Friday, September 26, 2008

Momentary Status

How are my college classes going? Well, this quarter I got in ones that I didn't have specific expectations for. They are just OK picks. Without any strong preformed expectations, I don't have anything to evaluate them by. If I study thoroughly, I should find them quite rewarding.

Two realizations have been intersecting with my awareness recently. One is seeing my surroundings as a singular 3-D solid instead of a multitude of individual pieces. The other is the insight that my dissatisfaction with life has an obvious cause in my anti-social choices. Alongside those is my tendency to react instead of deciding to do things of my own decision.

Instead of going out and doing something new, I repeat the patterns of behavior that have been my M.O. throughout life. Of course you say. Habits are a common sociological pattern. They define us. Make us predictable. Obviously the issue is changing undesirable ones. Here are some that have came to mind today:

Collecting interesting projects and not completing them.

Collecting interesting objects and not putting them into use.

Avoiding social events.

Wishing for friendship.

Wishing for marriage.

Wishing something that demanded my loyalty and service.

But I asked myself, if you where married right now, what would I be wanting to do? Likely there would be the same things on hand, things like a sink of dishes, a bathroom to clean, video games to play, books to read, stories to write, floors to vacuum, a budget to balance, photos to edit, a website to enhance, emails to respond to, people to pray for, shopping to plan, meals to make for later, instruments to practice, gas in the tank to roll down the road.

As a single person I can look at all those things and decide without having to consider the interaction of another fully complex human being. So why does it feel that my life would have more meaning if I where married? Would having another sentient entity in tight proximity make my life better? If I am unhappy now, by what operations is the state of wedlock going to improve that?

I should ask my married friends. I'm sure they will have something sensible to say.

To avoid having to face the lack of prime motivation in my life, it looks like dusting my desk is the most compelling option.

Earlier today I wrote in class:

“I have the sudden perception that this crowd of students is a sea of grass in this specific pressure and atmosphere we survive in. Plants, a chatting crop of identical things that don't know it. In some cosmic sense, can we not be a mobile, socketable, vegetation compared with all possible higher entities?

~

We blow in the wind of the word structures we speak. The spewed communication is more than words – its motion – genuflection to the shape of thoughts. The thought moves the creature.”

Such words are of course, bizarre and disturbing. Such effects are bound to happen when one seeks to think up things that are, to some extent, unique. Why such an impulse? Its just one of the many things that fits with a lifestyle seeks a stable place in keeping with avoiding people. I find myself interested in popular things, but not held by them. If everyone is chasing after something, well then, what are they overlooking? Perhaps something equally enjoyable. Thats one of the reasons I find myself attracted to polka music. Its good stuff, AND totally opposes the styles of the ignorant masses I am aloof from. Christian fundamentalism is another thing I adhere to, for many reasons, but its anti-populist and exclusivity certainly feel good.

Yet fortunately, some ingrained sensibility stops me from giving in to misanthropic hate. I do want to be a friendly and personable neighbor. My tastes are no less stupid than those of people higher on the bell curve.

If resistance to other people drove me towards my current life of morose art, obscure forms of idleness, and deep philosophical study, is it any wonder that I haven't found satisfaction? No amount of negatives become positive.

Those times in my life when I was unable to avoid human companionship or secure enough to seek it out I have found quite enjoyable. Sometimes greatly so. And in fiction those times then everything works out, and people come to gather to do some great feat, thats awesome. I'd like to be apart of something like that. Maybe some day I can.





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if rejecting something just because it is popular is just as ignorant as accepting something because it is popular?

Anyways, take it from me, you can't sit around and wait for life to happen to you, you have to go out and make life happen for you.

But, of course, you wrote this months ago... have you changed? Have you grown bolder in that time? Have you found friendship, community?

In the bit of your blog that I've read I am reminded of an Oscar Wilde quote and, mind you I am paraphrasing, but he said something about how some people live the poetry they cannot write, and others write the poetry they dare not live.

Dare to live the poetry, man.

Grady Houger said...

Rereading this almost seven months later its almost like reading the work of someone else. I am still dealing with similar things, but I'm feeling less trapped in them.

I have found some community, the same I have had all along. My improvement only comes through growing friendship with Jesus.

Good quote. I'm just starting to write real poetry for a class. Thats a good reminder to live large and write live poetry.