On Geography and Books

I've been thinking about it for the last couple days. I let the idea sit and I've come back to take a closer look. Well, what could I do without it?My reading history, I mean. I look back upon it and I can't help but notice the motley medley that lays there. A colorful collection or recollection that strangely enough works like a live structure. Oh, but if I stand beside it I can isolate it through the emotional load I attached every reading. Yes, my emotional geography of books, a tender let-go to the beauty of words and the excitement I exuded whenever there was a wow moment happening. I've had my good times and my rough times with books; but they were always there. 

I was a rebellious teenager, despised being one but couldn't let go of that faithful companion that shed light on my utmost aggravating dilemmas. I'm not going to say books answered all my whys or this-cannot-simply-bes but I had a lighthouse in the darkness and I thus I tried to find my way out of the cave, for I just recalled Plato. Any pretense down, books cannot replace reality, but offer an alternative explanation to the painful silences of the world. Don't forget that in front of the most terrifying experiences - love and death - man is mostly silent. And silence hurts. 

So I turn to words, beautifully carved words, nicely arranged in horizontal, parallel lines, in pages that follow one another like in a chase. Oh, but what a fair chase, they begin the chase when my fingers turn them, stir them from that wise stillness to come back to life and impact the human eye. What an odd relationship. You pass them by as if crossing fields of gold and poppy and green and blue and red and black and white. Always at a loss for what they have in store for me. For I know we keep an exclusive relationship, they will share an unique experience with me. I have my own kaleidoscope that I can always go back on. Oh, but there we go: I see hanging shapes, intertwining pages, words that break in whimsical dance of the meaning beyond meaning. I feel like almost landing in a surreal painting and the canvass is me. My books are relentless, they take the time to converse, to exchange lines and I find quite it astonishing to exist under such unusual circumstances. 

"Did you think we were going to settle for seclusion?"

"We're silent only outside humans. Inside them, we're alive and you'll hear our voice"

Scattered Thoughts

***

In their frail grace, greysh trees lean their bare arms towards the sky almost in a painfully silent prayer.

***

Late autumn leaves reminisce of past affections, as they lazily sway and peacefully take their seat on the resigned barren ground.

***
And a train passes by the train I was in and a sense of security took over me. I felt shielded against the outside world. Silly to think, but I almost felt the comfort and the innocent joy of playing hide-and-seek except that I was making no visible effort to hide and there was nobody there trying to find me. But I played pretend for that fraction of the moment.

***
A truely odd episode. Like a maddening tossing of a coin. Always wishing the coin hadn't been flipped. And the afterwards confusion and regret of challenging fate.

***

To Blink or Not to Blink?

Needless to say, I'm a flawed being. I've got into this cruel habit of going back on my own saying. I pick a phrase or a slice of conversation that I then start to dissect. It is an almost involuntary act, introspection just happens; more like the blink of an eye. Oh, that "thank you" I dropped at the station when I got my ticket. Was I smiling?What did the ticket person think of my "thank you"?

It seems like our most logic-based asset - the mind - has its winding illogical ways of selecting the element to be subject to analysis. The trivial has an irresistible charm to me. I can't help but wonder why I choose go back on certain phrases that I already uttered and that I can no longer alter. Maybe the answer lies in the sweet stillness of the fleeting moment, a repeated moment, a moment I try to grasp and release from the clutches of routine, a routine that threatens to wipe away the spark of the moment; a special warm glare that envelopes a routine-like fragment of the day and that I refuse to let go of. That delicate gust of wind and the mild caress upon my face...will I still find its magic years to come? That is one of the many apparently insipid reasons why I go back on my sayings. 

I randomly go back on phrases or words to uncover what I could, should have said differently; how my conscience isolated the moment so as to strip it of its thick cover to reach the essential core, the meaning of it and my corresponding feeling. Therefore, my endeavor is not a qualitative one, but it is a quest seeking to discover the different, the alterity. I'm tormented by this unforgiving god of alterity. If there's any authority of the kind. Should it be otherwise, a new instance has just been put into place. There! My whole concern about "different" is maybe just a regular care to determine possible variations in language, to shed light on that particular twist of phrase that sits comfortably in a shadowy recess of emotional chamber, for I'm emotional when I utter words. And emotion surrounds words like a tender mist, it changes their glow; emotion sets the tone for the perfect word carving. And emotion can be transient and volatile and hard to isolate in words. It takes that tiny bit of time when your eyelashes bow in a flash, in a blink, to freeze the emotion and transport it into what humans refer to as "words". Or maybe let it go to waste instead.

Timespotting

In the beginning there was...a word. A single one. And then others follow, gather around, populate a list. More like a firework blast, an explosion. The world is reborn with every beginning world, it dawns through one spark. Just like time. Or the notion of timeliness. So many ideas float around it, it's a gravitational movement that attracts many idea-satellites. They all float in a latent pre-ordering state, ready to leave the indefinite chaos when I eventually sift and let them lay in my writing sheet. I could cling to any of them, but which one?Seems like time is subject to my mood, to my choices; which define us.
...................................................................................................................... 

Then there's the moment with its folded particles that I'd like to separate and isolate and then describe each side, let it fall into words. However, the uniqueness that a moment encapsulates fails to reveal to me yet. It lingers there for a second and then it silently slips away; a sour trickery. I know I've lived it, but where did it go?why does it have to be so furtive and stealthily leave  the realm of words?My realm of words. And when I say words, I mean my own universe that I build on words as the basic raw unit of expression. It's clear to me that I need to polish that wordiness but then again I'd have to accelerate a change of my spirit which I seriously doubt  I am able able to do, especially according to my wants. For if it's my will that establishes my fluid expression it is a rather slow, gradual process that evolves in me but somehow separate from me, as if an autonomous entity developing on its own. It can be a monstrous sight that I come to think of it. The more I think, the more I feel I'm not writing about time in itself at this point, but certainly about how my something else grows in time.

 Let's call time our collateral victim. Poor Time, it's got no real input into this equation, but to witness the changes occurring. However, time and my perception of the moment live in perfect symbiosis, they intertwine forming a dizzying structure so that it makes it hard to separate them, to dissect them in order to extract their role as if carefully sitting it on a nicely ordered shelf. But now, my world is still cloudy, I'm trying hard to chase that haze away and let the light in. Volition is the first step. Followed by my first-rate illusion of figuring myself out.

Halloweenification

Yes, I'm right at the heart of the traditional Halloween celebration which is why I chose to write about... The little ones will be ringing our bells leaving no choice but to trick or to treat. Guessing the final option shouldn't be such a difficult task. Behind the boohoos and the spookiness that comes along, Halloween is a celebration of the mask, of the carnival. It's the perfect time to slide yourself under the costume you've always thought about, you can re-create yourself and embrace the features of a supposedly but not necessarily frightening image. Frankenstein could easily greet us, which is great by the way, we can actually see a smiley or laughing Frankenstein. Or not really. Maybe catch a glimpse of a sad clown instead.

At any rate, there seems to be an ongoing exchange of features between the mask and its bearer. Which brings up the following issue: are we really turning into Frankenstein or does Frankenstein become more humanly than he's ever been before? It is pretty fascinanting how we allow characters from the imaginary, which is undoubtedbly part of our unconscious, come to surface, maybe in an attempt to tame down that secret, less accessible part of ourselves. Humanity doesn't have many options in front of the unknown, in front of the giant universe, in front of the giant strangeness that we're striving to catch in words...or in Halloween costumes. Taming down. Yes, that's my take on the whole issue. Ridiculing and laughling at a supposedly frightening symbol helps the psyche surpass the fear of the unknown and the apprehension for the dreadful imagery surrounding our cultures.

Little is known nowadays about the connection between Halloween masks and ancient beliefs as this custom is most certainly closely related to a taming whose meaning has been long lost in the mist of history. Which makes the main reason why every sacred act is encrypted in symbolic manifestation. It is the symbol that preserves the meaning in the most simple ways, but if the meaning behind is slowly fading the whole act turns into nothing but a mere automatic, empty representation, suiting entertaining purposes at its best. Just like fairytales. They use symbol as a meaning preservation mode. Most of them carry a deep message that is meant to be decoded by the witty ones. So there you go Halloween, enchant us with your cryptic symbols!

Afternoon Crumbs

It's like a thirst, a most strange longing for something. It's an internal hunger for an undefined element. Like maybe taking a dive into someone else's thoughts. Maybe dare to jump and take the plunge into your own waters. Into the infinite strangeness of the self. I watch the woods fret under the incredibly calm summer breeze and a gentle movement inside of me whispers somethings in a cryptic language. It's as if I attempt to transgress my own deafness, my own inability to grab that whisper. But I listen to it and I can almost hear it and it warms my heart in the mysterious ways. Yes, it's the cool of the evening and trees and flowers take on an orange sunsety glow before the brightest star slowly glides into its habitual retreating motions. And it is this kind of moments that unfold the untold story of humankind from the very beginning up to the present times. It's all there in that seemingly small bit of the day. Birth, love, death, whispers in the cool of the evening. A day and the humankind.

P.S.:On Forget-You-Nots

Fall in itself is not of much help. In fact, falling leaves, carelessly carried away by the wind awake in me that tenderness for you. I can see you through the falling leaves, I can see you tenderly like you are. And it all stands like a testimony against my pledge for forgetting. It is as if nature silently plans to tear me apart, to disrupt the silence I've been trying to install over you.


Where do I go wrong? Is it the sun, or the gentle light of the moon, invading my room uninvited every night. They're all contriving to silently speak of you, to carry your name against all odds. So I feel like a fragile willow in the wind, bending under the wind of memory. Everyday. Living under the routine of remembrance. Sort of an aggravating state of the mind that I find it hard to reconcile with. My sense and sensibility at odds, no evens to fit in for a change. I'm willing to make them even, to give an utterance to an oppressing silence that I had decided not to voice before. Second thoughts might be an option after all. I'm a kaleidoscope of states; the tenderness I get when pieces of nature spell your name; followed by the feeling that I have for you and that I can but acknowledge; and then the sour denial, for I'm holding on to the realm of sense still; even more, how much I loathe myself for my inconsistency, for my inability to keep a straight line.


All those intricacies that shamelessly form, that eventually make up a complex of my states seem to have a personality of their own, like a woman wishing to have a room of her own where the pen could flow freely on paper guided by her trembling hand. I wish I could chase the thought of away, you are the disrupting thought. Yes, I keep chasing you away, but you have your own ways, of stubbornly returning to haunt me, to destroy the frailty of my stillness and then mercilessly leave.

And then I try to embrace forgetting in attempt to be in the rights, but what standards decide "right " or "wrong" anymore?I am entitled to make judgements of the kind?The proportions of sense and sensibility invested in this judgement stand on moving sands. My own faltering, my own vacillations make me want to turn my back to that frightening scale that supposedly sets the standard. I'm undoubtedly under one certainty: I'm not to judge those proportions because I'd have a take a honest look at myself, at the massive emotional structure I possess and whose complexity I successfully fail to grasp. I can't throw myself in a mad quest inside that maze, I'm not prepared to meet the Minotaur yet.

Abridged Diary of an Emailer

So I happen to sit down in front of the computer doing a routine-like thing: getting ready to email you. I open my emailing account and hit "Compose". For some reason, I am overwhelmed with revulsion and frustration. I am mad at myself. Why can't I just start typing like I always do?I waited all day long to get home and email you. It's not about you, the generic "you" doesn't designate a person in particular, but the "means" of comunication that's making me frustrated. I just don't feel like getting myself together, I just can't gather my thoughts of the shelves of my mind and heart and let them first rest on the keyboard before they turn into printing letters in "Compose" area. There's something restrictive about that rectangular space that makes me uneasy. It just seems like this small space lacks the air I need to put down some thoughts, scattered around on the shelves of my mind. If I'd be sitting outside in the open air, I could probably start typing instantly if trees, bushes or the sky would allow me to overtype. Maybe technology will make that come true one. But for now, I have to get back to the cruel reality of my email page that I happen to deeply loathe. I stare at the blank page in front of me and the page gives me a stale stare back. None of my affection or thoughts are there, on a barren empty space so I just decide I'm putting off the whole mission. Or just quit emailing. Unlikely though in this age. Uttering it is though just a way of enumerating choices, though.

Wandering in Wonderland

No, it's not Alice this time. It is me, the mortal being that dares to trouble the stillness of an already long established kingdom. The kingdom of wonder. And it is this moment that I wonder what I am going to say when I meet Alice. Oh, I would never try to chase her away from her own space that she's already been assigned to, I could peacefully live with her for that momentary instance I would be allowed to peer into this space. Because it won't be forever. Eternity is the time of Alice, she's bound to an eternal existence in Wonderland, unlike me. And she can't evade it. I wonder how that must feel like; the eternity versus the extraordinary touch of my isolated chunk of time in which I passingly linger in the realm of Wonderland. So what do I say to her when faith or some mischievous narrator interferes and makes our paths cross?I'm afraid I'm not going to live up to her wits. And suddenly a sense of fear overwhelms me. I shouldn't have trespassed, I shouldn't spoil the beauty of Wonderland with my rash worldliness, for it's a place where every line is wonderful and I can certainly say that it's not in my line to produce remarkable replies.

But what really makes Wonderland lines stand out is the very complexity behind simplicity, how could one create a grand content with simple tools like Alice or White Rabbit can with an amazing ease of spirit. There's subtlety in them, but it flows naturally like a water stream, whereas I'm bound to a conscious effort of shaping up my thoughts which to me, makes everything worse. I wish I could liquefy those thoughts and set them free like the afore mentioned stream like they do and that way not feel the pungent look of the outer self. The social censorship. The Superego. These "characters" obviously missed out on the wondrous realm of Wonderland which is why I'm here, while I dare to be here, at least while I'm carelessly throwing these words on the piece of paper, originally laying blank in front of my eyes. Yes, I'm here to learn, I'm here to heal that coarse, raw spirit of mine, to set myself free, a self immured to the dungeon of worldly matters, a self enslaved in a grey daily routine that the living mercilessly dictates.

At this very instance I can say I'm in Wonderland and I can certainly say I'm in wonder. Just about to plunge myself into the restful sleep of the night when it strikes me: no one goes to sleep in Wonderland, it's a constant state of wonder that keeps you awake. That's right. I don't remember anyone reporting Alice' bedtime, she ingenuously embarked on a continuous series of adventures. Boredom or sleep are simply markers of the downgraded humankind and Wonderland is by far a superior alternative to Man's Land. And still, here's a human being that dared to timidly pace into this marvellous space and to discover it with eyes wide open in simple, witty words. Oh, no, I could never pride myself to be that person; of course I'm talking about Alice. My immersion into this universe is nothing more that a mere, feeble copy less naive however, than Alice's endeavour. I knew what I was looking for, I knew what awaited me, while she didn't.

It is this very innocence and the courage to venture into the unknown that makes Alice a superior being and me, a poor observer fellow. Or, otherwise you could call me a cheeky intrusive narrator, for that was my part this time. Perhaps the characters took a peek and noticed the intrusion of a this queer being remotely reminding them of when they first met Alice and wondered, for we are in Wonderland, aren't we? As odd as I might have seemed, I'm under absolute certainty that the sight of me spurred some sort of witty exchange of lines that I wasn't able to grasp; for I didn't approach them directly. I dare not trouble the stillness of Wonderland. And Wonderland still exists. With or without me in it.     

The Circle of a Question

So I question. I question my questioning. Especially over my own helplessness of understanding myself and how I relate to the world. It's a whirling motion that tries to absorb me into the "what-to-do": go with the flow or try to resist the temptation of a comfortable trend and express yourself. But doesn't expressing yourself make fall into another overused, postmodern cliche: "being into yourself". Aurea mediocritas, Latin wisdom would say. In other words, find a "warm" way. Yes, so the answer to the deadlock is somewhere in between. But wait, here comes the real dilemma: how do you know when you don't know?Or if you ever know anything sustainable? I'm in a state of pure amazement at the frailty of beliefs. It's as if nothing can absolutely take a solid, unbreakable stand. And people need that. An iron belief, way, anyway you label it, to hold on to. To define themselves. So you build a world of your own, strive to fill it with a product referred to as a selection of criteria, values that eventually get to define you. It's natural in adolescence, but later on...?What does questioning stand for?Where does it stem from?Or is it just another discovery of an already validated reality that's starting to gradually dawn in you as you face yourself and the world: maybe the entire scope of existence and maybe not an exclusive one, but an additional hallmark of your self-consciousness that ruthlessly follows you like a faithful but haunting shadow?

It feels like a moving circle, a dizzying experience and the next thing you need is something to hold on to. Just that right now the circle is different and it occured to you that it's another circle you entered. An apparently new enthralling circle comes up, but it somehow feels painfully absurd. The Bildungsroman is no longer your trail, or so you fool myself to believe, that it is a long-forgotten path. But what really strikes you is the ridiculousness of the previous circle, belief, whose validity you hardly doubted. You are no longer in possession of that certainty. Gradually, a new one takes over, however, with a weakened strength. It's that very "what if" new companion that makes everything  fade away. What if the new circle is another illusion you innocently embrace just to let go when next one dares to pop up. At least "what if" will have a seemingly unshattered permanence in your conscience. Your doubt is your one certainty, dear self.

There's usually a title here...but there isn't one

I finally find that I and a Word document collide at a personal level. Oh, we did before, but this time there's no teacher at the other end to scrutinize every word cluster I might produce, which simply wipes away the tension of being critically inspected. I’m going to start by confessing that I feel driven by an acute sense of being freed. Yes, I feel truly free to express what I couldn’t voice before. Whether it was my own linguistic/emotional infirmity or it was society that prevented me from uttering it, it really doesn’t make the main point right now.

I come from a society that is still inveigled in a communistic aura, useless to mention which one, communism was terribly gifted in erasing identities.Why not admit it, we are still communistic to the bones and I’m a living proof of it. And what most people fail to understand is that the most obvious impact communism might have on a society is that very seclusion between individuals, doubt is disseminated everywhere; hence the incommunication. And when I say incommunication, I mean lack refusal to transmit a state of mind whether it is with another person or with yourself. So I should start by saying that having a conversation with your self is the first step translates into coming to terms with your self. It meant putting an end to a that “tense as a stalking cat” feeling. Yes, you finally decide it’s (high) time to stalk yourself a little and unfold what you refused to face.


Of course, there’s more that adds up in the equation of segregation, that is personal boundaries and the identity dilemmas that postmodern mankind faces, just to mention some of them. These are just few of the elements that sustain a such breach, a culture clash when exposed to foreign realities. You now need to re-create yourself, to forge into the mold you’ve already been carefully placed and you’ve kind of started to identify yourself with (a dangerous one I’d say) only to realize that a new environment calls for change. And change is under no shade of doubt an easy task; especially in the circumstances of emotional attachement to the set-up that you’ve first been exposed to. So what this situation obviously draws on is the personal effort of marrying an inner reality built in years of living in a dramatically different environment with a new state of things, new society, new ways of communicating; in other words, another level of relating yourself to the world.

What about this new world? What about its own incongruities? Does it show any sign of empathizing with the uprooted? Or you’re simply going to hit a wall that spells adaptation on every inch? It’s probably an ongoing reflection yet to find its resolution.




Signed,

The Questioning Self