Writing an Overdue Paper/Words and Nuances/Recent Developments

1. Writing an overdue paper.

I am currently writing a long overdue paper comparing Heidegger and Benjamin’s concepts of ge-stell and gewalt, respectively. Maybe I’ll post it up when it’s done. I like having comprehensive cyberspace retreats to muck around in my own dirt in. I feel guilty for the paper’s lateness, though. It’s three weeks behind schedule.

When that’s done, which it should be in the vicinity of Tuesday morning, I will go on to write my paper for ‘Intellectuals in the World of Medieval Korean History’ (three or so pages long – shan’t labor too much); look into colonial-era-and-wartime NK novelist Han Sorya and the 1920s’ debates on Anarchist-Proletariat Literature (an ongoing extensive research program I’ve set for myself, so it registers as relatively less weight); prepare for the literature meeting I organize on Thursday; read up on the political theory behind the concept of ‘balancer’ states with a focus on its applicability to South Korea; and read the article for Wednesday’s ’Intro to International Politics’ class. I have to look for the Homo Sacer .pdf I saved last semester.

I enjoy making to-do lists like these. The matter-of-fact activity required in thinking through these responsibilities gives me a feeling of accomplishment, and helps tether me to my tasks. (Otherwise, I would meander through the ozone.) 

 2. Words and nuances.

Just something I remembered I wanted to jot down. This happened like, last month, I think.

I was reading a random Asimov novel – I believe it was the Naked Sun, one of those quickly-dashed-out novels on detective Bentley and R. Daneel Olivaw – when something caught my eye. It was the description of a robot in the act of giving Bentley a bow, and the word specifically used was: ‘[it lowered its upper body]…in the travesty of a bow.’

When I saw this, I was struck by the many levels at which the word affected me. Literally, dictionary.com defines ‘travesty’ as follows:

–noun

–verb (used with object)

 1..a literary or artistic burlesque of a serious work or subject, characterized by grotesque or ludicrous incongruity of style, treatment, or subject matter.  2.a literary or artistic composition so inferior in quality as to be merely a grotesque imitation of its model. 3. any grotesque or debased likeness or imitation: a travesty of justice. 4. to make a travesty on; turn (a serious work or subject) to ridicule by burlesquing.  5. to imitate grotesquely or absurdly.

Something akin to this original meaning was the first image to enter my mind; it is no secret that Bentley is contemptuous of openly robotic robots at this juncture, so it’s not a far stretch to think of a robot’s bow as a mockery of a human one. 

A range of associations also followed, however. A hint of the word ‘tragedy’ was among the first to hit, and then a sense of ‘trajectory’ closely shadowed by ‘courtesy’ seeped through. I don’t know if Asimov intended this, but whether or not he did is arguably beside the point. I giggled at this happy, well-conducted wordplay.

Granted, these associated nuances are derived from phonetic similarities and are not necessarily universal, but they WERE there for me – the technical, mathematical sheen of the word ‘trajectory’ imparted more than its textile share to the image of a metallic android figure; the word ‘courtesy’ colored the robot’s ligaments with its role’s impartial, indifferent servility; and the swift-fleeting initial waft of ‘tragedy’ countered the comicality originally associated with the word’s proper meaning by dropping just the right dab of somber propriety befitting… everything in context. Travesty. This was the perfect word lodged in the perfect spot.

I marvelled for a long time, and was impressed, and was filled with a sort of brimming gleeful identification. I do a lot of searching for the right word too, and when I do find what I’m looking for my heartstrings snap their fingers and are totally pleased. Asimov must’ve been very pleased when he found that word to put in there. Just because you’re prolific doesn’t mean you have to be slapdash.

  

3. Recent developments.

 

I’m in love, cautiously securing myself in a relationship that deepens by the hour. I’m not yet quite sure how to transcribe this. I do know warmth when I feel it.

Jeff Buckley is still being very good to me. Hypnotically so. I have almost all of Jeff’s albums now, including DVD’s: Mystery White Boy, Life at Sin-E, Jeff Buckley Live in Chicago, Grace, Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk. I want to improve my guitar-playing because I feel it would help settle this restlessness. I also want the other two DVD’s of Jeff’s that I don’t have: his Live Concert in Japan, and Grace Around the World (although I have seen its contents on Youtube, it’s just not the same.) I’d also like to know where I might be able to view/hear more recordings of his – demos, impromptus, it’s all good. I’ve caught the odd Youtube video of, say, Jeff playing Magic Number or Once I was.

Maybe I’ll trip to New York’s West side, someday, and crash there for a year or two, imbibing the music scene there, which is achingly tantalizing. I donno.

Talchumgongyeon is on the 27th. I have two presentations to give on that week, which is next week. Not much time.

I need more music!

 

 

 

 

some things that have been on my mind

The question of my comportment disturbs me very much and I’m at a loss as to what to do about it.

Living keeps putting me in contact with other people. This is a fact I have noticed and responded to in the past, with varying degrees of efficacy.

Most of my life, or at least as far back as my diaries inform me, it seems that I have passed through the phenomenon of life - of cellular multiplication, neurons firing through brain matter, lugging the body about, interacting with fellow human life forms –  in a state of mild, blank thought. The mildness has inclined towards deep despair at some times and bubbly euphoria (with touches of giddy) at others. The blankness is exemplified, throughout the various stages of my life, first by a sense of ‘if-I-pray-it-will-go-away’ and, later, the overwhelmingly listless attitude of ‘oh-I-can’t-be-bothered-enough-to-give-a-fuck-today.’

On my emotional compass, on the whole, a mild sense of forlorn futility has been the dominant tendency. Granted, this could be a brash conclusion to reach definitively, taking into consideration the fact that the main items of analysis have been my diary entries and my memories (I write in my diary when I’m vexed – mostly to organize thoughts - and I’m bad at keeping happy memories vivid). But it’s a tendency I must acknowledge regardless.

In the guarded, fearless safety of the most elemental corner of my inner self, said tendency provokes much bafflement. The me that I identify with most staunchly and fundamentally finds my pessimistic, pensive meekness completely incomprehensible. Not only is that mild, blank, bleak emotional tangle of a thought display in direct opposition to the natural ferocity of my tempers and forthright passions, it all also seems so hopelessly inevitable. And it drains me. 

Where is the logic behind this manifestation of myself? Why is it manifest in the way it is – this discrepancy, between my acute sense of true, bold self and my tortuous, dreary thought processes? Might some clues be found in my human relationships, and my writings?

One way I’ve been seeing the question is in the guise of a coping mechanism. A sort of… lame defense strategy, if you will. Defense against what? Against the sadness that is bound to follow any bout of sincerity.

Interpersonal relationships and my seeming sycophantic obsequience  would be a pretty damn good place to start. People tell me I beat around the bush too much – care too much about people’s feelings, cushion my words to the point of erasing the original point’s impact, get swayed by people – don’t seem to have my own convictions. I’ve heard the like, with varying degrees of constructiveness and bile and concern and detachment, rather often. I sometimes agree, and my infantile attention-grabbing/ kowtowing can annoy even myself (depending on my mood, which is volatile.)

I like being nice to people. I like showing deference, saying sorry, laying my arms down and giving my opponents hugs. I like good feelings all around, happy camaraderie, quiet peace among family members, mutual easygoing acceptance, peaceful mutual affection. Peace. I like peace. If my losing is what it takes to establish it, I’m not about to cling to something that’s relatively not worth the bother. I really like peace.

The problem, of course, is that sincerity and bluntness are not good stewards of peace. Bluntness I define as sincerity minus finesse. I’m often blunt, and this does cause problems. Sincerity is the biggest problem, though. Sincerity is, for me, the expression of the most basic underlying truth (of the issue at hand, the paradoxes or biases or problems I can see coloring the discussion/person/myself, my feelings, etc…) as I perceive it and feel it, exactly as I do, even taking into consideration the fact that I’m doing the perceiving and feeling from where I stand. Voicing this necessitates so much courage… but the voicing always carries with it the monumental risk of breaking the very ties that originally bound the addressee to the addressed, of being misconstrued, of being misunderstood and hated. It’s happened all too often. And you see, I’m not brave enough to want to risk this. I’m frightened to lose the warmth of the status quo. So even when the longing for sincerity simmers, trapped and stifled beneath the surface, I have to keep the pressure lid capped over both potential peacebreakers: the sincerity I’m practically bursting to share, and the possibility of conflict erupting from whatever external source.   

Another problem that arises from my liking of peace would be that I abuse the expressions ’sorry’ and ‘I was in the wrong.’ I rob those expressions of their original meanings when I use them. I use them to maintain peace. I use them as tools, almost completely devoid of sincerity in meaning. The shitfucked thing about these expressions’ use as tools, naturally, is that these expressions only work as tools to keep the peace insofar as the person to whom I am lobbing these expressions remains under the deception: the impression that I really sincerely mean what I say. The other shitfucked thing about these expressions’ use as tools is that I lack a means through which to truly express my feelings of shame and guilt when they actually do occur. (But is expression really that important? Stifling is not the result of blocked expressions only. It’s more, like the possibility of sharing…)

The worst part is that I don’t even love the peace I’m giving up so much for, expending so much energy to maintain. I like it better than its currently viable alternatives, which are angry smacks and loud expletives from my parents (and the indignity – for fuck’s sake, I’m twenty and they’re holier than me), angry and sloppy replies from people on online forums that start expressing dislike for me in droves, sad disappointed looks from my friends, lots of time wasted for nothing but angry exchanges, and worst of all, the heartrending knowledge that all these result from either a) misunderstanding or b) religious differences.

I love love, and truth, and sincerity, and the pure mutual trust that emerges from an exchange of all those things… an exchange made in entirety. But rare indeed is the relationship within which one can find such resonance. I have found very few such relationships so far.

The thing is, I’m fucking sick and tired of it all. And I find it just… so sad, so exasperating, and so hopeless that people have to be this way. So hurtful, so unaccomodating, taking everything so personally. Myself included. I wish I were mica schist.

Sincerity is an outlet for love, and I have an inordinate amount of affection for all the things of this beautiful, bountiful, flawed, impractical world. So I have this completely ridiculous unquenchable thirst for sincerity, which totally sucks.

The wisest solution here would be to hone my sincerity-voicing skillz. But I’m tired and I want to mope, for now… I’ll think about it later. It’s 4: 35 am!

I find ideologies, religions, political colorations and ideas fascinating, attractive, and painful.

Religion is the crowning epitome of all the humanity that is in people. And, as you may have guessed from my polemic for maintaining whatever superficial peace is possible, it fucking sucks my brains out and makes me want to puke. Religion is THE single most annoyingly unresolvable peacebreaker humanity has ever managed to come up with (even political brainwashing can be countered with evidence-backed facts, improved standards of living, and lots of dedication - though ideology is to be handled a bit more delicately.) It milks my contempt most abysmally especially when it is flaunted as touchy-feely, conglomerate messages. Sometimes it can serve as a personal truth treat for an individual’s soul, which is nice, and it can also encourage sincerity-voicing, which is also very nice. But the two combined? Deadly. Traumatic for me. And to think I used to find refuge in prayer.

I think Marx was kind of cute in this naive roomy way he has. But I find feminism and psychoanalysis offensive because they dare attempt to presume to tell me what I feel and think, and why - and definitively, at that!! and actually by incorporating my assumed active participation, too!! This actually sucks, though, because those aren’t the only two retarded schools of thought that have the gall to tell me what I feel and think. But those two are the most annoyingly wielded and most often encountered in my experience. Anyways, fuck you, feminism, and fuck you, psychoanalysis. I’m sure you have good things to say and the people subscribing to you are good people but you’ve traumatized me and I want to lash out.