As I was plodding through the contents of the last post, the phrase "artistic suffering" popped into my head and seemed a natural fit in the context of things. Thinking about this a bit more has prompted the following question. Given the choice, would I forsake this streak of mine, the aspiration to create art out of experience (suffering and joy alike), if it meant actually getting what I want? That is, would I be satisfied with being happy and content if it meant being normal? (I should clarify that writing long pieces about a moment in a time probably crosses most people's definitions of the normalcy line.) Is this artiness the real me, and more darkly, even if it is would I give it up anyway?

A wish is nothing new in the context of human experience, but it is quite sobering to reflect what one would sacrifice for it. At the moment, my answer to the question would have to be no. I don't question the depth of feeling one can have without it, but whatever this spirit of the cosmos that has invaded me is, engaging it has not been without pleasure. This might be an overly defensive stance, I admit, but my personal measure of the value of life cannot exist without some effort to comprehend the universe. The (personally) gilded phrases and sentiments that sometimes arise from my otherwise cloudy writing are entwined with that search. That is not meant to be a slight against normality, but only an explanation of where the strength resides in this one soul trapped on the other side. Without it, I would be nothing. Therefore, having experienced it, I cannot imagine sacrificing it even if it meant satisfying the very things I often lament and wish for.

My answer is far from iron-clad, you understand, but at least it clarifies some of my oddities.

Chameleon

An article I read a while ago began with an analysis of a particular person (whose name and job, alas, I do not remember), and described his greatest trait as adapting himself to bend to other people's tastes. That sounds rather odious, perhaps, almost like a salesman, but the way it was expressed was stronger, and definitely positive. I instinctively understood the sentiment, but on reflection it seems his gift must have come in his nuances, because I'm sure we all engage in this sort of camouflage in varying degrees. Interactions with family are vastly different to those with friends, for example. But I wonder whether, in my case, I have gone too far. I've been aware of this for a while of course, but when it struck me again that everyone only knows a small part of me, I felt the shock much more than usual. The full me, the "true" me, is well hidden except to myself. And quite baldly, I don't know if that's common or instead cause for deep concern. One would think that at least a few people would have a broad view of the person I consider myself, so why is that not the case? Am I simply too complex to be pinned down easily? I'd like to think that I have some depth and breadth, sure. But am I sure it's not because of the way I act? No. And hence my worry.

I should address what I'm assuming to be obvious, namely, whether this state is bad. At the very least, at moments like these it makes me feel quite isolated. I sometimes think to myself that personal realizations are in the same ballpark as human interaction in terms of importance, and while I'm not too fussed about the former (though we could discuss that point forever), simply ignoring the latter seems dangerous. Implicit in "human interaction" is the qualifier "deep": being merely content with the facile, playful ones (though they are essential and very fun) is not enough, I think. So it comes down to the question: how can we call a relationship deep? Does it require the other party to know more than a snapshot of me, however detailed that particular snapshot may be? If that is the case, then every relationship I have ever had has been an utter failure.

As much as I like ending with such a bang, let me offer this bit of consolation. For one, I think I can do better, that I can open up on occasion and let a discerning soul know a bit more about me. Even more optimistically, I think the answer I offered in the last para might be wrong, or at least incomplete. Perhaps another mark of a deep relationship is me learning something about the other party. It would fit in with my nascent belief that a lot of my personal crises can be assuaged, if not resolved, by moving focus from the self to the other. Solipsism to humanism, I'd like to say. With this point of view, let me rephrase my (still pending) concern: is it just emotional insularity on my part that most of my relationships are forged and essentially based upon a niche passion of mine? I will have to ponder on this.

Big questions being thought out loud in post-form. You'd think it was 2004 all over again.

I don't mind if you forget me

I've written about being on the wrong (pathetic) end of relationships before. S recently suggested that this is bound to happen if one doesn't make sufficient attempts to be noticed by acting a certain way: essentially, how people expect, or if you like, want, others to act. Among other things: suppress naivete, be open, and at least seem to be like everyone else. According to this theory, emotional distance is inevitable when you are seen as being either willfully naive or simply unconcerned with what constitutes the "real" world. Its suggestion isn't so much forsaking individuality as forsaking a type of individuality, one should note. And as luck would have it, it's not the way of living I've been perfecting all these years.

These sorts of life philosophies and theories are all unverifiable, and so I can't definitely say whether it's right or wrong: one can only go on experience or instinct. The latter is difficult, because this theory seems to suggest that people are generally narcissistic, and don't care enough to try to imagine things from other people's point of view. Distrust of humanity I'm always down with, and so there is a biased appeal. But who wants to believe such a thing? The bleak consequences of not following this dogma are, frankly, depressing. My initial reaction was, of course, to say "To hell with those people!", the ones who un(?)consciously reserve their memories and emotions for a certain type of person. But...it is difficult to muster the inner strength to believe such things; as I've also said before, keeping beliefs that contradict the majority is not always easy. In things as mundane as politics and the like, it is simple enough, but this is life! Think of the stakes! In sum, I can't say with confidence that I will not regret changing myself so that I'm more palatable. We might need human interaction and understanding more than personal conviction. As a pair of young songwriters wrote in a moment of clarity, "What's the sense in arguing / When you're all alone?"

Does life have meaning? Oh, certainly yes, I very much think so. Is meaning only sensible when it's outside the self? I don't know - quite possibly. This uncertainty is why I worry it is not just socially awkward to lack sustaining relationships: being unable to relate to tales of lifelong friendships is one thing, and I can live with it like many other things I suspect I will not experience. But if that is to mean that it makes for a weak life too, then that goes beyond the merely uncomfortable into the frightening. That is why it is unsettling to think about whether such a fate is unavoidable, and if not, whether it's worth making changes to that end. What do you give up and what do you keep? What, essentially, is the ultimate point of existence? As much as I believe in personal accomplishment and awareness as being someway towards giving life meaning, like I said, it is a game with high stakes. Who is to say if it all means nothing if you leave no footprints in the process?

I do not wish to come off as totally gloomy, however: the silver lining, the one consolation is that my problems aren't as dire as perhaps I've made them sound. My existence isn't completely bereft of meaningful relationships; it's only the majority of them that are that way :-) The ones that burn on are extremely important to me, and I hope they continue as I (we?) travel through the uncertainties of the world in years to come. The best ones occasionally make one wish to be a better person: that is change I am ready for. Essentially, my hope is that the quality of the few trumps the quantity of the many. I hope I am not wrong.

Beautiful Keats quote:

“ ‘If I should die,’ said I to myself, ‘I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory—but I have lov’d the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remember’d.’ ”

Caroline and I

Variations on a theme by Forster/McLennan.

---

"Caroline and I
Born in the very same year
Alive at a similar time
It gave me something small
That I could feel"

I actually thought I lost you for a second there. Of course, looking at you again after all these years, you really aren't all that different, and so it's easy to chide me for being melodramatic again. But that isn't the you I'm talking about: I mean the person hopelessly entwined with the days that time and circumstance took away from me. The memories go strong still, but I can't live with them alone; I need something tangible, I need something to confirm to me that the time did in fact exist.

Only now did it strike me that perhaps the last scrap in our romance is the very room I sit in now. I don't think you ever visited, nor for that matter is there any physical suggestion of you anywhere here. Open my desks and you will see no love letter or trinket to remind me of you; there are but mounds of papers and the assorted paraphernalia that make up my daily life. But the marvel is that, given all these changes, the past is invoked easily enough. It just takes certain days, where the view from my window shows more than the beautiful blue sky: and what it suggests is that time has not passed at all - a day, a year, a century, none of it has any meaning. The room is either safely excluded from all time, or the very intersection of all of it; whatever it is, having seen all that is and will be, you will always remain somewhere within it.

And yes, before you ask, it also resurrects the day I'd rather not remember. I remember thinking it was as if all time around me had stopped; aside from the words I heard you speaking, perfect in their clarity yet simultaneously nonsensical in what they were implying, I cannot remember how the rest of the world revolved. Yet even now I can be reminded of the instant with perfect strength, and my strongest feeling is simply gratitude that it is allowed to live on. We never will regress to our former selves - for good reason, might I add - but the moments that shaped us will live forever.

I suppose that one tries to write about past loves in order to try to forget them. Forgetting would be welcome, as it would free my mind and heart. But as I get towards the end of this little piece, I cannot help but feel that the real goal of all this writing is to make the past immortal. I know my powers well enough to sense this is beyond me, but I am glad I need no longer to wonder about the permanence of those times. Should the questions come back to me, I need only look out my window, to the sky that forged us and broke us apart, to know the answer.

He had to slink away from the board as the instructor, rather indifferently, pointed out that it was pretty much all wrong. He just made a deferential smile and walked back to his seat, but not before something in the whole scene really got to me. I don't really know why his face, with its mildly embarassed expression, left such a strong impression. It was more than pathos, I am fairly sure. It conjured up a history of a life, so beautiful and simple, and suggested so much innocence and naivety that I felt it validated some of my intangible theories about existence and meaning.

Naturally, I cannot explain what these notions are, precisely, but my intuition tells me they are important. I am grateful to have moments like this that suggest something a careless eye might not see. While my impressions of them may be obviously rooted in an impossible world of fantasy, I assure you their resonance is very much real.

Many moons ago, I used what I thought was foresight and some connection to that realm of the beyond to proudly claim just what it was I was in this life for. Naturally, I said, it is to understand! Implictly, I suppose, I meant that I wanted to understand the grander fabric of it all. There was no scope for nihilism at that age, and so meaning was taken as an assumption (nowadays, I feel it need not be an assumption, but anyhow). I thought of that incident today and wondered whether I have done that version of me justice. I feel there have been gracious moments that have gone towards such a goal, but much remains unexplored and hanging, waiting for contemplation and comprehension. The naivete of those days I have lost a little, but I still hope the sentiment holds strong in the years to come.

Silent moments while sitting in the midst of a sizable crowd are special. A part of me uses them to affirm certain existential truths it feels it has unearthed.

If there is a meaning to it all, and if isolation in all its majesty can reveal to us truths we would rather not seek, surely such things need to be greeted with at least some level of humour, as though they were part of a cosmic joke perpetrated on us. A perennial shrug and chuckle can sometimes be an unassailable strategy.

I think God's in the details. Why? Because I think if you look close enough at anything, you are bound to be amazed at what you find. I have this tendency to experience momentary drop-outs in my connection with reality (no surprise, eh?), after which, for a few seconds, I just stand still in awe of the nature of this world. I mean, everything about this existence is fascinating. But at the same time, the very energy (for lack of a better word) that causes this fascination also causes me to frequently wonder why. I suppose the two are interlinked; I am both fascinated and repulsed at the idea that right now I am sitting in my room, punching away at these keys that make words appear on the screen. Words that are going to be read by you, my imaginary audience, who cannot prove that they really exist. It's amazing to think that man has gone from living in caves and hunting everyday for survival to this life of comfort (and superficiality, it must be said). Geez, I mean, think about it, clear your mind and think about it. That part amazes me, but for some reason, abstracting away the whole mechanism of existence (which I suppose translates to just over-simplifying it?) makes me wonder what it's all for. They say people spend their whole lives searching for meaning. I think that's possibly the most focussed goal I have ever set for myself, and the only goal that has lasted all these years - to find out just what this crazy world's all about.

And now let's tie that in with programming. I sometimes wonder about programming and whether it's what I really want to do. The passion is still there, but, me being the obsessive maniac that I am, I often think about programming and its place in the rest of the world. Can I look back at my life and be happy with what I've done? What mark have I left if I become a programmer? I suppose if one became the best-darn programmer there ever was, that's sort of leaving a mark on the world, but I am driven by a search for something more, something greater. Usually people advise that by having a family that loves and cares for you, and children to carry on the torch as it were, that's enough of a legacy. But it should come as no surprise that that doesn't satisfy me. I am unfortunately completely ego-centric, I do treat the world as though it revolves around me, and sometimes I wonder "Well, why not?". Armed with recurring thoughts of solipsism, I often think that the universe does indeed revolve around me (never totally seriously, but still, I believe this is indicative of full-blown dementia). No, I feel as though my mark ought to be directly related to me, as though I want people to chant my name for all eternity.

The fact that this is not going to happen only serves to upset me at times; not times like this, for now I am in a wonderfully mellow mood, contrary to whatever tone may be implied by my writings. Does it all have a meaning? I'd sure love to know. I only hope that I never lose the urge to find out what it all means, because for me, it's a powerful driving force, although sometimes it gets in the way of me living a proper life (whatever that is).