“The distance between you and your goal is often the length of a single idea.” -Vic Conant
Where is my mind?
I feel ill at the moment. A stomache ache. Something that’s gripping me. Mentally and physically. It’s strangling. I have a flame. I have a god damn flame. Why doesn’t it burn? Where is my curiosity for life? Where is the vigor? Where is the heartfelt desire and drive to delve into life with a precocious can-do attitude? Why do I feel like everything is dull and lifeless? Why do I feel like I’m dull and lifeless? Why the fuck can’t I strip myself from this weight that grips and claws at my insides? Where is the wonder? The god damn wonder? Hello? Anyone?
Thanksgiving break seemed overly typical this year. Family drama. Something that usually keeps itself at bay, or at least it’s usually its managed. Maybe I’m just getting older and have grown more aware of the conflicts within the family. I don’t understand problems. Why are there problems? Why are there disagreements? If its at the expense of happiness, what the hell does it matter if you think something is wrong or right? Isn’t happiness what life’s all about? Don’t you think it’s almost better to be wrong and be happy, or at least have things work out? then to be right, or assert your position at the expense of shit hitting the fan and people getting hurt?
My god. What has happened to me? The dread. This terrible dread. My mind has grown dilatory and unresponsive. I need some genuine enthusiasm. I need something to pick me up and rivet me and hurl me over the edge. I need the adrenaline, the burst of uncontrollable joy erupting from my pores. I need to taste that richness. That life.
Is life suppose to be like this? I mull and dig, turn over the soil, churn the water, hoping for some answer. And I know that life is about attitude. It is attitude. Life is about perception. What you percieve. How you percieve. All that. It is nothing more. If you look for shit, you will find shit. Probably sooner than later. Am I looking for shit? Is that why I feel so listless and apathetic? My muses! Where have they gone? I have not exhausted my investigations. My goals have not been satisfied. They have not been acheived. They have grown distant and cold. That is the problem. I need to bring them back, wring them in. I need to focus. God. It’s the same story with me. Focus. Focus. Focus. I wish I was a computer that I could manually program, like once, so that the task and goals and aims I desperately yearn for could be realized. There’s something wrong here. I’m missing something. Something is missing. It must be deeper. What kind of deep shit are you not dealing with Michael? Hm…
Whatever it is eludes me. Action. ACTION. Action breeds all genesis. It brings forth life. Without action, there is stagnation. Life is like a garden that will grow rampant with weeds and thistles and thorns unless it is properly attended through diliberate action. I need to till my life, uproot the random bullshit, the random thoughts, the useless fascinations, and make sure that I care for only the most pressing issues of my heart and soul.
I read over journal entries from years ago when I was on the upward swing of things. I’m envious of that person. I was so resolute in body and mind to see certain goals attained. I controlled every environmental and emotional and mental factor to the utmost scrutiny. When negative or inconsequential thoughts crept in, I immediately reacted by turning on the right thoughts. Thoughts of success, or achievement, or who I believed I was, who I believed I could be. Agh.
Life is absurd. Sometimes I wish it was easy. That. That right there is the problem. I am running from the struggle. Life was never so beautiful as when it was a struggle. The pains yielded the joys. Like spring and summer labor yields forth the fruits of the fall and sustains us through the winter. It is during those months of labor, of hot arduous painstaking labor, that lead us to happiness.
Such aphoristic speech repulses me. That. That needs to stop. Negative criticism. Where are these thoughts coming from? Who the hell cares if I speak sententiously? Do I really care? hm… no. Then why the hell do I continue chastizing myself. Anyway.
I would like to elaborate with a little more depth. That’s something that I’ll need to work on. I have been avoiding the issue of work and labor as of late. I have let the power of pain get away from me. It is no pain. These internal struggles. I can interpret them in any way I like. Work can be a pleasure, or a burden. Why one would choose the latter is beyond me. It is my duty. I need to refine my self conception. I am someone who enjoys laboring, in all things. I go the extra mile. I burn the mid night oil. I attend only to the tasks that will have direct and definite consequences for achieving my goals. All others, all other fantastical obsessions and desultory desires need to be shelved. My mind is sharp. It is not for beating. It is for slicing. Slicing through obstacles, blazing through endeavors, goal after goal.
Sometimes I think I’m mad. Indeed, I am. We’re all mad. I don’t know why I let myself believe that anyone has it figured out any more than anyone else. Sometimes I just need to let things go. This goes along with choosing my tasks wisely. Being prudent, as they say.
I went to Florida for a few days. Caught up with some great friends. Got into some mischief. Read a few chapters of philosophy of language for class; specifically Wittgensteins private language theory and Nietzsche’s theory of metaphors and truth and lies in the non-moral sense. Read a few pages of Faulkner. Read of few poems of T.S. Eliots The Wasteland. Flew remote controlled helicopters. Went on a bike ride.
My parents are religious zealots. I love them dearly, no doubt about it, but it’s difficult to engage in conversation when there are such drastic differences in worldview foundations. Sometimes I forget, and I assume that we use the same language, that we operate from an similar ideology, but then the conversations build up heat as these contrary worldviews skirt past eachother and generate a friction. To them, everything goes back to God. That’s cool and all. But that means a lot gets thrown out when it shouldn’t be. Such as, anything related to secular science. ‘Emotions were built into us by God. That person’s emotional issue is a spiritual issue. They’re wrestling with their will and God’s will’ It seems a bit short sighted. I’m apt to believe that there are much more comprehensive models for explaining why we find ourselves in certain emotional states. You can look at environmental factors, for one. Or physiological factors. Or personality factors. Or family factors. Or a crap ton of other factors that doesn’t substitute a catch all explanation. It seems much too arbitrary. And maybe it is. Anyway. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.
It’s funny. People that are so blind that they can’t see it. Am I blind? No doubt. I’m sure I am. But I want to be wrong. I desperately want to be wrong. I am at the mercy of understanding. That is all I want. I don’t want to be right, I just want to understand. Life is too short to search for all the answers. I just want to understand how it all works. I want clairvoyance into the harmonious dynamics governing thought and action.
What else do I have on my mind? I need to buy myself another book shelf. Too many books all over my room. They are probably more of a distraction than anything, but they offer a warmth. Seeing them reminds me of their knowledge. It keeps me conscious of the obligation I have to what little knowledge I was able to glean from their pages.
I need to familiarize myself with my tasks. I need to absorb and osmose their nature, their idiosyncrasies, their facets, their personality, their character. Tasks. Goals. Aims. Aspirations. Destinations.
I am not in a rush to gain value. To grow. I must be diligent with my time. I must respect the force of the finite junctures I face. College happens but once at my age. Education and learning happens forever. Let me not forget that.
I want to be fiercly absolute in my character, who I am, who I desire to be. Do not back down. Do not fawn for other’s approbation. God. The thought sickens me. ‘Others’. Who has it figured out? Ha.
Objectification. When I see the world as objects, rather than subjects, I can maneuver with much more ease and grace. There is something about subjects that paralyzes. We give subjects too much benefit. We bestow all the working knowledge privileged to us and us alone unto them, as if they grasp and understand the unknown depths of our world with the same capacity. We are all naive souls, grasping as shadows.
I have to write 15,000 more words in three days. 5,000 words a day. Holy…
Tomorrow I will write a minimum of 10,000 words. All day. I will wake at 8am, and write all day long. One guy wrote 50,000 words in a single day. Wow. Many more have written 20,000 words in a day. My record so far is around 5,000. Doubling that will be taxing but, nonetheless, within the realm of achievable.
When I am finished this novel business, I will go on to write a 10 page paper for Social and Political Philosophy, probably on the role of the state regarding public education. That should turn out to be around 3000-4000 words. Ha. I scoff at such a paper. ha. anyway…
I need to sleep. Long day tomorrow.
William Dare 