Archive for October, 2009

Temporality, or Not Right Now

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

There’s nothing in this world that is sure of itself. Our ideals revolve around consistency and eternity, but our truths are controlled by temporality. The evangical and the born-again can blow through it all like an ice skater on a frozen lake. God sharpens the blades and pushes them along like the guiding hand of a parent. But below their perfect world is an icy cold lake that waits to consume them at any moment. So where do I find solace? Where can I exist with satisfaction? In temporality. In accepting that all things will change and almost never when you’d expect. There is no such thing, I’ve learned, as a promise. I make promises only when able to fulfill them, but to most, promises are nothing more than a pain killer to reduce the affects of an affliction for a short period of time. My best suggestion, for myself anyways, is to surround myself with people. This way, when one or more leaves there’s still others to take their place. I would like to invest myself fully into so many people, but like that stray kitten you want to feed cream, they ‘re likely to dart into the alley when you show care or affection.

Being yourself is what you need, and the most dangerous thing, all at once. What’s the point of moving forward if you’re not enjoying anything? They say not to wear your heart on your sleave, and they, are bullshitters. If you can’t wear your heart on your sleeve you’re hanging around the wrong people. One ought to wear their heart on their sleeve and be nothing more than loved for it. Unfortunately, love is not all we need. I’m so afraid that I’m going to be left alone. When I was younger, around the fourth grade, my mother was my only. She took me to child care in the mornings and I threw fits. I recall vomiting my toast on the sidewalk one morning because I was so afraid of her leaving. I’ve considered that I used to have an oedipal complex, but it’s a less psychologically complex need than that. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t that I needed her specifically; she was just the one available to me at the time in my life. I used to swim in irrational fears of her death. When she left me I was convinced she was saying her final goodbye. I always lingered, said I love you so many times, asked for kisses; I was so scared. To be alone was the last thing I wanted. Though less naïve and more deeply understood, this fear still exists in me. I wonder if it’s a universal truth. Are we all walking around afraid of being alone? Are those of us who are alone, unhappy? Have they accepted that their fears have turned true, that their fates are sealed? I want someone to take me up on a cloud where everything’s just fine. When I love, I’m satisfied. I have my own purpose in this world for myself, I know, but I also have my purpose for others. I want to take them to a cloud where everything’s just fine.

Posted in pain (mostly), philosophy | 1 Comment »

Responding to Modernity with Antiquity

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

We are pushing them away.

In recent years we’ve received waves, herds, packs, carts, cars, hordes, of youthful minds and placed them forcefully into pastures where they’re allowed to roam within set limitations and eat only what we permit. This makes some sense; you don’t leave the front door open and allow your baby to crawl out into the street and meet one of a million of fates. I understand the methodology of cultivation in containment. Where we so often go wrong is that we don’t tell them there’s a whole world out there, different from the one they’re kept in; or we tell them the world out there is one they’re not ready for. We forget the very doctrines by which we teach: everyone’s different. We need to accommodate. We all consist of the same core animalistic influences, but the rate at which we reach them varies. Mozart was composing at 5. Patricia Hampl said in regards to the memoir something that applies, I think, to all forms of art, “A certain kind of mentality takes over the memoirist, no matter what age you are. It’s like this: there is a life back there, and you’re here, and you need to move forward to the next place, whatever it is.”

We create cardboard representations of the struggles they’ll face and expect them to be able to recognize their real-life counterparts when we set them free. Nothing in life, save for cardboard, resembles cardboard. If we won’t allow them to go out, we must let them look out, to frollick near the edge. Most importantly, let them say, “I climbed this wall and saw a world out there.” Not one, not he, not they; I. All too frequently the idea is taught that the first-person pronoun is an identifier of self-indulgency, of narcissism, of confession. We neglect to tell them it’s the first person pronoun who experiences everyday life. By using oneself as a filter you can make clearer the world we all perceive.

Worst of all, we’re forcing classic teachings down the throats of millions, regardless of age. So many teachers and scholars fear the rise of television, of the internet, “Our precious books will lie to waste in landfills and everyone will become stupid!” That’s a touch dramatic. They’re holding onto threads of the past and trying to sew them into modern (or postmodern or avant-garde) garments. “Of course this is bullshit,” David Foster Wallace says of this idea, “If an art form is marginalized it’s because it’s not speaking to people.” I’m not saying use these books as doorstops, I’m saying as responsible enablers of this and coming generations, we must not be afraid to teach that today is important too. Yes, the past was important. Yes, the past has provided a foundation, but there’s nothing more present than the now. Rather than resist modernity and respond with antiquity, can we not, at the very least, incorporate them into the same space?

Fiction is a genre I know and love; it’s the most honest lie around. “Fiction reveals the truth that reality obscures,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson said. But in fiction lies another of our faults. The general rule fiction is to show, not tell. The 21st century demands something other than this. Why is it, do you suppose, that the personal essay and memoir are taking on such great strength and popularity? We want things succinct, we want the point. In memoir and personal essay the whole driving concept is that the author is supposed to show and tell. Why must we assume that by giving the reader our thoughts we’re denying them the opportunity to produce their own? I should make it clear that I’m saying this in response to writing as an art. I’m not talking on the self help book or propaganda, etc. Of course those forms do tell, but theyr’e far from works of emotion and beauty. If quality literature is to survive, as I’m confident it will (despite what your, or my, fifth grade teacher claimed), we mustn’t be afraid of changing the way we compose it to speak to a broader audience.

Offer to hold their heads high above the fence. Say to them, “Look, you see that out there? That’s the world. I’m going to tell you some things about how the world was and the way it seems to be going. I want you to use those things to make the world what it will be.”

Bring them back, hold them close.

Posted in philosophy, writing | No Comments »

First Day at the University of Washington

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

It started with an NPR newsbreak blaring from the alarm. When I hear these story blips early in the morning they always seem highly pertinent and immensely interesting, but within a couple of hours I inevitably forget what they were altogether. I believe this one was something along the lines of, “Arms, legs, and feet cut off and…” I drifted back towards sleep with images of blood and appendage-less limbs flailing about. I woke again a few minutes later and sluggishly contemplated my departure time. I calculated the level of effort required to find free parking within walking distance of the campus, if I had time to get coffee and breakfast, whether or not I was wearing clean underwear, etc. etc.

7:25 got out of bed with little motivation.

7:36 brewed coffee. (Drip coffee is most certainly the beer of the caffeinated world. It’s slow to start and can easily taste considerably shitty. I much prefer espresso, the liquor of the caffeinated world.)

7:41 began dressing and milling about without any real goal. Half of the time required to get ready in the morning is devoted to spacing out and allowing my irrelevant floaty thoughts time to clear.

8-late-:44 departed.

9:00 decided to make a quick stop at the café.

9:06 realized I wore a button-up without an undershirt and no deodorant, and dirty underwear to boot. (Terrible, terrible call.) Made a u-turn, headed home, changed with unbelievable haste, much like a Tour de France bicyclist fixing a flat, and burst out the door once more.

I arrived at the campus with a feeling slightly different than any I’ve had here before. This time I was a student and was here to attend classes, not to learn more about what the UW has to offer or fill out piles of forms; I was here, finally, to study what I wanted to study. It’s not quite as amazing as a feeling as one might hope, but a feeling nonetheless. In red square, the main courtyard, there was booths everywhere, loud bumping music, a rock climbing wall, and an ocean of students. People were handing out free swag left and right. I got free chocolate milk, free sandwiches; it was a bit ridiculous. It was honestly a bit more of a commercialized first experience at the UW than I’d hoped for, but at least it wasn’t boring. There was an army recruiting van on the bricks and I heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions coming from behind the van. This being the UW in Seattle, WA, the army recruiting station wasn’t all too popular, and the fact that they were using video games to promote the impression that the Army would let you blow the shit out of anything wasn’t quite as supportive as they might’ve hoped for.

Just as anyone should be on the first day, I was late. I walked in the room, promptly found a seat, avoided the judgmental eyes, and whispered to the woman in front of me, “This is writing, right?” She confirmed and I proceeded to be twice as attentive to make up for being late. Through observation I quickly learned we were in the process of introducing ourselves by name (excusing our first names and saying either mister, miss, or misses because this instructor has a penchant for last names) and saying one interesting thing about ourselves.

My turn came and I was highly prepared, saying just loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’m Mr. Spendlove. I’m a transfer student from Highline Community College studying Creative Writing and this is my first quarter here. Today,” I tried very hard to think of a memorable interesting fact, “is the first day in my entire life that I’ve worn a yellow shirt.” Most of the class remained quiet upon reception of this interesting fact which surprised me as I feel a first-time-ever fact is worthy of at least a little confetti or applause. And yellow, seriously? I was being courageous.

The instructor replied, “I almost wore a turtle-neck for the first time today.” Then another late student burst in.

My next class is with all of the same students as the first class so I followed the herd towards the next building. I kept wondering, What if we’re all following a single person and that person doesn’t actually know where they’re going, nor do they know that we’re following, what then? We made it without a hitch and I found a seat somewhere in between 159 other students cramped into desks less than a foot apart. Of course I was fortunate enough to sit next to the one guy with BO who strives to make awkward comments at totally unnecessary intervals to seek the much desired attention of others. I’m in no way passing judgment. I am, however, stating that I don’t much enjoy sitting next to “this” guy when I’m trying to pay attention. Moreover, how is one supposed to act around this type? Smile when they comment? Make no move at all? Fidget a tiny amount to acknowledge that you at least heard his voice? I opted to make no movement at all. It really wouldn’t be awkward if he didn’t think the comments he was making related to every other student’s opinion. He thinks his is the unspoken voice of many. To top it off, when the instructor said with much passion that she had a strong dislike for students using “personal computing devices” during lectures, his was the only one out.

My last class of the day is with David Shields and he is, as I’d hoped, highly unconventional. Recently I’ve come to realize that modern (or postmodern?) writing is not about perfecting a formula. Writing now is about creating new formulas. It’s not quite as straightforward as the old cliché about trail blazing; it’s more abstract than that. It’s figuring out how to arrange the trail one is blazing, not just doing something different or creating something new, but making something recognizably connectable to the contemporary human psyche. If I’m going to be anything but a genre writer I’m going to have to do things unconventionally.

Posted in new experiences | No Comments »