if you are wondering
how it happens
it happens
like this
in 2 week intervals, I change my polish
from red, to purple, to green,
to sky blue, and
back to you
and i'll go, i'll go, i'll go with you
in the strange dark blue shadow
of the moon
the black on black
is blinding, here in the leopard neon light
traces of a mirrored self,
bending backward,
and eyes -
here they are again looking
heroic, supreme, majestic....
harrowing & wanton
the light
folds on itself
and the joy, ever complex,
finds a way to subsist on the
momentary movement of
the ticking clock.
Monday, January 23, 2012
The Way of the Goat
- Preface –
To those who have known me before, during, and after my gradual downfall (or upfall?) into the world of Goats, i.e., the appreciation, obsession, fascination, and utter incredulity thereof: the following article shall attempt to shed light on what may appear to be an odd “hobby,” but what to me is a mode of viewing & acting in life: that of, The Goat. In working with the linguistic notion that language is not external to thought, rather is wound tightly with it and formed by it, I will argue that The Goat, too, is a vehicle for continual discovery and, as such, an instrument for our innermost desire to play, celebrate, and ponder all life and its inhabitants. What does it mean to name? How does the named world differ from the universe that names it? Taken as a whole, The Goat, malleable and many-sided, straddles both worlds and thus belongs to both the individual and society. It is a complex farm animal, to say the least, and above all, a gateway to explore the diversity of language and human interaction.
* *
What does one think of when the word Goat is written or spoken? Perhaps the first image that comes to mind is that of the common, four-legged farm animal found throughout the world and revered in religion and folklore. Or maybe it’s the scent of goat cheese, a delicacy in cooking and an option for humans with lactose intolerance. Whatever the image, Goat is just like any other actual word: it is a sign, or re-presentation, of some material, which is absent. But that’s not saying much. Most every word in the human language stands for some idea or concept—as a whole, and in conjunction with sounds, these concepts constitute our complex system of communication.
Let us now delve into this so-called “system.” For starters, Goat, on its own, may be just that: A Goat. An audible sound and set of words that conjures the image of an animal. The existence of Goat, then, would lie in the association of the concept goat (the “signified”), with the sound-image of goat (the “signifier”). Linguistics is not interested in the actual OBJECT in reality (the “referent.”) Or maybe I’m not particularly interested in it. In any event, we communicate via an ongoing relationship between the signifier and the signified. So where, then, is the real, tangible GOAT? I want to pet him. Patience.
To borrow from Kristev, “one of the founding postulates of linguistics is that the sign is arbitrary” (14). In other words, there is no necessary, or motivated, relationship between the signifier and the signified: the same signified “goat” has its signifier in la cabra in Spanish, la chevre in French, and capra in Italian. The arbitrariness of the sign, then, is absolute and necessary for all subjects speaking the same language.
Thus, it is not the relationship between the signifier (sound-image of goat) and the signified (idea of goat) that is arbitrary—because this is agreed upon and specific to one’s system of language; rather, it is the relation between the sign and the ACTUAL (physical) reality that it names that is completely and utterly random. Hence: who is to say that an innocent Angora goat, munching on the farm, is any different from an innocent child, happily eating his ice cream? I call them both goats, chowing down.
Dig into this grass and munch a little. Instead of trying to discover why we have all agreed to call the animal “goat” a GOAT (g-o-a-t), let us instead explore the recursive cycle of language, whose real manifestation arises in signification. We have much more freedom here, and much more room for transformation. Goat herding, goat-naming, goat-loving comes to life as the result of a process of destabilization of the traditional link between symbol and reality. Given that this relationship is, at some level, frustratingly arbitrary as is, we can only revel in the beauty of syntactic metamorphosis: We agree to play, to twist, and to generate more and more and more manifestations of The Goat, a process that, personally, delivers a much-needed psychological and spiritual catharsis.
GOAT, are you there? It’s me, Margaret.
* *
Now, I will never fully be able to explain, nor defend, my initial fascination with the concept, physical entity, and symbol of The Goat over all other animals. Goats are, pure and simple, very silly and absurd animals, and I love them for this. For me, they have become an entertaining lens through which to explore the world and differing modes of thought.
When conceptualizing the goat, let us think in the big picture: just as a singular word is the minimal unit of language, a singular goat does not achieve its complete signification until it is used in a sentence.
“Wow, look at all those little goats. So cute.” This sentence may, in fact, refer to goats on a farm; however, since the relationship between referent and symbol is random from the start, this scene may describe elementary students running around at recess. Or a young team of soccer players running around like a herd of goats.
Aside from their role as units in our ever-evolving slang language, let’s look at the Way of the Goat, as is, and apply it to our lives. Why not? First of all, to me, goats just want to munch around and have fun. Amidst the pressures of society, the economy, our spouses, and parents, don’t we all just want to roam around and explore? When I'm stressed, the last thing I want to do is think about what stresses me out. So I think about goats instead. Usually, this brings laughter. What would [a] Goat do? Probably munch out, kick it, go for a walk, and play with some other goats. I'm down.
Goats, like humans, are also creatures of habit. Although they may wander around from farm to farm or pasture to pasture, they tend to fall into herds and grow to love their surroundings. On a personal note, I have the spirit of a wandering goat, but the internal desire for a farm connection: only time will tell whom and where I shall settle.
Most importantly, like humans trying to fit in within their supposed circle of friends or colleagues, goats tend to mimic speech, and even randomly spit when they disagree with a point. Now, if that’s not the ultimate freedom “from” the man, then I don’t know what is.
In terms of eating habits, goats are both extremely curious and extremely picky. They will explore and sample almost anything, but are ultimately very choosy regarding what they put into their mouths. Boy, can I relate.
All in all, goats are mysterious creatures, and I wish to leave it at that. If I go any further, I fear that they will lose any and all meaning, and you will have just wasted five minutes of your life reading this absurd and seemingly baseless argument as to why goats are cool and why you should appreciate them.
Let’s remember: even though language is made possible by biological organs, it is a social function, goats. We are socially molded by the way in which those around us speak, and we, too, have a part in molding society through our words.
Do your part. Adopt a goat. Or don’t. Please, actually, don't. Let them be.
* *
To those who have known me before, during, and after my gradual downfall (or upfall?) into the world of Goats, i.e., the appreciation, obsession, fascination, and utter incredulity thereof: the following article shall attempt to shed light on what may appear to be an odd “hobby,” but what to me is a mode of viewing & acting in life: that of, The Goat. In working with the linguistic notion that language is not external to thought, rather is wound tightly with it and formed by it, I will argue that The Goat, too, is a vehicle for continual discovery and, as such, an instrument for our innermost desire to play, celebrate, and ponder all life and its inhabitants. What does it mean to name? How does the named world differ from the universe that names it? Taken as a whole, The Goat, malleable and many-sided, straddles both worlds and thus belongs to both the individual and society. It is a complex farm animal, to say the least, and above all, a gateway to explore the diversity of language and human interaction.
* *
What does one think of when the word Goat is written or spoken? Perhaps the first image that comes to mind is that of the common, four-legged farm animal found throughout the world and revered in religion and folklore. Or maybe it’s the scent of goat cheese, a delicacy in cooking and an option for humans with lactose intolerance. Whatever the image, Goat is just like any other actual word: it is a sign, or re-presentation, of some material, which is absent. But that’s not saying much. Most every word in the human language stands for some idea or concept—as a whole, and in conjunction with sounds, these concepts constitute our complex system of communication.
Let us now delve into this so-called “system.” For starters, Goat, on its own, may be just that: A Goat. An audible sound and set of words that conjures the image of an animal. The existence of Goat, then, would lie in the association of the concept goat (the “signified”), with the sound-image of goat (the “signifier”). Linguistics is not interested in the actual OBJECT in reality (the “referent.”) Or maybe I’m not particularly interested in it. In any event, we communicate via an ongoing relationship between the signifier and the signified. So where, then, is the real, tangible GOAT? I want to pet him. Patience.
To borrow from Kristev, “one of the founding postulates of linguistics is that the sign is arbitrary” (14). In other words, there is no necessary, or motivated, relationship between the signifier and the signified: the same signified “goat” has its signifier in la cabra in Spanish, la chevre in French, and capra in Italian. The arbitrariness of the sign, then, is absolute and necessary for all subjects speaking the same language.
Thus, it is not the relationship between the signifier (sound-image of goat) and the signified (idea of goat) that is arbitrary—because this is agreed upon and specific to one’s system of language; rather, it is the relation between the sign and the ACTUAL (physical) reality that it names that is completely and utterly random. Hence: who is to say that an innocent Angora goat, munching on the farm, is any different from an innocent child, happily eating his ice cream? I call them both goats, chowing down.
Dig into this grass and munch a little. Instead of trying to discover why we have all agreed to call the animal “goat” a GOAT (g-o-a-t), let us instead explore the recursive cycle of language, whose real manifestation arises in signification. We have much more freedom here, and much more room for transformation. Goat herding, goat-naming, goat-loving comes to life as the result of a process of destabilization of the traditional link between symbol and reality. Given that this relationship is, at some level, frustratingly arbitrary as is, we can only revel in the beauty of syntactic metamorphosis: We agree to play, to twist, and to generate more and more and more manifestations of The Goat, a process that, personally, delivers a much-needed psychological and spiritual catharsis.
GOAT, are you there? It’s me, Margaret.
* *
Now, I will never fully be able to explain, nor defend, my initial fascination with the concept, physical entity, and symbol of The Goat over all other animals. Goats are, pure and simple, very silly and absurd animals, and I love them for this. For me, they have become an entertaining lens through which to explore the world and differing modes of thought.
When conceptualizing the goat, let us think in the big picture: just as a singular word is the minimal unit of language, a singular goat does not achieve its complete signification until it is used in a sentence.
“Wow, look at all those little goats. So cute.” This sentence may, in fact, refer to goats on a farm; however, since the relationship between referent and symbol is random from the start, this scene may describe elementary students running around at recess. Or a young team of soccer players running around like a herd of goats.
Aside from their role as units in our ever-evolving slang language, let’s look at the Way of the Goat, as is, and apply it to our lives. Why not? First of all, to me, goats just want to munch around and have fun. Amidst the pressures of society, the economy, our spouses, and parents, don’t we all just want to roam around and explore? When I'm stressed, the last thing I want to do is think about what stresses me out. So I think about goats instead. Usually, this brings laughter. What would [a] Goat do? Probably munch out, kick it, go for a walk, and play with some other goats. I'm down.
Goats, like humans, are also creatures of habit. Although they may wander around from farm to farm or pasture to pasture, they tend to fall into herds and grow to love their surroundings. On a personal note, I have the spirit of a wandering goat, but the internal desire for a farm connection: only time will tell whom and where I shall settle.
Most importantly, like humans trying to fit in within their supposed circle of friends or colleagues, goats tend to mimic speech, and even randomly spit when they disagree with a point. Now, if that’s not the ultimate freedom “from” the man, then I don’t know what is.
In terms of eating habits, goats are both extremely curious and extremely picky. They will explore and sample almost anything, but are ultimately very choosy regarding what they put into their mouths. Boy, can I relate.
All in all, goats are mysterious creatures, and I wish to leave it at that. If I go any further, I fear that they will lose any and all meaning, and you will have just wasted five minutes of your life reading this absurd and seemingly baseless argument as to why goats are cool and why you should appreciate them.
Let’s remember: even though language is made possible by biological organs, it is a social function, goats. We are socially molded by the way in which those around us speak, and we, too, have a part in molding society through our words.
Do your part. Adopt a goat. Or don’t. Please, actually, don't. Let them be.
* *
Monday, May 2, 2011
"What is it that you really want?"
I walked all morning to catch up with my thoughts, but the world kept moving and my thoughts kept going.
There is a fine line between controlling and letting go - but just enough to engage in controlled chaos - and I walk it every day. I used to walk it on the way to school, or to work, but now I just walk it on a treadmill-- reoccurring thoughts race under me, sticking onto my shoes, appearing and disappearing at a speed faster than my music.
I don't want to create art for the sake of self-satisfaction, or pity, or mastery. . . I want to type these words so that they jump out into your eyes and your heart and start to come alive, prodding your thoughts to emerge and run with mine.
We live on a platform now. We stand before each other, every day, confronted with a choice on how to present ourselves, how to maintain our virtual identities, how to maintain our physical entities, how to connect over the maddening events in our world, how to utilize our supposed skills in the medium that excites us most, how to grow, how to fail, on and on....
But has it ever been any different?
I'm not too sure it has. "It"-- the existential quest for meaning within the pulsing rhythm of day-to-day life -- has always been there, but the urgency of it all has seemed to increase tenfold. Why?
One year out of college, what's next? Why is it all always about "next"? Where am I now and what brings me happiness? Should it all be about happiness anyway, and what about something else-- world peace, solving hunger, random acts of kindness? Should this be the main goal? At this point, I'm pretty aware that my mind, maybe the collective unconscious, has been conditioned to believe that there must be some purpose there and there are certain steps that are socially acceptable to take to achieve it in the Eyes of society. . . public validation, self-vindication, ego-driven comfort,
But deep at night, in the purple abyss and the silence between words spoken and yet to speak, it is 11:11 and you feel that maybe wanting that goal yes, is a symptom of a larger issue, a rift from the Here & Now, and you struggle to convince others that no, you are not smoking weed and yes, you think like this all the time, don't you?
To break down walls, to un-fuck the world, to resurface Play, to Be at once here and now, here and there, here nor there, is my ultimate goal~ The Process of Panooshing~ to accept and say yes to both the good and the bad all at once, to find the similarities with others and embrace the difference, to be less harsh with yourself for feeling separate, for not pigeon-holing yourself as "neurotic" when you presumably think "too much" or beyond the limit of acceptable prodding, and let it all be, all at once, ebb & flow, ad infinitum, on and on,
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows within you and without you. . .
There is a fine line between controlling and letting go - but just enough to engage in controlled chaos - and I walk it every day. I used to walk it on the way to school, or to work, but now I just walk it on a treadmill-- reoccurring thoughts race under me, sticking onto my shoes, appearing and disappearing at a speed faster than my music.
I don't want to create art for the sake of self-satisfaction, or pity, or mastery. . . I want to type these words so that they jump out into your eyes and your heart and start to come alive, prodding your thoughts to emerge and run with mine.
We live on a platform now. We stand before each other, every day, confronted with a choice on how to present ourselves, how to maintain our virtual identities, how to maintain our physical entities, how to connect over the maddening events in our world, how to utilize our supposed skills in the medium that excites us most, how to grow, how to fail, on and on....
But has it ever been any different?
I'm not too sure it has. "It"-- the existential quest for meaning within the pulsing rhythm of day-to-day life -- has always been there, but the urgency of it all has seemed to increase tenfold. Why?
One year out of college, what's next? Why is it all always about "next"? Where am I now and what brings me happiness? Should it all be about happiness anyway, and what about something else-- world peace, solving hunger, random acts of kindness? Should this be the main goal? At this point, I'm pretty aware that my mind, maybe the collective unconscious, has been conditioned to believe that there must be some purpose there and there are certain steps that are socially acceptable to take to achieve it in the Eyes of society. . . public validation, self-vindication, ego-driven comfort,
But deep at night, in the purple abyss and the silence between words spoken and yet to speak, it is 11:11 and you feel that maybe wanting that goal yes, is a symptom of a larger issue, a rift from the Here & Now, and you struggle to convince others that no, you are not smoking weed and yes, you think like this all the time, don't you?
To break down walls, to un-fuck the world, to resurface Play, to Be at once here and now, here and there, here nor there, is my ultimate goal~ The Process of Panooshing~ to accept and say yes to both the good and the bad all at once, to find the similarities with others and embrace the difference, to be less harsh with yourself for feeling separate, for not pigeon-holing yourself as "neurotic" when you presumably think "too much" or beyond the limit of acceptable prodding, and let it all be, all at once, ebb & flow, ad infinitum, on and on,
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows within you and without you. . .
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Alone on a Purple Night
My eyes can do no more than fixate on distant red blinking lights on nameless towers, shrouded in blankets of fog and disconcerting gray.
In this moment, books, glasses, films, computers, Marc Zuckerberg, DVDs, avalanches, kites, kite runners, Chumash Indians, and palm trees are all the same--
My mind, fragmented without a search filter, sitting motionless on this couch, ultra-aware and ultra-empty, abandons the sentence.
A single silhouette of a public persona-- these are now the lives we lead.
On this gray night, I see no diagnosis, no suburban angst, no emerging adulthood-- I see the hours of studying and the hours spent toiling all converging in one supposed "Aha!" moment, like, this is it, right? This IS what we do- this HAS BEEN what we have done, and intend to do, for years, decades, centuries to come.
But it isn't.
The ones who think they've got it-- calm, twittering birds on a sterile pond, are used to the quiet discontent; they have made it their culture.
I don't seek to separate "them" versus "me" but isn't that what we sign up for in these vain attempts to fuse Soul with Soul, Mind with Body, Reason with Emotion, Him with Her, Her with Her, Him with Him? Co-habituation/co-re-habilitation to nurse ourselves from ourselves-- business endeavors to grow the self and tire the self so that we may feel accomplished, complete, & well-equipped.
Urging each other into a safer and more explicable narrative of vast cityscapes, mile-high dreams, sprawling landscapes with chlorine oases, we dance into oblivion.
This is the life-- the life of now, the only life there is- and trust me, it's all made up.
In this moment, books, glasses, films, computers, Marc Zuckerberg, DVDs, avalanches, kites, kite runners, Chumash Indians, and palm trees are all the same--
My mind, fragmented without a search filter, sitting motionless on this couch, ultra-aware and ultra-empty, abandons the sentence.
A single silhouette of a public persona-- these are now the lives we lead.
On this gray night, I see no diagnosis, no suburban angst, no emerging adulthood-- I see the hours of studying and the hours spent toiling all converging in one supposed "Aha!" moment, like, this is it, right? This IS what we do- this HAS BEEN what we have done, and intend to do, for years, decades, centuries to come.
But it isn't.
The ones who think they've got it-- calm, twittering birds on a sterile pond, are used to the quiet discontent; they have made it their culture.
I don't seek to separate "them" versus "me" but isn't that what we sign up for in these vain attempts to fuse Soul with Soul, Mind with Body, Reason with Emotion, Him with Her, Her with Her, Him with Him? Co-habituation/co-re-habilitation to nurse ourselves from ourselves-- business endeavors to grow the self and tire the self so that we may feel accomplished, complete, & well-equipped.
Urging each other into a safer and more explicable narrative of vast cityscapes, mile-high dreams, sprawling landscapes with chlorine oases, we dance into oblivion.
This is the life-- the life of now, the only life there is- and trust me, it's all made up.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Dancing Toward a Shallow Depth
Is it wrong-- who am I asking-- to not want to be surrounded by negative people? Well, taste this: what if the negativity is me, and, and wrong is right?
All would be simple if..
All would be simple if...
I stare at you books, telling me to reject a causal account of our sickness, but isn't that a diagnosis in itself? Come, let us read back into the original moments to see if there isn't something MORE- slow down life, frame by frame, to see the speed of silence.
Now, apply this to your mind- ready, go! Freud makes us guilty to place our neuroticisms in categories but still, it feels good.
"Psychoanalysis is a Jewish science." -Derrida
Is that why all the Jews I know, myself included, are crazy?
I don't use words-- rather, words use me. It's as if all at once they wash over my body and flow out of my eyes, through my wrists, and onto the screen. You can make the claim that words and images are doomed to be representational, but I see no difference between the images I make and the words I write and ME-- intense, bubbling, subdued, singular Me.
So, sick because I'm unhappy or unhappy because I'm sick? Why must we need a cure, anyway-- how did we get here? We keep spinning webs and spinning webs, and now we have nowhere to go but backwards. We must deconstruct our experience to unravel what we've built up.
Museums are houses of incomplete truths.
Gathered up, packaged, and meant to show us origins.
My mind is too far beyond trust that everything I look at materializes behind suspicious eyes-- I want to be generous, and usually am when people give me the urge to think about things in different ways instead of telling me "this is the WAY" it is- it is FAIR- and it is beneficial to society.
You must learn these rules, they tell you, and become really good at spitting out the rules to control others, so that you finally fall asleep in a pile of restrictions and wake up to do it all over again.
The institution of science-- the application of formulas to give us a figured explanation of the order of the universe. Experiential data. Embellish with wikipedia, or whatever.
Give me power and I will substantiate these words. Just kidding! Do you believe what you're reading? Or do you let the sentences wash over you, piss you off, bore you? And again, the dangerous, unrestricted ramblings arise from a mind that's far from healthy, but I'd have it no other way.
I know who my audience is. I know who my parents are, where I "go" to school, and my ongoing sickness-- And I will say right now that I think Nietzsche was sick, too, and Freud and Foucault and Descartes and Heidegger and on and on. (There's no way in hell I just compared myself to them, but the condition is the same, is it not?). Sickness, here, is just a blurring of the inability to stop thinking and the refusal to accept tradition + institution without contestation. But this is more than a nostalgic hope to break out of the box that we tragic, poor graduates think "Society" places us in. Sitting around the fire, strumming on our American Pie guitars in a pathetic attempt to hold on to childhood may feel good, but the dilemma that comes to my mind operates on a completely different level. "Goes beyond." That phrase is comical. No, but really, I know of the sacrifices people make in encountering the future, so determined to avoid cliche and hold onto some shiny ideal of what a "free" life is.
A free life is now. <-- what? It sounds good.
I admire a lot of the poised, intellectual grad students who can keep their knowledge in perspective and proceed with slow and steady vigor. They're smart, shrewd, and will go on to help other students like me pick out the inconsistencies in discourses and develop a pace of their own.
I, on the other hand, can't do that right now-- I read these texts with unabashed and total submersion, throwing myself completely into the arguments and trying to learn to swim. Faulty method? Probably. I'll come up for air at some point.
If the older posts tell you anything, it's that "Panoosh" used to be this concept we built up to express our ongoing struggle with the inner and outer worlds, and the eventual conclusion that there is no conclusion-- the privileging of the mind AND the body. That's all cool and everything, but what's even cooler is noticing that people lie. How is that cool? Isn't that an overly angst-ridden attempt to rationalize current unhappiness? No, no, no! People lie, and it's beautiful!
Everything collapses perfectly-- people lie, and people die. Bitchez will put their feet out before you, sacrifice their bodies in a blind attempt to Get, Maintain, and Sustain happiness in a formula that's been recycled for centuries, probably since the Middle Ages. Fake, shallow, deep, real. Pretty fucking emo? Put it on a Green Day album then, that's fine with me.
What I'm attempting to do is reach a state of shallow depth. I think it's much safer, really. Good if you're claustrophobic too. This state should be one in which the dumb bitchezz of society are incapable of breaking my spirit, because I can "relate" to them, in some sick sense, by being partially shallow and realizing their primordial needs-- but I'll be so deep underwater that anything they say doesn't really matter, despite its banality. Did any of that make sense? Hopefully not. That's why I'm still attempting to reach this in-between state.
It's all a dance, how things fall together and fall apart, and frankly I don't care if this is vague because you know exactly what I mean if you turn off your computer and take a look into your eyes to hear them speak.
All would be simple if..
All would be simple if...
I stare at you books, telling me to reject a causal account of our sickness, but isn't that a diagnosis in itself? Come, let us read back into the original moments to see if there isn't something MORE- slow down life, frame by frame, to see the speed of silence.
Now, apply this to your mind- ready, go! Freud makes us guilty to place our neuroticisms in categories but still, it feels good.
"Psychoanalysis is a Jewish science." -Derrida
Is that why all the Jews I know, myself included, are crazy?
I don't use words-- rather, words use me. It's as if all at once they wash over my body and flow out of my eyes, through my wrists, and onto the screen. You can make the claim that words and images are doomed to be representational, but I see no difference between the images I make and the words I write and ME-- intense, bubbling, subdued, singular Me.
So, sick because I'm unhappy or unhappy because I'm sick? Why must we need a cure, anyway-- how did we get here? We keep spinning webs and spinning webs, and now we have nowhere to go but backwards. We must deconstruct our experience to unravel what we've built up.
Museums are houses of incomplete truths.
Gathered up, packaged, and meant to show us origins.
My mind is too far beyond trust that everything I look at materializes behind suspicious eyes-- I want to be generous, and usually am when people give me the urge to think about things in different ways instead of telling me "this is the WAY" it is- it is FAIR- and it is beneficial to society.
You must learn these rules, they tell you, and become really good at spitting out the rules to control others, so that you finally fall asleep in a pile of restrictions and wake up to do it all over again.
The institution of science-- the application of formulas to give us a figured explanation of the order of the universe. Experiential data. Embellish with wikipedia, or whatever.
Give me power and I will substantiate these words. Just kidding! Do you believe what you're reading? Or do you let the sentences wash over you, piss you off, bore you? And again, the dangerous, unrestricted ramblings arise from a mind that's far from healthy, but I'd have it no other way.
I know who my audience is. I know who my parents are, where I "go" to school, and my ongoing sickness-- And I will say right now that I think Nietzsche was sick, too, and Freud and Foucault and Descartes and Heidegger and on and on. (There's no way in hell I just compared myself to them, but the condition is the same, is it not?). Sickness, here, is just a blurring of the inability to stop thinking and the refusal to accept tradition + institution without contestation. But this is more than a nostalgic hope to break out of the box that we tragic, poor graduates think "Society" places us in. Sitting around the fire, strumming on our American Pie guitars in a pathetic attempt to hold on to childhood may feel good, but the dilemma that comes to my mind operates on a completely different level. "Goes beyond." That phrase is comical. No, but really, I know of the sacrifices people make in encountering the future, so determined to avoid cliche and hold onto some shiny ideal of what a "free" life is.
A free life is now. <-- what? It sounds good.
I admire a lot of the poised, intellectual grad students who can keep their knowledge in perspective and proceed with slow and steady vigor. They're smart, shrewd, and will go on to help other students like me pick out the inconsistencies in discourses and develop a pace of their own.
I, on the other hand, can't do that right now-- I read these texts with unabashed and total submersion, throwing myself completely into the arguments and trying to learn to swim. Faulty method? Probably. I'll come up for air at some point.
If the older posts tell you anything, it's that "Panoosh" used to be this concept we built up to express our ongoing struggle with the inner and outer worlds, and the eventual conclusion that there is no conclusion-- the privileging of the mind AND the body. That's all cool and everything, but what's even cooler is noticing that people lie. How is that cool? Isn't that an overly angst-ridden attempt to rationalize current unhappiness? No, no, no! People lie, and it's beautiful!
Everything collapses perfectly-- people lie, and people die. Bitchez will put their feet out before you, sacrifice their bodies in a blind attempt to Get, Maintain, and Sustain happiness in a formula that's been recycled for centuries, probably since the Middle Ages. Fake, shallow, deep, real. Pretty fucking emo? Put it on a Green Day album then, that's fine with me.
What I'm attempting to do is reach a state of shallow depth. I think it's much safer, really. Good if you're claustrophobic too. This state should be one in which the dumb bitchezz of society are incapable of breaking my spirit, because I can "relate" to them, in some sick sense, by being partially shallow and realizing their primordial needs-- but I'll be so deep underwater that anything they say doesn't really matter, despite its banality. Did any of that make sense? Hopefully not. That's why I'm still attempting to reach this in-between state.
It's all a dance, how things fall together and fall apart, and frankly I don't care if this is vague because you know exactly what I mean if you turn off your computer and take a look into your eyes to hear them speak.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
On a Lighter Note
Admittedly, that last post was beyond insane and needlessly RANTing. I've been wondering a lot about beets- both the band from Doug Funnie and the vegetable. They have such magnificent color. One of the things I know for sure, and I don't know many things, is that receiving under 2 hours of sleep is equivalent to the after-effects of partaking in an herbal experience. I don't "get" blogs, and I never will- but I'll still write on them. It's pretty much like a public microsoft word, good for straightening out your thoughts and getting feedback on how others digest your thoughts and deem you worthy of internet time. Time is money, baby, and that's what it's all about. I also wonder if it is not too late to change my name, though I have nothing wrong with my current signifier. The thoughts that flow now are disjointed, self-reflexive, and fun to type. Type-ity, type type. May G-d have mercy on your soul if you just read the previous post, as I was not in a sane state of mind when writing that. One could say I was existing in a brief Emo (?) land- yuck. The thing about art is that it's whatever you can get away with. Care to partake in the death/rebirth?
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Generating a New Gaze: Totally & Tragically
You know The Gaze.
Black and white pictures of philosophers, heads in hand, brows furrowed, hard eyes fixated into the distance. Great thinkers plagued by the Great work of Great ones who came before.
I wish I could have slipped surreptitiously into this discourse; I should have preferred to have been enveloped by speech. I steal from Foucault-- and so? We are as much ourselves as we are a mechanism for transferring the constantly moving body of knowledge. I am you and you are me-- again, it's just too much! The shininess of this hippified statement is alluring; are we all not recycled artists? Someone stop me before I hurt myself.
I walked all morning to catch up with my thoughts, but the world kept moving and my thoughts kept going. Funny, right? And so the keypad now droops beneath heavy fingers, words sloshing down and around, and I mourn the predictability of being prepared. The preparedness of predictability. Preparing for one's predictable life? Are they not all the same thing, a tired, tired, song?
Careful! What? I said be careful of the individual. The individual. The INDIVIDUAL. Oh free, unitary, acting subject, how GREAT a notion! Well, Sometimes A Great Notion.
I don't care what philosophical terrain I'm stepping into, what Freudian reading in which this can be contextualized-- the pure idea of the individual as a free and acting agent is never what it seems to be: free. Is that saying we are constantly bound by the restrictions around us, doomed to be vessels of pre-existing art, choices, and thousand year-old dilemmas? Perhaps: A slimy, two-syllable deferment of judgement. And so? What matters to me right now is the event of thoughts unfolding; the questioning, the entire act of labeling this flow of thoughts as an "event," the event of judging it, and then the refusal to judge it once it's over-- oh, and that whole event, too. All of it.
What is this, a post-modern reluctance to latch onto a solid definition of The Subject? The fact that I even thought that right now points to the all too knowable attempt by theorists to categorize, rationalize, and organize these very attempts into modern/post-modern/post-post-modern posts-- wait, what are we posting? The unavoidable and BLARING dilemma of merely existing as an individual with supposed freedom necessitates some sort of a discussion on our "rights," our "powers," right?
Ooooh no. No, no, no. This is shaky territory. I can't commit to discussing Rights and Power unless my lawyer is present.
What do you eat? Where do you live? How do you recreate? Spending time over these questions seems more useful to me than attempting to systematize methods of thinking of OURSELVES, and placing them into certain camps. What for? Are we that self-centered? Or are we too lost in the big, complex world that we need these labels to help us make sense of ways of making sense of ourselves?
And The Gaze emerges. I knew you could sense it. Let's stop right here and track it.
My language is sweeping, ridiculous, wordy, and reluctant to commit, and so? In typing these words, do I not perform the same angst found in The Gaze? (Look closely, it's different) A Gaze that once formed from the need for linear, rational explanations instead emerges out of the radical abandonment of this weighty "problem of causality," and the shift into the immediate event of thinking. *Wild, glittering eyes replace a dead, glazed over frown* The result? A different look-- just as scrutinizing--but instead finding its furrow over the absurd and wonderful dualistic nature of the individual as both bound AND free.
What could this possibly "mean," you ask? A multiplication of the notion of the "individual" into something constantly bound by its limits, and internally free to play. Moving around with this notion behind one's eyes is at first unsettling: but isn't that the most liberating part of this gaze? The secret instinct that I am both written by and write the world as I go through it- day by day, moment by moment.
Symptomize this idealistic move as a classic coming-of-age tale. Yes, the young Holden Caufield so aptly sits immersed in his studies, relishing the immediacy of his freedom, and plagued by the weight of the world-- and so chooses both! Yes but. Yes but. Fast forward, rewind, it's always been the same story. Caught in a state of hyper-awareness of the function of the individual as both an Object and Effect of the movement of power-- HOW CAN ONE NOT? How can one not begin to become, and unfold, into this gaze....
* * *
So, how about it? Let's play this game. Because while it's magically wild to re-think the entire notion of freedom, that's a pretty sweeping move, right? Is that what I'm doing? (*smiles*)
On the one hand, it is tempting to think that the significance of this whole discussion rests in attitude. How you "perceive" your situation. I am free because I "choose" to be. Thoughts are powerful things, you know, and they create your reality, and if you buy my book for $10.99 you'll also get my DVD that will tell you the same thing and blah and blah and blah-- positive vibes, numbing the internal knots with blankets of future-based sentiments and hopes for a better place. Feed me the good tasty recipe for happy living, give me a hand to hold and a body to lay next to at night, and reserve a table for two as we blindly move from relationship to relationship, seeking warmth and attempting to exercise our "freedom" as INDIVIDUALS. Unique people, doing unique things. Believing this is the way we are supposed to act, preparing ourselves for a life of predictability, we convince ourselves that we CAN prepare ourselves for a life of predictability, and so do it.
Self-medicated freedom.
But in this effort to avoid the threat of a mundane, powerless existence, we instead normalize ourselves, discipline ourselves, and limit OURSELVES, utilizing recycled notions of success and freedom to see immediate results in our personal lives. Oh yes, here comes Guilt, stepping into the already crowded foyer.
The allure of living an outwardly "free" life used to excite me: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds." Wow. So bold. So "true." I have the power, man! ME! But what I'm concerned with now is WHY this mental slavery is here in the first place? When did we reach a point where we had to have other "free" people tell us how we, too, can be free? Doesn't that negate the notion of freedom? Does any of this even matter?
I don't know what this all "means," but I notice that the notion of freedom tends to become wrapped up in the search for happiness. We all "want" to be happy, in theory. And we very well can be. It's simple. Just ask the Dali Llama, and I'm not kidding (?)
And here comes the other side. Despite the easily attainable path to comfort I have so unfairly attacked, there's still a darker route. I'll still walk home alone, and gaze at the individuals who easily couple themselves off believing this is IT, man, I have found it, or: I have time, why not? I'm young, this is what it's alllllllllll about! I'm free, and invincible-- and, and shit man, existentialism!
The struggle, then: Blindly participating in this game where freedom/happiness (what's the diff?) is just a drunk text message away vs. Critiquing the choice to engage in this discourse of power, and liking it too. They're both extremes, and they both can immediately fulfill the need to exert some sort of freedom. So what's all the fuss about? Which one's better?
If you say "depends" I will walk out of this conversation right now...
Depends.
Sometimes, I'd rather feel the weight of my restraints a little; walk around some more, and sift through these neuroses, rather than stroll along in silence, hand-in-hand, never knowing the person next to me or the person inside of me. Yes, the delectable pleasure of thinking too much. Inactivity. Paralyzed by knowing too much, Descartes sits fondling his wax. There's a time for that.
Other times, I AM DOWNN to jump headfirst into life, allowing myself to partake in the simple, superficial, yet perfectly delightful experiences of ignoring homework for a couple more hours of Saturday night freedom. To be sad, but convince oneself otherwise, is part of the process of participating in a sometimes much-needed FOL (fuck our lives) session. Been there, done that. See other post.
So let me ask you again, which is better?
What I am arguing for is both. Both are better. By shifting of the terms of this strained, tired discussion on "what it means to act freely," I'd like to banish this stupid binary and instead offer up an invitation to appreciate both the privileges AND limitations of having a choice, at once, all the time. And that this choice is beautifully ongoing and overlapping is what makes the magical weirdness of each word I type come alive-- your thoughts and my thoughts become part of a larger Gaze that attempts to come to terms with the limits of our freedom.
And for the love of G-d, cherish this: totally & tragically. Contempt. Fear. Lust. Anger. Serenity. All of it.
Caught up in this sticky dualistic mess, we partake in a generative, networked engine of power that's been running since before I was conceived. There is no escaping the fray-- we are always already enmeshed. In what? Perfect. All of it.
"So that's what you were day-dreaming about, huh?" Yes.
Black and white pictures of philosophers, heads in hand, brows furrowed, hard eyes fixated into the distance. Great thinkers plagued by the Great work of Great ones who came before.
I wish I could have slipped surreptitiously into this discourse; I should have preferred to have been enveloped by speech. I steal from Foucault-- and so? We are as much ourselves as we are a mechanism for transferring the constantly moving body of knowledge. I am you and you are me-- again, it's just too much! The shininess of this hippified statement is alluring; are we all not recycled artists? Someone stop me before I hurt myself.
I walked all morning to catch up with my thoughts, but the world kept moving and my thoughts kept going. Funny, right? And so the keypad now droops beneath heavy fingers, words sloshing down and around, and I mourn the predictability of being prepared. The preparedness of predictability. Preparing for one's predictable life? Are they not all the same thing, a tired, tired, song?
Careful! What? I said be careful of the individual. The individual. The INDIVIDUAL. Oh free, unitary, acting subject, how GREAT a notion! Well, Sometimes A Great Notion.
I don't care what philosophical terrain I'm stepping into, what Freudian reading in which this can be contextualized-- the pure idea of the individual as a free and acting agent is never what it seems to be: free. Is that saying we are constantly bound by the restrictions around us, doomed to be vessels of pre-existing art, choices, and thousand year-old dilemmas? Perhaps: A slimy, two-syllable deferment of judgement. And so? What matters to me right now is the event of thoughts unfolding; the questioning, the entire act of labeling this flow of thoughts as an "event," the event of judging it, and then the refusal to judge it once it's over-- oh, and that whole event, too. All of it.
What is this, a post-modern reluctance to latch onto a solid definition of The Subject? The fact that I even thought that right now points to the all too knowable attempt by theorists to categorize, rationalize, and organize these very attempts into modern/post-modern/post-post-modern posts-- wait, what are we posting? The unavoidable and BLARING dilemma of merely existing as an individual with supposed freedom necessitates some sort of a discussion on our "rights," our "powers," right?
Ooooh no. No, no, no. This is shaky territory. I can't commit to discussing Rights and Power unless my lawyer is present.
What do you eat? Where do you live? How do you recreate? Spending time over these questions seems more useful to me than attempting to systematize methods of thinking of OURSELVES, and placing them into certain camps. What for? Are we that self-centered? Or are we too lost in the big, complex world that we need these labels to help us make sense of ways of making sense of ourselves?
And The Gaze emerges. I knew you could sense it. Let's stop right here and track it.
My language is sweeping, ridiculous, wordy, and reluctant to commit, and so? In typing these words, do I not perform the same angst found in The Gaze? (Look closely, it's different) A Gaze that once formed from the need for linear, rational explanations instead emerges out of the radical abandonment of this weighty "problem of causality," and the shift into the immediate event of thinking. *Wild, glittering eyes replace a dead, glazed over frown* The result? A different look-- just as scrutinizing--but instead finding its furrow over the absurd and wonderful dualistic nature of the individual as both bound AND free.
What could this possibly "mean," you ask? A multiplication of the notion of the "individual" into something constantly bound by its limits, and internally free to play. Moving around with this notion behind one's eyes is at first unsettling: but isn't that the most liberating part of this gaze? The secret instinct that I am both written by and write the world as I go through it- day by day, moment by moment.
Symptomize this idealistic move as a classic coming-of-age tale. Yes, the young Holden Caufield so aptly sits immersed in his studies, relishing the immediacy of his freedom, and plagued by the weight of the world-- and so chooses both! Yes but. Yes but. Fast forward, rewind, it's always been the same story. Caught in a state of hyper-awareness of the function of the individual as both an Object and Effect of the movement of power-- HOW CAN ONE NOT? How can one not begin to become, and unfold, into this gaze....
* * *
So, how about it? Let's play this game. Because while it's magically wild to re-think the entire notion of freedom, that's a pretty sweeping move, right? Is that what I'm doing? (*smiles*)
On the one hand, it is tempting to think that the significance of this whole discussion rests in attitude. How you "perceive" your situation. I am free because I "choose" to be. Thoughts are powerful things, you know, and they create your reality, and if you buy my book for $10.99 you'll also get my DVD that will tell you the same thing and blah and blah and blah-- positive vibes, numbing the internal knots with blankets of future-based sentiments and hopes for a better place. Feed me the good tasty recipe for happy living, give me a hand to hold and a body to lay next to at night, and reserve a table for two as we blindly move from relationship to relationship, seeking warmth and attempting to exercise our "freedom" as INDIVIDUALS. Unique people, doing unique things. Believing this is the way we are supposed to act, preparing ourselves for a life of predictability, we convince ourselves that we CAN prepare ourselves for a life of predictability, and so do it.
Self-medicated freedom.
But in this effort to avoid the threat of a mundane, powerless existence, we instead normalize ourselves, discipline ourselves, and limit OURSELVES, utilizing recycled notions of success and freedom to see immediate results in our personal lives. Oh yes, here comes Guilt, stepping into the already crowded foyer.
The allure of living an outwardly "free" life used to excite me: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds." Wow. So bold. So "true." I have the power, man! ME! But what I'm concerned with now is WHY this mental slavery is here in the first place? When did we reach a point where we had to have other "free" people tell us how we, too, can be free? Doesn't that negate the notion of freedom? Does any of this even matter?
I don't know what this all "means," but I notice that the notion of freedom tends to become wrapped up in the search for happiness. We all "want" to be happy, in theory. And we very well can be. It's simple. Just ask the Dali Llama, and I'm not kidding (?)
And here comes the other side. Despite the easily attainable path to comfort I have so unfairly attacked, there's still a darker route. I'll still walk home alone, and gaze at the individuals who easily couple themselves off believing this is IT, man, I have found it, or: I have time, why not? I'm young, this is what it's alllllllllll about! I'm free, and invincible-- and, and shit man, existentialism!
The struggle, then: Blindly participating in this game where freedom/happiness (what's the diff?) is just a drunk text message away vs. Critiquing the choice to engage in this discourse of power, and liking it too. They're both extremes, and they both can immediately fulfill the need to exert some sort of freedom. So what's all the fuss about? Which one's better?
If you say "depends" I will walk out of this conversation right now...
Depends.
Sometimes, I'd rather feel the weight of my restraints a little; walk around some more, and sift through these neuroses, rather than stroll along in silence, hand-in-hand, never knowing the person next to me or the person inside of me. Yes, the delectable pleasure of thinking too much. Inactivity. Paralyzed by knowing too much, Descartes sits fondling his wax. There's a time for that.
Other times, I AM DOWNN to jump headfirst into life, allowing myself to partake in the simple, superficial, yet perfectly delightful experiences of ignoring homework for a couple more hours of Saturday night freedom. To be sad, but convince oneself otherwise, is part of the process of participating in a sometimes much-needed FOL (fuck our lives) session. Been there, done that. See other post.
So let me ask you again, which is better?
What I am arguing for is both. Both are better. By shifting of the terms of this strained, tired discussion on "what it means to act freely," I'd like to banish this stupid binary and instead offer up an invitation to appreciate both the privileges AND limitations of having a choice, at once, all the time. And that this choice is beautifully ongoing and overlapping is what makes the magical weirdness of each word I type come alive-- your thoughts and my thoughts become part of a larger Gaze that attempts to come to terms with the limits of our freedom.
And for the love of G-d, cherish this: totally & tragically. Contempt. Fear. Lust. Anger. Serenity. All of it.
Caught up in this sticky dualistic mess, we partake in a generative, networked engine of power that's been running since before I was conceived. There is no escaping the fray-- we are always already enmeshed. In what? Perfect. All of it.
"So that's what you were day-dreaming about, huh?" Yes.
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