CVII - inner music

song of the week: maurice ravel, pavane pour une infante defunte
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEUpQ5pCSOQ

life meanders on all the time, you know. a lot of the time being alive is trivial, meaningless. and then once in a while the impressionist thing sets in - like you imagine life is a movie, but a good movie. there's a profile shot, it zooms out from you, on a lonely landscape, the sun's rays cresting over a cloud. the wind picks up a little, hair rustles a little bit, and the person looks wistfully at the sky, at the sun. got an old jacket on, jeans. brown hair. long face, with gaunt cheekbones. old eyes. out there, little stirs. it's a bit like skyrim, but for real. and a lot more solitary. just standing there, taking in the old familiar things he's used to seeing. and it's not you in the frame now, it's an imagination of some guy in this world. feeling the age in his bones, in the trees, in the hills. it's mystical, how feeling close to this world is. understanding that this is what's left, after the rush, the noise, the traffic is gone. this is one man's world.

CVI - flourishes

life is not a god damn movie. this is not the end - there won't be a final narrative about who ended up with who, who went to chase his dreams, and who died a few year's time a sad man. no, none of that. so don't start with the, "we'll always have paris". you're twenty five.

"The movies were infantilizing their audience, Solanka thought, or perhaps the easily infantilizable were drawn to movies of a certain simplified kind. Perhaps daily life, its rush, its overloadedness, just numbed and anesthetized people and they went into the movies’ simpler worlds to remember how to feel. As a result, in the minds of many adults, the experience on offer in the movie theaters now felt more real than what was available in the world outside."

- Fury, Salman Rushdie.

song of the week: driving wheels, jimmy barnes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G3rpMurkX4

i can hear australia in the man's voice. yes. i know, i'm coming.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

- Endymion, John Keats, dead at twenty five.

CV - childhood living is easy to do

song of the week: j s bach, sicilienne - vladimir horowitz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUxwm9jjZuY#t=53m09s

reading the last post over again, part of me wants to explain why i went all academic on that one, and the other part is mostly nonchalant. i guess i want to know what it was to feel nostalgic, and not only to feel that way. to think it out like that would in a way insulate my state of mind from nostalgia's blighting effect. and i think it could use an added paragraph or too after the romantic consequentialist part - to explain how we could regret the choices we make, either because we know better now or, more interestingly, at that time. but it will suffice - i think one could detect implicit sympathies to those arguments in the writing as it already stands.

and although it lacks substance - it is not for my own want of it. indeed, to want to write about something, one is doubtless already under its influence. but i thought to go against the flow there - not to write about how i felt, but about how one could approach the feeling. and i think it basically works.

but enough about that. the things that are filling up the interwebs lately are full of nostalgic stuff anyways. i feel them, man, i feel them.

i've liked a few girls in my time - and it occurred to me the other day that each of them have a song attached to how i remember them. it's really... nostalgic, for lack of a better word. the songs carry little ideas that i found really fit how i thought of them. it's sweet and old and a little bit sad in a way. heh.

barenaked ladies, call and answer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8XLMxeWLk

i think, it's getting to the point
where i can be myself again
i think, it's getting to the point
where we have almost made amends
i think, it's the getting to the point
that is the hardest part

and if you call, i will answer
and if you call, i'll pick you up
and if you court, this disaster
i'll point you home
i'll point you home

aerosmith, angel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBTOGVb_cQg
god, this one broke my heart. haha, oh boy.

michael stipes with chris martin, in the sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix77YY2ggjg
michael stipes has that voice - that strange faraway and familiar voice. the voice of your best friend and your dad and of someone you love.

张学友,只想一生跟你走
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEbXpDTaSek

共你有过最美的邂逅
共你有过一些风雨忧愁
共你醉过痛过的最后
但我发觉想你不能没有

hmm then again, maybe it was wild horses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhVLiHPUOIM

for what it's worth, what i wouldn't give to have sung one to each of them.

CIV - yin-feelings

song of the week: edward elgar - salut d'amour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTZjwAhCDo

i realise that the nostalgic feeling often leaves me with very little to write about. it's this strange feeling that's neither here nor there, and i can't put my finger on what it is. but then again, to think about it, nostalgia's not a peculiar feeling, it happens to everyone every now and then, it's not a different sort of animal at first or at each time. it's easy to identify but just so difficult to map out, to trace the outlines of. it's so hard because everyone has different little things they regret. and what i've come to think is that nostalgia is regret's child. regret, that most deadly, most debilitating of yin-feelings.

which is not to say that nostalgia is regret - it is only regret's child. or is regret nostalgia's child? if by definition a parent comes before and is the larger part to which the child, organic and self-determined, fastens, then at once my intuition clouds - yet vaguely reaches for the latter answer. and regret includes not only the things one does or does not, but also the things out of one's power to do. for human limitedness is not regret's boundary - once past the point, it is merely called by its more conventional, more generous name, i.e. sympathy. factor in time - for what is nostalgia without time's passing? - and sympathy past is the obverse of regret. but chief of regret, regret at its core, is really for the things one is responsible for - things one had good reason to do or not do, and was able to change or not change. when i hear someone say that he has no regrets, and i used to say this a lot, i think to smile at his folly.

so now that we are slightly better equipped (if in a meandering way) in our understanding of nostalgia - the  question naturally entails - why the feeling? and this is where i fear to take a step, to point to this, that or other. there is no natural content to nostalgia, and there is no natural priority to the constituents of nostalgia-content. there are baskets, pockets of feelings, definitely, but to take this route might not prove useful. for what, after all, does it serve to say, oh i regret not being better friends with this person, we may have been good friends, even a romance - this goes to the girls basket. again, what clarity does it avail to say that this goes to the family basket, the grades basket, or the sporting-dreams basket? for labels do not go far. there is something about feelings which categorising does not properly capture.

not to ramble further in that direction, we return to the question, why the nostalgic feeling? what is this special feeling of retrospection, which makes a human being feel properly old enough to reconsider his life and events past? for it is inevitable that one feels nostalgia only close to a milestone, or more somberly, near something's end, including being past it. why? why do i suddenly feel old? for time creeps but it does not creep up on me! - that is my watchword. i can accept that windows open and windows close, and to accept it is not to be afraid of it.

to be nostalgic is to be a romantic consequentialist - to value decisions by their consequences, in a fuzzy, idealistic chroma. if only things had turned out like this that or other, if only i'd tried talking to her, if only one of my best friends was still around. perhaps i have made the case for consequentialism too broadly, for at first glance nostalgia seems little related to 'how things have turned out'. yet, even the basic wish - to be there again, those days! implies a reluctance to accept that the past was well-lived, for well-lived includes well-cherished, and well-cherished entails well-taken and well-acquitted of, so that one is willing to move on. and indeed how often nostalgia shades into regret! perhaps you will say that one can cherish the past and still wish to re-live it, but even ignoring the fatalistic (because we can only accept it) unidirectional passing of time, my objection is that one should not think that he could do better than how one actually lived, or experienced the moment, even with future knowledge, or with retrospective emotions, for it would ruin the moment. put simply, one could not have more meaningful feelings than one had at the time, and indeed, these feelings form the very memories which fractiously fuel our nostalgia. therefore, having been there is sufficient, is best.

thus i embrace choice and reject consequentialism, at least so far as my will permits, buffeted as it sometimes is by these yin-feelings. unwilling to stray too far into regret's true domain, i think this line of observation remains insightful - for nostalgia, stripped of its rosier inessentials, points to a longing for times past, nostalgia implies that the present is unsatisfactory, unsatisfactory, in a way the past was possessed of, for better or worse. and that is nostalgia - to obscurely despise the present.

ah, then we are a miserable people to often be so nostalgic!

"Well," said he (d'Artagnan), "they likewise have refused me."
"That, dear friend, is because nobody is more worthy than yourself."
He took a quill, wrote the name of d'Artagnan in the commission, and returned it to him.
"I shall then have no more friends," said the young man. "Alas! nothing but bitter recollections."
And he let his head sink upon his hands, while two large tears rolled down his cheeks.
"You are young," replied Athos; "and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances."

i have so far resisted talking directly about why i feel so peculiarly nostalgically disquieted, and there is no lack of themes which one can quickly warm to. i feel indeed that a large portion of my friends and fellows share these opinions and emotions, and will smile and nod wanly to hear my thoughts. we are, at the brink of something, something larger than, well, something large. the nebulousness of our position! far from being overwhelmed, but not to be underwhelmed either, we are left to grapple with vague, searching questions of meaning, purpose, passion, profession, principles and personage. character, and the things we have done, which henceforth we shall never do again. it is, a very small, very essential part of the existential question. but we are not concerned with the meaning of life just now - our concern is with the paths behind and before us.

i feel that this analysis has satiated me, indeed i am grateful not to be driven further, to delve into the exact feelings which constitute this vagueness. and that is not unlike nostalgia, to feel at one moment terribly affected by some recollection, and in the next to be quite reassured, master again of oneself. and the truth is that i am glad, for the past and the present. really, i think this to be true. there will always be things i carry which bring a shadow to my eyes, but as i stand and think, i know that i do not regret the things i ought not to regret. and perhaps that is no easy thing to say, after all.

i sometimes think about a few related things, related to my death. sometimes i think that it'd be no great loss if i'd never existed - my parents would have some other son, my friends would know some other guy, my god would have some other follower. sometimes i think that if i die i want to just disappear and be forgotten, never to be mourned. i told my good friend this once and she said, okay i'll remember not to cry. i was devastated! haha. but these things are derived of my conviction in the present - to understand the moment, and to live wholeheartedly in it. and that is not to say, without a care in the world, to the contrary - that everything that matters, matters in the present. and if you believe that, then there's no point in us just going through things anymore.


i picture you in the sun, wondering what went wrong
you've fallen down on your knees, asking for sympathy
and being caught in between all you wish for, and all you've seen
trying to find anything you can feel, that you can believe in
may god's love be with you, always