CXVII - if you, tear yourself in two again

song of the week: u2, bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgBtoiNxPyE

on another day, in another universe, doing the right thing gets the right girl. i believe in it.

on another note, i never liked photos. i feel that photographs are weak, and life is real. i don't want to look at life through somebody else's eyes and see something wonderful. i think that means that i haven't been paying enough attention to something that's going on all the time, and without having to pay a cent to look at. even against some quite extraordinary photo, i feel that there is enough beauty and originality in the everyday object and scene that warrants my attention, my full and absolute attention. one could even say that there is something of a universal grace or beauty in the simple things in life. and as to the feelings that photographs can evoke, i think such a case cannot seriously be argued when life is put on the other side of the balance. one must be quite blind to not notice how life cries out, and how it cries out everywhere.

but i think there's one thing that photographs get right, well, at least, old kept family photos, and that is that they capture people at their best. look at them and you'll see images of happiness, warmth, sincerity, closeness. and you end up believing that those people in those photos are happy, and are in the present day, grown up and conceivably happier. and i don't think there's anything wrong with that.

except that life isn't a photo, and doesn't care about what a photo wants it to look like. you know that. i know that. life is gritty, is harsh, is terrible. life is full, is pandora's box full. hope is the great cosmic irony at the bottom of the barrel. whatever.

here i am trying to do the right thing all the time. i mean it, for better or worse, i treat everyone as i think i ought to treat them at my best, no holds barred. i don't listen to rubbish from nobody, i don't take crap from nobody, and i don't overlook the things i shouldn't overlook. you know that, i know that. but me being this mean tough guy who isn't blind to faults and suchlike, who thinks everything should be a certain way, for better or worse, i can live every single day without too many goddamn regrets. do i do right by every person i know? you goddamn right i do. but it gets a little bit harder when looking at these old things, these old things. did i do right by the memories of these people at their best, the memories of the people who loved me, however they lived, and acted, and reacted to life? there's no easy answer here.

i think that's the funny thing about trying to do the right thing. the right thing, what is it, exactly, but no, more, i dunno, more intuitively, more instinctively, less intellectually, what is the right thing? if living right everyday is hard on people, maybe living without giving a shit makes it easier to face the past, the beautiful, revered, unprofaned past. maybe living without caring, without caring like i fucking do, and in so doing, being easier on people, lightens the heart a little, and reconciles a man to the happy images of his past. or maybe it makes him sad to think of the happiness that could have been.

but i guess this is the legacy of a sad family. photos are the useless remnants life reminds us to store. i think happy families have their happy photos, and sad families have whatever they asked for.

CXVI - a little fucked up

i can count the number of times i've been really depressed in my life. it's not me to be that way.

there's no point feeling sorry for oneself, i feel. but these few days i wake up and feel utterly disconnected. i wish i could play a perfect piano piece to ease myself into life, to channel some goddamn beauty. it's not a feeling of loneliness. i think being lonely is something i've gotten used to, like the sound of the wind, and the fullness of the sky. i don't like to feel sorry for myself. but i think i'm just truly, truly disappointed.

and that's the thing about life. tomorrow i have to wake up and, no matter how i feel, go on. i'll get up and will myself to live with a passion. i can't help it if my friends are around. i don't want to be my bad self around my friends. but nights i am disconsolate.

i was so depressed today i sat at the bus stop to think for a while. it felt strange to stone there, to be listless at a deserted place. and i just couldn't go on, you know. i'd planned to go running but i just couldn't do it. i realised that i had sympathy for everybody, and that was killing me.

you know, i think that's the stupid thing about life. like it or not, everybody's world is just a little bit fucked up. it's that little bit that fucks you up. everybody personally thinks that he's doing the right thing, he's doing the best he can. and when people live together they fuck each other's lives up, without being aware of it, or without wanting to, or being unable to do anything else. it's terrifying how life shows the bad side of people. and because of what? because of the scarcity of things? i can't bear to think how often people feel aggrieved with each other over something like money. i despise money. i hate how it undergirds the interactions between people for whom money is a realistic concern. you know, a lot of the time i feel that rich people will never understand the cruelty of money. and then i feel so horrible because so many in this world are poor.

i was extremely depressed to think how everybody is a little fucked up. life is so short and sad, and everybody is nonetheless a little fucked up. a family, and we make our lives awful for each other. that is so utterly depressing.

CXV - nothing to say, sure.

"she felt that this evening, when the two men would meet for the first time, must be the turning-point in her life. and she kept picturing them to herself, first individually, then both together. when she thought of the past, she lingered with pleasure and tenderness on the memories of her relations with levin. memories of childhood and of levin’s friendship with her dead brother lent a peculiar poetic charm to her relationship with him. his love for her, of which she felt certain, was flattering and delightful, and she could think of levin with a light heart. but something uneasy clouded her thoughts of vronsky, though he was all a well-bred man-of-the-world could be, as if there were a false note – not in him, he was very simple and nice, but in herself; whereas with levin she felt quite natural and untroubled. on the other hand, directly she started to imagine the future with vronsky, a dazzling vision of happiness rose up before her, while with levin the future seemed misty."

- leo tolstoy, anna karenin.

... sometimes it seems like the old writers knew everything.

i suppose now it is only for me to bid adieu on my own terms. yes, i think that's right.

CXIV - humanity's mean

the strange thing about the roman numerals thing i have going up there is that it gets a bit peculiar trying to grasp just how many i've written.

i was on the train home today, feeling sorry for the state of things in this world. yes, yes. i do my thinking everywhere. it may seem a little absurd to think so much on the train, of all places, where most of the thinking is typically done by little processors in expensive little gadgets, but i do indulge myself a little. and to be honest... ah, who cares what i think. the little glitzy things of this world have clearly won.

ah but yes, i was feeling sorry for humanity. we are such a petty race, such a terrible waste of good things. so selfish, so full of infighting, so lacking in sympathy, so self-absorbed, so unkind. what are we doing? how terrible it must be for a good person, to feel so adrift from this world, so ill-understood. maybe it was reading aung san suu kyi's nobel speech that got to me.

"the peace of our world is indivisible. as long as negative forces are getting the better of positive forces anywhere, we are all at risk. it may be questioned whether all negative forces could ever be removed. the simple answer is: “no!” it is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. however, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative. absolute peace in our world is an unattainable goal. but it is one towards which we must continue to journey, our eyes fixed on it as a traveller in a desert fixes his eyes on the one guiding star that will lead him to salvation. even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder.

i used the word ‘kinder’ after careful deliberation; i might say the careful deliberation of many years. of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, i have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson i learnt on the value of kindness. every kindness i received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world." 

"there could never be enough of it in our world". can you imagine that? that there can never be enough of something as simple and as utterly crucial as kindness. that no matter how much, no amount will ever be enough. that is so, utterly, sad. i do suppose aung san means it in a good way, but it gets to me the other way, all the same.

we have all the grand theories of life, nobility and the universality of man. and yet we are still so ignorant, so lacking in sympathy, so... utterly clueless. yes we have our great public uproars when some charged incident makes the news. we clamour over many things - overcrowding, delays, fraud. some are good and some not so, but who cares, these things come and go. and yet we have so little sympathy for each other, kin and stranger alike. somewhere in our minds we know that people are hungry, afflicted, disconsolate and dying. but who the fuck cares because we have ourselves to take care of... and we always do, we always do.

oh, if this is the mean of humanity, then... what's the point? we have to live and we have to die, do we also have to try? where have all the good men gone?

i remember once dl told me, that he was lying on some bed waiting for some serious procedure, and the verses that he remembered didn't help to encourage him. maybe i'm not getting this entirely right, after all, i might never know exactly how he felt, in those circumstances, and i probably got the words he said wrong. but it was something like that. and that eventually encouraged him to read the word a little bit closer.

i haven't done so in awhile. but as i was mulling over all these hopeless thoughts, a line revealed itself to me, just as the setting sun shone right into my eyes.

"the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it."

... but the darkness has not overcome it.

CXIII - life ennui

the banality of life is getting to me.

you ever feel that way? like tired, but in a deep way, as in tired of living?

when was being myself, being a good man, ever so tiring?

i'm so tired. not to whine, but to state.

most people are not... are not bad people, but they are so, so tiring. god have mercy.

maybe i mean to say disappointing when i say tiring. but i feel tired more than disappointed, and that is not to say i do not feel disappointed.

what the hell ever, right?

CXII - that kind of letter

song of the week - mark knopfler, brothers in arms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZRbBskloE

this is, or will be, i promise, an entry fueled by drink and sad.

today i graduated from university. it is not something to be particularly proud of, nor am i particularly proud of it. people, lesser or greater than me, do it all the time. my parents did not do it, but they walked the paths before them. i studied for many years to graduate, but that does not say very much about me or about graduating.

i am twenty five years old, and my friend died at twenty four. all things being equal, he would graduate today as well. or close to today, it is inconsequential.

he was a gep and a brother, and we Do Not lose these.

but we did. in the world as i imagine it to be, in a good world, we are all twenty five. we are all dressed in nonsensical shades of blue. we are smiling at each other. maybe we talk a lot, or maybe we don't. it doesn't matter. we are brothers, and we always wear smiles, in our hearts we always wear smiles. we break out the good jokes and we make fun of ourselves. we act stupid as only good kids do, and by god, we Are good kids. and i can see it in his eyes, brightly lit, his mouth, determinedly set, humming a little tune to himself, perfectly. he rocks a little, smiling at us, itching to break into a little slappity pat. but his name is called, and we all applaud, and we all sigh and smile. it is not just that dl is graduating. it is so many things, but it is that happy achievement, among other things, of one of the best people we know. if there are photos, we let them go. we care not for such things besides the ever-resplendent present.

and that is how i feel, every single goddamn day. you know, it's no good you being dead and i being here. it's no good at all. you know, ultimately, i don't care about anything, because every single goddamn day i give it my goddamn best shot, and i don't care what happens. but losing you is hard to take.

you were many things to me, and you were my john the baptist. i love you, man.