn tinny and hollow. In short, the world seems smaller, or more round (than it really is), or just entirely too predictable.
Such predications about the world can flip away with the toss of a coin, or they can carve themselves deep into you. In other words, they are forces entirely subjective. In these matters, the questions of control, will, choice, and power are up to you (including whether they are up to you (hence, all this in my opinion)).
But, to sidestep the approaching big barrel of brined bananas that is metaphysics (and to return to the ultimate main subject of nearly every blog ever created, Yours Truly), I'll just share something I do to keep these unpleasant feelings at bay, or to shift them around, or simply make them disappear.
It's pretty straightforward, actually; I think it's just creativity. Loosely defined. Like doing things you wouldn't normally do. Not things you don't want to do, just silly things you can do. I often go for things that make me feel half-sheepish, half-jackass in this department. Like writing vague, abstracted pseudo-advice on evanescent sentimentally-drenched subjects for the benefit of nobody-in-particular. At the very least, if you can create something that no-one can make heads or tails of you've still succeeded in spreading your confusion to others. Which I believe is some form of progress (coming somewhere between discord and bureaucracy, if I remember right).
So to demonstrate, here is something I wrote today in the margins of my physics notes, to whom I could hardly tell you:
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The Light from You
Where does it come from?
Does it reflect off you,
Like a waterfall shattering a lonely beam
into countless glistening shards?
Like polished obsidian,
mimicking every trace of the night
but still gleaming
with its own warm shine?
Or perhaps like a bubble,
the light its fragile distinction,
a bare highlight so breathless
one doesn't dare speak
for fear of chasing it away.
Or is it that this light
comes from somewhere inside you,
for I can find no match in this world
for its luminance, the radiating kindness
of its warmth, nor can I help
but notice the way it beams forth
when you open your mouth to speak,
to smile, I see it shine from the smallest
furtive movements of your fingertips,
and the wind wrapping your fragrant
hair across your nose,
I do not know where such a light
may arise, only that
the light and warmth of your breath
and soft words make me languish with content,
til I'm sent reeling by the still softer fluttering
of your eyelids and heart.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It really did make me feel funny writing things like that to no-one in particular, in a room where everyone else is focused more or less on springs and potential energy, or the professor's silly eastern euro accent. There's usually something obligatory about the way people act that can be difficult to see, especially if you're acting that way yourself.
Margin #2:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The violence of a star fallen from ethereal heights casts up a brittle and chaotic landscape, jagged shards of broken earth pierce the sky towards the swirling black madness of the abyss above us, stretching beyond the tips of fingers into the heart of dreams and surveying us with its cool indifference. One walks beneath its boiling gaze but remains unseen, a cloud of judgment casting heavily on the horizon.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know from my experience that this sort of thing is impractical and won't get you anywhere. It's wanky and about as stupid as reaching out (as hard as you can!) for clouds, the color of the sea, some distant hope you know you'll never acheive. But it helps me. Otherwise I probably would've waved goodbye to this silly perch and its guileless inventions long ago.
Which is all I can really say about it.
It's funny how when someone close to you suddenly dissipates from your life, when you lose that familiar, reinforcing interaction, only then do you fully realize the extent of the peculiarities of skew that this person had thrown on your perspective. As the vitality begins to drain out of that strange, sublimated concoction we call a relationship, it fades and crinkles until it becomes just another oddly familiar silhouette over your shoulder, something you can look in to any amount of depth, or heave into the darker obscurity lurking outside our everyday awareness. And depending on how dear to your heart this person was, you may find the entire world around you has shifted its presentation to you - not just in its endless permutations of events, of work and play and rest, but in something running far more fundamental, some change in those nearly imperceptible threads tying that big brusque world of your perception to the malleable humdrum of your mind. You may find that color is fleeing the world (or being macabrely supplanted by some maddening hue out of space). Perhaps ordinary parts of the world become senselessly brutal or futile, or the parts you cherish most turn tinny and hollow. In short, the world seems smaller, or more round (than it really is), or just entirely too predictable.
Such predications about the world can flip away with the toss of a coin, or they can carve themselves deep into you. In other words, they are forces entirely subjective. In these matters, the questions of control, will, choice, and power are up to you (including whether they are up to you (hence, all this in my opinion)).
But, to sidestep the approaching big barrel of brined bananas that is metaphysics (and to return to the ultimate main subject of nearly every blog ever created, Yours Truly), I'll just share something I do to keep these unpleasant feelings at bay, or to shift them around, or simply make them disappear.
It's pretty straightforward, actually; I think it's just creativity. Loosely defined. Like doing things you wouldn't normally do. Not things you don't want to do, just silly things you can do. I often go for things that make me feel half-sheepish, half-jackass in this department. Like writing vague, abstracted pseudo-advice on evanescent sentimentally-drenched subjects for the benefit of nobody-in-particular. At the very least, if you can create something that no-one can make heads or tails of you've still succeeded in spreading your confusion to others. Which I believe is some form of progress (coming somewhere between discord and bureaucracy, if I remember right).
So to demonstrate, here is something I wrote today in the margins of my physics notes, to whom I could hardly tell you:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Light from You
Where does it come from?
Does it reflect off you,
Like a waterfall shattering a lonely beam
into countless glistening shards?
Like polished obsidian,
mimicking every trace of the night
but still gleaming
with its own warm shine?
Or perhaps like a bubble,
the light its fragile distinction,
a bare highlight so breathless
one doesn't dare speak
for fear of chasing it away.
Or is it that this light
comes from somewhere inside you,
for I can find no match in this world
for its luminance, the radiating kindness
of its warmth, nor can I help
but notice the way it beams forth
when you open your mouth to speak,
to smile, I see it shine from the smallest
furtive movements of your fingertips,
and the wind wrapping your fragrant
hair across your nose,
I do not know where such a light
may arise, only that
the light and warmth of your breath
and soft words make me languish with content,
til I'm sent reeling by the still softer fluttering
of your eyelids and heart.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It really did make me feel funny writing things like that to no-one in particular, in a room where everyone else is focused more or less on springs and potential energy, or the professor's silly eastern euro accent. There's usually something obligatory about the way people act that can be difficult to see, especially if you're acting that way yourself.
Margin #2:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The violence of a star fallen from ethereal heights casts up a brittle and chaotic landscape, jagged shards of broken earth pierce the sky towards the swirling black madness of the abyss above us, stretching beyond the tips of fingers into the heart of dreams and surveying us with its cool indifference. One walks beneath its boiling gaze but remains unseen, a cloud of judgment casting heavily on the horizon.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know from my experience that this sort of thing is impractical and won't get you anywhere. It's wanky and about as stupid as reaching out (as hard as you can!) for clouds, the color of the sea, some distant hope you know you'll never acheive. But it helps me. Otherwise I probably would've waved goodbye to this silly perch and its guileless inventions long ago.
Which is all I can really say about it.