More on Apple Orchards

One of the first times I remember being full out depressed and realizing I needed to do something about it was during the autumn of my eighth grade year. We had just moved across town, and I was in a new school. I had been determined to remake myself through this move, to not be the shy kid any more, but I underestimated how scary this new school would be.

For 1-7 I had been in the same small private Catholic school. Most people were insanely nice and I known them all for at least two years some for seven. Long story short I spent my eighth grade year, in a bustling public school, making two friends I could talk to losing one of them within a month and speaking about two sentences to each of my other friends. It wasn't a bad year. I learned how to ride horses, played on the basketball team, enjoyed nearly all of my classes, and my family was financially secure for once.

However, it wasn't just the newness of the school, my failure to connect with people, and therefore my failure to face my fears and redefine myself that was depressing me. I was specifically depressed because I was noticing for the first time how circular everything is. The days, the weeks, the months, the seasons, the years. I was realizing how little changes and how little ever happened to me. Which was particularly annoying since I thought I should be feeling like everything had changed. After failed attempts at trying to get some kind of advice from my busy parents, I decided a counselor was my only option.

I had been going to counselors off an on since I was in first grade. My mother had been determined that somehow my father was f'ing up our childhoods. At the time I had no idea what she was talking about. I just sat and stared at the woman asking me questions, and waited patiently for it to be over. Later, maybe starting in fourth grade when I was actually starting to be depressed, I started talking. Usually it was about my mom, not my dad. By seventh grade the counselor had been trying to explain to my mom why she couldn't agree to host my thirteenth birthday party, then get mad at a few of the guests, and then yell at us and lock us all outside. It wouldn't be until high school that my mother would finally successfully convince me that somehow my problems at home were all about my dad yelling at me. It would be five years after that I would come back around and realize, my mom could make all our lives so dramatic I wasn't surprised my dad had yelled. There's more to this story, but it isn't really the story I set out to tell.

So I go to this school counselor, and he seems pretty depressed his self. And I could tell, even in my youth, that he didn't really know what to tell me... that this was something many adults struggled with... that there were no easy "i'm an adult you're a kid" answers for me to swallow. It was that kind of pause, and yes I am pretty good at reading people most of the time in most situations. Anyways. He pauses, leans back, puts his fingertips together, and sighs. Then he says. "Do you like going to the apple orchard? This time of year my family always goes to the apple orchard."

This strikes me as perhaps the best advice I have ever received, though I always thought of him as somewhat of a dope. Getting outside, breathing fresh air, participating in a family, getting outside of myself. These traditional things we do every season, I think this is what it's about, getting outside of ourselves. Instead of getting caught up in the drudgery of repetition, making it our own.

I told him we would. I asked my parents if we could go. They said yes. We never went.

It wouldn't have been what he envisioned anyways. My family, it's kind of hard to explain. Growing up we never did the traditional things, we acted them out. "Oh. Isn't it nice it's Christmas. Look at all these presents." Somebody would say overly loud and in a sickly sweet voice. "I got a doll! Mommy, mommy, I got a doll!" Somebody would exclaim, in an overly excited way that didn't suggest she had received the same thing for the past five Christmases. They even filmed a lot of our youth, that made the acting even worse. There were a lot of "look what I can do" moments, because both of my parents always seemed so involved in making sure the characteristics of a perfect tradition came about that they didn't ever seem to notice what was actually going on, who we actually were.

I'm not saying they didn't try. I'm saying they tried to hard and it meant too much to them. If anything went wrong, drama.

A few months after my big breakup, I came back for Christmas. I was finally reconnecting with my sister, swapping memories and catching up after the present opening, when all of the sudden my mother was yelling at us (not asking us) to come help with the dishes. We asked her to give us a while, we were right in the middle of a good conversation, but she couldn't wait. Therefore, I refused. She flipped out, grabbed the keys and left the house to drive away, yelling "Have a Fucking Merry Christmas" at us as she left.

Now I'm not saying my family is OCD or anything, it's never about the dishes just like opening presents is never about opening presents, we're so g'damned sensitive that our egos are pretty much constantly all we think about when we're together. I should admit here that it's been a lot better as we've all aged a bit. But my point is that traditions don't really serve what I perceive to be their function in my family.

But lately, I feel different. I've taken my ego off the line, and I like to get caught up in things now. I know I can sometimes get all upset over the littlest thing, some people rub me the wrong way, my temper fuse is a bit shorter than I'd like it to be, but for the most part I go about enjoying my life. Traditions have been reclaimed as fun and creative processes. I don't have to do the same thing as other families. I can enjoy planning instead of thinking of it as a chore. Because, in the end if everything goes not according to plan, that's okay. That's not a reflection of my self-quality.

Role Models and Growth

So. I've been thinking a lot about role models. I think growing up I only looked up to Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Widget the World Watcher and the Spice Girls. There might have been a few more in there, but nothing significant. It didn't occur to me until about a year ago that I don't really seem to have any role models. I mean, everyone has role models, right? It's just one of those things.

This ties into the second point I want to make here. Nobody is good enough for me. I'm not good enough for me, you're not good enough for me, and Jesus isn't good enough for me. What's up with that? I mean, good enough to like maybe. I am really good at liking people. I like most people. But... good enough to look up to? I think not.

I think part of this is I have always been a backward sort of looking person. I am bent on staying true to my original self and who she wanted to be.

Another issue I have been tackling this last week: exactly what do I not like about myself? This is a tough one. If I answer... "oh nothing I just want to get better in the areas I am feeling positive about" then I am left feeling like I am not doing quite enough toward self-improvement. However, if I start to find my flaws I am overwhelmed by them, and once I start finding the flaws I always keep finding flaws, until even the positive areas are so mixed up with the negative ones that they seem ruined for me.

But. I did my self-improvement homework, and I tried to come up with some role models this last year. This is not nearly a comprehensive list of what I've come up with, but these are the main ones I find myself coming back to again and again.

First there are intellectual role models: Nietzsche, C.S. Lewis, Kafka, and Gertrude Stein.

Then there are super hero role models: Batman and Wonder Woman primarily. Throw in Bettie Paige, she's a super hero, right?

Third there are my life models: Shannon Callan, Bob's Parents, My Grandma.

It's hard to say what all these people have in common. I think it is a passion for life and an eye for beauty. They are strong sorts of people in very different ways. They are intense, but not intense for the sake of intensity. Intense because that is who they are. Some of these people are downright quiet in their intensity, but it's still there.

In fact, most of my friends I would say are intense people.

However, I have established that intensity in and of itself is a faulty goal. I have a feeling I am already intense, and trying to be intense only leads to tension.

I think really it is in the application of intensity toward beauty and well-being that my future lies. Sometimes I am so much like who I want to be that I can almost taste it. But then, being more passionate, getting involved in the world, has its tough times too. There is rejection, fear of rejection, and general misunderstanding to be tackled.

My Blog's Continued Manifesto, Sort Of

But to begin, at one sort of a beginning, I must begin with some sad news. Though I consider myself to be a loyal person within reason, I have discovered that even I can be pushed too far.

I am accused of not knowing much about hobgoblins, and this I am freely willing to admit. These posts are about discovery for me, and self-discovery through discoveries. That is why I feel so free with this new blog. If I had meant to appear an expert about hobgoblins, I would have read more about them than wikipedia had to offer, and I would not have admitted that all of my knowledge came from that source.

The purpose of my previous blog originally constituted subjects I am an expert in: whining, complaining, and venting. The hope was that this would get me through a rough time.

Thankfully I did get through that rough time, and with its original purpose gone my old blog began to search around for its purpose. It became burdened down by skepticism, and by a desire on my part and sometimes others' that I be an expert about what I dared put forward as important. At one point, a "friend" of mine, did a lot to shake my enjoyment of my blog.

This "friend" took one of my posts very personally, and was somewhat hurt by it. I view this post as one of self-empowerment, and see much of what this friend did throughout our friendship as counteracting any possible self-empowerment. I would be lying if I said that he probably had nothing to do with my making this post. Since he was someone who, I felt, threatened my sense of self and self-worth around every corner, I am sure that images pertaining to him were lively in my conscious and sub-conscious as I posted this post.

Here is a link to that post, though I consider it old and past its prime, I feel it would be unfair on some level not to include it since I am referring to it so frequently here.

http://hoperston.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

One of the main issues I had with this man, is that he was rapidly and daily choosing symbols for me that I felt no relation to at all. I am not, and rarely have identified with, the moon. Likewise, I am primarily Irish in heritage and everything else is really a Scandinavian mix, yet he insisted on identifying me with my Danish heritage at the expense of ignoring all the rest. This post was my attempt to choose my own image, the symbol I think I needed to identify with to progress at that time.

His response was to angrily identify with deer, and profess how strong and majestic they are. A fact I am well aware of, but which I doubt the lions give two thoughts to.

I think primarily that is what he does. He identifies with symbols. I think we all do to some extent, but he takes it to what I find an obnoxious extreme. Moreover, I believe there is a way to identify with a symbol that brings more truth about you to the surface, and I believe there is a way to identify with a symbol which treats it as something to hide behind. Of course I believe he does the latter. But if this was our only issue, I assure you I once found him a fascinating enough individual that it would not have stood in our way.

He instead chose to take my words out of context and turn his friends, all or most of whom had never met me, against me. For the record, no matter how much insanity I am willing to admit to, I think by any reasonable definition of insanity he would be considered more insane than I.

Then he did what I found most hurtful and unforgivable. He took my whole post and posted it on his online journal. I consider this complete blasphemy. No post should be viewed outside of the context of its original author's intent, if at all possible. And in this case, since my blog is a public blog, a link would have sufficed. If you bring a post into a context it was never meant to be in, and represent it through your own narrow lens to an audience that was never meant to be the primary audience, then I think you have committed a foul deed. Basically I accuse him of obscuring the truth, a thing that I feel, despite his paradoxical brilliance, he did at every turn.

Part of the problem is that I have my blogs automatically imported to facebook. I do this with the hope that more people will be aware that I post, and so that it will be perhaps easier and more compact to read my posts. However, this makes my posts feel less anonymous. I take them very personally, regardless, but even the pretext of anonymity that blogspot allows me serves as a safety blanket. And, too, facebook does take them out of their original context and exposes them to a somewhat wider audience.

From the beginning I have found some people to be strongly supportive of my blogs. Aside from that I have also always enjoyed the writing for its own sake.

I realized recently that blogging, for me, has always been about self-discovery. I learn things about myself, through this medium, that no other medium has to offer. And it was that morning that I also woke up realizing I no longer am an official student at any school. I no longer (at least temporarily) have someone other than my self to officially tell me when to do things, or how well I did at them.

This new blog was conceived as my own playground of "random half-thoughts" with the hope that these half-thoughts will be developed toward my own education. Selfish, I know, but if others can get something out of this too, and I think they can, then there is a strong unselfish side to it too, hopefully.

But already my previous nemesis was at it again, spreading doubts through my mind. Though I have rarely "un-friended" someone before, it was past time to do so. Even the interesting allure he had once held over me was considerably dimmed by this time. Anyone who cannot see that Emerson's real house and true grave are in his words and his ideas, anyone who curses a Earth that is so big and beautiful and cares not a fig for his poison, anyone who offers nothing in the way of support for months and months if not years and then comes in with this kind of negative mumbo jumbo, I find that there is nowhere in my heart for this one-time-friend.

It is a milestone in self-preservation that I realize this without guilt, and have taken measures to protect myself from psychosis guised as creativity.

All this to say. If you have questions, if you want to offer wisdom in the face of my ignorance, please do so. But please, I want to reassure you, that no expectation of consistency or expertness can be happily hoped for from this blog.

Pooka, Turnips, and Will-o-wisps

So. Through some of Mary's suggestions, I have discovered even more facts that I find interesting relating to hobgoblins. If you're tired of this nonsense by now, I suggest you skip this post. However, I find it most interesting.

Mary referred me to some articles having to do with Old Manse, a house where Hawthorne lived with Sophia right after they were married, and later Emerson lived there. Emerson wrote one of my favorite essays of his there. This essay, "Nature," holds many parallels to an essay by Nietzsche of the same subject. Since, Emerson and Nietzsche did correspond, and were fond of each other, I think this similarity makes sense.

So I went to look into this story by Hawthorne, and he too mentions hobgoblins.

"And, what was strangest,neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety of the solemn woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and the will-of-
the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come trooping
to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter to our merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremest nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor.

So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up
gushed our talk like the babble of a fountain."

(A beautiful feeling for the newlyweds.)

I have not finished this story yet, however my general feel is that Hawthorne as well did not attach too much fear to hobgoblins.

I then began to poke around trying to learn about will-of-the-wisps, remembering some harsh battles (which I always lost) with them in the game Oblivion. I have compiled a list of things I learned today as a result.

1) a. Will-o-wisps are lights that appear in marshes, and lead unsuspecting innocents to their deaths.

b. There are a few different stories explaining will-o-wisps. One is that an evil blacksmith was refused admittance to heaven by St. Peter, but given a second chance at life. However, he blew it. The devil too refused him admittance, but gave him one coal. Another version, the Irish version I am told, has a man sale his soul to the devil in order to pay off his tab at the pub. However, once the tab is paid off, he tricks the devil into going up a tree and the carves a cross on the trunk so that the devil cannot climb back down. In return for removing this cross, the devil gives up his claim on the man's soul. However, once again, both heaven and hell refuse to take him after death, so he runs around playing tricks on those lost in the marshes. He sees around by building a lantern out of a turnip, and then putting a light inside it.

c. Jack-o-lanterns and will-o-wisps descend from the same legends. From turnips to pumpkins, and from Will to Jack.

2) a. I learned that not only is Shakespeare's Puck a hobgoblin, but he is also a Pooka where he gets his namesake. (A Pooka, like a hobgoblin, is generally seen as a dishonest and mischievous character.)

b. Puck also shares characteristics of the will-o-wisp, however. Will-o-wisps also range from mischievous to malicious in legend. He is seen as a hobgoblin, who might do your chores and bring you luck if you don't cross him. And as a light that might guide you to safety or to doom.

c. Puck, however is also in the tradition of Robin Goodfellow. Robin Goodfellow is often portrayed a satyr. This in part because hobgoblins and will-o-wisps had evolved, culturally speaking, into malicious creatures and were often synonymous with Satan. Of course, you did not want to use his name so you said, Robin Goodfellow. I know from past research that the satyrs, once associated with lust and hedonism, were later portrayed as demons by the Church leading to representations of Satan as a satyr. Probably didn't help that the words are similar (or maybe followed from that?)

I don't know what all I am trying to say here. One thing is that I wish as I was exposed to Hawthorne and Shakespeare, I could have been exposed to more of the legends these two pulled their inspiration from.

Another thing is that I am constantly surprised by connections in the world.

Another thing I wonder, is why Hawthorne chose hobgoblins and will-o-wisps specifically. Obviously these must have been prominent legends in New England at the time. Probably why both Hawthorne and Emerson draw upon them. They both seem to rely on a mischievousness ranging from cute to dangerous. So much so that the two legends, plus the slightly different legend of the pooka, are all combined in the single character Puck.

Will-o-wisps seem to be more associated with the wilderness, especially marshes. Whereas hobgoblins, I don't think travel much. They seem to plague the home. However, Hawthorne identifies them with the "old wilderness". He doesn't seem to talk about them with much fear, regardless. He seems to think the magic of the spot holds its own sort of immunity, and even if they were to interact with the couple it seems that it would be in a friendly sort of way (sharing laughter with them). Of course, Hawthorne isn't making a wide reaching statement, his use of hobgoblins and will-o-wisps is meant to help describe how isolated and wild the Old Manse is. The wilderness does not disturb the newlyweds, and they do not disturb it.

However, you see a very different story in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Next stop, finishing Hawthorne's Old Manse story, rereading Sleepy Hollow since tis the season anyways, and then maybe rereading "Midsummer Night's Dream" after all these years.

(I also ordered a collection of Kipling's works including "Puck of Pook's Hill," which cost only $1, and sparked my interest)

My Scary Dream

Several nights past, I had this dream, that still haunts me a bit. I am often able to sort of analyze my dreams with interesting results, as most of you probably already know. However, I seem to be having trouble making progress with this one.

Robert and I had gone to live with his distant relatives (the Lippincotts who had not left Europe) on their plantation in Europe. It was somewhat like the Lippincott farmhouse in Blair, only huge and sprawling. The main building was in a German colonial farmhouse style

The rest of the building was much more like a Mediterranean farm.

The land was also very similar to the land in this photo. Only there was a stone bridge over a trench. And between the German colonial part and the fence in the back there was a large plaster arch. Also there was an abandoned tower, that figured into the dream's general feel, but I never went into, to the far left on this picture.

The land also had more crops. To its left there were some corn fields, as are so numerous in Iowa and Nebraska. Complete with dirt/gravel paths. Not the green time of year, though all the other crops were green and flourishing... they were more...

To its right, and through most of the back field there were tomatoes and grapes.

The house had a basement with all sorts of valuable history, but it was also dusty and creepy. It had a gaudy sliding glass door. Like the doors on a Carousel.

But the happiest part, for me, was the flower garden. It was like the Secret Garden, only not walled up.

In short this place was kind of like paradise. We had a cook and a maid. And I helped with all of the chores and stayed merrily busy. At night I would learn things from the cook, and he would also tell me stories. He was in his forties, a merry sort of mischievous man. He kind of reminded me of Marc mixed with Long John Silver.

Not long after we arrived at this place, however, but Bob got a computer job that required him to travel nearly all of the time. Before he left Bob showed me a flower he had planted me in the garden, he told me it was "our flower" and I should visit it every time I missed him. It was even better than that picture, though. It was tall and strong.

So every few hours I would sneak off from my chores and visit it.

This dream went on for what seemed like quite a while in this same fashion.

Then one night Long Marc Silver told me about the plantation's ghost. He said it was Robert's far off distantly Grandpa Euripides. The man had been working in the basement one day, and mysteriously disappeared never to be seen again. Ever since the basement had been used only as a storage room which was haunted by Euripides. In fact many of the servants, including Long Marc Silver, had met him on numerous occasions and always found him to be friendly but quiet, inclined to tip his hat and then hurry on his way whistling. It had long been considered good luck to see him.

The next day as I was visiting "our flower" I felt the need to use the facilities. After having accomplished this, I despondently hurried out the door again. I was so missing Robert, that it took me about thirty feet of walking to realize I had gone out the wrong door. I was in the cornfields, and something didn't feel right about them to me. So I made a wide circle around, through the vineyards, toward the garden.

As I was making my way toward the bridge, I saw an old man and immediately put together that it was Grandpa Euripides. I was overjoyed to see him.

He dressed sort of like Sherlock Holmes, minus the hat. And he looked like the Grandpa from Moonstruck only paler.

I ran up to greet him, but to my surprise he didn't seem to like me. He seemed very distracted and determined about something. And he kept looking over at the tower. I was worried that I had the wrong guy, so I tried to speak his name. But, as so often happens in my dreams, I could not get the words out. Finally I managed a "Euri" at which point he shushed me quietly and nodded. He then walked quickly toward the arch.

I suddenly realized that this was a reenactment of the day he had died, and he didn't know what was about to happen. I put together that he was still a detective, that he had never retired as he had told his family he had, but rather he had just gone undercover. I determined to figure out the mystery, and "save his life and his soul" in the process.

I ran into the arch hoping to go around it and hide to wait for him. There I found "a bandit" hiding. I decided he must be the killer and I determined to stop him. However, as soon as he saw me he began shooting me. I didn't die, and there were no physical wounds, but the shots were still horribly painful. These were "ghost bullets" so I determined the bandit was also a ghost for sure. However when I ran to warn Euripides, and he saw the bandit after me, he too started firing at me. It turns out the bandit was not a bandit but rather his partner.

I was in a huge amount of pain by now, and I couldn't take any more bullets. So I started running, with them close behind reloading their guns as they ran. I ran to the basement door and hurriedly pulled it open. Only to feel a greater evil lurking within. I realized then that they were following me, thinking I was the one they were after, only to fall into his trap thanks to me. Grandpa Euripides' death had been my fault all along. I was filled with despair, and terrified of the evil I had exposed us all to.

That's when I woke up, still terrified for about a hour. Though I couldn't place my finger on precisely what had scared me that much.

In Response To Fro's Curiousity

(This is regarding the actual quote, by Emerson.)

Actually, I am curious too. I have seen it as "false consistency," but more often I have seen it as "foolish consistency." The place I first saw it in was in somebody else's blog post, and they started the quote at "consistency". This original, shortened quote, is what originally sparked my imagination.

The difference between "false" and "foolish" in my mind is pretty large. False implying an intention to deceit, and foolish being more in line with a sort of silliness. Taking away these modifiers makes the claim stronger to me. The ideas of falseness or foolishness are already included in the idea of the hobgoblin.

Emerson himself, was often criticized by his contemporaries for what one article I read called "intellectual laziness". In other words, he had a lot of really cool ideas, and some of them didn't seem to quite mesh very well, but he didn't seem to make an effort to reconcile them. It seems to me this is probably what was on his mind when he spoke of consistency as a hobgoblin.

I don't think Emerson would have been nearly as interesting of a guy if he had spent more time trying to make his ideas consistent rather than developing them and making them magical.

Long reply but you made a thought-provoking point.

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I should note as well that I think the quote would be just as interesting, and in my mind no less true, if it were "inconsistency is the hobgoblin of small minds". In fact, I think that the quote implies that a balance needs to be reached, that both consistency and inconsistency should be used to our advantage. It's the fear of either, the fear of the hobgoblin, or over concern with it, that are disadvantageous.

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"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

This is the full, official quote, I believe. From Emerson's Self-Reliance essays.

This is a point I have been trying to get at, I think this quote has everything to do with self-reliance. I can't help but be consistent with who I am, even if that means I am inconsistent with who I was yesterday. It is only through some outside pressure that I might become concerned about whether I am being consistent or not.

More on Hobgoblins

Hobgoblins, related to Brownies, come after you are asleep and do chores for you (like dusting!)if you leave food for them. If you leave clothing for them, they never visit you again. They are similar in stature to Brownies, but they are very fond of mischief and pranks, not nearly as peaceful as Brownies are. The big mean scary hobgoblins came about largely due to a mis-nomenclature by Tolkien. Realizing his mistake he later renamed his characters but it was too late. So post-Tolkien many hobgoblins are portrayed as larger and meaner goblins.

Of course, due to Emerson's use of the term it has come to mean anything imaginative or superstitious that results in unnecessary fear. All of this I learn from Wikipedia. So if you want to go there to learn more...yeah. However, I am more concerned with all this means to me.

If consistency is a hobgoblin (pre-Tolkien/pre-Emerson), then it serves a purpose but causes mischief along the way. The important thing is to live harmoniously with it, not fear it too much, and get used to its pranks.

If consistency is a hobgoblin (post-Tolkien), then there is real reason to fear and avoid it.

If consistency is a hobgoblin (post-Emerson), then it preys on our minds through causing fear.

Is it possible that once, a long time ago, it was possible to live harmoniously with consistency/hobgoblins, but as time passed and communication was more rampant it became impossible to live safely and peaceably with?
Is the transformation of the hobgoblin in literature, analogous with the transformation of the idea of consistency?

At any rate, I like to think of consistency as the small quiet hobgoblin that sneaks in with a twinkle in its eye and whispers doubts into my ear "are you sure that is consistent with who you were yesterday" or more importantly "are you sure that is consistent with what people have come to expect from you". If I ignore it for long enough it goes and sweeps out the cobwebs and dusts the lamps and everything is clearer in the morning.

Recommendation

I am recommending that you read Mark Doty's poem "Fire to Fire" if you have not already. It can be found in his books "School of the Arts" or "Fire to Fire". It's a poem that has stuck with me. I love Mark Doty, and recommend that you read whatever you can get your hands on by him, but if you are pressed on time and hesitant to take suggestions (as I have been from time to time) then please at least try to read this poem.

Here are a few excerpts, though I found great difficulty in choosing excerpts at all, to get you going:

All smolder and oxblood,
these flowerheads,
flames of August:

fierce bronze,
or murky rose,
petals concluded in gold-

And as if fire called its double down,

the paired goldfinches
come swerving quick
on the branching towers,

so the blooms
sway with the heft
of hungers

indistinguishable, now,
from the blossoms...

copper circle
around the seed-horde
flashing like a solar flare.

You can't finish looking:
they rear and wave
in pentecostal variety...

If I were a sunflower I would be
the branching kind,

my many faces held out
in all directions, all attention...

Indulgent Obsession

There is something in waiting for a loved one who is in an interview. A metallic beauty. An understanding that in one hour your whole life could change immensely, will change at least in some small way.

I have noticed through the years that I increasingly long to save time. What I am trying to save it for, I don't know. Lately I have been blatantly using time up. I have been basking in my ability to get obsessed and involved in things I would usually avoid solely to save the time. It feels good.

I am pursuing interaction with others, again. I am more interested in how wonderful they are than how wonderful or unwonderful they may find me.

All in all, I feel that these past six months have changed me immeasurably. And yet. I am still hesitant to say I am changed. I have been burned too many times by the disappointment of thinking I had transformed when really I have only had a slight fever. This disappointment has left me, in my own small way, bitter. I am cynical even when others seem to think they have changed, and so in my way I am bogging them down with who they used to be. I am trying to move past that right now.

Even though I have changed for the better, it disappoints me that some of my old weaknesses still resurface from time to time. I still hate it when I make mistakes, even small ones. Like misspelling Gibran's name a few posts ago, and not even noticing until last night. It isn't like I didn't read that post a million times. I just get so caught up in what is being said, and I forget the details. This, I have been told in academic circles, makes it difficult to take me seriously. I think that is silly. I, myself, ignore others' misspellings, grammatical errors, and misplaced punctuation. In theory these details don't matter to me.

One of my problems is, I used to evaluate myself almost completely on others' reactions to me. If people liked me, then I was a good person. If people didn't, then I was a bad person. In many ways my growth these past four years has been away from this error. However, I am still growing. I now evaluate myself on two different scales. Primarily I hold myself up to my own well thought through beliefs and theories. I have gained faith that nobody knows me as well as I do, and have come to even be rather fond of myself. But secondarily, it is hard not to take others' reactions into account (and perhaps foolish). The problematic part is to find a balance. A system of evaluation that is neither too relaxed nor too strict. I need to reach the optimum self-improvement ratio. If I am even just a little off, I waste precious time needed to improve my self. I either become unpredictable and dangerous to those around me, or I become stagnant and of no interest. At least, such has been my perception.

It is very important for me to not waste time in the game of self-improvement. Because I have always believed I only have this short time to live, and what matters is that I evolve to the highest possible form I can reach while in it.

Lately, my faith in this has not been shaken, but rather I am allowing that it is too simple a dogma in too complex a world.

I think I also need to slow down and appreciate the world around me. Get out of my head more often. Allow my obsessive mind to obsess about other things than just this. It's just a theory, but I like it. Instead of avoiding all things that might obsess me, I have to be brave and allow myself to get swept up into them. It's scary, but oh so often oh so rewarding. Especially in cases such as this blog, where I allow myself to write these days simply for the enjoyment and obsession with ideas and words that it provides me.

It still surprises me that it is actually even more scary to write for myself, than for an audience. And often more rewarding.

But. What I find difficult or dangerous about this theory, is I don't want to lose my self. In a world where it is so easy to lose track of who you are, as I have done once before, it really does seem safer to avoid obsession. What is harder, what I am now attempting to accomplish, is to allow obsession but keep self. Isn't the very notion of obsession to lose one's self, and yet whenever I come out the other side of the obsession I always realize that the obsession was with my self all along.

It's powerful scary magic, and I am only an apprentice.

Final Words About the Sea, Maybe

This is from the passage Robert's father read for us at the wedding...

"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soul." -Kahlil Gibran "The Prophet"

The Sea

"Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark... A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun... he turned again towards the sea, and he saw his ship approaching the harbour, and upon her prow the mariners, the men of his own land.

And his soul cried out to them, and he said: Sons of my ancient mother, you riders of the tides, how often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream. Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind. Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward, and then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers. And you, vast sea, sleeping mother, who alone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream, only another winding will this stream make, only another murmur in this glade. and then I shall come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean."

-Kahlil Gibran "The Prophet"

Going Down With the Ship

Going down with your ship means roughly the same as give me liberty or give me death. The Ship is freedom, especially for a Pirate or a sailor.

Odysseus, in order to keep his freedom from the Sirens must be tied to the mast of the ship.

Jack Sparrow is overtly after freedom. "It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom. ..." What he tempts Elizabeth Swan with in the second movie is freedom. We could discuss the symbol of Swan and of Sparrow until we were blue. But a bird is freedom. A bird can fly, while we cannot. In the end of the second movie Elizabeth traps Jack in his own freedom. His freedom to kiss her, his beloved ship. Jack goes down with the Ship.

A ship is a woman, a woman is a ship. Both are freedom. You don't marry a ship, you marry the sea. Perhaps you can marry what gives a woman freedom, you can marry what keeps her afloat, what gives her life, but you cannot marry a woman.

Our modern day pirates and sailors drive cars, a car is freedom. A car is a woman.

At the end of Hannibal, a similar exchange occurs.

"Hannibal Lecter: Given the chance, you would deny me my life, wouldn't you?
Clarice Starling: Not your life.
Hannibal Lecter: Just my freedom. You'd take that from me."

Clarice is attached to a refrigerator. She makes out with Hannibal, and pulls the same trick, only instead of being cuffed to a ship Hannibal is cuffed to her. A Starling is a bird. This is what Hannibal thinks of Starling:

"He was using genetics in roller pigeons as an example. They go way up in the air and roll over and over backwards in a display, falling toward the ground. There are shallow rollers and deep rollers. You can't breed two deep rollers or the offspring will roll all the way down, crash and die. What he said was: 'Officer Starling is a deep roller, Barney. We'll hope one of her parents was not."'

This rolling is freedom. This rolling is something done for no obvious survival reasons. Rolling all the way down, is going down with the ship.

Rather than give up his freedom, and rather than wound Clarice, Hannibal chops off his own hand. He gives up part of his freedom for freedom. For his freedom, and for Clarice's freedom, and for the freedom provided him by the existence of Clarice.

A woman is the kind of freedom that traps you. If we say, for example, a woman will end my freedom so I am not allowed to go near women, then we are not really free. Freedom is the kind of freedom that traps you. "Man is condemned to be free... he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

It's a continuous game of Tom/Jerry, Bugs/Elmer, Wiley/Roadrunner. In order for the spell to be broken one side has to prevail, neither side can prevail because we don't want either side to lose their life or freedom. Because neither side can lose, neither side can win. Their freedom becomes their slavery. Freedom becomes their friendship. Real freedom, would be "just another word for nothing left to lose." Every day they push the rock up the hill, every day it rolls back down.It's flirting at its finest, that's what it is.

If you go down with your ship, the very thing that was meant to represent your freedom takes away your freedom. Isn't that just the way it goes. And yet, it is still so fascinating. The rock goes up, and the rock rolls down, and I am mesmerized and happy all the while. But heck if I'm going down with my particular ships.(But then again, ain't I a woman? As the ship, am I forced to go down with my Self?)

Falstaff:
"To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of
a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying,
when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true
and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is
discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life."
Henry The Fourth, Part 1 Act 5, scene 4, 115–121


Roller Pigeons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGwDOzpTcgs