poem

In a picturesque park down a scenic path,
One shoe follows the other
Treading the cobblestone
Passing pairs of feet walking the opposite direction.
All are determined to get where they are going.

Sun pierces through a web of branches;
Moon casts an eerie glow.
Flower to flower a butterfly dances;
Blanket upon blanket falls the snow.

Feet march on
To the café,
To the library,
To the playing fields,
Where whole bodies wait to greet them.

better left to the experts: a rather critical look at myself

It's usually extremely difficult for me to describe my self, but I felt rather lucid just now-

One thing about me: I used to be terribly critical of other people in that I had/have a hard time listening to anybody without an intense questioning of a person's motivations. I never decided to be critical, it was automatic. And let me tell you, I used to find pure motivation (my own made up standard for acceptable motivation) to be virtually nonexistent. ...either that or I used to just project my own impure motivations onto everyone else. At any rate, I was also big into seeking approval from....everyone, so even while I was hugely critical of character I would still try to be universally well-liked. I used to be so worried about what other people thought of me that if I couldn't say something perfect I'd say nothing at all. And so, I was pretty much set up for social disappointment. I was your model "nice-guy." Well, to an extent, I still am. These are terrible habits that were formed in me (no doubt the result of some childhood trauma...just kidding) and, combined with what used to be my basically virginal and prude-ish personality, I tended towards social gawkiness and, sometimes, self-isolation. We can call this one of my "hang-ups."

Well, I grew a bit between middle and high school and a lot between high school and university. But growth hasn't been automatic. For me, this growth is born (with great pain, as is customary of birth) out of conscious every day determinations to mold my self into something I can respect. Nearing who I want to be has been a painfully slow process. I often battle regression. And I'm afraid I will never be satisfied. Maybe I can at least keep dissatisfaction in check. But my hope will continue to be that I will one day feel like I am completely who I want to be and only ever have to work on maintaining that.

My work is before me. My work is my life, and vice-versa.
I am my work.

I am art and artist. Life is creativity with limits.

This theme has been echoing around in my head for awhile. Case in point, something I wrote in January of this year:

for knowing so clearly what i think will raise the quality of my life, i am terrible at getting what i want. felt like i was getting somewhere for a while there, but then my momentum petered out. still going, but slowly. which might as well be not-at-all, 'cause life seems like it's going to be short. i don't generally regret things because i don't generally have any cause to regret them. but if my present were my past, i think i'd regret it right now. yet i feel attached to this situation, to "my life." not sentimentally attached, but tied down. i don't want to be a "product" of my life. i don't want to do the same things over and over and i don't want to just react. i think this is what disillusioned middle-age must be like. wanting other things in life, yet feeling resigned to your current family, job, friends, lifestyle -- things that pull from you your energy to create and leave you feeling tired and reluctant about life.

i've read it in books and even in song lyrics the idea that a person is an artist and a work of art. you are your medium. make of it what you will. when i think about things this way i feel like i get why some people dress differently, absurdly, or wear ridiculous make-up or get tattoos and piercings or walk with character or do those creative things that no one appreciates in the same way that they themselves do. they are artists. and they are performance art.

i don't think everyone is an artist.

At least my preoccupation with my own self-development is consistent. However, I reject the idea that I am running around in circles and that, as the popular saying goes, I have "come full circle." I patently reject the idea.

I may approach this same idea any number of times, but never do I close a circle in my thinking. Each time, my "angle of approach" is different, if only slightly. So my thinking travels in spirals, not circles. And this is important because I do not believe that all this reflection is worthless. I am going somewhere, if slowly. Spiraling upwards.

I am art and artist. Life is creativity with limits.

"A man’s character is his fate."
~Heraclitus

"In the end, we get what we are."

challenge

I want to challenge and not avoid. Avoidance is a sign of weakness and confrontation is a sign of strength. To abstain does not mean to avoid. It can also be a kind of confrontation.

What I am is a large, but finite, range of possibilities. I can strive to be anything within that range. ...

Questions

Am I going to see daily events as obstacles or opportunities? Life as tedious or creative? Am I stunted when things go wrong or do I grow? Do I have choice in any of this or not?

Cost-Benefit Analysis Please!
Should I lose sleep to finish assignments to keep up the grades OR get rest and suffer academically? (Short-term...? Long-term...?)

I am so used to the game and my role in it. If you master your role then you always know what to expect. Why should I be trying so hard to master this role? Am I not brave enough to be just what I am?

"Man no longer dares to appear what he is. What he is is nothing, what he appears is everything for him." (Rousseau)

Role breaking is harder than rule breaking.

Strange Days anyone?

deconstruction

I'm reading about deconstruction in ENGL 401: Methods of Literary Interpretation:

This is how deconstruction works: by showing that what was prior and privileged in the old hierarchy (for instance, between creative writing and literary criticism) can just as easily seem secondary, the deconstructor causes the formerly privileged term (creative writing) to exchange properties with the formerly devalued one (literary criticism). Would we write if there were not critics -- intelligent readers motivated and able to make sense of what is written? Who, then, depends on whom?

Not everyone, however, has so readily seen the attractions of deconstruction. Two eminent critics, M.H. Abrams and Wayne Booth have observed that a deconstructive reading "is plainly and simply parasitical" on what Abrams calls "the obvious or univocal meaning" (Abrams 457-58). In other words, there would be no deconstructors if critics did not already exist who can see and show central and definite meanings in texts. Miller responded in an essay titled "The Critic as Host," in which he not only deconstructed the oppositional hierarchy (host/parasite), but also the two terms themselves, showing that each derives from two definitions meaning nearly opposite things.

From "Deconstruction and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"

listening to your parents II

I've been feeling slightly weird about how I criticized my parents for justifying themselves/their advice poorly when I was younger. I just stumbled across a possible counterpoint which has helped me gain some perspective:

But you don't give a kid the entire picture right away. First, you make damn sure he doesn't fall off the cliff. As he or she gets older, you can tell her more about mountain climbing.

Look - there's no such thing as "the entire picture". You could go on forever about the "entire picture". And I think the gun thing is a good example. You don't teach safe gun handling to a toddler. You scare the living shit out of him about even going near one first. Later, you explain how to handle one. He may feel burned that he was first taught to fear them at all costs. If he tells you of this trauma, you slap him in the head and tell him not to be such a wuss.

No, I am not entirely serious. I am burlesquing my point in order to more clearly make it.

I get this. I guess what you say to your kids really depends on what issue you're instructing them and how capable they are of understanding more complicated reasons.