Is both raw, aggressive and emotionally charged in a positive extroverted I'm going to fucking say what I need to say way, and simultaneously vulnerable, seemingly translucent in her willingness to expose herself, to allow anyone and everyone to have full indulgence in the hurt, the pain, the very sensitivity that so many of us feel, and somehow, she manages to show us a window into those two sides of the equation in full repose.
Which is to say that I'm in awe of her.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Essence.
Baby, sweet baby, you're my drug
Come on and let me taste your stuff
Baby, sweet baby, bring me your gift
What surprise you gonna hit me with
Refrain:
I am waiting here for more
I am waiting by your door
I am waiting on your back steps
I am waiting in my car
I am waiting at this bar
I am waiting for your essence
Baby, sweet baby, whisper my name
Shoot your love into my vein
Baby, sweet baby, kiss me hard
Make me wonder who's in charge
(Repeat Chorus)
Baby, sweet baby, I wanna feel your breath
Even though you like to flirt with death
Baby, sweet baby, can't get enough
Please come find me and help me get f-----d up
(Repeat Chorus)
Your essence
Your essence
On Assholes
1. How funny it is that much assholish behavior can come from the desperate desire for comfort, as in, deep seeded insecurity. That seems odd to me, because assholish behavior should be pinpointed and deliberate, in my mind at least, not a cover for something weak.
2. Many assholes have no idea that they are, in fact, assholes.
2. Many assholes have no idea that they are, in fact, assholes.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Future Utility vs..Current Discomfort.
What life is all about.
I couldn't help but notice a woman in high heels this morning. No, not because of the heels, necessarily, but because she avoided walking over a grate that I didn't think twice about.
Why?
Well, as women who have worn high heels will tell you, walking over grates with the shoes on is strictly prohibited. As such, walking around a place like NYC is an adventure in avoidance of grates, to say the least.
Which leads me to this: there's gotta be some discomfort in walking around grates all the time. For instance, if you're talking with someone while you walk, or simply walking with someone else at all, you must move, often times many feet, away from that person. Likewise, if you're in a rush, you probably want to use the most direct line to your destination.
Which is all to say that there must be some benefit to wearing high heels that is great than the cost of being late, or acting slightly awkwardly in social situations. And greater than the cost of foot surgery at a later date?
I couldn't help but notice a woman in high heels this morning. No, not because of the heels, necessarily, but because she avoided walking over a grate that I didn't think twice about.
Why?
Well, as women who have worn high heels will tell you, walking over grates with the shoes on is strictly prohibited. As such, walking around a place like NYC is an adventure in avoidance of grates, to say the least.
Which leads me to this: there's gotta be some discomfort in walking around grates all the time. For instance, if you're talking with someone while you walk, or simply walking with someone else at all, you must move, often times many feet, away from that person. Likewise, if you're in a rush, you probably want to use the most direct line to your destination.
Which is all to say that there must be some benefit to wearing high heels that is great than the cost of being late, or acting slightly awkwardly in social situations. And greater than the cost of foot surgery at a later date?
Saturday, November 26, 2011
At the end of the day, you still have to live.
That is, no matter what you've accomplished, or haven't accomplished. And whether you drive a BMW, ferrari, honda, or subway to the party, drink fancy 15 year old scotch or budweiser, spend your time in front of the television, or the nytimes crossword puzzle, reading fancy french novels or romantic thrillers, find excitement in the simple or sophisticated, you, as in the collection of feelings and thoughts that constitutes your subjective experience in the world, still have to live. As in, ultimately, all of your decisions only come down to how much weight you want to apply to them, so long as you aren't in prison (and maybe even if you're in prison?)--only that on average, you have to find a way to continue to exist. That's the point, eventually, regardless of what other ideals come into being to stand for existence. And I'm not sure, of course, that thinking about existence is the best way to go about existing. Perhaps it is best to think about apple pies. Or blueberry muffins. Or maybe I'm just hungry.
Because we all try really hard, and we want to feel like our trying is worth something.
Or, more to the point, a lot of us find the most efficient route to the least effort and most reward, because effort is difficult, by definition, but we should be really clear with ourselves that when we're in subjective internal monologue mode, self-branding, i.e. creating the narrative that goes with all of the associated actions and thoughts we've left in drip drop pattern on the road back there, well, we're not very good at being accurate. We're very good at justifying our own actions, and feeling outrage. And forgetting why we did things. Because there aren't always reasons, or at least there aren't always reasons that encapsulate all of the stuff that we have now as a result of an experience. For example, if we just got out of a relationship, there's no way we willed all of the interactions that occurred within the relationship. Yet it is this type of thinking that often handicaps us about, well, most things--that we somehow willed everything there is around us.
And I started out talking about how we have to come to terms, that is, to live, regardless, and I'm not sure that I can offer you, or myself, any advice on the process. Because the bottom line is that we're, as in you and I, we're just our own worst enemies: we're simultaneously full of the most rich data that makes the evaluation possible and the most emotional attachment to skewing that data as well. And so we're always going to be too rigid about some things. But with all of that said, it doesn't necessarily clear the way toward anything specific, is the thing, unless you think it does. In which case, go out and do it. You can use me as a footnote for later.
Because we all try really hard, and we want to feel like our trying is worth something.
Or, more to the point, a lot of us find the most efficient route to the least effort and most reward, because effort is difficult, by definition, but we should be really clear with ourselves that when we're in subjective internal monologue mode, self-branding, i.e. creating the narrative that goes with all of the associated actions and thoughts we've left in drip drop pattern on the road back there, well, we're not very good at being accurate. We're very good at justifying our own actions, and feeling outrage. And forgetting why we did things. Because there aren't always reasons, or at least there aren't always reasons that encapsulate all of the stuff that we have now as a result of an experience. For example, if we just got out of a relationship, there's no way we willed all of the interactions that occurred within the relationship. Yet it is this type of thinking that often handicaps us about, well, most things--that we somehow willed everything there is around us.
And I started out talking about how we have to come to terms, that is, to live, regardless, and I'm not sure that I can offer you, or myself, any advice on the process. Because the bottom line is that we're, as in you and I, we're just our own worst enemies: we're simultaneously full of the most rich data that makes the evaluation possible and the most emotional attachment to skewing that data as well. And so we're always going to be too rigid about some things. But with all of that said, it doesn't necessarily clear the way toward anything specific, is the thing, unless you think it does. In which case, go out and do it. You can use me as a footnote for later.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Purity = Respectability
It strikes me that what I meant to write when I wrote about purity a few posts ago, was that it stands, in a very real way, as a proxy in most people's thinking patterns, for the capacity to respect or be respected.
Without purity, there can be no respect. With purity, there can always be respect (even veneration). In that, we have an intuitive sense of whether someone is pure, whether their actions are valid, whether what they tell us has only one layer, whether there is something essentially clean about them, and trusting that instinct is easier than thinking about, or evaluating, their behaviors toward us, or even toward themselves, or toward their other friends. As in, it allows us to believe that if we've been treated with a pure sense of purpose, then a person him- or herself is in fact respectable.
Discipline seems to be the number one way to acquire purity, i.e. to restrict oneself, or to purify oneself if you've become dirty.
Once someone has become dirty to us, we sincerely dislike interacting with them and brand them inauthentic.
And once we do that we find justification in all sorts of treatment, not the least of which is talking about them in a dis-respectable manner (i.e. broadcasting our conclusion about who they really are).
The most extreme example of this treatment is, naturally, straight up torture and murder. What torturing and murdering other people--what gossiping about them--does, is to cleanse us of them.
Anyway, even if you don't agree with my last statement, you'll surely recognize your own repulsion to lewd behavior. And I'd bet that our repulsion is in part because certain rules of purity have been crossed.
(Not that purity or the idolization of purity is necessarily bad, just that we should perhaps recognize why it is we're insanely attracted or repulsed when exposed to something).
Without purity, there can be no respect. With purity, there can always be respect (even veneration). In that, we have an intuitive sense of whether someone is pure, whether their actions are valid, whether what they tell us has only one layer, whether there is something essentially clean about them, and trusting that instinct is easier than thinking about, or evaluating, their behaviors toward us, or even toward themselves, or toward their other friends. As in, it allows us to believe that if we've been treated with a pure sense of purpose, then a person him- or herself is in fact respectable.
Discipline seems to be the number one way to acquire purity, i.e. to restrict oneself, or to purify oneself if you've become dirty.
Once someone has become dirty to us, we sincerely dislike interacting with them and brand them inauthentic.
And once we do that we find justification in all sorts of treatment, not the least of which is talking about them in a dis-respectable manner (i.e. broadcasting our conclusion about who they really are).
The most extreme example of this treatment is, naturally, straight up torture and murder. What torturing and murdering other people--what gossiping about them--does, is to cleanse us of them.
Anyway, even if you don't agree with my last statement, you'll surely recognize your own repulsion to lewd behavior. And I'd bet that our repulsion is in part because certain rules of purity have been crossed.
(Not that purity or the idolization of purity is necessarily bad, just that we should perhaps recognize why it is we're insanely attracted or repulsed when exposed to something).
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
What Are You Waiting For?
What is it that you secretly desire that you do not allow yourself?
Why not?
How the hell are we supposed to judge whether the answer to that question is reasonable or not?
What if our thoughts are so tightly woven that we can't break free from them, and acting on our intuitions will fundamentally reassemble our thought process such that we act in ways discordant with who we previously were, by way of similar actions, and we don't really know it.
The fabled dual self!
Anyway, it would be scary if we do stuff we don't know we do, and even scarier to do stuff we don't know why we do.
Which isn't to say that we don't do that stuff, just that it is too scary to think about, when you sit down to think about it.
So let's have a smoke break, shall we?
Why not?
How the hell are we supposed to judge whether the answer to that question is reasonable or not?
What if our thoughts are so tightly woven that we can't break free from them, and acting on our intuitions will fundamentally reassemble our thought process such that we act in ways discordant with who we previously were, by way of similar actions, and we don't really know it.
The fabled dual self!
Anyway, it would be scary if we do stuff we don't know we do, and even scarier to do stuff we don't know why we do.
Which isn't to say that we don't do that stuff, just that it is too scary to think about, when you sit down to think about it.
So let's have a smoke break, shall we?
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