Preamble & Amble; Theme & Variation

Preamble

I have things I'm putting off, so it seemed like the perfect time to distract myself further by writing in my blog which I have similarly neglected. I love being in school. That's not sarcasm. Also, to be fair, I did complete the assignments necessary for tomorrow. Now to the blogging.

Amble

So. I want to try some experiments. I need to make a multimedia experimental poetry installation of psycholinguistic stuff. For example: me using my blend of common sense and a small amount of expertise to attempt to break down the etymologies of various words. I am also going to from now on write in this blog as I feel like it, with all my language play intact. I am going to avoid watering things down- not that I've really done that so far in this particular outlet.

I'm enjoying the kinds of themes that recur and recur throughout my intellectual life.

SHORTLIST O' THEMES:

1. building on the shoulders of giants/the things we inherit/technology, knowledge, culture
2. everything is like everything else/the universe is a fractal of sorts/universal truths recurring/patterns and geometry/¿chaos = order = chaos?

I remember, as a child in school, getting the simple definition of technology as being applied knowledge. This idea really fascinated me and continues to do so. I remember asking my mother why people couldn't've just made computers at the start. I saw a computer as an obvious thing to think up– of course, I was standing on the shoulders of giants without ever having looked down. She explained that complex things develop gradually. Needless to say, this statement of hers continues to apply in most cases.

I have a lot of questions about correlations. It almost makes me want to do math. There are too many things that I want to know how to do and want desperately to do, but I don't have the patience for at this time.

2 MANY THINGS THAT I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO DO AND WANT DESPERATELY TO DO BUT I DON'T HAVE THE PATIENCE FOR AT THIS TIME:

1. Learn statistics reel guud
2. Learn how to program for iOS and OS X

THINGS I NEED TO DO BUT DON'T KNOW IF I'LL EVER HAVE THE TIME FOR:

1. Learn about philosophy
2. Learn the freaking history of the world
3. Take voice lessons
4. Take more anthropology classes
5. Take more psychology classes
6. Study in France, too (not just Russia) !

I've stopped caring so much about some of the nitpicky details. Sometimes when you're young and your world goggles are still getting adjusted for basic proportional perception, you confuse the details as being the most important thing instead of the big picture, when in reality, you only do so because it's what's in focus, it's what you understand, it's what you see clearly. You have only a nebulous idea of the thing that looks, frankly, like an indefinite, looming, shape on the horizon, and all you can make out is the color.

Something I wrote in my notebook today: "This silence, like many other careless or hopeful silences before it, was a pregnant silence."

I wonder how much meaning you can cram into one utterance. I wonder... what the equivalent of that meaning-packed utterance would be in the form of silence/the absence of an utterance. How would it manifest itself? What would be an example of a situation in which it would manifest itself?

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

1. cognitive archaeology
2. mental schema

–You've had far too much to drink tonight.

–And you've had far too much to say tonight.


I have decided that Russians must know something secret and remarkable about life and humanity. I can think of no better ways to spend my time this very hot summer than to read Russian novels, brush up on my languages, and to write. Reading always makes me want to write. I have several things lined up to read, and a thing I've finished already:
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov (finished)
On Walden Pond by Thoreau (begun)
Speak, Memory, Nabokov's autobiography
Пиковая дама/La dame de pique (The Queen of Spades) by Aleksandr Pushkin (it's bilingual French and Russian)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
La pesanteur et la grâce (Gravity and Grace) by Simone Weil

I'm also planning on reading a couple of Steven Pinker books through, as thus far I've read them in parts either according to personal whim, or to the necessities of my research. I'm going to read some St. John Chrysostom. Perhaps I'll have it in me (and the good time) to read some Dostoevsky or Tolstoy.

So, tell me what one does when one comes to hatred about so many things in society. What am I to do? I hate the credit card companies, the fashion magazines, the "gentlemen's" magazines, Bratz dolls, the vacancy in the eyes of too many of my classmates. And boredom! I hate being bored. It is just an insult to God. I am determined to not be bored and I really must figure out how to jettison from myself this hatred which does absolutely no one any good.

Я Люблю Русский Язык!

Oh this is some kind of life

I've heard it said life is unfair and that God cannot exist because of ______ (fill in your choice of trite argument based on human logic). I don't buy it. I mean, nobody ever promised anybody that life would be fair. When I hear that, my response however juvenile is, "yeah, duh." The challenge we are presented with- and yes, it is a challenge indeed- is to turn our suffering into growth and to love everybody, everything, all of creation. Loving someone doesn't mean liking their character, necessarily, but understanding it- not sympathizing with it- just understanding without judging in order to love better. Like Jesus says (and I'm totally paraphrasing from memory), "what is it to love those who love you? Even sinners love those who love them." The idea, of course, being to love your enemy as yourself. That is difficult to do. The more I think about the way I act and the thoughts that are in my head, the more I am convinced that I have a lot of work to do on myself, so no matter how "messed up" I'm thinking this other person is, I really must learn how to remember that taking the right path is so difficult and we happen to be quite blind to many important things about our actions and how we could make them that we would be better. Pride is a big cause of blindness, I've definitely found for myself. Also, I'm pretty sick of how society treats Christianity these days. I see a lot of issues with Western Christianity because it strayed from the original Church teachings (if you can't tell yet, I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian- or a catechumen, anyway). I've been an atheist before; I've been Protestant before; I've thought about Catholicism before; I've been agnostic before; I've been a pseudo-Buddhist before; when I was a child, my family went to churches in which people just gathered 'round waiting to be... entertained by a miracle, ready to will themselves into a trance: I was a passionate and mercurial teenager with a restless nature. I felt firmly about each (or in the case of agnosticism, well, you know). None of them, however, had for me what Orthodoxy has for me. Orthodoxy has the emphasis on humility and love that I think is absolutely essential to the content of any attempt at a statement of truth. Here is another relevent quote from Christ: "Become good and merciful like your Father in Heaven, and as He rains on bad and good and makes the sun to rise on just and unjust alike, so also is the one who has real love, and has compassion, and prays for all." I'll write again soon about Orthodoxy. Time for bed- this is the latest I've stayed up in months.

DON'T TRY TO SELL ME ANYTHING

The space I had been occupying.

My frustrations with dishonesty have really been coming to a head lately. There's dishonesty with whatever guy who's trying to impress me with ____________ in the hope of seeing me naked; there's dishonesty with companies competing for my dollar vote, the first I can think of being Apple, which is a company whose products I use and find to be better than the others on the market and am quite fond of, but I find myself sick of the aura surrounding the company (or at the very least, a large group of its customers) that it's some sort of club to join, that you're either out or you're with Apple. I am so tired of fallacy and conceits. I wonder what this world would look like if everything would just molt off their skins and quit pretending or implying. NO more innuendo, NO more selling sex, NO more trashy television, NO more 100 calorie snack packs, NO more exclusiveness, NO more handbags bought just to show you could afford them, NO more exploiting people by way of religion (that means you, televangelists), NO more selling things for more money because they're "green."

HEY, QUIT LYING TO ME!
STOP TRYING TO SELL YOURSELF WITH, "As an artist..." or "as a musician..."
I don't care what you own
where you've been
who you know


I'm someone who is admittedly attracted to well-designed packaging; I will take that aesthetic and smoke it. I must, however, remember how to place myself opposite the headache of being sold something, and next to the smiling feeling of buying something because I need it to survive or because it's beautiful or useful in an honest way.

The things I do and claim as my own I will only dare to claim with a bare spirit and a smiling heart. I love to look at the stars, I love to practice ballet, I enjoy making things, I love to reach for a goal, I love to think, I love my boyfriend, I love to eat fruit, I love to find joy in small things- none of this makes me anything other than I am, which is just a girl somewhere on the road of progression through life.

EDIT: I wouldn't have been in the clarity of mind and heart to write something like this and realize these things without Cody who is a gift from God.

Taking Care

I went to the book store in my shiny black shoes with some money in my coat pocket. The doors don't open themselves there- I kind of like that. I looked through magazines and featured book tables and eventually, I stumbled onto a glossy photo book. The paper isn't good paper, it's magazine paper, it's one of the TIME-LIFE picture books they stick in the newsstand every so often. I got the hi-gloss cover smudgy and thumbed through. I handed the cashier a smooth bill and felt happy. These are all pictures of Audrey Hepburn. In some of them, her baby deer is asleep with her on the couch. I want to be that kind of elegant, humble woman.

This is an age of days with elegant exertion, ungraceful negligence, aesthetic ideals forming, a sharpening of the mind and the transfer of emotions. I think about the things that transcend and try to figure out what they are, where they are, how to communicate them, how to find more, and how to immerse oneself in them. I think about how I can write better. I think about food and being kind. I am taking in more information than I exert. I need raw material to process. Someday, something good will come of all of this.

I think about drinking milk out of small paper cartons and eating cut-up food with oversized utensils. I think about popsicles running down the stained wooden stick and sliding down my arm. Then I'd have sticky fingers.

One Hundred Wonderful Things

This list is an exercise in finding the good in everyday life. I won't be listing the things I'm working towards because I'm trying to find things to be thankful for right now.

1. books
2. stories
3. fantastic ideas
4. the night sky
5. men who explore and wonder
6. the moon
7. birds
8. maps
9. finding things you thought you'd lost
10. stationery
11. writing letters
12. making a nice cup of tea
13. understanding one's self better
14. people who encourage their children to be modest and kind
15. herbs
16. the language of flowers
17. kaleidoscopes
    
18. knitting
19. feeling proud of one's self
20. being forgiven
21. pillows and blankets
22. having a prince for a sweetheart
23. ballet
24. old things
25. femininity
26. cooking
27. keeping a coin collection
28. keeping a key collection
29. owning a car
30. rice
31. having nice things
32. being able to eat three meals a day
33. always having a roof over my head
34. having parents still married
35. finding quotes that perfectly express a feeling
36. finding movies that perfectly express a feeling
37. truth and beauty in nature
38. truth and beauty in books and art
39. having clean hair
40. eating a spectacular salad
41. Twitter
42. The Bible
43. various Buddhist works
44. being young and healthy
45. bodies of water
46. getting a good night's sleep
47. technology
48. making things
49. Understanding
50. Apples to Apples
51. Etsy.com
52. sugar snap peas
53. bagels
54. Obama likely the next president
55. Jewish moms
56. tart candy hearts
57. science
58. philosophy jokes
59. organic whole milk
60. Monk
61. Nova
62. The Everyman's Library
63. spreading good things to people
64. ravioli
65. gnocchi
    
66. handkerchiefs
67. morse code
68. free audiobooks
69. porridge
70. melons
71. keeping a garden
72. birdseed
73. Movies Being There and A Woman is a Woman
74. laughing
75. dancing because you feel like it
76. knowing you're loved
77. keneidlach (matzo balls)
78. deer
79. apples
80. maps
81. Jane Austen
82. wearing dresses
83. hugs and kisses
84. learning
85. Macintosh
86. Wendy's chocolate frosties
87. picnics
88. possibilities (scary, too)
89. affirming one's self
90. Aesop's Fables
91. good handwriting
92. chupacabra ;)
93. James Joyce
94. feeling accomplished
95. making progress
96. finally seeing the writing on the wall
97. lolcats
98. painters
99. carnival glass
100. music

You can well see that food is one of the big contributers to my happiness. :)

A Queen

I painted this sometime in December. I've been feeling very uneasy lately and on occasion frustrated to tears. I feel like I'm having to actively seek beauty to give worth to my survival (wording and idea somewhat from a C. S. Lewis quote). The more I live, the more I agree with the Buddhist idea of suffering as a constant, and the more I want to establish myself in the soil of happiness, or at least contentment, as much as possible. In fact, contentment would be an amazing gift to have right now. It's just that I must always remember love. I am very much in recovery. My soul is still aching from the past and I have to make a balm for my heart. I am having a decidedly weighty day. My mind is growing heavy. Happiness is only achievable through working towards it, but working towards it is hard work and sometimes very tiring. If one is idle, though, happiness is rarely attainable and to what real degree? I guess I have to focus on obtaining a joyful heart that is a constant through all things. I will have to seek out things to store up in a cache for joyfulness and constantly milk it. I will place my faith in the philosophy that everything is always going to turn out all right, as hardships are often the point at which you need to be to develop as a person anyhow. I will constantly work towards self-betterment and reap the rewards of its success. Surely that will bring great joy in itself. My mind is not a peaceful one today, but hopefully sleep will quell its storm with the freshness and renewed possibility of another day.

A moral treatise that will be greatly misunderstood by a great number of people, I am sure.

Please note that the following portions concerning relationships and individual gender roles probably does not (to my better knowledge) apply to homosexual people or their relationships. I'm not trying to be indelicate in saying so, it is simply that I cannot pretend to know about the proper dynamics of relationships of that nature. Also, as I am speaking about what we "should" be, note well that this is all of my very own experience and it is quite necessary for me to fulminate on this topic or I shall feel as though I am never quite through with it. Furthermore, you may also note well that I am always quite out of fashion with the times, these days. At least my style of writing and speech is, to be sure. Besides these asides upon the nature of the intentions of these writings, I feel that no apology is required because herein lie my own beliefs, which are made honestly and with a good heart, even if they are quite wrong.

Tell me, friends, what has become of the passionate, masculine, virtuous man? What has become of our good gentleman explorer from days gone by? He is a rare and wonderful thing to find in the cultural landscape of today.

Tell me, too, where is the fine and modest woman? Where is the feminine woman gone to? I shall not be persuaded that femininity is accurately portrayed by gaudy celebrities. Where is the caring creature? When can we say today that we have ever truly seen a lady?

I will not be barked at for desiring something beautiful that has now withered and become most misunderstood. I never mean to say that a woman cannot herself explore, that she cannot be as passionate as a man might be. No, never! I never mean that men and women are not equal in value. I wish for men to again be masculine! I wish for women to again be feminine! I wish for people to work for their own self-improvement.

When have we ever shunned an elegant and graceful woman with charge of herself and not the least need to reaffirm herself through the mirror of others? The woman who cares for her friends and speaks not ill of anyone with either malicious intent or shallowness and irresponsibility? When could one scorn a woman of discretion, modesty, and integrity? At which point did these things all go out of fashion? When did being a kind, loyal, and thoughtful woman go out of style and being frivolous, vain, catty, and tacky come in?

What did happen to a man who possesses both zeal and composure? A caring, thinking, wondering man who is loyal and moral? A man who respects a woman well enough to protect her body from ill-use, both from himself as well as others? While on the subject of respect, now that the lady reader has had the opportunity to agree with the need for a man who respects women, how about a woman who respects a man? She should respect him as her equal and partner, as one she loves, as one who loves her. She should, likewise, protect his body from being used merely for the exhaustion of her lust and desires. She must respect his body, heart, and mind as precious things. She must expect the same from him. No corners are to be cut for either sex. You both pull from within you everything you have, and only when both are working equally and sincerely with honesty and a good sort of selflessness that is not without self-respect, with both be able to attain their balanced happiness together. Or so this is my experience. I believe it to be a universal truth, but to state it as fact to be so will only bring more letters of disgust than I can afford time, mind, or heart to reply to.

Even when out of fashion, virtue should never be out of mind.

It is a thing perceived as being straight-laced and inhibiting, when, in fact, it is the very key to our happiness, written down for us already. Its being written down before makes us only more suspicious and thus rebellious, but I promise you that when both parties in a relationship work towards virtue, they will be the better, the happier.

I have strong feelings, too, on sexual morality which will be well-received by few. I will not include them here yet.

Edit (10 March 2008): correction of a typo.

Wishlist

All of the material goods I desire are surprisingly academic and/or old fashioned. I warn you ahead of time that I will be using the word "fine" quite frequently through all of this.

I want the following:

•  Letter Writers Alliance Gift Bag
  
• Telegram Stationery Because I want to send telegrams but they are surprisingly crazy expensive.
• Black Ocean Globe Because it's classy.
• Royal Quiet DeLuxe Portable of late 1940s My desire for this typewriter goes way back. I would love to have this on my desk. Love.
• The entire Everyman's Library collection Fantastic.
• A library in my home with loft/balcony shelves up a spiral staircase and rolling ladders
• Very nice ex libris plates, stamps, and embosser.
• Some fine personalized stationery with good-looking envelopes.
• The Pilot Birdie Pen
• More notebooks
• A fine set of calling cards
• A fine watch for an inquisitive lady (I like the one displayed on the top middle- something thin and elegant with many astronomical and chronological instruments)
• The Oxford English Dictionary, the 20 volume set
• A beautiful world atlas- I have yet to find a current one to my liking online.
• An astrolabe in the classical style
• A sundial, specifically a ring dial, perhaps for a necklace
• An orrery. Oh, how I'd love an orrery.
• Any other beautiful scientific instruments of old
• An old-world telescope
• A celestial globe, certainly more old-world than the one linked would be too pleasing.
• A good microscope
• This book in color. I only have the black & white version :(
• A beautiful star atlas

I am sure I could go on. I will let that much be the start.