James, you're in a way, right. Your opinion is always valued and welcomed here and not nonsense. There is some truth to what you say, but I think it is, in part, because I have outgrown that persona.
Right now I'm looking for an inner edge and maybe it is down a similar path but not the same one, which is long closed off from me.
There is a sentence I wrote when I was writing about Nicholas that other day, the one I posted on here? I originally wrote:
I really remember hoping to discover that one morning or afternoon I would wake and that this would be the day that I have found that my life is meaningful.
And odd coincidence is that I did really awake one morning not long after that and my mind was saying this, "...maybe this is the day that I will know that my life means something..."
So I went in and changed it to:
I really remember hoping to discover that one morning or afternoon I would wake and that this would be the day that I have found that my life means something.
It's a small thing, but it has to do with authenticity. How would I really say this if I were speaking to someone? You know, I might say "meaningful," but the way I speak in my head I would say "means something.."
I study this sometimes when listening to people, we have a tendency to speak in adages and repeats. We repeat-speak what we hear or read. Sometimes I wonder what I would say with my mouth if I spoke only what was in my mind. But then again, what would I say? I wouldn't even know how to speak. It's an interesting paradox.
There is something in me that sometimes remembers that I have access to this authenticity and I'm aware that not a lot of people do, I do realize that, btw. But when I sit down deliberately to write, I have a tendency not to feel... anything. Or if I feel something I don't have access to the verbiage to explain it so I write lots of descriptives.
When I sat down before to write something, a few years ago, I wrote memories, remember? I had them for reference. Well, here is the unfortunate thing about that: I don't remember much else. I really have a lot of compassion for Iris Murdoch for that reason. Not that I would think to compare my mind to her brilliant one, but the aspect that one has so much to say and it is all erased away...
And the things that I do remember, I'm not sure I dare write about them because there are some things I did that were incredibly cruel, and stupid, ugly mindless things, some things were too sad and here is the real clincher: Often I considere that I was too sheltered. Having a sick mother kind of keeps you in one place. It limits experience. So does being brought up in a small Christian school..
You know when people at JPF would chide me for not having opinion? Well, it was because until I was in my mid 20's the world was 6,00 years old and flat as a pancake. I came from Eve and all I needed to know about being a good person was in the book of Acts. It's very limiting. I knew nothing about geology, biology, the natural world
Ok, in my mind I just saw a 45 record, you know those. They are partial versions of the real recording and definitely not the whole album. So that is what I write, 45 versions of life experience because my life is kind of a 45 record.
And now that I've been raising kids most of my adult life... :)
You know, I'm not very worldly :)
Anyhow, for you L.: if to write not to be loved, then why write? I'll have to give that some thought.
Right now I'm looking for an inner edge and maybe it is down a similar path but not the same one, which is long closed off from me.
There is a sentence I wrote when I was writing about Nicholas that other day, the one I posted on here? I originally wrote:
I really remember hoping to discover that one morning or afternoon I would wake and that this would be the day that I have found that my life is meaningful.
And odd coincidence is that I did really awake one morning not long after that and my mind was saying this, "...maybe this is the day that I will know that my life means something..."
So I went in and changed it to:
I really remember hoping to discover that one morning or afternoon I would wake and that this would be the day that I have found that my life means something.
It's a small thing, but it has to do with authenticity. How would I really say this if I were speaking to someone? You know, I might say "meaningful," but the way I speak in my head I would say "means something.."
I study this sometimes when listening to people, we have a tendency to speak in adages and repeats. We repeat-speak what we hear or read. Sometimes I wonder what I would say with my mouth if I spoke only what was in my mind. But then again, what would I say? I wouldn't even know how to speak. It's an interesting paradox.
There is something in me that sometimes remembers that I have access to this authenticity and I'm aware that not a lot of people do, I do realize that, btw. But when I sit down deliberately to write, I have a tendency not to feel... anything. Or if I feel something I don't have access to the verbiage to explain it so I write lots of descriptives.
When I sat down before to write something, a few years ago, I wrote memories, remember? I had them for reference. Well, here is the unfortunate thing about that: I don't remember much else. I really have a lot of compassion for Iris Murdoch for that reason. Not that I would think to compare my mind to her brilliant one, but the aspect that one has so much to say and it is all erased away...
And the things that I do remember, I'm not sure I dare write about them because there are some things I did that were incredibly cruel, and stupid, ugly mindless things, some things were too sad and here is the real clincher: Often I considere that I was too sheltered. Having a sick mother kind of keeps you in one place. It limits experience. So does being brought up in a small Christian school..
You know when people at JPF would chide me for not having opinion? Well, it was because until I was in my mid 20's the world was 6,00 years old and flat as a pancake. I came from Eve and all I needed to know about being a good person was in the book of Acts. It's very limiting. I knew nothing about geology, biology, the natural world
Ok, in my mind I just saw a 45 record, you know those. They are partial versions of the real recording and definitely not the whole album. So that is what I write, 45 versions of life experience because my life is kind of a 45 record.
And now that I've been raising kids most of my adult life... :)
You know, I'm not very worldly :)
Anyhow, for you L.: if to write not to be loved, then why write? I'll have to give that some thought.
posted by SPOA | 10:44 AM
13 Comments:
I'm not Scorpio K, but have a big-ass Pluto ascendant that in some ways has dominated my life. I kinda dig the Scorpio vibe, the intensity, the searching, the no-holds-barred (don't F with me) honesty. Pretty sexy too; I can think of two ladies in particular who exemplified that, one I got to know intimately and the other I didn't but she was great fun.
Meaning? Well, ol' Carl commented on that, that in the modern age its been lost because we're disconnected from myth, essentially. I don't entirely agree with that, for its religious (bullshit) connotations, but to some extent understand what he meant.
Then, ol' Victor Frankl went into that big time with his Man's Search For Meaning, the basis for Logotherapy. Sartre got it too, to an extent, saying we needed a "project" that is simultanously arbitrary but necessary.
Not getting all preachy on your ass (heh, it's fun to play with US talk), just scoobydude-rambling. Kinda shit that usually gets me shot down on the internet, which is why I don't participate in the World Wide Bullshit the way I used to. I've thought about ol' whats-his-name a little, Complexity, and how I laid into him for his nonsense. It was nonsense ("I'm a shaman, in a past life I was Maitreya Buddha!", etc). And I recall a lovely moment when you asked him how he was, and he conveyed something nice but also sad: went for a walk with his Dad and the dog, woould have enjoyed the day better if he'd had some money. Dude, blessings: you reacted against me and I hereby give you good karma, but the point is BS serves no one. Pluto ascendant, conjunct Uranus, ahem....take no prisoners, bullshit is something I really can't stand because it seems the world is built on it and whether people appreciate it or not, it sucks. Jewomey once used the term "solar knight" concerning me, which I kinda liked and was one reason why despite his bullshit I never felt any animosity towards him. As you say "outgrown that persona", though for me I think I'm much the same but just don't engage any more with people in that way; it's not worth it.
You have a no-bullshit expression K, that I kinda like.
Authenticity? Hooo-aah. I've never actually read, but I've skirted around, the work of Alice Miller expressing the idea of English poet Phillip Larkin, that "they fuck you up, your Mum and Dad, they don't mean to, but they do". Extrapolating that a little into the realm of Superego Society, where necessary, and maybe even BS religion which serves an extended Superego function.
Can't really go into personal stuff as you do, K, though 1) I note the ease with which you do it and 2) the reason is (I can't) it's too complex and weighty and unresolved.
Putting stuff into words? Hmmm...another big topic. Myself, I've found sometimes I can do it very effectively, and sometimes it gets obstructed and confused. And it depends, not so much on some kind of logical How To Write method, as a more simple and immediate fact of how I'm feeling.
"Not very worldly?" Hey, tell me about it :)
x
OK, I found it:
"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you."
The Gospel of Thomas
So that's why we write: to bring forth what lives within us so that it will save us.
People may love us for what we write, but it's a side effect. And it gets in the way when we try to write with that objective in mind, because it will cause us to leave out what we perceive as less lovable. So we don't bring it forth and ... etc. :)
I understand where you're at with the religious/bullshit thing regarding mythology; as much as I love it, I do get suspicious when people throw around symbols so disjointedly, even beyond the silliness of current christianity. As if they have found their life's purpose thru this one symbol. Forever and they keep attaching meaning to it to give it life. I swear that is what must have happened with Jesus. He wasn't just raised from he dead once my friend. Over and over and over they bring him back and I'm like, Oh my god, die already!
I feel as if symbols, while probably the "language" of the psyche, I experience symbolism as if it is fluid and change over time, and really our words can only offer a certain static identity of them, aside from poetry, I mean; it's a good thing to keep in awareness so we don't get too keen on overidentification (i.e, bullshit).
It's so strange how we are talking about this at all because Loki and I were just having a ramble on messenger about this very thing. While reading at the new forum (the one that starts with a 'K,') I couldn't take it anymore. And here is the thing, they swim in it and no one calls anyone on it, like they don't even see it. I just don't get that. You know how I pride myself on my midwestern sensibility, which I feel enables me to wipe the shit outta my eyes but come on, there is serious crapola out there, and I feel like saying to those numbskulls, Don't you even SEE it?? Do you really accept this as enough??
Argh. Swimming in poop.
I guees I just want more and it's one of the reasons I get tired of hearing myself chatter. Yet, and here is the hilarious part, I feel so compelled to fucking write!
Regarding the last part of your post, you do it with photos instead. Still just as personal, just in another way.
Was someone in your world, close to you like a parent, were they scorp? Just curious. Not really trying to delve, it's for my own thing.
That Thomas... do you think he knew that CG was going to say almost the same thing even before the hammadi was unearthed??
Ok, while I get what you are saying, yes I do, maybe it's another aspect of loving: maybe we write safely so others don't get hurt.
I disagree on a certain level though, because I love a few writers, don't you? I love them no matter what they write about.
He (Thomas) probably didn't (know what CG was going to say), but they may have been onto the same thing. It's supposedly something that Jesus said. I can imagine Thomas thinking: "Wtf is he talking about? Hm, I'll jot it down anyway. Maybe someone can figure it out."
Oh yes, writing safely in order not to hurt others. It's a natural thing. The solution is to write unsafe stuff in private but in that case nobody gets to read it.
You know that I love certain writers. I guess that some of them don't publish everything they write for the same reason.
The K forum is what a garden center would be like if the gnomes could talk. It happened before; that's why Jung was glad not to be a Jungian.
Yes I think that's a good way of regarding writing, and a good reminder of some of CJ's insight. I once tried the Ira Progoff Journal Method, and liked what it was based on. It takes the 'bring forth from within' idea and uses and structures it in an interesting way, so over a period of regular writing you're eventually accessing the unconscious and allowing it to unfold in a positive direction - that the psyche is inherently balancing and seeking wholesome expression, if you help it. I guess thats the way CJ therapists work, facilitating the same thing with dreams etc. in clients.
I looked at the other forum a few times when it first established itself, then never again; I'm not interested.
I think the mistake I make with the internet is I use it as a vehicle by which to think, and to express thinking, as opposed to more casual/snappy/interactive comments relatively devoid of thinking. I get quite involved with it. And it's just not geared up for that, as a kind of random computer-mediated anarchy. Sometimes I just hate it because it's so cheap and as soon as you write something it's immediately devalued, because of the internet environment and the way it is.
I quite like photos on the internet, because they don't have the same problems and yes, they too are psychologically expressive.
No parental Scorpios K, just the two ladies I mentioned one of whom was a memorably good connection though a long time ago and only for a few months.
I’ve found that the internet is a great place to put your thoughts into words, but it can be painful to see the replies or comments (but also joyful and amusing or just plain irritating). I’ve learned a lot from it, especially when I started paying attention to my own reactions.
As far as photos are concerned: every picture tells a story, and it may be a cliché, but a picture does really say more than a thousand words.
Can't say I 'learned' very much, except that the dialogue you can have is massively curtailed by a downward trend towards Shadow and stereotype; that edgy or cutting edge enquiry just doesn't work. All I learnt from my reactions is...don't do that, because it is indeed painful. I lost count of the number of times people had never understood what I'd said, attacked me on that basis, and standing my ground on that just exposed me to trolling and unpleasantness.
But Pope Pooch never died!
He just went and sat by a lake, musing on the (non) meaning of cybserspace:
LOL
I suppose that I learned something about my own emotions and the mechanism behind misunderstandings. The medium itself seems to invite projections and everything gets sort of magnified. So that was interesting.
It's true that some people display an unimaginable lack of integrity, but that makes sense. Otherwise they wouldn't be looking for wholeness on the internet. Nice pic :)
Screw the people at the Jung Forum who derided you! If you grew up with this world view and have since changed your mind, you've paid your intellectual dues. A lot of pseudo-enlightened snobs haven't!
I dealt with a lot of Fundamentalists (who preferred to call themselves "creationists") in my former job, and I think they take a lot of unfair flak from people who think of themselves as enlightened, but accept Darwin and Copernacus with the same unquestioning faith as the Bible believers take the book of Genesis.
If you push the pseudo-intellegentsia a bit, you often find that they grossly misinterpret the theory of evolution and don't know a damn thing about physics. (I don't know much about it either, but at least I know that I don't know.)
Take the business of the earth going around the sun. If you seriously suggested to one of the pseudo-enlightened that the sun goes around the earth, you'd get the down-the-nose, "my god, how can you possibley believe that" reaction. But if you ask them WHY they believe Copernacus rather than Ptolemy, they can't tell you because they don't know! It's an article of faith for them.
A lot of very bright people for a lot of centuries thought the sun went around the earth and the physics which indicates that it's the other way around is complex and subtle. You've got to know some highter math to understand it.
Point is, there's a lot of cheaply-bought condescention and intellectual smobbery out there!
Okay ... that's my rant ... thanks for listening.
Mac
And I think I know what you mean about the 45 RPM record version of experience; you can't catch the whole experience, or even most of it, but you can sometimes capture the heart of it.
And you do that here.
45 RPM records arent the only things that deal with this. So do haikus and sonnets.
Have you seen "{Proof}" with Gwyneth Paltrow?
I think that catching the heart is much more important than catching the whole experience (and who can do that? Our brains aren't large enough, thank god).
Yeah, that's what I always felt about an essay. I think Loki asked me once about, why essays? It might have been someone else. But my response was that they pack a punch. Like poems and sonnets :)
You know, I don't feel a lot of resentment toward the sorta/kinda intellects at Jung Page. I think they needed me around to feel superior. And maybe now that I can see that I was open to learning, I think that was probably my appeal back then: Too stupid to realize how dumb I was :).
I still am open to learning though but I always think about old Elwood P. Dowd who said my favorite movie line ever, "My mother used to say to me, "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."
No, I've never seen Proof, I know the story though. I was kind of pissed off that Mary Louise Parker didn't get the lead role. Do you think I should forget that and just get it?
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