and a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries

"...they are concepts defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What charaterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not." ~Saussure, "Course in General Linguistics"

Meaning gets its value not by what something is, but rather by what it is not. A bush is a bush because it is not a tree or a flower. This can be clearly seen in binary opposites. What give hot its value? Hot has no value if it is just hot. Hot cannot produce hot without cold. Hot is hot because it is not cold and cold is cold because it is not hot. And it is here that value is generated.

As humans we tend to garner meaning and value in binary opposites. We are awake because we are not asleep. We are hungry because we are not full. We are living because we are not dead. We feel love because we do not feel hate.

We are happy because we are not sad. And we hurt because we have lost that which caused joy...

"I've built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain...I am a rock. I am an island."

How I long to champion these words and live by them. I want to be that rock, that island. To runaway and hide from all hurt and pain and that which causes it all. I don't know how many times I have listened to this song and wanted to bury myself deep within it and escape all feeling--feelings that I do not know how to deal with. It is this desire that creates an undeniable sense that I need to runaway. That is my defense against hurt and confrontation. Sometimes, I feel that if only I had the backbone to be that island, to run so far from everything, I could stand on my own with my defenses impenetrable and nothing could harm me again and these feelings would never have to be dealt with.

"I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me."

But for once, the thought of running away from it all, regardless of the hurt or pain, is not an option. What I have come to realize is that the hurt only has value because of the joy and love I have felt from the people in my life. To not have this hurt means that I would not have had that joy. And I know that these feelings are fleeting. Just as the night must at sometime turn into day, this too will pass and life will continue. There will be happiness and joy and light and sun. There has to be.


"I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved, I never would have cried."


The thought of living in a world without friendships, without happiness, without love, without hope, is unbearable. So for the sake of having a life full of joy and happiness and for those feelings to have value and meaning, I will take all the hurt and pain that this world has to offer for the greater the hurt, the greater the joy has been. And for that reason, I welcome those feelings with open arms.

I will not...no...I cannot runaway anymore. No matter how much hurt there is, it's not an option.

morning traffic report

A hand-held tape recorder. Yes, that would be helpful if only I didn't feel a bit like Captain Kirk speaking into a small device (Star Date...23.54393281...Mr. Spock and...I...) and it probably doesn't help that the sound of my own voice on a tape recorder makes me wish that I never speak aloud again. You see, as I casually neglect this blog regardless of empty promises telling the faceless internet audience that I will actually update regularly, I am constantly entertaining my inner monologue by coming up with what seems like deep-felt, meaningful blog entries about the issues. In reality, I'm generally stuck in rush hour traffic growing more and more pessimistic with every push of the break. So I resort to digging around while trying not to swerve too much to find a pen or anything to write with, mildly cursing that I swore a pen was laying around somewhere in the car, grabbing my ever-handy-write-everything-down-life-plans notebook, and jotting down that key phrase that is suppose to remind me of the masterpiece I am going to write later. So now, instead of published blog entries, I have a notebook filled with semi-incoherent notes about what I thought would be a great entry. I think a key phrase to add here is "at that time," because now as I look back and read over my list, nothing absolutely grabs my attention, and the apathy I feel becomes a more destructive tool than the pessimism that seems to be growing each day.

You know, I understand where road rage comes from. Not from a strong dislike for those commuters around you, but from a deep-seated whisper that there must be more to life than sitting in traffic and the thought that, by god, I will get out of this as soon as possible. There is nothing spectacular about commuting to work. Why do you think people linger as they drive past wrecks and stalled cars along the side of the road? Because it is a change in the norm. What I find fascinating though is that the endless monotony of traffic conjures up some dark, strong emotion. It is during this drive that I feel a cultural revolution just might be possible if people could just see the complacency that they have succumbed to. And just for this moment, I see hope in a change. For that moment, as I realize why it was that I refused to tell people in the UK that I was from America, I find that the shame that I feel could once again return to pride. We do have potential. We can break out of the Iron Cage of capitalism. We can be shaken awake to what we have become and see that there is more to life than money and material objects.

But as the tail lights in front of me light up to that vivid red to break my thoughts, I come back to reality and remember that I am just driving down the road day after day to a job where the source of motivation is the need for an income that becomes my ball and chain.

Each day as I drive to work, I think I will start writing a photo journalistic book titled "This is America to Me" and it will be filled with pictures of the back of cars stalled in traffic, billboards of God telling me that as his apprentice I won't ever be fired, ads of things you don't need but pandering to your capitalistic upbringing, strip malls blocking out anything in nature, overweight Americans waiting in line at some fast food joint with a screaming kid on each hip and the others running around, and the like. Yes, I think I will write this book and it will not be a happy book.

you should be blogging

Livejournal tells me that's its been 122 weeks since I last blogged, and this blog isn't doing much better. 122 weeks. Do you know what could happen in 122 weeks? No? Neither did I, but thanks to math and wikipedia, I can enlighten you (or rather, me if I'm going to be honest here, and let's face it, a blog is there for you to at least pretend you are being honest):

-someone could have had 3.38 babies
-there have been 29.45 full moons
-you've eaten 28.15 spiders
-the average college student has consumed 2647.4 cups of coffee
-the average American has use 1173.08 gallons of gas
-you've blinked 12,297,600 times
-18% of the Arctic ice cap has melted
-flies have gone through 42.7 lifespans
-I've lost 854 days of thoughts, ideas, inane stories, social commentary, complete nonsense, rise and fall and rise again of maturity levels, glimpses of who I was and am, and hopefully somewhat entertaining reading material

I find that somewhat discouraging. Life is comprised of moments, but those moments remain fleeting. Of course, I can look back on the past 122 weeks and recount the big events--deaths, births, moves, jobs, friendships, relationships, travels--and I can even throw in a few little details that personalize those events--sights, smells, sounds of friends' laughter, specific conversations, private thoughts. But the fact remains that I couldn't recall a specific day and tell you what I was thinking. And I do not like the thought of that.

Shakespeare understood the immortal nature of words as he wrote to his dark lady and forever proclaimed his love in words that are resurrected each time someone chooses (or is forced by a course's curriculum) to read his sonnets. Call it self-love, call it egocentricism, call it wanting to be the center of attention, call it whatever you want, but the fact is that I want to remember myself and leave some sort of legacy behind in writing even if it is only me that ever reads it. Granted, part of me wants to think that others just might care, but we won't go as far as to rely on it. So, I'm returning to blogging despite my misgivings when I stopped. In a way, I let it get too personal, to close to those thoughts that were mine alone. You can't let all of you out there, open for interpretation. What would you have left to call your own if everything you thought or felt was filtered though someone else's ideas and thoughts? You would be entirely subjected to translation and you would have no power or say in a piss poor translation. You would be a dead author of your own life.

With all of that being said, let's get on with an actual blog entry.

For the record, this particular blog that I'm not actually writing in at the moment but rather in a word document at Borders since I do not want to pay for an internet connection that I could be getting at home for what I would think would be free until my monthly bill comes started out on two rather serious notes. Note to self: Refrain from beginning so serious. It makes it very difficult to follow up with jokes afterward.

The truth remains though that after 122 weeks, I'm still dealing with the same issues I had back in 2006. I've come to accept the fact that I will deal with these issues for an unforeseeable future if not for the rest of my life. But as wise Gandalf once said, and as people like to quote as though he were a real person/wizard/thing and a prophet of some sort especially since the movies made it all that more accessible and as we evermore reach out for heroes in a hero-less postmodern society, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that we are given."

So fuck finding my purpose. Fuck finding direction. Fuck everything that requires second guessing. Purpose should be defined not by what we do, but how we experience it. My purpose is to experience. To see everything in multiple lights. To speculate. To seek to understand only to find comfort in the fact that the more I want to understand, the more brilliant and mysterious life becomes.

To be purposeful is to experience. To experience is to find mystery. To find mystery is to find joy. To find joy is to live happiness. To live happiness is to purport a share of it to others. To share with others is to live for something other than yourself. To live for something other than yourself is to bring about a greater good. To bring about a greater good is a purpose.

And that is my purpose. And this is a break in the silence of the past 122 weeks.

PS: Purpose is subject to change based on the amount of coffee or other legal and illegal substances consumed.

PPS: This does not solve a need to monetary means.

PPPS: I do not want to be a teacher.

PPPPS: I need to win the lottery.

PPPPPS: If you feel like you need to connect this blog to my last one to fill in a few gaps, feel free. I don't think I will be updating that one anymore... http://just-frippery.livejournal.com/